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TW: This first section deals with grief and loss of a pet and parent.

Heyyy {{first_name}}!

I’m just going to be real with you.

It’s been a shitty week.

Our dog Pepper died on Monday.

And not only am I grieving her, I’m feeling guilt and shame for not protecting her when I know in reality it was an accident, but I’m just so heartbroken.

I do have 2 other dogs, Penelope and Willow. So if you hear me talk about my dogs in the future, it is them.

Also, June is the anniversary of my dad’s death (6/23).

And Father’s Day.

And his birthday.

All within the same damn week (well 7 days).

And even though it’s been 8 years now, June hasn’t gotten easier.

Literally the only thing that helps me get through it is staying busy and keeping up with my routine.

So I’m incredibly grateful you’re here and giving me a reason to right this email so I can have a reason to get out of bed this week.

One more thing!

My youngest turns 8 this coming Saturday (like how??) and I am trying to decide what we are going to do. We aren’t having a big party, just dinner and cake with my sister and her kiddos. So that’s something to look forward to as well!

I’ve been hesitant to talk to much about AI.

For one, I’m what I would call a slow adopter.

For two, everyone else is and I’m kind of sick of it. Like, isn’t there anything else interesting you can talk about?

But when I saw that Cat Griffin was asking people to share how they were using AI in their business and not how you should think about AI, I was super interested. It felt like a way to share what I’d been talking about privately without contributing to the noise.

And, one of the things I love about the AI in 2026 Summit* is that not all of the speakers agree.

Some speakers use AI every day. Others are far more cautious. Some are finding creative ways to save time and improve productivity, while others are exploring the challenges AI creates around trust, authenticity and standing out online (I talk about this).

When you watch these presentations, you're not getting one viewpoint. You're getting 25 different perspectives from real business owners live you navigating the realities of AI in 2026.

The event is free and runs from June 19th - 23rd. All presentations are available now.

I’ve talked a lot about the Co-Promotion Club and Janna Carlson recently. I am one of the members who have been part of this membership for over a year. It’s benefitted me in ways that other memberships and experiences have not. If you’re new here, I wrote a blog about it a few months ago that you can see here.

Janna has a Referral Partner Summer Camp* coming up in July and when she first told me about it back in March, I knew it was going to be effing amazing.

But at almost $500 for 4 weeks, some of you have reached out and told me you’re really nervous about the investment.

And I totally get that. I am not one who can throw money at just anything either. I have to carefully weigh every single decision I make.

And Janna saw other people felt that same way and wanted to give you a way to ease your concerns.

Tomorrow, June 22, Janna is hosting a pre-summer camp workshop, “Your 2026 Referral Partner Playbook: Strategies that Work NOW.*”

If you are on the fence at all about Referral Partner Summer Camp, I HIGHLY recommend you join tomorrow’s workshop.

The workshop is $30 and if you come and decide you want to also join Referral Partner Summer Camp (which I’m pretty sure you will because Janna is a great person to learn from: calm, confident, and knowledgable), then you will get $30 off Referral Partner Summer Camp.

Plus, I’ll be there! So if you do come, make sure you say hi!

When you register for tomorrow’s workshop, make sure you let Janna know you heard about it from me. While I am an affiliate, she is also running an experiment so she can share the data with Summer Camp participants and it helps her learn if her hypothesis was correct or not.

I seriously hope to see you there!

I saw a conversation the other day about whether you should use templates or have custom systems for everything.

And some of these people were hella rude about anyone using templates.

And those people being rude were largely ones who clearly have teams of people doing a large portion of the day-to-day work in their business.

While not technically outsourcing, templates are a cost-effective way to outsource work in your business.

You buy a template from someone for hundreds of dollars instead of paying thousands and you get to use their ideas and framework to make your work easier.

Why wouldn’t you use templates??

Now sure, it’s not wise to use someone else’s template for something in your area of expertise if you’re working with a client, but for your own business, do what helps you go to bed at a decent time and let’s you eat dinner with your favorite people.

Plus, the most amazing thing about templates?

You can pick which parts of them you like and which you don’t.

My website was created with a template.

It came with sections I didn’t like. So I deleted them.

It came with colors that weren’t my own. So I changed them.

And instead of taking me a month to create my website (the first version anyway), it took me a little over a week.

Plus, it looked 1 million times better than the original website I had created back in 2022 that 100% looked DIY (were you here when I had that site??).

So if templates are saving you time and you aren’t using them in a client-facing capacity, by all means, use them!

Here are a few of my favorites I’ve used in the past:

There are a million more templates out there. This list is just a start.

Okay, so this is the final template and there are 2-3 sections that I had to delete so that I could actually send this email. I’ve been working on something for a client and IDK if I told you, but my husband started a lawn care business and it has taken off like crazy this week, so I’ve been helping him with the business stuff that he isn’t super comfortable yet.

So I had planned to send this email on Thursday and I’m just sending it today, but I’ve already started the normal Wednesday one to be ready to go!

But this newsletter will be becoming paid.

I tried this several months ago and didn’t do a great job at getting things set up, but with the amount of time these newsletters take me, I have to make a few changes to keep it up. Plus, Beehiiv makes it a million times easier to allow some free content (which I promise will still be useful and not just promos) and some paid content.

So I definitely have a better system that I’m building.

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day if it isn’t already over.