If you’re already using AI, I think you broadly fall into one of two camps.
You’re using it, but you’re not getting the results you want.
Or you’re using it and you’re reasonably happy with what you’re getting.
There are obviously lots of shades within those two groups, but I think the distinction is useful because the advice I’d give each group is slightly different.
If you’re in the first camp, my advice is this: stop assuming the answer is another YouTube tutorial or a better prompt.
That doesn’t mean YouTube is bad. There is plenty of useful information there. But if you’ve been watching step-by-step tutorials, trying other people’s prompts to create months’ worth of content, repeating the same process and still not getting the result you want, at some point more information stops being the answer.
I’ve done this myself. I can get into a stubborn loop of, “I will make this work. Just one more interaction,” which leads to another wasted day.
And sometimes what I actually need to do is zoom out.
You don’t know what you don’t know, and repeating the same steps won’t show you what you can’t yet see.
This is where I think two-way conversations become really valuable.
Get around people who are actively using AI. If you have people at work who are experimenting, talk to them. If you have friends or people in your network who are a few steps ahead, ask them what they’re doing. If you don’t have that around you, find a good online community where you can actually build relationships.
Listen to the language people are using. Listen to the problems they’re solving, the things they’re building and the way they’re thinking about what AI can do.
Then ask questions.
The difference for me is that a YouTube video can be impressive, but I can’t ask it what any of that means for my situation. I can’t say, “Okay, but this is how I work. This is what I’m trying to achieve. How would that apply here?”
In a conversation, you can.
One thing I’m trying to work on myself is asking better questions. Not trying to sound clever, just getting more comfortable saying, “I don’t understand that yet,” or, “Can you show me what you mean?” There is a lot of value in allowing yourself to sit in that place for a bit instead of rushing to prove that you already understand.
The value isn’t simply hearing what someone else is doing. It’s being able to work out what those possibilities mean for you.
Fortunately for me, the person who does this most is my husband, Juan. A lot of the time I feel like he is literally dragging me along.
He’ll be talking about something, building something or showing me a different way to think about AI, and sometimes it takes me a while. Then something clicks. I understand a little more, I make the next leap, and suddenly I can see possibilities I couldn’t see before… and Juan can breathe a sigh of relief.
That has happened again this week.
I didn’t follow my usual email and social media posting rhythm because I spent that time thinking much more seriously about what AI means to me, how I want to use it and where I’ve been limiting myself.
Part of that came from conversations with Juan. Some of it came from being in the right communities and seeing what other people are building, and a big part was giving myself permission to be curious enough to ask, “What am I not seeing here?”
The result is that I’ve made a big upgrade to my own content process. I’m already seeing benefits in the quality of the process and the speed at which I can work.
I’ll share more about what I’ve changed over the coming weeks because I’m still in it. The system is built, but now I’m testing it and understanding what it means rather than pretending I’ve arrived at some finished answer.
But that experience has reinforced something for me.
And I think that matters whether you’re frustrated with AI or already getting good results from it.
Sometimes the next step with AI is not to work harder at the thing you already know. It’s to get into an environment that helps you think bigger.
And that brings me to the second camp: you’re using AI, and you’re reasonably happy with your process.
I have a lot of conversations with people who tell me they’re happy with how they’re using AI, and I’d challenge you too, just in a different way.
Ask: what next?
Not because you need to change your process every week. I’ve been in that trap as well. Constantly changing the process is not the answer either.
But I also wouldn’t want to reach the point where I say, “My process works. I know enough. I’m done learning.”
Things keep changing. New possibilities appear. Something that used to take a lot of manual effort may no longer need to be done in the same way.
So the question isn’t, “How do I keep up with everything?”
I don’t think that’s realistic or particularly useful.
The better question is: “Am I still curious enough to notice when there might be a better way?”
For me, that means staying around people who stretch my understanding, asking better questions and being willing to reconsider how I work without assuming every new thing needs to be adopted.
And there is one boundary I keep coming back to, especially when I’m talking about using AI for content.
The source that is feeding your process has to be you.
Yes, I can build a better system. I can retain useful information. I can create instructions, guardrails and processes that make the work faster and more consistent.
But the thing that makes the content mine still has to come from me. That one belief has driven every system I’ve built over the past three years.
The idea. The experience. The point I actually want to make. The way I see the problem.
If I remove myself from that starting point, I might have an efficient content process, but I’m also much more likely to end up sounding like everybody else.
So wherever you are with AI right now, I don’t think the answer is to consume everything you can find.
If you’re stuck, get out of the loop and get into better conversations.
If you’re happy, stay curious enough to ask what might be possible next.
Get around the right people. Ask questions. Let yourself be the person in the room who doesn’t understand yet.
Because sometimes that conversation is the thing that helps you zoom out, see the bigger picture and make the next leap.
I'll leave you with that thought, Happy Wednesday everyone!
