This is issue 33 of this newsletter. I started it back in May 2025 when I was just beginning to grasp what it means to run a business where I provide my particular brand of skills (and yes, I'm feeling very Liam Neeson a la Taken when I type that) to solve the problems of other humans and their businesses.

There's something about 33 - it's approximately 1/3 of a hundred. It's also the name of a cover band I sang with in Houston (33 1/3) based on vinyl records and how many rotations they make in a minute. Allowing for longer playing music with more nuance.

Personally? I'm not a vinyl addict. My first album was a birthday gift: Barry Manilow LIVE 2 LP set. The next was Tommy Tutone (867-5309, anyone?). Those two albums were out of place in my parents' album collection which was full of religious music and Christian contemporary artists. Apart from occasionally hearing Elton John or Billy Joel seeping under the door from my older brothers' rooms - and catching a brief chorus of "Afternoon Delight" before the car radio station was flipped - those albums were my only exposure to secular music. It wasn't until I was 14 and got my first clock radio that I experienced New Wave and popular music.

Why am I telling you all this? I grew up pretty sheltered. The values my parents instilled in me were fine for the narrow world I moved in - church four times a week, social events with my church youth group, school when I wasn't figuring out ways to not go.

And then I grew up. I experienced life. I traveled and met people. I realized the world I thought I was growing up in was not the same world that other people experienced.

In July 2016, Philando Castile was shot and killed in a traffic stop here in Minneapolis. I remember feeling frustrated and saddened but also not knowing what to say about it. Then my buddy Jerome, a Black bartender I used to hang with when I ran karaoke in Houston, posted on Facebook something along the lines of, "All y'all white folx lose your mind when a gorilla is shot but are silent when another Black man is gunned down."

I remember reading that and feeling like I'd been thumped between my eyes.

That was the moment I woke up and saw that I'd been living in my safe world while all around me, people were experiencing a different reality. Since that day, I've been on a personal journey to understand how racism and injustice show up in my country and in the world. How it's so deeply embedded in everything that I can easily go about my life for months and never have to be reminded of how others feel threatened by driving a car while brown or walking down a street while Black.

I'm writing this from Minneapolis on Sunday, January 25th. Yesterday morning, less than a mile from where I went to church as a child, a 37-year-old ICU nurse named Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents.

Here's what the video shows - not what officials said happened, but what we can see with our own eyes: Alex was filming with his phone. When an agent pushed a woman to the ground, he stepped between them to help her. He was pepper-sprayed. Tackled. Pinned by multiple agents. And then, while he was on the ground, an agent shot him in the back. At least ten rounds in five seconds.

He was holding a phone, not a gun.

This is the third shooting by federal agents here in three weeks. What you're seeing in national news is not what we're seeing on the ground.

I don't know how to make sense of this in a newsletter about AI and curiosity and staying human. But I can't write to you this week and pretend it's not happening.

So instead of the usual freebie, I made something else. It's called "33 Small Acts That Still Matter (When Everything Feels Impossible)." It's not about AI. It's about what to do when the world is on fire and you still have to live your life. When you're frozen. When you're far away and feel useless. When you need to rest and it feels like betrayal.

It's 33 things because this is issue 33. That's the only whimsy I've got this week.

You are allowed to feel more than one thing at once.

You can be terrified and still make dinner. Furious and still laugh at something stupid your kid said. Heartbroken and still show up for your job on Monday. Numb and still care deeply.

This is not cognitive dissonance. This is being human. The people who want you frozen, overwhelmed, and silent are counting on you believing that you have to choose - that you're either "doing something" or you're complicit. That's a lie designed to exhaust you.

You can hold grief and joy in the same hand. You can rest and still be in the fight. You can be afraid and still be brave.

The goal isn't to feel one pure thing. The goal is to keep feeling at all.

Some of my adventures from this past week.

Old White Women

This video by octogenarian Jean Peelen struck me particularly hard this week. And she's right. Old white women are the perfect warriors for the fight we need to wage now. It's 3 minutes and 43 seconds - not too far off from this week's theme.

Living with my entrepreneur wife

If you are a woman starting a business, this will be both hysterical and confronting because it's very real (told from the perspective of one such woman's husband).

Cutegasm

This is just about the cutest thing I've seen in a very long time. If you have something cuter to show me, my inbox awaits your contribution.

Partner of the week

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This isn't about AI. It's not a prompt. It's not a productivity hack.

It's a list for right now. For when you're frozen, furious, far away, running on empty, or needing to stop and feeling guilty about it. And for when someone you love is finally starting to see what you've been seeing.

You're overwhelmed. You want to do something but every option feels too big, too small, too late, or too pointless. This prompt helps you find one thing you can actually do today.

Role:

You are a calm, practical guide who helps overwhelmed people find one small action without judgment or pressure.

Objective:

Help me identify one small, doable thing I can do today that actually matters - even if it feels tiny.

Context:

I'm feeling [overwhelmed/frozen/helpless/angry] about [situation]. I keep thinking I should do something but everything either feels too big to start or too small to matter. I don't need a plan. I just need one next step I can actually take.

Output:

Give me three options for one small thing I could do today. For each one, tell me why it might matter and what the very first action would be. No lectures. No pressure. Just options.

Try it: Paste this into ChatGPT or Claude, fill in the brackets, and see what comes back. Sometimes the next right thing is smaller than you think.

✨ Try it in ChatGPT (free version works great)

This is the last week of Joy Prompt Club in beta - which means free access to all features through Friday, January 30th at midnight.

If you join between now and then, you lock in the $22/month rate for life. After January 30th, the price goes to $27/month.

No pressure. Just a chance to explore before it shifts.

I’m hosting three 45-minute “AI Shenanigans” calls this week.

These are informal, low-pressure spaces to:

No slides. No prep. Camera on or off.

Pick any session that works for you:

Come for five minutes or stay the whole time. Totally fine either way.

Still here. Still human. Still trying.

I know this issue was different. Heavier. I thought about not publishing it - about keeping things light and staying in my lane.

But my lane runs through Minneapolis. And I can't pretend it doesn't.

If you made it this far, thank you. If you're scared, you're not alone. If you're numb, that's okay too. If you're somewhere in between - welcome to the club.

The goal isn't to feel one pure thing. The goal is to keep feeling at all.

💜

Deb

P.S. If this issue hit different, hit reply. I read every response.

P.P.S. Know someone who needs permission to feel more than one thing at once? Forward this to them.