Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning and
welcome to another Tuesday.
You know, I've been jet-sitting around an
economy class, taking
my kiddos to separate
soccer tournaments these past two
weekends in Vegas, and
I'm glad to be back home.
Do you ever feel like you
need a vacation from a vacation?
Well, good news, today is
National Plan for Vacation Day.
Getting some time off in the daily grind
is important if you can manage it.
It's good for the body and the mind.
Today is also National Lego Day, so rip
some bags open and have some fun.
And if you find Bag 27, let me know.
We seem to have lost that bag.
If you know, you know.
Okay, let's go ahead and just jump 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 day in a positive
direction.
The first quote is from Bilbo Baggins in
The Lord of Rings, and
he says, "I will take the
ring, though I do not know the way."
I love this quote because often Frodo
needed his friends to
lean on, but in this moment,
he had the courage to take the
responsibility and walk the
path despite not knowing what
might lie ahead.
Sometimes we surprise ourselves when that
spark of courage
lights us from within, grab
hold of it and move forward.
And today's teaser quote from the book
review is, "Exclusive
attention to the person who
is speaking to you is very important.
Nothing else is so flattering as that."
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.
Today's news facts are for January 28th.
In 1813, Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice was published
anonymously and enjoyed immediate
success.
It was an all-time classic.
In 1958, Gottfried Kirk Christiansen, he
filed for a Danish patent.
It was later granted
for a toy building block.
You may have heard of it.
It's the Lego.
Apparently, the Lego company has since
produced 500 billion
Lego pieces, amounting to 10
Lego towers from Earth to the Moon.
In 1985, the song "We Are the World" was
recorded by
essentially every popular singer
of the time, including Michael Jackson,
Lionel Richie, Bruce
Springsteen, Stevie Wonder,
Huey Lewis, and a whole
ton of other pop stars.
The song was recorded as "USA for Africa"
to raise funds to
help Africa with famine.
The next historic fact is a major moment
for everybody that's my
age, likely because we
all watched it live.
But this was the day in 1986 that the
Space Shuttle Challenger
exploded 73 seconds after
liftoff from Florida, killing all seven
aboard, including the
schoolteacher who had been chosen
as the first American
civilian to travel into space.
It's crazy how some
strategies can define a generation.
Okay, let's move on to birthdays.
Happy birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday
with a ton of people.
American abstract painter
Jackson Pollock was born in 1912.
Alan Alda may be best known for his role
in the TV show "Mash."
He's 89 years old.
Greg Popovich, basketball coach, he's 74.
Mikhail Barishkinov, the
Russian-American dancer, he's 77.
Sarah McLaughlin, the
Canadian singer, she's 57.
Joey Fatone from "In Sync."
He's 48.
Nick Carter from "The Backstreet Boys."
He's 45.
And Elijah Woods, aka Frodo Baggins.
He's 4 and 40 years old today.
Okay, now to the music and the movies of
the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
The number one song on this
date all the way back in 1980.
I say all the way back in the 1980, but
it wasn't that long ago.
I was still here.
But in 1980, it was "Rock
With You" by Michael Jackson.
"Rock With You" was Michael's third
number one song as a
solo artist after "Ben,"
which I actually haven't even heard of,
and "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough."
Interestingly enough, I just got back
from Las Vegas, as I
was talking about earlier,
and I saw the Michael Jackson 1 Cirque du
Soleil show with my son.
And if you're a Michael Jackson fan, and
how can you not be,
I'd highly recommend it.
You'll hear all of Michael's greatest
hits, but you won't hear "Rock With You."
So just a heads up if that was your jam.
Okay, the number one movie on this date
in 1990 was "Born on the Fourth of July."
This was another film by Oliver Stone,
which was influenced by
the Vietnam War, and it
followed Stone's movie "Platoon" in 1986.
The movie earned Stone another Oscar, and
it earned Tom Cruise his first best actor
nomination.
Although Tom almost didn't get the part
because it was written
with Al Pacino in mind.
But Pacino was 38 when nearly a decade
later when the movie was
made, and they went with
a younger Tom Cruise, who
was only 27 at the time.
And if you've seen the movie, Tom was in
a wheelchair, and apparently, Stone found
a nerve agent that would paralyze Tom
Cruise for a few days,
and Cruise was open to the
idea of using it.
But surprise, the studio's insurance
company did not allow it.
Okay, well let's go ahead and move on to
some personal growth here
in the book review segment
of "Morning Serial."
As you know, this is where we take a few
moments to reflect on
lessons learned from the current
book we're reading.
Currently, we're reading through Dale
Carnegie's "How to Win
Friends and Influence People."
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
all of us to use and
build healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
In yesterday, we finished up chapter 3 of
part 2, which was entitled, "If you don't
do this, you're headed for trouble."
And Carnegie's principle number 3 of part
2 was, "Remember that a person's name is
to that person the sweetest and most
important sound in any language."
People are proud of their names, and
Carnegie taught us the
importance and the almost magic
of remembering and using people's names.
So principle 3 followed the first and
second principles, as one
would expect, with principle
number 1 being, "Become genuinely
interested in other
people," and principle number 2
was, "Simply smile."
Today we're beginning chapter 4 of part
2, and as a reminder,
part 2 of the book is
entitled, "Six Ways to
Make People Like You."
So we are now on chapter 4, which is
entitled, "An Easy Way to
Become a Good Conversationalist."
And Carnegie starts out with a story
about being at a party,
and a woman had come up
to him saying that she wanted to hear all
about his travels to Europe.
And as they sat down to talk, the woman
mentioned how she and her
husband had just returned
from a trip to Africa.
Carnegie took the bait, and he asked her
to tell him about their trip.
Well, 45 minutes later, they never got to
Carnegie's travels in
Europe, and Carnegie
said this about the woman, "She didn't
want to hear me talk about my travels.
All she wanted was an interested
listener, so she could
expand her ego and tell about
where she had been."
And Carnegie says that
the woman is not unusual.
Many people are like that.
Carnegie tells another story of meeting a
botanist at a dinner
party and spending quite a bit
of time with him.
And at midnight, when all the guests were
leaving, the botanist
remarked that Carnegie
was "the most
interesting conversationalist."
Carnegie got a kick out of this because
Carnegie said he didn't
say but a handful of words
during the hours of conversation, partly
because he knew nothing
of the subject, but he was
still fascinated by the topics.
Here is why Carnegie says he was called
the most interesting conversationalist.
And it was because Carnegie had listened
intently, and he listened because he was
genuinely interested.
And that the botanist had felt that
genuine interest from
Carnegie and made the botanist
feel good.
It pleased him.
Carnegie says that "that kind of
listening is one of the highest
compliments we can pay
anyone."
And Carnegie recalled part one of his
book saying that he was
"hardy in his admiration
and lavish in his praise."
Carnegie had told the botanist at times
that he had been immensely
entertained and instructed,
and that he wished he had that kind of
knowledge, and that he'd
like to see his work in person,
and that he must see him again.
Carnegie's point here is that he had this
botanist thinking he
was the world's greatest
conversationalist, and all Carnegie was
doing was "being a good
listener and encouraging
him to talk."
I've mentioned before that I read this
book years and years
ago, decades ago, actually.
And of the many things I took from this
book, this idea of
encouraging others to talk is
one of the biggest takeaways and one of
the most used for me.
That's because I'm naturally a very
introverted person, and at
one time, the thought of being
a conversationalist
would make my palms sweat.
But I learned that people do
like to talk about themselves.
And I don't mean that in an egotistical
way where people are
being snobbish, but people
naturally like to talk about
themselves and their lives.
And I found that just asking questions
about other people and
their lives, their kids,
their jobs, their hobbies, I found I
could actually hold a
real adult conversation for
a sustained period of time.
The second I heard that voice in the back
of my mind that was
saying, "Run, you fool!"
There's nothing else to say.
That's when I just ask
another question about them.
My point here is that I found what
Carnegie is teaching us
early in this chapter to be
right on, in one of my most used
takeaways from the book
that's proven out time and time
again.
Carnegie quotes former Harvard president
Charles Eliot when asked of the secret to
holding a successful business interview.
And note that Carnegie's point is that
Mr. Eliot's comments can be
applied to any conversation
and not just a business interview.
Here's what Charles Eliot's quote said,
"There is no mystery
about successful business
intercourse.
Exclusive attention to the person who is
speaking to you is very important.
Nothing else is so flattering as that."
Tomorrow, Carnegie dives deeper into
being a good listener
and an active listener and
how to sympathize with
the other person as well.
And you know he'll also have some very
entertaining stories to tell as well.
Some weeks are easier than others and
some are just harder than others.
And I hope your morning is off to a great
start and you have the
courage to start down
the path of conquering this week, even if
you're not sure how the journey will end.
Just have the courage to just keep moving
forward in a positive way.
And remember, life is what happens when
you're busy making other plans.
So recognize and find peace
in those in-between moments.
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 One Life
Live It channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
visiting our YouTube
channel and the website at Shawn
English and at ShawnEnglish.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.