Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:11 — 5.9MB) | Embed

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I prefer vanilla over chocolate ice cream, 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 story about learning from my son.

Before we get into today’s episode, I want to let you know about an upcoming change to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. Shortly after I started this podcast back in March, my friend Derek Olsen messaged me to tell me how much he loved the concept and told me that he’d love to co-host if the opportunity came along. That opportunity came in June of this year and Derek has been a valued part of Golden Spiral Media and the Stuff I Learned Yesterday team ever since.

As you‘ve listened to Derek’s journey over the last few months, you’ve had a chance to hear his heart and the exciting things happening in his life. You’ve also heard him speak about focusing on the things in your life that bring you closer to your ultimate goals and keeping yourself from getting too overloaded.

So it should come as no surprise that Derek has decided to put down the mic and step away from his role as co-host of this podcast. Derek’s last podcast will be October 29th.

I have already told Derek how much I appreciate his contributions to this podcast, and I’m confident that he’s making the right choice for him and his family. But I also wanted to take a minute here today to tell him those things publicly, and to let you all know about the upcoming change. If you have any message that you’d like to send to Derek, you can send it in and I’ll pass it along. If you want that message to also be a Friday Forum contribution, please make sure to make that known on your recording.

I do have another Wednesday host already selected, and I’ll make that announcement next Tuesday.

Friday Forum
I want you to be a part of the 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 visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278.

What I Learned Yesterday:
John F. Kennedy once said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” The name of this podcast is Stuff I Learned Yesterday and I begin each episode with the phrase, “I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.” Learning is incredibly important.

Learning comes from a myriad of sources. It comes through formal classroom instruction. It comes from laboratory environments. It comes through mentoring or tutoring. It comes from experience. It comes from making mistakes. It comes from observation. It comes by asking questions.

However, learning does not come at all unless we open ourselves up to be willing to learn. Not only that, we have to be willing to learn from any situation, environment, or person.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, I often go on walks with my son. He and I both love our walks together and value them greatly. A few weeks ago he and I were out on our nightly walk. We often head either north or east when we leave the house so that we aren’t looking directly into the bright setting sun. On this particular night we began our walk by heading north.

We had barely even crossed the street when he began telling me about what he had been learning in science class. He’s in fifth grade so he was surprised when I told him that I did not know what he was telling me. He said, “Really? You mean I know something that you don’t?” I looked at him with a smile and told him that he indeed knew something that I did not.

He was amazed and began telling me all that he could remember from his science class. When he was done he told me that he thought it was really cool that he knew something that his dad didn’t and that he got to teach me something.

I told him that it was important for us to realize that everyone, no matter their age or experience, has something that they can teach us.

I gave him this example.

I said to him, “You know my friend, Cliff Ravenscraft?” He replied that he did. I then asked Colby if he knew what Cliff is known as. Colby said he didn’t know. I told Colby that Cliff is known as the Podcast Answer Man. I then said, “You know what? I taught Cliff something about podcasting the other day.”

Colby was again amazed. He said with wonder in his voice, “Cool! What did you teach him?”

I said that I had been assisting Cliff with his Podcasting A to Z class by answering equipment and technical related questions that came in. One of his students needed help hooking up a piece of equipment so I sent him a wiring diagram to help him get everything connected properly.

When Cliff first saw my diagram, he thought I had made a mistake with one of the cables. However, once I told Cliff why I recommend that cable over the cable that he usually recommends, Cliff loved it. He responded and told me that he would now be recommending the cable that I used instead of the other cable.

Colby was impressed.

I liked that fact that Colby was impressed, and I liked the fact that Cliff liked the cable I selected. But the bigger thing to realize here is that learning comes from all sources and knowledge is not owned by one person, one experience, or one source. I know Cliff would agree wholeheartedly with that statement.

Here’s an exchange I had with a client last week. I’ve been working with this client for about a month or so and she was referred to me by Cliff. At the end of an email to me last week she said, “P.S. I heard back from Cliff and I told him you were great! He said you sometimes know more than he does, which says a lot.”

I was extremely flattered by her kind words to Cliff, and Cliff’s kind words about me. My response to her said just that. I told her, “Cliff is very kind. He’s been a trusted friend and advisor for several years now and he’s taught me a whole lot more than I’ve taught him.”

Which brings me to what I learned.

Cliff has demonstrated a valuable character trait of a leader. He realizes that learning never stops and it comes from any source. He could easily say that because he’s been podcasting longer than me and nearly everyone else, that he can’t learn from us. But if he were to do that, he would be missing opportunities to improve his own skills and depth of knowledge.

He is stronger because he has the humility, awareness, and open mind to allow himself to learn from any person at any time. That’s a lesson we all need to remember.

Learning comes from a myriad of sources. It comes through formal classroom instruction. It comes from laboratory environments. It comes through mentoring or tutoring. It comes from experience. It comes from making mistakes. It comes from observation. It comes by asking questions.

Today is a new day with a world of knowledge to share and gain. Who, what, when, where, and how will you learn today?

I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

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

[sc:stuff]