Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Tuesday.
And good news, just as we all had hoped,
the sun indeed did
rise again this morning.
But that's not necessarily saying we're
ready to head out for
some fun in the sun just yet.
This polar vortex is keeping most of us
inside for the time being.
As such, staying inside by a fireplace
might be our best bet
for today, and the universe
is definitely on our side because today
is International Sweatpants Day.
It's also National Grandma Day and
National Hugging Day, so give your
grandma a hug if you can.
Okay, let's go ahead and
jump into today's quotes.
As always, there's one fun, nostalgic
quote, and then a second
quote from our book review
that kind of teases what we're going to
talk about later in the episode.
Hopefully one of these quotes will speak
to you and kickstart your
day in a positive direction.
All right, the first quote is from singer
Barry Gibbs, and he
said, "The secret is to
make sure your family comes before
anything else, because no
matter what you do, you've
got to come home."
Those are pretty wise words from Barry.
Definitely we want to make sure that we
always have a safe home
base to come home to, and
we take care of those family members.
Okay, today's teaser quote from the book
review is, "You must have
a good time meeting people
if you expect them to have
a good time meeting you."
As usual, we'll go ahead and 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 21st.
1976 recorded the first commercial
flights of the Concorde.
You remember the Concorde jet that
generated a sonic boom as it traveled
through the atmosphere
at a supersonic speed?
In fact, two of the supersonic aircraft
took off from Paris and
London simultaneously in
1976.
I actually saw the Concorde when it
landed in Colorado Springs in 1982.
Okay, in 1978, the Bee Gees album's
Saturday Night Fever, it
went to number one for 24
weeks.
We talked a little bit
about that yesterday.
In 1990, John McEnroe became the first
ever player to be
expelled from the Australian
Open for swearing at the umpire.
Among some of the other finds that he
got, he was also fined
$500 for racket abuse.
That's pretty funny.
In 1991, CBS News correspondent Bob Simon
and four TV crew
members were captured and
held for 40 days by
Iraqis in the Persian Gulf.
You might remember in 1996 when the
cleanup of 1.8 million
gallons of oil began near Block
Island National Wildlife Refuge.
That's in Rhode Island.
The cleanup began two days after the
barge North Cape ran
aground and created a 12-mile
long oil slick.
In 2008, fears of a possible US recession
caused a black Monday
for global stock markets.
European stocks suffered their worst
results since 9-11 and
Asian stock markets dropped
as much as 15%.
It was the largest single one-day
percentage drop in the US
stock market history, with
the Dow Jones dropping
a little more than 22%.
Okay, moving on to birthdays.
Happy birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with the fashion
designer Christian Dior.
Dior's label became a worldwide success
and he was born in
France in 1905 on this date.
Emma Bunton of the
Spice Girls, she's 49 today.
golfer Jack Nicholas, he's 85.
And basketball player
Hakeem Olajuwon, he's 62.
And lastly, Jam Master Jay of Run DMC.
You'll be 60 years old today.
Now moving on to the music and the movies
of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
The number one song on this date in 1988
was "Got My Mind Set
On You" by former Beatle
George Harrison.
"Got My Mind Set On You" was the last
single of a former Beatle
to top the charts in the
US.
The song also happened to be the number
one single in the US the
week immediately preceding
the induction of the Beatles into the
Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame, making Harrison one
of the very few inductees to have an
active single on the US
record charts at the time
of induction.
Also of note, Weird Al Yankovic, he
parodied this song with
his song, "This song's just
six words long."
"Song is just six words long."
Yeah, I get it.
And the number one movie on
this date in 1987 was "Platoon."
"Platoon" is considered by some as the
best war movie ever released.
It's essentially an anti-war story about
Vietnam and had a long list of young star
power actors in the movie, including
Charlie Sheen, Johnny
Depp, William Defoe, and Forest
Whitaker.
Apparently, Ben Stiller lost out on a
role in the film for
being too cute, but Stiller
got his revenge when he wrote and starred
in "Tropic Thunder," which had a slightly
different feel to it.
Anyways, "Platoon" went on to win four
Oscars, including the best picture.
Let's go ahead and move on to some
personal growth in the book
review segment of "Morning
Review."
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
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.
Now, yesterday we began chapter two of
part two, and it's
entitled "A Simple Way to
Make a Good First Impression."
And it's as simple as
starting off with a smile.
And remember, not a fake smile or an
insincere grin, but a real
smile, a heartwarming smile
that comes from within.
The research shows that people who smile
more often tend to be
more effective, so putting
on a smile should be one of the most
important parts of our wardrobe.
Carnegie continues to
discuss the power of a smile.
In fact, a smile is so powerful it can be
effective even when it's unseen.
Remember when we talked
about the phone representative?
We can all tell when they
are smiling when helping us.
The positivity comes right through the
phone in your voice.
You may not believe it, but Carnegie says
that companies with phone representatives
teach them to smile when
speaking with their customers.
Now, maybe that's not taught anymore, or
most of the phone
representatives these days
don't believe in smiling, but I do love
it when I get a rep that does.
Again, the point is that a simple smile
is powerful, as it has
the power to positively
affect someone else's mood and
potentially their decisions.
To this point, Carnegie tells a story of
a man trying to hire a
PhD, and over several
different conversations, he learned that
the PhD had several other
offers from other companies
that were larger and more well known.
Well, the PhD chose to come work for the
man at the smaller,
lesser-known company, and
when he asked why he chose that company,
the PhD replied, "I
think it was because the
managers in the other companies spoke on
the phone in a cold,
business-like manner, which
made me feel like just
another business transaction.
Your voice sounded as if you were glad to
hear from me that you really wanted me to
be part of your organization."
His smile conveyed warmth, energy, and
positivity over the phone,
which had a real effect on
the PhD's decision, as did the lack of
smile from the other companies.
Carnegie next makes a great point, and
again is one step ahead
of us when he discusses
how people are often more successful
because they are having
a good time at their jobs
or at the task that
they are carrying out.
But over time, if that enjoyment or joy
begins to grow dull, then
their success levels dropped
as well.
So Carnegie brings that back around to
our initial smile, our
initial impression on people
saying, "You must have a good time
meeting people if you
expect them to have a good time
meeting you."
As magic as a smile may be, we can't just
flash the old
moneymaker at people and zap
them with enthusiasm and positivity.
Carnegie is saying that we again need to
be genuinely interested in other people.
We need to bring that enthusiasm and
positivity to the table if
we have any expectation of
those same feelings being reciprocated.
So should we walk around like crazy,
smiling robots programmed
to give everyone we meet
a level 10 smile?
No, but the smile is still powerful, and
Carnegie says to try
and give at least one
good smile an hour.
Try it for a week.
He recounts a letter he received from a
stockbroker who tried this
tactic, and he started his
first smile of the day
at home with his wife.
The stockbroker said that over the course
of his marriage, he was always very tired
and stoic in the morning as he prepared
to leave for work
and, "In all that time, I
seldom smiled at my wife or spoke two
dozen words to her from
the time I got up until
I was ready to leave for business.
I was one of the worst grouches who ever
walked down Broadway."
How many of us can relate to that?
If you're not a morning person, it could
be easy to get caught
up in the grouchy camp.
But the stockbroker continued to say that
the first morning he
sat down for breakfast,
he greeted his wife with a good morning,
and he said it with a smile.
He says her reaction was
one of shock and bewilderment.
The stockbroker told her that she could
expect the same greeting
moving forward and, "That
changed attitude of mine brought more
happiness into our home in
the two months since I started
than there was during the last year."
Now tomorrow, we'll hear more about how
this simple change in
attitude and smiling affected
other areas of the stockbroker's life and
make the connection of
feelings and actions.
So be sure to come
back tomorrow for that.
Okay, stay warm today and potentially
warm someone else's day
up with a simple smile.
It will warm your day up too.
If you have a tough day ahead of you,
take a deep breath
and just keep swimming.
You can do it.
Have a fantastic day and
we'll see you back here tomorrow.
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 shawningless
and at shawningless.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.