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
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Live It channel.
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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.