Hey friend,

After my Obsidian / Claude workshop (you can access the replay inside FG Society), I started thinking about the largest question rolling in my head about all these new tools: How do you know which ones to bet on?

And what's the difference between a tool you use, and one that becomes a hub for all your important data?

I'm calling them hub tools, and decided to make a decision tree about how and when I decide if something is a hub tool.

🎙️I chatted about this to myself on my podcast Million Dollar Grit.🎙️
​You can listen on Apple, Spotify, or any web browser.

A hub tool isn't just software you use. It's where your data lives. And in the age of AI, the tool that holds your data becomes exponentially more valuable the second an AI agent can read it.

Ten years of Google Drive + Gemini = insights you've never had before. Your notes scattered across Apple Notes, Dropbox, iCloud, and a random ChatGPT thread = nothing.

Here are the 5 questions I ask before I make anything a hub tool:

1. How long has it been the category king, and what's its reputation?
2. How often and how easily does it integrate into everything?
3. How private, lightweight, scalable, flexible, and easy is it?
4. How well does it actually automate and save me time and energy?
5. How easy is it for new clients and customers to adapt to?

My 6 hub tools right now:

​FG Funnels, Google (Drive, Chrome, Calendar, Gmail, Photos), Obsidian, Zoom, Slack, and Voxer.

And here's the kicker I realized: Claude is not on that list even though I use it every single day. Why? Because I already learned the lesson with ChatGPT: the moment your data lives inside an AI you don't control, you're stuck. Claude is the agent. Obsidian is the hub. The agent reads the hub. I keep them separate on purpose.

If you listen to only one episode this month, make it this one. It'll save you from the shiny object spiral.

🎧 You can listen on Apple, Spotify, or any web browser.

xx Julie