For Future Business Meetings: I Don’t Drink

I Don’t Drink Anymore

Today’s blog isn’t really a blog, it is meant to be a quick link I can send people I will meet in the future.

I do not drink alcohol. When we meet, you can drink, but please do not force me or expect me to also drink.

Straight to the point now – I have been going to certain business meetings and they are strongly insisting I order an alcoholic drink with them.

Normally I get away with quickly putting my order in to the waiter / waitress to order a soda water with a lime.

What inspired this post is I recently had a business person not allow me to do that an insisted I drink.

I’m so upset at myself the next morning – I only had 1 and a half cocktails (didn’t finish the second, milked it all night) – but I still have a headache and not in my normal flow state in my morning work.

Really mad at myself. Even others who later joined saw I was having a cocktail and surprised as they know I don’t drink. I am just not happy about this at all.

So this post will be what I pull up at bars and restaurants to show future business associates who insist I drink.

Seriously, I do not want to drink. It is nothing about you – its me.

Maybe I am allergic at this point (read on to learn more).

This was a fun photo at Maggie Choos in Bangkok. These are the dancers at the bar and took a quick snapshot with Gustaf. And I didn’t need to be drunk to capture the moment.

You don’t need to get drunk to have fun!

I try to write up SOPs (standard operating procedures) for almost everything my various companies do, and my family life has started to implement it as well.

Even as crazy as to have made a SOP for how to cut my haircut (its on mikesblog.com/haircut so I can easily pull it up when I go to a barber shop). The barbers LOVE it – they can just check the photo and they know what to do.

So – this post will be the mikesblog.com/idontdrink post for future business meetings.

I should have marked it down, but really it was just a natural progression, I read the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferris and started to implement the slow carb diet.

In the book, he says 1 glass of wine a day is OK, but even that I trimmed down.

I searched the blog archives – this is a blog post where I discussed my transition.

I think around the year 2015 / 2016 as I was going through this transition I had a glass of wine and immediately got a headache. I remember it was my buddy Dave Ho over my place and I felt a splitting headache down the center of my brain within 15 minutes.

I took this photo the morning after I had 1.5 drinks years after stopping – and while it isn’t a major hangover – I do have a headache in the center of my brain – like right down the line between each half of my brain. Definitely made it harder to type up today’s blog post, for sure.

For so many years I have been deep into reading books on productivity and management – and I really prefer to be fully “awake” for my life.”

I’m a dad, and I want to be sober with my kids. I want to wake up without a splitting headache and enjoy a full day with the family. I want to appreciate life.

So those who have really pressured me to drink with them say that they can’t trust someone who doesn’t drink.

I think next time someone says that to me, I will just offer to leave the meeting and move on with my life.

If the lifestyle of me not being a drinker affects how we can have a conversation, then you are not a person I want to have a relationship with.

No hard feelings, you don’t trust me because I don’t drink. And I, in turn, can’t trust you because you can’t have a conversation with me because I’m not intoxicated or under the influence.

Sure, many successful business people do deals at bars. Rack up huge bar tabs and stay out til the sun comes up.

Good for them.

Since 2015/ 2016 I have been simply leaving those drinkfests around 10pm or so. Pay for my soda water bar bill and order a Grab / Didi / Uber and head to my home or apartment.

Maybe I have lost business opportunities from not drinking. Who knows?

As I type this up with a headache (ya, after just 1.5 cocktails the night before) I realize I should have stopped drinking years ago.

I have built so much more. Created so much more. Written so much more.

If that means I lose business deals, then so be it.

I prefer to create. I prefer to be “awake” for the life I want to live.

Now, I am not telling you to stop drinking. By all means, at our business meeting when we meet (I plan to send this link to people I will meet in the future) – you can order a wine, beer, cocktail. Order a whole line of shots.

I am not judging you. Enjoy yourself.

But I will not be joining you with those. I will order my soda water and lime (with ice if possible). I will listen to your stories, and I will share my stories. We can discuss business, life, families, raising kids. Whatever.

I hope we can still have our meeting.

But if this means you no longer want to meet me, then so be it.

I am not going to drink alcohol. Or if you are able to somehow twist my arm and force me to drink, I do not plan to have more associations with you in the future.