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Good morning, and welcome to Morning Cereal!
Pull up a stool, grab your favorite cereal, and let’s kick-start your day with a spoonful of inspiration, nostalgia and personal growth. Join your host, Shaen Inglis, as he highlights the music, movies, and moments that made the 80s, 90s, and 2000s unforgettable—kind of like digging for toy at the bottom of the cereal box. Each episode, Shaen also reviews a chapter or so from top wellness books, offering practical insights to help you set a positive tone for your day. Start your mornings right—no cartoons required!
Follow and subscribe to the Morning Cereal podcast and visit our Life Happens, Live Balanced channel and our website at shaeninglis.com to check out and follow our other podcasts. You can also follow Shaen @ShaenInglis on Instagram, YouTube, etc. Feel free to share the Morning Cereal with someone who could use a little fun and motivation to start their day right.
Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and welcome to Friday.
And believe it or not, we've already made
it through January of 2025.
But good news, January
is not over with yet.
There's lots we can still accomplish this
month and lots we can
still celebrate today.
Because today has an awful lot of
national days of something or other.
Here are my favorites and pick whichever
one works best for you.
You do you.
It's National Backwards Day, Chris Cross
in the 90s, they'll appreciate that.
It's National Gorilla Suit Day, somewhere
someone will appreciate
that, perhaps on Fremont
Street in Las Vegas.
It's also National Fun Day at Work Day,
National Hot Chocolate Day.
And my personal two favorites, it's Hell
is Freezing Overday.
So I'm expecting some
really good luck to come my way.
And a special Happy Scotch
Tape Day to everyone out there.
Hope you get to spend
it with someone special.
Okay, to today's quotes.
One fun nostalgic quote and then a second
quote to tease our
book review later in the
episode.
Hopefully, one of these quotes will speak
to you and kickstart
your day in a positive
direction.
Okay, the first quote
is from Dolly Parton.
And again, someone that has an awful lot
of really simple but really good quotes.
And it was really difficult to actually
choose which one to use.
Also, I might add Dolly seems like a
really incredible woman
from the interviews that
I've seen with her.
Okay, Dolly said this, "The way I see it,
if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up
with the rain."
And I'm gonna throw in a second one
because she's got so many good ones.
Her second one is, "If you see someone
without a smile today, give him yours."
I can just hear her saying those in her
little southern accent.
All right, today's teaser quotes from the
book review is,
"Talking in terms of the other
person's interests pay
off for both parties."
As usual, we'll unpack that here in just
a few minutes during
the book review segment.
But first, let's jump into our usual dose
of fun and historic
facts from this day in
history.
Today's news facts and
birthdays are for January 31st.
In 1865, Congress passed the 13th
Amendment of the US
Constitution, abolishing slavery
in the United States.
In 1919, Jackie Robinson was born.
He famously broke the color line when he
became the first African
American baseball player
in the modern era, playing
for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
In 1933, the show The Lone Ranger, it
debuted on a Detroit radio station.
In 1943, German field marshals
surrendered to the
Soviet troops at Stalingrad.
And in 1949, the first US daytime soap on
TV, These Are My
Children, it debuted on NBC.
In 1950, US President Harry Truman, he
publicly announced support
for the development of the
hydrogen bomb.
Then in 1958, Explorer 1 was the first
space satellite orbited by
the United States, marking
the US's entry into the space race.
Just three years later, in 1961, Ham, the
chimp, he traveled into outer space.
The chimpanzees survived the US Mercury
program test flights
with just a bruised nose.
And just another 10 years later, in 1971,
on this date, Apollo 14
departed for the moon.
That would be the US's third trip to walk
on the moon and return home.
And finally, in 1990, the first
McDonald's opened up in the Soviet Union.
And happy birthday.
If today is your birthday, you share a
birthday with Justin
Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon's BFF,
he's 44, and Hall of Fame baseball
pitcher Nolan Ryan, he's 78.
And the number one song on this date,
back in 1986, was That's
What Friends Are For by
Dionne Warwick and Friends, with the
friends being Elton John,
Gladys Knight, and Stevie
Wonder.
The song was a remake of the original
1975 song by The
Stylistics, and it was a charity
single by Warwick for
AIDS research and prevention.
The song went on to win two Grammys,
including the Song of the
Year, and it raised more than
$3 million for the cause.
And the number one movie on this date, in
1981, was Nine to Five.
The movie starred Dolly Parton, Lily
Tomlin, and Jane Fonda.
And it was about three secretaries who
decided to get revenge
on their tyrannical sexist
boss by abducting him and then running
the business themselves.
The movie was Dolly Parton's debut movie,
and she famously
memorized the entire script
for all the characters
because she didn't know better.
Dolly only agreed to star in the film if
she could write the
theme song Nine to Five, for
which she earned an Oscar nomination for
the best original song.
Alright, let's move on to some personal
growth in the book review
segment of Morning Serial.
This is where we take a few moments to
reflect on lessons learned
from the current book we're
reading.
Currently, we're reading through Dale
Carnegie's How to Win
Friends and Influence People.
As you know, it's a timeless book that is
consistently on all
the must-read lists, and
packed with rock-solid advice and actions
for us all to use and
build healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
And yesterday we finished reading chapter
four of part two, which was entitled, "An
Easy Way to Become a
Good Conversationalist."
And we learned Carnegie's principle
number four is, "Be a good listener.
Encourage others to
talk about themselves."
Now part two of How to Win Friends and
Influence People is
titled, "Six Ways to Make People
Like You."
And we've now learned Carnegie's first
four principles, which
were, number one, become
genuinely interested in other people,
number two, smile,
number three, remember that a
person's name is to that person the
sweetest and most
important sound in any language,
and number four, be a good listener.
Encourage others to
talk about themselves.
And today we start, and believe it or
not, we're going to
finish chapter five of part
two, which is entitled,
"How to Interest People."
And Carnegie dives right in with a short
quip about Theodore
Roosevelt and how guests of
his were always astonished at the range
and diversity of his knowledge.
No matter whom he was talking with,
whether it be a factory
worker, a cowboy from Texas,
a politician, or an international
diplomat, Roosevelt always
knew exactly what to say.
The secret?
Well, Roosevelt took the time to stay up
late the night before he
had guests, reading and
studying the subject that he knew his
guests would be interested in.
And Carnegie said, "Roosevelt knew, as
all leaders know, that
the royal road to a person's
heart is to talk about the things he or
she treasures most."
Carnegie next remarks on how a professor
of literature at Yale,
William Phelps, learned
this lesson early in life.
At just eight years old, young Phelps met
a lawyer at a dinner he
attended at his aunt's
home.
And at some point, young Phelps found
himself in an interesting
conversation with a lawyer
about boats, which Phelps was
particularly interested in at the time.
Once the dinner party had ended, Phelps
had spoken with his
aunt with such enthusiasm
about the lawyer.
And his aunt informed young Phelps that
the lawyer had zero
interest in boats, but he
spoke to the young boy about them
because, quote, "He is a gentleman.
He saw you were interested in boats, and
he talked about the
things he knew at interest
and pleased you.
He made himself agreeable, and the
professor never forgot that lesson."
End quote.
In another example, a Boy Scout leader
was hopeful he could have
the executive of a large
company pay the way for one of his scouts
to attend a big scout event in Europe.
And he heard that the executive had
written and canceled a
check for $1 million and had
it framed in his office.
Well, the Boy Scout leader started the
conversation off by asking
about the $1 million check and
how his boys would be impressed he saw
such a huge check and
how it all came about.
Carnegie's point, the Boy Scout leader
didn't start the
conversation with asking for what
he wanted.
He, quote, "talked in terms of what
interested the other man."
End quote.
The businessman ended up paying to send
five scouts and the
leader for an extended period
of time, along with other things that
were above and beyond.
Carnegie continues with a story about a
salesman that struggled
to make a sale over a long
period to a business until the day he
found out what the
manager was really interested
in.
When leading with the subject the manager
was passionate about, the salesman opened
up a whole new world of opportunity and
created a relationship.
Similarly, a man seeking a job and an
interview with a company owner that was
mostly inaccessible,
the man found out what interested the
owner's secretary, the
woman who was dedicated to
sternly protecting the owner's time, etc.
and he was able to land an interview.
Carnegie closes this relatively short
chapter by saying, quote,
"talking in terms of the
other person's interest
pay off for both parties."
End quote.
And adds that there is a reward there
that one can receive,
quote, "a different reward
from each person" and that in general,
the reward is an
enlargement of your life each
time you speak with someone.
Here it is.
In a chapter entitled "How to Interest
People," Carnegie's principle number five
is "talk in terms of the
other person's interests."
Well, not only did you make it to Friday,
and congrats on that,
but if you joined us
every day this week, you finished three
chapters and learned three
new principles of Carnegie's
six ways to make people like you.
Principle number one, become genuinely
interested in other people.
Number two, smile.
Number three, remember that a person's
name is to that person the
sweetest and most important
sound in any language.
Number four, be a good listener.
Encourage others to
talk about themselves.
And now number five, talk in terms of the
other person's interests.
Okay.
Come back next week as we start the final
chapter in part two.
And chapter six is entitled "How to Make
People Like You Instantly," as if that's
just not a natural thing for all of us.
Have a great weekend.
Use some of these
principles Carnegie is giving us.
Start with baby steps if need be.
Thanks for joining today.
We'll see you next week
and have a fantastic Friday.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial
podcast on the One Life
Live It channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
visiting our YouTube channel and the
website at Shawningless
and at Shawningless.com, where you can
also follow our other
podcast, the Mr. and Mrs.
Inglis podcast and the
Life Happens podcast.
In these other podcasts, we'll dive
deeper into everyday issues,
self-improvement and
well-being, business and finance, and we
welcome special guests too.
So join us.
It'll be a good time, I promise.
Thanks again for listening.
Have a fantastic day and
we'll see you tomorrow.