Be the Prompt: How AI Can Power the Future of Ideas | Jeremy Utley

The future is how.

Have you asked yourself today, what's next for me? You're not alone. We've all felt that way at some point. My name is Frederik Pferdt, and for years I've helped the brightest minds at Google and Stanford and people around the world shape their futures. Now I want to help you to do the same. Because the future isn't just something that happens. It's something you can create. Starting right now. From within. Instead of waiting to see what happens next, let's explore how you can make it happen. Each episode dives into one key area. Like sleep, nutrition, relationships, creativity, storytelling, mindfulness, beauty, movement, or purpose, and brings you real stories and practical tools you can use to shape a better future for yourself. So what's one step you can take today to create what's next? Let's dive in and explore how to build a better tomorrow, starting right now.

Hey friends, welcome to The Future Is How. I'm Frederik Pferdt, and today I'm joined by Jeremy Utley, one of the sharpest thinkers on creativity, ideas, and now AI. Together, we'll explore what happens when you stop asking what AI can do and start asking what we can create with it. Jeremy teaches at the Stanford D School, co-authored the book Idea Flow, and hosts the podcast Beyond the Prompt. And he has shown thousands of leaders that creativity isn't magic, it's a practice. And now he's asking, how does AI amplify that practice? So Jeremy, It's a pleasure to have you on the show, and I just asked you, like, how far are you actually away?

Pleasure's mine, first of all. And I think probably as the crow flies, we're not very far, Fredrik. I'm just north on the coast from you, so I'm about 10 minutes inland from the one. But if you— if I went 10 minutes from my place, I'd hit the one, then it would probably take me, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes to get down there near where you are.

Perfect. Yes. Yeah. Hope to see you again in the woods. Likewise.

Pretty soon. Absolutely. Totally.

So let's dive in. Yes. I'd like to start off my show with what I call a future bio. So instead of going back in like what you all have accomplished, I want to go forward and learn more about like, how do you see yourself in the future? Who is the Jeremy 2030? And as we talk about AI today as well, maybe we can prompt our favorite AI tool with that question as well.

It's funny you mention that because to me, I think, you know, increasingly reflexive AI use or reflexive AI collaboration should be the default posture for folks. I'll give an example. I was in Japan a couple of weeks ago. I'm launching an AI course with Nikkei Business Press. And I'm in Japan and we're going to film some footage that they're going to put on the Nikkei site and things like that. And I thought we were going to have a brainstorm about what the PR program should be. And so I show up and thankfully I had worn a business suit because, you know, that's how you roll in Japan. And they've got cameras set up, they've got hair and makeup, they're ready to go. So I'm like, okay, just roll with it. You know, so they give me hair and makeup and obviously I'm not wearing it today, but imagine a time when I looked like I had hair and makeup on. It was quite nice. And then the director, I kid you not, he stands in front of the cameras and he goes, "Okay, now what's your killer line?" And I said, "I'm sorry, what?" And he goes, "Go ahead." He said, "We're just trying to get 1 minute, just a tight 1 minute. What's your killer line?" And I go, "Can I invite my friend Claude into this conversation?" You know, and he goes, "What do you mean?" I said, "This is too important to entrust to my own gray matter. I mean, I—" would never want to just wing it on a really critical question. And what's funny is, so, you know, over 3 or 4 minutes, Claude and I, and his name's Hiroto, Hiroto-san kind of batted things back and forth. And we got to, there's a, you know, 1-minute exceptional introduction on the teleprompter. But the point is, I think it's increasingly we should think about not inviting AI to the conversation. Like it's malpractice, it's professional malpractice if we don't. So with your permission, I'm glad you kind of said that. But what I would do probably, I'm just going to do right now is I'm opening up Claude. I'm not indifferent. Different, you know, AIs have different values, but I feel like for Claude, I have a Claude that's been kind of trained on a lot of my content. Actually, it's telling me that it's not available. That's funny. That's interesting. Let's make sure that's not true. But what I would probably do is I'd say, you know, like something like this. Hey, I love your thoughts helping me as an executive assistant and thought partner and somebody who's kind of versed in futurism. As well as I know you are my, you know, blog content, podcast content, etc. Would you help me think about the question, where do I want to be in 5 years? You know, what are— that feels like a huge question. Could you maybe, as a professional interviewer, think about 3 questions, ask me one at a time, and then let's dig into— if we know the ultimate goal is to get to where do I want to be in 5 years, what are kind of 3 questions I could entertain, of course relevant to your knowledge, etc. So I've just kind of used my voice to input that into the AI, and now, you know, here's what it's saying to me. Looking at where you are now, someone's already establishing thought leadership around human-AI collaboration, building communities of practice, helping leaders navigate their organizations through this transformation. I think the 3 pivotal questions that could shape your next 5 years— we'll start with one and then we'll dig deep before moving into the others. What What specific legacy do you want to leave in the human-AI collaboration space? I'm asking this because you're already positioned at this inflection point where AI is reshaping how humans work, create, and lead. In 5 years, this field will be dramatically different. You've got a platform and early insights and community-building chops, but legacy isn't about being early. It's about what you help people become. So when somebody says, Jeremy Utley taught me, or because of Jeremy's work, I was able to, What comes after that sentence? Huh? What comes up for you when you sit with that question? I'd probably think of something like, I stopped being self-conscious of collaborating with AI and I started being confident. I started being embarrassed of my collaboration and started being proud of it. And then I was also able to help folks feel a sense of permission and possibility in their own journey because Jeremy had encouraged me to share broadly and to encourage others to explore. I hope that someone in the future would say something about something like that about my impact. Okay, so I've given, you know, that kind of verbal input to the AI now. And now let's see. That's powerful. Very you. The progression from self-consciousness to confidence and pride is such a human journey. The fact that you're thinking about permission and possibility, it's like the multiplier effect you're creating with And it lists some people that it knows I know. What strikes me is that you're not just talking about AI adoption, you're talking about identity transformation, moving people from I'm embarrassed, I need this, to I'm proud of what we create together. That's profound. Here's what I'm curious about, Claude says. When you imagine someone saying, Jeremy, help me stop being embarrassed and start being proud, what does that look like in practice? Because pride comes from results right there. Are they proud because they're creating work they never thought possible? Because they're solving problems faster? Because they're having creative breakthroughs? Or is there something deeper, like they've discovered a new version of themselves? I ask because the why behind the pride might shape how you spend the next 5 years. This is actually fascinating. Let's see. You know, it's a really good question. And for me, it's actually about being more yourself. And I wouldn't have thought about it except that you ask about the why behind the pride. Maybe it's about doing something better and maybe it's about doing something more. But in a way, I think it's actually about doing something that's uniquely you. And I've had this experience myself, as you know, Claude, because for example, when I read the audiobook of Idea Flow, I kept having to stop. I was surprised to discover that I didn't remember my own book. I kept having to stop and take notes because I go, that's a great story. That's great research. I forgot that. And while the audio directors thought that was silly, I knew, of course, I'm very finite and limited in my own knowledge of even what I supposedly know. And one of the things that I find most invigorating and rewarding about working with AI is not, I mean, certainly it's possible that it helps me keep touch with stuff I don't know or access realms that I'm unaware of, but it actually reminds me of who I am and what I value and what I supposedly know or have forgotten that I know. And so to me, there's something about human potential that it's actually about amplifying or an exponential who you are. That and helping you remember that and tap into that, expand that, augment it, et cetera. I don't know, but feel free to ask another question if that's unclear.

You know, Jeremy, I just had to pause because I was not sure if you talked to me or talked to Claude, which is— sometimes that's what happens, right? Before you read out what Claude is giving you as some advice or some things to think about, two things stood out to me when you were talking. The first thing is with the Japan story, right? I think it's more and more important that we show up as individuals with our AIs, that we show up with our partners that we have very intimate relationships with, right, with our ChatGPTs, our Claudes, our Geminis, and so forth, right? And we take it out of this kind of like hidden thing that where you now go to colleges or even like in schools, right, like And you ask students, they're like, oh yeah, I'm not allowed to use this, right? Or I use it to do my homework, whatever it is. And it's kind of like hidden and it's kind of like even forbidden, right? I think we need to now realize that if you can show up with those tools and they are trained on your content, on your thinking, on your questions, that's the power that you actually have. So that's the first thing, right? And I think your Japan story really illustrated that beautifully. And the second thing is you're using your voice, right, to prompt your AI and you're not typing, right? I think that's a big shift too that we are seeing is that we now need to have real authentic conversations with our AI and trying to use our voice more often because it just gives you very different results. Yeah. Oh, huge, huge. So I'd love to kind of like just dive deeper into those two things.

Well, I joke, you know, what are these, you know, for folks, I don't know if you do video on your pod or just audio, but these are, these fingers are my bottlenecks. They are what limit my ability to communicate with AI. And I think technology in a sense has kind of mistrained us, right? We grew up with Siri and classically, for example, my wife's Michelle. If I say, "Hey Siri, text Michelle, FYI, I'm gonna be home late," it will inevitably say, "I can't find a Michelle FYI in your contacts." And you're like, "Really? You don't think it's like the Michelle I text 500 times a day?" Or you say, "Hey, text Frederick, I'm really excited to talk today!" point, exclamation point, new paragraph. Should we use the Riverside link? Right? That's how people think when they think about talking to AI, unfortunately, because Siri has kind of trained them poorly. And the reality is that, I mean, credit to OpenAI to begin with, but while kind of developing the fastest growing consumer application of all time, you know, ChatGPT, they just simultaneously reinvented voice to text, like just, you know, on the side. And now, of course, I found Claude's voice to text isn't as good. I'm actually using an AI software. So I'm not using Claude's voice to text necessarily, but whatever it is, is it's way better than Siri. And importantly, to your point, Fredrik, it changes the way we approach the collaboration. You know, if I said, hey, let's solve a problem, but we've got to text message each other, it totally changes. Like, if we are only text messaging, it's not just that the speed of the communication is different, it's a qualitatively different collaboration we have because we're using our voices. And so That's really important. And it unlocks all sorts of you. I mean, whether it's in the car, we can be on campus having a meeting. I get in the car and in our old world, maybe at the best, I take voice dictation, leave myself a voice note, which even that's a stretch. But now you and I have a meeting and we agree, hey, I take the responsibility to send you a follow-up. I get in my car and I pull up ChatGPT or Claude or whatever and I say, hey, I just had an amazing meeting with Fredrik. I'm just going to ramble off the top of my head. Here's a bunch of things that are on my mind. Would you mind to ask me a few questions, make sure you understand before synthesizing and distilling it into a follow-up note that I could send him when I get home. And all of a sudden it goes from like, I still have all the responsibility for all the synthesis and processing when I get home, to I've handed that off to a competent, intelligent collaborator. And it's my job just to kind of verbal vomit and then answer whatever questions that it thinks are contextually relevant. And then when I get home, I've got a draft and maybe I rework it or maybe I ask the AI to rework it. But it's turned kind of even what was wasted time before into productive, creative, continued collaboration. It's wild.

It is wild, right? And I think I'm always kind of like looking forward to these wild moments, right? When you see something, a technology that really is changing how you do your work, how you live your life. And many of those moments appeared during my time at Google. I've been lucky to see the work of some incredible folks like Christian Plagemann, who is the AI research director at Google. And he taught a class once with me at Google, and that was 2019 or something, where he introduced machine learning and AI. And the students mostly came from Stanford. They were also surprised, like, what advanced technology we already have at our fingertips. But there was no application out in the world. So talk to me about that moment, November 2022, when ChatGPT finally was released. Like, how did you feel and what was kind of like the moment for you?

Well, there's a few things. So one is, you know, I released a book October of 2022. And so, you know, A month later, you know, I'm supposed to be on a whirlwind book tour supporting this book, which is meant to be, you know, a canonical description of ideation and experimentation, you know, building innovation capacity in organizations. And a month after that book drops, you know, which is a culmination of basically 12 years or 14 years, whatever, a dozen-plus years of leading innovation capacity-building programs at Stanford and beyond. You know, a month after that kind of life's work drops, this incredible and alien intelligence from out of nowhere comes to Earth. And I go, I look in the index of my book, AI is not even in the index, right? That was like a real, I would say it was a lovely surprise, wonderful surprise, but also a sobering reminder. One, the world's continuing to move and I got to continue to be a student, but two, this this thing, which is so powerful and so important, was not on your radar, you got to keep learning. Now's not the time to kind of shift gears. Now's the time to double down. I've even been joking up to that point. I've been learning in public for a long time. It's like my job is to learn in public, basically. When ChatGPT was launched, it just was a reinforcement of that. So that's kind of one. And then two, I have a couple of good friends, you know, on the East Coast who had really quickly alerted me to, you know, you need to dive in, you need to explore this and actually been thinking, kind of teachers at heart. And so they had been thinking about how do we design experiences leveraging this technology to help people work with it. And so I was able to really roll up my sleeves and explore. And I feel unlike some people, which was somewhat organic and ad hoc, I was given kind of somewhat thoughtful, rigid construct within which I could explore. And it, it was a I remember over that winter break, you know, we're in the school system, right? So we always think in terms of like kind of, you know, calendar. But over that winter break, it was just— I felt like I couldn't— I had to sacrifice time with my family. You know, we go home to Texas once a year, and it's like, this is the wrong time for this thing to be dropped because I felt the pull. Like, I'm with my family in Texas, and I kept thinking, I got to go. And like, I got to go play with this thing. And so it was a really exciting time. And then that kicked off. I had a good friend at Singularity, Kion Gohar, who's their executive director for a bunch of years. He reached out and he said, hey, we should do some research on what's, you know, you're the creativity guy. I'm kind of the future of work guy. What do we think the implications on the future of work are? So we jointly concocted kind of a research program and we ended up running that with a bunch of companies in the US and Europe. That kind of put me more in the observer kind of researcher posture. So in some of these classes I told you about, I am in student posture. And then in this research context, I'm in research posture. And then of course, I'm plowing all of that stuff into my own kind of practice and creative output and things like that. So it was a, it was a really fabulously fertile time of exploration.

So, let's put you into a thought leader kind of like posture, right, which you are also. I think you're an incredible learner, and I like how you make that learning process really explicit and public, right, so that people can see how you can experiment with those things, what you're learning, and so forth. But also, you're a thought leader, right? You're putting things together and you're trying to make sense of things as well. And recently, you also came across like Sam Altman's quote, which I think prompted you to you, sorry for using the word, or kind of like guided you to think differently about AI, which is Sam said, they don't do anything unless you ask. They're just sitting there kind of waiting. They don't have a sense of agency or autonomy. And by they, he means AI, right? Or ChatGPT or agents. So if AI doesn't start, then what does it mean for us to remain the active part? And by us, I mean us human beings.

Well, I mean, fundamentally, those are the roles. It's not if AI doesn't start, what does it mean for us? It's because AI doesn't start, it remains to us to be the initiator, the prompter, you could say. I've been talking with friends who have children in college. A lot of folks I know whose kids are studying computer science, for example, are kind of scrambling. You know, I had written a post earlier, and a lot of these things kind of stay on my mind in different ways. I had I had spoken to a good friend whose child is in university, and he was kind of telling me about how he's worried his kid can't get an internship, he can't find somebody to hire him. And I just found myself saying to him, he should hire himself. Like, why in the world is he looking for a job? Look for a customer. Way better than getting a boss as a customer. I mean, a customer is a sort of boss, but way better than a boss, right? And he's like, what do you mean hire himself? And I said, I mean, there's never been an easier time to start a business. There's never been a better time to do something for yourself. And I think the whole paradigm of looking for a job is actually a broken paradigm. That idea, which I ended up kind of writing about, but that idea was kind of in the back of my mind. And the question of what's uniquely human, I mean, a lot of people ask me that. Is creativity uniquely human? Whatever. I'm always, I don't mean to be dismissive by saying whatever. I mean, as an example of the kind of question people ask me. And these few weeks have been a real kind of slog on the road in terms, there's just, I guess the fall is conference season. So like I had 4 events last week. I was just hotel, hotel, hotel, hotel, then 4 events this week, hotel. I took 5 flights this week, right? I've got another 4 events next week. It's kind of crazy, but I find myself in these kind of weird— you can't really book calls because everything's changing. So like it's kind of high pressure and high stakes, but then you have these weird in-between moments. So like at 11 a.m. one day, I was in San Diego last week after— it was before a keynote. I had a keynote in the afternoon, but I had this weird kind of free time. And so I went down to the Jacuzzi and I'm sitting in the Jacuzzi and I'm listening to an interview with Sam Altman and he's talking about His interviewer says, they kind of feel sentient, you know? And Sam said, I get it. I get how they feel sentient, but they don't, they can't take action. You're even agents. I mean, agents can act autonomously, but their autonomy comes from you initiating. And when he said that, it was like, that was, it just further crystallized the idea that I shared with my friend about hiring yourself is especially for young people. And I think this is something— oh, part of— I'm just giving you kind of the stew, the milieu in which that idea occurred. The other thing was I knew another college student who's at UC Irvine, who's also studying. He goes to my church and he's back for the summer. And he said, hey, I read your blog post about hire yourself. He said, it's really hard because I just, I've been told what to do. Like all through high school, all through, like every, they give me my assignment. And I realized he is basically, you can think about like a college student is they're being prompted by their a professor. Every assignment is a prompt and the student's got to respond. And so anyway, so that was on my mind because I just spoken with him a few days earlier at church that previous Sunday. So I'm in the jacuzzi. I'm listening to Sam talk about AI doesn't take action on its own. And I've generally kind of existentially got this question. What do humans do? And it's just like, it struck me. It's like, we're the ones who initiate, you know? And if you really think about the importance of that, of taking initiative, And we've been teaching students at Stanford to do this since the 1960s. This assignment of keeping a bug list is a Bob McKim classic. Long before computer programming entered common parlance, Stanford students were learning to pay attention to things that annoyed them. That's what it means to keep a bug list. Notice what irritates you because it turns out for all the talk about problem solving, a problem is a necessary precondition to a solution.. And the folks who get good at noticing problems and finding problems actually get good at solving them and generating solutions. And so all that's on my mind and it just dawned on me, that is a uniquely human responsibility. And the AI, it can't notice things that irritate me in my life. Now, if I am attuned to my life and I'm aware and I'm living in a present orientation and I'm open, Then I can, wow, it's really annoying how much cardboard is sitting on my doorstep. Well, now I can have a really interesting conversation with Claude or Chad or whatever about what can I do with all this cardboard, right? And you might say, oh yeah, but you could just ask Claude, what are all the things that might annoy someone in his mid-40s with a bunch of kids, right? And perhaps he would do it, but you even then, like however far upstream you go, someone still had to think to ask the question.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, you notice the problem as a human being and what bothers you, what annoys you, right? Right. And I think using then AI as a partner to figure out a solution, right, is a perfect way. So, I would actually build on your idea. As you said, humans initiate kind of like, you know, the action and then prompt kind of like AI to be a partner in the thought process. I would also say sometimes we execute as human beings, right, based on the suggestions AI gives us, right? There's this funny— story when Christian Plagemann, again, like a very dear friend of mine, an incredible human being, he lives in Palo Alto and he remodeled his house, right? And so he sent me a picture, very proud of his new garage and the system he built up with kind of like the boxes and like everything's labeled and like put in the right place. And he said like, I used AI for it, right? To put the boxes in the right spot where I can reach them very easily. And the things that I need to reach more kind of like are probably more on the lower shelves and so forth. But guess who put the boxes into the shelves, right? It was not AI, it was him. And so it's really interesting that we not just initiate, but we also execute. And so if you see that, this is the human part, that's the human edge you have over AI is that you're the initiator and you're the executor. Then you really have a different relationship, I think, with your technology as well. So I think that comes down to something that I think you said as well, is that you are the prompt. What do you exactly mean by that?

Well, the prompt is the, is the spark. It's what sets things off. You have to be what sets things off. And, you know, Bernie and I taught a class together for a long time called Transformative of Design, which is based on a lot of his philosophy and then kind of mixed with mine. And now Alita also has joined us. And one of the things we talk about is our words matter a lot. And so, for example, and I'm getting to be the prompt, right? But there's kind of some kind of, you call it, there's priming or context behind that thought. We will do an exercise with students, for example, we say, hey, think of all the things that you I can't go to the movies this weekend. I can't see my parents this summer. I can't decide on what I want to study. I can't take this class that I really wanted to take, right? We have them write a long list and we have them pair up. We say, okay, now here's the assignment. Frederick, do you have something that you can't do right now?

Yes, I can't be with my wife at the moment. She's leading a retreat actually. Yes.

So then the assignment is in our partners, Your partner swaps one word. They replace can't with won't, and they just say, Frederick, you won't be with your wife this weekend. And the student's partner would say, you won't decide what you want to study. You won't take that class. You won't see your parents this weekend. You won't— right? And we'll do another exercise where, what do you have to Is there something you have to do, Frederick?

Yes. So we just got 3 barn cats this afternoon, so I have to probably feed them later this afternoon.

So then your partner would say, replace have to with want to. You want to feed your barn cats later this afternoon. And some of them you're like, well, of course I do. But when somebody says, I have to do my calculus P-set, and their partner says, you want to do your calculus P-set. What they realize, all that to say, I mean, there's a long drawn-out exercise with a lot of different words, but the point is our words matter. And importantly, saying won't instead of can't, saying want to instead of have to, they're high agentic postures. You are causal, not an effect. You aren't the victim of your professor or whatever. You're a cause in the matter. So when we say be the prompt, it's another way of being causal, be like you aren't waiting for your boss to tell you to do something. You proactively go and look for what to do. That's a life skill. It's not just about AI. It's about taking that same attitude and infusing it into every part. What's the thing that needs to be done? And if not you, then who?

Who's going to do it? Yeah, it's a very powerful way of even living your life, right? When you choose your words wisely, and really think about the things that you have to do or you want to do or you can do or you can't do. And I think that's always a good reminder when my kids tell me, like, you know, I have to do this or I have to do that, right? And I exactly do the same exercise with them, right? Like, just frame it differently. Say, I can do this, right? You have the opportunity to do that. And that just creates that different posture, as you said as well. And I think it's very powerful. So let's stay in that realm of teaching a little bit more. So when you teach students or even CEOs to ideate with AI, what's one of your favorite go-to exercises you give them, maybe even in a keynote or like in a smaller workshop?

For sure, bad idea brainstorm is great. Tell us more. 10 bad ideas. Why would you— because everyone's default is to look for the one good idea. And what we know, the priors, the prior probabilities are very few of our ideas are good. So the way to good is lots and the way to lots is bad. So just starting from instead of your kind of default, Goal being have a good idea, it's have lots. And the way to have lots is to have bad. So let's actually start there. Give me 10 bad ideas. The thing that's interesting is generally the more accomplished someone is, the harder that is for them to do. Not because it's hard to— it's very easy to have bad ideas, but it's hard on your ego to say them and to express them. Even the thought, like, write down a bad idea. Smart people have a hard time doing that because like, this is pointless. A waste of time. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's like, why am I just going to throw this Post-it away? It's like, you realize you're going to throw most of the Post-its you've ever written away, right? Exactly.

Or if somebody, I had this once, I have to share that with you, is like, I had them write down like a really bad vision of the future, right? Like some bad ideas, right? And I had them write that down on a piece of paper. And then I had them kind of like just destroy that paper, right? And throw it away. And some people, as you said, like have a really hard time to do that. Some people kind of like, you know, put the piece of paper in their bag so that nobody will actually even find it. And so it's, as you said, like the egos are just growing bigger and bigger the older we get, right? And I think we can change that because ego is in the way when you want to come up with a good idea. And as you said, having lots of ideas is the path to having a good idea.

Yeah, the other one that comes, I mean, that's pre-AI but can certainly be facilitated by AI, But one of my favorite simple exercises is take a wonder wander. So leave the room with a problem in mind and walk the block and just entertain. So for example, like, how do I build trust? Then if I walk around the block and I see the playground, then I notice the ground's soft. Okay, the ground at the playground is soft. How does that build trust? So the environment shows that falling won't hurt. Okay, interesting. And then I pass UPS and I see that the door's open on the UPS truck. Okay, what does a door open mean? Oh, well, it's an indication of competence that they could leave that off. And then I pass the nail salon and I see there's all of the colors on display in front. I go, well, how does that build trust? Oh, it shows that you can specify your preferences exactly. Okay, that's interesting. And by the time I get back home, I have tons of unexpected input. Now, AI, you can actually take a wanderwater with AI if you want. I personally, I feel there's something very important about moving our body and our our bodies kind of having these embodied experiences. But you can certainly train an AI or train a GPT or a Gem or something to do a Wonder Wander. Imagine the block, imagine the 10 things, and then imagine the relevance to this problem. I think actually there's always a question, and we've seen this from the early days of executive programs at the D School, for example. There's always a trade-off between advancing in your own learning and advancing project's outcomes. And usually there's trade-offs, right? And so I often ask, you know, somebody comes and says, hey, we want you to come to Tel Aviv and run a workshop. And I go, okay, are you interested in helping people learn or in solving a problem? And of course, everybody always says both. And I say, there are trade-offs. You know, we can either— and I need to know, like, which is the most important, that people learn how to do something or that you get an answer to this problem? And I think in a similar way, sometimes with any kind of a a technique like that, sure, AI can do it, but is your goal for it to be done, or is your goal for you to learn how to do something? And sometimes it's, you know, I was at a keynote yesterday, Minneapolis, I think, somewhere, and, you know, somebody asked about what's the best way to brainstorm with AI. I said, well, it kind of depends on your goal. Like, is your goal to build camaraderie on your team? If so, I'd incorporate AI in this way. Is your goal to generate the most ideas possible? I'd incorporate AI this way, right? So there's And even that is an example of being the prompt, which not being the prompt assumes there's one right answer. Being the prompt says, yeah, let's specify goals and then we can move from those goals to tactics.

So in the show, usually I have a moment where I want to pause and give people what I call a mind state moment.

Next, let's take a moment to pause and reconnect. This is your Mindstate moment. A chance to reset and come back to yourself, wherever you are right now. These moments of presence are powerful. They remind us that the future starts from within. By shifting how we show up in this very moment.

Just as a reflection as a pause, as a way to, you know, just tune into themselves, tune into what's going on, what do they feel, and so forth. So instead of a guided mindset moment today, I want to understand a little bit more how we can leverage AI to maybe generate reflective prompts that help us to have maybe more of those moments. And we opened up this conversation with, I think, a very powerful and a very deep question about how do you wanna be in the future and who do you want to be in the future, right? In 5 years from today. So I don't think we are gonna go that far out. We can probably like just stay in today. So let us kind of like brainstorm together what 3 reflective questions could be actually powerful to listeners that they can use to pause right now to help them use AI as a guide. Use AI to become better, right? In whatever ways they want to be better. So how would you use Claude or like your go-to AI tool to really create that mindstate moment that people could use?

Well, there's a few things that kind of immediately come to mind. One is pre-AI, if I may. I'm obsessed with application. And so one thing I would say is you can stop the podcast if you want, but do one thing you've heard. There's this notion of passive learning and active learning, and passive learning is consumption, and it's not actually learning at all, and it will evaporate, and it will— this knowledge will do you no good. Active learning is when you use something that you've learned. So I'm a big fan of getting people just as a— it is a reflection exercise of sorts, but it's active reflection. It's do one thing, you know, use your voice with an AI. I don't know what it is, right? Based on our conversation. So that's the first thing. The next thing I would say is it's interesting to think about what kind of advice do you need and can you get AI to give you advice? Because a lot of us, we think most of our kind of prompts can be more factually based. And the interesting territory, what kind of made me think of this was you using the word coach. But ask you, like, where do I need coaching? You know, how should I think about this new relationship? How do I respond to my teenage daughter's disappointments, right? Like, when you think about coaching, how do I appropriately remind a business partner of a contractual obligation, right? Those are all things like most of us are stalled because we actually need an expert or a coach coach to kind of weigh in on it. We've got in our minds, oh, I know I want to ask Carl about that, or I know I want to ask Janine about that, right? But you can also ask AI and you can ask, and importantly, tell AI to start by interviewing you as that coach. And so to me, that's kind of moving more towards AI, not necessarily on this conversation in particular, but if you get AI, you say, for example, I did this, like the famous stories with my grandma, my grandma was asking me about AI and she asked, what is this bad thing. And I go, well, what's a conversation, an emotional conversation you'd want to have with a neighbor? She goes, I thought this was technology. I just— bear with me. What's— you know, she goes, well, I, you know, I wonder when, you know, I guess when should we move into assisted living? Is— how do we think about that? I go, wow. And I pull out my phone, I'm driving. I go, hey, Chad, my grandma just asked me when she should move into assisted living. I don't know the first thing about that. Could you ask us a few questions so that you have the information you need to offer a framework for us? Sure, Jeremy. Have there been any changes to her mobility recently? And I just handed her my phone. She's like, oh, well, you know, I fell down, but I mean, I go to the gym. I'm very mobile. Is that what it means? Yeah, it's good. Next question. Have there been— tell us about her relationship with her caregivers. Hey, his daughter, my daughter, his mom, she drives up from Dallas Is this what it means? You know, yeah, sure. And all of a sudden she gets to this amazing epiphany regarding that decision. But, and the reason it's not generic is because we start the conversation with, as this expert AI, you please ask me the kinds of questions that an expert would ask in order to give the kind of guidance that I need. And if you give the permission to the AI to be the question asked, to be the prompter almost, If you give the prompt to be the prompt to the AI, it's amazing the kind of insightful questions it can ask. And then what it pulls out from you gets incorporated into its attention mechanism to guide you. That's like kind of moving towards AI. And then your question of, you know, what are reflection questions related to this conversation? Do you want to use AI for that? Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. And what I think we could do is we could follow your first guidance, which is helping people to just pause for, let's say, 90 seconds and try to apply something that they've heard so far, right? That could be either you want to prompt your favorite AI tool with your future bio question. It could be the second thing that you said, you do a brainstorm, like a bad ideas brainstorm. Brainstorm, come up with 10 bad ideas and generate that quantity first. Yeah. It could also be like change one word in your conversation, right? From I can't do this to I want to do this. And how would that look like? So what I wanna do is like literally we gonna stay quiet for 90 seconds and we allow people to do one thing that they've heard so far and experiment with that. I think that would be a powerful mind state moment. And we're gonna have some music play with that. So I'll set the timer for 90 seconds now, and we're just gonna allow our listeners to try something. All right, 30 more seconds. All right, welcome back, and I hope you experimented with something and tried out something. Definitely learned something. I wonder who took a wonder walk or wonder wander. That would be a good 90 seconds spent, would be a short one, but at least kind of like if you leave the room and just look around, right? You get a different perspective. So fantastic. So let's go into a little bit more of a speed round. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, Jeremy, that I want to—

Did you see, by the way, I dropped in chat, I asked Notion AI to offer an active reflection guide based on our conversation so far. And it's fairly actually reflective of what you just said.

Kind of interesting. Oh, wow. No, I didn't see that. Great. Pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool. So we are thinking along the same lines. I love that. Exactly. Human and AI thinking same, same, but different, as they say. First question is, what's the one thing we get wrong about AI? And you talk to a lot of people around the world, as you've mentioned. So what's the one thing that we get wrong about AI? AI?

Very simply, we talk about how we use it, and I say, when's the last time you used your accountant? When's the last time you used your intern? How often do you use AI? I hate that question. The only right answer to that question is, I don't. I work with AI. And to me, it's not just semantic, although as we've already discussed, semantics are incredibly important, but it reflects a deeper reality, which is, what's my orientation to this? Intelligence. And if my orientation is it's a tool or it's an oracle that gives me answers, you will underperform. My research on that is quite clear. If, on the other hand, your approach is this is a teammate with whom I can work to deliver high-quality output, you will outperform.

And what's one thing we hopefully will get right in the future? With AI?

I hope we can address the problem of education. I feel, you know, we— you and I both have children, and the kind of conventional way school works is so broken all the way through college. College is deeply broken as well. I do have a hope. I mean, you're seeing some glimmers of it, whether with Khan Academy, which they're doing some cool stuff, or even Alpha School, which is even more radical. My hope is that we can return education to a deeply personal, tailored, intrinsically motivating and rewarding experience from what it is as an industrial model today.

Thanks for sharing that. So what's one habit an AI habit to adopt immediately?

One AI habit, easy. Use your voice, not your fingers. If you take nothing else from this conversation, hopefully you start to see the power of using your voice. I mean, I joke, you know, Winston Churchill's a hero of mine. I saw a movie once with him where he's in the bathtub dictating a national address, and I'm like, man, how cool would it be to have an assistant who's sitting right outside? You know, she's going, you know, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, and don't call them distinguished, then distinguish, you know, okay, I'm crossing that out. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, who knows his audience, who knows his speaking style, who knows his objectives, who knows what Lord Chamberlain has said in the House of Commons and, you know, tons of other things, right? And, you know, what was available to Winston Churchills of the world only a generation ago is now available. We have assistants who know our context and our objectives and what we've spoken about before and what's happened. And that a lot of that actually gets unlocked by voice. Because so much of it is, it's the in-between. It's the in-between the meetings that you actually need that quick debrief and your voice is uniquely well suited to that kind of engagement.

So Jeremy, what's the most intimate question you've asked AI?

Most intimate question I've asked AI, interesting. Probably something to do with parenting. Around either motivating children or responding to a disciplinary need. I have a friend who I really admire and enjoy, Bryce Shalomel, who talks a lot about kind of intimacy acceleration aspects of AI and even in romantic relationships. I personally haven't felt the need for that myself, but I feel confident it probably can deliver quite well if it will deliver in whatever area domain you invite it into. So the bigger question is like, how deeply are you inviting it into your life? Wonderful.

Thanks for sharing those answers. So let's come to a close here, Jeremy. I deeply appreciated your time, your insights. What you share, you as a learner, discoverer, when you collaborate and partner with AI, what you put out there as a thought leader in the space as well. So if listeners do one thing this week to become better collaborators with AI, what should it be?

Put a Post-it note on their computer that says, have you tried ChatGPT? Put an analog physical reminder in their space. To invite AI into the moment. Wonderful.

Great. And if you wanna learn more about Jeremy's work, you find him everywhere. Literally, you find him very active on LinkedIn. You find a beautiful newsletter he's writing. You find him on his podcast Beyond the Prompt, and you'll find him in his book Idea Flow. So you'll find him everywhere, and I highly recommend to engage with his work. His thoughts, his ideas. Thank you so much, Jeremy, for being on the show. And folks, remember, AI doesn't care. It doesn't notice. It doesn't start. That's on us, on us humans. And that's where the future begins. This is The Future Is How. I'm Frederik Pferdt. Thanks for listening.

That's a wrap for today's episode. Episode of The Future Is How. Remember, the future isn't something we wait for. It's something we create with every choice, every breath, and every step we take. If this episode sparked something in you, share it with someone who's ready to shape what's next. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your next chapter begins So what will you create today? I'll see you in your future.