00:02 - Opening: Trying To Start

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

This is a video I've been trying to do for a while because it aligns with this channel. It's about self-motivation, and I've tried to do it a few times.

So I'm trying to self-motivate myself to do the video. I need to stick to the script. I have two that I've done and I keep forgetting the places I want to be, but I need to motivate myself to do it.

And just like this channel, I keep losing motivation every time I don't want to do it. I do get a lot of times where I'll get a comment, I'll get a like, and it brings me back.

I'm not getting a lot. You can go look at my channel and you know what's happening. I've got a few subscribers and I love it. I love getting the one, two, three. Right now, it means something.

That motivates me.

But in the end, before I start the script, I'm just going to say where my mind is going on that. With this channel, it truly is a self-motivation process.

There's no one pushing me to do it. There's no revenue or income related to it. There's personal pride, I guess, because I set a goal and I want to try it.

I don't always have fun with it. I sort of enjoy it. I like the scripts.

I've been finding that lately they've been all focused on a certain thing, so it's trying to motivate myself to bring in a new direction. I don't want clickbait. I do have this thing where I want to try to see if I can continue to do it without editing.

To me, that's a big thing. I really like the fact that I can sit here. I don't even see myself right now. I just see a script in front of me that I haven't even started reading yet.

But I enjoy seeing if I can do 15 to 20 minutes without having to go back. I don't even go back and listen to them anymore. The first ones I did, and I found it took a lot of time.

So I just want to put this stuff out here, and I'm pushing myself to try to reach a year. I guess at this point it's going to be 104. I was hoping for 52, but there may be weeks where I try to cut it back to one.

As of now, I'll keep pushing two. I know in the back of my mind that little voice is going to push me to try to do two, and most likely I'll hit it.

That's part of this video. That self-motivation, that push, is internal.

I don't think anyone is really born with it. I think it's something you develop and build. It's like a muscle, I guess, where you have to learn how to be self-motivated.

It's a character trait you can work on. It's not just given that you have it. Even if you do have it, you can make it stronger.

Athletes obviously have a drive where they push forward.

04:00 - The Gap Before Moving

I think I've been looking at self-motivation.

Really, the part that I want to look at is that starting something isn't the hard part. I find the hardest part is that gap between when your brain says, "I need to go do this," and that little gap before you actually start moving.

There's this time period where you can talk yourself out of something. It could be a millisecond, it could be a minute, it could be a half hour.

By the time you've had this conversation with yourself, you decide, no, I'll wait until tomorrow, or I don't need to do that.

That's the part you have to work on.

There's a book called The Flinch. I found it through Yes Theory, watching their YouTube channel, and it was about cold showers basically.

I take cold showers all the time now. The flinch is that reaction, and you need to overcome that reaction.

Even before you turn on the water or go to the shower, you've already got that moment of, I don't want to do this.

If you get to the point that you actually turn the water on, it's just as well to get in. That's the way I look at it. Just jump in and get it over with.

But it's that flinch. As soon as you know that water is going to hit you, you know what's going to happen. There's this reaction your body doesn't like.

That's the flinch, and being able to conquer that is a big part of self-motivation too. If you can overcome that flinch, that discomfort, and control the emotion that comes with it, and just look at it like a fleeting moment in time, then just like the cold shower, once you jump in and get that flinch, it's gone.

Unless it's winter and the water just keeps getting colder and colder. But at that point, you become acclimated to it in a way, and you're fine with it.

It's actually not that bad in the end, and you feel so refreshed.

Cold showers alone are a great way to start building and growing that muscle of being able to start something you don't want to do, and to help make yourself better at self-motivation.

This video is really going off the rails.

06:42 - Work, Consulting, And Staying Useful

Let's go down the rabbit hole here.

First off, it's about work. It's about the gym, working out, and just getting going.

With work, it's a big thing because, like I said in the past, I was a consultant. If you're on site and you're not assigned anything, or you're not being brought into meetings or included on emails, that's pretty close to the end of your contract.

You need to find ways to keep yourself busy. You try to inject yourself into meetings or find out what the other teams are working on because, as a consultant, you eat what you kill basically.

If you're not working and you're not on a site, first off, you can't get recommendations for more work. You're not getting paid, and you're not learning more. You're not getting more experience to get a better contract later, or at least another contract.

You want to stay on your contract as long as possible.

The best way to do that is to become friends with the people, get to know the people that run the projects and build the teams, see what's coming down the pipe, and make yourself useful.

You have to stay off social media. You can't be checking email and news all day and just sitting there. You can't take long lunches.

You need to be the first one in, the last one out. You need to be involved in everything. It's a lot of work, and you need to find little places to do it.

Even at the current job I'm at right now, same idea. I'm in a situation where I'm not assigned anything big because I have to backfill for somebody at the moment.

So I could sit there all day and just wait for a request: I need help on this, or I need help on that.

But I could really waste a lot of time doing nothing. I have to find ways to push myself forward.

I have to sit there and envision making the product better. I have to find little tools and little projects for myself. I have to go into our error tracking system and find places where things are broken.

It's like, I can fix that.

Or I can talk to people on different teams to see how their day is going, how they use the system, and how I can make it better. Same with clients.

I'm always tinkering. I'm always trying to find ways to keep myself busy, but at the same time, it's making the product better. It's making people enjoy using the product more, and stopping a lot of errors from happening.

That is self-motivation in a way.

People always say, get a government job, you sit there and do nothing. I've been on jobs like that and it's very boring. You lose your mind pretty quick. You don't want to be there.

You start weighing the opportunity. Is the money worth it? I'm bored.

But any job, you can find a way to make it fun as long as you have that motivation within yourself to kickstart everything.

You can't just wait. Don't be a waiter. Don't wait for people to tell you what to do. Get out and do it yourself.

10:01 - YouTube And Small Goals

I'm not even reading the script now.

I was at the gym, but it's also this YouTube channel. I wanted to talk about that because no one's pushing me to do this.

I don't tell anyone I know about this channel. I don't want people to know about this channel. I like you guys knowing about it because there's like 12 of you, and I hope there's more to come.

Think about that for a second. I have a few people that always comment. I get a trickle of new subscribers, and I love it.

To be honest, that does motivate me. It motivates me a lot. It actually keeps me going.

Even once, "Oh, you got a new subscriber." I can only imagine the day when there's another 10, another 100, another 50. Fingers crossed that happens at some point, but I highly doubt it.

And that's okay. I do this for me. I do it for the few people who want to watch it. It's a self-project, and I'm motivating myself to do it. I set a goal and I push forward with it.

It's like the gym again. You have to set these small little goals.

One big one for me, whatever it sounds like, is the Apple Watch. When you first get it, it asks you your height, your weight, all that stuff. It asks what your target is. It gives you a goal for how many calories to burn per day, or how many minutes of exercise you should do.

I love that. It gives you something to push forward to without a lot of friction. It's just on your wrist, and it bangs when you hit something. You feel good about it.

11:47 - Finishing What You Started

One thing about the gym that I find is, let's take running.

Let's say I sit down, have a goal, and I want to hit 10K. I want to go out, do a nice run, and hit a nice 10K run.

It's a beautiful day, or I'm on the treadmill, but I'm having a hard time with it. Let's say you hit seven, you hit eight, and it's like, I'm dead. I do not want to do this. I want to get off.

In my mind, I need to take that little muscle and say, listen, I just did 8K. I only have two more to go. If I just do the two, I hit my 10. I hit my goal. I'm happy. I'm going to feel like crap, but it's done.

If I stop, that means I have to go through all that 8K again plus another two. So in the end, I'm going to be doing 18K just to hit that 10 when I could just finish it now.

Just get it done.

What's funny about that is I do that with the garbage now.

I hate doing the garbage because there's litter. I hate doing the litter. I don't enjoy doing garbage day. I don't know why. It really bothers me.

So now I'm at the point where I just want to get it done. I do it as fast as possible. If I have to come down and do a run, or we're going to go out somewhere, I'll just do it right away.

Right after supper, boom, I'm doing it instead of waiting until it's almost bedtime or waiting until it becomes a thing.

I want to get it done quick.

I think of the Jerry Seinfeld bit where there's nighttime Jerry and daytime Jerry, or maybe it was drunk Jerry and sober Jerry. I can't remember. But it's like, that's tomorrow Jerry's problem.

You don't clean up. You don't put the trash out. You don't make the bed. You don't wash the clothes. You just leave it and push that forward. You're kicking the ball forward.

It causes so much stress.

One big thing for me is getting breakfast ready.

If I need to do something in the morning, there's nothing worse than finishing the gym or workout, being all ready, and then realizing I have to clean the coffee French press, grind the beans, and get my smoothie ready.

It's so much nicer if the night before, you take three minutes to have all that done. All you have to do when you wake up is boil water and mix your smoothie.

Everything's done. Literally, you're just adding water to stuff. That's it.

It's such a relief.

And it's funny that there are nights when you're just like, I don't want to do it. It literally takes less time to do it then than in the morning while you're in a rush.

I fall victim to this all the time too.

That's the littlest self-motivation right there. Knowing you're going to make future you feel a little bit better and give him a little less stress.

If you're not willing to do that, then you don't love yourself, I guess.

But that's funny. It is what it is.

15:23 - Removing The Space To Hesitate

That's the hardest one really, because even getting up to go do your run or workout, the part of this video is really about that moment between when you think about doing something and when you start.

That's the self-motivation part right there.

I'm going to take a cold shower. It's a matter of turning on the water, getting the soap ready, and jumping in.

You can talk yourself out of doing that so fast, but you shouldn't. You need to push yourself forward. You need to build that little resilience.

But you're not doing it for anyone else. That's the key I'm trying to get here.

These are all things that I do. I do the runs. I do the workouts. I try to prep for the next morning. I try to find extra work to do at work.

I do this YouTube video. I'm trying to learn AI as much as possible. I'm trying to write an advice book to pass on to my kids about things like this.

This is a chapter in it about self-motivation and being prepared, I guess. The chapter is kind of about preparing yourself, doing the things ahead of time so that future you can handle it, doesn't need to think as much, and already has the answers, or at least is capable of finding the answers.

I'm going to look at my script again.

Self-motivation isn't about pushing harder. It's about removing that gap, that space where you can hesitate and it gives you a chance to talk yourself out of something.

Because once you're in motion, honestly, you're already most of the way there. Once you're doing it, there's no pulling back really. You're just going to keep going because what's the point? You don't want to go through that whole hassle again.

17:35 - Do Not Ruin The Next Start

That brings up another one.

I hate how I always come back to working out, but running is a very good example for something like this.

Let's say your plan is to do a workout and you really don't want to do it, but you know you have a goal. You want to do a certain amount per week or per month.

You hit a point where, okay, I'll go down and do a run right now. Your goal in your head is to hit 5K. You're going to do a 30-minute run. You're going to hit 5K.

As long as you hit that, you feel good. You don't need to do more and you don't want to do more, but it's going to take a lot to get down there and do it.

So you manage to get past that hesitation. You've got your shoes on and you're running. Then you hit the 30 minutes. You hit your 5K. Maybe you're at five and a half or six.

You feel really good. You feel great about yourself.

You started that workout and you didn't feel good at all. Now all of a sudden you're at the end of it and you still feel like, man, I could go another one. I could hit 10K. I could go 12K. Let's try to do a half marathon.

This is a part that I've read in a book before. I don't know which book it was, or maybe it was a quote or a YouTube video.

You didn't want to start doing it. You did it and you felt great. Now you have this endorphin lift. You have this great feeling.

If you keep going, there's a very strong chance that you're going to surpass that and reach a point of exhaustion, fatigue, and dread.

Then the next time you go down to do it, you're going to remember that. You're going to remember the end of it. You're going to remember, I ran yesterday, or I ran two days ago, and it was brutal.

If you had stopped at the moment when you finished your goal, did everything you wanted to do, and felt great, imagine you stopped right there.

I feel great. This was an awesome workout.

Then you stopped. You got a shower. You got cleaned up.

The next day, or the next time you go down there, you're going to remember that. Last time was really good. I had an awesome workout. I can't wait to do this one. Or at least, this one should be almost as good. It's not going to be that bad.

But if you pushed yourself to the point that you were exhausted and didn't enjoy it, you went way past that endorphin rush and into a bad spot. You're going to remember that.

So it's always good to reach your goal. If you manage to reach your goal and you feel like you're in a good spot and happy about it, you don't have to push yourself farther.

You don't have to try to go as far as you can go.

Sometimes you will, especially for me if it's running and I'm outdoors and it's a beautiful day. I'll do it because I'm enjoying the outdoors and I want to do it.

But I've done it enough that I know not everyone is going to be the same.

When you're starting out with something and you're new to it, don't push yourself too far. Don't talk yourself out of something. And when you actually do start doing it, don't push yourself so far that you're going to remember those bad times the next time.

Self-motivation is about setting those goals, not talking yourself out of it, and not pushing yourself so far past your goals that you make your future self not want to do it anymore.

It's not about that one time. It's about the consistency and the continuation and constantly doing stuff.

If you consistently show up and do something, those compound. It builds a routine. It builds that muscle in your head, that self-motivation. It helps remove that flinch you get of not wanting to do something, that self-doubt.

You're pushing that aside. It helps you become a better person in a way because you're able to overcome your fears. You're able to take away self-doubt. You have pride in yourself. You have faith in yourself that you can do these things.

22:24 - Closing: Keep Moving

This video went way to a different spot than I was expecting.

I do want this channel to align with the book in a way, and it's gone down a really AI-focused direction because AI is such a large part of my life. There are a lot of videos around that and how I'm using it, even in stuff like this.

But I hope you enjoy this video. It's a different one. It's along the idea of me trying to talk through some of the things that I want to put in the book that I'm trying to get out.

Self-motivation. Worrying about future self being prepared. Overcoming your fears. Just starting.

Because if you're not moving, you're dying.

That's in money. That's in fitness. That's in work. That's just in life in general.

You need to move. If you're not moving, you're dying.

That's different from the topic of this one, but I want to hear some comments on this one if possible. This one went way off, and it's different.

The Book I'm Writing With AI (and why it's harder than I expected)

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.
I always say this one's going to be a little different — but they're all different I suppose.
What I will say is that as I get closer to finishing the book, I'm getting a little more free, a little more animated. My thoughts are starting to get clearer.
So this one is about the book — where I'm at, what I've been using, and honestly, what's been frustrating about it.

00:20 — Why the book exists

I've had this idea for a long time.
Not really "I want to write a book"… but more like I've been collecting things.
Advice, patterns, small realizations — stuff I wish I understood earlier.
Things that would've made life a little easier if someone had just taken the time to sit me down and point them out. Not "do this, do that" — just little nudges. Help avoiding pitfalls.
And over time, that turned into… maybe this should be something I write down properly.

01:10 — What the book is

It's not a story.
It's more like — if I had to hand something to my kids one day, or a younger version of myself — what would actually be useful?
Not a blueprint. That word's wrong.
More like tidbits. Small, specific things from a life lived — I'm probably closer to halfway through at this point.
Practical ways to think about:

• money
• pressure
• decisions
• responsibility
• family

Nothing motivational. No big speeches. Just stuff that would help them feel like — hey, other people have been here too. You're not alone in this.

02:00 — Starting with AI

So when I finally started putting it together, AI felt like the obvious place to start.
Because the hard part wasn't ideas. Ideas are life — they just happen.
It was:

• organizing them
• structuring them
• turning them into something readable

So I started using ChatGPT. It was working really well — helping me get thoughts down, fill in gaps, organize things. It was starting to look like a book.

03:00 — Tool hopping

Then I wanted more. I wanted infographics, slide decks, a different take on what I was building. So I moved into NotebookLM.
Which is good for structure — outlines, connecting ideas, building a framework.
But I started noticing something. Things weren't lining up. It wouldn't update properly. I'd paste something in, it would cut stuff out, or summarize when I needed the full thing. I'd overwrite the old version and lose content.
It started to feel like I wasn't working on the book anymore. I was just trying to maintain versions and mash things together. It took away from my words — and I really didn't like that.

04:15 — The rewrite reality check

So I got it back to a good place — broke things out into manuscripts, chapter by chapter.
Then I threw everything into Claude. Full tilt. I gave it a very specific prompt: you're an editor who hasn't had a hit book in a while. You need something on the shelves in three months. Your ass is on the line.
And that was a bit of a reality check.
Because it went deep. It found a ton of repetition. Filler. Things that didn't line up. And I thought more content meant progress — but it was mostly just noise.

05:30 — Cutting it down

So I started trimming.
The book got better… but smaller. Which feels weird — like you're losing work — even though you're actually improving it.
I hate books that fill space for the sake of it. Books full of pulled quotes just to pad chapters. Mine does have a quote at the start of each chapter and a short reference to a related book — but it's precise. It sets the tone. It earns its place.

06:20 — Automating the process

Then I went further.
I have a server running open-source Claude, and I built a system using Obsidian and GitHub. The book is in Markdown. I can push, pull, commit — version control the whole thing.
Then I built agents. The idea: I drop in ideas and feedback, and every night the agents work on revisions. They weave in new ideas, work on chapters, do rewrites. Every morning I'd wake up to a progress report explaining what happened overnight.
It felt really good. Like the book was continuously being worked on even when I wasn't there. All I had to do was focus on what I wanted in it — answer questions about timelines, stories, how things fit together.

07:20 — Where it starts to break

And then things started to feel off.
I went back through everything. Checked it in ChatGPT — "great job, you're doing awesome." Checked it in NotebookLM — wanted to tighten things up but gave specifics. Then went back to Claude.
And Claude found a lot of problems.

07:40 — Subtle drift

It wasn't obvious at first.
The agents were filling in gaps, smoothing things out — and suddenly I'd have something that sounded right… but wasn't true.
Stories were kind of in line, but digging deeper: that timeline's off. That didn't happen that way. It mixed up whose wedding I was at, who my business partner was, what client I was visiting. It didn't understand that you can have multiple businesses running at the same time with different people.

08:20 — Made-up clarity

And that's a strange feeling. Because the stories were believable.
But they weren't what actually happened.
And that's scary. If you start trusting AI enough to let it do that — and you don't check — imagine what happens to news articles, non-fiction books, history books. It's not even deliberate. It's just AI wanting the story to feel right, filling in what's missing, smoothing out what doesn't fit.
You can see how a whole drift in society could happen that way.
So now I'm going back through my own book trying to figure out what's real, what changed, and what got quietly invented.

09:00 — More work, not less

And this is the part people don't see when they say "AI wrote it for you."
It didn't.
If anything, it created more work. I have to:

• verify everything
• fix tone
• correct intent
• remove things that aren't mine
• find those things — which is hard in a 155-page book

09:50 — Slowing the process down

So what I do now is slower.
I take sections into Claude and instead of asking it to rewrite, I have it ask me questions first.
What actually happened? What did I mean? What's the point of this?
I answer all of that before anything gets touched.
At one point I went through an hour of back and forth — Claude asking questions, me giving answers. Then I asked: how many chapters do we have left, what's the page count, where are we at?
It said: "I haven't written anything yet. I'm just collecting the information. I'll write when you tell me to."
An hour of answers, and nothing was written down. If I hadn't asked, I would have lost the whole session and had to start over.
So now every time I want to stop, I explicitly tell it: write that in, commit it, push it. Make sure it's saved. Every single time.

10:40 — Still friction

But even that has friction.
It collects everything and waits. Which I understand — I'm the decision maker. But if I answer a question, I'd expect the answer to just be written down. Not stored in memory waiting for me to say "now go write it." It creates overhead. It makes me more aware of the process than the book.

11:10 — The loop

So now I'm in this loop where I'm not just writing the book…
I'm trying to:

• hold onto everything
• keep it consistent
• make sure nothing disappears

And going back through the same loop every session — rechecking, restating, re-establishing context — takes more time than writing.

11:40 — The tradeoff

And I think that's really the tradeoff with AI once you start jumping between tools, models, and workflows.
You're not just creating anymore. You're managing pieces. It starts to feel like a chore rather than sitting at a typewriter and just going.
Things get lost. Slight changes. Inconsistencies. Timelines drift.

12:20 — But for this, it works

But for the book — it's actually useful.
Because it forces me back into it. I can't just accept what it gives me. I have to reread everything, question it, restate it.
And that process is what makes it mine.

13:10 — What AI really is

At this point, AI is basically just my note taker and timeline keeper.
It helps me collect ideas, reflect them back, organize them.
But every important decision, I still have to make. There's no way around it.
I might put "co-written with AI" somewhere in the book — because it's the force that helped me start. I'll give credit where it's due.
But there is no world in which this book wasn't written by me. These are my truths. My words. My life. No one can tell me otherwise.

13:40 — The real lesson

The book sat in my head for years.
And the real problem wasn't writing it — it was starting.
AI gave me a place to start. Not a perfect version. Just something.
And once something exists, you can work with it.

14:40 — Closing

So yeah, it's messy. Back and forth. Sometimes it feels like things are getting lost.
But that's still better than never starting at all.
I'm about three months out from wanting to have some version of this out — at least on Kindle. Something that can breathe. Something my kids can actually get to.
I'm excited for this one.

15:00 — Final line

AI isn't writing the book.
It just made me sit with it long enough to actually work on it.

Why Everything Feels Like a Fight Right Now (AI, Energy, and the Shift)

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.
Lately, when you watch the news and see everything going on — when you go online — everything feels like there's a fight happening for something.
There's always a conflict.
Energy. Cost of living. Inflation through the roof. Groceries cost a ton. Gas is crazy priced.
Governments have a grant or program on, then it's off, then it's back on again — constantly changing based on the political climate and the financial struggles happening in the world right now.
Everything just feels kind of unstable. Very unpredictable.
And when you take a closer look at it, it feels like people are trying to grab their piece of the pie. Trying to hold on to something.

01:30 — What it feels like

When you look at how the world is working today — the resources, the things we use — it feels like there's not enough to go around.
Not enough stability. Not enough margin. Not enough room for everyone.
So people begin pushing and pulling.
Companies do the same. Countries do the same. Governments, political groups, businesses.
Everyone's trying to secure as much of what they think they need.

03:30 — The pattern

It reminds me of a farm trough.
When the farmer throws in the bucket of food — the animals come running.
They're not trying to cooperate.
They push each other. They bang into each other. They grab as much as they can.
And they're not doing it because they're overly greedy.
They do it because they know there's a limited supply.
If they don't get it — they don't get any.
And they don't know if there's more coming.

05:30 — Apply it to today

That's energy right now.
Oil. Gas. The infrastructure around it.
That's what people are grabbing at.
There's a limited supply. Certain people control the majority of it. A certain group refines it.
And when something matters that much…
people compete over it.
At every single level of the process.

06:30 — Where we put the effort

And something else I keep thinking about…
It's not just that energy is limited.
It's also where we put our effort.
For decades — money, lobbyists, big corporations — it all focused on oil and gas. The entire world runs on it.
So we put a lot of technology and research into it. We found better ways of finding it, more efficient ways of extracting it. The whole system got really good.
But it also means other paths didn't get the same push.
Solar. Storage. Wind. Water.
Not completely ignored — but not backed the same way. Because it wasn't as commercialized. It didn't have those large groups pushing it or controlling it.
And I've always said — if we had put the same amount of effort into those things earlier…
when we put our minds to something and start tinkering with it, things get better. We figure out how to capture it, store it, use it, be more efficient with it.
I wonder how different things might feel right now.

08:30 — Transition starting

And now it feels like that shift is starting.
Not all at once. But enough to notice.
The tools are better. The pace is faster.
AI is speeding up how we test and iterate.
The sun alone — we're using like one trillionth of the energy it provides. It's essentially an infinite supply. And now with AI and better technology, we're outpacing the old ways of refining and capturing it.
We're starting to see all those things coming together.

10:30 — The tension (core idea)

And this is where it starts to feel messy.
Because for a long time, we built everything around one system.
The old system is still here. Still what most people are using. And it's going to be for a while.
But it's slowly slipping away — and the people higher up, they see that. What once made them rich, gave countries leverage and power — that's going to shift.
Because AI is helping us more efficiently capture energy from the sun. And that starts to replace a system controlled by a handful of people… with something no one owns.
No one owns the sun.
People will own storage systems. Factories. Grids. That's still real. But as AI keeps pushing breakthroughs, there's going to be a situation where people could live off the energy grid entirely.
Power their home. Their vehicle. Their devices. Their activities.
There's no reason why that's not possible.
And I think people see this shift happening — and that's why those last groups are holding on harder than ever.

12:30 — Why it feels like fighting

It's like the trough analogy again.
The animals are going for those last bits because they don't know there's another bucket coming.
They don't want to be left without leverage.
And that's why everything feels like a fight right now.
Not because people are worse.
But because we're between systems.
Still relying on something that took decades to build… while something else is starting to become possible.
That middle part — that's where things feel tight.

13:45 — Personal / your voice

And this is something I've said for years.
To my wife. To people around me.
At some point, we're going to look back at this.
We're going to look back at fighting over something we drill out of the ground — something limited, something people have been hurt and killed over — and we're going to say…
Why?
We have an abundance now. Energy that isn't destroying the environment. Energy provided by the solar system itself, collected through devices that don't produce pollutants.
There'll still be minerals to mine. Still things to build. I'm not naive about that.
But I really believe we're going to look back and say — we really fought and hurt each other over something that now is just… there.
Not taken for granted. But just there.

15:30 — Bring it back

Right now, everything feels like a fight.
But maybe that's not just how people are.
Maybe it's the environment we're in.
The systems we built.
The transition we're going through.

16:00 — Solar Panels / Timing note

And there's a version of this I see even on the small scale.
Friends who put solar panels on their roofs — I always wonder about the timing.
You bolt something onto your roof thinking the technology won't change much. But I really believe the way we capture energy, the materials we use, how they operate — that's going to change dramatically and quickly.
Sure, you can feed energy back into the grid and get discounts now. But it's expensive, and you might end up dating yourself to an older technology that'll cost you again to replace.
I think the evolution is going to happen so fast — a lot of things we're paying a lot of money for right now are going to dramatically reduce in cost.
And that's going to change the landscape of the world quite a bit.

16:30 — Close

We built a world around scarce things.
And we're still acting inside that.
But if that starts to change…
I don't think we've really thought through what that changes.

17:00 — Outro

I'm not saying this is right or wrong.
Just something I've been thinking about watching everything going on.
This one was a hard one to get out — it's a big idea and it's hard to get across.
But I really wanted to push it out there. The analogy of people holding on to something, fighting over something that in the near future we're going to look back at and say… why?
Why didn't we go down both roads at the same time with equal effort?
Now with AI, we can catch up fast. We can detect patterns, run tests, iterate, push through breakthroughs.
Curious if you see it the same way. I'll take my time to read the comments on this one.
Thanks for watching.

Using AI to Brain Dump and Think Out Loud

00:00 — Opening

I've been noticing something about how my mind works…
It doesn't stay in one place for very long.
It tries to connect dots.
It'll start with something small — it happened yesterday actually. I was looking at how Bitcoin moves… and that turned into an app idea… and then I was like, well, everyone's talking about using Claude or whatever to help them invest and trade — how come I can't get access to that?
And then something random about a product someone mentioned… and then I need to call about my insurance…
And it just keeps going.
I don't have ADHD, I don't think so. But I do have a creative mind. A mind that wonders and likes to explore. And I haven't tried to stop that.

01:00 — What was missing

And for a long time… those thoughts didn't really have anywhere to go.
They'd start, but they wouldn't finish.
Not because they weren't interesting — but because there was no place to let them run through their course. To see what could actually come of it.

02:00 — How it used to work

Every idea used to hit friction.
You'd think about it… then you'd have to research it, write it down, figure out if it already exists, look everything up…
And most of the time? You'd find something similar already out there.
And that was enough to kill it.
Because with all that extra effort and friction, it felt like — it's not worth going deeper. Someone else already thought of it. Someone else is already working on it.
You really had to be in love with something to keep pushing through that.

03:30 — The "fool's gold" moment

It would turn into this thing where you think you had something…
but really it's already there.
So you just drop it.

04:30 — The shift

But now… that part is almost instant.
You think of something, you jump into ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini — whatever — and you say does this exist?
And one of two things happens:
You find it → and you kill the idea immediately. Or you find it → and you realize you still want it → and you can actually build it.
And both of those happen inside the same flow. No break in the conversation. It used to take all that research and friction. Now it happens while you're literally talking.

06:00 — The real change

So now it's not: "Should I spend time on this?"
It's: "Let me just follow this for a minute and see what happens."
Five to twenty minutes. Just see what could come of it.

07:00 — The core realization

And I think what I was actually missing this whole time…
wasn't better ideas.
It was a place to let my brain and my ideas just kind of flow.

08:00 — Conversation as the space

Because when you actually let the thought run — especially out loud — it connects to other things.
That's what this channel is. An out-loud thought process.
You start with a product… it turns into a behavior… then why people buy things… then investing… then systems…
And suddenly you're somewhere completely different from where you started.

09:30 — AI's role

And I think this is where AI changes something for me.
Not because it always gives me answers — it does sometimes — but that's not what I'm always looking for.
It's because it sits right there in the middle of the flow.
I can start talking to it, typing to it, and it's checking stuff for me in real time. Then it expands on what we just found. Then we dismiss something. Then — and this is the part that still gets me — sometimes it's already building it in the background.
Like I'll be in Claude Code with bypass permissions on, going down a rabbit hole, just talking through an idea… and it's already like: here's your prototype.
So there's no break from having the thought, to exploring it, to watching something actually get built. That's kind of crazy when you think about it. You basically have a workforce that doesn't clock out.

11:00 — Forking paths

So every idea becomes this little fork:
Kill it quickly. Follow it a bit. Build a small version. Or just let it drift.
And none of that feels heavy anymore.
I don't have that extra pressure of — is there something here, or am I wasting my time? The AI does most of that work. I can jump from idea to idea. Maybe they connect, maybe they don't. It helps me find the connections.

12:30 — The tradeoff

But that also means more ideas are getting through.
Not because they're better. A lot of them are garbage.
But the garbage ideas — they get out of your head. They open something up. Like a little connection in your brain starts blinking, and suddenly it's linking to something else. You let it out instead of sitting on it, and now there's space.

13:30 — Personal realization

And I don't think I want to build most of them.
I don't even want to validate most of them.
I just want them out of my head. I want to throw them out there, see what connects, and let my brain expand into something more creative.

14:00 — The part AI missed

Here's the thing the original script didn't really capture…
I like to come up with crazy ideas. Like — what if this thing is connected to that thing, and there's this underlying pattern, and that person over there is connected to this digital thing down here…
Most people look at me like something's wrong with me. That's fine.
But I never had a big group of friends that would sit with me and let me explore. My wife puts up with me — but I can tell sometimes she's not fully listening. Co-workers, most of my friends are already further ahead with this stuff and I feel like an amateur.
So I'm connecting dots they've already dismissed. But I don't want to stop trying. Even if I'm wrong, going through the process of finding those patterns — and then dismissing them myself — is better than being told not to look.
I'm reading Silo right now and there's this thing where a character just keeps asking why. Why are we here, who did this, what's the plan? And the answer is basically: we don't need to know, just survive. But I want to know. I want to find the thing that makes it all click.
That's where AI actually helps me. Not just to validate ideas — but to go back, find patterns, and say: hey, is there a connection here? Even if the answer is no, I needed to ask.
And then sometimes it's something small — my kid needed a mailbox, and ten minutes later I've got a full business plan, growth charts, a lease draft, Alibaba sourced. Full mailbox rental operation. I've got a smash and splash fish tacos and Smashburger concept with a logo, full menu, three different rollout options — backyard Instagram pop-up, food truck, or storefront.
That's where AI allows me to go — the full spectrum — without anyone in the room looking at me like I've lost it.

15:00 — Final line

I think I just needed somewhere for them to go.
Somewhere I can say it out loud, follow it for a bit, see what it connects to — and then let it go if it doesn't stick.
Not every idea needs to become something.
Some of them just need a place to land… and a little space to run.
Alright. Leave a comment. Are you doing this? Are you just picking up your phone and rambling to it? Opening ChatGPT and just… talking? That's where we're at now. Used to be "just Google it." Now it's just… ask.
Have a good one.

Why I Pay a Little Extra for Flexibility

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.
I've been noticing something lately.
I keep paying a little more than I have to.
Not a lot.
Just enough that if you looked at my statements…
you'd probably say I could've saved money.
But I keep doing it anyway.
And I think I finally understand why.

01:00 — The Trip

I booked a Christmas trip almost a year early.
Flights, Airbnb, rental car… everything.
But the important part isn't that I booked early.
It's how I booked.
Everything is flexible.
The Airbnb — free cancellation. Always. Unless it's extremely last minute and I know for a fact I'm going.
The rental car — book it, hold the space. You don't even have to show up.
The flights — I paid more so I could get a full refund. Not just a credit. A refund.
That way I'm sort of locked in, but I gave myself an out.
And this actually came up with one of my kids.
They left recently on a cross-America road trip — just the two of them.
And they booked all their hotels along the way through Expedia.
Instead of paying the extra $20 per hotel to be able to cancel…
they saved maybe $200 total across five hotels.
To me, that just puts pressure on yourself.
What if the car breaks down? What if you want to stay somewhere longer? What if you're making great time and want to push through?
Now you can't.
You saved $200 and lost all your flexibility.
I didn't pick the cheapest options on my trip.
I picked the ones that let me change my mind.

02:30 — The Small Premium

And that's the pattern.
I'm paying a small premium…
not for luxury…
but for options.
The Airbnb is usually a bit nicer anyway.
The flight isn't first class…
but I can pick my seats, bring luggage, not get squeezed into whatever's left.
It's not the cheapest tier.
But it's also not over the top.
It just gives me room.

04:00 — Not Insurance

At first I thought of this like insurance.
But it's not really the same thing.
Insurance is something you add on at the end…
because you're worried something might go wrong.
This is different.
This is built into the decision from the start.
I'm not thinking: "What if something bad happens?"
I'm thinking: "I don't know what's going to happen."
I don't know if we'll change our minds.
I don't know if we'll need more space or less.
And I don't want to trap myself.
Because when you make decisions from a calm place — not from desperation, not from a time crunch — that's when you make good ones.

05:30 — What Happens If You Don't

Because if I wait…
or if I go with the cheapest option…
what I'm really doing is removing flexibility.
Later on, I have fewer choices.
Prices are higher.
Options are worse.
And I'm forced to decide under pressure.
That's usually where bad decisions happen.

06:45 — The Same Thing With AI

This shows up in smaller ways too.
Even with something like ChatGPT.
I pay for the premium version. Not the top tier — but Pro.
Not because I need the best model every time…
but because I don't want to hit limits.
Same with Claude. I hit the limit on Claude constantly. And I pay for that too.
I don't want to be in the middle of something — thinking through an idea, building something — and suddenly get stopped.
That happened to me recently. Had to wait hours before it reset.
And when you break that flow…
yes, you can move to a different tool, move to notes…
but if you were in a great back-and-forth, building on memory, getting good content…
you don't want to lose that groove.
So I pay for it.
Just to remove that friction.

08:15 — The Car Example

Same thing with cars.
You bring it in, maybe it's $900 to fix.
But you don't feel like spending $900.
So you just do the $200 thing you came in for.
But the mechanic's already got it on the lift. He can see everything. The brake's worn, there's rust, something's seized.
He's telling you: fix it all now while I have it, it'll save you money.
And you say: just do what I came in for.
So you save $500 that day.
And then six months later everything's seized up worse, there's a leak in the exhaust, and now you're looking at $3,000.
And now you don't have a choice.
It's either pay it or find a new car.
And you're shopping from desperation. If someone senses that, they'll take advantage of it.
I just went through this with my Jeep.
The price has gone up quite a bit — more than I expected.
But I looked at it compared to what my daughter's boyfriend is looking at: old used cars, high kilometers, no history, and they're asking almost as much as I'm paying to fix mine.
I know my Jeep inside and out.
I have a mechanic I trust.
It makes more sense to just fix it right.
Pay a little more now. Don't pay a lot more later.

09:45 — Paying for the Relationship

There's another version of this that took me longer to understand.
Paying for the relationship.
My accountant. I've had her for years.
I could do my own taxes. I could find someone cheaper.
But I don't.
And what I get back isn't just the return being filed.
It's access.
I can email her. I can ask if a receipt qualifies. I can forward something from the government and ask if it's something to worry about.
She knows my history — the audits, the rental stuff, the complicated years.
I'm not starting from zero every time.
Same with my lawyer. My house builder. My mechanic.
I don't try to grind them down to the cheapest dollar.
I pay their fees. I keep them happy. And because of that, they go the extra mile.
My mechanic gets me in right away when something comes up.
My lawyer helped out when my mom needed to redo her will — sent emails, didn't make it a big deal.
My builder will come over and give me a quick price on something without making me feel like I'm wasting his time.
There have been times I've asked: can you come down a little on this?
And because of the history, they're willing to do it.
They know I'm loyal. I'm going to be back.

11:00 — The Bank

Same thing with the bank.
I've been self-employed for a long time. Money coming in from US clients. I worked with a bank in Malaysia for a while. Wire transfers from all over the place.
And back then, wrong numbers, wrong digits, wrong currency — it happened.
Most banks make you come in. Sign things physically. Go through hoops.
But because I'd been consistently with my bank, built the relationship, stayed involved…
I could do things over email.
Just recently, someone wired money to me but used the wrong account and the wrong currency.
The bank caught it. The manager called me. Told me what happened. Made sure it got put in the right place.
I didn't have to do anything.
That's what the relationship gets you.
Not a better interest rate. Not a lower fee.
When something breaks, it gets handled.

12:15 — What This Really Is

And I think that's the part I didn't see before.
You're not just paying for the thing.
You're paying for how things get handled…
when they don't go perfectly.
When something changes.
When something breaks.
The cheap option doesn't come with that.

13:15 — Closing

So yeah…
I pay a little more sometimes.
Flights. Car repairs. Tools. People I work with.
And it's not about getting something better on paper.
It's about:
not getting stuck… not losing momentum… not having to solve everything from scratch under pressure…
and not being forced into decisions at the worst possible time.
It's the same pattern…
just showing up in different places.
And that small premium…
ends up buying something a lot bigger than it looks.

Why This Channel Isn't About AI

0:00 — Opening — Reset

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.
I think I needed to make this video just to reset things a bit.
Not because anything is going wrong…
but because I can feel how this channel might start to look from the outside.
Like it's turning into a tech channel.
Or an AI channel.
And that's not what I set out to do.

1:30 — What the channel actually is

This channel was always meant to be an extension of a book I want to write.
Something around life, money, family, decisions, habits.
Things I notice over time.
Just thinking out loud, but with some structure.
Not teaching. Not pretending I have it figured out.
Just documenting the process while I'm still in it.
And honestly — this channel is also an experiment.
To see if I can stick with it. Slow builds — if I keep at it, keep consistent, something should come out of it. Maybe not. But that's all I can do.
I want to see. And if nothing comes of it, that doesn't bother me.
It's just putting myself out there and seeing where things go.

3:30 — Why it started to look like AI

But lately, a lot of what I've been talking about involves AI.
And I think that can make it feel like: "Okay, this is just another AI channel."
But that's not really what's happening.
It just kind of looks like that from the outside.

5:30 — The realization — it's everywhere

The reason AI keeps showing up is because it's starting to show up in everything.
Not as a feature. As part of life.
We've seen this before.
The internet used to feel optional. Like it was for tech people only. Nice to have. Not every company needed it.
Now it's a requirement.
Smartphones felt the same way. We were happy with a cordless phone. Then flip phones — smaller the better. Now we can't live without one.
Online shopping, digital payments — same pattern.
Things seem new at first. They seem optional. Like you can opt in or opt out.
And then all of a sudden… it's just normal. It becomes expected. And then it becomes invisible — meaning it's just part of life. Like putting on clothes in the morning.

7:30 — Why this one feels faster

The difference this time is how fast it's happening.
Even from a developer perspective — it didn't feel gradual.
It felt like everything just showed up at once. The models, the tools, the integrations.
And everything around it was already built. I go into all these different tools all the time, I'm integrating with different services — and it was all just… there. Seamlessly. Like it had always been there.
It made me wonder — was this all just sitting around waiting? Like turning on a hose to see where it goes?
But I think it's simpler than that.
The infrastructure was already there. So when AI got good enough, these companies — GitHub, the hosting services, the issue trackers — they knew they had to put it in. There was no getting around it. And because the foundation was already built, they just plugged it in.
It didn't have to build a whole new world. It just fit into the one that already existed.
Like a skeleton key that unlocks every door.
And that's why it happened so fast.

9:30 — Where it's already invisible

Here's the thing — AI is being used in a lot of places we don't even know about.
It's not making decisions exactly… but it finds patterns fast.
It's under the surface, helping direct the conversation. Moving things through the queue. Getting you to where you need to be, quicker. Deciphering the probability of what comes next.
Most people aren't even aware it's there.
That's what invisible means.

10:30 — What this channel is doing

So what this channel is actually doing isn't focusing on AI.
It's noticing what's changing.
And right now, AI is one of the biggest changes happening.
So it shows up — not because I'm chasing it, but because it's part of how I work, how I think, and how things are evolving.

11:30 — The real theme

The real theme of this channel is trying to stay grounded while things change.
Not rejecting it. Not blindly following it.
Just paying attention.
Trying to figure out what to keep, what to adapt to, and what to question.
The why, the where, the when, the how — and should I?
When I have those questions, that's why I want to make these videos.

13:00 — Bringing it back to life

Because at the end of the day, this isn't about tech. It's about life.
Tech just happens to be part of life now. The way we work with money. The way we communicate. Transportation. Anything you do — technology is in the middle of it.
You're watching this video. That's tech. Tech recorded it, tech helped me write it, tech is putting it out there.
AI is just the latest layer on top of that. And it's becoming frictionless — which is the word I love for this. When there's no friction, things just happen. They flow. They become part of everything without you noticing.
That's what AI is doing right now.

14:30 — Closing — real talk

So if this channel ever looks like a tech channel… it's not.
It's a reflection of what's happening. My ramblings. My ideas. Random thoughts that flow through, and some advice I want to put out there and leave somewhere.
And yes — AI helps me write the scripts. But it's my voice. It's me. I go back and forth because I want that to be real.
Same with comments. I don't have many, but when I get them, I read every one. And I try to reply in a way that doesn't sound cookie-cutter.
This whole thing is an experiment. I want to see if I can get a voice. Get some traction. Actually have real conversations back and forth.
So I'm just trying to stay present. Stay aware of what's going on around us and how our lives are changing.
And right now — this is a big part of what's changing.
Thanks for watching.

AI Made It Too Easy to Start (Now I Can't Finish Anything)

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.
Lately I've been building a lot. Probably more than I ever have in my life.
Like — sitting down and starting a new project? I'm doing it all the time.
And that's actually new for me. I went through a phase where I was burnt out, or I couldn't really come up with ideas. I was genuinely worried for a while that my mind was kind of out of gas — out of creative fuel.
But I'm back. My mind's constantly trying to put pieces together, come up with new ideas.
It's not always in a clean way…
But things are moving.
And that's actually the problem.
Because nothing's really getting finished.
Nothing feels done.
And I think AI is a big part of why.

01:15 — What It Looks Like From the Outside

It's strange. Because if you looked from the outside, it would probably look like a lot is happening.
I have a trading app live — people can use it. I have this YouTube channel. I've been posting consistently, more than I planned. There's a book I've wanted to write for years that's probably 70% done.
So things are happening.
But internally? It feels scattered.
Like everything is in motion… but nothing is landing.

02:45 — The List (Let Me Actually Walk Through It)

So I started listing everything out.
There's the kid's trading app — that one's actually live. It's out there. They want to make some changes, but technically that one's done.
There's Steady — that one's personal. It's like a coaching app, SMS-based, interacts with AI. But it's very personal to the people who'd use it, so I don't want to put it out until I fully trust it. Privacy, auth — all of it has to be right. So that one's intentionally slow, and I'm okay with that.
There's a dividend tracking app — that one was going well, then AI took it down a different road. Feels like it's going nowhere right now.
There's GoChores — started as an app for my kid, they lost interest, but I converted it into kind of a template. A test bed I run everything through to make sure my agents and infrastructure are set up properly.
There's my kid's website — AI built the whole thing, we got the URL, connected to Railway. She's got a marketing company she's spinning up. That one's basically done, just waiting on her to approve the changes.
And then there's the book.
And this channel.
And then… I started getting deep into OpenClaw.
That's where things started to feel different.

04:30 — The OpenClaw Rabbit Hole

I set up a server at home. Got OpenClaw running — agents, schedules, automation, all of it.
And it's genuinely cool.
It can post to X, read responses, generate ideas, build things. It's connected to Linear so it tracks issues, bugs, testing. It deploys code. It does all kinds of things.
I have a Telegram channel where it gives me updates every morning.
I even set it up for this channel — I have an X account where it does nightly posts, responds, follows, all of that.
And I really started leaning into it. Like — what if I just let this run?
Let it come up with ideas. Let it build. Let it iterate.
And it does.
It just… never stops.

06:00 — The Treadmill Feeling

At first it feels like progress. Because something is always happening.
You check in — it made changes, it tried something, it improved something.
But after a while… it starts to feel like a treadmill.
It's moving. But not arriving anywhere.
Every morning I get my Telegram messages. I see what happened last night. But I'm not touching it. I don't actually know what's going on.
There's no definition of done in that system.
So it just keeps going.
And that's where that quicksand feeling comes from.

07:30 — The Bigger Realization

And I think it's bleeding into everything else.
Because AI makes it so easy to start something. To explore ideas. To keep iterating.
There's almost no cost to continuing.
So you don't have to decide anything. You don't have to say — this is enough.
Before, effort forced you to choose. You had to validate something before building it, because building cost time. Now? I don't even have to validate. I can just spin it up, see what it looks like, compare it to what exists.
I'm not doing the hard lifting anymore.
But the fast-building cuts both ways. Because now I can quickly throw something together — and then never finish it.

09:00 — Finishing Feels Different Now

And finishing isn't just finishing anymore.
It's saying: This is good enough for someone else to see.
This might break.
My name is attached to this.
That back-developer part of me, that engineer brain — it knows you can't just throw things out there. Especially if you're collecting money, collecting people's information. There have to be guardrails.
Which is actually part of why the OpenClaw infrastructure thing consumed me — I was trying to build those guardrails automatically into the system.
And I got so caught up in that… that there's no ever-done. There's just a never-done feeling.

10:30 — Everything Leads to Something Else

Here's a good example of how this works.
I built a little widget for my kid's website — so she could leave notes about what she wanted changed, or use AI to make quick edits herself. I could log in, see all the notes, which page, what she wanted, whether the AI edit worked or failed.
It was really cool.
And as soon as it worked, my brain immediately went: wait — maybe there's something here. Maybe this is a WordPress plugin. Maybe it's a website widget people would actually pay for.
That's the cycle.
You start touching something, AI makes it easy to jump onto something else. Another hole. Another fork in the road. And you go, well, maybe this is a viable product.
I'm not trying to build the next Facebook. I just want small apps that run. Things I want to use. Things other people might want and would pay a few dollars a month for. Just enough to keep the lights on — cover the hosting, the tokens.
But every idea spawns three more.

12:00 — What I'm Actually Starting to See

I don't think the problem is that I have too many things.
The problem is I'm not deciding what gets finished.
Everything just stays in progress. And AI makes that very easy to do.
You can always tweak one more thing. Add one more feature. Improve one more flow.
There's no natural stopping point anymore.
The projects that did finish? They had someone else's expectation attached to them. My kid's trading app — there was a real reason it needed to ship, a real timeline. The Glove Box GPS app — I knew what it needed to do. Done is clearer when there's someone on the other end.

13:30 — Where I'm At

So I think what I need to do is simpler than I've been making it.
Not build more.
Not organize more.
Just pick one thing… and actually finish it. Even if it's rough. Even if it's alpha. Let it exist.
Glove Box GPS is basically there. It's on my phone, my wife's, going on my kid's. We're testing it. And I'm going to let that be good enough for now.
That's the shift I'm trying to make. From done to done enough.

14:30 — Closing

Right now everything is moving. But nothing is landing.
And I think the real shift isn't about building anymore.
It's about being willing to look at something and say: this is done enough. And letting it go.
If you're out there building with AI — and you don't even have to be a developer, because AI makes it so easy for anyone — if you're creative and you're using AI to start things… books, channels, apps, agencies, whatever it is…
Are you finding that starting is easy, but there's never an ending?
Let me know. I'd genuinely like to know.
Thanks for watching.

When AI Does the Work… Who Is the Creator?

Intro

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.
A lot of my videos have been focused on AI lately, which I didn't really want to happen. But it's becoming such a big part of my life — from work to personal projects to just everyday life — that I'm really trying to get my head around it.
And that's where this video comes from.
There's something I've been thinking about that I don't think we've all really figured out yet.
When AI is involved in creating something… who is the creator?

The Everyday Example

A few years ago the answer felt obvious.
If you saw an image, a video, even a piece of writing or code online, you could usually tell if it was generated. It didn't feel authentic. It wasn't made by a person.
But now those lines don't exist anymore.
There are still people who think they can figure it out. I try to tell them — even if you think you can spot it now, those days are almost gone. It's getting to the point where there won't be any way to tell the difference.
I see it all the time with my father-in-law. Whenever we're over there, he'll pull out his phone and say "Hey, look at this picture. Do you think that's real or is that AI?" And everyone passes it around, zooming in, looking at the shadows, looking for anything off. It's almost become a competition — who can figure it out first.
A photo isn't just a photo anymore.
Every image comes with a little bit of doubt in the back of your mind.
I even heard a YouTuber talk about this — maybe we'll eventually need some kind of stamp of approval. A percentage. "This is 100% me" or "This was made with AI." But who's going to put those guardrails in?

Where It Gets Interesting

But the thing that's really interesting to me is that the same question is starting to apply to the things we create ourselves — the inventors, the writers, the developers.
For me, it's code.
I'll design the system. I'll have the idea. I know what the program should do. I decide the architecture, the tools, the inputs and outputs. I decide all of it.
But AI is the one who actually writes the code.
It helps me make a plan. It generates the code. And then I'm the one who approves it.
So who wrote the software? AI did write it — but it took my designs and translated them into something I could use. I had the idea. It built it.

Writing Example

The same thing's happening with writing.
I've always wanted to write a book, and AI is finally making it possible for me to actually do it. I've been collecting notes for years — ideas, tidbits, stories.
Everything in it is mine. The stories are mine. The mistakes are mine. The lessons and advice are all mine.
But they start from very rough notes. And the words surrounding those details are starting to become not entirely mine. AI is tightening the structure, fixing the grammar, piecing things together differently to make it more organized.
It's shaping things based on my input.
And I never put anything out without going through it multiple times. I read it all. I still find mistakes. I'm still adjusting. I'm even getting to the point where I'm writing parts myself because AI gets confused and I need to get the stories back in line with the real timeline.
So is it co-authored? Or is it still me?

Even These Videos

These videos are a little different — because I'm the one who has to speak. These aren't faceless videos. There's no AI-generated voice. This is me, as uncomfortable as I am with that.
But they still start as just ideas.
Maybe I'm working out, driving, up late at night — I'll open my phone, start a new chat in a project I have set up, and just start talking. I don't even wait for it to respond. I just get everything out and keep going.
At the end of it I'll ask: "Do you think there's something here?" And honestly, a few times it told me no — not enough, or I'd already covered it. But most of the time I get enough out where it'll say this could be a short one or you could make a full video out of it.
Then I'll ask for the title, description, first comment, thumbnail idea, and a full script. If it's a longer video I'll say aim for 15 minutes, shorter ones keep it around five to eight.
Then I save it to my notes and go through it section by section. I adjust, rewrite, cut things that don't sound like me, add new ideas. And then when I record, I still go off script half the time.
So what is that?

The Roles

I think in that case… AI is my editor. Or my muse. I'm not totally sure.
But I think what it comes down to is this:
I'm the editor. The reviewer. The architect. The director.
And AI is the writer, the coder, the worker — the agent that produces the pieces.
So who is the creator?
I think I'm going to answer my own question here — in the end, it's really an assistant. It's not the creator of the content. It's the facilitator.

Reflection

I don't think we've really figured this out as a society yet.
But it does make me think that the line between human and AI creation isn't really a line anymore.
It's more like a process — where ideas, tools, and decisions all mix together. And the final result is partly human and partly machine.
It's pretty crazy to think about. A very high percentage of everything we see today — and soon, everything we touch — is a combination of human and machine.
And the funny part? It's not even a physical machine. In the end it's just code. Ones and zeros. And that's our partner in creation.
It can't think for itself, but we can use it to help us think deeper and stronger. It helps us make things better — as long as we want those things to be helpful, entertaining, and not harmful.

Outro

Anyway, you can tell I went off on this one a little bit.
Curious what you think — when AI helps create something, who do you think the real creator is?
See you next time.