How to Start 2026 Strong With AI

By Dan Sanchez · Episode published

A practical historical framework for marketers turning AI learning into progress: choose one meaningful workflow, work on it for 30 days, and review what changed.

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When I recorded this episode in November 2025, the new year was close enough to make the question practical: were you ready to make progress with AI, or were you still collecting tools and content without unlocking the work you actually wanted to do?

I had already published a lot of material about AI, but more content is not always the answer. It is possible to keep learning, save another tool, and still feel stuck. The gap is often a clear next step that connects learning to the work you do every day or every week.

Choose one workflow to improve

The offer I described at the time was built around one workflow. In a 60-minute session, I would look at someone’s current work, goals, and opportunities with AI, then help choose a workflow that could make a meaningful difference. That workflow could be appropriate for a beginner or someone ready for a more advanced challenge.

The point was focus. Instead of trying to master every new AI release, choose one process to improve and learn through applying it. A workflow gives the learning somewhere to go. It also creates a way to tell whether the effort is making the work better, faster, or more effective.

Turn the plan into practice

The AI Growth Plan I announced was a 30-day plan matched to the person’s work. It included the learning needed for the chosen outcome, recommendations for building the workflow, and a simple period for putting the plan into practice. After those 30 days, the process included a 30-minute follow-up to review what happened, improve the workflow, and decide what to do next.

That structure matters because an AI skill is easier to keep when it returns value in a real process. The goal was not to finish a course and move on. It was to build one useful capability into the work, then use the results to decide how to continue.

A historical invitation to act early

This episode was a one-time, end-of-year offer for people who wanted to get ahead of the 2026 rush. The original promotion included a refund promise and a discount for people who had recently been laid off and were trying to reskill with AI. Those details belonged to the offer and timing in November 2025.

The durable idea is simpler than the promotion: pick one meaningful workflow, give yourself a defined period to work on it, and review what you learned. Starting with one process creates a better path into AI than trying to absorb everything at once.

The AI Growth Plan and its registration details are historical to the original publication period. This article preserves the episode’s practical framework without presenting that temporary offer as currently available.