2025: The Year I Learned to Balance Vision with Velocity
A reflection on building in public, discovering vibe coding, and finding fulfilment in the gap between intrinsic purpose and external achievement
As I sit here on the last weekend of 2025, I’m struck by a realization that would have felt impossible just twelve months ago: I’m simultaneously more energized and more uncertain than I’ve ever been in my career.
This year, I launched Facing Disruption from an idea in my head to a platform with 8,600+ YouTube subscribers and 12,100+ LinkedIn followers. I discovered vibe coding and went from zero to the top 1% globally on Lovable in just 55 days, writing 422,000+ lines of code. I built Project Nexus, a storytelling platform for thought leaders, taking it from concept to beta users in months instead of years.
But here’s what nobody tells you about achieving the things you’ve been chasing: the external validation feels amazing and oddly insufficient. The subscriber counts matter and they don’t. The speaking opportunities are validating and they leave you hungry for the next one.
This tension - between what we accomplish and what it means - has been the defining theme of my year.
The Self-Help Trap I Almost Fell Into
Earlier this year, as Facing Disruption started gaining traction, I found myself caught in a familiar pattern. Every milestone felt good for about 48 hours, then I was already thinking about the next one. Hit 5,000 subscribers? Great. When do we hit 10,000? Launch Project Nexus? Awesome. When does it become profitable?
The self-help industrial complex would tell me I was doing it wrong - that I needed to find happiness from within, that external achievements are hollow, that I should celebrate the journey instead of obsessing about destinations.
And you know what? That advice almost broke me.
Because the truth is, I am energized by external validation. I do get a rush when someone emails me saying a Facing Disruption episode changed their approach to AI strategy. I am proud when I see my subscriber count grow. These aren’t character flaws - they’re what make me human.
The mistake isn’t wanting external rewards. The mistake is thinking you have to choose between internal fulfillment and external achievement.
What Changed: Embracing Both Sides of the Coin
Around mid-year, I wrote a piece revisiting my thoughts on “Living Your Own Goals” from a decade ago. The core insight: fulfillment requires balancing intrinsic and extrinsic goals, not choosing between them.
This reframing unlocked something for me:
The intrinsic side is why I started Facing Disruption in the first place - a genuine fascination with how leaders navigate technological disruption, a desire to learn from brilliant practitioners, a love of synthesizing complex ideas into frameworks people can actually use. This is the stuff that gets me up at 5 AM to prep for interviews, the reason I’ll spend hours refining a LinkedIn post until it captures an idea precisely.
The extrinsic side is the growth metrics, the speaking opportunities, the consulting engagements, the validation that this work matters beyond my own interest in it. These aren’t shallow markers - they’re feedback mechanisms telling me the work resonates, they’re how I measure impact, they’re what makes the business sustainable.
When I stopped judging myself for wanting both, everything shifted.
The Vibe Coding Revelation: When Capability Meets Choice
Speaking of things shifting - let me tell you about vibe coding.
On November 5th, I started experimenting with Lovable and Claude to build Project Nexus. By December 30th, I was in the top 1% globally for code written on the platform. 422,000+ lines of code in 55 days.
As someone who spent years building websites with raw HTML and CSS, this is insane. I’m turning strategic visions into functional prototypes in hours. Not weeks. Not months. Hours.
Here’s where it gets interesting - and ties back to that intrinsic/extrinsic balance:
The extrinsic achievement is undeniable: I can now build things that would have required a development team and six-figure budgets. That’s powerful. That’s marketable. That’s the kind of capability that changes business models.
But the intrinsic experience is equally important: I’m absolutely addicted to the creative flow state of vibe coding. It’s not about the output - it’s about the process of imagining something and watching it materialize, iterating in real-time, solving problems as they emerge. This is deeply satisfying work, regardless of whether anyone ever sees what I build.
When I only focus on one side - just the capability without the joy, or just the joy without the output - I miss the point entirely.
The Curse of Unlimited Potential
Here’s the counterintuitive truth I’ve discovered this year: this is simultaneously the best and worst time to be an entrepreneur.
For creative builders like me, the traditional curse has always been the same - we solve problems, ship solutions, and immediately want to move on to the next thing. Restlessness is our default state.
Before, we had constraints: funding, technical talent, access to tools. These constraints helped by limiting our options.
Today? We can will things into existence. AI writes code. Tools generate designs. Automation connects everything. The barrier between idea and reality has collapsed.
Which means the new bottleneck isn’t capability - it’s choice.
When anything is possible, how do you decide what matters?
I can build three different SaaS products this month. I can launch five new content series. I can automate half my workflow and reinvest that time into... what, exactly?
This is where the intrinsic/extrinsic framework becomes essential:
Intrinsic filter: Does this light me up? Does it align with my core curiosity about Human+AI collaboration and technology leadership?
Extrinsic filter: Will this move meaningful business metrics? Will it create opportunities for impact and revenue?
Projects that pass both filters get priority. Everything else, no matter how cool or possible, gets deferred.
What This Means for 2026
I’m heading into 2026 with more clarity than I’ve had in years, but also more uncertainty than is probably comfortable.
The clarity: I know what fulfills me. It’s the combination of meaningful work (podcasts with brilliant guests, frameworks that help leaders make better decisions, platforms that solve real problems) and tangible achievement (subscribers, speaking engagements, revenue, recognition).
The uncertainty: The pace of change is overwhelming. Every week brings new AI capabilities that fundamentally alter what’s possible. The tools I’m addicted to today might be obsolete in six months. The strategies that work now might not scale to my goals.
But here’s what I’ve learned: that’s the wrong way to think about uncertainty.
Uncertainty isn’t a bug - it’s a feature. It means the landscape is still being shaped. It means there’s room to build something distinctive. It means the game isn’t over.
The Permission We All Need
If you’re reading this and feeling like you’re supposed to find all your happiness internally, or like wanting recognition makes you shallow, or like you should already have figured out your “purpose” - stop.
You’re allowed to want both meaning and metrics.
You’re allowed to derive satisfaction from the work itself and from being recognized for it.
You’re allowed to change your mind about what matters as you learn more about what fulfills you.
The self-help industry has sold us a false binary: either you’re driven by internal values (noble, pure, sustainable) or external achievements (shallow, materialistic, unfulfilling).
Real life is messier and more interesting. We’re complex beings who thrive on both internal purpose and external validation. Trying to eliminate one in favor of the other doesn’t make you enlightened - it makes you incomplete.
Looking Ahead
As I plan for 2026, I’m embracing a new framework: strategic restraint in an age of infinite possibility.
I’m scaling Facing Disruption with focused campaigns around specific topics - 90-day sprints with clear metrics and audience segments. I’m launching Project Nexus with beta users who will shape the product through real use cases, not theoretical features I think they need. I’m exploring media partnerships and conference sponsorships to take digital lessons into physical spaces.
But I’m also protecting the intrinsic parts that make this work sustainable: deep conversations with guests I genuinely want to learn from, time to write and think, the creative joy of building with AI tools, the freedom to say no to opportunities that don’t align with both my values and my business goals.
This isn’t about achieving perfect balance - that’s another self-help myth. It’s about being intentional with the tension between what drives me internally and what I’m building externally.
The Bottom Line
2025 taught me that the best work happens at the intersection of passion and performance, meaning and metrics, intrinsic purpose and extrinsic achievement.
I’m not chasing one at the expense of the other anymore. I’m integrating both, learning to recognize when I’m over-indexed on either side, and building a business that honors the full complexity of what it means to do work that matters.
So here’s to 2026: a year of building with intention, celebrating achievements without apology, finding flow in the work itself, and trusting that the external validation will follow - not because it’s the goal, but because it’s the natural outcome of doing meaningful work consistently.
Let’s build something remarkable together.
AJ Bubb is the founder of MXP Studio and host of Facing Disruption, a podcast exploring technology leadership, AI strategy, and innovation for mid-market leaders. He’s currently building Project Nexus, a platform designed to help B2B thought leaders establish authority without drowning in content operations. You can follow his work at facingdisruption.com or connect on LinkedIn.