You wouldn’t hire a business coach and ask them “Tell me a fact.”
Yet that’s how most people use AI.
They ask for information, not insight. They treat ChatGPT like Google with a personality. They get mediocre outputs and wonder why everyone’s banging on about AI.
The game changes when you stop asking AI to find answers and start asking it to think WITH you.
Here are seven ways to do exactly that.
The Problem
I see this constantly. Business owners using ChatGPT like a fancy search engine. “What’s a good marketing strategy?” “How do I improve sales?” “Give me social media ideas.”
Generic questions get generic answers. You already knew that stuff. The AI regurgitated what’s been written a thousand times before.
The people getting value from AI aren’t asking better questions. They’re asking different TYPES of questions. Questions that make AI think differently. Questions you hadn’t considered yourself. Questions that reveal blind spots and cut through analysis paralysis.
I’ve tested dozens of prompting strategies over the past year. Seven consistently produce outputs that make generic prompts look amateur.
Here they are.
The 7 Prompts That Work
1. “Give me the worst possible version first”
Sounds backwards. It’s brilliant.
Ask ChatGPT to write the worst version of whatever you need. Email, pitch, content. Then ask for the best version. You learn what makes outputs terrible by seeing it explicitly. The good version hits harder because you understand the gap.
Example: “Write a cold email for my service. Give me the worst possible version first, then the best.”
You’ll see desperation, jargon, walls of text. Then you’ll see what works. Quality by contrast.
2. “You have unlimited time and resources. What’s your ideal approach?”
This removes AI’s bias toward “practical” answers. You get the dream solution. Then YOU decide what to scale back based on real constraints.
Example: “I need to learn Python. You have unlimited time and resources. What’s your ideal approach?”
AI stops giving you the rushed 30-day bootcamp. It shows you the comprehensive path. Then you cut what doesn’t fit. You’re cutting from excellence, not settling for mediocrity.
3. “Compare your answer to how [EXPERT] would approach this”
Multi-perspective analysis without multiple prompts.
Example: “Suggest a content strategy. Then compare your answer to how Gary Vee and Seth Godin would each approach this differently.”
You get three schools of thought in one response. The comparison shows trade-offs you’d miss on your own. You’re not getting AN answer. You’re getting the RANGE of answers.
4. “Identify what I’m NOT asking but probably should be”
The blind-spot finder. AI catches the adjacent questions you overlooked.
Example: “I want to start freelancing. Identify what I’m NOT asking but probably should be.”
Suddenly you’re thinking about contracts, pricing models, client red flags. Stuff that wasn’t on your radar but matters. This prompt has saved me from more mistakes than I can count.
5. “Break this into a 5-step process, then tell me which step people usually mess up”
Structure plus failure prediction equals actual preparation.
Example: “Break ‘launching a newsletter’ into a 5-step process, then tell me which step people usually mess up.”
You get a roadmap AND the common pitfalls highlighted before you hit them. Way more valuable than generic how-to lists.
6. “Challenge your own answer. What’s the strongest counter-argument?”
Built-in fact-checking. AI plays devil’s advocate against itself.
Example: “Should I quit my job to start a business? Challenge your own answer. What’s the strongest counter-argument?”
Forces balanced thinking instead of confirmation bias. You see both sides argued well. Then decide from informed ground. This is how you avoid expensive mistakes.
7. “If you could only give me ONE action to take right now, what would it be?”
Cuts through analysis paralysis with surgical precision.
Example: “I want to improve my writing. If you could only give me ONE action to take right now, what would it be?”
No 10-step plans. No overwhelming roadmaps. The highest-leverage move. Then ask for the next one after you complete it. Progress beats perfection.
Your Move
Pick ONE of these seven prompts. Not all of them. One.
Apply it to a real business problem you’re facing TODAY. Not a hypothetical. Something you’re stuck on right now.
See the difference in output quality immediately.
Then add it to your prompt library. Document what works. Build your personal AI toolkit.
This is the 10% human input that drives the 80% AI execution. That gives you back time for the 10% human refinement.
That’s the 10/80/10 framework in action.
Pro tip: Keep the same ChatGPT window open when you’re working through a problem. Don’t start new chats. Let the context build across prompts. Each prompt becomes more powerful with accumulated understanding. Treat it like a conversation, not isolated queries.
Stop asking AI to find information. Start asking it to process information in ways you hadn’t considered.
That’s the shift.
