Good morning.
And welcome to morning cereal
Okay, good morning
and welcome to Thursday.
Now I don't want to scare you,
but today is
International Polar Bear Day.
So if you see a polar
bear, give it a hug,
but be careful, it might be mad
because it has to share its
one and only day of the year
with those God forsaken koalas.
Wait, no, I read that wrong.
It's Kalua Day.
It's also National Kalua Day.
So that's great news.
And if you don't like either of those,
it's also National Pokemon Day,
Strawberry Day, Toast Day,
Retro Day, I like that one.
National No-Brainer
Day, I like that one too.
Big Breakfast Day,
the list goes on and on.
Bottom line, what a great day to be alive
and be a polar bear.
Okay, 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
as you kickstart your day
in a positive direction.
All right, the first quote
is from singer Rod Stewart
and he says, quote, "Life is so brief
and time is a thief when you're
undecided," end quote.
This is a great quote.
I mean, our time here is precious,
so be confident when
you pick the direction
you want your life to head
and then chase it tirelessly.
And today's teaser quote
from the book review is, quote,
"In every work of genius,
we recognize our own rejected thoughts.
They come back to us with a
certain alienated majesty,"
end quote.
And as usual, we'll unpack
that here in just a few minutes
during the book review segment,
but first let's jump
into our usual dose of fun
and historic facts
from this day in history.
Today's news facts and
birthdays are for February 27th.
Starting back in 1814,
that's when Beethoven's
Symphony No. 8 in F Major,
it premiered in Vienna.
And this next fact is very close to one
of my buddy's hearts.
In 1827, the very first Mardi Gras
was celebrated in New Orleans.
Then skipping up to 1932, on this date,
American actress Elizabeth
Taylor was born in London.
Also on this date in 1933,
the neutron was discovered by English
physicist James Chadwick
and he was later awarded the Nobel Prize
for his discovery.
Then in 1940, Martin Kamen and Sam Rubin,
they discovered the
process of the Carbon 14 dating
at the University of
California Radiation Laboratory
in Berkeley, California.
Then in 1951 on this date,
the 22nd Amendment was ratified.
It effectively limits the number of terms
that a US president can serve at two.
Then in 1980, the song "I Will Survive,"
it won the first and the last Grammy ever
for the best disco recording category.
Then in 1991, US
President George H.W. Bush,
he ordered a ceasefire
effective at midnight
and declared victory
in the Persian Gulf War,
which was a conflict
triggered by Iraq's invasion
and occupation of
Kuwait in August of 1990.
Then in 1996 on this date,
the first ever appearance of Pokemon
happened in a role-playing video game,
"Pocket Monsters, Red and Green."
I have no idea what any of that means,
but I do know the word Pokemon.
All right, well, happy birthday.
If today is your birthday,
you share a birthday
with actress Kate Mara.
You may know her from "House of Cards."
She's 42 today.
And here we have it,
my very first editorial
correction from yesterday.
Yesterday I said it was
Josh Groban's birthday.
Well, it's actually
today on February 27th.
So today, Josh Groban is 44.
My apologies, Josh, call me back.
And then finally
retired LA Laker James Worthy,
he's 64 today.
And the number one movie
on this date back in 1990
was "Back to the Future 2."
And no doubt, we all heard the math
of how far back the original film went.
It went 30 years back from 1985 to 1955.
That's like going back today to 1995.
But in the second film,
Marty McFly went into the future
and he went all the way to 2015.
Well, in 30 years
from now, it'll be 2055.
Now that I'd be interested
in seeing what's changed.
Time will tell.
And the number one song
on this date back in 1979
was "Do You Think I'm
Sexy?" by Rod Stewart.
Now this song was voted as
the Rolling Stones magazines
as one of the greatest 500 songs ever.
And apparently it's
about an awkward pickup.
Yeah, I'd say that's pretty accurate.
That's pretty awkward.
And Stewart is quick to point out
that the song is not about him.
Also awkward is that Stewart admitted
to unconscious plagiarism
and also lifting the
synthesizer riff in the song.
And those issues were both settled
amically out of court.
But let's just go ahead and settle
into some personal growth now
in the book review
segment of "Morning Serial."
That's where we take a few moments
to reflect on lessons learned
from the current book we're reading.
And currently we're
reading through Dale Carnegie's
"How to Win Friends
and Influence People."
It's a timeless book that is consistently
in all the must read lists
and it's packed with rock
solid advice and actions
for us all to use and build healthy
foundational concepts
to live by.
And yesterday we finished up chapter six
which was entitled "A Safety
Valve to Handle Complaints."
And Carnegie revealed that, quote,
"Most people trying to win others to
their way of thinking
do too much talking themselves
in that we should let the other person
talk themselves out,
encouraging them to express
their ideas fully," end quote.
Carnegie encourages us to listen,
to be patient, to be
sincere, and to be encouraging,
as it often pays off
for us just to listen.
Carnegie's principle number six
was to let the other person do a great
deal of the talking.
So that brings us today
and we're gonna begin and finish chapter
seven of part three.
And that chapter is
entitled "How to Get Cooperation."
To begin this chapter, Carnegie calls
on some of the previous foundations
he taught us earlier in the book,
reminding us that, quote,
"No one likes to feel
that he or she is being sold
on something or told to do a thing.
We much prefer to feel that we are buying
of our own accord or
acting on our own ideas.
We like to be consulted about our wishes,
our wants, and our thoughts," end quote.
Carnegie first
illustrates this through a manager
calling a meeting
about lackluster results
and enthusiasm with his team.
And the manager begins the
conversation asking his team
what exactly they expect from him.
After he wrote all the comments down,
then the manager asked his team
what they thought he
should expect from them.
When the comments came rolling in,
they said things like
loyalty, honesty, initiative,
optimism, teamwork,
enthusiasm, et cetera.
Then relaying the story,
the manager said, quote,
"The people had made a
sort of moral bargain with me
as long as I lived up to my part in it,
then they were determined to
live up to theirs," end quote.
And the manager didn't
have to stand up there
and lecture his team
about taking initiative
or having enthusiasm.
They came up with those
ideas all on their own.
And as such, those
conclusions carried more weight
because it was their conclusion,
not something someone else
handed to them or forced on them.
In the next
illustration Carnegie provides,
an artist that was hoping to sell
sketches to a studio
had failed hundreds of
times over many years
to sell even just one.
Finally, the artist changed his approach
and he went to the studio
buyer with incomplete sketches
asking how they would finish them.
When the artist
actually finished the sketches
with what the studio
had suggested, guess what?
The studio finally bought them.
The artist said, quote,
"This made him feel that
he was creating the designs
and he was, I didn't have to
sell him, he bought," end quote.
Carnegie then accounts a
couple other stories of people
that planted seeds of an
idea within the other person
and then sat back and
watched their idea grow
all on its own into what
the other person often felt
was an idea they had
come up with on their own.
At times, this takes some
time, a few conversations
and that's okay.
People like to chew on an
idea for a while sometimes
while it's growing in
the back of our minds.
Carnegie quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson
from his essay
"Self-Reliance" stating, quote,
"In every work of genius,
we recognize our own rejected thoughts.
They come back to us with a
certain alienated majesty,"
end quote.
My interpretation of this,
often when we hear a good idea,
somewhere in the back of our minds,
we think that we had already had the
inkling of that thought.
Maybe just we didn't tie it together
or we didn't finish it out,
but the idea has a familiarity to it.
The point is that we
are looking for the seeds
in our own mind that will provide the
answer, the epiphany.
Carnegie is suggesting we
plant those seeds for others
and let them discover and
grow the idea on their own.
Carnegie finished out the chapter
telling a story about himself
when he was deciding
where to go on a vacation,
saying, quote,
"The others had been trying
to sell me on their service,
but one let me sell myself,
and that organization won,"
end quote.
Lao-cha, a Chinese sage 26
centuries ago, said, quote,
"The reason why rivers
and seas receive the homage
of a hundred mountain streams is that
they keep below them.
Thus, they are able to reign
over all the mountain streams.
So the sage wishing to be above men
putteth himself below them.
Wishing to be before them, he putteth
himself behind them.
Thus, though his place be above men,
they do not feel his weight.
Though his place be before them,
they do not count it
an injury," end quote.
And again, Sean's interpretation here,
a true leader gains respect from a
position of humility.
Okay, here it is.
In a chapter entitled,
"How to Get Cooperation,"
Carnegie's principle number seven is,
"Let the other person feel
that the idea is his or hers."
Tomorrow, we'll begin
chapter eight of part three
with that chapter entitled,
"A Formula That Will
Work Wonders for You."
Well, I hope your week
has been going great.
And if you're facing a big
project, a personal goal,
or just another day on the grind,
know that you've got this.
Have the courage to
just keep moving forward
in a positive way.
Thanks again for joining us today.
We'll see you back here tomorrow.
And 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
seaningless and at seaningless.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.