Posted on
September 9, 2012 in
Jordan Rushie asks (rhetorically), Should I run my law firm on Apple? (a stupid post Greenfield and Tannebaum will laugh at), and compares this question to another:
It’s like asking if you prefer to eat eggs for breakfast or cereal. It’s a preference. It won’t win the trial or make you lots of money anymore than your Fruit Loops will.
Rushie overstates the importance of the question of Apple-vs-PC question and understates the importance of that of eggs-vs-cereal. Much more than your choice of operating system, the right breakfast food will improve your chances of winning every trial.
The right choice? Eggs.
If your body is running on carbohydrates—if you get your energy from Froot Loops®—you have to keep replenishing your carbs or suffer physical and cognitive deficits (“low blood sugar”). In trial, are you going to be able to depend on having a cracker break in the morning?
If everyone else in the courtroom had Froot Loops® for breakfast, they’re going to start dragging around 11am. Do you want to be dragging with them, or do you want to be the one person who stays sharp?
Eggs help our bodies produce testosterone. Sugar doesn’t. In trial, do you want more testosterone or less?
(Interesting study on trial lawyers and testosterone: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb01655.x/abstract.)
Definitely eggs for breakfast.
Toss some bacon in with them.
In fact, and even aside from the health benefits (which mainstream medicine doesn’t want to admit), trial lawyers should be low-carb and high-fat all day long. Everyone else in the courtroom is going to eat carbs for lunch; these are going to make them doze in the mid-afternoon too. We want to be sharp then to take advantage of their sleepiness.
Mainly, though, we don’t want our performance to depend on our being able to stop for food—sometimes we need to work through lunch. If we’re in lipolyis (fat-burning mode) we can, unless we’re already emaciated (few of us are that), go all day on water alone. (“But if it comes to slaughter / You will do your work on water / An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.”)
I eat my carbs on Saturday, so that by Monday I’m back in lipolysis. My trial lunch, when I pack one, is a hardboiled egg. A hardboiled egg is well packaged, tasty, simple, and nutritious, and I can eat it at counsel table when the prosecutors are out carbing up. I stay sharp through the afternoon, and don’t lose a minute of prep time. It’s not sporting.
(As to the Mac-or-PC question, I use a Mac because I’ve used Macs since 1991, but nothing in my experience leads me to believe that “it looks cool” (the only one of Rushie’s “seven advantages of running Mac” that bears directly on trial) is not in fact a disadvantage.)
That would explain why so many people refer to you as “Hard Boiled yet Tredious Bennett.”
Way to turn use crappy post and turn it into something worth reading…
Also, I was having this discussion with opposing counsel during my last jury trial. If you’re “fat adapted” and generally restrict carbohydrates, I’ve found that a fasted state is the best for trial. I feel more alert and on my game.
You must *have* game before you can be on it.
A bit OT but one of the best lines, by Robert Redford. 1Min 10 Sec in.
John Gibson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=VroZ2mLbwIg
Mac and cheese?
Ha! I use Linux. I started the Bay Area Apple User Group back in the 80’s in the Johnson Space Center Nassau Bay area. I bought my Apple ][ in 1978 and had over 2 grand in it. We had 150 members and loved to swap software. Then Apple threatened to SUE ME for using the word Apple in our user group name. They promised not to sue me if I started collecting dues and forwarding them to the Apple CORE group. I refused. I got another nasty letter. I wrote back that we had Apollo astronauts and their kids in our group and that we sold more apples for the local store than they sold themselves. If they truly wished to screw with me, go for it. After, everyone in our group went the PC route, when Apple refused to offer us an upgrade route. They kicked us original owners and supporters to the curb AND under the bus. That was the last of Apple Inc for me. Now, the PC is a clone of that old Apple ][. I can open the case, jam in new cards into slots and even replace the motherboard should I chose to and install any OS I feel the need to use. That was Steve Wozniak’s intellectual child. IBM recognized it’s potential while Steve Jobs did not. Now, both my computer hardware and my software is “open”. I love it!
@Ric:
Precisely. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S3 instead of slavishly waiting for the (inferior) iPhone 5…mostly because the Samsung is genuinely better.
But partly as protest against Apple’s sue-for-everything posture.
Mark, I adopted an Atkins diet ten years ago after I’d suddenly ballooned twenty pounds on the SAD–the Standard American Diet.
Subsequently I’ve gone back to paleo/primal/low-carb. For the past year, I’ve felt that vigor and energy that comes from being a well-nourished fat-burner. I joke with my wife that I’m a diesel, because I run on oil.
Four tablespoons of lovely saturated-fat coconut oil in the morning in a protein shake with whey and mixed berries. I’ve often worked all Saturday gardening, mowing the yard, and tinkering in the garage only to realize I’ve missed lunch…without actually missing it.
It’s remarkable how much better one feels as a fat-burner. It is not some extreme regimen to be undertaken for weight loss, though that is a happy side-effect. Rather, it is a return to the healthful state we’re meant to enjoy.
Don’t forget to supplement with a potent multi-mineral. Your body uses dozens of weird elements you’d never imagine–chromium, selenium, cobalt, copper, molybdenum etc. The soils today are so depleted from years of chemical fertilizing that the foods simply don’t have enough. Organic foods help, but I’ve realized a great improvement from taking a good mineral supplement. My favorite is Youngevity’s liquid, or their powdered “Tangy Tangerine”.
No I don’t sell the stuff. I should, as much as I shill for it though.