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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, Neal Peart is my favorite drummer, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share stuff I learned from a recent voice mail.
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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:
Last Wednesday was a stressful day. I got a late start to my day, which was totally my fault. I knew that my morning was going to be very unproductive and I needed to get a jump on it. But that didn’t happen. Some friends of ours are currently buying a house, and we agreed to watch their kids for a few hours. I knew that while the kids were here, I’d very likely not be able to work very much.
I really didn’t mind. I had a busy day, but not a day that was so busy that I couldn’t handle a few interruptions and distractions from the kids. The kids were really great and I actually got more work done than I thought I would. Their parents arrived around noon and we all ate lunch together. I hadn’t planned for that, but it was really great spending time with them. It was refreshing actually.
The whole thing took a bit longer than I thought it would, though, and I had to push back a meeting that I had scheduled. Again, not too big of a deal. After I wrapped up the meeting I just had 3 things left on my agenda for the day. First I had a podcast to produce for a client, second I had to come up with an episode for Thursday’s Stuff I Learned Yesterday, and third, I planned to attend men’s Bible study at church with my son. I estimated the podcast production to take 1.5 to 2 hours at the most, I estimated the Stuff I Learned Yesterday episode prep to take 2 hours, and I estimated Bible study to take 1.5 hours, including travel time and chatting with the guys.
I started working on the client podcast and it was almost immediately clear that my schedule was going out the window. The recording was in pretty rough shape. It was an interview with someone who was connected via Skype. Most of my clients use Skype as a part of their podcasts. Many of our podcasts use Skype. Skype is usually pretty good and often great. But sometimes, Skype is terrible.
This call wasn’t terrible in terms of the quality of the voices, it was terrible in that it has a ton of millisecond cuts in the audio. All the audio was there, but brief moments of silence were present. Sometimes the recording would go 20 seconds or so without a drop, at other times it would drop out 4 times in a single second.
It took me between 4 and 5 hours to work through the audio. Did I mention that my schedule was shot?
I ate dinner in my studio and got it done just in time to go to Bible study. I have to admit I thought about skipping Bible study. I still had a lot to do. I really wasn’t sure what I was going to talk about for Stuff I Learned Yesterday. But I had promised my son that we’d go, and I wanted to be a man of my word. Besides, all the pressure of getting the audio cleaned up had stressed me out a bit. I felt like I needed to get out of the studio for a bit.
We jumped in the car, rolled down the windows, opened up the sun roof, and headed off to church. When we stopped at a red light, I checked my email. I was happy to notice that I had a new message on the Golden Spiral Media voice feedback line. Here’s what I heard.
As I listened to Jason’s words, some dust must have blown into my eyes. It was an amazing message that gave me a tremendous boost. Colby, who was sitting in the back seat behind me said, “Dad, when I grow up I want to be a podcaster like you.” He said that I should use Jason’s message for my episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
Of course, I ended up talking about a different topic that night, but it was only because I wanted a few days to marinate on Jason’s message.
After a few days of marinating, here’s what I learned.
As I’ve said before, we have no idea how our words will strike people. Words are so, so powerful. Sometimes timing is everything. At the moment when Jason called, the idea of doing Stuff I Learned Yesterday was stressing me out and I was wondering if it was worth it. His words were like a salve. They instantly took away any frustration I had.
I was also reminded that I really am making a positive impact with this podcast. It feels weird to say that, but I don’t say it with any ounce of pride. I love that Jason said that he listens to the podcasts with his kids. Jason’s not the only one that does that. This Friday’s Friday Forum will include one of my favorite contributions of all time…to any of our podcasts. You’ll have to wait until Friday to learn more.
When I dreamed up this podcast, I also spent some time thinking about who would be listening. Some podcasters refer to this as identifying your avatar. That is, who EXACTLY is listening. What is their age, gender, and race? What is their name? How much money do they earn, what are their hobbies. The exercise is intended to help the podcaster really focus on their audience and therefore keep the content relevant to that audience.
After I finished the exercise I came to the conclusion that my primary demographic would look like me. Mid to late 30’s, white, middle class income, geeky. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. I get a lot of contributions from women. I’m glad that I do. I don’t want this to be a podcast that only men find worthwhile.
However, what I totally failed to consider was that my primary demographic would also be parents. After all, if my primary demographic is like me, then they very likely have kids between the ages of 5 and 15.
I have never taylored an episode specifically for kids. I don’t know that I ever will. I talk about my kids regularly, and Addison even guest hosted an episode with me. But I think it’s important to speak through my lens. Derek will speak through his lens each week, and when we add another guest host next month, she’ll speak through her lens.
What’s incredibly powerful, though, is the fact that some of you are taking these episodes and talking about them as a family. You see, that’s an incredible thing. These episodes are intended to be positive, inspiring, and motivating. I aspire to provide life lessons and principles in each episode. While the idea of then taking those principles and using them to create conversations with your children never occurred to me, I’m glad it occurred to many of you.
See, here’s the thing. We all have our own little world that we touch and impact. That world includes those in our home, the people we go to school with, ride the train with, carpool with, work with, attend church with, play at the park with, and even pump gas next to. In some cases, our world even includes those who put on a pair of earbuds and fire up an episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
I am humbled and grateful that you’ve taken time out of your day to listen to this podcast. Now, lets get out there and make our world a better place. Be an encourager. Be inspiring. Be motivating. Share a smile. Lend a hand. Make a phone call. Spread love.
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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