How To Use AI to Build Your Clarity

I am here to prepare the world for my children.

Reading Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” inspired me to change the way I approach my life and my business. The phrase above is now the reason I’m here and the reason you’re receiving this email from me.

If I can uplift you, even just a little bit, the ripples will come back to serve my children, I am certain of it.

Overwhelmed By Generative AI

Over the past year, I’ve been overwhelmed by AI tools on a consistent basis.

Some of it is my own laziness (trying to avoid the work). Most of it has just been the fact that there is so much out there! And I know that if I have been overwhelmed, I can’t imagine how non-technical people about this space and the push from their peers to learn it.

Brutal.

I define overwhelm as an intense feeling of anxiety over the decisions that must be made now or in the future.

Anxiety is the feeling that pops up when you have too many options. Overwhelm is the feeling you get when those options are “important” and “require immediate” attention. I add quotation marks because it’s generally our perception that elevates importance and the immediacy of decision.

AI tends to create feelings of overwhelm in people (and I have NO idea why, none whatsoever, it not like there are thousands of tools and prompts…)

Some common thoughts:

• I need to learn to use AI! But this book with 5000 prompts isn’t helpful. How do I know which one to use?

• Other people are using AI. I’m falling behind! Ah! Cue anxiety and overwhelm

• Well THAT response wasn’t useful and there’s so much there! I don’t want to read all of that!

AI is a powerful tool.

Powerful tools must be used with care or they can distract or hurt the user (you), which ultimately removes any added power in the first place.

Add on the surrounding environment of 5000 prompts here, 300 personas there, with thousands of AI startups and you’re digging a deeper pit into overwhelm (and despair).

I call this “shooting yourself in the foot.”

So what’s the ultimate solution to all of these options that require our “immediate” attention?

Clarity!

Clarity Directs Power

Power is an amplifier.

It’s the ability to turn thought into reality.

So if your thoughts are negative, unstructured, or (dare I say) stupid, then any increase in power is gonna be pretty frustrating.

”Other people are using AI to do all this awesome stuff, why can’t I figure it out!?” You tell yourself.

Then you try some more and it still doesn’t work

And then you give up.

Because who hasn’t gotten frustrated with technology.

Clarity puts a lens on your power and directs it, like a magnifying glass focusing the sunlight to make FIRE!

There are 4 ways to build clarity:

1. Definitions

2. Questions

3. Systems - A step by step process that yields a predictable result

4. Frameworks - A way of thinking that helps you arrive more quickly at an accurate conclusion

The 4 levers that I teach about are an example of a framework for interacting with AI. They direct the tool to be powerful in the right way. To be powerful for your benefit, and not your detriment.

If you’ve ever used ChatGPT and asked it to give you some feedback, or guide you through a process, or help you do something and it responded with more than 15 things you needed to do, then you know what the “detriment” I’m talking about is.

AI is also fetching awesome because it can help you create (and stick to) your clarifying definitions, systems, and frameworks.

Requesting baby steps is a perfect way to get an initial system. Self reflection can give you an immediate framework to follow to make a decision. The role and template can influence both of the above dramatically increasing the level of clarity in the response.

Which means you can use the powerful tool to build your clarity!

But this does not take away your own need to build personal clarity and define boundaries you won’t cross so that you can limit overwhelm.

For example: I only use ChatGPT. I don’t care to try the other chatbots very often (if at all). That’s a personally imposed boundary that limits the decisions I have to make. This limits overwhelm.

Boundaries and limits are the best definitions you can create for yourself because they let you confidently say “No” to anything that lives outside the boundary that shouldn’t be let in.

This is important in a world that is moving as quickly as ours, and is paramount in the AI space where new tools pop up daily.

Choose a place to be. Limit the tools you use (something I struggle with). Create boundaries and trust in them and your ability to pivot.

Clarity and boundaries are how you destroy overwhelm in the AI space and make sure each tool you use serves you instead of destroys you.

Building Clarity In Our Community

To best prepare the world for my children, I must uplift and train as many people as possible to powerfully pursue their dreams and make them a reality.

That’s what I do inside of the Build With AI community.

If there’s anything you’d like to learn about, please respond to this email and let me know!

Your friend and AI coach,
Sterling Long!

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