It’s a Vibe: Vibe Code Your Attitude
My Weekly List of AI Assists & High-Performance Habits
A practical reset for self-trust, optimism, and the energy to do something with both.
By Lili Kazemi
An unanswered email can become a verdict on your competence before lunch. A sideways comment can commandeer the afternoon. By dinner, you have rewritten the exchange six times and still have not done the thing you actually wanted to do. The original event took thirty seconds. Your interpretation has a full-time job.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the instructions we give AI. Lately, I have been thinking just as much about the instructions we keep giving ourselves: explain more, prove more, wait until you know more, assume the worst so you cannot be disappointed. Those defaults deserve an edit.
Vibe coding your attitude means becoming deliberate about the story you rehearse and the action it produces. For busy professionals, that matters because attention is already overcommitted. We need enough of it left for meaningful work, movement, relationships, and the life those efforts are supposed to support.
Start with the confidence you can keep
In The DAOFitLife Guide to the 48 Laws of Power, I describe my morning practice of reading one of Robert Greene’s laws alongside a passage from Around the Year with Emmet Fox. The combination gives me something useful: awareness of the dynamics around me and discipline over my own response.
Greene can help you recognize status games, incentives, and the urge to establish superiority. Reading those patterns defensively lets you choose how much attention they deserve. You can acknowledge someone’s contribution, make your point clearly, and continue without auditioning for their approval.
My framework is Read. Regulate. Redirect. Read what is happening. Give yourself enough space to choose a response. Redirect your energy toward the work or decision that matters.
The line I keep coming back to is this: External validation is rented confidence. Self-trust is owned equity. Enjoy the applause. Learn from substantive feedback. Keep your sense of worth somewhere a refresh button cannot reach it.
My earlier piece on people who want to see you fail explored the laws themselves. The newer guide turns them into a practice, including 48 affirmations you can use before a difficult meeting or a moment of visibility. Choose one that helps you act with clarity. You do not need all 48 before breakfast.
Put a price on the story you keep repeating
Recognizing a power play is useful. So is recognizing when you have supplied the entire plot yourself. That is where Optimistonomics comes in.
In the video behind that article, I describe a simple experiment: when I recognize that I am continuing an unhelpful negative story and do not actively reframe it, I transfer a small preset amount to a separate account I cannot touch for everyday spending.
The first thought is free. So is having a difficult emotion. The trigger is knowingly continuing an unsupported story after I have enough space to name a more accurate interpretation.
For example, “They have not replied” is a fact. “They have decided I am irrelevant” is a story. An accurate alternative is that I do not yet know why they have not replied. The next action might be a follow-up tomorrow. That is enough information to stop conducting an imaginary performance review.
If you try the transfer version, choose a tiny amount and a weekly cap in advance. Keep essential spending, debt payments, and emergency savings protected. The account remains yours; this is a personal behavior experiment. Skip or stop it if it creates shame, anxiety, compulsive checking, or financial strain, and never use it to penalize intrusive thoughts, trauma responses, grief, or mental-health symptoms.
A reframe also needs to respect reality. Sometimes the useful conclusion is that a boundary was crossed, a plan needs changing, or you need support. Optimism should leave you better able to respond to what happened.
The AI Assist
My AI imposter syndrome article begins with a coffee conversation among female friends and a familiar feeling: using AI while still believing you do not know enough to belong in the conversation. That feeling deserves some scrutiny.
Competence is task-specific. Can you define what you need, protect sensitive information, examine the output, and stand behind the result? Begin there. Women should also be able to expect fair evaluation of their work; a confidence exercise cannot replace that responsibility.
For this issue, use AI to organize one tangled situation. Give it an anonymized account of what happened and ask it to distinguish the available facts from your interpretation.
Try this: Here is a situation I keep replaying: [describe it without names or confidential details]. Separate the facts I supplied from my assumptions and the information that is missing. Offer no more than two plausible interpretations, without claiming to know anyone’s motives. Identify whether I need more information, a boundary, or a next action. Recommend one concrete step I can take today and draft a brief response only if needed. Be candid rather than reassuring by default. Do not diagnose anyone or add more tasks.
Check the answer against what you know. An AI-generated explanation is still an explanation to test. Afterward, record what the tool organized, what you verified, and what you decided. Your judgment should become easier to see, including to you.
The High-Performance Habit
Give the practice five minutes before the inbox gets the first word. Read one affirmation from the new guide. “I speak clearly, then let my words stand” is a useful choice if you tend to attach a closing argument to every request. Then write three short lines: what happened, what you added to it, and the next useful action.
Use the AI Assist only if the situation needs sorting. Finish by protecting the time or energy that action requires. My boundaries article makes this concrete: a calendar, an inbox, and a phone are all places where access needs limits. “I can take this on Thursday” is clearer than “I will somehow make it work.” Say the accurate sentence and give it a chance to stand.
For a goal that feels intimidating, create one piece of evidence that you are moving toward it. The Key Person of Influence framework offers a practical route through Daniel Priestley’s Five Ps: Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile, and Partnerships. Choose the one that serves your current goal. Clarify your pitch, publish a useful idea, or make a relevant introduction. Let the action contribute to your confidence.
The Weekly Vibe
There should be some pleasure in all this self-possession. Otherwise, you have built an efficient system for enduring your own life.
In A Case for Being Uncautiously Optimistic, I return to the idea of a “possibilitarian”: someone willing to see what might become possible and act on it. This week, pay attention to what you keep letting into your head. Keep yourself informed, and make room for something that gives you curiosity, perspective, or the desire to participate.
That includes how you move. My whirling dervish fitness essay is a reminder to recover the enjoyment in movement. Choose something that fits your body and experience: a walk somewhere beautiful, a dance class you want to attend, or a familiar workout with music you love. Let one session be an invitation you look forward to.
Music can also reconnect you with a version of yourself you miss. I love throwback songs, and Look Back, but Don’t Stare explores how to use the past without getting stuck there. Remember a challenge you handled or a time you felt capable. Identify what helped you then and what you can bring into the present. You have been uncertain before and still made a life beyond that moment.
Try one situation this week
Choose a recurring moment that takes more attention than it deserves: the delayed reply, the unnecessary correction, or the invitation you keep accepting when you want to decline. For seven days, practice the same small sequence when it appears:
- Read: Describe the event without adding a motive or a verdict.
- Regulate: Pause long enough to name an accurate alternative and notice how you feel.
- Redirect: Take one useful action, including a boundary or a decision to leave the issue alone.
If you choose the Optimistonomics account, use the preset amount and cap from the original framework. A few notes can also be enough. At the end of the week, look for the situation that kept recurring and the response that helped you move on. That pattern may tell you what needs to change around you as well as within you.
Decision. Action. Outlook.
Decision: Choose the interpretation that fits the evidence and leaves room for possibility.
Action: Follow up, hold the boundary, make the contribution, or take the walk. Give the decision a practical consequence.
Outlook: Notice what becomes possible when the afternoon is available again.
Confidence has more to stand on when you can see the choices you made and the work you carried forward. The next meeting may still be awkward. The email may still take its time. You can meet both with a beautiful mind, a clear sentence, and something better to do afterward.
Smarter Tech. Stronger Humans.
– Lili Kazemi
As Told to Chat. Retold by a Human.
Created with AI, not by it. The imagination, lived experience, judgment, voice, and final edit are mine.
This article shares educational ideas and a personal behavior experiment. It is not medical, mental-health, legal, banking, investment, or other financial advice. Seek appropriate professional support when needed.
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