On this episode of Build Better Brands, Danielle Clarke is joined by Carol Urry to talk about building her coaching business, Warriormum Coaching, amongst other things. Books mentioned: Open with a Close: The twelve point guide to closing more sales by Matthew Elwell https://amzn.to/3M2Ewze Alcohol Explained Workbook (William Porter's 'Explained') by William Porter https://amzn.to/3UZzZBw THIS NAKED MIND: The myth-busting cult hit for anyone who wants to cut down their alcohol consumption by Annie Grace https://amzn.to/3V1MUmM KEY TAKEAWAYS A lot of people doing Sober October just want to do it to prove to themselves they’re not alcoholics, which is a word that we don’t really use in the coaching space around alcohol freedom. There are a range of benefits to giving up alcohol for a month, it’s a great thing. But, from a coach’s point of view it’s hard to put yourself through that, and what have you actually learned at the end of it? As an alcohol free coach, the programme I teach looks at why we drink, why we need to drink and all the different scenarios around using alcohol – self-medicating, confidence, help sleeping, stress, need to chill. A lot of coaches go into coaching because of experiences they’ve had and they want to help other people, and that was the same with me. I started drinking in my early teenage years at the local disco in the pub, but drinking wasn’t really a big thing. I spend 13 years in the Army and drinking wasn’t a massive part of my life then – though there are a lot of veterans who use alcohol because they’re away from home a lot of the time and it’s quite difficult. Also, they’re quite bored, a lot of people drink through boredom. Drinking, for me became more of a habit over the years and the thing with a habit is you then get the tolerance so you need more to get that buzz. I love studying the stuff that goes on in your brain and your body when you take on board alcohol. It’s amazing. The one thing that blew me away was a single sentence in a book that I read that alcohol is a carcinogen, it’s cancer causing, and after some more research I found out that in 1987 alcohol was classed as a class 1 carcinogen and actually derives from ethanol, which is what we put in our petrol tanks. That floored me, and I just thought I want to be around for my kids and my grandkids. That was a big turning point for me. Thankfully, a lot of young people aren’t big drinkers. A lot of my clients are sitting around the 40-50 mark, the yuppie era where they were drinking champagne and partying and going to Spain and Ibiza and raving. There’s a lot of people in this bracket where alcohol has been part and parcel of their growing up. People don’t think about choosing an alternative, you’re either drinking or you’re not. I tell people to have one soft drink for every alcoholic drink as a starter.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I, like many other people, Googled “am I an alcoholic” and felt great when I didn’t score highly on that.’ ‘After my divorce I drank at least a bottle of wine every night for over a decade. That’s why I do what I do because it breaks my heart to think of mum’s struggling out there, trying to keep everything together and turning to alcohol – and I don’t blame them for doing that – but it’s an addictive substance and once you get into that cycle it’s really, really hard.’ ‘The night and day programme that I run is re-programming that subconscious thinking around alcohol because it’s not our fault. Society gives us an addictive substance, promotes an addictive substance, puts it all over the place – on TV and in the supermarkets – and then blames us for getting addicted. It’s crazy.’ ‘If you have 3 alcoholic drinks a week you increase your risk of breast cancer by 15%. One additional drink increases that risk by 10%. The drinks industry don’t want you to know about these statistics because they’re making an absolute s