Short Daily Update: One Life, Two Paths: Can You A/B Test Reality?
Week 5 – Day 32 of borrowing AI’s brain while I run the field test on my own life
There are two versions of me, living in two parallel realities.
Split-screen.
On the left side of the screen, I stay in my corporate job. I build products, I go to meetings, I write this newsletter at night, I tell myself that one day I’ll make the jump, but I stay in the same place. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. It’s fine.
On the right side of the screen, I quit my job. I spend my days writing, creating, fully immersed in a life that feels more like me. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I thrive, maybe I spiral into existential dread and start applying to jobs on LinkedIn at 2 a.m.
Which screen is real?
Which one do I step into?
I don’t know yet.
Jumping Without Looking vs. Testing Before Jumping
In the past, I would have just jumped.
I’ve done it before. I’ve worked in call centers, been a venture builder, a tech person. I’ve started magazines, radio programs, companies. I’ve made big moves without looking back.
Because when you just know, you know.
But the older you get, the more you have to lose. The more cautious you become. The harder it is to hear your own intuition through the noise of “stability” and “financial security” and “but what if the world is collapsing tomorrow?”
I started as a journalist because I wanted to tell stories. That was my way of making an impact. But over time, I realized something:
I wasn’t changing the world.
I was just documenting it.
So I moved to tech—where I could actually build things that shaped the world.
It made sense. It was rational. It was strategic.
But now, I feel the pull again. The urge to tell stories. To create. To make meaning.
And I don’t want to just jump.
I want to validate that the jump makes sense.
Minimum Viable (Life) Experiments
One of the best things I learned from building digital products is this:
🚀 Before you go all in, you test.
🚀 Before you build the full product, you launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
🚀 Before you commit, you validate the idea.
And I believe we can do the exact same thing with our lives.
When you have an idea that your life could look different, you don’t need to burn everything down and move to a remote cabin in Iceland. You can design a small experiment.
This newsletter? It’s my MVP for a writing life.
I’m not optimizing for revenue (not yet).
I’m optimizing for learning.
I’m testing:
✔ What do I like to write?
✔ Do I like doing this consistently?
✔ Does this resonate with anyone?
✔ Does this bring me joy?
Later, I’ll test if this can be a business. But right now? My Top Metric is learning.
Because the truth is, people wait too long to change. They wait until they’re desperate. They wait until they have no energy left.
But what if we listened to the early signs instead?
What if we tested small shifts before making big moves?
The Time I Ran a Minimum Viable Life Experiment (MVLE)
Let me tell you about the time I almost made a terrible decision.
A few years ago, I was convinced that my true calling was leadership coaching. So I decided to test it.
I took one week off work and ran the experiment as if it were real:
📅 Day 1: Set up the company, the accountant, the website.
📅 Day 2: Lead generation.
📅 Day 3: First coaching calls. More lead generation.
📅 Day 4-5: More coaching, more client acquisition.
📅 Day 6: Existential crisis.
📅 Day 7: Realization: I would have hated this as a career.
I loved coaching.
I hated everything else.
I hated doing it alone. I missed working with a team.
I hated the admin. I didn’t want to spend my days chasing invoices.
I hated lead generation. Cold outreach made me want to disappear into the ocean.
I couldn’t do multiple calls a day. It was draining.
But before this one intense week, I had actually been coaching for six months. Friends of friends came to me through word of mouth. And I liked it.
So the skill was right. The business model was wrong.
Imagine if I had quit my job before testing?
I would have learned the same thing—but under financial pressure.
I would have felt stuck. I would have been building something I didn’t actually want.
Instead, I ran the MVLE. I got my answer. And I moved on.
That’s the beauty of testing.
You de-risk change.
How to Design Your Own Life MVP
If you feel stuck or uncertain about a change, try this:
1️⃣ Write Down Your Big Vision
What’s the life you keep imagining? The thing that keeps pulling you?
2️⃣ Set a Top Metric
What would success look like? (Revenue? Joy? Time? Freedom?)
3️⃣ Ask: What’s the Minimum Viable Life Experience?
What’s the smallest, simplest way to test this without quitting your job, moving countries, or making a huge commitment?
4️⃣ Set a Learning Goal
What are you trying to figure out? Example: "Do I like doing this consistently?" "Would people pay for this?" "Do I actually enjoy this, or do I just like the idea of it?"
5️⃣ Run the Experiment (And Keep It Short)
Don’t set an MVLE that takes six months.
Give yourself some days or a week - keep it small.
6️⃣ Review and Decide: Keep Going or Let It Go?
🚀 Did the experiment give you momentum? Keep going. Start small—focus on the first learning goal and let it guide your next step. If that works, layer in the next experiment, then the next, moving closer to your Top Metric and ultimately, your Big Vision.
🚀 Did it make you realize you don’t actually want this? Let it go. No guilt, no sunk-cost fallacy. The test did its job: it saved you time, energy, and possibly, a big mistake. Now, you’re free to explore something else.
So, What Now?
I’m running my own experiment, right now, right here on this substack.
Maybe this becomes my life.
Maybe it’s just a phase.
Either way, I’ll know because I tested it.
And maybe you have something in your life that deserves an MVLE, too.
🚀 What’s one idea, one vision, one thing that keeps calling you?
🚀 What’s the smallest way you could test it—this month?
I’d love to hear.
And if you know someone who’s stuck, maybe this is the nudge they need.
And now, let me tell you—this text itself is an experiment.
It was inspired by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, who said he thinks with AI and works with his colleagues.
This piece was not written entirely by me. It’s the result of an intense back-and-forth with ChatGPT: first to refine and deepen my thinking, then to shape the structure, and finally to craft the words on the page. This wasn’t just AI correcting my grammar. It was a collaborative process.
Did you notice? Does it feel different now that you know? Is this a fair way of writing, or should writing remain an exclusively human act? If AI only corrects grammar, is that acceptable? What about shaping ideas? What about co-creating? Where do we draw the line?Who gets to decide?