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 Thursday.

Well, in the event you didn't know,

today is the first of May, it's May Day.

So let me be the first

to welcome you to it.

And in the event you didn't know

what May Day was celebrating,

well, it has its roots

in the European Festival,

marking the beginning of summer

and doing some

dancing around the May Pole.

And in the US, May Day

has come to celebrate

the return of spring,

but it also has its roots

in celebrating and supporting laborers

and the working class and

improved working conditions

for them as well.

So May Day has come to mean

a lot of different things.

Likewise, May is chock

full of days to celebrate,

including Anxiety Awareness Month,

Mental Awareness Month,

National Barbecue Month,

Better Sleep Month, I can support

all of those causes for sure.

And today alone

celebrates School Principals Day,

Blessing Day, Couple Appreciation Day,

National Day of Prayer,

National Phone and Sick Day.

And believe it or not, I've only

scratched the surface

of all the days I can mention right now.

However, I'll finally just

add today is Global Love Day.

We are all in this together,

which is a perfect

transition to our quote of today,

which emphasizes the interconnectedness

of all of our human experiences.

It's from iconic country

singer, Tim McGraw, who said,

quote, "We all take

different paths in life,

but no matter where we go,

we take a little of each other

everywhere," end quote.

Well, today's news facts

and birthdays are for May 1st.

And we're gonna start back in 1840,

when on this day, the Penny Black,

that was the world's

first adhesive postage stamp.

This stamp was issued by Great Britain.

However, the stamp is

not considered to be rare

because there were over

68 million of them printed.

And apparently 5% of

them are still surviving.

1840, that's a long time ago.

Well, we're gonna jump up to 1931,

when on this date, the

Empire State Building

opened up in New York City.

And at the time, it was

the world's tallest building

at 1,454 feet.

That was until 1970,

when the tallest buildings

became the World Trade Centers,

measuring in at 1,792 feet.

However, today, the

tallest building in the world,

today is the Burj Khalifa,

which is in Dubai, and it's 2,717 feet.

That's 163 floors, people.

I'm not even sure I'd

wanna go to the top of that,

let alone some of these

pictures I see of people

hanging off the top of it.

More power to them.

Well, the last fact

for today is from 1939,

and that was the first

appearance of Batman.

He appeared in the

detective comic book, number 27.

Well, happy birthday to you.

Today is your birthday.

You share a birthday with

just country singer, Tim McGraw.

He's 58 today.

And the number one song

on this date back in 1988

was "Wishing Well" by

Terrence Trent Darby.

Now, Terrence was up for

the best new artist Grammy,

but he ended up losing to Jodie Watley

at the 30th Annual Grammy Awards.

And even though

Terrence has since released

upwards of 12 albums,

"Wishing Well" was

his only number one hit.

And at the time, the song held the record

for the longest chart

climb to number one,

after being on the charts for 17 weeks

before it reached number one.

Well, get this, the current record is

held by "Glass Animals,"

the song "Heat Wave,"

which took 59 weeks to

reach the number one spot.

Well, good news is you

don't have to wait at all

for today's book review.

We're doing it right now.

We are reading Stephen R. Covey's

"The Seven Habits of

Highly Effective People,"

and we are in Covey's second chapter,

"The Seven Habits in Overview."

And this is 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.

Right, we all know this though,

growing from dependence to

independence to interdependence.

And these habits can be highly effective

when properly implemented in our lives

and properly balanced,

as we learned a lot about yesterday.

Well, speaking of yesterday,

we began Covey's

sub-chapter, "Three Kinds of Assets,"

and we learned a little

about the three assets

Covey speaks to being physical,

financial, and human.

And recall, Covey tells us that we must

maintain these assets

to keep them in proper working order

and at their highest effectiveness.

So yesterday we ended on the human asset,

which Covey says is the

most important, quote,

because people control

physical and financial assets,

end quote.

So Covey gives a couple examples

regarding of how the P slash PC balance

or the golden eggs in the

goose fit into our lives.

For example, in a marriage,

if two people are more

concerned about the benefits

in a relationship, the production, right?

The golden eggs, more so than preserving

what built that marriage and that bond,

then Covey says, quote,

"They often become

insensitive and inconsiderate,

neglecting the little

kindnesses and courtesies

that are so important to a deep

relationship," end quote.

And when this happens, Covey believes

you'll often see them try to manipulate

and control each other,

focusing on their own needs,

justifying their positions

and looking for

wrongness in the other person.

Quote, "The love, the

richness, the softness

and the spontaneity begin to deteriorate.

The goose gets sicker

day by day," end quote.

And in another example,

Covey turns to the relationship

between an adult and our children.

Children are very vulnerable

and they're very

dependent on us from a young age

and an adult could

easily take advantage of this.

If they are not careful to put the work

into the production capability,

the goose working on

communicating with their children,

relating to your

children and listening to them,

parenting can go wrong

if you have the golden

egg mentality, right?

You're getting only the results you want.

This would be more of an

authoritarian parenting style,

having things your way all the time,

trying to get the results that you want.

Or if you're more of a

permissive parenting style

where you just want to

be liked by your child,

those are the golden eggs also.

And all that can happen

while neglecting the goose,

which is building that trusting

relationship with the child.

Covey gives us a great

real world example of this

that makes this much more clear.

So let's say you want your

kiddo to have a clean room, okay?

To have a clean room.

A clean room would be the P, right?

The production, the result.

That's the golden egg.

But secondarily, say you want your kid

to be the one to clean the room, right?

Your kid is the PC, the

production capability.

They're the goose.

They're the asset that

produces the golden egg,

which would be cleaning the room.

Covey says if you have production

and production capability balance,

your kiddo will clean

the room cheerfully, quote,

"Without being reminded

because she is committed

and has the discipline to

stay with the commitment,"

end quote.

Here, Covey gets a little robotic saying,

"Your kid is a

valuable asset at this point

because she is a goose that

can produce a golden egg."

However, on the other hand,

if our only goal is getting the golden

egg of a clean room,

quote, "You might find

yourself nagging her to do it.

You might even escalate your efforts

to threatening or yelling.

And in your desire to get the golden egg,

you undermine the health

and the welfare of the goose,"

end quote.

Covey's point, we must maintain and

invest in our assets,

whether they be physical,

financial, or human assets.

Those are the gooses that

produce the golden eggs.

We must take note to always keep balance

between the production,

the result, the golden eggs,

and the production

capability, the assets, the goose.

All right, well, tomorrow,

the second to last

sub-chapter of chapter two and part one,

which is entitled Organizational PC,

which is organizational

production capability.

Okay, deep breath.

May is here, people.

Let's make it a great one.

I could have turned that

into a dad joke saying,

"May kid a good one," but

I didn't, I'm above that.

So thanks for joining us today.

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.