024: Clarity of Mind

What Happens When You Take Away That One Thing?

✨Weekly Insight

Choices compound over time - both in what they take away and what they create space for.

Starting with “that one drink” feels like standing at a crossroads that appears small but actually represents something much larger. Each escalating timeframe - night, week, month, year - shows how a single decision can ripple outward into profound change.

I didn’t know at the time I quit, the most profound shift was moving from subtraction to addition. Taking away the drinking isn’t really about loss - it’s about what rushes in to fill that space.

The clarity that replaces fog. The genuine laughter that wasn’t fueled by anything but joy. The conversations you actually remember. The mornings that feel like beginnings instead of recovery. The money that stays in your account. The relationships that deepen because you’re fully present. The hobbies rediscovered or newly found. The trust rebuilt - both from others and in yourself. The sleep that actually restores. The emotions you learn to feel rather than numb.

You can stand at the edge of possibility, and trust that removing one thing isn’t about deprivation - it’s about making room for everything else that’s been waiting.

There’s something hopeful in how it’s framed as “imagine” rather than “you must” or “you should.” It invites curiosity about what life could hold, rather than demanding change. It acknowledges that this is about addition through subtraction - and the immense expansion this offers to create from this abundant space.

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💡Disrupt the Pattern

I’m excited to drop this new series. It gives me the opportunity to play. I’ve typically been “behind” the camera most of my career, so doing this series allows me to step into growth. To build confidence. I want to embrace the messy parts. You’ll see some of that in Episode 002 coming out next week. My hope for this series is to bring a moment in your day when you can take a break, reset and gain something insightful by imagining what you can do when you take that one thing away.

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🎙️Clear Conversations: Creative Minds in Sobriety

Episode 022 - Removing the Distortion: How Sobriety Unlocked Paulina Pinsky's Most Potent Creative Work

Episode 23 with Cali Bird on October 23 at 1p EST.

Join us for a conversation with Cali Bird — British author, Buddhist practitioner, and the voice behind Gentle Creative, where she teaches people the radical act of being gentle with themselves.

We’ll explore how sobriety mirrors the journey from “doing” to “being” — learning to make space for creativity instead of bulldozing through life, and discovering that nurturing ourselves isn’t weakness, it’s the foundation for sustainable creative practice. A recovering perfectionist who spent decades in the corporate world, Cali understands what it means to push through exhaustion in an unrelenting quest for achievement — and the cost that takes on our bodies and spirits.

Cali’s newsletter gives people permission to be kind to themselves — offering wisdom that only comes from acceptance of circumstances beyond our control. In a world that celebrates hustle and numbing our way through discomfort, her message is revolutionary: what if the key to unlocking your authentic creative voice is simply learning to be gentle with yourself?

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🌟 More From This Week

P.S. You can view past newsletter editions here.

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Ready To Go Deeper?

🎯 Alcohol may be quietly impacting your creative potential.

Below is a 5-minute quiz that reveals exactly how it’s affecting your specific creative expression—and how alcohol might be maintaining it.

🧐 You may already know alcohol could be impacting your creative potential.

Each step forward is an act of becoming the person you want to be.

Thank you for being here.

Josh

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