Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning.
It's not a manic Monday or a Sunday.
I know that's your fun day, but it's just
a plain old fantastic Thursday.
It's also National Draw Dinosaur Day, so
that's an easy one to check off.
And it's also, and you'll be excited for
this one, it's yodel
for your neighbor's day.
You're welcome, neighbors.
So just a plain old Thursday is shaping
up to look really good right now.
Okay, let's go ahead and just jump right
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 kickstart
your day in a positive
direction.
All right.
The first quote is from Christian Bale,
and he said, "But I
learned that there's a certain
character that can be built from
embarrassing yourself endlessly.
If you can sit happy with embarrassment,
there's not much else
that can really get to you."
End quote.
I absolutely love this quote because the
feeling of embarrassment is
one of the strongest negative
feelings people can feel, and being
comfortable in that has to be empowering.
And today's teaser quote from the book
review is, "Bores, that is all they are.
Bores, intoxicated with their own egos,
drunk with a sense of
their own importance."
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 and
birthdays are for January 30th.
In 1847, the city previously known as
Yerba Buena, meaning
"Good Herb," San Francisco
was given its current name.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was
born on this date back in 1882.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler was named
Chancellor of Germany, marking the
beginning of the Third
Reich.
In 1948, Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi
considered the father of his
country and internationally
revered for his
doctrine of nonviolent protest.
He was assassinated on this date in the
garden of the New Delhi
home that he was visiting.
In 1965, the world saw its largest ever
state funeral at the
time at St. Paul's Cathedral
in London for Winston Churchill.
In 1969, the Beatles
performed their last live gig.
It was a 42-minute concert
on a roof in London, England.
In 1977, the eighth and final part of the
TV series Roots became
the most watched U.S.
entertainment show up until that time,
not including sports or
news, but with an estimated
hundred million viewers.
And in 1982, the first
computer virus was released.
It was named Elk Cloner, and it was
created by a
15-year-old as a practical joke.
Those darn kids.
Well, that kid, Richard Derinkta, he went
on to graduate from
Northwestern University,
and he had several tech-slash-software
companies, with one of
them being acquired by IBM in
2015.
And lastly, in 1994, Dan Jansen, he
skated a world record 500
meters, becoming the first
man to ever break 36 seconds
in the event at 35.92 seconds.
The current record is 33.61 seconds,
which was set in 2019.
And if today is your
birthday, happy birthday.
You share a birthday
with actor Christian Bale.
He's 51 years old today.
Former vice president
Dick Cheney, he's 84.
Singer-songwriter Phil Collins, he's 73.
And actor Gene Hackman, he's 95.
And the number one song on this date in
1991 was the first time by surface.
This was an R&B slash pop
music love song from the early 90s.
And it takes me way back
to junior high school love.
But the song may not be
well known to many listeners.
The song only spent a week at number one,
and was the group's only number one song.
And if you follow the Morning Serial
podcast on Instagram, you
can hear an excerpt from
this song, and you may just recall the
familiarity of this song
from way back in your mind.
The chorus says, "The first time I looked
into your eyes, I cried."
Red flag, get your red flags.
And the number one movie on this date in
1996 was 12 Monkeys.
This is another movie I haven't seen, but
it's about traveling
back in time from the
2030s back to the 1990s to try and stop a
plague that could wipe out humanity.
And it stars Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis.
In fact, Pitt's work earned him a Golden
Globe win for the best
supporting actor, and it
was his first Oscar nomination.
I may have to watch this one at some
point just to see what
the film thought the 2030s
would look like, given we're just five
years away from that.
It's a crazy thought.
Okay, that brings us to the book review
and some personal
growth segment of the Morning
Serial.
And 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.
As you know, 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 to build
healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
And yesterday, we were still reading
through chapter four, part
two, entitled An Easy Way
to Become a Good Conversationalist.
And Carnegie started this chapter out by
telling a story about
himself being labeled the most
interesting conversationalist simply by
being an active and interested listener.
And he continued yesterday saying that
not only can active
listening make people feel
important, but when used patiently and
with sympathy, active
listening can be a great
tool to reduce the anger levels with
someone that is upset.
Carnegie tells a
story about Julian Detmer.
He's the owner of a growing company and
how he handled an angry
customer who stormed into
his office.
The backstory here is that the customer
owed the company a small
amount of money that the
company was absolutely sure he owed and
pursued collecting it.
However, the customer was also sure that
he did not owe the money.
And after several letters asking him to
pay, the customer went to
Chicago to tell the owner
in person that he wasn't paying and to
really just give him a piece of his mind.
Well, Detmer, the owner of the company,
he said this about
the encounter, quote, "I
listened patiently to all he had to say.
I was tempted to interrupt, but I
realized that that would be bad policy.
So I let him talk himself out."
End quote.
When the customer had finally set his
peace and was in more of
a receptive mood, Detmer
thanked the customer for coming to
Chicago and that he had
done him a great favor telling
him this story, that his credit
department had annoyed him
and that it concerned him
that maybe they were annoying
other good customers as well.
Detmer told the customer that he
understood exactly how he
felt and that he would do the
same thing if he were in his shoes.
And he added that since the customer
wasn't going to buy from them
anymore, he even recommended
some other woolen houses.
Detmer said, quote, "That was the last
thing in the world he expected me to say.
I think he was a trifle disappointed."
End quote.
This customer had come all the way to
Chicago to tell Detmer
off, but instead of fighting
with the owner, the owner told the
customer he would clear
the bill and forget about it
because the customer was, quote, "a very
careful man with only one account to look
after while our clerks had to look after
thousands of accounts."
In the end, the customer went home and
found that he had missed a bill indeed.
He paid it and he remained a
client for another 22 years.
Carnegie follows that story with the tale
of Edward Bach, who
became a successful magazine
editor using the same principles
advocated for in this chapter.
His story is long, but I'll summarize it.
He grew up poor and he only had six years
of schooling, so he
bought an encyclopedia
and he read about the
lives of famous people.
And then he did the unexpected.
He wrote some of these famous people
asking if the stories were
true and for more information
on them.
Well, Edward began corresponding with
these people and was
often invited to visit them.
Edward was a great listener and Carnegie
makes the point that
Edward's ability to meet these
people and receive life-changing ambition
that shaped his life
was, quote, "made possible
solely by the application of the
principles we are
discussing here," end quote.
And he's talking about active listening,
interested listening, exclusive attention
to the speaker, patience and sympathy.
Carnegie continues on saying many people
fail to make a good
first impression because they
don't listen attentively.
Quoting journalist Isaac Marcasson
saying, quote, "they,
people, have been so much concerned
with what they are going to say next that
they do not keep their
ears open," end quote.
Carnegie says that all people, famous
people down to folks like
you and me, we prefer and
we even crave for
someone who is a good listener.
Somewhere along the way, I learned to ask
my wife if this was a
conversation she wanted
me to respond to and give my two cents or
if this was a conversation where she just
wanted me to listen so she could vent.
And Carnegie also suggests that often
people just merely want a friendly
sympathetic listener
to whom they can
unburden themselves with.
And that's frequently all an irritated
customer wants and the
dissatisfied employee or the
hurt friend, that's all they want too.
The psychologist Sigmund Freud was known
for his exceptional ability to listen and
make people feel heard.
And Carnegie makes the distinction that
Freud wasn't thought of
this way because he had
some quote, "soul penetrating gaze" with
his eyes, but it was
said that quote, "his
eyes were mild and genial.
His voice was low and kind.
His gestures were few, but the attention
he gave was extraordinary," end quote.
Carnegie closes out the chapter with some
very good summaries to bring this chapter
home in a crystal clear way.
He says quote, "If you want to know how
to make people shun you
and laugh at you behind
your back and even
despise you, here's the recipe.
Never listen to anyone for long.
Talk incessantly about yourself.
If you have an idea while the other
person is talking,
don't wait for him or her to
finish.
Bust right in and interrupt in the middle
of a sentence," end quote.
And we all know people like
that and they are frustrating.
Carnegie actually
calls them quote, "bores."
That is all they are, "bores, intoxicated
with their own egos,
drunk with a sense of
their own importance," end quote.
Carnegie's final summary is this, and he
reminds us that people are more
interested in themselves
than they are in any
other thing in this world.
It's human nature.
Here's his final summary.
Quote, "So if you aspire to be a good
conversationalist, be
an attentive listener.
To be interesting, be interested.
Ask questions that the other
person will enjoy answering.
Encourage them to talk about themselves
and their accomplishments," end quote.
Here it is.
Carnegie's principle number
four is, "Be a good listener.
Encourage others to
talk about themselves."
There you have it.
We are well on our way through part two
of How to Win Friends
and Influence People, which
is entitled "Six Ways
to Make People Like You."
And we've now learned
Carnegie's first four principles.
So number one, become genuinely
interested in other people.
Number two, smile.
Number three, remember that a person's
name is to that person the
sweetest and most important
sound in any language.
And today's number
four, be a good listener.
Encourage others to
talk about themselves.
Okay, nicely done.
Go out and enjoy this day.
Make the most of it.
Yodel to your neighbors and then be a
good listener as they yodel back.
Today is a tough day ahead.
Just keep swimming.
You can do it.
Join us again tomorrow as we start
chapter five of part
two, which is entitled, "How
to Interest People."
We'll see you again
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 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.