Going Dry

I gave up recreational alcohol on July 7, 2013.  Not a drop of wine, spirits or beer crossed my lips until August 17, 2013. 
My effort at abstinence was an attempt to evaluate alcohol's effect on my health, and to determine whether I actually had a dependency problem.  At 45, I had been having a drink or two a few days a week for decades.  Some days more, some less.  Some days not at all.  But when alcohol becomes part of a regular diet,  one might start to wonder.

I wondered.

It turns out that I am not an alcoholic and that I actually prefer an alcohol free body.  There are several reasons. 

First, the sleep quality of an alcohol free body.  I have always loved a nap and my brain is fairly abrupt when calling for sleep at the end of the day.  However, even on a regular diet of good food with regular, intense exercise, two to three glasses of wine between dinner and bedtime had an effect. I was always, always, getting up to use the head two hours after going to sleep. 

I told myself it was because I had been using my Ipad, or was watching TV before bed, or had just succumbed to the inevitable changes of a forty something man.  Nope.  It was the wine.

It turns out that being dry means sleeping deeply, soundly and without disturbance.  I highly recommend not drinking just for that pleasure.

The next good reason is a state of mental clarity.  I am simply clearer and calmer in all respects.  Maybe it's the lack of alcohol, maybe it's the improved sleep.  No matter, it is a notable benefit.

A third reason is more money in your pocket.  Three bottles of wine a week, or a fifth of Royal Crown 7 every two weeks, and the diet 7Up to go with it all added up.  It is a  notable amount.

A fourth reason is better body composition with less fat.  Alcohol has a proven health benefit, so I've read.  On the other hand, it is used by your body as energy before anything else is, so if you drink and dine or snack, then you are often left with a stomach full of otherwise useful food that is turned into fat cells because the sugar in your alcohol got burned first.

If you don't have alcohol in your system, then your body burns the real food you ate, and if you are otherwise eating well, that is the desirable outcome. 

That leads to the obvious fat loss that comes from cutting the three to six hundred daily calories in the alcohol consumed.

I was on vacation in Florida with some friends when I had a drink.  I was there for three days and had a total of five cocktails.  Here it is August 30 and I can say with certainty that I've had five drinks since July 7, and that I am much better for it.

Bottom line, if you can stop drinking regularly, you will be happy that you did. I am.

Too big to ride a roller coaster

I was at King's Island amusement park near Cincinnati, Ohio, last night.  It was the park's last regular season night.  I took my son and daughter for an hour to catch two rides:  Diamondback and The Beast.

The park was not busy an hour before closing so we almost walked up to the gate on DBack.  Waiting in line for the front row we had some time to observe.  As we got to the point where we were one ride away, a staffer came up to the guys just in front of us.  He asked if they would mind too much if they took the next car as there was a special rider circumstance.  The guys were fine.  They would get a ride in a minute. 

What was a special rider circumstance?  At that point, the car was loaded but for the front seats.  Two men, one older, likely a father son duo, were approaching from the exit side of the car.  A second staffer joined the first at the front of the car.  Both the staffers together weighed less than one of the big guys. 

The fleshy fellas, both in shorts and giant, sleeveless T-shirts, squeezed into the bucket seats. The two staffers then proceeded to try to get the lap bars to lock down on them.  Diamondback has only what appears to be a handlebar on a stalk that comes toward you and settles between your legs.  The handles go across your thighs and there are additional grips on top for the faint hearted. 

When you get into the car the stalk comes back and clicks into place.  It was not to be on these two big boys.  The Kings Island staffers were discrete and diligent, but they were no match, short of sitting on the safety bar, to overcome the sheer piles of soft flesh that must have been resting across the thighs of big daddy and son.  It was not for a lack of trying. 

It was a painful moment for the duo.  It had to be horrible.  It had to be just as painful for the thirty or forty people watching.  In the thirty seconds or so that it went on, it was silent in the waiting area.  No laughing, none of the usual nervous chatter.  We all just watched, agog at the scene.  In the end, the staffers could not make the safety bars secure.  Not even one little click. 

The big guys had to leave the way they came, but bearing a mental and emotional scar, I'm sure.   It was haunting and daunting and hopefully illuminating to them.  I hope that they see that horrible moment as a turning point and change their lives, or at least their eating habits.

If they get their acts together, then next year they can ride.  I hope they make it a goal and do it.     

Getting Away

Finding time for a vacation when you are self employed is difficult.  Sure there is "flexibility" in your day to day schedule, but carving out a week or more seems impossible. 

It isn't.  Almost nothing in business can't wait a week or so.  The practice of law or the operation of a small business isn't like emergency medicine.  Sure, somebody might need a Temporary Restraining Order to stop the use of a parking lot or some such, or an inventory shipment may show up unexpectedly, but even those items can probably wait a few days.  

The day before you go away is always far busier than you intended.  No matter how much you tried to get all your loose ends tied in the week leading up to that last day of work, you inevitably have more to do than you wanted.  Filing, phone calls, checks, last minute court filings.  They all HAVE to be done that day, even though those very same action items have been languishing under your time sheets for weeks.  Can't they wait until you get back?  Don't be silly. 

In the course of clearing my desk of documents to be filed by my assistant during my absence, I located items that should have been dealt with much earlier.  So what did I do?  I did them.  Right then and there.  Treating each new find like a new project.  I let them control me even though they got in the way of my other, more current projects and needs.

This "shiny object" approach to getting ready to go was satisfying, but ultimately inefficient.  It is a far better practice, I would imagine, to treat every day as if you were leaving the next day for a week away.  That would assure that filing would be prepared, calls would be made and returned, checks would be cut and invoices would be sent.  I'm going to employ that mindset when I get back and see how it goes.  With any luck, my desk will continue to look like it does now:  a piece of polished wooden furniture, and not an oversized pile of manila folders, three hole binders and assorted 3M Post it Notes.  

I do need this vacation, I just wish I didn't have to earn it so hard. 

What I know now.

My last post was about my realization that my life was at half time and that I now knew the things I wish I'd have known when I was 23.

Upon further reflection I thought a list of those lessons would be helpful.

The most important lesson, which is applicable to business and professional life alike is that I am worthy of respect, if not affection.  I have nothing to fear if I am not liked.   I don't like everyone and they are as unharmed by my lack of affection for them as I am of theirs for me. 

Next on the list of lessons is that time is fleeting but that patience is rewarded.  One must act with conviction, but be prepared to wait for results.  It is often not clear what the consequences of our actions will be, but if you believe you are right, then you should act.

Consistency and diligence beat flashes of brilliance.  Some of the brightest students in law school were unable to pass the bar exam.  They could bring it to an essay exam for a class, and get As, but they could not maintain their focus and concentration at the big moments in July and February.  Better to be regularly competent than only infrequently extraordinary. (See, Thomas Edison).



The front line of any organization is what gets work done.  If you want to assure failure and rejection, then treat the waitresses, clerks, cashiers and janitors with disdain and disrespect.  Almost everyone has to start somewhere.  Some people start and stay lower on the "ladder."  But they are mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters.  They are important in their own way in their own world.  Almost everyone is doing the best that they can.  Understand and respect them and thank them for their efforts. 

Tip generously when it's deserved.  Tip generously in advance to guarantee great service. 

Show up and act like you belong where you are.  If you believe, then other people are inclined to believe it too. If you believe that you can do anything and be anywhere you want, then you can be.  It may be that simple.

There is a virtually infinite amount of money circulating the planet. 

You can have as much as you want, but you have to make an effort to get it.  It will not automatically flow to you.  Trillions are flowing all of the time.  You only need a small part of that flow to be wildly rich.  If I knew exactly how to do it, then I'd be rich too.  I'm still working on the mechanics.

Go big.  You can spend an hour digging a ditch, or selling industrial supplies, or learning how to finance a rental property with no money down.  The hour digging a ditch pays quickly but only a little bit.  The closed sale, or the refinanced rental may take a little longer to actually happen, but the payoff is far greater.  Put your time into high return efforts and act on them, consistently.

Be courageous.  Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen.  Or remind yourself of the worst thing facing you a month, or six months, or even a year ago and recognize that you made it.  It passed.  Be bold.  It pays off.

On that note, I am off to work.  I have to litigate, settle and ideate for a while.  Check out my website, www.langendorflaw.com. 

I do know now what I wish I'd known then!

I was just finishing a post about my pending birthday, exploring whether life could still be all that I had hoped. (I know, Boo Hoo).  I saved the draft, then fumbled some keys, only to see the entire post disappear.  All that I had thought about and written was deleted in a couple of misplaced key strokes.   Good riddance.

Maybe it was the Universe telling me that my post was worthless.  I've heard that "everything happens for a reason."  Who hasn't?  The message I take from that spontaneous deletion is that  worrying about what you hope will happen is worth far less than making something happen. 

A guy my age (45) ought to live to his mid 80s.  That being the case, I will essentially relive my life over again.  But this time with a head start!  No more bellyaching about my age, that's for sure.  The age is an asset.

You know how people say, when they are talking about their youth, "If I'd have known then what I know now, I'd have...?"  By one's mid forties, they do know what they wished they'd have known when they were younger.  With that perspective it makes sense to take action to make your life all that it could have been had you been so aware twenty years ago. 

What a revelation!  At that age adults are blessed with wisdom, education, some net worth and connections.  All that we wished we had when we were in our 20s. There is no reason why a wise forty-something can't navigate their future to great success.  Colonel Sanders didn't start franchising his restaurants until he was in his 60s.  I have time. 

Maybe if we look at our mid 40s as half time, we can regroup, touch up the plan, and make it a great second half.  That's what I'm going to do.  I hope you do too.