Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and
happy Tuesday to you.
You made it through the
first Monday of the new year.
Nice job.
Well, today is national.
I'm not going to take it any more day.
But you don't have to
be angry to participate.
You just have to be true to yourself and
know when you've had enough.
It's a day of taking control.
The day aims to inspire you to start the
year with a new attitude
that combines both being
strong and honest.
Well, that's much more positive than it
originally comes across.
Alright, let's go ahead and jump into
today's episode with today's quotes.
One fun nostalgia 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 kickstart your
day in a positive direction.
Alright, the first quote is from the
Queen of Pop, Madonna.
"A lot of people are
afraid to say what they want.
That's why they don't
get what they want."
Well, it probably depends on how you say
it, but generally, I agree.
We should be proactive.
I teach my kids it never hurts to ask.
All they can say is no.
Alright, let's move on to today's teaser
quote from the book review.
Here it is.
"If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to..."
Now there's a cliffhanger.
Normally, I don't do that, but we'll
finish that quote and
unpack that here in 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 7th.
In 1610, Galileo discovers the first
three moons of Jupiter.
In 1930, French physicist Marguerite
Perret discovers Frankium.
It's the last and rarest naturally
occurring element to be
found, as it's highly radioactive
and its isotopes decay very quickly.
Interestingly, we have no uses for this
element, primarily due to
its half-life of only 22
minutes, making it nearly impossible to
collect visible amounts.
In 1953, US President Harry Truman
announces the American
development of the hydrogen bomb.
On this date in 1991, Cheers was the
number one television show.
Cheers ran for 11
seasons from 1982 to 1993.
And finally, in 1999, President Bill
Clinton's impeachment trial
began in the US Senate after
the House voted to impeach him for lying
about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Little did we know what kind of political
craziness we are in store for.
Okay, moving on to birthdays.
Happy birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with Nicolas Cage.
He's 61.
And Jeremy Renner.
He's 53.
It was just over a year ago that Jeremy
Renner was almost killed
in that snowplow accident.
What an incredible recovery, and this
birthday probably
feels a little bit sweeter.
Alright, now on to the music
of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
The number one song on this date in 1991
was "Justify My Love" by Madonna.
And it was apparently born out of a
relationship Madonna had with Lenny
Kravitz at the time.
Kravitz was also a writer on this song.
This was considered one of Madonna's most
controversial songs,
not because of the lyrics,
but due to the explicit
nature of the music video.
In fact, MTV banned the music video on
its channel, and
Madonna ended up releasing it
on VHS, and it sold
over a million copies.
And as a side note, if you don't
understand what MTV or VHS
means, go ahead and ask your
rad parents.
And the number one movie on this date in
1995 was "Dumb and Dumber."
This was the classic Jim Carrey and Jeff
Daniels comedy, and it came
out soon after Jim Carrey's
Ace Ventura pet detective.
A ton of good lines in this movie too.
Our pets heads are falling off.
Then you go and do something like this,
and totally redeem yourself.
Yeah, he must work out.
No, it's a cardigan, but thank you.
There's so many good ones.
Good fun.
Okay, let's move on to some personal
growth in the book
review segment of the morning
serial.
This is where we take a few moments to
reflect on lessons learned
from the current book we're
reading.
And currently, we are 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, yesterday we began chapter three,
which is entitled, "He
who can do this has the
whole world with him.
He who cannot walks a lonely way."
In the first part of chapter three, we
began to unpack the
importance of understanding
what other people want.
Carnegie says, "Everything we do in our
lives is because we want
something, so we need to
learn to talk in terms of what other
people want, if we
want to influence them.
How can we make someone want to do it?"
Carnegie gives an example here about how
he personally changed
the outcome of a situation
by thinking through what someone else
wanted, not what he wanted.
In Carnegie's example, the rent that he
paid to rent a ballroom
in New York City to hold
a series of lectures, which he did
annually, well, the rent
was increased three times the
normal rate.
And after, Carnegie had
printed brochures and sold tickets.
Carnegie didn't get upset, well, he may
have, but when he
approached the hotel management,
in fact, he said he understood why they
increased his rent as it's
their obligation to run a
profitable hotel.
But here, Carnegie pursued a course to
write out all the
positives and negatives for this
rate increase with the manager.
First, a positive for the hotel.
If they stuck to the 300% rate increase,
then the ballroom would
be free to rent out to
others, possibly even other higher paying
clients because Carnegie could not afford
the price.
But Carnegie then suggested one of the
negatives would be that no
matter what, they would lose
out on 100% of his
revenue for renting it out.
But not only that, the hotel would lose
out on the free
advertising, as Carnegie suggested
his lectures brought in crowds of
educated and cultured
people to the hotel, which surely
had an economic benefit to the hotel.
He left the manager asking him to weigh
the advantages and the
disadvantages of increasing
his rate 300% before giving Carnegie
their final decision.
And in the end, the hotel only increased
the rate 50% instead of 300%.
And Carnegie's point was that, quote, he
got this rate
reduction without saying a word
about what he wanted.
Now that's a long, nice story, but
Carnegie brings it back
home in the next paragraph
by asking the reader what do they think
the outcome would have
been if he had done the
more natural thing, the human thing, and
stormed into the
manager's office complaining about
the rate increase.
And after he already printed the tickets
and raving about the
300% saying, "I won't pay
it," what would have happened then?
There would have been a
back and forth argument.
And even if Carnegie convinced the
manager the rate hike was
too much, would the manager's
pride even have let him
back down and give in?
I know oftentimes our frustrations get
the better of us and
the second scenario plays
out, but more often
than it should most likely.
But Carnegie has taught us that we need
to practice discipline
in these crucial moments,
taking note of the other person's
perspective, being diligent
to figure out what they want
and how we can move forward with their
perspectives in mind.
This is the approach Carnegie
is teaching us layer by layer.
Here Carnegie turns to a quote by Henry
Ford that he actually
repeats twice in a row in
the book because he deems the advice
pertaining to the fine art
of human relationships as
so good.
Here's Ford's quote, and
it's the one I cut off earlier.
"If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability
to get the other person's
point of view and see things from that
person's angle, as
well as from your own."
I'll read it again because
that was Carnegie's intent.
"If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability
to get the other person's
point of view and see things from that
person's angle, as
well as from your own."
Seems simple, and Carnegie acknowledges
that, but he also
acknowledges the fact that 90%
of the people on this earth
ignore it 90% of the time.
It's just like the two
situations we just discussed.
One taking the high road and calmly
listing out advantages
and disadvantages getting to
what the other person wants, opposed to
the other option that
we likely take 90% of the
time where we just
vent out our frustrations.
This reminds me a bit of what we say to
our kids all the time in my household.
And it's simple, make good decisions.
What Carnegie is teaching us in these
first three chapters is
rock solid advice and action
for us to take, but it does require us to
make good decisions.
That means controlling the urge to be
selfish, controlling the urge to snap
back, and disciplining
ourselves to instill Carnegie's
principles and actions into
our everyday life and into
our every moment life.
And that's not always easy, but we're
constantly learning and
growing in this life, and that's
what this is all about.
Wowsers, that felt like a heavy one.
Nice job hanging in there with me.
We're making really good progress in the
book, so be sure to tune
back in tomorrow when Carnegie
absolutely rips apart
what is essentially an email.
You'll enjoy it.
Okay, get out there, have a great day.
Give out some free appreciation and begin
to develop the habit of thinking in terms
of other people's perspectives.
I'll see you back here.
Same bat channel and same bat time.
Have a fantastic day.
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 atshawningless.com, where you
can also follow our other
podcasts that are coming
in January.
That's when our first Mr. and Mrs. Engles
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.