I'm back, and I built something new

Hi self-improver,

Twenty months. That's how long it's been.

I actually wrote you an email back in February to explain myself, and then never sent it. Which, honestly, tells you everything about the state I was in. lol.

So this is the real one. Where I've been, what I've been quietly building, and why I think it matters more than anything I've made before.

The grind that killed the fun 😕

You know that culture of always having to be productive? Always shipping something new, always optimizing, always having a strategy? I bought into it. Hard. With FindYourTriggers every week had to be progress. I was reading about how to grow faster instead of actually enjoying what I was building. At some point I wasn't building something I loved anymore. I was just performing. Performing productivity. Performing progress.

The worst part? I genuinely loved helping people with self-improvement. That never changed. But the pressure I put on myself to turn that into a "real business" sucked all the joy out of it. I optimized myself out of my own passion.

So I stopped. Not dramatically. I just didn't send the next newsletter. And then another month passed. And another.

For a long time I had no idea what to do next. Change direction again? Shut it all down? Just focus on my job? The honest answer was: I don't know. And for someone who always has a plan, that was terrifying.

But not knowing turned out to be fine. Actually, more than fine. When you stop forcing a direction, the right one starts showing up on its own. I took a step back, focused on my day job, and slowly started tinkering again. No plan. No goals. Just building stuff that felt interesting.

And then something clicked.

I built VibeThoughts 💭

Here's the thing I kept catching myself doing.

I'd think about someone. My mom. An old friend. Someone who just started a new job. A genuine, warm thought. And then... nothing. The thought always showed up in the shower or in the car, and by the time I could actually do something with it, it was gone. Weeks later I'd feel guilty about it and still not send anything, because now it's been too long and what do you even say at that point.

I don't think I'm alone in this. I think most of us are way more thoughtful than our sent messages suggest. The caring is there. The follow-through isn't.

So I built VibeThoughts. It's simple:

1. You dump the thought, out loud, in your own words. "Check in with Sara about her new job next Friday, keep it casual."

2. We remind you at the right moment, so it doesn't quietly disappear.

3. We write the message in your voice, not chatbot voice. You read it, tweak it if you want, and it opens straight in your chat app.

It learns how you actually write from a few of your real messages, and you rate every draft, so it gets closer to you over time. It never sends anything for you. You always press send yourself. Your notes are encrypted, never sold, and never used to train models.

And it's free to start. Not a trial, no card, nothing that expires on you. The free version gives you 5 thoughts a month and it still writes in your voice, which is the part I'd want proof of before paying for anything.

Try it here: vibethoughts.com

There are also a few free tools that don't even need an account. And if you use Claude or ChatGPT, you can plug VibeThoughts straight into it and just say what's on your mind.

Why this is a mental health thing 🧠

You might be thinking: Tristan, you sold us on self-awareness and now you're doing a messaging app. Fair. Let me explain, because to me it's the same project.

FyT was about looking inward. Your triggers, your patterns, what sets you off. I still believe in that. But I've come to think I only had half of it. Looking inward on its own can quietly turn into rumination. Tracking, analysing, optimizing yourself, alone, in your own head. I've done plenty of that. It isn't always healing. Sometimes it's just a nicer word for overthinking.

The other half is outward. And the thing that keeps showing up in wellbeing research isn't a habit, a supplement or a morning routine. It's the quality of your relationships. It's not even close.

And relationships almost never die from a big falling out. They die from silence. From "I'll message them next week" repeated forty times. Nobody chooses to drift. It just happens while you're busy.

There's a second benefit I honestly didn't see coming: sending the message is good for you, not just for them. That little bit of guilt you carry around, the "I should really reach out to X" that's been sitting in the back of your head for four months, that's a real, low-grade mental load. Clearing it feels amazing. And you almost always get something warm back within the hour.

Remember the story I told you back in September 2024? About the friend who asked me one simple question, "Do you want to get your degree?", and completely changed the direction of my life? He still forgets he ever said it. I never will.

That's the whole thing. Small gesture, massive impact. You never know which message is the one that lands for someone. You just have to actually send them.

And FyT? 🌱

Not dead. I still believe in it. I'm taking it in a direction that feels more natural and less forced, and it fits together with VibeThoughts better than I expected. Inward and outward. More on that in a future edition.

Oh, and notice the name at the top. State of Triggers is now State of Thoughts. Same SoT, slightly wider lens.

Finishing up

This one took me about an hour to write and I feel better than I have in months. Exact same thing happened the last time I sent one of these. Apparently past me knew something. So here I am again.

No promises on frequency. No grand relaunch plan. Just me, sharing what's on my mind, like it used to be.

And if reading this made you think of someone specific: don't wait until you have the perfect words. Just send them something. That's literally the whole point.

See you soon,

Tristan

🌱 -> 🌻