What is kava? Where does it come from and how does it affect the body? My guest today shares more about the plant Pacific Islanders have been sharing in ceremony for thousands of years to relax and socialize with.

I sat down with Virginia Cherie, co-founder of Kavayn, a kava extract brand. Her co-founder Brad Tabone was invited to a farewell kava circle in a village in the Pacific Islands, woke up the next morning after the best night's sleep and no hangover, and called Virginia to build the go-to-market plan. Along the way, Virginia and her husband both stopped drinking.

We get into what kava actually is, how it interacts with your GABA receptors, why the traditional brew tastes like earthy mud water, and why Kavayn works directly with subsistence farmers in Fiji and Vanuatu instead of middlemen. If you've been curious about alcohol alternatives that still give you the ritual, the calm and the connection, this one's for you.

Find Virginia and Kavayn at kavayn.com.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How a farewell kava circle in the Pacific Islands inspired a new brand, and why Virginia and her husband both stopped drinking along the way
• What kava actually is: the roots of a pepper plant, the kavalactones inside them, and how they connect with your GABA receptors to calm your mind
• Why Virginia describes kava as "a deep sigh" for anyone who has ever needed a drink to feel less socially anxious
• How Kavayn turns an earthy, bitter traditional brew into spirits, snap packs and gummies, and why coconut makes kava work better
• Why Kavayn refuses to buy from middlemen, and how micro loans support subsistence farmers in Fiji and Vanuatu
• The three pillars of calmness, connectivity and community, and how to reclaim the moments alcohol marketing has claimed for decades

Join over 20,000 souls who tune into weekly newsletters on the competitive advantage you get alcohol-free. Get on the Euphoric newsletter.

Join me on Substack for deeper essays on psychology, success, and business.

Apply to be our next Thought Leader to master premium selling and thought leader positioning to publish your book and deliver your keynote onstage. Few spots remain.

If you know you're meant to help other people change their relationship with alcohol and create a profitable online brand, get on the waitlist for the Empowered AF Coach 5x Certification – and get 5x certified as a world class alcohol-free empowerment coach, subconscious change coach, success coach, NLP practitioner, and hypnosis practitioner and implement our 0 to $100k Coach Method™ as you build a profitable brand.

Euphoric the Club is the premier space to lose the desire for alcohol as you surround yourself with successful women who don't drink (and the women who are becoming them). Euphoric the Club includes full access to all of my alcohol-free programs to make alcohol meaningless as your dreams take center stage, meaningful monthly challenges, weekly coaching and more.

Profiling successful people who don't drink and where the alcohol-free lifestyle and entrepreneurship collide. Subscribe to the Euphoric AF YouTube channel.

Read Euphoric: my HarperCollins bestseller on losing the desire for alcohol while getting high on your dream life. Be sure to get your copy of Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You today or grab your free chapter here.

Follow @euphoric.af on Instagram.

Please do rate, review, and subscribe so we can continue spreading our message far and wide!

Gen Z has a new way to party, and the older generations are furious about it. It's called the wellness darty: ice baths on the fraternity lawn, matcha, yoga and workouts where the beer pong table used to be.

While the comment sections fill up with people lamenting what college kids are missing out on, I had a very different reaction. I'm jealous.

In this episode, I look back at the blurry Facebook albums of millennial party culture, my UCLA days, and the wine and craft beer era that followed, and ask a bigger question. How much of what we do was ever really our choice? I share how alcohol programming teaches the subconscious mind that drinking brings love, belonging, status and popularity long before your first drink, and how that same indoctrination shapes the career, the lifestyle and the mold we think we're supposed to fit.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• What a wellness darty is, and why I wish it had been the cool thing to do when I was in college
• How alcohol programming tied drinking to love, belonging and popularity in my subconscious mind, from watching adults at dinner parties to making friends at UCLA
• The medieval twin thought experiment I share with my certification students, and what it reveals about how much of who you are was shaped by indoctrination
• Carl Jung's idea of the unlived life, and why so many of us are being called to live it now instead of waiting for a midlife crisis
• Why willpower and mocktails can only take you so far, and how to reprogram the meaning your subconscious mind made about drinking
• What Gallup's latest numbers say about how fast drinking culture is changing, and why being alcohol-free makes you the wolf

If you know you're meant to help other people change their relationship with alcohol and create a profitable online brand, apply now for the Empowered AF Coach 5x Certification – and get 5x certified as a world class alcohol-free empowerment coach, subconscious change coach, success coach, NLP practitioner, and hypnosis practitioner and implement our 0 to $100k Coach Method™ as you build a profitable brand. Our next class starts October 30.

Join over 20,000 souls who tune into weekly newsletters on the competitive advantage you get alcohol-free. Get on the Euphoric newsletter.

Join me on Substack for deeper essays on psychology, success, and business.

Apply to be our next Thought Leader to master premium selling and thought leader positioning to publish your book and deliver your keynote onstage. Few spots remain.

Euphoric the Club is the premier space to lose the desire for alcohol as you surround yourself with successful women who don't drink (and the women who are becoming them). Euphoric the Club includes full access to all of my alcohol-free programs to make alcohol meaningless as your dreams take center stage, meaningful monthly challenges, weekly coaching and more.

Profiling successful people who don't drink and where the alcohol-free lifestyle and entrepreneurship collide. Subscribe to the Euphoric AF YouTube channel.

Read Euphoric: my HarperCollins bestseller on losing the desire for alcohol while getting high on your dream life. Be sure to get your copy of Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You today or grab your free chapter here.

Follow @euphoric.af on Instagram.

Please do rate, review, and subscribe so we can continue spreading our message far and wide!

Eight years in, and I've been having some of the most honest conversations with my clients lately. The kind where you realize the things that held you back the longest were the things nobody ever just said plainly at the beginning.

So that's what this episode is. Six truths I learned the hard way, some in year one, some embarrassingly recently, that I'm handing to you now so you don't have to go through them the same way I did.

This one is for anyone building a coaching business, a wellness practice, an alcohol-free brand, or any kind of service-based business. The specifics will vary but the truths are universal.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The thing most coaches confuse for expertise when they're starting out, and why it will always hit a ceiling
• Why selling might actually be the most loving thing you can do for someone and how to immediately get better at it
• What I've noticed about the coaches who go viral and why it tells you almost nothing about their actual success
• The pattern I've seen play out every single year in my own business without fail, and what it always predicts
• Why your business being unrecognizable in five years might be the best thing that ever happens to it
• How I got a six-figure book deal with fewer than 5000 followers, and what that actually means for where you are right now

Join over 20,000 souls who tune into weekly newsletters on the competitive advantage you get alcohol-free. Get on the Euphoric newsletter.

Join me on Substack for deeper essays on psychology, success, and business.

Apply to be our next Thought Leader to master premium selling and thought leader positioning to publish your book and deliver your keynote onstage. Few spots remain.

If you know you're meant to help other people change their relationship with alcohol and create a profitable online brand, apply now for the Empowered AF Coach 5x Certification – and get 5x certified as a world class alcohol-free empowerment coach, subconscious change coach, success coach, NLP practitioner, and hypnosis practitioner and implement our 0 to $100k Coach Method™ as your build a profitable brand. Our next class starts in October.

Euphoric the Club is the premier space to lose the desire for alcohol as you surround yourself with successful women who don't drink (and the women who are becoming them). Euphoric the Club includes full access to all of my alcohol-free programs to make alcohol meaningless as your dreams take center stage, meaningful monthly challenges, weekly coaching and more.

Profiling successful people who don't drink and where the alcohol-free lifestyle and entrepreneurship collide. Subscribe to the Euphoric AF YouTube channel.

Read Euphoric: my HarperCollins bestseller on losing the desire for alcohol while getting high on your dream life. Be sure to get your copy of Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You today or grab your free chapter here.

Follow @euphoric.af on Instagram.

Please do rate, review, and subscribe so we can continue spreading our message far and wide!