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Good morning, and welcome to Morning Cereal!
Pull up a stool, grab your favorite cereal, and let’s kick-start your day with a spoonful of inspiration, nostalgia and personal growth. Join your host, Shaen Inglis, as he highlights the music, movies, and moments that made the 80s, 90s, and 2000s unforgettable—kind of like digging for toy at the bottom of the cereal box. Each episode, Shaen also reviews a chapter or so from top wellness books, offering practical insights to help you set a positive tone for your day. Start your mornings right—no cartoons required!
Follow and subscribe to the Morning Cereal podcast and visit our Life Happens, Live Balanced channel and our website at shaeninglis.com to check out and follow our other podcasts. You can also follow Shaen @ShaenInglis on Instagram, YouTube, etc. Feel free to share the Morning Cereal with someone who could use a little fun and motivation to start their day right.
Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and
welcome to Wednesday.
Hey, did you know that
Wednesday got its name
because it was derived from the old
English word wadnesdag
and the middle English
wenezdi, meaning day of woden,
reflecting the religion practiced by the,
you know what, it's hump
day, welcome to Wednesday.
It's also carpe diem day.
That's about enjoying the moment
without concern for the future.
So it's probably a good thing.
It's just carpe diem day
and not carpe diem week
or carpe diem month,
because that could prove
to be very problematic.
Well, it's also Black Lives Matter day
and for Pete's sake day.
And this intro is getting long.
For Pete's sake, let's
get into 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 day
in a positive direction.
The first quote is
from singer Josh Groban,
who said, quote, "Don't give up.
It's just the weight of
the world," end quote.
And I sense some serious sarcasm here.
Now my wife and I have actually seen Josh
a few times in concert and in addition
to being a very talented
person, he's also hilarious.
So this is actually a song lyric
that speaks to loved ones helping you out
through those hard
times and supporting you.
It's a great song.
Well, today's teaser
quote from the book review is,
quote, "If you wanna make enemies,
outshine your friends.
But if you wanna make friends,
let your friends
outshine you," end quote.
And as usual, we'll unpack
that here in just a few minutes
during the book review segment.
But first, let's jump into our usual dose
of fun and historic facts
from this day in history.
In today's news, facts and
birthdays are for February 26th.
And we're gonna start way back in 1815,
when on this day is when Napoleon escaped
from the island of Elba where he was sent
when he was forced to abdicate
as French emperor in the previous year.
Well, Napoleon escaped
from exile from the island
and gathering support
on his way back to Paris.
He eventually retook
power on his return to Paris
on March 20th, which
ushered in the 100-day period.
Then in 1919, the US Congress established
Grand Canyon National Park in
Northwestern Arizona.
This is a national park
I still haven't been to.
I gotta make it there.
Then in 1928, American
singer and pianist Fats Domino,
he's a rhythm and blues standout
who became one of the
first rock and roll stars.
He was born.
Now, I remember Fats Domino basically
for her song "Blueberry Hill"
because it was on a tape cassette
that we listened to on
our family road trips.
Then in 1929, Grand Teton National Park
was established in Wyoming.
And in 1950, it was expanded
to include most of
Jackson Hole National Monument.
And if you're watching this on YouTube,
that's an incredible picture right there.
All right, Johnny Cash, he
was born on this date in 1932.
Then in 1935, radar, which is the radio
detection and ranging,
it was first demonstrated in England.
Then we're gonna skip
all the way up to 1974.
That's when Nike received the
patent for waffle-soled shoes.
You know, that's the
sole of the Nike shoes
that we all know so well.
Well, that was actually
invented on a waffle iron.
That's crazy.
Then in 1991, the
world's first web browser
was presented to the public.
It was called the World Wide Web,
and then they later renamed it Nexus.
It was developed by Tim Berners-Lee,
who was a British computer scientist,
best known as the
inventor of the World Wide Web,
forward slash HTML, forward slash HTTP.
(chuckles)
Then in 1993, you might
remember seeing this on TV as well,
the World Trade Center in New York
was bombed in an act of terrorism.
Then finally in 2004,
a worker in a
supermarket in Aspen, Colorado,
alerted the police
after seeing a man shopping
with his face covered by a mask.
Well, when police arrived on the scene,
they identified the man as none other
than Michael Jackson,
who was in town on
holiday with his children.
And it goes back to the old saying,
if you see Michael
Jackson, say something.
All right, well, happy
birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday
with singer Josh Groban.
He's 44 today.
And Neil Sean, the lead
guitarist for the band Journey.
He turned 71 today.
Well, the number one movie
on this date back in 1997
was Absolute Power,
produced, directed and
starring Clint Eastwood.
And he was a master jewel thief.
Enough said, I'm sold on it.
And the number one song
on this date back in 1983
was the Love Ballad, Baby Come to Me
by Patti Austin and James Ingram.
And if you're a sucker
for 80s love songs like me,
then you probably have this song in your collection
when you bought the complete set
of Reflections of Love CDs, right?
You remember those in
the info commercials?
If you know, you know.
Okay, 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.
Well, yesterday we
finished up chapter five,
which was The Secret of Socrates.
And that's where Carnegie
introduced the Yes Yes technique.
And this technique
uses the Socratic method,
which emphasizes finding
things that you can agree upon
to get the other person saying yes.
And aiming for these yeses for the sake
of the yeses from the other person,
while we try to avoid having them say no.
And 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.
An old Chinese
proverb that states, quote,
"He who treads softly goes far."
And chapter five was
entitled The Secret of Socrates,
and Carnegie's principle number five is,
get the other person
saying yes, yes, immediately.
Well, today we're gonna begin
and finish chapter six of part three.
And chapter six is entitled,
A Safety Valve to Handle Complaints.
And once again, Carnegie
dives right in saying, quote,
"Most people trying to win others to
their way of thinking
do too much talking themselves.
Let the other person
talk themselves out."
End quote.
The other person may
know a lot about the subject
or they may just have
a lot on their mind.
And Carnegie suggests that
we let them get it all out,
even asking questions to learn more
and to encourage them to, quote,
express their ideas fully, end quote.
As we learned previously,
be careful not to interrupt or correct
because they likely
aren't listening anyways
and just thinking about
what else they have to say.
So listen, be patient, be
sincere, and be encouraging.
Carnegie relates a story
to us about a salesman.
He's meeting with an Audible Beal
manufacturing company,
and they're in the
final stages of hearing bids
for a year's worth of upholstery.
And the top three
upholstery manufacturers
were invited to the company
to present their final plea
to land the huge contract.
And as the story goes,
this particular
salesman showed up that morning
with a severe case of laryngitis.
He couldn't talk at all.
And when it was his turn to present,
he wrote this fact on a
piece of paper saying,
"I can't talk. I literally can't speak."
And instead of
presenting the deal himself,
the president of the car company said
he would present it for
him to the other executives.
Lo and behold, the
salesman who couldn't speak
won the contract.
And he said after the meeting
that he probably would
have lost the contract
had he not caught
laryngitis, saying, quote,
"He had the wrong idea
about the whole proposition.
I discovered quite by accident
how richly it sometimes pays
to let the other person
do the talking," end quote.
And this also works in the home.
Carnegie recounts a story about a mother
who was at wit's end and
often found herself yelling
or arguing with her teenage daughter.
I can't say that's ever
the case here in my house,
but we'll go with it this time.
Well, one day the
mother was just too exhausted
to have yet another
parenting blowout with her daughter
and simply asked the question, why?
And the daughter answered,
"Do you really wanna know why?"
And as it turns out,
the daughter had a lot
to say about her life
and her feelings, but usually she
couldn't get to that
because her mom would interrupt her
and was always telling her
to do this or to do that.
And as it turned out, the
daughter needed a confidant
to express her thoughts
and her feelings and ideas
about growing up.
And from that time on,
the mom allowed her daughter
to do most of the
talking and it made them closer
and it ultimately
improved the daughter's behavior.
Well, Carnegie gives a few other examples
where being prepared for the meetings
and letting the other person do the
majority of the talking
was beneficial in
multiple different scenarios.
And I can tell you from
my personal experience,
having been a manager,
having been a business owner
and a client manager
for over 25 years now,
I can tell you that
simply listening to people
when they are mad or when
they're upset or complaining,
letting them have their say
and being sympathetic to it,
well, that's 90% of the battle won.
People want to be heard.
It makes them feel
what's important to them
is being recognized.
And Carnegie closes out
this chapter with a quote
from a French
philosopher, essentially who said,
and I'm paraphrasing here, quote,
"If you want to make
enemies, outshine your friends,
"but if you want to make friends,
"let your friends
outshine you," end quote.
Team, we know Carnegie
talks over and over again
about making the other
person feel important.
And this is no different.
If we are constantly
telling others how great we are,
nobody wants to hear that.
They want to talk about themselves.
And in the final story of the chapter,
a lady who didn't win any friends at work
because she talked too much
about her accomplishments,
figured out over time
that that wasn't working
and that she should
listen more to her associates.
And now she asks them, quote,
"To share their joys with me.
"And I only mention my achievements when
they ask," end quote.
Okay, we covered a full
chapter today, chapter six,
which was entitled, "A Safety
Valve to Handle Complaints."
And Carnegie's principle number six is,
"Let the other person do a
great deal of the talking."
Nicely done.
We're actually making it
pretty far through the book,
how to win friends and influence people.
So tomorrow we start
chapter seven of part three,
and that chapter is entitled,
"How to Get Cooperation for Pete's Sake."
So come back for that tomorrow.
We are nearly halfway
through this work week.
Get out there, meet
those obstacles head on.
And even if it feels
like the weight of the world
is on your shoulders, just keep swimming
and you'll get there.
Thanks for joining.
We'll see you back here
tomorrow and have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial podcast on
the OneLife Live It channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
visiting our YouTube
channel and the website at
seaningless and at seaningless.com, where
you can also follow our other podcast,
the Mr. and Mrs. English 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.