Aug 2026: Long overdue life update

Yesterday I messaged 42 people. One at a time, no automation. Old friends, former colleagues, people I'd ghosted since May. Almost every one replied like no time had passed. I started counting six days ago: 112 conversations in five days. Three turned into paying clients. But the real lesson was smaller: the awkwardness of reaching out only exists on the sender's side. So consider this email conversation 113.

It's been a while, so here's what's true right now.

In February, AI agents got good. Not chatbot good: actually-do-the-work good. I pulled my team offline in March to rebuild how we operate, my assistants learned to build automations in terminals, and when business owner friends asked what we were doing, we turned the answer into paid workshops. June and July: seven paid participants, 8.5 out of 10 satisfaction, three corporate trainings booked for fall. Fastest I've ever monetized anything.

Real estate is still my base. Providence is performing better than ever now that AI turns my property reports into real-time dashboards. Cleveland was my expensive MBA: I sold one property at a loss, absorbed it personally so my investors stayed whole, and the other finally sent its first cash flow in July.

A personal reflection about my career: this is my fourth business in six years, and I've wondered whether I'm chasing yet another lark. The best sense I can make of my peripatetic career, after years of reading and work in self-development and life design, is that it's all been about human flourishing: freedom of time, money, relationship, place, and purpose. And my avenue there has always been the same: standardizing work. I come from a family of teachers and poor intellectuals, and every version of this has been me teaching people to build income and buy back their time. AI is the latest medium: it's the greatest disruptor of our lifetimes, and there's enough of a market that I can get paid to learn it and teach it. That's the synthesis, and it's my working plan for the next few years.

So: hit reply. Tell me what you're working on, and whether AI is on your mind. I read everything even if it takes me a while to respond, and I'll be writing here more regularly as I pull my scattered content channels into something more cohesive.

Thanks for sticking around. I started this blog 8 years ago, and I'm grateful to those of you who've been reading and supporting throughout.

Muhan

PS: We're running Agent Day on Aug 29, 11am to 4pm ET on Zoom, $1,000 a seat: agentday.eudy.co — If you know a business owner who should be there, forward this along.