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Today is the day

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I just started drinking tea this year, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about the most important day of your life.

I was a bit surprised when I heard Darrell’s episode on Monday that the SILY mail bag was empty. I was sure that allowing written feedback would open the floodgates to submissions. Was I wrong? Now I love hearing regular contributions from Bonita, Justina and Geoff, but I love it even more when we get something from a first time contributor. How about the young ones out there? We hear all the time how people love listening to SILY with their children. Well kids, do you have something you would like to share with us? Get your parents to help you. Maybe you can all send in something together. It’s so easy, just visit our Feedback Page at https://www.goldenspiralmedia.com/feedback. Everything you need to submit your story is conveniently there. So why put it off, tell yourself that today is the day you will submit something and then follow through with it.

Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Do you know why the main hard drive on a PC is called the C drive? When personal computers were first introduced they didn’t have hard drives in them. Instead they used floppy disks for storage and the drive you put the floppy disks into was called the A drive. Some computers had two floppy drives in them and the second drive was called the B drive. So when Hard Drives were introduced it only made sense to name it the C drive. And even though floppy disks are no longer used today, C drive is still the default name of the hard drive on most PCs.

Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
Today. Today is a very special day. Not because it’s Wednesday, or Thursday or whatever day you’re listening. And not because it’s April, or May or June the whatever. Today is a special day because it’s the only day you are in complete control of. You are its master, its overseer. Today is a special day because it has endless possibilities. So what are you going to do today?

Yesterday may have been great, or maybe not, either way, it’s gone, it’s behind you. Whatever good or bad things that happened are over. And unless you take part in some sort of time travel experiment, yesterday will always be what it was and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Tomorrow is just that, it’s tomorrow, and it will always and forever be tomorrow. You have no control over what will happen tomorrow because it’s always just out of reach. You may set things up so that tomorrow will be a great day, but today is the day that will determine that. And you wont know for sure how tomorrow will turn out until time passes and it becomes the new today.

So why all this talk about today, yesterday and tomorrow?

Too many people don’t take advantage of their todays. You don’t know how many you’ll have so why not live today to its fullest.

Let me read you some quotes about today.

“I look in the mirror every morning and ask myself: ‘If today is the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” Steve Jobs

“Nobody got where they are today by living for tomorrow.” Tom Wilson

“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” Bil Keane

“The future starts today, not tomorrow.” Pope John Paul II

“A year from now you’ll wish you had started today” Unknown

What did these quotes all have in common? They all say that today is a special day and you should take advantage of it.

How many of you have a dream of doing something someday? Ah, that mythical someday. Imaging how great that day will be when it finally arrives. All the things you’ll get done on someday. Unfortunately someday is even farther away than tomorrow, and to many it will never arrive. Unless you take action that is.

So what are you planning to do someday? Take a trip, learn a new language, write a book, skydive. These are great dreams to have, but that’s all they are, dreams. And without some sort of action that’s all they’ll remain.

But fear not, that’s what today is for. Today is the day to make commitments and make plans. Today is the day to take action.

Now I’m not telling you to drop everything and leave for the airport, or start typing up the next best seller. But today is the perfect day to at least start something. Figure out a plan for whatever it is you want to do.

Are you dreaming of an African Safari someday? When? Next year? Five years form now? Ten? As I said, someday is a mythical day that may never arrive. But if you use today as a stepping stone it will suddenly seem feasible. Figure out exactly where you want to visit, how much time you’ll need, how much it will cost. These small steps taken today will make your dream more attainable. Saying I need to save up $8,000 for a 10 day trip in 2020 gives you something to aim for instead of just saying someday I want to go to Africa.

And Today is not just a day for planning big things. Little things matter just as much. I need to clean out my garage but I wont have time until next weekend, but today is the perfect day to think about it. I broke my broom handle during the winter and need to replace it. I’m going to Walmart tonight so today is the perfect day to pick up a new handle so I’ll be ready when garage cleaning day arrives.

You’ve heard the term seize the day. That’s what I’m trying to say here. Use today for something, anything other than just your normal routine. It doesn’t have to be life changing, it just has to be meaningful. When an opportunity presents itself just take it, and if none do, create one.

Remember that quote from earlier. “A year from now you’ll wish you had started today” Well I did “start today”, and it was the best decision I ever made.

Let me tell you the story.

When I graduated from college as a graphic designer I got a job at a local commercial printer. I worked there for 15 years, moving up the ranks from junior designer all the way up to systems manager where I was in charge of most of the equipment in the shop.

Part of my job was researching possible new equipment. In 2005 we started looking for a new direct to plate imagesetter. A machine that would take our computer generated designs and output them directly to a printing plate, bypassing many of the time consuming steps we were currently using. My manager and I took many months researching the various machines on the market, visiting different printing plants to see first hand how they worked. We finally decided on a unit and in late January 2006 my manager signed the deal.

The unit we bought was coming from Germany and we were told it would be installed during the second week of May.

Now, a year earlier, in February 2005 I started a web design company from home. I worked evenings and weekends creating websites for clients. Many of my clients were new businesses and they asked if I could do more than just their websites. They wanted me to design logos, brochures and all sorts of things. I told my clients that I would love to do those things for them, but since it was a conflict of interest with my day job, the only way I could do them was through the printing company I worked for. Some came to see me there but others had relationships with other printing companies and took their business elsewhere.

This was happening often enough that in January 2006 I talked to wife about it. With her support I made the decision to leave the print shop to work full time from home, expanding my website business into a full fledged graphic design studio.

Now, at the time of that decision, I had already invested several months into the new machine the print shop had ordered. I really wanted to see it installed and up and running before I left them, so my wife and I decided that a month would be long enough. I’d hand in my resignation on June 1st, in order to start my new business on the 15th.

May arrived and the sales person my manager and I had dealt with dropped by with some bad news. There had been some sort of delay and the machine that was supposed to be installed the following week hadn’t actually been fabricated yet. The new time frame pushed the installation date to the end of July.

I was torn. I had devoted 15 years to that great company. I didn’t want to leave them high and dry to deal with the installation of the new equipment that nobody really knew anything about but me, but I also didn’t want to prolong my departure for 3 months. And that meant there was no reason for me to wait until June 1st for my announcement.

So after the sales person left I made the choice to seize the day. I printed off my already written up resignation letter and delivered my two week notice to my manager. And I’ve never regretted it.

What did I learn?
You have to make your own opportunities and today is the best day to make them. If you’re always waiting for tomorrow you’ll forever be disappointed.

In researching today’s episode I came across this interesting quote.

“Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.”

What a profound thought. Today is the oldest you’ve ever been. You’ve never been wiser, you’ve never been more knowledgable, you’ve never had more experience than what you have today. And yet, today is also the youngest you’ll ever be again. You’re only getting older, so why wait for tomorrow, or worse yet, someday. All you’ll accomplish by doing that is loosing precious time.

A couple of years ago, I couldn’t find a podcast about a TV show I liked. I hadn’t really considered podcasting up to that point but the thought hit me then and there to start my own about that exact TV show. I seized the day. I contacted Darrell and asked him to help me start a podcast. The rest is history.

I encourage you to make a decision, start something new, set a goal. Big or small, today is your day to do it.

Share in our Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/stuffilearnedyesterday. I want to know what you will do today to make it a special day.

And if, for some reason, this isn’t a great day for you, I want you to remember the most important thing about today. Today is special because in less than 24 hours you get to experience it all over again.

I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

I want you to share Stuff I Learned Yesterday with a friend. SILY is a great starter to introduce people to the world of podcasts. Just tell them to visit stuffilearnedyesterday.com to have a listen. If they enjoy the show there are links on the page where they can subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher.

You can Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and Facebook.com/GoldenSpiralMedia. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.

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