Hi, it's Mocha. 👋
I want to share a small shift that changed how I show up as a leader.
For years, I thought being present in a meeting meant capturing every word. So I'd sit there scribbling, half-listening, so anxious about losing a detail that I'd miss the actual person in front of me. Then I'd walk out with messy notes, and a few weeks later we'd re-decide something we'd already settled. If that's you too, I promise you're not disorganized. You're just trying to be in two places at once.
Here's what I've learned: the goal was never to capture more. It was to be fully present, and still trust that nothing important would slip away. This week's tools are how I finally get to do both.
🎯 What this does for your day
This is the quiet layer that listens so you don't have to. It turns a conversation into a clean transcript, a short summary, and a list of who agreed to what, then keeps it somewhere you'll actually find it later. For me, the real gift was smaller and bigger than productivity at once: I got to put the pen down and look people in the eye again.
🧰 The tools I'd start with
For meetings on a screen: Granola (takes notes in the background, no bot in your meeting), plus Otter.ai, Fireflies, Fathom, and tl;dv to transcribe, summarize and pull out action items. For the conversations that happen face to face, a wearable recorder like Plaud NotePin (available in Canada) or Bee (US only for now) captures the room. And to hold your team's shared knowledge: Notion AI, Microsoft Loop, or Glean for larger orgs.
💚 The part I care about most
Being present is a gift you give the people in the room, so please protect it for them too. A recording changes how people speak, and a transcript can quietly become something it was never meant to be. So tell people you're recording, every single time. We're here to capture the meeting, never to watch each other.
✅ If you try one thing this week
Turn on one tool for your next regular meeting. Don't even read the full transcript. Just move the summary and action items to wherever your team actually looks, and notice how it feels to walk in next time already knowing where you left off.
💬 Your turn
How does your team hold onto what it decides, and where does it fall apart? Tell me, I read every reply, and you shape what I write next.
Mocha
AI enablement for mission-driven teams · Mocha's MindLab Inc.
🔗 Work with me: [email protected]