Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Thursday.
Now, I know what you're
thinking, blah, blah, blah, Sean.
Well, that's okay because today is
national blah, blah, blah day.
Well, let's just probably keep that
between the two of us though.
And today is also national high five day.
So there we go, air high five to
everybody watching on YouTube.
Today is also
national cheese ball day and
I've got a good buddy that lives out in
Colorado and he knows I am not gonna let
national cheese ball day go by without a
shout out to him and
his Costco sized cheese ball crates or
totes that he used to eat all the time.
High five to you, your
body survived those days.
Okay, well, let's go ahead and move on to
our quote for today and
this will be the second quote that we
have from Jennifer Garner.
And she's now joining Jim Carrey as a
multiple quote giver here on Morning
Cereal.
Well, Jennifer Garner said, quote, beauty
comes from a life well lived.
If you lived well, your smile lines are
in the right places, end quote.
Thanks, Jen.
Well, let's move on to today's news facts
and birthdays and they're for April 17th.
On this day back in 1970, Paul McCartney,
he released his first
solo album called McCartney.
Then on the same day in 1970, Apollo 13
safely returned to Earth following
those major issues that made them abort
their moon landing mission.
Then in 2002 on this date,
the TV show General Hospital.
Do you guys remember watching that?
Maybe your parents watching that?
Well, in 2002 on this day,
it aired its 10,000th episode.
That's ABC's longest
running soap opera and
it's the longest running
program still in production today.
The soap began airing in
1963 and as of two days ago,
it aired its 15,690th show.
So just by comparison, everybody knows
how long The Simpsons
have been on, right?
They've been on the air since 1989.
They have been extremely lazy and only
released 785 episodes.
Well, finally, back in 2011 on this date,
based on the novels by George RR Martin,
the show Game of
Thrones premiered on HBO.
Well, happy birthday to you
if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with
singer Victoria Posh Spice Beckham.
She's 51 today and
actress Jennifer Garner.
She's 53 today.
The number one song on this date back in
1999 was No Scrubs by TLC.
This is a classic song from the last year
of the 20th century.
It's about men who have
nothing going on for them,
but hit on women just the same.
Sadly, that's probably not
just a 20th century problem.
Too many cheese puffs.
Okay, well, let's move
on to our book review.
And as you know, we're reading through
Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People.
And in this first
chapter entitled 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,
what he calls our paradigms.
And Covey describes the idea that despite
our individual paradigms,
within each of us exists an awareness of
certain innate foundational principles
like fairness, integrity, and honesty
that cannot be broken
and they're self-evident one degree or
another in every one of us.
And yesterday, we began Covey's
sub-chapter Principles
of Growth and Change.
And Covey was laying the groundwork that
it is these types of
foundational concepts
that we must build real
change upon and step by step.
This process of growth is difficult to
rush or shortcut, no matter what it is
you're trying to learn.
Covey gives a quick example of learning
to play the piano, right?
You can't rush that.
There's no shortcut that can teach you to
play the piano better, faster.
And it's similar and just as difficult
and you cannot shortcut
emotional growth as well.
So Covey tells a story of a situation
between himself and his young daughter,
where at her birthday party, she was just
clutching all of her presents,
refusing to share them
with her party guests.
And Covey was embarrassed as he was
attempting to get her to share with the
other kids at the party.
He started feeling the pressure and felt
the judgment from the
other parents that were there.
So Covey asked his
daughter twice to share.
Then he reasoned with
her, quote, "If you share,
they will share their
toys with you," end quote.
All emphatic no's from his daughter.
Now Covey with his growing embarrassment
and having no
influence over his daughter,
Covey then tried bribery,
offering a piece of gum.
Again, a no from his daughter.
Then Covey, now getting
upset, he resorted to, quote,
"fear and threat," saying, "unless you
share, you will be in
real trouble," end quote,
to which the daughter
quadrupled down now with a no.
They were her toys and
she didn't have to share.
Finally, Covey resorted to force and
simply just took some of the toys
and gave them to the
other kids to play with.
And as Covey reminisced on this, what he
viewed as a failure
of himself as a father,
he thought, quote, "Perhaps my daughter
needed the experience of
possessing the things before she could
give them," end quote.
Covey felt his desire not to feel judged
by the other parents
affected his parenting and he did not
provide the proper
patience and understanding.
Here's Covey's
primary point of the story.
To compensate for his own deficiency of
patience and understanding, he, quote,
"borrowed strength from
his position and authority
and forced her to do what he
wanted her to do," end quote.
This borrowed strength, Covey is
referring to, builds weakness in both
people in the situation,
in the borrower, it, quote, "reinforces
dependence on external factors to get
things done," end quote.
And in the person that's being forced to
acquiesce, it builds weakness, quote,
"stunting the development of independent
reasoning, growth, and internal
discipline," end quote.
And it ultimately, quote, "builds
weakness in the relationship," end quote,
"as fear replaces cooperation and sows
seeds of defensiveness."
Lastly, Covey discusses the idea that
kids and people in
general need to, quote,
"gain a sense of real possession before
they can give back and share naturally,
freely, and spontaneously," end quote.
Before someone can properly give and
share in a marriage, in a family,
they need to, quote, "possess themselves
their own sense of identity and
self-worth," end quote.
Now, that's definitely a
concept that makes you think.
Well, come back tomorrow because we're
going to dive into
Covey's next sub-chapter,
the way we see the
problem is the problem.
Well, high five on some self-improvement
this morning and another
high five on making it to
Friday Eve. Thanks for joining us today.
Come back tomorrow and
have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial
podcast on the One Life
Live It channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
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podcast, the Mr. and Mrs.
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deeper into everyday issues,
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well-being, business and finance, and we
welcome special guests 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.