You’re Not Afraid of AI

I keep getting a version of the same question about The AI Second Brain.

Will this cohort make a difference for me?

So I'm hosting a live AMA on Friday, Sep 11 at 11 am ET.

Ask me about the curriculum, the teaching philosophy, what's covered and what's not. Bring whatever's kept you on the fence.

I’ll also give you a first look at something new we're building for the cohort.

Join the AMA

You’re Not Afraid of AI

I polled hundreds of you on what scares you about AI, then sat down with my executive coach Joe Hudson to find out why.

His answer: AI can out-effort you, period, but that's not the real problem.

This one's slower and more personal than my usual videos, and it might change how you relate to fear itself.

Watch on YouTube

Sold a Story: How We Failed to Teach Kids to Read

A podcast recently left me in tears, sitting in my car.

Sold a Story traces how a deeply flawed theory of reading took over American classrooms for decades, despite mountains of evidence proving it didn't work.

It's a masterclass in storytelling. It's also a wake-up call for anyone who creates educational content: popular and effective are not the same thing.

I wrote about what this taught me about virality, trust, and the content I put out every week.

Read on the blog

Try "Vibe Teaming" At Your Next Meeting

This month in the Second Brain Membership, we're exploring human connection and community in the age of AI. We found a framework that fits perfectly: "vibe teaming."

Jacob Taylor and Kershlin Krishna at Brookings coined the term in a paper published last year.

The idea: use AI to protect the time your team spends talking to each other, not replace it.

Their four-step method:

Have a real conversation with your team. Let AI record and transcribe.
Feed the transcript to AI for a fast first draft of the output you’re looking for.
Work with AI to refine that draft together.
Hold a follow-up conversation to catch errors and sharpen the thinking. AI transcribes that too.

In their case study, this produced a publication-ready strategy brief in 90 minutes. The researchers felt more energy and focus once freed from transcribing and drafting.

AI's real value here is time, the space it gives your team to think together.

Action step: at your next meeting, assign AI the notes and the first draft. Spend the time you save on the conversation itself.

“My Second Brain Finally Produced Something”

I want to give a shoutout to James, one of our Second Brain members, who just published his first Substack piece.

He says it's the fruition of building his system with PARA in Obsidian after struggling for years to organize his disparate thoughts.

That's the kind of win I care about most: real output instead of a nicer-looking notes app. If you're still waiting for your system to pay off, go read his post.

Read the post

Available Nov. 3, 2026