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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I dump out the entire Skittles bag and separate them by color before eating them, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons I’ve learned after 56 episodes of Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I’m pretty sure that one thing you and I have in common is that we hate slow computers. I just upgraded my production hard drive to a solid state drive and I’m loving the blazing speed. The truth is, speed matters and time is money. Whether you need to upgrade your hard drive, system memory, or your whole computer, before you lay down your hard earned money, check out the great folks at MacMall. I purchased my 27” iMac from them last year and I’m glad I did. I got the exact configuration I wanted, I paid less that I would have from Apple, AND I got faster shipping too. They even had the ability to hook me up with Apple Care. Visit www.goldenspiralmedia.com/MacMall for more info.
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:
You may remember that I first came up with the idea for Stuff I Learned yesterday 6 months ago at New Media Expo in Las Vegas. I mentioned that moment in episode 1 of Stuff I Learned Yesterday. It took me 3 more months before I finally launched the podcast on March 17, 2014. I had no idea what to expect.
My vision for Stuff I Learned Yesterday was simple. I wanted it to be a short form daily podcast that you could listen to and find motivation, inspiration, and positivity. I really wasn’t sure if it would work. As I’ve mentioned several times, I began podcasting in 2008 about the TV show Fringe. I followed that up with a technology and entertainment podcast called Cutting the Cable Podcast. My podcast partner and I then formed Golden Spiral Media and we started another technology podcast and a film podcast. Additionally, we started a podcast for geeky dads.
Unfortunately, life changed right after we started those last three podcasts and two of the three shows never even made it to episode five. Later that year we started The Revolution Podcast.
I knew for a while that I wanted to do a podcast like Stuff I Learned Yesterday, even before it had a specific name and focused format. At one point while I was still at New Media Expo, I surveyed the Golden Spiral Media Facebook followers. I asked them what kind of shows they wanted to see from us in the future.
The results of the survey surprised me. Every single person that responded listed the name of a TV show or just said they wanted more TV podcasts. No film. No technology. No dad stuff. I responded and said I was surprised by the results. By the time the commenting was done I think there were one or two film requests, but the rest were all TV.
At that point I was a bit concerned. Like I said, I had a desire to do a show like Stuff I Learned Yesterday, but it seemed as though our audience didn’t have any desire to see anything from us but TV stuff. I seriously thought about scrapping the idea completely.
After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to go with my heart. Not my gut, my heart. I wasn’t sure if the podcast would help people the way I hoped it would, and I certainly wasn’t sure if it would draw a large audience, but I knew it was something that was going to gnaw at me until I did it.
Once I decided to move forward, I began making a list of ideas for episodes. I decided that the biggest challenge for Stuff I Learned Yesterday would be coming up with fresh content 4 days a week, or 5 days if I didn’t have any Friday Forum submissions. Once I had 30 ideas, I decided I was ready to hit the record button.
Once I hit the record button I soon realized that some of my ideas were good, but there wasn’t a good story to carry the episode. For example, one of my ideas is an episode about tipping your waiter or waitress well, but I don’t really have a good example or story to go with it. It’s just something that I believe we should do. So my list of 30 ideas suddenly became a list of 20-25 ideas.
I knew really early on that I was going to run out of ideas and stories fairly soon. I’ve challenged myself to be creative, think through various stages of my life, look for lessons in the everyday moments, and be constantly aware of what I’m learning. I can’t tell you how many days I’ve woken up with no idea what that day’s episode would be about, but after going through the exercise of personal reflection, I’ve emerged with an episode I felt pretty good about.
Now here we are, 57 episodes into this journey, and I count this podcast as a success. Like I said in episode 24, the download numbers for this podcast aren’t the highest for a Golden Spiral Media show, but that’s only one measurement of success, and it certainly isn’t the most important. Remember, I said I wanted this podcast to inspire, motivate, and serve as a moment of positivity in your day. Those are the most important measures of success, and I believe this podcast has done that.
Last week’s Friday Forum, episode 55, was really special. Rita called in and shared a story that took a lot of courage to do. MANY of you sent in positive feedback about that episode. I received emails, tweets, Facebook wall posts, and private Facebook messages about it. I passed them all on to Rita. Here’s her response:
Wow. I’m glad I shared my story. I almost didn’t. I hope this podcast really grows. I see so much good it can do on so many levels. I’m glad I was able to help out.
Today I got a call from my brother. Remember the story I shared about him on Memorial Day? That was episode 51 by the way. He thanked me for the episode and told me how much it meant to him. I won’t share everything that we talked about, but it was clear that the episode really meant a lot to him.
This podcast is helping people. It’s making a difference, bringing joy, inspiring others, and motivating people to reach a higher place. And it’s not just having that effect on you. It’s having that effect on me too. This podcast keeps me accountable, pushes me to focus on the things that matter most, and makes me want to be better.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
While this podcast has been one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, it’s also been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. The stories of how some of you listen to the episodes as a family and then discuss them truly humbles me and blows me away. The fact that I’ve been able to positively impact someone else deeply moves me.
I still don’t know how long I’ll be able to come up with ideas and stories that are worth recording. I do feel like I’m nearing the bottom of the well, but at the same time, there have been so many days that I thought I’d reached the bottom of the well only to discover there was more there. I know that if I keep looking for learning moments in everyday situations, that ideas will come.
However, I’m also quite certain that change is coming to this podcast. I’m 38, white, college educated, never been out of the lower 48 United States, a Christian, and male. Those are not only my demographics, they are my perspective. They make up a large portion of how I view the world and the experiences I have. Because of that, I know there are valuable experiences, perspectives, and lessons that I simply can not share.
So because I’m certain I’ll run out of ideas at some point and I’m also certain that this show would be better if it had an additional perspective, I’m quite certain I’ll be changing things up a bit. I can’t say when or who or make any formal announcements yet, but you’ll likely hear something soon.
So what’s the point in me sharing this with you if I don’t have anything formal to announce?
Well, there are a couple of reasons. The first is a somewhat selfish reason. Sitting down at my computer and typing out each of these episodes is really beneficial for me. It allows me to process ideas in a different way and see things from a perspective that I don’t get my simply thinking. I wanted to go through this process with this idea so that I could experience those benefits with this idea.
However, that’s not reason enough to actually turn this into a podcast episode. Another reason is that I thought it would be nice to give you a heads up, and allow you to send me your initial reaction about possibly having a second voice on this show.
But my primary reason for sharing all this info is in the first portion of what I discussed. Remember that I had doubts about his show. People said they only wanted to hear me talk about TV. But I followed my heart. As a result, people have been motivated, inspired, and positively impacted. I’m so glad I followed my heart. Let that be a lesson to us all and the type of thing that we remember every day.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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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