Hey there,
​
It’s been one full week since we touched down in Chicago from Lisbon and the Midwest Ranch & Flavored Beverage Bonanza is officially underway.

We are so deprived in Europe.

Feeling like a *slight stranger in your literal backyard is an odd feeling.

Added to this is that I lived in NYC for the past 14 years prior to our Lisbon move so it’s been more than a decade since I’ve spent any considerable period of time in the Chicago burbs.

And you notice things that were totally normal to you at one point in time that now feel categorically insane.

Case in point.

This is insane.

• It’s been 3 years since my kids have done a gun drill.
• Three years since I’ve woken up to the headline of a “in your backyard” mass shooting (Highland Park 4th of July shooting was practically in my back yard back in 2022)
• Three years since I stopped instinctively scanning for the exit signs in every public crowded space I was in.

I wish this upon every parent in the US.

It shouldn’t require you needing to leave the country to acquire this kind of mental peace and safety for your family.

And yet. I appreciate being American in ways I didn’t realize until I left.

First off, we are so freaking NICE.
OH MY GOD.

I forgot that literally anywhere and anytime is the perfect setting to strike up conversation with a complete stranger.

Biking around the burbs and waving BACK to literally everyone because they’re all waving at me FIRST is giving me immense joy this week.

At the workout classes I’ve done I’ve chatted with women in their 60s and 70s and I fully know that if I lived back here, I’d become real friends with them and we’d get coffee post class.
​
It’s not often in Lisbon that I’m around women a few decades older than me and finding immediate common ground.
​
But again, Americans are so friendly.

There is NO ONE BETTER at customer service than America.
​
Every single restaurant we are in, we tell the servers how amazing they are and we mean it.

The pride, the people skills, the ability to anticipate a need before you’ve even vocalized it.

I never thought much of this skillset when I lived here but when you don’t have that as the norm, you notice it.
​
On the flip side: the food. I know I’m being cliche but what is going on here?? Was it always like this????

When I moved to Europe I immediately lost 6lbs and I was eating and drinking MORE. I chalked it up to stress. But now I realize it was something else entirely.

Even my boys after a week are like “mom, I just FEEL huge after every meal here.”

We are all desperate for a plain piece of fish and a vegetable that isn’t drowning in butter. (WHO AM I????? I barely ate fish when I lived in the US)

Again, it shouldn’t require moving to another continent to have access to fresh food no matter where you fall on the tax bracket ladder.

To be healthy here…is now a rich person’s game.

But let’s talk briefly about last night.

My youngest saw fireflies for the first time.

We were back from Dairy Queen…he was downing his first blizzard, that specific Midwestern summer smell in the air (perfection) and he just started screaming “MOM BUGS ARE LIGHTING UP!!!.”

I grew up chasing fireflies in these Chicago suburbs. My kids grew up in Brooklyn and now Lisbon and they didn’t.

Standing there watching him watch them, I felt something I wasn’t expecting. Nostalgia (sure).. but also something a touch heavier.

In that moment I felt the weight of a choice I made and am still actively making.

Because I chose the current life we are living, I chose a different life for my kids without their permission.

And watching my youngest see something for the first time that brought him so much joy that I took for granted as a kid, I had a fleeting moment of “did I make the right call??”

I *THINK I did but I suppose the jury is still out.

It’s not a Black or White, “right or wrong” world we’re operating in.
​
If it were, how could I reconcile that my kids are the least safe in this country (statistically,) yet surrounded by the nicest strangers ever (objectively.)

Or that Portuguese culture is more annoyingly traditional, less of the “you can do ANYTHING” mentality that is so gorgeously American, yet most Americans CAN’T actually do anything.

Because of health.
Because of no safety nets.
Because of crippling debt.
​
If anything, moving abroad has given me a bigger capacity to hold two completely true things at once… and still not know what to do with either.

Which brings me to a moment I had this week.
​
Wiebke -my co-founder for My StoryPro – and I taught a group of creatives running businesses how to tell better stories using AI and then showed them how My StoryPro helps them do it.

One of the women immediately asked me what I thought about the morality of AI.

I think I’d have given her a different answer at another time.

Last year I would’ve started listing off my thoughts on water supply and data centers and what we’re doing about it as two women building in this space.
​
I didn’t this time.

Instead I said (paraphrasing): yes. There are a lot of moral implications around AI and I hate all the stuff you just mentioned… the underbelly is absolutely real.

But I urged her not to plant such a hard stake in the ground. Not to put so much pressure on AI being a “right” or a “wrong.”

Figure out what to keep and what to leave behind…because it’s complicated.

Just like every big choice you’ve made in your life.

The move that felt right AND wrong at the same time.
The tool that helps AND unsettles you.
The life you chose AND the one you wonder about.

What has become more clear in this move abroad is that you take the parts that align with your values and you hold them close and the parts that don’t, you leave behind.
​
And I told her it’s why it IS IMPORTANT to find builders who share what you believe and your support with them instead. (hey hey it’s me and Vee and the entire My StoryPro team which is now up to 7!!)
​
​We now officially have a Chile HQ!

Raymond (on the left) is our second engineer who had the LEAST developer experience out of all our resumes but was the most AI-fluent and the most creative…and since you can learn any skill now, we value the “softer” skills when hiring for our team.

And Sergio, who runs a dance studio in Chile and also happens to be a ninja at AI-agent building and operations. He oversees our team of 17 (yes for real) AI employees that run in the background but still need a human watching them every single day.

He’s also a Canva wizard!

The life of a startup, where you wear 5,498 hats at all times.

OK. I’m wrapping this up, because as usual this is a choose-your-own-adventure disguised as a newsletter.

Two things before I go.

If you’re in Chicago — I’m hosting a casual meetup this Tuesday, August 4th, 5–8PM at a bar in the city. Reply to this email and I’ll send you the details. I’d love to meet as many of you as I can while I’m here.

If you’ve been circling MyStoryPro (COME HITHER!!) — we’re running a free workshop on August 27th on how to have AI edit and create video for your business but you need to be part of My StoryPro.

Try MyStoryPro free for 7 days!

We’ve been loving the new ChatGPT models and we’ll walk you through our experiments — the wins (AI did this entire video…is it winning any awards?? Probably not but it told a story which is pretty amazing and even chose our brand colors and the music) and the ones that flopped — and Vee and I will show you how to set it up yourself and how to get the best video output.
​
Video is non-negotiable if you want to grow right now. (don’t shoot the messenger!)

So we’re going to show you how to make it less painful.

If you’ve been sitting on a trial, this is a good reason to finally start one.

OK FOR REAL this is done now… See some of you in Chicago this Tuesday!

XO
Patrice