Hey team,

I’m still thinking about GWERC’s Spring Meeting in DC, which is usually a good sign that a conference gave you more than a tote bag and a few LinkedIn follow-ups.

It was great to reconnect with familiar faces, meet a few new ones, and somehow end up seated at the former presidents’ table, which I am choosing to interpret as a networking win and not a seating chart accident.

The happy hour is usually hard to compete with, but this year’s programming gave it a real run. Dr. Gary Johnson led one of the most engaging leadership sessions I’ve attended in a while, covering everything from mood and trust to the amygdala hijack, oxytocin, feedback loops, and the small but important ways leaders can keep teams grounded when pressure starts to build.

So this edition is leaning into that theme: what it takes to communicate clearly, build trust before jumping into content, and create the kind of team culture that holds up when things get busy, messy, or uncertain.

Inside this issue:

• Alaitz’s Take on leadership, trust, and why connection has to come before content

• Tony’s Tool, featuring the AI agent that helps turn a busy week of calls, Slack threads, notes, and decisions into usable thought leadership material

• Post of the Week: Featuring the tiny-but-mighty versions of our team that now help build business strategy, content, operations, and everything in between

• And this week’s Talent Spotlight: A marketing and social media specialist who brings creative execution, content organization, and operational discipline to fast-moving teams

Let’s get into it.

Alaitz’s Take: Connection Comes Before Content

One of the lines from Dr. Johnson’s session that stuck with me most was simple:

Connection should always come before content.

It is the kind of thing that feels obvious until you think about how often we skip it.

When a meeting is rushed, a project is behind, or a conversation already feels tense, it is easy to jump straight into the information. Here is the update. Here is the problem. Here is what needs to happen next. But if the person on the other side is already stressed, defensive, confused, or overwhelmed, the content probably is not going to land the way we want it to.

That was one of the bigger takeaways from the session. Leadership is not just about what you say. It is also about the conditions you create before you say it.

Dr. Johnson talked about the amygdala hijack, which is what happens when stress, fear, frustration, or urgency takes over before the more rational part of the brain has time to catch up. We have all seen it happen in real time: a message gets misread, feedback feels personal, someone reacts quickly, and suddenly the conversation is no longer about the actual issue.

The goal is not to pretend emotions do not exist at work. They obviously do. The point is to recognize when your mood is starting to drive the room more than the conversation itself.

That is where trust comes in.

Oxytocin, as Dr. Johnson explained, plays a real role in building trust and connection. In other words, the small things that make people feel seen, heard, and steady are not fluffy leadership extras. They are part of how teams communicate, make decisions, and perform under pressure.

A few reminders I’m taking with me:

Take a pause before reacting.
Even a few seconds can create enough room to respond more thoughtfully instead of adding fuel to the moment.

Ask more questions than you make statements.
A good question can lower defensiveness, clarify intent, and keep a conversation from turning into a standoff.

Remember the intention-versus-behavior gap.
We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their behavior. That gap can create a lot of unnecessary friction if we do not slow down and check the story we are telling ourselves.

Build in reset moments.
A walk, a quick breath, a short break, or even changing the setting can shift the direction of a conversation before it goes sideways.

Create feedback loops when things feel uncertain.
When people do not know where they stand, they usually fill in the blanks themselves. Clear, consistent communication gives teams something steadier to work from.

The biggest takeaway for me was that leadership is not always about having the perfect answer in the moment. Sometimes it is about creating enough trust, calm, and clarity for the right conversation to happen in the first place.

And that starts with connection.

Tony’s Tool: The Agent That Turns My Week Into Content

Last week, we spotlighted Coffee and Claude, my daily AI workflow for cutting through the noise before the day even starts.

This week’s tool builds on that same spirit, but solves a different problem.

Instead of helping me see what needs my attention each morning, this one helps the team spot the stories, lessons, and ideas already happening inside the business.

Every Friday at 5 a.m., a report lands in my folder that turns the week into usable thought leadership material. It is not a metrics dashboard or a generic recap. It is a content brief built from the conversations, challenges, decisions, and patterns that surfaced across the business that week.

The agent reads through emails, Slack messages, Fireflies transcripts, and Notion notes, then looks for moments worth sharing publicly. From there, it creates a structured briefing for our content team, including themes, post ideas, suggested formats, pull quotes, and a two-week content calendar.

That is what makes it so useful. It is not trying to invent content from scratch. It is catching the content that already exists, but usually gets buried under the pace of the work.

This week, the agent surfaced a few things that probably would not have made it into a traditional content plan: an ATS migration with 200+ active candidates living across two platforms, a client call that stalled on a Latin American labor law question we had not fielded before, and the fact that we hired a Webflow developer through our own nearshore process.

A.K.A. eating our own dog food, but with better documentation.

Those moments were not planned as marketing, but they are useful, specific, and worth sharing. They show how the business is growing, where clients are getting stuck, and what we are learning in real time.

That is the real value of this agent. It does not replace my perspective. It helps surface it before the best ideas get lost in Slack, call notes, or the Friday afternoon blur.

For founders, operators, and teams with stories worth telling but no time to dig through the week and find them, this is the kind of AI workflow that actually makes sense.

You are already living the content. This agent just helps catch it.

We run this on Claude using Cowork mode.

Reply to this email if you want the exact setup.

Post of the Week: The kids are alright

This week’s Post of the Week follows a slightly different path than the rest of the edition, and honestly, that’s why I loved it.

For Children’s Day, the Handoff team shared a carousel of our teammates as kids, paired with what they are great at doing today. Tiny founders, tiny strategists, tiny operators, tiny creatives, (huge shoutout to Joaco in a Batman costume).

It was funny, warm, and very Handoff. More importantly, it gave people a glimpse at the humans behind the work:

The people helping clients build content systems, improve operations, sharpen strategy, manage execution, and keep fast-moving teams from turning into chaos.

There’s also something very full-circle about seeing the childhood versions of the people now helping companies grow. The curiosity, confidence, personality, and occasional superhero energy were clearly there early.

Talent spotlight

This week, we’re highlighting Daniel Medina, a Marketing and Social Media specialist available through Handoff for fast-growing businesses that need stronger content systems, sharper execution, and a steadier brand presence across channels.

Daniel brings hands-on experience managing social media end-to-end, from content ideation and planning to execution, analysis, and optimization across platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.

He has worked closely with clients, designers, and video editors, often serving as the bridge between strategy and execution. In other words, he’s not just posting content. He’s helping make sure the right content gets planned, produced, delivered, and improved over time.

What makes Daniel stand out is the way he combines creative execution with operational discipline.

He builds monthly content calendars, defines formats by platform, keeps production organized, and creates workflows that make content easier to manage in fast-moving environments. He is comfortable using tools like Canva and CapCut for content creation, along with Asana and Trello to keep tasks, timelines, and deliverables on track.

If your team needs someone who can own social media execution, create content that drives engagement, and bring structure to your marketing operations, Daniel brings the kind of reliable, detail-oriented support that can add value from day one.

Scale Smarter with Handoff

Whether you’re filling a key role or building an entire team, Handoff connects you with vetted, global-first talent, fast.

Cheers,
The Handoff Team

P.S. This week’s tool is a good reminder that some of the best content is already sitting inside your team’s day-to-day work. The challenge is finding it before it gets buried in Slack threads, meeting notes, and the Friday afternoon blur.

Curious what your team might already be sitting on? Let’s talk.