Stop and think about this for a minute with me. How differently would you live your life if you knew with 100% certainty that many of your favorite people that you will know in your lifetime are people that you haven't met yet? Doesn't your heart and mind just open up? It's so exciting to think about, isn't it? If you're on a walk right now, you might be passing or walking walking by someone that could become one of your closest friends. If you're sitting at a cafe as you're listening to my voice, I want you to look around. There are potential friends or business partners all around you. Or even if you're driving in a car right now. Who knows if the person that's about to pull into the parking spot next to you, and you get out of the car at the same time, and then you strike up a casual conversation as you're both walking into the grocery store? Who knows where that might lead? And if you really stop and think about the possibility and the power in that, you'll go through life in a totally different way. And that's my mission today, to help you unlock what happiness researchers call the power of unexpected connections.

Some of your most favorite people that you'll ever meet you haven't met yet. Even the power of someone that you've never met in person and only he's spoken to on the phone and how they can change your life. I am holding a letter in my hand right now about Al, and this letter was written by Al's grandson, Joe. So let me set up this story because it's really, really beautiful. And you've got Al, who is a 92-year-old grandfather. He also had lost his wife, so he is a widower. He's living alone. And He has this experience where he is driving the car and he hits a deer. If that's ever happened to you, it's actually terrifying because, of course, it hurts the animal. It can hurt you. It can also do a lot of damage to your car, which is what happened to Al. So he was really shaken up after it happened. And he called his representative, Sheryl, who works for Amica, and they're talking on the phone. And it was very apparent that Sheryl cared about Al. Now, they've never met in person. We're talking about two people talking on the phone. And what happened next in this chance, unexpected encounter over the phone was so moving that Al's grandson, Joe, wrote a letter about it.

He says, My name is Joe, and I'm writing you this note in regard to my grandfather, who lives in a rural town in Maine. He recently hit a deer, resulting in an auto claim. And over the course of the claim, Sheryl, who was his representative, was very pleasant to work with and got to know him a bit. Now, my grandfather's 92 years old and lives alone in his home. While he has friends in the community are good to him and invitations to share the holidays with them, his home still lacks the hustle and bustle and coming and going of family that so many of us take for granted around the holidays. Of course, in some ways, that can make the season hard to get through. That being said, Sheryl, who has never met my grandfather in person, gave him a wonderful gift this year that filled not only his home, but his heart with Christmas spirit. She went out of her way to get a Christmas card for my grandfather, and then had an army of people at the Amica Concord office all sign it, wishing my grandfather well. Then, she called him on Christmas Day just to wish him a Merry Christmas.

Of course, his family and friends had also reached out to him as expected to wish him well. But I believe it was this simple, selfless act of kindness and compassion that most filled his heart and brought to his house a spirit that had been absent this year. And I wanted to thank you for that, Sheryl. My grandfather asked that I leave you a copy of something he wrote 70 years ago as a gift in return for your kind gesture. My grandfather was a very successful businessman who had a long and impressive career, but it wasn't always that way. When my mom was a baby and even a toddler, they had very little. And one of their favorite Christmases as a family, in December of 1950, my grandfather could only afford a little doll for my mom and no presents for his young wife, no big Christmas dinner with a roast. So he wrote this piece entitled The Gift, and he gave it to my grandmother as the only gift he could give. Oh my God. Okay, I don't know how to get through this. I think I needed the Kleenexes. In times of little and times of plenty, it has always been a reminder that true acts of love, kindness, and compassion are the real lasting gifts we give one another.

Thank you so much for your act of kindness that truly brought brightness to the world and warm to heart. And then he included this poem that Al had written in 1950 called The Gift. And here it is. So many gifts with the passing of time are soon broken, torn, or fade away. They serve a single purpose and are then forgotten or put aside. Like all material things, they are a substance and as such, bring joy and happiness only for the present moment. But there is a gift that you will not see beneath our tree this year. Christmas Day, when the gifts are unwrapped and taken away, it will still remain until it is slowly seeped into the souls of those we love, for it is not of substance. It is a gift of love wrapped in dreams. Dreams of now, tomorrow. It is tied tightly with a ribbon of faith which will never be undone and with a bow of compassion, for we are sensitive souls. This love is the greatest gift I can offer, and unlike material things, it will never break, tear, or fade away. By giving it becomes only stronger and everlasting.

Please accept this humble thought to nourish our love through another year, and God willing, within our entwined souls forever. It's true that love is the greatest gift you can offer, and it is by giving it, it becomes stronger and everlasting. And I think that's what you're doing when you go first, when you lean in, when you're the one that cares about somebody else. And the story shows you that you don't even have to be in person to lean into the power of this unexpected connection. Sheryl's actions show the real impact human connection and empathy can have. And you're even feeling it now that you're hearing the story, aren't you? That as I get all choked up, that you feel your own hearts well. And that is the phenomenon I was talking about, that the positive emotions spread from one person to another, that there's this undeniable energetic ripple effect that you create. And it starts every single time you smile, or ask how somebody's day was, or say thank you, or hold open the door, or check in on someone, or turn and talk to the friend standing next to you. Isn't that incredible? When you really stop and think about how powerful you are, that how you show up on a phone call, or how you go first and say hi to somebody, that you can be the one, that you can warm up the room, that you can make someone else feel loved, that when you give it away, it actually makes it stronger in you.

It's so powerful. And so thank you to Al's grandson, Joe, and thank you to Sheryl. What I also love about that story is I think we all know somebody like Sheryl, right? That she's leading by example. Sheryl's actions show the impact real human connection and empathy can have. Don't you want to be somebody like Sheryl? Don't you want to be Meet the person that makes people feel that way? Well, I'm here to tell you, you can, and you are, and I want you to. I don't want you to forget the power that you have to do this, not only for yourself, but for other people. Some of your most favorite people are people you haven't met yet. I freaking love this topic. It's the idea that there is a stranger out there that you're meant to meet who could become one of your closest friends. Everyone that you love now in your life was once a stranger.