Podcast E656– Interview With Elijah Mills  🔗 **Source:** [Podcast E656– Interview With Elijah Mills](https://share.snipd.com/episode/62ff9ccc-d983-41ea-9a7e-5fabded252bf) ## Highlights - **Patch The Events Calendar Vulnerability** - Update The Events Calendar immediately if running a version before 6.17. - An unauthenticated remote-code-execution flaw potentially affected 200,000 sites across roughly 600,000 installations. Transcript: Adam Silver One thing to mention here, the popular plug in the events calendar apparently had an unauthenticated RCE flaw that could expose a lot of sites to a lot of damage, meaning 200,000 sites, 600,000 active installations. If you're running that plug- before 6.17 you definitely want to update that as soon as possible. ([Time 0:01:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4f94eb79-a67d-4042-8cf7-abfd77eead9e)) - **Elijah Mills Switched From WordPress To Video** - Elijah Mills began in WordPress products in 2018 before moving through marketing roles. - He ultimately pivoted into video production after discovering stronger interest in creative, on-camera work. Transcript: Elijah Mills Sure. So I started in, I think, 2018 at a company that makes WordPress products and served in a bunch of different roles there over the years. And then more recently have pivoted to video production after kind of making my rounds in the marketing stuff, you know, and trying to run things on that side. I found that I really enjoyed the video aspect of things and decided to go fully into that. ([Time 0:03:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f195fca7-b3ef-4edd-8720-0b05e4a7a889)) - **Narrower Focus Can Improve Both Work And Life** - Elijah Mills realized broad marketing work prevented him from producing his best work. - Prioritizing quality of life and a narrower focus made video production a better professional fit. Transcript: Adam Silver So why the pivot? What was the actual catalyst for that? Elijah Mills I mean, you were in WordPress, you were a CEO, you said, right? Yeah. Um, well, I wasn't at the time of the pivot. I had kind of shifted into more of like a marketing manager role. Um, basically it was a role that required spending a lot of plates. And I find that I do my best work when I'm focused on a narrower scope of work. Don't we all? Right? I mean, truthfully. I think there's some people that thrive in the chaos, maybe. I don't know if I've met them, but I assume some people do. And it's just, it just became more and more obvious that I was not the person for that type of, um, that type of role. And as I've gotten older, I prioritize like quality of life over quantity of everything else. ([Time 0:05:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/329a599a-4f86-416c-8a56-7a88203d8e90)) - **Deep Work Beat Constant Context Switching** - Context switching undermines Elijah Mills’s productivity, while video lets him develop a deeper sense of craft. - His hobbyist mindset also turns new interests into potential video topics. Transcript: Elijah Mills Yeah. I just found that things. Yeah. I mean, I have stuff, but, but it's stuff where like, you know, in a given day I have a project, right. And that's for me, context switching is the enemy of all productivity. Yeah. If I can eliminate that, I do much better work, much more efficiently. And video felt like something I could go deep on. I'm a big fan of Cal Newport. I don't know if you've read any of this stuff, deep work and all this. So around that same time when I pivoted, I had been reading all of that and I was like, this is what I want. I want something that I can spend time on that I feel that I have a kind of sense of craft for, which I do for video more than anything I've done in the past. Syndrome has always been a big problem with video, not so much, which is kind of the signal to me. It's like, Hey, maybe this is what you should be doing. Um, plus it serves so many other, you know, serial hobbyists, right? Anything I do that I want to tell other people about, I can make videos about. ([Time 0:08:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fac19d3a-786c-4416-9b3f-46ff9f0d77ba)) - **Judge AI By Better Output Not Magic Tricks** - Test AI tools against real output rather than assuming their promises are accurate. - Elijah Mills is experimenting with DaVinci Resolve’s MCP integration while evaluating whether it genuinely improves his work. Transcript: Adam Silver So AI is hot, as we know. In the WordPress space, it's hot. But also, I listened to another podcast called Syntex.fm. They were talking about MCP servers and using DaVinci with AI. I'm like, oh, yeah, I knew that was there. I forgot about it. Have you tried it? Well, I just installed the update with the MCP server today. Elijah Mills I will say, and people may be shocked to hear this. I'm a bit of an, not anti AI, but I haven't, I'm very slow on my adoption because I, I am very particular about things that make me more productive at the cost of my mental health. Okay. If that makes sense. A hundred percent. I love it. AI feels like one of those things that allows you to spend more plates. Right. And might drive me crazy. Where it's like, oh yeah, it's doing this other thing. So now I can context switch and I don't want to context switch. Right. If I had a beard, you wore a hat, we'd be like twins. Um so yeah when it comes to like i'm i actually have a codex session running right now trying to make an edit in davinci to see what it does because i want i want my opinions about ai to come From a place of experience and not biased necessarily to be honest i'm biased against most ai stuff just because of the current climate of a lot of what you see being things that don't Fulfill the promise that they're making as far as LLM powered software and things like that. Come at it from a place of like does this make my life better to use it or is it just you know a magic trick that makes me feel more productive but not ([Time 0:11:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2b1419ed-2ef5-4201-9cf4-b875d986b954)) - **AI Augments Skill But Cannot Replace Understanding** - AI can augment skilled people, but its shared technical foundations create flaws that switching human workers can avoid. - Elijah Mills also worries automation encourages laziness and dependence on costly subscriptions. Transcript: Elijah Mills I see that are most bullish on some of these llm power technologies are either the ones that don't actually have to use them on the ground or the ones that don't know enough to know when It's wrong and so in that way that comes back to like it being an augmentation technology where if you're already good at something, sure, it can help you a lot. But my big thing is like people get into arguments with me all the time comparing it to hiring a human, like humans mess up too. But I feel like LLMs have some fundamental flaws that are far more technical than I can probably eloquently talk about that you can't get around. Whereas humans, if you have a human that does a bad job, you get a different human. Adam Silver With LLMs, everything's based on the same fundamental architecture. Exactly. And it's frustrating to know when, I mean, you were saying you have something running. I pay 20 bucks a month for the codex i have the api for chatty which uses both now i have the api when i needed it for something else but because of what i'm working on at the moment um about About noon at noon it literally said to me you're out of codex and work usage your rate limits reset at 250 p.m i'm like well i'm dead in the water using this tool right now unless i want to Upgrade to 100 a month which i really don't want to do so yeah there's that with a human okay go go take a break and then come back you know well and that that comes to another point for me personally Elijah Mills Is i know that i have the laziness gene like i'm gonna be lazy if i'm allowed to be and I will forget how to do things. And I will be at, I will be stuck to a subscription, no matter how expensive it gets to be able to do my work. For instance, on Pi Calendar, we went through a big, a long period of trying to do agentic development. And it put out way too much stuff, way too fast, that we didn't understand that I will not ship. And sure, we could have shipped a bunch more features in that time, but I'm not going to ship technical debt. And it's only technical debt in the sense that I don't understand it. But I'll eventually, if I keep that workflow, and a lot of people are adopting this, where you don't even need to know the code because the LLM does. Well, I don't like that because I'll, I'll forget how to write the code and then I'll have to pay somebody to be able to generate code. And I would rather not do that. ([Time 0:15:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/efc359b9-2ab2-416f-9289-00e40ec04562)) - **Why Elijah Only Vibe Coded A Private Project** - Elijah Mills used AI to build a basic affiliate-and-discount-code system for a family project. - He accepted the risk because he controlled the project, but would not ship similar code to paying customers. Transcript: Adam Silver Have you vibe coded anything and you used it for yourself? Elijah Mills Yes. There was, um, a personal project for a family member that needed a very basic affiliate setup. And I kind of mentally architected it as just discount codes with tracking, essentially, that are tied to an account. And so far, I mean, it's not in heavy use, but so far it's fine. I would never ship that to paying customers. But for something that's in my domain that I control, that is not going out to hundreds or thousands of other people's websites with different variables in play, I'm comfortable with That. So yeah, I definitely have experimented with that sort of thing. But I've also vibe coded things that seemed great at the MVP level. And as soon as I started adding features got so big that I didn't understand it. ([Time 0:17:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2bfde96c-a167-4f7d-999d-1de3de5b8547)) - **Use Local Film Communities To Enter Video** - Connect with people who have more experience when entering video production. - Elijah Mills gained practical guidance and industry contacts by volunteering with a local film festival. Transcript: Elijah Mills What advice would you give them? Um, so I would say that I'm like pretty new at it myself as far as, as a business, um, because I worked in house for so long freelancing as an editor or pretty well now producer of video content Is is pretty new to me. I think that it's tough to give concrete advice on how to break into it as a business. But, um, one of the things I did that I, I think helped me a lot and helped me learn a lot about the business and, and make some good connections was getting involved with a local film festival, Which has nothing to do with the types of video I make, but, um, the community was really welcoming. And I got to meet some people that had done like pretty serious work in the industry, like people that had made commercial, Super Bowl commercials for Doritos and stuff like that. Like people that had been through the fires and had really good advice to give, um, which became applicable to my work eventually. But, uh, yeah, I would say try to make some connections with people that know more than you. ([Time 0:21:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3c0d1ede-4b99-439f-a5d1-03b618f0a455)) - **Three Simple Tools That Speed Video Work** - Use Notion’s calendar database to track commitments and a shuttle controller for precise timeline editing. - Elijah Mills uses a Contour Shuttle Express to trim silences and fine-tune cuts efficiently. Transcript: Adam Silver Three tools kind of business-wise that you live cannot live without for your business or your day-to sure um notion for sure is what keeps me from uh from losing my head yeah um I I use I Elijah Mills Didn't even have a paid plan. I use a database with a calendar view and I just throw everything on that. And it helps me remember things like this podcast so that I can actually be where I'm supposed to be. Um, the other thing kind of on the editing side that sped things up a lot for me is, uh, a shuttle controller, which is just like a little, you know what it is, but just for everyone else, Adam Silver Got like a little jog wheel on it it lets you scrub through the timeline i used to have one real quick which i never really used i used so infrequently i ended up selling it i had the one that Was made by was it um it was silver with like five buttons on top kensington might have made it i don't know who made it but yeah i i won it at a conference and I didn't. Yeah. Elijah Mills So, so the one I have is a contour shuttle express. It's like not super expensive. It's not fancy. It's got five buttons and a jog wheel. Um, it just, for me, it helps. That's the one I had. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, I don't like, so I use a track pad. Um, and for me, it's so much easier to do like the fine editing when you're cutting out silences or cutting off just a little bit too much silence before a word or after a word or between Words. So much easier to use a jog wheel to do that. I use a track ball. Old school. That might, yeah, that probably accomplishes the same thing with that kind of fine control. ([Time 0:25:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dc819881-4574-4658-9452-d8016a180441)) - **A Dog Clicker Makes Video Editing Faster** - Elijah Mills wears a dog-training clicker ring and clicks during retakes or mistakes. - The resulting waveform spikes make bad takes easy to locate alongside DaVinci’s silence-cutting feature. Transcript: Elijah Mills Um, the thing that i've i've actually made a video about this but that actually like revolutionized the way i edit videos is a dog training clicker and you you might know this trick um Where you just click it whenever you have a retake or a mess up or whatever um so then when you go in to start editing, you can see those little spikes in the waveform. Yeah. So I know if I, I used to do music, so I'm pretty good at recognizing which words are being said in the waveform and when they're repeated, but I can see a phrase. And then if I see a spike after that, I know I don't even need to listen to the first take. I can just go until there's no spikes and then cut out the bad takes. Adam Silver Which is ironic because that's how we started this is I told you I snapped my fingers before I do the intro. That way I know when we started versus you know that kind of thing. So yeah. Elijah Mills Yeah absolutely and I have one that's a ring so you'll see it on my hand in all of my videos. And yeah it saves me a ton of time that combined with, because DaVinci has like an auto cut silences feature. Right. So I can go in and cut all the silences, but it preserves the spikes unlike some other software I've tried. ([Time 0:26:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/73f5cb9c-7c4d-476f-9bf2-ffadfbf1156b))