Weekly Update (a New Format): Week Two Hundred Seventeen

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!