Morning, Grasshopper.
Close your eyes for a second.
1977. Seattle. A packed arena that smells like cigarette smoke (and maybe some other smoke too), hairspray, and about ten thousand people who have been waiting for this moment all week. The floor is sticky. The air is electric. Someone behind you is already screaming and the show hasn’t even started.
The lights drop.
Full dark. That specific kind of arena dark where you can feel how many bodies are in the room even though you can’t see a single one of them.
And then —
Before a single word is sung. Before the lights come back up. Before anyone even takes a breath —
A guitar riff cuts through the dark like a lightning bolt looking for somewhere to land.
The crowd doesn’t just cheer. They erupt.
That riff cutting through the dark was Nancy Wilson.
A brief history lesson: Nancy’s older sister Ann was the lead singer of Heart. The voice. The face on the poster. The one people would name-drop at parties.
And Nancy? Made that guitar rock, roll, and wail in all the right places. She was the architecture. And the force that made everything else possible.
Today is Nancy’s birthday. March 16, 1954. Nancy Wilson — Heart’s secret weapon, Ann’s right hand, and one of the most legendary guitarists in rock history — turns 71 today.
And I have been thinking about her ALL morning. (Been obsessed with her since I was sixteen, and that’s a tale for another day.) Anywaaaaay....
Hear this, Grasshoppper.
Ann Wilson has one of the greatest voices in rock and roll. Full stop. No argument. The woman could sing the phone book and make you cry.
But Ann Wilson without Nancy Wilson?
Is just a voice in a room.
Nancy built the cathedral. Ann filled it with light.
Neither one works without the other.
I see a lot of people in my world right now treating AI like it’s a threat to their voice. Like it’s some robotic Ann Wilson wannabe showing up to steal their mic, their style, their audience.
I get it. The fear is real, and the unknown is scary.
But. I have traveled the highways and byways of AI. Terminals? Check. Building and breaking, then building again? Checkity check. And after all my travels in AI, my experience tells me this:
AI isn’t here to be Ann.
AI is Nancy. All day.
It’s the riff under your words. The structure beneath your story. The thing running quietly in the background so that when YOU show up — fully yourself, no apologies — the whole room feels it. Just like that concert in 1977.
The best partnerships aren’t about splitting the spotlight evenly. They are about two forces that fit together so perfectly, the audience never even thought to ask who was doing what.
They just felt the music.
If you want to feel that music too, I’ve got an invitation for you.
I’m hosting First Draft Fridays, and this week we’re going deep on exactly this: how to build a real partnership with AI so you can stop drowning in the admin work you hate and get back to the work you actually love.
Not theory. Not hype. Just real talk about how to make AI your Nancy — so you can finally just focus on being your full Ann Wilson self.
Bring your questions. Bring your skepticism. Leave with a plan.
P.S. Go listen to “Barracuda” today. The intro alone will rearrange your molecules. Birthday homework. No skipping. 🎸