Podcast
Leaning Toward Wisdom
Hosted by Randy Cantrell · EN
Modern Tales Of An Ancient Pursuit
27episodes
Episodes
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The Ongoing Quest For Greater Wisdom
Dec 24, 202400:12:24Tap to summarize Happy New Year, 2025! In the fall of 1997, I uploaded my first audio under the tagline “Leaning Toward Wisdom.” It was my documentary, the journey of a 40-year-old dad desiring to pass along whatever lessons I might. Twenty-seven years later, I’m still unsure how successful the quest has been to lean more toward wisdom and away from foolishness. But life ain’t over yet, so let the leaning (and learning) continue. Thank you for joining the journey. I hope it benefits you. Please tell a friend about the podcast! • Join our private Facebook group • Email me
Transcribe →Am I Solving The Right Problem In This Relationship?
Dec 22, 202400:46:18Tap to summarize It started with a voicemail from a client. His message said, “I’ve got a situation – a problem. I could use your advice. Call me back.” The problem? A relationship. A couple of relationships. At some point during my questioning him, for my understanding, he stopped and said, “What I thought was the problem may not be the problem. Guess I’d better make sure I’m solving the right problem, huh?” That’s solid insight – especially when it’s a relationship problem. During the holiday season, relationships are often strained. It might be a good time to examine how we solve our relationship problems. Please tell a friend about the podcast! • Join our private Facebook group • Email me
Transcribe →Staying Around The Smart Spots
Dec 6, 202400:51:52Tap to summarize “My ambition didn’t allow me to fail,” said Jack Barsky, an ex-KGB spy who was a sleeper agent in the United States. Barsky was quite successful in avoiding detection. Until he was, then no amount of ambition would prevent authorities from moving in. He stayed around his smart spots for years, navigating North American culture to spy for the Soviet Union and his faith in communism. Barsky might argue that over time, he learned how corrupt and wretched communism was – and how he had been brainwashed to think the pursuit of Utopian socialism was the ideal course of action. Armed with high intelligence, Barsky figured out the need for his smart spots to change, so he changed his mind to become politically a modern-day conservative. We usually think of being smart around spots regarding achievement in business or some other pursuit. Barsky reminds us that being smart around spots can – and probably should be mostly focused – on our learning ability. To see things more clearly. To remedy our delusions. Too few of us are geniuses; even genius has a severe downside. Sometimes, we can be too smart to be wise. We may even become stupid in our genius. I’m thinking of serial killers like Ted Bundy, reputed to be high-IQ individuals who arrogantly thought they were smarter than law enforcement. But they were caught by mostly average intelligent people who stayed focused around their spots of expertise and training. With enough time and sufficient clues to follow, law enforcement often (thankfully) figures it out. As we’ve all heard about criminal behavior, criminals must remain lucky daily, while law enforcement often just needs one moment of luck to capture them. Thankfully, most of us aren’t Soviet (or even American) spies. Or criminals. We’re just ordinary Joes and Janes going about our everyday lives. I’ve realized that it may be an act of genius to a) recognize our smart spots, b) stay around those smart spots, and c) understand if/when those smart spots disappear or change. All of it is hard. Thomas Watson’s quote makes it sound far easier than it is. And given IBM’s success, I have little doubt he mostly accomplished it. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is said to have this quote posted on his refrigerator… “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” Perhaps Mr. Watson’s quote and that quote attributed to philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson are consistent. But Emerson’s quote sounds more difficult, doesn’t it? Seems downright daunting! Truth is, life is daunting. Success is hard. Failure is harder! Choose your hard. Please tell a friend about the podcast! • Join our private Facebook group • Email me
Transcribe →Will Video Kill The Audio Podcast?
Oct 17, 202400:59:18Tap to summarizehttps://randycantrell.com/inside-the-yellow-studio/ The link above is a comprehensive list of the gear inside The Yellow Studio. Assume every link is an affiliate link. Ironically, I chose to make this an audio, not a video. Yes, that was intentional. I hope you’ll click PLAY. It started in 1997. This podcast. It was a handheld Olympus digital recorder. No SD card. Just built-in memory. It was less than $100 and I’d been using it for a while to dictate work notes and ideas. Audio was easy. And cheap. Well, recording it was easy. Getting it online was a bit more cumbersome. Getting it off the Internet to listen was infinitely more difficult because we knew nothing of MP3, today’s defacto standard audio file format. My digital recorder used some funky format, but it was still possible to hear it from a website with a domain name a foot long, comprised of a bunch of letters and numbers (a free web page that came with my Internet service provider – ISP – Flashnet). Somebody other than my family found it because my first email came from somebody in Sweden. It blew my mind. It was all done with a digital recorder, a dail-up modem, and an Internet connection. Add in a bit of rudimentary HTML skills, so I could build an ugly website, and you had the first iteration of Leaning Toward Wisdom. I dubbed it that because it was what I was trying to do – lean more toward wisdom and away from foolishness. I was 40 years old and that was 27 years ago. Within a few years, I got serious. I registered LeaningTowardWisdom.com and invested a few thousand dollars (okay, probably closer to three thousand) for a rack of equipment and a couple of Heil PR40 mics (an amateur radio operator friend recommended them). That was The Yellow Studio for many years, recording into a Mac computer using software I can’t remember until I found Twisted Wave, a Mac audio recording/editing software recommended by a voiceover actor friend. I bumbled along for a few more years. My audio quality was a point of pride and I was regularly complimented for it thanks mostly to good room acoustics thanks to a ton of books AND to Aphex 230 voice processors (one for each mic, I had two). My broadcast workflow meant that whether I was on Skype (later Zoom) or recording, my audio quality was always the same. I went for years without investing anything more. That rack of gear and those two Heil microphones were stapmles inside The Yellow Studio for years. Audio was easy. And after that initial investment, cheap. The ongoing costs were maintaining domain names and website hosting (I hosted my own audio files for years before learning I should get a media host). Eventually, I found MapleGrove Partners thanks to a buddy, Jim Collison. They would host my site and my media files because they’re podcast-friendly like that. But beyond that, I had no real costs. People entered podcasting trying to figure out how to do it as cheaply as possible and I never understood it. I don’t hunt. Or fish. Or bowl. Or golf. I don’t collect anything (well, I once collected books…but only to read). I had no hobbies except this. That’s still the case. Buddies who were into all of those things (and more) would regularly spend hundreds or thousands of dollars every year. Most of them weren’t wealthy. They were just ordinary guys who enjoyed whatever they were in to. They didn’t think twice about investing in hobbies they loved. I loved podcasting and I had saved for a good while before buying my initial setup. Admittedly, I made a sizeable investment, but it was calculated, planned and well thought out. It stood the test of time, too. I produced untold podcast episodes with that rig. Then Rode, an Australian company, bought Aphex, the makers of my favorite vocal strips, responsible for how my podcast sounded. It didn’t affect me…until it did. Around 2019, Rode introduced a mixer with Aphex technology built in. Wait a minute, what? My thousands of dollars in a rack that sat just to my right could all be replaced by a single little mixer that would sit on my desk. All that cable could be replaced by just a few cables. I could connect my iPhone to it and take/record phone calls. And all for less than $1000. Sign me up. My audience here at Leaning Toward Wisdom helped me buy it. It was my first time ever asking for anything, but boy did the crowd respond. I was grateful. I knew I’d sell my rack of gear and more than offset buying that first Rodecaster Pro, but I needed the Rode mixer before I unplugged and sold everything or The Yellow Studio would be down. I didn’t want to miss a beat and the audience stepped up in a big way. In June 2021 I launched a new podcast – I had long had two, Leaning Toward Wisdom and Grow Great (my work podcast). This one was about a newly found favorite place, Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. I first discovered the Village in the Fall of 2018. We kept visiting and loving it more and more each time. It’s such a unique place I had so many questions that I couldn’t find answers to, I decided to find the answers and do it via a podcast, Hot Springs Village Inside Out. I dubbed it that because of 26,000 acres of awesomeness inside the Village and many miles of coolness outside, too. I recruited a guy who appeared to be right for a co-host, a Native Arkansas guy who lived in the Village and seemed to know quite a bit. He’d be my resident expert and I’d be myself, the naive curious guy who loved the place. So it began. And it grew. And grew some more. In time, it was the first podcast I’d ever done that I even thought about monetizing. We said YES to two sponsors (advertisers). They help us pay the bills and provide my co-host and me with what amounts to really crappy paying part-time jobs, but we could not be happier! They’re great. About 18 months ago I started getting itchy to elevate our show about the Village. It’s such a spectacular place audio just doesn’t do it justice. Our audience is largely folks who have never visited the place, but are interested in coming to visit. Some want to check it out to see if they might want to make it home. Besides, I wanted to capture the beauty and vibe of the place. That was going to require video. I’m an old audiophile who spent almost all my adult life in and around great-sounding stereo systems. So it’s no surprise that audio was my cup of tea. At the same time, I have to confess that when I was in junior high I got a super 8mm camera. Fifty feet of film, that had to be professionally developed, produced about 3 minutes of video. I had a projector, too. I shot as much video as I could afford, which wasn’t very much. My video bug goes way back, but audio was just more practical, more portable and cheaper. Hot Springs Village deserved and demanded video. I began a major research project. I asked millions of questions of dozens of photographers and videographers. I took copious notes. I kept asking questions. This was not going to be cheap! Some guys suggested gear that I knew I’d never able to operate. Others try to shoehorn me into how they’d do things, but none of them were producing the kind of show we were – and the one I most wanted to produce. I was growing increasingly frustrated with all the contradictory advice and I knew I’d also have to wrangle my extroverted, unfocused co-host so I kept pushing the research forward. All the way stowing away some money. I decided to ask my audience if they wanted to help. Why not? I told them why. They responded. I was aiming at $1000, full well knowing I’d invest more than that. When I got kinda close to that number I stopped asking and pulled back. I was going to make this investment, Lord willing, but I had to make sure I was buying gear we’d use. And gear we’d use a lot. During all this I was struggling to get re-engaged with my HSV Inside Out podcast. A variety of obstacles disrupted my flow with the show. Selling a house we’d lived in for over 20 years. Moving into an apartment not far from where we’d lived. Buying a house in Hot Springs Village. Moving whatever wasn’t in our apartment into the new house in Arkansas. Juggling client work, a nice problem to have. Along the way the vibe of the show about Hot Springs Village wasn’t going at all as I had planned so I was wrestling with more moving parts than I was used to. I’m focused. Purposeful. Intentional. Mostly, I’m strategic. Those weren’t things I was able to deploy with this podcast I loved so much. Instead I was taking a backseat and surrendering my original goal and vision — and I was growing more and more intent on getting things back on track. Video was going to help me do that. It was going to be a financial investment, a time investment and a major learning investment to develop skills I didn’t yet have. Video killed the radio star, but it wasn’t a permanent death because streaming killed them both. Streaming – online content available on our phones, tablets and computers – kills it all. And yes, video is a major player. Active YouTube users are expected to grow by 346 million (+44.05%) between 2022 and 2028. Last year YouTube had almost 2.5 billion users monthly. They generated over $31B in revenue in 2023. On average, people spend 48.7 minutes on YouTube each day. The average user spends over 28 hours on the YouTube app. Over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. (Source: <a href="https://www.omnicoreagency.com/youtube-statistics/" target="_blank" r...
Transcribe →People Who Want To Feel Important
Oct 11, 202400:14:47Tap to summarizeHalf of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm—but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. – a line in the T.S. Elliot play, The Cocktail Party It’s another episode of Free Form Friday for October 11, 2024. Enjoy. Links: Hot Springs Village Inside Out, the podcast – HotSpringsVillageInsideOut.com Barry Switzer article at EPSN Please tell a friend about the podcast! • Join our private Facebook group • Email me
Transcribe →Accidentally On Purpose
Oct 7, 202400:38:29Tap to summarize “It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.” ― Lois McMaster Bujold Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. — Lawrence Block Travel light and trust in serendipity. — Mike Brown Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. Stories abound of people pursuing one thing and stumbling onto something else. Something better. It’s likely happened to you, too. Please tell a friend about the podcast! • Join our private Facebook group • Email me
Transcribe →I’m Not The Man I Used To Be
Sep 26, 202400:42:26Tap to summarizeJohn Newton said, “I am not the man I ought to be, I am not the man I wish to be. I am not the man I hope to be. But by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be”. He was a slavery abolitionist who had once been a slave trader. Perhaps that context provoked his statement. I can’t fully relate to the first 3 statements in the quote… I’m not the man I ought to be. I’m not the man I wish to be. I’m not the man I hope to be. Not because I’m perfect, but because I’m dedicated to improvement. My own. Most of the time I am the man I ought to be because a) I know what kind of man I ought to be and b) I work to be that man. More easily, I know the man I wish to be and I’m working to be that man. Ditto for the man I hope to be. For me, the terms “ought,” “wish,” and “hope” are all synonymous, but ought is the most important one. How do YOU determine what “ought” means? What’s it based on? Mine is based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We all need a standard, some measurement against which we can examine ourselves. I heard a city councilman on a YouTube video about a horrible drug scene in a major U.S. city remark on how addicts needed faith. Asked if he meant faith in God, he replied that to beat addiction – something he had done himself (he wasn’t the man he once was) – a person needed to believe in something bigger than themselves. For many, it is God. Since God is THE supreme being without a peer, it makes logical sense that it should be God. But the term “ought” means more than having faith in something. It means having something to serve as a standard for your life. Life is filled with standards. They serve us daily. Time has a standard. Every minute has 60 seconds. Every hour has 60 minutes. Every day has 24 hours. Every week has seven days. Measurements have standards. One gallon contains 128 ounces. We pump a gallon of gas in our cars with some assurance that we’re getting a full gallon and not something else because the government inspects gasoline pumps to ensure they’re accurate. These two examples occupy all of our daily lives. Without them, life would be much more chaotic. Without standards imagine how crazy our houses would look. With no standard of measurement to follow all construction would be ridiculous. Some try to convince us that we can establish our own rules of conduct. You get to decide what’s right for you. What you “ought” to do. And that might be very different from what I “ought” to do. But that defies the whole point of a standard, an authority. How about I decide that a gallon of gasoline isn’t 128 ounces? It’s 150 ounces. Ridiculous! Nobody would accept my personalized “standard.” Rightly so because it’s not a standard. It’s an arbitrary desire. And that’s what is happening today, stretched to the point of being ridiculous. The Bible contains the truth of how humans have always tried to behave when they don’t want to recognize God’s higher authority, which always has mankind’s best interest. “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes,” Judges 21:25. It speaks of ancient Israel who rebelled against Jehovah because they did what they wanted and called it “right.” Calling it “right” or what we “ought” to do doesn’t make it so. Not unless we’re the standard bearer and in matters of right, truth, and morality…we’re not the standard. If we were then societies that once sacrificed children in the fire to false gods would have been approved. Nazi Germany would be free from condemnation because in their eyes, they saw it as “right.” No, there’s got to be some standard recognized as the authority. It’s God Almighty. Despite modern culture’s refusal to acknowledge, much less follow, God’s standard, mankind must accept all the visible, scientific, and written testimony of God’s existence and rule. Man or woman. Boy or girl. I’m taking off on John Newton’s quote only because like him, I’m a man. It would equally apply to a woman, boy or girl. Insert the one that properly fits you. No, I don’t mean the one you identify as being. That’s tantamount to saying you think a gallon is 150 ounces, not 128. Think what you will, but you’ll be wrong. How do I know what man I ought to be? Because I listen to and strive to obey God. God tells me in His Word what kind of man I should be. For example, in Ephesians 5 I can read about how I ought to behave toward my wife. I can measure what God says against what I’m doing. By examining myself in light of what I read, I can tell if I’m hitting the mark. Or not. Standards. Authority. Submission. These are the things of “ought.” They determine wishes and hopes. They also determine what once was and what is, too. You get to choose the standards that will govern your life. For me, it’s important that the standards be true and the consequences or rewards are established. I’ve known people who believed that the ends justify the means. So if gaining money was the desired end, it didn’t matter much the means as long as it was legal. But sometimes even questionably legal strategies might be employed if the reward was high enough. At other times compromise became easy when the dollars were high enough. Self-regulation and self-restraint may not be part of the standards you choose. I’ve found that’s a mistake if we want to live our best life. It’s fraught with increasing selfishness that wrecks relationships, careers, and lives. Such is the life of people who follow their desires no matter what. Self-Discipline Is Required To Be The Man I Ought To Be October begins a “no spend month.” That means all those budgeted line item expenses sans the deposable expenses like clothes, gear, gear accessories, dining out, books, or anything else. I’ve set October aside as one month where I’m going to amplify my self-discipline in the single (but big) area of spending. I may extend it beyond October, highly likely. Such a thing seems innocuous, but it’s an important exercise because it requires temperance (self-control). I need to work on my self-discipline muscles by using them with more intensity and vigor. We both know how it’ll go (I’ve done it before so I’ve got some historical proof). Week one will require some focus. Week two will require less focus. By week three it’ll become easier and by the end of the month, I’ll push forward with the notion of keeping it going. The game changes to see how long I can keep it going. The rewards? More money in our bank account or savings account. Greater focus against frivolous or unnecessary spending. Growth in my efforts toward practical minimalism. Discipline that is likely to filter into other areas of my life. The downsides? Depriving myself. The irony is self-deprivation is THE biggest reward. There is no downside to the exercise. Learning To Adapt Is The Path Toward Personal Growth (Improvement) Learning is a discipline. Learning itself is a learned behavior that requires focus, practice, and figuring it out. Life is largely about figuring it out, and then assessing how we’re doing so we can figure it out again. That’s why life is such a rinse-and-repeat process. Rarely do we figure things out, then set it and forget it. External and internal forces often alter our results. We change. Life’s circumstances change. Forcing us to adapt if we want to continue making progress. Whenever we refuse to adapt we call it “being stuck.” It’s the refusal or inability to adapt. In short, it’s a lack of learning that sticks us. Lack of self-awareness is the major constraint. Not knowing what we should know. Not seeing ourselves accurately. “I know, I know,” is the common refrain of teens worldwide. When in truth, they don’t know. They just don’t want to hear somebody tell them. Do that in adulthood at your peril. Refuse to see what you don’t know while whistling in the dark, “I know, I know” and you’ll escape being your best. We have to be responsible for ourselves. It’s not a blame thing. Who cares who or what is to blame? The real issue is, “Now what?” To learn, grow, and improve we must accept responsibility for our behavior, habits, focus, and outcomes. Avoid those and there won’t be learning, growth, or improvement. We get to decide, but if wisdom (learning, growth, improvement) is the goal – and it is – then we must stop lying to ourselves. Consider a few important factors. Accepting responsibility is primary. Without it, we’re hopeless to get better. We must commit to living based on evidence. Not false evidence, but real evidence. We can think we know based on facts, but when we step back and look at more critically, we may see we’re looking at what we imagine, or what we fear. For example, a friend sends a text, “We need to talk.” What evidence do you have to alert you about the subject or tone of this meetin...
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