Morning Cereal

Start your day with inspirational quotes, followed by a fun journey through nostalgic facts from this day in history. Then, we dive into Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 
In Part 1, Chapter 2, we’ll explore Covey’s timeless advice on building authentic connections, the art of influence, and creating positive interactions in every area of life.
In This Episode:
  • Daily inspirational quotes to spark your motivation
  • Fun historical facts from this day in history
  • A dive into Part 1, Chapter 2 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
Whether you're a leader, communicator, or just someone looking to improve your relationships, this episode is packed with actionable insights.
Tune in now and let’s grow together!
Resources:
Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal change. Free Press. 
 
All photo’s utilized in this video are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported by Wikimedia Commons license and are free to copy, distribute and transmit.  No photos have been altered.

What is Morning Cereal?

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

Tuesday. Well, today is International

Dance Day, so if you've

been waiting for this for a while so you

can just get out there and dance,

irregardless of whether

or not you have two left feet or two

right feet or one foot of each, I don't

know, but get out there,

dance like no one is watching, as they

say. But just so you know,

a quick disclaimer there,

if you're kind of a silly or maybe even a

bad dancer, you should

know people will be watching,

they will be looking at you and they

might be pointing at you

too, but you do you. All right,

well, our quote today is from someone not

known for his dancing, but

he's known for his sense of

humor. In fact, he might be one of the

people that's pointing at

you dancing. Either way,

today's quote is about the great

characteristic traits of working hard and

having some humility.

And it's from Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry

Seinfeld said, quote,

"Keep your head up in failure

and your head down in success." End

quote. Thanks, Jerry. Well, we're going

to turn now to today's

news, facts and birthdays for April 29th.

And we're only going to

start back in 1990 today,

when on this date, in a huge historical

moment, wrecking cranes,

they began tearing down the

Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate. I

remember seeing that on TV

and that was just history in

the making. Well, also on this date back

in 2011, and I cannot believe

it was back 14 years ago now,

but we all remember this because most of

the world watched this. But

on this date, this is when the

British Royal wedding happened between

Prince William of Wales, he

was second in line for the

British throne, and he married, as we all

know, his longtime girlfriend, Kate

Middleton. And it was

in a lavish wedding ceremony that the

world watched with bated breath every

moment on television.

Well, lastly, on this date back in 2018,

the animated TV series

The Simpsons, it aired its

636th episode, and that surpassed

Gunsmoke, which ran from 1955 to 1975.

And now The Simpsons are

the longest running scripted primetime

show in the United States. We

just talked about them maybe

last week on Morning Serial. Well, happy

birthday to you. If you have

a birthday today, you share a

birthday with basically everybody in

Hollywood. But we're going to start in

sports. golfer Justin

Thomas. He's 32 today. actress Uma

Thurman. She's 55 today. Another

sportsman here, tennis great

Andre Agassi. We just talked about him

last week too on

Morning Serial. He's 55 today.

Actress Michelle Pfeiffer. She's 67.

Incredible actor Daniel

Day-Lewis. He's 69 today.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld. I can't believe

it. He's 71 today. And

lastly, singer who always knows

we're on the road again, Willie Nelson.

He's 92 today. And the

number one song on this date back

in 1990 was Nothing Compares to You by

Sinead O'Connor. So first

off, I had no idea that this

song was a cover of Prince's original

song from 1984. In fact, I

just listened to it this morning

when I pulled this together. However,

Sinead's version became a

globally iconic hit, partially

to just the raw emotion that she sang the

song with. And that was

translated through the music

video as well. I know almost all of us

have seen that music video

and just the emotion that came

through it. And there was emotion there

because Sinead dedicated

the song to the memory of her

mother who had passed away earlier. And

the good news was the song

was ranked by VH1 as number 10

on the greatest songs of all the 1990s.

Well, we are reading through

one of the greatest books that

came out of the 1990s as well. And we're

reading through Stephen R.

Covey's The Seven Habits of

Highly Effective People. And we're in

Covey's second chapter, The

Seven Habits, An Overview,

where Covey is discussing how important

and influential habits are in our lives,

with habits being defined as the

intersection of knowledge, skill, and

desire. And these habits are

on a maturity continuum. They consist of

growing from dependence to

independence to interdependence,

which also respectively grows from you

taking care of me versus I

can take care of myself versus

we can do it together. So today we'll

cover a short sub

chapter, which is entitled

Effectiveness Defined. And this isn't

what I thought it was, but

Covey is describing to us

what his seven habits are in this chapter

and why those habits have a sense of

effectiveness to them.

So to begin, Covey suggests his habits of

effectiveness, quote, "bring the maximum

long-term beneficial results possible,"

end quote, because they

are based on principles.

And speaking of the habits, Covey says,

quote, "they become the

basis of a person's character,

creating an empowering center of correct

maps from which an

individual can effectively solve

problems, maximize opportunities, and

continually learn and

integrate other principles in an

upward spiral of growth," end quote. And

secondly, Covey believes his habits are

habits of effectiveness

because they, quote, "are based on a

paradigm of effectiveness that is in

harmony with a natural

law," end quote. And this is a principle

that Covey calls the P-PC

balance. Now that's harder

to hear, but in the book it's P slash PC

balance. Now as you read

it in the book, the first P

stands for production, and then the

second PC stands for

production capability. So it's

basically saying you have to have a

production and a production capability

balance. And what Covey

means by this is that to be most

effective, we must balance our desired

results. What we want to

achieve, that's our production, and that

must be balanced with our ability to

produce those results.

That's our production capability. These

two must be in balance. You

can't focus too much on the

results and ignore the how you're going

to produce those results. And likewise,

you can't over focus

on how to produce the results and not

focus on actually producing

the results. Okay, Covey gives

us a good illustration here to clear up

the mud. He uses the tail of the goose

that lays the golden

eggs to illustrate this. Now do you

remember this tail? It's about a farmer

who wakes up one day to

find that his goose had laid a golden

egg. And he didn't believe it at first,

but then he realizes

that every day the goose lays another

pure golden egg. Now the farmer becomes

very wealthy over time,

but over that same time period, the

farmer actually starts

becoming more and more greedy,

and he starts becoming impatient. He

doesn't want to wait on the daily golden

egg. So what does he do?

He kills the goose thinking he can get

all the golden eggs inside

the goose at one time, only

to find out there are no golden eggs

inside the goose, and now he's destroyed

his golden egg laying

goose. So here's the parallel to PPC

balance, production to

production capability balance.

The golden eggs are the production. They

are what's produced or the desired

results, whereas the goose

is the ability to produce. It's the

vehicle or the asset by which the wanted

results are produced.

These two must be balanced. We would not

only take care of the goose and ignore

the golden eggs that

the goose was laying, and likewise, we

wouldn't only focus on the

daily golden eggs and ignore

the well-being to keep the goose healthy

enough that it could

keep laying the eggs.

So I hope that clears it up just a little

bit. It definitely was a good

illustration for me as I was

reading the book, and Kobe believes the

principles his habits

are based on, quote,

"bring the maximum long-term beneficial

result possible," end

quote, right? But this is only so

long as we can keep our production to

production capability

balance intact. Well, tomorrow,

Kobe discusses more in depth these assets

that provide the

production capability, right? The

goose's or the geese. I don't know.

Either way, we'll finish up the sub

chapter with the next

sub chapter being three kinds of assets.

Well, thanks for joining us

today. Enjoy dancing. Really

don't care if people are laughing and

pointing at you. Come back 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.