Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday is a Friday Flashback. Friday Flashback episodes feature some of the most popular episodes of Stuff I Learned Yesterday. Today we take a trip back to an episode that we ran last December from Mark DesCotes. It’s an episode where Mark used a story from his daughter's volleyball tournament that helped him realize that everyone is in a hurry these days. It’s Stuff I Learned Yesterday Episode 363-Have Patience and Slow Down. Read More...

As I write this we’re in the process of deChristmasifinication—a term I made up several years ago to describe the arduous process of putting (placing, cramming) all of the Christmas decorations back in their eleven-month storage spot. In my house our stuff takes up an amazing amount of space and every year I’m both happy and sad to see it all go.Read More...

Music may not be the central focus of your life. But if you stop and think about it you will realize the power of music has a huge impact in your life. Our lives don’t have an epic John Williams, Hans Zimmer, or Bear McCreary soundtrack playing as we go about our lives. Or does it? Read more…

It takes only a small gesture to positively influence your own or someone else's life - just changing your hot cocoa mug to a different color can make your enjoyment of an already delicious beverage even sweeter. Well, during a very normal conversation in my car recently, something equally small really made me stop and think. It was early afternoon on a Thursday. I had just picked up my daughter, Lila, who’s in second grade, from her elementary school, and as we often do on our drive home, we were talking about the highlights of the day. In between all the discussions of the fun she had in technology class and what games she played during recess, Lila announced with a great amount of enthusiasm, “Mom put a raspberry in with my blackberries in my lunchbox!” Now my wife is always very careful to pack Lila nutritious things in her lunch, but the fruits are pretty much interchangeable depending on what’s seasonal and available at the grocery store. Lila enjoys raspberries and blackberries equally; in fact, blackberries might have a slight edge in her order of fruit preferences. So why would one red raspberry sitting atop her container of blackberries cause such a moment of happiness? Read more...

Today's episode will be a bit different. Rather than share a story of a lesson from my own life, I'm having a conversation with my 11 year old son, Colby. His team won the state academic championship over the weekend, but had to overcome some significant hurdles while doing it. I was really inspired by not only the positivity and resilience of the team of 6th graders, but I was also inspired by the actions of their coach. What was Colby thinking throughout the whole day? Did he lose focus or confidence? Did he give up or think they were going to lose? What did he learn during the process? Let's find out! Read More...

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Bonita.  Bonita shares lessons she's learning about parenting as one of her children becomes an adult. You can participate in the Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More...

Starting right is important. Frank Herbert’s “Dune” beginning saying “A beginning is a very delicate time.” Much rides on how we start things, but we must start. So how do we focus on starting right? Read more…

Have you ever been confronted with a monumental task that you’ve procrastinated on for so long that as more time passes, the job keeps getting bigger and bigger? Perhaps you have a backlog in your filing at work, or maybe you have a dripping faucet that you just haven’t gotten around to fixing, or you’re dreading the prospect of having to call a plumber. Perhaps you’ve let the bills pile up and some of them are past due, and you can’t seem to get ahead of the deadlines, making the financial burden worse than it would have been. The stress of an unfinished project can be paralyzing, and the obstacles in your way are as varied as the examples I just listed. Sometimes, your schedule is just so busy you don’t know when you’re going to find the time to tackle the task. Other times, money is the issue, and timing things in your monthly budget would require an MBA. But most of the time it’s just the sheer magnitude of what you’re trying to confront that becomes too daunting to mentally get past. You want to knock out the entire task and be done with it, but it’s just too darn BIG! Read more...

When I married Derek, we ended up having a lot of duplicate stuff, as many newly married couples do. Now, Derek is a self-proclaimed minimiliist. He used to take pride in saying that he only has three shirts. Clutter was the worst thing in the world to him. So when we got married, we ended up getting rid of some of my stuff, which was hard, but I still held on to quite a bit. Eventually, we planned on taking an epic road trip across the county in a travel trailer. And somehow we came to the decision that we should get rid of half of our stuff before taking off. I agreed, but I didn’t know how I was going to handle it emotionally. Read More...

A few weeks ago I got an email from a local friend of mine who needed some help with a project. They are going to be relocating their office this year, and he wanted some help figuring out how to properly record in their new space which will have a classroom space for training seminars and workshops. He invited me to join him at the location of another local company that has a similar setup, and will in all likelihood be sharing some of the new office space with him. I happily joined him and looked forward to seeing how I could help them, spending some time hanging out with my friend, and learning a few things during the workshop that was being presented. Read More...

Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a contribution from Jason.  Jason shares a story about breaking through fear and learning from constructive feedback. You can participate in the Friday Forum by visiting our Feedback Page or calling our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. Read More...

I grew up in the church and we have a phrase, “mountain top experiences.” It is used to describe times of intense emotions, spiritual breakthrough and growth. Growing up and even as an adult I have had many. I cherish them, but the challenge is coming back down or serving others in the midst of them. It’s hard to go back to the valley. Read more…

I started my new job on February 1st. For those Stuff I Learned Yesterday faithful you’ll remember that I talked about my journey through unemployment on Episode 375 that posted on December 16, 2015. This turn in my career path is significant for many reasons so let me give you a little bit of my history. When I started as a student in college one of my best friends, who was two years ahead of me asked me if I could sit for three hours a week and take loan applications. Sure, I said. That started what would turn into more than 25 years of service in the credit union movement. For school it was all-volunteer but it was learning everything that made a credit union run the way it does. After school it was becoming a loan officer then a Vice President at a municipal employees credit union where I really learned what it meant to serve and lead people all at the same time. From there I took over as CEO of the credit union for the Food Lion grocery store employees and their families. It was an amazing eleven years where I grew our small staff into a real family that supported and challenged one another all the time. I had many, many wins and more than a few face-palm moments. It’s hard to sum up 11 years into a few concise thoughts. Suffice to say I look back and smile a lot.  Read More...

I discovered quickly that not everyone gets excited when a someone offers a course, product, or service in their field. And I started letting some of the negative feedback get to me. I found myself feeling like an imposter, which is especially hard for someone like me who, for some reason, was under the impression that if I created something, of course everyone would love it. I found myself asking questions like, “Who am I to teach this stuff? Why would anyone listen to me?” I thought, “I’m not qualified to be in this space, especially compared to [fill-in-the-blank awesome legendary teacher].” But, in light of some of this negative, or at least less than positive chatter, I was getting notes from people who had taken my class and attended my webinar saying things like, “Thank you so much for putting on this class! I feel like I have a direction and goal in my life now, and I know have support along the way,” and “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you, thanks for providing this course!” In addition to that, in the quiet moments, when it was just me working on my course without any outside noise, I was loving it. I truly enjoyed the process of creating the course and making it available for others to learn from. Read More...

The first official leg of the Drones World Tour kicked off in Mexico City on November 17, 18, 20, and 21. The band then had just over a week before their next concert which took place in Houston on December 1st. Our Dallas concert took place the very next night after Houston on December 2nd. When we arrived at the arena, we noticed signs on the doors that said due to technical and logistic difficulties from the previous night in Houston and during set-up in Dallas, the show would not be starting on time. Not only that, but the opening act, Phantogram, had been scrubbed from the Dallas show completely. The doors were originally scheduled to open at 6. They ended up opening the doors at 9, and Muse didn’t take the stage until 10:40pm. Read More...