An AIoT Evangelist | Startup Founder | Keynote Speaker | Thought Leader | Author | Social Media Influencer
Take your time.
Learn the terrain before trying to conquer it.
Respect people more than speed.
Accept uncertainty earlier.
And understand this.
The work that lasts often feels slow while you are inside it.
If it feels quiet, steady, and demanding, you are probably building something real.
And that is enough.
Experience does not interrupt you.
It nudges.
It hints.
It quietly warns.
You learn to listen differently. To pause before reacting. To notice unease before excitement.
Wisdom waits for attention. It does not demand it.
Staying power is unglamorous.
It looks like repetition.
Routine.
Patience.
It rarely trends online.
Yet this is where meaningful work happens. When motivation fades and only discipline remains. When results are slow and faith carries the effort.
Consistency builds what intensity cannot sustain.
Progress once meant expansion.
More projects.
More exposure.
More growth.
Today, progress looks different.
Fewer distractions.
Better systems.
Stronger fundamentals.
Stability with purpose has become more valuable than constant motion.
Progress feels quieter now. And more real.
Partnerships do not survive on excitement.
They survive on trust, alignment, and shared expectations.
When conditions change, weak foundations surface quickly. Strong ones adapt quietly.
Some partnerships end not because of failure, but because growth pulls people in different directions.
Learning to let go without resentment is part of maturity.
Meetings are one of the best places to study people.
Who listens and who waits to speak.
Who takes responsibility and who deflects it.
Who seeks clarity and who hides behind complexity.
After years of meetings across universities, corporations, government agencies, and startups, patterns become obvious.
People rarely change styles. They repeat them.
Understanding this helps you choose collaborators wisely and avoid unnecessary friction.
Speed can be expensive.
Launching too early.
Pushing before readiness.
Forcing alignment.
Timing is invisible until it is missed.
The doodle character hesitates here. Not fearful. Just aware.
Momentum without timing creates friction.
Big promises are easy to make.
Small signals are harder to fake.
Who shows up repeatedly.
Who follows through quietly.
Who remains steady when things slow down.
The doodle character notices footprints rather than banners.
Signals age well.
Promises don’t always.
At some point, you stop trying to predict everything.
Not because you stopped caring.
But because you understood the limits of control.
Uncertainty stops feeling like a threat.
It becomes a condition of the work.
The doodle character walks calmly here. Shoulders relaxed.
Acceptance brings calm.
Calm improves decisions.
I did not expect this feeling to arrive so quietly.
No dramatic moment.
No emotional breakdown.
Just a soft question that kept returning while I stared at my screen.
Should I stop writing eBooks about IoT, startups, and entrepreneurship?
I have written several eBooks over the years. Some came from years of experience building platforms. Some from scars earned while running a startup. Some from observing founders struggle with the same blind spots again and again.
I made them free.
No paywall.
No upsell tricks.
Just knowledge, stories, and lessons shared openly.
Yet after my last three books (Hello IoT, The Favoriot Way: A Life Built on Curiosity and Courage, Favoriot : The Journey of an IoT Startup), something felt off.
Downloads slowed.
Shares dropped.
The quiet became louder.
At first, I blamed myself.
Maybe the topics are stale.
Maybe I am repeating myself.
Maybe people are tired of hearing from me.
Then another thought crept in.
Or maybe the world has changed.
I noticed something about my own habits before blaming anyone else.
I no longer Google as much.
I open ChatGPT.
I type a question.
I get an answer.
Direct.
Fast.
Clean.
And here is the uncomfortable truth.
I am guilty too.
I ask AI to summarise books.
I ask for key takeaways.
I skim instead of sitting with pages.
Who am I to complain when I do the same thing?
That realisation stung.
Because I used to love reading slowly. Highlighting sentences. Rereading paragraphs. Letting ideas sit for days.
Now, time feels compressed. Attention feels borrowed. Everything competes for mental space.
This is not about AI replacing writers.
It is about AI changing readers.
People no longer want to search.
They want answers.
They no longer want ten blog posts.
They want one response.
They no longer want to explore.
They want to arrive.
Why buy a book when a prompt gives you a clean summary?
Why spend hours reading when minutes feel enough?
That question hurts writers, but it is not wrong.
Books were once a journey.
Now they are treated like databases.
Tell me what matters. Skip the rest.
I hear people complain about attention spans all the time.
But I do not think it is laziness.
I think it is survival.
We are flooded with inputs. Messages. Alerts. Updates. Noise.
Reading a 150-page eBook feels heavy when your mind is already full.
The new generation did not lose patience.
They adapted to overload.
They want clarity, not volume.
Direction, not depth.
At least not by default.
Making my eBooks free was supposed to remove friction.
Yet free does not mean easy.
Reading still costs time.
Thinking still costs energy.
AI removed that cost.
One prompt feels cheaper than one chapter.
So why am I surprised?
I keep asking myself something uncomfortable.
Am I writing for impact, or am I writing out of habit?
In the past, writing eBooks felt like leaving a trail behind. Something lasting. Something searchable. Something meaningful.
Now it feels like throwing paper planes into a sky full of drones.
They fly faster.
They reach further.
They respond instantly.
Paper planes still matter.
But fewer people look up.
AI feels like a conversation.
Books feel like a lecture.
That difference matters.
People want interaction. They want follow-up questions. They want context tailored to their situation.
A book cannot ask back.
AI can.
And that changes expectations.
I did not write eBooks just for readers.
I wrote to think.
Writing forced clarity.
It slowed my thoughts.
It made experiences visible.
If I stop writing books, what replaces that?
Blogs?
Short posts?
Conversations?
Voice notes?
I do not know yet.
That uncertainty is unsettling.
Here is a thought I am still wrestling with.
Books may no longer be entry points.
They may become reference points.
Not where people start, but where they return when they want depth.
AI gives direction.
Books give texture.
AI answers questions.
Books explain why the questions matter.
But fewer people reach that stage.
Another truth I had to face.
I assumed free meant valuable.
I assumed experience meant relevance.
Neither guarantees attention.
The world does not owe writers readers.
Attention is earned every day.
Even by those who have written before.
When I say I feel like stopping, I am not quitting writing.
I am questioning the format.
Maybe eBooks are not where my thoughts want to live anymore.
Maybe ideas want to breathe in smaller spaces.
Or in stories.
Or in conversations.
Or maybe fewer books, written slower, with deeper intent.
I am not sure yet.
AI has changed how we read.
AI has changed why we read.
AI has changed when we read.
That shift is real. It is not a phase.
Fighting it feels pointless.
Understanding it feels necessary.
I can keep writing eBooks and accept fewer readers.
I can stop writing books and find new ways to share ideas.
Or I can redefine what a book means in a world that no longer reads the same way.
Right now, I am sitting with the discomfort.
No dramatic announcement.
No final decision.
Just honesty.
I still believe ideas matter.
I still believe stories shape thinking.
I still believe writing is worth doing.
But I no longer believe format guarantees relevance.
Maybe the real question is not whether I stop writing eBooks.
Maybe it is whether I am brave enough to write differently.
If you are a writer, a reader, or someone who quietly stopped reading books, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Have you felt this shift too?
Dr. Mazlan Abbas 