Thoughts from Carl, without the filter
Let's try something different - my real voice, transcribed.
Now this is a really strange blog post for me to share and I have to come to this post with a mixture of admission and also a bit of curiosity.
You see, this is the first blog post that I'm actually dictating using an app rather than typing out myself. You see, normally I would go to my keyboard and I'd hammer the keys hoping that something legible would come out. However, as you guys have probably noticed if you're regular subscribers, I've been less than diligent in so far as making sure that I'm consistent with getting my blog posts out. So we can say that this blog post is both a welcome back and a new beginning.
So let me kick off by sharing why I decided to do voice notes, and to be honest, there's a couple of reasons behind this. The first one is that for me, dictating an article actually comes very naturally. You see, when I started out in the workplace, this might seem very antiquated, but actually back in the day, I would dictate my letters and have a secretary to type them up for me. So I'm fairly used to forming my own thoughts in my mind and speaking them rather than typing them on a keyboard. As ridiculous as that might sound from somebody who's actually written a best-selling book, also it gives me the opportunity to make sure that these articles can be multicasted. You see, not many people have the time to write blog posts, but actually less people have the time to actually write them.
The process of writing a blog post means that you have to not only ideate, but you have to think about the perfect turn of phrase, and unfortunately, the process of manually writing a blog post can sometimes impede the creativity that comes with it. But there's actually so many unknowns in this process as well. You see, as I'm talking and dictating this rather than typing it, I don't know the word count, I don't know how legible this is, I don't really know the pace, and actually, I don't know how accurate my written voice translates to my spoken voice and vice versa.
I'm going to keep the editing as low touch as possible, and I'd love to hear your views on how different or not this is from my standard articles. And by the way, if I'm able to, because let's be honest, I am a bit of an idiot when it comes to technology, I'll try and upload this original voice note as well. So for those of you who are looking at doing something like this, the app I'm using is voicenotes.ai. Now this isn't a sponsored post in any way, shape, or form; you're not going to see an affiliate link, but if you type that into Google or your search engine of choice, you'll find it. And for me, the opportunities of voice recording are phenomenal.
To be honest, I've looked at apps like Fathom and all of the other note takers that can join your meeting and take meeting notes from Teams or Slack with a bit of envy because I can really see the benefit of summarising the notes and the voice transcription. But none of these apps seem to do what I actually wanted them to do, which is to capture real meetings.
You've probably guessed, but I'm not one for hiding behind a computer screen and sitting behind a keyboard; instead, I like to see people face to face, and often notes need to be taken. Do you want a laptop with it? No, I don't want to take a laptop down with me. Even having an iPad out or pen and paper is a block between the true relationship that people should have when having a human-to-human relationship. So by having an app that can record every word, summarise it, and so on, of course with the other person's permission, then actually we get to a point where we can capture all of the magic that happens within meetings rather than the two or three takeaways that we think we need to deal with.
So I'm curious to see the writing style, but I'm also curious to see how this impacts consistency. I'm curious to see just whether this process will help me create more, whether it will actually be a blocker, whether the app will go unused within a month. So let's see. You'll certainly see the results of it on this blog if I remember to post.
After all, I've been away for a little while, and that's a point that I probably should cover off.
During the last couple of months whilst I've been on downtime from this blog, things have been absolutely manic in an amazing way. I've got some exciting things coming up both within the dt group and outside the dt group. We’ve had the pleasure of opening our Canada office, we've started to get momentum in our Dubai office. We've started to prepare for the launch of Southend. Things are really taking off from the dt group side of things. And personally, a new website is built; I've got an amazing pre-registration opportunity that's coming up soon for something that's completely free of charge, but a new way for people to get daily insights and motivation and so on. So watch that space on that. But it's safe to say things have been crazy, but crazy in a good way.
And finally, it'd be remiss of me not to say that, yeah, I need to look at the stats on these things. One of the concerns of the written posts is that they attract a certain audience. The reason I stopped my podcast, which was previously an Apple new and noteworthy, and I believe was in the top 10 or top 20 of the charts in the UK, was stopped after 70 episodes because actually when I looked at the stats underneath, the intended audience of the podcast, i.e., the dedicated listeners who listened to each and every episode, was such an abysmally low number compared to what you might imagine it would be. But actually, it wasn't worth the cost or the time in continuing that.
Now, it might seem brutal that we need to look at the numbers, but actually, whatever we do when it comes to content creation, we need to constantly test and measure. So part of the reason of holding back on the blog posts is down to that test and measuring.
However, this might make the process easier.
Let's see.
And some notes from me after trying this.
Yes, some typed notes from me.
This has been mind-blowing. Let me share what I had to do to tidy this up.
I deliberately kept my edits low touch. Because if I’m spending loads of time editing, it defeats the purpose of improving my productivity. All I’ve edited is adding new paragraph breakers (see below), changing DT to dt, and three (I think) minor edits highlighted in italics.
I’ve left in my grammatical errors when speaking as hey, that’s how I talk. Got to say, I have a shed load of verbal tics! Need to stop starting sentences with ‘you see’… let alone the others!
The audio recording is not my typical polished style. I’ve recorded it with my AirPods (cringe) and without any audio treatment efforts - it’s in my lounge at home, and no editing. I deliberately spoke a little slower with artificial pauses to indicate where a new paragraph may be needed, but these pauses don’t reflect the style I like to see in my written voice - which has far more breaks. Hence that editing.
The length of the voice note was 6 minutes, 40 seconds. It took about 5 minutes to share the link via WhatsApp to my computer (yes I know there’s probably a far better way), and 10 minutes to type the headline, work out how to upload the audio version for here, edit, and add the disclaimers etc. The word count is 1,109.
An article of one thousand words would normally take me one hour if I’m in the flow - before I’ve edited and so on.
If you’re curious, you can hear the original voice note and read the original transcription here.
I think you might agree… mind blowing!
Carl Reader is a WH Smith Bestselling Author and international keynote speaker with a real passion for helping people do better. There are two ways to learn more about Carl! You can either follow him on Social Media if you’re just curious (@carlreader on most platforms), or if you’d like to learn a little more about what he does on stage, through content and in the media from a commercial perspective, you can visit his website at www.carlreader.com
You can buy a copy of his last book BOSS IT online, wherever you are in the world. And of course, I’d love you to subscribe to this community to be the first to see everything I have to share - just click the button below. It’s free of charge!
AI Disclaimer: Please note that the main image on this article was generated using AI. The words are all my own unless explicitly stated - however, please note that these words may well have been dictated into a transcription tool.
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