In the Beginning 6 of...

As usual the plan does not match reality. I started this Blog series thinking it would be 5 separate entries and here we are on the 6th entry with one more to go. And Im flooded with emotion about the blog entry to come. But we have to get passed the story of Lean & Love The Audio Book 

This project was the result of 4 Construction Influencers working to make the Construction Industry a place where men & women can thrive. Jennifer Lacy, Buddy Brumley, Adam Hoots and Jesse Hernandez are the wackos that narrated the audio book. 

The interesting thing is these Courageous Change Leaders probably never planned on producing a book, written or audio, and here we are. Not to mention Adam Hoots, Jennifer Lacy and Buddy Brumley are puttin in the finishing touches on a top secret Lean thesaurus🤫dont tell anyone its a secret🤫

After publishing the Lean & Love paper book Jennifer and I thought we were done, meaning we did not plan on doing an audio book. But what had happened was.... Well Im gonna blame #NoBStribe member Tanya, she shared her plans to do a study action team on the book but her team only does audio books. So the seed was planted. 

If you have already put your hands on the book or even seen the Live streams, you know nothing I do is conventional. So converting the paper book into audio was complicated. For multiple reasons, first the source of the book was the transcripts of the Livestreams. The conversational nature of the transcripts forced us to get creative in documenting the contributions of Jen and I. Then we had a ton of engagement and powerful cheat codes in the chat that we needed to share with the world. Lastly we had to figure out how to include all of that and provide context to the reader.

Yeah so it was clear to me that one voice would not capture all the goodness. For a minute I tinkered with the idea that 2 voices could accomplish the task. Then Jen and I were brainstorming and the idea surfaced, as usual the magic is in the collaboration. The question we asked was "what if Jen voiced her quotes, I voiced my quotes, and Adam voiced the rest of the stuff?" So we reached out to Adam and without hesitation he agreed to participate. 

Then the 3 of us said "what if Buddy reads the forward and the closing?" Cuz well he's awesome and Buddy also agreed. Without knowing exactly what he agreed to😁

The start was slow and clunky but once we got rolling that bad boy just flowed. But not without bloopers

Honestly this was my favorite part of the whole thing. I did all the audio editing and reliving the slips & trips was super fun. Then another idea popped up! Actually the way I remember it Jennifer told me I should create a Blooper Reel with compilations of each voice actor for others to enjoy🤔 So I hopped on it and in exchange for your e-mail address you can get the Video of these Bloopers 

If you cant tell, the people I run with inspire me and I hope this inspires you to curate your special group of super heroes.