Stuff I Learned Yesterday

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

Today's episode is titled, The Contagious Smile of the Garbage Whistler. I want to tell you a lesson I learned, or relearned as this case may be, while I was recently in Las Vegas for New Media Expo 2014. I've gone to New Media Expo the last three years, the first year I attended it was still called Blogworld. I've always found it to be a great use of my time. It's a time that I get to meet and share ideas with other people like me; other podcasters, online content creators, and those who aspire to share their message with the world. This last bit, the bit about sharing a message with the world, is something that had been on my mind for quite a while, at least a year. When I started podcasting in 2008, I had no idea how it would change my life. At the time it was either spend a bit of money on season tickets for the Oklahoma Sooners football team, or buy some podcasting equipment. I chose podcasting and it's one of the best decisions I've ever made. Read More... The post 01- The Contagious Smile of the Garbag