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Forte Labs Newsletter

Seeking the Heart of Fear

Published about 14 hours agoΒ β€’Β 3 min read

Eight days from now, we start.

The founding cohort of The AI Second Brain kicks off on April 15, and enrollment closes on the 13th at midnight PT.

I spent three years stepping back from teaching to go deep on AI β€” rethinking my methods, testing what works, and rebuilding my approach from the ground up.

This cohort is where all of that comes together. I'm teaching all eight live sessions over three weeks.

We'll build the complete system together: your Master Prompt, your AI-ready PARA structure, your AI Board of Advisors, and a 90-day roadmap to keep going after we finish.

If you've been curious, come join us.

Can Claude Code Organize My Files to PARA?

I gave Claude Code two weeks' worth of real files from my desktop and asked it to organize everything using the PARA Method.

Then I checked every single decision it made.

It got 78% right, and the 22% it missed reveals exactly why you still need to understand PARA yourself.

Groundbreakers 2: Seeking the Heart of Fear

Six years after the personal development experience that reshaped my creative life, I went back for round two.

This time, I came face to face with the emotion I'd been avoiding for decades: fear.

I traced it through my parenting, my relationships, and even my approach to AI. I'd been letting fear drive my decisions about our entire business direction without realizing it.

In this post, I share what I found when I stopped running from fear and started listening to it instead.

Too Busy to Learn? Try This First

"I know I need to get better at AI, but I just don't have the time."

I hear this constantly. And I understand the feeling. But most people I talk to are already spending hours each week on AI. Scrolling threads, bookmarking tutorials, testing random prompts. The time is being spent. It's just not adding up to anything.

So the question isn't whether you have time. It's whether the time you're putting in is building something.

If it's not, here are three ways to create breathing room for learning that compounds:

  1. Pause the AI content firehose: Mute the newsletters, podcasts, and feeds you've been half-consuming. You won't miss anything important. Replace scattered intake with one focused commitment (such as The AI Second Brain)
  2. Hand off one thing you've been holding onto: Delegate that recurring task you keep doing yourself because "it's faster." To a colleague, a contractor, or AI itself. Use this as the push.
  3. Audit just the next three weeks on your calendar: Which meetings can you shorten, skip, or turn into an async update? You don't need to overhaul your life. A temporary rearrangement is all it takes.

The people who feel too busy to invest in a skill like this are usually the ones who'd benefit from it the most. Fifteen hours now could save you that much every month on the other side.

Reply and tell me: What's one thing you could pause, hand off, or cut this week to make room?

Book Recommendation: SOLD OUT Coach by John Meese

We recently worked with John Meese on our launch of The AI Second Brain, and his approach genuinely made a difference.

His new book, SOLD OUT Coach, lays out a 7-step framework for building a premium group coaching program without the hustle.

If you're a coach, consultant, or anyone selling group programs, this one is worth a look. John's previous book, Serve to Sell, focused on how to sell premium programs through a single free coaching call.

​SOLD OUT Coach expands on that with his full playbook for crafting an offer your ideal clients want, choosing your own clients, and designing a schedule that doesn't take over your life.

The book isn't out yet, but you can preorder now to get early access.

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Start building your Second Brain

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Forte Labs Newsletter

Build your Second Brain with Tiago Forte

Level up your productivity and life with new essays, videos, event invites, and other resources every Tuesday. Join 125k subscribers exploring the frontier of modern work, experimenting with new ways of doing more with less, and discovering what it means to fulfill our human potential. 100% free and 100% useful!

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