I got upset watching vibe coding content last week
building vs. pretending
the fear you won't admit
There's something Tim Ferris said that I haven't been able to shake:
Fear Setting is more important than goal setting.
Not because goals don't matter.
But because everyone already has goals.
Everyone has the dream.
The vision board.
The "by 35 I want to..." speech they've rehearsed in the shower.
"maybe if I stare myself in the eyes in the mirror… then I'll have a breakthrough!"
But less than 1% of people ever see those dreams come to life.
And it's not because they lacked ambition (or skill).
It's because they never actually looked their fear in the face.
So instead, they stay "busy".
They follow the hype cycles. Consume the content. Download the new tool.
(I'm guilty of it too, by the way.)
OMG. Openclaw - I'll be ruined if I don't learn this NOW! OMG. Opus 4.6 - I'll be ruined if I don't learn this NOW! OMG. Ralph Loops - I'll be ruined if I don't learn this NOW! OMG. n8n is dead - I'll be ruined if I don't learn XYZ NOW!
But here's the brutal truth about that cycle:
It's not productivity. It's a performance… theatrics.
It lets you feel like you're moving while standing completely still.
The influencers love it — more content to make.
The tool companies love it — more signups.
YOU stay exactly where you were six months ago.
Just with a shiny new wheel to spin.
Here's what I've come to believe:
Almost everyone who says they want to build something is actually afraid of one of two things:
They're afraid they can't build something people would actually use.
Or they're afraid they'll build it... and nobody will come.
And so they'd rather stay in "research mode" forever than face that reality.
HELL - you've probably got a graveyard of AT LEAST 2-3 apps/SaaS that a group of people would have actually paid you for, but it never saw the light of day.
Here's the thing though:
The fact that you even think this way? That you care whether what you build is actually good?
That's a sign of character.
Most people don't think that deeply.
But that same trait — that quiet perfectionism — is the one thing holding you back from finding out.
The only move is to look directly at what scares you.
Not around it. Not past it.
AT it.
If you've been stuck in consumption mode and want to actually figure out what's in the way...
Then do this one exercise.
It's Tim's Fear Setting walkthrough. 20 minutes. Free.
It's the thing I wish someone had handed me 10 years ago.
You can find it here: https://tim.blog/2017/05/15/fear-setting/
WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN READING ABOUT OR DOING
Things I’ve Learned
Temperance
I've been reading Ryan Holiday's book "Discipline is Destiny".
The core premise is this: most of the world's most incredible people are not much different from you and I.
They just have incredibly high levels of doing the thing they know is right, even when they don't want to do it.
We're all self-aware enough to know what "the thing" is that we need to be doing, yet we don't. Kinda interesting, it's one of the things I think that separates us from any other animal on earth.
A lion doesn't "not feel like" attacking the antelope to feed herself and her family. She just does it.
The only way to build that in yourself (I think) is to just intentionally start doing shit you don't wanna do.
Agent SDK Building
My experiences with OpenClaw showed me one thing:
Over the next decade, Agents will become a primary way we interact with software.
(maybe sooner depending on how much we're standing on the asymptote with antigravity shoes and just don't see it yet)
And as much as X/Youtube/Instagram might have you believe you're behind… you're so far ahead it's not even funny.
The thing is: I think these Agents will be more specialized solutions than people think. The hype right now is around "general" agents that can "do anything".
But those general agents have some flaws:
1 - they assume that the training set is correct about the topic. Would a general agent really ever outperform, say, a Personal Trainer with 3 decades experience coaching the best athletes in the world, with shit-tons of proprietary data and observations?
Probably not. It could probably still get an effective solution… but not the best solution.
2 - they break down in situations where you need certain things done reliably the same way each time
As much as its cool to tell OpenClaw to go book you a restaurant reservation… the business world (& often our personal worlds) are a lot more complex than that, and they rely on things being done the right way.
So that said - I think it's worth spending time tinkering with some Agent SDKs to see what you can build.
Consulting Noobs
The "tech-ish" bubble we all live in operates in a dream state.
Most companies out there are still laughably under-informed about how to practically integrate app building, automation building, and even basic prompting best practices into their work
If you're jonesin' for a quick buck these days, identifying those companies and simply helping them out is one of the simplest ways to earn some income while also learning yourself.
While we're all sitting over here pining over general purpose agents & "creating a $1,000,000 business using Nano Banana Pro and mass UGC AI influencer content", you've still got companies doing mid 7-figures per year that can't pull simple insights out of their CRM.
These people are everywhere… try finding some!
That's it for this one…
See ya guys next week!
-Sean