An Overdue Update: The Struggle, The Progress, and What's Next

The Struggle

I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to write this. Honestly, I've been struggling to write in general. Unfortunately, every time I try to write or build things I feel like I get some kind of paralysis. It feels so hard to start sometimes, which has, sort of, always been the case for me in certain subjects. I've never felt I was the creative type — I would ALWAYS struggle starting something that doesn't have a very defined path. I just kind of stare at it hoping some epiphany will hit me. The only time I ever actually felt creative was when I would create cocktails, and I think most of that was using a good starting point. Starting with a template, a classic cocktail, has always been easier for me. This is part of the reason I'm doing this though — the struggle. A big reason for the switch-up is feeling too comfortable and bored, and with no struggle most pursuits aren't worth it. What's jumping out of an airplane if you're not at least a little worried you could die?

Slowly, but Surely

While the struggle to write is real, the Deep Learning AI courses are not a struggle. At least, not in the sense of making myself do them — actually learning is a different story. I wake up 5–6 mornings a week and do at least one week of a course every day, sometimes two. I don't know the exact number of course certificates I had when I started this, but I'm now up to 21 certificates, 2 of which are "professional certificates," at least that's what they are called. I will finish my third professional certificate in the next day or two (Natural Language Processing). As I am wont to do, I have done some of my courses in the wrong order. Right after my idea for my company I asked Claude what courses I should take on DeepLearning.AI's website. It suggested Deep Learning Specialization as the number one course I should take. It was the very first thing I jumped into, very excitedly. That came to a crashing halt during my first course week. I think it's one of the website's first courses that was posted, because it feels older and less polished than the more modern courses. That's not a knock on the course, but I understand that when you are starting out you have less experience with the little details that improve experience and comprehension. I would also like to note that this was labeled an intermediate level course and I was so excited I just charged straight ahead. The first week ended up being a lot of handwritten algorithms and I just felt like I was staring at another language — it was very, very disheartening. Fortunately, I powered through and eventually felt like I was getting a good grasp on what we were learning. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment once finishing the course and was proud of myself for sticking through the almost complete lack of understanding at the beginning. Upon finishing, I felt a little lost so I decided to do another course to have a sense of progression. Well, wouldn't you know it, I chose Machine Learning Specialization. This ended up being the absolutely perfect starter course to — drumroll please — Deep Learning Specialization. I was flabbergasted at how much better this course was designed for a beginner and how perfect of a warm-up it was to the course I wanted to take. Either way, I'm glad I took them both. I really truly enjoy their courses and will continue to take all of them since it's only 30 bucks a month.

My Future Company

My Deep Learning...learning has been going great. The actual building and testing part of my company has not been so great. My first task, that Gemini gave me, was to record data of myself climbing and trying to get myself to freeze. I bought everything it told me to buy, went to the gym, and recorded 10 control attempts and 10 actual attempts. I had Claude sync all that data to the video, and that was a month ago. I have done almost nothing since, unfortunately. The only thing I've actually done in the last month was have Claude build me a web app to more easily sync my data, but I still haven't even tested it. This is where I feel a lot of that paralysis. I just think to myself, okay cool I synced my data — but I have absolutely zero idea what to do with it past that. It all feels so daunting, and I know it's only been 2 months and I have a long way to go, but it still can feel overwhelming. I'm also not sure how you build a company that doesn't really have a product, at least nothing real any time soon. I do like the idea of data analytics, such as SemiAnalysis, because I really enjoy those guys, but again I have zero experience in how to do something like that. I'm by no means giving up, but I'll admit some days are a lot harder than others. The one big, sparkling, terrifying bright spot is the DeepLearning.AI Developers convention next week.

Never Have I Ever

I have never been to a professional convention. I'm not talking about ComicCon, which I have been to — I mean one of those conventions where a bunch of professionals meet to network and talk about their latest work. I've waited on many, many convention people over the years and always wondered what they were like. In movies and TV, you always see the boring side, or more often, the crazy side that actually happens outside the convention. Either way, I've never done anything like this and I'm both terrified and excited. When they announced this, I want to say it was in December — I told my wife right away that I think I should attend. It actually took a lot of courage because I am not a very social person and hate things like this, insofar as meeting and talking to people. I feel extremely underqualified, but this has been some of my favorite content I've engaged with in AI — I really enjoy their courses and I want to meet like-minded people. It's only a week out and I'm still very nervous, but less so than I expected. Networking is never something I've been good at and that's my main focus and goal for this event. Having people who actually know what they are doing, or just people in the industry to help, would be monumental to me. I'm also incredibly excited about all the talks and workshops. I have done all of this alone — my wife listens and supports, but I don't have any other friends or people interested in this stuff. So the idea of potentially finding someone to work with is super exciting and would really help me a lot. I really don't mind putting in the work, it just feels hard — or more importantly, overwhelming — doing this alone. I will post again after the convention with an update. I'm posting it right here, right now, that I WILL post about it within a week of the convention (28th–29th) to hold myself accountable.