Alan C. Fox's Blog, page 33

Have you ever found yourself taking out your credit card to pay for something that you didn’t really want? Have you accepted an invitation to a party when you actually preferred to stay home, or entertained dinner guests far into the night because you weren’t comfortable asking them to leave?

You are not alone. Saying “no,” when appropriate, is one of the more difficult tasks in life. Many brides have told me they married their boy-friend because they were afraid to say “no” to his proposal...

As spring begins to spread across the land, I’ve found myself appreciating the cherry blossomsabove me and the green grass below, which is starting to cover the hills of Southern California. And I’ve been thinking about old maxim, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

In 1969 I hired Jessica as a legal secretary for our two-person law firm. She worked for me, on and off, until she retired in 2011.

In the early days Jessica seemed to believe “the grass is always green...

We all may be intuitively aware that wisdomcomes with age. My dad will be 100 years old in July, and I must say that he has revealed a great deal of wisdom in recent years. This means that perhaps, at 74, I still have much to look forward to. Recently I was excited to learn that scientific studies now agree – wisdom comes with age.

In an extremely well-writtenNew York Times article, journalist Phyllis Korkki reviews some of the most interesting research about wisdom and the wise of the worl...

Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve often found myself saying, “I wish someone would have told me that when I was 20 years old!”

After 74 years on earth, which haveincluded a successful real estate career, a wonderful family, and a loving marriage, I’ve learned a lot.I'veshared that wisdonwith my own children and grandchildren over the years by breaking it down into simple lessons or skills.

I call these skills “People Tools.” They are simple behavioral techniques that I’ve used over the y...

Last week a good friend shared with me an interesting article about “18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently” written by Carolyn Gregoire, a features editor for the Huffington Post.

She quotes Steve Jobs who says, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences the...

They say an optimist sees the glass as half full, while the pessimist sees the same glass as half empty.

Recently I asked an engineer about this hypothetical glass. His answer? The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

I’ll go with the engineer, and shrink the glass so that it is, in fact, full. I don’t have to be either a pessimist or an optimist. I just want to be happy.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more, i...

Last Friday I appeared at the beautiful Barnes & Noble bookstore in Santa Monica, California for a People Tools book signing. The sidewalk was slippery, so I held on to Daveen who was carrying an extra box of books, just in case the bookstore ran out of copies.

Frank, the event manager, walked us upstairs to the auditorium which was filled with chairs. My assistant, Lauren, and her fiancé were seated to the right. My dad, who will be 100 years old in July, took a chair halfway back. Two fri...

I would like to be James Bond. This is not some passing fancy. I have wanted to be James Bond ever since I saw him, actually Sean Connery, in the movie Goldfinger fifty years ago. I would like to be fit, handsome, and debonair. I would like to rid the world of evildoers. I would like to romp with beautiful women starting, of course, with Pussy Galore. And I have no idea how that name passed the censors.

Of course there is another side to James Bond. He leaps from cliffs or tall buildings. I...

I am an invisible man. . . . I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

-Ralph Ellison

The Invisible Man

I agree with Ralph Ellison and I am, at least in part, “an invisible man.” How is it possible not to be? I have so many thoughts and feelings that it is impossible for me to convey to you all that passes through my mind. Also, I am selective. That is a polite...

For me, and perhaps for you, one of the more difficult emotions to deal with is anger.

My father used to get angry a lot. If he was worried about money he stormed around the house and the rest of us stayed out of his way. When I asked for something he didn’t want to give me he shouted. When I broke the glass table in the living room . . . well, I won’t go further into that.

As a husband and father I did what had been modeled for me. When I was concerned about money I got upset with my famil...