Welcome to the August rewind, Reader!
Here's the recap from last month - personal life, business behind the scenes, and everything in between.
〰️ Life Offline
August is the month I protect the most every year, and this one delivered.
It was slow, sunny, and almost entirely offline.
My hubby and I hit 15 years married, so we spent a full week in Montreal just us, went to the quarters, semis, and finals of the Canadian Tennis Open, and ate our way through the city.
Then it was cottage season. My parents' place, a resort in Quebec, days on the water, zero agenda.
And my daughter turned 13, which we celebrated by giving her 13 envelopes to open, each one holding something we'd go do together: a shop, a challenge, a treat, a little adventure. Watching her open them one by one was the most fun day.
I really soaked this month up.
No guilt, no half-checking Slack from a dock chair. Not one Instagram Story published.
〰️ The thing I didn't plan for
Amongst all these summer vibes, there was something that came up I didn't plan for.
I had a fairly significant transition in my team over the last 6 weeks, which meant doing some hiring while I’ve been out of office.
A couple of people I’ve worked with for a long time had to move on for personal reasons, and saying goodbye to them was hard.
I’m genuinely excited about the team we have going into the Fall, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also feeling the weight of it. Getting a new team into rhythm is real work and it has landed right when I was OOO and then into the busiest season of my year (aka: now through November).
I'll share more about all this team transition stuff down the road, but it's been a trip.
〰️ We welcomed 35 new students into AI All Stars
Our "Draft Week" campaign wrapped in the first days of August, and we welcomed a bunch of new faces into our AI All Stars program.
The campaign, by the way, brought in $72K.
No ad spend. No webinar. No live event. No social push. No affiliates. Just emails to this list.
I want to be really clear about why that works, because it isn’t a clever funnel.
It’s that I’ve been showing up in your inbox consistently for years, as an actual human, sharing what I’m doing and what I’m learning, whether or not I have anything to sell that week. So when I finally do run a campaign, the people who have been hanging around thinking about it just jump in. They already know me.
That relationship is the most valuable asset in my business. Not the sales page, not the launch mechanics. The fact that you open these.
If you take one thing from this email, take that one. Go be a cool human on email, consistently, for longer than feels reasonable.
〰️ I presented for the Entreprenista community
Mid-August I popped back into the office and ran a session for the Entreprenista community. It was one of the more fun presentations I’ve done this year. I did a bunch of live demos that their members really jammed on.
We built a landing page from scratch using the Claude skills I have installed.
The example was a perimenopause coach, and the page came out so well I would have handed over my credit card (you can see it here). The copy was sharp, the structure was right, and it took minutes to create.
Then we did the one that all the service providers in the room loved. If you run discovery calls, I have a skill that takes the raw transcript from that call and turns it into a polished, high-level strategic proposal. Ready to send in under 3 minutes.
We ran a few other demos too that showcased how amazing AI can be when you have it trained properly. If you're an AI All Stars student, you get all of my skills that do cool shit like this.
Thanks to Stephanie and Courtney for having me!
〰️ We launched 'Noted'
I had a burst of inspo while I was OOO and decided to launch a new weekly newsletter called Noted. The first issue went out on Aug 20th.
I wanted one place to share the AI and marketing news that actually matters for running a business. Just what’s worth your attention and what to do with it.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster building a new system and workflow to get it going, but I'm really happy with the result and feedback from you guys so far (thank you!!).
Have you been digging it? I’d love to know!
〰️ So, what's next?
I’m heads down updating Black Friday in a Box for 2026. That's the program that teaches my 5 Days of Deals strategy I’ve run in my own business since 2019. The one that has done $158K in 5 days :)
Doors open this month, and this list gets first access and the best pricing of the season.
More to come on that soon!
〰️ Newsletters and things you might've missed:
That's a wrap for August. Hope you had a great month!