HOLA! We are STILL spring breaking over here.

In our car Griswold style through the Spanish coastline.

Most of us we’re all still speaking to each other. 🎉

​And we are all getting some history education on our favorite podcast on all things World War II, the history of racism in America, The Congo (I had no idea the horrific history of Belgium’s King Leopold II) and we’re moving on to the Aztecs and JFK on our way home.
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What can I say…always a party with us.

My boys have inherited their mom’s darker side of curiosity.
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We’ve had some intense talks on this trip about history repeating itself – and what it means for them as young white guys with privilege to not be part of the problem.

The common theme? It’s always an unloved, deeply insecure man rising into power and creating abject horror for the rest of us.
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Boy moms, we have serious work to do.
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We just left Valencia where we visited old friends from college and NYC — they moved from Brooklyn to Spain the same month we moved from Brooklyn to Portugal. Totally unplanned.

Maggie was my college roommate randomly assigned to me freshman year of college (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and it’s a small massive miracle we are still friends but sorry you’re with me until the end now.

There’s something about people who knew you before you had a direction in life or a single thing figured out even knew what the word “personal brand” was.

Which is actually exactly what’s been on my mind.

Something happened last week that I wanted to share with you.

Elyce -a brilliant SF-based media trainer who works with CEOs and major tech companies and just happens to be in my current storytelling mastermind offered me a session with her to talk “brand positioning.”

FULL DISCLOSURE….in my mind I was like “cool! I probably don’t need it but I am super curious to see her process.”
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We spoke for an hour and she asked me a lot of questions (I’m usually the one who does that so it did feel a little weird.)

She tossed out a few simple questions about My StoryPro. (by the way it just got SOO much better at nailing your stories last week)

And we went from there.

And you know that feeling when “something is not going that well”…yeah I had that feeling A LOT in our session.

I rambled. I said 48 words that could have been said in 10.
At one point she stopped me and dead panned:
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​“I still have no idea how to position you. I have no idea how to even like write the pitch. ’cause I don’t know what the pitch is.”​
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Ouch.

ME. The person who built our AI storytelling tool. Couldn’t land my own plane.

Who talks about it every single day to everyone (sorry kids trapped in the car with me for days on end).
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Who has coached hundreds of people through their own stories. (including Elyce!)

Couldn’t do it on myself in the moment without sounding super scattered and chaotic.

In a Shakespearean moment I reflected on teaching my class earlier in the week and saying to them, “This work is hard to do on yourself!”

It doesn’t matter how much you know.
It doesn’t matter how experienced you are.

Getting your real ideas out of your head and into words that actually land, usually requires another human in the room.

Someone who will look at you and say “I don’t get it” instead of nodding politely.

Now before you come for me… yes, I know! 😂

​I built an AI coaching tool literally designed to do this.

To push back.
To NOT nod politely when you’re rambling into the void.

But the Elyce session reminded me of something really important that most people are glossing over right now:

You still need to be challenging your own input – and stress testing what you’re even bringing to your AI in the first place.

Since our session, the way I show up in my own work has been on a completely different level.

She shook something loose.

I’m getting new traction — especially in the investor conversations I’m now in the middle of with fundraising.

Even with all the fancy AI workflows we’re being sold right now – the custom Claude projects, the ChatGPT setups, the “here’s my brand voice doc” – if nobody is challenging your input, you’re still just offering the world more content noise.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Except now the garbage sounds really confident. 😬

It’s like an American Idol mom telling her kid who genuinely cannot sing that she should absolutely go ahead and audition -only for Simon Cowell to decimate her on national television.

Why did nobody give that child real pushback BEFORE Simon got to her?!

(God I miss OG American Idol.)

Here’s what I want you to take away from all of this…. and I mean this whether you ever use MyStoryPro or not:

Talk to a human before you launch an idea.
Before you write a positioning statement.
Before you build out your next big thing.

A friend. A peer. Someone in your industry who will tell you the truth.
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Get your thoughts pressure tested by a real person first -THEN bring AI in to help you build it out.

Not everyone has an Elyce.
Not everyone has someone who will sit with you for an hour and dead pan: “I still have no idea what the pitch is.”🥴🥴🥴🥴

But everyone deserves that kind of pushback.​

That’s why we built MyStoryPro the way we did. And why it just got a whole lot stronger.

And if you don’t have that person yet to tell you like it is BEFORE you get going on an AI session – come find us.
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That’s literally what we’re solving for over here.

It’s not really about whether you can build the workflow or master the tools or get AI to sound like you.

It’s about whether what you’re putting out into the world is actually something worth putting out.

Alright, I’m off to figure out where we’re sleeping in Córdoba tonight. (The Mezquita better be worth my lack of planning as Toldeo had nothing!! …maybe I WILL plan in advance for the next trip..)

Talk soon,

XO
Patrice

P.S. If you want to see what’s new inside My StoryPro – seriously, the updates from last week are unreal-Bring it your pressure-tested ideas and watch what happens.

P.P.S. Our next live AI training features someone I am obsessed with. Carrie Cohen didn’t post her first TikTok until she was almost 50. Now she’s using it to build a thriving premium business in the online space after having a 20-year therapy brick and mortar practice.

In this workshop, Carrie’s pulling back the curtain on exactly how she’s doing it: showing up authentically (no dancing required), attracting high-ticket clients, and building a real brand on TikTok as a professional woman. If you’ve ever thought “that platform isn’t for me” this one’s for you. All trainings are free to MyStoryPro members.