Good morning.
And welcome to Morning Serial.
Okay, good Monday morning to you. It's
the last Monday of the year
and it's New Year's Eve. Eve.
Today is actually
National Resolution Planning Day. I guess
for those of you who wanted to get a head
start on setting goals for the next year.
Truthfully, I haven't even thought of
resolutions yet. I'm wondering if this is
something everyone actually does or not.
I started flossing every day as a New
Year's resolution, so
I guess they can work.
Well, it's also National Bacon Day, so
that's a great reason to have some tasty
bacon with your eggs this morning,
maybe a BLT for lunch, and a bacon
cheeseburger tonight for dinner. Well,
good luck with that diet.
Alright, well, let's go ahead and jump
into today's episode with today's quotes.
One fun nostalgic quote from the 80s,
90s, or 2000s, and then a second quote to
tease our book review
later in the episode.
Hopefully one of these quotes will speak
to you and jump start your
day in a positive direction.
Okay, the first quote is from Indiana
Jones, and here it is.
"I don't know. I'm making this up as I
go." There's a lot of
truth to this in real life.
It's a real sign of maturity, I think,
for us to admit it though.
Okay, and the second teaser quote is from
the book review, and that is, "The only
way I can get you to do anything
is by giving you what you want." As
usual, we'll unpack that here in a minute
during the book review segment,
but first, let's jump into our usual dose
of fun nostalgic facts
from this day in history.
Okay, today's nostalgic and historic news
facts are for December
30th. Starting back in 1922,
the USSR was officially established. In
1968, Frank Sinatra first
recorded his song "My Way."
In 1980, the wonderful world of Disney
aired its final performance on NBC,
marking the end of an era for
a beloved television program.
I definitely remember when we all used to
sit around the TV at
night for these episodes.
Man, that's going a long ways back. Okay,
in 1986, the sitcom "Alf"
became a household favorite,
reflecting the quirky humor of the
decade. "Corky" is a word for it. "Alf"
today would be a very funny show.
In 1990, East and West Germany reunified,
marking a significant
milestone in European history
and the end of the Cold War era. In 2006,
Saddam Hussein's
sentence was carried out for his
conviction of crimes against humanity.
Okay, well, on that low note,
let's bring it back up here and
talk about some birthdays. And happy
birthday to you if today is your
birthday. You share a birthday
with a couple of big sports names, but
first, Davy Jones of the Monkees was born
on this day in 1945.
Singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding is 38.
Okay, now onto those big sports names
with the birthday today.
Perhaps you've heard of them. Tiger
Woods, he's 49. LeBron James, he's 39. I
mean, wasn't it just
yesterday that LeBron was graduating high
school? I'm gonna go on
record here. MJ, Michael Jordan,
he's the GOAT. But happy birthday to you,
Mr. James. All right,
well, onto my favorite segment
of the morning serial, the music of the
80s, 90s, and 2000s. The
number one song from this date in
1982. It's Another Day in Paradise by
Phil Collins. This was Phil Collins
actually his last number one
song on really what a greatest hits
record that is packed with a
ton of great songs. And finally,
Raiders of the Lost Ark was the number
one movie on this date in 1981.
Interestingly, you may or
may not have known that the character
Indiana Jones was named
after George Lucas' dog named
Indiana. This is actually the same dog
that also inspired the character
Chewbacca in Star Wars.
Eventually, the movie went on to win five
Oscars. Okay, well, let's
move on to some enlightenment
in the book review segment here of
morning serial. This is where we take a
few moments to reflect on
lessons learned from the current book
that 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 is
packed with rock solid advice
and actions for all of us to
use and build healthy foundational
concepts to live by. So we finished up
chapter one yesterday.
And we're starting chapter two today,
which is entitled The Big Secret of
Dealing with People.
We finished up chapter one learning
Carnegie's principle number one, which
was don't criticize,
condemn or complain. We learned in the
first chapter that
everyone's behavior is based on
their own perspectives and beliefs of
their reality. And
therefore, to properly interact
with people, we need to try and
understand their perspective because
condemning or criticizing
others given our different perspectives
will generally just
create even more negativity.
And lastly, it takes time to learn these
skills. And we need to practice self
control as we implement
these skills to interact with people in a
positive manner. So don't criticize,
condemn or complain.
Principle number one. Okay, chapter two,
the big secret in dealing
with people. This begins with
Carnegie saying that there's just one
single way to get people to do anything.
And that is by making
the other person want to do it. And I
would agree that I'm definitely more
involved in an action or
whatever it may be, if it's something
that I want to do. And
generally, how do you feel when you
don't want to do something, but you have
to do it anyways. I feel like we are
faced with tasks all
the time that we don't want to do, but we
end up adulting as they
say, and we do it anyways.
And Carnegie does make this distinction
that sure, we can get
people to do what we want, say,
if they are paid for like your job, or by
threat of consequences, if
they don't do something a little
bit like our children live every day. And
Carnegie suggests that
although we can get our way with
these methods, they are crude methods,
they have the potential for sharply
undesirable consequences.
Doing things that we want to taps into
some of our most deeply
rooted basic desires and needs
that Carnegie describes going all the way
back to Freud and many
psychologists since that time.
And that speaks to people's hierarchy of
needs, which we'll talk
about on my other Life Happens
podcast. But Sigmund Freud theorized that
everything we do is
derived from one of two
basic motives, the sex urge and the
desire to be great. Now that is really
boiling it down to brass
tacks, but surprise, Freud was on to
something here. Carnegie
quotes American philosopher John
Dewey, who he believes sums up the
deepest urge in human nature, even more
succinctly by saying,
the deepest urge in human nature is the
desire to be important.
Yeah, I'd say that's pretty
accurate. Thinking about family, career,
friends, legacy, being important is
important to us. This
is so simple, yet so profound that
Carnegie asks the reader
here to remember this phrase,
the desire to be important, as it is
significant and it's
something we'll hear a lot more about
in this book. So when Carnegie says the
only way to get someone to
do something is giving them
what they want, well, the question then
is what do we want? Carnegie
goes on to make the point that
there are a lot of things we'd like to
have or want in this world. However,
there are a few basic
needs that we as humans crave with such
intensity and insistence that
we will do everything we can
to be sure these certain needs are met.
Carnegie lists eight such
needs and I'll go ahead and list
them out here for you. Number one, health
and the preservation of
life. Number two, food. Three,
sleep. Four, money and the things money
will buy. Five, life in
the hereafter. Number six,
sexual gratification. Number seven, the
well-being of our children. And eight, a
feeling of importance.
Now, if you look back at the top seven of
these, I think you'd agree
that we all work pretty darn
hard at making a life where we are safe
and healthy, where we
get good food and sleep,
having enough money to provide for our
family, ensuring the
well-being of our children and so
on. Yes, I'd have to agree that most of
us would work our fingers to
the bone to make sure these
needs are met. But what about number
eight, a feeling of
importance? It's not something we can
in general work hard for and receive back
like a paycheck. Carnegie
says, "Almost all of these
wants are usually gratified, all except
one. But there is one
longing almost as deep, almost as
imperious as the desire for food or
sleep, which is seldom
gratified. And it is what Freud calls
the desire to be great and what Dewey
calls the desire to be
important." Well, that's a good
stopping point for today and a good
cliffhanger. Join us again
tomorrow as we continue to hear
from Carnegie about our desires to be
important. Okay, go out there
and have a great day. You've
got this. Have the courage to just keep
on swimming. Remember,
life is what happens when
you're busy making other plans. To make
those in-between moments
matter. Have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial Podcast
and The Life Happens Live
Balanced channel. You can find more
episodes and videos by
visiting our YouTube channel
at Shawningless or our website at at
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follow our other podcasts
that are coming in January. That's when
our first Mr. and Mrs. English podcast
and The Life Happens
podcast will air. So join us on those
other podcasts as well.
Thanks again for listening
and have a fantastic
day. We'll see you tomorrow.