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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 Monday.
I hope you had a great weekend and I hope
you're feeling fresh and ready to conquer
this week.
Now, I know there was a lot happening in
US news last week,
from fires to freezes, so
I hope this episode finds you and your
loved ones well and safe.
And to give you a small goal right away
today so you can feel
accomplished right away today,
today is National Clean Your Desk Day.
So no better time to clear that pile of
papers and take those
empty coffee cups back to the
sink.
Let's go ahead and jump right into this
Monday and into today's quotes.
As you know, we always try to do one fun,
nostalgic quote and
then a second quote to
tease our book review
later in the episode.
And I hope one of these speaks to you and
kick-starts your day
in a positive direction.
Okay, jumping into the first quote today,
I'm just going to go
right to it because it's
so true.
Quote, "The older you
get, the better you get.
Unless you're a banana."
No truer words were ever said.
That was from Betty White's character,
Rose Nylund, on The Golden Girls.
Alright, moving on to today's teaser
quote for the book review.
That is, "You can make more friends in
two months by becoming
genuinely interested in
other people than you can in two years by
trying to get other
people interested in you."
Okay, as you know, we'll go ahead and
unpack that here in just
a minute during the book
review segment.
But first, let's go ahead and jump into
our usual dose of fun
and historic facts from
this day in history.
Today's news facts are for January 13th.
In 1888, the National Geographic Society
is founded in
Washington, D.C. and they founded
it for the increase in diffusion of
geographic knowledge.
I don't know that my geography skills are
better because of that, but I know I love
looking through National Geographic
magazines when I was younger.
Okay, moving into 1943, Adolf Hitler
declared total war against the Allies.
This was essentially Hitler's way and his
effort to turn the tide by mobilizing all
of Germany's available resources,
including civilian
manpower and industry, and he used
it all to fight the war
on an unrestricted means.
That means there was war with no limit to
do whatever it took
to achieve victory, no
matter what the cost.
Okay, in 1986, on a latter note, the NCAA
adopted the controversial Prop 48.
This required all incoming student
athletes to have minimum
academic requirements to
be eligible to play college sports.
And consequently, they actually increased
those standards again in 1992.
In 1995, the first all-female team
competed in what's
essentially the oldest international
competition of any sport.
They competed in the sailing
competition, the America's Cup.
In 1999, Michael Jordan retired for a
second time from the
Chicago Bulls, saying that he
had lost the drive and the desire to
continue playing at such a high level.
And lastly, in 2000, Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates, he stepped
aside as the chief executive
officer and promoted the company's
president, Steve
Ballmer, to his position.
At the time when he stepped aside, Bill
Gates' net worth was a mere $60 billion.
Today he's worth $160 billion.
Okay, let's go ahead
and move on to birthdays.
Again, happy birthday.
If today is your birthday, you share a
birthday with Julia Louis-Driver.
She's 64 years old today.
Absolutely love her.
Patrick Dempsey, he's 59.
Orlando Bloom is still a young 48.
And Liam Hemsworth, he's 35.
Okay, now on to the music of
the 80s and the 90s and 2000s.
The number one song on this date in 1994
was "Hero" by Mariah Carey.
Carey says this song is
about finding your own strength.
And Mariah needed that strength because
as of 2023 at least,
"Hero" was Mariah's most
performed song with over
505 known performances.
And remember, if you check out Morning
Cereal's Instagram page,
you can hear snippets of all
these number one songs.
And the number one movie on this date in
1975 was "The Godfather Part II."
This is a classic and it's
definitely in my top five movies.
You may know there was a lot of drama
around who would direct the movie.
Essentially, they ended up going with
Francis Fort Coppola, who directed the
original "Godfather."
But he insisted on the flashbacks and he
took home an
outrageous paycheck for the time
of $1 million, which apparently he had
asked for as a bluff.
Another fact, Marlon Brando and Robert De
Niro are the only actors
to have both won Oscars
for playing the same character.
And lastly, I'll need to fact check this,
but Robert De Niro
only speaks eight words
of English playing the role of Vito,
given the character
almost exclusively speaks in
Sicilian.
Okay, let's move on to some personal
growth in the book review
segment of Morning Cereal.
As you know, this is where 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."
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
all of us to use and
build healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
Okay, last week we finished up part one
of the book, which was
entitled "Fundamental
Techniques in Handling People," where we
learned Carnegie's
first three principles.
Principle number one, don't criticize,
condemn, or complain.
People see things from their own
perspectives, and criticism only
increases the space between
what you want and what they want.
So be disciplined in looking to
understand other people's perspectives.
And also remember to
look for the good in people.
Okay, principle number two was give
honest and sincere appreciation.
Of all else, people
want to feel important.
Giving sincere
praise, not empty flattery.
It's something you can freely give and it
fills the strongest of
the desires and people
to feel important.
So give honest
appreciation and give it often.
Principle number three, arouse in the
other person and eager want.
We all do what we want, so be disciplined
to see others' perspectives and take the
time to find the balance of what others
want with what you want,
such that you will both
eagerly pursue a mutually beneficial
outcome for the both of you.
So that was the quick
summary of part one.
And now that you know the fundamental
techniques for handling
people, we're ready to move on
to part two, chapter one, which is
entitled "Do This and
You'll Be Welcome Anywhere."
Carnegie starts the chapter by suggesting
we take a lesson from
the world's greatest
winner of friends, and you
may be living with him or her.
You'll know him right away because when
you get within 10 feet of
him or her, she'll begin
to wag her tail.
And if you stop to pat him, he
practically jumps out of
his skin to show you how much
he likes you.
And Carnegie points out that she has no
ulterior motives, she doesn't want to
sell you on something,
and he doesn't want to marry you.
It's just pure,
unadulterated affection and love.
Carnegie points out that dogs are the
only animal that doesn't
have to work for a living.
Chickens lay eggs, cows give milk,
canaries have to sing.
But a dog makes their living by giving
you nothing but love.
Carnegie had a dog as a child, Tippi, a
yellow-haired pup as he describes him,
and he was the light
and joy of Carnegie's childhood.
And just like our dog, a miniature dog
sound, when mommy comes
home, our dog absolutely
loses her mind, running through the front
window, then to the
garage door, then back
to the front window, fast as she can run.
Perhaps similar to your dog.
And no doubt, you've seen how happy dogs
are to greet their
owners, and some strangers
too for that matter.
And that's how
Carnegie's dog, Tippi, was too.
Tippi was Carnegie's greatest companion
for five years, until
one tragic night, Tippi
was tragically killed by lightning.
I don't laugh because that's funny, I
laugh because it's sad,
and a very quick turn in
the book that I didn't expect either.
But Carnegie says that Tippi, and nearly
any loving dog for that
matter, never read a psychology
book on how to win friends.
They know it, and they do it by instinct.
And Carnegie says, "You can make more
friends in two months by becoming
genuinely interested
in other people than you can in two years
by trying to get
other people interested in
you."
He repeats this quote, making the point
that showing genuine
interest in someone else will
make you a friend faster than trying to
get someone interested in you.
Carnegie refers again to the fact that
people are looking out for number one.
They are interested at their core,
interested in themselves,
morning, noon, and after dinner,
as Carnegie puts it.
Here's the easy test to prove that.
When you look at a group picture, whose
picture do you look at first?
Yours of course.
And that's because instinctually, we are
interested in our own wants and desires.
But if we simply try to get people's
attention to impress them
and to get them interested
in us, Carnegie says, "You will never
have many true, sincere friends.
Friends, real friends,
are not made that way."
This immediately makes me think of social
media, all those Facebook friends that we
have and how we make posts to
show how interesting we are.
But would we consider those thousands of
people true friends?
How many of them would take a bullet for
you, be there for you when you're in the
hospital?
I'd venture to say that that number would
be much less than a few thousand.
But that handful of people, those few
that are true friends
that would actually be there,
why?
Why is that?
Well, it's because you've shared genuine
moments with them
throughout your entire life
and you've taken a real
interest in each other's lives.
Not just simply showed them
pictures of your last vacation.
As Carnegie says, "Real
friends are not made that way."
So we'll end today's book review segment
with another quote Carnegie repeats twice
because he believes
it's so rich with meaning.
He quotes psychologist Alfred Adler, who
you'll remember from Psych
101, from his book entitled
What Life Should Mean to You.
And he says, "It is the individual who is
not interested in his
fellow men who has the
greatest difficulties in life and
provides the greatest injury to others.
It is from among such individuals that
all human failures spring."
All right, there's a lot in that quote
and we'll definitely
unpack that more tomorrow
as we continue to make
real progress in our book.
And we'll hear more stories and
strategies from Carnegie on the
importance of showing
genuine interest in others.
Okay, go out, make some friends today or
make some friends this
week, but remember to take
a real interest in other people.
These true friends, they're the ones that
will help you through
another tough day on
the grind or they'll just
make a great day brighter.
So have a fantastic day today and we'll
see you back here tomorrow.
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.