I've been quiet for a year. Here's why.

I went quiet for a year. Not because I ran out of things to say — because I hadn’t finished building what I needed to say them from. New daughter. Deep nights learning AI and automation. Learning to delegate. Keeping my clients sharp. The newsletter had to wait. That was the right call. And I’m only coming back now because the foundation is actually there.

If you’ve been in your own version of that — heads down, learning, circling what you want to build but not quite ready to move — this issue is for you.

Here’s what we’ll cover in this issue:

My daughter Vienna — and yes, I love the shit out of her — changed the shape of my days in ways I didn’t expect and wouldn’t trade.

My wife and I decided on part-time nanny care, which means I’m still the primary caretaker for four hours every day.

What it gave me — and still gives me — is structured constraint.

Nap time is the gap. That's it.

Maybe an hour, maybe less — and I wasn't going to start anything real for a client in that window. So I'd pull up a YouTube video on AI prompting, or go down a rabbit hole on automation.

No pressure. No commitment to produce anything. Just learning for the sake of it — because I knew I wanted to go there eventually.

Client work has its own block. That never slipped. But the newsletter, the podcast, the things I'd been thinking about building? Those had to wait. The foundation came first. That's the sequence.

Here’s the story that captures the whole year for me.

I spent several late nights trying to build a sort agent in n8n — connecting tools, automating a workflow I kept running manually. I’d think I had it. Ask Claude or ChatGPT for help on one piece. Get close. Then: “You’re out of credits. Try again later.” Frustration. Start over.

A few days later, I found a video showing how to use Claude and VS Code together to build n8n workflows just by describing what you want in plain language. Same rabbit hole. Same late nights. But this time it clicked — I could build agents for almost anything that way.

Then I found out Claude can now just operate your computer directly and handle most of it for you.

So I spent weeks learning to build something, found a faster way, then found out the whole category had shifted again.

A lesser version of me would have sulked about the wasted time.

I moved.

I played competitive tennis growing up. The thing about tennis — about any sport at a real level — is that the moment you feel like you’ve mastered something, someone finds a way to beat you differently. You don’t get to be precious about it. There’s no version of “but I spent so long on my backhand” that wins you a match. You adapt. You work from where you are now.

The practitioners I see stuck on AI aren’t stuck because they’re slow. They’re stuck because they learned one tool, it changed, and they feel like pivoting means the learning was wasted. It wasn’t. If something breaks, you’ll know why. But you cannot let the path become the point.

Here’s the honest state of things: we have superpowers available to us right now. What used to require a team — content, systems, automations, client workflows — can be built and managed by one person who knows what they’re doing.

But knowing what to do is the hard part. Not because AI is complicated. Because there’s too much of it, it changes fast, and no one’s telling you which parts actually matter for your practice.

My honest answer: it doesn’t matter yet. What matters is that you build enough literacy to lead the work — whether you’re doing it yourself, working with someone, or eventually hiring it out.

Enough to know what you’re getting. Enough to know what it should cost. Enough that you’re not lost in the process just because you don’t understand every piece.

That’s what this newsletter is here to do. What it was always here to do. Week by week. No hype. Just what I’m actually seeing and building.

The year had to happen before the expansion could mean anything. That’s the sequence. Not a detour — a prerequisite.

If you’ve been in your own quiet season: you’re not behind. You’re in the before. And the after is closer than it feels.

Hit reply and tell me where you’re stuck right now. What’s the thing you keep circling but haven’t figured out yet? I read every reply — and right now, coming back after a year, I especially want to know.

— Baldo

COMING SOON — AND I WANT TO KNOW IF YOU’RE INTERESTED

I’ve been building two things quietly this past year.

First: the Ops & Om Podcast — starting with a series on the business of health, and eventually including conversations with practitioners I deeply respect and want to highlight.

Second: The School of Doza: Business of Health — a membership where we meet weekly, learn, and build together. Especially built for those who want to grow but aren’t ready to hire — or just want to learn alongside others.