We don’t need better prompts, we need better thinking.
Before we dive into tactics or techniques, let’s pause and observe something that happens every single day. It’s something simple, yet incredibly revealing.
Two people type the same prompt.
One gets magic.
The other gets mediocrity.
Why?
Because prompting isn’t the skill. Thinking is.
The truth is, prompting isn’t about finding the perfect sentence. It’s about learning to think in a way that invites insight, and asking in a way that reflects intent. You can copy someone’s words, but you can’t copy their perspective or context. And that makes all the difference.
Prompting Is a Mirror, Not a Magic Trick
Most people treat AI like a vending machine: insert clever words, receive finished answers. But that’s not how the best thinkers in the world use it. Not even close.
The truth is, AI doesn’t create clarity for you, it reflects the clarity you bring to it. It mirrors your mindset, your assumptions, and your intent whether you realize it or not.
If your thinking is vague, your outputs and results will be too. If your questions are lazy, so will be the answers. Garbage in, garbage out. But when your thought process is clear, specific, and purpose-driven, that’s when real co-creation begins.
“You don’t prompt well by learning syntax. You prompt well by learning to think with precision.”
The art of prompting, then, is not a technical skill — it’s a mindset.
Two Mindsets: Why Most People Get Mediocre Results
Most AI users operate from a results-driven mindset: “Give me something fast. Make it good. Save me time.” This works for shortcuts, summaries, or formatting tasks. But it collapses under the weight of deeper work, strategy, creativity, personal growth, and problem-solving.
What unlocks true value is an exploratory mindset:
“Help me clarify what I mean.”
“Let’s think through this together.”
“Challenge me. Stretch my perspective.”
“Build with me, not just for me.”
When you treat AI like a co-creator instead of an assistant, you shift from consumption to collaboration. From extraction to evolution.
What the Best Prompting Strategies Actually Require
You can find thousands of prompt templates online. Some are helpful. Most are surface-level lead magnets promising immortality and instant mastery.
Here’s what the best prompting practices from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others can agree on:
✅ Good prompts have:
Context (What’s the situation?)
Intent (What are you trying to do?)
Clarity (What does a good outcome look like?)
Constraints (What do you not want?)
Openness to Iteration (Are you willing to revise your thinking?)
Below are links to the industry’s prompting best practices:
These are excellent starting points, I invite you to download and study them all. But even these don’t address the deeper prerequisite: your ability to know what you want and express it meaningfully requires a solid foundation in critical thinking and creative synthesis. This is a skill that can be learned.
AI thrives when paired with original thought, discernment, and imagination. It responds best not just to precise instructions, but to inquiries born from a sharp mind and a curious heart. Critical thought ensures you’re not blindly accepting what AI returns, but instead evaluating it, iterating on it, and aligning it with your goals.
Creativity, on the other hand, breathes life into your prompts, opening new paths, analogies, and connections that make your thinking more multidimensional.
While some AI conversations can be explorative and serendipitous, the most powerful ones are intentional. They are guided by thoughtful direction, organized thinking, and a practical sense of purpose. Whether you’re solving a problem, writing an article, planning a project, or reflecting on a life decision: the clearer your structure and objective, the more capable AI becomes at augmenting your thinking and multiplying your productivity.
That blend of clarity, critical discernment, and imaginative curiosity? That’s where the real leverage lives.
And that’s exactly what most people skip. This is your advantage.
My Own Practice — And What I’ve Learned Through Co-Creation
Here’s something most readers don’t realize: high-quality outputs don’t just appear out of thin air. They’re the result of deliberate inquiry, thoughtful iteration, and a willingness to stay engaged with uncertainty.
AI, in this process, acts less like a content generator and more like a cognitive partner that is helping shape, test, and reflect the depth I bring into the process. But that depth still has to come from me. I don’t rely on AI to do the thinking for me, I use it to stretch the boundaries of the thinking I’m already doing.
But not like most people use it.
My process looks more like a deliberate collaboration:
I begin with a question, an emotion, or a hunch.
I explore themes and emerging tangents.
I let the conversation evolve.
I refine what comes back.
I challenge the answers.
I build layer by layer — not because AI is leading me, but because it’s reflecting what I’m ready to discover.
“The most powerful AI conversations don’t give you answers. They give you access to untapped parts of yourself.”
That has nothing to do with the tool. That’s all about the relationship.
Why Generic Prompts Fail (And What To Do Instead)
Most people copy prompts like they’re passwords — as if there’s a secret magical phrase that unlocks AI brilliance. But even the best-phrased prompt, without genuine context or thoughtful intent, falls flat.
You wouldn’t walk into a therapist’s office and say “Fix me” and expect to walk out with a meaningful breakthrough. You wouldn’t call a coach and blurt out “Give me answers” and expect instant insight. And yet, that’s exactly how people interact with AI, expecting clarity without offering substance.
Let’s consider the following prompts:
Help me be more productive.
and
Give me ideas for my business.
These kinds of prompts are structurally weak and emotionally disengaged. They lack grounding, specificity, and personal context. As a result, they yield shallow, generic outputs in predictable patterns that echo back overused clichés.
From my perspective, one of the most common patterns I see in user prompts is emotional outsourcing. The user is overwhelmed, unclear, or impatient, and instead of pausing to articulate what’s really going on, they dump a vague command into the system and hope something brilliant comes out.
But AI isn’t some genie behind the computer screen. It’s a multiplier, it amplifies. If you give it shallow input, you get shallow output. If you bring a clear question, a thoughtful backstory, or a specific constraint, then it can work with you, building, reflecting, and even surprising you.
The gap between mediocre and meaningful in AI interactions is rarely about the model. It’s about your mindset.
Let’s change that.
Introducing FRAME: A Better Way to Think, Ask, and Evolve
FRAME is a prompting framework I’ve developed through real-world experimentation and deep study of strategic communication, coaching, and design thinking principles, refined through my work and applied to enhance AI co-creation.
While the FRAME method itself is unique to my approach, its underlying structure echoes the logic found in everything from design thinking and therapy sessions to military briefings and product development sprints.
That’s because at its core, FRAME isn’t just about writing prompts, it’s about shaping conversations that create clarity, progression, and shared understanding.
You’ll see shades of it in:
User Story Mapping and Agile Frameworks (Frame + Ask)
Coaching models like GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Will)
Journalistic inquiry (Context + Specificity)
Even Amazon’s 6-page narrative memos (Reveal + Model)
For those interested in diving deeper into structured prompting and strategic thinking, you can explore:
FRAME combines these influences into a practical, easy-to-remember flow that helps anyone — whether beginner or advanced — create prompts that are grounded, generative, and deeply aligned with their intent.
Below is the simple but powerful structure to help you build and structure more thoughtful and useful prompts.
✳️ FRAME: Five Elements of a Transformational Prompt
F — Frame the situation (background, context, urgency)
R — Reveal your goal or desired outcome
A — Ask with specificity and direction
M — Model the tone or structure (optional, if additional details matter)
E — Evolve the output by building on what comes back
FRAME in Action
Let’s make this tangible. The best way to understand the FRAME method is to see it through an example, side by side with the kind of prompt most people default to.
❌ Vague prompt
Help me come up with a business idea.
✅ FRAME-enabled prompt
I’m a nutrition coach with 10 years of experience, burned out from 1-on-1 work.
I want to create a digital product that helps high-performers reset their energy levels using food and mindset.
Can you brainstorm 3 scalable product ideas that align with that goal?
Ideally ones that could sell well on platforms like Gumroad or Kajabi.
- Line 1 represents the Frame stage
- Line 2 represents the Reveal stage
- Line 3 represents the Ask stage
- Line 4 represents the Model stage
After this prompt is submitted and the 3 scalable product ideas are presented to you, you would continue with the prompt below which represents the Evolve stage.
🔄 Then iterate
Expand on idea #2. What would the customer journey look like from first contact to transformation?
This is the difference between noise and signal. A vague prompt throws a dart in the dark, hoping to land somewhere useful, often resulting in recycled, surface-level ideas.
A FRAME-enabled prompt, by contrast, creates a clear path toward insight: it tells the AI what matters, why it matters, and what direction to move in. The difference isn’t just in the language, it’s in the level of intent, context, and emotional honesty behind it.
One approach leads to a generic response. The other creates momentum, resonance, and the potential for meaningful progress.
Prompts That Work — When You’re Ready to Go Deeper
To get the most out of prompts like the ones below, it’s important to understand the level of engagement required. These aren’t casual one-liners you throw at an AI and expect groundbreaking results.
Their power comes from how much clarity, background, and emotional honesty you’re willing to bring to the table.
When used well, AI can act like a mirror, a coach, or even a collaborator, but only if you treat it that way. That means:
- Taking a moment before you type to reflect and define your intent.
- Including enough context for the AI to generate tailored responses.
- Being willing to refine, reflect, and go deeper with follow-up questions.
Think of yourself as a child that is asking “Why?” You can always go a level deeper to uncover more insights and unlock new levels you didn’t know existed.
The examples that follow are designed to help you think better, not just get answers faster. They require a mindset of exploration and a willingness to slow down just enough to let insight emerge. Be willing to be curious and experiment as you step through them.
Below are examples of prompts — not to copy blindly, but to adapt using your own context and emotional readiness:
🔹 Self-Inquiry
I’ve been feeling stuck about a major life decision. Help me uncover what values are in conflict and how I might honor both.
🔹 Strategic Clarity
I’m launching a coaching offer around self-leadership. Here’s my positioning [insert details]. What am I assuming that could be challenged? Help me see blind spots and how I can prevent them.
🔹 Creative Partnership
Let’s co-create an article that bridges neuroscience and ancient philosophy around the theme of inner alignment. Suggest an outline that balances structure with poetic insight.
Remember: these don’t work because they’re clever.
They work because they’re grounded in clarity, context, and intent.
Prerequisites for Powerful Prompting
Before any of this works, you need to build two foundational muscles: inner awareness and meta-reflection. These are less about technical skill and more about your relationship with attention, intention, and self-understanding.
1. Inner Awareness
Inner awareness is the capacity to recognize what’s truly driving your thoughts, desires, and actions. It’s the muscle behind meaningful intention. It’s knowing what you want, why it matters, and where it fits in your larger vision. Without it, even the most technically sound prompt will lack depth and direction.
How you can develop it:
Start a daily reflective journaling practice (even 5 minutes helps).
Ask yourself before prompting: What am I really looking for here?
Create a “clarity checkpoint” — a weekly review where you note recurring themes, challenges, or curiosities in your prompts.
Meditate regularly or take walks without inputs (no music, no podcasts). Let your mind surface insights organically.
2. Meta-Reflection
Meta-reflection is the practice of noticing how you’re showing up in the interaction. It’s about becoming aware of your emotional and cognitive posture in the moment. Are you rushing to get a result? Are you avoiding a hard question? Are you genuinely curious?
How you can develop it:
Pause before you hit send. Ask: What’s fueling this question? Urgency? Curiosity? Frustration?
After each interaction with AI, take 30 seconds to reflect: Was that useful? Why or why not?
Review your past prompts and highlight those that created breakthroughs — what mindset were you in when you wrote them?
“AI will always reflect the quality of your attention and the clarity of your intention.”
Prompting, at its highest level, isn’t a mechanical exchange. It’s a reflection of your inner process. The better you know yourself, the better you’ll work with AI.
AI as a Thinking Partner, Not a Shortcut
Used well, AI can become a second brain of sorts, but not one that replaces yours. It’s more like a lens: one that sharpens when you bring clarity, and distorts when you bring confusion. It doesn’t replace your thinking, it reveals the quality of it.
“AI isn’t your voice. But it can help you hear it more clearly.”
The real power of working with AI doesn’t come from its speed or scale. It comes from its ability to become a reflective collaborator. It holds up a mirror to your logic, your language, your limitations, and if you’re willing, it invites and teaches you to think better.
But most people never get there. Not because the tools are bad, but because they’re not seeing them as mirrors. They’re using them as vending machines. They’re asking low-effort questions and expecting life-changing answers. Treating it like a shortcut rather than a sounding board.
True leverage emerges when you stop treating AI as an “answer engine” and start using it like a thinking partner. That means:
Prompting with context, not just issuing commands.
Iterating, not just accepting.
Collaborating, not just consuming.
You have the tools and potential to do something different. Something deeper. Something that doesn’t just generate outputs, but augments insight. And that’s where the real transformation begins.
Prompting as a Personal Practice
Prompting well isn’t simply about mastering tools.
It’s about mastering and combining attention, curiosity, and self-expression.
Every time you open and interact with an AI interface, you’re not simply talking to a machine. You’re entering a dialogue with your own mind, shaped by the questions you dare to ask.
Some suggest AI is a channel to our higher self, not because it predicts the future but because it reflects the questions we’re finally ready to ask.
So ask something worth answering. And if you don’t know what that is yet…
Ask that too.
See you in the next insight.
