Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and welcome to
Wednesday. It's the middle of the week.
How are you feeling?
Does it feel like you're on the downhill
side of the week or is there still a
horizon or two to chase?
Well, if the week still has a heavy lift,
perhaps this will help lighten your load.
Today is National Unicorn Day.
I'm guessing you probably already knew
that, but what better way to lighten the
load than to celebrate the most popular
mythical creature ever, one that
symbolizes happiness,
fantasy and
wonder. It inspires childlike wonder and
magic or maybe they just look cool on
birthday cakes and t-shirts.
Either way, Happy National Unicorn Day.
By the way, do any of you remember the
80s cartoon called The Last Unicorn?
It had like a scary red bull in it. It's
kind of anime. Well, not
the point. Enjoy the day.
Here's the quote of the day from Andrew
Lloyd Webber who's talking about paying
attention to the details and
seeing things through. He said quote,
"What strikes me is that there's a fine
line between success and failure.
Just one ingredient can make the
difference." End quote.
Well, today's news facts and
birthdays are for April 9th.
We're gonna start back in 1959 when on
this date the Boston Celtics
ended their sweep of the
Minnesota Lakers in four games.
This would be the first of Boston Celtics
record eight straight titles.
Next, do you remember flying TWA
Airlines? If so, you're showing some
maturity if you do. Well, on this date in
2001, that's when American Airlines
officially completed its acquisition of
Transworld Airlines and became the
world's largest airline.
Then in 2005,
then Prince Charles, he
married Camilla Parker Bowles.
And as we all know, Charles was formally
married to Diana, Princess of Wales.
So this would be his second marriage,
making him the first member of the
British royal family
to have a civil wedding.
And then lastly in 2012, The Lion King
became the highest ever
grossing Broadway show.
And can you guess who it overtook? It
overtook the Phantom of the Opera, one of
my personal favorites.
Well, happy birthday to you if your
birthday is today. You share birthday
with actress Kristen Stewart. She's 35.
Actress Cynthia Nixon. She's 59. And
actor Dennis Quaid. He's 71.
And the number one song
on this date in 1987 was
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by
Starship. Now, this song appeared on the
soundtrack of the 1987 movie Mannequin.
And it was nominated for Best Original
Song Oscar. It was a great song.
Although it lost the Oscar that year to
the song "I've Had the Time of My Life"
from the movie Dirty Dancing.
These are some serious 80s classics here.
Well, how about we dive into our book
review of the classic Stephen R. Covey's
"The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People"?
And as you recall in this first chapter
inside out, Covey is
discussing the difference between
character traits, which focuses on
character qualities like integrity,
temperaments, patience, modesty,
versus personality ethic, which Covey
believes is persuasive in today's society
and it teaches more superficial
quick fix techniques.
Covey is pointing out that the character
of who we are speaks much
louder than what we say we are.
So still in chapter one and moving into
another sub chapter here,
"The Power of a Paradigm".
Covey dissects the social paradigm, which
he describes as the way we perceive the
world, the way we
understand and interpret it.
He uses the illustration of thinking of
paradigms as a road map in our head in
how we see the world.
If we have the wrong map, then
diligence to work harder or a more
positive attitude, that's not going to
get us to the right destination, right?
Covey says we have two
primary maps in our head.
The first map is the way
things are, our realities.
And then the second map is the way things
should be, those are our values and
quote, "We interpret everything we
experience through these mental maps" end
quote. These realities and values that we
see the world through,
we assume that we are seeing things that
the way they are and then quote, "Our
attitudes and our behaviors
grow out of these assumptions" end quote.
So here's the rub, each of our mental
maps of reality and our values can be
different from someone
else's because these mental maps,
our realities, our values have been
conditioned over a lifetime of
experiences by quote,
"Influences in our lives, family, school,
church, work, environment, friends,
associates, current
social paradigms" end quote.
You follow, right? If the realities and
values that these maps in our heads in
which we perceive our worlds are all
specific to our individual
experiences, then quote, "Two people can
see the same thing, disagree, and yet
both be right. It's not logical,
it's psychological" end quote. Think of
the different news
channels right now, right?
Oftentimes stating the same facts and
Kovey says quote, "Each person's
interpretation of these facts
represents prior experiences and the
facts have no meaning whatsoever apart
from the interpretation" end quote.
That people have been conditioned, right?
These people have been conditioned to see
those facts from their prior experiences.
So the question then is, are any of us
really objective? Kovey suggests quote,
"We see the world not
as it is, but as we are,
or as we are
conditioned to see it" end quote.
So can we be objective? Yes, we can be,
but we must become more aware of our
basic paradigms, our mental maps, right?
The reality and the values that influence
our own experiences and behaviors,
and then become more open to the larger
picture that other perceptions and
perspectives exist outside of our own.
So Kovey brings this back around to
personality ethic, you know, positive
thinking and techniques,
and he points out the flaw saying quote,
"To try and change outward attitudes and
behaviors does very
little good in the long run
if we fail to examine the basic paradigms
from which those attitudes
and behaviors flow" end quote.
Well, there's a lot to digest there about
making change in ourselves on a deeper, a
more foundational level.
So come back tomorrow as we jump into the
next sub-chapter, the
power of a paradigm shift.
Hey, happy hump day folks. 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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and at seaningless.com, where you can
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In these other podcasts, we'll dive
deeper into everyday issues,
self-improvement and
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.