Stuff I Learned Yesterday

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 Forum Friday Forum is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE […]

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Are you up for one more Chicago story? This is the last one for a while…I think. Remember a couple of episodes ago when I said that I want my kids to put others before themselves and make a positive impact on society? I know that the best way for them to learn that behavior is to see it demonstrated in me or my wife, Kari. The thing is, I don’t think I’m particularly good at this. It’s not that I don’t care about other people or don’t like putting others first, I do. I think I’m pretty good about considering the feelings and thoughts of others most of the time, but I don’t know that I do a good job of demonstrating the behavior and teaching my kids. I’ve taught them simple things like the seemingly forgotten courtesy of opening the door for others. I’ve taught them to always allow people off the elevator before you go in. I’ve taught them about being considerate of other drivers. I look at those as situational courtesy, and hope that they’ll teach principles that will flow down into everyday situations. Read More...

One of the things that my dad always taught me is to live within your means.  He told me to never use a credit card unless I could pay off the full balance when the bill came in.  He told me to save for the things that I wanted and buy them after I had saved the money.  He told me to be content with what I had and not be jealous of things other people had.  These are are all very sound financial principles. I’m pretty conservative with my purchases, but money does burn a hole in my pocket faster than it will my wife.  She is very frugal.  She hates to shop, will wear clothes that are terribly out of style if they still fit and aren’t worn out, and she will talk herself out of buying just about anything that isn’t absolutely necessary.  When we first got married I would buy her gift cards to clothing stores for Christmas or her birthday so she could go buy something she liked.  She never spent them.  On the rare occasion she did spend them, it was when MY birthday had rolled around and she’d use it to buy me something.  I then switched to picking out and buying clothes for her instead of gift cards. I can’t express how important it has been in our marriage to be in such agreement about money.  Most couples fight most about money, and since we both have the same money principles, we almost never argue.   I mentioned on Friday’s show and Monday’s show that one of my clients had cut back the work that I’d been doing for them.  While this is certainly a situation that I wish had not occurred, it is the way of life for us now that I am self employed.  I no longer have a steady paycheck, but depend on work from clients.  If something happens to their situation, it will trickle down and affect my situation. Read More...

As I mentioned in yesterday’s episode, today’s lesson also came this past weekend while I was visiting Chicago with my daughter.  One thing I didn’t mention in yesterday’s episode was that doing the meetup was not my idea.  I did mention that Matthew organized the event, but I think I should clarify that the whole event was led by three Golden Spiral Media listeners, Matthew, Emilee, and Melissa. I think it’s amazingly cool that our listeners want to hang out so much that they took it upon themselves to organize a meetup and planned to hang out whether I was there or not.  In fact, last year they did that very thing.  I was in Seattle and couldn’t attend the meetup they organized last year.  When I found out that they were planning another event this year, I immediately started making plans to attend. I mentioned the event during dinner one night and my daughter immediately perked up and asked if she could go too.  I had already thought that it would be cool to take one of the kids with me, and Kari agreed that it was a good idea.  Taking Addison along with me would serve a few purposes.  First, we’re planning a trip to Hawaii next fall and our kids have never flown before.  Colby seems to not really be worried about it, but Addison was a bit unsettled at the thought of her first flight being such a long one that would be over a large body of water. Read More...

I am exhausted.  I am encouraged.  I am inspired.  I am feeling blessed.  All of these things things are because of the same thing.  I just returned home from spending the weekend in Chicago where I got to spend some great one on one time with my daughter, Addison, eat some of Chicago’s tastiest pizza, and meet and hangout with some wonderful members of the Golden Spiral Media Community. When I started podcasting in 2008 I had no idea that it would lead me down such a life changing path.  I thought it would be cool to podcast with some friends and that we might even get a few folks to listen to us.  I never thought I would care so deeply about the listeners of our podcast, or that they would care so much about me.   The last 15 months have been the best and most rewarding that I’ve ever experienced as a podcaster.  When we announced that we were doing a party for the finale of Fringe, I really wasn’t sure what to expect.  Would we have a thousand people show up, or would we have 3 people show up?  Would people actually come to Oklahoma City?  Would it be something that people reflect on fondly, or would it be a train wreck that they look back on as a waste of time. Read More...

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 contributions come in from from Ben, Mike, and Mark. Ben shares a story of a recent trip to a pro-am golf event with the lesson of giving up, or moving forward. Mike shares the story of creating a video of memories of his grandma and the lesson of keeping it authentic when learning new skills. Mark shares a challenge to find someone and pay them a compliment this weekend. Read More...

I could make today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday really short and sweet.  If you don’t ask, you won’t receive.  I mean, that’s not the way it works 100% of the time, but it’s a pretty solid statement.  I would say that the vast majority of the time, if you don’t ask, you won’t get what you seek.  Let me share an example that drastically impacted my life. This story begins in the fall of 2012.  During that time of my life I was very discontent with my job at the bookstore and focused on building a career in new media.  Things were progressing, but not quickly enough for my satisfaction.  I was really struggling.  I it was either late October or early November.  I had no desire to go through another Christmas season in retail, but at that point there was no way to avoid it.  There was one morning in particular that I was getting ready for work and it was the last place I wanted to be.  My heart wasn’t there.  My passion for  that career had gone.   The truth is, nearly every morning had been that way for a while, and as the Christmas season grew nearer, my discontent grew stronger.  Each morning before going to work I would spend time in prayer.  I would ask God to help me deal with the situation.  That he would give me patience and wisdom.  I wanted to ask him to give me an opportunity to follow my passion of new media, but I just couldn’t.   I couldn’t ask God for another opportunity because I felt like doing so would be selfish.  The truth is, my job was great.  It was a steady paycheck and a comfortable salary with a company that had values and a mission that I believed in.  Yes, there were a few people there that I thought were bad apples, but the majority of the people there were great.  The people in my department were awesome.  Most people would want the type of job that I had.  To ask for something else would be out of line. Read More...