Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and welcome to Monday.
I hope you enjoyed the holiday with your
family and friends and you had a great
weekend, but hopefully it wasn't too
great of a weekend because today is
National Surprise Drug Test Day. Just
trying to give you a heads up there.
Today is also Big Word Day and I'm sure
you know this already, but the longest
word in most English dictionaries is a
45-letter word that refers to a lung
disease caused by inhaling silica dust.
Here's the word, pneumonotel
look it up in the dictionary. Alright,
well our quote today is about making a
positive influence in our world and it is
from singer-songwriter Prince and
Prince said, "The truth is you are either
here to enlighten or to discourage."
Here's a hint, pick enlightenment. Well
today's news facts and birthdays are
for April 21st and we're gonna start back
in 1956 when on this day Elvis
Presley's first hit record Heartbreak
Hotel became number one on the charts.
Then jumping up to 1986 on this date in a
much hyped television special
American journalist Geraldo Riviera, he
opened a vault that was found in the
former headquarters of the Chicago
gangster Al Capone. Now remember they had
all the cameras in there, they're gonna
open it up in prime time and there was an
estimated 30 million TV viewers watching
it and when Geraldo opened it
it was discovered the vault was empty.
Also on this date back in 1991 a very
dark turn for the nation but you might
remember you probably don't but you know
the outcome of it. Olympic gold-winning
decathlete Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn
Jenner, he married Kris Kardashian in Los
Angeles on this day. Sadly this
eventually resulted in endless hours of
useless television and countless lost
brain cells. And then lastly in 2016 on
this date the musician Prince who
created groundbreaking music and hits,
one of the biggest stars of the 80s and
the 90s. Unfortunately he passed away
prematurely at the age of 57 due to an
accidental overdose. Well happy birthday
to you if today is your birthday. You
share a birthday with a fairly short list
today. Scottish actor James McAvoy,
he's 46 and musician Iggy Pop, he's 78
today. Well the number one song on this
date back in 1989 was "Like a Prayer" by
Madonna. Now this is a classic 80s song
and I remember there was so much
controversy around the song's music
video and no it wasn't because Madonna
went brunette, it was due to the blending
of religious imagery with themes of
sexuality and racism in her music video.
In fact Pepsi pulled out of a TV
commercial spot with Madonna to get
distance from the controversy despite
already having paid her five million
dollars. Well to bring this back around
the song according to the Google
actually featured a Prince guitar solo. I
didn't know that I'm gonna have to
check that one out. Well there's nothing
controversial about some self
improvement so let's jump back into that.
We're reading Stephen R. Covey's "The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"
and in this first chapter inside out
Covey is discussing the differences
between character traits and personality
ethic and he's unpacking how our
behaviors are based on our perspectives
and our experiences which he calls our
paradigms. We all know that by now and
Covey describes the idea that despite our
individual paradigms within each of
us exists an awareness of certain innate
foundational principles right? You hear
and it's these principles are character
traits that we must tap into to make
real change. Personality ethic on the
other hand those techniques are
superficial, they're band-aids or aspirin
that may only temporarily or
situationally help but they don't get at
the root of our beings. So today we begin
Covey's final sub chapter in chapter one
which is entitled "A New Level of
Thinking" where Covey comes out of the
gate with a quote from Albert Einstein
who said quote "the significant problems
we face cannot be solved at the same
level of thinking we were at when we
created them" end quote. Covey's point
here is that the personality ethic of
quick fixes isn't enough to implement
real change in ourselves because quote
"these are deep fundamental problems that
cannot be solved on the superficial level
on which they were created" end
quote. We need a deeper level of thinking
quote "a paradigm based on the
principles that accurately describe the
territory of effective human being and
interacting" end quote. Covey calls this
the quote "inside out
approach" and that is
what this book is all about. It's
starting with dealing
with ourselves first, our
character, our motives. So here are some
examples from Covey. If you want to have
a happy marriage or friendships, be a
kind person who generates positive
energy and sidesteps negative energy
rather than empowering it end quote. And
if you want to have a more pleasant
cooperative teenager then be more
understanding, be more empathetic,
consistent, loving
parent end quote. And if
you want to have trust, be trustworthy.
Covey says these quote "private victories
precede public victories. Keeping
promises to ourselves precedes keeping
promises to others" end quote. Inside out
is a process that grows end quote leads
to progressively higher forms of
responsible independence and effective
interdependence end quote. So the seven
habits that are covered in this book are
many of the principles that we innately
already have quote "deep within us in our
conscience, in our common sense" end
quote. And to recognize and develop them
and to use them in meeting our deepest
concerns, we need to think differently to
shift our paradigms to a new deeper
inside out level and to do so sincerely
as we seek to integrate them into our
daily lives. Alright, that was a lot said
right there but nice job getting through
chapter one. Now we know Covey wants us
to make these character changes at our
core and we'll learn more about those
tomorrow as we start Covey's chapter two,
the seven habits and an overview. So I
hope your Monday's off to a great start,
have a fantastic week and just keep
moving forward one step at a time. Thanks
for joining us today, come back tomorrow
and have a fantastic day. Don't forget to
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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.