April 2025: Coffee, Collisions, and Future Visions

life updates and a brain dump of ideas

It’s a Saturday and I’m currently sitting in a suburban Starbucks, sipping on a delicious black coffee. I quit caffeine in mid-January, and have for the most part stayed away from the happy juice. But today, I’m taking a page out of Michael Pollan’s book¹ and selectively allowing myself to enjoy a cup of joe on a day that feels leisurely and spacious. I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with caffeine. On good days, I savor the taste, drop into a nice flow state as I crank out morning work, and get to the gym just in time to take advantage of the lingering buzz. But on bad days, I roll out of bed groggy and tense, unable to feel like myself until I’ve re-upped on my supply. I enter a trough of exhaustion in the afternoon and then later, when I’m about to sleep, the anxiety starts to flood my system. So like many things in life, I’m figuring it out and trying to find the right balance. I like the taste of coffee, the feeling of being caffeinated, and how fun doing stuff feels while on the sauce, particularly when I’m reading or writing with while Keinemusik plays in the background.

---

Yesterday was an interesting day. In this season of transition, I’m noticing how dynamic each day can be—similar to solo traveling in a foreign country. I have a sense of control over my life, but my curiosity pulls me in different directions, my routines voluntarily shift, and I’m learning to follow where my energy leads.

Here’s how yesterday went down: I spoke with three people from three different companies, each meeting arranged either through a mutual connection or inbound interest. I also caught up with my friend

Amber Theurer

whose warmth and quirky spirit reminds me of how vital it is to embody authenticity. As a fellow coach, we jammed on everything from marketing to who we serve to the importance of healthy cofounder relationships in startup success.

In the afternoon, I drove to the foothills of Piedmont to meet up with an independent executive search recruiter (and her cool dog) who’s also going through a transition right now. As we ran up and down the trails surrounded by redwoods, sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, transforming the forest floor into a living patchwork of luminous patches and cool shadows.

Afterwards, to wait out the rush hour traffic, I decided to explore the Berkeley campus, my alma mater. Despite my sore legs, I made my way to the Campanile and Memorial Glade, watching seniors taking grad pics as past memories flooded back.

Later, I first heard, then saw, a rental RV crash into a brand new parked Tesla. A minute later, a tomato-tinted guy stormed out yelling someone’s name. I put together the context clues. The RV driver was in the same frat as the Tesla owner, and now both vehicles were badly damaged. I stood there for briefly, curious about what would unfold. Being a coach feels like being an anthropologist—studying humans in their natural habitat. In this moment, I witnessed the fascinating complexity of raw emotions.

I could’ve headed home, but I decided to have dinner at International House’s dining hall, a place that fed me countless meals for over two years during my college years. After my six mile trail run, I knew I’d get my money’s worth even at the non-meal plan rate. For $22, I refueled on orange chicken, sweet chili shrimp, overcooked broccoli, salad, and multiple bowls of cereal. Before leaving, I made a panini to-go, wrapping it in six flimsy brown napkins despite being too full to eat it immediately. As I walked to my car, I offered it to a shirtless homeless man nearby who reacted with intense anger for the disturbance and spat at me. Adrenaline rushed through my body, bracing me for physical contact that never came. I drove home while listening to a podcast, showered, updated my website’s copy inspired by my conversation with Amber, and went to bed.

In this period of flux, I'm learning that seeking what's next can beautifully coexist with fully experiencing the present.

Life Updates

• The third weekend of Hakomi training felt like a real turning point. We have now learned enough of the method to begin practicing, which is genuinely exciting. The day before the training began, I was on a six hour flight home from New York City, re-reading a few chapters of the Hakomi textbook. It reminded me just how powerful and even a little magical this method can be. Spending three full days (20 hours on Zoom) is not always easy, and being fully present can be a challenge. But honestly, I feel energized. I am excited to start putting this work into practice. I believe it has the potential to help a lot of people (myself included).

• Every year during my annual review, I'm surprised by how rich and full the year was. I tell myself the upcoming year will be more routine with fewer adventures, but since questioning the default and living life on my own terms, that hasn't been the case. For example: 2025 started with skiing in SLC in January, China and Japan in February, and navigating inner changes in March.

  • April was spent in NYC, living on the UWS. This was my last extended period in NYC, at least for the foreseeable future. It feels right to close this chapter. I first started living there on-and-off in March 2020 (not great timing). My view has held up: New York City is the city if you want to be ambitious and creative. San Francisco is superior for technology, but lacks the same density of eclectic souls.

  • I'm ready to leave the city, not because I'm sick of it. What I once sought externally from the city now lives within me. Everyone arrives in NYC bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, pursuing something. Through understanding who I am and reconnecting with my inner flame of ambition, I no longer need the outside world for that. Instead of a fast-paced ambition accelerator, I'm craving comfort, quietness, and nature. I already know where I'll be moving (and signing a lease!), but that's for a future blog.

• Big travel plans coming up:

  • Next week: a 3-day retreat in Mendocino with other entrepreneurial folks interested in spirituality and consciousness. When a trip comes together, there's this Gen Z saying "made it out of the group chat", but this is actually a highly organized gathering born from a group chat.

  • Afterwards, back to NYC for my girlfriend's med school graduation. I think nowadays we don't celebrate enough, so it'll be nice to have this occasion. (There’s more I could say here, but I’m choosing not to because I value privacy). I still need to figure out what to wear because...

  • I’m flying to Rome that same night for an entire week in the Tuscan countryside (send me recs!). During past trips, I found myself torn between immersing myself in the physical present world and being caught up in work. As a self-employed coach, I only get paid when I actually coach (no PTO), so making this choice isn’t as easy as just plopping down a week of “OOO” on my Google Calendar and submitting the dates on Workday. But I know it’s the right choice. I’m looking forward to people-watching like a time-rich old Italian man and hopefully eating a raw tomato so flavorful that I can never settle for the watery mass-produced versions that we have in the states.

  • Then I fly back to NYC for a night and immediately fly to Asheville for five days of Hakomi onsite training. That’s all the travels I have planned so far this year, and I’m glad.

Some Of My Ideas

Because ideas naturally emerge from my own mind, I rarely notice how varied they are. Seeing them all listed out like this reminds me of how weird and diverse my interests are. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Transformational Community

Recently, two people on separate occasions asked me if I've ever considered starting a community. Prior to that, I hadn't given it much thought, although I have been "trying on" the term community builder after

David Nebinski

invited me to his C3 community builders conference, prompting me to reflect on whether I identify as one.

This community would fill the dire need we have in modern society for a sense of belonging and our innate need to be fully heard and seen. The decline of religion, hustle culture, social media, and hyper-individualized culture all contribute to this problem of not having spaces where we can actually be our full selves. The reality is that no one has it all figured out, and the way to be with that is to have communities where that is normalized rather than continuing to trudge through the mud of stuckness, pretending that everything is nice and dandy.

It'd be digital-first to be location-agnostic with in-person retreats 2-3 times a year to foster genuine connection. It'd be membership-based so everyone is fully committed, can financially sustain their participation, and so that it can stay small. The pitfall of many online communities is that they get too big (often because they are free), and people stop engaging.

There'd likely be other coaches in the community but it wouldn't be a community of solely coaches. There'd be plenty of people who have gone on sabbatical before, but it wouldn't be purely about career transitions. If being on sabbatical is about passivity, rest, unlearning, etc., then this would be more like post-sabbatical, where there's often greater sense of direction, ambition, energy, but still lots of uncertainty.

There'd be entrepreneurial people, but it wouldn't be another founder community (which would be unnecessary; I'm only interested in creating what I feel is truly needed in today’s world). It would include multidimensional people with a wide range of interests, perhaps people who view themselves, or are inspired by, the convergence of entrepreneur, athlete, and artist. These are people questioning the status quo—not just thinking differently, but actually living differently.

AI Coach Copilot

As a coach who studied computer science and worked in tech, I've been paying attention to the proliferation of AI coaching and therapy. Therapy/companionship is now the #1 use case for generative AI, a development that’s equally exciting and frightening.

source: HBR

I think the discourse on whether AI will replace human coaches and therapists lacks nuance, which I'm guessing is how it is for other fields like coding, design, writing, etc. My general take is that AI therapy will outperform mediocre human therapists in areas that are primarily thought-based, cognitive, and grounded in logical reasoning. While these rational approaches represent a decent chunk of therapeutic work, they miss crucial dimensions of healing that involve embodied experience, relational attunement, somatic awareness, and emotional processing that occurs beyond conscious cognition. Human practitioners create resonant connections, read subtle nonverbal cues, and facilitate healing through presence itself, things that AI can’t replicate (yet).

I predict more and more people will use AI for therapy, necessitating a more nuanced taxonomy of therapeutic approaches. We may need terminology that distinguishes between 'cognitive-algorithmic support' (where AI excels), 'human-facilitated integration' (blending AI insights with human wisdom), and 'embodied transformation' (requiring human presence). These conceptual distinctions would help clients understand which modality best serves their specific needs at different stages of their healing journey.

Rather than view it as a black-and-white either/or situation, I've been exploring what it would look like to augment human coaches and therapists with AI. If I look at my own coaching practice as an example, I see most of my clients only twice a month. That means that on average, they don't see me for 28 out of 30 days, which is a lot. I also know that even though I offer unlimited async communication, some of my clients are using ChatGPT as their therapist or coach because it's always-on and freely available.

What I envision is an AI that's trained on an individual human coach's approach and communication style. It could understand the practitioner's training methodology even more comprehensively than they can themselves while maintaining the individual's voice. Clients would use it in-between regular sessions, and the coach could receive a summary of each AI interaction to stay informed. If situations escalated or deeper processing was needed, the AI could notify the human coach.

In practice, I could have MattBot which existing clients can use, but it could also serve as lead generation. I've already seen one case of this, which judging by the UI seems like it's a custom GPT. I could see myself building something similar.

Lifty: Runna For Weightlifting

Runna, a personalized running coaching app, was recently acquired by Strava, and I believe the weightlifting community needs an equivalent. Unlike running, where progress follows relatively linear patterns, weightlifting demands complex programming that balances progression, recovery, and exercise selection. Most lifters plateau not from lack of effort but from suboptimal programming.

This insight crystallized after reading the HBR report highlighting therapy as the #1 use case for LLMs. While human psychology presents overwhelming complexity for AI, fitness exists in a more quantifiable domain with clearer causality. Physical adaptation follows predictable patterns that AI can model effectively, making weightlifting an ideal candidate for intelligent programming.

Current fitness wearables like Whoop and Oura Ring operate on a machine-measures-human-decides model, providing recovery scores that users must interpret themselves. I'm proposing the inverse: a system where humans report subjective metrics like fatigue and RPE, while AI handles the complex decision-making of programming adjustments. This approach flips the traditional relationship to leverage both human perception and machine intelligence at what each does best.

I've tested this concept personally with Claude, creating a custom prompt that generated a comprehensive 12-week strength program tailored to my preferences. By outsourcing programming decisions, I escaped my tendency to repeat familiar workouts and underestimate my capabilities. The freedom from constantly how much to lift has lightened my mental load (pun intended). Now, I simply execute the plan (lift the weights) and consult Claude for the occasional adjustment.

An initial version of Lifty could feature a simple UI collecting user inputs about equipment access, training history, and goals. The core value would be the AI engine that not only creates the initial plan but continuously refines it based on performance feedback. The real magic happens when the system learns your individual response patterns to different training stimuli and optimizes accordingly. Social features allowing users to tag equipment, supplements, and goals would create valuable network effects and dataset enrichment.

I want to make this, so if you want to collab, hit me up!

AI Mediator For When Couples Are Fighting

When things get heated between two people, it can be hard to take a step back and breathe deeply enough to address the conflict with greater consciousness. In those moments, we often say things we don't mean and forget our communication tools.

I believe there's an opportunity for an AI to mediate arguments between couples in real time. Imagine a voice-based app that couples could use together during conflicts. It would prompt each person to slow down, listen more effectively, and engage thoughtfully. The AI would listen to both sides and ask questions using principles from Crucial Conversations, Conscious Loving, and Non-Violent Communication. Since it can identify different speakers, it would guide each person through the process while maintaining neutrality.

The practical challenge is implementation. You can't really pause a heated argument to download an app from the store. Perhaps couples could install it during peaceful moments, after discussing how they want to improve their conflict resolution. But I wonder how your partner would react if you suddenly said, "Hey, let's keep fighting, but with this AI app listening to us." That conversation itself might require its own mediator.

While this idea needs some refining, I still believe using powerful technology to facilitate healthier human relationships holds real promise. Instead of technology pulling us apart, it could actually help us become more present, understanding, and connected with each other.

Guided Meditation For Fitness Enthusiasts

I've been thinking about creating guided audio specifically designed for fitness enthusiasts that focuses on inner shifts while in motion, rather than traditional seated meditation. This would target four key moments in a fitness enthusiast's day: morning, pre-workout, post-workout, and evening.

The pre-workout audio would focus on energy activation, mental preparation, and readiness, helping athletes get into the optimal state for performance. These sessions might incorporate visualization techniques, power phrases, and specialized breathing patterns to heighten alertness and sharpen focus.

Post-workout audio would guide listeners through recovery, calming the nervous system, and promoting down-regulation. It would feature breathwork designed to shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic states and guided body scans to release tension from worked muscles.

I've seen fascinating research on how specific audio interventions can help our bodies recover faster after tough workouts. When we intentionally downshift with calming sounds and guidance, our bodies actually process stress hormones more efficiently and transition to rest mode more quickly. The morning and evening sessions would bookend the day with intention-setting and reflection, creating a complete gym-for-your-mind that complements physical workouts.

This concept builds on the mind-body connection. Unlike traditional meditation apps that separate mental practice from physical movement, this approach integrates them. This could appeal to an entirely different demographic that finds traditional meditation unappealing but readily embraces mental training that fits within their existing fitness routines. It’s like a trojan horse to mindfulness for people who identify as doers rather than sitters.

Senior Caregiving x House Crisis

Ever since I was five, my maternal grandparents have lived with us. Now that they’re both 90, I’ve been witnessing their aging and the challenges that come with accessing proper care. This led me to look into the caregiving industry and understand what options exist for aging Americans who want to stay in their homes rather than move to nursing facilities. What I've discovered is that in-home caregiving businesses are essentially betting that institutional care options won't be able to meet the demand as 73 million baby boomers continue aging into their elderly years. Most older Americans are sitting on their biggest asset (their home) which often has multiple empty bedrooms now that their children have moved out decades ago. Meanwhile, younger generations can't afford to buy homes, with the median homebuyer now 56 years old and first-time buyers accounting for just 24% of purchases². Additionally, the senior caregiving industry is dominated by franchised agencies with little technological innovation beyond Honor’s efforts.

Here's my moonshot idea: A system where younger people who can't afford today's housing market move in with elderly homeowners, providing caregiving while living in those empty bedrooms, and eventually purchase the home under favorable terms when the owner passes away through mechanisms similar to seller-based financing. It's a wild idea that would require new legal frameworks, but it addresses both the "gray tsunami" and the housing crisis simultaneously.

Maybe the simpler approach would be facilitating more intergenerational living, which is already common throughout most of the world. It just seems somewhat obvious that if you have a growing population of (relatively) wealthy old people who need assistance and a challenging housing market for young people, you could address both problems by creating structured connections between these groups.

Ski Hacker House

I'm envisioning a Ski Haus 2.0 concept for next winter: a month-long co-living experiment in Salt Lake City during peak snowfall (mid-Jan to mid-Feb). Despite the name, this isn't exclusively for programmers but for multidimensional people who are passionate about both their work and having a good time. The house would foster an intentional community where participants can weave together business and daily mountain pleasure, offering an integrative alternative to the conventional work-life divide that dominates our culture.

To strike a balance between shredding pow and clickity-clacking on laptops, the daily rhythm might look like:

• 7:00AM: Wake up

• 8:00AM: Out the door, mountain bound

• 9:00AM - 12:00PM: Skiing

• 12:00 - 1:00PM: Driving home + shower + lunch

• 1:00 PM - 10:00 PM: Working with a dinner break

Last season was awesome, but lacked synchronization among ourselves. We basically all did our own thing and then skied together when it was convenient. This more structured approach would hopefully lead to more generative chairlift conversations followed by collaborative work sessions around a communal table.

At a meta level, this experiment explores what it looks like to design lives that flow with natural rhythms rather than fighting against them, integrate work with lifestyle rather than pitting them against one another, and create temporary "pop-up" intentional communities rather than permanent social structures.

Let me know if you’re interested—I’ll probably start putting this in motion in late June/early July.

Some Questions I’ve Been Thinking About

What are you going to do now that you have a shit ton of money?

Just purely based on anecdotes from people I know, there are likely thousands of people living in the Bay Area between their mid-30s and 40s who have a net worth of $5M+ who still think they need to work full-time jobs. In some cases, it’s because they’re on the hedonic treadmill and sitting with a monthly burn rate that includes a hefty mortgage and expensive childcare, but there’s plenty of other cases where they’re financially free yet continue working. Even if they have kids, they don’t know what to do with their time during the day. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. If all their friends who are in similar situations stepped off the full-time work path, they could band together and make cool projects instead.

Why do we suffer from both comfort crisis and hustle culture?

We are currently living through a profound contradiction. We experience unprecedented comfort alongside epidemic despair. While drowning in excess calories, infinite digital stimulation, and material clutter, we simultaneously buckle under chronic stress, caffeine-fueled overwork, and widespread burnout. This paradox explains why Jung described a third of his patients as those who lacked a diagnosable clinical illness, but simply suffered from “the senselessness and emptiness of their lives”. As studies confirm rising rates of depression and anxiety during the safest, most prosperous era in history, we face the ultimate modern challenge: learning when to embrace struggle rather than flee it. The path forward requires discernment, knowing when to stop consuming, recognizing how much is enough, and developing the capacity to sit with ourselves undistracted. I’m personally addressing this question by doing hard things like working out and moving my body in nature, while limiting exposure to brainrot internet content.

Man has achieved his present position by being the most aggressive and enterprising creature on earth. And now he has created a comfortable civilization, he faces an unexpected problem... The comfortable life lowers man's resistance, so that he sinks into an unheroic sloth... The comfortable life causes spiritual decay.
- Colin Wilson [source]

Why are young-ish people not looking for love?

It's a tragedy that so many people in their late-20s to 30s want a life partner, but aren't actually prioritizing that search in their lives. This is a multilayered issue: unrealistic expectations from social media, surface-level dating app interactions, fear of approaching people, fewer social venues, and struggles with intimacy.

But I think our relationship with work is the biggest problem. There's nothing wrong with working hard. The issue is how much meaning we assign to our jobs. When most of our life's meaning comes from work, we try squeezing more fulfillment from our 9-5 by working longer hours and chasing promotions, when sharing life with someone we love would actually bring far greater happiness.

I’m observing this problem so often that—who knows—maybe I’ll make dating a more explicit part of my coaching. As someone who spent my first 26 years single while chasing mountain peaks and corporate ladders, I've had to learn to make space for partnership. Nothing replaces the stoke of surfing at sunset, but a warm hug with someone you love is also pretty great. My unsolicited advice (only saying this because it's my blog and you've read this far) is to make room for both 😊.

Stuff I Like

Here are a few creations that I resonated with recently:

• A beautiful metaphor for what it looks and feels like to be in transition by

  Andy Johns
  : What happens when you leave your career (and identity) behind

• A raw and honest take on the importance of how you navigate transition: Destabilization & the Frequency of Values by

  River Kenna

• A provocative and soulful conversation that resonated deeply as I listened to it while walking outside during sunset: Martha Beck on the EvolutionFM podcast by

  Scott Britton

---

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts, questions, and feedback in the comments!

1. In his book Caffeine: How Caffeine Created The Modern World, Michael Pollan shares how he quit coffee for three months, then switched to a once-a-week habit by treating himself to a nice “Special” (like a flat white) at The Cheeseboard—which fun fact: was once ranked the #1 pizza in America.

2.

Paul Millerd

’s newsletter came in clutch today with some nice stats to reference