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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.
Okay, good morning and welcome to
December 31st, the last day of 2024.
What's the line? The days go by slow but
the years go by fast?
This was definitely another fast year.
But I hope you have some time to reflect
on another year past and all the
potential of another year to come.
If it helps, today is National Unlucky
Day so you can unload all the bad juju
from this last year and it's also
National Makeup Your Mind Day.
So you can make up your mind just how
great you want 2025 to be.
Okay, well let's go ahead and jump into
today's episode with today's quotes.
One fun nostalgic quote
from the 80s, 90s, or 2000s.
And then a second quote to tease our book
review later in the episode.
Hopefully one of the quotes will speak to
you and jump start your
day in a positive direction.
Okay, the first quote is from the movie
when Harry met Sally.
And Harry, Billy Crystal's character,
tells Sally, who's Meg Ryan's character,
"It's not because I'm lonely and it's not
because it's New Year's Eve.
I came here tonight because when you
realize you want to spend the rest of
your life with somebody,
you want the rest of your life to start
as soon as possible."
Yeah, I think that still holds up.
And today's teaser quote
from the book review is,
"If you tell me how you get your feeling
of importance, I'll
tell you what you are."
And as usual, we'll 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.
Today's news facts
are from December 31st.
And all the way back in 1879, Thomas
Edison demonstrated
incandescent light for the first time.
That's the design of the
traditional light bulb.
In 1907, the first annual New Year's Eve
ball drop at Times Square happened.
In 1970, Paul McCartney made the move to
dissolve the Beatles.
In 1984, Def Leppard's drummer Rick
Allen, he famously lost
his arm in a car accident
outside of Sheffield, England.
In 1988, you may
remember watching the fog bowl.
It was a heavy dense fog that rolled into
Soldier Field in Chicago
during the second quarters
of the Bears-Eagles game.
That was during a
divisional playoff game.
Good news, the Bears won.
In 1999, the Panama Canal
was turned over to Panama.
Also in 1999, Vladimir Putin became the
acting president of Russia
following Yeltsin's resignation.
And lastly, in 2019, the World Health
Organization first learned of viral
pneumonia cases in Wuhan,
China. That disease was later determined
to be the cause of COVID-19,
which obviously became a global pandemic
in the following year.
Okay, well, let's move on to birthdays.
Happy birthday. If today is your
birthday, you share a birthday with a
somewhat short list today.
Young Joey McIntyre of the New Kids on
the Block turns 52 today.
South Korean singer-songwriter, Psy, only
known to me for his song Gangnam Style,
he's 47. The great Sir
Anthony Hopkins is 86.
And finally, the Iceman
himself, Val Kilmore, he's 65.
So happy birthday to everyone.
Okay, and then moving to one of my
favorite segments of the morning serial,
the music of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
The number one song
from this date in 1986.
It's "Walk Like an
Egyptian" from the Bangles.
Interestingly, the song's inspiration
came from watching people
try to keep their balance on a
rocking ferry boat, which make the
songwriter think they look like ancient
Egyptians trying to walk.
And finally, the number one
movie in 1996 was Jerry McGuire.
So many great lines from that movie.
You had me at Hello, Show Me the Money,
and Who's Coming With Me?
You Complete Me? Man,
great movie. Great lines.
Okay, well, let's go ahead and move into
some inspiration here 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. And
currently, we're reading
through Dale Carnegie's How to
Win Friends and Influence People. Again,
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, we began chapter two yesterday, the
big secret of dealing with people.
And Carnegie has us contemplating basic
human needs and
desires. We'll pick it up after
discussing Carnegie's eight basic needs,
humans will stop at
nothing to get. And for review,
those were number one, health and the
preservation of life, two food, three
sleep, four, money and
the things money will buy, five, life and
the hereafter, six,
sexual gratification, seven,
the well being of our children and eight,
a feeling of
importance. We left off yesterday
with Carnegie saying, quote, almost all
of these wants are usually
gratified except for one,
end quote. And that is the desire to be
important. And note that Carnegie is
making a distinction
here between needs and desires. We need
food, we need sleep. But Carnegie is
saying that only the
eighth item on this list, a feeling of
importance is something we desire.
Moreover, we crave it.
This would suggest that actually
achieving a real sense of importance is
not easily obtained.
Carnegie says, quote, the rare individual
who honestly satisfies this heart hunger,
and he's speaking of feeling appreciated
or important, who
honestly satisfies this heart
hunger will hold people in the palm of
his or her hand. This
desire for importance is
likely innate in us. From the time we
were little, we innately
gravitate to those instances
where we felt important. From the time we
were little, we innately
gravitate to those instances
where we felt important. We kept colored
ribbons from track meets and
trophies from sports teams,
or our parents put up our artwork or test
grades on the refrigerator.
And we felt proud of these
moments. Even to this day, if we're
honest, I think we can
still find some pride in those
accomplishments. And we naturally carry
this desire to feel
important into adulthood. Carnegie
gives several examples of notable people
in history that this desire
for a feeling of importance
pushed them to huge success. And Carnegie
also says, quote, this
desire makes us want to wear
the latest styles, drive the latest cars
and talk about our
brilliant children, end quote.
And it's the same desire that can lead us
astray at times too, luring
people into joining gangs or
into criminal activities. Here, Carnegie
points out that one time New
York City police commissioner
says criminals are filled with ego. And
their first request after
being arrested is what the
newspaper said about them on the pages
where they are happy to see themselves
that they're sharing
space with sports figures, TV stars and
politicians. And that's not
changed much from today when you
consider our own era of social media and
full TV coverage. People
want their 15 seconds of fame
because it makes them feel important. So
to bring this back around
to those of us not looking to
join a gang, Carnegie asks the reader,
quote, if you tell me how you get your
feeling of importance,
I'll tell you what you are. That
determines your character. That is the
most significant thing
about you, end quote. Carnegie contrast
John D. Rockefeller getting
his feelings of importance
by using his money to help others, many
of whom he would never meet
versus a bank robber and a
murderer named Dillinger who was proud of
the fact he was public
enemy number one. There was
a significant difference between how
these two men, Rockefeller and Dillinger,
got their feeling of
importance. Now Carnegie gives some great
and funny examples of famous people
throughout history that
struggled for a feeling of importance.
George Washington wanted
to be called his mightiness,
the president of the United States.
Christopher Columbus,
he pleaded for the title,
Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of
India. And ladies, this
isn't just a testosterone thing.
Catherine the Great refused to open
letters that weren't
addressed to her imperial majesty,
among other examples. The point is we all
go about finding this feeling of
importance in different
ways, some more healthy than others. Some
people can find a feeling of
importance based on sympathy
and attention. Has anyone felt important
because someone stayed by
your side when you weren't
feeling well or someone skipped an event
to stay with you? It does
feel good, but the strategy
could be taken too far and can become
unhealthy quickly. Here
Carnegie points out over a few
paragraphs to make the point that people
will go to extremely
unhealthy lengths to feel important.
Now relating this to how to win friends
and influence people,
imagine what a miracle we
could each perform by simply giving
people honest
appreciation in order to give them a
feeling of importance. That feeling of
importance is something we
covet and desire, and imagine
giving that feeling away freely to
others. I hope you can see
the connection there, how we can
freely give something to someone else
that is often the most
difficult thing to obtain
of the eight needs and desires we have as
humans. Okay, well I feel
like we need to get up and
stretch after that one. Tomorrow,
Carnegie tells us a story
about why a man paid another man a
million dollars per year salary in 1921
when $50 per week was
considered well off.
Okay, get out there, have a great day,
celebrate another year and the
possibilities of the year to
come. Thanks again for joining us today
and we'll be back next
year. Well, actually it'll be
tomorrow. So have a
fantastic day and happy new year's.