Welcome to another episode of the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast. And today we're talking to Ian McSweeney, who is a 47-year-old chartered accountant and finance director of a hotel management company in Dublin, Ireland. He's married with two kids, age five and six. And incredibly, he lost 28 pounds in just 90 days of being alcohol free. If you're listening in the UK, that's two stone. If you're in Australia or elsewhere that uses kilograms, it's about 15 kilograms. That is a huge amount of weight. And he wasn't really, I mean, he didn't look that big to begin with. So simply, simply removing alcohol has led to him losing 28 pounds in 90 days. It almost doesn't sound real. In this conversation, we're going to be talking about how he increased his productivity and decreased the time that he needed to increase that productivity and talks about the clarity that he received in these last 90 days, helping him to move towards semi-retirement. He talks about how his marriage to his wife changed over the last 90 days and his relationship with these kids, five and six. And his friends apparently tell him that he's smiling all the time as well. So he's going to tell you a little bit about how he lost the weight. What besides what little things he did as well to lose that weight. But the main thing was just not drinking alcohol. There's just a couple of little things and how he managed to eat chocolate. He still ate chocolate during the 90 days and still lost all this weight. It's pretty incredible. You'll hear us talk a little bit about the Positive Shift Journal. Now, the Positive Shift Journal is a journal that I created with my partner, Juliana. You can check it out at positiveshiftjournal.com. And there is a link in the show notes as well. I have my clients inside of the Quit Drinking Program, Project 90, write down what we call the Daily 20, which is 20 things that you're grateful for each and every day. And then I produce that into a book or a journal. I should say called Positive Shift Journal. And you'll hear Ian talk about how impactful that was during his 90 days inside of the Project 90 experience. Ian's a very interesting guy. I used to live in my home country of Australia. He used to manage bars and restaurants around alcohol. And you'll hear him talk about how he has tried to reduce or quit alcohol for the past 21 years, I think it is, and how he's managed to finally break the curse, so to speak. And now he's alcohol-free and moving forward with his life, not to mention he's now conversing with his friends and joking about being alcohol-free. Whereas in the beginning, he felt some apprehension about that. A lot of my readers and clients feel that apprehension about what their lifelong friends are going to say if they quit drinking. So Ian will talk a little bit about that. Just a reminder, if you don't get my daily emails and you would like to, you can go to alcoholfreel lifestyle.com forward slash guide. There's a link in the show description section as well. And if you would like to be considered for Project 90, if you are ready to quit drinking for at least 90 days with a view to getting long-term power over alcohol, whether that means quitting forever or it means quitting for at least 90 days and then possibly doing some moderation or just drinking on occasion, then you are welcome to have an exploratory conversation with my coaching team. Ian, who you're just about to hear from, was in the same position as you listening to a podcast episode and decided to reach out, have a conversation. He joined us in Project 90 and now he is absolutely flying, loving life, smiling all the time. He says, if you'd like to do that, then you can go to alcoholfreel lifestyle.com forward slash schedule and you can book a call with one of my coaching team. There's also a link in the show notes. All right, let's get into it. How did Ian lose 28 pounds in 90 days and how did he increase his productivity by 25% and 33% less time? Let's find out. Here he is, Ian McSweeney. Ian, you didn't really lose 28 pounds, which is two stone in the UK or 15 kilograms in Australia and elsewhere in 90 days. Did you? I certainly did. He did and James, I did that without much effort, believe it or not. Now I did start going to the gym after week three or week four, but I'm still eating pizza with the kids and still when we got, like we all do when we get the sugar cravings after a couple of weeks, my solution to that was to eat chocolate. So it wasn't through huge means. It just fell off. 28 pounds is huge, though. I mean, what were you doing 28 pounds heavy and then what you are now in the first place? Yeah, like that's it. I'm not really that like I'm under 12 stone, which is about 75 kilos. So I didn't I didn't really, you know, I was carrying a little bit of extra weight. But yeah, it amazed me and it amazes everybody else that sees me as well. You know, it's their it's their first comment, particularly if I haven't seen them in a while. What did they say? They say, Jesus, you're after losing a whole lot of weight. And actually, it's a great segue because usually, you know, it's how did you do that? And that gives me an opportunity to go on the to get the handling first. I can just stop drinking. And then, of course, it's very hard for them to criticise me for not drinking, considering that they've just complimented me in the first place. And what else has that done for your health?  I'd you I'd be fairly tired after a day's work, whereas now, you know, I spring home and I'm ready to play with the kids for a couple of hours or do, you know, whatever, whatever, do whatever. And cycling, I do a little bit of cycling, not not anything too too intense, but I like cycling sort of uphill. And it's that's pretty noticeable. Like when I get up, I get up to the peak, whereas I used to be, you know, out of breath and have to stop and try to drink water and get myself back together again before going going down the hill. Now it's pretty much a case of getting up, turning around and bump back down the hill again, feeling good, you know, it's just noticeable from the moment I get up to the moment I go to battery. So just to be clear, the only real, I guess the most significant thing you did in these past 90 days that has created these results is simply stopped drinking alcohol. Is that is that correct?  Is that it? Pretty much the only thing that I consciously did was stop drinking on day one and then everything else just came in behind. Like, let's put it this way, because I'm not drinking, it means that I'm not having as many curries at midnight or, you know, I'm not having fish and chips on the walk home from the pub. But that just happens organically, if you want.  I was on the only crusade that I was on was to was to stop drinking. And then everything else just happened as it does. Yeah, that's what that's what always happens, isn't it? Because your only intention was stop drinking alcohol. And what happened was a cascade of healthy habits came into your life or the removal of many other bad habits took place. You just said it, right? Like that, like because you weren't drinking, you weren't walking home from the pub late at night, going in and getting a curry. You weren't ordering fish and chips. So because you were alcohol free, it just removed the temptation of curries and fish and chips. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, all of those nasties that go with alcohol disappear. And most people, most people who drink are hard workers. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that, you know, hard workers in their job or anything, but like drinking is hard work because you're putting in a lot of time drinking. And then you have to deal with a hangover the next day and hold down a job or hold down a family. Like that's all difficult. So when you stop drinking, you've got more time on your hands and you're used to always struggling at something. So now you're feeling good, you're not struggling. You have all this time in your hands and you're used to being busy or you're used to doing something. So it's just natural that positive things will come into replace and to fill that time and to close up the hole that's been left behind. And after drinking. Tell me a little bit about your profession.  You're married with two kids. But tell me a little bit about your profession and what was going on with your profession during your drinking days and what you noticed shifted being alcohol free. Yeah, OK, well, I'm just going to take you back to my twenties. When I left college, I was I was a barman during college that sort of paid my paid my way to college. And then I went over to Australia to Sydney for the one year as a lot of us do after college and ended up managing an Irish bar over there for a few years. Then came back to Ireland and just stayed in the bar management restaurants, management, hotel management field. So, you know, there was always a bit of an exposure to alcohol there. And I had an accident where I broke my leg and couldn't couldn't sort of pivot and swing around in bars. So I went back and retrained as a chartered accountant. So that was in my thirties and then got a job in a hotel management company as an accountant. And my past helped me out there because I had sort of operational experience and finance experience. So I sort of climbed the ladder quite well there and got to a situation where I was guiding a team of other accounts and some out inspecting hotels around the country with the other directors of the company, which, you know, was fine. I'm blessed that I have some really, really good people on my team. Probably a lot stronger technically than I am in accountancy and reporting and all that type of thing. But the whole exposure to alcohol and the, you know, going to a hotel, inspecting it, meeting the team, staying in the hotel that night, that always ended up in the restaurant.  Which was fine. Like I was able to drink the wine at night time and maybe have a glass or two. Then when I went back up to the room as well and wake up the next day, groggy, but still able to do the job. I was able to get through the day without any criticism.  But since stopping drinking every hour, every half hour, every minute that I spend in work is just far more productive because I'm just seeing things clearer. Like something that I might have sat down and done for three hours like a proposal or a spreadsheet or an analysis. I now know that I can see straight away that somebody in the team that can do that in two hours or one hour. So they'll do that and I'll do something. I'll do something else that might be as, you know, you might see the tangible results at the end of it, but it might be more strategic. Whether that's, you know, outmeeting a client or potential clients or developing a relationship here. It's funny about talent there. So apologies if anybody in my organization hears this. Don't misinterpret it when I say that I'm not working as hard, but getting much better results. And then that that goes back to freeing of clients to doing things that, you know, I want to do outside of work. When you're producing more in less time, you don't have to feel guilty about spending the extra couple of hours with family or on the bike or going to the gym or following a recipe, cooking a meal, just doing all those life things that are enjoyable that we should be doing. Yeah, amazing. How much more do you feel you are producing? In less time? Way more, way more. Can you quantify it at all? Is it like 20% more, 50% more double? Is it 40? What's your best educated guess? I would say in the if you take the week as the 40 hour week. Yes, I'm working a 40 hour week and I'm spitting out a lot more. It's been now probably best guess 25% more in the 40 hour week. I would have been producing in a 60 hour. Got it. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. So you've increased productivity 25% and you've decreased your hours by 33%. Yeah, pretty much 60 hours and you've gone back to 40. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 55, 60 hours back to 40 easily. Amazing. OK, great. So so increased productivity by 25% reduced your time. 33%, let's say, roughly. Yeah. Wow. Now, what do you think could be the long term ramifications or benefits from that? If you now do that consistently over the next 12 months, how do we then quantify that? If that keeps going and I'm sort of I'm laughing when I think about the future and actually that's another that's another great benefit. When I'm thinking about the future, it's a lot rosier and when I'm doing it with that with a clear head. But technically, I could in my forties and look at the situation where I'm in semi-retirement and that could well happen to two of my board directors. They're approaching 60 and I know five or six years ago, they said that when they hit the 60s, they'd want to go out on the golf course. So it could potentially be a situation where the company scales down or, you know, something shifts. But I'm comfortable now that with the way I'm working that I could scale down with it, still be able to provide financially, still be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle that I have by being in semi-retirement, which is absolutely incredible. And even though that potential probably was there six months ago or a year ago, I wouldn't have seen it. I couldn't have realized it. And in fact, the whole thought about having to scale down might have scared me a little bit because I couldn't see the wood from the trees. But now that said, if that did happen and if it did scale down, that time would be replaced with other things. Like I'm quite commercially minded. So I do a little bit of work for a charter to Countess Ireland. And I might do a bit more of that. I joined a charity board, so I'd love to get more involved in that to help kids, still kids over in the third world. So it's just it's just great knowing that there's options, optionality, I think it probably sums it up in one word. So you're pondering semi-retirement by producing 25 percent more and 33 percent less time. I love it.  And and you're 28 pounds lighter than when you started with this 90 something days ago. Yeah, it almost does. It almost seems unbelievable, doesn't it? It almost seems like it's an exaggeration. Like we're putting mayonnaise on this story. It does. It honestly does. And in such a small period of time, like in 90 days. The transformation is incredible. And there's proof there that that there isn't mayonnaise on it. I started doing the Marco Polo's from day one and I went back and had a look at myself. Just for the listener. Sorry, sorry to interrupt you. Just to be clear for the when when Ian is talking about doing a Marco Polo in Project 90, which is the experience and program that Ian just completed, we have our clients do little video selfies and share it in this little app that's named Marco Polo. And that way people can, you know, visually see other clients and creates a great community and people hold one another accountable. So when Ian's referring to recording of Marco Polo, what he's referring to is he recorded a little video selfie on day one or day two and then on day 27 and day 90. And it seems like he's just about to share with us how he's tracking his progress. So continuing and just wanted to give that context for our listener who maybe didn't understand what you meant by Marco Polo. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so you can you can scroll you can scroll back. So every every video message is referred to as a polo. So you can scroll back to and I think you can scroll back indefinitely. But anyway, I can go back 90 days and just looking at myself saying, hi, I'm Ian and I've just joined P90 and looking forward to meet you all on the calls. I just look like a different person. And it's just it's there and I go, Jesus, that was me. Oh, my God, I'm not I'm not joking. I look at least five years younger and that's I'm allowed to say that so many people have said it to me. So I'm not being in any way modest. But I do I look five years younger. The my face was bloated, which I didn't actually realise at the time. And that's gone. And even even just my like I was I was more red in in the face. You could see that you could just see that my body was sort of struggling a little bit. And so it's so it's it's complete shift and the proof is there. You know, yeah, that's why we're talking about Polo's James. That's that's and I'm sure you've heard it before. But that is such a great to and such such a resource. Like that's the for me, that was the glue that just held everything together. And any any time that's any time that I was, you know, feeling in any way challenged, particularly at the start, where I needed a bit of support and was in between calls. It's great. Just open up the Polo's and all the all these people that I consider to be my friends now, and these are the other clients on the program. And they're just giving their one to three minute little snippet of where they are, what they're doing, how they're feeling. And, you know, it's not it's not always rosy. Sometimes it is rosy.  And you get something from every little Polo, whether it's advice from somebody who's a little bit ahead in the program or an opportunity to give advice to somebody who's joined after you. And it just builds up such such a wonderful support of community. It really, really is a great tool, really is. Yeah, I've always said that transformations do not happen in isolation. And so that tool that we're just referencing now is a is a is something that I brought into the group about 18 months ago to really foster an engaged community. Because if you're listening to me right now, and maybe you can attest to this, Ian, you try to do something by yourself without accountability, without community. It's very challenging. It's incredibly challenging and the success rate is very, very low.  Those five pillars together equals transformation. Now, in Ian's case, transformation is 28 pounds lighter, more productivity and less time heading for semi-retirement. When when he started the process, that wasn't even in his thinking.  But that community, those little video selfies, being on group calls, it's just so powerful. People always saying to me, oh, I want to hire you one on one, James, can you can you coach me one on one on how to quit drinking? I don't do groups, I'm scared of being in a crowd or I'd rather do it one on one. And I charge $50,000 to do one on one coaching. And I discourage those who are willing to pay me $50,000 from doing the one on one coaching, because in my personal opinion and experience and certainly what neuroscience proves, group coaching is so much more effective being in a community is so much more effective than any one on one mentoring that I could give you. Now, that's not probably just cost myself a $50,000 client. But but maybe you can speak to that, Ian. I mean, how important for you was the community aspect of it? Maybe like when you may have tried previously to reduce or quit alcohol. So so important, James, on on on two counts. Like I first time I realised that I should address the amount of alcohol that I was consuming was just before my 26th birthday. So I tried and failed to do it myself for 21 years. The reason why I'm sure you're worth every cent of the $50,000, but it would leave a gap because you're not going to be available 24 hours a day. Well, sorry, maybe you are, but you're not going to be interacting with your client 24 hours a day whereas when when there's a community, there is 24 hour support based, you know, sending sending a text, sending a text to somebody in the community, jumping on to see what the most recent polos were, referring back to something that somebody said on a previous polo and knowing that you're accountable, not just one person, but to a whole community and, you know, they're your friends and you're supporting them and they're supporting you. So that's the first thing. The second thing that I would say is that the type of community is very important and it might be possible that the reason why somebody is reluctant to be part of the community and prefer the one on one is that they try to do it in a community that wasn't with like minded people. And again, that's that's one thing about this program that was such such a trace to realise was that the people in the community were were very similar to me in the sense that, you know, like we weren't digging ourselves completely out of the gutter and we hadn't found ourselves homeless or anything like that. And, you know, we were we all had jobs and we were all self-sufficient and and underneath everything, we all had a positive we all had we all brought a bit of positivity to the community. So it was a community of like minded people and we all supported each other and like that that's essential as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, and the demographic you could relate to, right?  Well, let me just ask you, what was what was the demographics of other clients that you engage with that made it so relatable? Yeah, I think the ages range from mid 30s. And one of the guys in his mid 30s, right up to we didn't ask everyone their age, but I'm sure late 60s. Everybody was a professional at a career. Most people were family people. There was a there was a lot of people, not necessarily my age, but a lot of people with young kids. I want to say young kids, I mean, under the age 10 and very similar to myself. It was quite clear that the fact that they had the young kids was motivating them in this direction. We want to be there more available for for our kids. And I think that we all realize that getting up early in the morning to have a tea party is a lot more fulfilling and rewarding waking up in the morning and trying to deal with a hangover. Yeah, geographically, it was it was amazing. It could be on a call with six people from East, the East side of America, the West Coast of America, the East side of Australia, the West side of Australia. UK, Canada. If you were on the call, you could be anywhere in the world. And it was it was great to have like-minded people from all over the globe. Like it it it truly was an international network of like-minded people. Tell us a little bit about your home life, Ian. Tell us a bit about your wife and about your your kids and what shifted for you from going alcohol free at home? Yeah, so we live in we have a townhouse in Dublin and I live here with my wife and my kids and my mother and my father passed away two years ago. So my mother lives with us in in the basement of the house. So I'll just clarify that because that drums up images of a dark dump sort of basement where it's thinking of that terrible thing in the in that Quentin Tarantino movie, Paul, bring out the gimp. Yeah, no, no, no, no. So to refer to your mother as a as a gimp, but yeah. Anyway, you didn't barricade her in the basement. You know, we barricade her in the basement. We turn on the lights for an error day. She's good. No, the house is sort of divided into two so that there is a self-contained two bedroom unit is on the ground. So she lives down there. My brother is a social worker. So and he potters around the country and he could be here three or four days a week as well. And he doesn't drink at all. My wife on if my wife was going out on a binge, that would be two glasses of wine over the entire night. Like that's now that's excessive drinking or for grace for my wife. So she's she's not she's not accustomed to the type of drinking that I was doing. And I just put it into perspective like it wasn't falling in the door every night furniture and all that type of thing. But like two bottles of wine, which would be sort of normal to me was an obscene amount. And Grace just didn't like that. Even even if I was able to handle it, she just didn't like the thought of it. And she could probably see how it was affecting me physically and how it was pulling me back and slowing me down or so. Then I like it. So she just didn't like it. And I know she's she's much happier in the environment. Now that I'm not doing that. I am a lot happier to interact when my brother comes over now and I hear him downstairs. You know, I give him a call and I'll go down and have a coffee with him.   So the relationship there is a lot stronger and as a result, I'm also spending more time with my mother.  So the three of us can hang out for an hour or two. And the kids this and this is really important. And I feel like I dodged a bullet here. On a Saturday, I'd bring out the kids whether I felt like it or not. I'd take them out and at lunchtime we could often go to, you know, the gastropub up the road and they'd have their chicken wings or their pizza and I'd have a beer, a second beer and, you know, beginning to feel better. And we could stay there for, you know, a few hours. Now, they enjoyed us. They they they enjoyed being with their dad. I suppose it was just about beginning to to click with them, particularly the six year old that OK, does this thing beer that my dad likes? Is this thing wine that my dad likes? And, you know, she was beginning to sort of be at the stage going, Daddy, you drink a lot of beer. Why do you like wine so much? So if I hadn't of taken action now to put that behind me, it would be getting to the stage where the kids would be growing up thinking, ah, this is normal. OK, this is what grownups do. And I'm glad that all to do. I think I think I halted at just in time, like five and six year olds forget, which is great. So, yeah, I think I think I think I hate to be said, but just to find that I far more enjoyed bringing the kids up to the park, particularly when the sun is shining, bringing the kids up to the park, getting the lunch out of Fresco, hopping on a bus, then going out to the seaside, giving them an ice cream, telling them not to tell their mom and, you know, coming back then and go to the shops and get something for dinner and cook dinner. And they hang out with me in the kitchen. And I'm enjoying it way more there and they're enjoying it there.  We're engaging more. But, you know, it's just much better. Like I said, I heard one of my kids up this morning and about quarter past six and I went down. And I can't remember what we were talking about. It was oh, yeah, it was about whether whether there should be chicken on a pizza or not, you know, I'm like, I got deep. Deep conversations. Yeah, yeah, that I was telling her, you know, sometimes sometimes you get pineapple on your pizza. She looked at me and go, no, no, no, no. But it is all this fascinating stuff. You mentioned before we hit record on this as well that people are noticing or maybe you're noticing that you're smiling a lot more these days. So I always talk about the four pillars, health, wealth, love and happiness. So we've talked about your health and talked about wealth. Talked about love with your family and then just overall happiness. So how is your happiness shifted in these 90 days? And what's the proof of that? The happiness has just shifted. When I'm talking to people, I'm sort of talking laugh and smiling and you can probably see it here, James, on Zoom. Like, you know, I'm not forcing any of these smiles. I'm just in a much happier disposition. And how that I suppose the proof of that is when I'm out with my work colleagues and I'm having I'm having dinner and they're drinking their wine and they're laughing and chatting as you do when you're drinking wine. I'm laughing and chatting and smiling and giggling along with them. And I'm not I'm not putting it on. It's it's absolutely natural. And I mentioned before, like I'm a bit of a dreamer, a bit of a future thinker. And when I'm thinking about the future, it's just everything's just rosier. It's it's brighter. I suppose to sum it up when when I am thinking about what the present are the future. It's not what I have to do and thinking about what I want to do. And that in itself is just a very positive shift. Yeah, positive shift. That reminds me of my gratitude journal that I launched, positive shift journal. I should do a little plug here for it because you actually just said the words. And that's because I just ordered it. Oh, you did. You did. You bought one of my shift positive shift journal. I ordered two of them. Thank you, Ian, one for me, one for me and one for Grace, my wife to fill out with the kids every day. So hey, might as well start them, you know, I love it. I love it. Do you want to just tell our listener a little bit about what what that is and what I had you do during Project 90 in terms of the daily 20 and gratitude and things like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the one of the guiding practices on P 90 is to start off your day with the top 20, which is just a list of the 20 things that one is grateful for. And to be honest, they were like a lot of a lot of times it repeated for me. You know, it could be grateful for the same thing on the second day as the first day and there's there's no rules against that. But just getting it down on paper and rereading it kicks off the day on a positive note. And the more you do that and it happens very quickly, James, like after after about a week, you do actually find that you're walking around during the day spotting things that you're grateful for or remembering things that you're grateful for and saying, oh, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, I'm going to remember that. I'll put that on the list tomorrow and there's another one on there.  And you see that there is so much out there in life staring in the face that we take that we take for granted that we shouldn't take for granted, that we should take a step back and go, yeah, well, yeah, that's cool that I have that. Or yeah, it's great that I'm feeling that. Or it's great that I did that. So the Gratitude 20 Journal is a more structured form, I guess. I haven't I haven't received it yet, but from from what I can see, it's it's a more structured form of keeping a record on that. And from the from the promo videos, it looks like it's really well laid out. And it looks like there's a couple of tips in there for enhancing that benefit that you get from from keeping a list and from keeping a journal like that. Yeah, I got to say, James, ever ever since I ordered this, and there's there's been there's been great interaction as well from from you guys with little tips and getting nice emails and a nice little bit of engagement that I that I am personal engagement from you guys that I wasn't expecting. So that's cool. Yeah, that's really nice. I got I really got to tell the so let me start again. I've really got to persuade the listener to believe that this is not an advertorial for anything because a lot of this stuff we've been talking about here just seems too unbelievable, doesn't it? But yeah, yeah, there's a I confirm that I'm not receiving any gratitude real for this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a link in the in the show notes in this episode description there to the positive shift journal, if you want to check that out. And there's also a link there to Project 90. And if you're not yet on my email lists and you would like to be and you'd like to get my words of wisdom, there's also a link there where you can get my alcohol freedom formula guide and they're in the show notes. Any final words in before before we go was there even though I mean, this is sounded like almost too good to be true, but it is all true. Maybe we should we should balance it out a little bit. And what was challenging or what what what didn't work out for you? Or what is what is there? Where is there still work to be done? Just so this doesn't seem like a one big kind of love fest about, you know, the program and and all of that. Well, like there is there is work to be done. And that's what it this way, you know, I identified that alcohol was holding me back from my true potential 21 years ago. And hey, I was really grazed. I said, I must have done it probably 100 times in the 21 years. So there's a lot of potential that hasn't been realized. So I, you know, and 90 days is only about one and a half percent of 21 years. So you can expect to get everything back in the 90 days. And certainly plant the seeds until you see the the green shoots coming up. Maybe maybe a little bit more. But the next 90 days, hopefully I'll reclaim some of that some of the 21 years and the 90 days after that and the 90 days after that. But the ultimate goal is to get back to to my true potential. So it's it's it's a journey that the journey has started off well. Now, it wasn't all it wasn't all roses and rainbows from day one. Like there was a couple of them. There was a couple of challenges, particularly at the start. The first couple of weeks was an emotional roller coaster.  I'm not supposed to have emotions. But Jesus, again, on week three, I could be starting a conversation in Great Spirits on five minutes later, just be being depressed for no reason. So, yeah, that that had to be dealt with. There was also challenges like meeting meeting the friends that, you know, my drinking buddies for decades and meeting them the first couple of times, you know, wondering, am I going to be able to stay out for the night? Do I want to stay out for the whole night? Yeah, so meeting the friends for the first time when I wasn't drinking was going to be challenging and the hotels opened after lockdown after the pandemic lockdown. There was celebrations all around. So that happened pretty much at, you know, the front end of 90 days. So there was a little bit of a challenge there. And the sugar cravings as well, Jesus, they were intense. And I tried I tried to fight them off. But hey, you got to pick your battles. You know, you can't you can't do everything all at once. So I threw that to the rim. And I was a lot more relaxed when the floor was full of chocolate.  But all of these challenges, they they get easier and easier. And if I can throw out just a small piece of advice, something that worked for me along the way is if you plot ahead, if you can see the challenges.  Identify, right? This is going to be a hurdle. Decide what you're going to say to them, say it with confidence. And then the next day when you when you wake up the next day, you're going to feel great because you're not home over because you got over that hurdle. But bring it one step further, go out and go for a cup of coffee and have this slice of chocolate cake or go and have a nice lunch for yourself. Reward yourself because it'll make getting over the next hurdle easier. And it also helps to rewire those neural pathways. So don't be afraid to reward yourself. Ian McSweeney, congratulations. Thank you for sharing your experience with our listeners and onwards and upwards from here. Yes. It was an absolute pleasure, James. And thank you so much for this program was great. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.  If you look in the show description, there's a link there to get my guide, which is the Alcohol Freedom Formula Guide. And in that guide, I will walk you through the process and system for successfully reducing or quitting alcohol. It's the same system and process that I give to my clients inside of Project 90. And if you would like to get your hands on that guide, you can click the link in the description part of this episode, or you can go to alcoholfreelifestyle.com forward slash guide. Likewise, if you would like to be considered for Project 90 to join our community and get some accountability, coaching and have fun, achieve some goals over at least 90 days with our help and support, then you're invited to schedule a complimentary coaching call with one of my coaches. You can do that by clicking the link in the show description or going to alcoholfreelifestyle.com forward slash schedule. Now, Project 90 is for over 30s only, and it's really for people who are ready to get long term power over alcohol. You don't have to quit forever, but you will have to quit for at least 90 days with our support. Just a reminder, 95 percent of my content is free and plastered all over the internet. If you just Google James Swannick and the word alcohol, you'll find that for those of you who want additional support. If you want coaching, fun, accountability, if you realize that you can't do this on your own or you just plain don't want to, then I invite you to schedule that call and we can talk about if Project 90 is for you. If you would like to take some of my supplements, swannvitality.com is the website. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. I have a liver support product called Loving Liver, which I designed and specially formulated to help remove toxins from your liver after years of alcohol consumption. Again, there's a link in the show description. We've also got a green powder there, which turns into a green juice filled with amazing ingredients to support you and give you energy throughout the day. And there's also a magnesium product which I take every night to help me prepare for sleep and to sleep through the night. So there's a few options there. Lastly, if this episode or the show in general has helped you or supported you in any way, I would so appreciate it if you would write a review. It really does help the show climb the rankings and expose the show to people who don't yet know about us. So this show has benefited you in any way and you feel compelled to pay it forward. Just writing a short little review, hopefully a nice one will be so appreciated. And I will thank you immensely. Lastly, if you'd like to talk to me about anything at all, feel free to send me an email at James at alcoholfreelifestyle.com. I do read and respond to every email. And you can also follow me on Instagram at James Swannock, send me a message there. And I look forward to connecting with you soon. Catch you on the next one.


What's up guys, welcome to today's vlog. So on the vlog today, what we're gonna be focusing on is this medium length shagged style haircut, but also it has a cool curtain bang so it really opens up the face and we create a nice little face frame as well. So I think that this is gonna be a cool haircut that you can use in the salon right away. The inspiration for today's haircut came from this photo. Came from this photo right here. As you can see, there's a curtain bang kind of flowing down into a little bit of a face frame and then it's just a really blunt edge on the cut but then it has a lot of movement. So what I wanted to do is show you guys how to create that blunt edge but then also have movement throughout the layers. So we break it up into a couple parts. It's a very simple technique to create this look. So you guys know me by now and you know that I love new technology. So this iron is pretty awesome in the fact that it has this quick release lock mechanism but then it locks into place. So you can literally set this iron wherever you want it that makes you the most comfortable while you're working. There's a couple of things that I really like about it and I'll talk about it in the video but the fact that I didn't have to raise my elbow up like this to work the hair around the iron, I could just drop my elbow down and wrap the hair just like that. Keeps me way more comfortable. Keeps me from having to lift my arm up to stay uncomfortable and also wear out your shoulders and all of that. So pretty cool tool. So just like all the neuro tools that Paul Mitchell makes this thing heats up super fast, up to 450 degrees in just seconds. It's also a patent pending design so you're not going to be able to get this anywhere else. And it has an extra long barrel made of isotherm titanium and it has a two year warranty. So pretty awesome tool. Check the link below in the description if you want to see it, buy it, whatever. You can check it out on PaulMitchell.com. We're going to get started with the video. Make sure that you hit the subscribe button if you haven't done that already so you get all the alerts on any videos coming up and at any point, if you like what you're seeing in this video, make sure you hit the like button below. Thanks so much. Here we go. All right guys, so we're going to start off today's technique. I'm going to prep it using the PaulMitchell Invisible Wear Volume Whip. Thing I like about this product it's got a really natural hold but it's a great cutting lotion in a way as well and I know a lot of people talk about cutting lotions. I think it's really any product that's going to benefit your guest's hair because any product is going to give you a slight bit more control when parting the hair and sectioning. So our sections are going to be simple. It's basically a center part and then it goes straight down center back and then we do the division point which is high point of the head down to behind the ear. So basically the four quadrants that you learn in beauty school or how we're going to section off this cut. We're going to do a very basic one length cut pretty much that's going to start off. What that's going to do is give us that harsh line. Then we're going to go in and blow dry it and do some dry cutting to create the layering. So pretty easy haircut, pretty standard haircut. We're going to start off. I'm using the YS Park 334 comb. It's a little bit of a wider comb but it still has nice tight teeth so it's great for precision cutting. My scissor choice for this cut is my DB 20 5.7 inch Mizetani scissor. Thing I love about the DB 20 is it has a ball bearing screw so it's got a really nice opening close to it. It stays consistent all the time. And then also it's nanopowder metal steel which is a softer metal and it basically is a more consistent metal. Not necessarily softer because people get freaked out by the word softer. It's more consistent so you get a better grip on the hair when you go to cut it. Basically the way that I was described is it's the same technology as making a Blu-ray disc. So think about that when you got a laser going over it. If the metal isn't, or if the particles aren't consistent in that you're gonna get all the skipping and all of that. So if you think about a scissor you want all the particles to be the same. So nanopowder metal is just basically saying it uses really small particles that are identical to help make up the scissor metal so you get a nice crisp cut. A lot of people like a buttery feel to their haircuts but that honestly the buttery feel is the hair pushing a little bit so I like to have that grip on the hair when I'm cutting. So to talk about the haircut basically what we're doing is I'm using comb tension to hold the hair down and cut it at where it lives. For the most part in the back I just took small sections, worked my way up horizontally and cut across. I'm doing the same thing on the sides. What this is gonna do is give me that blunt edge that I talked about in the very beginning. I love that blunt feel of this haircut and then I love the layers that fall on top of it. So what we're doing like I said we're gonna go through cut this blunt edge first wet because we're gonna get our hardest lines cutting the hair wet because it bulks the hair together, pushes the hair together and then you get much crisper lines than when you do it with dry hair. Now I'm gonna go in, I'm using the Palmatian Neuro Blow-Dryer and my Ergo Diamond Head Brush. This is a mini paddle brush. It's one of my favorite brushes out there. If you're like me and you love using a paddle brush this is such a great brush for medium to short length hair because you get the same effect as a paddle brush but it's just easier because it's a smaller brush going in. Now I'm using the Palmatian Neuro Flat Iron just to iron the hair out. I know that at the end of this we're gonna have a more wavy appearance to the look but I wanna smooth the hair out for the cut. So I go through, I smooth it out. You can see the blunt edge on the haircut and now I part it in the center. I take diagonal forward partings.  So I've done a video on this in the past but the thing that I love most about this technique is that you get those jagged edges and it's not a harsh line. So when you're looking for a more soft, razor kind of effect using a scissor this is such a great technique for that. So about a one inch movement back and forth using the tease cutting technique and now here's the trick. I go in, I take vertical, I move into vertical partings once I get to the side of the head but then I take from the bridal ridge over and I disconnect the top from the bottom. So the disconnection that happens on the bottom the reason I like to do that where I cut it right there, the reason I like to do that is because that keeps my blunt thick edge on the bottom but then layers everything from bridal ridge up. So you get that movement in the haircut but you keep your blunt edge on the bottom which is to me the kind of secret behind this haircut. Also I'm over directing everything forward above the head and what that's doing is it's layering but it's also pushing the weight towards the back of the head so she still has that longer hair. A lot of people with this length of hair like to go in with a wand iron and curl their hair around it.  So the thing I liked about this cut and what kind of inspired me to do it was the fact that it had that nice wave throughout the cut, had a lot of texture to it. So that's what we're going for. I wanna keep that length in the back so that she can get an iron around it. So again, take the vertical parting and then cut it right around the bridal ridge and that will separate the top and the bottom. This comb that I'm using here, this is the YS Park 337 I believe. Thing I like about that is wide tooth. So I use a wide tooth comb when I go in dry cutting and I use a more fine tooth comb when I go in with the precision cutting. So here is the neural angle. Again, it's patent pending so the technology is Paul Mitchell's. It's got an extra long barrel which is great for working the hair. If you think about those really tight curls that you get with a wand sometimes it's because you can't stretch the hair out when working with it. It also heats up to 450 degrees. I never recommend that. We're gonna take it up to about 375 to keep the hair nice and healthy and also it's got that isotherm titanium which helps speed up the heat but the great thing about this iron and irons that are made of this titanium and have this kind of technology is that it stays consistent throughout the barrel. It doesn't keep getting hotter and fry the hair. So we're also using the NeuroStyle Protect. This came in the box so I had a little mini version of it. So I wanted to use it on the hair. I love this because you spray it on the hair it's a thermal protectant. I love the application of a dry thermal protectant when it goes on the hair dry because obviously I feel like it's doing more work that way as opposed to just putting it in wet hair. So you can kind of double it up put a little heat seal on it on its wet and then keep protecting it through the dry and it has a nice little hold to it as well. This is where I wanna show you guys as I'm going through here you see I have it cocked at basically a 90 let's say it's a 90 degree angle. The cool thing about this is my elbow you can see it's just resting so I'm not shoving my arm up in the air when I'm trying to work on the one side of the head. It's also great for people that do their hair at home to style their hair at home and they wanna use an iron so this is a great cell for your guests as well when you're working in the salon. I'm finishing up with the invisible wear orbit hairspray it's got a nice dry finish to it natural holds not real firm still kind of tends it goes well with this textured look that we have here. So this is the end result, pretty similar hope you guys like it let me know in the comments below what you think. Thanks so much for watching this video guys. All right guys like always if you liked the video then make sure you hit the like button subscribe to this channel and then after you've done all of that post in the comments below let me know if you would like to win this iron right here I'm gonna give it away I don't need all these irons so might as well give it to one of you guys so post in the comments below why you want the iron and make sure you share this video in your favorite hairdresser forum so you can help me spread the word of free salon education I always love your guys' support and I really appreciate it thank you guys so much for watching the video I'll see you guys on the next one. Oh and remember if you want to get any of the tools that you saw in this video the scissors, the combs, the clips, the brushes all that stuff is available on freesaloneducation.com we have awesome deals going on so go check it out if you're looking to upgrade your tools, thanks so much.