Favorite Tech Resources — For the Creators, the Founders, and the Curious

// the greatest technology you own is the one you were born with

This week, someone in my paid subscriber community asked me a thoughtful question about useful tech resources. This person asked me — a life path 3, manifesting generator born on the “day of analytics” — a direct question, and unknowingly made my day. So I wanted to share my thoughts here on Substack. And for my paid subscribers, there is a little gift at the end. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I plan to share more insights with this group as a thank-you for your support, and hopefully share more of my favorite resources, tools, and how I’m building Circuit + Soil.

Start inward

I would start inward when thinking about technology as a resource. Remembering that our minds and bodies are the original technology is powerful.

You are the greatest creative force in your orbit. Your body is the finest system. Fuel it meaningfully and power it down accordingly. Train your mind through stillness and meditation. And always offer yourself grace during the tired times, the hard times, and when you feel like you’re failing. Systems that appear to fail sometimes just need a power cycle, and/or an update.

Once we’ve established that your mind and body are the greatest technology, there are so many amazing tools on the market.

The tools

I’ll start with one of my personal favorites: Anthropic’s Claude. This is a company where the hype and the almost-trillion-dollar valuation are reflective of the product offering. Claude is branded as “a thinking partner,” and it’s been just that for me. Its models and execution are leaps and bounds above OpenAI — especially in the space of building and creating.

Claude can deliver well-structured apps, websites, spreadsheets, and automations. This is especially true if you’re building with the proper prompts, integrations, connectors, and parameters.

Right now, Claude’s most powerful model, Fable 5, is available to paid subscribers to try through July 19. Now would be a great time to try it out. It’s also a company co-founded and led in part by a woman, Daniela Amodei (which I lightly track as a barometer).

I’ll give you an example of why I enjoy Claude. I’ve built a v1 business automation that tracks notes and tasks and leverages those in every response. As part of it, Claude knows largely how I think, my goals, future products, and many other aspects of my business and who I am. This includes my need to step away from my business, because I will work nonstop for 14+ hours a day (especially if I’m in build mode). The other day I wanted something “light” to do at 2ish AM, and I asked Claude for a recommendation. Unprompted, Claude built a working oracle deck. Initially I was surprised, because I’d specifically asked for a lightweight business task, but I decided to play along. The cards were anything but random. The first card drawn was The Honorable Yawn: “The most productive thing left today is sleep, and it requires no effort at all.” Claude took the aspects of my user constellation and created a tool perfectly suited to tell me to go to bed and rest — which is exactly what I advocate for and am an avid supporter of, with my clients, users, and followers. And quite frankly, it worked. I laughed, logged the response, and then rested — even if a little begrudgingly.

The creator economy

If you mean creator as in the creator economy, I recommend finding a content creator or expert you resonate with, and intentionally following their content, challenges, and techniques. There are a few TikTok creators that I find particularly inspiring. A few of my favorites are @lana.k.social, @aaronlrose, @digitalstoryacademy, @kennovate, and @solipsigma. I find this group hopeful and inspiring for those of us who might be a little more reluctant on the influencer part of the creating, building, and founding journey.

Productivity and integration

If you’re building an AI automation, I’d lean on tools that naturally integrate. Claude, for example, has a relationship with Notion and Asana. If you’re not looking for AI integrations, I might recommend trying Trello. It’s part of the Atlassian suite and is used by many development teams, but what I like about Trello is that you build your boards with the statuses that best suit the way you think, and it’s very visual. If you’re looking for something more like a game, try Habitica. It’s an RPG-style productivity app whose motto is literally “Gamify Your Life.” It’s entertaining, visual and has a community of guilds for added support and accountability — but it can also be somewhat distracting, so I’d only use this if you’re a game enthusiast and a visual learner/doer.

I created a guide called 5 Intentional Tools for this exact purpose. When I think about intentionality in your tech stack, my first thought is: how is your data stored, encrypted, and used? Many free apps treat your data as their own asset. An asset that can be used in analytics and shared with third parties. So security, encryption, and data sovereignty were the filter. This list doesn’t mention Anthropic or Claude, because I wanted it to be AI-free. I also wanted to focus on tools that are less well-known, with heavy competition in their industry spaces. If you’re interested, that list is free on the Cielo Studio website: begin.cielostud.io » tap Builder + Creator.

// the greatest technology you own is the one you were born with

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