One AI Tool To Rule Them All! Ignore the Noise, Use this One Tool.

Welcome to the AI for the Win podcast. In the last episode, we talked about The importance of how you interact with AI tools, the mentality you bring to your desk in the morning when you start to level up using AI, when you become AI enabled. In order to 10x your abilities with AI, you need to come at the tool with the appropriate level of attention and intention. Attention is all you need. That's the point. And we discussed this at length at the last podcast. Today, I want to do something a little different. I want to talk about an impediment that I see all the time with business professionals who are trying to level up using AI, and they seem to be hitting a roadblock, or they, you know, they kind of dabble in it. They use it, then they don't use it. They get a bad result. They give up. I talk to business professionals all the time. These are smart, ambitious people, and they understand that AI is not a passing trend, but the very foundation of a new professional world. They understand that their AI-enabled competitors are already passing them by, and they want to pass as many of their competitors as possible so that when the dust settles, And the few AI elites within every industry and profession are looking down at their now obsolete peers. They can say they did the work required to transform themselves. But inevitably, as I talk to business professionals who are looking to level up using AI, I see the same thing happening to many of them. They get stuck or sucked into some new AI tool which promised the world and failed to deliver. And that happens a lot within the industry applications, the industry-specific applications. So, in my world, in law, you have these AI tools being offered by third-party companies to do contract drafting or analysis of discovery, and they're really not ready for primetime in most instances. And the amount of time they take to get set up in order to do the job promised is sometimes too great to match the potential opportunity that they will present someday. So right now in the world, as we enter in 2025, we are inundated with a constant flood of information About AI that distracts us from what's really important, which is to master the best tool that is currently available and remain undistracted by the noise. Here's the truth that no one wants to tell you. This endless experimentation isn't progress. It's procrastination. It feels like you're exploring AI, but in reality, you're just treading water. You're skimming the surface without ever doing that deep dive. And the depth, the depth of AI exploration is where the real transformation happens for business professionals. That deep exploration will determine the winners and losers in the age of AI. You have to get beyond the superficial and into the mastery. And how do we do that? It doesn't really matter if we're trying to master a sport or master a skill. It really doesn't matter. You have to do a deep dive. You have to focus. You have to give your attention. Let's talk a little bit about one AI tool to rule them all. This is important. I've been leveraging up on AI tools for the last 2 years. 98% of the time I'm working within one tool that delivers right now 10x performance, 10x quality of work product for business professionals. For almost 2 years, I focused almost exclusively on building my skills within this one tool, my strategy and how I use this one tool and my mindset as I interact with this one tool. And that one tool is ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Teams that we use for our law firm. I've drilled down on using ChatGPT to its fullest potential. Primarily, this involves creating GPT-powered assistants or GPT assistants that are designed to do a specific task or a specific job, designed to handle tasks for a specific client that are built by you, the user, to perform competently a specific task based on your instructions and the knowledge you upload to that GPT. These GPT-powered assistants that I use every day, and I've got dozens and dozens of them that I interact with that I've created. They amplify my productivity and creativity in ways that are staggering. And the reason why I'm able to get the most out of those GPT assistants is because I'm mastering new ChatGPT skills each day. I'm mastering the art of interacting with AI. I'm mastering the mindset that you need to bring to your desk each morning if you want to get the most out of these AI tools. So yes, ChatGPT is where I live and breathe. And every once in a while, I'll need to go to perplexity.ai or I'll use Westlaw's AI tools to do some job. But primarily the workhorse of my professional success, of my 10x, is ChatGPT. And this is interesting because Of course, I'm trying to stay up with the trends. I'm trying to learn about what's going on in the market. And we, as a law firm, we use Microsoft 365 and Teams. And so Microsoft has Copilot built into Microsoft 365, and Copilot's constantly knocking on my door saying, hey, check me out. Hey, I can do this. Hey, I can do that. And every time there's a Copilot update, I get inundated with information. But here's the rub. None of these tools, including Microsoft Copilot, have delivered the consistent value, the productivity, and the quality that ChatGPT and ChatGPT Assistants have delivered in my workplace. So yes, Claude is out there, and every once in a while Claude, for instance, might pull ahead for a hot minute on capability. It'll get some buzz, spark some curiosity. And this is where the problem really lies, because if you read those headlines and then you go and you try and transition into this new tool, you need to understand how that tool works and they're all different. And that's where you waste time. That's where you lose productivity. Inevitably, when the dust settles, ChatGPT still rules the day. And learning how to use this one tool to increase your human potential To modify, create, and improve your skills, to develop the right strategy as to how you're going to get the most out of an AI assistant, to bring the right mindset of attention and intentionality to your ChatGPT interface when you sit down to try and accomplish a task or enhance your project in some way. These things, skills, strategy, mindset, measurement, they require focused attention every day, awareness and effort. So this isn't about dabbling. This is about domination. Building ChatGPT assistants. This is the one activity that will transform your workflow right now and deliver immediate results. And let me say this again. If there's one activity that I recommend every single day to business professionals for them to focus on over the next several months, it is to build GPT assistants for your specific projects and tasks, to learn to build them, to learn to build them better. This isn't just a productivity hack. It's a transformational business process and practice. So let's break this down. Let's talk a little bit about projects versus tasks. A project is a broader objective, kind of a, you know, might in my world as an IP and technology attorney, it might be a client's project, right? So drafting a specific agreement for a client, that would be a project. And for that project, I'm going to have to create a GPT that is going to require me to think strategically, to know what context I'm going to provide that GPT, what instructions, what steps I want that GPT to follow in providing assistance for that particular project. A task, on the other hand, is typically much narrower. It's a single piece of the puzzle that kind of contributes to a larger project. ChatGPT assistants can kind of 10x your potential with both projects and tasks. Let's kind of dive in and take, take a look at some practical examples. I might build a GPT assistant for a client matter, such as contract drafting. And I'm now going to have to make some decisions about how to build this GPT assistant. And it's going to involve uploading the background information, the project and contract details, all the AI transcripts using fireflies.ai that I use to record every call that I've had with that client about that project. Now I've got this structure for a GPT assistant that's got the right context, got the right background information in order to do the job. Other times I build a GPT for a specific task, such as drafting a mediation summary. Or responding to a particular set of discovery requests, or writing maybe a demand for arbitration or a settlement demand. And the magic happens when I take the time upfront to design each GPT assistant carefully. I don't just give it a vague prompt or instruction. I give it everything it needs to deliver A+ results. Think about this as the training and knowledge that you give a real-world Human assistant in order to do some specific job. If you hire an assistant off the street and you give them a task and you've provided them no context, no knowledge, no training, and no instruction, how well are they going to do? You need to provide the same level of clear, detailed instructions to your GPT that you hopefully would to a human assistant. Who you've invested time and money in, in order to get the job done. You need to provide the relevant context and upload the right information. And you need to tell the GPT assistant where the end zone is. What is the goal of this GPT? And if you spend the time to do these things, this effort pays off every single time. Let's talk about the power of drafting detailed instructions for your GPT. A lot of people have already bought into the myth that they're going to use ChatGPT or Claude Gemini to take a shortcut in their day, to have the assistant do the work for them, to step away from the hard work that's required in order to deliver great work product. And just simply turn it over to the AI assistant. And this is obviously the mythology around AI, right? That it's going to, we're all going to be sitting on a couch, like in the movie WALL-E with our feet up and AI and robots are going to be doing everything for us. I don't know that's where we'll ever end up, but that's certainly not where we are today. So I know that a lot of you get caught up in the time it takes to build a good solid GPT assistant. But I'm here to tell you that spending an hour or two building that GPT assistant is something that, although few competitors of yours are spending the time and mental energy to do it, that if you do it, if you spend that time to get it right, you are going to see yourself at 10x your maximum potential in your pre-AI life. This investment yields returns. And why does it work so well? Why does spending the time to create a really good GPT assistant really the most important thing that you can do right now in leveling up with AI as a business professional? Because the act of drafting detailed instructions, it forces you to engage with the project or task at a granular level before you even begin. It forces you to think, it forces you to be intelligent, it forces you to be strategic. About what it is you're trying to do, why you're trying to do it, and how you are going to go about accomplishing that task. Think about that. Normally, when we go to draft a set of discovery, we might find a form, we might take a look at the complaint, and then we start typing. But how much time do we really start, you know, the project with, Okay. If in a perfect world, I draft this discovery, what is the best result for my client? Let's work backwards from there. Now, how do I design this discovery in order to get to that result? I want the defendants to admit this. I want to know more about that. I want to identify these important facts. Once I know what the end zone is, now I start interacting with the AI to to draft. We don't tend to do that in our work lives, or to the extent that we do, we don't do it enough. So when you're telling the GPT assistant what the task is, what approach to take, what the primary goal or output should be, what risks and opportunities to consider, you are gaining clarity. Your potential is being expanded. You are being made into a better fill in the blank, whatever it is you do for a living. You're aligning your focus and you're identifying potential roadblocks. When you upload documents to the GPT's knowledge base, you're making conscious decisions about what information is relevant and why. This entire process of building the GPT assistant, it sharpens your understanding and lays a rock-solid foundation for the GPT to deliver exceptional output And a rock-solid foundation for you as the manager directing the GPT assistant to get the best work product that you possibly can that focuses and starts on the goal and works backwards from there. Precision creates results. Precision creates results. Do I even need to explain how valuable precision is? When you go into a project or task, having already distilled the key instructions, goals, and context, you're setting yourself up for success. You're eliminating ambiguity and guesswork. You're not going through the motions. You are actually engaged. You're giving it attention. Attention is all you need. And your GPT assistant? Now it's primed to give you results that are on point, accurate, and valuable. Output. It's not the AI, it's you. I hear this all the time. AI got it wrong. The output was superficial. The AI didn't do what I asked. Let me be blunt. Almost none of that is the failure of the AI tool. The old saying holds. Garbage in, garbage out. If you feed your GPT vague prompts or superficial instructions, you'll get vague, superficial output. The issue isn't with ChatGPT, it's with how you're using it. Let me state this another way. You need to learn how to use these AI tools like ChatGPT and ChatGPT Assistants. You need to learn how to use them. There are skills that are very deep. And how you interact with a GPT assistant that are the primary determinative factor as to what kind of work product you're going to get out of it. It is your skills that are the limiting factor on going from 3x to 5x to 10x. If you want quality, you got to give quality. Provide precise, detailed inputs. Invest the time to structure your GPT assistant with care, and you'll, you're going to see the difference. I promise you. Spend the time working with GPT assistants, modifying them. After you build a GPT assistant, before you start that next interaction, go back and edit it. Go into configure, take a look at what the instructions are, modify them based on new information, upload more knowledge. If you've had a conversation with the client captured by AI Note-Taker, upload that into your GPT. Just like with a real human assistant that you're constantly training, they're getting better month after month, year after year, because they're learning and you're helping them learn. You're giving them the resources they need to succeed. Same thing with a GPT assistant. The bottom line, mastering This process of building GPT assistants for your specific projects and tasks is the key to unlocking exponential results. It's not about jumping from tool to tool. It's about going deep with the one tool that's already proven to be a game-changer— ChatGPT. That's how you win in the AI age. Focus and precision. The Keys to Mastering AI. Here's the trick. You're sitting at your desk. Block out the noise and focus your energy on the next skill that you need to have in order to get more out of your ChatGPT or your ChatGPT assistant. And then after you've gotten that skill, whether it's Getting better at writing instructions, getting better at providing context, modifying or iterating your instructions, having ChatGPT help you building the next version of your instructions, whatever the skill is, get better at it and then go on to the next skill. Let go of every business process that you have relied on. to get you to this point in your professional success. AI requires a new process and approach to your workday. Let me say that again. AI requires a new process and approach to your workday. And look at, for a lot of us, it's sitting down at a computer and opening up applications and looking at emails and responding to emails and drafting documents and doing task lists and understanding prioritization of tasks. AI, ChatGPT, requires you to modify whatever process you've been using to interact with technology in order to level up. Now you're going to level up with AI. You're going to have to have a new approach, new windows open, new cut and paste tools in order to strip HTML from the copy out of ChatGPT into a Word document or email. New ways of thinking about how you are going to respond to an email. Let me give you an example. Most of us simply open up an email, hit, you know, the open button, get that, get that new window pane open and start typing a response. You need a new process with AI. Most of my emails, I use AI to modify and iterate and get that email perfect. So instead of just telling the client information about what happened yesterday in a deposition, it's uploading information into the AI, letting the AI know what you think is important out of that information, and then asking the AI to work with you on building a summary for the client that is in plain English that tells the client what they need to know In order to help you win the case. So this process is different because now you're not just drafting a response to the email, you're working back and forth between the email and the AI. And oh, by the way, you might need to go and find 4 prior emails and cut and paste those and put those into ChatGPT for context so it can understand what's been happening on that issue. You might have to go grab a document that was an attachment to an email, download it, and then upload it into the the GPT so that it's got that information as you continue to work on a substantive, meaningful response to an email. Now, that example plays itself out across every aspect of my job as a lawyer, my business process as a lawyer every single day. I interact with AI on most everything, either to get smart Or get better. So your mindset is key. If you don't approach your work or in your workday with the right attitude, you're not going to achieve the level of AI elite within your profession. Think of mastering AI like climbing a ladder. Don't worry about the entire climb, just focus in on the next rung. You will be overwhelmed if you think, hey, you know, it's going to take me forever to get as good as Enrico is at building instructions for GPT assistance. Don't worry about that. What is the next rung up your ladder that you need to get? What is the next skill, the next strategy that you need to improve in order to get better results out of the ChatGPT interface? So with ChatGPT, basically this breaks down as follows. Master one skill at a time and learn how to draft better instructions. Right? So instructions are key when you're building GPT assistants. You could go and you could type instructions in, right? But there are so many mastery levels above that that will propel you into this new world of rich, deep, meaningful analytic, analytical results because your instructions are better. So master how to draft instructions. Well, how are you going to learn that? Ask ChatGPT to help you with the instructions. Ask ChatGPT, say, what questions would you ask me in order to build a ChatGPT to accomplish this task? And it will help you build those instructions. So master one skill at a time, then focus on providing richer context. The more information you provide, the better. So let's say ChatGPT in helping you build instructions comes up with, uh, with 8 questions. And one of those questions might tickle you to provide more information than ChatGPT has asked you for, or might prompt you to ask ChatGPT to rework the questions around one particular issue that you think is the most important one. For this assistant. So richer context is going to be uploading relevant information into your ChatGPT assistant. The idea here is to go deeper, not wider. Go deeper, not wider. Mastery with anything, it's about depth, not breadth. Each time you develop a new skill, dig deeper. Don't stop. Keep asking yourself, how can I improve this instruction? What context would make this GPT assistant more effective? What new insights can I provide to sharpen the output? What new insights can I go and get from this case in order to provide ChatGPT better information? What strategy options should I be considering in building this GPT in order to accomplish a very precise goal? You're essentially beginning a project As a project manager for your GPT assistant, just like if it was a real-world person. And the best managers are the ones who provide clear guidance, refine processes, and continually improve and iterate with their assistant on outcomes. This is a dynamic loop. You give instructions, you get output, you refine, you brainstorm new ideas and add them to the task. This cycle of continuous improvement is where the magic happens with AI. Refine, don't dismiss. Another key principle is just as important. Okay, go deep. That's the first one. The second one is don't get distracted by bad results. When the output isn't perfect, don't close your, your ChatGPT app. Don't X out of that browser tab. Don't give up. Instead, let that result be a trigger for refinement. So anytime you get a result that's less than satisfactory, ask yourself, how can I provide better context, clear instructions? What additional information can I upload? And remember, you're not alone in this process. You're never alone in this process. You don't need me. You can ask ChatGPT itself. To help you improve, to help you improve the ChatGPT assistant. You can ask ChatGPT, what context do you need to do this task better? You can ask ChatGPT, how can I improve my instructions given this goal that needs to be accomplished within this timeframe? You can ask ChatGPT, what details are missing that would help you produce a more accurate result? You can ask ChatGPT to develop a list of questions that if you answered will improve the GPT assistant in exponential ways. ChatGPT isn't just your tool. It's really a collaborative partner in building precision and effectiveness. And I know I've said this before, and it's worth remembering. You know, it is a tool, but that tool is there to increase your expertise, your potential, to make you better, to 10x you, not to minus 10x you. There will be a lot of people, perhaps most of the professionals will think about AI tools to take over work, to commoditize work, to do less quality in less time. That's not what you want to do. That's not what the AI elites within your profession are going to do as they win the race. ChatGPT is there to be your collaborative partner, and it can help you build that precision and effectiveness. The mindset of mastery. The mindset of focus and refinement and attention is what separates the AI dabblers from the AI masters. So block out the overwhelming noise, that noise we talked about in the last episode, that noise that distracts you, that keeps you superficial. Instead, focus on one skill, then the next. Don't let bad results discourage you. Use them as a signal to refine and improve. Mastering ChatGPT isn't a one-and-done process; it's a continual loop of instruction, output, feedback, and improvement. The more you refine, the better your GPT assistant becomes. The better your assistant becomes, the more exponential you become. Debunking the Great AI Myth. One of the greatest myths about AI is that it will do the work for you. That You know, that, that, that used to take you an hour is now going to take you a minute. That, that used to be really hard is going to become really easy. This is not true. This is a false premise. This is a great myth that does huge disservice to ChatGPT and other tools. This misconception is really dangerous because it breeds complacency. It, it creates this possibility that But we're going to end up with a technology advancement that makes us dumber rather than smarter, much like the internet, much like clickbait. Instead of having deep, rich content available on the internet that people dig into and analyze and think about, we've spent 90% of our time or more just reinforcing what we already believe with some Even more dramatic headline than our current belief. If we don't want AI to be another internet, we have to come at it differently. We don't want to be complacent about how we interact with this tool, because let's face it, the internet had potential to make us smarter, to change the world, but didn't work out that way, did it? AI as a shortcut is going to be the model that many people use, and it will be the one that is used by people who are going to lose in the age of AI. This is not about pawning off your workload onto an AI assistant and coasting along while it handles everything, at least not today with the current tools available. So here's the reality. When used properly, AI doesn't reduce the time you spend on your work. It often requires you to invest more time. And this is one of the interesting things that I talk about all the time. If used properly, it can take you longer to do something than less time to do something. But the quality of the output is a multiple of what you could have otherwise been able to do. And there are things that go faster, but look at, let's use the email example. Instead of just typing off a 3-line email to my client, I use AI and draft a 5-paragraph email that is rich and deep and meaningful and hits the client like a Wow. This is really good stuff. I love my lawyer. This is unusual. I have never seen a lawyer continually analyze information and spit it back to me in emails. Well, it's going to take me a little bit longer to do that email, not less. So AI is about amplification, not delegation. It's about taking your skills, your insights, your creative power, your potential, in multiplying your potential. It's about delivering work that is exponentially better than anything you've produced before. It's not a substitute for effort; it's a force multiplier for your professional success. When you integrate AI tools like ChatGPT into your workflow, you're not just offloading tasks; you're engaging in this super dynamic process of refining prompts and iterating. And you're becoming a better thinker in the process. You're becoming a better strategist in a process. You're becoming a better creator in the process. You are becoming better as a result of having an assistant who's so capable, ready to receive instructions, ready to complete tasks. Many of us don't even have assistants, or we have assistants that do specific things, but couldn't we all use 100? Assistants that are trained to do very specific things. If we had that available to us, how much better would we be professionally? How much more could we achieve? What greater heights could we aspire to if we had assistants that were nearly endless doing the jobs that need to get done in order for us to reach our highest potential? AI unlocks potential within you that was previously out of reach. That was previously out of reach. That's the difference with AI. We had a limit to what we could do. We had a limit to how good we could be. We had a limit to our potential that was only gray at the margins. AI unlocks potentially, well, certainly exponential potential, but perhaps someday unlimited potential, that there will be nothing we cannot achieve. All right. So AI allows you to deliver results that are so high caliber that your customers, your clients, your business partners, your board, they're going to notice. And if you keep refining your skills, you are going to see immediate feedback from the most important people in your business life. That will really be summed up as, wow, AI makes you better. You've heard all of the noise about being replaced by AI. Well, let me tell you, AI isn't here to replace you. It's here to elevate you, to make you sharper, to make you more creative and more productive. The output you produce with AI isn't just faster, it's richer and more insightful and more innovative. And that output is not AI output, it's output driven by you. Achieving a level of excellence with AI requires time and attention and a commitment to improving how you interact with these tools. And if you want to be one of the AI elite within your profession, It's not about doing less work. It's about doing better work. And AI is going to give you the power to raise that bar and to push past your previous limits and to achieve things you didn't know were possible, but are becoming possible.