Setting Goals and New Year Traditions

This is a special, Matt-centric episode in which podcast team member Matt sits down to talk with host Michael Pierry to talk about New Year’s traditions. And because the only force in the known universe more powerful than one Matt is .. two Matts, Matt interviews Matthew Kerzner, aka Dr. K, to help us all in formulating and following through on our New Year’s resolutions and goals. There are also some book recommendations, of course.

Transcript

Michael Pierry: Hello and welcome to the Hamden Library Podcast. I am your host, Michael Pierry, and this is a special Matt-centric episode. Podcast team member Matt sat down with me to talk about New Year's traditions, and because the only force in the known universe more powerful than one Matt is two Matts, Matt interviews Matthew Kerzner, aka Dr. K, to help us all in formulating and following through on our New Year's resolutions and goals. It's a great talk. So now without further ado, let's listen to Matt and me, followed by Matt and Matt. 

Hello, it's Mike and I'm here with Matt. How are you, Matt?  

Matthew McGregor:I'm doing great, Mike. How are you doing? 

Michael Pierry:Pretty good. And we're here to talk about New Year's Traditions, New Year's celebrations. So why are we talking about this now? After all, New Year's... a little ways away now.  

Matthew McGregor: No, no, we've only got three months until Songkran. 

Michael Pierry: Pardon?  

Matthew McGregor:Songkran. It's a Thai tradition. They celebrate New Year's in the spring and the entire country, well, most of the country has a giant water fight to ring in the new year.  

Michael Pierry: Oh, wow. That's pretty cool.  

Matthew McGregor: Or we could be getting ready for Nowruz, which is a Iranian tradition, again, of welcoming in the New Year. You might think that New Year's only happens in January and December, but throughout time, New Year's has happened all throughout the year.  

Michael Pierry: Well, that's true. There have been a lot of different calendars.  

Matthew McGregor: You mentioned something interesting there, talking about the calendar, because the ancient Egyptian New Year's was Wep Ronpet and it was celebrated when the Dog Star came back into the sky, but the ancient Egyptian calendar didn't have leap years. So not only was - when it was initially celebrated, it was in the summer, but because of the misalignment of the days, gradually it went from being celebrated in the summer to being celebrated in the fall, to being celebrated in the winter, to being celebrated in the spring, back to being celebrated in the summer again, because their calendar rotated over thousands of years. 

Michael Pierry: Was it a lunar calendar or the constellations were changing? What did they base it on?  

Matthew McGregor:I think it was a solar calendar. Because again, it was connected to the return of the Dog Star into the night sky-- Sirius.  

Michael Pierry: Right. Which also, isn't it also true that the Dog Star is the reason why we call it the "dog days” of summer? 

Matthew McGregor:Yeah. I think, I don't know. I have no idea. I'll have to look this up.  

(Editing Matt here. Yes, the dog days of summer are named that because of the return of Sirius.) 

Moving on from ancient Egypt, the first holiday that starts to look like modern New Year's is Roman Saturnalia. 

Michael Pierry: Ooh.  

Matthew McGregor: And Saturnalia was a celebration to Saturn. It was a carnival atmosphere where you had slaves and nobles partying together and you had everybody wearing hats and drinking and fraternizing with each other and people could sort of say what they wanted. And this went on for two weeks in the end of December, partying, staying up at midnight, the midnight kiss, these are all traditions that we sort of get coming out of Saturnalia. 

The next sort of step of this comes in the Middle Ages where they would have masquerade balls where people would put on masks and they would go and party and drink together. This is where we really get the New Year's kiss from, because at midnight everyone would unmask and sort of kiss their partner, and this is just a way to celebrate with people and to set the tone for going into the new year. 

So that is leading up to modern Western New Year's, but there's lots of other New Year's traditions around the world, and all of them are connected to sort of this idea of renewal and refreshing and how would you feel if I smashed my plates on your door?  

Michael Pierry: On my front door?  

Matthew McGregor: On your front door. If I smashed my plates on your front door.

Michael Pierry: I would feel like I had been assaulted by vandals. 

Matthew McGregor:Yeah. In Denmark, they have a tradition of breaking your old dishware on your friend's door. So I would be going and celebrating the new year with you by breaking my dishes on your door. And with any luck, you'd be breaking your dishes on my door too.  

Michael Pierry:Yeah, as long as it's a celebration, who cares?  

Matthew McGregor: I bet it's great business for the door people too.  

Michael Pierry: Sure. 

Matthew McGregor: When I asked our co-workers about celebrations around the world, one of our co-workers from Germany told me that Germans ring in the new year with fireworks. In Ireland and also in Iran for Nowruz, people prepare for the new year by cleaning out their houses. You're getting out the old stuff. In the Philippines, people wear polka dots because the circle-shaped stuff is reminiscent of money. And so there's wishes for good health and wishes for good relationships and wishes for long life. In Japan, they eat long noodles to celebrate New Year's. In China, people wear red and give money. 

In Greece, there's a traditional cake that's made and a coin is hidden in it. In the southern United States, they eat Hop John [sic], which is filled with foods that are symbolically associated with prosperity and money.  

Michael Pierry: What is it called? Hop John [sic]?  

Matthew McGregor: Hop John [sic].  

Michael Pierry: Wow. That's a new one for me.  

Matthew McGregor:Yeah. Which was nuts, because I figured I knew about United States New Year's traditions, but no, in the South they have this thing. And speaking of United States New Year's traditions, part of New Year's is staying up and ringing in the new year.  

Michael Pierry: Yep.  

Matthew McGregor: New Year's has not always been a time of celebration for enslaved Americans. January 1st was known as Hiring Day or Heartbreak Day because that was the day when the previous fiscal year settled up. People would find out - and it's not that people weren't being sold all throughout the year, but this was the big day for people, for human beings going to market, was Hiring Day. And so one of the traditions that came out of the Civil War in 1862 in Black churches was Watch Night. 1863, on January 1st, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, freeing the slaves in Confederate states, and these people were watching the clock turn over from when they were enslaved to when they were freed. 

Michael Pierry: Wow. That's incredible.  

Matthew McGregor:Yeah. And part of that tradition continues forward. What other traditions do we have? The ball drop started in 1907. It was an advertisement by the New York Times newspaper. Counting down didn't start until the seventies when we got countdowns with rocket launches and nuclear bomb tests. And eventually in 1979, we had our first New Year's Eve countdown with the crowd chanting "10, 9, 8," so on and so forth. And that's a tradition that has continued ever since.  

Michael Pierry:Yeah, that's really interesting because we always think about seconds ticking away and most people for most of history didn't have watches on their hands or any way to tell time to that kind of granularity. So there would be no such thing as counting down to the new year. You kind of just went to sleep and then when you woke up, it was a new year.  

Matthew McGregor: In Saturnalia, who can say when the next day is, but now we can do things at midnight.  

Michael Pierry: Mm-hmm.  

Matthew McGregor:It's also interesting, some of these traditions, which seem like they have been going on forever, are things that my grandparents didn't do. 

Michael Pierry:Yeah. Like you said, if the countdowns didn't start until 1979, something that happened certainly within my parents' lifetimes, they wouldn't have been doing that when they were kids. 

Matthew McGregor: I guess one other elephant in the room-- there are no New Year's traditions around elephants. That's not true. Elephants get to participate in the water fights in Thailand, but the "elephant in the room": resolutions. 

Resolutions started in Babylon 4,000 years ago are the oldest records we have of New Year's resolutions, and they've been a tradition across a lot of cultures continuing all the way through the present day.  

Michael Pierry:Yeah, so it seems like there have been New Year's resolutions for almost as long as we've had the concept of a year. 

Matthew McGregor: Oh yeah, that's probably fair. That's the other thing you need. Man. It messes me up. Everything has to be invented. You need to have a year before you have a new year. 

Michael Pierry: Yes. And that probably came out of just watching the different seasons.  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which goes back to the Babylonians, or at least we have the best records from the Babylonians. 

Michael Pierry: Right. 

Matthew McGregor:So I guess that's one third of all I have to say about New Year's. I have two more segments to record. 

Michael Pierry: Well, thanks Matt. It's been lovely chatting with you and I can't wait to hear the rest.  

Matthew McGregor: Thanks for giving me an opportunity to trot out all this knowledge. [End segment] 

Hello, Dr. Kerzner. Thank you for joining us for this New Year's podcast. I'm hoping to get some insight around New Year's resolutions from you. So who are you, what are your qualifications? What do you do?  

Dr. K:Yeah, thank you. And first of all, thank you for allowing me to participate in this podcast in your podcast series. My name is Matt Kerzner. I go by Dr. K. I'm actually uncomfortable with Dr. Kerzner. I don't know why. I live here in North Haven, Connecticut and I am the CEO and owner of the New England Center for Family Business Excellence. I am a human resource organizational development by trade. I've been doing it for years. Before I got into the consulting world, I also teach at three different universities, in their industrial organizational psychology program. 

So that's what I do at my center, just highly, at a very high level, you know. I have a few things that I provide: strategic human resources. I have a whole assessment center to help individuals and teams with their development. I do a slew of family business advising to help small, medium, and large family businesses in succession, strategic planning, et cetera. I help set up boards, both fiduciary and advisory boards. I'm an executive coach. I'm a gestaltist by trade, and that's the methodology I use with my executive coaching. And I'm also a certified mediator where I can help - mainly I get involved with family and family businesses and the conflicts that we see there. But that's just my background, and my PhD is in business psychology. And I can keep going with my resume, but I'll stop. 

Matthew McGregor: Suffice it to say you're an expert on goals, resolutions, goal setting amongst many other things. And you used a word in there that I hadn't heard in this context before. What do you mean "gestaltist"? Tell me more about that.  

Dr. K:Yeah, thank you for asking. So, Gestalt is a German word that is actually very hard to translate in English and basically it's "in the moment awareness." So Gestalt is a psychology methodology that is used to bring mindfulness awareness and help people be in the moment. It's, yes, we honor the past, we live in the moment. And when we do that, we can think strategically. So Gestalt is just a methodology of being in the here and now. And as a executive coach, using that methodology, I can help clients be in the moment.  

Matthew McGregor: Did I - oh, thank God. Okay. I had a moment of panic. The recording thing is on, the red light's on, it's ticking up. Everything's fine.  

Dr. K: See, that's - what you just did, Matt, was a gestaltist technique: you brought yourself back to the moment. So I am, actually, as a coach, very proud with what you just did.  

Matthew McGregor: Well, thank you very much. Getting back onto New Year's, are you a New Year's resolution person or is this a more all the time thing since this is what you do? 

Dr. K:Yeah, great question. So first of all, I have to be very up in front. I don't like the word "resolution".  

Matthew McGregor: Okay.  

Dr. K: I use the word "habit".  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K: Or "goal".  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K: Something to strive for. So to answer your question, I do annual goals. And if I need to develop habits in order to accomplish those goals, that's very important. So I always reflect on last year and how I did and then I put my new goals together. It's usually in the December time frame that I put together, and then, as I'm actually doing today, I start solidifying those goals that I drafted in December.  

Matthew McGregor: That makes a lot of sense, and from my research on this, I found that about 40% of people wind up sticking with their goals. Forty percent of the people who make goals, which is itself about 40% of the U.S. population. You seem to be saying that maybe even "goals" is not quite the right way to think about it, but that if someone wants to accomplish a longer-term goal, that they should be trying to build habits that will support this goal instead of having the goal be a discreet idea by itself. 

Dr. K: Yes, 100%. I'm a student of Stephen Covey and I'll point to the book for those that who might not be able to see this 'cause it's a podcast. It's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I’m a - I’ve studied it, I use it in my master level courses that I teach. And I'm not gonna go over the seven habits, but the first one is, be proactive. And I use a quote, it's an anonymous quote: "Success is not a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire". If you're gonna put goals together and you're gonna accomplish those goals, you have to be motivated and disciplined to do this.  

When I think of goals, and why the statistics that you brought up - and I actually reinforce your research that you did, because what happens is, yes, we have all these good intentions. We say, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. This is my resolution for the year." But what happens is, some people don't write them down. When they do write them down, they're just writing down simply, "I wanna get in shape."  

But some of us have heard - SMART goal setting: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time frame. Well, that's a way of putting some discipline in place to make sure your goals are actually a little bit more detailed, a little bit more specific, and then a time frame to hold yourself accountable. 

The big reason why people start something or have this wish or desire - okay, that's great, but do they write them down? Do they put 'em in a way that's actually very articulate for themselves? How do they hold themselves accountable? Meaning, I always say, “what gets measured gets results.” And that's one of the reasons why people, I'm gonna use the word, fall flat.  

Another major reason, Matt, is - and this is, I gotta give credit to Stephen Covey. He states that there are - think of a Venn diagram: three circles that intertwine with each other. What's really important, if you want success in your goals or resolutions: A) you need to have the knowledge. What is it that you wanna either change or do? So you gotta have a little bit of understanding of detail of what it is. And then in order to make this happen, do you have the skill set, or do you need to go out and get that? If I wanna learn to play the drums as one of my goals, I can't just pick up sticks. I gotta get some skill and maybe a little bit professional - some lessons, right? And then the last one, which goes back to the spontaneous combustion quote, or being proactive: you have to have a desire to actually be committed to do this goal, and that's another thing.  

So if you don't have those three: knowledge plus skills plus desire will equal success. But when things are missing in that formula, it becomes painful because we're not working towards something, and then, again, one of the Harvard Business Review articles - I'm dating a little bit of this, but it's called "Who's Got Your Monkey?" And the monkey represents tasks or goals or initiatives. And what happens with these monkeys - think of that saying, "there's a monkey on your back." It's weighing you down. Well, that's what happens when people are excited at the beginning. They put together, "oh, I'm gonna accomplish this." But what happens with that task, that goal, or again, that monkey in the article - what we need to do is also feed this goal. What resources, what energy that I'm gonna put into this? Or what happens is we starve it. We start doing it, but then life takes over and how things get busy. So what we do is we say, okay, this goal that I wanna work on, I'm gonna shelve that and then I'll come back to it.  

But you know, that's probably part of your research that you did, too: how many people start but don't finish. And that's the starving in this article. We actually should commit. If we don't have the desire and we start something, kill it. And I don't mean that physically, kill it, but emotionally, let it go. Maybe it's not that important and there's other priorities that we need to set. 

So I know I got a little bit long-winded there, Matt, but it's critical in order for goals or initiatives or resolutions to actually stick and move forward. 

Matthew McGregor: Right. And that dovetails nicely into another question that I was going to ask: When do you let go of a goal, say that this is not the right time for the goal, I will put this back on my goal to-do list next year?  

Dr. K:Yeah, it's a great question. I usually take a full year - and for those business folks listening in, you know, I look at quarters. For those who aren't business-minded, think of every three months. So every three months I always do a little bit of an accountability check, and three months is a good time frame because back in the day they used to say, if you wanna create a habit, you want to make your goal stick, do it for 21 days straight. But actually, through research, neuroscience and all this stuff, they actually say it takes a hundred days. And the reason why it takes a hundred days - it might take the 21 to 30 days to actually break the habit. Again, if you're doing a goal of some sort, there's something else that you wanna stop and do something differently or new. So the first 30 days might be getting the skill set or the knowledge to break the current habit in order to move forward. The next 30 days to 35 days is reinforcement, actually experimenting, doing it a little bit. I always say crawl, walk, then run.  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K: Right. What happens is a lot of people actually start running and they lose their momentum. 

Matthew McGregor: Right. 

Dr. K:So the next 30 days is to get your rhythm, and then the final 30 days is again, just doing it, adjusting, doing it, and adjusting. If you start playing the piano for a hundred days straight, they say that you're gonna be good on that, or you'll stick playing the piano. If you go to the gym and you do it for a hundred days in your rhythm, whatever that is, three days a week, but you're doing it consistently for that time frame, you'll feel, if you don't do it, you'll feel that, that you're missing something. So it's that period of time. Hopefully I'm answering your question on that. 

Matthew McGregor: No, this is fantastic. And that again, lines up right with the papers that I read that talk about people burning out. January 1st they say they're going to go to the gym. They go to the gym January 1st, January 2nd, January 4th, January 5th, and then they never go again. 

Dr. K: Exactly, exactly. 

Matthew McGregor: Well, maybe they start on January 2nd, but - 

Dr. K:And they might actually go back to it on March 30th, and they might go back it in May. It's the inconsistency of where it falls down.  

Matthew McGregor: Right. So for this last bit I was hoping to talk a little bit - my coworkers at the Hamden Library, they shared some of their resolutions with me, and I was hoping to see either if you think that their goals are good and achievable as is, or maybe what steps that they could take to make their goal more achievable if they want to stick with this habit. 

Dr. K: Right.  

Matthew McGregor:So the first one I had is just, I'd like to work on my work-life balance. One of the most common resolutions that people have.  

Dr. K:Yeah, so very important to have balance, and I actually have six things that I try to be balanced with: family, friends, exercise, spirituality, work, and those are my six. Hopefully I listed the six, but I work really hard. So work-life balance is great.  

What I didn't hear was that goal in a SMART format. What specifically is the goal of work-life balance? What does that mean? How is this person gonna measure that they're actually working on work-life balance? Is it doing a check-in on Sunday night on how they did in the previous week and actually move forward? That's what we mean by measurable. How do we measure ourselves and hold ourselves accountable? The A is achievable. Sure, work-life balance is achievable. Now, with everything going on in our lives-- I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a son, I'm an owner, these are all hats that I wear. So how do I measure all these different areas and are they achievable? The next one is, is it relevant? I would say, based on what I'm hearing, work-life balance, of course it's relevant: for stress reduction, for just spending quality time with your family, your friends, growing your knowledge, whatever it is. And then the last one is time frame. This individual should say, okay, when do they wanna achieve work-life balance? Is it in three months – by April 30th? “I wanna achieve work-life balance by April 30th.” So great goal that this individual has, but as a business person that dives deep into psychology, that's a wonderful goal, but where's the momentum? Where is that challenge? Where is that check-in point? That's the piece that's kind of missing for me.  

Matthew McGregor:Alright, so I'll be honest that this next one is my goal. I'd like to run a 7:30 mile again. I could run much faster than that in high school, and I think I could get there. It's probably an achievable goal. A 7:30 is good, but not unbelievable. It is a specific goal and it's definitely measurable, but I probably need some sub-goals in there. Maybe first, I want to be able to run a 10-minute mile by, I don't know, by March. By March 31st, I would like to be able to run a whole mile in under 10 minutes without stopping. And then put in sub-goals four times continuing forward from that.  

Dr. K:Yeah. That's great. So what I'm hearing, Matt, is the same thing, right? And you just walked through the SMART model.  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K: But when those folks don't write it out that way, it's great that you're thinking it, but if you don't write it down, there are some statistics that say, or there are researchers that say you won't reach it 'cause you didn't write it it down and it didn't sink in. Another thing is when you set sub goals, which again, I think that's great, you know, maybe you need to go out and check some, you know, knowledge. Go out there and say, okay, how do I get milestones about getting off the couch to actually walking, to actually jogging, then actually getting to the point of, what is my number? Okay, I'm at 15 right now and I'm winded. Okay, next week I want to be at 12. The following week - so you have to have these increment goals, and then you're gonna have to reward yourself as you hit these milestones. So it might be, I'm gonna treat myself to a movie. Or I'm gonna, whatever. Whatever it is, Matt, that brings joy in your life. You can actually reward yourself to hit these milestones. I think that's the sub goals that you're referring to.  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K: But that's the way I would coach my clients. And actually, and then how do you hold yourself accountable if you miss those goals? 

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K: Right. Hopefully I was able to provide some guidance on that.  

Matthew McGregor: The whole process has been giving me a lot to think about for my own goals. 

Dr. K: Good.  

Matthew McGregor: And I think we're going to skip right to my last one, which is kind of a, maybe this is more of a habit or maybe this isn't a goal at all. I want to manifest positive vibes this year. 

Dr. K: Yeah, I love that. I'm gonna restate it. Not restate it differently, but my interpretation of that is "I wanna be in an environment that's going to give me that positive vibe" or have that unbelievable feeling through this. That is both. It's a goal, but it's also a habit, right? 

So when I work on my clients, I would say, okay, what specifically brings you joy? What specifically is gonna give you that vibe? Maybe you need to let go of some of the toxic people in your life. Maybe you need work-life balance so you could feel the joy in all the different areas. Family, friends, the feeling of the running - those things. What is it that brings you joy? And what are the things that create toxicity that brings that joy level down? And then measuring yourself on a daily basis on where is my joy happening and where are the areas that I need a little bit more energy for myself to feel that? Meaning, are you sleeping? Are you eating properly? Are you hydrated? It's those things that could be small little checks to make sure that your environment, the food you're eating, the people you're with are bringing you that vibe that you're looking for and it's a state of mind and you need to feed this. It just doesn't happen. I love manifestations. I love having visuals to look at and to think through. I keep a coin that helps me be in the moment.  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K:So I would be looking for the cues. If manifestation is gonna happen, there are gonna be cues that you need to open up those doors. So again, that's the gestaltist in me. Let's not worry too much about what already happened in our lives. Let's not start thinking about too much in the future about having joy. How do we have joy in the moment? So again, if you want those vibes, you gotta look at what was the toxicity, what's gonna bring you joy, and then actually be in the moment and experience it.  

Matthew McGregor:So you mentioned that you really like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Are there any other books that you recommend to people?  

Dr. K:Yeah, there's about four additional ones, right? Stephen Covey, that one's extremely important, and that's a wonderful baseline to start with. I have a couple more that I think are critical.  

There's two by Napoleon Hill, and the first one is Success Through Positive Mental Attitude. That book is really about, you have to have that good vibe that we talked about a little bit to have this positive feeling and not let the negativity get in the way of what you're trying to accomplish. The second one is Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success:the 17 Principles of Personal Achievement. So it really helps set that tone of the knowledge, skills, and the desire. This gets into how do you motivate, how do you get that lighting yourself on fire?  

And then this is a great one, and this is a one of the books I used when I took the leap of faith as one of my major goals of putting up my own shingle, starting the Center, and this is by our friend Steve Harvey, the comic, and it's called Jump, and it's really a motivational book about his story of how he knew he wanted to be a comic and be on TV, but back in the day, he was actually working at an auto plant. And he needed some goals to get there. And the book is about you have to take that jump, that leap off the cliff if you want abundance. it doesn't matter if you are a librarian or somebody that cuts hair or somebody that does, you know, mowing lawns. If you're good at something and you wanna do it, learn it and then jump. But people have to realize when they're putting goals together and working towards those goals, sometimes the parachute is not gonna open. And this is where people say, “I just don't have the energy to do this,” because they're not willing to get their knees scraped or their elbows bruised or their heads banged, not physically, but the bumps along the way of actually succeeding at the goal. We need to fail a few times sometimes until we get there. This book Jump, wonderful book, easy read, with a little bit of that Steve Harvey comic relief in it. It's enjoyable. 

And the last one is called Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, and this book is a wonderful book about not being judgmental. And sometimes when we are supporting people who are putting your goals together, you want a positive vibe. Some of the things that you might wanna do that give you positivity might not be right for me. So if I wanna learn more and support you, I need to be inquisitive and ask, "Matt, tell me more about your goal. I'm curious, how are you gonna do it?" Versus being judgmental: "Matt, you're never gonna do that. You tried this in the past." This book helps people change their questions to be more inclusive and less judgmental. 

So these are four, plus the Stephen Covey. This could be the knowledge and skill to get you going, or the desire to start planting a seed. And then going out and getting the skill and knowledge to actually achieve those goals. So five wonderful books that I think are great to read to get the ball rolling  

Matthew McGregor:And if you out there in radio land are looking for any of the books, we're happy to help you find them at the Hamden Library. 

Alright, I think that's all I have. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. It's been a really enlightening conversation. Do you have anything else that you want to add? Anything that you want to plug?  

Dr. K:Yeah, for me, there's really no plug.  

Matthew McGregor: Mm-hmm.  

Dr. K:I'm here in Connecticut. I live locally in North Haven. I have clients all over. And just for the audience, if anybody needs the support or have a coach, a life coach, or a business coach to help articulate, help with the knowledge, the skills, a little bit of motivation and accountability. If you really wanna reach your goals, don't starve them. Find some people that could help you feed it and then really reinforce it for those hundred days. 

Matthew McGregor:That's awesome. Thank you so much.  

Dr. K: All right. Thank you, Matt. I'm so happy to be here.  

Matthew McGregor: Thanks for listening, and whoever out there is getting ready for their own New Year's celebration, one last tradition:  

[singing] Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never called to mind / should auld acquaintance be forgot for auld lang syne. 

Happy New Year's, everybody. 

Michael Pierry:That's all the time we have on this episode. Thanks for listening. See you next time.