00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

Something I see a lot when people talk about AI is advice about writing the perfect prompt.

And for a while I thought that there must be a key to using it well. Like that perfect prompt, before you even type anything in there, there's this fear that you have to get it correct. You had to structure the response the way you wanted.

And honestly, that is the best advice ever.

But I actually do, and I do that myself, but the interesting thing is that it's not really how most of my AI work begins.

Most of the time, the prompt box isn't where I carefully craft instructions. It's where I start the conversation.

Because I was finding that what I was doing was I was afraid to start typing until I thought I was telling it or asking exactly what I needed, what I wanted, and how to respond to me.

---

01:21 — The Idea of the Perfect Prompt

But if you watch videos about AI, there's a lot of focus on that.

People show these very carefully scripted prompts that match that entire thing. They make it feel like it's like a little program and you got to script it the right way.

They define the roles, the format, the tone, the constraints. And the idea is that if you write the prompt well enough, the AI will give you the exact answer you want.

And that's the scary part. You're trying to coach it into giving you what you expect.

But in my experience, that's not where the real value shows up.

---

02:05 — When Structured Prompts Actually Help

There are definitely situations where structure helps.

If I'm not working on code, if I'm working on code that I already know, and I always go back to a developer mindset, 'cause that's what I do mostly, and I find the most event — well, I don't find the most event with AI, but it helps, it's a great place for me to use it.

And so when I am working on code and I already know what I'm trying to build, I might say, act like a senior developer, review this. Or in other cases, like if I'm going through my taxes — I just did that this morning for myself and my kids — and my accountant wants things in a certain way. So I would say, here are the documents. Here's an Apple note that has all the information for this person. Please review. This is what my accountant wants. These are my documents. Prepare it for them. So act as a CPA, act as a CFO.

And that works. When the task is very clear, those instructions help. They've reduced token usage. They speed up the process, and they help like infinite loops of retrying and doing things wrong.

So definitely structured prompts, you have to do it in certain cases, but most of the time when I open a conversation, I have no idea what the answer is that I want. I'm not trying to coax it or coach it into telling me what I want. I'm trying to get to an answer.

---

03:54 — Starting With a Thought

So usually what I have is just a thought. I have a rough idea, questions that they're not formed yet.

So I'll open the chat, pipe something like, I've been thinking about this idea, or does this approach make sense? Or I'm trying to think of what I did today. Like my kid goes to university in the States. It's a degree, but they offer it online. So they're here. So I'm like, when we're doing taxes, so it's a question. Okay, they go to this university in the US, it's a real degree, it's not an online course, it's just they can do it online. Do they offer the T1, I think it is. And then it gave me like, it wasn't sure — in the US they'll get this, here's a structured email and a link to a document you can provide to find out.

So I had no idea what I was doing.

---

04:53 — Natural Language

But it's like I said, like I was just typing it. I wanted to know one answer and other times like I mentioned in another one where I'm on a walk with my wife and she was talking about chlorine levels in the pool. So I just opened up the app, turned on the microphone part of it and we just start talking. And I'm not trying to format those in a certain way, I'm just basically talking to it like another person. And I know that that person is going to understand what I'm saying and that person is going to be pretty much the expert in any field of anything I ask or bring up. But either way, it's just natural language. It's not structured, it's not engineered, it's just me talking through something.

---

05:55 — Natural Language Works Surprisingly Well

And one thing I've noticed is that the system is very good at understanding that normal conversation.

You don't have to speak like you're programming it. You can just explain what's in your head, half sentences, messy thoughts, changing direction halfway through. And it usually understands the context extremely well.

So instead of spending time trying to write the perfect prompt, I just start talking, explaining, going through a situation, interrupting it, letting it interrupt me. I'm steering it as we go.

---

06:32 — The Back and Forth

And from there, it becomes a dialogue with the AI that starts messy and sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it misses my point completely, sometimes it suggests something I haven't even thought about so it makes me move to a different direction. It helps me reframe my thought process and I push back on it sometimes and but together we were adjusting, we're figuring out, and slowly as we do it — I hate saying we because it is just a computer — but it's to me it's a vast bucket of knowledge of every field you can imagine basically.

And you can guide it and together you can slowly make your ideas become clear.

---

07:46 — The Role Changes Naturally

And then another thing I noticed is that the role naturally shifts between depending on the topic.

And that's what I'm trying to get at there is if we're talking about code response, I didn't tell it to act like a senior developer, but it starts responding as if it's a product manager, product owner, a senior level developer, engineer. And then I'll quickly just jump over to a finance question. I'll ask about a stock or review this or I got an assessment today. And then all of a sudden it automatically switches. Now it's my CFO. If I'm thinking all about life decisions, it becomes more of a neutral sounding board. It acts like a therapist really, whether it's family, relation, or just personal.

And I don't always have to define these roles ahead of time. It picks it up through the context of the conversation and it figures out what I'm trying to get at.

---

08:51 — A Place to Think Out Loud

The best way I found to describe this is that AI has become a place to think out loud.

Sometimes it feels like a coworker helping through technical problems. Sometimes it feels like an advisor. And sometimes it's just somewhere to talk through an idea until the messy parts start making sense.

The value isn't in that first answer in my mind. I think the value in that is the entire conversation.

---

09:20 — Where the Gold Nugget Appears

And most of the time, the interesting part shows up later in the thread.

So as you start that conversation, you're going deep, you start with the rough idea, you're going back and forth, you explore different angles, and eventually there's a small moment where something clicks — a clear way to frame the problem, a better way to structure the idea, that little gold nugget — and that almost never comes from that first prompt. It comes from everything that happened after you started.

You sat down, you got the fear out, and you just started typing and having that back and forth.

I always say there's no dumb questions, there's no stupid questions or stupid answers. That's how you got it in my mind. That's how I treat the AI and the prompt interface. It's a place where I can safely just... It's my safe place to ask anything I want, let my mind go crazy.

---

10:21 — When the Perfect Prompt Actually Matters

But there are places where that perfect prompt has to be right.

And that's when I'm building something automated. For example, when I'm creating AI agents, and they're going to run automatically, agents are different from chats. A chat can be messy, you can correct it, you can steer it, but an agent has to run on its own — that work the same way every single time. You need efficiency, you need accuracy, you're depending on something.

---

11:00 — Using Conversation to Build the Prompt

So when I'm building an agent, I'll actually use my chat conversation to figure it out.

I'll open ChatGPT if it's personal, I'll open Claude if it's work, and I'll just start talking through the process. Especially at work, with Claude, it has access to the code. Even now with ChatGPT, you have Codex and it has access to my personal code.

So we go through it, we're looking at lines of code, we're figuring out what needs to happen. We start exploring different ideas, we reframe the instructions, guardrails are set up, context is set up, very precise, inputs, outputs, and eventually we arrive through testing and everything else. We'll find this perfect prompt and it'll expect the same input every time and I should get the same structured output each time. There may be deviations here and there, but it's always structured the same way.

---

12:00 — Why That Pattern Matters

So that pattern matters, it really matters.

It makes a big difference and that's a place where you have to do it 'cause it's repeatable and you're not expecting the same answer every time but you're expecting the answer to be formatted the same way every time, with the same fields. I'm thinking like a coder again. That's why it's good to have those forms, those checklists, those constraints. They make a difference when the agent's running on its own without human input. It's all code based, so it has to know what to do.

---

12:42 — The Pattern

But outside of that, my normal pattern with AI usage really is conversation first, clarity second, structured prompt last.

The prompt isn't where the thinking starts. It's where the thinking ends.

---

13:00 — Closing Thoughts

So when people talk about writing the perfect prompt, I sometimes think they might be focusing on the wrong step because the most useful thing AI gives me — and this is my personal opinion — isn't the first answer. It's the conversation that helps me arrive at that answer. It's the ability to think through an idea in conversation.

Those conversations, and any conversation, is rarely perfect. It's always messy. I love the back and forth. I tell my AI to don't just reinforce my idea, like push back on me. And been noticing it's been doing a lot more of that lately, which is really perfect for me. And that's where those interesting ideas show up.

Anyway, these are some of the thoughts I've been having around how I actually use this stuff and how I want to put it out there and just see — I know I'm doing it wrong, I burnt through tokens, I'm trying different models. I got messy agents set up. I'm spending a lot of time and a lot of effort. At this point, a lot of money. Just trying to — it's like a playground for me at the moment. And I'd rather be playing in it than ignoring it. And that's where I'm kind of at at this point.

And I'd love to see what other people feel about prompts. I really want to know how other people are using AI and talking to it, interacting with it, projects, code, free chats, anything — whatever people are doing, I'm very interested to know what's going on. So thanks for watching and see you next time.

00:00 – Opening: Tracking Everything

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

For a long time, I tracked everything.

Workouts, running, swimming — you name it, I tracked it. I had spreadsheets that laid out the entire year for me. Weekly goals, yearly totals, everything broken down right to the day, the type, and the total.

At the time, it felt very organized. It felt very disciplined, and honestly it gave me a lot of pride to look back on it.

But after so many years of doing it, I can see now that it might have been a little more intense than it needed to be.

I probably should have picked up on the cues earlier. A lot of friends would start out excited and interested, but eventually it became more like, "What number is he at now?"

And tracking usually starts from a good place.

You want to improve something.

Health. Discipline. Consistency.

---

01:00 – Why Tracking Works at First

So you create a system.

You track workouts.
You track distance.
You track calories.

For me, it turned into spreadsheets that covered the entire year.

Each week had targets, and those weekly targets added up to yearly goals. And honestly, for a while, that worked really, really well.

It kept me honest. It kept me on point.

It helped me on those days when I was too tired or didn't want to do it, because it created structure for me and kept things moving even when I didn't want to.

---

01:33 – The Running Streak

With running, that eventually turned into something more obsessive.

It became a streak.

The idea was simple: see how many days in a row I could run 5K.

I picked 5K because it felt manageable. I thought about doing 10K, but that's a lot more time and effort, so 5K felt like the right number.

It wasn't anything extreme. The idea was just to see how consistent I could be.

And once it started, I noticed something very interesting.

I stopped thinking about the run itself… and started thinking about the number.

Thirty days became a month.
Then six months.
Then a year.

And once you hit a year, you start thinking, well, maybe I can make it to two years.

At some point I stopped really checking the exact number, but I know it went past 800 days. I'm not even sure if it was 814 or 820, but it was over 800 days in a row.

Which sounds impressive.

But streaks and habits and tracking like that can very quickly start controlling your day, your time, and everything around you.

---

03:14 – When the Habit Became Pressure

The run itself wasn't the problem.

The pressure around the streak became the problem.

Vacations became tricky.

Evenings revolved around making sure the run got done.

If I missed it in the morning, then I had to think through the rest of the day.

Do I still have time to get it in?
Can I do it before bed and still cool down?
I can't do it right after I eat.
If we go for a walk, will I still have time afterward?

Sometimes I'd be thinking about it all day.

I should've done it this morning.
I can't break this streak.

And something that started as a healthy habit — something that was meant to help me get in better shape, burn calories, keep my legs moving, help my breathing and lung capacity — slowly turned into an obligation.

---

04:25 – Tracking Shows Up in Other Parts of Life Too

And when you start thinking about streaks and tracking like that, I realized the same thing happens in other parts of life too.

I noticed it at work.

In software development, there are a lot of things you can track.

Support tickets.
How long tickets stay open.
How many days it takes to respond to an email.
How many bugs you fixed.
How many bugs were in your latest feature.
How many features you pushed out.

On the surface, all of that sounds reasonable.

But if you're not careful, those numbers become the goal.

You start optimizing your workload for the metrics instead of the work itself.

You want to close more tickets.
You want to do more small tasks.
You want to get bigger numbers.

So you start taking on the little things you know you can do quickly. You find ways to break one thing into many so you can say you got three done instead of one.

One place that kind of tracking can help is when you're releasing a new feature. You really don't want a lot of bugs associated with it, so you spend more time making sure the code is solid and the bug count stays low.

But still, you can see how easy it is for the metric to become the focus.

---

06:04 – Where Tracking Can Actually Help

There are definitely places where tracking makes a lot of sense though.

Investing is a good example.

This channel talks about money and investing a lot, and it's something I'm really passionate about.

Maybe your goal is to put away $200 a month.

Just a simple Wealthy Barber style rule — pay yourself first.

Or maybe you split it up differently.
$100 here.
$50 there.
$50 somewhere else.

Maybe you want to max out your TFSA for the year.
Maybe you want to use all your RRSP contribution room.

Those kinds of targets can be healthy because they help future you. They help with refunds. They help take pressure off later in life.

They're really about consistency over time.

---

07:10 – When Even Healthy Targets Go Too Far

But even there, those numbers can take over if you're not careful.

Say your salary goes up, so now your RRSP contribution room is bigger than it used to be.

In theory, you might think: I make more money now, I should keep living the same way and put the rest toward that goal.

And sometimes that makes sense.

But life isn't that simple.

Maybe your family is growing and you need a bigger car.
Maybe your kids are getting older and going off to school and you want to help them.
Maybe other things come up.

That's life.

And even with investing, the numbers can become unhealthy if they start controlling your decisions.

For example, if you take out an RRSP catch-up loan just to hit your contribution room, but then don't pay that loan off properly, was it really worth it?

If you start ignoring responsibilities just so you can check a box and say you hit the number this year, then the metric is controlling the decision.

Life doesn't move in a perfect spreadsheet.

For us, I put a lot of value on taking trips.

So if it comes down to maxing out the RRSP for both my wife and me, or taking a Christmas trip with the family, I'll take the trip.

I know that's not the most optimized thing on paper, but I'll take the trip.

The same goes for kids needing something.
Or home repairs.
Or car repairs.

Sometimes you can't check the box on the spreadsheet, but you still need to feel good about yourself because you put your priorities in the right place.

And that matters too.

---

10:08 – The Streak Broke

That brings me back to the running streak.

It broke this Christmas.

We took a Christmas trip.

When you've got a 5 a.m. flight to Mexico from the east side of Canada, and you land and start the day, there's just no realistic way to get the run in.

And obviously my family would've been pretty upset if I tried to force it.

I did manage to get runs in on the trip, but they happened naturally in the day.

Still, I have to be honest — that very first day when I didn't do the run, I was itching to go do it.

But I knew if I did, there would be different consequences.

So I decided I was better off just dealing with the feeling myself and skipping it.

And when you've done something for hundreds of days in a row, breaking it feels big.

It feels like something in your life just stopped.

---

11:18 – The Pressure Went Away, But the Habit Stayed

But then something interesting happened.

As the pressure started to go away, I noticed the habit stayed.

Even on the second day, I found myself going for a run naturally.

Everyone was getting ready. I was already ready. Or maybe I wanted to go check something out outside.

And I'd think, I know how to do a quick 5K. It's not a big deal. I can fit it in. Quick shower and I'm good to go.

So I started realizing there was no pressure to do it anymore.

But I kept finding these little opportunities where it fit.

And my body wanted to do it.

The habit stayed with me.

---

12:06 – It's Not Tracked Anymore, It's Just Part of Life

These days I don't really track it anymore.

I stopped tracking my runs.
I stopped tracking my workouts.

I still do them.

I have schedules in my head. My body kind of knows when it's time.

I've actually started running every day again, but not because I'm tracking it.

It's just a custom now.

And I really prefer running in the evenings.

There are no spreadsheets.
No streaks.
No idea what number I'm at.

It just happens as the day goes on.

And I've learned that running helps me sleep better.

I know that sounds weird, but I think it's the whole process.

Getting the blood going.
Having the shower afterward.
Then that cool-down period where I'm relaxing and watching TV.

Sometimes if there's something nagging at me, or something I want to think through, the run helps with that too.

It helps calm the day down.

On weekends I'll run in the mornings because I like doing longer runs then. But in the evenings they're usually smaller.

Now my body is just so used to it that it wants to do it.

So it stopped being a habit that I'm tracking…

and it just became something I do.

---

13:31 – The Rhythm of the Day

I'm not chasing numbers anymore.

I'm just following the rhythm of the day and how I feel.

With work, I know what I need to get done and when I need to get it done.

I take a lot more time now. I'm less worried about how much stuff I'm pushing out, and more worried about the quality of the work I'm doing and improving the system for users.

With meals, I still track sometimes — not every day, but if I've had a big breakfast or we went out for lunch or something like that, I like having a rough idea because those are the days I'm less sure what the numbers are.

And I love ice cream, cake, and chips, so I do want to make sure I'm not overdoing it. Because if you do that every day, it adds up.

But in the evenings is where it really comes back into place for me.

That's when the day is winding down.

That's when my body naturally kind of says, okay, you should go for a run now. It'll feel good. Get a little sweat on, clear your head, get a shower, then watch TV and go to sleep.

It's the perfect rhythm.

---

15:00 – Closing Reflection

So after spending so much time doing something and tracking it, I've realized that eventually it's not really a habit anymore.

By not tracking it, it takes away the unhealthy obsession.

And now it just becomes part of the rhythm of your life and part of who you are.

That's really the shift I've noticed — when tracking and systems move from being helpful tools into something deeper.

I still bite my nails though. I haven't solved that one.

But I'd love to know if other people deal with this too.

Do you ever become a little obsessed and go a little too far?

Or are you trying to add something to your life — journaling, devotions, meal tracking, workouts, meditation, breathing, anything like that — and it's not sticking?

Maybe it's not sticking because you're not tracking it.
Or maybe you've done it for so long now that it's just part of your life.

I'd love to know how other people deal with trying to add habits to their life.

How do you try to change your lifestyle?

Or are you forced to change it?

Leave some comments.

Thanks for watching.

00:00 - Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

Earlier I talked about how productivity systems often fall apart after a few months.

And it got me thinking about systems in general.

I think I finally understand why.

It has less to do with the system itself and more to do with human behavior.

And weirdly, the thing that made that click for me was our grocery list.

00:35 - The Analog System

For years we had a grocery list stuck to the fridge.

Just a piece of paper anyone could write on.

It was visible.
It was always in the same place.
It was simple.

And honestly, it did work.

Mostly it worked because I was the one getting most of the groceries.

At that point it was just me and my wife.

But now there are four of us.
Any one of us could go get groceries.
Any one of us could add something to the list.

And once that changed, the system did not work the same way anymore.

Like most systems, it worked... for a while.

01:20 - When The Friction Starts

Then the cracks started showing up.

Someone would already be at the store and someone else would go to add something to the list.
Now the list is not with the person at the store.

So you call or text.

Or someone realizes we are out of something right after you leave.

Same thing, another call or text.

Sometimes the paper just disappears.

Maybe it fell off the fridge.
Maybe it got moved.

None of this is a big deal.

But it is friction, and it starts to build.

02:05 - When The System Stops Working

The worst one is when you get to the store and realize the list is not with you.

Or someone calls because something was missed.

But the real worst one is when you come home and realize someone forgot to add something, or you missed something on the list.

And then you have to go back to the store.

After a while there is so much calling, checking, and missing things that people stop trusting the system.

At that point the system is not helping anyone.

You just go to the store and call home and ask what we need.

02:55 - The Usual Fix: Tools

When systems start failing, most people reach for better tools.

Better apps.
Smarter devices.
Automation.

You see this all the time at work, especially in tech.

There is always another tool you can buy or subscribe to.
Another platform that promises to fix everything.

I have been at too many companies where this happens.

Everyone convinces themselves this new tool will fix all the problems.

Sometimes the system quietly gets abandoned.

One or two people keep using it, but everyone else stops.

Updates stop happening.
Check-ins stop happening.

And the one person still using it starts sending emails asking people to update the system.

When the truth is everyone could have just said the same thing in the meeting.

04:00 - When Systems Become Forced

Sometimes it is worse than abandonment.

Sometimes people keep paying for the tool even though no one is using it.

And sometimes leadership forces everyone to keep using it.

Not because it works, but because they paid for it.

They invested time setting it up.

So now everyone has to follow the process whether it makes sense or not.

But tools only help if you actually understand the real problem first.

You have to understand the friction and the pain points before choosing the solution.

04:45 - What Was Actually Broken

Eventually I realized something about our grocery list.

The problem was not the list.

The list itself is actually the perfect solution.

Write items down.
Check them off.

You cannot really improve on that.

The problem was the process around it.

There were too many little rules.

Add things before someone leaves the house.
Make sure the list stays in the same place.
Remember to check it when you are at the store.

And the more people involved, the harder that becomes.

These systems only work if everyone follows the process.

The moment someone decides to go get groceries suddenly, the whole system breaks.

So the real problem was not paper.

It was access at the moment you needed it.

05:50 - Trying Digital

Once that clicked, the solution seemed obvious.

Make the list digital.
Share it.
Access it from anywhere.

But even that did not fully solve it.

And honestly, I was not about to start paying a subscription to solve a problem people have had since grocery stores existed.

So I started with the simplest options.

First I tried a shared Google document or spreadsheet.

Then we tried Apple Notes with a shared checklist.

But those still had friction.

People had to have their phones.
They had to open the note.
Type something in.
Clear items out afterward.

Sometimes people were not logged in.

Sometimes the list got messy.

It worked... but it still felt like work.

06:55 - The Unexpected Solution

Then one day the obvious solution appeared.

I was in the kitchen and used Alexa to announce dinner.

And it clicked.

We already had Alexa everywhere.

In the kitchen.
Living room.
Cars.
Phones.

We use it for announcements, lights, reminders, music, everything.

So I tried something simple.

"Alexa, add bananas to the shopping list."

And it worked.

Now anyone in the house can add items just by saying it out loud.

Kids downstairs can add something.
Someone cooking can add something.
Someone remembering something in the car can add something.

No phones.
No typing.

Just say it.

The system stayed the same.

But the friction disappeared.

08:05 - Reflection

I notice this pattern everywhere now.

Systems rarely fail in dramatic ways.

They fail in small, ordinary moments.

And most of the time it is not the idea that fails.

It is human behavior.

Nobody wants to add more work to their day.

When a system adds extra steps or forces people to change how they already do things, it slowly stops getting used.

New systems usually only succeed in two situations.

Either people need them badly enough that they are willing to completely change their behavior.

Or the system fits so naturally into what people already do that it barely feels like a change.

The Alexa solution worked because it did not change behavior.

It fit into behavior that already existed.

09:10 - Think Digital, Act Analog

Years ago I read a line in a book by Guy Kawasaki that stuck with me.

Think digital. Act analog.

The more systems I see fail, the more that line makes sense.

It is also why when I build something new, I start extremely simple.

Sometimes with paper.
Sometimes with spreadsheets.
Sometimes just a rough process.

Not because those tools are better.

But because they help reveal patterns.

You start seeing the real needs.
The real friction points.
Where systems actually break.

And once those things become clear, then it makes sense to build something better.

10:00 - Closing

So I am curious.

What systems do you use that actually remove friction and make life easier?

Let me know.

I am also planning to do a few videos about some small tools I am building for myself.

Most of them are simple things that help remove pain points in my own workflow and daily life.

And I am starting to think some of them might help other people too.

Thanks for watching.

Opening (00:00)

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

So I've been coding for a long time and most of my career has been spent deep in code, building, debugging, refactoring.

The flow state where you deep dive and disappear into a problem and when you finally resurface a few hours later, sometimes a few days later, you got something working and you're proud of.

And lately I've been more tired than usual.

Not burnt out.
Not overwhelmed.

I'm just very... I feel fatigued. I feel tired.

And if I'm being honest, AI is part of it.
And maybe even the cause of it actually.

I'm pretty sure.

Now I do feel that it's the major part and piece to why I'm feeling so fatigued all the time now.

---

When AI Feels Like Leverage (01:10)

At my job I work on a code base and I know it very well.

The parts that I interact with and build on I'm very familiar with.

And in that environment AI is very amazing.

If I let it build something inside a system I've lived in for years, I can review it quickly.

I know the patterns.
I know the edge cases.
I know what normal looks like in that code base.

And I can quickly see if something doesn't fit.

So at work and in that code base I can let it help me with things like:

• building documentation
• logging issues
• updating comments
• generating test cases
• creating new methods
• helpers
• small things

Sometimes big.

I can give it a full page and say refactor this or I need to add a new method that does this.

And I feel comfortable because I can quickly look at what it did, compare the differences, and I can point out if it went off the rails a little bit.

And to me that's full leverage.

That's taking a new tool and making my life better and more efficient.

---

When AI Changes the Role (02:40)

But when I'm building something new...

When I need to put a new integration into work code...

When I need to build a brand new tool inside of our system...

Or integrate something completely new...

Or the biggest part - personal projects.

When I'm starting from scratch it's a whole different ballgame.

AI is not just writing the code.

It's making decisions.

Sure, I give it an idea.
I give it some guidelines.
I open the door.

But I don't always know the mental map yet.

I don't always exactly know what the end result is going to be or what it should look like.

But by letting AI start working on it, it kind of assumes what the end is without me actually telling it.

So instead of just building, I'm reviewing a lot of assumptions.

I'm double checking a lot of edge cases.

Retesting everything over and over.

Comparing different approaches.

Comparing different branches of code just to see what differences there are.

Making sure nothing slips in.

No side effects.
No legacy code affected.
Everything backwards compatible.

So I'm less in a flow.

I'm more in supervision mode.

I've become a manager.

I'm not a coder.

---

The Verification Loop (04:15)

When I write something myself, I trust the reasoning behind it because I've walked through it in my head.

But with AI, even if it looks right, there's always this little nagging voice:

Did it miss something?

Did it break something?

So I review.

Then I test.

Then I'm rereading.

Then I'm comparing it to another approach.

So it becomes:

Generate -> doubt -> verify -> adjust -> verify again.

Rinse and repeat.

And that loop is tiring.

AI speeds up output.

Code comes quickly.

But pushing the code - deploying the code - comes slower because there's a lot of review in the middle.

And that review process is tiring.

Now I will say it makes the code better.

And it makes me better at spotting things.

But it's still a change in mindset.

And that change is where the fatigue is coming from.

---

The Constant Shifting (05:50)

There's another layer to this fatigue.

Every time I feel like I'm using AI right...

I feel like I finally have a workflow...

I read something online.

Or I talk to a colleague.

Or I watch a YouTube video.

And suddenly someone is using a completely different workflow.

A new tool drops.

A new model replaces something.

A better prompt strategy exists.

People are shipping systems faster.

Making money faster.

Getting traction faster.

And suddenly it makes you feel like everything you've been doing is wrong.

In my case I start considering scrapping everything.

Relearning everything.

Re-architecting everything.

Going deep into research mode.

Trying to figure out how to switch my process.

And this literally just happened to me this week.

I lost two days.

A lot of late nights.

And I scrapped a bunch of work.

All because another approach looked better.

And with AI right now it feels like the ground is constantly shifting.

It creates this constant low-level feeling of being left behind.

Even when I'm objectively getting more done.

---

Doing Something Is Better Than Nothing (08:10)

One motto I've always had in life is:

Doing something is better than doing nothing.

If you're not moving, you're dying.

Whether that's health.
Learning.
Or building.

And with AI sometimes the movement itself keeps changing direction.

But even if you're not doing it the best way...

You're still doing it.

You're still learning.

You're still building.

You're still part of this new shift.

And that matters.

---

The Energy Shift (09:20)

What's strange is...

More is getting done.

But I feel more drained doing it.

I used to get tired from building.

That was like a physical tired.

Like working out.

Now I'm tired from managing.

Reviewing.

Double checking.

Supervising.

It's a mental drain.

Sometimes it even feels like nothing got done.

Because I'm not the one writing the code.

It feels like there's this black box.

And I'm just poking holes into it to inspect things.

I'm less immersed in the code.

And much more in review mode.

And reviewing is exhausting.

---

The Pressure of Infinite Work (10:50)

I used to open my editor excited to knock out a bug or build a feature.

Now sometimes I hit a wall of tired before I even start.

And there's this background pressure:

"I should get back to it."

Even when I'm watching a basketball game.

Or going for a walk.

It feels like I should be working.

Because the work feels infinite.

There's always another refinement.

Another improvement.

Another optimization.

Another better way.

And it never ends.

---

Where I'm Landing (12:10)

I'm definitely not anti-AI.

If anything I'm a massive cheerleader for it.

I want to use it in every part of my life.

I use it every day.

Research.

Prototyping.

Organizing thoughts.

Summaries.

Analysis.

It genuinely helps me.

But I think I'm still rebuilding my energy system around it.

My role is changing.

From developer...

to something closer to a project manager.

And that's not what I trained to be.

---

Finding a Stable Path (13:20)

I don't need the most optimized workflow.

I need a stable one.

I don't need every new tool.

I don't need the flashy new way of doing everything.

I just need to pick a lane...

Stay with it...

And build confidence.

Because AI fatigue isn't about the tool.

It's about the role changing.

The environment changing.

The speed of everything changing.

---

Closing Thought (14:30)

So I'm still here.

Still adjusting.

Trying to take it one tool at a time.

Trying to stay involved in the code.

Trying to work with AI instead of just managing it.

And honestly...

I'm still figuring it out.

So if you're feeling AI fatigue too...

That might actually be a good sign.

It probably means you're in it.

You're learning it.

You're experimenting with it.

And that's better than running away from it.

Thanks for watching.

00:00 - Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

The other night I spilled a full cup of black coffee all over a white-gray couch.
Completely black.
Total panic mode.

But somehow, that coffee spill ended with my wife and her parents telling me I need to get life insurance.

And the strange part is, when I actually looked into even trying to get it and did a couple quotes, the insurance companies themselves told me I probably should not be buying this because I do not seem to need it based on my situation.

00:30 - How It Escalated

So what happened is after the spill, and trying to do our best to clean it up, which I think we might have saved the couch, later that evening she went down to visit her parents.

Towards the end of that I started getting texts and phone calls just basically saying:

Go get life insurance.

Apparently the logic of how they got there was:

Oh, he spilled coffee. Maybe something is wrong.

What if it was a stroke?
What if he has a heart attack?
Do you have life insurance?
No?
Go get it now.
You need it.

So it was a very quick escalation from spilling some coffee to you might die.

01:05 - I'm Not Against Life Insurance

And now to be clear, I am not against life insurance.

Insurance just has to solve a real problem.
And that is the entire point of it.

You insure risks that would cause real financial damage if they happened.

So I started asking questions.

Why do we need it?
If I died, what would the money be used for?
What situation do you see needing to have the money?

And the only reply I kept getting was just:

Get it.
I do not care.
Get it now.

01:40 - So I Looked Into It

So when she did come back, she said pretty adamantly to go get it or she was going to go get a life insurance policy on me herself.

So I was like, fine.

Obviously it is probably not going to cost us that much.
And for a few dollars a month, I do not mind getting it.
Just for peace of mind.
To make her happy.

Because happiness and peace of mind is a lot.

If it costs me anywhere from like $8 to $20 a month, it is worth it.
Happy wife, happy life.

02:10 - What The Insurance Companies Said

So I did go online and I filled out questionnaires on a few different sites, and I was extremely honest about everything.

I did not hold back.
Debts, assets, income.
Extremely honest.

And two of the insurance companies actually came back and told me:

Based on your situation, we do not recommend getting life insurance.

Which you almost never hear from any insurance company.

Usually they are happy to sell you anything.
They will take your money.

And even the other one came back and offered a small plan.
It also said the same thing:

Based on your situation, we do not see a need for it.
But if you want a small plan to help cover funeral costs and unexpected expenses, this is what we would offer.

So I took screenshots of this and I sent it to my wife.

And I have not heard anything since.

03:00 - We Used To Have It

But the funny thing about it is, I do not know if she forgets or her parents forget, but we actually used to have life insurance.

A fairly large policy.

But it was back when it made sense.

We had more than one mortgage because we had rental properties and were just starting out in that game.
We had a brand new house that we lived in.
We had very young kids.
My wife was not working.

We had lots of debt.
Credit cards.
Lines of credit.
Mortgages.
New car debt too.

03:40 - Why It Made Sense Then

Also at the same time, because the kids were young, my wife was not working, and I was self-employed and flying out every Monday and flying home every Friday basically.

I was on the road consulting with companies.

So I could be in any city at any time during the week.
Bad weather.
Flying.
Getting to strange places.

This was before iPhone, so I had to print out my directions, get off a plane, and try to find my way.

I could end up in the wrong part of town.
It could be a snowstorm in a place that I am not familiar with.
I might get stuck somewhere.

You do not hear about planes too often, but God forbid, you never know.

So a lot of things could have gone wrong.

And my family was in a situation where if something did happen to me, she needed to have that insurance.

It made perfect sense to have a plan in case something went wrong that would remove the stress of having to worry about the finances, at least for a certain amount of time.

Because at that stage of our lives, with young kids, her not working, and all the debt, she would not have been able to survive on her own financially.

So that is when it made perfect sense.

04:50 - Life Changes

But life changes.

Time goes on.
The kids get older.
My kids are now in their 20s.
They basically take care of themselves.

Debt disappears.

Obviously there is always some small amount of debt here and there, but it is groceries, a trip you just went on, something you pay off.

It is not this massive debt sitting over your head that you are trying to chip away at.

We do not have that in our lives anymore.

Our savings are built up.
Our retirement funds are built up.

That is a big part of this entire channel.
Slow builds.
Investing.
Finances.

So over time, eventually what happens is you realize the thing that you were buying insurance to cover, you replaced it on your own.

You do not need the insurance anymore.

At this point, I would rather take the $20 or $50 a month it would cost me and buy some shares and build up my own personal investments and add to my dividend payouts.

To me, that makes more sense.

06:00 - The Question I Keep Coming Back To

So I keep coming back to the same question that I try to get her to answer:

If I died tomorrow, what problem would actually exist, and what do we need to cover it?

And in our situation:

She has a job.
We have investments.
She has her own.
I have mine.
We do not owe anything on our home.
It is maintenance mode.

We have a rental property.
We could sell it.
But it is also being rented at the moment, so there is income from that and it is an asset building on its own.

We do not have any major debt.

We did go on a vacation.
One of my kids has one semester left in school, so we help out with that.
But again, it is not something that is breaking the bank for us.

So we do not really have the same financial risk anymore.

If something did happen to me, she is taken care of by the things that we put away and by the things we did to get ourselves into this situation.

07:05 - What Insurance Is Actually For

And I think sometimes people misunderstand what insurance is actually meant to do.

It is supposed to protect against those big risks.

The things that, if something happened to one person in a relationship or family, would financially devastate everyone else and leave them in a bad place.

Possible bankruptcy.
Struggling.
Stress.

Sometimes people start insuring things they do not really need insurance on.

07:30 - The Car, Loan, and Mortgage Insurance Problem

The newest one, at least that I know of, is that when you buy a car now, you can insure the car payment itself.

Same with line of credit insurance.
Same with the mortgage insurance the bank offers you.

It is just an extra monthly payment so that if something happened to the person buying the car, the payments are paid off.

But the problem with those checkboxes is they only pay off what is remaining.

So if you get down to the last payment and you only owe $1,000, and something happens, well, you paid all that money month over month and they are only going to clear the debt.

So basically you paid all that money for $1,000.

Sure, there is some peace of mind along with paying every month.

But when you compare that to an actual life insurance policy, you pay the same amount every single month and if something did happen, you get the amount that you agreed to at the beginning of the term.

So if you had a car and you owed $25,000 on it, and you were paying the car company $10 a month for that insurance, then at the end of it, if there is no money left on the car, you just walk away with a car.
That is basically it.
You do not get any money.

Whereas if you only owed $1,000 on the car and something happened and you had a life insurance policy, you would get $25,000.

You put $1,000 on the car, you own the car, and you still have $24,000.

So there is a big difference between a lump sum policy and insurance attached to a product.

08:50 - How People Get Overinsured

And I think this is where a lot of people become overinsured, almost by accident.

Maybe they already have life insurance or some kind of policy somewhere, and that policy is already big enough to cover quite a bit of the expenses or things that might come up.

But then they go buy the car.
Or take out the loan.
Or get the mortgage.

And the checkbox is there.

Checking that box gives a feeling of relief.
A feeling of safety.

And that is why they do it right then in the moment.

Because they do not want to take the time to reevaluate their situation.

But in most cases, you probably are already covered, or maybe it is something you do not need to insure at all.

It is obviously not ideal to deal with trying to sell a car after someone passes away, but in most cases you could offload the car pretty quickly.

In the case of a property, property usually goes up in value, especially if it is something you live in or something that you take care of.

If you are the kind of person who is looking into life insurance, there is a good chance you take care of your home.

So there is a good chance that place is worth more now than when you began your mortgage or loan against it.

So having insurance that just pays off the line of credit probably is not the best case.

You are usually better off getting a larger lump sum policy if you actually need coverage at all.

10:10 - Reflection

Insurance is a very powerful tool, but it works best when it is solving a specific problem.

Otherwise it can quietly turn into something else.
Just another monthly payment.

And I think that is what made this whole situation interesting to me.

Because early in my life, life insurance solved a very real problem.

But when I sat down and looked at our situation today, I realized that problem does not exist anymore.

And that is something we do not talk about very often with money.

A lot of financial decisions are temporary, but they are also emotional.

A lot of times they make perfect sense in one stage of your life, and then quietly stop making sense.

Life changes.

And for me, life insurance was one of those decisions we did not need anymore.

Back then it solved the problem.
But today, after years of building assets and building stability, the problem it was covering is not there now.

11:15 - The Slow Builds Reflection

And I think that is something interesting about building slowly and the purpose of this channel.

If you keep paying attention to your finances over time, you start to notice that some of the protections you needed early on in your life eventually get replaced by the things you built.

Your savings.
Your investments.
Your assets.

And one day you realize something a little strange and exciting.

The thing insurance was meant to replace is the thing you already have.

You built it yourself.

And that might actually be one of the quiet milestones of financial independence.

Not when you can buy more protection, but when you realize you probably do not need it.

12:00 - Ending / Question

And I am curious about something.

Have you ever had a financial decision that made perfect sense early in your life, but later on you realized it did not really apply to you anymore?

How hard was it to cancel a policy or call up your bank to remove the mortgage insurance or line-of-credit insurance?

Was it a big decision?

Have you gone back and looked at those things to ask:

Has my life changed?
Is this something I could possibly go without?

Because that seems to happen more than people talk about.

And I am pretty sure there are a lot of overinsured people out there who are probably putting money in places that would be better used elsewhere.

Even if it is just going out for a date night, a movie, an extra coffee, or something small that improves life now.

That might be better than giving money to an insurance company for something you may not actually need.

Thanks for watching, and let me know what you think.
I look forward to the comments.

00:00 - Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

So I've mentioned a few times now that I was going to explain how this channel actually started.

And the honest version is... AI built most of it.

I know that sounds very dramatic, but it's pretty much mostly true.

AI structured it.
AI outlined it.
AI named it.

AI pretty much did everything.

I'm just the one sitting here talking as awkwardly and as cringe as I am.

I'm just going along for the ride to see where this takes me.

00:39 - It Started With My Kid

This didn't begin with me wanting to be on YouTube.

My kid was posting on TikTok and started getting some really good traction - a lot of followers, a lot of views.

They wanted to move into YouTube for longer-form videos and just see what that would take.

So I did what I always do.

I started researching.

I wanted to figure out the YouTube algorithm, the best way to go about creating a channel, how to keep retention, what makes channels have longevity, and what makes a channel actually last longer - not just from hype.

And I kept coming back to the same thing.

You can't just throw up one video and hope it works.

Sure, you might get one video to go viral.

But you need consistency.
You need history.
Common themes.
A recognizable voice and image that people trust.

Once people start watching, they come back because they know what to expect.

And this is what I told my kid.

02:02 - The 52 Video Plan

At some point during this journey of researching for my child, I asked AI something simple.

If someone was serious about doing a channel - or even from my kid's point of view - how many videos would it take to build enough history that someone would actually subscribe?

Not just click subscribe and never see another video again.

AI suggested thinking in cycles.

Not viral attempts.

A full year.

One video per week.

52 videos.

That made it feel less emotional and more like a plan.

So I asked it to map out a year.

ChatGPT took the history of our conversations and everything I had asked it before... and it produced 52 video ideas.

It mapped out 52 titles.

It organized them into themes, pillars, and bridges between topics.

Then it took the first few and gave script ideas.

So suddenly there was a roadmap and a starting point.

And that's when it started to feel like this might actually be something real.

04:01 - Recording the First Video

Eventually I thought... let's just record one.

After redefining scripts and trying to figure out how I was going to keep track of everything, I just said:

Let's take the first one and record it.

AI helped with lighting, positioning, and the structure of the video.

I filmed it.

It was very awkward.

So instead of scrapping it, I dropped the entire video and transcript into AI and asked it to analyze it.

It came back with notes.

Adjust the script.
Change the framing.
Reposition things.

So I did it all again.

Not that it made much difference.

You can go look at the first video.

Even this video, I feel like I'm getting a bit more comfortable - but it's still hard.

Right now there's someone standing nearby and it's kind of freaking me out.

You might have heard the cat meow too.

I'm not in a setup that makes me feel fully comfortable.

But even with that first awkward video, AI said something interesting:

Just post it.
It's real. It's authentic.

Over time you'll get more comfortable.

05:45 - Locking In The Channel

At that point I figured if I was going to keep going, I should lock it in.

AI gave me several name ideas.

I went searching for domains and YouTube handles.

The idea was Slow Builds, but the best available option was Slow Builds Lab.

As a developer, that phrase meant something specific.

Slow builds usually means compiling code - waiting for your code to finish building.

But AI reframed it.

Slow builds as in time building things.

Compounding.

Growth.

Analytical thinking.

Once I had the name and the URL, it became real.

We had:

• 52 video ideas
• scripts for the first several videos
• a website URL
• a YouTube handle

At that point, it was happening.

07:12 - The Website (Built By AI)

The funny part is... yes, there is a website.

AI told me where to put it.

Since I'm already a developer and use GitHub all the time, I simply told AI to build me a site.

And it did.

The site is slowbuildslab.com.

It created an about page.

It generated a logo using Canva based on the name and early scripts.

The logo uses gears and growth imagery, which I actually like a lot.

AI also built the banner for the channel.

Getting the banner aligned correctly across devices was difficult because of all the different screen sizes.

But eventually AI figured it out.

08:33 - The Video Workflow

The workflow now is pretty simple.

AI helps generate:

• script drafts
• title ideas
• descriptions
• first comment
• thumbnail ideas

There's a lot of back-and-forth while shaping the scripts.

Once the script is ready, I film the video.

Like I'm doing right now.

I barely edit.

Usually I just trim the beginning and the end.

Sometimes adjust volume or reduce background noise.

That's about it.

After recording, I export the audio and run it through Whisper to generate a full transcript.

Then I add that transcript into my Apple Notes.

AI formats it into sections with timestamps.

Then I check if the title, description, or comments need adjustments.

Usually they don't.

Then the video gets uploaded.

10:49 - Updating the Website

Once the video is live, I grab the URL.

My Apple note contains:

• the title
• the description
• the pinned comment
• the YouTube link
• the full transcript

Then I open Codex and tell it a new video went live.

Codex reads the note, updates the website code, commits to GitHub, pushes the changes, and deploys.

Within minutes the video appears on the website in the correct order.

That whole system runs without me touching anything.

11:28 - The Hardest Part

Honestly, the hardest part of the whole process is the thumbnail.

AI image generation often changes my face too much.

So instead I grab still frames from the video.

Remove the background.

Give AI the thumbnail concept.

Tell it not to modify my face too much.

And that becomes the thumbnail.

It's pretty straightforward.

12:14 - Why I Wanted To Do This

One of the reasons I wanted to try this experiment is something I'm noticing on YouTube.

Some of the fastest growing channels right now are not hyper-produced.

They're raw.

Someone opens their phone and starts talking.

They might be outside by a lake.

Or sitting in a room like this.

The videos are messy.

Unedited.

Just humans being humans.

Long-form conversation.

With so much fast, short-form content everywhere, people seem to want connection again.

It feels like you're sitting there with the person as they think through something.

And that authenticity matters.

14:07 - Where AI Fits

AI removes a lot of the friction.

It helps write scripts.

Suggest titles.

Generate ideas.

Plan a full year of videos.

Without that help, starting from scratch would feel overwhelming.

Instead, I know there's always another idea waiting.

And as I keep making videos, new ideas get added to the list.

So the pressure disappears.

AI also helped with the structure, the thumbnails, and the website.

But when I hit record...

It's just me.

15:31 - Finding My Voice

The videos I like most lately are the ones where I go off script.

I start with the structure.

But then I just talk.

AI formats the sections afterward so I can stay organized while recording.

That helps me keep track of where I am without losing the flow.

Over time I'm getting a bit more comfortable with that.

16:16 - The Real Bet

The bet here isn't that AI will make this successful.

The bet is simply that I said I would try it.

Maybe it goes nowhere.

But I want to see if authenticity compounds.

If I can show up once a week.

Not perfect.

Not polished.

Just consistent.

And see whether people are interested.

17:03 - The Experiment

These videos aren't perfect.

They're not highly produced.

But I want to see if consistency keeps you in the game.

As AI becomes more common and more content gets generated automatically, I want to see if something simple still works:

A real person.

Talking honestly.

Showing up every week.

And seeing where it goes.

00:00 - Entering Something New

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

We're clearly entering something new with AI.

I don't fully know what to make of it yet.

There's a lot of excitement, a lot of noise - and there's also a lot of fear.

And to be honest, I'm feeling all of it.

I'm very unsure.

But at the same time, I'm very optimistic.

I'm excited to see what comes from this new age we're entering.

00:36 - Is This Another Industrial Revolution?

I've heard it compared to the Industrial Revolution.

And in some ways, that makes sense.

Back then, industries changed because we built factories and assembly lines. That infrastructure took decades. It was expensive. Change was slow.

If something needed to be modified, it wasn't easy. It took money, time, and effort.

This feels very different.

AI isn't replacing muscle first.

It's replacing thinking.

01:30 - The Middle-Class Question

AI is starting with cognitive tasks.

Call centers.
Paralegals.
Entry-level accounting.
Even higher-level accounting.
Junior developers.
Logistics planners.

Then you move into hybrid roles:

Truck drivers.
Taxi services.
Delivery systems.
Port operations.

Those physical-digital jobs could shift faster than we expect.

And that's mostly middle-class stability.

That's what worries me most.

Not collapse.

Compression.

Reshuffling.

02:33 - Ethics, Incentives & Power

The other thing that worries me is the people at the top.

Corporations building it.
Corporations deploying it.
Governments trying to regulate it.

Incentives move fast.

Sometimes faster than ethics.

Greed can move quickly.

And AI is powerful.

When something powerful moves fast, guardrails matter.

Empathy matters.

I hope the people steering this understand that.

Because we don't get unlimited resets with a tool like this.

Once it's embedded everywhere, it's hard to pull back.

We have to keep this one on the rails.

03:42 - The Question That Changed My Framing

The other day, I was out with a friend.

He asked me why I'm still building apps.

And I could tell what he meant.

At my age, I've built companies. I have a job I'm happy with. I'm not chasing anything.

He assumed I was trying to hit the big one.

The next Snapchat.
The next WhatsApp.
The billion-dollar exit.

But that's not it.

I just like building.

04:33 - Before AI: Friction Everywhere

Before AI, building meant friction.

You'd come up with an idea.

Then research it.
Document it.
Make stack decisions.
Figure out feasibility - technical, legal, practical.

You could burn weeks just validating an idea.

Now?

I can pick up my phone and start talking.

Type a thought.

Get an overview of what's possible almost immediately.

Build prototypes over a weekend.

Get architecture guidance.
Domain ideas.
Hosting plans.
Integration advice.
Even help shaping a sales pitch.

The overhead is dramatically lower.

05:50 - My Current Experiments

Right now, I have several ideas in motion:

A chores app.
A coaching concept.
A dividend tracker.
A trade tester.
A GPS tracker.
This channel.

Some are live.
Some are half-built.
Some might never launch.

And that's fine.

Because the goal isn't the unicorn.

It's creative output.

AI didn't make me more creative.

It removed drag.

06:54 - The WALL-E Fear

I joke about the WALL-E future.

Robots do everything.
We float around.
Unlimited entertainment.
No effort required.

Maybe some of that happens.

But I think something else happens too.

AI shrinks routine cognitive work.

And that expands creative leverage.

It's like having a small team behind you.

Engineers.
Researchers.
Documenters.

You still need taste.

Direction.

Judgment.

But you're not alone in execution anymore.

And that changes who gets to build.

08:22 - Different Perspectives, Same Leverage

One of my friends is a designer - a UX thinker.

He's not a coder.

AI lets him bring ideas to life without being blocked by code.

On my side, I understand the code deeply.

AI helps me move through it faster and focus more on user experience.

Different strengths.

Same leverage.

That's powerful.

09:11 - Holding Both Sides

So yes.

I'm unsure.

I worry about job displacement.

I worry about middle-class compression.

I worry about greed moving faster than laws and ethics.

But I also see:

Faster discovery.
Cheaper production.
Better medicine.
Smarter energy systems.
New businesses.
New roles we haven't even named yet.

Every major tool shift reshuffles value.

It doesn't delete it.

10:01 - Why I'm Leaning In

For people who want to think, build, and adapt -

This might be one of the most enabling ages in history.

That blows my mind.

I don't know where this era goes.

I don't know who gets hit first.

But I do know this:

I can build more now than I ever could before.

Not because I'm chasing something big.

But because the friction is lower.

That makes me want to create more.

10:39 - Closing

So yes.

I'm unsure.

But I'm optimistic.

My optimism outweighs my fear.

I'm glad I get to witness this shift.

We're living inside a chapter people will read about someday.

They'll say "before AI," the way we say "before the internet."

I'd rather lean into this and be part of it

than look away.

Thanks for watching Slow Builds.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one.

And yes - I let AI help shape this script based on my inputs.

That feels fitting.

Opening - "Why did I ignore it?"

Hey and welcome to Slow Builds.

I remember a friend telling me about Bitcoin in early 2012.

He started talking about how he watched a video introducing it. He had a friend who was mining it and told him about it.

Back then, the idea that we could "mine money" on our own computers made zero sense to me.

He was saying it was going to disrupt financial institutions.

And I completely ignored it.

And I'm a developer. I have a computer science degree. I have a math degree. I love investing. I love technology.

So why did I ignore it?

The dismissal - "It felt unserious"

For years I completely shunned Bitcoin.

I considered it hype. Vapor. Speculative noise.

Every cycle looked the same:

Up. Crash. Memes. Crypto bros.

It felt unserious.

There was no real backing to it.

The price swings felt random. They didn't seem to have any logical reason for why it would go up and then drop right back down.

And I told myself I was being rational.

I told myself I was being financially responsible by staying away from it.

I thought I was protecting myself from the nonsense around Bitcoin.

I thought I was protecting my money.

And I'm not saying I made the wrong choices.

I did make the right choices on some things.

Some things... no.

But Bitcoin is one I think I misjudged.

The turning point - a calm conversation

And what's funny is...

It didn't take one of my tech friends.

It didn't take a financial advisor.

It didn't take someone I look up to from an investment point of view.

It was one of my non-tech friends.

We were at a Hozier concert, out in a field.

He wasn't trying to pitch me on it. He didn't hype it up.

He just asked: "Did you see this about Bitcoin?"

And I basically said straight up:

"I don't buy into the hype. I don't invest in Bitcoin. I don't believe in it."

And he just started talking.

Not hype. Not "to the moon."

Just calm.

He talked about scarcity.

He talked about investment firms quietly buying it up.

He talked about governments experimenting with it.

He did the whole "futuristic gold" comparison - as an asset with limited supply.

He was measured.

And it stuck with me.

I walked away from that conversation thinking differently.

Going off-script: governments, debt, and narratives

I'm gonna go a bit off-script here.

This was around the time when Trump was coming into power again - I think it was that time.

And there was all this talk about debt, and government money, and bills that would allow treasury money to go into Bitcoin... and how that could offset debt.

A lot of it sounded like nonsense.

But it still opened my eyes.

Because it made me pay attention to something I hadn't really considered:

Governments are trying to use it.

They're trying to re-leverage debt.

And that kind of pressure could force Bitcoin into the "new asset" category.

Stores of value: gold, real estate, art, stocks... then Bitcoin

And that's where it comes down to this:

There are only so many stores of value in the world.

Gold is limited. It's hard to find.

You dig massive holes, go deep, just to find a tiny amount.

And even if you had gold...

In the future you don't want to be carrying coins and bricks around, chipping pieces off, weighing it like it's the old days.

Then you have real estate.

Land has always been valuable.

But land is expensive - and getting more expensive.

And it's not liquid.

You can't move a property "on a dime."

And owning property has overhead.

There's friction.

I've owned several rentals. I still have a rental, but it's family.

Still... there's headaches.

Floods. Mold. Vacancy. Collecting rent.

Property tax. Heat. Light. Water.

It's overhead.

Then you have art and collectibles.

Also limited. Also valuable.

But it takes a lot of money to buy in.

You can't buy "half" a collectible. You buy the whole thing.

And when you sell, you still need someone willing to pay for it.

Then you have stocks - tied to companies, revenue, growth, and what shareholders are willing to pay.

Outside of that...

You're kind of limited.

Shares.

Art.

Gold.

Material stuff - silver, bronze, diamonds...

Even diamonds are getting weird now because synthetic ones are flooding the market.

And then you have Bitcoin.

Digital scarcity - "21 million matters"

Bitcoin is a whole different kind of scarcity.

Digital scarcity.

There are only 21 million.

There's still about a million left to go, and that matters right now.

That's not like most cryptos where there isn't a real limit.

Where the supply can just keep expanding and the price can swing.

Bitcoin isn't like cash.

The US can print more money.

Canada can print more money.

You don't have that with Bitcoin.

It's not infinite.

And that's a structural constraint that forces value.

Once people agree it's worth something...

Because it's limited, each fraction becomes more valuable - as long as someone is willing to pay for it.

Theories: grounded, practical... and the wild AI one

So I have a few theories.

Including a pretty wild one.

The grounded one:

It becomes digital gold.

A reserve asset.

The practical one:

It's borderless value.

A way to transfer value between individuals and institutions without relying on banks, fees, currencies, cross-border friction, or regulatory overhead.

It's just... move value.

That alone makes it valuable in my mind.

Now personally?

I don't want to be the guy who buys pizza with Bitcoin.

I don't want to be the "40 Bitcoin Domino's pizza" story.

So for me it's set it and forget it.

Buy it slowly.

Take your time.

Slow Builds.

I bought some other stuff too - Ether, and a couple others.

But the majority of anything I put into crypto goes into Bitcoin.

Not most of my money.

But most of that crypto money goes into Bitcoin.

AI agents + money: what do they use?

And this is where my wild theory comes in.

It sounds crazy when you say it out loud...

But maybe there's something to it.

We've got OpenClaw.

We've got all these AI models.

You build agents.

Your agents go out, talk to each other, do work on your behalf.

And there are already stories of people giving agents access to bank accounts and credit cards...

And then they get wiped out.

Or the agent buys something insane.

Or signs up for some random course.

So if agents are going to go out and do things...

They're going to need to purchase things.

They can't just freely pass everything back and forth.

In my mind, they'll use some kind of digital currency.

And I think it's going to be Bitcoin.

Because AI agents could transfer it back and forth without relying on bank accounts.

Without currencies and fees.

Without all the limits and regulatory friction.

It's borderless. Frictionless.

A digital way to purchase and transfer value - agent to agent - to complete tasks.

We have no idea where this goes.

But it's a thought.

Bitcoin as the "measuring stick"

And even if Bitcoin isn't the one they use directly...

I still think Bitcoin becomes the underlying measuring stick.

Like gold used to be.

Gold to USD.

We don't do that now, but things start somewhere.

Bitcoin is finite.

Limited.

It's established.

It hasn't been "cracked."

It works.

So I think it becomes the default standard that everything else gets compared to.

When it drops: fear, opportunity, and narratives

Right now the price is dropping.

And I don't panic.

Maybe it's macro.

Maybe it's liquidity cycles.

Maybe it's big players moving markets.

Or maybe it's just human pattern-seeking.

I don't know.

But what I do know is...

It's a scarce asset.

And it doesn't feel "safe" when it's falling.

Bitcoin feels stupid to talk about with people who aren't tech.

People who can barely use an iPhone.

People who still use cash to buy a candy bar.

They'll never understand it.

But when I see the market drop...

I see opportunity.

Yes, it's still way higher than it was in 2012.

But it's also a better opportunity than it was six months ago... maybe a year ago.

Now I can get in at a better baseline.

Manipulation theory + "losing the middle"

And this is where I go off on my own theory again.

I have a feeling the Bitcoin market is being manipulated.

I think governments and financial institutions are still moving forward with their plan.

They didn't just drop massive amounts of money and walk away.

They put in orders.

They don't care what the price is in the moment.

They're buying.

And they already own a lot of Bitcoin.

And I think what happens next is...

They try to lower the price so they can buy more.

They scare retail investors.

People sell at the lows.

And the big players scoop it up.

Meanwhile, for poor people - it still feels too expensive.

Sure, they can buy tiny fractions... but most won't.

And don't listen to me - this is not advice - I'm just rambling.

But the point is:

They lower the price.

They buy more.

And people who panic lose their chance.

For me?

I see it and I want to buy a bit more.

So when it jumps back up, I'm not chasing it.

And this is how we lose the middle again.

More poor.

More rich.

Less middle.

That bothers me.

It ties into AI, money, everything.

We keep losing the middle.

Compounding, holding, and leverage (not selling)

I'm not rich.

I'm not in the rich category.

I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

But with Slow Builds - the way I buy things and hold things - I believe in compounding.

That's why I want to buy Bitcoin.

And I don't plan on selling it.

I'd rather leverage it later.

If the value goes up and I still own it...

I can use that asset as leverage.

Just like I leveraged my home for a line of credit.

You leverage assets.

You don't sell them.

Because once you sell them, they're gone.

If you own land, shares, art, collectibles, real estate, Bitcoin...

If you own it, you can leverage it.

So if one Bitcoin is worth $100,000...

I should be able to get a loan for $50,000.

Minimum.

And then maybe you use that money to buy other assets.

Again - my numbers might be off.

This is not advice.

I'm just thinking out loud.

Please don't go spend all your money because of anything I'm saying.

Closing - "I'm not laughing anymore"

So this isn't about going all in.

It's about recognizing something I dismissed.

Bitcoin used to be a joke in my head.

A meme coin at best.

But Slow Builds isn't about chasing hype.

It's about noticing structural shifts early enough to participate...

Without betting the house.

If Bitcoin is hype, it fades.

If it's digital scarcity, it compounds over decades.

I don't know which it will be.

But I'm not laughing at Bitcoin anymore.

That's the shift.

I buy it regularly.

I believe in it.

And even if it doesn't become what I think...

I'm no worse off.

At worst, it's still an asset worth something to somebody.

Maybe I lose some money.

Maybe I make some money.

Maybe it becomes something we all need later.

Or maybe it disappears.

But I'm in the game.

I'm in it for the long term.

And it's one of my slow builds.

Hey - thank you.