I said, “No Ness, I’m too sleepy. I need some more time. Please”. He exerts the best self-control one can expect from a two-year-old, pretending to read his book, talking to himself, and stealing glances at me. I get five more minutes before he starts to gently pet my cheek. This is the first time I’ve seen him actively try to hold himself back. To understand the concept of another person’s needs. I hope this is the first step towards building kindness as a character trait. And towards a chance at me sleeping longer in the mornings.

Kindness is one of three values I hope to help instill in Ness. The others are openness and competence.

Kindness comes first, supported by openness and competence to make it impactful. Openness broadens his perspective, allowing him to see the world through others' eyes and notice where others need help. Competence - pursuing excellence in what you do - magnifies his power to make a difference.

These are the values I believe make the human existence meaningful. I strive for them in myself and admire them in others. They have guided my life decisions, leading to a mostly regret-free life and to finding a compassionate, capable partner. 

Being open to the world and leaving it better than I found it resonates with the core of my being. 

My wife and I structure Ness’ day to practice these values through specific habits: building self-efficacy through small challenges, frequent reading and storytelling, and connecting with others.

Competence: A School Worth Half Our Rent

My wife is usually the first to scrape herself off the bed and take Ness to school. He attends a Montessori daycare, a style that instills independence in children. The program is bilingual (English and Spanish) and among Barcelona's best. It also costs more than half our rent. 

The teachers are affectionate yet respectful, treating the children as capable mini-adults. He is taught to do things for himself with minimal help - to chop soft vegetables, knead dough for bread, and clean up after himself and others.

 At home, his independence demonstrates itself in small victories. He wields his child-sized knife through avocados with careful concentration. When thirsty, he takes his cup to the water cooler and fills it just right - with minimal glass smashes and water spills. Giving him autonomy builds his trust in his own ability, which is the first step to competence.

Openness: The Sleepstorylistener

At 4 pm, one of us picks up Ness from school. We then have about five hours to actively choose what we do together. 

Storytelling fills our journey home from school. Day and night, I'm tirelessly narrating stories to Ness. Unless it's 3 am, I try to hide a lesson in the stories. For openness, the stories often include a small lion and a BIG lion. The big lion is unfazed by obstacles, but his size and brute strength sometimes cause unintended damage, like breaking the playground swing. The small lion, nimble and dextrous, finds a way to fix everything. Together, they make a great team, showing that size doesn't determine worth. Some evenings are dedicated to books, where we cuddle on a yoga mat that serves as his play area, and we meet his favourite characters within the pages. I hope reading - and eventually writing - will become a lasting habit. Books expose him to the world’s knowledge and could spark a habit of writing as he grows, encouraging clear and deep thinking.

Ness craves stories at all hours. When he wakes in the middle of the night, he looks at me, still mostly asleep, and asks for a story. He’s not sleepwalking, barely sleeptalking - he’s sleepstorylistening.

Kindness: Learning to Share the Jump Jump Jump

Ness’ favourite evening activity is the “jump jump jump park”. It's a playground with two small trampolines, each just big enough for one toddler. They are hugely popular with the kids around. Ness usually has to wait his turn before he gets to “jump jump jump”. Also, critically, he has to learn to stop after a short while to give others a chance. He almost seems to notice the eagerness in the waiting eyes, and steps off. With just a few early nudges, he's growing attuned to this give and take. At the park, he’s learning to recognize and respond to others' needs.

What Comes Without Teaching

Some characteristics come innately to Ness. He’s fearlessly curious. He’s willing to hurt himself to figure things out. He will make that jump off the high platform to see how it feels. He will walk straight up to the large barking dog and try to pet its face. We want to give him space for this curiosity and drive to flourish while keeping him alive.

Ness outclasses us when it comes to overall energy. He takes longer to fall asleep than we do and likely clocks more steps than us daily, even accounting for his little legs. A tiny motor inside him keeps him toddling nonstop, like a baby Duracell bunny. 

Some mornings, when he wakes me, I have to exercise kindness on my part to get out of bed. I remind myself to be open to his needs, which at 7 am are different from mine, yet equally worthy. And I must competently craft him a morning story that’s both entertaining and educational.

His increasingly gentle ways of getting me out of bed make it all worth it.

Let’s step into a real improv scene. Red Riding Hood is at her grandma’s. But this is no ordinary fairytale. This one escalates into a gunfight with the big bad wolf. Red Riding Hood is taking cover behind a table. She’s firing back at the big bad wolf as he unloads his big bad automatic weapon into the barricade. Grandma tears herself out of the wolf, sealing his fate. The audience squeals with joy, much like my 2-year-old during a great peekaboo session. Amateurs played this scene, many meeting each other for the first time at our workshop.

Improv is great for my mental state. It washes off the cruft in my mind. It reminds me of how being silly with other people can be pure joy. I occasionally enter a session with work on my mind, frustrated by the commitment to the workshop, with much else to do. The class forces me to disconnect from my ruminating self. I leave feeling centered, with my concerns trivial and my mind at ease. I’m not the only one who feels this way.

How improv impacts our lives

When we let ourselves be kids, it changes how we show up as adults. People from our workshop have told me that improv has helped them overcome depression, discover their calling, and change their lives. It’s done so for me too. Here are some ways it’s helped me.

1. Listening to more than the words

There’s a concept of ‘offers’ in improv. An ‘offer’ is a claim made by a player that reveals something about them or the world.

Here’s an opening scene that shows offers in action:

Bob: Dad, you’ve been speaking German in your sleep again!

(The next player now knows he’s Dad, speaks German but not as his primary language, and this has happened before, all of which he should pick up on and explain)

Dad: Son, the Second World War changed me in more ways than one.

(This instantly enriches the character and opens up the scene to a potential flashback - the player caught everything that was 'offered')

Understanding and accepting the offer fluidly makes improv seem magical when it works well. In conversation, I sometimes receive implicit offers that I totally miss. These often reveal something significant about the person. You might recognize subtle offers in common sentences like these:

“I didn’t think you’d notice.”

Implicit: Why do they want me to notice this thing? This must be important to them. Do they value my attention more than they’re letting on?

“I’m just tired, that’s all.”

Implicit: Is this really about physical fatigue, or are they emotionally spent? Burnt out? Something more might be lingering beneath the surface.

I’ve grown better at hearing what’s unsaid. Wife-certified. Playing improv is like doing listening reps. You can’t help but improve at picking up ‘offers’ in everyday conversations.

2. From This Won’t Work to Let’s Make It Work

I have a lot of entrepreneur friends, and I’m often pitched business ideas. I’ve learned never to shoot them down outright. It shuts down the conversation, and for all you know, I might’ve prematurely ended a billion-dollar industry that solved poverty. I focus on “How could we make this work?” rather than “What are the reasons this will fail”. This is the "Yes, And” way in improv, accepting your partner’s words as reality and building on what’s offered. I’ve had conversations about the first wisp of an idea with a friend, who then turned it into a successful product. I did not kill it in its newborn state but cooed and sang to it.

3. Thinking, Fast and True

I’ve changed how I approach meaningful conversations. I enter with more self-belief, trusting my brain to find the right words in the moment. I surrender control, letting my mind speak freely and authentically. This self-efficacy comes from the ideas my brain conjured out of thin air in improv. It’s made me quicker at tapping into my subconscious to say what feels genuine. It'll either help in the tough arguments with your partner—or get you thrown out—but at least you know you thought fast and true.

What does an improv session look like?

Most drop-in sessions won’t and shouldn’t have you play a scene right from the start. You will be eased into opening up. You will become comfortable being vulnerable. Before you know it, you’re far from your comfort zone, and you’re on a unicycle, and everything will be fine but it’s not easy, and it’s not meant to be. It’s like a great gym session or working on a hard problem in flow. It’s effortful yet effortless. Your brain is working full tilt, but you’re unaware of that.

It’s also a deeply social occasion. There is a shared culture of risk-taking and embracing failure without judgment.

You will begin with gentle warm-up games in a circle, like calling out word associations. In a comfortable setting, you will learn rules like Yes, And. Once you’re confident, you will move on to games like Fairytale Replay, where you end up shooting at a big bad wolf. Here’s a list of games to explore to better understand what it’s like.

“Meetup” is an app I use to find or organize improv sessions. Not every town or city may have the luxury of readily available sessions. In that case, start one!

Yes, and go be a child now.

I moved cities a few months ago, and it’s been my longest break from improv in years. Adult me is growing serious, and 6-year-old me is cowed down. Accounting and taxes are crowding my mental space. I’m too much in my head, with layers of dust obscuring my clarity. I need a dose of improv.

Improv is not mainstream enough. Its joys are restricted to those lucky enough to discover it and courageous enough to try it. After a long day of adulting, improv gives you the right to return to your carefree 6-year-old self and play make-believe. Grownup-you watches admiringly. Soon, the walls come down, and openness, playfulness, and spontaneity weave into your life.

The first time I used ChatGPT was in November 2022. If you brought a caveman to a SpaceX rocket launch, it would evoke a similar feeling in him as it did in me. I would show it to friends who hadn’t discovered it like this: “Write a poem about Zeeshaan and [insert friend’s name]. Make sure it rhymes, and make us look good”. Then I watch as my friend’s jaw hits the pavement.

For some, the initial awe faded into a normalization of what it can do. This, in turn, prompted a focus on minor imperfections and, soon after, underusing or ignoring the tech completely.

People began screaming from the rooftops about how it ‘hallucinates’, rather than all the times it gets it right. Zog, the skeptical caveman, probably said, “This ‘fire’ thing keeps all the dangerous animals out of our caves, but we still get stung by mosquitoes so perhaps its totally useless.” This skepticism has been common throughout history. Here’s a real quote:

"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." - Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the Post Office, in 1878.

Around the same time as my ChatGPT Enlightenment, I saw a video by tech YouTuber MKBHD, who had early access to Dall-E. He entered “An astronaut riding a horse” and behold:

This was another neanderthal-exposed-to-mind-blowing-technology moment for me. We may have become slightly numb to what it can do now, but this demonstration gave me chills. This sort of AI imaging tech has made my business possible out of thin air. 

Here are some hard-earned insights.

Do you need millions of $s and a PhD?

I live in Europe, where investors are not falling over themselves to fund every idea that comes to my mind in the shower. This forces me to have a viable business model from the start.

You don’t need to train an AI model from scratch. Build on the shoulders of giants, aka open-source AI models. You can also develop this yourself based on what you’re about to discover.

Many have criticized those who build ‘thin wrappers’ or user interfaces around a pre-existing model with minimal changes. As Zog said, “The wheel is a gimmick, it's just a tree on its side.”

Taking tech that’s not user-friendly and making it so, is non-trivial and creates meaningful value. Consider a service like Typing Mind. It is an unabashedly thin UI wrapper for ChatGPT. According to its founder, Tony Dinh, as of February 2024, it had made $500k in one year.

ChatGPT’s interface is spartan. Typing Mind’s key value proposition is to add simple but essential functionality, like the ability to search through your chats, which doesn’t exist in ChatGPT.

Tons of value can be added with a thoughtful user interface.

“I’m ready to get rich and put a down payment on a Tesla. How do I get started?” - You, the reader, at this point.

Step #1 - Use an open-source AI model.

Get familiar with Replicate. It takes the AI models that needed large teams and millions of dollars to develop and turns them into boxes of play-dough with instructions on the back.

Replicate is the ultimate thin-wrapper-builder-helper.

Step #2 - How do you develop the app without programming experience?

Not only can your service leverage AI by wrapping and selling an AI model—it can also be built using AI. Products like Cursor and v0 help you with coding and user interface design. Have your share of the growing pie and eat it too. A beginner can make an app in record time with these tools and trusty ChatGPT.

That’s the theory. Here’s how I walk my talk:

My service, The Multiverse AI, started as a thin AI wrapper, ate a lot of rich food in a short period of time, and now has curves in all the right places.

Our service takes your sloppy selfies and turns them into professional headshots. It’s another example of AI levelling the playing field - people now have $29 access to studio-quality professional headshots in 2 hours. 

Behind the scenes, the service involves 3 basic steps:

1. Take a publicly available imaging model like Stable Diffusion or Flux on Replicate

2. Fine-tune it on user’s selfies, getting the model’s parameters just right (these are the curves)

3. Generate outcomes with pre-defined prompts.

Meet Miles Robson. Rumor has it that his professional headshots opened career doors and brought riches and happiness.

Over time, we’ve added more features, such as allowing users to generate their likeness in any scenario.

“Me as an astronaut riding a horse”:

We’ve augmented our offering with hilariously over-the-top customer service, giving manual edits to individual people on demand. I owe that to our first and only long-term contractor, my sister! Thanks, Sanaya.

This shock value of Xtreme customer service results in a high rate of Being Impressed even when the customer contacts us with a complaint.

Building with AI is no get-rich-quick scheme. Only a get-rich-faster-than-you-could-before scheme. You still need to create an excellent service - but you now have entirely new product realms, and tools to supercharge development. 

Step into the doors that AI is opening. Don’t make the same mistake that William Preece did. And don’t be Zog.

[Update June 2025] We’re in the process of selling The Multiverse AI, and I’ve launched an AI Influencer Generator service called The Influencer AI. Hoping to continue the journey of living off AI.