Hi there,
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So my oldest is 12 (nearly 13 in three months.)

He’s the only kid in his friend group (almost his grade) without a phone.

We’re the designated hang house (master plan going great over here thanks for asking💅) but I’m also the “can’t be on your phones” house.

Nothing gives me more visceral anxiety than watching a bunch of kids huddle and scroll in silence shoulder-to-shoulder.

At a dinner table (parents included).
At a restaurant.
In a living room.

You get the idea.
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So much backlash is given to “OMG AI EVIL!” but not enough outrage to “But for real, how are we getting the kids off these crack screens and can we please stop the adults from making and selling apps marketed towards… TODDLERS????”
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But sure, AI is bad. ​
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And before your blood starts to slowly boil, because you think I’m being sanctimonious, please know that my middle child would probably cut off his right arm for a phone, so this is not a newsletter topic pivot to make anyone feel $hitty about parenting.

But I am taking you somewhere today with this.

So stay with me.

Back to my oldest, who yes we’ve decided as parents that we don’t want him to have a phone… but he’s really taken it to new levels of extreme.

We can’t even get him to use one of those watches that is ONLY texting… which I very much would like him to use.

Case in point this poetic exchange all week.

Never have I gotten a glimpse into my mothering future (need the therapists LINED UP) when he is out of the house.

Like I think I am one of THOSE moms who cannot help herself.. “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TALK TO ME OVER TEXT, CALL ME, LOVE ME, VALIDATE ME, DON’T FORGET ME!!”

I’m so basic.

And while some of this is dreamy that I have an almost-teenager who gives ZERO F’s about phones (nature AND nurture?!), social media, texting, being the ONLY among his friends without one does make me pause sometimes.

There have been moments where I’ve pulled my husband aside and said, “Should we be worried? Will he be *gasp BEHIND??!?”

“Mom. I’m around my friends who have phones if there’s an emergency. What do I need it for? I’d rather play soccer anyway.”

I have sat with that “behind” worry longer than I’d like to admit… even though I low key LOVE that my kid is such an outlier.

But then a past client sent me an article that basically answered it for me (thank you, Duffy!).
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Scott Galloway (I have a love-hate relationship with him) but in this case… he took the words out of my mouth.
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​He pointed out that a decade ago, private schools were pouring money into Mandarin (GUILTY! Except it wasn’t a private school)

… and computer science, convinced those were the skills that would win.
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He asked – and I’m paraphrasing – “how’s that working out for everyone?”

His answer for what actually lasts? (drumrollllllllllllll)​
Storytelling.

The ability to look at data, find the narrative, and communicate it in a way that makes people lean in and feel something.

Writing from your point of view and then having the ability to make that for real human connection is at a premium right now.

I wrote about this a few months ago how tech companies were hiring storytelling executives for half a million and up.

So this isn’t a new argument, but the urgency of it lands with more weight right now, when so many people are genuinely scared about being replaced by a machine.

When my mom came to visit last month, I told her how her grandson is “such a luddite.”
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And she says: It’s going to be his superpower in this world.

I asked her what she meant.

My mom works in hospitality and she is interacting with families ALL DAY LONG.

She said the amount of orders she takes while a kid is scrolling on YouTube is just commonplace now.

Teenagers who can’t make eye contact with her, order from the menu while looking up or hold a basic conversation as long as it takes to say, “I will have a Sprite.”

We’ve been so focused on what skills to add or what tech our kids should be learning that we forgot to ask which ones we’re letting atrophy.

Eye contact, holding a conversation, speaking to your friends without staring at a phone, making a stranger feel something across a table, being able to captivate another human….all of these are not separate skills from storytelling.

And those skills are the premium right now…and only going to get even more so.

My own son has been accidentally practicing the one thing everyone is suddenly scrambling to hold onto: how to come across as a real human in a room.

The ability to take what you’ve lived and say it in a way that makes another human lean in.

That’s what my mom sees missing in a lot of kids in her day-to-day interactions.

It’s what Galloway says will outlast the Mandarin and the code.

And it’s the one thing a machine can’t hand you, because it has never walked your life path or felt what you’ve felt

That’s not a soft skill. Right now it might be THE skill.

Which is exactly why what Anna said to me this week landed so hard.

Wait, you’re still talking whose Anna?!

Anna is a potential investor who also happens to be a My StoryPro member – a best-selling author, PhD, and innovator in design thinking – and she said something that made me want to run through the Zoom screen to hug her.

“What your tool is giving me…. it’s bringing out my own power. Rather than me giving my power away to AI to do it for me because ‘I’m a shitty writer.’” (she is NOT a $hitty writer, to be clear)

She called My StoryPro “an empowering tool rather than a disempowering tool.”

And I think this is what I’ve been trying to thread this whole newsletter.

My son protects his power by staying off the phone entirely…even if he doesn’t fully realize it in that way. (erm…he doesn’t)

Anna protects hers by using AI (Hey hey My StoryPro!!) in a way that gives her more of herself, not less.
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One opts out, one leans in ,but they’re doing the same thing.

They’re refusing to hand over the part that makes them THEM.

That’s the fight, I think.

Not “is technology good or bad.”

It’s….in all of this, are you still doing the thing only a human can do – staying in your power, being a real person in a room, saying what you actually mean?

Because we are constantly being asked to hand ourselves over -to the scroll, to the algorithm, to the machine ….

But the people who push back and use the AI that pushes back… will be the ones who stay whole.

I’m curious… when you use AI, does it leave you feeling more like yourself, or less?

Hit reply. I actually read these.

And also where are my other mother of tweens who are evil “can’t have a phone monster!?!?”

Talk soon,

XO
Patrice

A couple things worth your time this week:

🎙️ I went on a grief podcast and it’s one of my favorite conversations I’ve had in a while.

We got into the stuff I don’t usually say out loud: mortality, why I do this work, what we lose when we outsource our own thinking to a machine.

The grief we spoke about had to do with identity, specifically when the life you knew goes away.

​Listen to Grief and Light with Nina Rodriguez → and if you want to watch it, here is the YouTube episode. ​

​📣 My friend and social media and launching guru baddie Kar is teaching a free class Tuesday.

​If your sales feel unpredictable even though you’re showing up and doing all the things, it’s probably not your audience size or the algorithm. It’s your messaging.

She’s teaching her framework live …June 9th, 12pm EST.

Free. About an hour.

And exciting news: I will also be part of the program that she is teaching in her year-long mastermind… as her storytelling and AI (but make it human) arm.