Quick answer: What is the Memoir Veterans Day gift?
John's friend Ron Levi, founder of Memoir, is offering 50 veterans a free audio memoir chapter in their own voice. It takes a conversation of about 20 minutes on a phone with a digital biographer. Veterans can claim one at memoir.audio/veterans with the code FENZEL through the end of the year.
For Veterans Day, John passes along an offer from his friend Ron Levi, who founded Memoir, a company that turns a person's spoken life story into a produced audio memoir in their own voice. John recorded with Memoir himself and says hearing it played back meant more to his family than he had expected. Ron has offered 50 free chapters as a Veterans Day gift. Each chapter starts as a conversation of about 20 minutes on your phone, and you choose what to talk about, whether that is where you grew up, the people you served with, coming home, or the life you built afterward. Nobody has to talk about time in a war zone, and any topic can be skipped. A few days later the family receives a produced chapter in the veteran's voice on a private page that only the people they choose can hear. John is clear that the interviewer is a digital biographer and not a person, and he asks that anything classified or operationally sensitive stay out of the recording, since this is a life story and not a debrief. The free spots are open through the end of the year at memoir.audio/veterans with the code FENZEL, and the same code gives anyone who wants a full memoir the $99 Veterans Day price, which John calls a big discount off Memoir's normal rate. In the spirit of full disclosure, he notes that a share of each full memoir bought with the code goes to Heroes' Path Foundation.
Why it matters for leaders: John's note makes it easy for a veteran to tell their own story on their own terms. They pick the subjects, skip whatever they like, and decide who gets to hear it. For anyone who leads veterans or has one in the family, passing this along to a single person whose story deserves to be heard is the kind of small, practical step John is asking readers to take.
Q: How does a veteran claim the free Memoir chapter?
A: Go to memoir.audio/veterans and enter the code FENZEL. Ron Levi set aside 50 free chapters, open through the end of the year. The recording is a phone conversation of about 20 minutes with a digital biographer, and the family receives the produced chapter a few days later.
Q: Does a veteran have to talk about combat or their time in a war zone?
A: No. The veteran chooses every subject and can skip anything. John only asks that classified or operationally sensitive details stay out, and the finished chapter sits on a private page that only the people the veteran chooses can hear.
Read the full essay on Substack → https://heroespath.substack.com/p/a-veterans-day-gift-your-story-in
By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation