New Year's Resolutions & Holiday Traditions

Hello. I want to wish you happy holidays for the end of December and the beginning of January. It's interesting. In China, they have the Chinese New year, which is 30 days long. And of course, there's Hanukkah. And there's other areas, celebrations in life, where people celebrate the end of the year, the winter solstice, usually the shortest day and the darkest day of the year. And after that, the days begin to become longer and it turns into spring. What I do during the holidays, of course, I spend three weeks with my family on vacation in Hawaii every year. This is one of the most important parts of our lives together, and we've been doing it for 30 years. But another thing that we do is we sit and think about what we want to do in the coming year, and we ask, if the coming year was perfect, if the coming year was the best year of our lives, what would happen? And I always encourage my audiences late in December and early in January to make this decision that the next year is going to be the best year of your life. And then take out a piece of paper and a pen and begin writing it down. I sit with my wife and I say, if this was a wonderful year, the best year of our life, what would happen in her life? What would happen in our life together? What would happen in my life? And what my wife does is she keeps these lists and brings them out each year, and we review what we had written down 12 months before. And it's absolutely amazing how many of those things come true. So the most important thing is to think about the things you're happy about and let go and forget about the things and the problems of the past year and remember, next year is a new year. As Scarlett o' Hara said in Gone with the Wind, tomorrow is another day. And that's how you think about the holidays. Tomorrow is another day, the next year is another year, and this is going to be the best year of my life.