Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Tuesday.
Well, today is a day that
is so emotionally layered
that it needs its own therapist.
Let me explain.
First, and I'm not
making light of this at all,
it's Childhood Depression Awareness Day,
which is a serious
and very important issue
to call attention to, right?
Positive mental health is essential
to a child's healthy development.
But ironically, this is paired with
International No Diet Day.
So let's be on the
lookout for those of us
eating our emotions, right?
So eating cake and cookies
and snacking on all those yummy
and unhealthy foods
that all of our pantries
are just stuffed with.
Well, lastly, let's not forget,
it's also National Nurses Day and
National Teachers Day.
Meaning today we
honor the real superheroes
who probably need a
nap, they need a raise,
and maybe some cake or donuts too.
So hug a teacher, high five a nurse,
and for today only, it's
okay to skip the salad.
Well, today's quote comes from an actor
who never skips his
favorite Caesar salad.
It's George Clooney,
whose quote points out
that we can learn significantly more
from mistakes and
setbacks than from achievements.
George Clooney said, quote,
"failures are infinitely more
instructive than successes."
End quote.
Thanks for that sage advice, George.
Well, today's news facts
and birthdays are for May 6th.
We're gonna start back in
1937 when the Hindenburg,
you guys know this one, the Zeppelin,
it was filled with hydrogen.
Well, this is the day
it went up in flames.
We've all seen that video footage
showing this colossal fireball
engulfing the German
airship during a landing.
They're trying to land
in Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Next, we're gonna skip up to 1954,
and that's when Roger
Bannister, not a household name,
but he was the first person to run a mile
in under four minutes.
Now he ran the just over 1600 meters
in just under four minutes at three
hours, 59.4 seconds.
Now, in case you're wondering,
the current world record for the mile
sits at three minutes, 43.1 seconds.
And that was set in 1999.
And for the women,
the world record was set
just two years ago in 2023,
and that was at four
minutes and seven seconds.
Then we're gonna skip
all the way up to 1994,
and that's when the channel, the tunnel
that links the United
Kingdom with France,
well, it opened on this date.
Three years later, I
actually wrote on that.
Pretty cool.
And then finally in 2004, on this date,
now I know my wife will
shed a tear on this one.
She knows the date well,
because the final episodes of "Friends,"
it aired on this date
in 2004, 21 years ago.
Now, everybody knows this wasn't
an immensely popular sitcom,
which we're all
familiar with Rachel, Monica,
Phoebe, Joey Chandler, and Ross.
And the show had been
on the air for 10 years,
started in 1994.
Well, the final episode, which was
entitled "The Last One,"
it was watched by 52.5 million viewers,
which I'm told is just a few more
than this morning's
audience watching morning cereal.
Well, happy birthday if
today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with former prime
minister Tony Blair.
He's 72 today.
And after George Clooney, he's 64 today.
Well, the number one song
on this date back in 1997
was "I Just Died in
Your Arms" by Cutting Crew.
The song "I Just Died in Your Arms"
is one of the most iconic
power ballads of the 1980s.
Now, the song's writer
said that the title phrase
came to him after an
intimate moment with his girlfriend.
Well, I just remember
listening to it over and over again
in my friend's
basement, daring each other
to dial our crush's phone numbers.
Well, we were just
hoping their mom or dad
didn't pick up at that point in time.
This nostalgic song was
the band's debut single,
and it rocketed them to international
fame almost overnight.
Its dramatic string stabs
and synth-heavy production
and its soaring vocals, it
captured the mood of the era,
and it made the song a
staple of 80s radio and on MTV.
Well, our book review is
lacking the synthesizer,
but it definitely captures the mood.
That's because we're
reading through Stephen R. Covey's
"The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People."
And we just finished up part one,
"Paradimes and Principles,"
in which Covey was
talking about how each of us
had these innate, core characteristics
that we can tap into,
that when we combine them
with our own individual experiences,
they can help us navigate how we see
and behave in this world.
Those are our paradigms.
And secondly, Covey
discussed how important
habits are in our lives.
They help us grow and
mature from dependence
to independence to interdependence.
But we must be careful to
maintain balance in life,
not always focusing on the results,
but also focusing on the assets
or the ways in which
we reach those results.
So today we are starting part two,
which is entitled "Private Victory."
And we jump headfirst
into our first habit,
with Covey's first
habit being, "Be proactive."
Chapter one in part two is entitled,
"Principles of Personal Vision."
And the quote for this
chapter is from a favorite
of self-improvement authors,
who often call on Henry
Thoreau for his wisdom.
Now, Thoreau said, "I know
of no more encouraging fact
than the unquestionable ability of man
to elevate his life
by conscious endeavor."
End quote.
Now, Covey begins this
chapter by asking the reader,
and I'll ask it of you.
If you can see yourself wherever you are,
in the car, in your office,
can you picture yourself as though you
were watching yourself
from across the room, right?
This is an out of body
experience type thing.
Can you identify what kind
of mood you are in right now?
How are you feeling?
Can you tell what your
present mental state is?
Are you tired?
Are you quick and alert?
Or are you wondering about what the point
of this mental exercise is?
Well, I'll tell you.
Covey is making the point
that we are self-aware beings.
In fact, we are the
only ones on this planet
that are self-aware and quote,
have the ability to think
about our very thought process.
End quote.
This is what
separates us from the animals.
This is what allows us to quote,
"Make significant advances from
generation to generation,
to learn from others'
experiences, as well as our own.
This is also why we can
make and break our habits."
End quote.
Covey is asking us to be self-aware.
Know that quote, "We
are not our feelings.
We are not our moods.
We are not even our thoughts."
End quote.
It's our gift as humans
that we are even aware of these things.
And in this book, Covey
wants us to be aware of ourselves
because quote, "Until we
take how we see ourselves
and how we see others into account,
we will be unable to
understand how others see and feel
about themselves and their world."
End quote.
So Covey is asking us to
be self-aware and to be open
as we move into our first sub-chapter,
which is called the Social Mirror.
And Covey begins this
sub-chapter saying quote,
"The only vision we have of ourselves
comes from the Social Mirror,
from the current social
paradigm and from the opinions,
the perceptions and
paradigms of the people around us."
End quote.
And many times these opinions from others
are not reality-based,
but they form a
foundation of how we see ourselves.
Have you ever heard someone saying
something like this,
or maybe you've said
things like this as well?
Right, here they are.
You're never on time.
Why can't you ever keep things clean?
You must be athletic.
You eat like a horse, and
I can't believe you won.
Put the wrong emphasis on the wrong
syllable there, potentially.
But Covey says sayings and
visions like these are quote,
"Disjointed and out of proportion."
End quote.
You know what?
That's gonna be a good
stopping point for today.
And we'll finish up
this first sub-chapter
and move into the
subsequent ones tomorrow
as we start to learn
about Covey's first habit,
which is be proactive.
Hey, thanks for joining us today.
Let's all be proactive and
plan on coming back here again
this time tomorrow. And don't forget, 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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website at seaningless
and at seaningless.com, where you can
also follow our other
podcast, the Mr. and Mrs.
Inglis podcast and the
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.