Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning all you quitters.
Today is Quitters Friday.
You made it.
You can trash that New Year's resolution
at last because you lasted 10 whole days.
Just kidding.
Don't be a quitter.
You can do it.
And happy Friday to you.
Okay, let's get right into today's
episode with today's quotes.
One fun nostalgic quote and then a second
quote to tease our
book review later in the
episode.
Hopefully, one of the quotes will speak
to you and give you
that bump you needed to get
your day started in a positive direction.
Alright, the first quote
is from Robin Williams.
And it's so touching, especially given
Robin's way too early
departure from our world.
But Robin was wisely quoted as saying,
"Everyone you meet is
fighting a battle you know nothing
about.
Be kind.
Always."
I mean, what else is there to say?
That is so true.
We are all fighting our
own battles of some kind.
So let's just be kind to each other.
Okay, and today's teaser quote from the
book review is,
"Self-expression is the dominant
necessity of human nature."
And as usual, we'll go ahead and unpack
that here in just a
minute during the book review
segment.
But first, let's jump into our usual dose
of fun and historic
facts from this day in
history.
Okay, today's news
facts are for January 10th.
In 1863, the London Underground opened.
Mind the gap?
It's the tube.
It's the world's
oldest underground railway.
By comparison, the tube has 250 miles of
track with 270 stations,
which compares to the New
York City subway, which has 665 miles of
track with 472 stations.
Okay, in 1901, the first major oilfield
in Texas was discovered.
It was near Beaumont.
In 1958, Jerry Lee Lewis' song, "Great
Balls of Fire," reached
number one on the UK pop
charts.
In 1971, the Masterpiece Theatre, later
called just Masterpiece, debuted on PBS.
The first series aired
was the first Churchill's.
I never saw that one.
In 1984, the United States and the
Vatican established
diplomatic relations after a 117-year
break.
In 1999, the first episode of The
Sopranos aired on HBO.
It starred James Gandolfini and Edie
Falco, and was later
widely hailed as a classic.
I guess I'm kind of surprised it wasn't a
classic at its original airing.
I mean, I'm a proud, full DVD set owner
of The Sopranos, so I
obviously think it's an
incredible series.
Also on a side note, if anyone's looking
for a complete Sopranos
DVD collection, hit me
up.
Okay, let's move on to the birthdays.
Happy birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with
American boxer George Foreman.
You know, the guy who gave college kids
the ability to cook
hamburgers indoors, along
with the fact that he was crowned the
world's oldest
heavyweight champion in 1994 at the
age of 45 years old.
He was born in Marshall, Texas in 1949,
and he's 76 years old today.
Singer-songwriter Rod Stewart, "The Big
Sexy," he's the big 8-0 today.
And Pat Benatar, singer of "Love is a
Battlefield," she will be 82.
It does get a little bit crazy to see
these singers that I
grew up with getting so old.
Glad I'm not.
Alright, now to the music of
the 80s, the 90s, and 2000s.
The number one song on this date back in
1992 was "Black or
White" by Michael Jackson.
It was number one for seven weeks, and do
you remember the video?
It was the first to use that morphing
technology technique where
people of different races
morphed into each other?
The video was seen by over 500 million
people, which was
impressive because at that time
it was the largest
audience for any music video.
Interestingly, according to the Google,
Despacito is currently
the most downloaded video of
all time, at just over 15 billion views.
Alright, and the number one movie on this
date in 1994 was "Mrs. Doubtfire."
This movie is sneaky
funny if you don't remember.
Robin Williams, he's famous for his
improv, and most of his lines in this
movie were improvised,
including the scene where
he lit his huge bra on fire.
In fact, there were so many edits due to
Robin's improv that there
are a PG, a PG-13, and an
R-rated cut for the movie, although it
was always intended to be a PG-13 movie.
It went on to win several awards,
including Best Motion
Picture and Best Actor.
Okay, let's go ahead and move on to some
personal growth in
the book review segment
of the morning serial, which we take a
few moments to reflect
on lessons learned from
the current book we're reading.
And currently, we're reading through Dale
Carnegie's "How to Win
Friends and Influence
People."
If you don't know, it's a timeless book
that is consistently on all the must-read
lists and it's packed with rock-solid
advice and actions for us
all to use and build healthy
foundational concepts to live by.
Well, we're still making our way through
chapter 3, which is entitled "He Who Can
Do This Has the Whole World With Him.
He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way."
And so far in chapter 3, we're unpacking
the importance of
understanding what other
people want, because everything we do in
our lives is because we want something.
And Carnegie is continuing to drive this
notion of how important
it is if you truly want to
win friends and influence people in a
truly authentic way,
just how important it is to
incorporate their perspective and desire
in combination with our own.
Now, yesterday we ended on a quote that I
think was important,
and I'll repeat it here
to build off of.
Carnegie said, "The world is full of
people who are grabbing and self-seeking.
So the rare individual who unselfishly
tries to serve others
has an enormous advantage.
Carnegie has little competition."
Carnegie nor I are saying that the world
is full of bad people.
It's just that our natural instinct is to
be selfish and take care of number one.
And I'm just as guilty of
this as the next person.
But I know you and I both get that
feel-good feeling when we
do something altruistic and
unselfish.
And Carnegie is suggesting, and I agree,
that we can and should
try to serve others, see
their perspectives more often, make it
the rule instead of the exception.
Even we will be that rare person that
brings more good into this
world and, oh by the way,
it will help you make more friends and
influence people in a greater way.
Carnegie continues to circle this back to
changing how we think.
And here he says that if we get just one
thing out of reading this
book, he says it's this,
"An increased tendency to think always in
terms of other people's point of view and
see things from their angle."
We talked about this a few episodes ago,
and that's what
Carnegie is teaching here.
It's not situational sales tactics.
He is teaching us a new way of life.
And let me repeat because he repeated it.
It's a new way of life.
Here, Carnegie reminds us, and I'm glad
he does because the
question was quietly lingering
in the back of my mind, are we just
manipulating people to get what we want?
And Carnegie says this about seeing
things from the other
person's point and quote,
"Arrousing in him an eager want for
something is not to be
construed as manipulating that
person, so that he will do something that
is only for your
benefit and his detriment."
And here's the point.
Carnegie continues, quote, "Each party
should gain from the
negotiation," end quote.
In all of the previous examples that we
discussed in yesterday's
episode about the letters that
were sent, when executed
correctly, both parties benefited.
Both the bank and the lady won because
the bank gained a
valuable employee, and the lady
gained employment.
Both the insurance salesman and the buyer
won because both
gained from the transaction.
So we are not manipulating someone when
we are thinking about
their perspective in that
the best outcome is
for us both to benefit.
Here Carnegie repeats Professor
Overstreet's advice, which
includes the title of this third
chapter.
Overstreet says, quote, "First, arouse in
the other person an eager want.
He who can do this has
the whole world with him.
He who cannot walks a lonely way."
Carnegie gives a few examples here about
arousing eagerness through
stories of getting children
to eat, so they'll grow big muscles, or
getting a child to stop
wetting the bed by making
him feel important
shopping for a new bed.
Both examples are followed by Charles
Schwab's suggestion of
being, quote, "hardy in his
approval and lavish in his praise."
End quote.
Now, Carnegie suggests these outcomes
were successful because
they not only approached
from the child's angle, not only did they
establish eagerness
in the child, but each
situation involved building up the
child's pride and sense of
importance toward the child.
And it could be an adult in any other
situation, but you
build their sense of pride.
You make them feel involved in the
decision, in the
direction, and this allows their own
self-expression.
And that's when it
gets sticky, if you will.
That's a recipe that
will benefit everyone.
Carnegie quotes William Winter saying,
quote, "Self-expression
is the dominant necessity
of human nature."
End quote.
And then Carnegie closes out chapter
three asking why we
can't apply this psychology,
meaning we should apply this psychology
of finding the other
person's angle and instilling
eagerness in business, in social
situations, in life in general.
Carnegie suggests we can and we should.
He says, quote, "When we have a brilliant
idea, instead of
making others think it is
ours, why not let them cook
and stir the idea themselves?
They will then regard it as their own.
They will like it and maybe
eat a couple of helpings of it."
End quote.
This approach takes a lot of discipline
and potentially
swallowing one's own pride at
times, but most successful people I know
are very disciplined people.
So I think there is something to it.
All right.
We've made it to the
end of chapter three.
And here is Carnegie's principle number
three, "Arrousing the
other person in eager want."
And remember the rest of that quote, "He
who can do this has
the whole world with him.
He who cannot walks a lonely path."
So here are the three fundamental
techniques in handling people as
suggested by Carnegie.
Principle number one, "Don't criticize,
condemn, or complain."
Principle number two, "Give honest and
sincere appreciation."
And principle number three, "Arrousing
the other person in eager want."
Great job.
We've made it through part one of How to
Win Friends and Influence People.
I hope you're finding ways to work this
advice and actions into
your everyday journey.
It's not always easy, but keep at it.
Join us again on Monday when we start
part two of How to Win
Friends and Influence People.
It's entitled, "Six Ways
to Make People Like You."
Okay.
Hey, have you heard the good news?
It's Friday.
Make it a great one and get some rest and
relaxation this weekend
if your schedule allows.
Have a fantastic day and
we'll see you again on Monday.
And don't forget to follow and subscribe
to the Morning Serial
Podcast and the Life Happens
Live Balance channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
visiting our YouTube
channel at Shawningless or our
website at at Shawningless.com, where you
can also follow our
other podcasts that are
coming in January.
That's when our first Mr. and Mrs.
English podcast and the
Life Happens podcast will
air.
So join us on those
other podcasts as well.
Thanks again for listening
and have a fantastic day.
We'll see you tomorrow.