Stuff I Learned Yesterday

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 post 21- The Journey From Crippled to Courageous appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & 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... The post 20- Friday Forum appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & 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 situation

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 s

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 th

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 peopl

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... The post 15- Friday Forum a

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 f

I recorded the first episode of The Fringe Podcast speaking directly into the digital recorder while standing in my closet.  I thought the clothes in the closet would help absorb any echo from my voice, and also drown out the noise from my kids in the other room.  Jason ended up not wanting to drive to my house each week, and never even used the equipment he’d help pay for.   We would bring him in via Skype each week. There is so much I didn’t know back then.  I had no idea how to get rid of that chirping electrical sound from our computers.  I didn’t know about shock mounts.  I had never even heard of a compressor/limiter/gate.  We landed an interview with actress Jasika Nicole about a month after the show premiered.  From an audio quality standpoint, that interview was and is a disaster.   In fact, it is such a disaster that when I was at new media expo 2014 I sat in on a session that had Ray Ortega as one of the panelists.  I was surprised when he mentioned this Fringe podcast that interviewed one of the a

Today I have not one story to share with you, but two.  On the surface, these two stories seem completely unrelated.  Honestly, I suppose they are completely unrelated.  The first story took place nearly 30 years ago.  The second story took place 2 weeks ago.  As I thought about what I learned from the recent story, it reminded me of the older story.  I think they share a common thread, so I’m including both of them in today’s episode. The first story took place when I was probably 8 to 10 years old.  My brother and I always spent a lot of time with my grandparents, that is, my dad’s mom and stepdad.  My mom’s parents lived in California, and I only remember meeting them one time.  There were a couple of other times I met them, but just like my Disneyland experience, I was too young to remember.  My step grandpa was the only grandpa I ever knew, and never considered him  anything other than my real blood related grandpa.  Because they lived here in Oklahoma, they’ve always been a close and important part of m

If you’ve listened to all the episodes of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, then by now you know that I spent a good chunk of my life working for a bookstore.  I started out as a part-time cashier, worked my way up to store manager, worked as a buyer for a short time, and then worked as the e-commerce director.  Many of you also know that after nearly 19 years with the company, I left there almost one year ago.  In fact, this Saturday, April 5th, will mark the one year anniversary of the day I turned in my resignation. My decision to leave the bookstore was not easy nor was it made quickly.  A few years ago I started a business that I hoped would help transition me from the bookstore to being full-time self employed.  That business is a website design company called Dramatic Traffic.  I still own it and have local clients that I serve under that name.  Most of my new clients are served under the more widely known company I own, Golden Spiral Media.   To help grow Dramatic Traffic locally, I joined a Wednesday mornin

Thanks to everyone that has sent in a Friday Forum contribution.  If you submitted a Friday Forum and don’t hear it on the show today, don’t worry.  I still have it and will very likely use it on next week’s Friday Forum episode.  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 come to us from Mark.  Mark sent in a story that’s long enough to take up the entire duration of today’s show.  While it’s perfectly okay that Mark’s story is this long, please don’t think that your Friday Forum story has to be this long.  In fact, for most Friday Forum episodes,

There was one particular stretch of time though that was challenging.  It started when we  set up a new store in Denton, TX.  Denton was close, only about 2.5 hours away from home.  The setup took a month, and that included staying a week or so after the store opened so that we could be there to assist the new employees as customers started arriving.  We would travel down to Denton on Sunday and come home either Friday night or Saturday afternoon.  This gave us a day to spend with our families before we headed back to Denton. Now, not all of the setup crew was from Oklahoma City.  The company pulled in top employees from all over the company to come help set up new stores.  Two of us from the Oklahoma City market were part of the team so we would ride down together and room together once we arrived.  My traveling partner for that four week stretch was a good friend of mine named Ben. Ben and I had a lot in common and being around him really made the drive time pass more quickly.  We were both competitive, so

We have tried very hard to teach our kids to think of others before themselves, don’t do things to other people that you wouldn’t want done to you, be responsible for their own behavior, treat everyone with respect, and to never, ever be afraid to wear a Doctor Who shirt in public.  We all know that as parents, our kids are observing us and learning from us.  Sometimes they’re picking up our bad habits, but hopefully, if we do our job right, we’re teaching them those things that are good and noble and honorable. Of course, none of us as humans or as parents are perfect, so sometimes I screw up as a parent.  But the story I want to share today is about one of those times where I got it right. Dallas Comic-Con 2013 took place right around Mother’s Day and my wife thought that a good present for her would be to give her a weekend of relaxing at home...alone.  In fact, when I asked her what she thought about me taking the kids down to Dallas for Dallas Comic-con, her first words were, “Sounds like a great Mother’

Today’s story is one that I thought I’d get around to sharing eventually, but really didn’t think I’d be sharing it this early.  My mind was changed after I received this email (I’m withholding the name of the sender out of respect for her privacy): My name is [withheld] and I'm from Mexico. I follow several of your podcasts and find them really amusing and enjoyable. …  I have almost five years in a deep depression and started seeing a psychologist this past friday. One of my many issues is my relationship with my sister, which is almost inexistent, we might as well be strangers. Yesterday I asked my sister about this and for her I'm quite dramatic, boring, ridiculous and she have no interest in sharing her life with me. She doesn't understand why this affects me, I was shocked. Well, I think that's everything. Thank you for sharing your passion for so many wonderful series, thank you for make my life less miserable. First, I want to thank this listener for her courage to write in about such a difficult iss

Did you know that Jerry Seinfeld was booed off stage the first time he did stand up?  Did you know that Stephen King’s bestseller “Carrie” was rejected by publishers 30 times?  Or how about this one?  Thomas Edison failed at making the light bulb over 1000 times!  The Beatles were rejected by a music label and told they have “no future in show business.”  Walt Disney was fired and told that he lacked imagination and had no original ideas. There are many, many other stories of how now-famous people once failed miserably.  Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Abraham Lincoln, and Steve Jobs are just a few.  The stories of their failures have been widely circulated around the internet and often used to inspire others.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at those people and think that they have anything to do with ME.  I’m not a millionaire.  I’m not a famous author or inventor.  I’ve never won any awards, well, unless you count that podcasting award! The point is, if you’re like me, when you hear stories of famous peo

There are many things that I wish I had.  I wish I had a more energetic personality.  I wish I could play guitar, piano, and sing like Daryl Hall, I wish I had a mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.  they're so perky, I love that...and I wish I had the gift of encouragement. Now, I know that I can BE encouraging, and I hope that you find these podcasts, encouraging, but there are people out there that just have this gift of encouragement.  Those people that seem to always know what to say in those tough situations or moments when life has you down.  When the tables are turned and someone around me is struggling, I often find it difficult to figure out what to say.  It seems like anything I say is just trite or hollow. Read More... The post 05- The Power of Encouragement appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Ah, high school.  As I mentioned yesterday, those aren’t really days that I would ever care to repeat.  Even though I don’t want to repeat them, I did learn a lot and look back at most of those days as good days.  Adolescence is hard.  I don’t care how big of a town you live in or how stable your home is.  Teenage boys are hormonal, generally have short attention spans, have tons of energy, and generally would rather be any place other than school. It just so happened that my high school sophomore English/Lit class was the same time of day that the girls had their PE or elective.  This meant that my sophomore English/Lit teacher, Mr. Harrison had a room full 20 or smart mouthed, teenage boys who couldn’t care less about Shakespeare, Poe, Dickens, or Steinbeck.  I was naturally good at English, but didn’t really care much for literature.  Some of it was interesting, like Poe, Dickens, and Twain, but the poetry, and Shakespeare stuff was dull.  Please don’t hate me. Mr. Harrison was different than most teachers

What is your proudest moment? Perhaps it is a professional achievement or recognition. Maybe it’s the day you reached a personal goal. Or maybe it was the day you overcame a gigantic obstacle. For me, it was the day I lost all my friends except one. Wait, what? That’s my proudest moment? Here’s the story. I grew up in a small town. I graduated with class of about 36. I tried to be athletic, but that didn’t work. The basketball coach and the other players would literally laugh at me as I tried to do the drills. I was never in the cool crowd. Most of the kids at school were nice enough, but I never really felt like I fit in. When I graduated high school I was insecure, and not exactly sure where life would take me, but I could not wait to get out of that small town and see what else was out there. I started attending the university in a town about 30 miles away, the town I still live in today. I enrolled as a Graphic Arts major with hopes to one day be an animator for Warner Brothers. I’d never taken a formal a

Today's episode is titled, The Day I Slew the Fear Dragon. If you enjoy comic books, sci-fi shows, the geeky side of pop culture, or super hero movies, then chances are that you know what comic con is. Many people associate the word comic con with a massive gathering of geeks and pop culture nerds each July in the sun bathed city of San Diego, California. But in reality, that event is actually called Comic Con International or even San Diego Comic Con. There are many comic cons happening all year round in cities all around the world. In 2013 I not only made my 3rd trip back to San Diego Comic Con, I attended Seattle's Emerald City Comic Con, Dallas Comic Con, and Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. There are many things to love about comic cons, and one of my favorites is the opportunity to see and often speak to the people that have worked tirelessly to create books, TV shows, and movies that I love. Sometimes these encounters with celebrities have come in one on one conversations, sometimes they've come