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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I think the best video game of all time is the original Legend of Zelda, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’ll tell you about my proudest moment and the life changing lesson that it taught me.

Friday Forum
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What I Learned Yesterday:
What is your proudest moment? Perhaps it is a professional achievement or recognition. Maybe it’s the day you reached a personal goal. Or maybe it was the day you overcame a gigantic obstacle. For me, it was the day I lost all my friends except one. Wait, what? That’s my proudest moment? Here’s the story.

I grew up in a small town. I graduated with class of about 36. I tried to be athletic, but that didn’t work. The basketball coach and the other players would literally laugh at me as I tried to do the drills. I was never in the cool crowd. Most of the kids at school were nice enough, but I never really felt like I fit in. When I graduated high school I was insecure, and not exactly sure where life would take me, but I could not wait to get out of that small town and see what else was out there.

I started attending the university in a town about 30 miles away, the town I still live in today. I enrolled as a Graphic Arts major with hopes to one day be an animator for Warner Brothers. I’d never taken a formal art class because my school didn’t offer any art courses. I also found a part time job to pay my way through college. I soon realized that my love for drawing went away when it started becoming an assignment and stopped being a mere hobby. So it didn’t take long for my interest in school to wane, even though I was making great grades and made the dean’s honor roll. At the same time, I grew more interested in my job. And there at that little book store is where I reached my proudest moment.

I started as a part time cashier. After a month or so there was a need for someone to fill in ordering merchandise in one of the departments. They took me off the register and gave me that responsibility until they could find a full-timer. After that, they moved me to a different department, and then a third department. By this time I’d been working at the store for over a year and a half. I was down to just a few hours of school each week and I was loving my time at the store. I decided I wanted to drop out of school and work full-time.

Soon a new manager took over the store. There was some turnover, and that meant that there were some new opportunities. I put in for a department head of one of the departments and I got it. I didn’t know a whole lot about the specifics of the products, so I spent as much time as I could researching and learning about the various products that I was now responsible for. My hard work paid off and my boss was impressed with my performance. He even gave me another raise!

This was a new experience for me. I was succeeding in the real world and being recognized for my work by my peers at the store. Before long there was an opening for a key carrier. A key carrier had keys to open and close the store, they could answer manager level service calls, and they were in charge when the manager wasn’t there. I put in for the position and I got it! Wow! I had never experienced this type of recognition and success. My small town insecurities were fading fast.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was in the midst of learning one of the most valuable lessons of my life and I’m so glad I learned it at 20 years old.

Once I was given keys to the store, I suddenly felt important. I felt confident. I felt special. But this confidence had an unexpected impact on me. I didn’t realize it, but I saw myself as more important than other people. I called people out at staff meetings, I put people down and ridiculed them. Many times I saw it as joking around with them, but the words I used and the way in which I said them did not bring laughter…they brought barbs and pain.

Then things began to change. Oh it wasn’t me who changed, it was everyone else. And I mean EVERYONE. One by one my friends stopped agreeing to go hang out after work. Even my friends that I didn’t work with were refusing to hang out with me. I was too thick headed to see what was happening. Then reality came. I was hanging out with my girlfriend and a few other friends. We were all joking around and one of them hit me in the face with a sofa pillow. The impact of the pillow caused the lens to pop out of my glasses. I was embarrassed and was not going to stand for it. I ripped into the girl that did it and humiliated her.

That was the final straw. She told her boyfriend, Chuck, who was one of my best friends, that she would no longer be around me. My girlfriend also dumped me soon after that. I was on an ego trip and running over friend after friend in my path of pride. I did say this was my proudest moment, right?

Fortunately Chuck didn’t give up on me. He came to me one on one and told me the painful truth. He helped me see what was happening. I was so blinded by pride that I hadn’t realized the path of destruction that I’d made. I had literally lost every single friend I had…except for Chuck. And he made it clear that if I didn’t wake up and start treating people with respect, he’d have to cut ties with me as well.

Fortunately, I heard his message and realized that he was right. It was a life changing moment for me. I was humbled and humiliated. I still struggled after that, but I made a u-turn that day. I decided that I would take more time to consider my words and the feelings of those around me. I knew that it would take time to heal the relationships that I’d damaged, but in time, I earned most of those friendships back.

Here’s what I learned. Humility and treating others with respect will bring you greater success and satisfaction than arrogance and pride. Friends and family are worth more any day of the week than all the things this world can offer.

Now don’t get me wrong. I still struggle with pride. I still say things that hurt people. I still speak before I think. But those times come far, far less often than they once did. And when I do find myself in the midst of one of those pride driven moments, I take a trip back to that day when Chuck showed me how ugly I was and I resolve to put aside my pride and embrace the heart of humility. The world needs more humility. Thank you Chuck and of the other’s like him who are brave enough to speak words of correction, with love.

I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

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