Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Tuesday.
I'm so excited for today and I'm sure you
are too, and not just
because it's International
Kite Day and Second Halloween for Pets.
Apparently, it's National Dress Up Your
Pet Day, but because
it's also Feast of the Ass
Day.
Now, I can't repeat that for ratings
purposes, but you heard me
right, and to say it another
way, it's Feast of the Donkey Day, which
first of all, I've never heard of.
But it began apparently as a medieval
Christian feast, and it
commemorates the Israelites'
flight into Egypt.
So there you have it.
Now you can't say I
never taught you anything.
Today also marks the beginning of the
Orthodox New Year, or Rosh Hashanah.
Okay, well let's go ahead and jump right
on into today's
episode with today's quotes.
As usual, it's one fun nostalgic quote,
and then a second quote
to tease our book review
later in the episode.
I hope one of these quotes will speak to
you and jumpstart your
day in a positive direction.
Alright, the first quote is, "Think of a
place that's really perfect.
Your own happy place.
Go there, and all your
anger will just disappear."
Now that's great
advice from Chubs Peterson.
That's Carl Weathers'
character in Happy Gilmore.
I think my happy place is probably
sitting on the bungalow
porch overlooking the most
bluest of waters in Bora Bora.
That's definitely it.
Thanks Chubs for that memory.
Alright, today's teaser quote from the
book review is, "Take
interest in others, and
they will be interested in you."
Now as usual, we'll go ahead and unpack
that here in just a few
minutes during the book
review segment, but first, let's go ahead
and jump into our usual
dose of fun and historic
facts from this day in history.
Okay, today's news
facts are for January 14th.
In 1784, the Continental Congress
ratified the Treaty of
Paris, essentially ending the
American Revolution.
Then in 1943, President Roosevelt
traveled from Miami to
Morocco to meet with Winston
Churchill.
That made him the very first American
president to travel overseas by airplane.
In 1952, The Today Show premiered on NBC.
It starred Dave
Garraway and Jack LeCouillie.
In 1970, Diana Ross and the Supremes,
they staged their final
concert as Ross moved on
to her solo career.
In 2005, the Hoyt-Gens entry probe landed
on Saturn's largest
moon, Titan, and it marked
the first time a spacecraft landed on a
planetary surface in
the outer solar system.
And finally, if you were looking to see
what was on primetime
TV tonight back in 1987,
you would have seen shows like Perfect
Strangers, Head of the
Class, Dynasty, Magnum PI.
Did you watch any of those shows?
Okay, moving on to birthdays.
Happy birthday if today is your birthday.
You share a birthday with Carl Weathers.
He was born on this day in 1948.
Rest in peace, chubs.
Mr. Smith, better known as
LL Cool J, he's 57 today.
David Grohl, the lead singer
of The Food Fighters, he's 56.
And fellow small
podcaster, Jason Bateman, he's 56.
Now to the music of the
80s and the 90s and 2000s.
The number one song on this date in 2002
was "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback.
How You Remind Me was the most played
song of 2002 on US radio stations.
It was also the most played radio song in
the US during the
first decade of the 21st
century with over 1.2 million spins.
It was followed on this list by Trains
Drop of Jupiter, which
was over 1.1 million times
during the 2000s.
The next number one song by a Canadian
artist was "Rude" by Magic in 2014.
And the number one movie on this date in
1991 was "Home Alone."
It was probably more appropriate for me
to highlight this movie
a couple weeks ago, given
it's a holiday movie.
In fact, I think my kids probably watched
it about 15 times in
the days leading up to
Christmas.
But, in its opening weekend, "Home Alone"
topped the box office,
making over $17 million
and maintained its number
one spot for a full 12 weeks.
And it remained in the top 10 until June
of the following year.
The last fact about this movie is Kevin's
backyard treehouse, you remember that.
It was not originally
part of that property.
It was actually just constructed for the
making of the movie specifically.
And then it was demolished
once the filming was ended.
Okay, let's go ahead and move on to some
personal growth in
the book review segment
of "Morning Serial."
This is where we take a few moments to
reflect on lessons learned
from the current book we're
reading.
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 all of us to use and build
healthy foundational
concepts to live by.
Now, yesterday Carnegie left us with this
quote from
psychologist Alfred Adler's book,
What Life Should Mean to You.
And that quote said, "It is the
individual who is not
interested in his fellow men who
has the greatest difficulties in life and
provides the greatest injury to others.
It is from among such individuals that
all human failures spring."
End quote.
Now, this is a pretty deep quote talking
about the negativity
and the repercussions that
all these selfish people
inflict on our society.
Right?
We're all enjoying this calm, tranquil
pond of life, if you
will, when the selfish person
comes along and heaves a heavy stone of
negativity into the glassy
waters that we're all enjoying.
Now, perhaps a better example is the guy
who is speeding up to
the front of the long line
of cars and pushes himself in because, at
least in my
household, we call those people
the most important people in the world.
But it's his selfishness that brings
negativity and anxiety to
everyone else in that line
of cars, maybe even
making other people mad.
Now, that's an example of someone who is
not interested in other people.
And we immediately don't
really like that person.
While, on the other hand, someone that,
even just as simple of an
act as opening and holding
the door open for us, such a small act of
kindness, I
immediately think positively of
that person.
And it's interesting.
Carnegie builds off of these gut feelings
that we get from people
based on their actions,
and he describes an editor of a magazine
who reads dozens of stories a day.
And the editor says that he can tell
after reading just a few
paragraphs whether or not
the author likes people or not.
Now, this is not directly selfishness,
but it is similarly
off-putting when you can just
feel the vibe, and that's my word, not
Carnegie's, obviously, but
you can feel the vibe that
someone just really doesn't like other
people, and they are not
interested in participating
in life with the rest of us
in a clear and positive way.
But catch this.
Back to the editor.
He says, "If the author doesn't like
people, people won't
like his or her stories."
Now, Carnegie says here that he's not
trying to tell you things
that your preacher would
tell you, but the logic still fits.
If people will not want to read your
stories because they can
tell through your writing
that you're really not interested in them
or you don't like
other people, then is it
also logical to think that that same
sense will be multiplied
when you're face-to-face
with someone?
Carnegie says, "Absolutely."
You can be sure it's
true of dealing with people.
Carnegie then tells a story of some time
he spent in the dressing room of a famous
magician of the time, Howard Thurston.
Apparently, he was very successful.
Well, Carnegie asked Thurston what his
secret of success was,
and it wasn't that he was
exceptionally well-educated.
He had dropped out of school and ran away
from home as a small boy.
He essentially lived as a
hobo, as Carnegie puts it.
He also said it wasn't because he was the
greatest magician with
all these great secrets.
He said there were many other magicians
out there who knew more
than he did, but he did
say there were two
secrets to his success.
First, "He had the ability to put his
personality across the footlights to
connect with people.
He considered himself a master showman
that understood human nature.
But secondly, and more relatable to those
of us that have no need
to be a master showman,
Thurston said he had a
genuine interest in people.
He said he believed he thought about the
audience differently than other magicians
did, the magicians who thought somewhat
poorly of their audience
as a bunch of people they
could easily trick.
But Thurston suggested his
method was totally different.
These people had come to see him.
They paid money to see him.
And he was grateful for that.
He was grateful that they afforded him
the ability to make a great living.
And because of that, he was going to give
them the very best that he could."
And over another story or two, Carnegie
is painting us this picture.
And I'll sum up his intention of these
stories succinctly by
simply saying, "Take interest
in others, and they
will be interested in you."
He tells a story of a book that President
Roosevelt's valet,
James Amos, wrote about
him.
It was entitled, Theodore
Roosevelt, Hero to his Valet.
And in the book, he wrote about little
incidents and anecdotal
things Roosevelt would do.
For example, every time he rode by the
valet's house that was
on his property, he would
yell out hello to he and his wife, just a
friendly greeting as he drove by.
One time Roosevelt overheard the valet's
wife say that she had
never seen a certain
kind of bird.
This was before the internet, obviously.
And Roosevelt took the
time to describe it to her.
And sometime later, Roosevelt called her
house and said if she would
look out her front window,
she might see that bird.
And for perspective again here, this is
the President of the
United States of America.
And he's taking time to be kind.
And to Carnegie's point here, to be kind
and interested in other
people of all stations
in life.
And honestly, these were people that it
would have been really
easy for Roosevelt to just
race by in his hectic schedule.
Carnegie asks, "How could employees keep
from liking a man like that?
How could anyone keep from liking him?"
And I imagine that is how we all want to
be thought of as well.
Okay, that's a good
stopping point for today.
What I think my takeaway and homework
here for the day is
asking ourselves about the
people in our lives.
Are we taking a real
authentic interest in them?
Is our behavior and our interactions and
our everyday lives,
are we making it hard for
others not to like us?
Or are we just cutting in front of the
car line at the very front?
Don't do that.
Okay, tomorrow we'll talk about how
important even the
smallest of interest in others can
make.
Now remember, life is what happens when
you're busy making other plans.
So make these moments in between matter.
Have a fantastic day.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
the Morning Serial
podcast on the OneLife Live
It channel.
You can find more episodes and videos by
visiting our YouTube channel and the
website at ShawnEnglish
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 will be a good time, I promise.
Thanks again for listening.
Have a fantastic day and
we'll see you tomorrow.