Ed Gandia explains how to get better results from AI by having real conversations with it instead of writing long, complicated prompts. Treat your AI like a thinking partner, not a search engine, and you'll unlock more creative and useful responses for your writing and business problems.
Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love finding for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, this episode is much shorter than usual. Rather than my typical 45 minute format, today I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the audio insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday, and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go. Hope you enjoy it. You know what's fascinating about using generative AI tools in our workflows? We often forget that our interactions with these tools are meant to be conversational. Instead of having a natural back and forth, many of us try to cram everything we possibly can into one massive prompt. We dump thousands of words of contacts, requirements, constraints, documents, other files, and all kinds of examples all at once. And to be fair, there are many supposed AI experts out there promoting this approach. They take great pride in crafting massive prompts and sharing them with their newsletter subscribers. And very often these prompts are so big and complex, they have so many moving parts. I don't think many people stop to think through the logic of the prompt and instead they just copy and paste the prompt blindly. It's just easier, you know, when something feels so, so heavy, so dense. A lot of people don't stop to really kind of read through it, think about it, ask themselves, hey, how can I improve this? How can I streamline this? Nothing like that. They just copy and paste it and they start using it. And I don't think that's a good thing because now all you're doing is outsourcing your thinking to another person. All your thinking. But there's a deeper problem with this big prompt approach, and that is the fact that it's not organic in any way. Let me explain. Think about how you would handle a complex situation with a trusted colleague or mentor. Would you walk into their office and unleash a 20 minute monologue about every single detail of your challenge and not let them get a word in? Of course you wouldn't do that. You'd start with the core issue. You'd explain the key facts and why you're struggling with this situation. You would then do what? You'd let them respond, right? And then based on their response Their questions, their insights, you would share more relevant details with them. So in other words, you'd have a dialogue. This is exactly how we should be approaching our interactions with AI. When you're having a productive conversation with a friend about a challenge you're facing, it's a dance of sharing and listening. You provide some context, they ask follow up questions, probing questions, or maybe they offer insights, and then you build on that. The conversation flows and builds naturally, with each person contributing to a deeper understanding of the situation. The same principle applies when working with AI. Instead of trying to anticipate every possible question or scenario up front, start with the essential information. I talked about this and I discuss and went into my simple 3R framework in my newsletter this past Sunday. 3Rs are role reference requirements. So role. This is where you tell the AI what perspective to adopt, what function, what job title, what character to take on. Reference is the context and background that grounds the AI's response. But you don't have to dump all kinds of information. You can, but it should be very targeted, very nuanced, just kind of the essentials. Not try to dump a whole library of 47 different articles or background materials and then requirements. The clear specifications for what you want, what you're looking for. Everything from tone, voice, style, cadence to you know, how to structure it. So the idea with the three Rs is it forces yourself to focus on the essentials only, and then you let the AI respond. And based on what it gives you, you can now provide more context or you can clarify your needs further. Now, this approach isn't just more natural, it's more effective. When you overwhelmed an AI with a massive wall of text and requirements, you're essentially asking it to juggle dozens of constraints all at once. And then you know what? You're not doing yourself any favors either. I found that I have no real studies or research to prove this, but I really believe this is true from my own experience. Your own cognitive processing works best when you break down complex problems into smaller chunks and work through them conversationally. This is often called chain of thought reasoning, and it's all about how humans tackle, process and solve problems one step at a time. When you break it down into a conversation, you allow both yourself and the AI to process and respond to each piece of information meaningfully. One way to think about it is how you might build a house. You wouldn't just dump all of the materials in a pile and expect perfect results, right? That would be ridiculous. You would lay the foundation first and then you would have maybe the lumber brought in to frame the house, right? And only then would you then maybe start putting in some of the other components, right? And you get things delivered one step at a time, thoughtfully and deliberately. So your conversation with AI should follow that same principle. Now, this doesn't mean that you should be vague or withhold important information from your prompt. It means being strategic about how and when you share that information. So start with the core of what you need, then layer in additional context and requirements as the conversation evolves. The beauty of this approach is that it often leads to unexpected insights and solutions. Just as a good conversation with a friend might help you see your challenge from a new angle, a well structured dialogue with AI can uncover possibilities you hadn't even considered. And you miss that if you try to just take a shortcut by dumping all this information all at once in your initial prompt. Plus, it's going to keep your thinking and your creative problem solving faculties sharp. I really believe these tools will make us better thinkers if we approach them the right way. And I firmly disagree with all the naysayers out there claiming that we're going to lose our creativity and our ability to think. I have noticed just in the past few months how prompting these tools the right way has sharpened my cognitive abilities, has sharpened the way I think, the way I communicate, the way I process information, the way that I am working more and more from first principles. And I think that's a really good thing. Remember, AI is designed to engage in meaningful exchanges. When we treat it like a conversation partner rather than a command line interface, so to speak, we tap into its full potential. So the next time you're working with one of these tools, try approaching it as you would a thoughtful discussion with a colleague you deeply respect. I think you might be surprised by how much more effective and insightful the interaction becomes. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book Earn More in Less Time the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.
