Why I Stopped Worrying About AI

The vast majority of what we worry about never actually happens.

But we still rehearse it. The deal that might blow up. The conversation that might go sideways. The plan that might fall apart. The version of the future we're not ready for.

We dwell on it. We let it take up space. We let it shape decisions we don't even realize we're making.

I Decided to Get In Front of It

A year and a half ago, I caught myself doing exactly this with AI.

I'd been hearing all the noise. AI is coming for your job. AI is changing everything. AI is going to leave half of us behind by 2027.

And I noticed I was rehearsing a future in my head and treating it like it had already happened.

So I decided to do something about it.

I wasn't going to sit on the sidelines and worry about what AI meant for me. I was going to get in front of it. Learn what these tools actually do. Test them. Play with them. Find out for myself what I was dealing with.

At the time, the only AI I was using was ChatGPT. I knew that I had a lot to learn. I kept seeing people using AI to create photos and videos, and the output was getting better and better. I decided that this was something that I needed to learn myself and figure out how to incorporate it into my own work.

I started small, but inevitably one thing leads to the next.

Then I Kept Going

The first AI photo I created was both incredible and cringe at the same time. I had prompted an early Flux model to create an image of me swimming with a shark. It didn't look exactly like me, but pretty close enough for me to see what was possible.

Soon afterwards, Google's Nano Banana was released, and I became a believer. The images you could create with it just got so much better. There was no going back.

Then I kept hearing about Claude, and how it's better at the kind of writing I do, so I switched my whole workflow over.

Then I stopped using the tools one at a time and started building with them together.

I built a whole imagined brand from scratch as a case study - a luxury menswear label called Elliot Louis - just to see what these tools could actually do in someone's hands. I wrote the brand voice in Claude. Generated the visuals with image and video models. Composed the music in Suno.

I have since hooked up Claude to my Notion workspace. Now Claude can read and write directly to my content system.

The newsletter you're reading right now runs on top of this stack. So does the whole system around it.

I'm not telling you this to show off. I'm telling you because eighteen months ago I couldn't have explained any of it. I was intimidated by all of it.

What changed wasn't me. It was that I started using the tools instead of reading articles about AI taking over.

That's the only difference.

What Worry Actually Costs

Most of what we worry about never happens.

The deal didn't blow up. The conversation didn't go sideways. The version of the day where everything went wrong didn't show up.

But the worrying still costs us something.

It costs us time. It costs us energy. And the worst part is what it costs us that we can't see - the version of ourselves that would have used those hours to actually do something.

Worry feels productive. It feels serious. It feels like we're being responsible adults preparing for what might be coming.

It's not.

It's the easiest move available. You don't have to make a decision. You don't have to risk anything. You don't have to be wrong in front of anyone. You just sit there and rehearse outcomes that probably aren't coming.

Action is harder. Action means you might fail at something. Action means somebody might see you not knowing what you're doing. Action means you're going to be bad at something for a while before you're good at it.

But action does the one thing worry never does.

It actually changes the situation.

Key Takeaways

1. Use the tool you're avoiding. One afternoon of actually trying it beats six months of articles about it.

2. Be willing to be bad at something for a few weeks. That's the entry fee to anything new.

3. Stop treating worry like preparation. It feels serious. It isn't. It's just easier than acting.

4. Put things together. Don't just collect them. The leverage shows up when you actually combine what you have.

5. Bet on the version of you who's already moving. That's the only one who finds out what's actually possible.

Final Note

You don't need to be ready to start.

You just need to be willing to find out what's actually there, instead of making up a story about what's there.

I'm working on the same thing.

Until next time, 

Elliot