One Year No Beer Founder Ruari Fairbairns Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing One Year No Beer
One Year No Beer founder Ruari Fairbairns is our guest today on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots free podcast interview.
He is a man who a few years ago was living a life like so many people across the world. Working hard. Playing hard. And spending a lot of his money in the bars on a Friday night.
But things have changed dramatically for him, not just in a health sense, but also in a professional and monetary sense too.
He gave up drinking in the face of incredible peer pressure, thinking he would lose his edge as one of the Top brokers in the world but soon realized it was quite the opposite.
Spurred by this life changing experience he and his business partner, Andy Ramage, another broker, have created the OYNB movement.
Which for us all stands for One Year No Beer, where he inspires the world to look for a healthy way of living by speaking about improving all aspects of your life by changing your relationship with alcohol.
And now after 2 years alcohol-free he now drinks in total control.
How The OYNB – One Year No Beer Dots Joined Up
He is passionate about helping people change their relationship with alcohol using their 30, 90 & 365 day challenges.
But what interests me as much as his personal journey, as this man is someone who quite obviously has the entrepreneurial spirit running through him, even though he has for the main part worked for companies throughout the United Kingdom.
For example for three years he was the owner of Briaf Ltd, a Sales Outsourcing Agency, offering Telesales, Field Sales and Sales strategy for SME’s in Edinburgh, before joining PVM Oil Associates as an employee again.
What made this occur? Is this business still around or laying in the dust of failed enterprises? So many questions to be asked.
But more importantly with his book One Year No Beer flying off the shelves at Amazon, members joining up for the challenge across the world, and bar owners puling their hair out for loss of profit, does he feel that this is the thing that he has been waiting for in his life?
And how do you monetize a challenge which most people could just do on their own?
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Ruari Fairbairns
One Year No Beer Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty topics with One Year No Beer founder Ruari Fairbairns such as:
How difficult it is to get people to embrace a challenge unless they have skin in the game. Freebies take a business nowhere, but memberships are the gold.
How he came to the realisation that he could start a mission that would then take on a life of its own, even with all the challenges that this would take.
Why tackling sobriety is so much more than just getting away from the booze for a bit. It’s quite simply life changing in so many ways.
and lastly….
Why everybody should look at what is in alcohol before you start throwing it down your neck…one step away from petrol doesn’t sound a good idea to me!!
One Year No Beer Books
How To Connect With Ruari Fairbairns
Return To The Top Of One Year No Beer
If you enjoyed this episode with the One Year No Beer Founder why not check out other inspirational chat with Ian Ryan, Felicity Aston, George Dyer, and the amazing Caspar Craven
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here– enjoy
Full Transcription Of Ruari Fairbairns Conversation
Intro [0:00]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling and Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:26]
Yes, hello there. Good morning everybody and welcome to a nother edition of Join Up Dots. This is gonna be a good one. This is gonna be a good one because I’m all on edge. I’ve been away I’ve been away for literally three weeks now. I haven’t touched Internet, and I’m one of these weird podcasters I say that I haven’t done it for three weeks and I go Why? Why I love doing it. I love spending every second of the day being wired up. What’s the point there’s a life outside your office, get out and enjoy yourself and walk around and and see naked ladies in bikinis. That’s what I’ve been doing and it’s been a bell lightful as is today’s guest he’s probably doesn’t look as good. Good in a bikini as as other people, but I’m sure, I’m sure put a few drinks down his throat and it’d be it’d be better but life is different for him. Life is different because he is a man who a few years ago was living a life like so many people across the world, working hard, playing hard and spending a lot of his money in the bars on a Friday night. But things have changed dramatically for him not just in a health sense, but also in a professional and monetary sense, too. He gave up drinking in the face of incredible peer pressure, thinking he would lose his age is one of the top brokers in the world but soon realised it was quite the opposite. spurred by this life changing experience. He and his business partner and another broker have created the oy NB a movement which is one year no beer, which for all of us, is a bit of a problem I imagine. But he inspires the world to look for a healthy way of living by speaking about improving all aspects of your life by changing your relationship with alcohol and now after two years alcohol free, he now drinks in total control. He’s passionate about helping people change the relationship with alcohol using a 3090 and 365 day challenges, but what interests me as much as his personal journey as this man is someone who’s quite obviously as the entrepreneurial spirit running through him, even though he has for the main part worked for companies throughout the United Kingdom for example, for three years he was the owner Bree Apple limited, a sales outsourcing agent agency offering tele sales build sales and sales strategy in Adam Brett before joining PBM oil associates as an employee again so what made this occurred is this business did around or laying in the dust of failed enterprises so many questions to be asked. But more importantly with his book one year, no beer flying off the shelves Amazon members joining up for the challenge across the world and bar owners pulling their hair out for loss of profit. Does he feel that this is the thing that he’s been waiting for in his life? And how do you monetize a challenge which most people could just do on their own? Well, let’s find out if you bring onto the show to start Join Up Dots with the one and only Mr. Ruari Fairbairns. Good morning Ruari. How are you, sir?
One Year No Beer [3:02]
Excellent. Thank you very, very, very glad to be on your show. Thanks for having on fantastic intro can’t wait to dive into all that stuff.
David Ralph [3:10]
It is good to have you here and it is also delightful to have a fellow Englishman on the show. Yes, you are. You are 99% English now you have embraced the English life. Is this true Rauri? Or did I annoy you when we first connected?
One Year No Beer [3:27]
Well, to be honest with you, you’re right. I’ve embraced a lot about England. You know, my both my parents were born in England. However, my grandparents all come from Scotland. So and I was born on the island. So I still consider myself Scottish. And you can’t get past the fact that if you call a Scotsman Englishman, he’s going to get a little bit upset.
David Ralph [3:46]
So did you wake up every morning with the Paul McCartney classic McIntyre is it is that you’re sort of on the alarm tune.
One Year No Beer [3:55]
Malika, well only that’s a very different place as well. The Ireland model is a bit further North in the middle of Kintyre, Mulliken tires that stretch of it’s also it’s almost like Scotland’s Willie I think. And above that is the island of Maui.
David Ralph [4:10]
Right? Okay, I’m gonna look for Scotland’s Willie. And if I google that kind of thing, God knows what I’m gonna see. But let’s get into it. Because you you’ve got a fascinating journey, because you are somebody who’s rocking and rolling, you’re doing something, which is, it’s one of those kind of things that when I first saw it, and I’ll be honest with you, right, this I wasn’t gonna share this, but when we pitch to be on the show, first of all, you did it brilliantly, because you did it with humour. I get so many people that come on the show, and it’s just a boring pitch. And I think I can’t be bothered to talk to you. You sent me images of furry creatures, and then you followed up with other stuff. That’s the way to do it. And it haven’t having a laugh in your life trying to be sort of amusing, embracing, just sort of creativity in every field.
One Year No Beer [4:58]
Exactly. I actually just sent this out. This morning is so relevant but
my wife sent me a video of my daughter going down a slide. Absolutely just the fun on her face squealing with delight, she gets down to the bottom of the slide. And she’s like, more please more, please. I mean, she’s too. And I said, You know, I said to the guys in my group, you know, why do we need alcohol? Why do we need drugs to let this fun adventure person out? Why do we have to be boring and sensible and read papers and dull and, and and if we need these things to let that out, then it’s surely just insiders and we’re holding it back. So you know, that sense of fun is inside all of us. And I think it’s really important to have a bit of fun in business.
David Ralph [5:39]
I absolutely agree. I’m one of my colleagues that I used to work with a long time he’s office slide in. So instead of going down the escalators, you can go from from the top floor down to the bottom, on a kind of wordy slide and you’ve got all these businessmen whizzing down here with big smiles on their faces because our core, our core, nobody wants to To be a boring businessman, we all want to have fun, we all want to enjoy ourselves. And I was I was coming back on the plane on British Airways and I was listening to an interview with the British comedian David Williams. And he said something which I basically touch on every single episode, but up to our school days, when we’re sort of like five that’s our core essence. That’s when society hasn’t told us how to perform and how to act and we just do stuff because we want to do it. And that’s the kind of thing that gets lost. You put businessmen on a slide and they you reconnect with their younger selves. Everybody wants fun in their life, don’t they?
One Year No Beer [6:37]
That’s exactly it. when when when when we we’ve just finished building our house putting an extension on the back and the beam along our balcony looking over the garden. I had the builders put a ring in because I want to put a I call it death slide but it’s called zip wire, a zip wire from the bedroom out into the garden. And the kids are a little bit young for that yet, but as soon as they’re old enough, can you imagine it? Going
David Ralph [7:00]
to work in the morning by zip wire. I can’t imagine it I just spent. I’ve just spent a whole day zip wiring around St. Lucia in the Caribbean. And it was great. It was absolutely brilliant whizzing through the jungle on these kind of things, you know is it’s fun, it’s fun. And that’s what Join Up Dots is all about. That’s what we want in our life. So, brewery so brewery, why did you use to drink so much? Let’s, let’s share this. Why when you was out and about enjoying life, having a family to go home, did the pullet the pub grab you and instead of whizzing home to the arms of your lover, you went there and you slung copious amounts of alcohol down your throat. Why was that?
One Year No Beer [7:42]
Well, I think let’s quantify First of all, how much I was drinking. I think probably when I decided to stop I was drinking. I was probably drunk twice a week, or at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. And for me that might have been a lunch which carried on because I’m entertaining and that’s part of my job as a broker. Or it might have been, you know, going out with a meet in the evening and maybe doing something in the weekend. So not really that much. And I never went home drinking and carried on, you know, that was that was the end for me. But it was I just knew it was causing problems. It was causing frustration in my relationship. It was it was and really I thought that was something else. I didn’t think it was the alcohol. I blamed other other reasons for the problems in my relationship, you know, her anger. Really, I didn’t blame alcohol for any of the problems in my life. I think that’s very similar to a lot of people. They’re not looking at this so like, No, no, no, drinking is fine. Drinking helps me be successful drinking helps me be fun and connect with people. That’s what they feel. And it’s only in when they take a break. When I took a break that I realised Oh my God, I could not believe how much more positively in my life became.
David Ralph [8:53]
And again, why is jumping in there in what ways what what was the first thing that really made it positive for you?
One Year No Beer [9:00]
So I think I originally I gave it up to prove that it wasn’t the problem. And I stopped for 90 days and on the 90 days, the first thing that starts to happen is you get this sort of energy come back, you sleep better, you just feel happier. And you know, you can feel productivity start to increase, I decided to carry on and I actually carried on for two years. You know, during that two years, I built this startup programme, I project manage the entire renovation, Rebuild of a house, it was basically a 200 year old barn, which is only 50% converted. I had a newborn baby. And, you know, we started to work on a project building up on the Isle of Moe, where I’m from, so I achieved so much because I had all this energy. And I had, you know, we had one of the world’s leading productivity coaches Come on our, our programme, and he said, You know, I’ve spent my life studying productivity and I never realised how much productivity gain there is to have by going alcohol free and he only drank two beers a night
David Ralph [10:00]
I went out last night and I went karaoke. And it was it was on the anniversary of Elvis’s 40th birthday. And so the whole pub was just doing Elvis all the time. So it’s nice. I stepped up to the mantle, and I did never going to give you up my Rick Astley, which is one of my favourites and then shouted, Ashley has left the building and walked out a pub. And I had two beers last night, which was a bit ironic because I don’t really drink I don’t really drink at all. And even though I had two beers, I came home and just basically sat on the sofa and had a little sleep. And I’ve now got to the point where literally if I drink, I used to drink my when I was up in a city of London, I used to drink five pints every lunchtime every lunchtime used to sling a load of beer down your throat come back in the afternoon. And the afternoon was pretty much planning what you were going to do in the evening again, but boy, you sort of did it the next morning and you sort of basically went on this sort of rotation of beer and alcohol all the time. But now if I drink two pints, it really affects me now where it affects me most is when I look at my wallet and I think to myself, I spent 16 quid last night and All I’ve got is like, Well, nothing. I’ve got nothing. You know what, what’s the point in that? It’s a big financial thing as well, isn’t it away from the productivity, the energy levels, throwing money at it can be invested into other parts of your life, and you actually got something to hold on to.
One Year No Beer [11:23]
Definitely. I mean, if you’re going out in London regularly, the cost of drinking is massive, you know, five quid a pint, five pints. Handy, a few lunchtimes that all adds up taxis kebabs late last night, you know, so it massively adds up. And you know, the money aspect is definitely the bonus. Where you can you can start to start to add your money in but I think for most people, nobody wants to give up drinking. But what they don’t want is they don’t want these cracks in their life. And if you look at what people are searching for, they’re searching for you know, why am I not sleeping? Well, why am I feeling depressed? Why am I anxious, why am I Why have I got some liver pains? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they’re like, do you think it could be the alcohol? And I’m like, Yes. Without a doubt, you know, if you understand what alcohol is, it’s basically one step away from gasoline. It’s ethanol. If you understand what it is the barrier, I don’t want to go down that route. Because the whole world is going, Oh, it’s unhealthy for you. And you know, as far as we’re concerned, David, you know, I’m getting cancer from my shoes right now, you know, in today’s world, and it’s just every corner you look at another health scare. I don’t care about all of that. What we’re talking about is, this is about getting an upside in life. It’s about improving your life feeling happier, getting getting shit done for a year, you know, because you’re productive and you feel happy and improving your relationship.
David Ralph [12:42]
Now I’ve lost all my productivity because I’ve been googling Scottish Willie’s for the last five minutes. I can’t. I can’t stop. I’ve been pushed down there. So is this your full time gig now? Because I looked at it and I found it fascinating. But my first thought was, how do you monetize this?
One Year No Beer [13:00]
So, ya know, I’m still a full time broker and my co founder is still a full time broker. Without a doubt, you know, one day would be fantastic to be running one year, no beer. And I think if you think about what we are going to become next year, we’re launching our app. And that’s sort of stage two really, stage one has been MVP. And we’re now 16,000 members in 100 countries. MVP is minimum viable product for those who who didn’t know that. And so next year, we release our app, and we sort of focused on headspace for alcohol. And this is really rewiring the brain getting people to change their relationship control their drinking and various different pathways you can follow within the app. And then following on from that we’re building weightwatchers for alcohol. And this is where individuals who’ve been inspired by the change want to help other people to become inspired can host localised meetups in their area all over the world. And when we talk about meetups which we have all over the world, we’re not talking about people sitting in a room talking about their problems. No, there’s enough of that going on. We’re talking about people going to fitness classes or tough Mothers are exercise or meeting at soba raves, vibrant, happy, healthy, sociable people who are getting their kicks and their social need in life, which is absolutely intrinsic to our very being from natural places Healthy Places, rather than where they feel they need to get it, which is in the pub. And one key thing I just want to add in there, David is what you said in the start is how are the pub managers feeling about this, you know, in pubs are closing hand over hand. And you know, this can get quite a lot of people’s backs up. And this is what I’ve got to say to all the pub owners in the world out there. I hope you know that the biggest growth market in the world globally is non alcoholic beer. It’s one of the only alcohol markets which is growing. And the reason is there’s a massive paradigm shift going on out there and we don’t want to walk into the pub anymore in order coke on tap or lemonade on tap. We want to come in and we want to have non alcoholic beers. We want non alcoholic spirits. We want non alcoholic wines and we want to socialise with our friends without needing to pour Basically a poisoned down our throat
David Ralph [15:03]
is a shocking state of affairs when you say it like that, but it’s also quite fun to do, isn’t it? That’s the best. That is a lot of fun is one of those things that’s why
One Year No Beer [15:11]
I drink on I still drink now. So I did two years not drinking. And then I said, You know, I think my life’s got a bit boring. I still need to drink now and again, and you know, I still want to go to the occasional stack do and get smashed my brains and equally I’ve done a number of stag dues, completely sober and loved them and I think that’s now
David Ralph [15:30]
you have no you haven’t I’m jumping in there. There is nothing worse than being with a load of drunk fellers if you are sober in that world. So you’re going on a stag do when you was totally sober, you hated it.
Unknown Speaker [15:45]
I loved it.
David Ralph [15:46]
No, you did it. You hated it. You hated it. You just just admitted
One Year No Beer [15:51]
you hated it. David. David, I wrote about this, and it nearly went viral. And it’s because it’s so much of our conditioning about our Who makes us believe you’re boring when you don’t drink and it’s nonsense. You know, you go out with a whole bunch of drunk people and you You are the one making them drunk. You are the one making you know, when you were younger you used to dance without any alcohol. You used to have fun without any alcohol. And now you believe you need it. You’re we’re all so ingrained that we need alcohol to have a good time. And when you change that mindset, then you don’t feel those things. You know, quite a few of the guys in my office, one guy in particular senior management at my company, you know, doesn’t drink at all. He loves going out with the guys still he goes to the pub almost every weekend is the driver. He looks after people. He stays out till three o’clock in the morning because he’s like, I’ve realised that I don’t need it.
David Ralph [16:42]
Yeah, I know. I know. Nobody needs it. Nobody needs it. And I’m not saying that the people that abstain are boring. It’s just people that are drunk or idiots. And everything they say is not funny, and you just think Am I really like I’ve gone out for meals when my mates are throwing it down the throat. When I was younger, I never used to drink at all. And I remember I actually started drinking because I got fed up with being the taxi driver. And it was always me that had to leave the house earlier than anyone else. And I got home later than everyone else because I was dropping everybody else on this one day. Oh, well, I’m gonna have a few points to screw them up. And I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked because he’s taxi driving sort of system went out the window. But you don’t want to be with drunk people. They’re not buying the event. Yes. sweaty. Yeah, it’s not fun. We’re not boring. They’re just idiots.
One Year No Beer [17:33]
Yeah, no, you’ve got to agree with that in part for sure. So that’s why you don’t go out as much as you used to. Of course you want you know, and but you’re doing things that you want to do. And you know, you probably picked up another hobby or you’re you’re starting your business or you’ve got this extra energy and you want to do the things you want to do in life. Less of hanging around with drunk people talking rubbish, the same thing eight times over.
David Ralph [17:56]
Right. Okay, so just before I play the words of Jim Carrey, which we like to do it This point, I just wanted to jump back, you said that you had members, 16,000 members, did you say over 16,000 members in 100 countries? Now that is astonishing, especially for quite a new organisation that you’ve got, what a How is that not a full time gig now? Why the hell are they not paying a pound a month and you’ve got eight grand each? Well, why why I’d be looking at that and going to Ching Chi Ching Chi Ching.
One Year No Beer [18:26]
And don’t get me wrong. So we have quite a lot of, you know, we have quite a lot of consultants and freelancers who make one year no beer work, there’s a lot going on. We’ve got the world’s largest alcohol free festival. And in January, we’ve got the book coming out. We’ve got as I mentioned, the app being built. We’ve got retreats, we don’t call them that we call them weekend, as you know, loads and loads and loads going on. So it’s quite a big machine already. And we originally launched it and gave it all away for free. And here’s what happened. We worked Stirling University, and we realised that people weren’t sticking to the programme. There’s a lot of science out there that makes the people aren’t accountable when they don’t pay for something. So then when we started charging, which was in the tail end of last year, suddenly our performance went you know, through the roof much better stickability people improve their chances of getting through the challenge, etc, etc, etc. So that only you know, and then we relaunched the site in February this year. So yeah, the intention is to continue to monetize the programme, but it’s a way off for myself and Andy getting into it full time yet.
David Ralph [19:30]
Right. Okay, let’s play the words of Jim Carrey. And then we’re going to delve back into this a little bit more. Heres Jim.
Jim Carrey [19:35]
My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. When I was 12 years old. He was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
David Ralph [20:02]
Now, it always leads into the question of, is this what you love? Do you wake up excited before even your eyes open? Does the idea of up to one year no beer popped into your head?
One Year No Beer [20:14]
I’m afraid so. I mean, if I if I talk about where my life has been, I feel that almost everything was inevitable and leading me to this point, I feel totally aligned. I feel that there is a major shift going on out there in the world. I feel that I and Andy are completely at the forefront. And the people are asking or wanting to change your relationship with alcohol quietly in the back of their mind. And they don’t want to do it in a stigmatised way. They don’t want to do it in a I’ve hitting rock bottom. They want to do it in a way of can you help me I want to change my relationship. And that’s why we’ve seen this huge growth. So I’m extremely passionate about this.
David Ralph [20:54]
Yeah. So Well, let me say would you say Ruby, but you can Join Up Dots. Is that what you’re saying? Sir?
One Year No Beer [21:00]
I’m afraid so. Oh, every step of the way all, you know when he said about those businesses, I was a serial fail printer. I wrote an email to a letter an email, it wasn’t even email. I wrote a letter to Richard Branson when I was 14 years old said, telling him that I was looking forward to having sitting down and having lunch with him one day. And I was totally determined this little boy from Mel that I was going to go out there and change the world. And now I found my vehicle.
David Ralph [21:27]
And did he respond? Didn’t Branson respond?
One Year No Beer [21:30]
No, I know we need to get we need to get a message out to him. And let him know that I got no response to my handwritten letter for a 14 year old boy.
David Ralph [21:37]
Want to get
Unknown Speaker [21:38]
what I get. I’m not gonna hold any grudges.
David Ralph [21:40]
Yeah, I’ll tell you what, Richard, if you want us to come up and Join Up Dots, I’m going to bring that up. I’m going to bring that up because we know how powerful Jim will fix it was in the 70s growing up and how we don’t often talk about Jim will fix it anymore. And I wouldn’t google it for numerous reasons, but you know, you’re now tarnished. You’re now tarnished in the same way because you ruined a young channelled streams, Richard,
One Year No Beer [22:02]
I wouldn’t say I would say, inspired for him to do better so that I could get a response.
David Ralph [22:09]
Now, I play the card, play the card, just in case he’s listening. He gone around writing Branson down or he’s doing his morning around on a surfboard,
One Year No Beer [22:18]
flying Houston now next week, and I am flying ba. That’s it. I’ve just
David Ralph [22:23]
come back from ba and I can be honest, they were miserable. They were miserable. If you get a chance of going on a flight go on virgin all the way. So right let’s talk about one year, no beer again. So somebody comes along to you, and they’re sort of dabbling DNA is a big bounce on your website or do people sign up straight away? Because it is one of these things. As I say, at my core, I thought I could just do this. I could I could do this. Why Why would I sign up? Is there sort of them there? Do people sign up straight away or do they keep them coming back to it before they connect?
One Year No Beer [22:56]
Now I think there’s a it’s definitely a slow burn for People they meet the concept they hear about it on something like this. And then they want to find out more info they come to the site they stick their email in, we start sending them encouraging emails and videos to try and get their mind in shape. You know, our programme is very, very different to anything else out there. We use all the good stuff in positive psychology latest in behavioural change and habit change science. And what we’re doing is we are reappointing somebody’s mind to the way they really want to be and what they want to achieve out of life and where we’re putting pause and you’re dealing with some really delicate stuff, you know, reasons why people drink all of those, all of those things. And sure, somebody can just go out and stop drinking they can go and do dry January, you can not call your friends avoid the pub because you’re scared and learn exactly nothing and then drink like a fish for the rest of the year. Or you can come and actually do a programme which is proven to change your mindset and help you change your relationship with alcohol and if you choose to, you might want to carry on and and never drink again or not drink for a year or you can go back to a more considered level of drink. So most people come and they just sit around the pond and feed for a little bit and when they feel the time is right, and and the thing we say in all the videos and all of the content is there is never a good time there is always a, an excuse of summer or a party or an event or, or or, you know, wedding or New Year’s Day or whatever it is. Listen to me drinking on New Year’s Day. And enjoy a Scottish. Yeah, absolutely. And Hogmanay. So that’s the thing is that those events are the reason to get started now. Because when you go and face those events, with your new mindset, when you’ve got a tribe of people who are supporting you through it, and this is, you know, you use community forum, Facebook to help you have a tribe in your pocket pocket that you feel you can belong to while you’re making this change. When you when you do that, then you start to have a major shift in your brain about the mindset around our goal. That’s what we need to do. And then and then it requires no willpower. And that’s the key. If you go out and use will. I don’t know if you’ve talked about this before David, but willpower has been proven to be a muscle. And if you if you deplete your willpower muscle, so for instance, I wake up in the morning and I’m trying to decide what clothes to wear and, and I force myself not to eat that bread and blah, blah, all those things I’m trying to do. But the time I get to the end of the day, and I’m tired and knackered and triggering for alcohol, your willpower is going to be knackered and you’re going to fall into alcohol. So the way we protect you in the early days is we try and change your mindset around alcohol so that you see it for what it is. And it requires no
David Ralph [25:28]
willpower at all. I agree with that. I’ve got tremendous willpower, but every way I’ve never shared this on the show. Every week, I fast the 24 hours, sometimes I go 14 hours, just to prove to myself I can I can do that. And generally it’s it’s Thursday and Friday. Thursday’s quite easy because I record Join Up Dots. So by the end of the day when I first started doing it and Join Up Dots by mid afternoon after doing seven shows not eating I started getting these migraines, and I thought I can’t keep this up but my body He’s kind of got used to it now. So yeah, if we wait, I have this mindset will power training because I think if I can do this, then I can do anything if I can make it better, I’ll make it anyway. It’s it’s all about in your head, David, I know he’s good. I’m gonna do nificant get you up one day one day I’m going to do Never gonna give you up by Rick Astley and set the world alight. So, look, let’s talk about your video and email marketing because that intrigues me because you know about building an audience is a slow burn because I see so many people and I made the same mistake that walk up a website rack up, you can sign up for my programme for 12 million pounds and wonder why nobody does it. What kind of things do you send out? How often do you send out the emails and did you find it hard to think about what to send out at the beginning before and it’s natural flow.
One Year No Beer [26:51]
Without doubt I mean, this this programme is two and a half years in the making now it launched February last year. So a year and a half live gone through tonnes of iterations. You know, from from the web, the first, you know, we built three websites that never actually launched. And in scaling levels of cost, because they were so badly done, we’ve had unbelievable amounts of trouble with digital and tech people. And it is mind boggling and the learning curve has been expensive. And that’s the thing for us is that, you know, we’re not, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that we are nice, gently organically grown business. You know, Andy and I have invested a large amount of money into this programme. And, you know, we we we truly believe in its in its potential, and its potential to change a lot of lives. So, yeah, I mean, I think the most powerful things for us are community and fostering that sense of community and the easiest way to do that is through Facebook groups. I know there’s a lot of call out there. I think if I was starting Again, I might even just start with Facebook only. How can you go against 2 billion people? And I’m pretty sure that’s a big enough pond for anyone to make a slice of the pie. So yeah, Facebook, very powerful. And now we’re starting to work on Facebook adverts. We’ve done a bit of Facebook ads last year. And now we’re focusing a bit more on the Facebook adverts. Again, you can get so very targeted, very specific. And when we talk about targeted and specific, it’s so key to be focused on exactly, exactly who you’re trying to target. Yeah. And we have wasted so much money trying to talk to everyone and change the world and you know, give it away for free and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
David Ralph [28:41]
Yeah, no, I agree with that. The Avatar is absolutely key. When I started to Join Up Dots as a podcast, I thought that I had created the perfect avatar, Join Up Dots and Join Up Dots. And I could tell you what these people were doing and where they spent their time and stuff. And it kind of worked to a point But I realised as I progressed, prove I hadn’t drilled down enough with Join Up Dots to what I was actually bringing to the table, I couldn’t work out how to actually monetize the show. Now, if you actually do spend the time on thinking about who you’re targeting for your customer, and actually go out, do your market research and ask these people, these kind of people that you think about, is this something for you? It saves so much money. It’s unbelievable. But we don’t we all sit in our offices, we all go, I’ve got an idea. And we walk on the website and we spend all our time doing it. Very few people go out onto a Facebook group and say, Hi, guys, I’m thinking of starting his business, would this be something that would interest you just simple as that? And I was gonna go and do that. I’m gonna do that from this call. Thank you very much, David. It’s a win and I do that a lot. Now, I do that a lot. And I spend time just asking questions. Now once you build your community, one of the brilliant Things that I’ve found with my community or or podcasting Legends is I basically say to them, you know, what are you struggling with? If I could bring something to the market, what would help you, you know, and they tell you, they tell you and you go, Well, that’s good. And then you create it and then they’re already there’s an audience they’re waiting to buy, ask, ask, ask, don’t be cheesy Don’t be salesy. Just say I want to do do this. And I’ll tell you what, you will save thousands. But it’s a real mindset journey. You’ve got to sort of get through that imposter syndrome, where we all kind of try to create that we are Richard Branson, right at the very beginning, but for accepting that actually, we’re not and we don’t want to be. And Ben, it all starts to come together for you. What do you think Really?
One Year No Beer [30:45]
The I think you’ve absolutely hit the nail on the head. That’s brilliant. And I loved what you said there about going out and asking, asking people because we’ve been trying to drill down further into our avatar as we speak, you know, just over the last few Days really drilled down into into that. And I was having conversation with a colleague this morning on the way in and thinking, why hasn’t he come and joined our programme and I probably need to go and sit down and ask him exactly that.
David Ralph [31:13]
Yeah, absolutely. You sit down and ask Him and He will say it’s because of this is because of that. And products product now Branson, let’s get back onto the old BD bloke who made that small chunk. Yeah, that, hey, we don’t want to talk about him. But one of the things he says is that there are so many business opportunities. If you let one pass, there’s another one coming along, you just have to ask the right questions and be looking in the right direction. Now one of the things that I find that so many people that I used to do a lot of business coaching not so much anymore, but one of the things that people used to sort of come up with was, I can’t think of any ideas that haven’t been done before. That’s a big failing, isn’t it? That’s a big trying to recreate You know, one year no beer or trying to recreate Facebook or is a big failing. You just have to look at what’s already out there whatsoever. be popular and bring your own ping to the market up.
One Year No Beer [32:03]
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely spot on. So for Andy and I, we sat down together and we said, right, we want to do something we know we’re in broken or broken. We want to eventually get into something else. We want to get into well being we love this stuff around positive psychology. We both been studying it for most of our lives. And he’s done a master’s in positive psychology. And we said, How do we how do we get into that? And we drew lots of lovely bubbles with ideas like mindfulness apps, and all these kind of things. And for us, and we said, well, what about this alcohol thing? You know, we see it from such a different light. And when we both individually searched out there, we just found nothing that fit us. And we talked to other people. And they said, you know, I’d found and they’d all looked at what was out there and it was either too feminine or to stigmatise to look, you’ve reached rock bottom come here will help us and how do we get the people who just want a positive change in their life? So you know, that’s where it came from. It came from drilling down into a niche and then thinking about it. How you can approach it from a different avatars perspective. And Atari is not being what avatar is not being
David Ralph [33:09]
fixed or accommodated by, by a certain niche in and are you your perfect avatar. That’s what you and when you look at it, you think yourself Actually, I’m creating a business. But for me,
One Year No Beer [33:22]
we have to remember because I think there is a tendency to go into evangelical when you drop booze, and a lot of people do get very evangelical. And so there was a tendency for us to market to ourselves at the time. When we did so we’d started the business, we were written a book and then we were writing as if we’d hoped we were that person that day. And we realised we need to go back to who we were, you know, I would have absolutely no interest in speaking to vegans and you know, the the extremities of it, but you know, now Andy’s chosen a life of veganism but I would never, you know, would never have gone down that route. And he would never have gone down that we were there. So we had to cast ourselves back to who we were, and how much we love the booze. We loved it. Thought it was the be all and end all had so much fun. It was the only place we had fun. But then bring into it the fact that it causes all these problems, and how do you encourage somebody to say, look, come and try this, come and do this. And actually all those problems will disappear. And a lot of the things that you’re taking alcohol for, you know, to be fun to be funny to have low social anxiety to sleep well, it’s actually causing those problems in the first place, they’ll disappear.
David Ralph [34:36]
I see your platform 100% as mindset training, basically is focusing in on something, it’s like you could almost have done no sex for a year. And that’s a completely stupid idea. And I wouldn’t want to sign up for that in any shape or form. Although I think a wife has already created by you know, in a weird sense, and she hasn’t got her own website, but she’s probably got millions Members already signed up for looking around. And something’s
One Year No Beer [35:04]
there’s something very key that David as well as because some people say, Well, you know, pregnant women, I did nine months off, and I didn’t feel any of these benefits I didn’t, and you nail on the head mindset training, when you are forced to do something, when your doctor tells you, you’ve reached the end, you must stop drinking, when blah, blah, blah, you’re always gonna pined for it, you’re always going to want it because something is holding you back, you’re always gonna hold it up on this high level of like, I wish I could have alcohol again, I can’t because I’m pregnant, or I’ve got this problem. And therefore you’re only facilitating the problem that we’ve got in the first place. And that’s your mindset. And so when we do the mindset change, that’s what I say to pregnant women. Say I said to pregnant women all the time, like I’m always hanging around with pregnant women. But the thing I would say is, this is a very different thing. This is a mindset shift.
David Ralph [35:54]
Yeah, I think that that applies to everything, doesn’t it? You know, that really is I was in Last night, as I say, talking to my wife, and my wife is such a half glass empty person, she really is my glasses over pulling over feelings that I need a bucket underneath it. You know, I always look at the positive on everything. And generally everything good happens to me. And even if it doesn’t happen, I don’t care because it just become good the next day. And I said to her, why don’t you change your mindset? She said, I can’t. I can’t. It’s just how I am. And I said, No, it’s not. You’re not surrounding yourself with the right people. You’re not saying and she’s out. Don’t do your Join Up Dots speech on me, I don’t want that, you know, and she does. It works very well on a microphone. But when I’m in my underpants scratching myself, she doesn’t see me in the same way where she doesn’t see me in the same way as all my listeners. And so she just basically tells me to shut up. But I think one of her things is that she’s not surrounded by community and what you’ve done is you’ve already touched on, you found that community and it’s so much easier to start moving in the right direction when you have got kindred spirits around you. So can these People, these 16,000 members can actually reach out and touch each other. Oh, is it all But
One Year No Beer [37:06]
no, they can. It’s so key. I mean, so if some fantastic science research going on out there and addiction right now, what we know is that the opposite of addiction is connection in Portugal. They had one of the worst drug problems in the world globally. They decriminalised it. They forced companies to invite ex drug addicts into have a job. And they created communities around their drug addicts. They now have one of the lowest problems or drug problem dramatically reduced, crime reduced, you know, amazing change in basically a decade. And so another bit of research around that is that, you know, we used to stick a rat in a in a cage, put alcohol and water the rat would tap away at the water, tap away the alcohol, loved the alcohol get addicted and then kill itself from drinking alcohol. But so they were like, well, alcohol is an addictive substance. This is why it’s Killing people blah, blah, blah, blah. Then along came a research scientist, I can’t remember the name right now that will be the ADHD. And he stuck a rat Park, massive great big cage, loads of rats, lots of things to do spinning wheels, all that fantastic stuff. And the rats touch the water, touch the alcohol and never touch the alcohol again. And this is very key. So when we build community, for people who are living away, they want to live striving for happiness, striving for better health, striving for productivity striving for, you know, achieving their goals in life and dreams. And you know, living a vibrant life, then you create a belonging for people. That means they won’t go back to the old way they just won’t. So the first step for communities, the amazing thing we have today is social media. And that’s where the vibrant the community is. And you can feel that straightaway. You know, you log in, sign up and you come in and you can chat away to the Facebook group. You can be in a pub and say oh my god, my friends, forcing me to have a short What should I do and bang you get? 20 comments 40 comments. Some support ideas, tactics, tips, you know, you take one sip, go to the toilet, pour it away, come back to the different side of the bar order a non alcoholic version or something that looks like it. And this is called stealth drinking and we do a lot of teaching around stealth drinking, come back to your group sit there, nobody will know you’re not drinking. And so then the next stage is meetings meetups, as I mentioned, doing tough mudders I’ve got tough Viking in Stockholm. We’ve got a bunch of us going to that. Not this weekend, but next weekend, following weekend after that. We’re doing a sort of SAS day with the guys at breakpoint only politan, who is on the series Who Dares Wins. He’s our ambassador, we did a partnership with them. And we’ve got a day down there sort of being trained in military stuff and then putting through a situation whatever that means. So but we’re out there doing stuff and you know, it’s not just tough murders and things. It’s Park runs or sober raids, but the tribe part of it is so key and the other thing we’re doing is connecting people That I missed a step. First step is social media. Second step is online and video. And that’s getting together face to face with people online and chatting. And then third step is meetings and meetups seminars, things like that.
David Ralph [40:13]
I think I think this is brilliant. I really think this is brilliant. And why I love this so much is I speak to so many people that are just online and now online is brilliant. It’s gives you the ability to connect globally with people you just couldn’t. But you’re getting out there as well. And you’re in parks, and you’re in the community and you’re actually meeting people. And that is the perfect mix. I think that you’re doing online and offline because he can become quite isolated comment.
One Year No Beer [40:42]
It’s got to translate. It’s got to travel. And that’s the part is that actually, there’s so much science out there about the problems with social media. And if you think about this, you know, often we have to go with the lesser evil. I was talking about this last night. You know, imagine your willpower is like a dam and you’ve decided that you’re going to not eat bread and you’re going to exercise Every day, you’re going to try and meditate. And by the way, you’re giving up our goal and all these things are not going to bite your nails. And that dam is massive, because it’s holding back this tidal wave behind it, you know, you’ve got the Hoover Dam going on there. And that pressure builds, especially when you’re tired, especially when you’re stressed. Now, if you don’t let the pressure go of that dam, the whole thing is going to come crashing down everything you’ll be eating cake, drinking booze, all just comes completely crashing down. So the best thing is to choose which part of the dam you want to let some pressure away. And in there that might be around. I’m not going to let the booze go because I know that rolls off the edge. I’m just going to have a bit of cake. Or I’m going to I don’t know, I’m going to be devious because that’s part of me. So I’m going to tell my wife as I always used to that the trains were delayed even though I’m in the pub, but I’m going to do that anyway, just because it gives me a little tick and release some pressure. Now that’s the way my crazy mind works up. So um, yeah,
David Ralph [41:53]
I used to just say I just had a couple. It was quite obvious. I hadn’t had a couple I could barely speak Yeah, by yourself just just had a couple they were strong ones. And then if I ended up throwing up, I would say, it was a bad point. It didn’t matter. But I talked about nine of these bad points. It was just a bad point. It’s
One Year No Beer [42:11]
a bad point. Yeah, I’ve got to sit next to a guy who’s, you know, his wife has stopped believing and when he says that he fell asleep on the train. So now he has to take a picture of the the the day’s paper next to the clock in Norfolk, because he’s living out on that line. And when he falls asleep, he wakes up in Northridge. So he’s got to take a picture of the paper with the with the coke in the background to prove he did sleep on the train.
David Ralph [42:33]
He He’s become like a kidnap victim. He’s like the john McCarthy of the British rail system. Holding a photograph that is just bizarre, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s a it’s a new level. I think we need to have you on the show. And we need to tell him to get a grip, get a grip. He’s in charge here. If he wants to go out and do that. It’s up to him. It’s not up to her.
One Year No Beer [42:58]
Yeah, well, you know, where’s a bit Doesn’t it you have two marriages about boundaries and, you know, in reality, respect boundaries, all those good things. And you know, if you want a long, happy marriage and you don’t want to go through three divorces, falling asleep on the train and waking up in Northridge twice a week is probably not the best thing to be doing. Yeah, but
David Ralph [43:17]
I don’t want to be taking photographs of myself holding up newspapers all the time. That’s just that’s just madness. Well, let’s play some words. Now that’s gonna lead us seamlessly to the end of the conversation. These are words that were mentioned back in 2005 by Steve Jobs, and we listen to them on every show is Steve,
Steve Jobs [43:33]
of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road. will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [44:08]
I think it’s gonna be a stupid question. But those words inspire you when you listen to the movie.
One Year No Beer [44:13]
That is exactly it. I mean, the hairs are standing up in my arm. That is exactly how I’ve always felt. And you know, I’ve been in counselling since I was six years old. They wanted to diagnose me with ADHD and drug me my parents refused. So we took the counselling route instead. And I always I kept talking about, you know, feeling destined and all this stuff and not knowing I can’t see and being very frustrated my whole life but knowing and it’s such a weird, weird thing to know what he’s just said, at your core. But hey, if I get knocked down by a car tomorrow, then I was about to say, I guess I wasn’t right. But I think what I’ve set in motion now with one year no beer is now unstoppable. I think that with the ambassadors coming forward, that even if did die tomorrow, this incredible movement, this massive change is going to carry on without me and that’s Yeah, that really lights my fire.
David Ralph [45:09]
So that’s a key question Really? So do you think you couldn’t have done this on your own? Did you think it would be a powerful version of what you’ve got?
One Year No Beer [45:18]
In what way on my own I think that everything that happened or does happen is integral to making what it is today so I don’t do you mean if I did it without Andy or without Andy and without the
David Ralph [45:31]
glasses if it was just like, you know, I don’t Join Up Dots just on my own and I’ll be honest in the in the early days, it almost killed me. It really be Oh, yeah. And I literally aged overnight, and but now, I lost a lot of hair and I uploaded a picture. I’m now getting sexy. Again. I’m getting sexy again. That’s why I’m trying to keep away from people touching me because it just goes too far just goes too far. So I struggled with wanting to do everything. Think myself and I look back on it and I think to myself, could I have got a partner? Would I have wanted to? I’m a bit anal I’m a bit kind of creatively controlling would I have allowed somebody to help? Did you need and he was at your end in Dec
One Year No Beer [46:15]
without without a doubt. So there is an insane amount of energy inside of me and I feel like this programme, this project is moving through me not being my creation, it’s all part of, you know, what’s going on in the greater world. I feel it’s moving through me and I literally feel like a, it’s a volcano erupting through me. And so I end up getting hyper hyperactivity, hyper, you know, trying to do everything all at once. And it’s exhausting for other people, and they’re trying to keep up. And so I have to sort of temper myself but you know, Andy, without doubt, you know, he’s the one who did most of the studying and brought a lot of the science into the background. And I think if what I was looking for you wind back, I always felt like I was Test and I got into broking I started numbing myself more and more and more. And and I just sort of forgot about destiny I forgot about those things and years passed. And I sort of focused on life a bit. So I’m not gonna I’m not going to have any negatives against that because I got a wife and a child and, and focused on life for a bit but then when I stopped drinking, I suddenly went, Oh my god, I’d be forgotten about this. I’ve got destiny to come up with and Andy gave me the tool for that he gave me the he’s the content guy. He’s the content guy and I became the driver, the business driver. And we’re very, very different. And that’s why it makes a great you know, he wants to write books. He realised that he’s not through doing going alcohol free he realised he’s not an extrovert. He’s actually an introvert, couldn’t believe it. He’s been taking alcohol his whole life to force himself to be an extrovert. And again, since then, we found so many people who feel the same with that and resonate with that, much like I found so many people who really resonate with the fact that they’ve got ADHD or a DD and they’ve been numbing themselves with alcohol. It’s So common because we’ve got unhinged, hyperactive brains, we move much quicker than other people, we think quicker, faster. And we also key to this, we have a deep feeling that there is something greater. And that pushes almost all ADHD people to go beyond. I wrote an article about how ADHD is actually my superpower. And, you know, got, again, got a lot of attention. It’s on Mind Body green, and how it has been the key thing which has helped me succeed, or, if you look at it fail in reality fail many, many, many times, but get to the inevitability that is success. Oh, I
David Ralph [48:41]
think it is brilliant. I really do. And I look back at every failure that I’ve had now, and I think thank God, thank God. I remember setting up communities and stuff, but I look at it now. And I think if I had set that up, and it had gone off like a rocket, I’d be in front of my computer. 15 hours a day, I wouldn’t be free, but I couldn’t at a time, so yeah, if you have a failure in your life, you just move on. And I would say you look back on them. And literally every single one you got, thank God, thank God, thank God I moved in the direction that I’m going, because it all comes together. In the end. We have such a warped
One Year No Beer [49:15]
understanding of failure. I don’t understand why we teach this to our children. I won’t teach it to them. I’m trying not to but I think if we, if we thought like a Hoover, a robot Hoover, now when you place that robot Hoover down in your house, it first of all has to bump off every object. So it has to have 99.9% of failure until it gets to success, and then it never touches anything again. And if we think about that, that I’m literally just gonna bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, then eventually, I get to it, then we just it’d be water off a duck’s back.
David Ralph [49:50]
I would like a life when I bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I don’t think it’s gonna get me productive. It really isn’t. It’s just gonna keep me on a one track mind. to, to, I don’t know, I don’t know where we’re making or end up. I don’t know where this show is gonna end up because we are now there. And this is the bit of the show that we called a sermon on the mic when we send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could speak to the younger version of brewery, what age would you choose? And what advice would you give? Well, we’re going to find out cuz I’m gonna play the music. When it fades you out. This is the Sermon on the mic.
Unknown Speaker [50:30]
We go with the best bit of the show. This
One Year No Beer [50:47]
query. I know you’re just 14 but I want to say that you are absolutely right. What you believe inside is going to happen just not the way you think it is. You might go well, sorry. You must go through a very tough journey mistakes and hardships will happen pain and frustration. But keep trusting that it all it is all meant to be and learn from them. Keep believing that it is all part of the course every bump setback and failure is taking you ever closer to your dreams. Your failures are merely lessons learned from them and your destination is inevitable. So comfort yourself in those dark moments. Everything else sorry, everything happens for a reason. PS do not sleep with Sally. She is a total psycho.
David Ralph [51:37]
up a name as well actually. I’ve had a couple of studies in my life. Oh my God. Oh, my God movie you’ve taken me. Yeah, you’ve taken me to. But that’s bringing the show to an end. So what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you?
One Year No Beer [51:53]
Come and join us at www dot one year no beer calm. We don’t need the www anymore. Do One Year No Beer or written out. We’re on Facebook one year no beer. We’re on Instagram one year no beer, Twitter. Oh, amb UK, come and check out all the goodies come and join the challenge. It is a life changer.
David Ralph [52:14]
Absolutely. I think he’s brilliant. And I wish you all the success in the world with it. And really, thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And please come back again when you’ve got more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is the best way to build our futures. Really, thank you so much.
One Year No Beer [52:33]
Thanks, David.
David Ralph [52:36]
What a lovely guy. What a lovely guy Rory from the brewery was and that this, this shows you that once you find your thing, it almost runs away with you. And it’s unbelievable. You sort of look at yourself and you think oh, why did I see this? Why didn’t I see this before and as he said he’s almost created a product, which he was the ideal avatar for. And so if you are in a situation where you’re doing something This is rubbish. I don’t know why we have to do it this way. More often than not this other people are going to be thinking the same thing. And even if you’re in an office environment, there are things that you will be doing on a daily basis that just kind of a bit stupid. Other people will be thinking the same way. I used to create internal podcasts in my office just because it was an easy way to communicate with people. And now I’m doing it sort of externally for my own business. Everything can be translated as long as there’s a need at the other end. And if you think there’s a need more often than not there is, but you need to get out there and ask people, I’ve got this idea. Do you think this is gonna be a good thing? And if it is, go for it, go for it, and we will support you overweight. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Join Up Dots. It was great to be back in the saddle of the microphone. haven’t done this for quite a few weeks. And you’re gonna hear from me again soon. See you later. Cheers. Bye, bye.
Unknown Speaker [53:55]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self. You were wondering To become so he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to Join Up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.
