This is part 3. Part 1 is the month that broke me: https://www.skool.com/cliefnotes/why-its-been-so-quiet-from-my-crazy-loud-corner-of-the-world and part 2 is the system that held while it did: https://www.skool.com/cliefnotes/the-system-that-let-me-disappear-for-a-week-and-then-some You don't need either one to follow this. This one starts a lot earlier, and it's the least flattering thing I've posted here. ------------------------------------ The offer ------------------------------------ A few years ago I sat down across from my business partner and got handed a choice. She buys me out, or I buy her out. She'd done her homework. She'd already gone to one of our clients and lined up the capital to write the check. She'd been meeting with our business advisor without me. And before any of it reached me, the story of who I was had already been told to the people who mattered. She was the workhorse. I was the show pony. I couldn't fully argue with it. I was undisciplined. Really undisciplined. I'd start five things, finish one, and be lit up about a sixth by Thursday. I was no prince charming either. I strolled into that office late plenty of mornings, which is the kind of thing everybody sees. What nobody saw was me working until one in the morning. That's the shift I actually kept, and it doesn't have any witnesses. So let me back up, because the show pony didn't come from nowhere. ------------------------------------ 2011 ------------------------------------ I lost my job in the aftermath of the real estate crash. Then I did the responsible thing. I took a stable job so I could feed my family and my wife could stop working, because we had young kids at home. No strategy in it. Groceries. Three years later I was ready to go out on my own again, and I was scared. So I did what scared people do. I found somebody to do it with me.

Hi! I'm new here and wanted to ask a genuine question — not sure if this is already solved somehow or if it's something I'd need to build from scratch. I'm exploring an idea for Dad Labs (a community for dads learning to use AI) — inspired by a video I watched about a footage crawler: reducing hours of video into searchable text descriptions using extracted frames plus a local vision model, all organized through folders/markdown. The application I have in mind is different from the one in the video (which was a 9TB professional archive) — I'm thinking something much smaller: helping families organize the years of video they've accumulated (weddings, first steps, etc.) that they never have time to sort through. I don't know if this is something the community already has as a template, or if it's more of an end-to-end project I'd need to research and build myself. I'd rather ask than assume — is there something similar already documented here, or any reference you'd recommend to start understanding the actual technical structure (folder organization, the markdown file format, etc.)? Any guidance is welcome, and if this is an obvious question for anyone who's been here longer, apologies — I'm just getting started.

This is a letter written to our community. (No Emjois in this one) I have thought about posting this, and I decided that it needed to be posted. I have been away for a bit, mostly because I have been focused on 7 lives that needed me the most. Firstly, I am an IT manager, I am a leader of a team that puts their best into everything they do every day. We have been through the thick and thin together, we have faced adversity and success together, and lately we have faced challenges and expectations that effect all 8 of us. I have had no other option but to focus my energy on the things that keep us moving forward in our own lives. This does not mean this community does not mean to the world to me, but it means I have been focused on other things. I do not apologize for doing what I felt is the right thing, I apologize for not being here for the community. My heart is heavy. Beyond the obligations I have set in stone for the people I lead, I have had a tremendous loss in my life. Today the world has lost a bright light, someone who showed up in my life in a time that I needed most, her name is Marina Berthal and she should be celebrated not only mourned. To all of you she was a stranger, to me she was my world, she was the mom life never afforded me. I have lost 3 moms now in life. The first was my biological mother, the second my grandmother, and now Marina, a person who found me early in life, a broken and lost soul looking for guidance. I know our community is supportive, committed and above all else caring. You have all quickly became the family I have searched for in a lifetime. I want to apologize for my absence and want you all to understand that it is not by want, but by need that I am away currently. In my life I have experienced more loss then most, and this loss has landed in a time when I just could not hold it. I will be back; I just need some time to process this loss. I know we will win together, even when things seem tough. I believe in my heart, as Marina has taught me in life, we will learn together, we will grow together and we will win together.

Hey y’all! I’m a former Army guy who spent 10 years in the military, and ever since getting out, I’ve wanted to get serious about learning AI. The problem is that there’s so much noise out there that it’s easy to spend all day learning about AI without ever becoming good at actually building anything. To make matters worse, I’m still not entirely sure what I want to build yet 😂 I guess thats why I ultimately joined this community. I’m currently working through the Foundations course in the classroom, and I’m also a VIP member. Full disclosure, though lol I still don’t really know how to navigate Discord or the Skool community so I will definitely be attending the onboarding call this week. I joined the community about a month ago or so. But I’ve been inactive recently because life decided to life for a little while, but things have settled down and I’m ready to start showing up, learning and putting in the work. That brings me to the 12-week cohort… Has it already started? Can I still join the waitlist? And how do I decide which track is right for me? Right now, I’m leaning toward the Technical cohort because I want to become genuinely skilled with Claude Code and coding—not just learn how to prompt an AI and hope for the best. I guess my long-term goal is to understand how these systems actually work, use ICM as an engineering methodology, and eventually become capable of building durable AI systems and products myself. Ideally, that leads to employment, my own business, or both. My only hesitation is that I’m still very much a beginner, so I’m not sure whether the Technical track is the smartest place to start or whether I’d be jumping into the deep end wearing combat boots. My wife also owns a med spa, and I’d love to eventually use what I learn to help improve and grow her business. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet (ie marketing systems, automations, internal tools, lead generation, or something I haven’t thought of) but I’m hoping the process will help me figure that out.

Hi all, Not that long a member here, but soaking all the info and reading a watching a lot of content in this community. I think I understand the principles of the Folder and Files structure. Yeah!! Bow I am busy with building my workspace in the Clief Method, as I mentioned it myself. But I have one question from the video from iScaleLabs, who explains everything very well. I see he works on Dropbox in the cloud. I did that before but then from Google Drive, because I have workspace. I turned it back to the hard drive, because it took to much memory from my computer. Who have the experience with Dropbox? Is it slow also when for example building websites or apps? What are your thoughts about Dropbox vs Google Drive? Hope you can enlighten me on that one. Thank you