Cattle Ranches, Social Proof, and Sport for Good

Hi Friends!

Co-pilot edition #12. One full year of this newsletter. 🙌🏼

A year ago, I sat down to write something long form. I didn't know if anyone would read it. For a while, I wasn't sure it was adding up to anything. Those early bars on the left of that James Clear chart felt very familiar.

Co-pilot Communications launched in September 2024. This newsletter followed in June 2025. Both have required the same thing: showing up before the results were visible. Looking inward for validation when looking outward is always so tempting.

But the replies I get from you only reinforce my decision to write. THANK YOU for reading and please keep them coming.

One year in, my only ask: if any of these newsletters have been worth reading, hit forward and pass this one along to two people you think would appreciate it. That's the whole ask.

Let’s jump in.

Jess

Being a beginner again.

Last week I went to a cattle ranch for the first time in my life. Carman Ranch, in Wallowa County, Oregon. A part of the state so beautiful it felt like a Hollywood set. I smelled soil. Got up before sunrise for a photo shoot. Met people who wore cowboy hats to dinner. Not ironically.

And I watched a cow get branded.

I expected it to hurt my heart. It didn't, really. More like watching your six-year-old get immunizations. Tough for a few seconds, then everyone moves on. The calf ran straight back to its mom and seemed completely unfazed.

Standing there, I thought about how this hundreds-year-old tradition is where the word "brand" comes from. You go somewhere new, and suddenly the obvious things become visible.

We tend to do the same things on repeat. Same 25-minute commute. Same loop run past the cherry blossom. Same BLT with an iced tea. Comfortable. Predictable. And slowly atrophying.

When you're a beginner somewhere unfamiliar, really new, not-yet-pretending-to-know-things new, you have to think harder. You have to listen differently. Experts listen for confirmation. Beginners listen to understand. Discomfort is the price of growth.

Staying curious is a practice. One I keep having to choose. Putting myself in rooms where I don't already know the answer.

But, isn't that where the growth happens? The launch of Co-pilot Communications has proven it. Two years into building something from scratch, the bars are starting to rise.

This was never an “until I figure out what’s next.” It was always, this is what’s next.

AI is quietly changing everything we do. All of our defaults are shifting.

We're already replacing "Google it" with "ask Claude." AI holds memory of our preferences and past conversations in ways traditional search never could. How long before most people stop using conventional search altogether?

Recommendations are going the same direction. Why call a friend for travel tips when an AI can architect an entire itinerary in four minutes?

And ads. A café in New York printed a ChatGPT response and put it on their sidewalk.

ChatGPT later told me the whole thing was probably staged. The irony is rich.

But the psychology holds regardless. One in five Americans already use AI for restaurant discovery. Being the top result in an AI recommendation is the new five-star Yelp review. Social proof never changes. The medium just keeps shifting. We've always wanted to know what others have already validated. We’ve always wanted confirmation that our choice is the right one.

I find myself excited by all of this and unsettled by it at the same time.

Full disclosure: I was naive about social media when I took my first job in it, at adidas, back in 2007. I thought it was a wonderful way to stay close to friends you couldn't see in person. A way to see photos of new babies. A time capsule that anthropologists would study centuries later. I didn't see where it was headed. So now when I look at AI, I'm a little gun shy. You feel that too?

Where I've landed, for now: I'm okay not knowing how the story ends. I'd rather stay a character in the plot than watch from the sideline. That feels like the beginner move. And that's what I'm practicing.

Earlier this month I had the chance to really spend time with Cory Carman during our photo shoot at Carman Ranch. We were out at sunrise. I watched her move through her land the way people do when they've been somewhere long enough that the place is part of how they think.

She grew up on this ranch in Eastern Oregon. Left to study policy at Stanford. Then came back. That choice made all the difference.

What she built after that, a network of regenerative producers across the Pacific Northwest under the Carman Ranch Provisions name, survived when nearly every other brand in the grass fed space did not. Not luck. Staying when it was hard.

Getting to know her over the course of that shoot, I was delighted with how unrehearsed she is. She'll tell you plainly what's broken in the financial systems surrounding agriculture and her plan to change that, and in the next moment, she’s making us a quesadilla in the cook house. Her humility combined with her intelligence is an intoxicating combination. I’m not the only one who sees it. Cory is a magnet for change makers in the food and agriculture industry.

Her belief: rural communities already have the answers. The leaders are already here, doing the work, carrying the knowledge. The gap is recognition and resources, not capability.

I left the ranch thinking about that.

Find Carman Ranch Provisions here: https://www.carmanranch.com

Two things are happening right now that have nothing to do with each other and yet feel like they're doing the same needed work.

The New York Knicks won their first NBA championship since 1973. And the World Cup is being played on US soil for the first time since 1994.

I'll be honest with you: I'm an athlete, but I am not a pro sports watcher (y’all knew that though, didn’t you). So when I write about a sports story, it's usually because it's actually about something else.

Both of these are about something else.

The Knicks hadn't won in 53 years. There are New Yorkers in their 70s who waited their entire adult lives for this. There are kids who grew up watching their parents care deeply about a team that kept losing, who are now old enough to feel what it means for that same team to finally win. Three generations of shared patience getting its moment. Something moved through New York City when it happened. You can't manufacture that.

The World Cup is doing something different but adjacent. Soccer is the sport of the world's immigrant communities. When the US hosts, it's not just American sports fans filling those stadiums. First-generation families are watching their home country's team play on American soil. Neighbors who've never had a reason to cheer together are cheering together.

We talk a lot about what's pulling people apart. These two things are drawing people together.

For anyone who works in communication, leadership, or building trust between people: shared experience is the foundation. Before trust has a chance to form, you usually need to have been through something together. Sports create those moments. And right now, we have two of them happening at once.

We need this. 🙏🏼

Last month's winner: Scott Benish correctly identified that I was in Gargonza, Italy, a medieval fortified village in Tuscany. Well done! Scott and I have crossed paths going back to 2003, and I'm lucky to have him working alongside me for a wonderful client right now. He's a designer, user experience pro, and avid rock climber. Check out his work at benishdesign.com.

This month, I spent a long weekend with an old girlfriend somewhere that is truly the photo negative of the Pacific Northwest.

Hint: baseball fans descend on this city each spring…

Can you guess where I am? Reply with your answer. First correct guess gets a shoutout in edition #13.

Thank you for being here. See you in July. 💛

— Jess

Bet on yourself.

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