A block of wood holds infinite potential. It can become anything. But once it’s carved into a tool, its possibilities are limited.
The same is true for us.
In a world obsessed with learning more, doing more, and becoming more… this Taoist perspective invites us to soften:
✨ Release the need to accumulate knowledge
✨ Let go of rigid identities
✨ Return to your natural, uncarved state
Because when we stop forcing, something deeper unfolds.
“The sage seeks to lose rather than gain. By doing nothing, nothing is left undone.”
This is the paradox of true alignment—where surrender creates clarity, and emptiness becomes power.
🎙️ In this episode, we explore:
• Tao Te Ching wisdom for modern life
• The danger of over-accumulation (knowledge, identity, effort)
• How to create from alignment and devotion
• Why “doing less” may actually lead to more fulfillment
If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, over-identified, or stuck in overdrive… this is your invitation to return to simplicity 🤍
#TaoTeChing #Taoism #WuWei #SpiritualWisdom #Mindfulness
In this episode, I sit down with mind-mapping expert and systems thinker @shengsilver to explore what it truly means to create from alignment rather than urgency. Rooted in the timeless wisdom of the Tao Te Ching, this conversation bridges ancient philosophy with modern frameworks for purpose, productivity, and prosperity.
We dive into how devotion—not discipline alone—becomes a guiding force in your creative process, how to align your inner world before taking action, and why the most sustainable success comes from energetic coherence rather than hustle.
In this episode, we explore:
✨ Creating from alignment vs. pressure
✨ The role of devotion in manifestation and prosperity
✨ Wisdom from the Tao Te Ching applied to modern life
✨ How to find clarity using mind mapping & systems thinking
✨ Aligning your inner state with your external output
If you’re a creator, entrepreneur, or seeker ready to move from burnout to flow—this episode is for you.
🎧 Listen now and return to the art of aligned creation.
#AyurvedaPodcast #TaoTeChing #AlignedCreation #SpiritualEntrepreneur #MindMapping
This Sunday I’m bringing something to life that’s been on my mind for a while.
It’s called Sunset Stories.
For the past few years I’ve noticed something missing in a lot of creative spaces. We often share the finished product — the song, the poem, the art — but not the story that made it inevitable.
The heartbreak.
The random Tuesday insight.
The strange path that led someone to create something in the first place.
Sunset Stories is an attempt to create a space for that.
A simple gathering at sunset where people share not just what they’ve made, but the story behind it.
No stage.
No pressure to perform.
Just a circle of people on blankets, watching the sun go down over Austin and listening to the human experiences behind what we create.
I’m excited (and honestly a little nervous) to bring the first one to life this Sunday.
If you’re in Austin and want to be part of the very first gathering, I’d love to see you there.
Bring something you’ve made — or just come listen.
📍 Rock Island — Zilker Park
🗓 Sunday, March 15
⏰ 5:30pm (sharing starts 6ish)
RSVP here (link also in my bio)
/e/1DyqdsZWGBcwlETRaNkt
See you at sunset 🌅
#austin #sxsw #sunset #livemusic #artwork
One question I keep coming back to lately as we wander through the post-AI age:
🏡 What if homes became cultural infrastructure instead of just investment assets?
For most of modern urban history, there’s been a familiar pattern.
Phase 1️⃣: Artists move into a neighborhood. They make it hip and vibrant: galleries, music, community, experimentation.
Phase 2️⃣: Then success attracts capital and development. Rents go up. Real estate values climb.
Phase 3️⃣: The very people who created the cultural energy get pushed out.
We’ve seen this story play out in city after city.
But I noticed something different about Austin.
Some property owners are opening their homes to become spaces for:
🎶 backyard concerts
🖼 small galleries
🤝 neighborhood gatherings
Instead of culture making real estate valuable…real estate is being used to host and sustain culture. 🔄
I see this shift becoming even more important in our post-AI world. If productivity becomes increasingly automated, the real scarcity may not be labor or capital.
It may be human presence, expression, connection. It might just be the new North Star for our purpose when we’ve shed our identity attachment to job titles. Instead of introducing ourselves at dinner parties by what “we do”, we’ll describe ourselves by what “we create”.
And the places where those things happen might not be traditional offices and venues.
They might be homes.
Tomorrow (Saturday) at SXSW we’re exploring this idea together:
Real Estate Reimagined: Turning Homes into Urban Cultural Engines
I’ll be joined by Ten Cadle @leftwaystudios , Reid Estreicher @localsetsatx , and Malcolm Holden @thank.god.for.people — community leaders who have been actively experimenting with what this looks like in practice.
📍 Remedy Bar Austin @remedybaraustin
🕒 Saturday 3/14 • 1–2 PM
If you're around #SXSW and curious about new models for cities, culture, and community infrastructure, come join the conversation.
Signup: /obnvrh4d
(link also in my bio)
#Austin #music #localculture #realestate #houseowners #art #artists
Apparently 700+ builders, founders, and investors have already RSVPed for tomorrow’s AI Builders event at SXSW.
Which feels fitting, because the question we’re exploring is becoming increasingly important:
🤖 + 🧑 What if AI doesn’t reduce human agency — but dramatically expand it?
For most of the past decade, the dominant narrative around AI has been replacement.
AI replaces workers.
AI replaces skills.
AI replaces decision-making.
But agent systems are starting to suggest a different model. Instead of replacing humans, they may *amplify human intent*.
The limiting factor stops being technical capability and starts becoming something else:
Clarity of intention.
What do you want done?
What problem are you trying to solve?
What outcome do you care about?
The people who thrive in this world might not be the best programmers.
They might be the people who can:
• frame problems clearly
• orchestrate systems
• exercise judgment
• take responsibility for outcomes
In other words, the scarce resource becomes *agency*.
Tomorrow I’ll be digging into this with Thomas Chen @life.on.sabbatical , who IPO’d BitGo and is now deep in the world of #OpenClaw — an open-source #AI agent system that’s spreading like wildfire.
We’ll explore:
• whether this is a Sputnik moment for human agency
• what’s hype vs what’s real
• and how non-technical people can actually get in on this shift
📍 ART HUB ATX @arthubatx
🕒 Thursday 3/12 • 3:40–4:30 PM
If you’re around #SXSW and thinking about the future of human-AI collab, come join the convo.
Signup: /vwllgca0 (link also in my bio)
If it's recorded, let me know if you'd like to me to post it here 👇
I'm speaking at Austin’s SXSW tech and arts festival on two questions that's kept me up:
🤖 Can AI expand human agency instead of replacing it?
🏡 What if homes became cultural infrastructure instead of investment assets?
Both point to the same deeper question:
What does infrastructure look like in a post-AI society?
If productivity becomes automated, the truly human contribution shifts to something else:
From HOW we build — to WHY we build.
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🎤 Thursday (3/12) - "Non-Technical + OpenClaw = Top 0.01%"
3:40–4:30 PM @ ART HUB ATX
I can't wait to geek out with @life.on.sabbatical , who IPO’d BitGo and is now on sabbatical obsessing over #OpenClaw — the AI agent system that’s taken the internet by storm.
We’ll explore:
• What’s hype vs what’s real?
• Is this a Sputnik moment for human agency 🚀
• Or will #AI agents give people more autonomy?
• How can non-techies get in on it?
Signup: link in bio
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🏙 Saturday (3/14) - "Real Estate Reimagined: Turning Homes into Urban Cultural Engines"
1–2 PM @ Remedy Bar Austin
The usual gentrification pattern looks like this:
🎨 Artists make neighborhoods hip
💰 Capital follows
🚪 Artists get squeezed out
But in Austin, I’m seeing something different.
Some property owners are opening their homes as spaces for:
🎶 backyard concerts
🖼 galleries
🤝 community gatherings
In the post-scarcity world, homes become the infrastructure layer that keeps a city's human soul alive, not just wealth storage.
I’ll be discussing this with Ten Cadle @leftwaystudios and others.
Signup: link in bio (thanks to @libertymadison for hosting the bigger PropTech social!)
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If you’re in Austin this week and thinking about:
🤖 post-AI infrastructure
🏡 property as cultural platform
🌱 building toward a freer future
Come say hi.
#SXSW #Austin #Claude #realestate #arts #festival #ai #culture
I’ve been feeling restless. Like something is stuck within me. Deep rumbling underneath the surface, just waiting to erupt. January was a lot of activation energy, a lot of ground covered, a lot of seeds planted in different places. Now they are rooting in the dark, impatient to reach for the sun.
It seems like I’m not the only one. Many people seem to feel this way. A friend described it as rest-less. As in without rest. I reflected it back as tired agitation - you’re tired but you can’t sleep. The 12am mind that wants to keep going even after a long day.
Perhaps it is because we’re in Spring, the season of change, of new beginnings. But right before the growth is dormancy. Yet nature is anything but dormant. Trees lost their leaves in winter to amass core density and conserve energy. Contraction. So that it may expand to greater heights in Spring and continue its momentum into Summer.
Much like seeds that need to completely permeate its soil in the dark before sprouting in the light, so much of the most important things we do will never be seen. Outsiders will never see the contraction that happens before the expansion. That is okay. More than okay for it is what we need, despite us wanting to show the fruits of our labor. Wants built atop unmet needs is inherently unsustainable - as I learned the hard way from my depression, a prolonged period of contraction.
So today I’m sitting with the uncomfortable restlessness that is the beginning of Spring. Rather than forcing energy into my day, I’m listening to my mind’s need to rest, nourish and exercise my body so that I may accelerate my growth with ripe timing. Most importantly, so that I may enjoy 98% of the journey rather than speeding to the 2% that’s the outcome.
#spring #change #uncomfortable #restless #expansion
In @thisispattismith 's memoir Just Kids, she writes that her mother used to say:
“What you do on New Year’s Day will foretell what you’ll be doing the rest of the year.”
That saying stuck with me just as it did for Patti. It signifies a belief in omens and the power of beginnings. That moment of infinite potential, a blank slate upon which we let go of the past to be fully present - to write our next chapter from a fresh perspective.
I'm sharing my new years day journal entry to give you a sense of how to use writing to set your intentions, no matter if it's for this year or this week.
Leaving you with two reflection questions if you want to explore this concept for yourself:
1) How did you spend the first week of the year, and how does it foretell how you'll spend the rest of the year?
2) Is there anything you want to change or do you want to keep doing what you're doing?
Original Substack post linked in my bio if you want to read further.
#travelersnotebook #2026goals #reflections #changeitup #justkids
How to enjoy “chores”
Mundane stuff like laundry and dishes are opportunities to “just be”. I have friends who either dread or outsource these “chores” to help, only to use the “time saved” to doom scroll. So what’s better? Lean into the opportunity to recover our presence or rushing to the next thing? Where are you rushing to, anyways?
It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it with intention and focus. It’ll become enjoyable.
#presence #simplelife #chores #mundanebeauty #slowlifestyle
Rise and shine folks happy Monday. The sun is out full blast. Just finished my run and calisthenics workout. Feeling strong. Looking forward to getting the week started and I hope you are all having a great day! Let’s get it!
#goodmorning #sunshine #workout #run #letsgo
Happy new year from Taipei! It was so special returning to this beautiful country after 2 years. I was a very different person in a different life situation then. I usually spend new years solo camping somewhere remote but this time I decided to switch it up and drop into the middle of the busiest spot in Asia. What a contrast! And to share it with one of my best friends Brian no less.
They say what you do on the first day of the year is what you’ll do for the rest of the year…so that means I’ll be in good company going into 2026. So full of gratitude for this amazing life and the privilege of sharing snippets and lessons with you here 🙏🏼 full steam ahead my friends 🐎
