Stuff I Learned Yesterday
About Stuff I Learned Yesterday
Stuff I Learned Yesterday is a podcast that aims to encourage, inspire, challenge, motivate, and improve the lives of those who listen to it. Stuff I Learned Yesterday is released each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each episode ranges from 5-15 minutes long and contain short stories based on real events and lessons learned by the hosts. Friday episodes are called the Friday Forum and are filled with inspirational and motivational thoughts submitted by Stuff I Learned Yesterday listeners. Submit your story for a Friday Forum episode by calling 304-837-2278, visiting our feedback page, or click on the Send a Voice Message button on the left hand side of this page.

457- Friday Flashback: Calculating New Route
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Today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday is a Friday Flashback. Friday Flashback episodes feature some of the most popular episodes of Stuff I Learned Yesterday. Today we take a trip back to an episode that we ran last December after Kari and I attended a MUSE concert in Dallas. It’s an episode about taking time to evaluate the course you’re on, remember where you started, remember where you’re headed, and make sure you’re still on the right path to reach your desired destination. It’s Stuff I Learned Yesterday Episode 374- Calculating New Route. Read More…

456- I Don’t Care What People Think
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In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share my advice about being yourself no matter what people think. Sometimes it can be difficult to turn off the feeling of being judged all the time. Whether you have a scrutinizing mother-in-law or a micro-managing boss, there are plenty of people in our lives who we feel are watching our every move. I can’t tell you how many times my wife has told me a story about some drama that happened at work in which she used the phrase, “And it made me look bad when I didn’t agree.” Now, it would be easy for me to say to her, “No one is judging you for going against the grain,” or “Who cares what people think anyway?” but it’s not that simple. Because the fact is it’s hard to rise above the opinions or indifference of others. Read more…

455- View From Down Here
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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Emilee O’Leary, I am a big fan of the NWSL, or the National Women’s Soccer League, 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 lesson I learned after taking a picture of a dandelion field. Read more…

454- Saying Thanks to the Forgotten
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One of the things I enjoy most about our church is something we call church without walls. Church without walls is a day where we meet at the church for a brief time on Sunday morning and then head out into the community to help people. We’ve done things like go to 3 different laundromats around town, hand out laundry supplies, and pay for the laundry for everyone for a few hours. We also go to some of the retirement homes around town and hand out flowers and chat with the residents, do yard work and other outdoor maintenance for a neighbor currently receiving cancer treatments, and doing interior repairs and painting for an elderly woman. Read More…

453- When Your World Turns Upside Down
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We’ve never been promised that life will be easy in this world. There will be times when your world turns upside down. Either for you or a loved one. It can be a divorce, a serious illness, a terrible accident, a death. When this happens, and it will, each of us needs to make a personal choice – will I let this defeat me or will I fight it, will I survive it, will I find a new path, will I let others help me, will I learn how to live with these new circumstances. Read more…

452- Friday Feedback
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Today I’m starting a new episode format called Friday Feedback. I don’t know how often we’ll do these, but after the feedback we’ve received this week, I’m hoping we’ll get to do this more often. So what is the Friday Feedback? We often as for you to participate in Stuff I Learned Yesterday by sending in a contribution to the Friday Forum. We love your Friday Forum submissions and I highly encourage you to share your stories. However, I think it’s also important to give you the opportunity to simply share ways that Stuff I Learned Yesterday is impacting your life. So the Friday Feedback is an episode dedicated to sharing the feedback that we’ve received from you about recent episodes. We’ll also include sharing recent iTunes reviews in these episodes. Read More…

451- Leaping Into the Unknown
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I have been involved with church music practically from birth. My dad was a song leader in his church, so I grew up listening to his music and going with him to his church practices. It’s no surprise that because of this influence, I too became involved in music from an early age.
I started piano lesson on November 14th, 1988. Don’t ask me why I remember the date so clearly, but I celebrate it every year with a shout-out to my first piano teacher on Facebook. I sang in the children’s choir all through grade school, which included changing schools in 7th grade when my school closed. I played handbells for a few occasions. In high school, I joined the adult choir and started helping out the choir director when I was off school. We formed a very close friendship, one that was maintained for many years after she left the position. I started as a song leader with the children’s choir and eventually became a full-fledged leader with the adult choir. I started organ lessons and continued them through high school and college with a few teachers. Read More…

450- Keeping Perspective, Maintaining Trust
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In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a story that shook my my sense of trust and ability to maintain perspective. And let me issue a warning up front – this episode contains descriptions of criminal activity that, although not graphic or detailed in any way, might not be suitable for young listeners. Read more…

449- Storytellers
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Storytellers have been prized since the beginning of time. Yet the art and styles of telling stories may get lost if we don’t encourage people to be storytellers. Read more…

448- When Life Isn’t What You Hoped it Would Be
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I’m going state the obvious here and tell you that the relationship I have with my mom is not what I hoped it would be. I know some of you have relationships that are similar to my own. I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s tough sometimes. I mean, I thought I had this thing figured out. I thought I had made peace with it. I thought I was was over it. But seeing her picture, knowing where she is, seeing those words that she wrote- they opened up feelings and wounds that I thought were gone.
I’ve thought a lot about this over the last several days and it’s even kept me up at night. How does this new information change things? What does it mean? What happens now? Read More…