Two Things I've Been Working On
One You Already Know, One You Don't
Sometimes this build comes in a trickle.
Sometimes it’s a steady stream.
And sometimes you get a torrential downpour and things really move.
It’s been pouring for a couple of weeks. As a result, two things got done—both free assets for you.
Update 1: The Golden Handcuffs Diagnostic — Completely Rebuilt
The prompts I originally wrote for this thing were from November 2025. In AI time, that’s prehistoric (that was back before Claude Cowork dropped).
And as I was building the 2nd Act Launchpad — an 8-week AI-powered coaching sprint to help you define and start building your 2nd Act — I kept seeing places I could be giving way more value away to the people who are following me, but aren’t ready to commit to the full sprint.
So I rebuilt the whole diagnostic from the ground up.
A new master prompt. Three questions. In and out in about 45 minutes. A Notion page that allows you to copy and paste prompts with ease.
If you’re sitting somewhere between “I know something needs to change” and “I have no idea what I’m actually building” — this is where to start.
Here’s the new Golden Handcuffs Diagnostic.
Update 2: A YouTube Channel is Born.
I’m putting my money where my mouth is and doing something that makes me really uncomfortable: video.
Filming videos has been on the list for a while, and I’ve been finding all the right excuses to avoid it.
I know eventually it’ll be second nature, because I’ll just do it so many damn times that it doesn’t bother me. For now, it’s been an uphill battle.
But I’m getting better at doing shit that makes me feel uncomfortable. I used a recent 72-hour sprint (thanks to a wife and two kiddos being out on a family trip) to stand up a YouTube channel and record my first video.
Then, over the course of the last week, I did all the minutia of the shit that you have to do to get up on YouTube — video editing, color grading, audio editing, thumbnails, descriptions, tags, verifications. The list of new things I didn’t know how to do felt endless.
But it’s done. It’s live. My first video — which will likely make me cringe six months from now, three months from now, who knows, maybe even next week — is up.
For those of you who prefer to get your information from me in a more direct, digestible, throw an earpod in and listen to someone talk instead of read, it now exists for you.
Check out my first-ever video: 6 Minutes To Figure Out Why Your Career is Stuck. And if it lands with you, please like and/or subscribe to help me go from “algorithm anonymous” to “new guy doing stuff.”
Another newsletter is dropping in a couple of days — so this is one of those rare weeks where you get two pings from me.
Have a kickass week.
Mike