Embracing discomfort and experiencing emotions to the fullest can give us the guidance needed to navigate positive life changes, even in difficult circumstances. But sometimes those emotions are too difficult or too stark, and so we use things like alcohol to turn down the volume. But by doing so, we dim ourselves.

Today, Ben is in conversation with Cecily Mak. Cecily writes a newsletter on living a life free of alcohol (without labels like “sober” or “recovery”), and reveals how little most of us know about the carcinogenic nature of alcohol.

Cecily is also a cofounder of a venture fund called Wisdom Ventures, which seeks to add spirituality, purpose and impact to the results they delivers partners and investors.

Links

• Connect with Cecily via LinkedIn
• ClearLife – Cecily’s newsletter
• Follow @clearlifejourney on Instagram

Welcome to Peripheral Thinking.

The series of conversations with academics advisors, entrepreneurs and activists, people all championing those ideas on the margins, the periphery.

Why is this important?

Well, as the systems on which we've depended for the last 50, 60 stroke thousand years, crumble and creek people increasingly looking for new stories, new ideas, new myths, if you like, that might guide and inform how they live and work.

So in these conversations, we take time to speak to those people who are championing the ideas on the margins, championing the ideas on the periphery, those ideas which are gonna shape the mainstream tomorrow.

Uh, and our hope is that you are a little bit inspired, a little bit curious enough to take some of these ideas and bring them back to the day-to-day of your work and your life.

Cecily, thank you for joining me on Peripheral Thinking.

It's so fun to be here.

Thank you for having me.

My kind of route I was first introduced to you, uh, via your work with, uh, Search Insiders silly.

I think you, uh, is, is, is how you refer to it, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership program, which, which came out of Google and that's, uh, something that you are involved with, uh, along with a few different things I think is, is right now.

That's right, that's right.?

Yeah, exactly.

Silly is actually a interesting, somewhat challenging acronym for the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute.

Uh, I've been serving on the board of that organization and then subsequently its venture backed spinoff for the last several years.

Mm-Hmm

and we share a friend in one of the fellow board members, so,

Mm-Hmm.

Uh, it's great to connect with you that way.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you, Cecily.

Well, like I said, so when I first, uh, came across your work, it was, it was, it was primarily about that.

And then in the, in the intervening time, actually, two, two things happened in the intervening time, both of which we can we'll come to talk about.

One is, uh, Wisdom ventures, which is a, a new venture fund that you are involved with setting up, which we'll come to later.

And the the second thing, which, uh, was kind of super interesting, curious to me was, is, uh, was kind of writing and program.

It's a whole range of different things.

I think that you will, you, you talk about, uh, under the, under the, the, the name Clear Life.

That's right, is it?

Correct?

I am out of the closet on Clear Life.

Yeah.

I'm pretty prolific on the topic.

You are pretty prolific on the topic.

Yeah.

So, um, give us, give us a little, uh, overview about what the Clear Life writing is about.

Sure thing.

So Clear Life is actually about living a dimmer free life.

Mm-Hmm.

It's about recognizing what we use and how we use it to feel less or soften edges or ease discomfort of any kind.

It can be shopping, it can be exercise, it could be work, it could be sex, it could also very easily be drugs or alcohol.

And alcohol, I believe is by far the most prevalent, dimmer we have in our global culture today, and it was my primary dimmer for many years.

And so when I took a first break from drinking some years ago and then continued that break, and here we are, six and a half, seven years into that journey, I realized what a profound impact, what I had previously perceived as social or casual drinking was having on my ability to have an authentic and present experience of human life and everything from career to relationships.

And so I have spent quite a bit of time and energy, uh, since that first year of this experience doing research, sharing my findings, being very open and honest about my own experiences, the trials, tribulations, victories, failures, regrets and beyond.

Really trying to help people find a way to explore something similar in themselves and know that they're not alone as they do it.

So your, your journey too specifically about, uh, kind of recognizing that alcohol was used as a, a dimmer.

Did you know it was a dimmer and decide to stop or having stopped saw it was a dimmer?

Absolutely the latter.

Right.

I, I thought I was living a totally normal life.

I was a mom of two kids.

I was living in a pleasant suburban environment.

I was commuting to a super fascinating Silicon Valley exec job every day.

I was taking vacations, doing fun things on weekends, thinking I was living this very kind of normal, charmed life.

Hmm.

And what happened was, in mid 2017, after a year of trying to avoid it, it became clear that I was going to be going through a divorce.

Hmm.

And at the beginning of that process, I knew that the stakes were very high for finances, for the children, for my own security.

Uh, and, and I was actually prompted by a friend who said, how about taking a 30 day break from whatever you're doing in your partying lifestyle.

This actually started in Burning Man of all places.

Mm-Hmm.

And I said, you know, that's not a bad idea.

Mm-Hmm.

How about navigating this through, uh, or from a place of kind of clarity and intentionality and truthfulness, both in mind and in heart.

I didn't wanna have any regrettable signatures, kisses, contracts.

Everything seemed very, very important, I wanted to be as clear as possible, and so I embarked upon that first 30 days.

I'd frankly been trying to moderate my drinking for years.

Mm.

As I imagine you and maybe some of your listeners will relate to the whole, I'm only gonna drink on weekends.

I'm only gonna drink after six.

I'm gonna have a big glass of water in between beverages.

Mm-Hmm.

I'm not gonna drink the hard stuff.

I'm only gonna have, you know, this crappy beer or wine I don't like, or, you know, this moderation game had been going on with me for a while because I was trying to be healthier and feel better on weekend mornings and lose a little weight or whatever my list of motivators were at the time.

And I had found moderating quite difficult.

Kind of stick to one of these for a while and then it would fall off quickly.

But I still sort of just chalked it up to, look, this is life.

You know, I grew up in a home and in an environment where everybody kind of drank a little bit all the time.

Mm-Hmm.

You know, it was drinks in the evenings after work.

It was Christmas morning, special beverages.

It was if we're on a picnic, if we're on a vacation, if we're bummed about something, there was sort of always some reason to have a drink.

So I took this 30 day break, and it was actually easier to just stop than it had been to moderate.

Mm-Hmm.

And honestly, I was going through so much change in my life at the same time, it was just one other thing on the list.

Mm-Hmm.

But I managed to take that 30 days.

At the end of that 30 days, I noticed a few things had shifted.

I looked different.

Mm-Hmm.

My eyes were wider.

My kind of occasional walks or hikes had turned into three, four times a week runs

. Ben: Mm-Hmm.

I was sleeping better.

Mm-Hmm.

Um, I had this to-do list on a post-it paper that I had been kind copying onto a new post-it every month, literally for years.

Things I wanted to do for myself.

Silly stuff like, join this club nearby, subscribe to the New York Times, get rid of this card that I didn't need or want anymore.

And somehow even with everything else happening in that first month, I crossed all those things off the list.

Mm-Hmm.

And I realized something is happening here?

So let's do another 30 days.

So those 60 days, and it was 90 days.

And here I am now, end of November, navigating an early separation.

And in December, right around the holidays, I had a few nights when I drank.

Mm-Hmm.

And on the third or fourth of those at the end of the month, I really paid the price the next day.

Mm-Hmm.

I woke up and I thought, this is not the way.

I don't care how fun that dinner was last night.

This is not how I wanna feel.

Mm-Hmm.

And I was seeing a couple people that I really loved and care about that day, and I just felt like 60% of myself.

Mm-Hmm.

And so I took on a challenge of not drinking for the entire year of 2018.

Mm-Hmm.

To just see what that felt like.

Go through all the birthdays, go through all the holidays, have the tough days, have the great days, take a weekend off travel.

Like all of these kind of triggers I had for accompaniment with alcohol, let's just see if I can go the whole year without.

And so that was really the beginning of my deep end awareness around what I now call Clear Life or Clear Life journey.

And I really did everything I could to understand what was happening in my life.

My family systems, learn more about alcohol, the alcohol industry, big alcohol, the various health risks of alcohol, the social risks of alcohol.

I read easily a dozen books in the quit lit category, different people's stories about stopping drinking.

I listened to, you know, probably hundreds of podcasts and I started myself writing about my own experience.

And some of that writing was informed by work I also did at the time, with a, a therapist who specializes in this field of addiction and recovery.

And um, he was also very helpful 'cause I went to him with big questions like, was I an alcoholic?

I'd never, I don't even think anyone in my life had ever seen me drunk.

Yeah.

And I was so high functioning.

So he helped me really develop an awareness and understanding around where I had been, where I didn't wanna go.

And when that year ended, um, I had a handful of people in my life really looking forward to me starting to drink again.

Yeah.

Then we get to finally drink with Cecily again.

And, uh, I never went back.

I haven't had a drink since 2017, and it was a very easy decision to not go back to those patterns.

And so over that year, over the 2018 year, which was the, the year you committed, like so, all, all, all things remained the same other than the, the kinda drinking?

So social commitments going out, what you were doing, you know?

So like, I guess what had been, well that, that is my question really.

Mm-Hmm

. Ben: Did everything remain the same?

So in terms of what you would do and how you do it, apart from having, you know, all of the, the plus side socially, did things remain pretty similar?

You know, that's a great question.

And I can say in some ways yes, and in some ways, no.

So it, it was actually a little bit reminiscent of when I first became a mother.

I thought, I'm not gonna let this whole mother thing change my fun, dynamic social life.

The baby is just gonna come along.

We're gonna do everything with the baby, we're gonna do everything with the kids.

And I had a similar orientation when I stopped drinking.

I thought, I'm still gonna go to the girls weekend.

I'm still gonna go to the wine tasting dinner party and just drink something else.

Mm-Hmm.

And to an extent, I did continue to do those things, but it was the beginning of a very gradual awareness around what I actually do and don't want to do.

Mm-Hmm.

And a, a very deep attunement to my true, authentic inclinations.

Mm-Hmm.

So, yes, I went to the girls weekends, but I was in bed by 10 and running by 6:30 AM.

And I left early on Sunday 'cause I was really looking forward to being back with my kids.

Mm-Hmm.

I did go to the wine themed dinner parties, but I had to work hard to be mindful about the language I used about my choices to help other people not feel uncomfortable or condescended to, or whatever it was because I wasn't drinking.

So there are many, many nuances in that first year.

And I also was navigating a divorce at the time, so I noticed I was.

Falling off of invitation lists and had to reach out to a couple people and be like, I still wanna be your friend.

Can we find a different way to connect?

Mm-Hmm.

Or just because, you know, my now ex-husband and I got to know you through couples dinners, I'd still love to take a walk with you sometime.

And I was able to turn, nurture some of those relationships.

Now, truth be told, as the months passed, I became increasingly aware of the many activities that were only fun if I was drinking.

Like what?

Well, there are many social situations I think that a lot of us have that are just innately uncomfortable.

We might not feel accepted in the group.

We are self-conscious for some reason we feel like we don't fit in.

Uh, there's a particular character there who's just a very, you know, abrasive personality.

We feel like we need to have a drink in us to tolerate the energy or kind of get in the mode of it.

Or, you know, sadly, I think many of us in our adulthood have lost touch with our playful, fun side.

Mm-Hmm.

We have let our intellect and our productivity kind of run the show of our day-to-day lives.

And so a drink or two helps some of the inhibitions drop and helps us feel more fun and more playful.

Mm-Hmm.

And I, I had to really pay very close attention to what felt good and what didn't and why.

Mm-Hmm.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I eventually accepted was that, you know, in certain situations where I, I didn't feel comfortable around the people, that was the real me telling me, maybe these aren't your people.

Mm.

And if you have to be un, you know, under the influence of something to have a good time, maybe this isn't your good time to have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which, you know, obviously sounds so blindingly obvious, but you, it's kind of, I consider it's interesting we, were you using the, the language of, of kind of dimming, and all of everything that kind of has, has gone with the journey.

'Cause in a way, what you are left with, I guess, like if I think, think about this with my own, from my own experience or, you know, what you'd be left with if you removed the dimming is all of the awkwardness of everything that kind of remains, you know, all of the struggle

Yeah

. Ben: And those kind of relationships, all of the anxiety about being in those situations, all of that sort of stuff.

The kind of the, the dimming actually just kind of helps just to ignore, to dim essentially.

Yeah.

But what you're left with, it's the kind of, it's the reality of that, isn't it?

What you're left with actually is the real life bit, is the clear life bit.

And the clear life bit can be very uncomfortable too.

It's also extremely valuable.

Mm.

And, and if somebody is ready to make positive change in their lives, and for me, that meant relationship, career, home.

I mean, everything in my life changed through this journey.

Very little is the same.

But if we want to make change, being able to feel discomfort and actually experience emotions in their full blown human way, that is the guidance that we have to navigate towards a better life.

Mm-Hmm.

So, for example, I had a certain work relationship with somebody who was very off-putting to me.

Hmm.

And she was rude and com competitive and back stabby.

And it just felt so out of alignment with who I was as a person.

And in my years of dimming with alcohol, I think I would've just kind of powered through that.

Like, let's go have a couple drinks together, let's cover all this up with snark and sarcasm.

Mm-Hmm.

And, you know, kind of use these various other ways to just survive the tension of that relationship.

And when I was navigating that experience in 2018 and 19, without that alcohol orientation of just turning the volume down on the discomfort in whatever way is available, I really experienced the emotional and physical effects of working with her.

Hmm.

I noticed my heart racing after calls.

I, I felt the kind of tension in my body and the, the lack of safety that I felt in certain executive circles with her.

Hmm.

And I realized, you know, my choices are to resolve this with one of these various paths or just choose to not.

Expose myself to it anymore.

Mm-Hmm.

And it was such important signal and, and recognizing that that environment was not a nurturing or healthy professional environment for me anymore, was something that I had to very deeply feel and tune into and then respond to and move on to a, a much healthier, better role for me, um, as a result of that willingness to feel it.

And you know that there are many experiences I think that people have when they first pause their dimmer of choice, where, when you actually start authentically feeling the signal of your body, this the signal that we have, that something doesn't feel right, then we have the motivation and the clarity to make changes.

Mm-Hmm.

Step away or resolve a conflict, or whatever that might be.

And so, um, I actually think it's really important.

I often use this metaphor when I talk to people about it.

You know, imagine yourself in this, your little house, and there's a knock on the door and it's your discomfort.

And it could be discomfort at a party.

It could be in a conversation, it could be in a relationship.

It could be in a job.

You know, in my prior years I'd be like, oh yeah, I hear that.

I'm just gonna turn the volume of the music up and just pretend like I don't hear that, and I'm gonna be over here dancing and hope that goes away.

Mm-Hmm.

And these days, you know, I hear the knocking at the door and I get super curious.

Mm-Hmm.

And I know something's on the other side of that door that I'm gonna have to deal with.

So I, I, I proceed with some awareness and caution, but I, I metaphorically open the door and I see discomfort there, and I invite discomfort into the living room.

Mm-Hmm.

And I offer him or her a cup of tea and I say, what do you need to tell me?

Mm.

What is the message that I need to hear and kind of face the music.

Yeah.

And it just accelerates our ability to make changes that are gonna be positive for how we live as human beings.

So, 'cause obviously the saying of all of that, is it's very easily said, isn't it?

Uh, but, but equally very, very kind of, can be very challenging for people to, to kind of open the door to that, to not turn up the music, like you say.

And to, to kind of learn how to get friendly or get familiar with that, with the discomfort with the, with the unwelcome visitor at the door.

Yeah.

And I'm kind of curious just from your own point of view, going whether there are kind of practices that you use, you know, how do you kind of learn to kind of equip yourself with the sort of resolve and the understanding to be able to meet that guest rather than turn the music up?

Well I think one of the main pillars of this is recognizing that all of that signal, all of those voices, the discomfort, whatever we wanna call it, is actually coming from the inside.

Mm-Hmm.

It's actually our own inner wisdom and our own inner intuition that we can look to and trust as guidance.

Mm-Hmm.

And so different people have different ways of accessing that kind of inner guidance, that inner voice for me, and I think this is pretty common, it actually means some combination of time alone and time in nature.

Mm.

And it doesn't have to be a weekend retreat or a whole afternoon in the woods, or can't, it can be as simple as not listening to anything, you know, turn off the podcast, turn off all the, no offense to podcasts.

Turn off all the

what of the other podcasts.

All the other podcasts.

Turn off all the inbound signal and, and stimulation we have throughout our days.

Uh, and, and take a five minute walk.

And it, you can be in a concrete jungle.

It could be in the middle of a city if it need be, um, or navigate your way to, to a park and just actually be in quiet, in the outside environment for as little as five minutes and just start getting comfortable with tuning in.

Mm-hmm.

And experiencing our own true, authentic feelings, voices, gut hunches.

That's really, really helpful.

Mm-Hmm.

You know, another practice that I, that you can do just sitting at a desk actually is just closing our eyes and doing a body scan, kind of assessing from the tip of our heads down to our toes, where are we holding tension in our body?

You know, for me it's often my jaw.

And I think that that's, you know, I, I'm not saying something I want to say.

Mm.

And so I can kind of give attention to that, try to relax my jaw and this, it could be a 62nd body scan and kind of ask myself, what am I trying to say?

Yeah.

Or if it's tension in my heart or tension belly, you can say, what am I, what am I emotionally not letting myself feel that I need to just allow in for a minute.

Mm-Hmm.

And, you know, strong feelings and emotions don't really last that long.

As humans we're wired to have kind of strong hits of them and then they, they wane a little bit.

Mm-Hmm.

Another opportunity is when you have something really intense happen and, and you, like somebody really pisses us off or, you know, we open an email and we're so disappointed with the information that we're reading in the email, it's about a 92nd cycle of just letting that move through your system.

And if we can just teach ourselves to, instead of picking up the phone and relieving the pain with an Instagram scroll, or going outside and finding a way to smoke a joint or, you know, whatever it is people do to kind of just dim out that feeling and just let it move through our system, I think is a wonderful pathway and then over time it becomes second nature.

Mm-Hmm.

Um, we're more likely to do things like, okay.

I've learned that a five minute walk outside every day is really healing and like helps me get more connected to myself.

Maybe I'm gonna make that, you know, a five minute walk and then five minutes just sitting in silence.

Maybe start to develop some kind of a meditation practice where that's really what you're doing is attuning our internal awareness.

Mm-Hmm.

Just simple self-awareness.

And over time it's like a muscle, it's kind of awkward and weird to start, but then over time it becomes second nature and it's just like breathing or brushing your teeth or having a meal.

It's part of what we do on a regular basis to nurture ourselves.

And so, you know, just on the, on alcohol specifically.

I know I, I kind of one of the little bits of insight of which there are many that I picked up from your, your writing was the idea that, um, or the idea, the, the fact that alcohol is a, uh, I think it's called a, a type one carcinogen?

So essentially same carcinogen as tobacco, uh, or as, as nicotine.

I can't remember which one is the carcinogenic bit of it.

But it's just, and, and I'm sort of just reflecting on that, like sort of strikes the, this podcast is called Peripheral Thinking.

And the idea, you know, what I was interested in was that somehow the ideas on the margins would be the mainstream tomorrow.

And this whole thing with alcohol in a way feels like the other way round a little bit.

It's like the, you know, alcohol is so mainstream and it's like the understanding of the reality of it.

Like this point that it's a type one carcinogen, these things are hiding on the margins.

Uh, and I'm kind of really curious about the sort of flip there.

And I, yeah, so I, I didn't actually know, uh, that alcohol is a type one carcinogen.

We were on, uh, holiday the other week, and, uh, I was, uh, sharing that with, with the group of people we were with, obviously, while we were sitting around the table, everyone's drinking wine and everything.

And was sort of saying, you know, it's, it's a kind of, it's a type one carcinogen.

And actually every, so I try and make a point of sharing that with everybody now.

Uh, and um, like everybody actually is surprised by that.

Occasionally I get a, yeah, obviously, while sitting around drinking, but it's like everyone is surprised by that.

Uh, and so, yeah, I mean that, so it kind of, it feels like one of those, those things which, you know, must, should be much more centrally understood, but seems to be hiding away on the margins.

That is a fantastic question.

And there, there are a few things that I would love to, to point out and explore in response.

First of all, you shouldn't feel bad about not knowing that alcohol is a group one carcinogen.

Less than 30% of people know this fact today.

Uh, and I'm focusing on countries such as UK or the United States, um, you know, various countries in Western Europe, the UK.

Uh, this is a very little known truth.

And in fact, it's extremely reminiscent if we start doing the research of what was happening with big tobacco for decades.

There is a massive global marketing machine that I refer to as and other organizations refer to as big alcohol that is spending.

Billions of dollars on advertisements, product placement, and lobbying efforts to keep the awareness of this truth out of the public eye.

Mm.

And to celebrate this image of alcohol as for fun, it's sophisticated, it's going to help you attract the attention of the opposite gender or whatever you're looking for out there.

It makes you more fun, it's associated with relaxing, whatever it might be.

And on the legislative and in the lobbying front, there are literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent a year keeping the core science out of the public awareness because this is such a massive global industry.

And so in, in my experience, it was actually, I think maybe year two or year three when more of the research confirming the physical and scientific dangers of alcohol started coming online.

And since then, there's actually quite a bit of information.

If you go to the National Institutes for Health, if you go to the World Health Organization, if you go to the American Cancerous Society, any of these websites and just look for alcohol, search for alcohol and safety, or alcohol and cancer, there are very clear reports and guidelines available to now that articulate

not only this classification as a group when carcinogen, but alcohol's linked to seven deadly cancers including colon, esophageal, throat, and breast.

And it's becoming increasingly well known that this is, this is an issue and something that we should all be taking into consideration if and when we drink and how much

Mm-Hmm.

Um, Canada actually had a, had a very, um, made a big, strong move last year and came out with their own guidance for their entire national population saying that the safe amount of alcohol to drink is zero.

And Ireland last year was the first country to come out and actually mandate accurate labeling on alcohol products.

So, at least in the United States today, and I believe in most of the developed countries, alcohol labeling is limited to don't drink while you're pregnant or don't operate heavy machinery while under the influence, with no mention of the health risks for everybody else.

And Ireland is the first country who's now, uh, mandating that alcoholic products be labeled using carcinogen specific language, um, much more, um, kind of scary warning labels than what we've, we've seen to date.

Interestingly, Ireland is also the first country that made smoking in pubs illegal.

Right.

Despite the pub culture in Ireland.

Right.

And so they're, they're kind of trailblazing in this area, and I'm very hopeful that we're gonna see additional territories following those footsteps.

With regard to alcohol as a carcinogen, this is also a very personal story for me.

I was diagnosed myself with breast cancer in December of 2022.

So I hadn't been drinking for five years by that point.

And I started my journey of, you know, the details of the diagnosis and meeting with surgeons and oncologists and et cetera.

And I, I am happy to say I am thriving and well and seemingly cancer-free today.

But the first half of 2023 was largely focused on treating this disease.

And in that process I was very infrequently asked about alcohol use.

Hmm

know you check into the hospital, you check in with your doctor, you have your various steps, and they ask about smoking and they ask about hormone replacement therapy or they ask about the pill, other things that could impact your likelihood of having breast cancer.

And I don't think anybody ever asked me about alcohol use.

This needs to change.

And um, there was a moment I had in my healing.

So, so the way that it works, you, I had, I had a lumpectomy where the tumor was removed, and then they also removed some lymph nodes.

And you're waiting after this experience for two bits of information.

One is did it have clear margins?

Meaning did they get all of the tumor, right?

And you want the answer to be yes.

Mm-Hmm.

And then the second one is, were there any cancer cells in the, in the lymph nodes?

If there are, then you, you have a high likelihood that your cancer is in the process of metastasizing and you have a different treatment protocol, 'Cause they can assume that there's cancer in your body elsewhere, um, beyond the tumor.

And maiight was unusually long.

The surgeon had told me it would maybe be five or seven days.

And on day 10, I still didn't have the results.

And my mind went to all of the.

All of the dark places.

I actually published a, a writing on this in, in Medium where I post a picture I took of myself one of those days.

And I just, it's a haunting image.

I really felt like I was facing the possibility of a much shorter life than I had envisioned for myself.

And I remember I made a deal with the universe.

I said, if you spare me this metastasis I will do everything in my power to help raise the awareness around the link between alcohol use and breast cancer.

Mm.

And I ended up with a little bit of a middle way.

I had a, I had a tiny meta metastasis, so it wasn't a zero, but it wasn't a full blown either.

Mm-Hmm.

Either way, a deal is a deal.

I feel like I came out on the good side of this.

And so, so I do try to, um, be one of the voices raising awareness about this risk today.

And it's great you're talking about it.

I'm sure it's awkward bringing it up over drinks.

I can only imagine.

I've had one hell of a time talking about my experience living alcohol free with, with people in my life while they're drinking.

Yeah.

It just kind of sucks.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear you're, um, you're aware of it yourself and kind of bringing some of that awareness to your circles as well.

Oh, no.

So thank you for, thank you for sharing it.

I mean, essentially just as you were talking there, you were, you made reference to, um, like out advice that I was thinking about when my partner was pregnant with our kids.

Obviously you kind of ex, you know, then it's spoken of that you don't really drink.

But even that, I remember, so a good friend of ours', doctor, and uh, I remember my partner Tara, talking to, uh, the friend of ours, Laura, about whether she could have a drink.

And Laura, who also, you know, likes to drink and all of those things, and is a doctor, I remember her saying to Tara, yet, the thing is, you know, with having a drink, it's okay to have a drink, you know, when you are, when you are pregnant.

You know, really that advice is for people who don't know how to put a kind of, sort of stock on it.

Do you know what I mean?

So it's not completely, there's no mention at all that actually it might be fundamentally kind of harmful.

It's like, no, no.

Even the, the advice not to drink when you're pregnant doesn't really mean not drinking when you're pregnant.

It means some people probably need to be told they can't drink 'cause they don't know how to put a kind of cap on it.

You know what I mean?

So actually they, it just, when you were saying that there just kind of reminds me how far away from the medical establishment, I mean that was what, 10 years ago?

And I don't know if it's changed the extent it's changed now, but how far away from the medical establishment, a lot of these ideas are.

It feels like they are, you know, they in, you know, not dissimilar way.

You're talking about to the tobacco, big tobacco thing, it feels like it's a kind of, it's a world away from where doctors are and what doctors are being told.

And it's up to us.

I.

you know, a lot of doctors themselves enjoy a drink.

Yeah.

So there's a little bias in there.

Also the, the medical industry, at least in the United States and I know elsewhere in the world, is heavily influenced by the pharmaceuticals industry.

Mm-Hmm.

And the pharmaceuticals industry is rubbing elbows with big alcohol on the Hill and elsewhere where policy is being decided.

So it really is a reminder that it's up to us.

We need to be ourselves informed.

And just like any medical journey or making decisions during a pregnancy or whatever it is, it's important to stay very curious and be very self informed and, and kind of take some of these decisions into our own hands.

Mm-Hmm.

You know, there's a, there's a related topic on this, um, which has to do with the addictive nature of alcohol.

It's something that we should also be a little bit more open about discussing.

Mm-Hmm.

You know, it's, it's one thing to have a glass of wine or champagne here and there and enjoy life and almost, you know, I don't wanna say almost every, most people in my life drink regularly and I serve them alcohol in our home and I got to dinner with them.

I'm not on some high horse where I think my way is the way.

Everybody needs to pick their own path on this.

But there's very little awareness around the addictive nature of alcohol.

Mm.

It is one of the most addictive things we can do.

And it has a very clear progression for many folks.

Hmm.

And there are three steps.

There's use when you just kind of casually have a drink here and there, and no big deal, to abuse where we're leaning hard into that substance, ethanol, alcohol to be able to do certain things.

Mm-Hmm.

Like.

I don't know how to cook a dinner without a glass of wine, or I'm uncomfortable at a cocktail party without a vodka, or I don't know how to have sex with my partner unless I'm a couple drinks in.

I mean, this is in the abuse category.

We were, we're developing a dependency to do things we otherwise would just do in life.

And then after enough time in the abuse category, many people fall into the addict.

Mm-Hmm.

And that is where you're, you're compulsively doing something that you're aware is causing you harm and you're continuing to do it.

Mm-Hmm.

And it's very hard to stop once we're in the addicted, whether it's physically addicted, emotionally addicted, or both.

Mm-Hmm.

And it just kind of takes some of the.

You know, kind of shiny levity we have around alcohol off.

It's something that we should just be aware of and thoughtful about.

And we're seeing it a lot today, at least in my circles.

I turned 50 this year.

Mm-Hmm.

And there are many people in my life who've been socially drinking for 30 years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they're a little bit troubled by how difficult it is to moderate or stop.

And I went through this myself.

I had that, you know, hard stop, but I had a very difficult time moderating.

And I have a parent who's an alcoholic, and when I went and got professional guidance on this, his advice to me was, look, you, you were definitely past the youth stage.

You were deep into the abuse stage.

Mm-Hmm.

And if you had continued drinking, you probably would've ended up addicted.

Mm-Hmm.

And I hope you never drink again.

So that being a, a, a progression, obviously, a kind of downward progression because the thing that was coming to mind as just talking there, the, the idea that, which I think we, we touched on earlier that, oh, I don't drink during the week.

And I'm kind of curious ' cause I, the kind of story that would be told with that is, no, I'm not addicted because I don't drink during the week, uh, and that somehow then, then it is the kind of problem of it is far away because I'm controlling it to the extent of I'm not drinking during the week.

This is great.

You're highlighting the problem beautifully.

So we have this thing in our, in our culture day where go ahead and drink as much as you want, as long as you're not addicted and you know you can stop.

Yeah, yeah.

Or when I've realized I can't stop, then I know I have a problem and then I'll do something about it, which will be extremely difficult at that point.

Mm-Hmm.

You know, this is a very common conversation around dry January, right?

We all know many people who just completed a 30 day break from alcohol, and I know a lot of people who look at that as their ticket to drink again, as much as they want for the rest of the year 'Cause they've proven to themselves that they're not addicted.

Yeah.

It's like a, it's like a hall pass for the next 11 months.

You know?

Great.

Look, do you, whatever works for you.

However, it it is, there's a, there's something twisted in that thinking.

Mm-Hmm.

You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use this addictive thing and feel fine about it until I discover I'm addicted.

Hmm.

I don't know.

I mean, if that's the way we wanna run it, you know, fine.

I also think that there are just some interesting nuances around the choice.

Like we have a, we have a choice before we're addicted, whether or not we're gonna continue to do something or not.

We have agency.

Mm-Hmm.

We have sufficient willpower and freedom to elect how much we're going to use something or not in our day-to-day life.

Mm-Hmm.

And it gets harder and harder to leverage that agency.

The longer and longer you use something addictive.

And an addict, we also have this really unfortunate image that, you know, an addict or an alcoholic is the guy kind of crinkled up in the corner on the sidewalk with a bottle and a bag.

Mm-Hmm.

No, I, it, I can tell you 'cause I have, I have many relationships with many people who are in their own steps of this journey today.

It's often the extremely high functioning executive or you know, the parent who's holding not only their household together, but also their elder parents together.

And they're just dealing with so much stress of day-to-day life that they don't know how to calm down at the end of the day without a couple glasses of wine.

Mm-hmm.

And everything looks great, but there's a torture happening beneath the surface.

And enough years of that, it will.

We'll end up having a net negative effect on life.

Mm-Hmm.

So we just need to choose what we wanna do.

Yeah.

And there is no one way, there is no right way.

But to think that just because we can stop for a while, then here we go.

Let's just keep going.

I don't know how much I like that approach myself.

No.

But you know, and it's, it's really right, isn't it?

That whole thing that actually, just because I'm trying to hold on tight, that I basically then get to a point of drinking to relieve the tension of that.

And you know, is, going back to the earlier part of it, a deeply unhealthy thing.

And so in a sense, actually, it's interesting you kind of bring up the thing around the kind of addictive nature and, and I kind of wonder and, and reminded as, as you're sort of talking, yes it's important to remember the addictive nature, but also don't let the addictive na the addicted part of the conversation become the distraction because all of those

other things around kind of health and, you know, the carcinogenic nature of it, that I'm using it to kind of make myself feel better because I'm otherwise sort of stressed and anxious.

I mean, this is the stuff of kind of unhealthiness.

So.

Yeah, no, for sure.

On all of these levels, it is, uh, you know, it is kind of, it is something to kind of, to, to wake up to.

I'm kinda curious with, with your writing, what's your main wish or main hope with the, the writing that you do on this topic?

So, you know, we've talked a bit about addiction and we've talked about use and abuse and, you know, the various stages of getting there.

The voice, that I have is for the people who are in the middle of this very vast spectrum of using any dimmer, but particularly alcohol.

So.

there are a good number of people who are happily down on the use end, right?

They have a glass of champagne a couple times a year at a wedding.

It's really no big deal, and they don't care.

And then on the other end of the spectrum are addicts and people who really need material support to overcome a physical or emotional dependency.

And they're in some, you know, stage of that journey in recovering, in, in a, in a recovery and an addiction journey.

Now there is this huge body of people in the middle, that are not on either end, who have a curiosity about how alcohol is affecting their life.

Mm-Hmm.

They are becoming increasingly informed about some of the health risks.

They are conscious about how removing or significantly cutting back on alcohol might help their fitness game, their professional game, their relationship game, their ability to actually be present and vulnerable and authentic in their most important relationships, to develop the courage to launch the thing that they've always wanted to launch, whatever it might be.

And today in our culture, there's very little support for everybody in the middle.

Mm-Hmm.

Because the industry, big alcohol has told us to drink responsibly.

Hmm.

So everybody should drink and if you can't, because you're an addict.

You go over there into this special category, but everybody else, we all get to drink responsibly.

There's, there's very little support for people who, who simply want to live a better life without or was significantly less.

Mm-Hmm.

And one of my primary motivators for this was when I did first stop those first 30 days and I was at one of those dinner parties, and the woman sitting next to me noticed that I wasn't sipping the glass of wine in front of me and I was drinking water instead, she said, what's up?

You know, why aren't you drinking with us tonight?

And I said, you know, I'm taking a 30 day break.

Mm-Hmm.

And she looked at me and she said, I didn't know you had a problem.

Ooh.

That really.

Really got to me because I am the child of somebody who had a problem.

I also have seen the damage that alcoholism has caused, alcohol use disorder better described these days across many relationships and communities in my life.

And the fact that I wasn't drinking seem to be a signal that I had a, a problem with alcohol really rubbed me the wrong way.

Hmm.

And I, I think that the opportunity for us today is to see people who aren't drinking is just making a choice to not drink.

And it doesn't mean there's something wrong with them.

Right, yeah.

So, so people who don't drink, we should just be a little bit more visible.

And we should, we should be showing the world that we still know how to have a grea time, we still go out all weekends, we have dinner parties and we go to dinner parties and we hang out with girlfriends and guy friends and do whatever we need to do, but we don't need alcohol to do those things.

Yeah.

And so the Clear Life invitation is really to, to help normalize that choice, um, because it's a great choice for a lot of people.

Mm-Hmm.

And, you know, I had an interesting experience, which kinda showed me how much of a shift happened within myself, and I'm seeing this, I mean, so much has improved since I started this in 17.

There's so much more awareness around the option to not drink in the mocktail industries going through the roof.

And you can walk into pretty much any nice restaurant or bar in any of the big metropolitan cities these days and there'll be a non-alcoholic drinks menu.

And this did not exist five years ago.

Yeah.

So we are making progress.

Mm-Hmm.

But when I first stopped, I remember I was at a fundraising event in San Francisco and the hosts, of course, there, there was wine being liberally poured.

There was also an auction going on.

And so it was kinda like, as much as wine as we could get into these people, the better.

And I just let that glass of wine sit in front of me at my place setting all night, because I didn't wanna have that conversation again about whether or not I had a problem with alcohol or Why aren't you drinking?

And are you pregnant?

Or whatever people come up with.

And so I just let that glass of wine sit there and it felt a little bit inauthentic.

Like, I'm kind of faking this here.

I'm just pretending that I'm a drinker so that people around me feel better or don't bother me.

But it is what it was, and that's what I needed to do at that time.

Four years later, I'm at a private dinner, with a very esteemed group of people, and I was one of the first to arrive with my partner.

We were seated, the waiter came, took our order, and I ordered a mocktail.

And by the time the drink came, the other six or eight guests had arrived into the private dining room, and this drink, you know, was lifted off of his serving tray and put in front of me.

And it was beautiful, like a sugared rim and a squi of rosemary and this tall kind of fancy glass.

And it looked like a real cocktail.

And I had a shock of horror that the fellow diners thought that I was drinking alcohol.

Not because they know anything about my clear life journey.

Mm-Hmm.

Or that this felt like it was kind of counter off brand or whatever.

Just simply, I, I so proudly and confidently self-identify as somebody who doesn't drink regularly that I had the total opposite experience as I had four years ago.

What do you do?

I think I made a comment or two about how great the mocktail was.

Yeah.

Does anyone wanna try it?

And you know, who, I really shouldn't care that much, and I think, you know, if that were to happen to me today, I probably wouldn't have made such a big deal out it.

But the fascinating piece was that there had been such a shift.

And I think, there are more and more people who are proudly choosing to not drink.

And a lot of my writing work is to kind of bring some positive and attention to that, or positive energy and attention to that choice to frame it as a choice to frame it as an expression of agency and freedom.

Mm-Hmm.

And then also, as you're aware, continue to bring awareness to some of the health risks associated with the drinking.

Mm-Hmm.

Anytime there's a national shift or a state shift in how we're labeling or marketing restrictions or whatever it might be, I take an opportunity to kind of highlight and elevate that, whether it's through my Instagram or my Substack.

Mm-Hmm.

Um, I just wanna continue to bring attention to this.

And then finally.

I do it to help build community.

I really have met and connected with some remarkable people all over the planet who have found my work and share their stories with me in some way, shape, or form.

And I host a, a monthly gathering on Zoom and another monthly gathering in person.

And we don't use the word sober, we don't use the words recovery.

This is not about addiction treatment.

This is just humans supporting fellow humans in some of the relational and social and personal challenges of kind of breaking away from the mainstream, still mainstream, uh,, in choosing to not drink.

And all the perceived risk, which comes with the feeling like you're breaking away from the mainstream.

You know, the, which goes to the kind of heart of our feeling of safety, that I'm being evicted from the tribe.

All of that sort of stuff, which, you know, viscerally, we kind of, we feel that as, as kind of real risks.

So some, some more support for people like that kind of feels like a hugely welcome thing.

The other part, one of your other hats I was really kind of curious to, to speak to a little bit, and actually some of the things you said, there might be a kind of interesting segue.

You talk about like the, the kind of the importance of spirit of community, of kind of freeing people up to, um, kind of confidently make choices about things that they might want to start, things that they might want to do, and which obviously will kind of, sort of generally.

Kind of ties in with an idea of kind of wellness and wellbeing.

And that in a very kind of broad segue maybe is a way for us to talk about some of the other thing you do, which is the other aspect that I was Aware of, which is, uh, Wisdom Ventures, which is a, a relatively new venture fund that you are involved with.

That's correct.

Uh, wisdom Ventures is a $10 million fund.

Our fund one is our fund two will be significantly larger, that I co-founded with my partner, and then four additional co-founding partners in early 2021.

And the purpose of Wisdom Ventures is to invest in startups.

We do primarily seed, but some series A innovating, building, supportive products and services in the fields of human connection, mindfulness, and wellbeing.

Hmm.

We made about 20 investments to date.

We're about halfway through the capital.

Uh, we have over 60 LPs to contributed to that $10 million fund.

Uh, many of whom, uh, grew enormous wealth from building damaging products out of Silicon Valley.

So major social media platforms, other tech that has been proven to come with quite a price tag for our wellbeing and human connection.

And, uh, we invest in companies across everything from youth mental health tools to psychedelics to health and wellbeing supported by AI, and it's just a total joy to do that work.

And it's a, it's a great example of something that would not have happened if I was still drinking regularly.

It requires

How,, how so?

Well, I, when I was kind of dimming myself out, I was, I wasn't really listening to myself very much.

I had kind of a pervasive sense of, I mean, truthfully, even though everything looked great on the outside, I was pretty insecure.

I wasn't really listening to myself.

I thought my interests that I had had in my, in my teens and kind of wellbeing and spirituality were a little bit kind of woowoo and not to be trusted, and my Silicon Valley lawyer and executive career was much more impressive.

And so I was kind of in this hamster wheel of, you know, perform and produce and, you know, appear competent and confident.

Mm-Hmm.

And when I, when I paused drinking, I developed the courage to get out of that hamster wheel.

I started to really more completely honor my true self, and kind of dismiss this whole, don't trust that it's too woowoo.

No, no, no.

That's a part of the real me.

And it was fine.

And I felt like I could kind of come back from behind the veil and be more open about that I do retreats regularly and I do have spiritual features of my day-to-Day life and so on.

And in, in that process, I, I was able to really listen to what I, what I wanted to do.

And I have been working with founders in an executive or board member capacity for decades.

And, uh, I'd wanted to be an investor.

And people told me I couldn't do it.

They're like, you have to either be rich or you have to have experience and you have neither, so you cannot be a, a venture capitalist.

You can't be an investor.

And I said, you know, bullshit.

Like, how about we just do this anyway?

And so I, I, in connection with my partner who felt similarly, um, and the other four of us, uh, who made the six of us co-founders, we just really listened to ourselves and trusted that our sense of this need was so strong, it didn't really matter how many people told us we couldn't do it or there wasn't a need or this was ill suited, we went for it.

And we are courageously different.

We start every single meeting with a meditation.

Mm-Hmm.

We offer community meditations to our founders, regularly.

Mm-Hmm.

We're pretty fearless about self-defining as much more interested in the human component of building business than just hitting KPIs and crushing it with the numbers, although that's important too.

Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, I'm certain I would've been able to do it years ago and I was kind of in a very different zone.

Yeah, it's really, I mean, it's really, uh, really good to hear that.

'cause yeah, they, they kind of, the story that we're kind of brought up or many of us are kind of brought up kind of believing that success looks a certain way, that there are safe things to talk about, you know, that kind of needing to kind of conform.

And it's really kind of, it's really good then to hear what kind of opened up.

You've also, you've got some great, great co-founders in there as well, with you.

A really great, great bunch of people.

Yeah, we do.

We have, um, well, Soren Gord Hammer, he is the founder of Wisdom 2.0 and my partner and then Jack Kornfield, who is just a absolute force of nature and helping to bring accessible Buddhism to North America and beyond.

Both as a, a founder.

Yeah.

Beyond far and wide.

Very far and wide.

Yeah.

He's lovely.

And he's not just a token participant either.

He joins every weekly meeting.

He participates in our investment decisions.

He's fantastic questions.

He's super involved.

We also have Young Pueblo, the poet and author, um, he's fantastic.

Also very committed.

Mm-Hmm.

And, uh, Ruchika Sikri.

She led wellbeing programs at Google for many years.

And then Bradley Horowitz, who is a former product VP at Google, to thank for things like Gmail and maps, if you've heard of them.

Those, those little things.

Those little things.

And, uh.

He's actually a really wonderful, um, partner in many ways.

He's a successful angel investor and um, this is his main thing now, actually.

Amazing.

ince Google, so.

There's one last little question that I have, which relates to just 'cause uh, actually a client of mine is some way back on the journey news.

So they're about to start the raise for a first fund of theirs, and I'm just kind of curious what advice you would give to him in that situation or by equal measure yourself when you were starting out on the, the fundraising journey for your own fund.

If you were starting again now, what might you do?

What advice might you give yourself?

I, you know, I think what proved to be really important for us was.

Being very clear about why we were doing it.

Mm-Hmm.

There are thousands of venture funds around the planet and it's really important to distinguish yourself as doing something unique because there are always gonna be other funds out there that have more experience and more capital and more relationships.

And so what need is it that we're gonna fill that isn't being met elsewhere?

Um, or in, in a certain way that isn't being met in that way elsewhere.

That, that would be one.

Um, the second one would be do not be discouraged in the beginning.

It is so hard to raise the first, I don't know how big their fund will be, but in our case it

ized to how you started.

Yeah.

Raising that first million dollars was so difficult, 'cause you, you have these, you know, you finally get on these calls and you're telling your story and you've got your deck and you're all ready to go.

And they say, so how, how much have you raised?

hundred thousand dollars or, you know, and that was our a hundred thousand dollars.

Like, it's super hard and we just had to keep going.

And once you get a little momentum I think it gets a little bit easier.

So if there's any low hanging fruit that you can secure, just so that you're not saying zero or less than 1% of your target in those first calls, I think is important.

Um.

How long did it take you have Ty to, to raise for your first one?

So we technically founded at the beginning of 2021 and I, I think it was, um, just about two years to raise $10 million.

Its crazy.

Hundreds and hundreds of calls.

You know, the other thing I'll say.

Is a, is a great example of just being really authentic.

People are perceptive and smart and they're looking to get to know the human beings who are gonna be operating this thing.

You know, most, most potential LPs have many options for where to put their capital, right?

They probably have a financial advisor who says, just give it all to me and I'm gonna get you is secure return.

Mm-Hmm.

The fact that they're having a conversation with you means that there's some human to human intrigue or interest.

Mm-Hmm.

There's something that has invited them to spend a little bit of time getting to know you, and it's not just purely for financial return, so don't underestimate the value of that, that relationship and building it well from the start.

We had an example where we, we were pitching a, a very, um, well regarded, uh, investor and LP,, and about less than 10 minutes into the call this guy interrupted and said, so is this a spiritual thing?

And my partner Soren, bless him, he said he thought to himself, there is a right answer and there is a wrong answer to this question.

And he said, yes, this is a spiritual thing.

And the guy said, I'm in for a million bucks.

And that was that.

He had many other ways to make plenty of money, but he was feeling sort of a soulfulness in our team around what we were doing and why.

And he put us to the test.

Are we willing to actually stand in that place in doing this work?

And it was such a great moment for us.

It was such a great reminder to just be really clear about what you're doing, why you're doing it.

And to, you know, to be clear, we are running this fund to generate fantastic returns for our LPs.

Mm-Hmm.

But we're, we're doing it with founders who want to have a positive impact on the world and humanity.

Mm-Hmm.

So not only do they have to generate good revenue, scale the the business and have a healthy team, we're also encouraging them to self-report and report to us on whether or not they're actually delivering on the impact they seek to have.

Mm-Hmm.

And that's something that our LPs feel from us when they get to know us.

We're not just in it.

Like there are plenty of other places to go get money.

When these founders take capital from Wisdom Ventures and we've invested in companies such as Maps and Open AI, we've been fortunate to get into some remarkable founder journeys, it's because the founders like us in their mix.

They like our DNA in the mix, and our LPs recognize that.

And so the more that you can be the real deal all the way through the cycle from the conversations, the LPs, all the way through to your relations with the founders, then it's, um, it's gonna just go better.

Uh, yeah.

It reminds me we should have started this conversation with our own, our own meditation.

I'm trying to do that more with more and more of the conversations I have, particularly ones which sort of are online, like these are, it's just a brilliant, lovely, kinda way to ground and begin.

Cecily, thank you so much.

So where can people, obviously I'll include kind of links to everything, but where, where can people find more information about these, uh, these various endeavors?

Sure.

I have a very basic but helpful website, cecilymak.com.

I publish a weekly newsletter under Clear Life with Substack and my Instagram is Clear Life Journey, and, um, yeah, lots more to come, so.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much for this, this great time and conversation and, and your curiosity and your work in the world.

Oh, thank you, Cecily.

I really appreciate you taking the time.

Absolutely, cheers.

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