Taylor Swift's decision to abstain from alcohol to enhance her performance for her Eras tour serves as a broader lesson on the productivity and success benefits of reducing or quitting alcohol, particularly for entrepreneurs.
Abstract
The article discusses Taylor Swift's choice to forgo alcohol in preparation for her Eras tour, emphasizing the importance of sobriety for peak performance. It draws parallels to the author's personal experience, highlighting how quitting alcohol was pivotal in achieving entrepreneurial success. The piece argues that alcohol consumption can negatively impact creativity, mental resilience, and overall productivity, suggesting that even temporary sobriety can lead to significant personal and professional improvements. The author, who found success as an online entrepreneur after quitting alcohol at 41, advocates for the benefits of an alcohol-free lifestyle, citing Swift's discipline as an example for others to follow.
Opinions
Alcohol is detrimental to entrepreneurial success as it fosters negativity, diminishes mental resilience, and stifles creativity.
Taylor Swift's commitment to sobriety during her tour is a testament to the dedication required to deliver an exceptional performance.
The author believes that their inability to succeed as an entrepreneur prior to quitting alcohol was partly due to its negative effects on their productivity and decision-making.
The decision to quit alcohol can lead to substantial rewards in both personal and professional life, as experienced by the author and suggested by Swift's approach to her tour preparations.
The article suggests that even short-term sobriety experiments like Dry January or Sober October can be a stepping stone to a healthier, more productive lifestyle.
The author speculates that Taylor Swift may further reduce or eliminate her alcohol consumption in the future, having experienced the benefits of sobriety on her work performance.
Taylor Swift revealed 1 very important reason to quit alcohol now
I don’t imagine the recent Super Bowl victory party featuring Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs was a dry affair.
In fact, Swift herself drew some attention for chugging a beer while on the Jumbotron at the game.
While Swift hasn’t indicated any desire to remove alcohol from her life permanently, her decision to quit temporarily ahead of her blockbuster Eras tour offers an important lesson for anyone looking to boost their workplace or entrepreneurial productivity and success.
It’s a lesson I personally had to learn the hard way, but one that I now benefit from every single day.
Any entrepreneur can benefit from a break from alcohol — just ask Taylor Swift. (Licensed under the Unsplash+ License)
The biggest block to your entrepreneurial success
I’ve wanted to be an online entrepreneur for as long as I can remember.
But it was only over the past year and a half, starting at the ripe old age 41, that I managed to find any success.
My ability to generate multiple five figures on the side while also holding down a full-time job and raising a young family was the culmination of a lot of life lessons combined with a lot of systems to keep my ADHD brain on track.
But none, and I mean NONE, of it would have been possible had I not made the decision to finally quit alcohol for good.
After 15+ years of starts and stops, of failed entrepreneurial attempts, of getting excited about ideas and then drowning them in booze and wasted time and fatigue, I finally walked away from the drink.
I’d encourage you to read the whole thing if you’re interested in how exactly alcohol is preventing you from achieving your dreams, but essentially it came down to this:
Alcohol makes you hopelessly negative
Alcohol destroys your mental resiliency
Alcohol saps your creativity
Obviously, none of that is conducive to getting a promotion or building a business from scratch.
Taylor Swift’s booze break decision
As I wrote earlier this week in a piece about what entrepreneurs can learn from the music megastar, Swift took prep for her current concert megatour very seriously.
In an interview with Time Magazine after the outfit named her its Person of the Year, she explained how she put in extra time in the gym, on choreography, on dance training, and even made a habit of singing her full setlist while running on a treadmill to improve her skill and endurance.
She also mentioned that she was done touring “like a frat guy”.
This meant, in part, quitting alcohol on tour.
“Doing that show with a hangover … I don’t want to know that world.”
Swift didn’t want to experience the pain of trying to work while recovering from a night of ingesting poison, but she also had to know her performance would be suboptimal if she were doing a lot of drinking while trying to pull it off.
She has said that she appreciates the great amount of time and effort people put into getting tickets for her show, and she wants to make it worth their while.
One way she’s been able to deliver that has been quitting alcohol while she’s working.
Alcohol is still embedded in workplace culture at a lot of places. Ironically, few behaviors trash your productivity like drinking booze. (Licensed by the author under the Unsplash+ License)
Your alcohol-free Era
QUITTING ALCOHOL can seem like a massive, overwhelming undertaking, but sometimes just pumping the brakes can set you on an eventual course to a healthier and more productive life.
Maybe it starts with Dry January or Sober October, for example.
As I said, Swift is in no way teetotal, and I don’t want to leave people with the impression that she is.
I mean, she was chugging beer at the Super Bowl and reportedly loves her wine.
And at age 34, she still has a number of years before alcohol really starts punishing her body and mind, too.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if she one day wound up reducing her intake even further — maybe even to nothing.
As someone who craves excellence and is deeply ambitious — and who has now experienced the benefits of long work stretches without alcohol — I imagine at some point she’ll question whether or not booze is even worth the trouble.
I know I did.
And the answer is: it never was.
How did quitting alcohol improve your work or entrepreneurial performance? Let us know in the comments!