Sunday Morning Run: From Elvis to Wayne Dyer to Erykah Badu

Morning Run with Amy and TJ and iHeartRadio Podcast. Welcome everyone to this edition of Morning Run.

It's Sunday, May.

No, it's not May, and you just told me it's June first, and I'm gonna have to get used to that. Every month, I have to rethink about which month it is.

But two seconds ago.

The very last thing I said to her before we started recording, it's June first. You know, it's it's June first, the very.

Last, and then I said, welcome, it's me. It's June, June first, a new month. So welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.

Thank you for that literal demonstration of how you don't listen to anything I say.

Oh my goodness. All right, well, you know, and we talk about this. We love actually our quote of the day.

Every day we give we end our Morning Runs with something to inspire you or to get you thinking.

And Sundays are.

Such a big day for folks to reflect and to be inspired, whether you go to church, sure, you take a hike, or whatever it is. So we thought it would be a perfect time to go through our quotes of the day, and we have a bonus quote for you at the end of this podcast, but we'll begin with how we started our week with the great King Elvis Presley. We had just actually were still in Memphis on Monday, so we decided to quote Elvis Presley.

I love this quote of his.

You only pass through this life once. You don't come back for an encore.

Deah, take advantage. Don't we all think we got another chance? We had a little more time, We have another opportunity. We know life is no do we know life is short?

We just say that, we say that, we don't live it. We say we'll do it tomorrow. We'll do that next month, We'll do that next year, we'll plan that vacation when

And reminder from the guy who said it. He was famously known for not giving on cores. Elvis has left the building. Y'all can stand here and clap all you want, but the brother's gone. So this came from Elvis Presley, Yes, where we were on Monday, his hometown of Memphis, hanging out there.

And he lived a short life, wow, forty two. And so it's interesting, you know he's someone who said that, and you know he didn't know. No one knows when our time comes. But it's a reminder he had a very incredible.

But short life.

And so it's that in and of itself, is a reminder from some island.

I did not think about the guy who actually said had lived a very short life. You don't get an encore.

Yeah.

August sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven.

He passed away three days before you were born.

And that was my due date. My mom's due date that the doctor gave her was August sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven. I will never forget that because I was born then three days later. So I always know the anniversary of his death. What year are we on, because that is the year that I will be turning whatever age. So this is the forty eighth year since his passing. That's

For yeah, I didn't.

You know, it makes sense because so many musicians are lyricists, their singers and their songwriters and Erica Badu, so of course it's not a big stretch to think that they would have inspirational things to say. But I hadn't heard this before either. This is a good one. In the morning. Instead of saying to yourself, I gotta wake up, say I get to wake up.

This is exactly what.

I try to remind myself when my alarm clock goes off at three a m. Monday through Friday. But the truth is, it is a privilege to wake up. It is if nothing else goes that day, at least you had the opportunity to be there and be present for it, to learn something, to grow, to experience things. And I just think it's a reminder that we can be grateful, if for nothing else, for the fact that we woke up.

Isn't that the first thing that goes right for you every day? Yes, the fact that you're awake. Yes, Wow, I got another day. That literally is your first blessing of every single day, the fact you open your eyes and you get to live it. Look people going through all kinds of hell and hard times and it might be hell for you today and not looking forward to something. But geez, isn't that a win that you woke up?

Yeah? Any And isn't so much of life about our attitude. It's not what happens, it's not what's good or bad. It's how we.

View it.

And if you can view things through a positive lens, it's a game changer. And I'm someone who I really think this is true. If you start off the day like that, with that positive attitude, it will change how the rest of your day will go. What you think is what will be. I really believe that. So I love what eric Abadou said. We'll give it to you one more time in the morning.

Instead of saying to yourself, I got to wake up, say I get to wake up. Thank you for that, miss Erica back dude On Wednesday. Another from this is from a self help I say self help author. He is probably considered maybe even on some people's Mount Rushmore.

Of self help absolutely Wayne Dyer. If you don't know who he is, I urge you to look him up because you don't have to agree with everything he says, but what he has to say about how to live your life better and how to change your attitude about life, it's inspirational. I have not read anything by this man that I didn't love, but this particular quote he gave really really spoke to us. When you judge another, you do not define them, You define yourself.

That is powerful.

Hey, judgment, that judgment sucked.

We got We all do it. We all do it.

You're looking out and people talk about it. It's a matter of projecting, right, you're doing that. You're projecting because you don't have to deal with the pain that you're dealing with inside. And that's why people do that. But if we could just stop, we just take a beat. It's training, but to stop in that moment and stop judging someone, to listen to someone, to understand somebody else's circumstances. Look, it took me a long time to get to that

You do?

Like I give everybody I'm listening, let me hear the other side. Well, maybe they this and maybe this happened. It takes training, but man, it is it's a better way to live.

You're a defense lawyer's dream juror. I would say that, Oh, you don't want me on a jury, Well you do if you're the defendant.

If you're defend Oh whoever it is, you know what, they were having a rough day.

I'm gonna give them some grace.

You know.

I'm gonna take a beat. And you know I would be in that jury room just chilling. Y'all yell at me.

All y'all want you hang a jury and have zero you sleep really well that night.

I really do believe that. I really do believe that.

But it's true.

When you start projecting your pain or something you don't want to deal with about yourself, and you start making fun of other people or judging other people, you are losing a bit of your humanity. Because what makes us feel whole and good and happy and safe is to understand that we're all one.

We're all a part of each other. We're not separate.

We're all human beings looking and searching for the same thing. And that's belonging and love. And so when we do that and we say things about other people or we judge other people to make ourselves feel better about what we're dealing with, it it's taking something away from us. It's not taking away anything from that other person. You're harming yourself by doing that. You're lowering yourself for people say that's beneath you, and that's truly what it is,

We just want to make.

Ourselves feel better, and we do that oftentimes by making other people look bad. But the truth is we're taking away something vital to making us all be better humans. And it's just a reminder that when you start to go there, your brain starts to go there, your mouth.

Starts to go there. Catch yourself.

It's okay, we all do it, but catch yourself and stop yourself and think why am I saying this? Why do I need to think this or say this?

Go read the Drum Major Instinct by Martin Luther King if you get a chance. I'm only saying that now it wasn't the plan. You just said something that he hits on and it relates to everybody. You said. The only way some people try to make themselves look better is to by tearing, by tearing somebody else down. The whole idea of a drum major in a band is what out front? The one that wants to be seen? He said. We all have that in us. We all

Yes, this was from the file you kept. This was one of the printed out quotes you would put on your dressing room door every Monday, so we would all have some words of wisdom to be inspired by for the week.

This was Thursday's quote of the day.

Don't confuse movement with progress. Just because you're doing a lot more doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done.

This you think from your pas per usual.

I think so, I think so. But it was just so applicable to I mean news at the time, and newsrooms that we've all worked in. There were sometimes people we've had bosses that didn't like it if you didn't stay late or look like like this appearance of doing all this stuff to look busy, smoking mirrors. That's all it is. You're not getting any more done. You're just doing a lot of things poorly sometimes.

Do you know what That's just reminded me of, Babe, Because you were talking about the news business and how this applied to that. We like to watch local news everywhere we go when we travel to different cities, and we were struck and have been struck by local news departments because we have been local news reporters who you can tell their news director or someone told them move while you're talking.

You need movement. You've got to get people's attention.

So there's no reason why this reporter should be walking or moving, but just to move to look like you're doing something important or doing something big, and it's it looks ridiculous, by the way, So that actually, like we do it all the time, whether it's in front of a camera or in front of other people, trying.

To show that we're doing something.

But actually, when you're trying to prove something, you might not actually be focused on what you should be because it's about the optics.

It's not even.

About what the intention is or what you're trying to achieve.

We could say a whole lot more because we spent so much time watching local news recently. Every single live shot, the reporter stands there and after two seconds, hell, they just step away. They do the exact same move we were in local news. There was a whole stretch what they say the news director, I want you to move, but we're seeing it, and I didn't think about it. You're so right. That's a very good visual example of people in local news trying to look like and they have no information.

Again, and they're telling you we have no information. The PIO officer has not told us anything, and yet we don't even know if a woman or a man's been killed. Yeah, but they're moving, so oh they must know we're be doing something because they're moving right now.

Oh.

I just thought that was like a visual example of what this quote means.

I didn't know we were going to go there, but yes, or boy, that's exactly right. But it was. That's why I loved it in the newsroom and putting it up to everybody. Just because you don't have to work sixteen hour days to prove that you're working hard. We can work seven hour days and crush it on the things we're doing. I hate this idea that you got to be busy, you gotta be moving, you gotta work longer. Look at me, I haven't taken a day off in

That just reminded me.

I literally in my Washington DC newsroom would brag to my fellow coworkers that I left fifteen vacation days on the table because I was working so hard. Why in God's name did I think that was something to brag about. I look like a fool, And I have to tell you that It's one of the big lessons I learned over the years.

People, if you're listening, take all.

Your vacation days.

And some people might be laughing at me, like duh, But I do think there are a lot of you out there, and there are a lot of overachievers out there who actually take some sort of pride in not taking vacation days. This speaks to that completely. Don't confuse movement with progress. Just because you're doing a lot more doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done.

Or in our Friday quote, again, this was one you plucked out. This was a great one. And again, folks that don't know, we've talked about this here as we put our morning run together every morning we have separate responsibilities. You handle the quotes of the day, so allventimes I don't see them until I see the rundown while we're in the middle of recording. And this was one that I saw that I loved, but it threw me off because I read it live as we were recording, and it spoke to me.

Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. That almost makes me want to cry because I think we're so focused on doing big things and making sure we have a huge accomplishment that that's the big lofty goal. But it's all the little things that we do along the way that actually really matter, and we forget that, we

I'm thinking of so many scenarios where someone's come up to me and say, yeah, a few years ago, yeah you know who I was, but you were the kindest thing and you stopped and you talked to my kids and.

That what right?

I didn't remember that. But we always you just say everybody wants to do big things and want to change the world. And I always say, sometimes what you do can mean the world to one individual, and that's okay.

It can be a thank you, it can be and I love you, that's a smile, it could be I'm checking in on you. All the little things that you don't even think about can have such a major impact on other people and on yourselves, and by the way. This came from a man named Robert Brault. And I say that because I've never heard of him before. But I went and looked. He's an author, and he has for someone I have never heard of, whose name I have never heard of my life, or even read for

Do we have something for Monday, for tomorrow already a quote of the day, because this one is so damn good it is.

But I know we are. We have a plan for next week. Actually, we have a plan for next week. It's starting on Monday. I guess Sunday is this week. I always think Sunday is it's the start of the week. I'm sorry, I always get that wrong.

Wait, some people do that. I've met some people who've done that. Yeah, I feel Sunday is the start of the week. Some people think Mondays, I do.

I always think that Monday's the start of the week. But yes, so starting this week today, but on Monday, we're going to have a themed quote of the day from one person who also has multiple quotes, So I think we can use this one as the bonus, right, I just want to make sure.

We weren't burning one, because this is a good one.

It is a good one, but I'm telling you he is so many. I'm going to dip back into the Robert Bralt vault. I was a poet and didn't know it many times, and I'll bring it off.

I wish, no, I wish we were recording this. I just wanted everybody to be able to share in the moment you just had with yourself.

You went visually recording, yes.

Vault Bralt, poet, No it you were, you were really really you were waiting for some help and being amused, and I wasn't going to give it to you, but you just went ahead and been amused by yourself.

I can laugh at myself and with myself that one.

I laughed with myself and at myself with the same Okay, there we go, Okay, all right.

Here's the quote from Robert from his vault. From his vault.

Sometimes we can't find the thing that will make us happy because we can't let go of the thing that was supposed to and let the.

Church say, amen, dang, if you can take that is one that just some calls we have that don't need much explanation, we talk about them and where they came from. This is one that if you say this to yourself, maybe once before lunch, once after lunch, once at dinner, you'll go Holy hell, and you'll look back at your life and so many things. Often first thing I went to was relationships. Yep, same the first thing I went to, But there are plenty of other things. Second thing I

It's so hard to let go. It's so hard to let go and to recognize it. Sometimes that's the only way forward, is to leave something behind, to close that door and walk through a new one. But that is so one of the hardest things to do in life, because we all have expectations of what should be and when things don't go the way they should go in our minds. We hold on to it and try to control it and make it and manipulate it so that it will be But we can't do that in life.

And those are part of the lessons when you can look.

Back and have a little perspective and say, that's exactly how it had to happen. And honestly, my biggest regret is I wish I had done it sooner. That's usually the regret you have, not that you did it, but that you would have rather done it sooner.

But here we are, hopefully exactly where we all are supposed to be. So folks, take that with you from the Brault vault. Sometimes we can't find a thing that will make us happy because we can't let go of the thing that was supposed too. And with that, folks, I hope you're having a great Sunday. Hopefully one of those quotes in there spoke to you and you can take it with you. But we always appreciate you.

Listen, yes, thank you for beginning You're week with us on this Sunday.

We'll see you on the run tomorrow.