As we celebrate the holiday season our thoughts turn to family, friends, and gift giving.  For more than twenty-five years my family has assembled in Northern California for dinner together on Christmas Eve, and then gift giving, along with my spaghetti sauce, on Christmas day.  We long ago abandoned the practice of everyone giving a gift to everyone else.  That would require the purchase and wrapping of thirty separate gifts by each of us.  Nine hundred gifts total.  We now buy one gift each, and distribute them on Christmas day with a “White Elephant” gift exchange.

But it seems to me that the most important gift, the gift of caring, doesn’t have to cost anything.  As my holiday gift to you I offer an idea that I hope you will pass along to everyone you know.

My gift is a simple suggestion.  Don’t fall.

According to the Mayo Clinic, unintentional falls are the seventh leading cause of death in the United States (22,631 in 2008), and the leading cause of death for people over 65.

I will say that again.  It is not heart disease, which is the overall number one cause of death.  It’s not cancer or stroke, which are number two and number three.  It’s not even land vehicle accidents, which are number four overall.  In the United States the leading cause of death for people over the age of 65 is FALLING.

I personally know a few hundred people.  During the past several years two of them have died from falling.  One, an attorney, fell and hit his head. He thought he was okay but died three hours later from swelling in his brain.  I’m told by doctors that if you hit your head hard you should go to an emergency room immediately. If there is brain swelling your chance of survival is much higher if you are treated promptly.

Celia, who was sixty-three years old, fell in her kitchen, and died two days later in the hospital after suffering from complications related to her fall.

Even if a fall doesn’t result in death it can be debilitating. The mother of one of my employees recently fell, breaking her arm. And last week Roberta, the seventy-year-old sister of a close friend of mine, underwent knee replacement surgery. Roberta has always been independent.  So even though she was instructed by her doctor to ask for help when getting out of bed, she didn’t. She fell and broke her arm, adding injury to injury.

I’m particularly concerned about falling on stairs. This is partly because I trip on them about two times a year.  That’s why I always hold onto the railing.  Recently, at a friend’s house, I tripped near the bottom of the staircase. I grabbed for the balustrade but it wasn’t secure and popped out in my hands. I fell hard onto the brick flooring and landed on my hip, which was seriously bruised but, fortunately, not broken.  From now on I will be sure to hold onto the railing.

All of us can offer, as our holiday gift of love, a reminder to our friends and family to do whatever it takes to avoid falling.  Saving a life, or protecting a friend or family member from serious injury, is the best gift I can think of in what I hope will be a joyous holiday season.

Happy holidays!

Alan

A few months ago I wrote a blog entitled “Life is a Team Sport.”  This is a crucial subject, and as 2015 draws to a close I’m sharing five tips on how to create and maintain an effective team in 2016 and beyond.  The acronym is TEAMS, which stands for:

Together

Encouragement

Allegiance

Management

Strength

Together.  For the past four years my family has sponsored the five-person Fred Fox Wind Quintet at the University of Arizona. We have all attended a number of their concerts, and the quintet traveled to Los Angeles to perform at both my father’s 100^th birthday party in 2014, and my own 75^th birthday party in 2015.  At every performance I have been impressed by their precision.  Five musicians, each playing a different instrument –flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon – a team that makes wonderful music together.

Encouragement.  For the past twelve years I have served as a Board member of Bright Prospect, a charitable organization in Pomona, California.  We enable disadvantaged students to attend and graduate from college.  The critical factor of their success, however, is not their ability as students.  It is the encouragement they receive to stick it out. For most, this is the first time they have lived away from home. Bright Prospect organizes “Crews,” consisting of all the other Bright Prospect students also attending that college. The members of these crews encourage and support each other. The office in Pomona also keeps in touch to provide additional support, notably including even more encouragement.

Allegiance.  I still remember from elementary school more than sixty years ago the words which we recited at the beginning of each school day, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.”  To this day I regard myself as a member of a team, a nation, which has now grown to more than three hundred million people of diverse regions, religions, and outlooks.  And this team needs chefs as well as teachers, steel workers as well as philosophers, and seniors as well as toddlers.  We are a unified team because of our allegiance which transcends our individual differences.

Management.  Every team needs supervision, but not necessarily from just one person.  For example, think of your family.  In many households one partner, or both, handle the money, the grocery shopping, and the social calendar.  All of these aspects of life have to be attended to for the team (in this case the family) to succeed.  It’s called management.

Strength.  There’s a saying: “In unity there is strength.”  Any one of us could easily break a matchstick, but how about twenty matchsticks glued together?  Businesses, sports teams, and armies draw their strength not just from their numbers, but from working toward the same goal.  On October 7, 1916, Georgia Tech (coached by John Heisman) beat a pick-up team from Cumberland College by the most lopsided score in the history of college football 222 – 0.  Rumor has it that after everyone else on the team had scored a touchdown the Georgia Tech center asked for his turn.  When he received the ball his teammates, as a prank, failed to block and the center was tackled for a loss. On the next play his teammates did block, and he scored his touchdown. This illustrates my point: no matter the abilities of one individual, every member of a team contributes to its overall strength.

Each of us is a member of many teams. That’s what life is about.  As a member of a family, a business, or a nation, we each must pull together for the benefit of all.

Alan

It’s time to start thinking about an even better year in 2016.  One of my most productive habits is to think positively.  Being positive includes using positive words.

For example, I have always told my children “you get to go to school today,” rather than “you have to go to school today.” When I was practicing law if I told a client the structure they proposed for a transaction wouldn’t work, I always followed with, “and here is how you can accomplish what you want to do.”

We all make prophecies, if only to ourselves.  Those prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling.  We often say to ourselves, “I’m not good at interviews so I probably won’t get the job,” or “She’s so attractive that I don’t think she would ever go out with me.”  My success is greater when I tell myself, “I’m improving at interviews, practicing every day, and I will get the job.”  Or, “She is super attractive and other guys are probably scared to ask her out.  I have a great sense of humor and I’ll bet she would be thrilled to have dinner with me.”

When I’m talking to others I pay close attention to the words I use.  I never say, “I won’t leave to pick you up until I’m sure you’re ready to go.”  That’s negative and feels like an accusation.  Instead I say, “I’ll be happy to pick you up as soon as you’re ready.”  This is the identical message, but with a far more positive tone.  Listen to yourself when you talk.  Be sure you are delivering your content in a positive way.

In negotiating I often say, “I’ll be pleased to respond to your offer as soon as I receive your financial statements,” rather than, “I won’t respond to your offer until I receive your financial statements.”  Again, the same content but delivered in an encouraging way.  I want everyone on the other side of a negotiation to warm up to me and want to do business with me. The words, “I will,” are far more effective than, “I won’t,” in getting others to root for my success.

I used to ask my friend Harry to go to football games with me, but his initial answer was always, “I don’t know.  I think I may have to work that day.”  Even though, in the end, Harry often joined me, I became tired of chasing him and waiting for an answer.  My new friend Trevor says, “Thanks for asking.  I’d be delighted to join you.”  Now I always ask Trevor first.

A few weeks from now, when you make your New Year’s resolutions, stick with “I will” rather than “I won’t.”  Tell yourself, ‘I will be positive,” rather than “I won’t be negative.”  Also, you might decide that your bias in the New Year will be to say “yes.” Shonda Rhimes wrote a book on this – Year of Yes.  It worked for her.  It will work for you.

Have a great new year.

Alan