Hi Reader, I've been noticing something in client conversations this past month. The people who are most anxious about AI are the ones with the most knowledge. Senior operators, experienced PMs, accomplished consultants. They know their domain deeply, and they're watching AI get better at knowing it too. The people who seem least anxious aren't focused on knowing more. They're focused on how they show up when it's hard. What got me thinking Joe Hudson - an executive coach who coaches leaders...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Here's a thought experiment. Or it was, until I ran it on myself a few weeks ago. What if you had to be completely unreachable for three weeks, starting next Monday? It was clarifying in ways I didn't expect. Would your business hold? Most people pause when I ask that. Then they start listing the things that would break. A client expectation that's never been written down. Content that only exists in their head. A monthly deliverable that quietly stops going out. "Automate...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Danielle LaFleur ran a 22-person marketing agency. Then she took it apart and rebuilt it as a 4-person AI operations company called EasyAsPie.ai, where everyone does work that matches their actual strengths instead of their job description. The catalyst wasn't strategy. It was sitting down with each person's values and natural gifts and realizing most of them were in the wrong seats. What we covered: The nail salon reframe: a salon owner's real skill isn't owning a salon, it's...
28 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, A few months ago I started working with a woman who spent 25 years in legal marketing, seven of them as a CMO of a $500M+ firm. She knew exactly how to sell other people's expertise. She had no idea how to sell her own. That gap is the most common thing I see in senior people who want to go independent. You've shipped real work for years. You've solved hard problems. But packaging what you know into something a client will pay for? You never had to. The company name did that part...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
MIT Museum exhibit panel titled "Competitive or Collaborative?" arguing AI should augment people, not replace them. Hi Reader, The senior leaders I work with all hit the same wall with AI. They give it a half-formed instruction. They expect it to back-fill the context, infer what they really need, ask one or two sharp questions, and come back with something they'd actually use. Because that's how it works with a smart team. You say "can you take a pass at this?" and a good engineer or PM or...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Every week I talk to a new AI builder. They show me something they built in a weekend. It's actually impressive. Then I ask: "who's using it?" And it gets quiet. What I'm Noticing It's the same conversation, four or five times a month now. A PM built an internal tool that summarizes customer calls. A founder shipped an agent that drafts proposals. A consultant put together a prompt library her clients could use. The builds are good. The demos are smooth. The energy is real. Then I...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Brooke Wright is on a mission to teach 10,000 women how to use AI by 2026. She doesn't have a tech background. And she runs Wright Mode, a thriving AI strategy practice for women founders and small business owners. What we covered: The Brain Buddy custom GPT she built so her to-do list feeds her one task at a time instead of all at once Her client (a coach) who sold 3,000 copies of a custom GPT at $37 each, reaching people she could never have coached one-on-one The reframe that...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, A guest on the podcast this month dropped a line that's been clarifying a lot of conversations I've been in since: Automate 80%. Keep the 20% that makes it yours. The 80% is anyone-with-the-right-prompt work. The 20% is the part that requires you being you. Your specific perspective. The decisions no one else can make. Your read of the situation. That distinction is critical right now. What I'm Noticing Most of the AI conversations I'm having with product leaders, fractional...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, What do you do when AI can handle 80% of your job? Cien Solon found out. She was a senior product manager managing 30 engineers and data scientists when she realized AI could write her epics and user stories in minutes instead of an afternoon. Her first reaction: "I'm going to be out of my job." Her second reaction: "What else can I build?" What we covered: How a chatbot she built in 2018 improved customer service resolution rates by 20% overnight, years before anyone was talking...
3 months ago • 1 min read