Behind the Scene of a Rollercoaster Week - Product Stories

This week has been a rollercoaster, and in the 15th edition of the Product Heroes Newsletter, I want to share another extract of the book’s first chapter and what happened.

The life of an entrepreneur is full of ups and down.

As a community, we are missing an opportunity. We are not being authentic and showing what is happening.

The talks are about perfect morning routines, the best hacks people found to enhance their productivity or the fact they have found a new client.

I make a parallel with product management.

As a product manager, I always felt that life sometimes was quite lonely. You couldn’t necessarily talk with the rest of your teammates as you can’t express your feelings towards the organization, your boss or the strategy taken by the organization.

You have to be there for your team, the client, the organization, and the business.

It makes the role unique and challenging at the same time.

Maybe I was wrong in the way I saw it. It came from bad experiences where I trusted people with information, which backfired.

The bottom line is we need to show what is happening.

We often need to find allies in our organization. We also need to find supporters outside the organization.

The problem is how much transparency we are ready to put out there.

As I said, this week has been a rollercoaster.

I started the week with a down.

I lost a contract which changed some of my plans.

On top, the government sent me a letter. The kind you want to avoid receiving asking me to pay taxes and penalties I was unaware of.

And this derailed my Monday; I was on the phone with them all morning, trying to understand the problem and where it was coming from. The letter was no longer accurate; however, whatever my routine, it went down the drain quickly.

This is the reality of our jobs.

Things happen—things we couldn’t predict.

We must find a way to be more transparent about it and find the support we need.

It’s not just pretty. We have personal matters that can affect our days and life. We bring those emotions with us.

As the week went by, I also had my fair share of success for the week.

I started participating in Project Stealth, organized by ​Tom Youngs​.

I unlocked a contract with a client I have been working with for months to help them with one of their products.

The launch of a new podcast

Finally, I launched live a new project - the ​Digital Leadership Decoded Podcast​.

Does that mean I have two podcasts at the same time? Yes, it does. Except the two have their target and purpose.

The Reverse Podcast lets you be the story's hero and ask the question you want about Product Management.

The Digital Leadership Decoded Podcast will be a discussion I have with expert guests on digital leadership.

The idea came from the book.

I wanted to research experts in the field and give them a voice in the book.

I leveraged the opportunity to share my discussion with them with everyone. It will make the book multidimensional: by writing, audio, and video.

The ​Digital Leadership Decoded Podcast aims to offer a deep dive into the intricacies of leading in the digital realm.

I will have insightful discussions with expert guests from various domains, discussing strategies, challenges, and pivotal moments that define successful digital leadership.

I run it live on ​Linkedin, ​Youtube and ​Twitter to spice things up.

I want it to be different, and you can participate by sending us comments and questions to my guests.

We received terrific support from Denny, Grant, Moe, Tom, Deepak, Maria, Regis, Evie, Fatima and Ayush.

The first episode was with ​Pat Bergstresser, a Product Manager at Zillow and US Navy Veteran.

During our discussion, he shared his past and the leadership lessons he learned in the army. We exchanged those lessons and what he brought to his product manager role. The great thing is that he also shared some insightful strategies that apply to all of us.

You can review the recording here.

I hope you will enjoy the first episode I had.