Writing

I spent 48 hrs in NYC developing an AI media buyer agent with the smartest engineers in adtech.

Peace = Risk There is a mental formula running in your subconscious The more you are at peace with yourself and with life, the less you are trying to grasp on what you don’t have, which means you have nothing to lose. who risks more everyday, the wolf or the mouse Safety is derived from fear Risk is derived from the confidence you’ll be safe You hear people say “oh I’m very risk-averse” but what if they just aren’t at peace with themselves, where taking a risk would mean How much you earn is = how much you risk. how much you risk = peace + confidence

Go around When I was 13 I was playing the first call of duty on PC and I would use do the same strategy, I didn’t play often but still would finish the game with the highest K/D ratio. Simple strategy, at each game the players would start Go around the side, it would take longer, I would be running for a while and see no one while I can hear the battle in the distance Then I would come behind the enemy team and pick them off one by one, after I did about 5 of them I would run back to the other side and find another uncommon path to get my edge in on the enemy team, I would die maybe 1-2 times and snipe the whole team 5-10x in one game. I think about this often in business. When building Wonderful - it seemed like there were advertising AI SaaS tools were exploding daily. It got the most funding and attention in the market. I thought — everyone is marching in the same direction, what solves an equally or more painful problem, might take a little longer to get there but will get me positioned so well it will feel like I was picking the enemy team off in COD. I figured, do you know AI is not going to solve? Founders / brand teams keeping control of quality of the content the company produces. Which in my experience, I’ve never met a brand that hasn’t had this internal issue - in fact the AI boom will amplify this. So that’s why Wonderful gives founders & stakeholders an eagle eye view on all creatives, landing pages, emails, site changes, photo shoots etc... all in one place and most importantly, in a very simplified way. Buffet says - if then, what? If everyone is building AI ad tools, what will be desired?

How To Compete With Giants Competition isn’t orthogonal - even though we think of it that way in our brain - there are 100+ companies in this space, so we’re all equally competing ... nope You aren’t competing with other brands in your market - you’re competing with relevancy. You can be in a blood red ocean but as long as your message is the most relevant, to the person viewing it in their very own moment.

Happiness = Productivity Be successful to be happy. Be happy to be successful. It sounds backwards, but it’s the only way this thing works long-term. Success isn’t what makes you happy. Happiness is what makes you successful. Real success—the kind that lasts and compounds—comes when you show up every day with high energy, genuine enthusiasm, and a lightness that’s hard to fake. But that kind of energy? It doesn’t just show up. You have to build it. Step one: Raise your self-esteem. Low self-esteem makes happiness impossible. When you don’t like yourself, you project that onto others. You become overly judgmental, bitter, withdrawn, negative. And even if you’re “doing the right things,” you’re doing them in a way that repels the very outcomes you want. You send out the wrong energy. You second-guess every move. You start to spiral—because deep down, you don’t believe you deserve to win. That was me for a long time. I didn’t even realize it. I thought I was just observant. Critical. Smart. But I wasn’t. I was stuck. I was judgmental—of others, and more than anything, of myself. So what changed? Therapy. Microdosing. Reading hundreds of books. And more than anything else—doing the actual work. Meditating. Lifting. Walking. Eating clean. Showing up for my wife. Being present with my kids. Keeping promises to myself, even the small ones. When you do the things you say you’re going to do, it changes how you see yourself. That builds self-trust. And that trust turns into confidence. And that confidence becomes momentum. And that momentum becomes energy—the kind of energy other people feel. It creates a virtuous cycle: You do what you said you’d do → you feel good about yourself → you show up stronger the next day → you get better results → repeat. And guess what? That’s the cycle that leads to success. Not stress. Not burnout. Not chasing some imaginary milestone so you can finally feel worthy. The win is now. You can feel good today. But only if you do the things that earn it. Little wins matter Forget some giant transformation. This is about stacking small wins: Meditate for 10 minutes. Lift weights 3x a week. Text a friend. Be present with your kids. Knock out the core tasks, every day. Go to bed feeling proud, not perfect. That’s how you start building real self-esteem. And once your self-esteem is high, you’ll be shocked at how naturally the happiness shows up. How naturally success follows. How little you care about outside validation, because you’re already proud of who you’re becoming. From judgment to love I used to be so caught up in judgment. But after a lot of inner work, I realized: Who the hell am I to judge anyone? Everyone’s just doing the best they can with the hand they were dealt. And I’ve been dealt an incredible hand. I didn’t always see it that way. But now I do. And I’m grateful for it. And that gratitude has turned into something bigger: love. Not just love for my wife or kids—that came first. But love for people in general. Love for the world. That feeling wasn’t always accessible to me. But it is now. And I think that’s the whole point. The goal isn't just to win. It’s to love outwardly. That’s how you build a life worth living. That’s how you succeed without burning out. That’s how you become someone who creates, who uplifts, who actually makes the world better. So no—don’t chase success to be happy. Be happy to be successful. And it starts with doing the little things that prove to you who you really are.

everything you want is behind everything you avoid - Charlie Munger want less (be grateful with what you have) avoid less (face more - masculine energy) Observe impulses (manage the machine)

Stillness isn’t the enemy I’ve been equating speed with progress. But speed without direction is just wheel-spin. Today I re-read Chuang-Tzu on the useless tree: because it’s “worthless,” it survives every lumberjack. That’s Wonderful right now—early, odd-shaped, skipped by giants. Good.