Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and welcome to Friday.
And be sure to make the most of it
because this is the
final Friday of April.
I don't want to put too much pressure on
you, but I'm going to
go ahead and put a little
bit more pressure on you right now
because today is National Arbor Day.
So celebrate it by
planting a tree if you can.
Over 500 million trees have been planted
since the first Arbor Day back in 1872.
Well it is also World Penguin Day, so I'm
not sure they will
appreciate Arbor Day or
the fact that it's National
Hairball Awareness Day too.
But perhaps they will appreciate the fact
that it's National Lingerie Day.
You know those penguins?
They're frisky little critters.
Well today's quote embraces the natural
flow of life, which
sometimes is easier said than
done.
Well Al Pacino said quote, "If something
is working, don't fix it."
End quote.
Well today's news facts and
birthdays are for April 25th.
We're going to start back in 1953 and
that's when the double
helix structure of DNA was
first announced in academia.
Then we're going to skip all the way up
to 1990 when on this date
the Hubble Space Telescope,
it was released into orbit.
And now that the Hubble Space Telescope
was unhindered by the
impurities and the distortions
of Earth's atmosphere, the nearly eight
foot telescope, it has
delivered some of the most
spectacular images of the
far reaches of the universe.
Well lastly on this date in 2011, the
largest tornado outbreak
ever recorded hit the U.S.
with a total of 358 confirmed tornadoes.
Well happy birthday to you.
If your birthday is today, you share a
birthday with actress who you had at
Hello, Renee Zellweger,
she's 56 and
basketball player Tim Duncan.
He's 49 today and actor and of course my
favorite godfather Al Pacino.
He's 85 today.
Well the number one song on this date
back in 1993 was "Informer" by Snow.
Now this song did not define the decade
and it wasn't super huge
but I think you'd remember
it if you heard it.
So again real quick you can check out the
Instagram page for the
clips of these songs.
Like the Canadian singer Snow, he wrote
this song while he was
in jail for a fight he was
involved in and apparently he wrote the
song to entertain his fellow inmates.
Well it was entertaining enough to top
the charts at number one for seven weeks.
Well let's entertain ourselves here just
for a few more minutes
in our book review segment
and as you know we're reading through
Stephen R. Covey's "The
Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People" and we're in Covey's second
chapter "The Seven Habits" in overview.
Where Covey is discussing how important
and influential habits
are in our lives with habits
defined as quote "the intersection of
knowledge, skill, and desire" end quote.
And Covey is acknowledging that it'll
take tremendous effort to
change these deeply embedded
habitual tendencies.
And yesterday we talked about how these
habits were on a maturity
continuum that consisted
of growing from dependence to
independence to interdependence and
respectively growing
from the paradigms of "you take care of
me" versus "I can take
care of me" versus "we
can do it."
So continuing in Covey's sub-chapter "The
Maturity Continuum"
it's fairly obvious that
as we grow the maturity level of
independence is more
than that of dependence.
And here Covey warns us that although
independence is a quote "major
achievement" it's not
the supreme goal.
And again Covey is aware that the current
social norms quote "put independence on a
pedestal as though communication,
teamwork, and cooperation
were somehow lesser values"
end quote.
He feels that interdependence has
seemingly gotten a bad rap
as the current norms view
interdependence as turning away from
everything that tells us
how strong and successful we
are to be independent.
To describe this Covey uses terms like
becoming liberated or
asserting themselves or doing
their own thing.
And Covey warns us that this quote often
reveals more fundamental
dependencies that cannot
be run away from because they are
internal rather than external end quote.
So for example these internal
dependencies would allow us
to ruin our emotional lives
because of other people's weaknesses or
quote "feeling
victimized by people and events
that are out of our control" end quote.
Covey is just saying to be careful that
your independence is true
quote "true independence
of character empowers us to act rather
than be acted upon" end quote.
And again independence is great but quote
"it is not the ultimate goal in effective
living" end quote.
There are a lot of great people out there
who are great
individual producers but Covey
says quote "independent people who do not
have the maturity to
think and act interdependently
they won't be good leaders
or team players" end quote.
And they could struggle to succeed in
things like a marriage or
family or an organizational
reality.
So remember the natural order of life on
this planet and in humans is
to be highly interdependent
right.
Here's a longer excerpt from the book
that I think spells out
and it sums up what Covey
is talking about regarding the
differences between both the good
qualities right of dependence
and further along the
maturity continuum interdependence.
Here's the quote "Interdependence is far
more mature a more advanced concept.
If I am physically interdependent I am
self-reliant and capable but I also
realize that you and
I working together can accomplish far
more than even at my best
I could accomplish alone.
And if I'm emotionally interdependent I
derive a great sense of
worth within myself but I
also recognize the need for love
forgiving and for
receiving love from others.
And then finally if I'm intellectually
interdependent I realize
that I need the best thinking of
other people to join
with my own" end quote.
Well thanks for sticking in there with us
I know we're jamming a
lot of great information
into about a three or four minute book
review process here but I
hope you're sticking with
us and I hope it's
making good sense for you.
Well stick with us because on Monday
we're going to finish up
this longer sub chapter
of the maturity continuum before we move
on to the next sub chapter which is
called Effectiveness
Defined.
Hey thanks for joining us today enjoy
your weekend we'll see
you back here on Monday
refreshed and restored
and have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial
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Live It channel.
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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.