Good morning and
welcome to Morning Cereal.
Okay, good morning and
welcome to Wednesday.
Well, if you've already spilled your
coffee and lost your keys or
argued with Alexa, good news.
It only gets better from here.
So don't sleep on this hump day, right?
Because it's stacked here
with quirky celebrations.
And if you feel like
panicking already, that's okay.
Because today is International Panic Day.
Because who doesn't love a
good scheduled meltdown, right?
Well, it's also Clean Your Aquarium Day,
so even your fish have
something to look forward to today.
High expectations.
And lastly, and most importantly, it's
International Day for
countering hate speech, right?
So maybe a little spa
music on the highway today.
Well, speaking of quirky,
but we love him for it, right?
Our quote today provides perhaps some
surprising wisdom from
Blake Shelton, who said, quote,
"You can't take life too seriously.
You've got to laugh,
even in tough times."
End quote.
And sometimes a deep breath and a little
humor goes a long way.
Well, today's news, facts,
and birthdays are for June 18th.
We're going to start back not too far
back in 1984, when on this date,
The Karate Kid. It hit theaters and it
gave us the eternal
wisdom of wax on, wax off.
Then moving up to 1996, this was the day
Nintendo 64 was released in Japan.
And it kicked off a new era
of joystick thumb injuries.
Then moving up to 2000 on this date, this
is when Tiger Woods, he won the U.S. Open
by a record 15 strokes.
In 2005, Batman Begins. It was released.
It was the rebooting of the Caped
Crusader with Christian Bale.
Probably my favorite
series of the Batman movies.
And finally, in 2010 on this date, Spain
beat Switzerland, 1-0
in the World Cup Finals.
All right. Well, happy birthday to you.
If today is your birthday, you share a
birthday with Richard Madden.
He's an actor from Game of Thrones. Big
Bang Theory, you might remember him.
Breaking Bad, okay. He's 39 today.
Country singer and TV personality that we
all love to hate. Just kidding. We love
you, Blake. Blake Shelton. He's 48 today.
And lastly, music legend from The
Beatles. If you didn't know that,
wherever you've been.
Paul McCartney. He's 82 today.
Well, the number one song on this date
back in 1983 was Flashdance. What a
feeling by Irene Cara.
Now, this song has one of the most iconic
and recognizable synthesizer intros of
all time, dare I say.
A synth pop powerhouse from a movie that
made leg warmers cool for the ladies. I
don't think for the guys ever.
And it taught us that welding and dancing
go surprisingly well together.
Well, the song won an Academy Award and a
Grammy. And from what I hear, it still
makes people want to leap
dramatically in their kitchen.
Well, now flipping to our book segment,
we're going to dive into habit three of
Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People.
And we're looking closer at the sub
chapter Quadrant Two. And here Covey
introduces his powerful
time management matrix.
Dividing tasks into four quadrants based
on urgency and importance. Okay.
So starting with Quadrant Two, this is
where the magic happens, right? It holds
the quote important but
not urgent activities.
Things like relationship building,
planning, prevention and personal growth.
Covey says, quote, effective
people are not problem minded.
They're opportunity minded. They feed
opportunities and starve
the problems, end quote.
And that's what Quadrant Two is all
about. Carving out time for the big
picture stuff that builds character and
effectiveness over time.
It's the quadrant of deep work, strategy
and vision. It's the antidote to being
reactive all day long.
So most people, Covey notes, live in
Quadrant One, which is
urgent and important.
That means they're chasing crises and
deadlines all day long. While others,
especially time wasters, they float
around there in Quadrant Number Three,
which is urgent but not important at all.
Or Quadrant Four, which is neither urgent
nor important. Don't
get stuck there, right?
The goal is spend as much time in
Quadrant Two as possible. So this
requires that independent will and
discipline that we've been talking about.
And it's not about rigid scheduling, if
you recall, it's about aligning your
daily actions with your deepest values
and long term priorities, right?
It also ties directly into Habit Two,
which helps you define
what matters in your life.
Without that personal mission statement,
right? Your Quadrant Two choices, they
really don't have any anchor.
Okay, so here's your takeaway. Schedule
the important things before it becomes
urgent and make time for thinking, for
connecting, for growing.
Because in Covey's words, quote, "The key
is not to prioritize what's on your
schedule, but to schedule your
priorities," end quote.
Okay, well, whether you're panicking
because you've got your arm stuck in that
little fish tank or not, just remember,
today is a great day to shift gears into
your own Quadrant Two.
Alright? Hey, thanks for starting your
morning with us. We'll see you back here
tomorrow. And as
always, have a fantastic day.
And we'll see you tomorrow.