Good Morning Reader it's Maria,

Something small but meaningful is changing today.

This newsletter is getting a new name. From this issue forward, it's going out as Ask Maria Kelly.

For as long as I can remember, people have come to find me when they needed to figure something out. A problem at work, a decision they couldn't make, a situation they didn't know how to handle. And the answer from whoever they asked was almost always the same: "Go and ask Maria Kelly." Some of my colleagues would regularly sing the song from The Sound of Music, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?"

It stuck. Because the truth is, I've always been a problem solver. Someone who likes fixing things, finding solutions. It started as a bit of a running joke, and then it became something I actually leaned into. So much so that when I set up my own business, the name chose itself. Ask Maria Kelly is what I do, and it's who I am, and now it's the name of this newsletter too.

Leading Made Simple served its purpose, but if you've been reading for a while, you know this newsletter stopped being just about leadership a long time ago. We talk about AI, strategy, going solo, building things, managing people, and staying sane while doing all of it. Ask Maria Kelly fits. So here we are.

Now, on to this week.

This month, I'm finishing my first semester teaching at CIEE here in Barcelona, and I have to be honest about something. If I hadn't had AI alongside me for that whole experience, it would have taken me five times as long. Maybe more...

The syllabus, the slides, the co-curricular workshops, the exams, and the support materials. All of it was built with AI as my co-pilot. Not replacing my thinking or my expertise, but handling the surrounding work that would otherwise have eaten every hour I had, and I do have a business to run.

What surprised me most, though, was my students. Smart, engaged, thoughtful twenty-year-olds, and many of them are very sceptical of AI. Not something I was expecting.

I was worried that I would be battling loads of AI copies from assignments, but when I read their work, I can see their own ideas and reasoning coming through clearly. They're not outsourcing their thinking. They're navigating something genuinely new, and doing it with more care than the headlines suggest.

That's exactly why I made a deliberate decision to allow AI in my classroom, as a tool, not a crutch. I shared recommendations on which tools to try and how to use them in ways that would actually support their learning, not shortcut it. If they're going to graduate into a world where AI is everywhere, the worst thing I could do is pretend it doesn't exist. The best thing I can do is help them develop a relationship with it that keeps their own thinking at the centre.

If podcasts are more your speed, I've got you covered; there's a discussion about this topic available now here.

THE BIG IDEA

AI and Education: It's Not the Story You Think It Is

The conversation about AI in education tends to go one of two ways. Either it's panic about students cheating, or it's breathless excitement about personalised learning and the future of everything.

Neither captures what's actually happening.

A recent Gallup report commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation surveyed over 2,000 teachers across the US and found something interesting. Six in ten teachers have now used an AI tool for their work this school year. Teachers who use AI weekly are saving nearly six hours per week. Over a school year, that adds up to six full weeks handed back to them.

Six weeks. To spend on better student feedback, more creative lesson planning, or simply getting home at a reasonable hour.

And yet 40% of teachers still aren't using AI at all.

The report calls it the "AI dividend." The idea is simple: you have to invest a little time upfront to learn how to use it, and in return, it pays you back in time. Those who invest get the dividend. Those who wait, don't.

What I found equally interesting is what the research says about young people themselves. Across multiple studies, roughly 79% of Gen Z say they've used AI tools, and nearly half use generative AI on a weekly basis. They're not avoiding it. But they're also not naive about it. Nearly half of 20-year-olds worry that AI could impair their ability to think deeply. They want guidance, not prohibition. They want to learn how to use it well, not be told not to use it at all.

This tracks with what I saw in my own classroom. My students weren't reaching for AI as a shortcut. They were wrestling with it thoughtfully, asking real questions about what it means to use it with integrity and disclosing it when they did.

And that, for me, is the most important signal in all of this.

The students who will thrive aren't the ones who avoid AI or the ones who hand everything over to it. They're the ones who learn to use it with judgment, who understand where it creates genuine value and where it absolutely cannot replace their own thinking.

That's the same challenge facing every professional reading this.

The question isn't whether AI belongs in education, or in your business, or in your work. It's already there. The question is whether you're approaching it with clarity and intention, or just reacting to it.

The Gallup data shows that teachers who actually use AI are twice as likely to believe in its potential to improve outcomes, because experience replaced fear with understanding.

That's available to all of us.

Don't know where to start?

​Book a free consultation and let's chat!

THE ACTION STEP

Build your own AI learning plan.

One of the most practical things I've done recently is create a personal learning plan for AI using AI itself. A structured syllabus, just for me, covering the tools and skills I want to understand better over the next three months.

You can do the same in under 20 minutes. Two ways to do it:

The quick way: If you're using ChatGPT, look for the "Study and Learn" feature directly in the interface. It's designed exactly for this. You tell it what you want to learn, and it structures a learning path for you without you needing to build anything from scratch.

The slightly longer way (for any tool): Open ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever AI you prefer and try this prompt:

"I am a [your job title, e.g. independent consultant / small business owner / marketing manager]. I want to get more confident and practical with AI in my day-to-day work. Please create a simple 8-week learning syllabus for me. For each week, include: the focus topic, why it matters for someone in my role, one tool or feature to explore, and one practical exercise I can complete in under 30 minutes. Keep the language simple and assume I am starting from a beginner-to-intermediate level."

Read what comes back. Edit it to fit your actual life and schedule. Drop anything irrelevant. Add anything specific to your industry or the way you work.

Then pick one thing from week one and do it this week.

That's it. A personal AI learning plan, built with AI, in the time it takes to drink a coffee.☕

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AI MADE SIMPLE

Use AI to design your own course, workshop, or training session.

Whether you run workshops, deliver training, speak at events, or teach anything to anyone, AI can help you build the structure in a fraction of the time.

Try this prompt:

"I want to design a [e.g. half-day workshop / 6-week course / 90-minute training session] on [your topic, e.g. leadership communication / financial planning for small businesses / using AI in marketing] for [your audience, e.g. senior managers transitioning to consulting / small business owners with no prior training background]. Please suggest: a clear overall structure, session or module titles, the key learning objective for each session, and one practical activity or exercise per session that participants can complete during the session. Keep it engaging and appropriate for adults who are time-poor and results-focused."

What you get back won't be perfect; it never is on the first pass. But you'll have a solid skeleton to work from instead of a blank page, and that was a game-changer for me.

From there, you can ask it to draft slides for each session, build a reading list, write discussion questions, or create an assessment. One prompt leads to the next.

Your expertise is the course; AI just helps you build the container for it faster. 😉

That's all for today Reader

Have a great weekend!👋🏼

Take Care

Maria

PS: If you want to explore what working together looks like, book a free call

PPS: If you enjoy these emails and want to do something nice, you can buy me a coffee 😉

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