I have been over-weight for a good long while. My wife, Maureen, is not shallow. She loves me exactly as I am. But she is smart, beautiful and talented, and her marketability far exceeds mine, so why take chances?
For about 15 years, I stopped eating chocolate, cake, pie, muffins, ice-cream, fudge, etc., etc., but I substituted bread, goat cheese, nut butter, and organic honey, and kept gaining weight.
As I got older and Maureen became even more beautiful, I could sense that I was reaching a crisis point. Since desperate times call for desperate measures, I put myself on an ice cream diet and I have lost 25 pounds so far.
As a reward, Maureen bought me a soft ice cream machine for Father’s Day, and now I can look forward to eating even more ice cream and accelerating my weight loss.
So, what is the theory behind this diet, and what can it possibly do with law firm management?
It is a simple program, really, constructed without any help from a professional dietician, because I am a lawyer, so I pretty much know everything that is worth knowing.
How it works, is that I try to eat healthy stuff during the day, and record my calories into my fitness app. I walk for an hour a day which increases the number of calories that I am allowed to consume. And I keep in mind that my calorie consumption has to be at least 300 calories below my target or I won’t deserve my ice cream at the end of the day. I pass up on second portions and snacks because I really, really want the ice cream.
The system is not perfect. Yesterday I found myself having to forego vegetables with my dinner to be sure that I came in under my target calories. It was a sacrifice that I was willing to make to regain that Adonis-like physique which I am counting on to hold onto my wife. But it works well enough.
In our law firms we want our lawyers to do certain things. Mainly, churn out hours, but other stuff as well. We motivate them by promising them more money if they work harder. And they respond by doing more and more and hoping that the extra money will make them extra happy. They deprive themselves of things that they enjoy, such as time for fitness and family, just like I spent 15 years saying no to apple pie and chocolate cake. And, like me gaining weight despite my self-deprivation, they often do not achieve the desired results.
But what if we let them indulge themselves and structure things so that they have some time to enjoy themselves. Like me with my ice cream cone every evening, might some new-found time spent having fun and staying healthy deliver better results? How about law firms giving that a chance for a change?
(For a more serious discussion about the way in which happiness can lead to success, see How to Succeed (and Stay Human) in Law School, by Lynda Collins.)
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.