Older, wiser, still figuring it out

Presented by Nookly

Hey there, {{first_name | friend}},

My birthday is this week, and it has me reflecting on the last 12 months. In some ways, it was the hardest year of my life. I ran my own business for the full year. I wrote a book. I launched an AI assistant for families. I worked harder than I ever have.

In most ways, it was the best year I've had. I spent more time with my family than ever before. I bet on myself. I trusted myself more.

How can both of those be true? I don't have a clean answer, except that they are. As I look back on this wild year and ahead to what's coming, here are 3 things I know now.

1. Everything is changing. The way I run my family and the way I run this business have both shifted more in the last 12 months than I expected. Some of it is just time passing. But a lot of it is the increasingly rapid pace of tech change. My friend Di says everything is a season, and the seasons of life today seem to be coming faster and faster. Last year, I would never have guessed that I would have AI “employees” for my speaking, newsletter and podcast by this birthday, but here we are.

By “AI employees,” I mean agents I have created to work on their own to help me with tasks. More than just a chatbot, these run tasks on a schedule without my prompting.

2. I can't trust AI with everything. I run an AI business. I wrote a book about AI. And I still know I can't hand AI my private data, my private thoughts, or my private life. I keep a clear line between what I share with AI and what I keep for myself, and that line is a big part of why I do this work: so other families can draw the same line for themselves. Right now, AI is largely unregulated, and it feels like we're at a real inflection point. I hope next year's birthday reflection tells a different story.

3. I can trust myself. I could not have started this company, written this newsletter, or led my family this way in my 30s. I'm at the midpoint of my 40s now, and I trust myself in a way I didn't before. It feels good to be here!

This week's prompts are built around that first lesson: how to use AI to capture a season before it changes again.

Try these AI-empowered ideas to hold onto this season before the next one arrives.

Prompt 1: Interview Yourself About Right Now. Act as a family archivist. Ask me open-ended questions, one at a time, about what’s going on in my life in this season, including what's changed, what's surprised me, and what I want to remember. Ask follow-up questions based on my answers to get to the deeper experiences in this season. Avoid cliches and don’t humanize yourself. Format the output as a short essay I could save as a time capsule to remember this period.

Mom Tip: Try this using Voice Mode on a walk. Don’t forget your wired headphones (not wireless) for the easiest chatting with AI!

Prompt 2: Use Apple Intelligence to Create a Memory Movie from This Year. Create a memory movie of the past year highlighting memory moments for me and my family. [When prompted, select the people from your photos you want included.]

Mom Tip: Apple Intelligence can auto-build the actual slideshow from your camera roll in Photos > Collections. If you’re an Android family, Google Photos can do the same thing.

Prompt 3: Find the Shape of Your Year. Act as a personal assistant. Look at my calendar from the past 12 months and identify the busiest seasons, the recurring themes, and any patterns in how I spent my time. Format the output like a short year-in-review summary, quantifying the output where possible.

Mom Tip: Your AI tool needs to be connected to your calendar for this one to work, and you have to decide first if you’re comfortable sharing your calendar with AI. My results were kind of bananas, and helped me see patterns like how busy September and October are for me, and how I need to watch out for Wednesdays, my busiest day every week.

I also have a gift for you. I just redid aiempoweredmom.com from top to bottom using Codex, the AI coding tool from OpenAI, and I vibe-coded the whole thing myself over one weekend. It's full of new resources, an easier way to listen to the podcast, more on my book, and lots of free goodies for this community. Go take a look and let me know what you think. 

I love to hear from you. Will you hit reply and tell me what you’ve done with AI lately? I read every single reply, and I love seeing what this community is learning in real time.

Until next time,

P.S. This newsletter started as my own outline and reflections. Claude helped turn that outline into a first draft, and I wrote, edited, and finalized every word before it landed in your inbox.

Moms ask me all the time how to bring AI into family life without handing over the wheel or sacrificing control. Nookly's answer: you set the goal for your family (letter sounds, a school transition, fractions, whatever you’re working on together) and it builds personalized stories, videos, songs, and activities around it. You bring the context and the values. Nookly builds the plan.

Check out Nookly and use code AIMUM25 for 25% off.