Stuff I Learned Yesterday

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 cours...

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 under...

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. You know what I love? T-shirts. I don’t know who invented them, but I know who has a nearly perfect supply of them...

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...

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 cu...

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...

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,...

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 P...

I’m really excited about Podcast Movement. As the days tick by and Podcast Movement draws closer, my excitement grows. I love the opportunity to learn from other people and this conference will have some amazing leaders and teachers. The thing I look forward to the most is meeting new people and reconnecting with others. I learned quite a while ago that the best moments from conferences are normal...

Have you heard the philosophy that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react? I believe in this idea 100 percent. I’ve noticed that people who believe in this idea are happier, pleasant to be around, and even more successful in everything they do. Sure, I’ve found that it’s easier to believe in this philosophy when things are good, and not as easy when life gets hard. But...

When I was growing up I can remember talking with my friends about what we thought our families would be like when we got older and what we thought life would be like when we graduated. I thought that I’d graduate high school, go to college for 4 years, find the right girl along the way and get married when I was around 22. I then thought after I’d been married for a few years that I’d have kids....

It’s been exactly 30 episodes since the last time I talked about my flower beds. When I first mentioned my flower beds and my neighbor with the green thumb back in episode 31, I mentioned that I was committed to the hard work and dedication it would take to keeping the plants alive and making sure the flower beds were more beautiful than they’d ever been. It’s been nearly 3 months since I recorded...

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I’ve never traveled outside of the US but hope to do so one day, 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. When it comes to your website, you want to make sure you’re hosting it with a company that is...

I love my job. As you know, I left my job of nearly 19 years in May of 2013 so that I could become an entrepreneur. I had the dream of making a career out of podcasting and it’s been a great first year. I’ve acquired several new clients over the last year, and I’ve been privileged to help a lot of people start or improve their podcast. It’s fun to think about the relationships I’ve formed, especia...

Have you ever had someone ask you question that rocked your world? I have. I was asked a simple question by a guy I had never met before and it changed my life. Several years ago I had a job that just wasn’t working out for me. There wasn’t anything wrong with the company, the people I worked with or even the job itself. It just wasn’t a good fit for me. I had been looking for a way out but didn’t...

I mentioned in a previous episode that I sing and play guitar at my church. What I didn’t tell you is that I’m the worship leader and I’m, shall we say, rhythmically challenged. Most of the time I’m fine. That’s not to say that I alway keep in rhythm. I don’t. I have a tendency to speed up as a song goes on. I have to really focus to keep from speeding up the tempo. However, speeding up the tempo...

I played golf over the weekend. You might be impressed to hear that I shot a 68. You might be less impressed to hear that that is just my score for the first 9 holes. In case you don’t really know that much about golf, professional golfers will easily score below 68 for an entire round of 18 holes. Unfortunately for me, golf is one of those sports where a higher score is better. I really enjoy pla...

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my favorite Dum Dum flavor is root beer, 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. Stuff I Learned Yesterday is brought to you by Golden Spiral Media. Not only does Golden Spiral Media host and produc...

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separ...

Just last week I was at my favorite coffee shop. I ordered my usual cup of black coffee and sat down at my favorite table to get some work done. At the table next to me there were two men enjoying coffee and chatting away. One of the guys was younger and one was a little older, perhaps a father son relationship, I don’t really know, but it was clear that the older one was a sort of mentor or teach...

Are you ready for a lesson on auto repair troubleshooting? Good. There are 3 things required to make an engine operate: air, fuel, and spark. These three things not only have to be present, but they have to be combined in just the right way at just the right time. If you have just 2 of them, you get to call a cab, hop on a bike, or take off walking. Last Saturday the kids and I hopped into my car...

I just published episode 48 of We Have To Go Back Podcast which is the LOST podcast I do with my wife. We love LOST. We love LOST so much that when we found out last fall that a get together was being planned in Honolulu for the 10th anniversary of the LOST premiere, we immediately started making plans to attend the event. This is a big deal for us for several reasons. We’ve never traveled anywher...

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 finan...

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 t...

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...