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.
75- Friday Forum
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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I once got kicked out of a fast food restaurant for starting a food fight, 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.
Golden Spiral Media now has a Patreon page! Patreon provides a way for you to financially support Golden Spiral Media for as little as $1 a month. In return, we’ll be able to do some cool things and improve some of the things that we do. Additionally, you’ll get some cool stuff in return for your support. Head over to www.goldenspiralmedia.com/patreon for more info.
Friday Forum
Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share two Friday Forum contributions that fall into the category of “stuff I didn’t expect to ever receive for the Friday Forum.” You can participate in Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More…
74- The Beautiful View of a Happy Accident
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About 10 years or so ago I was working at the bookstore and I had just been promoted and given the responsibility of organizing the e-commerce operations for the company. Our company had its own distribution warehouse and it was designed to send one massive order to each store every week. It was not at all designed to send several small orders to customers all over the country every day.
We knew that it would take a lot of work to scope out the features of the website, build the databases, design the front end, design and connect all of the APIs and hooks into our inventory management system, and many other things that would be necessary before we could start selling online. We decided that while that stuff was being done, we could go ahead and generate some income and learn some operational procedures by selling on third party marketplaces like eBay and Amazon.
Amazon had a third party sellers conference each year and we thought it would be good for us to attend. Since I’d only been at my current position for about 3 months and I was working closely with the president of the company, we decided that both of us would attend the conference.
I had never been to Seattle before, or anywhere in the Pacific Northwest for that matter. I was really looking forward to the trip. I had mixed feelings about traveling with the company president. On one hand, he and I got along really well and had a good rapport, on the other hand, I was apprehensive about it. I didn’t know if he ever took the tie off and relaxed, or if he would be working the entire time we were there. I wanted to see a few things while we were there, but I knew that business duties had to come first. Read More…
73- The Sailor and the Farmer
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When it comes to making choices in my life I sometimes feel like I am in the drivers seat and fully in control of everything that is happening. Other times I feel totally out of control, like I’m in the back seat watching the car that is my life run off the road and into a ditch.
There are days when it all goes my way and days that I would rather forget ever happened. I struggle to makes sense of my own free will and the hand that life has dealt me. I’ve got my own control issues, but that’s a topic for another day.
Today I’d like to tell you two stories. Two stories that illustrate what The Sailor and The Famer have in common with each other. We’ll see if we can’t shed some light on the battle between free will and being tossed around in a river of predetermined circumstances.
Imagine with me the first person that attached sails or sheets or whatever he used to a boat. Everyone must have thought he was crazy.
“You can’t control the wind, how do you know you will be able to make it back to the shore! You are wasting your time, what if there is a storm or no wind at all?” The people must have said.
Surly the first person to try to sail a boat had doubts of his own. In the back of his mind he must have thought there was a chance he would be blown off the end of the Earth.
Now imagine with me the first farmer. Read More…
72- Impacting Your World
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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. Read More…
71- Stop Collaborate and Listen
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Today’s episode is going to take a similar direction as episode 26. In that episode I spoke about the importance of being surrounded by strong peers. I want to talk about this topic again today because it’s that important. It’s important in every single aspect of our lives. I want tell you about some things that have happened over the last two weeks that have made me realize just how important this is. Now, stay with me on this. The first part of this may seem like a Golden Spiral Media infomercial, but I promise it has a point.
One month ago today we published our review of the final episode of Revolution. When we recorded and released that episode I didn’t know what the future looked like for us. Of course, I can’t see the future, but I mean that I didn’t even know what podcasts we’d be doing over the summer. At that point I had spoken with Emilee about possibly doing Falling Skies but we had not yet finalized our plans. I had had a very preliminary conversation with Doug Payton about Under the Dome and had a very preliminary conversation with Brian Kane about possibly doing something. Now here we are just one month later and we have more podcasts going at one time than we’ve ever had in our history.
Emilee and I will be recording our podcast for the Falling Skies season 4 premiere tomorrow night. You can join us for that live recording at 8pm eastern over at www.goldenspiralmedia.com/live. We’ll begin the live show with an interview with Doug Jones, the actor who plays Cochise. We also already have 2 episodes available that recap the series to date.
Brian Kane and Kevin Bachelder recorded the first episode of Arrow Squad last week. I’m not an Arrow fan. I saw the pilot at comic con a few years ago and liked it, but never got into the show. Having said that, I LOVED their first episode. I highly encourage you to check it out. Look for new episodes from them about once a week. Read More…
70- Friday Forum Father’s Day Edition
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Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share stories submitted about dads. 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.Read More…
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…