It's easy to become overwhelmed by all of the information in the videos and in the community. Every day, I read words and acronyms that I do not understand and watch people build apps that are just crazy brilliant. One of the things that I started doing early on is taking something I didn't understand and feeding it to ChatGPT to explain. Drop in a video and ask, "Tell me the basics." or "Explain this as if I were in 9th grade." Take a discussion here in the community and copy/paste then ask questions. You can do that with someone's app/repo, too. Ask, "What does this do?" or "What problem does this solve?" The responses become another classroom. Ask until your brain is full. Ask until you are weary - because the next day those questions and answers become a foundation. Soon, you'll find yourself asking deeper questions, like: "What are the most important files in this repo and what do they do?" "How does the structure support the desired results?" "How does data move through this system?" and then that becomes ... "What parts of this repo fit my project?" "How could I adapt this repo to do X?" Don’t let the acronyms, tools, and tech language intimidate you. Everyone starts at the beginning. When you see people with 20 years of IT experience or someone launching a product that earns money right away, that’s okay. Celebrate it. Learn from them. But don’t let their progress distract you from your own opportunity to build, create, and make your mark in the AI world. You belong here, too. Every day brings something new to learn and a new idea to explore. I keep finding myself amazed by what is possible. The more I learn, the wider my vision gets. Only now, I’m not just watching anymore — I’m building, creating and imagining what I can do next. You will get there too.

I did not come from a technical background. I did not go to college. I have always had a knack for technology, and always been a voracious learner. I was recently let go as the director of finance for a construction company that I had been with for 19 months. I started as an unqualified project manager and asked to be the CFO because of my banking background after being with the company for 6 weeks. I said I wasn't comfortable with the title because of how unqualified I knew I was. We settled on the title of director, but I essentially was asked to operate as the CFO. I leaned heavily on ChatGPT to fill in the educational gaps. I didn't just want the answers, I wanted to understand the questions, the answers, and how the two correlate. I never wanted to lose those lessons, and I didn't want ChatGPT to start from scratch when I had to begin a new session, so I copied all of my logs into word documents. No one told me there was a better way, and it was better than having to start with a blank slate each session. In February I decided to try Claude and I felt like an entirely new world was opening up for me. The first day of chatting it created a deal assesment dashboard. Immediately I began to imagine all of the possibilities for improving our company. I tried providing the context to Claude that I had acquired from working with ChatGPT, but after I uploaded my word docs I was already at 80% on my context capacity. That was when I asked it to help me trim it down so we had more room to work. That was when I was first introduced to an MD. I didn't quite understand the full power of that file type, but I began to take the same approach with the MD's that I had with my word docs. I crammed everything I could into one MD. It was about two weeks later that my boss talked to me about Jake. He sent me the video and said that the method I had stumbled across was actually the best way to work with AI. I immediately began to rework the mess my MD was and setup a proper ICM system. I used it to create an accounts payable agent that saved me and my team the headache of entering in 150 new bills over the next three weeks.