Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Is it possible that one of the biggest threats to your family's health isn't in the pantry or the medicine cabinet, but in the way dinner gets served? During my lifetime, a shift has been happening in millions of kitchens, one that researchers have been tracking for decades, and the numbers are more dramatic than I thought. The post SILY 719- Pull Up a Chair appeared first on Golden Spiral Media-...

There's a tiny hidden house tucked at the base of a tree in Disneyland, built for a leprechaun who was never real. There's an empty enemy camp outside a starving city, packed with food nobody touched until four outcasts broke their silence. Today I'm talking about the danger of keeping good news to yourself, and why the best thing you can do with something good, is give it away. The post SILY 718-...

Years ago when I first started podcasting, I would constantly look at the download numbers and as I was pulling them up, I’d get butterflies in my stomach. Downloads up, good day. Downloads down, bad day. I'd refresh the analytics page like it was going to tell me something about my worth as a human being. I eventually saw past that trap and rarely gave my podcasts stats much thought or weight. Bu...

We all have a story we tell ourselves about who we are and what we're capable of. Or what we’re NOT capable of.  Mine started with a bad coworker and calcified over a decade into something I never questioned again, until I was faced with a situation that forced me to look at myself with fresh eyes. Today's episode is about the slow, quiet way we talk ourselves out of skills we're fully capable of...

It’s been said that a manual transmission is basically an anti-theft device these days. And it turns out, learning to drive one taught me way more than just how to work a clutch. It took three different people, a driveway full of stalled engines, and one very specific hill in my hometown to teach me something about frustration, trust, and what it really looks like to help someone else find their w...

It’s funny how your mind wanders when you’re sitting in a reclined position with sharp instruments and hands cramped in your mouth, loading your taste buds with the flavor of latex. I was recently at the dentist for my regular cleaning, and that experience helped me process today’s story. What I have for you is most certainly more enjoyable than a trip to the dentist. The post SILY 714- Church of...

It’s the fifth Monday of August, and that means it’s Monday Mailbag day! We have one piece of mail in the bag this time and it comes in from Jeff. The post SILY 713- Monday Mailbag appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More .

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, which means that we often put pressure on ourselves when we’re meeting someone for the first time that we consider important. And sometimes that person feels the exact same pressure about meeting you. Today's story is about one of those encounters, and everything that's happened since.  The post SILY 712- A Noodle Story appeared first on Go...

I have spent more than a decade helping other people communicate clearly. Which makes it a little embarrassing to admit that I once talked for thirty minutes straight and never said the one thing that actually mattered. My wife stopped me with a single question, and I didn't have an answer for it. It took me a few years, a rebuilt website, and a coach to finally understand what she was really aski...

One year ago, almost to the day, I sat down and wrote about cookies. Except I wasn't really writing about cookies. I was writing about my daughter. The premise was simple. We all mature at different rates on different things, and just like a good batch of cookies, sometimes we need more time in the oven to become what we're meant to be. You don't throw the batch out. You give it more heat and more...

Wise. Warrior. Dancer. Husband. Father. Musician. Murderer. Songwriter. Leader. Adulterer. Victim. Full of mercy. Crazy. Cunning. Liar. Full of pride. Humble. All of these words describe the same person. It's a person I strive to be like, and it's the subject of today's story. Intrigued? The post SILY 709- Heart of the Matter appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technolog...

Walking out of Star Wars Land after the fireworks, I genuinely wondered if this was the moment we called it a night. We'd been in the parks for over twelve hours. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else and wished I’d find one of those hover chairs from Wall-E to melt into. I was ready to wave a white flag made out of a churro wrapper. The post SILY 708- Surviving Disneyland appeared first...

When you run your own business, there's a version of the struggle that you can push through with sheer willpower and optimism. But after a while, the optimism gets harder to manufacture. The bank account tells a different story than the one you keep rehearsing in your head, and eventually, the story the bank account is telling starts to feel more real. That's where I was a few months ago when the...

I love Batman and my favorite Batman is Michael Keaton. But it’s not just his portrayal of Batman and Bruce Wayne that I love. I love Tim Burton’s art style and direction and I absolutely love Danny Elfman’s musical score. But my favorite piece of that score is not one that you’ll find in either Batman or Batman Returns. It’s a version that is only found here in Oklahoma each fall on the grounds s...

The great poets Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey offered up sage advice to “Take it easy, take it easy. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. Lighten up while you still can. Don’t even try to understand. Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy.” It’s good advice for sure. Jesus also had some wisdom that he shared about taking it easy, and today we’re taking a look at J...

It’s the fifth Monday of June, and that means it’s Monday Mailbag day! We have a full mailbag today, with contributions from Jeff, Bradley, Andrew and first time contributor Ollie. So let’s get started! The post 704- Monday Mailbag appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More .

September 22, 2004 is a date will always live in infamy. It's the day that set off a chain of events, a long, winding, beautifully unpredictable thread, that eventually led both you and me to this very moment right now. To this podcast. To this community. To each other. It was a day for which I will always be grateful. The post SILY 703- Found appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment P...

Today I'm sharing something I've never talked about publicly. It's a story I almost waited to tell, because honestly, we're still in the middle of it. But I've come to believe that sometimes the most valuable lessons aren't the ones you share from the other side of the mountain. They're the ones you share from the climb. The post SILY 702- System Failure appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Ente...

I want to tell you about a pair of hands. Hands that could lay a straight line of carpet across a living room floor, split a cord of firewood without breaking a sweat, or coax a stubborn CV joint back into place with nothing but basic tools and a whole lot of patience. Those were my dad's hands. The post SILY 701- Hands of a Father appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Tec...

Have you ever looked back at a season of your life that felt like a total waste? The season left you with feelings of frustration and regret? I've been thinking about that a lot lately, so you know I had to write a SILY about it. The post SILY 700- Mountains of Meatloaf appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More .

Have you ever been so deep into something that walking away felt impossible, even when everything inside you knew it wasn't working? Maybe it was a job, a relationship, a project, a bad movie you sat through anyway because you'd already watched an hour and a half of it. There's actually a name for that trap, and today's episode is all about it. The post SILY 699- The Clean Slate appeared first on...

A few years ago I was faced with a decision I knew was important. It consumed me. I spent weeks thinking about it. I consulted friends, colleagues, and professionals. I knew the stakes and I didn't want to mess it up. Finally, after carefully weighing the situation, I made my decision. And it didn't take long to realize that despite all my best efforts, I'd made the wrong choice. Fortunately, a vo...

Sometimes the most important moment of your life doesn't feel like a moment at all. For me, it was a phone call I wasn't even on, made by two people who simply noticed a kid who needed someone to show up. This is the story of the summer that changed everything. The post SILY 697- The Summer That Changed Everything appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts &...

September 11th was an impact event. Kennedy's assassination was an impact event. We trust the accounts of those events from people who were there, even decades later, because impact events don't fade. If Jesus rose from the dead, that was the most profound impact event in human history. And the people who wrote about it did so at personal cost  while eyewitnesses to the event were still alive to v...

When he was only 16 years old, C.S. Lewis had his first vision of what would become the land of Narnia. Just a mental image. A faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. That's it. That's all he had. I recently had a dream about a mason jar full of honey. And when I woke up, I had to immediately write it down. We won't be visiting anything like Narnia today. There are no fauns, no pack...