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 Syria.
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Tuesday.
Nicely done.
You've made it through Monday's chaos,
which some of us now are back in school,
which is good because today is
International Day for Achievers.
So good on you.
Take a bow.
Today is all about
recognizing progress, big or small.
Now the answers to
yesterday's trivia question, Westeros.
Westeros is the name
of the main continent
in Game of Thrones.
All right, now it is time
for the essential vitamins
in your morning cereal.
Today's quote, and
it's from a birthday boy,
Peyton Manning,
turning 50 years old today,
who said, quote, "The
most valuable player
is the one who makes the
most players valuable."
End quote.
Your morning decode,
it's not just about being
an individual performer.
Someone who raises the
performance, confidence,
and the value of everyone around them,
well, they're often the best team member.
All right, well, let's go ahead and hear
from the experts now.
It is time to pour in some
atomic habits by James Clear.
And today we are
diving into chapter three,
how to build better
habits in four simple steps.
All right, here, Clear lays out
one of the most practical
frameworks in the entire book.
It's the idea that every
habit follows a four-step process,
that cue, the craving, the
response, and the reward.
Now, this isn't just theory, right?
It's a blueprint of how
behavior actually works.
So as you recall, the cue
is what triggers the habit.
It's the signal your brain picks up,
like your phone
buzzing, the smell of coffee,
or even boredom, right?
The cue says, "Hey, pay attention.
Something's about to happen."
Then next comes the craving,
which is the
motivational force behind the habit.
And Clear explains
that we crave the change
the habit deliver.
Now, you don't crave the
scrolling on your phone,
you crave distraction,
or maybe even connection.
Then we go ahead and move on to response,
which is the habit
itself, the action you take.
This is where behavior actually happens.
And then finally, there's the reward,
which reinforces the habit.
If the reward satisfies the craving,
your brain remembers the pattern
and is more likely to repeat it.
Clear writes this, quote, "The cue
triggers the craving,
which motivates a
response, which provides a reward,"
end quote.
Now, what makes this framework powerful
is that it allows you to
reverse engineer habits.
You wanna build a good
habit, you make the cue obvious,
you make the craving
attractive and the response easy,
and the reward satisfying, right?
Clear also explains that habits
are not just random behaviors.
They are built through
repetition of this loop over time.
A little bit like how he's
repeating these behaviors
in these four cues, right?
So he writes this,
quote, "When the habit loop
is repeated enough
times, it becomes automatic,"
end quote.
And that's why habits feel so ingrained.
They've been reinforced
hundreds or even thousands of times.
The real insight here is that once you
understand this loop,
you can begin to design
your habits intentionally
instead of just reacting to them.
Small tweaks like placing
your gym shoes by the door
or removing distractions,
that can dramatically
change your behavior.
Okay, that was a little bit
of a review from chapter two,
and your Tuesday takeaway is this,
understand the habit loop
and you can start
designing better behaviors
instead of leaving them to chance.
All right, friends, go
achieve something today,
even if it's just staying
consistent with one small habit.
But first, the prize from
the bottom of the cereal box,
is the morning cereal
trivia question of the day,
what is the measurement for energy?
All right, hey, thanks for
listening to morning cereal.
We will see you back here tomorrow
for the answer to the trivia question
and more sugar for the soul.
And until then, have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe
to the morning cereal 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 podcasts,
the Mr. and Mrs. English podcast
and the Life Happens podcast.
And these other podcasts will dive deeper
into everyday issues,
self-improvement and well-being,
business and finance, and we
welcome special guests too.
So join us, it will be
a good time, I promise.
Thanks again for
listening, have a fantastic day,
and we'll see you tomorrow.