Guest John Strayer had figured his post-graduation life would find him either the author of the Great American Novel or dead. While his ambition was large, so was his problem with alcohol. His alcoholism made him limp along senior year. Luckily, as he says, he hit rock bottom soon thereafter and has been sober 25 years. While the Midwest was a good landing pad while he got his life back on track, he missed the pace and intellectualism of the east coast and picked up and moved to D.C. He knew law school would be in the cards, but he first worked for Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). The big fights to achieve small wins in the Senate grated on his ambition and sent him quickly to law school. At Georgetown, he was introduced early to criminal defense and he felt he had found a calling to match his inner crusader for the marginalized.

After an early experience on a high-exposure case, he landed in Maryland’s public defender’s office. Unfortunately, his undiagnosed ADD made sticking to court times and case load problematic and he was fired. Despite his often grasping the law better than those around him, subsequent jobs in the legal field didn’t pan out either. When a coach suggested that he think about making his outside hobby of carpentry into a paying job—and he got a taste of property management through being the president of his co-op board, he realized that working with his hands gave him a new route to helping others. In this episode, find out from John how being the smartest in the room isn't the only way to help people…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.

About This Episode's Guest

John Strayer is a former public defender who has found that working with his hands gets him in the zone far more than the law ever did. He is a property manager in Washington, DC, where he lives with and cooks for his wife.

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

Smartest in the Room: John Strayer on finding different talents and still helping people

Roads Taken