Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• Last week I focused on honing my process of distilling a book down to a digest and testing a progressive summarization method. It’s painful to do this with books that don’t have an EPUB (i.e., e-book) file—it must be done by hand. I’m trying to find the right balance between capturing too little and too much in a digest. And trying to figure out a good length for a digest relative to a book’s length. And trying to figure out where it makes the most sense to add context and links to external sources in the digest without disrupting the flow of the story. Lots of work to do here. The quality of the digest affects the quality of what I can share with others.    
• Reading, creating a digest, and publishing blog posts for one book a week is doable. Adding on top of that recording, editing, and publishing a pod series the same week has been a struggle.

What I learned:

• I’ll start measuring the number of book digests I create and their length (relative to the book’s length). If I don’t measure this, the quality of these digests likely won’t improve.
• If an entrepreneur endorses a biography, that’s a good sign that the biography is high quality and worth reading.
• I must screen books continually. I must identify high-quality books I want to read while I’m still reading another one. Waiting until I finish a book to start screening for the next one has led to spending too much time on books that aren’t excellent.
• Biographies that include specific information about how entrepreneurs solved problems and specific financial information are more likely to include actionable insights that other entrepreneurs will find useful.
• Not creating or listening to my podcast episodes for a few weeks had an unexpected benefit. When I listened again after a break, I was able to pick out areas of improvement I’d missed before.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Metrics (cumulative since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 92 (+0)
• Total blog posts published: 126 (+7)
• Average recording length: no recordings this past week

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read a second biography about Billy Wilkerson, founder and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter and founder of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas
• Had three additional feedback sessions

Content:

• No recordings this past week

What I’ll do next week:

• Distill and document one book
• Write and publish blog posts about one book: roughly seven posts
• Record audio podcast about two books: roughly ten recordings
• Publish audio podcast about one book: roughly five recordings
• Complete three feedback sessions

Asks:

• Listen to the series on John H. Johnson and provide feedback on how I can improve.

Week two hundred twenty-seven was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Last Week’s Struggles and Lessons (Week Ending 8/4/24)

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• I was sick last week and didn’t record anything. I was able to read a book and write blog posts about it, but I wasn’t physically able to record, which was frustrating. This week, I’m trying to get back into the recording groove, but it’s been hard.
• This week, a book I read wasn’t as valuable as I’d hoped, so I struggled to decide whether to record a podcast series about it. I’m trying to balance my goal of reading a book a week and sharing what I learned, my desire to get recording reps, and my intention of publishing only content that brings maximum value per minute of recording to listeners. It’s still early, so I’m leaning toward getting reps and making the series as valuable as possible.

What I learned:

• Autobiographies bring more value.
• The document I create after I’ve distilled a book is the product. Blogs and podcasts are different ways to distribute the product; they aren’t the product.
• A book’s quality has a material impact on my energy level as I read, distill, and share. Good books energize me and make the process significantly more enjoyable.  
• The open-loop technique is a great way to improve my storytelling.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

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

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Metrics (cumulative since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 92 (+0)
• Total blog posts published: 119 (+7)
• Average recording: no recordings this past week

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read the autobiography of Ted Turner, founder of CNN, TBS, and TNT
• Had three additional feedback sessions
• Compiled and sorted feedback from sessions completed the week of 7/15/24

Content:

• No recordings this past week

What I’ll do next week:

• Read one biography or autobiography
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio posts
• Continue reading one of the books about storytelling that I purchased; this is a carryover from last week
• Complete three feedback sessions

Asks:

• Listen to the series on John H. Johnson and provide feedback on how I can improve.

Week two hundred twenty-six 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!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• I struggled to create the upcoming series on Felix Dennis. The problem was that the biography focused deeply on Dennis’s personal side and was surface level on his career as an entrepreneur. I had a hard time creating a series about his entrepreneurial journey that satisfied my curiosity and met my expectations.

What I learned:

• I’m getting comfortable with the quality of the content. Before, I wasn’t happy with the preceding week’s work, but I knew I was getting better. I’m still not satisfied with the quality, but it’s good enough that I’m comfortable sharing it outside my immediate circle.
• Reaching out to people individually to make them aware that a series was published had a material impact on the number of listens for the John H. Johnson series. This won’t scale, but I want to do this strategically going forward.
• Don't read books that don’t resonate with me after fifty pages. If the first fifty pages don’t discuss what I care about in someone’s journey, the rest of the book won’t either. I knew this already, but I didn’t follow it for the Felix Dennis biography.
• When I’m picking which book to read for the week, I should factor in the book’s quality or story. I’ve been weighing the length of the book too heavily. A shorter book takes me longer to read if I’m not into it.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

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

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Metrics (cumulative since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 92 (+7)
• Total blog posts published: 112 (+7)
• Average recording: roughly 12 minutes (-4) for a biography or autobiography

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read the biography of Felix Dennis, founder of Maxim magazine
• Continued reading Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
• Had four additional feedback sessions
• Compiled and sorted feedback from sessions completed the week of 7/8/24

Content:

• Refined the intro to include the problem I’m helping entrepreneurs solve
• Tested making episodes shorter

What I’ll do next week:

• Read one biography or autobiography
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio posts
• Continue reading one of the books about storytelling that I purchased; this is a carryover from last week
• Complete three feedback sessions

Asks:

• Listen to the series on John H. Johnson and provide feedback on how I can improve.

Week two hundred twenty-five 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!

Last Week’s Struggles and Lessons (Week Ending 7/21/24)

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No major struggles  

What I learned:

• After reading a biography, I do a series on that entrepreneur in, typically, five parts. Recording and publishing daily meant each part was created in isolation, so the series didn’t flow as smoothly for the listener.
• Enhancing my blog posts with context and using them as outlines has made the recordings more concise.
• Listeners are indifferent to whether I publish audio podcast episodes daily or weekly.
• A Netflix-style drop—publishing an entire five-part series on a single day—garnered more listens for that series compared to previous series.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

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

I spent the last week making significant changes—which I shared two days ago—to how I work on my personal project. The first was to my recording frequency. I decided to test recording an entire series in a single day instead of one part every day for five consecutive days. And I spent an additional day editing. The second change was in how I determine what content will be included in each audio podcast episode. I was reading my blog post and eyeballing what extra context I’d add to the recording. Now I’ve begun adding (to drafts of my blog posts) bullet points of the context I want to add to my audio recordings..

Today I finished publishing the audio podcast series on John H. Johnson using this new approach. A few thoughts:

• Adding recording context by enhancing the blog posts was a positive move. This series sounds more concise, and the value per minute to the listener feels high (I’m biased, though). It took longer this week, and it was annoying having to manage various versions of the blog post, but I think with time I’ll see how the time is reduced.
• The editing time for parts 1 and 2 was still high. Parts 3 and 4 took less time, and part 5 significantly less. I’m not sure if this is a function of my getting progressively better during recording. I need to do more to confirm this. I want to reduce the length of the raw recordings by 40% to 50% and the editing time by 50% to 75%.
• I didn’t like recording an entire series in a single day and then editing it the next day. That was draining. It did help make the overall story of the series flow better and be more cohesive, though.
• I like the idea of recording, editing, and publishing daily. Maybe I’ll end up doing something that’s a hybrid. Record daily, edit every other day, and publish once per week. I’m not sure if that’s feasible or not, but I do know that what I did this past week doesn’t work for my personality long term.

Overall, this is directionally accurate, but I’ll need to keep tweaking until I nail my content format and the process of creating it.

I was encouraged this week when I realized I’m close to the 100-episode goal! That will be a milestone I’ll definitely celebrate. It’s been a challenging journey, and when I started this in April, 100 episodes seemed like an audacious goal. But here I am, not far from it. As I marched, the path got clearer.

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

Weekly Update: Week Two Hundred Twenty-Four

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total audio recordings published: 85 (+9)
• Total blog posts published: 105 (+7)
• Average recording: roughly 16 minutes (+0) for a biography or autobiography

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read the biography of Billy Wilkerson, founder and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter and developer of The Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas
• Began reading Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
• Had four additional feedback sessions
• Compiled and sorted feedback from sessions completed the week of 7/1/24
• Identified two candidates to help with edits and met with one of the candidates

Content:

• Audio content changes: I changed the intro to explain what problems it solves for entrepreneurs.

What I’ll do next week:

• Read one biography or autobiography
• Write seven blog posts and record seven audio posts
• Continue reading one of the books about storytelling that I purchased; this is a carryover from last week
• Complete three feedback sessions

Asks:

• Listen to my most recent series on John H. Johnson and provide feedback on how I can improve.

Week two hundred twenty-four 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!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them via blog posts and audio podcasts

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• Blog posts – I write my blog posts, and when I create each audio podcast episode, I read them and add context. I changed how I write my blog posts and add context to my recordings. These were two separate steps, but this week I combined them into a single step. Instead of loosely eyeballing context points to add during recordings, I started adding these points to my blog post drafts. This change slowed me down since I had to adjust to doing something different, but I’m hoping it will make my recordings more concise.  
• Recording frequency – Instead of publishing both a blog post and audio podcast daily, this week I published a blog post daily and will publish the audio versions of all five parts of the most recent series in one day. This was a big change in workflow: I’ll be doing heavy days of recording and editing multiple episodes. Before, it was a little bit of everything every day.

What I learned:

• I’ve been complaining about editing taking too much time. A big part of this issue is likely that I’m not being as concise as I could be. Before I get assistance editing, I want to make my recordings more concise. This is what drove the recording frequency change I mentioned above. This pain is forcing me to constantly think about ways to communicate more concisely, which is good. If I offload editing to someone too early, I’ll miss the opportunity to improve this.
• Sharing a founder’s journey via a compelling and distilled story resonates with people in my feedback sessions. Jumping from lesson to lesson in their journey without knowing the founder’s complete journey makes it harder for the lessons to stick with people.
• Many entrepreneurs fail to maintain healthy personal relationships while building their companies. This problem isn’t talked about enough, and I want to highlight it more in the stories I share about entrepreneurs. If the most notable entrepreneurs couldn’t figure it out, then countless current entrepreneurs are likely seeking wisdom to help them navigate it.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week!

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