Renia (pronounced R-EE-n-a) Carsillo hates business silos and marketing hacks. So, she spends her days working with mid-size and small companies to integrate their business strategy with their impact strategy, design sustainable marketing frameworks, and find a growth cadence that works for their team and their lives. Renia believes founders are uniquely positioned to create a kinder, more equitable world. She is passionate about bringing C-level strategic support to the small and mid-size companies shaping their communities every day. Renia says, "Sustainable marketing is built on a solid business strategy. A solid business strategy is built on values-driven habits. Values-driven habits are built on healed/healing leaders. We can’t do these things separately. They’re all interconnected. ”
Why Follow-Through is Still Human Work: Places AI Can't Help Your Business, Part 4 [Two on Tuesdays]
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Happy Tuesday, Reader! Today’s AI tools make starting things easier than ever. For example, much has been written about how helpful ChatGPT is at getting from blank page to rough draft for writers. But here's what no algorithm can do for you: the discipline of finishing. There are 99 days left in 2025. We're in that magic momentum cycle where hitting those big goals and leaning into the intentions we set in our planning sessions becomes not just possible, but natural. Realign with the Human Skill of Finishing Things Just like there are seasons for rest (winter is coming), there are seasons where movement is the natural order of things. Fall is one of those seasons. We are meant to finish things right now—to prepare our metaphorical nests for hibernation. The energy of fall is designed for completion, for wrapping up what we started when the year felt full of endless possibilities. For example, AI can generate your outline, suggest your next steps, and even write your first draft. But it cannot make you sit down day after day and do the hard work of edits and revisions. It cannot push through your resistance when the project gets hard. It cannot feel the satisfaction of typing "The End”, clicking "Publish”, or sending that final invoice. The discipline of finishing (of following through on commitments, pushing past the messy middle, choosing completion over perfection) is entirely human territory. Your Assignment for the Next 99 Days Take some time this week to choose ONE priority project (note: this word was never meant to be pluralized). Choose something you're committed to finishing before the Winter Solstice (or New Year's Eve if that's more your style) and plot out a plan to get it done. If you need it, you have my full permission to use Claude or ChatGPT to help you make that plan if you're stuck. Let AI handle the logistics, the scheduling, and even the motivation techniques. But remember: the actual finishing? That's up to you. The tools can start it. Only you can complete it. Let’s do this. What important projects or big goals are you committed to completing by the end of the year? If you need some accountability, reply to this email and tell me about it. Until next time,
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Renia Carsillo
Renia (pronounced R-EE-n-a) Carsillo hates business silos and marketing hacks. So, she spends her days working with mid-size and small companies to integrate their business strategy with their impact strategy, design sustainable marketing frameworks, and find a growth cadence that works for their team and their lives. Renia believes founders are uniquely positioned to create a kinder, more equitable world. She is passionate about bringing C-level strategic support to the small and mid-size companies shaping their communities every day. Renia says, "Sustainable marketing is built on a solid business strategy. A solid business strategy is built on values-driven habits. Values-driven habits are built on healed/healing leaders. We can’t do these things separately. They’re all interconnected. ”
Happy Tuesday, Reader! It's not groundbreaking news at this point, but study after study shows us that digital-first relationships make us less happy and aren't fulfilling in the same ways as face-to-face connections. Despite being more connected than ever, we're in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, and AI tools only exacerbate the problem. This has a real impact on our humanity, which is (spoiler alert) also screwing over our work lives. The solution is simple, if not easy: Get...
Happy Tuesday, Reader! We've been exploring where AI shortcuts can actually hurt your business. This week we’re focusing on the hidden cost of making your work too easy. Deep learning and maintaining creative skills require cognitive strain. If we’re not careful, what helps us in the short run (freeing up cognitive load with AI tools) can hurt us in the long run. It's crucial to make thoughtful choices about where the trade-off of short-term ease for long-term skill development is worth it,...
Happy Tuesday, Reader! Much has been written about AI's usefulness for evaluating work quality. But the more we experiment with it, the more we're realizing that quality feedback is still surprisingly difficult to get from a bot, especially for those actively trying to improve their skills. Effective feedback, particularly on creative work, remains inherently human. AI might eventually replicate it, but today it simply doesn't (at least not nearly as well as many believe) Realign with the...