Because I’ve received feedback that others got value when I shared the struggles from my current personal project, I’ve decided to build this project in public and share my ups and downs openly.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books about Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them via Blog Posts and Audio Recordings Distributed as a Podcast

What I struggled with:

• I added editing twelve recordings to my workload. That, combined with reading two books, writing seven blog posts, and recording seven audio posts to distribute via podcast, was too much. I was behind and pushing hard this past weekend to hit my goals. The quality of the blog posts and recordings started declining late in the week.

What I learned:

• People’s time is valuable. My goal is to provide as much value per minute as possible when someone reads or listens to what I share about books. I learned that I need to keep this top of mind and find the right balance of reading, distilling, writing, recording, and editing. This week I was too heavy on reading because of my two-book goal and editing because I had a new toy to play with.
• A few weeks back, I stopped editing recordings and focused on getting reps by publishing unedited recordings. Then, researching successful YouTubers and podcasters highlighted that editing is key to making content concise. The editing tool also makes a difference. I was using GarageBand and hated it. A few people mentioned Descript. I started using Descript this week, and it made a material difference. This software makes editing audio as easy as editing a Word doc.
• Knowing I can edit recordings has decreased my frustration. Before, I would get frustrated when I made an error because I knew I had to start from scratch and rerecord.
• I listened to the early episodes of a few popular podcasts. They weren’t great. This was a good reminder that even the greats started on shaky ground and worked to continually improve. Comparing myself to the latest episode of a seasoned provider of audio content isn’t realistic.
• When I set reading goals, I need to consider the length of books and my available bandwidth. All books aren’t equal. One of the books I read this week was 400 pages, and I shouldn’t have read it in the same week as another book.
• My concerns about Amazon affiliate links being perceived as tacky were unfounded. I don't want the commission; I want the data on purchases. During feedback sessions, people said they thought a commission (that doesn’t cost them anything extra) would be fair if I helped them discover the book they purchased. They also highlighted it as a common practice that people expect now.
• When I’m face-to-face with entrepreneurs, my project resonates well, and they get excited about listening. I also learn a lot about their reading habits and pain points. I need to lean into more face-to-face interactions to discuss my project.
• The quality of my insights is greatest when I’m mentally fresh. On the days I was tired, my insights weren’t of the quality I know I’m capable of.

Those are my struggles and learnings from this week!

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

This is my two-hundred-nineteenth weekly reflection or update.

Two weeks ago, I changed my weekly reflection to a weekly update on a current project. For more on why I made this change, see here.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books about Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them via Blog Posts and Audio Recordings Distributed as a Podcast

Metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 49 (+7)
• Total blog posts published: 69 (+7)

What I completed this week:

• Read a book written by Felix Dennis and the biography of Kirk Kerkorian (see here and here)
• Had four additional feedback sessions—I missed my target by one for the second straight week
• Compiled and sorted feedback from sessions completed the week of 5/27/24
• Tweaked podcast titles
• Crystallized my “why” for this project in writing
• Decided to move forward with Amazon affiliate links for books I’ve read
• Identified two YouTube channels focused on sharing insights from non-entrepreneurial books and studied what makes these channels appeal to listeners
• Began testing Descript for recording and editing audio

Content:

• Audio content changes: Sharing how I discovered a book, referencing other recordings in the series, and highlighting what questions I’m seeking to answer as I read the book
• Edited episodes 37 through 48 using Descript to make them more concise
• The average recording length is still roughly 12 minutes

What I’ll do next week:

• Read one biography or autobiography
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio posts
• Compile feedback from sessions completed the week of 6/3/24 and identify insights
• Make changes to audio content based on feedback
• Edit Jim Simons series using Descript
• Complete five feedback sessions
• Implement Amazon affiliate links for books

Asks:

• Listen to my most recent audio recordings and provide feedback on how I can improve them

Week two hundred nineteen was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

FYI: I’m still playing with the format for this weekly update. I’ll add and remove stuff until I settle on a format I like.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

Because I’ve received feedback that others got value when I shared the struggles from my current personal project, I’ve decided to build this project in public and share my ups and downs openly.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books about Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them via Blog Posts and Audio Recordings Distributed as a Podcast

What I struggled with:

• Reading two books, writing seven blog posts, and recording eight audio posts to distribute via podcast is a lot. I hit a wall toward the end of the week. Finishing out the week was tough.
• This week felt harder than last week. The above weekly goals I’ve set have me in a state of discomfort. I recognize this because I experienced this feeling when I started blogging daily in 2020. My brain feels overloaded, and I’m mentally tired some days. I’m pushing my limits and expanding them each consecutive day I do this. Said differently, the discomfort I’m feeling is likely growth. Hopefully this will get easier as my brain realizes this is our new normal.
• I’m still not as concise as I want to be in communicating insights from books. The series on Ed Thorp highlighted this for me. Even though I’ve read this book twice, I struggled to balance getting the recordings done and communicating my points clearly. “Done is better than perfect” won. But I did record a bonus episode for Thorp because it bothered me that much and this is one of my favorite books.

What I learned:

• The difficult part right now is what I do between reading a book and sharing what I learn by writing and recording—that is, distilling a large amount of information down to what I want to convey.
• Sumner Redstone’s autobiography was hard to write and record about. I didn’t describe the wisdom from it clearly at first, so I needed to think about it more. I ended up thinking about what I had read for a day before recording (I’d already written my post), and that was helpful. More time to process helped me connect the dots on insights that weren’t obvious and draw parallels to my experiences as an entrepreneur. I want more buffer time between reading and recording to process. I think what I share will be more valuable if I have it.
• There’s no consistency in the format of my recordings. It’s early, and I’m experimenting, so this makes sense now. But I’m not a freestyle-it-every-time kind of person. A consistent format could help me prepare to record (I’ve decided to work toward this), increase the likelihood that each recording is valuable to listeners, and set listeners’ expectations.
• During a feedback session this week, I learned that someone purchased a biography because I’d recorded about it. I would never have known that without that conversation. Someone purchasing a book is the ultimate sign I’ve given them value, but I don’t have any insight into this. I want data! Amazon’s affiliate program seems like the best (and only) way to see this data.
• Google NotebookLM is an impressive AI tool. I’m really excited about it. I can see lots of value in using the power of AI to search specific documents and your own notes. If it would allow users to query the documents and notes of others (with their permission, of course), that would be game changing. I’ll be watching closely to see how this product evolves.
• Extracting my highlights from books I’ve read is something I’m excited about, but it’s a lower priority right now. I believe I’ve found a good partner for this when the time is right to tackle it.

Those are my struggles and learnings from this week!

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

This is my two-hundred-eighteenth weekly reflection or update.

Last week, I changed my weekly reflection to a weekly update on a current project. For more on why I made this change, see here.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books about Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them via Blog Posts and Audio Recordings Distributed as a Podcast

Metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 42 (+8)
• Total blog posts published: 62 (+7)

What I completed this week (a holiday week):

• Read autobiographies of Ed Thorp and Sumner Redstone (see here and here)
• Published eight recordings—one was a bonus episode on Ed Thorp (#40 Ed Thorp Part 4)
• Had four additional feedback sessions—I missed my target by one
• Compiled and sorted feedback from five sessions completed the week of 5/20/24
• Tested Google NotebookLM
• Evaluated a candidate for extracting my highlights from books
• Updated podcast titles—added series number (e.g., “Part 2”) and other tweaks
• Researched metrics for podcasts

Content:

• Audio content changes: I now include the series number, how I discovered the book, an intro including what the recording will be about, more context throughout, personal insights and takeaways, and a closing.
• The average recording length increased from roughly 5 minutes to 12 minutes
• My current goal for each book is a three-part series

What I’ll do next week:

• Read two biographies or autobiographies
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio blogs
• Adjust podcast titles
• Compile feedback from sessions completed the week of 5/29/24 and identify insights
• Make changes to audio content based on feedback
• Complete five feedback sessions
• Identify two people to study who has successfully shared book insights via solo podcasts or YouTube channels (the books can’t be about entrepreneurs)
• Make a decision on whether to use Amazon affiliate links for books
• Crystallize, in writing, my “why” for doing this project

Asks:

• Listen to my most recent audio recordings and provide feedback on how I can improve them. The more candid the better! Email me at hello [at] jermainebrown.org.

This week was hard. In my post tomorrow, I’ll share more about what I struggled with and what I learned.

Week two hundred eighteen was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

FYI: I’m still playing with the format for this weekly update. I’ll add and remove stuff until I settle on a format I like.

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

Entrepreneurs like hearing about the ups and downs of others’ journeys, so I’m sharing mine in this post. Here’s what I struggled with this week and what I learned:

What I struggled with:

• Reading two books and sharing lessons from them via my written blog and audio recordings distributed via a podcast was hard. Consistently doing all this at once is new, and it likely contributed to this week feeling like an uphill battle.
• Six feedback sessions confirmed what I already knew: my audio recordings aren’t great. The external feedback is helping me improve. It’s frustrating that I can’t improve these recordings as fast as I would like. It’s slow and gradual, and I need to accept that.

What I learned:

• Blog vs. podcast – My audio recordings had more total listens than my written blog posts had total views. It’s the same content but a different method of consumption. I created more new audio posts this week (19) than blog posts (7) because I was catching up on recordings. However, my written blog catalog contains more than 1,500 posts written in 4+ years, while I’ve posted 35 recordings in a little over a month. I’ll continue to monitor this to see if this trend continues. My gut tells me audio consumption resonates more with people, but the data will confirm this (or not) over time.
• Building in public – My post about my struggle to record audio consistently and how I overcame that struggle was mentioned most during my feedback sessions. Building in public isn’t something I’ve intentionally done before. This inspired my change from a weekly reflection post to a weekly update post. I view this as something with limited downside that could help others. There’s no reason to not give it a try.
• Internal vs. external feedback – Recording my posts every day and listening to those recordings are good daily feedback loops, but they aren’t enough. Getting external feedback in the feedback sessions added a different element. My internal feedback has been more tactically focused, while external feedback was more high level. To put it another way, internal feedback focused on how well I was marching, while external feedback focused on whether I was marching in the right direction. I need both perspectives going forward. As for frequency of feedback, daily is ideal for internal. Weekly or biweekly is probably ideal for external, but I’ll test to pinpoint this.
• Feedback sessions – I had six sessions focused on recordings related to lessons learned from books I read. Here are some clear takeaways:
  • Each recording included the date and title of my blog post. People couldn’t remember the titles or dates of the recordings they reviewed. I replaced the date with episode numbers. This made it easier to reference a recording and shortened the titles.
  • I’m focused on reps to establish my recording habit, so I’m reading blog posts verbatim. I limit each blog post to 500 words, which equals about 5 minutes of audio. Five minutes is too short. The lessons didn’t stick with people. I’m keeping my 500-word constraint but enhancing the recording so the lessons are clear. I’ll summarize what each blog is about in the opening, add more context and my insights throughout, and add an outro. I’m now aiming for 10 minutes max with these changes.
  • It isn’t clear to listeners how they can apply the lessons I learned from the books I read. Judgment (i.e., application of wisdom to their situation) isn’t something you can do for founders. They must do this on their own. I’m not sure what I’ll do to address this. I’m actively seeking suggestions on this one.
  • People want to hear more about the struggle or context of what the founder was going through when they learned the lesson I’m sharing.
  • What resonates with a listener depends on their stage and focus. Early-stage entrepreneurs, established entrepreneurs, and investors valued and sought out different things. Early-stage entrepreneurs are looking for tactical answers to current problems. Established entrepreneurs are looking for general ideas or concepts. Entrepreneurs is too broad a market. I need to think about what niche target audience I want to serve.

Those are my struggles and learnings from this week!

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

This is my two-hundred-seventeenth weekly reflection or update.

Lately, I haven’t gotten as much from my weekly reflection posts. I’ve consistently done them, so I want to keep that muscle memory but try something different. I’m going to test moving from a reflection to an update on a personal project I’m working on.

I like the update email format because writing about what I’ve done forces me to be real about my execution, and writing about what I plan to do adds accountability and forces me to course-correct every seven days. Keeping people in the loop and letting them know how they can help are benefits too. I figured that instead of sending out an email, I could do a blog post, and it would be equally as valuable.

Current Personal Project: Reading Books About Entrepreneurs and Sharing What I Learned from Them

What I completed this week:

• Read biographies of Robert ”Bob” Johnson and Jim Simons
• Recorded 19 audio posts: 12 catch-up recordings and 1 daily recording thereafter
• Adjusted schedule to post recordings in the morning to be more consistent
• Sought feedback on recordings. Had six feedback sessions
• Meet with a potential partner who may be able to help with extracting highlights from books

What I’ll do next week (holiday week):

• Read two biographies
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio blogs
• Adjust recording titles and descriptions
• Compile feedback from sessions and identify insights
• Make changes to audio recordings based on feedback
• Complete five feedback sessions
• Test Google NotebookLM
• Explore audio-related metrics

Asks:

• Listen to my audio recordings and provide feedback on how I can improve them. The more candid the better! Email me at: hello [at] jermainebrown.org

Closing Thoughts:

• Since this project began, I’ve published 35 recordings. I’ve heard that most people never get past 20 recordings, so that’s encouraging.  
• My objective with this project is to share with entrepreneurs the wisdom I gain from the biographies I’m reading. The recording that was mentioned most in my feedback sessions was about my failure to establish my recording habit (listen here or read about it here). I wasn’t expecting this. It reminded me that talking about struggle and how people overcome it brings value to entrepreneurs. That was good to hear. I’ll try to do more posts sharing the ups and downs of this project’s journey.
• Finding content–market fit will be a journey. I’m thinking about what recording frequency and duration are best, crystallizing the target listener I want to offer value to (I’ll probably need to start with a niche), and finding the right balance of information, insights, etc. when recording.

Week two hundred seventeen was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Prefer listening? Catch audio versions of these blog posts, with more context added, on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here!

I was disappointed in myself for not consistently recording audio versions of my blog. Yesterday I figured out what was tripping me up and what changes were needed. Today I implemented those changes and recorded twelve audio posts. I’m happy to report that I’m all caught up!

Now, I’m focused on staying current and getting reps daily to improve the quality of the recordings and, eventually, my storytelling skills.

A few takeaways from today’s recording session:

• Mindset matters – Shifting my mindset to getting practice reps helped. I felt more relaxed, and the words flowed more smoothly.
• Mistakes – I didn’t sweat the small errors. I rerecorded when I made big mistakes (like coughing loudly mid-sentence). After listening to the small errors during playback, I decided they make the recordings more authentic. I’m not the only person who stumbles over words occasionally, so why take that out? We’ll see if my thinking evolves on this, but right now, I like the idea of being human (flaws and all) in these recordings and not a perfect robot.
• What I like – I now think about recording what I want to hear, not what I think other people want to hear. If I like the recordings, then others will like them too. If I don’t like them, then no one will.
• Talking to yourself – Talking to yourself is harder than I imagined, and listening to yourself talking to yourself is even harder. I have more respect for people who do this regularly at a high level. It’s simple but far from easy.
• Books – I’ve been reading at an accelerated clip lately. The posts sharing takeaways from books are my favorites. Reading and writing about what I learned from my reading is a powerful combination. I knew this already, but hearing these recordings reinforced it and motivated me to do more of this kind of post.

I’m energized about getting this habit formed. I think good things will come from it. I don’t know of anyone who blogs and records their blogs every day. I’m excited to see if I can accomplish something hard that others can’t or won’t do.

You can listen to audio versions of my blog posts on Apple here and Spotify here.

I didn’t record or publish a single audio version of my blog this week. The reasons don’t matter. I failed to do something I committed to doing, and it’s been nagging at me for two days. I expected the audio launch to be like the blog launch on March 9, 2020. I started writing daily and haven’t stopped since.

Today I reflected on what I need to change:

• Accountability – I launched the written blog as part of a 60-day challenge with my friend. The challenge was an accountability tactic and helped me form my writing habit. I need to add more accountability to this audio project. I’m going to tell more family and friends about it. I’ll ask those interested in following to consider subscribing via a podcasting app. I’ll also give those interested permission to ask me how it’s going.
• Rhythm – I’ve been trying to do two audio recordings every other day. That didn’t work because I never formed the habit. The gap between recording days hurt me. My personality is best suited to zero days off until the habit is formed. I wrote for 60 days to form that habit. Now I need to record for 30–60 days straight to form the audio habit.
• Format – I tested reading my blog posts verbatim and summarizing them in a more conversational format. The conversational format sounded better, and I tried to do more of that. It was a mistake. I’m new to recording, so I ended up doing multiple takes for a single post, which was frustrating and time-consuming. I need to start simple and read the posts verbatim. Slowly I can make each daily post a little better than the day before until it’s more conversational—or whatever format I settle on. I need to focus on getting the most recording reps possible, not making each recording perfect. If I do this, over time, the quality will improve. It will be painful to listen to all my mistakes every day in the meantime.
• Editing – After a few recordings, I edited them to make them sound better. That was another mistake. It wasn’t a good use of my energy and time because it didn’t align with my goal. My goal is reps and continual progression. I’m not going to edit a recording until this habit is fully formed. I’ll publish each post as is or rerecord the whole thing if I don’t like it.

It's important to me to form a daily audio blog habit. It’s a stepping-stone to a bigger audio project I want to do. I know what I need to change going forward to increase my chances of getting this habit entrenched and making the bigger audio project a reality. Wish me luck!

You can listen to audio versions of my blog posts on Apple here and Spotify here.

This is my two-hundred-sixteenth weekly reflection. Here are my takeaways from this week:

• Routine – This week, I was forced to change my morning routine. I thought the change served me well. But today, I reflected on my week and realized that it felt good because it was different. However, it played a significant role in my output decreasing. Next week, I’m going back to my normal morning routine. This week was a reminder to think hard before changing a routine that’s working well.
• Audio blog – I made no recordings this week. I’m disappointed in myself for letting this slip so much. I can’t let it happen going forward. I’ll work on catching up and making this a daily habit.
• Gaps – I had the chance to be part of a fireside chat. The audience was small business owners. These entrepreneurs are smart and work hard. The experience was a reminder that early-stage entrepreneurs in traditional businesses have large gaps around strategies for obtaining growth capital, as well as other areas.

Week two hundred sixteen was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

You can listen to audio versions of my blog posts on Apple here and Spotify here.

This is my two-hundred-fifteenth weekly reflection. Here are my takeaways from this week:

• Struggle – This week, I heard from a few people in response to my post about Sheila Johnson’s struggles. Entrepreneurs enjoy hearing about the struggles of other entrepreneurs—not because they wish bad things on others, but because during struggle is when entrepreneurs learn and acquire wisdom that they apply to become successful. Entrepreneurs enjoy hearing about that entire process because it helps give them a better idea of what to do in similar situations.
• Audio blog – I’m still not where I want to be with consistently recording and publishing audio versions of my blog posts. This week I realized a few things that could help me improve this. Planning on testing them next week.  

Week two hundred fifteen was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

You can listen to audio versions of my blog posts on Apple here and Spotify here.