🧞‍♂️ How I Help AI Help Me Better

Good morning. Welcome back. Happy New Year. ✨

I hope you had a restful, joyful holiday season with family and friends.

If you started or restarted any habits recently, be sure to continue them after tomorrow. Tomorrow is known as “Quitter’s Day," when most people begin abandoning their New Year's resolutions.

Remember, you only fail when you quit. Keep going. I believe in you.

Anywho, today we’re talking about AI. It was all the rage last year, and in 2025, things are about to get… weird.

Let’s dive in.

— Gordon

Everyday Insights 👀
Keeping you in the know

• Leaders Shouldn’t Try to Do It All [Harvard Business Review]

• Is It Still Worth Adding Hashtags to Your Posts? [Social Media Today]

• The future of social media: 7 expert predictions for 2025 [Sprout Social]

🧞‍♂️ How I Help AI Help Me Better

If folks were worried about their jobs being replaced by AI before, this year is going to peg their anxiety at a ten.

This year, we will begin to see enterprises and entrepreneurs leverage AI Agents to complete functionary tasks for their businesses at scale.

Right now, most businesses use AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) as powerful writing or research assistants: they enter a prompt, get an answer, and adapt it themselves.

Moving forward, however, AI Agents will be able to handle entire processes from start to finish with less manual (i.e. human) oversight. They’ll schedule meetings, coordinate with other software tools, monitor performance metrics, and automatically adjust strategies based on real-time data.

Instead of simply responding to questions, AI Agents will anticipate needs, make suggestions, and even act on behalf of their humans, creating a level of hands-off efficiency we have only seen in movies.

AI Agents will streamline workflows, handle complex tasks independently, and free entrepreneurs to focus on high-impact growth opportunities.

You can already use tools like Lindy to build an AI employee in 5 minutes without knowing how to code. You could build AI Agents for sales, marketing, and customer support, or to be your personal assistant.

Unfortunately, most business owners still haven’t invested time to learn how to use AI effectively as it stands today.

Technology is advancing at a pace unprecedented in human history. Change is uncomfortable, but at this point, participation is no longer optional if you want to maintain your lifestyle or grow and thrive.

I get it. When new technology launches, people get a little too excited and expect a new tool or platform to do everything on day one. It just doesn’t work that way.

When OpenAI first released ChatGPT, I knew nothing about prompt engineering and found the results underwhelming, to say the least. I stopped using it and missed a big opportunity to leap ahead by learning the ropes early.

Since then, OpenAI has significantly improved its models, and ChatGPT is now more conversational. Knowing the ins and outs of prompt engineering (how to instruct AI to complete a task or provide an answer) is still helpful but now optional.

I have found that the best way to get the best answer is to ask AI how I can help AI help me.

HERE’S HOW I’M USING AI:

1. Ask How You Can Help

2. Be Very Specific

3. Provide Context

When you use these three strategies, you’ll be blown away by the quality and depth of the responses you receive.

Step 1: Ask How You Can Help

Last year, I received an email from a podcaster who was looking to upgrade the production quality of their podcast.

They planned to begin filming their podcast. They had a decent microphone but wanted to upgrade it. They also needed cameras and lighting for their new studio. They had no idea where to start and were referred by a fellow podcaster who was a client of mine.

I had helped others with this before, but this was an opportunity to thoughtfully construct an offer and determine how to communicate it. In this case, in a simple, informal email.

The task seemed simple, but sometimes, when you’re doing something for the first time, you draw a blank. I knew exactly how I could help them, but not how to say it in a professional way, without a bunch of technical jargon that no one cares about.

I outlined my offer in ChatGPT 4o and instructed what I wanted. At the bottom, I added, “What else do you need?”

In this case, Chat responded that I had provided everything it needed and gave me a well-written email with my offer.

I just needed a few slight tweaks to make it sound more like me, and I was set.

The next time you ask AI for help, end your prompt with, “What additional information can I provide to help you assist me?”

Step 2: Be Very Specific

As a former tech trainer, I’m used to people coming to me for help and being vague as f#$@ when they ask a question.

Honestly, it’s usually more of a complaint than a question, but I digress.

If you’re not specific enough about the problem you’re looking to solve, what you want, and what you expect from that solution, I can’t help you, and neither can AI.

The more information I provide AI, the better the response I will receive. It’s garbage in, garbage out.

For the past year, I’ve been obsessed with improving this newsletter and have been considering rebranding it.

Transparently, I want it to be so valuable and efficient with your time that you’d be devastated if you stopped receiving it. I’m far from that vision, but that’s the goal.

I asked ChatGPT o1 for some help with defining the value proposition of this newsletter. Here’s the prompt, and you’ll notice the question at the bottom. 😉

Notice the framework I created.

1. Some context and what I want to accomplish

2. A definition of a term ChatGPT wouldn’t know

3. A link to my newsletters for additional context

4. A thorough description of my brand and value prop

5. My request and inquiry of what else is needed to help me

I could have assigned it a role as well (e.g., “You are an expert brand strategist with 20 years experience…”) and opted not to this time.

ChatGPT gave me a list of seven questions, each with two to three bullet points to provide additional information.

Providing that level of specificity will help AI help me with the level of accuracy and detail I would want and expect.

Step 3: Provide Context

Giving context upfront helps AI tailor answers to the subject matter more accurately.

In my example above, I provided context in four of the five parts of my prompt. The more context you provide, the more accurate the first response you receive will be.

Here are some examples of ways to provide detailed context in your prompts:

• Purpose of the Prompt: Why you need help and the desired type of response

• Target Audience: Who the response is for and their goals

• Tone and Style: The desired tone, point of view, and style

• Context and Background Information: Relevant details about the task

• Specific Requirements or Constraints: Any specific guidelines to follow

• Examples and References: Examples to guide the response

• Desired Outcome: What success looks like for the prompt

• Feedback and Iteration: Indicate openness to refining the response

Providing AI with a clear context for the situation or task at hand is no different than asking a colleague for help. It will improve your ability to receive the help you need.

I don’t know about you, but I plan to double down on my knowledge, skills, and use of AI in 2025.

While I’d love to escape to a cabin on a lake and pretend it’s not happening, it is, and I can either put my head in the sand like most people do or seize the moment.

With AI Agents becoming more common this year, it’s inexcusable for me to remain idle and not participate in the exponential change that is on our doorstep.

I’m going all-in. Are you?

ONWARD TOGETHER.

My Favorite Things 💙
What I’m reading, watching, and studying

1. Non-Fiction Book: I’m reading “Show Your Work*” by Austin Kleon. The perfect follow-up to his book “Steal Like An Artist*” which I read last year. It’s a quick read and beautifully designed book that encourages you to document your work and thoughtfully share the “behind the scenes” in the form of content to build trust and authority.

2. YouTube: I recently watched “Vertical AI Agents Could Be 10X Bigger Than SaaS” from Y Combinator. The video began by discussing the origins of most service-based apps we use today and progressed to discuss what the near future may look like as AI becomes more powerful and useful.

3. Course: This quarter, I’m rounding out the skill stack I’ve been building for the past two years with short-form videos. In December, I joined the Short-Form Academy to learn how to idea-mine, script, film, edit, and post 60-second videos for Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube Shorts.

Next Steps 👇

Whenever you're ready, here’s another way I can help you:

I help service-based entrepreneurs create authority content to build trust at scale, dominate their local market, and create their dream life.

• Do you want to start a podcast and have no idea where to start?

• Thinking about launching a newsletter to nurture your database?

• Need a content strategy to fill your sales funnel with qualified clients?

Book a Discovery Call Today