Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Tuesday.
Now, let's just stop for a moment and
celebrate the fact that we
all made it through another
Monday.
And, I mean, that's got to
count for something, right?
Now, I hate giving Mondays such a bad
rap, but no one is ever
ready or excited for a
Monday unless you're
headed on a vacation, right?
And that's why we're celebrating the fact
that it's Tuesday and
we all have a Monday
behind us and we're well
on our way into this week.
Well, today is Let's All Eat Right Day.
And I've been trying to eat right today
for the last 15 years,
but I'll give it another
try again today.
And it doesn't help that it's also
national chocolate covered nut day.
I may need to push that one to tomorrow.
All right, well,
welcome to Tuesday, people.
Let's get into the
episode with today's quotes.
One fun nostalgic quote and then a second
quote to tease our
book review later in the
episode.
Hopefully, one of these quotes will speak
to you and kickstart
your day in a positive
direction.
The first quote is from Melanie Chisholm.
And if you don't know who that is, that
would be Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls.
Anyways, Melanie said, "This is me.
Take it or leave it."
And it's nice when you reach a certain
maturity that you're
okay with just saying, "Hey,
this is me.
Take it or leave it."
On the other hand, I think some people
reach a certain age where
they just take this stance
irregardless.
And oftentimes, that
comes without the maturity.
But I give them this.
It's definitely much more entertaining.
Anyways, today's teaser quote from the
book is, "He who treads softly goes far."
And as usual, we'll unpack that here in
just 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.
And today's news facts and
birthdays are for February 25th.
Looking back in 1910, the 13th Dalai
Lama, he fleed Tibet for
British India to escape
Chinese troops.
Then in 1913, one of my least favorite
amendments to the US Constitution,
although I understand
we need it, it went into effect.
It's the amendment that
permitted a federal income tax.
Then in 1957, Buddy Holly and the
Crickets, they recorded
their smash hit, "That'll
Be the Day."
They did that in Clovis, New Mexico.
And in 1964, American boxer Muhammad Ali,
known at the time as
Cassius Clay, he would
become the world heavyweight champion by
knocking out Sonny
Liston in seven rounds.
And then lastly, skipping all the way up
to 2004, that's when
the movie Passion of the
Christ was released in the US.
All right, well, happy
birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday
with actress Rashida Jones.
She was on The Office.
You might remember her from that.
She's 49.
And this next actor, you'd recognize him.
His character Mikey
said, "Goonies never die."
And his character, Sam Wise, said, "I
can't carry it for
you, but I can carry you."
That's actor Sean Astin.
He's 54 today.
And wrestler Rick Flair.
He's 76 today.
Well, the number one movie on this date
back in 1991 was Kindergarten Cop.
And you remember this movie.
It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He was a detective working undercover as
a kindergarten teacher.
What you probably remember most about the
movie is the fact that there was a famous
line in it said by this cute little kid.
And he basically said in very plain
terms, he described the
difference between little
boys and little girls.
Well, the movie helped Schwarzenegger
showcase his comedic
abilities, making him more than
just an action hero star.
And the number one song on this date back
in 1997 was Wannabe,
which was the debut single
from my beloved Spice Girls.
Okay.
I was a fan of the Spice Girls.
I still am.
And as I mentioned to last week, I'm a
huge fan of Celine Dion as well.
Well, I took a lot of flack for that in
the 90s, as you can
imagine, but I totally owned
it then and I own it now.
The song Wannabe was the
Spice Girls first release.
And by the end of 1997, it had reached
number one in 37 nations,
becoming the best selling
single by a girl group.
And it was the most recognizable pop song
of the last 60 years
among English speakers.
So it turns out maybe they
weren't just a bunch of wannabes.
All right.
Well, let's move on to some personal
growth 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.
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 us
all to use and build healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
Yesterday, we began chapter
five, The Secret of Socrates.
And today we'll finish chapter five and
Carnegie introduced the
Yes Yes technique, which is
a method of emphasizing things that you
can agree upon that
will get the other person
saying yes and aim for these yeses from
the other person while
trying to avoid getting
them to say no.
Carnegie says, quote, in talking with
people, don't begin by
discussing the things on which
you differ.
Begin by emphasizing and keep on
emphasizing the
things on which you agree.
End quote.
In another example of the Yes Yes
technique, Carnegie retails
the account of a car engine
salesman that used this Yes Yes technique
when he encountered
some hesitation on a large
purchase from a potential big customer
that he had finally
cracked open after years of
calling on.
The problem was the lead engineer thought
the engines were running too hot.
So the salesman methodically moved
through the conversation,
finding points of agreements
where he could get a yes.
And the salesman started out agreeing.
He did not say that he was wrong or that
he didn't agree, but he
agreed with the engineer
that if the engines were running too hot,
then he shouldn't buy them.
Well, the salesman got his first yes when
the engineer agreed
that his company shouldn't
buy any engines that ran hotter than the
standard set by the regulators.
So the two of the men, they ended up
testing the temperatures
of the engines and they both
agreed that the engines were running
within the standards and
potentially just testing
the heat of the engines by placing your
hand on a 147 degree metal engine.
Maybe that wasn't the best unit of
measurement that the engineer was using.
So those were the
salesman's second and third yeses.
Look, this wasn't an easy conversation,
but the salesman
remained calm and friendly.
He looked for viewpoints or perspectives
they could agree on and
he methodically walked
through the facts, getting yeses and
essentially just getting
the ball moving downhill.
The salesman said of his learning, "I
finally learned that it
doesn't pay to argue and that
it is much more profitable and much more
interesting to look at
things from the other person's
viewpoint and try to get
that person saying yes, yes."
And finally, Carnegie gets us to Socrates
and he says this of Socrates that he was,
"was one of the greatest philosophers the
world has ever known.
He did something that only a handful of
men in all of history
have been able to do.
He sharply changed the
whole course of human thought.
And now, 24 centuries after his death, he
is honored as one of
the wisest persuaders
who ever influenced
this rag-a-ling world."
And Carnegie asks if we think that
Socrates told people they were wrong.
Of course not.
In fact, Socrates has his own technique,
which is called the
Socratic method, and it was
based on the yes, yes response.
Carnegie says Socrates would, "ask
questions with which his
opponent would have to agree.
He kept on winning one admission after
another until he had an armful of yeses.
He kept on asking questions until
finally, almost without
realizing it, his opponents
found themselves embracing a conclusion
they would have bitterly denied a few
minutes previously."
He cites an old Chinese proverb that
states, "He who treads softly goes far."
The next time we find ourselves with the
temptation of telling someone
that they are wrong, Carnegie
suggests that we call on our old friend
Socrates and ask the
question, gently seeking those
yeses.
Here it is.
In a chapter entitled, "The Secret of
Socrates," Carnegie's
principle number five is get the
other person saying
yes, yes, immediately.
Okay, did you stick with this during the
book review until the end?
And did I not tell you that we'd get to
Socrates today and finish the chapter?
See how easy it is?
That was two yeses
that I just got from you.
Well, is today Tuesday?
Yes.
And are you going to have a great day?
Yes.
But I think by now, you know the real
answer to that is you're
going to have a fantastic
day.
Yes?
Thanks for joining today.
Join us again tomorrow when we start
chapter six entitled, "The
Safety Valve and Handling
Complaints."
We'll see you then.
Have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial podcast on
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You can find more episodes and videos by
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Life Happens podcast.
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.