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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, the first record I ever purchased was 45 of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’ll share a story of how I was inspired by looking through the eyes of another man’s regret.
Friday Forum
Thanks again to Mark for his contribution for last week’s Friday Forum. Friday Forum is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can participate in Friday Forum by calling and leaving a message at 304-837-2278, emailing an audio file to feedback@goldenspiralmedia.com, or clicking on the Send Voicemail tab on my website, GoldenSpiralMedia.com.
What I Learned Yesterday:
If you’ve listened to all the episodes of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, then by now you know that I spent a good chunk of my life working for a bookstore. I started out as a part-time cashier, worked my way up to store manager, worked as a buyer for a short time, and then worked as the e-commerce director. Many of you also know that after nearly 19 years with the company, I left there almost one year ago. In fact, this Saturday, April 5th, will mark the one year anniversary of the day I turned in my resignation.
My decision to leave the bookstore was not easy nor was it made quickly. A few years ago I started a business that I hoped would help transition me from the bookstore to being full-time self employed. That business is a website design company called Dramatic Traffic. I still own it and have local clients that I serve under that name. Most of my new clients are served under the more widely known company I own, Golden Spiral Media.
To help grow Dramatic Traffic locally, I joined a Wednesday morning group of other small business owners and entrepreneurs. I knew that I had a lot to learn about being in business for myself and I wanted to learn from others who had blazed that trail before. They didn’t have a website designer in their group and eagerly accepted me as a member. Several members of the group spent time with me one on one and shared their wisdom and life stories with me. One of those members was a man in his late 60’s named Mr. K.
I had spoken with Mr. K a few times at the Wednesday meetings and he was really friendly. He spoke with a middle eastern accent but I had no problem understanding him when we spoke. Mr. K ran a print shop. He could tell you all the ins and outs of paper types, business cards, poster printing, brochures, and any other type of custom print job. I knew that a man of his age and experience could teach me a lot, so we set up a time to have coffee and chat.
I learned that Mr. K was originally from Iran and Farsi was his native language. He came to the United States over 40 years ago so that he could attend a university here. Mr. K was a natural mathematician and dreamed not of owning his own printing business, but of being an architect. He got started in the printing business while he was in school and it helped pay for his bills. He then formed a partnership with a co-worker to own their own print shop. That print shop did pretty well so they opened up a couple of other print shops around town.
During the decades of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, the printing business was good. The personal computer and national chains had not yet taken big bites out of the market and people looked to Mr. K to help them with everything from concert posters to wedding invitations. Mr. K and his business partner had some trouble seeing eye to eye on a few things and that partnership dissolved along the way.
Listening to Mr. K talk about printing and business was really interesting. He had so much experience in building a customer base, retaining a customer base, running a retail store, managing supplies, equipment maintenance, adapting to technological advancements, and working with business partners. We also spent some time talking about family. Mr. K told me about his wife and his children. We even talked about his church which is part of the Bahá’í faith, and my church which is part of the Christian faith.
As we sat there and exchanged stories, my mind kept going back to what he said about loving mathematics and wanting to be an architect. I asked him about his studies. He told me about how he was part of a special school in Iran that allowed him to study various advanced areas of mathematics. He tried explaining some of it to me, but it was all gibberish. He sketched some stuff out on a napkin and drew some cool looking architectural diagrams. He told me about the process for making those scale model building mockups that you see on TV shows. I told him that I’d always wondered how they made those and how they figured out how to scale them so perfectly.
His eyes lit up! He told me all about it and how he worked in the lab at school to help make those. He said that he could literally see the numbers in his head and it all just simply made sense to him. This was a side of Mr. K that I had never seen before. He LOVED this stuff. It was clear that he was knowledgeable about printing, but he was passionate about math and architecture.
I asked him why he never got the architecture degree and pursued it as a career. He said that it basically came down to a number of factors. He was paying for school from his own pocket and the print shop was paying the bills, and he also had the responsibility of providing for his family. He never intended to not complete the degree. In fact, he was really close to completing it at one time. But time has a way of passing by more quickly than we realize. At some point he found himself so far away from the pursuit that he was never able to get back to it. As I stared at him from across the table, his eyes welled up. He said that he was now an old man and that dream of being an architect would never happen.
Here’s what I learned. That night after I got home I sat down with my wife and told her that I did not want to be like Mr. K. I didn’t want to find myself suddenly an aged man and be left with questions of “what if?” At that point I still wasn’t sure when I would be able to step out and make the move to be self employed, but I was determined that it would happen. My wife gave me her full support. I’ll talk more about her in another episode, but it’s clear that I never would have made it even this far without her.
I have nothing but respect for Mr. K. There is no shame in the choices he made. He provided for his family, and has done pretty well in business by anyone’s standards. But he still has regrets of not following his heart, his dream.
What is your dream? What is standing in the way of achieving that dream? Young or old, rich or poor, we can all achieve our dreams. WILL we are achieve our dreams? No, we won’t. But when I reach the end of my life and I look back on it all, I don’t want to say that I didn’t achieve my dream because I didn’t try or I gave up.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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