Disney:  Compounding Wealth through Imagineering

 

This analysis of Disney is from Ben Reynolds at Sure Dividend.  Sure Dividend simplifies the process of building a dividend growth portfolio with The 8 Rules of Dividend Investing.

Disney (DIS) has a market cap of $157 billion.  Giant corporations don’t grow fast…  But someone forgot to tell Disney that.

The company has doubled its earnings-per-share from 2010 through 2015.

Rapid growth is nothing new at Disney.  From 1962 to the present Disney has generated compound returns (including reinvesting dividends) of 14.6% a year.

Every $1 invested in Disney in 1962 is now worth $1,580.29.  The image below shows the growth of $1 invested in Disney through time.

DIS Growth over Time

Price Matters

Growth usually comes at a price in the stock market – especially for well-known businesses.  The price you pay matters.  The Warren Buffett quote below drives home this point.

“Price is what you pay.
Value is what you get”

Take Cisco (CSCO) as an example.  Cisco is an industry leader.  The company generates tremendous earnings.  Earnings-per-share have more than quadrupled for Cisco since 2000.  If you bought into the company thinking it would grow in 2000 – you would have been correct…

But your investment account wouldn’t have fared too well.  That’s because Cisco was wildly overvalued in 2000.  It traded for an average price-to-earnings ratio of 100.

CSCO Price
Source:  Google Finance

What’s interesting about an investment in Disney right now is that investors don’t have to pay for its growth prospects (growth prospects will be discussed later on in this article).

Here’s how Disney stacks up versus the S&P 500 right now:

  • Disney has a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.0
  • The S&P 500 has a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.6

Based on its price-to-earnings ratio, Disney’s growth prospects should be worse than that of the overall market.

I strongly believe that Disney has better total return potential than the average S&P 500 stock.  I believe Disney to be somewhat undervalued at current prices.

Disney Business Overview

Disney operates in 4 segments.  The % of total operating income each segment generated for Disney in its most recent quarter is listed below:

  • Media Networks generated 33% of operating income
  • Parks & Resorts generated 23% of operating income
  • Studio Entertainment generated 24% of operating income
  • Consumer Products & Interactive Media generated 20% of operating income

The studio entertainment section’s operating income grew 86% due to the release of the newest Star Wars movie.

Here’s a brief summary of what Disney owns in each segment is below.

The media networks segment owns ESPN (80% ownership), ABC Family, Disney Channel, The A&E Network (50% ownership – includes A&E, History Channel, and Lifetime), the ABC television network, 8 large market domestic television stations, and Hulu (33% ownership).

The parks & resorts segment owns:

  • Walt Disney World in Florida
  • Disneyland in California
  • Aulani in Hawaii
  • The Disney Vacation Club
  • The Disney Cruise Line
  • Adventures by Disney
  • Disneyland in Paris (51% ownership)
  • Disneyland in Hong Kong (48% ownership)
  • Disney Resort in Shanghai (43% ownership)
  • Disney Resort in Tokyo (not owned, licenses operations)

The studio entertainment segment owns some of the biggest brands in entertainment.  This includes Walt Disney, Pixar, Lucas Films, Marvel, and Touchstone.

The consumer products & interactive media segment licenses the company’s intellectual property to create toys, games, merchandise, and apparel.

Why Disney Is Cheap

Disney stock has declined around 20% from all-time highs.

The decline is driven by fear over the company’s media networks segment.  The majority of the segment’s revenue comes from cable affiliate fees.  The cable industry is expected to slowly decline as competition from streaming services gains market share.

Indeed, cable network operating income declined 5% in the company’s most recent quarter.  Overall, the company realized 20% operating income growth in the quarter due in large part to surging sales from Star Wars.

Investors are overreacting to changes in content delivery.  To understand why, one needs to understand Disney’s competitive advantage and growth prospects.

Competitive Advantage and Growth

Think about this – Disney’s operating income as a company grew 20% in its latest quarter while cable network operating income declined 5%.

Disney’s real strength is not its deals with cable companies.

Disney’s competitive advantage is its amazing stockpile of intellectual capital.  The company owns ESPN, Frozen, Marvel, Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, and the Muppets, among many, many others.

Whether it’s through streaming services or cable, consumers will pay money to watch quality entertainment.  That will not change.

Disney has a strong and durable competitive advantage thanks to its well-known entertainment brands.  The company has also shown the ability to either acquire (Marvel, Star Wars) or create (Frozen) multi-billion dollar brands.

Best of all, this competitive advantage is not based on technology.  Will changes in the way we watch content create change at Disney?  Absolutely.  Will it mean we stop caring about Star Wars, the X-Men, or Elsa, Anna, and Olaf?  I don’t think so.

Disney’s long-term returns over the last ~50 years are phenomenal.  There are very few companies that can generate double-digit growth rates decade after decade.  Disney is one of them.

The company has compounded earnings-per-share at 13.2% a year over the last decade.  Disney’s growth has not slowed much from its long-term historical average.  Imagination and fantasy are still in high demand.

The company’s management has done a good job of returning money to shareholders as well.  While Disney does not have a high dividend yield, the company does regularly repurchase shares.  Disney has reduced its share count by 2.8% a year over the last decade.

Share repurchases combined with the company’s 1.5% dividend yield give investors a shareholder yield of 4.3%.  Disney pays out more earnings to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases than it invests itself.

I expect Disney to generate total returns in excess of 10% a year for shareholders.  The company will continue to compound shareholder wealth by capitalizing on its unrivaled entertainment brand portfolio.

On Disney’s Low Yield

Disney is a great business trading at a reasonable valuation (which it is)…

But many dividend investors find it difficult to invest in Disney.  The company’s dividend yield is just 1.5%.  This is below the S&P 500’s dividend yield of 2.1% and well below what most dividend investors look for.   A comment about Disney’s dividend yield from this analysis of the company shows the concern about the company’s low yield:

“DIS is definitely a tough one for dividend investors. I tend to dismiss a stock that yields under 2% as a non dividend stock. As you point out though there is more to investing that yield when you are in it for the long term and total return after dividend growth. Lots of positives for the future.”

There is no question that Disney is not a suitable investment for someone needing high levels of current income.

Investors seeking long-term total returns would be wise to consider Disney despite its lower-than-average yield.

The company’s growth prospects, share repurchases, and reasonable valuation make it likely that Disney will generate superior returns over the long run – in spite of its low dividend yield.

3 Month Results for my Best Dividend Stock Picks for 2016

The first quarter is now behind us and, funny enough, it has been quite a roller coaster of emotions. If you are like me and got lucky, you had some cash set aside to buy some bargains on the stock market. I personally made 5 purchases between January and February:

Royal Bank (RY.TO)

Agrium (AGU.TO)

Union Pacific (UNP)

3M Co (MMM)

Apple (AAPL)

As you will see it on the following chart, there were 2 moments (one in January and one in February) where there was a panic feeling all over the stock market:

bargain alert

Source: Ycharts

But overall, we all woke up on April 1st and this wasn’t an April’s fool joke; after losing 10% since the beginning of the year, both markets entered positive territory!

So much fear for so little results. I guess the Black Swan fans were highly disappointed to see:

Relatively strong results for the last quarter of 2015

The FED not hiking rates in March

Net jobs creation being strong in both February and March

New construction rising again

Oil price recovering a part of its loss

Yes… this is not another bump before the big collapse, I truly believe we are about to see another strong year on the market.

But before we know all this, before we were even January 1st, I had put together a group of 20 US dividend growth stocks and 10 Canadian ones. The goal here is to build a great list of stock picks but that could also make portfolios by themselves.

Creating 2 Strong Dividend Growth Portfolios

Each year, I publish a book called “Best 2016 Dividend Stock Picks”. This requires several weeks or hard work; reading and researching financial statements. The purpose of this book is not to make you sell your portfolio and have you switch to this one.

The purpose of this book is to create a portfolio-like list of stocks in various sectors to provide both stock value appreciation and dividend growth perspectives. Each company has been analysed and handpicked according to the DSR investing model.

My investing model includes both parts of my portfolio; a core model with solid (read boring) stocks and an additional growth segment where I pick stocks for a time horizon of 12 to 36 months. The idea is to pick stocks that have greater risk but also greater potential over a short period of time. Mind you, both are possible for some picks.

Taking Additional Risks to Beat our Benchmarks

I’m a man of results and am not afraid to hide when I succeed or when I fail. While I believe in each single company I pick when writing the book, I’m adding additional challenges to the task. The first one is to not make repetitive choices. Some companies repeat for one or two years (the book series exists since 2012), but I’m trying to bring as much “fresh meat” I can to my readers. The goal is then to help you discover new companies or better understand the ones you already knew.

Then, the second challenge: I’m trying to have my picks been their benchmark. I’ve chosen 2 dividend paying ETFs:

Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG)

iShares Dow Jns Cnd Slct Dvdnd Indx Fnd (XDV)

Comparing returns over a short period of time is always dangerous. The investment results over 3 months, 6 months or even a year is a combination of both good stock selection and luck. Still, I think it is important to be transparent when you discussing investments. For fun, I went back in my previous issues and looked at the long term performance of each portfolio since their inception to March 30th 2016. This is not a perfect comparison since no transactions are allowed and any investor may have bought or sold some of his holdings. Anyways, here are the results:

best dividend stocks results

I’ve included my results against my benchmark and also included the global index to show how dividend stocks performed compared to the global equity market. The “added value” line refers to the performance of my selections compared to my benchmark. I used a simple color code where green means I beat my benchmark, orange means that I’m roughly head-to-head with my benchmark and red for portfolios not beating the benchmark.

My US portfolios shows a perfect average beating my benchmarket 4 years out of 4. My Canadian selections did very well in 2012 and 2013 but I’m recently trailing behind. Overall, I’m fairly happy with my results and my selections definitely offered value to investors. Now… what about our most recent quarter?

Okay Results (Hey! It happens!)

I’m not showing astonishing in either market, but I’m not trailing by too much either:

2016 best stocks

Both US (the long list) and the Canadian portfolios are roughly 1% behind my benchmark. However, I have been able to pick some great performing companies as well. If you want to find out about my selections for this year along with a one pager analysis (including fair value calculations) you can buy my book for only $4.99 (pst! DSR members get it for free!):

cover

Click here to get your copy!

Where to Find Strong Canadian Stock Picks

If you are looking for more than a list and you want continuous high quality information related to the Canadian Stock market only, I’ve found the guy who does that. Pat McKeough is the publisher and editor of The Successful Investor newsletter This newsletter focuses solely on the Canadian stock market. Each month, you will get his review of the stock market and read about his most recent findings.

Results calculated by Hulbert Financial Digest, an independent authority on published investment advice, show that McKeough’s advice has generally surpassed returns from market averages. MarketWatch has called McKeough “one of the top investment letter editors on the continent”.[7] His proprietary ValuVesting System focuses on assembling a low-risk investment portfolio of stocks[3] that appear to have exceptional quality at a relatively low price.[5][6]

Anyone who wants to subscribe this newsletter will have to pay $139 and I got it for $40!

Click here to sign-up for this offer which is only good this APRIL!
For only $40, your subscription includes The Successful Investor newsletter delivered each month (12 x a year), this is $3.33 per newsletter. It also includes their weekly email Hotline Service (value $75.00, free with your subscription) and a monthly portfolio supplement. Subscribers will also receive access to the complete library of back issues and previous hotlines.

TSI deal

Click HERE To Get Your Newsletter Deal

PSST! If you are a DSR member, send me your confirmation and I’ll send you another rebate by check!

Portfolio Update

Funny enough, I’m not the best guy around to update you on my own portfolio. I really like blogging about dividend investing, but I don’t talk too much about my own stuff. Once in awhile, I think it makes sense to share my portfolio with you (my portfolio page is currently up-to-date, yeah!).

Instead of simply telling you how much I received in dividends, I’ll do a complete portfolio review with you.

Investment Context

An investment strategy is only good for a person if it meets its investment goal and respects the risk tolerance (both at the same time!). This is what is so marvelous about investing; you and I may disagree on an investment strategy and yet we can be both right! Starting from this premise, I have to tell you a little bit more about how I see things.

First, I’m young (34 now) and have a defined benefit pension plan at work. This means that if I work until the age of 65, I will then receive 70% of the average of my 5 best years ever at work. In other words; I really don’t need to worry about my financial future once retired. This is why my portfolio is 100% invested in equities (62% in US stocks and 38% in Canadian stocks at the moment). This is also why my portfolio is fairly small (currently valued at $65,000). I value life and living experiences more than saving plus a good part of my income already goes into my pension plan which is managed by my employer. My pension plan alone is worth around 90-100K but I have no control over it whatsoever.

Second, I’m Canadian. This explains that all my returns and holdings are translated into Canadian dollars. I made a good move back in 2012 to start buying US stocks. It helped me diversify my portfolio and the currency exchange rate was near even back then.

Third, I started to seriously build a dividend growth portfolio back in 2012. During this year, I had “leftovers” from aggressive trading that didn’t go well. For the record, I lost a few thousand in a trade on BlackBerry (BBRY) previously known as Research in Motion (RIM). This trade alone killed my investment return back in 2012. Since then, things have gone a lot better!

Fourth, my investing goal is to make money with my investments (duh). I choose dividend growth investing as my strategy because I believe it is one of the most effective investment methods that will help me achieve my goal (making money investing). Past research has proven dividend growth investing works and this is why I decided to make the switch. However, I haven’t been blinded by my dividend yield or how much I receive in dividend payments each year. I don’t expect to use this money in a near future and I would rather see it grow globally with both strong capital appreciation and strong dividend growth. This is why you will not find high yielding companies (KMI’s of this world don’t interest me at all) in my portfolio. In fact, you will probably find that I don’t generate much yield for a dividend investor even though every company in my portfolio pays dividends.

Dividend Holdings

Let’s start by the entire holding in my portfolio:

Company Name Ticker Sector Market Value Current Dividend Yield (%)
Agrium AGU.TO Basic Material $1,541.41 4.04%
Apple AAPL Techno $8,272.60 1.97%
Canadian National Railway CNR.TO Industrial $3,379.32 1.86%
Coca-Cola KO Consumer, defensive $8,225.29 3.07%
Walt Disney DIS Consumer, cyclical $5,805.05 1.46%
Gluskin & Sheff GS.TO Financial $2,692.80 5.35%
Helmerich & Payne HP Energy $2,312.78 4.73%
Johnson & Johnson JNJ Healthcare $5,604.94 2.77%
SNC Lavalin SNC.TO Industrial $3,827.95 2.25%
Lockheed Martin LMT Industrial $6,363.81 3.03%
Telus T.TO Telecom $7,163.80 4.23%
Wal Mart WMT Consumer, defensive $3,970.08 2.94%
National Bank NA.TO Financial $5,781.29 5.20%
Cash $213.28 0.00%
Total $65,154.40 3.12%

The dividend yield mentioned here is the current dividend yield. The yield based on cost of purchase is about 4.20%. Not bad for someone who started to built his dividend growth portfolio about 4 years ago!

With no surprise, my four best performing stocks are all US (AAPL, DIS, LMT, KO). Note that besides KO, they are not the most conservative dividend stocks ;-). This is because I didn’t build my portfolio like many other dividend investors that start by looking at the yield. I preferred building a set of 7 investing rules that use dividend growth as the first stepping stone of my portfolio. If you look at the dividend growth metric for these four companies, you will notice that the “worst” (this is a big word) performer is Coca-Cola with 3 year and 5 year dividend growth of 7%. Lockheed Martin shows 12% and 14% while Disney is a champion at 41% and 36%. Apple stands alone at 66% for the past 3 years, but it’s obvious it won’t keep up such an increase rate.

Asset Allocation

divguy portfolio

Source: author’s chart

Even though I have a relatively small portfolio, it is important for me to maintain a good balance. My portfolio shows 13 companies split among 9 different sectors with 7 of them showing between 9% and 21% of my total portfolio. You will notice that highly volatile sectors such as basic materials and energy are the other 2 small sectors closing the list with 2% and 3%. I don’t need to take speculative risk with my portfolio as I have my two feet well established on solid ground. This makes a great difference when picking my next purchase!

Investment Returns

Now that the theory has been shared, it’s time to show if this has been a successful strategy, right? Here are my past 4 year’s results as at March 25th:

2012 2013 2014 2015 YTD
My portfolio 1.90% 21.70% 16.40% 8.80% 0.80%
VIG 10.42% 26.20% 11.07% -1.77% 5.07%
XDV 7.59% 18.68% 6.69% -13.40% 5.29%

Source: author’s chart (Total returns for my portfolio and VIG and XDV)

As previously mentioned, 2012 isn’t really representative of my dividend growth strategy, but still, it is part of my investment return. Overall, I’m quite proud of my results. If I had invested $100 in 2012 in my portfolio, it would worth $158.31 today. If I had invested in the VIG, I would have $159.90 and if I had invested in the XDV, the result would have been $124.21. Therefore, I’m doing better than my benchmark indexes. Or, if you prefer, I should continue spending time to do my own research instead of index investing ;-).

I’ve applied the same rule I use for my portfolio to manage our 12 DSR portfolios. Our results since October 2013 are even better. You can check them out here.

Dividend Payments

As you already know, I’m not a big fan of tracking my dividend income.  However, what really interests me is my dividend income growth rate. It is important not just looking at the dividend income, but to look at how much you increased the capital at the same time. For example, if your dividend payment went from $1,000/year to $2,000/year within a period of 5 years this looks very good. However, if you had $30,000 invested on year one (generating a 3.33% dividend yield) and you keep saving money and add another $30,000 of savings over the next 5 years, you still generate the same dividend yield. Therefore;  you are not doing very good at dividend growth investing. You are just doing great at saving money (but really, any type of investment would do since your strength is in saving money, not investing it).

Here’s how both my dividend income and savings grew over the past 4 years:

2012 2013 2014 2015
Dividend Growth Rate N/A 28.48% 28.35% 15.32%
Capital Growth Rate N/A 17.81% 12.51% 1.90%

Source: author’s chart

As you can see, I was able to save more money in 2013 and 2014. This helped boost my dividend growth rate by nearly 30%. But the dividend growth rate of 2015 is most interesting in my opinion since it has been generated almost exclusively by my current holdings and not by additional contributions to my investment account. This is where I see the “true” power of dividend growth investing; the dividend income grew by itself!

Thoughts on my portfolio?

At the moment, I’m fairly happy with my portfolio and the past years’ results. The only bad thing about investing is that your investment strategy takes years to be proven. Having success over the past 4 years is not enough to claim that my system is flawless. It is just enough to claim that it works… at the moment ????

I’d like to read what you think of my portfolio or investing style? Do we share similar holdings?

Special Deal For The Dividend Guy Blog’s Readers

Since I really like the newsletter, I decided to subscribe myself and ask for a rebate for you, Anyone who wants to subscribe to this newsletter will have to pay $139 and I got it for $40!

Click here to sign-up this offer is only good for 30 days!
For only $40, your subscription includes The Successful Investor newsletter delivered each month (12 x a year), this is $3.33 per newsletter. It also includes their weekly email Hotline Service (value $75.00, free with your subscription) and a monthly portfolio supplement. Subscribers will also receive access to the complete library of back issues and previous hotlines.

tsx2

CLICK HERE To SAVE $99 ON YOUR SUBSCRIPTION

PSST! If you are a DSR members, send me your confirmation and I’ll send you another rebate by check!

Disclaimer: long for all of the above.

Investing in the Canadian Stock Market with Success

canada usa

Who would have thought a beaver could run faster than an eagle?

You might want to say that it’s only one quarter and that the Canadian stock market has been beaten up nicely by the US stock market for the past… well I don’t remember since when, but let’s just say that you should never bet against America ;-). If you still have doubt, let’s just take a look at how both markets have performed since the 2008 crash:

^SPX_^TSX_chart (12)

Source: Ycharts

But recently, the Canadian stock market has been showing some very interesting perspectives. After all, yesterday’s winner is probably not the horse you should bet on today!

Why the Canadian Stock Market is The Best Place to Be Now

I don’t write this because I’m Canadian. In fact, I was heavily invested in US stocks between 2012 and 2015 and this had served me well. However, in this beginning of 2016, I found several very interesting companies to purchase (RY, AGU, CNR, EMA) on my side of the border. I guess the first reason for buying Canadian stocks at the moment is the chances of seeing the currency much weaker than this is almost impossible (especially when we hit 1.45 exchange rate!). But I’m not a big believe in fx rate bets over the long run. I have other reasons to believe the Canadian stock market was the best place to invest my money right now.

Hidden Gems in the Canadian Market

My favorite saying about investing is:

“The time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets.”

Baron Rothschild

Well when the TSX over lost 20% between April 2015 and January 2016, I call for the bloody street:

tsx1

Source: Ycharts

While the stock market is in a pretty hectic mood, this is the perfect time to invest. What I find particularly interesting at the moment is that most of this important drop is related to the collapse of oil prices. However, believe it or not, the Canadian stock market is more than an oil market. The best proof I can give you is the fact that even though it’s been a very tough 2 years for the oil industry, Canada hasn’t entered a recession yet. Unless you take the recession definition to the letter (exactly 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth), the Canadian economy has been able to keep its head above water over the past 2 years. The services sector and exports had taken the lead and now that oil prices are gaining some strength, we can see there are several opportunities.

First, the oil industry. Well this one was an obvious choice. What is not so obvious is how to navigate through the bleeding companies. Some will die, some will survive, can you make the right choices? This is another story. I published a special review in January for my DSR members as it is quite a challenge to make sure you pick the survivor at the moment. But still, this is where the money is.

Second, the financial industry. Canadian banks have rarely paid such a high dividend yield. Besides 2008, this is probably your best chance of picking super strong dividend growth companies for your portfolio. Everybody is worried about oil sector defaulting on their loans and the possibility of a mortgage industry collapse. However, most investors have forgotten that banks have less than 3% of their portfolio on average concentrated in the oil industry. As for mortgages, they have been able to diversify their activities through capital markets, US banking and wealth management to cover for any housing slowdown in Canada.

Then, there are more, a lot more. The thing is that since roughly 50% of the Canadian stock market is concentrated in resources and financials, the other great dividend payers are buried under a pile of negativism. Hidden in this pile, I was able to find some gems such as Agrium (AGU), SNC Lavalin (SNC), Canadian National Railway (CNR) and Emera (EMA) in the past 12 months.

Unfortunately, not everything is on sale right now. There are also companies whose shares are down and that will stay down because they will not adapt to the current economy. How can you tell the difference? I think I know…

Here’s a Guy to Show You The Way

“Pat McKeough is one of a select few commentators who stands out from the many shills, flacks and frauds who inhabit the investment universe. The extent of my personal investment advice is to heed the advice of this gentleman.”

—Jonathan Chevreau,

Financial Post Columnist

Results calculated by Hulbert Financial Digest, an independent authority on published investment advice, show that McKeough’s advice has generally surpassed returns from market averages. MarketWatch has called McKeough “one of the top investment letter editors on the continent”.[7] His proprietary ValuVesting System focuses on assembling a low-risk investment portfolio of stocks[3] that appear to have exceptional quality at a relatively low price.[5][6]

Pat McKeough is the publisher and editor of the investing newsletter The Successful Investor focusing solely on the Canadian stock market. I think I just made this obvious he runs the best Canadian newsletter around. While I’m very proud of my own membership platform, I must admit that I still read Pat’s newsletter.

This is why I reached out to him in order to get a great deal for my readers.

Special Deal For The Dividend Guy Blog’s Readers

Since I really like the newsletter, I decided to subscribe myself and ask for a rebate for you, Anyone who wants to subscribe to this newsletter will have to pay $139 and I got it for $40!

Click here to sign-up this offer is only good for 30 days!
For only $40, your subscription includes The Successful Investor newsletter delivered each month (12 x a year), this is $3.33 per newsletter. It also includes their weekly email Hotline Service (value $75.00, free with your subscription) and a monthly portfolio supplement. Subscribers will also receive access to the complete library of back issues and previous hotlines.

tsx2

CLICK HERE To SAVE $99 ON YOUR SUBSCRIPTION

PSST! If you are a DSR members, send me your confirmation and I’ll send you another rebate by check!

Disclaimer: I’m long RY, AGU, EMA, CNR

I Made it… and I Can’t Get Enough!

made-it

Who said thirty days was a long run?

A few weeks ago I shared with you, my 30 day challenge. My goal was to stop drinking wine or any other alcohol for 30 days. The idea was to cut previous bad habits down to zero and be rewarded for the daily workouts I do. Well, today it has been exactly 30 days that I haven’t tasted a refreshing glass of white wine or enjoy a bold red with rack of lamb!

30 days, that’s all you need

Why 30 days? Because 30 days doesn’t seem like a lot, it seems achievable for just about anything you want to improve in your life. Because I believe 30 days is within reach for pretty much anything! At the same time, 30 days is also more than enough to break old habits or to create new (good) ones. I read you need about 21 days to create a new habit, so I’m playing it safe with 30 days. It gives you enough time for your body and mind to understand that you are not going back, that you are making a real step forward.

I’ll be Honest, I was afraid

To be truly honest, I wasn’t sure I could do it. The very proof is that I wrote about my challenge only halfway there. I was afraid I’d chicken out. I never thought I was addicted to alcohol, but I have a history of alcoholism throughout my family on my father’s side. So on one hand, I never let wine affect my life. And on the other hand, spending a weekend without having a glass of wine wasn’t a possibility either. While I draw a very bold line between having a drinking habit and drinking each weekend, I was wondering if this isn’t just the first step towards “light” alcoholism. You know… just an insidious way to open a door that should never be opened?

Well I’m glad that I didn’t have any mood swings or that I never truly wanted to open a bottle or just take a sip in my wife’s glass. I was very happy to realize that my will power controls my mind perfectly! I feel much better now :-). It actually wasn’t that bad. I didn’t feel the urge to drink a glass of wine while I had many… many occasions to drink socially.

Temptations are not that bad, but excuses… there are many!

What I found very interesting during this 30 day period is that there were many excuses to skip such a “stupid and senseless” challenge. After all, I wasn’t put to it by anybody to hold on to the challenge. Nobody did it with me either. It wasn’t even part of something bigger; an event or program. Hell… I decided to stop drinking on March 4th… a regular Friday without absolutely no reason. I just woke up that day and decided to see how far can I go with this! It was more to challenge myself to see how strong my will could be… or not!

Therefore, finding an excuse to stop or just to cheat once or twice during this month would not have been the end of the world. After all, if I had *only* a glass of wine over 30 days, that would have been a great improvement nonetheless. In fact, I had many excuses offered on a silver platter. During the past 30 days I had:

4 business lunches where everybody drinks… but not me!

2 happy hours… have you tried a Perrier during those?

A Casual lunch at my sister-in-law’s house with another bottle opened with a great meal while I preferred apple juice ????

Easter weekend (hum… water with fish on Easter night at my mom’s house!)

That would have been very easy to quit my challenge and just say “hey! It’s only one drink for the month, it’s pretty good already”. But that’s the tricky part: whatever you want to achieve, excuses will be plenty and very easy to choose from. The tough part is not to pick any of them.

I’m sure you tried to implement good habits in your life at least once. It could have been going to the gym, running, eating healthy, going to sleep sooner, etc. If you allowed yourself to cheat, you will not be able to achieve your goal and successfully change your habits.

What’s next?

Nope… I’m not opening a bottle tonight. We are Monday after all! Hahaha! I guess I will just wait until next weekend and I won’t have one on Friday. I’ll have one, and only one bottle with my wife on Saturday. This is more than enough!

This challenge was a mental battle to see if I can control my mind and body to make it do what I really want. Now that I know that I can do it for a small challenge, I think I will try something bigger.

This time, I’m trying something a lot more difficult. I’m cutting my sugar consumption to zero for the next 30 days. I actually started this challenge right after Easter on March 28th with the house full of chocolates! Yikes! If I was a little bit scared by my first 30 day challenge, I’m terrified as I’m writing this line. In fact, my wife doesn’t even know yet… I can barely stand 3-4 days without having some kind of dessert… and this is probably what is really keeping me away from having a healthy body! In the next 30 days, I will not eat dessert in any form. I’ll see how this one goes! But it wouldn’t be a challenge if this wasn’t difficult, right?

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