Building on Your Wins: Kristine Laping | OYNB 101

One Year No Beer Podcast Episode 101 – Building on Your Wins with Kristine Laping 

Today’s episode of the One Year No Beer podcast is hosted by a guest host, Chris Laping. Chris is sitting in for Ruari and Jen Fairburns as they take some time to mourn the recent loss of Ruari’s father. In this episode, you’ll hear Chris interview his wife, Kristine Laping, about her One Year No Beer journey. 

Chris and Kristine begin the discussion by talking about the reasons why Kristine decided to make a change in her relationship with alcohol. As Kristine explains, an outside observer may have questioned why she wanted to make that kind of change in her lifestyle in the first place. She was doing well outwardly – she’d achieved professional success, was in a stable relationship, and was a loving parent. She was active and maintained a healthy diet. Although drinking was an everyday occurrence for Kristine, she also maintained boundaries, like not drinking before dinner time. But Kristine also had some health issues – that disappeared after she stopped drinking – and was starting to experience severe hangovers, even when she didn’t drink very much. And she became concerned with her own preoccupation with drinking.

“All of that to say, I really took that life experience and now that I'm alcohol-free, I am able to just look at life a lot differently.”

Kristine first gave up drinking for a few weeks at the suggestion of an acupuncturist, who she was seeing for a health issue. However, that attempt to stop drinking entirely. It was Chris who first discovered One Year No Beer, and when he decided to give the 28-day challenge a try, Kristine decided that she would do the same. After completing the 28-day challenge, they decided to go back to drinking in moderation, but it soon became clear to Kristine that moderation just wasn’t working for her. So, she decided to go back to One Year No Beer for a longer challenge.

From that point, Kristine became more involved and invested in the One Year No Beer community, and started to really notice the benefits of abstaining from alcohol entirely. Listen in to hear more about how Kristine’s journey progressed over the past two years, working with the Mastermind program, and what she has to say to members who are new to the alcohol-free challenge.

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Episode Transcript

Science, exercise, nutrition, health, energy, passion, One Year No Beer. This is the One Year No Beer podcast where you'll find all the latest tips, tricks, and hacks for a way to live better. 

Chris: Welcome back to another epic episode of The One Year No Beer podcast. I am your guest host, Chris Laping, sitting in for the incomparable Jen and Ruari Fairbairns. I think most of you know, in the One Year No Beer community, that Rory lost his father in the last couple of weeks. And our hearts are with him and I'm humbled to sit in on his behalf. 

Let's jump into the podcast and let me start with most of you probably don't know my name. You don't know who Chris Laping is and that's totally fine. I feel like, however, that I know all of you, as I have been behind the scenes supporting the One Year No Bear team for the last couple of years. First as an investor, then as a board member, and now as your mastermind head coach. 

I have to say as I kick this thing off, I have stood in front of thousands of people doing speaking engagements, supporting my best selling book, People Before Things. With all of those stages that I have stood on and getting up in front of live audiences, what I have never done is I've never hosted a podcast. Today is the first day I'm going to do this, I'm going to try this. It felt natural and normal to have someone sitting in the home studio with me for this first podcast that I knew well. My guest on this week's episode is Kristine Laping. 

There's no coincidence in terms of the last name, Kristine is my wife and she has a wonderful story and journey to share from her experiences with One Year No Beer and I hope that you will experience what I have experienced, which is someone who has gone through a complete transformation in this alcohol free journey, and that you will stand in awe of the story, just as I have. 

So welcome, Kristine, thank you for letting me stick a microphone in front of your face. 

Kristine: Hello. 

Chris: All of that lead in and all I got was a well, hello. Let's jump in and start telling people your story, your alcohol free journey story. Here's where I think we should kick this thing off. What I'd love to do is just start the conversation with where are you today in this journey? How long have you been alcohol free and what’s let's say two or three words would you use to describe where you are at right here and now in terms of your alcohol free life?

Kristine: Wow, what an assignment. Next month, the month of October 2020 I will be two years consecutively alcohol free which is amazing, thank you. Two to three words that express where I am in this journey, I would say stable and confident.

Chris: If you went back two years ago to when you made a commitment to stop drinking. Would you have said at that point in time that you were stable and confident? 

Kristine: I'm not sure if I can swear, but I'm going to do it. Hell, no. It's a big hell no.

Chris: I think people looking at you two years ago would say here is someone who has really got her life and her stuff together. You were running a successful consulting business, and your career was a big career. You were a step mom to three kids who seemingly adore you. 

Kristine: I hope, yes. 

Chris: You manage a mean home. When friends or outsiders would look at you, I'm sure they would say hey, it feels like you have a confident, stable life, that things are great. Why take a break from alcohol?

Kristine: I think that's the crazy thing about alcohol and its position in everybody's life is there's a whole spectrum. The funny thing is, we've heard this so many times, when you say I don't drink anymore, or I don't want to drink, or I'm taking time off from alcohol right away people go to oh, I didn't know you had a problem. The reality is, again, there're many of us that fall in different places on the spectrum, if you will, and the reality is it's only us who can determine if we had a problem or not. 

I would say thank you for all those kind words and you're right from the outside I think I was meeting all of the metrics. I had gained professional success. I was in a loving relationship with you. I again was learning how to be a parent to three children and that step parent step child relationship, I took it very seriously. It was a good, good journey. I had all these things that were going right for me.

In the meantime, I always took my physical fitness really seriously. I worked out frequently. I ran half marathons, I ran relays through the Rocky Mountains. I took my nutrition seriously. I ate organic food. I was a vegetarian for many years, then a pescatarian. 

But the reality was, despite all of that, I drink most days, whether it be wine or whiskey, I stuck to the Ws. As I got older in particular, I would have a crazy hangover even if it were just one drink. If I had two or three drinks, it was really impacting me and that wasn't okay. Then on top of it, what I really realized as I got older is how much time I invested into when I was going to have my drink.

I always prided myself that I never drink before dinner time. I grew up in an environment where alcohol was part of my daily life. So as an adult, I had boundaries and those boundaries were I never drank before 5:00 and I stuck to that.

But the reality was, if we were eating out, I wanted to know are we eating out somewhere that sells wine, good wine? If I was coming home from work, I was wondering, do we have wine at home or is there a place to stop on my route home? All of those things were very unhealthy behaviors and then they were starting to manifest themselves more and more physically as I aged, because whether I want to admit it or not, I am a middle aged woman.

Chris: Well, you mentioned October as your two year anniversary coming up. Before that, I know this about your journey. You actually tried an alcohol free life and did a One Year No Beer challenge prior to that. Tell me a little bit about how you learned about One Year No Beer. What caused you to take the challenge, the 28 day challenge? And what did you learn during that time?

Kristine: I learned about One Year No Beer through you and it just so happened that you had seen a blog that Andy had written that was published on LinkedIn, the professional social media tool, and the concept of this blog was hey, elite athletes do not drink. So if you want to be elite in your professional life, why would you drink alcohol?

I remember you coming home and telling me that you saw this and you said I think I want to try this. They have this 28 day challenge. I think I want to try it. I was like I'll do it with you. The reality was, leading up to that point, I would say years leading up to that point, I had wanted to reduce the amount of alcohol I had in my life, but I was unsuccessful in doing it in my own attempt. 

Specifically around my 40th birthday, I had already set this goal for myself that I do not want to drink as frequently as I do. At that time, I was getting acupuncture treatment for an issue I was having, a health issue, which magically went away after I stopped drinking alcohol. But I was getting this acupuncture treatment for this health issue and the acupuncturist said you can't drink alcohol, why are we doing this or it's not going to be effective. So I thought hey, this is perfect. I'll give up alcohol now, and I did for two weeks, and then you, my lovely husband, threw this wonderful surprise 40th birthday party and flew people in from out of state.

I had friends, lifetime friends who came and wanted me to share the drink with them and I caved and I gave in. Fast forward, a few years after that, you had heard about One Year No Beer through this blog that Andy published and said you were going to do the 28 day challenge and so it was awesome because I felt like I could latch on to it with you and try to make a change. 

We did that 28 days in February of 2018 and it was just awesome. We did the daily challenges and the tactics that were delivered to us were perfect. They kept us on the narrow. They helped us get through those days, those early days when you know the wine which is wanting you to cave at five o'clock. 

You and I had recorded these videos and sent them back and forth to one another and we could see the instant actually benefit, like the way that we looked in the eyes. Our skin started to look better, all those natural benefits.

Chris: We were traveling at that time so there was this necessity to send these videos back and forth. It was just a way we were catching up with each other, and I think I could see it in your face. I could see this clarity and this almost weight lifted off of your shoulders. The stress was instantly lifted. I know that later on we looked back at those videos and we could see that, you see that clarity in our faces and in just the tone of our voices.

Kristine: Yes, and so we completed those 28 days and we got to the point of this conversation where we recognize the benefit and it was great. But just like so many other people, we said oh, but now we'll moderate, the M word, we'll moderate. For a while that was okay, it worked. We stuck to one drink on Fridays and one drink on Saturdays. Then slowly but surely that extended into Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then it turned into Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 

It was just clear that alcohol was doing what it's designed to do. At least for me, it became very obvious that moderation was not an option, that if I were to have one, I liked to have two. If I were to have one on Thursday, I liked to have one on Friday. 

After that experience, we went into the One Year No Beer challenge, but actually we didn't launch into that until one night when we had a couple whiskey drinks on a Friday night during this moderation period and I woke up on Saturday morning with a killer hangover. I just thought to myself, what am I doing? Then you and I went to go see the movie A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

Chris: Which was awesome. 

Kristine: Awesome. I watched that movie with that storyline with a hangover. I remember just looking at you at the end and saying hey, if you want to get drunk with me, tonight's the last night because I am done. I am done with alcohol, and there you have it. Now we're here.

Chris: I know that we went to dinner that night after the movie and when we were sitting there, you proclaim to me that you were going to go a year without alcohol and that to commemorate A Star Is Born, you are actually going to get a tattoo of a star on your wrist and you are going to put the date that marked that One Year No Beer date. 

Kristine: I did speak a big game. Yes, I did. 

Chris: I was probably more excited about the tattoo than I was jumping into the challenge. But I will point out we're getting up to the two year mark and you still do not have that coveted tattoo on your wrist.

Kristine: I know, really there's a part of me that I really want to do it. To be honest, giving up alcohol because of how embedded it was in my life, it seems like the right thing to do, but I'm just really chicken to do it. I don't have any other tattoos at this point. Who knows? Who knows? It may still happen.

Chris: Well, I will have to come back on this podcast in the future and give some updates about Kristine and her tattoos. You had this moment, this important moment where you go and you see A Star Is Born and you're actually sitting there with a hangover and you're recognizing how much these hangovers are getting in the way of your life. You physically didn't feel strong. 

My question for you, though, is when you were working and you were in the throes of your professional career, did you have other things happening at work related to drinking, side effects of it? Or was work just work and things were completely normal and what you were really experiencing was more of this personal impact of hangovers outside of work, this physical toll that it was taking on your body as you were getting older?

Kristine: Yeah, I think for years, again like I said, I focused on all the things that doctors talk to you about. Exercise regularly, eat healthy, get good sleep, drink a lot of water. I did all of that stuff and I spent extra money above and beyond on acupuncture, massage therapy. I spent years on all of this health and wellness stuff.

The reality was that despite the successes that I had in life, I constantly had sinus issues. I constantly had stomach issues. I constantly had anxiety issues which I was not able to identify until after I gave up drinking. I would have probably wrestled you to the ground if you would have told me I was an anxious person and I would have said, I am not an anxious person.

But all of those things were part of my daily life and came with drinking regularly that I just was not aware of. I think I answered your question.

Chris: You did, you did answer the question. Let's pick up in the story now. You are on this challenge for One Year No Beer. You'd already done the 28 day challenge. You're now in the midst of the one year challenge. Suddenly there's this opportunity thrusted upon you to actually invest in One Year No Beer, talk about a night and day difference. 

You go from a life that included alcohol to hey, I'm going to take a break from alcohol, to I'm going to invest in a business that helps people take a break from alcohol. What was going on at that time in terms of your whys? Why would you invest in One Year No Beer? Why would you start throttling up your participation and involvement with the organization when you are still just trying to get your footing on what you were going to do for yourself with an alcohol free life?

Kristine: First of all, I am a big believer that different things work for different people. When you think about changing your relationship with alcohol, there are different programs out there, everything from AA, which is kind of more of an extreme program, and checking yourself into a facility and doing a detox, to just self regulation and self challenges like dry January.

I think different people have different success with different programs. For me in particular, when I tried to do my own willpower to change my habit around alcohol usage in previous years, I just wasn't successful, again, despite my willpower and I would say my healthy habits and everything else in life. 

Then One Year No Beer came into my life and I had this great success and what I would say is, even though it was still challenging in the early days and I was still reforming my identity as someone who didn't want alcohol anymore and what that meant, I was evaluating it differently.

I was seeing alcohol for what it truly was and that was having a profound impact on me. When we were presented with the idea or option to invest in One Year No Beer, I thought I just want other people to have access to this program, and I want to support people like the One Year No Beer team who is putting themselves out there to offer something like this to people. I'm a big believer in volunteering and donating to good causes to begin with so we had this conversation and we thought you know what, let's do this and at the end of the day, even if we don't get our money back, I think this thing is going to change people's lives and I want to be part of that.

Chris: Totally. As part of that investment, there was this opportunity to jump on an airplane and go hang out in Reykjavik, Iceland with the One Year No Beer crew. There were One Year No Beer members that were there as well as Ru and Jen were there and it was the Spartan World Championship. 

We were going to have this opportunity to just go meet up with them. Talk a little bit about that trip and what did you learn on that trip? What kind of experiences did you have? When you left there, how did you feel about that investment in One Year No Beer?

Kristine: First of all, I would say that was a really interesting milestone in my personal journey, because as I said earlier, I had experienced all these kinds of ongoing health issues even though I on the surface was living this very healthy lifestyle. But the daily drinking, even if it wasn't like a bottle a night I was still drinking daily and I think that variable was having so much health impact on me. 

When we went to Iceland for the One Year No Beer meetup, if you will, I was about day 60 in the journey where I'm at now. Separate from the 28 day challenge earlier. I was about day 60 and at that time, I don't know if you recall, but I had just had to have a biopsy; I had a breast cancer scare. I was exhibiting these really, really weird feelings in my body where my doctor was testing me for rheumatoid arthritis. I just felt really uncomfortable in my skin, like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and I was sore, yet we were hopping on an airplane and going to Iceland to meet these people. 

It was just an amazing experience because it was a tribe of people who were trying to change their life for the better and putting themselves in this extreme condition of the Spartan race. For some of those people that we met, it was the first time we ever met them. They had never done anything like that in their life and I felt like I knew them forever, even though these were strangers to us, because we were united by this desire to just live life better, alcohol free. 

Even though I was feeling physically crappy and I was scared because of the breast cancer scare, that moment was so exciting and it just for me reassured why I would live life differently? This is where we need to be and this is what I want out of my life. 

It was an awesome experience, I'm so glad we did it. Fast forward. I didn't I did not have breast cancer and that rheumatoid arthritis scare was, I think, my body actually just detoxing from years and years and years of my daily wine.

Chris: You were on really strong footing leaving Reykjavik, just knowing on day 60, this is the life that I want to live. I remember you started to get involved with the One Year No Beer team at that point. It seemed like at that time it was more than just writing a check for you as an investor. You actually wanted to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in the mission of One Year No Beer.

What did you learn when you started working with the team? I know you had the opportunity to work with Andy, and work with Ru, and work with a group of others who at that time were just even trying to envision the future of One Year No Beer. What were you learning about the team and about the community?

Kristine: What I was learning about the community that supports the tribe that signs up for these challenges is they care so much about people just living their best life and living the life that they deserve. 

That's what I just love about it and everybody is so kind, and creative, and they're trying to figure out different ways to offer up tools to people that help them change their identity, which ultimately will help them get long lasting results. It's one thing to just say I'm not going to drink anymore and I'm going to stop the temptation of drinking. But for instance, if we have trauma that we haven't dealt with, self-esteem issues that we haven't dealt with, we don't live a life that's got some type of excitement in it, that's why we usually drink. If we don't deal with all those things, it's going to be so natural for our brain, our old brain, if you will, to just go back to alcohol because it's easy. 

That's what I love about the One Year No Beer team. The first part is removing the alcohol, which is hard because, again, alcohol is designed to be addictive so it's hard and it's harder for some people more than others. But at the end of the day, it's hard for everyone. But once you get that out of your life, there's so much more to living life better. Again, that's what One Year No Beer is really about and that's what I was exposed to and I just love it. It's infectious.

Chris: I think that's a really important point. I think when we jump into this alcohol free journey, we might believe that by doing this, we're not going to experience setbacks and failures in our life, that we're putting on a bulletproof vest. When in fact, this journey and part of what we're doing is we're actually going to confront the setbacks and failures that we've had in our life and we're going to try to start making sense of them. Of course, when we do that, we really have one of three choices. 

The first choice is we have these reflections on things that happened in our life that created sorrow, and we just avoid them. We continue avoiding them. By the way, that's what drinking really becomes, it becomes this outlet for us to just to avoid the reality that we've been hurt and we need to work through it.

Kristine: Yeah, and even if we don't think we're avoiding it, we are because when you stop drinking, you realize how much clearer the mind is. So clearly you were avoiding it when we're drinking.

Chris: Yes. The second option is to reflect back on those sorrows and setbacks and to change our beliefs about them, that instead of those things being really bad things that hurt us for the rest of our life and now knocked us off course, that instead our belief about that event is this is a time in my life I can reflect on and I can learn from.

Kristine: Yeah, there's a lesson in there. 

Chris: Yeah. Then the third option is that we reflect back on things that happened in our life and it causes us to take on a behavior change. We know that from this One Year No Beer alcohol free journey, what's really going to happen is it's going to be the beliefs or behaviors because the avoidance piece is gone. Talk for a couple of minutes on your alcohol free journey and now you start to confront setbacks and sorrow from your life, pain, and disappointment.

How were you processing that? What big revelations came out of that, especially revelations that you might not have ever had if you had a glass of wine in your hand?

Kristine: I think there were certain things that have happened to me in my life where before I stopped drinking, I scratched the surface on. But it wasn't until after I had a clear mind and I wasn't drinking consistently that I could process the emotion associated with those things maturely and in a healthy way.

I would say before when something would come up, I'd be overwhelmed with guilt, which would turn into anxiety, or I would put on this game face and just not deal with it at all and put my head up shoulder down.

For instance, my mother passed, she had a seven year battle. Started with lung cancer, but then complications with having a lung removed, she had infections and all of this stuff. It's sad to me because knowing what I know now, I wish I didn't have alcohol in my life when she actually passed. I was really, really stressed, really having an overwhelming amount of guilt while that was all going on because I live in the state of Colorado in the United States. She lived in the state of Michigan. I couldn't be there with her frequently.

I just don't think I was able to say the things that I wish I would have said where now I know where I'm at in my life, if we reverse the clock, I would have handled that way differently. That's one example of just how I would have handled something differently. But what I've taken from that experience is I do not want to take any moment of my life for granted, and I don't want to waste it, especially on a hangover. 

Like I said, the older I got, I could have one glass of wine the next day, wake up with a hangover. We all know that when you're feeling that like brain fog and just that general feeling, then you become cranky with your loved ones. You're focused on how you feel versus being present in the moment.

All of that to say, I really took that life experience and now that I'm alcohol free, I am able to just look at life a lot differently.

Chris: What would you say then to the One Year No Bear challengers who are posting in the Facebook group. You see these posts a lot hey, I'm a week into this or I'm two weeks into this journey, I'm confronted by some new obstacle. I have this adversity in my life and I don't even know why I signed up to not drink to begin with. I should just go back to where I was. Or, gosh, I'm having all these triggers now because of this adversity I'm facing. Given all of these lessons that you have absorbed during your journey. What would you say to them?

Kristine: I would say you're lying to yourself and we all and it's not just you, to said person. We all do it and alcohol does it right and the advertising engine behind alcohol does it. We are duped to think that adding alcohol into a situation like that is going to make it better. The reality is it doesn't and the science is showing that it doesn't. 

In fact, this sounds a little morbid when I say it, but during this now, almost two years of alcohol free living, we've had adversity show up in our lives and it feels different. Specifically you almost, I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but you're feeling the experience differently and you're present, and you're aware, and the way you recall back on that moment later is just completely different.

Chris: Going back to avoidance, when this pain happens, when there's adversity and we start to drink, it doesn't make those things go away. It just helps us avoid in the moment the pain and uncomfortableness that comes from that. But I think, as you're saying, once you start to build more and more strength, and mindfulness, and resiliency, and you're really intentional in your life, these things that happen, these bad things that happen are really tests. They're testing all of your knowledge and experience, and the things that you're building up in this alcohol free journey. 

In both cases, whether you're drinking or not drinking, there's pain. In both cases, whether you're drinking or not drinking, there's going to be pain. The opportunity we have during this alcohol free journey is to embrace that discomfort a little bit and to ask the question, what can I learn from this?

Kristine: Yeah, and connect with people that are around you during that time. It's during times like that that you actually build a deeper connection. That's what I would say too. When you're having a really present, thoughtful conversation with someone during a dark time, you will never forget that moment and you'll always be grateful for that moment because you had that connection during that time.

I can honestly say that there were times where I felt like I was just going through the motion, trying to get from point A to point B, and that's not all about the fact that I had a glass or two of wine every day. But it's the whole lifestyle wrapped up because, again, I had a glass or two of wine and again, I didn't know what that was fueling my anxiety and that anxiety, for instance, was not allowing me to be present in the moment, even if it was a moment where at that point in time I didn't have a glass of wine in my hand.

It's just this whole storm of energy. When you remove the alcohol, it really does have a domino effect. It really does.

Chris: I want to finish this conversation exactly in the place where we started it, which is here and now. Fast forward here now, two years later, you are behind the scenes supporting mastermind and mastermind plus and continuing to do this work behind the scenes. Will you talk a little bit about the work you're doing for both of those groups and what are you learning while you're doing that work? What are you experiencing as you watch other One Year No Beer members going through their journeys?

Kristine: First of all, I profile as a defender. If you're wondering what that means, you would learn that in a mastermind course in mastermind plus. What that really means about who I am is I don't ever have this desire to be out in front. I like to support people in their goals and I like to build deep connections with people.

The beauty of mastermind and mastermind plus is you, of course, were handed the baton from Andy and you're now leading the mastermind course, which is a six week curriculum and now mastermind plus, which is like a gym membership where you're trying to just on an ongoing basis, surround yourself with people who want to reflect and improve themselves and it's just an ongoing program.

Behind the scenes, I'm able to help just design the curriculum or the content to make sure that it is being delivered in a way that is intuitive, makes sense, and is impactful. It's been so amazing because I think once people get that alcohol free part of their life down and they are solid and they're not shaky anymore, when they go into mastermind that six week course, they get to reset their compass.

What I've seen from the sidelines is people go into that and maybe they still don't have a lot of self-confidence or they don't have the clarity of what comes next because they have all this newfound time that they used to spend drinking, or running to the store to get the drink, or nursing a hangover. They're like, now what? 

I've seen people go through that course and then you and I have conversations about their stories and people are doing such awesome things that they would have never again, had the confidence or courage to do before that course. 

Chris: Writing books, quitting their day jobs and starting businesses, signing up for these crazy adventure races that last days and days.

Kristine: Yeah.

Chris: It is amazing. People come out of this sort of fog from drinking and they wake up and they realize oh, my gosh, I hate my job. I don't really like my significant other. My friends, it's not even really an option for me to hang out with them anymore. There's just sort of a reset moment, as you said, resetting their compass. What do I do next?

Kristine: Yeah, and again, what I love is. It's such a positive environment. I've heard stories about AA where people have tried that type of format before in it's almost like the Eeyore of programs where everybody really reflects on what went wrong and the trauma. That all needs to be dealt with if you have trauma and I'm not underplaying that.

The beauty of the mastermind group is everybody props each other up and encourages each other. They're getting these daily challenges to really help them understand what their new identity should be and how to transform into the person they want to be. All that positivity is infectious. You're going to be a reflection of the people that you surround yourself with in the books that you read, and so that's the beauty of mastermind. 

Then, of course, Mastermind Plus, like I said, it's this new program. We're only in the second month. Again, my role is just to help behind the scenes with program development or curriculum development, if you will. Every month there's a theme and we focus on that theme for self-improvement purposes. The group of people that are there, I can already tell that there are people that I would just want to stay connected to for life. They really motivate me, and they're sweet, and it's just really cool that this is a global community.

Chris: It's a beautiful thing to be a part of for sure. I just want to wrap up this conversation and say, I think this mastermind community is actually a wonderful parallel to your life, Kristine. You're on an alcohol free journey where people can start this journey and there may be some of you listening right now who are very new in your journey. 

It's hard to imagine being in control in your life because you've been almost like this small boat out on the ocean being beat around for the last few years. But that you can start from a place of not being in control. When people come out of mastermind, all of a sudden they're in this like an elite company. The 1% of the world who actually gets out of bed in the morning motivated with intention and what they want to accomplish and just continue to knock down their goals. 

As Andy would say, they dropped their goals in and they hit play. I think your life and your journey with One Year No Beer and not drinking is the exact same way as you've described it. Two years ago, you wouldn't have described yourself as being in complete control. Now, a couple of years later, this has just really dramatically changed your life. 

Kristine: Yeah, thanks. 

Chris: I'm so grateful that you were willing to let me put a microphone in front of your face and that you're willing to tell this story, your story, to a group of strangers out there.

Kristine: I'm an introvert. So this is-

Chris:  Way outside your comfort.

Kristine: Yeah, this is. I'm definitely glad that I did it and thanks for asking me.

Chris: As we come to the end of this episode of the One Year No Beer podcast, I want to invite any of you listening to this who want to reset your compass to explore the mastermind program. I'd love to work with you and support you on your journey. 

I'd like to also just encourage you that if this isn't the right time for you and mastermind, if you still are a little wobbly as it relates to your alcohol free journey, I just want to encourage you to keep pushing yourself. Keep pushing yourself outside of that comfort zone and to really lean into the tools that exist within One Year No Beer, as well as this awesome challengers community that's  in Facebook and Slack. Just lean on that community of people and keep pushing forward. It will take some time, but the momentum will kick in.

I think that winning creates winning and we just have to recognize the small wins that we're getting. I don't think we always do that. I think a lot of times we are willing to extend love, and compassion, and forgiveness to everybody around us. But what constantly amazes me is just how few people are willing to give that to themselves, willing to love themselves, willing to show compassion, willing to forgive themselves. I just want to encourage you to keep fighting the good fight inside and that all of this will come together and you will be in a state where you feel in control and feel extraordinarily positive about all of the wonderful things that you can achieve in life. 

I want to thank all of you for tuning in to this episode of this One Year No Beer podcast. It was, again, an honor for me to spend this time with you and I want to invite you if you are in the challengers group to reach out to me or Kristine. We're always happy to meet new friends and we're always happy to support you on your journey.

With that, I hope that all of you listening will make it a great day.

Kristine: Bye. 

Thanks for listening to the One Year No Beer podcast. For a full list of episodes and to join in the challenge yourself, head on over to oneyearnobeer.com. 

 

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