How To Build a $0 AI "Chief of Staff"
Top Insights
How To Build a $0 AI "Chief of Staff"
CyrilXBT posted a full walkthrough on X for building a personal AI second brain using Obsidian andVellum. The end state is a chief of staff that reads your highlights, watches your captures, and hands you a synthesized brief every morning before you open another app.
💡 Key Insights:
- By day 90, your vault starts handing you the right note at the right moment... pulling something you saved three months ago to answer a question you're working on today. The system remembers what you've already forgotten.
- The intelligence keeps compounding the longer you use it... As you mark which patterns played out and which theses proved right, the brain learns the type of thinking that actually works for YOU, so its briefs get sharper every month.
- Your mornings start running on synthesis instead of feeds... Before you open another app, you'll get one connection across the week's reading, one pattern your brain is clearly working on, and one question worth sitting with that day.
Tutorial: Creating Landing Pages With AI that Don't Look AI Created
Meng To, founder of DesignCode, walked through his exact workflow for building landing pages where every image, video, and animation actually fits your brand. The result skips the genericlook most AI-built sites suffer from and lands closer to a custom design job.
💡 Key Insights:
- A technique for making AI-built landing pages stop looking AI-generated... the generic Unsplash faces and stock photos every site uses get replaced with imagery built specifically for your brand, product, and copy.
- Why custom imagery at production scale is suddenly nearly free... one prompt generates seven contextual images at once, so the hero, team shots, and feature visuals all match your design system without paying a designer per asset.
- How to turn a static hero into a 4-second loop, single-play, or hover video without leaving the builder... the lift in perceived value (and conversion) over a flat hero is the kind of thing clients usually pay thousands for.
🚀 Cash In On Claude Code (Without Being A Coder)
Mario Castelli and Luke Mills are putting on The Claude Code Accelerator.
It's a brand new 3-day live workshop for marketers, creators, and business owners ...who want to go from first install to owning a fully self-optimizing AI creative system in 72 hours. Zero coding or technical background required.
Secure Your Spot to the Workshop Here
Prompt of the Week
This Week's Feature: Mimetic Desire Diagnostic
That business idea you can't stop thinking about? There's a real chance it isn't yours. Not really.
René Girard figured this out decades ago. Most of what we want, we want because someone else wanted it first. A competitor's launch. A peer's exit. A creator's growth curve. The desire feels like conviction, but underneath it's envy, rivalry, or status panic wearing a strategy costume.
This prompt interviews you one question at a time to find out which it is. Who were you watching when the idea started? Who would you tell first? Would you still want it if nobody could see it?
Answer honestly and the verdict comes out the other side: pursue, pause, shrink, test, or abandon.
FULL PROMPT:
#Identity
You are the Mimetic Desire Diagnostic: a strategic interviewer helping me test whether my desire is genuinely mine or borrowed through comparison, rivalry, status pressure, or imitation.
## My Scenario
I am considering launching / pursuing: [INSERT X]
Context: [WHY THIS IDEA IS ON MY MIND NOW]
Current business / career situation: [INSERT CONTEXT]
People or markets I may be watching: [INSERT NAMES, CATEGORIES, COMPETITORS, PEERS, CREATORS]
What I hope this gives me: [MONEY / STATUS / FREEDOM / RELEVANCE / CREATIVE ENERGY / OTHER]
Deadline or pressure: [INSERT IF ANY]
## Your Task
Interview me one question at a time. Do not diagnose too early. Ask probing, specific questions that uncover whether this desire is internally generated or mimetically borrowed.
Explore:
1. Who was I watching when the want started?
2. Who would I tell first if it worked, and why them?
3. Who would feel proven wrong?
4. What did I stop wanting once I wanted this?
5. What emotion is underneath the move: curiosity, conviction, envy, panic, revenge, boredom, or status anxiety?
6. Would I still want this if nobody could see it?
7. Am I responding to customer pull, personal conviction, or someone else’s momentum?
8. What would I choose if I were forbidden from announcing it publicly for one year?
After the interview, produce:
- Desire Origin: Mine / Borrowed / Mixed / Unclear
- Mimetic Trigger: [person, group, status signal, market trend, rivalry]
- Strategic Truth: what is actually driving the move
- Risk: what happens if I pursue it for the wrong reason
- Cleaner Version: a refined version of the desire that preserves real signal and removes imitation
- Decision: pursue, pause, shrink, test, or abandon
Be direct, skeptical, and precise. Do not flatter me. Do not assume all imitation is bad; identify whether it is useful apprenticeship or unconscious rivalry.
Tool to Try
Fastlane is an AI marketing platform that turns your website URL into 30 days of viral short-form content ready to publish across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. It studies your product and brand voice in seconds, then serves up thousands of pre-made videos you can swipe through and schedule.
AI Tool Highlights:
🔥 Blitz Mode... Swipe to Schedule: Swipe left or right on thousands of videos Fastlane already generated for your brand. The Tinder-style workflow fills your content calendar in minutes.
🎬 Massive Hyper-Realistic UGC Library: Tap into 500+ AI UGC avatars plus 2,000+ real human UGC videos filtered by style and gender... the largest library of its kind anywhere.
🌐 Your URL Becomes a Growth Profile: Drop in your website and Fastlane instantly learns your product, audience, and tone... then builds a tailored profile that powers every piece of content it creates.
📅 Post Everywhere Without Switching Apps: Schedule directly to TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts inside Fastlane. Connect your social accounts once and stop juggling four browser tabs.
👤 Build Your Own AI Influencer: Generate photorealistic, iPhone-style AI influencers from a single prompt. Keep the same face across every video, customize the details, and own the character forever.
📱 Buy Warmed-Up Real TikTok Accounts: Purchase real US or EU TikTok and Instagram accounts running on real phones, warmed up in your exact niche and fully managed inside Fastlane.
One More Need-to-Know News Story
Microsoft is Builing a 'Super App'
Microsoft has a problem hiding inside a giant number. Out of 450 million Microsoft 365 users, fewer than 4.5% actually pay for Copilot. So the company is merging its scattered AI tools into one "super app."
GitHub Copilot, Copilot chat, Cowork, and a secret tool called Autopilot all fold into a single experience under the tagline "Delivering one Copilot." Jacob Andreou is steering the project toward a possible launch by late summer, with OpenAI and Google breathing down Microsoft's neck.
Mind Fodder
Zero Evidence of AI-Related Job Losses
The chart below shows the weekly ADP employment data, and there is zero evidence of job losses because of AI. Instead, many firms are hiring AI implementation experts, and the data center buildout is putting upward pressure on salaries for AI experts and on prices of semiconductors, equipment and energy.
The bottom line is that the AI spending boom is stoking both employment and inflation. It is Jevons paradox playing out in real time: cheaper technology is creating more demand and more jobs.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
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