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.
29- Stop Worrying About What Other People Think
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Time sure flies, doesn’t it? It’s hard for me to believe that 20 years have gone by since I graduated high school. I’ve mentioned before that I graduated from the thriving metropolis (if you use the word metropolis in the loosest way possible) of Wellston, OK in 1994. I moved to Wellston before I went into the fourth grade.
It was an odd adjustment for me. I had previously gone to school in a much larger school district and the class structure was quite a bit different. Of course, like any new kid at a school, I knew no one and had no friends. I don’t know what it was that brought us together, but I soon became friends with a kid named James, and we were pretty much best buds from then on out.
We were a small class. I can’t find my senior yearbook at the moment, but I think my graduating class was around 36 kids. My wife finds it hard to imagine what my high school experience was like. She graduated with a group of over 450. The thought of a school with that many people freaks me out a bit. Since we were such a small class, and a small school, everyone knew everyone else. Just about everyone got along with each other, even if we did really hang out. I pretty much always struggled with trying to fit in or dealing with the fact that I felt like I didn’t fit in. I never really felt like I wasn’t liked, just that I was an odd ball.
I wasn’t athletic at all. Hanging out around the jocks was really not fun for me. If I was going to get picked on by a group, it was them. The band geeks were nice, but I wasn’t in the high school band, so I didn’t really hang out with them much either. I don’t really know why, but I was never interested in the party scene. In a small town, that’s pretty much all there is to do on a Friday or Saturday night. So, as I said, I just felt out of place. I was a geek, but that was before geeks were cool. Geeks are cool now, right? Read More…
28- Do You Want to Punch it Out, or Hug it Out?
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my favorite cookie is oatmeal raisin, 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 story of conflict and confession. Friday...
27- A Perspective on Perspective
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When I was in seventh grade one of my teachers thought it would be good to teach our class a lesson on perspective. She gave each of us a glass and had us fill it up half way with water. She then asked us to carefully study the glass of water. After we had time to study the glass of water she asked us a simple question. She wanted us to tell her if the glass was half full or half empty. She asked us to write our answer down on a piece of paper.
To me, this question was not as simple as she wanted it to be. No, I wasn’t one of those people who claimed that it was 100% full because what space was not filled with water was actually full of air. My problem was that I recognized that the cup was simultaneously half full AND half empty. The answer I wrote down was “both.” The teacher asked those who answered “half full” to raise their hands. She then asked those who answered “half empty” to raise their hands. She noticed that another girl and I did not raise our hands either time and asked us what answer we had given. It turned out that she had also written down, “both.”
While the answer we provided did not fit into the selection of choices that the teacher wanted, it was technically true. I wish I could say that the lesson the teacher gave us that day changed my life and opened my eyes to a powerful life lesson, but it didn’t. The only reason I remember the lesson is that I felt out of place by being only one of two people to come up with an odd answer. Read More…
26- Being Surrounded by Strong Peers
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I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about the state of Golden Spiral Media. If you’ve been listening to any of our podcasts for a while, you are probably aware of the work that Golden Spiral Media does. Just in case you aren’t here’s a brief synopsis. Golden Spiral Media works in two branches. One branch is this one, that is, the podcasting branch. From this branch we record and produce podcasts about TV, Film, family, and life. This currently includes The Revolution Podcast, Almost Human Podcast, We Have To Go Back Podcast, Triplecast, and this podcast.
The other branch of Golden Spiral Media is the branch I mentioned in the ad earlier. That branch focuses on helping others with their podcasts. It consists of consulting, website design, podcast production, custom artwork, and music.
It’s been almost one year since I left my regular day job so that I could put my full focus into Golden Spiral Media and both branches are growing nicely. Yes, I still have some room to grow before I fully make up for the income I lost when one of my clients scaled back their work, but I’m adding a new client about every 10 days or so. At this rate it won’t be long until I’ve surpassed what I was making before, and the business will be in a more stable position. Read More…
25- Friday Forum
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Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode I share contributions received from Jill, Ana, and Bonita. 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 my website, GoldenSpiralMedia.com. Read More…
24- Milestone Reflections
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Time really flies when you’re having fun, right? The first episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday was released on March 17, so that means that today marks the one month anniversary of Stuff I Learned Yesterday. This last month has been one of the most challenging and rewarding that I’ve had both personally and professionally. I’ve learned a lot about myself and some of you in the process. I don’t anticipate that I’ll do this type of retrospective episode every month, but I do think there is value in taking time to reflect. I’ll probably take time to reflect when I reach certain milestones like my 100th episode, 1 year anniversary, etc.
While Stuff I Learned Yesterday has the smallest audience size of any podcast I’ve ever done, it has already become one of the most rewarding podcasts for me. In case you’re wondering, Stuff I Learned Yesterday is the 8th podcast that Golden Spiral Media has done. Portable Orchard will likely not be coming back anytime soon, The Revolution Podcast and Almost Human Podcast will continue as long as NBC and FOX keep airing new episodes of those shows. Cutting the Cable may be making a comeback this summer. I’m currently looking at options for summer shows, and some of those options could involve bringing it back. Triplecast is currently being reworked as two new hosts are taking the helm. Some of you might be excited that some new outlines have been drawn up for new dadhacker episodes, so keep your fingers crossed that dadhacker will come back soon. The remaining show is, of course, The Fringe Podcast.
The Fringe Podcast was rewarding in many ways. It is the show that brought most of us together. Many online and in-person friendships were formed because of The Fringe Podcast. As much as I love Fringe and enjoyed talking about it over the course of 5 seasons, the relationships I formed with the podcast listeners will always be my very favorite thing. Read More…
23- The Halloween Candy Toilet Paper Mystery
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As I mentioned in an earlier episode, my parents divorced when I was 9. My dad remarried later that year, in December I think. Sometime after my parents divorced and before the next school year started, my dad moved us into a rent house in a small town. It was the town that my soon to be step-mom and her two kids lived.
I was going into 4th grade, my step-brother would be in 5th grade, my brother would be in 6th grade, and my step-sister would be a senior. Once my step-sister graduated high school she moved off to college and we only saw her occasionally. So for the most part, our home was just the three of us boys, each one grade apart.
During the time of that first school year when my dad and stepmom had not yet married, we were instructed to go to her house immediately after school. She lived right across the street from the school so this made sense. We would hang out with my soon to be step siblings and other neighborhood kids. Our parents would arrive home from work a couple of hours later and we’d have dinner. Eventually we’d go back to our house for the night.
This worked well and I didn’t mind not going home after school. There wasn’t much to do there anyway. But as every kid knows, between the time school starts and our favorite holiday, Christmas, sits one of the tastiest days of the year, Halloween. That year Halloween was great. I felt like I had scored the mother lode of candy. The only problem was, my dad made me keep it at our house, and we were specifically told not to go there after school. This created a problem for me. Read More…
22- Refusing To Be Defined By Tragedy
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Today’s story begins on an ordinary Wednesday, in an ordinary dorm room in 1995. I was nearly finished with my first year of college, and as the semester was drawing to a close, I had a few assignment deadlines approaching. One of the assignments was for a paper I had to write. I have no idea which class it was or what the paper was about.
What I do remember is that on this particular day I was up early trying to finish the paper before I headed off to work. It was shortly before 9am. I fired up the computer and turned on the local radio station. I sat there typing away for several minutes and didn’t think much of it when I heard a rumbling sound above me. I thought the guys in the room upstairs must have dragged something heavy across the floor.
A few minutes later there was an interruption on the radio. The morning DJ announced that a major explosion had just occurred in downtown Oklahoma City. It was now just a few minutes after 9am and 168 lives, 19 of them children, had just been lost as a Ryder truck filled with explosives was detonated at the base of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building. Read More…
21- The Journey From Crippled to Courageous
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Today’s episode is a story told from two perspectives. One perspective is mine, and the other is from a friend named Emilee. Some of you know her on Twitter or in our community as Fauxmeonce.
I asked Emilee if she’d be willing to share her side of this story with the idea that I would then weave them together in a This American Life sort of way. We did not compare notes or talk about what each of us would say. She sent me her perspective of the story and I chronicled my side. Only after I had finished my side of the story did I look at what she said. It brought me to tears. Here’s the story: Read More…
20- Friday Forum
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The Friday Forum is here! Thanks to everyone that has sent in a Friday Forum contribution. You can participate in Friday Forum 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 my website, GoldenSpiralMedia.com. 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.
This week’s Friday forum contribution comes in from Mike and he shares a lesson learned after a recent trip to the doctor. I also share a brief lesson learned about the value in powering down your electronic devices. Read More…