Got a timely reminder from my friend, Malene, this week.
Based in NYC and currently an artist in residence in Houston, Malene is a multi disciplinary artist.
Her work is rooted in her Caribbean heritage and inspired by the surface patterns found in African and diasporic architecture, textiles, and objects.
In one of our weekly accountability sessions, Malene reminded me of the difference between successful people and very successful people.
She said that very successful people say “NO” to almost everything.
She explained how years ago, she would have said YES to a recent opportunity that came her way.
Now, she has the clarity to understand where she wants to direct her creativity.
She doesn’t hesitate to say no if an opportunity does not align with her vision of what success looks like.
Her words stayed with me.
Because I think a lot of founders are carrying a quiet kind of overwhelm right now, watching everyone else build AI agents and wondering whether they should be doing the same.
But maybe the first question isn’t yes or no.
Maybe it’s this: what do I need to ask or even uderstand before I build an AI Agent for my business?
Why AI Feels So Overwhelming for Founders
My thought pendulum swings back to Malene’s kind of clarity every time I think about building with AI.
I think about how much time I’m willing to devote to learning a new tool.
A lot of that has to do with how I’ve measured at success over the past few years.
My tape inches toward a new definition: freedom: location freedom, time freedom, and monetary freedom.
Once I began to defining success this way, key decisions I made changed.
Like Malene there was a time in my life, in a career far away, when I would say yes to everything. You too?
A new client. A new project. A new opportunity. A new direction. A new thing that looked shiny enough to deserve my time.
So when I look at the number of people proclaiming what AI agent they built, I understand the pull.
A Cautionary Note
But first you need to recognise this a race among all platforms to get to the top
Each model, it seems, is trying to out do the last version of a tool they released just yesterday.
I’m slightly exaggerating, of course. But don’t doubt me when I say this feels like the AI Wild Wild West.
There is always something new. A new tool, new model, new workflow, new platform.
Another promise about how much faster, smarter, leaner, sharper, better you’d be if only you stopped everything and learned this one thing immediately.
And I’ll be honest, some of it is genuinely exciting.
I’ve embraced Claude. I’m building agentic workflows. I’m deeply curious about where all of this is going.
But I’m also in an era where I’m no longer chasing shiny pennies.
This matters.
It’s Easy To Misplace Energy
Because AI can easily become one more place you energy can be scattered.
And to be frank, I’ve seen this kind of energy misplacement among founders I know.
They are not tech savy, they’re now suing AI more fully.
They try a few tools. Save a few posts. Watch a few tutorials. Open a ton of tabs. And they go no further.
Maybe it’s overwhelm. The time needed to build. Then there is the comparitive analysis.
Anybody else thinking that every single person in your social feed understands AI more than you do?
That spiral can be hard.
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Questions To Ask Before Building An AI Agent
Over time, I’ve learned that the only way to stay sane in all of this is to have a filter.
So whenever something new about an AI agent crosses my feed, I ask myself a few simple questions before I decide whether it deserves a yes or a no.
First up I’ll ask…
“Will learning and building ‘this’ actually help solve something in my business?”
This primary question has saved me a lot of time. I get to focus on a problem I face and a possible solution I can build.
Excitement alone is no longer enough for me.
Neither is trendiness or the fact that everybody online is suddenly sounding like they’ve had a spiritual awakening because they connected three apps and built a half-working automation.
What I care about is usefulness.
Deeper Questions And What Comes After
Can building an AI agent help me work better? Think faster? Speed up a process that currently drags?
Will a new AI powered workflow give me back time or even support a real part of my business that needs, well, support?
How is this a real opportunity for my business if I learn X as opposed to Y?
Where can I start, and what time can I actually allocate in the week to create, learn, build?
If I’m getting clear my next question is: What tool, workflow, or agent can I build or use around this that makes my business stronger?
That’s where the shift happens for me. That’s when I might say yes to the time it takes to learn and build.
And sometimes, just as importantly, I say no.
No because it’s not solving a real problem.
No because I don’t have the bandwidth right now.
No because not everything worth admiring is worth adopting.
I have the option as well to put things on hold.
AI As Infrastructure: Why Founders Need a Filter
AI is infrastructure. Think of it as part of your operating system.
Over time, it becomes part of how you work, how you think, and how you systemize workflows across your business.
So again, the founders who think strategically will go back to the drawing board with the questions I outlined.
I know on social media the noise rises sky high.
So I’ll encourage those in my coaching sessions to go back to the same grounding thoughts: what do I actually need AI to solve, what do I realistically have time to learn and build, and what result am I truly hoping to see?
Those questions are golden.
They help quiet some of the noise in your head and bring you back to your actual business instead of everybody else’s excitement.
You begin to work from your real capacity, which matters more than people admit.
And I think that matters, especially now. And I don’t have to look far to say these tech platforms and your needs are not always aligned.
Think First, Then Build
Last year, OpenAI made major consumer-facing pushes with products like Sora.
But now, the company appears to be shifting more of its energy toward coding tools and enterprise use. That alone should tell you something.
These platforms will keep changing.
Their priorities will shift. Their roadmaps will change. What looked urgent to learn six months ago may not be the thing that matters most now.
That is exactly why founders need a filter.
Not every exciting feature deserves your time and not every launch deserves your attention.
And not every tool that looks impressive on social media is worth building into your business.
Because before you say yes to AI, you also need to ask: can I trust this enough to use it in my business?
Think in terms of what happens to your data, whether the output is reliable, and whether a human still needs to check the work.
I say this all the time. Think first. Then build.
How to Build With AI Without Losing Yourself
Technology is asking an awful lot from us.
It asks us to stay open, to stay curious, to stay willing, and also to hold on to our sense of self while our heads are spinning.
That’s part of why I’m paying attention to where my time goes.
I don’t want to spend my energy collecting AI skills for the sake of saying I know things. I want to build things that support the life and business I’m trying to create.
I want a workflow that helps me turn one good idea into several useful assets, systems that reduce drag, and tools that help me create with more ease and more depth.
And I want my hours to count. I suspect a lot of you do too.
So I go back to the kind of clarity Malene found when she got honest about where she wanted her creative business to go.
Look, I’m not telling you to say no.
Truth is, investing in yourself remains one of the greatest ways you can grow, both professionally and personally, with AI.
What I am saying is this: check for alignment and assess the risks.
That has held true in every season of my business, and it still holds true now, with AI.
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