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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my favorite Bible verse is Micah 6:8, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share stories of encouragement.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
Today’s episode is another one of those episodes that has taken me a few days to put together. I wasn’t sure how to word everything and I wanted to be really careful with the words that I chose so that I didn’t come across as being arrogant. What I want to share today are stories about some encouraging things that have happened to me in the last two weeks. And then I want to end the episode by talking about why each of these stories are really important to me.
The first story occurred between myself, my wife, and our tax accountant. First let me say that if you have not experienced the joy of paying quarterly self-employment taxes then you have not experienced one of life’s truest joys. We’ve been using this tax accountant for several years now primarily for my wife’s Mary Kay business. As Golden Spiral Media has grown, then we’ve used her more and more.
Shortly after I left my career last year we met with her to talk about how we needed to handle taxes and get advice on certain financial procedures. She told me that when she first found out that I had made the decision to quit my job that I’d been at for 19 years a job that was very stable for a company that was very stable, she thought I was making a huge mistake. However, as we got up to leave after meeting with her that day almost a year ago, she said that she now had a better understanding of what I was going to be doing and my business plan, and felt like I had made the right decision.
Last week we picked up our taxes from her. I know tax day is in April. We filed an extension to make sure that we got everything done correctly. The taxes were a whole lot more complicated this year. There was a lot more to it and a lot more paperwork to go through. She gave us some advice on some things we can do differently next year both in terms of making the most of tax breaks and also doing some of our accounting a little bit differently. But she also complimented Kari and I on the first year of being self-employed.
She said that of all the people that she sees come through her office that are starting their own business, about 90% of those people fail. She said that it would take about five years before we know for sure if you we are going to make it or not, but all signs pointed to the direction that we were going to be in the 10% that make it. She congratulated us on a job well done.
It’s really good to hear her say that. I mean, I had never been in business for myself, obviously, so I had a lot of insecurities and a lot of uncertainty about whether or not I was making the right decision. I knew that Kari and I both had good financial sense, we were fiscally responsible, and I knew that I had a good business plan. I also knew that I had the right skills, the right experience, and the right connections to be successful, but I still didn’t know if it was actually going to come together the way that we planned or not. And obviously I’m still very early in my journey of self-employment, but it was very encouraging and gave me a shot in the arm to hear her say such encouraging things about Golden Spiral Media.
The second-story I would like to share came during a conversation I had last week with two new hosts for Golden Spiral Media. Both of these guys have been podcasting for several years and I’ve been working with them in some capacity for the last year or so. I have a lot of respect for what they do and I love their talent. I saw an opportunity to invite them to be a part of the Golden Spiral Media team, so I extended them an invitation to do a show on the Golden Spiral Media network.
As I mentioned, these guys are not new to podcasting. I was really surprised to hear how excited they were to be involved with Golden Spiral Media. One of the hosts, a guy that is a very experienced podcast and really knows his stuff said that being asked to be a part of GSM was an honor. He said that I really know my stuff. He didn’t use the word stuff, but you get the idea. I like that he didn’t use the word stuff. It kind had a bigger impact that way.
Earlier this week I had a meeting with a couple of other hosts. Again, these are people that are really talented podcasters that have been podcasting for a while. We had had some preliminary conversations about each of them doing a show on the Golden Spiral Media network, but I wasn’t sure if it would work out because of other podcasts that they were involved with.
We decided the best thing to do would be to get together via Skype and talk about it. I really liked both hosts and really wanted to find a way to work things out. I shared my vision for Golden Spiral Media as a network and my vision for our show format. I told them about the concerns I had and then I asked them to give me their feedback.
We had a really open and honest conversation. It felt great. We quickly reached a point in the conversation where everyone felt really great about working together. I invited them both to come on board and be a part of the Golden Spiral Media team!
After I extended the invitation, one of the hosts asked me to clarify. They wanted to make sure that they were understanding me correctly. Did I really just ask them to be a part of GSM? They had also wondered if they would have to stop doing their other podcasts if they were joining GSM. I told them that they did not have to do that, but I was shocked by the response. They said they would drop the other shows (except for one) if it meant that they could be a part of GSM.
These two conversations with other podcasters were amazing. They made me realize something that had never occurred to me before, something that was far from my imagination. Other podcasters look at what GSM is doing and they see it as a high bar. They see it as something they want to be a part of. They see it as something to aspire to be a part of. Now I’m not saying every podcaster thinks that. That would be silly. But the thought had never even occurred to me that ANY podcaster would think that. I’m still having trouble processing that reality.
Here’s what I’ve learned.
Why do these words of affirmation mean so much to me? Because I need to hear it. I have so many ideas and such a grand vision for GSM that I doubt if I’m on the right track. I doubt if I’m achieving the standard that I’ve set for myself. I doubt on if I’m inspiring others. Conversations like these help me keep believing in my vision and help keep me pushing to reach my goals.
One reason I struggle with doubt goes back to my previous job. At one point I was asked to make a list of ideas. The ideas could be anything. They wanted ideas on how we could increase sales, improve efficiencies, serve our in-store customers better, serve our on-line customer better, improve the functionality of our website, do a better job with our marketing, you name it.
I was heading out on a business trip about that time so I spent that trip coming up with idea after idea. I wrote them all down in a notebook that I kept with me. By the time I returned I had over 100 ideas. I presented the ideas to the leadership of the company. The next year I was asked the same question. I thought it was odd because nearly none of my ideas had even been explored. I came up with a few more ideas, refined the first list of ideas, and presented another list of over 100 ideas.
A few months later I was given my annual review. One area that was specifically addressed was an area called creativity and ideas. On a scale of 0 to 5, I was given a score of 1. I was told that I had very few creative ideas and almost never shared ideas.
I was fuming. How could they say that? I knew that the evaluation was just another sign that I needed to move on and was not accurate. However, even though I knew that score was false, it hurt. It hurt me badly.
That evaluation is certainly not the only reason I doubt myself, but it’s been hard for me to completely shake it out of my system.
So I want to say thanks to those who have shared positive messages with me recently. Now here’s the action item for today. Let’s all take a few minutes and think of of someone around us that is doing a really great job and go tell them. We might just deliver the words of affirmation that they need to hear.
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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