Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Thursday.
We're really making our way through this
week, don't you think?
Well, I don't want you to think that I'm
just wishing away the
work days, but I just
know how much we all look
forward to the weekends.
However, I will not disrespect a very
good Thursday because
today has the potential to
be an incredible day.
For one, it's National
Appreciated Dragon Day.
So if you have a dragon, tell
it how much you appreciate it.
It's also National Fig Newton Day and
National Good Teen Day.
I have two teens in the house now, so
I'll be sure to let
them know that they have to
be extra good today.
Wait, what's that?
Oh.
Apparently, this day is
not about teens being good.
This day helps parents and everyone alike
to recognize the efforts
put in by the teenagers
to successfully go through a
unique phase in their lives.
Knowing how difficult this transitional
phase of adolescence can
be as teenagers are just
getting to discover
their own unique identity.
Okay, my bad, my bad.
Good job, kids.
You're appreciated and I'm proud of you.
All right, let's go ahead and jump right
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.
Okay.
The first quote is from Lin-Manuel
Miranda and he said,
"Every day has the potential
to be the greatest day of your life."
It's like Lin-Manuel is listening to my
intro, but he's right.
Today has incredible potential.
Go make it what you want it to be.
Take the bull by the horns.
And today's teaser quote from the book
review is, "If we want to
make friends, let's greet
people with animation and enthusiasm."
Now, as usual, we'll unpack that here in
just a minute during the
book review segment, but
first let's jump right into our usual
dose of fun and
historic facts from this day in
history.
Okay.
Today's news facts are for January 16th.
Starting all the way back in 1547, Ivan
the Terrible at age 17
was crowned Czar and Grand
Prince of all Russia.
Now, it sounds like he should be excluded
from National Good Teen Day.
In 1919, the 18th Amendment to the United
States Constitution
authorizing the prohibition
of alcohol was ratified by
the majority of the US states.
In 1973, the last episode of Bonanza
aired on NBC as that
popular Western series ended
its 14 season run.
Then in 1980, Paul McCartney was jailed
for nine days in Tokyo
for marijuana possession
after being found with 219 grams on his
arrival at the Narita Airport in Japan.
About the incident, McCartney later said,
"This stuff was too
good to flush down the
toilet, so I thought
I'd take it with me."
Okay.
The Persian Gulf War
began on this day in 1991.
The war was triggered by Iraq's
occupation of Kuwait in August of 1990.
You probably remember watching on TV the
US-led air offensive against Iraq.
That continued until a ceasefire was
declared on February 28th.
The next nostalgic fact is from 1992 and
I specifically
remember watching this on MTV.
In 1992 on this date is when Eric Clapton
entered the Windsor Bray Studios.
That's where he recorded the stripped
down set for MTV Unplugged.
The set, which included his hit single
"Tears in Heaven" and a
reworked acoustic version
of "Laila," he earned six Grammy Awards
for the album,
including Record of the Year.
Then we remember in 2004, that's when
Michael Jackson appeared
in court and pleaded not
guilty to seven
charges of child molestation.
Finally, in 2005, a Romanian university
teacher, she broke the
record for being the world's
oldest birth mother at the age of 66.
Okay, moving on to birthdays.
Happy birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with Kate Moss.
She's 51 and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
He's 45.
Okay.
Now to the music of
the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
The number one song on this date in 1995,
a great year to
graduate high school, I might
add, was "On Bended Knee" by Boys to Men.
Boys to Men actually knocked themselves
out of the number one
spot on the Billboard Top
100.
They replaced their own song of "I'll
Make Love to You,"
which had been number one
for 14 weeks.
They are one of the very few
groups to achieve that feat.
The song "On Bended Knee" was number one
for six weeks, and it
was a classic example
of great 90s R&B.
And the number one movie on this date,
all the way back in 1984,
was "Terms of Endearment."
Now this is the first movie that I've
covered that I actually
haven't seen, but I know
some of the music from it.
It starred Shirley Maclean, Debra Winger,
and Jack Nicholson,
and it was nominated for
11 Oscars and was the second highest
grossing film of the
year, following a small movie
called "Return of the Jedi."
Now I've seen that one.
Apparently, the film is a real
tearjerker, and I know it
has an incredible score.
Let's move on to some personal growth now
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.
And currently, everybody say it along
with me, 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
all of us to use and
build healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
Now yesterday, we continued part two,
chapter one, entitled "Do
This, and You Will Be Welcome
Anywhere."
And Carnegie is walking us through the
importance of taking real,
genuine interest in people.
And not just the people that we think can
benefit us, but
taking interest in all the
people that we encounter.
Take real interest in other people, and
they will in turn, they
will take interest in you.
We should be looking for and finding
admirable qualities in
people, and be willing to devote
our time and our energy to being
genuinely thoughtful towards others.
Well, we ended yesterday with Carnegie's
quote, "If we want to
make friends and influence
people, let's put ourselves out to do
things for other people.
Things that require time, energy,
unselfishness, and thoughtfulness."
Carnegie makes a quick illustration about
when the Duke of
Windsor was the Prince of
Wales, and he was scheduled to make a
trip to South America.
And before the trip, he spent months
learning Spanish so that
he could make speeches in
their language.
And quote, "The South
Americans loved him for it."
Now that's a fairly big ask, but Carnegie
provides a more easily
accomplished way that
he took time out to
think of other people.
And that was he made sure he knew all of
his friends and people in his circle.
He made sure he knew their birthdays, and
he would write them a note or a letter on
their birthday.
Point being, thinking of other people
doesn't always have to
be some grand gesture.
Many times, little, thoughtful moments
like this can be
impactful on making other people
feel special and important.
And to this simple point, Carnegie says,
"If we want to make friends, let's greet
people with animation and enthusiasm."
Have you ever got through to someone on a
customer service line,
you know, a representative,
and when they greet you with enthusiasm
and are actually friendly and helpful?
I mean, you feel like you've won the
lottery because even this
small act of thoughtfulness
and enthusiasm, it's sadly a rarity.
Another example Carnegie gives that any
one of us can learn from or
apply to other situations,
again, calls on us to be diligent in
looking and listening to
other people's perspectives.
In this story, a young man has a meeting
with the president of a
large bank, from whom he
needed some information from that only
the president would be able to provide.
The meeting did not go well, as the
president of the bank did
not seem interested or ready
to talk.
The meeting was "brief and barren."
But during the meeting, a staff member
had poked her head into
the office and said that
she did not have any stamps for the bank
president's son that day.
Apparently, his son collected stamps when
people did such things.
And I guess nerdy me, I'll admit I do
have a small stamp
collection from when I was young.
But back to the story.
Apparently, the president of the bank
snapped back at this woman
who didn't have any stamps
for him to give to his son that day.
He snapped that he wasn't in the business
of collecting stamps for his kid.
He basically blew her off because he
didn't want to deal with
that small matter at the
time.
Well, as the story continues, the young
man who had the meeting
with the bank president,
he remembered later
that day about the stamps.
And the office he currently worked for
had a foreign
department that had stamps from
all over the world.
So the young man sent word that he had
stamps for the bank
president's son and that he
would be happy to deliver them to the
bank president's office.
Now, as you might have guessed, the
reception from the
president of the bank was entirely
different at their second gathering.
Spending half an hour just looking
through the stamps saying
how his son would love this
one and that, and showing the young man
pictures of his son.
And then he proceeded to give the young
man another hour of his
time regarding the information
that he had requested, even going the
extra mile to call in
some of his associates to
chase down the facts and make sure that
the man had all the info he wanted.
Going the extra mile, right?
It's hard at times to slow
down and think of other people.
Literally, just a few days ago, I was
sledding with my kids in
Dallas where once every three
years or so we get enough snow to sled.
We were just finishing up and another
lady with her two kids
walked by asking about good
hills to slide down.
And in that brief moment, I
thought of a hundred things.
She had no sled.
Why would she?
We live in Texas.
Should I lend her hours?
It was cracked.
Would she want it?
How would I get it back?
Should I just give it to her?
Could I buy another sled in Texas?
And now I'm kicking myself because I
hesitated and the moment passed.
And now I know I missed an opportunity to
what Carnegie's quote says.
If we want to make friends and influence
people, let's put ourselves
out to do things for other
people, things that require time, energy,
unselfishness, and thoughtfulness.
Had I let her borrow our sled or have our
sled, you bet that
lady would have remembered
me the next time she saw me.
And now she won't have
that positive impression.
So my point here is don't hesitate.
Make every encounter matter.
My hope and Carnegie's hope is that I
won't and you won't miss
these opportunities when
they come around.
We are presented with
them on a daily basis.
So look for them.
Look for the opportunities to give your
time and your energy to
be thoughtful to someone
else.
Tomorrow, we finish
part two, chapter one.
And Carnegie tells a story about a man
that was granted exactly
one minute with an executive
of a store chain that he despised.
And we get Carnegie's
first principle of part two.
So be sure to come back
tomorrow and tune in for all of that.
Okay.
Today we'll provide you with an
opportunity to make it a great day.
And it will provide you an opportunity to
make someone else's day a great day.
So don't miss out on either
one of those opportunities.
We'll see you back here tomorrow.
And until then, 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.