What a year April was. Here’s what happened.

Note: This post is a quick recap of the episode. The podcast is richer — more stories, more texture, more of the real stuff. It’s about 10 minutes at 1.5x speed and worth the listen.After a month away and a year and a half as Confessions of a Facilitation Artist, this show has a new name, Confessions of a Creative Leader.Why “Confessions” stays: It traces back to my Catholic roots — my dad is a deacon, confessions before Sunday mass, vulnerability as practice. It fits what I do here.Why “Facilitation Artist” is gone: It was always an experiment. A conversation with my friend and fellow facilitator Chloe Temple reframed things for me — she described me as a model of self-leadership, and I thought: yes, that’s actually what this is. Lifelong learning, taking responsibility for my own growth so I can show up in service to others. Facilitation is part of that. So is product leadership, entrepreneurship, and figuring out motherhood. Creative Leader is just more honest about the full territory.What April Actually WasIntense. Good-intense, not overwhelmed-bad. A few things made it one of the fuller months I can remember:Work: I went back full-time to build a zero-to-one AI-native product. April was mostly a multi-week design sprint — interviewing higher ed leaders, evolving prototypes, testing them, and this past week, finally starting to build. I was also deep in Claude Code doing POC (that means proof of concept) work to test feasibility, and using Claude Projects and Cowork heavily for context documents and requirements. (Claude is my second husband it seems.)Weekends: Sixteen garden beds don’t prep themselves. Hard physical work, completely restorative after a week at a screen.Health: I’m 47 and perimenopausal (I’m a woman and I’m not hiding from that) — noticing that shift and taking it seriously. Consistent exercise, more intentional eating, and the small delights: fresh eggs from our neighbor’s chickens, kimchi, the occasional fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice.My SisterFor new listeners & readers: in October, my sister was diagnosed with terminal stage four cancer across multiple sites. It was really scary.Mid-April, we had the appointment — the one to find out if her treatment was working. The oncologist, who is normally very measured, walked in with unmistakable joy. The news: treatment is working well, some tumors have actually shrunk, and based on the data, this typically holds for up to two years. We thought we might be down to months.She’s doing well. We’re celebrating. The emotions are complicated — relief and sadness at the same time — but the news is good.If My Response to You Was Short — Here’s WhyA lot of you reached out during the break. Thank you. If I didn’t respond well, or at all: it wasn’t personal, it was capacity. Maxed out at work, exhausted at night, in the garden on weekends. I’m behind on a lot of conversations and I’m working on it.What’s ComingI’m not turning this into an AI or product podcast — there are better ones for that (Lenny's Newsletter - Lenny Rachitsky, Prompt-Led Product | For PMs Building in the AI Era with Elena | AI Product Leader , Product Management IRL with Amy Mitchell ). But I have real experiments to share over the next few episodes:* AI + facilitation — specific tools and prompts for foundation sprints and design sprints, beyond basic brainstorming* AI in product discovery — how I’ve been using it in zero-to-one work* Tactical leadership uses — including Cowork for general tasks and, yes, researching summer camps for my kids* My first vibe-coded app — a facilitation timer I built for myself, and what that experience was actually likeEpisodes may be biweekly for a while. I’d rather show up with something real than force a cadence.Reach out on LinkedIn, Substack, or text. I read everything — I’m just slow to respond.Love you all. Good to be back.— Monica Get full access to Confessions of a Creative Leader at creativeleaderconfessions.substack.com/subscribe