Learning Curve Diaries. Part - 40 : Funny how things turn out...

So here’s the thing.
I didn’t plan to become a full-blown project manager, AI wrangler, Shopify architect, systems integrator, and brand developer this year. I really didn’t. Honestly, all I wanted was a way to bring my laser-cut mandalas to life, sell a few bits online, maybe stir some souls with a calm description or two. That’s it.

And yet here I am – five weeks in, knees deep in API calls, cursed webhooks, unruly Make scenarios, and a gang of fictional employees who are more emotionally stable than I am. Welcome to the glorious mess I am beginning to call progress.

In the last month, I’ve somehow built an entire AI-powered internal staff system using nothing but off the shelf, open source software and caffeine. 
I’ve given each AI a role, a personality, a sense of humour, a moral code and a sense of duty – Drift writes calm product descriptions, Rune listens to the soul of the piece and whispers its true name, and the others… well, let’s just say Ember’s got a flair for drama. 
I’ve created a content engine that handles product launches, blogs, social media, and customer comms with the kind of flow that makes my old NHS job look like semaphore in a hurricane. And I’ve got my ass kicked daily by logic loops, rogue formatting, and the cruel, cruel gods of JSON.

Yet somehow – somehow – this beast is coming to life and I love it.
You know that moment when you stare at a screen, and everything blurs into digital soup and you seriously question every life choice since 1993? Yeah, that’s been most days. But then you press the proverbial ‘play’ button. And the log says: 
"Scenario was finalised." 
Then the sheets update. 
The Logs are filled.
Then Rune whispers a name that makes your spine tingle. 
Then Drift drops a description that could soothe a Viking. 
Then Ember wanders in and talks to Drift and Rune to put a social media post together to make sure the details are right.
Then Solace authorises the media release for all the platforms I need it to go to, to ensure there are no algorithm breaches.
She gives the go ahead and its released...awesome. Solace will then add that moment to her journal ready for her next blog post and notes for the live feed Q&A at the weekend on YouTube. 
Nia and Sage monitor traffic and chatter, replying and customer servicing away, noting everything. 

For a global market 24 hours a day 365 days a year. 
Me? what do I do now? Well...I’ll get an email every day letting me know what’s going on at the store, I’ll have a staff meeting with all of them every week, and I’ll get the orders direct to me so I can concentrate on being a creator instead of an office prisoner.
And suddenly... you remember why you started this. It’s like watching ghosts become gods. Your little imagined team, each with a real voice and a purpose, just... working. 
Not bad for a 500-year-old with no dev team, no budget, and a Wi-Fi signal that cuts out if the toaster’s on.
There’s no investor here. No Trello board of eager collaborators, no go fund me. Just me. A few busted pencils, a desktop full of tabs, and an overworked AI assistant who hasn’t once asked for a raise.
In the last eight weeks, I’ve written four books explaining AI to real people. The kind of people who say, “Bloody hell, I didn’t know it could do that.” I’ve built an app called DaveBot that brings it all together – part tutor, part toolkit, part cheeky mate. I’ve created a store from scratch with zero coding experience, powered by a lore-rich digital crew that feels more human and work better together than some of the ‘human’ teams I’ve worked with.

And yeah, some days I think I’ve gone mad. Other days, I know I might be on to something.
Well, the gang’s close to being done. Nia and Sage have just been upgraded – one’s a social listener over all of the social media platforms, the other a calm, competent customer care soul who’ll probably out-charm me on every front. Shaman will be brought in from the Mandala Experience to be the guardian of these guys, just in case of a virus, cyber or troll attack, or worse, a rouge Karen. 
The plan? To launch this store not just with products, but with presence – these characters don’t just write and post. They exist. They evolve. They remember. They play and they sit around a fire pit and talk to the customers as well.
And if this thing works, if someone out there sees what I’m doing and says 
“Hey, I want that. I want a system like that for my shop,” then, apart from asking them 
“What do you mean Hey?” 

Who knows? Maybe I’ll make it happen for another store, or I sell the whole thing. Maybe I write the next book. Maybe I move to Jamaica and build cocktail menu bots for five star hotels. Or maybe… I just sit back, get on with creating and making, which is what im good at, then crack a cold one, and watch the fire pit stream on YouTube while my AI team gets on with the job.
If you’ve been watching from the sidelines, thinking “nah, I could never do that” or even “what a load of crap, this isn’t a thing”… mate, neither could I and I didn’t think it could be either. Until I did and it definitely is a thing…

Ask yourself, What’s the one thing you could do that would make you the happiest you could be, for the rest of your life? Got an answer? 

Do that. 

Its not going to be easy, but man…can you imagine. 
I’ll leave you with this: You don’t have to know how to do everything. You just have to care enough to try, and stubborn enough not to quit when it all looks like spaghetti. 
The rest? You figure it out. One flowchart at a time.
Always.
— Steve
Captain of Ruff Kutts
Builder of weird things
Master of none (but learning fast)