Our lives are filled with experiences. The degree to which we can learn and grow from them depends partially on our ability to capture micro moments and turn them into macro meaning.

I do this by, among other things, journaling, by annotating articles, by reading a lot, and by using artificial intelligence.

While your mileage may vary, for me, leveraging AI as a thought partner, a coach, and, at times, a drill sergeant, has transformed a part-time brand building exercise into a living, breathing small business.

How do I do this?

To give you a glimpse at my process, let me tell you about how I’m leaning into a transformative three-day event I attended this spring.

One Ocean. Well Boiled.

Billed as a retreat for marketing leaders, The Uprising brought together 39 people in Maryville, TN in April 2026 for talks, networking, and creative thinking.

I set aside all my reservations and doubts about not being “a marketing leader” and committed to being fully present. You may have seen one way I was thinking about that in an earlier post.

For the actual sessions, I decided to leave the laptop in my room and instead arm myself with a pen and a notebook. To root myself in the conversations, I relied on writing notes by hand to capture key moments and insights.

When I headed home, I took with me amazing memories, new connections, and 15 pages of notes. I knew I’d need to sift through that treasure trove of takeaways to surface gold nuggets I could apply to building the business.

But how could I even begin when, every time I peeked at the notes, despair crept into my soul instead of excitement and vigor.

Lost in this nutrient rich fog, I opened Claude, clicked into my Brand Building project and started to write.

Sifting Through the Raw Material

Whenever I start a new AI chat like this, I keep a couple things in mind.

First, the more information I provide, the better. Adding in as much context as possible, including what I invested to attend The Uprising, and how I thought about the experience afterward, helped it provide a better output.

And I also try to remember to hold some grace for myself. I will not get everything right on the first prompt, but starting is better than not starting. Supporting details can be added along the way.

So, for this Uprising synthesis chat, I described the challenge, my desire to maximize my investment of time and resources, how I’ve struggled to intentionally unpack takeaways from similar events, and asked for a recommendation.

It suggested I sweep through the notes and place everything into one of four categories, but first, it said to take a blank sheet of paper and write down answers to three questions:

1. The one thing I can’t stop thinking about from The Uprising is _.
2. The decision I’ve been quietly avoiding that the conference made unavoidable is _.
3. The person I came home wanting to be more like is , because .

So I did exactly that.

After a walk to clear my head, I sat down. Wrote my answers. Typed them into the Claude conversation. Hit Enter.

The rest of the conversation left me a bit breathless but in a good way. Connections I hadn’t seen leapt off the screen. Possibilities began to come into focus.

While it’s not helpful to share the exact output – apologies but it’s super personal, specific, and I’d like to keep it close to the vest for now – it materially changed how I thought about what I heard and how I plan to leverage what I gleaned at the conference.

The Application

And I wasn’t done there.

I spent another hour categorizing every note and observation into one of the categories. And then I shared that doc with it, and we kept iterating further.

The point is I could never have done this without AI.

I took the notes. I did the reflection. I’m going to apply the insights.

But connecting those dots doesn’t happen without generative artificial intelligence applied in a Claude Project with instructions designed to drive me toward achieving my goals.

Could I have paid a coach to help with this? Sure.

Could I have taken a course to learn how to synthesize and activate notes? Maybe.

But AI makes it possible to do this by myself on my time and in my voice. That’s powerful.

You Can Do It Too

While you’re likely not attending a multi-day marketing leader retreat any time soon, you may be attending a work conference, a full-day, in-person meeting, or a similar event. When you leave that experience, sit down and think about how you would answer these three questions:

1. The one thing I can’t stop thinking about from [your event] is _.
2. The decision I’ve been quietly avoiding that [your event] made unavoidable is _.
3. The [professional/person] I came home wanting to be more like is , because .

Write down your answers.

Yes. With paper. We think differently when we write.

Then, using either a Claude Project, a Gemini Notebook, or a Project in ChatGPT, begin. Describe the experience. Give it as much background as possible. And share your questions and answers.

If instead you don’t want to figure this out by yourself, I can assist. In my AI Trainer course, I work one-on-one with people who want a course tailored to their goals and abilities.

Interested in learning how to set up an AI project with custom instructions? Schedule a free 15-minute call so we can discuss how you use AI now and what you’d like to do with it without needing to watch 20 YouTube videos and figure it out alone.

Invest in yourself just as I did with The Uprising. I think you’ll be as amazed by the outcome as I was.