Alright, hello and welcome to episode 25 today. This is going to be your life without nicotine. Kind of fancy, right? I'm saying the title. Hey, if you guys take one second and leave me a review, I don't know where you listen. I don't even know where you leave the review. I don't know really what the purpose is.

If it like the algorithm boosts and it shows more people, the podcast, I don't know, but people are always asking on podcasts to leave reviews. So that'd be great. If you guys do that, you don't have to, but thank you so much. If you do, I really do appreciate it. So welcome today, we're talking about something that's very important and whether you are quitting vaping or you want to drink less or you want to eat less food or junk food or fast food, or you want to, um, have a healthy relationship with your parents or you want to change your jobs or you want to start a business, like whatever you want to do, fill in the blank.

This is a really important skill to practice and it's envisioning your life. In the future, having the results you want. So this is super important. I think that this is one of the main things I missed for a very long time when I was trying to quit nicotine is I was never envisioning my life being good without nicotine.

I was always like looking forward in the future with dread. I'm like, Oh God, I'm have to quit. There's two weeks. I'm going to have to dread those two weeks. I'm going to dread everything about it. My life's going to suck. I'll be missing out. Like never at any point did it occur to me that if I envisioned my life in a positive way without nicotine.

Then it might be easier to quit. And the reason why is like your thoughts, create your feelings, drives your actions, right? I talk about this all the time. Your thoughts, create your feelings and drive your actions. So if you're thinking about your future in a way that's dreadful, guess what's going to happen.

You're going to feel dread. And when we feel dread towards the things that we. Think we should do, we don't do them. So imagine the last time that you wanted to work out. Let's imagine like, um, people do this all the time. They're like, I want to work out, but I hate getting up at five in the morning. I don't want to go lift the weights.

I hate squatting. They're like envisioning how crappy it's going to be to work out. And then you feel dread or you feel like discouragement or disgust. And then what happens is you maybe work out once you like force yourself and white knuckle, but then you don't do it ever again. It's like in order to work out consistently in order to quit vaping consistently, you want to have positive emotions that are driving the actions.

So it's really important like spend time in the future imagining your life without nicotine and we're gonna do the same with my life So you can get a good example. So when I was vaping two years ago I was like literally hiding in the break room It was a little more than two years ago now hiding in the break room at work like Panicking that someone might walk in at psychiatric hospital.

I was vaping in a closet Like it wasn't good and I was thinking about quitting back then and I hated the idea. I knew there's me two weeks This is my this is my opinion. Anyways, my idea in my mind. There's me two weeks where I hate it Afterwords, I'm going to go to parties, I'm going to dread it, I'm not going to enjoy being at parties, my attention is always going to be on that, and the lack of it, of not being able to do it, and then, like, I'm going to gain weight, and I'm not going to deal with my stress well, and like, do you see why it was so hard for me to quit?

That was my idea of life without nicotine. Like, of course, if that's my idea of life without nicotine, there's no way in hell I'm going to put down that vape and do it, like, with a smile on my face, or ever, at all. Now that I've quit vaping and I was able to actually envision my life without it, like, let me tell you why my life is so good without nicotine.

And I'm not trying to convince you to quit. I'm telling you why in my personal experience, my life is so much better without nicotine. For one, I'm way less anxious. Like my anxiety levels were through the roof when I was addicted to drugs. Who knew that drug addiction creates anxiety. Kind of interesting, isn't it?

So my anxiety levels are much better. I manage my emotions better because I'm not trying to manage them. With a drug addiction. So that really is a real thing. Like drug addiction does not help with your anxiety levels. Uh, go figure. Right. Even though it's so funny to me because one of the biggest reasons why people say they quit or they vape in general is to help with anxiety.

It's like drug addiction doesn't help with anxiety, darling. Just so you know. Um, I sure convinced myself that it did for a very long time, but no, really, there's my anxiety levels are much lower now. Um, another benefit is that I no longer spend time thinking about nicotine. It's the weirdest thing you guys like.

My, I didn't realize how much energy a day I was spending on nicotine related thoughts. Like now the only time I think about nicotine is when I am doing this podcast or doing anything related to the course I make or like. Anything related to the actual life coaching I do around nicotine, which is shocking because back then I was like, my main thought that ran through my work, my head at work, even though I loved my job at the psych hospital and I actually cared about what I was doing.

The main thought was, when can I have my vape? There was an hour of the day where we would get assigned to the group room. You'd have to be in the group room the entire hour and the entire hour is always filled with anxiety. Trying to like genuinely see if I could like sneak of a pit while I was in the group room.

Like that was my main thought, my main concern in life. So all those thoughts are gone and it's so cool because now like the dominant thoughts in my head are like positive about how excited I am to be living my life. Not about how unexcited I am to be living in the moment without nicotine. So that's great.

Um, another way that my life has changed without nicotine is I can go to parties and not feel guilty about being at the party because I used to like vape religiously when I was drinking. I don't know. I would just have the, I would have alcohol, then I would have an ambition, would be lowered to vape. So I'd just be constantly doing it to get like a head rush.

And I don't do that anymore. So I do want to tell you guys a story. I went to Barcelona last two weeks ago. Now I went to Barcelona. I used to live there in 2019 and. I went back, and my friend Leo, from South Korea, his real name is Yoon Jong un, Yoon Jong un, and he calls himself Leo because of Leo Messi in Barcelona, so he likes Leo, so that's what we call him.

And um, yeah, so he smokes cigarettes, and we went out and partied, and we drink and stuff, and he's like, hey man, you want a cigarette? I'm like, you know, Leo, I might take you up on that. This weekend, I'm in Barcelona, everybody smokes in Europe, I'm gonna be drinking, maybe I could like, just take a drag of a cigarette.

And I told myself, as always, Andrew, if you wanna hit it, you go ahead and hit it. You're allowed to do that. You're an adult. If that's what you think you want, go ahead. And the funniest thing happened is I drank like four nights out of the seven or eight hours there, just casually drinking. And never at one point did I actually think I wanted a cigarette.

And I asked myself, it was like the weirdest thing. Like I could have never imagined myself. Four years ago, not desiring nicotine at all. But I genuinely said to myself, like, do I actually want to hit this totally? Okay. If you want to, like he offered me one, he smokes old lady cigarettes, which is the funniest thing ever.

Cause he's like a 28 year old guy from Korea, uh, South Korea smoking like old lady cigarettes that you'd see. I don't know. They weren't lucky strike. There's something not Virginia slams. It was something, but he pulls all this and they smelled good, but I'm like, no, I actually don't have a desire to hit it.

So. It's just weird that I have no desire and I'm going to music festivals here with my friends and I used to vape like Constantly in music festivals like you're dancing. You're having a good time You know, whatever you're just there for five days and I used to vape all the time music festivals Like I literally you guys I remember the last time I went was in 2018 and it was before they had like actual disposable vapes that were worth a damn so I would bring a rechargeable Like phone battery charger.

And then I'd also bring my refillable vape stick that you like recharge the battery on. I would literally have a little sack full of like the little reach fillable cartridges and juice. And then I remember one day there's a picture of me. I never want the world to see it, but it's like a picture of me holding.

My rechargeable vape thing in one hand and then the cord over to my vape in the other hand in a music festival like this is literally pathetic, but that was me for a while. So, um, my friends are asking me like, Hey, are you going to like hit a cigarette or hit a vape while you're there? And I'm like, I actually don't think I want to, I'll let myself, if it comes up and I really have a desire, but I don't think I'll have a desire to do that, but I'll let myself.

So it's just weird. So my life without nicotine now, it's like, it's amazing. I'm not even worried that I'm going to like. I'm not worried that I'm ever going to not have a vape at a certain point, which that used to be my concern. Hence the, uh, portable charger at the music festival. I used to be constantly concerned with thoughts and consumed with it and always worried about where I was going to get it.

And that all that drama is gone. And it's not like I'm brainwashing myself into thinking that like, I don't want to vape. I genuinely don't desire it. I actually think that I was brainwashed before when I had all these beliefs that nicotine was so amazing in my life. All that's gone. And I just want you guys to think about like, what would your life look like without nicotine genuinely?

And not from a dreadful place. Cause that's not going to be inspiring any quitting anytime soon, but like, what if you had no cravings for nicotine at all? And you just had no desire for it. What would change about your life? Actually spend time here because it's in this. Thought process, this excitement, this whatever positive emotion of for the future.

That's how we actually get the emotion now to build the future. Remember your thoughts, create your emotions, which drive your actions. If you can have thoughts about an exciting future without nicotine, guess what's going to happen. You're going to be much more likely. To be driven into quitting in a positive way that you actually want to.

This is how it works. So many people, they try to white knuckle their way into a life without nicotine thinking that it's going to be so horrible on the other end. And that's why they have to white knuckle their way into it. But when you actually spend time in the future and the future seems like a pretty cool place, then you're much more likely to go there willingly as opposed to literally having to grab yourself by the ear and pull yourself there until you like lose grip on your ear and then suck on a vape.

Shamefully, you know, in the corner of a room like a gremlin, like I'm a little vape gremlin. So I just think it's very important. This isn't memory. I always say like this podcast, yes, it's about quitting vaping, of course. It's about what your life could be if you learn the skills that I teach, the life coaching skills in order to quit vaping.

Because if you learn these skills with vaping, guess what happens? You learn them with overeating. And then you learn them with going after your dreams. And then you learn them with going into a relationship. If you can learn how to feel your emotions and actually be excited and create new beliefs for a future that you want, that's a skill you're really going to want to hold on to.

Because after you're done vaping, well guess what happens? Then you have the next door open up for you. Well, after I was done vaping, I became a life coach. And after I became a life coach, I became all the other things. And now I have like a life. It's amazing. And I'm like dating in a way that's so fun. I don't have any nicotine drama and like, I don't overeat there very often.

And when I do, I don't beat myself up and like quitting nicotine by envisioning a future that was amazing for me without nicotine was the first step in being able to envision a future where my, all my dreams came true. It's like, so cool. Like I literally wake up every day. So grateful for the life I'm in.

There's absolutely no drama about nicotine in my life. And again, like, if I want it, I'll hit it. It's not like I'm white knuckling my way anywhere. I don't do that. Like, I just live my life feeling good all the time now. And if I want to do something, I'll do it. And if I don't want to, I won't do it. Life can be that simple.

Clean up your thoughts, right? Do not try to take any action from a place of negative emotion, please. Because the action you take from negative emotion is so weak. And it's also like always going to lead to it's going to push you further away from the results you want before you try to quit vaping, spend a lot of time just thinking about how cool your life would be without it and actually trying to get to a place where you believe that.

And if you can't get to that place, I wouldn't recommend you quit vaping because it's going to suck really bad to quit vaping. If you can't get to that place and quitting vaping shouldn't suck, it should be really exciting because if you can quit vaping, guess what that means is that you build some self respect back in your life, some love for yourself, some compassion.

Some emotional regulation and all those skills are so awesome. They're fun. Like I love loving myself. It's actually fun. I don't wake up and go, Oh God, I can't overeat today. My life's going to suck. It's like, no, I don't want to overeat today. Cause I love myself and all my body. And I get to go out and feel hot and go on dates and like, love how I look.

And then like every part of that is fun for me. It's not coming from a place of self loathing or from drudgery. And if you're taking any action from drudgery, I run a recommend that that's unnecessary in any way, shape, or form. And also I'm just going to throw it out there. If you feel that way, like about your current work or anything that you're going after, like any dreams that you have and you feel drudgery, well, go figure you're getting the results you're getting.

Or I should say, go figure. You're not getting the results that you want to be getting. Take action from positive emotion, and before you take action, get yourself into a place of positive emotion or else don't take action. Because I promise you, listen, hear this out, it's better to not take action altogether if it's coming from a negative place, than to take action from a negative place that's going to push you further away from the result you want.

Sometimes no action is the right action, and it always comes from a place of self compassion and awareness to take that no action. So that's the episode for today. You guys, I'm gonna go to this music festival. It's called Electric Forest. It's in Rothbury, Michigan The last time I went was in 2018 and I'm an entirely different human being now and I'm so excited to go into this setting As a life coach who loves himself for the first time ever being at that place who is not addicted to anything, but allows himself to be if he wants to be.

And if we just has this profound gratitude for the life that he gets to live. So I want to just take a second. Thank you guys so much for listening. Like it really does mean the world to me. I have people now that are signing up for consults from this podcast. I have people reaching out to me on Instagram and.

All over the place and thanking me for this work. And it's like, no, thank you guys. Because you're all, y'all are giving me ears so that I can just have this outlet. Like if no one was listening, it probably would be kind of hard for me to keep doing it. So thank you for listening. I love doing this. This is the best thing ever.

Please like find a future that inspires the shadow you and start living in that place mentally. Because once you start living in that place mentally, you get to feel the emotions right now that that place will bring. And then you literally get to be living mentally in the future and physically in the future with your body.

And then you take action from that place and your whole life just becomes amazing. So be grateful. Love yourself. You is kind. You is smart. You is important. And also make sure you spend time imagining how awesome your life can be without nicotine. Even if you don't quite believe it yet, just give it some time.

You know, give it some space in your mind. And then from that place, even if you have like a tinge, a little bit, a tiny little wince of excitement, then consider quitting vaping or at least cutting back from that place and see what happens. You might find out that you actually enjoy vaping less. I don't know.

It's up for you to decide. Only you know what's best for you. Have a fantastic day. I will see you in the next episode. Thank you. Goodbye.