Hi Friends!
It's April and the light is finally changing. Portland is still hit-or-miss on the weather (more hits than misses lately ☀️☀️), but the magnolias are out, the days run almost to 8pm, and my calendar is full of people I love.
I've been thinking a lot this month about how easy it is to miss what's good while you're busy building what's next. That theme runs through everything below.
A little gratitude. A songwriter. A closing chapter on a podcast run. And a place I've been going to since I was a kid.
Let's dig in.
What I’m Practicing
Focusing on the good.
It's so easy to dwell on what isn't working.
The editor in me is always optimizing, closing gaps, looking for the 1% better. Mostly it works, and has served me and my family well.
But there's a shadow side. I can spend more time talking about what it could be, should be, will be someday, than what already is. I build the future at the expense of the present.
Spring feels like the right season to rebalance.
Two practices I'm trying this month:
➡️ Relationships
Keep a compliments journal with your spouse.
Leave it somewhere easy to grab. Write down one thing you appreciate about the other person. A couple of times a week is plenty. You don't tell them you wrote in it. You just set it back where it was and let them discover it. Small is fine. Specific is better. They read it and maybe it changes their day a touch.
➡️ Communication
Change the question at dinner parties.
Instead of "how's it going?" try "what’s something you’re working on that you’re excited about?" Watch people light up. When we think about the past, we default to rehashing what went wrong. Ask about the future and we are naturally more optimistic. Try it- you’ll get a different person at the table.
The long days are ahead. Planting and building and people-gathering season is here.
Grateful for the abundance and goodness unfolding right now. Yes, right now!
What I’m Loving
Storytelling. Still. Always.
Last month I pointed to Joe Lazer and the fact that AI platforms are paying $700K+ for storytelling roles.
I can't stop thinking about it. Not because of the dollar figure, but because the theme keeps showing up.
As AI consumes more and more mindshare (if you're in tech or media, you feel this in your bones), I'm increasingly drawn to the people who can actually tell a story. Not frameworks. Not a top 10 list. Stories.
And it's not just me.
Princeton neuroscientist Uri Hasson has used fMRI to show that when someone tells a story, the listener's brain actually syncs with the speaker's. Sensory and motor regions fire in the same sequence. If the story involves running, your brain runs a little. A list of stats doesn’t do that.
Case in point. Roy and I watched a Billy Joel documentary last week. I wouldn't put him in my top 10 musicians. But I know his hits. I remember watching We Didn't Start the Fire on MTV. I remember wondering where Allentown was. I definitely knew he'd married a supermodel.
The documentary was so well done. It made me revere and respect him in a totally new way.
Listen to how "Piano Man" opens:
“It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, the regular crowd shuffles in.”
Or this part of "Allentown":
“Well our fathers fought the second world war. Spent their weekends on the jersey shore.”
There's no setup. There's no hook. You're in the bar. You're in the dying steel town. You're already feeling something. Billy Joel isn't explaining his theory of loneliness. He's letting you sit next to it.
Gah, so good!
Scott Galloway (as you know, one of my faves) says storytelling is the one skill he'd teach his sons. Everything else will get automated or commoditized.
AI content lives in the “uncanny valley” a lot of the time (hat tip to Jeff Lind). The copy reads almost like a person wrote it. The voiceover almost sounds real. The storytelling almost makes you feel something. But your brain catches it. You can't always name what's off. You can feel it. It's toooo perfect.
That's why great human storytellers stand out more, not less, as AI content floods the zone.
To be clear: AI is the best thought partner I've ever had. It expedites research, drafting, stress-testing, refining. I use it every day.
Just don't paste the output straight into the world and call it your voice. I've said to many clients, "Your imperfection is your magic."
Be the person who makes the room feel something. Hire the person who makes the team trust them. Build brands that make the market remember you.
Shining a Light
Wrapping a podcast chapter.
Since launching Co-pilot in fall 2024, I've been on a podcasting journey.
It started as research. I figured I would eventually use the medium with clients, so I needed to understand it from the guest side. I also co-hosted a pod back in 2019, so the format felt comfortable.
29 episodes later (!!), I'm taking a break.
Reflecting on the run: I met great hosts from Australia and the UK to Tucson and New York. I got free exposure to audiences I couldn't have reached on my own. I landed client referrals. And every episode became content I could repurpose across my own channels.
A huge thank you to every host who said yes: Carolina, Ari, Jason, Tim, Renee, Mark, Mary, Nassim, and many more.
Here's the lesson for leaders. Everyone wants to be a thought leader right now. But the medium is only saturated if what you have to say isn't true to you. If you run a business or lead a division inside an enterprise, do not ignore podcasting. The audience is there. The ROI on a 30-minute conversation beats almost anything you can do in paid.
ICYMI
Biggest pivot of the year: Allbirds is rebranding as an AI company.
The $50M deal will fund GPU purchases to launch a "GPU-as-a-Service" business, renting out AI compute under long-term contracts.
What the?
I know. Sit with it for a second.
The sustainable wool sneaker brand. Now an AI story.
Image Credit: Lovart / The Rundown
The Onion couldn't have written it better.
Two things can be true. AI is the most important platform shift of our lifetime. AI is also the new .com in corporate-earnings theater. Both are real.
If you're thinking about your own positioning this quarter, here is the filter: is the AI narrative actually connected to your business? If yes, lean in. If not, audiences will feel it.
Where’s Jess?
The photo below was taken at a place I've been going to since I was a kid.
Now I get to be there with my college girlfriends.
Community is the most under-practiced and overused word in leadership right now. Everyone talks about it. Nobody prioritizes it the way it deserves. Every great chapter of my life has been anchored by the people who stayed.
Grateful for the ones who keep showing up.
Nobody guessed last month I was at the newly renovated Portland Art Museum (PAM)! The first reader to guess the location correctly this month gets a shoutout in the May edition.
Thank you for being here. See you in May. 💛
— Jess
Bet on yourself.
➡️ Did a friend forward this to you? Subscribe here. You’ll get pro tips and inspo about once a month.
