Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and welcome to Friday
and happy Valentine's
Day to everyone out there.
Well, in addition to capitalism's call
for selling more cards and
flowers for our loved ones,
Valentine's Day celebrates
the feast of Saint Valentine.
And he was a priest and physician who was
martyred in the year of 270 in Rome.
And the tradition of exchanging greetings
of love on Valentine's Day
is based on the legend that Valentine had
signed a letter to his jailer's daughter
from whom he had fallen in love.
And he signed it,
quote, "From your Valentine."
Well, I guess that's kind of sweet.
But if your heart feels like it's
breaking today, get yourself to a doctor.
Today is also Congenital
Heart Defect Awareness Day.
Education and prevention are paramount.
And if it's too late for you, it's also
National Organ Donor
Day, a final gift of love.
Wow, that really took a dark turn, so
let's end this on a
little bit of a sweeter note.
It's also National
Cream-filled Chocolate Day.
Chocolate makes everything better.
Okay, let's go ahead and jump right into
today's 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 jumpstart your
Friday in a positive direction.
All right, the first quote today is from
Sir Anthony Hopkins, who said,
"The most valuable thing you have in your
life is your time and
energy, and both are limited.
When you give your time and energy, it
will define your existence."
End quote.
It's so true.
The dash is everything.
Make it count and spend
it on what's important.
What's the dash, you ask?
It's what's between your birthday and
your death day on your tombstone.
That dash is your life.
Make it count.
My mom gave me that one,
so credit goes to my mom.
Today's teaser quote from the book review
is, "When we are wrong, we
may admit it to ourselves,
and if we are handled gently and
tactfully, we may admit it to others."
End quote.
As usual, we'll go ahead and unpack that
here in just a few
minutes during the book review
segments, but first, let's jump into our
usual dose of fun and
historic facts from this day
in history.
Today's news, facts, and
birthdays are for February 14th.
Going back in 1779, Captain James Cook
was killed by
Hawaiians in a dispute over the
theft of a cutter.
I was actually just swimming in that bay
about six months ago.
Wish I was still there right now.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, you might
recognize that name, he
applied for the patent
for the telephone.
Then in 1920, Carrie Chapman Catt, she
formed the League of
Women Voters in Chicago.
Ten years later, also in Chicago, in 1929
on this date, the St.
Valentine's Day Massacre
occurred.
Recall, it included members of Al
Capone's gang of
bootleggers shooting up a rival gang
during the Prohibition era.
In 1973, the Miami
Dolphins won the Super Bowl.
What's interesting about that one is they
capped off the only
undefeated season in NFL
history.
Then in 1991, the psychological thriller
The Silence of the Lambs,
it was released in American
theaters on this day.
Funny that it was on Valentine's Day.
It was widely regarded as a classic.
It won five Academy Awards, including
Best Picture, Best
Actor, Best Actress, and the
Best Director.
Then in 2003, Dolly the Sheep was put to
death after showing
signs of premature aging and
contracting various diseases.
You'll remember Dolly, right?
She was the first mammal to be cloned.
Then finally in 2005, Steve Chin, Chad
Hurley, and Jod Karim, they
registered a website called
YouTube for sharing videos.
I think they ended up doing okay.
In fact, you might be
watching me on YouTube right now.
Well, happy birthday if
today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with
Teller of Penn and Teller.
He's 77.
Simon Pegg, you might know him from the
Mission Impossible films.
He's 55.
And singer Rob Thomas, he's 53 today.
And the number one song on this day was a
song that I picked in
honor of Valentine's,
The Day of Love.
And oftentimes it's a
bit of a sexy day too.
So the number one song on this date back
in 1992 was I'm Too
Sexy by Wright Said Fred.
No doubt you remember that one.
It has to be one of the worst number one
songs of all time,
although it was very catchy.
Surprisingly, this was Wright Said Fred's
first song on their
first album and it went
straight to number one.
But maybe not surprisingly, it was their
only number one hit.
Perhaps the number two song on that date
was also appropriate for Valentine's Day.
And that was I Love
Your Smile by Shanice.
And the number one movie on this date
back in 2001 is another
movie that I picked that
was inspired by Valentine's Day.
And it was Hannibal.
This is the movie starring Anthony
Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
And it's the sequel to
The Silence of the Lambs.
And before your mind gets too morbid
here, I picked this movie
for Valentine's Day because
some of you are headed out for a nice
Valentine's Day dinner tonight.
And I thought this would serve as a nice
reminder to pair your wine wisely.
As Hannibal said, I ate his liver with
some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Alright, well let's go ahead and 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 still reading
through Dale Carnegie's How to Win
Friends and Influence
People.
As you all know, say it together with me,
it's a timeless book that is consistently
in 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.
We're still making our way through Part 2
and Chapter 2 of Part 2, entitled A Sure
Way of Making Enemies
and How to Avoid It.
And Carnegie began this chapter by
revealing the art in conversations,
whether we are right
or wrong.
We're learning that it's difficult to
change someone's way of
thinking and their beliefs.
And that's because they're deeply held
and they're associated
with their self-esteem.
And as such, people will
cling to them, even unreasonably.
So we need to artfully approach these
conversations, looking for
the facts and looking for common
ground, looking for the other person's
perspective, and then
openly admitting to it if we're
wrong.
Today, we'll jump right into a Carnegie
story, illustrating the
art of this perspective.
As the story goes, Carnegie had hired an
interior decorator to make
some draperies for his home.
And when he received the bill, he was
shocked at how much he had been charged.
A few days later, a friend
came by and the price came up.
And the friend said, "What?
That's awful.
I'm afraid he put one over on you."
And here's the lesson
in this short story.
Carnegie's friend had told the truth, and
Carnegie even agreed with what the friend
said.
However, here it is.
The truth that the friend spoke to the
high price, well, that
comment reflected on Carnegie's
judgment in a negative way.
And Carnegie, human as he is also, and as
we all are, naturally,
human nature made him
feel defensive.
He felt the need to defend his judgment
of the price he paid,
even though he agreed it
was way too much.
So Carnegie, instead of just agreeing
with his friend, he
tried to defend the price he
paid by talking about the quality and the
money he'd save over
time for the overpriced
curtains.
Alternatively, Carnegie had another
friend who also came over and was
admiring the curtains.
And, "bubbled over with enthusiasm and
wished she could afford
such exquisite creations
for her home."
And this time, Carnegie
reacted totally different.
He told his friend he couldn't afford
them himself and that he
paid too much and he wished
he had not ordered them.
Carnegie says, "When we are wrong, we may
admit it to ourselves.
And if we are handled gently and
tactfully, we may admit it
to others and even take pride
in our frankness and broad-mindedness.
But not if someone else is trying to ram
that unpalatable fact
down our esophagus."
And that's right on.
We usually know when we are wrong, we
don't like to admit it,
unless it's a safe environment
and we surely don't like
to be told we are wrong.
Carnegie next highlights a man who wrote
many letters complaining,
ridiculing and personally
attacking President Lincoln, trying to
get the president to change his policies.
And did it work?
No.
He says, "Ridicule and abuse never do."
Carnegie has often called on the journey
of Benjamin Franklin,
who had to learn the art
of dealing with people, growing from a
combative youth to a suave
diplomat as he got older.
And Carnegie points to a passage in
Franklin's autobiography
about the turning point for
him.
And here's that passage,
"Ben, you are impossible.
Your opinions have a slap in them for
everyone who differs with you.
They have become so
offensive that nobody cares for them.
Your friends finally enjoy themselves
better when you are not around.
You know so much that no
man can tell you anything.
Indeed, no man is going to try, for the
effort would lead only to
discomfort and hard work.
So you are not likely ever to know any
more than you do now,
which is very little."
And Franklin took that to heart and made
an about-face that day
saying, "made a rule to
forbear all direction, contradiction, to
the sentiment of others."
And he altered the way he spoke to people
so that he didn't
speak with fixed opinions
anymore.
He didn't make lashing
points with certainty.
Instead, he would say, "I imagined," or
he wouldn't tear others'
ideas apart, suggesting
potential differences in their
perspectives, modestly
introducing his opinion.
And this worked for Franklin.
He was less embarrassed when he was
wrong, and others were
more open to seeing his way
when he was right.
Franklin also mentions that it took
discipline for him to
change these habits in overtime.
But over time, it
became very natural for him.
In this art of interaction that he
mastered over his life,
along with his character and
his integrity, he said helped him
generally prevail with
his points despite being "a
bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to
much hesitation in my
choice of words, hardly
correct in his language."
Well, I can definitely relate with that.
Okay, tomorrow we're going to finish
chapter two of part
three, and we're going to learn
Carnegie's next principle in a chapter
entitled, "A Sure Way of
Making Enemies, How to Avoid
It."
Well, no doubt, you've not made enemies.
You've made loved ones.
And I hope you get to spend tonight with
them, and if not with
them, honoring and remembering
the many great
memories you had with them.
Thanks for listening today.
Have a wonderful weekend and a fantastic
day, and we'll see
you back here on Monday.
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It'll be a good time, I promise.
Thanks again for listening.
Have a fantastic day,
and we'll see you tomorrow.