Latest / The Sober Creative Podcast / Episode 061 - It’s Getting in My Way Now: Gary Allen on Slow Change and Building a Second Act After 45

Transcript

Episode 061 - It’s Getting in My Way Now: Gary Allen on Slow Change and Building a Second Act After 45 · The Sober Creative Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're live.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give it a few beats and let some people kind of trickle in.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so impressed by your bookshelf, Gary.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll always say that.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Jenny Lin.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of dogs do you have?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I have pugs.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can you hear them?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Pugs.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can't hear them.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just...
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'll... Vasco.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It'll quieten down in a sec.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's all good.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Totally all good.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Dogs doing hot dogs, dude.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, hey, you out there, come bring me some food.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: She's actually going back to sleep again.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll get started.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pull up my script here and
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: we'll jump into it.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everyone to The Sober Creative Podcast.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Every person you're about to hear made one decision that changed everything and none
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: of them would tell you it was easy.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: These are conversations centered around sobriety,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: creativity,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: and the willingness to become the person who doesn't let alcohol get in the way of
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: the life they're trying to build.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Josh Woll, and I'm honored to bring you today's guest.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Gary Allen has had his first pint at 19 and spent the next two and
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: a half decades using alcohol as a tool for confidence,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: for ease, for a sense of belonging he didn't feel he had otherwise.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: By his mid forties, that tool had stopped working.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: He was waking up in a low-grade fog most mornings and typing,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: how do I drink less into Google,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: looking for a way forward
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: that didn't require calling himself something he didn't believe he was.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: In January 2018,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: on a flight home from a holiday in Barcelona,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: he decided to commit to 100 days alcohol-free.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: He hasn't had a drink since.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: In that same stretch of months, he found a coaching course almost by accident.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And knew within the first half hour it was where he was meant to do.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Gary went on to lead a team of nearly 20 coaches at One Year No Beer
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: before stepping away to build his own practice,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: the Life Design Collective,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: where he now writes about second acts,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: reshaping a life to fit who you are instead of who you had to be in order to get
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: through your 30s.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Gary's writing is direct about what alcohol actually is giving him.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And clear-eyed about why slow, deliberate change tends to outlast the dramatic kind.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So please welcome in joining Gary Allen to the show.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Josh.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks everyone for joining us.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll go back to your first 19.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: What was life like drinking then?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: You had your first drink.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was born and brought up in rural Ireland,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: that's where I still am,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: more or less,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: about 50 miles away from where I live right now,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: in the middle of Ireland,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: more or less,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: and I'll call it kind of And pubs are huge in rural Ireland in general.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I was quite shy growing up.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the oldest of three.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've got two brothers.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was born with a disability called Spambifta, so I don't walk, never really have.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a wheelchair user pretty much all my life, and full time from the age of about 13.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So from about the age of 13 to, I suppose, 19, it was quite a tricky time.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I had the transition from Into what you guys over there would call high school,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: secondary school, I had going into which are full time as well.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Over the course of a few years, and I had, being a teenager, so I grew up quite shy.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose 19 was quite old to be having my first drink, but I do remember it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was a pint of what we call harp over here, a pint of a beer.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had a couple of them, and I felt like, ooh, ooh.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: You don't really like the taste of this,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: but I really don't like the taste of this, but I'm going to persevere.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did it again.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did it again.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And my brothers who had been, they had been gone out maybe a few years before me.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I started going out with them.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then it didn't really look much different to anybody else, really.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: It actually didn't look different.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I would go out on a Saturday night with my brothers
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: when I came home from college
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: because I did a degree in computer science in Dublin and started that at the age
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: of 19, I think, 19 or 20.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And would go out when I was in college, go out when I came home.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing unusual,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: but alcohol was kind of the thing that made me kind of feel
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: a bit like everybody else because nobody looks like me.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so it just made me feel like everybody else.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it was evident, I suppose, relatively early on in my early 20s.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was evident to me.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not really sure it was evident to many other people,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: but it was evident to me that I was the one that was kind of speeding up
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: as everyone else was slowing down.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And never drank during the week or anything like that,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: but it really made me feel like everybody else.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it was almost a tool from the very beginning, even though I didn't really know it.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, that lasted for...
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: About ten years actually.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: In nine or ten years I met my
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: wife in 2000 and then I transitioned from going out
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: with my brothers to sharing a bottle of wine on the couch with my wife and that went
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: on for another 20 years after that,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: about 15, 16 years after that, maybe even a bit more.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the age of 45, I thought, it's getting in my way now.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I had a job, paying bills.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was fine.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I kind of thought, yeah, let's just see what it might be like to not do this for a while.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know my guest last week, Bob, was like, everybody's going to quit at some point.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Just win.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me what, so it's been eight years?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is it eight years?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Eight years last time, so it's been nine next year.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's changed for you since that's happened?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: A lot.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm healthier.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I have left that IT job about...
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: 50, 60 days into
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: from that January 29th, 2018.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: About 50,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: 60 days after that,
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of went, hmm,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: all these books here,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of these books, most of them are in the personal development space.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been kind of reading that stuff since I was about 16.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not really knowing that I was into personal development.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know that's what it was.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got that energy and clarity after just putting booze aside,
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, hmm, hold on a sec here.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: What is this?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's coaching about?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And because I'd kind of been interested in the power of the human,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: the power of the mind and the power of the potential and all of that stuff for,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: well, since about 16.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I trained as a coach in 2018.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: At the same time,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: still being involved in When You're No Beer,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: because that was the platform I joined to support, to change my race to block off.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: At the time,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: they were kind of expanding and looking for coaches,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: so I did a little bit of work with them,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: and then a little bit more,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: and then a little bit more,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: and then a little bit more,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: and it was kind of like,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It became almost like two full-time jobs,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: morning,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: evening,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: weekends,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: we're coaching,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: and then the
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: middle bit was a bit to pay the mortgage, which was working in IT.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I left that
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: career in 2023, early 23, and I'm now a full-time coach.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I still live in the same, I've got this lovely office now.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Life looks like,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: life looks
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: very different to what it used to be from a career perspective anyway.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't feel like a job,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't like I support people to change their relationship with alcohol, yes,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: but I was 45 before I made any change,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: so I'm 54 now,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: so I really love working with people that are in that kind of space of
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: the middle bit of middle life kind of.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is this it?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the work I do.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Those are two prongs of work that I do.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's like, yeah,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: you had a part in a way of being connected to what helped me
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: with my sobriety is like I knew of one year,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: no beer, and that was kind of inspirational for me to commit to one year.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was After three months, I knew that this was it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you've worked with people as well.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: what do you find is like the common reasons that they come to you?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a pattern that I see pretty much all the time, really,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: and I think most people have changed their relationship
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: with anything that's not serving them.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, you start with what you don't want.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want the hangovers,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want the health issues,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: the work issues, the relationship, whatever it might be, I don't want.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you when you get a lot less of what you don't want,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: then the fun really starts because,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: then the primitive brain, the habitual brain goes, actually, you know what?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're fine now.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're done.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's kind of like the 30th or 30th of January into the first of First
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: of February and we've done dry January and kind of first of February is the wreckage
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: of dry January and all the hangovers.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when things get interesting.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where I think things get interesting is to push past that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: When we get away from what we don't want,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think the really interesting bit is actually,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: okay, and this is the way One Year No Beer works.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: At the time that I did,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: that was the whole concept of actually, okay, what are we moving towards?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the pattern I see.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Once we can create that idea together in a co-creative coaching relationship of,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: okay, what could we move towards?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then things start to get really fun.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: The other pattern that I think anyone who's quickly long-term will notice
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: or will know is that it doesn't ever really work the first time.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of go, okay, let's try.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then, okay, that didn't work.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a failure and all that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do this.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then over time, you keep trying.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: You keep getting, whether you know it or not, you're getting more information.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting more data.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting more.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can treat it with curiosity and not judgment,
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the real game changer when you say, okay, well, it didn't work this time.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what could I do differently?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when things really shift and change.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it might not mean that
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: you're away and you've got long-term momentum away
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: from alcohol or anything like, whatever you want to get away from.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it means that you're learning every single time and your stints,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: your streaks get longer and longer and longer.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so if willingness is there to actually learn from when things don't go
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: the way you would like them to go.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the pattern that once I see that
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: In early coaching relationship,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: then I think we've got the alcohol and we can get,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: you can put it back there and keep an eye on it and go, okay, that's back there.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, okay, now what do we want to create?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: when we're talking about alcohol, it kind of gets, it'll get boring really quickly.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like within two or three sessions, do we really have to talk?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're fine.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then we talk about the really interesting stuff.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: The stuff that's being masked underneath.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like you said it so well.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it,
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: it's like we wake up every day,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: and it's like we've got this similar routine, you know, and we're so used to it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like when uncertainty and change happens, it's like, whoa, wait a minute.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's happening here?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I forget the term that you called it, but like just quitting so fast, right?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: You said slow is the way.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said just now, I mean,
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: the trying over and over again,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: and being more curious and forgiving, you know, is definitely the way to go.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you even said it last week when you spoke to Phil and Carolina last week.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it is really the way to go.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't lose if you do that.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You've got curiosity.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: It just takes as long as it takes.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your day look like?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's I tell you what,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: it looks an awful lot different to what it looked like a few eight years ago
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: or even four years ago.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I do some group coaching every so often, particularly on a Sunday, I do some group coaching.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: My normal day today is
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Some business development, a couple of coaching calls.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I work, my hours, this sounds dramatic, but it sounds more dramatic than it actually is.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: My first call could potentially be at 7am and my last call could potentially be
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: at 9pm because I work with people
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: all over the world.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, there could be, I'm my own boss.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've got a different haircut for the last time I spoke to you.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my haircut's turning.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the kind of,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I just,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: people maybe talk to,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: do the odd discovery call every day,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: two or three a day or some days,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: maybe nothing for a couple of days, but I'm writing to Substack.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Substack is a magnificent place.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I love writing stuff.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's varied, but it's all in the coaching, mentoring, kind of training kind of work as well.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because I do some coach training as well.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I train new coaches.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And course design.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty cool.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so let's talk about, like, creativity, like, around...
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the creativity that I think everybody has,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: that people say like,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not very creative,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: but then there's also like,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know, what I think is, you know, creating a life without alcohol.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so where do you think like creativity comes into play with people's lives?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's, it's massive.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: it's fundamental to pretty much everybody, whether they know it or not.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And, and,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I spent almost 30 years in the software industry and,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: um, I found that to be an incredibly creative place.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it wasn't the place for me,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: ultimately,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: because it,
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know, after,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: quite soon into my career, it felt like a job, but I didn't know any different.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it was fine.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was paying well.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I wrote writing software is a really, really creative thing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: But English was my best subject in school by a million miles.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it made perfect sense not to go and do a degree in computer science.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I did say that energy and clarity, and that's what I got.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: About six weeks into my journey from January 2018,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I got energy and clarity, the like of which I'd never known.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I started writing on MediaMathStand long before Substack even existed.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I think creativity and curiosity really go hand in hand.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when you give yourself that energy and that clarity,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: which I did from Drop and Boost, it just allows you to...
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Be more curious about life.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Be more curious about what interests you.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And these bookshelves here were one of the things when I built this office
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: that I had to think about whether I could afford them or not.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I still can't.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, they're here now.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just wanted to fill them with my books.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there's been lots and lots more books since.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you give yourself the opportunity to
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Have clarity in your day and that you're not starting from the eight ball,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: not behind the eight ball like I was for years, for a long time.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Then creativity is kind of more, it's very much at the surface.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: I could,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: and I have done lots and lots and lots of times over the last 18 months I've been
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: on Substack.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, actually that's a thought, I'll just throw that on Substack.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been right,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've written a newsletter on Substack for almost a year now, two weeks off a year.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not something I'd ever considered was possible even a year and a half ago
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: when I started on Substack.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think once you give yourself the Opportunity, as I say, for that clarity.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Creativity almost by default jumps in, jumps out.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can jump in.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so another reason I think it's something you experience too is
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So alcohol is gone.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that the feelings that are going to come up that are challenging
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: to deal with go away.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you feel like that changed with you in this time, in the eight years?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that I think you maybe might recognize it,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: but I spoke earlier on,
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: and you even mentioned at the beginning that I was using alcohol as a tool.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And one of those tools was to feel numb,
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: but the other one of those tools was kind of,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: not to sound too dramatic about it, was to numb as well.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when you don't do that,
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: or when you choose to not do that,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: as you say,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: it doesn't mean that the feelings and the emotions or whatever it might be.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they're not necessarily all bad because, you know, you don't selectively know.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: You just do all of it.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to pick this emotion.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, we can't select like that.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: That would be great.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: It allows them all to come up and I won't sit here and tell you that I've become
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: an expert in dealing with them.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not by any stretch and I'm still going through a lot of it but it's just
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: the normal stuff that everyone goes through and I'm dealing with them
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: the way I will deal with them and other
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: people will deal with them the way they deal
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: with them.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: One of them actually that I have to
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: call out I suppose is that idea of gratitude.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I certainly wasn't a fan of the whole practice of writing.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Write down three things you're grateful for.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, I'll pass.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it did allow me to kind of see what I have and see who I am, and much laterally.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: as I moved along in my journey and what I was capable of and what I've been given
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: by people like my parents because
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was brought up by two amazing people,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: and that,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: by default made me and my two brothers feel like you could do anything,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: or could do and be anything you wanted to be.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that was just the way it was.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really realize that until I stopped drinking at that point.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, actually, yeah, this is pretty cool.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've gotten myself,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: despite All the challenges and,
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: say this with as much humility as I possibly can muster that,
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I've done pretty good here.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: and there's of course the difficult stuff,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: but that's what,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: those are the kind of things that come up when you choose not to kind of use,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: when I chose not to use alcohol as that tool to kind of not feel that stuff.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And of course there's difficult stuff as well,
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: but yeah,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: as I said,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have dealt and will deal with that stuff in the way that I'll do it
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: and other people will do it differently.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think gratitude is so important.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I mean,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: it's
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: unfortunate in ways that are based off of our history and genetics,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: where it's like the negative biases and such are kind of...
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Want to take over.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, what is it like the gratitude?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have so many thoughts.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a five to one ratio, isn't it?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's five to one.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I find that really, I'm really fascinated by all of that
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: evolutionary kind of neuroscience.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love working with people as much as I can,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: because I'm not a neuroscientist, but to explain that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Most people that I work with,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: or at least a lot of them,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: will come in and go, I'm useless at this, I'm not this, I'm not that, I am.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they will talk in absolutes.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll be the person in the room, happens to be a coach who will question that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're that?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what if that wasn't true?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and that's
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: the curiosity that's, you know, is foundational to the work I do.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose most coaches really,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know, most coaches will bring in that curiosity into the room.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's like being present to that curiosity.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm going to be curious about these thoughts right now.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it's somewhere between like 50 to 60,000 thoughts that we have every day.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so if that's a five to one ratio, you're working there.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're working there, exactly.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you've raised a great point because, you
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: know, both of these things are hard.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for me, keeping drinking was hard, but stopping was hard.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: So not as if I chose an easier path over a harder path.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just did.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, ultimately, it became less hard not to drink and then less hard and then less hard.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's not really hard at all.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it's kind of supposed to be hard.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's definitely not boring to have life be easy.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I mean, it's like with drinking, it's just like delaying.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about that this morning.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's just delaying.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not like, It's not really fixing anything.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's just because if you have a thought that you don't like and
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: then it's like you have a drink and then it's like,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: okay, I feel better because the alcohol has done its job.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's like once it wears off, you're still coming back to the same thing.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which seems obvious now,
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: and easy now, eight years later, and a bunch of time that you've been doing.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, much more difficult to see in the early days.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so true.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: because it's,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: to try and write about that, too, is,
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know, to, like,
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: write about the past and be like, hey,
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: this is,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: what I was experiencing then because it's
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: everybody's awareness and sense
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: of being ready is going to come when it hits them, you know.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I mean,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure for both of us, it's,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: you know, when we were getting clues of like, are you sure you want another one?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure about that?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that did happen to me at times,
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: not frequently,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: and certainly didn't raise,
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can't ever tell you that it raised any alarm bells in my head
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: for any extended period of time.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it did, you know, flashing bells, but kind of, not really.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: As I said at the beginning, life looked kind of normal.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, okay, well, this is, I'm 45 now, I'm not 20 anymore, so.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's getting in my way now, so.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me, well,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: tell me what,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: so like, tell me about your work with, with what you're doing now in the second.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: The people that I work with,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: to generalize here,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: and this is generalization,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: are roughly in the same demographic as me,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: in the summers of age anyway, somewhere in the 40 to 60, kind of.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a bit of a deviation either side of that.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed this in the last eight years that I've been working with people
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: to support them and change in relation to block off.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't make any change until I was 45.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: And here I am now, almost nine years later, having built what I have built.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still building it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: lot of
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: the reading I've been doing over the last number of years has been
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Around that kind of
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: middle bit of life and
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: the change from about 40 plus.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose the narrative that I really kick against is
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: that we should have it all sorted by the time we're 40 and we kind
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: of really should be all set up then.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then any change after 40 is either
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: impossible or really,
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: really, really difficult or kind of like
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: What's the point you're kind of done now?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to have it all figured out now.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my real interest in reading people like Richard Rohr,
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Arthur C. Brooks,
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: all of those guys who are into this kind of second act where we spend,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: and their philosophy and mine too is, Well,
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: we spent the first kind of 40 years of our lives, 40-ish,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: doing the setup,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: growing up,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: going to college,
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: getting a job,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: having a relationship, getting married, mortgage, kids, all that sort of thing.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then, well, what then?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: When maybe the kids are left home and all of that kind of stuff.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of at the age,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't kid,
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: but that was, as I said, that was the age that I decided to make a change.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And lots and lots and lots of people that I work with,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: lots, the majority are in that kind of age bracket.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I began to think about that about last year,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: about spring of last year, 25, and I thought, hmm, okay,
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: what could I do here?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I created a program called The Second Act Blueprint, which is a
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: seven-week program.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I take a small number of people in each week,
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: or each cohort,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: and we kind of go through a seven-week program to kind of create,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: at the end of it,
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: a second act blueprint of what might the next act or the second half
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: of life look like.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: lot of the people I work with, everything is Fine, there's nothing dramatic about it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very ordinary and very,
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: probably in a good way boring,
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: but kind of like,
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of a bit like me in the 40s, kind of, is this it, really?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is it, you know, have I got this job?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, not that it was terrible, it was paying the market, it was lovely.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: To have all these good friends around me in the IT world.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't really who I was.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I found it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I found it eventually.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't actually go, okay, I'm quitting my job and I'm going to sell a house and move to Bali.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Go knock yourself out if you want to do that.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that wasn't an option that's open to me.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that that's not an option that's open to most people.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a real,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: real fan of,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more than a fan,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm absolutely committed to this idea of slow change,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know, because that's sustainable.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: It took me, really, eight years of slow change.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: life looks different from a career perspective,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: but every other perspective, it's actually the same, or sorry, every other way.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of looks very similar.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I do support people to change their relationship with alcohol.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: I still do that work,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: but I also work with people kind of in that middle bit and kind of go, hmm, okay.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then middle life and go,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: hmm, okay.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something else for me?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it might be a small tweak,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: but it might be a kind of complete rewrite of their life or like redesign
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: of their life or rebuild as you put it.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: But just giving people the space and the,
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the space to
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: try and figure that out over a small period of time and maybe
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: a long period of time.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: as I said earlier,
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: when we do The alcohol piece,
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: we kind of do it reasonably quickly,
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: or at least I find, and we kind of go, okay, now I've got that.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to talk about that this week.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: What else is there?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of stuff.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the work
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: that I do now.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And writing, too.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not as...
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not as into Substack as I'd like to be,
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: but that's going to change really, rapidly.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: So in the next while, I'm going to spend a lot more time onSubstack from
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: now on.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: It feels early even though it's been around for a while,
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: but it's a really, really, really nice place to build your business on.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for our time.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And on that note of telling us about the second act,
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: do you want to let us know what's coming up?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: What's next?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, next week, next Tuesday, I'm starting the sixth cohort of the second act blueprint.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I have two places left if anyone wants to join them.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can take two more people.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: If anyone wants to explore it,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: so maybe send me a DM here or hello at garyallen.ie is where people could get me.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: But probably hearing that,
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: since people are listening to it in Substack,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: send me a DM on Substack or hello at garyallen.ie will get me.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll make sure it'll have in the show notes and put a note in as well.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop them in the chat.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you have the cohort coming up.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: What's some other things you're working on?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have, as I said, been on Substack for a while.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So in a couple of weeks' time,
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: I will have a year done of my Sunday newsletter,
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: the Second Act Sunday, which I send out every Sunday.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: to kind of hopefully collate all of that stuff,
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: maybe not in a year, maybe a little bit after, but before the end of the year.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be collating all that
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: stuff and taking a red pen to it and this body of work
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: that I've created and see if I can make something out of it that might resemble
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: a book.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And getting a lot more intoSubstack and
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: making that maybe my home rather than
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: a website.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: I built websites for years and I couldn't build my own because I just didn't have
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: the heart to do it.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't have the interest to do it.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think that websites are kind of,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: they're good,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: they're great,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: but places like more active places like Substack,
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: more dynamic places like Substack in the future.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll be jumping in there a lot more in the next one.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: I do some group coaching as well, other group coaching as well as my second act Sunday.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, it's my second act blueprint cohort.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I do that as well.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: And one-to-one.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: I do one-to-one all the time.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of my bread and butter.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it be midlife resets or redesigns or whether it be changing in relation to the back of.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the kind of stuff.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the prongs on my fork, I suppose.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Gary, thanks so much for your time.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks everyone for joining us.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Gary, have a great weekend, everyone else.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you next week.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.