Guil Meira

@jayclouse Not you. It looks great in demos and falls apart on real weekly planning. I bounced back to Google Cal with Notion embeds for project context, and that combo finally stuck.

is Notion Calendar not at all intuitive or am I an idiot

@Sabrina_Ramonov The new-hire framing is the unlock. The teams getting real ROI from AI treat it like an employee with an onboarding doc and weekly feedback, not a tool with a prompt. Prompt engineering is overrated next to that loop.

i gave claude my voice, goals, and past content on day 1. month 3 it saves me 20+ hours per week making and repurposing content. Treat it like a new hire you continuously give feedback to. Set aside dedicated time, just like you would with weekly 1:1s

@thesamparr Same. Print-and-leave-the-devices-out is the only thing that's stuck for me too. The other lever: every new app starts at zero notification permissions and has to earn the right to interrupt. Most never do.

The amount of notifications I receive daily are so distracting its nearly debilitating. I have a social media following, so that adds to it -- but even people who aren't active on social -- are you feeling this? Slack, email, phone texts, imessage on my computer, calls, insta, linkedin, DMs on all those platforms...and then people in office. Every month I do the same thing: delete them all from my phone/desktop. But I'm human - they're very hard to fully ignore. Retention/memory is feels worse than before, flow is harder to get into, focus time is much shorter. The only solution that seems to work is print work I need and do it manually without phones/computer in the room. Feels like this generation's obesity will be notifications. Attention diabetes!

@thesamparr Same filter holds for AI adoption — most teams read about agents without writing the actual friction down. Once the friction fits in one sentence ("dispatchers retype the same job into 3 systems"), the reading starts compounding.

I read a ton. But I retain very little. Trying to learn how to learn better. Here is what I've figured out so far (and am trying): 1. Define the specific problem you want solved or skill you want to learn. If I don't start a book with this in mind, then its just entertainment. Example: "Get better at leadership" isn't a problem. Needs to be specific. Like “3 people don't seem engaged. How to give feedback that gets them to happily change their behavior.”

@Codie_Sanchez The tell is usually week 2 — A-players start mapping the system; pretenders keep waiting for tasks. Onboarding that forces them to document something exposes it fast.

I’ve hired 100s of people. Here’s how I onboard them to make sure they don’t just seem like an A-player...they actually are one.

@Sabrina_Ramonov Did this with an ops team last week — biggest unlock was the model asking for our actual workflow doc, not more prompt-fu. Turns out "context" is just the SOPs we never wrote down.

context engineering is a core skill. most ppl type 3 words and wonder why AI doesn't work paste this in ur next chat: "what do u need from me to give ur best answer?" try it and report back!

@danmartell The leap isn't tech expertise — it's the discipline to map your actual operations before pointing AI at anything. Most teams bolt agents onto chaos and wonder why nothing sticks.

I told my private coaching clients: “If AI isn't running your business by now… you're already behind.” It wasn’t hype. It was a warning. The gap is widening every day. In 2 years, it will be impossible to catch up. The good news is you don’t need to be a tech genius. You just need to decide to MOVE. If you want the same AI business cheat sheet I give all my clients to double productivity (without hiring…) Grab the AI Business Cheat Sheet below. My gift to you. 👊 bit.ly/48WwkNG

@Sabrina_Ramonov #2 is the one that quietly separates people who ship from people who burn 6 months. AI's leverage is removing friction inside a proven model — not inventing demand from scratch.

not making $100k in the AI gold rush? 5 mistakes: 1. obsessing over agents on day 1 2. starting an AI biz vs applying AI to a proven model 3. ignoring massive demand 4. picking 5 things, not 1 5. paying for courses vs shipping free ai resources: sabrina.dev

@danmartell Holds even harder with AI adoption. Teams won't use the tools more fluently than the founder does — your org's AI ceiling is whatever discipline you model in your own work.

Your team will not elevate past your skill level. You have to go first.

@thesamparr Same trap in ops work. "We should use more AI" is entertainment until you can name the exact friction — like "dispatchers retype the same job into 3 systems." Specificity is what turns a tool into an actual fix.

@Codie_Sanchez Hard part is forcing the system harder, not yourself. Most CEOs force success by adding their own hours — the real leverage is making what you already have do more.

Your job as a CEO is to simply force success from whatever limited resources you have.

@SahilBloom Boring is the leverage — every block is pre-decided so the day stops renegotiating itself. Same reason tight ops beat motivated chaos in a business.

My perfect day looks extremely boring: - 4:30am: Wake up - 4:30-5am: Reading - 5-8am: Deep work - 8-9am: Family breakfast - 9-11am: Lift/run - 11-12pm: Family lunch/walk - 12-5pm: Deep work - 5-7pm: Family dinner/hang - 7-8pm: Sauna/cold/reading - 8-8:30pm: Hang/show - 8:30pm: Sleep I wouldn't change a thing. Boring is seriously underrated.

@danmartell Each jump also rewrites the workflows underneath the role, not just the leadership skill. Most founders upgrade their behavior but leave the systems frozen at the last revenue level.

At every revenue stage, the problem changes: $300K → learn to delegate $1M → learn to work through people $3M → hire and develop great people $10M → align goals across departments The skill that got you here won't get you there.

@thesamparr @nevmed AIDA quietly runs everything past the page too — internal SOPs, Loom titles, even Slack updates. Once you start writing for attention then action, you can't unsee it in your own ops.

The single skill that has impacted my business career more than anything was copywriting. Specifically AIDA - attention, interest, desire, action. PS: I stole this example from @nevmed. He’s been my #1 copywriting influence. And Frankly, personal influence. I'll give you an example. So let's start with the A. Instead of saying “I'm gonna convince you to drink more water”, say “hey, have you ever seen those big meatheads at the gym who carry around a used gallon of milk that's full of water?” That grabs your attention. Then I make you interested. ”You see, the reason why they're doing that is because if you drink water within 1 hour. Working out, you will grow muscles 30% more than if you didn't drink water.” Then I make you desire it, “you see, the thing about water, it's got this magical compound called an amino acid that repairs muscles incredibly quickly and it's super easy. In fact, water's free.” Then I'm gonna be super specific on how to act on it. ”And so while you're working out, don't do this 3 hours later, you have to do this while you're working out. Carry 1 gallon of water. It can come from the tap, it could be sparkling water, it doesn't matter, but you have to drink it while you're working out.” And so, this is a significantly better way of convincing you, someone who cares about building big muscles, to drink more water. By the way, obviously, everything I just said is made up. But AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) works.

@danmartell The order matters most for ops-heavy founders. Exploring before the core compounds is how you end up with three half-built businesses and no real system in any of them.

Entrepreneurs see opportunity in everything. It’s our superpower and our Achilles heel. Choose the business you're in. Scale it to a number you’re proud of. THEN explore.

@Codie_Sanchez Same trap with AI rollouts. Teams that mandate the tool stall. Teams that show what's possible compound — the longing has to come before the workflow.

@thejustinwelsh True, with one trap: the founder default is to design ops around themselves and accidentally rebuild the same chaos they ran from. The deep care has to be in the system, not the title.

Strongly held belief: You'll never work for a better company than the one you build. So, if you want to work for a company that cares deeply about you, consider building one and employing yourself.

@Sabrina_Ramonov Same pattern with internal tools. The team that picks one AI workflow and runs it for 90 days beats the team running 6 pilots. Depth compounds, breadth burns hours.

learning AI tools is like learning an instrument. go deep on ONE before many. claude + chatgpt + gemini + grok = 10 min each, nothing mastered. just pick 1 this week, and in 30 days, you'll do in 1 step what used to take you an hour

@thesamparr The 1,000 store closures are the lesson nobody copies. Most founders try to grow out of a margin problem. Schultz cleaned the operational mess first, then re-grew.

Recently re-listened to the Acquired Podcast with Howard Schultz. Not many people remember that in 2008, Starbucks was SEVEN MONTHS from insolvency. Market cap fell from ~$28B to ~$5B. Schultz came back and saved it: - Closed 1,000 stores. Starbucks had never posted a negative same-store-sales quarter in company history. Now they had several in a row. - Stood in front of the entire company and cried. "I've let you down. I'm doing my best. We're trying to save the company." - Closed every U.S. store for an entire afternoon to retrain baristas. - Flew 10,000 store managers to New Orleans. - Schultz said the company against his CFO’s advice - "We have 7 months until we go insolvent." - Ran the math and figured out each store needed 10 more customers per day Today the company is worth $100B+.

@thejustinwelsh Picking a ceiling on purpose is harder than chasing the next 10x. Constraints are what actually make it a lifestyle business, not the revenue number.

People often reach out to me and say things like, "you could scale 10x if you just..." without realizing that I'm not interested in scaling 10x. A great lifestyle business is a perfect balance of quality time & quality revenue. Never get distracted by other people's purpose.