I'm David – I make and write things to help people feel present.

Bet on yourself.

If you're new here, I'm David Kyle Choe. I write about the lessons I learn from building with AI, practicing presence, and betting on myself.

If you're enjoying my updates, I'd love if you'd share with a friend that might fw me (just link or fwd 😀). This year, I want to connect with more people who are building, failing, and thriving nonetheless.

Here's a collection of thoughts, finds, and late nights that have been top of mind:

1. I'm experiencing a new kind of stillness and confidence for what's to come. I really have no plans or goals or ideas around what or how or when, but it's been really fun to operate from this place versus a place of anxiety, pressure, tension, and stress.
2. I'm really fucking grateful to be able even to write this, but I'm experiencing abundance and optionality. With that comes a real challenge around prioritization and focus. I've been working hard with Behzod to work through what to do when there's no right answer and many good options. While I wish I had a simple framework, it's been most helpful to filter my options against a single goal instead. In my case, "Which option allows you to expand on betting on yourself?"
3. I saw this tweet about Novak Djokovic's coach helping Djokovic through burnout, and it really resonated with me. The quote I've been thinking about the most is:
   1. "...the path out of burnout is “is through the very things I laid aside on the way to exhaustion. The very path I took to arrive at this hollowed-out, burned out state, is the path I will take out of my imprisonment, back to what is precious to me...what I have loved and have always loved since I was a child.”
   2. I'm grateful the universe guided me out of my burnout in this exact same way. I have talked about this in the past, but I feel like from 2020-2024, I actively neglected these parts of me in pursuit of success and resulted in me being miserable.
4. I'm still building PresentSelf, but have been running into a shit ton of technical issues. It's to the point where I wonder if it'll actually be faster for me to start over. I had a major issue with Cursor that I'd be waiting on them to fix (my complaint was also one of the most viewed posts in their community lol), and it stalled progress but also discouraged me. I'm still hacking away and using the previous version on my phone every day.
5. As much self-work as I've done and continue to do, it's still challenging to not make ego-based decisions. There's something deep inside me that seeks prestige and recognition. I'm realizing it's not going to just go away, and it's something I'll continue contending with.
6. In the last couple of months, I've gotten three inbound consulting projects worth five figures. Two of which are focused around on product marketing and "go-to-market" strategy. I tweeted about it a bit here, and I'm sussing out if there is a bigger opportunity here to scale my services, especially using AI to increase my margin and speed of outputs.
   1. I'm feeling excited but also surprised because I didn't expect myself to be excited about a service-based business. But with AI, everything seems more interesting and less stressful. This tweet from Greg Isenberg also touches on his prediction on the rise of agencies in the AI world.
7. I spoke to my buddy Paul Jun about this, but I've been feeling pressed about missing the AI wave. I was there when web3 and NFTs first started getting popular – I even joined some projects and bought NFTs, but I only lost money on it all. I'm feeling pressed to actually take advantage of what feels like an even bigger wave. I'm reminding myself that even though I haven't made an "AI Company" or raised money, I'm at least in the water and learning tools and using AI every day in different ways.
8. I loved this Opportunity Prioritization Framework by my coach Behzod.
9. If you're interested in AI in any way, please reach out. I'm actively playing with a half dozen different tools at any given time. My current AI stack is this: Replit for web-based app building, Cursor for desktop based/app coding, v0 for design, and Claude for literally everything (tax planning, financial planning, life coaching, consulting). I'm also playing around with Gumloop for agent building.
10. I've taken a hiatus from content (mostly because I was chasing my bag), but I'm bringing it back in the new year. This is a majorly lame excuse, but one reason I didn't want to film was because I just hated the look and quality of my videos. For that reason I decided to sell my Sony ZV-1. My boy John is helping me sell it. Please take a look here if interested. I'm thinking about replacing it with a Fujifilm XS-20 that John recommended. Better video, interchangeable lens, and color that I fw heavily.
11. I started my cut on January 6th. I'm down 4 lbs this week by just not eating like a monster and sticking to my plan. The rough estimate goal is to get down to 180 lbs. This will be the lightest, leanest and hopefully most shredded I'll ever have been. I'm excited.
12. I decided this year that I want to buy a watch. Specifically a Rolex DateJust. I'm still deciding on model, but I realized I really want one. I've tried on probably 10 Rolexes and it's made me very happy each time.
13. This is related to #12, but Behzod suggested a really funny but smart idea: larping as a millionaire. The insight is that most people just assume certain things will make them happy instead of actually putting it to the test. I told him recently that I wanted a Porsche Cayenne. He told me to go rent one for a day to see if I'd even like it. I took his advice and downloaded Turo. It's $83/day to rent a 2019 Cayenne which is .0009 the cost of a new Porsche 😂. I'll report back.

2024 Annual Review

This year was one of the most important and life-changing years of my life. I just wrapped up my annual review from my incredible coach, Behzod, and thought I'd share some insights.

I'm also stealing Michael Karnjanaprakorn's substack format, so thanks, Michael!

1. My biggest lesson was to stop "outsourcing responsibility." There's a lot to unpack here (and probably worthy of its own post), but long story short, I realized how much I've outsourced responsibility to others – whether it was wealth, health, fun, etc., it's a terrible thing to do. This year, I take full control.
2. The second equally impactful lesson was the power of presence. It's so impactful that I started building an app around it, making content, and diving deep into the philosophy of presence. I tend to be an avoidant person. Whether it's pain or conflict, I just don't want to feel those things. Now, I have the ability to sit with discomfort and pain and let it pass. I think this is something I'll be studying for the rest of my life.
3. Gaining real control over my finances changed my mental health. This year was financially painful (especially in the beginning), so I wanted to change that. Through conversations with my friend Alex and by listening to Ramit Sethi, we redid our finances, and it's completely changed my daily anxiety. Knowing how much is being spent, saved, and invested is incredible. Also, Angela and I opened separate checking accounts where we have our own "guilt-free spending," which has changed our marriage for the better. It's not much, but the few hundred bucks I can call "my own" is liberating.
4. I had 7 major goals for the year and hit 4 of them (get to 1000 subscribers on Youtube, get a new job, launch a business, build freelancing income). I knew 7 was lofty, but better to go big IMO.
5. Cutting is more physically challenging but better mentally than bulking. In April, I hit about 192 lbs. I'm currently sitting at 213 at the end of my bulk. This next cut I am aiming to get to about 180 lbs. It's wild to see how much my body has changed already while also acknowledging there's so much more to come.
6. It's okay for me to want stuff. For the longest time, I thought living this minimalistic and ascetic lifestyle was the pinnacle of gratitude and self-control, but there's a line. If I genuinely like and appreciate the quality and craft of something, it brings me joy and spurs me to work harder – that's not a bad thing. Long story short, I want a Porsche.
7. I started doing "homework for life" from Matthew Dick's Storyworthy. Basically, it requires you to note anything that makes you feel something every day. I failed because I didn't do it every day, but it's helped me so much in not letting the days just pass. Having to notice what's moving my spirit every day is a really important exercise.
8. Travel is as important as exercise. This year, I was able to travel a lot (Hawaii, Vancouver, New York, Oregon, San Francisco, and Europe). It's so important for me to experience this displacement.
9. I now identify as a builder. We are the stories we tell ourselves. And it's important for me to say this out loud. The building is made possible due to advances in AI and tools like Replit and Cursor, but the spirit of building is all mine. I have a voracious appetite and curiosity to build more things that serve me and others well.
10. I have to trust my gut. This year I cut ties with someone that I trusted a lot. My gut was always speaking, but it remained ignored – until the end.

I'm sure I missed some things, but I'm moving into 2025 with determination and resolve that I haven't felt before.

I don't really want to make predictions or goals – all I want is to experience the full impact of taking my life by its proverbial balls. I think there'll be a lot to write about in my 2025 review.

Happy New Year. Thanks so much for sticking with me through everything, it means the world to me! <3

DKC

Present vs Future: A Founder's Raw Update (and Why I Lost All My Code)

Hi, everyone! I hope you all are gearing up for the end of the year. As of this update, we have 26 days left in 2024.

Most years, I tend to do some kind of retrospective and planning for the year to come. If you've been following along, you know that I've been really focused on one thing: presence.

In doing so, I've been rejecting my old habit of thinking too far into the future and daydreaming about "what could be." This is true of PresentSelf AI, my job, and really most aspects of life. Instead, I've been really focused on what's in front of me, fully experiencing the range of emotions that come with today.

So, how does one think about and plan for the future while remaining present?

I don't have a good answer, but one thing I'm starting to grasp is that I don't need to "deposit" my current happiness within my future plans.

It's so easy to say, "Once I achieve this future goal, then I'll be happy." This is actually the fundamental principle of how many people plan. They delay feeling content/happy/satisfied to some distant moment in the future.

What if you can be fully content, satisfied, and grateful in the now and yet fully expectant of more in the future?

I'm not sure what it actually looks like to embody this idea, but I'm doing my damn best.

[Emotional State]

If I'm being honest, it's been a STRUGGLE the last several days building PresentSelf. I switched over from Claude to Cursor because I read this tweet thread about how much easier it is to code because Cursor can make real changes within your code files.

This is true, but it's a two-edged sword. Because Cursor has file control, it deleted some critical source code which set me back quite several days. I've not been able to successfully build the app in xCode in a few days, which is making me extremely nervous.

[Techinical State]

The nervousness brings me to the technical state of things.

In losing that source code earlier this week, I've basically been forced to refactor the entire app. I hope it's one of those things in a couple of weeks where I look back and think, "I'm lowkey glad it happened." But right now, it's the pits.

I addition to several days of rewriting the app, Cursor has been unresponsive for the last couple of hours. This is extremely concerning in that I don't really have another way to code it. Maybe I can try a different AI IDE?

I've mostly been working on getting Test Flight ready so that people can actually try out PresentSelf. I know it's not supposed to be easy, but really didn't expect it to take this long lol.

[Growth State]

I have not been able to spend enough time on growth/marketing with all the produce issues I've been facing.

I'm not sure if it's the lack of time to work on it or what, but I've been feeling a bit down about growth. I am feeling a lot of self-doubt about whether or not I have the growth chops to gain attention for this thing. This is really weird because it's one of the only things that I feel really deserves any attention.

I think I just need to get more practice and swings at bat.

Update // Build Log -4

Quick Update

Hi, y'all! As you can see, I've moved platforms and consolidated my "online presence" into this blog. It's mad old school, but I actually spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to organize my digital self and landed on this ancient technology.

Here are some quick hits on where I've been and what I've been up to:

• Went to Europe for two weeks and hit up Lisbon, Barcelona, London, and Paris and had a magical time. You can read up on my favorite bars here and my experience seeing god through architecture here.

• I've been on a bulk and have been focused on increasing strength and size. Slowly coming along.

• I started working on a new idea called PresentSelf AI, a self-reflection and breathwork app. It's been really fun to get into the deep end of iOS development (I know nothing) and an amazing journey into immersive work.
• I've been practicing this idea of presence, which has been incredibly powerful. I've revamped much of my work/thinking/content to revolve around it.
• We re-did our finances and budgeting and it's really changed my life in a good way. Knowing where every dollar is coming from and going and having a solid plan for different savings and investment goals is really cool.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming:

[Emotional State]

Coding is extremely frustrating. One thing works, and then another fails. Working through frustration is difficult for me. I feel a bit embarrassed and childish admitting that, but it's real. I'm grateful that I've been able to push through despite the frustration.

I'm still really bought into the power of this app and this idea of presence. I think we're collectively realizing that things will only continue to become more chaotic. There's no "returning" to normal (whatever that means), and because of this, I am sensing people are searching for ways to cope or, even better, evolve. Practicing presence is one way to evolve.

[Technical State]

I'm stuck in the firebase portion of the build right now. For some reason, it's been impossible for me to actually get this to work (which is a fucking huge part of the app if I want users, lol).

I can't get past the keychain permissions, no matter how many times I try. It's driving me fucking crazy.

If you're an iOS pro... please help.

[Growth State]

I started recording TikTok. None have taken off (yet). Is this like my sixth pass at TikTok content? At least this time, I know it takes time and a lot of experimentation to figure out a format that works.

I've also been sharing on Twitter. Nothing has really come of that other than it's been good to just brain-dump live there. It's more like a live-log of how I'm doing.

Build log - 3

[Emotional State]

Today, I'm in a much better place. As I work on this, I gain more clarity. The clarity is less around the specific features that I'm building or the marketing I'm doing but more on the way to integrate it all. More than mental clarity, it feels like emotional clarity. There's an unblocking happening. I'm not sure what's doing more "unblocking" the act of building PresentSelf or the act of being a PresentSelf user. I think they're one and the same.

I feel like I'm constantly thinking about this quote from Eckhart Tolle (also what inspired my post on presence)

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

The act of building pulls me into the present. Being present makes me momentarily unaware of the regret of the past and the unease of the future.

This is probably unhealthy and counterintuitive, but experiencing presence in this way underscores how miserable I used to be. Most of my days really were brainrot spiritrot – bookmarking Twitter threads, listening to podcasts about other people's success, dreaming about my "future." That shit fucks you up.

[Technical State]

I've gotten both morning and evening automation to work correctly. It seems so simple on the surface, but actually, getting data to map correctly is difficult.

I've also reconfigured the weekly analysis so that it's much simpler.

I think this week will be a good indicator of how everything is running.

There's a bit of a lag because I'm dogfooding my app. Every time I "refactor," it causes a delay on the actual user end, so things are a bit backed up. That's ok.

Insight.

I've been chewing on whether or not to make this an actual native app. I think I need to do a quick analysis of the MVP version to determine if it's working or not (maybe one more week of use), but then weigh the pros and cons of building an app.

The insight that's tipping me more into app territory is that I'm seeing more and more that the real power of PresentSelf is less the insights or AI portion and more the act/art of checking in.

In some ways, I feel like checking in is a portal into the present. That's the real magic. The problem is that it can be difficult to mentally/spiritually shift to get into a state of mind to check in.

Many people (including myself) do things like closing their eyes, breathing exercises, and other centering activities.

I think the next version of PresentSelf (especially if in an app form) will combine a pre-check-in activity (like a short breath exercise) with the check-in itself.

[Growth State]

I put out a TikTok yesterday. It didn't do any numbers, but it did help me to warm up.

I found this thread about Tiktok growth and am following the steps.

I created a new TikTok account and I'm warming it up over the next day or so.

I get confused as to whether I should be building a "founder-led" account or a "product-led" account. I think there are pros and cons to both. Maybe in the spirit of integration, I should go "founder-led".

I'm also working on a landing page via Framer. It's been an interesting learning curve. I like the out-of-the-box designs.

I've also been looking to acquire domain names. The ".ai" domains are insanely expensive. Thankfully presentself.ai is reasonable. I can't tell if that's a good sign or not 😂

Build Log - 2

[Name Update]

Present Self (?) Came up with a potential new name for the idea. I like it because there is both a .com URL and a .ai URL, which I'm seeing is increasingly rare. I think the name captures the essence of the idea and still leaves some room for play and intrigue.

[Emotional State]

I feel quite frustrated right now. I think it's because I'm feeling that constant "one step forward, two steps back" reality of building.

Here's the good news:

• I've rearchitected the entire database structure and have gotten the weekly analysis to work on dummy data
• I'm learning Make.com pretty well – it will be a useful skill no matter what

Here's where I'm annoyed/stuck:

• having to redo the entire daily logging scenarios. pre-annoyed at the thought that they won't actually sync well because it's trying to put data into a single row but based on when the log comes in – just writing it out feels like there'll be an error lol
• wondering if i need to just build this as an app, but i feel resistance to that as well. it only gets more complex as you build, I can get it to function in this simple state.

Here's what I feel resistance towards:

• marketing – I feel like I don't even really know how to approach the "content strategy" for this. Maybe I should just make a rough outline and start recording lol

Build Log - 1

I've been building Farsight (name TBD) since Oct 29, 2024. In 14 days, I've been able to make a really fucking simple version of it barely work. It's cobbled together with Twilio, Make.com, OpenAI and Airtable. I also have a pretty shitty landing page/waitlist created in Framer.

A reminder to myself that I'm building for an n=1, myself.

So far, the daily logging feature seems to be working. I get the daily sms prompts, and I actually enjoy responding. I'm not sure if it's more pride and eagerness because something I built actually functions, but there is something satisfying and centering about actually checking in.

I have to think about where I am energetically and assign a number. That action forces me to think about why I might be low or high. It's a simple task, but it sends a really high signal of how I'm experiencing that day.

Here's what's broken:

• Data capture and especially the data analysis.
  • My hypothesis is that chatgpt 4o is especially good at structuring unstructured data then analyzing it, but for some reason (mostly because I'm listening to Claude), I've been building the data to be very structured. I'm wondering if that's part of the problem.
  • The analysis itself is too complicated because we're ascribing too many tags to it. I get it. We want to create some kind of system of tags to get insights over time, but I'm not sure that it's working.

Right now, here's what we're doing:

1. Checking in in the morning with two questions:
   1. What is your energy 1-10?]
      1. Tag is a number, 1-10, associated with date, check-in time (morning), and anticipated activity
   2. What are you most looking forward to today?
      1. Tag is long text, unstructured, variable length, associated with date, check-in time (morning), and energy level
2. Checking in in the evening with three questions:
   1. What is your energy 1-10?
      1. Tag is a number, 1-10, associated with date, check-in time (morning), and highlight of the day
   2. What was the highlight of today? Why?
      1. Tag is long text, unstructured, variable length, associated with date, check-in time (evening), and energy level
3. Chat then takes these raw responses and runs them through a prompt that tags and sequences the response into a required JSON structure.

The issue is that our pre-selected tagging structure doesn't (and will never) perfectly capture the responses. There will be a surprise and delight moment on Saturday, where they will get to see a snapshot of how they were feeling that week, what they looked forward to, what went well, and what didn't. There may be

What does the end user really want? (even if they don't know it)

1. Most importantly, a "forced" moment to check in with themselves. A chance to be present in an ever-moving, ever-demanding reality.
2. Knowledge that their responses are being stored and will reappear in a helpful way down the line
3. There will be a surprise and delight moment on Saturday, where they will get to see a snapshot of how they were feeling that week, what they looked forward to, what went well, and what didn't. There may be interesting correlations between energy levels and anticipated events. What are all the correlations?
   1. AM energy <> Anticipated event
   2. PM energy <> high
   3. PM energy <> low
   4. Delta between AM energy and PM energy
   5. Was the anticipated event the highlight?
   6. What causes low energy relative to lowlights?
   7. What causes high energy relative to highlights/

The database needs to capture just the number and the raw text. I need to understand what data structure suits chapped the best for this sort of thing. I think I need to ask it to tell me what kind of insights it could first capture with these inputs, then ask it how the data needs to be structured and how the prompt needs to be structured to most optimally return clean insights.

Chat then takes these raw responses and runs them through a prompt that tags and sequences the response into a required JSON structure.

Then need to update the scenario to pull from this.

Other bugs:

• I've been running into issues with Make in that for some reason it's not pulling the raw daily data into the weekly insights. I may need to start over.
• Weekly insights scenario successfully runs but with no actual analysis – data is being incorrectly pulled or formatted somewhere in the scenario

Other considerations:

• the name. I first had the name for farsight in 2017. I think I like it because the story behind it is clever once you get the product, but there are just very little good domains associated with it. I feel like I should consider more literal names like "energycheckai" or something like that?
• marketing. I'm gaining more and more clarity around the marketing, and even just testing demand. I'm considering doing a tiktok test, where I literally just go on and "facilitate" check-ins via video. Something worth trying.