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.
099- Milestone Eve
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There is so much happening all around us every day. I regularly receive comments like, “I could never do that show because I don’t really learn that much.” Or, “I don’t know how you come up with so much stuff to talk about.” Honestly, it is a real challenge on some days, and other days, it just flows out and I’ll have ideas for 2 or 3 episodes all at once.
If you’re someone that thinks they aren’t learning anything, I’d like to challenge that. Maybe you aren’t the type to be able to put your life lessons into a story like I do. Maybe the stuff you’re learning doesn’t seem as inspiring, or important, or life changing as my stuff. I don’t know about that. Don’t sell yourself short.
What I’ve learned is that because I have put myself in a situation where I MUST come up with stuff to share with you, I’m a lot more aware of stuff around me. Literally everywhere I go, every conversation I have is now viewed through the lens of “what am I learning from this.” That’s not a bad thing.
Because I’m more focused on what I’m learning, I’m growing more and noticing more things that need attention in my life. I’m noticing others more. I mean, I’m seeing the needs of others, learning more by observation, and listening more.
So that’s my challenge to you. Maybe blogging is not your thing. Maybe podcasting is not your thing. That’s okay. Have you ever considered journaling? Grab a cheap notebook the next time you’re at the store and take a few minutes at the start or end of your day to reflect, meditate, and write down your thoughts. You’ll start noticing stuff you never realized that you noticed. You’ll grow at a faster pace because you’re more aware of stuff. And over time, you’ll see the growth rings of your life imprinted on those pages. Read More…
98- Living Your Own Life
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When I was in college I wanted to be a rock star. I was in a band and we were good. We toured around Oklahoma and Texas sometimes playing five shows a week. We had t-shirts, stickers, and two full length CDs. It was a lot of fun, even more work and yes, it got crazy every now and then.
I would do it all over again given the chance. Well, I wouldn’t do it again now, but if I had to re-live my younger years I totally would. Read More…
97- Not the Droids You’re Looking For
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A couple of weeks ago my family had dinner with a friend and his family. This is a friend that I worked with at my previous job. I hadn’t spoken with him since I’d left nearly 15 months prior. It was great to see him again. We talked about some of the current geeky movies, our thoughts on the upcoming FOX series, Gotham, and some of the creative projects he was working on on his own time.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before the conversation turned to the stuff happening at my former job.
Since the time that left, the company hired a new president. They were without a president when I left. When the previous president left, I started reporting to the director of operations. He was and is a great guy, but he didn’t have a lot of knowledge about what my department did. Remember what I told you about my last review back in episode 64? Here’s a recap:
At one point I was asked to make a list of ideas [by the previous president]. 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.
At one point in the conversation, my friend asked me if I remembered the list of ideas. He was one of about half a dozen people that had been given a copy of the list. Read More…
96- A Voice in the Public Square
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Well as I said in the intro, today’s episode is about something that we can never get enough of. Can you guess what it is? No, it’s not bacon, but that’s a good guess. Let me give you a clue. Here’s one way it is defined by Merriam-Webster:
knowledge that is gained by having many experiences in life
Another definition is:
the natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand
Have you guessed it yet? Here’s a final definition:
knowledge of what is proper or reasonable : good sense or judgment
By now I’m sure you’ve guessed that today’s topic is wisdom. As I said, we can never get enough of it.
Where does wisdom come from? That is, how do we gain wisdom? Does gaining wisdom even matter? Is wisdom the same as knowledge?
First off, wisdom and knowledge aren’t the same thing. A wise person once told me that wisdom is the the ability to know how to properly apply knowledge. That is to say, we can have all the knowledge in the world, but if we don’t know what to do with it, that doesn’t make us wise.
So what about the question of whether or not wisdom matters? Do you think it matters? Is it possible to go through life without much wisdom? Is it possible to acquire wealth and achieve things without wisdom? Yes it is. Read More…
95- Friday Forum
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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I prefer Captain Picard over Captain Kirk , and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’m pleased to bring you another installment of the Friday Forum.
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Friday Forum
Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Angela. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More…
94- Awakening Your Awareness
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I don’t know how many episodes I’ve done on perspective but it’s at least 3. I talk about it frequently because I believe that perspective is vital. Perspective changes everything and it’s almost always mental. I don’t know anyone who is successful in the things that matter that doesn’t have a positive perspective.
When I worked at my previous job I had about a 40 minute drive each way to work. If you’re like me, the drive just turns into a blur after a while. I’d pass by the same stuff every day and really not pay any attention to the things and buildings I drove by. Sure, I noticed a few things, but you miss a lot of stuff when you’re passing it by at 70 miles an hour and trying to keep your eyes on the road.
One thing that I had noticed was that there were a few American flags along the way. There was a flag at a school, a church, a car repair shop, and at the entrance to a housing addition. There was a small cemetery on the side of the road that I drove past every day. However, one day I noticed that one grave had a small fence around it and an American flag on a pole by the grave. I could tell that the flag pole had been there for a very long time, and the odds were that a flag had been on the pole every day and I had simply failed to notice it.
This got me to thinking. I wondered how many American flags were visible on my drive to and from work each day that I had overlooked. I think that I thought there might be as many as 10 American flags. So I started looking. The first day I really started looking I spotted over a dozen. The next day I saw even more and the day after that I noticed even more that I had missed. After a few days had passed I determined that I had probably spotted them all. Guess how many there were? There were about 50 American flags. Read More…
93- Applying the 80/20 Principle
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I didn’t learn about the 80/20 principle yesterday, I learned about it a long time ago. But I was recently reminded just how helpful and real this principle still is. It’s just as true now as it was when I first learned about it.
The 80/20 principle suggests that 80% of your output comes from only 20% of your effort. To put it in business terms, 80% of your profit comes from the top 20% of your customers. And to apply it to productivity, 80% of your output comes from 20% of your time or effort.
Let’s shift from productivity to real life for a moment and then we will link real life back to productivity. Here we go. Read More…
92- Sticks and Stones and Words and Worth
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Doorbell, dorknell, Darlene, four-eyes, big ears, dumbo, are those your girlfriend’s glasses, hey Larry Darrell and Darrell, where’s your other brother. Those are just a few of the things kids said to me growing up. I’m sure you can make your own list too. This teasing reality is part of growing up for most kids. Just because it’s normal doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sticks and stones do break bones and words hurt in deep ways too.
I’ve always been insecure. It has come a long way over the last 15 years, but it some situations, it’s still very real. As a teenager I struggled with the fact that I was so skinny. I wasn’t very muscular or athletic, I was scrawny. I remember someone once told me that fat would turn into muscle and peanut butter would make you fat. So one day I went to the store and bought a jar of peanut butter and ate on it all day just to try and put on some weight that would maybe turn to muscle.
Even throughout my college years I couldn’t seem to put on weight. At the age of 22 I weighed about 145 pounds. I ate whatever I wanted, which was great, but I hated being so skinny. I didn’t want to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger, I just wanted to be normal. I just wanted to gain about 15 or 20 pounds.
There’s no doubt that some of you have had issues that are opposite of that. Some of you are thinking that it would have been really nice to have been in my position. Funny how that works. We are a “grass is always greener” type of being, aren’t we?
The reality is that none of us are perfect and we are much better at noticing our flaws than anything else. We look at other people and wish that we had what they have and we have no idea that they might be looking at themselves and hating what they see or looking at something in us and wishing they had it. Read More…
91- Paralyzed By Fear
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We went to church fairly regularly when I was a young kid. My parents divorced when I was 9, and we really didn’t go much at all after that. My grandparents went every time the doors were open, so if we stayed the weekend with them, we went to church. Their denomination was the Assemblies of God. The youth program at the Assemblies of God is called Royal Rangers, and it was awesome.
For the boys, it was a lot like Boy Scouts. The girls were called Missionettes. They may have been like Girl Scouts, but I really have no idea. As I said, I was pretty young, so I didn’t get to do as much as the older groups did, but we did get to go camping. It was awesome. We’d go out to a campground that was nothing but a blank canvas of earth. We’d set up tents, make a campfire, and cook our food over the fire. We all had mess kits to eat with and I felt like a kid from a century before while we were out there.
Partially because I enjoyed the Royal Rangers so much, I wanted to join the Boy Scouts. I wasn’t old enough for Boy Scouts so when I was 7 or 8, I joined the cub scouts. One year for Halloween, we had a Halloween party. I don’t really remember where it was for sure, but I think it was as an American Legion Hall or something like that.
Out in the main area of the room were a variety of activities for us to enjoy. I remember being really annoyed by how difficult it was to bob for apples. However, the thing that I remember most did not happen in the main room. I don’t know if it was set up in the kitchen or if there was a storage room, but whatever it was, it had two points of entry and it was walled off from the main room. They had set up a haunted house that took us in one door, through the series of haunts, and then out through the second door. Read More…
90- Friday Forum
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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I once had someone mistake me for her dead son, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’m pleased to bring you another installment of the Friday Forum.
Are you a podcaster or have you ever thought about starting your own podcast? If so, I want to invite you to Podcast Movement. Taking place in Dallas on August 16 & 17, Podcast Movement will be an incredible opportunity for you to network with and learn from some of the best podcasters and teachers. There will be over 40 breakout sessions that will be broken down by beginner sessions and advanced sessions. Featured speakers included Chris Brogan, Cliff Ravenscraft, Jamie Tardie, Rob Cesternino, John Lee Dumas, Cynthia Sanchez, and MANY more. I will be there leading an advanced session on audio editing, and Derek will be there too. If you want to take advantage of early bird pricing, act right now as early bird pricing goes up after tomorrow, July 15. Visit www.goldenspiralmedia.com/podcastmovement and join the movement today!
Friday Forum
Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Mike. You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More...