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.
69- The Tasty Reward of a Steak Dinner
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Remember way back in episode 3 when I told you about my proudest moment? That was the episode where I lost all of my friends because of my arrogance. That was a really hard but very important lesson for me to learn. I’m sorry that I had to learn it the hard way, but I’m glad I learned it at such a young age. Today I want to tell you another story about that time of my life. In fact, today’s story helped lead up to the lesson I learned in episode 3.
So there I was, 19 or 20 years old, working part time at the bookstore, and really enjoying it. I was looking for an opportunity to take on more responsibility. I knew that the best way to be given more responsibility was to do a good job with the responsibilities that I already had. Whether it was sweeping the floor, taking out the trash, putting up merchandise, or working the cash register, my goal was to do them all to the best of my ability.
My hard work paid off. One day an opportunity opened up as the department head of Bibles and church supplies. The store had quite a few Bibles, several hundred different types including over 20 english language translations, nearly a dozen foreign language translation, and a multitude of styles within each translation. There were dozens of study Bibles, that is Bibles that had notes included to help give insight to the reader, reference Bibles that specialize in cross-referencing various Bible verses, Childrens Bibles, Bibles for teens, women, men, married couples, and pastors.
In addition to the regular paper Bibles, there were protective cases to put Bibles into, highlighters and note taking supplies, and Bible software.
The church supplies section included things like postcards that churches could use for various reasons, paper to use for announcements and note taking during church services, offering plates, communion supplies, witnessing literature, and record keeping supplies.
I knew nearly nothing about all the various items. I knew a little bit about a few of the Bibles, and knew some of the uses of some of the church supplies, but I knew I didn’t know nearly enough to be able to answer the variety of questions I’d need to know in order to properly assist customers. Still, it was a promotion and a position I wanted, so I put my name in for it and I got it. Read More…
68- Say Hi First
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A while back I went to an event at my church.
There were several people there that I was excited to see because I don’t get to see them very much. You know how you have those people in your life that you don’t see very often but you still think of them as good friends. I love having those people in my life.
Well anyway, the night moved forward and a few of those people said hi to me and I was glad to get a chance to chat and catch up with them. But a few of those people never did say hi to me. I was happy to chat with the friends that I did talk to, but I was also a little disappointed that I never did talk to a few of the others who were there.
Later in the evening after we got home, I told my wife Carrie how I had the chance to talk with some people, but there were a few that I didn’t talk to. I went on to tell her that they never came over to say hi to me. Carrie asked if I had approached them to say hello. I thought about it for a second and said, “No, no I didn’t”.
All of a sudden it hit me. Read More…
67- The Day The Video Store Called
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8th grade. Isn’t that one life’s greatest times? Here’s what I remember about 8th grade. Tommy Connor and Jamie Freeman got into a fist fight in the middle of class and I had a front row seat. Russell Menefee was the star running back of the 8th grade football team. In fact, that fight took place in Mrs. Iscimenler’s class. Russell had accepted the challenge to score a touchdown for every letter in Mrs. Iscimenler’s last name. Interestingly enough, Mrs. Iscimenler told me that I should write stories that had the same style as The Wonder Years.
At the time I thought she was crazy. I was in 8th grade. What that even look like. I guess she was a few years ahead of her time. This podcast definitely has a Wonder Years vibe to it, and today’s episode definitely will. You see, there’s one other thing I remember about 8th grade. The girl I liked in 8th grade wasn’t named Winnie; her name was Ruth.
Ruth sat in front of me in Mrs. Iscimenler’s class. She had poofy hair and tall bangs like all the cute girls did back in those days. She liked New Kids on the Block. We talked from time to time and I eventually got the nerve to ask her to go with me. What does that even mean? Will you go with me? Where? I can’t drive yet. Anyway, back to Ruth.
At some point during the school year, shortly after Ruth and I started “going out,” she moved to the city. Even though Oklahoma City was only about 30 miles away, in those days it might as well have been a thousand miles away. After all, I couldn’t drive, and it was a long distance call from my small town to Oklahoma City. I didn’t have any way to pay for a long distance call. Read More…
66- Always Read the Fine Print
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I don’t know how long my vision has been bad. I’m sure it’s been bad pretty much all of my life, but I was in the 6th grade when my teacher contacted my parents to tell them that I should have my eyes tested. I’ll never forget my first eye exam. My dad took me to an eye doctor in the city. We went back to the office area and they blew air into my eyes. I had no idea at the time what glaucoma was or why they would test for it. They also dilated my pupils.
I then went into a room and sat in a big chair with strange contraptions all around it. The doctor put various lenses in front of my eyes and eventually arrived at the obvious conclusion: I had very poor eyesight. I was very nearsighted and had astigmatism in both eyes. I then got to hang out with my dad for the rest of the day. It was terrible. No, really, it was. They had dilated my eyes and my dad had to drive around and pick up supplies for a carpet laying job he was working on. Even though the doctor had given me a pair of the dorkiest looking sunglasses ever known to man, they were not blocking enough of the sun. It was hard for me to see and I had a really bad headache.
My glasses came in a few days later and I was amazed. If you wear glasses then you’ve probably had a similar experience. I did not know what I’d been missing. What had been a green carpet in front of our house was now revealed to be individual blades of grass. I could see each leaf on the trees around our house and I no longer had to sit 3 feed from the TV to understand what was happening. It was truly amazing. Sometimes I would just stare at stuff and be amazing by all the details that were new to me. Read More…
65- Friday Forum
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Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a Forum contribution from Mark in Canada. Mark shares a story about tipping your waitress and a recent trip to Boston Pizza. You can participate in a future Friday Forum episode 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 the right side of this page. Read More…
64- Stories of Encouragement
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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. Read More…
63- The Prom Invitation Mystery
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In this episode Derek Olsen share a communication lesson he learned when a prom invitation was misunderstood. Check out Derek and Carrie’s budget resources, blog, and podcast at www.derekandcarrie.com. Read More…
62- The Truth About the Lamp
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Remember episode 23? That’s the episode where I snuck home after school to get some Halloween candy and ended up playing around with a lighter and toilet paper while I was there. In that episode I mentioned that there was a story about a lamp that I would tell you one day. Today is that day.
Now before I get into the story of the lamp, let me preface this story by telling you that my version of this story does not match my brother’s version. After my brother heard the Halloween candy story he and I compared memories. They were mostly the same, but there were a few differences. We also talked about the story I’m telling you today. He remembered some things that I do not. He remembers that we had friends over during the time the lamp event happened. I remember it being just me and my brother.
I don’t think that our differences in the story will matter. I think what matters most is how I remember the events of that day and the way it affected me both as a child and as an adult. So, disclaimer complete, here’s the story of the lamp.
From the time I was 1st grade until I finished 3rd grade we lived in a trailer house on a few acres of land just off of Interstate 35, a few miles south of Guthrie, OK. It’s just about 8 miles from where I live today. My brother and I were pretty rambunctious, but that’s normal of kids of the ages we were. It seemed we were always getting in trouble for something.
One time I remember that I’d heard that dragsters used bleach to do burnouts before races. We couldn’t find bleach, so we used mom’s liquid laundry soap to try and do burnouts with our Hot Wheels cars in the laundry room floor. She wasn’t happy about that for some reason.
Another time we played tag inside the house. That may seem pretty harmless, but we tagged each other by taking the caps off of our markers and throwing them at each other. When my parents came home and saw all the marker spots all over our clothes and the furniture, they got a little upset. Go figure.
Like any kid, both my brother and I tried to lie our way out of things. My dad always told us that if we told the truth, we wouldn’t get in trouble. I remember that I wasn’t ever sure if that was true. It seemed too good to be true. Could telling the truth really be used as a get out of jail free card? It seemed riskier than lying, so I often chose lying. Read More…
61- Achieving the Impossible
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Do you recognize the name Roger Bannister? Roger is a famous track athlete. He was born March 23, 1929 in Harrow, England. His first love was science, specifically, medicine. More specifically, neurology. His family was poor and could not afford to send him to Oxford, so he earned his way to Oxford the best way he knew how. He earned a track scholarship. He started running for Oxford in 1946 and he probably had no idea that his love for running would change the landscape of the sport.
For many years before Roger ever enrolled at Oxford, runners around the world had been obsessed with breaking a barrier: they wanted to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. The 4:30 mile had been broken in 1861. It would take many more years to bring the record down below 4:10. In 1933 an Englishman named Sydney Wooderson ran the mile in just over 4:06. Sydney’s achievement served as a great inspiration to Roger. In 1944 a Swede named Arne Andersson brought the record down to 4:01.06 and a year later another Swede, Gunder Haegg, lowered the record to 4:01.03.
Gunder’s record would remain intact for another 9 years. Despite many runners doing everything they could to lower the record and complete the mile in under 4 minutes, it didn’t happen. It finally got to a point where the achievement was thought to be impossible. Cue Roger Bannister.
Roger was a very strong runner as evidenced by his Oxford track scholarship. He began to evaluate his running style and looking at it scientifically. He made a few modifications to his form, and it helped. He knew that he still needed to do more if he would achieve the impossible. He teamed up with two other Oxford runners, Chris Chataway, and Chris Brasher.
On May 6, 1954, the day arrived for them to run for the record. The gun sounded at 6pm local time and the men raced off the starting line. Chris Brasher took the early lead and was responsible for setting the pace. Roger was feeling good that day and felt like the pace was too slow. He urged Brasher to go faster, but Chris held his pace. At the quarter mile point the pace was 57.5 seconds. The half mile pace was 1:58. Read More…
60- Friday Forum
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Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a
great story shared by Coop that is filled with several great lessons. You can participate in a future Friday Forum episode 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 the right side of this page. Read More…