I'm back from this year's Wholesome Mastermind, our fourth annual gathering of authors, educators, and online creators.

One thing keeps sticking with me from the weekend: You don't know what's possible until you see someone else do it.

Reading about it doesn't do the same thing as watching someone real pull it off in front of you.

That's what this group gives me every year. People building wildly different businesses, earning a living in so many different ways. But they all put their whole selves into it.

Being in that room again reminded me how much your surroundings shape what you think is achievable.

So here's my question for you: what room do you need to put yourself in?

Finding Alpha: What's Worth Consuming in the Age of AI

Every time you ask an LLM for help, you get the same answer everyone else gets: the statistical average of all human thought.

In investing, alpha is the return you earn above the market average, the payoff for doing something differently. I borrow that idea to map out which kinds of information are rising in value under AI, and which have quietly become worthless.

That turned up four shifts that changed how I capture and consume information this year, including one that runs against what I used to teach.

Fear Shrinks When Your Options Multiply

I've coached many people through hard decisions. Here’s what I noticed: you can measure someone's fear by counting how many options they see.

• Zero options ("There's nothing I can do") is pure fear. Like an animal cornered in a cage.
• Two options is binary thinking, black or white. "Do I stay, or do I leave?" You feel trapped, no room to maneuver.
• Three or more is where the fear breaks. You start combining pieces, inventing paths nobody handed you.

One thing has changed since I first noticed this: AI makes finding more options easier.

When I'm stuck on a decision, I ask for five alternative paths, even the strange ones. Most get thrown out, but seeing different paths can open possibilities you hadn't considered. It gets you out of the trap and moving again.

Action step: Pick a decision you feel stuck on right now. Ask an AI tool for five alternative paths, no matter how unlikely. Notice what happens to the fear once you see five doors instead of two.

Reply and tell me what shifted.

Turning Voice Notes into Self-Knowledge

One of our Second Brain members, Jens, shared something too good to keep inside the community.

He dictates his thoughts all day: walking, working, thinking through a new project. One of his AI advisors runs Peter Drucker's feedback analysis on everything he records.

The method comes from Drucker's 1999 essay "Managing Oneself": write down what you expect before a decision, then check it against what happens later. The gap is where you find your blind spots.

Jens says he's learned more about himself in two months than in years. One result: a standing desk, after his reviews kept flagging the same issue.

It's got me looking at my own review habits differently.