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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, Michael Keaton is my favorite Batman, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned from Mr. Derek Olsen.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating over and over again. It is tremendously important to surround yourself with the right people. I have a group of people that I can go to any time I need valuable insight, I’m trying to make an important business decision, or need to be held accountable for something. I’m a part of two mastermind groups and many of these trusted friends are part of those masterminds.
One of those people is Derek. I met Derek for the first time just over a year ago and since that time he’s become a very trusted friend. I first met his wife Carrie when I started looking for hosts to fill out the roster for TV Talk. Carrie and Derek both hosted several shows, and even hosted one show together. Carrie’s first TV Talk show was The Walking Dead that she hosted with Tim Arthur. By the way, Tim is now one of the hosts of our upcoming Gotham podcast.
We’ve had quite a few requests for us to host a podcast for The Walking Dead, so I approached Derek and Carrie to see if they’d be interested in hosting it. Derek and Carrie obviously know what we’re all about here at Golden Spiral Media. Derek obviously hosts this podcast on Wednesdays and I knew they’d be a good fit for Golden Spiral Media.
They thought about it for a day and then emailed me back with their answer. They said no. I wasn’t at all bothered by their response, but I was a bit surprised. I was pretty sure they’d say yes.
About a week or two later it was time for Podcast Movement. Derek and Carrie drove down to Oklahoma City from Kansas City so that Carrie could stay with Derek’s family. We didn’t realize it when we first met, but Derek grew up and his parents still live in the same town I live in. Derek and I then drove down to Dallas for Podcast Movement.
We had a lot of great conversations along the way. He told me about adjusting to life with their new baby, what their future dreams are, how they plan to grow their business, and what their five year plan is.
He then told me that the reason they turned down the opportunity to host The Walking Dead podcast for Golden Spiral Media is that it didn’t fit into their plan.
Was hosting the podcast for Golden Spiral Media a good opportunity? Yes it was. I have people waiting in line wanting to host podcasts for Golden Spiral Media. They like what we’re doing here and want to be a part of it. Derek recognized that, but turned it down anyway.
Why? Derek sees the value in only taking on projects that fit within his goals. Could they find the time to do a podcast on The Walking Dead? Yes, of course they could. Would it be fun? Yes. But he knew that taking on the new task would also have one of two negative impacts. Either it would take away precious time that they could devote to their long term goals, or it would over load them and prevent them from making progress on their goals. Either way, it would impede their progress.
Earlier this week I had a conversation with another friend. He and I were talking about a podcasting project. He wanted to know if I could help him with the project. You want to know what I said? I said yes.
I said yes because it lined up perfectly with my long term goals. By helping out my friend with his podcast project, I’ll get exposed to other podcasters. The other podcasters will learn about my experience and the services that I offer. It could have a big impact on my business. Needless to say, it was an easy decision for me to make.
Here’s what I learned.
We are faced with decisions and opportunity every day. Some of those opportunities are good and some of them are bad. It’s easy to say no to the bad opportunities, but it’s also tempting to also say yes to the good ones.
Just because an opportunity is a good one, does not make it the right one. What are your goals? What is it that you want to achieve, learn, or become? What are you doing to make progress toward those goals? Perhaps more importantly, what are you doing that is keeping you from reaching those goals?
Let me encourage you to assess your activities through the lens of your goals and get rid of those things that aren’t bringing you one step closer to who you want to be.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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