Before you read this I’d like you to cue up Dirty Dancing “Time of My Life” IN YOUR BRAIN and watch this video.

After three and a half years of talking daily, working together, building together, I FINALLY met my online business manager turned co-founder IRL.
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Wiebke.

Originally from Germany, hailing from Chile these days and in Lisbon for the first time in her life…her first words to me were… “I thought you were tiny!!” 🤣

***BRB going to go schedule “body image complex” into my calendar this month.

She came on board in 2022 when she wore glasses and had long blonde hair.

She helped me get my business online and introduced me to two foreign concepts called ORDER and STRUCTURE. I interviewed 3 other people and I knew right away this “was my girl.”
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But I had no idea that “my girl” would be the person whom 3 years later we’d be building an AI storytelling platform together that prioritizes thinking over efficiency, we’d be teaching the inaugural “AI For Entrepreneurs” class at Montclair University and getting requests to speak at big AI conferences…. OR that she would go ALL THE WAY into my storytelling Koolaid and transform her own life through the practices.
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Working with another human side-by-side on my team reminds me how much I miss that.
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Although we really apologize to Cara, the woman we were interviewing for sales page design… it was our VERY first zoom call together IRL and naturally had to document and SQUEAL into the call.

We had a full-day strategy session about MyStoryPro…something we’ve never been able to do because when you build while you fly there is never enough time to think.

But here’s what happened during that session together….. We affirmed to each other that we cannot quit.

Because Wiebke confided in me that she ALMOST walked away from all of this.

This whole “helping entrepreneurs use AI better” thing.

And here’s why that would have been a tragedy…

Wiebke is one of the most genuinely principled (AKA non performative) people I’ve ever met. Except when she is holding up a Chilean flag.

She’s a long-time vegan because of animal rights.
She wouldn’t let me give out Amazon cards as “thank you for your survey feedback” gifts.
She builds My StoryPro OBSESSIVELY thinking about the energy consumption our tool requires and how to reduce that.

When we had the opportunity to hire cheaper developers (hello, we’re a startup and always watching our budget), that was a complete non-starter for her.

She’s an empath to the 100th degree. She feels everything deeply.

Including being VERY over-stimulated by my every-day life🥴… I live in perpetual motion, running, boy energy and socialization.
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She assured me she’s not “a pure introvert” so she actually loves being in the energy.

***can I get you to say that on a recording now

And so a few months ago I felt her pulling back from our AI partnership. I didn’t know (until yesterday) she was having an existential crisis about whether we were actually helping the world or contributing to the problem.
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She told me how the words of Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI” who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in AI expressed regret upon receiving the award.

Basically a “holy $hit…what have I done?” Because of the existential risks AI poses to humanity.

She told me stories of her clients who kept asking her to build systems that would eliminate human input entirely.

She was questioning if her expertise was making the world worse. Questioning if what we built was REALLY helping… or was it actually harming.
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As we sat eating our lunches, me… steak and her some sort of vegan thing I blurted out to her, “EXCUSE ME. Nope. nope .nope. If you really care about the world we are in and how AI is impacting it, you cannot walk away. It would be an absolute disservice and not in line with your values and that’s not how you live.”

I went into full Mel Robbins meets Oprah meets MEAN MOM BUT I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH mode.

Because what you don’t see behind the scenes of us working together and building this AI tool is just how much we talk about the preservation of human thinking and using AI for good.
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​How every feature add we always ask ourselves first:
➡️ Will this help people think better?
➡️ Will this help people uncover hard-to-see patterns and understand themselves better?
➡️ Will this allow our members to look at their business in a different light?”
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We have spent HOURS talking about if “our tool is helping someone be the best person that they can be while they are on this planet.”
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I know this sounds lofty and I can see you rolling your eyes!!! But it is the honest-to-god swear on my three children truth.

And if people like us bow out of AI building, then we’re handing the entire future over to people who don’t share those values at all.
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And we only need to look at the current status quo to see how devastating the consequences are when marginalized and underserved voices are not building in these tech spaces. ​
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Because being in this space for two years now I can tell you, people like me and Wiebke are not the norm.
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​What is the norm?

People who will gladly build tools that replace human creativity entirely. Who don’t care about energy consumption or fair wages or whether their AI makes the world more connected or more isolated.
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Most people building AI tools are doing it only to cash out huge or get acquired.
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And don’t get me wrong, we, too, have a plan for making BAmillions.. BUT it is not the driving force behind why we started or continue to show up day in and day out.

If the most principled person I know walks away from AI because she’s worried about the consequences, who’s left to build it thoughtfully?
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​This conversation really solidified everything for both of us.

Instead of stepping back, we are committed to leaning in harder. To be even more intentional about everything that goes into MyStoryPro to make people MORE human, not less.​

Here’s what we WON’T do:

❌ We won’t promise to “write your content for you in 10 seconds” like every other AI tool.

❌ We won’t give you generic templates that make you sound like everyone else.

❌ We won’t let you outsource your thinking and then wonder why your audience stopped caring.

❌ We won’t leave you alone in an AI vacuum like every other tool does

Here’s what we WILL do:

✅ Make you pause and think deeper about your story ​
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​✅ Ask follow-up questions that other tools skip.

✅ Create a space where real humans gather to share their stories, give feedback, and remind each other that human connection beats efficiency every time.

Some partnerships are worth the height surprises… and the world-changing missions.

(Now excuse us while we go sweat through our first MyStoryPro brand shoot in 90-degree LISBOA heat! Stay tuned for our glow up – though I don’t think I can pull off pink hair like Wiebke can.)

XO,
Patrice