Moderation Drinking: STICK TO THE PLAN

In business and in life if you have developed a plan that you know works for your situation you have to stick to that plan. Most of the time if you go off the plan or make revisions on the fly… you fail.

Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Sam Meader

Transcript

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Andy Whiteside: Everyone. Welcome to Episode 8 of moderation drinking. I'm your host, Andy Whiteside. I am sitting in an airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, heading to New York in a little bit got Sam meter with me Sam. I was really just hanging out in the lounge here a minute ago talking to some folks, and we were talking about moderation drinking. So it's a you know. It's a topic for everyone, and everyone has a story they literally do. Sam, how's it going.

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Sam: Good. Good in the heat of summer. Here you do. Okay with that storm blowing through.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah. Actually, you know what I was in Folly Beach and.

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Sam: Oh, okay. So you saw you felt all the rain here.

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Andy Whiteside: No, we left we left to go home, and I I know it was a lot of rain. I don't think it turned out as bad at my place as I thought it might, but we were.

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Andy Whiteside: We were quick to get out of town just to be safe, and

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Andy Whiteside: and it worked out. We had to cut our vacation short. Then how about you.

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Sam: Yeah, for sure. No, it could have been a lot worse. So we're we're counting our blessings.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Andy Whiteside: So, Sam, as you know, I have a little bit of a tight schedule here, but we want to get this out. Your your latest blog is called moderation drinking dot, dot, stick to the plan.

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Andy Whiteside: Why, this one.

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Sam: Yeah. And so this is it's it's timely both for drinking and and business and life in general. If

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Sam: if you have a plan for your business or your life that you have tested, and you know that it works

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Sam: what what I wanted to reiterate. And this is the adage in business. Stick to the plan.

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Sam: If you know it works. And I had an experience where I went off the plan when it comes to this coin and moderation drinking, and and it failed. Yeah, as you know, I developed this 1st round, last call challenge coin as a tool to help me practice moderation, drinking, and really it, how it works is people commit to the code of conduct which basically says you

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Sam: on the days you want to drink less. You bring the coin with you in your pocket. When you're about to have a drink, you put it down 1st round side up. When you want to have a second drink, flip it over last call, have a second drink. When last call is done, you stop drinking alcohol for the rest of the day. Well, I had some friends come into town and went to meet them at the bar, and I forgot the coin.

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Sam: and when I 1st started using the coin, I would always turn around and drive back or walk back and get it. But this time I was like no no big deal. I got this. I know how to count to 2 and you know we get. We get to the you know the bar, and having a good time, and

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Sam: we get the bill at the end. I was the only one drinking Ipas, and all of a sudden there was 3 there, and I'm like, how did this happen? I was going in planning on just having 2 the value of the coin and and the the plan of using the coin is. It's a heavy piece of metal in your pocket. So you really feel it. And when it's out on the bar you notice that everybody around you notices it. And so there I was, going away from my plan and end up having more than the 2 that I intended. And so that's really the the moral of the story, and how I came up with the title.

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Sam: I'm sure you have experiences in your company where you started to go off on, not your core business, and maybe it didn't work out as well as you thought. It's the same thing with moderation drinking and using this coin. Stick to the plan. We know it works. You go off the plan, and you're right for failure, and that that's what what happened to me. You know, and so now you know I'm I'm I'm back to. If I don't have the coin when I want it I'll go home and get it.

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Sam: World. I won't drink. So that was a big thing. And and yeah, you must have had experiences on your companies when you went off on a different direction, and just didn't work out.

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Andy Whiteside: Every day, every every single day, probably every single hour. You know I I watched a documentary the other day on Eisenhower, and he has a famous statement that you know you have a plan, so that when it goes wrong you know what to do, not because the plan is actually going to be executed.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Sam: No, that's a good point.

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Andy Whiteside: The minute the minute it starts. The plan is no good. It's all the other things that you've learned while coming up the plan. That's valuable.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright, hey? 1st thing that comes to mind. And you and I need to probably think about this is making the coin virtual for some people just in case they don't have the physical one.

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Sam: Yeah, that's an interesting thing. I thought about that. My web designer talked about doing an app on the phone.

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Sam: That. That's certainly one way to do it. We continue to get a lot of orders people interested in getting the coin. But you know this might be a way to reach more people where they physically just have their phone with them, and they could have the coin put it down on the bar on the on the screen of their phones. Great idea!

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Andy Whiteside: Right? Well, you definitely want it to make a noise like you've talked about multiple times. It's the slapping, the slapping the and then, and then maybe even a noise. Whenever you got your second drink that alerts everybody around you. You've made the commitment, and you're you know you're gonna stand by your plan.

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Sam: Yeah. And you know, one of the videos, we did had the coin spinning around. And you know, we did a bunch of shots where it it landed. It's like heads or tails spinning around spinning. Landed on 1st round.

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Sam: putting around Landon on last call. So I've got footage of that, and it's got the metallic noise as we did it on a a piece of granite. But that that was just sort of a big epiphany. For me, it seems obvious. But you know this plan, I know works

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Sam: because the coin is something that you have with you. If in the future, if it's on a phone or on the app or in your pocket. But if you go away from the plan, that's when things can kind of go sideways. And we we had another thing happen here this summer. We have our our 17 rental properties here all short term rentals

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Sam: on the beach, and so we decided this summer to get several golf carts to rent out to our guests.

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Sam: Both as a way to provide additional amenity, but also increase income.

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Sam: And I'm a whiz. I can do a lot of stuff in our rental units with toilets, lights, door handles all this stuff, but I don't know the 1st thing about steering columns, brakes, or lithium batteries. And in the 1st month we've had a couple of maintenance issues. And it's sort of like

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Sam: this is turning out to be more hassle than I need. So I think we're going to stick with renting Airbnbs and not golf carts again.

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Sam: getting off. Getting off. The plan that, you know works sometimes isn't the best thing.

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Andy Whiteside: As as you know, I spend a lot of time down there, and the the craziness I see on golf carts, even after everything. Well, I probably wouldn't even notice before, maybe a little bit, but now I.

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Sam: Your eyes are much wider, more wide open. Now.

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Andy Whiteside: Well, it's just the the recklessness of of golf carts is just. It's off the charts really, compared to cars. I mean, people people have this sense that they're in some kind of free range S. Suv. Or Atv, and

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Andy Whiteside: it's not. And there's still lots of liability associated with it. So say I'm in the in the document. Here you've got. You know the the concept. Get out of your pocket. You take the 1st drink, place it down second drink, flip it over, and on the 3rd drink make some kind of

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Andy Whiteside: recognition that it's your last drink, you know. I I'm just going crazy with the idea of the this virtual or this app that you put on your phone that not only would make a noise on the 1st one, but it would make a noise on the second one. Make a and you know, and tell everybody you're done. But maybe even

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Andy Whiteside: if you wanted to post on social media that, hey? I'm out being responsible, having a good time, you can, too.

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Andy Whiteside: I'm I'm just going nuts with the ideas that could come out of this.

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Sam: Yeah, no, that's a great one, certainly a way to reach more people. And they're already carrying their phone around with them. So it's something they can just download and start using.

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Sam: Hey? Great idea!

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Andy Whiteside: And their smartwatch.

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Andy Whiteside: Yeah.

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Sam: Yeah, yeah.

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Sam: it'll be anywhere. But yeah, this. This was an example of something you knew intuitively that yes, it's good to have a plan and stick to it, and and sometimes, if you just don't, if you if you

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Sam: go away from the plan into something that's not your core, it doesn't work out.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright awesome, Sam. Anything else associated with this? You want to make sure.

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Sam: No, this is a short and sweet one. We're super busy here in the summer. I know you gotta catch a flight. So this is a good podcast to keep it short and sweet. Here in August.

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Andy Whiteside: You know, you know, it really does align with this time of year, where, summer's wrapping up, you're trying to get the best of it what's left of it? The kids are going back to school life's getting back to normal. It's easy to take shortcuts.

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Andy Whiteside: Your blog here is telling us when it comes to your drinking and your your habits around, that don't take shortcuts.

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Sam: That's right.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright, sir. Well, I appreciate you jumping on covering this, as always, we encourage our our listeners. Including, you know I realize this weekend that my oldest son is listening occasionally, but not really listening the way I want him to. And you know I just encourage people to share this. There's

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Andy Whiteside: it's it's quick.

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Andy Whiteside: it's easy.

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Andy Whiteside: but it's valuable.

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Andy Whiteside: And, you know, based on my my history, my my life to date 50 years old. Yours also around the same age. We've seen a lot of areas where this becomes an issue for people. Whether it becomes a full blown alcoholism problem or just, you know, one bad night.

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Andy Whiteside: It's it's important.

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Sam: Well, thanks for having the platform to get the message out.

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Andy Whiteside: Alright, Sam, we'll we'll talk to you next time. Thanks.

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Sam: All right. Travel safe. Thanks.