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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, last weekend I watched two classic movies, 12 Angry Men and Casablanca, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about what I learned from one of last week’s episodes.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day is: Warren Harding was the first president to own a radio and the first to make speech over the radio.
Friday Forum
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What I Learned Yesterday:
As I teased on last Friday’s episode, today’s episode is going to take a look back at the episode I released last Tuesday entitled, “When Laughing is No Laughing Matter.” The truth is, it’s an episode that I almost didn’t release. In fact, both of the episodes I did last week almost didn’t get released.
I almost didn’t release Monday’s episode (Can You Keep a Secret) because I didn’t want to further infringe upon the promise that I had made (and broken) to my friend. I went back and forth for weeks in my mind as I talked myself into recording it and then talked myself out of recording it. Obviously I finally settled on recording it, but I changed the the name of my friend and left out a few details. In the end, the story held true to what happened, while still protecting the people involved. It was a lesson that I felt would provide value and needed to be shared.
I almost didn’t share the story in When Laughing is No Laughing Matter because it’s really personal. In that story I shared a very tragic story that deeply impacted someone, and I wanted to make sure I respected her properly. I again changed the name of the person at the center of the story, but all the other details were accurate as best as I can remember them.
As I wrapped up each of the stories I felt good about them. They were both tough stories to write, but I was relieved when I was done. I truly felt like I had done the right thing.
The response to Can You Keep a Secret was normal. That is, I didn’t get much feedback about the episode. That’s certainly fine with me. I don’t expect expect to get feedback about specific episodes. However, that was not the case with When Laughing is No Laughing Matter.
Here are some examples of the feedback I received about it:
Zachary: Wow, i just realized how i affect people in little things, thanks
David: Absolutely powerful. I’m going to bookmark this episode. It’s a powerful one to pass on to managers I know.
Linda: One of your best
Scott: One thing that makes your episodes so meaningful is you are being authentic and vulnerable. Those traits bring a sense of refreshing honesty to where people live. Well done.
I love it when I get feedback on a specific episode because I love the confirmation that what I’m doing is making an impact. That’s my sole desire of doing this podcast. I don’t do it to get famous. I don’t do it to stroke my ego. I don’t do it for my own benefit. I do it with the hope that my stories will strike a chord and help someone. Some days it might be you, some days it might be someone else, but my hope is that my stories will inspire and motivate others. My hope is that others will learn from my experiences and that the world might be better because of it.
I think Tuesday’s episode did that. And because it will live on forever on the internet, I hope that it continues to do that for a long time.
As I sat down at my computer to begin writing the episode, I had a feeling come over me that only happens on occasion. I was nervous. I was so nervous, in fact, that I was shaking. My hands were quivering on the keys and I had to stop and calm myself a few times. My nerves restricted blood flow and I got cold. Because I was cold, I began shaking even more.
This happens on episodes where I am tackling a story that means a lot to me. Those stories are almost always about people in my life that I care about deeply and I don’t want to mess it up. The subject matter is serious, and I can feel the weight of the story bearing down on me.
I kept typing away, unfolding the story bit by bit, keystroke by keystroke. On more than one occasion I had to stop typing, not because of nerves, but because of emotion. As I relived those moments in my mind, a flood of emotion came back to me that I didn’t realize was there. After I had gathered my emotions and wiped tears from my eyes, I continued on. When I was done, I not only felt good about the final product, I learned something.
Here’s what I learned.
Honestly, it’s not just a lesson I learned when I wrote last Tuesday’s episode, but it’s a lesson that I’ve learned dozens of times over the course of the last 240 episodes. It’s a lesson that I didn’t expect to learn at all when I started this podcast. What is it?
It’s the life changing power of journaling.
I’ve never been a journaler. I’ve tried journaling once or twice, but it just wasn’t my thing. Writing stuff out is not my thing. You know what my thing is? Podcasting. Turning on a microphone and talking is my thing. Writing? Nope. Not my thing.
Now let me share a little secret with you. When someone submits a podcast to the iTunes directory, they are allowed to choose up to 3 categories in which to put the podcast. There are nearly 60 to choose from and here are the 3 that I chose before I had ever released an episode. Category 1: Health -> Self-Help. Category 2: Business -> Management & Marketing. Category 3: Society & Culture ->Personal Journals.
I chose that third category because I couldn’t find one that matched any better and I didn’t want to leave the third category blank. Looking at it now, that’s really what this podcast is. I sit down at my computer and write out an experience from my life.
What I’ve learned is that this exercise has had a profound impact on me. By taking the time to sit down and reflect, I’m able to more clearly find lessons in the the everyday. By sifting through each story in my mind, I often notice lessons that I didn’t notice when the story first happened. By reflecting on these moments, I have been challenged and grown in ways that I did not expect.
I wasn’t naive enough to think that I would do this podcast and not be impacted, but I had no idea how it would impact me.
Sometimes I write stories and l walk away from them pretty much how I was when I started. But often times I walk away from the stories changed for the better. Not only to I see lessons that I missed the first time, I have found the stories to have a healing and strengthening effect. Writing these stories out is sort of therapeutic.
Aside from that, the stories have become great conversation starters among my family and friends. They allow easy points of entry into other conversations that carry tremendous value. I’ve had great conversations with my kids and my wife that I’m certain would not have happened if not for Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
So what’s my lesson for today?
I want to encourage you to take up journaling. Perhaps that means you’ll start your own podcast. Perhaps that means you’ll start your own blog. Perhaps that means that you’ll simply grab a notebook and start writing. I don’t think that part matters. What I think matters most is that you take time to sit and think. Then go through the exercise of taking those thoughts and having them leave your body by way of your fingers and get transferred to another format.
You’ll discover things about you that you never knew. Your weaknesses will be more apparent and so will your strengths. You’ll see patterns emerge. You’ll understand areas that could use improvement, and you’ll be better because of it. You could even share that journal with someone you trust and then talk about it. They can help you grow even more, and they’ll certainly understand you more deeply.
So I’m glad to know that When Laughing is No Laughing Matter was an impactful episode to many of you. It impacted me too and I’ll always be grateful that I fought through my nerves and took the time to put my thoughts to paper.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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