Good morning, and welcome to Morning Cereal! Morning Cereal is a podcast that’s here to kick-start your day with some inspiration, some nostalgia, and hopefully a spoonful of positivity! I’m your HOST, Shaen Inglis and every morning, we highlight a few nostalgic moments to bring a smile to your face, but additionally we’ll share a little wisdom from some of the top wellness books just to set the tone and direction for you to have a fantastic day. Happy Tuesday to you, today is December 3rd and it feels like we are starting to get ourselves into the Holiday season….decorations going up or at least planning on our future self to do it – It seems to me that future me’s list of to-do’s keeps getting longer and longer. Also, happy World Trick Shot Day and National Day of Giving. [TODAY’S QUOTE] • Alright, today’s quote comes from one of my favorite movies, here it is “I guess it comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” That’s from The Shawshank Redemption in 1994. Don’t you just love how movies can provide so much insight and tug on your emotions. This quote speaks to how we all have a personal perspective and how different people interpret life’s challenges. • We’ll unpack this idea a bit more here in a minute, but first let’s start off with our usual dose of nostalgia and fun facts from this day in history. A nice dose nostalgic dopamine can improve our moods and reduce stress and anxiety and open our minds to some learning. [HISTORIC NOSTALGIA] • So, let jump into today’s nostalgic news facts on this day Dec. 2. o Did you know that on this day in 1989 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush, declare the Cold War over o [Beginning]In 1990 Enigma released their debut album, MCMX a.D.. Did you listen this, I’m not sure how this was so popular as its kind of a new age, almost spiritual music. But I know I listen to this CD quite a bit, I still like it. o In 1992: The first text message (SMS) was sent by Neil Papworth, a Vodafone engineer in the UK, reading "Merry Christmas," marking the start of modern text communication. o In 1994: Sony released the original PlayStation in Japan – I was never a gamer, but apparently this revolutionized the video game industry with its 3D graphics and CD-based games – Although my boys have me up to a Level one player on Fortnite now. o Also in 1994 Adam Sandler Performed “the Chanukah Song” on the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live for the first time. I learned that Harrison Ford, Paul Newman and David Lee Roth are, in fact Jewish. o Finally in 2001: The Enron Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, marking one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history and leading to widespread scrutiny of corporate accounting practices. Also a great book. [BIRTHDAYS] • Okay, Happy birthday if today is your birthday. You share a birthday with: o [Beginning PLAY]Ozzy Osbourne is 76 o Julianne Moore from the X Files is 64 o Brendan Fraser is 56 o [0:11 PLAY]Montell Jordan is also 56 [MUSIC/MOVIES] • Let’s take a quick hop back to Top of the charts: o Here is the #1 song from this date. I’ll play a portion of the song and see if you can name the song and year. [Beginning & 0:50 PLAY] did you get it? The song is “Baby, I love your Way/Freebird Medley” by Will to Power. And this was the #1 song in what year? 1988. I would have got the song, but not the artist. I absolutely love going through these old charts from the 80’s and the 90’s. I could do a whole podcast on the music of those decades. For fun, let’s look at the #2 song in the same week in 1988… Here it is. o [0:36 PLAY] That’s “Look Away” by Chicago. What I really love about music is how it has the power to take you back in time. This takes me back to first loves in Junior high and making mix tapes. o And finally, this was the anthem song from the #1 movie on this date back in 1985 [Beginning PLAY] Do you know it? This was Rocky 4. [BOOK REVIEW] Okay, let’s move on to the wellness segment of “Morning Cereal” where we take a few moments to reflect on lessons learned from the current book we’re reading. We are reading through Dale Carnegie’s “Howe to Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s a timeless book that is packed with rock-solid advice for all of us to use and build healthy foundational concepts and actions to live by. We are still in Chapter 1, entitled “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” Yesterday we discussed how we all view this world from our own perspectives and Carnegie's idea that criticism of others often backfires by triggering defensiveness and resentment from them; Carnegie emphasizes the value of avoiding condemnation to foster better relationships and influence other people positively. So, if you listened to yesterday’s podcast, I left you with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Carnegie studied Lincoln and even published a book about the former president. But Carnegie talks about how Lincoln, in his younger years, even as a practicing lawyer Lincoln would openly and publicly criticize, often ridicule other people. However, in 1842, Lincoln learned an invaluable lesson after had published a letter openly mocking another politician. The other politician challenged Lincoln to a duel to the death. I’ve never been in a duel to the death, but I hear they are pretty serious. But, at the last second, the duel was stopped, and Lincoln learned a lesson in the art of dealing with people. From that point on he never wrote another insulting letter; never again did he ridicule anyone and from that time on he almost never criticized anyone. Not that he didn’t have ample opportunity to. We don’t have time to go into the details, but his generals made some serious blunders and still Lincoln stuck to the lesson he learned earlier in his life. Another Lincoln quote Carnegie offers us comes as Lincoln’s wife and others were speaking harshly of southern people during the Civil War, and Lincoln replied, “Don’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.” I think that quote hits home as well. It’s essentially saying put yourself in the other person’s shoes. It’s challenging us to see the world from outside of our own perspectives, trying to understand someone else’s perspective, essentially searching for some empathy and common ground and reaching back to yesterday’s reading regarding how we all see the world from our own perspectives and believe it’s the right or correct one. So, Carnegie ended this Lincoln segment by including a letter Lincoln had sent to his General Meade, who had blatantly disregarded President Lincoln’s direct orders and perhaps lost an opportunity to potentially end the war. Lincoln’s letter was very restrained, but still communicated his great disappointment in General Meade not taking action. Lincoln never sent that letter, and this is what Carnegie believes Lincoln may have been thinking: From the book: Just a minute. Maybe I ought not to be so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit here in quite of the White House and order Meade to attach; but if I had been up at Gettysburg, and if I had seen as much blood as Meade has seen during the last week, and if my ears had been pierced with the screams and shrieks of the wounded and dying, maybe I wouldn’t be so anxious to attack either. If I had done just what he had done. Anyhow, it is water under the bridge no. If I send this letter, it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade try to justify himself. It will me him condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings, impair all his further usefulness as a commander and perhaps force him to resign from the army. So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility. These are century old examples, but I know many times at work or in my personal life, I’ve written a heated email in response to some situation that irked me. For me it helped to get my feelings out, by writing them down and then generally I wait 10 minutes or more to re-read it and re-consider whether I should send it or not. More often than not, cooler heads prevail and I don’t send these emails primarily just as Carnegie says, I know it won’t accomplish anything positive and most likely will create more negativity towards me. So, to summarize today’s reading, next time you’re presented with the temptation to admonish or criticize someone in person, or in an email or text or whatever it may be, take a moment, and maybe think to yourself what would Lincoln do, as it relates to criticizing others. Alright, we’ll pick it up from here tomorrow and we’ll get to Carnegie’s Principal number 1. Ok – Go out there and have a great day! You’ve got this! Have the courage to just keep swimming. Remember Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans – So, make those in between moments matter. Have a fantastic day!