How To Have A Merry Christmas—Next Year

Simple.

Stay healthy until next year’s Christmas.

Sounds too easy to be a special holiday greeting, doesn’t it? A year ago at this time I was undergoing chemotherapy, whooping cancer’s butt and today I am completely cured. How did I do that? With the help of some really great doctors. But, if I didn’t go to the doctor with a simple little complaint, we would not have found the cancer until it was too late. You can do the same. Take that extra couple of hours to get to the Doc and check things out.

If you are in a position of leadership at your company, know what your company health plan is, and encourage all employees to have annual checkups. Pay the deductible for a once-a-year physical for your workers. 

Wait, there is even more you can do. Work safely so that no one on your staff is in the emergency room and unable to work. Workers’ Comp will pay some of the employee’s lost wages, but not all. And those folks are not having a Merry Christmas. 

Quit smoking. Have a smoke-out at your company and pay for the nicotine patch if your insurance doesn’t cover it. Contact cancer.org for more details. Try a company-wide diet and see if you can loose one hundred or 1,000 pounds by July 1. No one has to get weighed in front of anyone else. No embarrassments. Every Monday the people involved tell a central record-keeping person their weight and only the sum total is put up on a chart. Have a lo-cal party each month that a goal is met.

For the upcoming holidays, don’t give a bottle of booze or a carton of cigarettes as gifts. Give baseball or hockey tickets. Try making a donation to a favorite charity in honor of the person you would have given a bottle to. They will be healthier and have a better chance of seeing Christmas next year. If you have an afternoon holiday party at your shop, serve lemonade, not scotch. Don’t let your friends or your employees drive drunk.

Are you so stressed out that you can’t sleep? Are your nerves shot because of your business? Get help to go over the speed bumps. Call a good friend who has experience.  Call SCORE, the Service Core Of Retired Executives; (score.org) with their 320 offices around the country you can get free and useful advice to many situations.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or an enjoyable time however you celebrate. I am looking forward to your reading this same blog next year.