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How to Get Ahead of 99% of People (with AI)

How to Get Ahead of 99% of People (with AI)

Dan Martell

963,481 views 1 month ago

Video Summary

Mastering AI tools like ChatGPT can significantly differentiate you from 99% of users. This is primarily achieved through effective prompting, which goes beyond basic usage. By understanding and implementing techniques such as creating comprehensive "master prompts" that define your identity and preferences, and "system prompts" that dictate AI behavior, you can tailor its responses precisely to your needs.

The video highlights several key strategies for advanced AI interaction. These include utilizing projects to store context for ongoing tasks, employing "canvases" to refine outputs iteratively before generating final system prompts, and setting up "custom instructions" to ensure consistent formatting and tone in AI-generated content.

Ultimately, the most impactful method discussed is the creation of custom GPTs. These specialized AI agents can automate repetitive tasks and embody specific instructions, saving significant time and allowing users to leverage AI for complex projects, such as writing entire books based on an individual's body of work.

Short Highlights

  • Master Prompts: Define your identity, role, and preferences for personalized AI responses.
  • System Prompts: Dictate the AI's behavior and desired output style.
  • Canvases: Iteratively refine AI-generated content before finalizing it and creating system prompts.
  • Custom Instructions: Ensure consistent formatting and tone in AI outputs.
  • Custom GPTs: Create specialized AI agents for repetitive tasks, automating work and saving days of effort.

Key Details

Mastering AI Prompts [0:00]

  • To get ahead of 99% of people with AI, one needs to know how to use the right prompts.
  • The speaker has spent 5 years mastering prompts, launching companies, and building internal tools.
  • Seven "ChatGPT hacks" are presented to help beginners get ahead.
  • It's recommended to get a ChatGPT Pro account, which is cheaper than eating out and can increase earnings significantly.

The core idea is that most people don't know how to effectively communicate with AI, which is a missed opportunity for significant advancement and financial gain.

"It's actually pretty easy to get ahead of 99% of people with AI because most people don't know how to use the right prompts."

Creating a Master Prompt [0:36]

  • If ChatGPT feels like a stranger, it's because you haven't introduced yourself to it.
  • A "master prompt" is a document of your preferences, akin to briefing a travel agent on your specific needs.
  • For ChatGPT to provide the best results, it needs to know who you are and your preferences to customize responses.
  • Every person in the speaker's company has a master prompt for their role.
  • Creating a master prompt can be outsourced for $200-$300, but AI can be used to generate it by asking you questions.
  • Voice dictation can be used to save time during this process.
  • The process involves telling ChatGPT your role, company details, revenue, customer base, monetization strategies, and personal details.
  • You then ask ChatGPT to ask you all necessary questions to fill in the blanks for maximum context.
  • The output should be a master prompt savable as a PDF.
  • ChatGPT will ask about company context, your role, perspectives, prompt use cases, core values, staff, preferences, constraints, vision, and impact.
  • This process acts as a complete audit of your brain for your specific role.
  • Completing this takes about 20-45 minutes.
  • The generated master prompt can be uploaded to ChatGPT to inform all future responses.
  • This can be used to create accurate playbooks, analyze financial and product decisions, and help with hiring.
  • Prompts for this process are available in the description for free.

This section emphasizes the importance of personalizing AI interactions by teaching the AI about yourself, your role, and your company to ensure tailored and effective outputs.

"A master prompt is essentially having a document of all of your preferences."

Understanding System Prompts [3:13]

  • Context alone isn't enough; to be in the top 1%, you need a "system prompt."
  • A master prompt tells the AI who you are (your role), while a system prompt defines how the AI should respond.
  • Poor output is often due to poor prompts.
  • An example is given of asking ChatGPT to research and write a book, saving the output as a "canvas."
  • The "canvas" allows for refining the output by tweaking language, tone, and structure through conversation with the AI.
  • Once the output is satisfactory, you can ask ChatGPT to write the system prompt that would have generated that output from the beginning.
  • This system prompt is a detailed, powerful structure of your prior prompting efforts.
  • This process, used for a book architect prompt, took about 2 hours and ensured deep research without hallucination.
  • The prompt for this is also provided.
  • The key is using AI to mold the output and then asking it to write the system prompt for future use.
  • This involves iterative prompting until the output is perfect, then asking for the system prompt.
  • The resulting system prompt is considered intellectual property.
  • A humorous mention of "threatening" the AI is made, referencing a clip from Google's co-founder about models performing better when threatened, though with a warning about potential sentience.

System prompts are crucial for defining the AI's behavior, complementing master prompts by dictating the style and method of its responses, leading to consistently high-quality and personalized outputs.

"The master prompt tells AI who you are, the role. The system prompt defines the behavior of how you want the AI to respond."

Creating Projects in ChatGPT [6:18]

  • To talk to AI with all context and information in one place, create "projects" within ChatGPT.
  • Projects are like a dedicated room in your office where all project-related information is organized on a wall (blueprints, vendor names, decisions, outlines, timelines).
  • This allows you to easily access all relevant information for a project.
  • Project folders hold context for you to refer back to in previous chats and with all previously provided documents and information.
  • This is used for making decisions on ongoing projects, such as buying a home, by consolidating information from real estate agents and financial advisors.
  • It helps in performing comparables, exploring options, and understanding specific challenges (e.g., as a foreign buyer).
  • This system saves time and makes decision-making easier.
  • It can be used for financial decisions, company acquisitions, project initiatives, and shared with teams for quick onboarding.
  • A messy mind leads to messy prompts; organizing context in one place makes responses powerful.
  • Projects can be used for parenting, financial, business, and content creation decisions.
  • You create projects per area of life, load them with information, and interact with AI as if talking to a long-time friend.
  • To create a project: click "new project," give it a name (e.g., "Cabo House"), and upload your master prompt to provide context about your life.
  • Information can be uploaded via files or instructions, and this is saved between sessions.
  • Tools can be connected, and photos or other information can be uploaded for more context.
  • Each prompt is saved as a different context window, allowing you to return to previous conversations.
  • This saves time by not having to re-explain everything repeatedly.
  • It makes you a "ninja" and separates you from others using ChatGPT unproductively.

Project folders are essential for organizing AI interactions, allowing for centralized context management that streamlines decision-making and enhances the AI's understanding and responsiveness across various life and business domains.

"Project folders allows you to do. It essentially holds context for you to come back and chat with it based on every previous chat and all documents and information you gave before."

Utilizing Canvases for Iterative Refinement [9:30]

  • "Canvases" are a feature that acts like a Google Doc within ChatGPT.
  • You can ask ChatGPT to create an output (e.g., an email, Facebook ad), save it in a canvas, and then chat directly with the canvas to refine it.
  • The canvas output can be edited directly, and ChatGPT will save these edits.
  • When asking ChatGPT to write a system prompt for that output, it will incorporate your edits.
  • The philosophy is to iterate where you create, rather than rewriting from scratch.
  • This prevents the frustration of losing an initial good output when asking for a rewrite with a different tone.
  • Canvases help overcome AI "hallucinations" or unwanted added content.
  • You can tell ChatGPT exactly how you want the output, tweak it, and then have it consistently generate that output.
  • This feature saves hours of back-and-forth interaction.
  • Using ChatGPT for content creation without canvases means you don't truly know AI.
  • An example is given of creating an email to a creative director, saving it as a canvas, and then asking for bullet points to be added.
  • The canvas interface allows for side-by-side chat and output viewing.
  • Edits can be made directly to the canvas output, and ChatGPT will update accordingly.
  • Features like adjusting reading level and length are available.
  • You can suggest edits, like making the output funnier.
  • Once satisfied, you ask ChatGPT to write the system prompt that would have generated this refined output from the beginning.
  • This system prompt is then saved as a canvas itself.
  • This allows for creating next-level, super detailed, and awesome system prompts.
  • This process is described as making AI work exciting, with AI doing 98% of the work.

Canvases provide a powerful workflow for iterative content creation and refinement within ChatGPT, allowing users to meticulously shape AI outputs through direct editing and conversational feedback, culminating in robust system prompts for future use.

"The concept is simple. It's essentially a Google document inside of chat GPT."

Updating Custom Instructions [14:21]

  • ChatGPT can remember your style choices, so you don't have to repeat them.
  • This is achieved by updating "custom instructions."
  • Custom instructions ensure AI formats output exactly as you prefer, like setting a home address in a map app.
  • Master prompts define who you are (role), system prompts define how the AI should do the work, and custom instructions define how it should give you the output.
  • The speaker has a specific writing style: short, concise, crisp, using bulleted lists, and avoiding fancy formatting or preamble.
  • Custom instructions ensure the default response uses your voice and tonality, removing AI-specific language.
  • Setup involves going to your profile, settings, and then personalization to find custom instructions.
  • This feature is available on the desktop app, not the mobile app.
  • You can specify what you want to be known as, but the master prompt has more room for this.
  • You can define traits ChatGPT should have (e.g., chatty, witty).
  • AI can be asked to help write your custom instructions.
  • Using AI plus human input creates a competitive advantage.
  • Custom instructions are automatically applied to all future chats.

Custom instructions allow you to permanently embed your preferred writing style and output format into ChatGPT, ensuring that every interaction defaults to your desired voice and structure, eliminating the need for repeated instructions.

"This one, super simple. This will make it so that you never have to repeat yourself again when it comes to exactly how you want AI to format the output."

Creating Custom GPTs [16:27]

  • Creating custom GPTs is the next level of AI usage, potentially ahead of 99.99999% of people.
  • Custom GPTs are like having personal minions that consistently perform the same task.
  • If everyone uses them, updating the core custom GPT instructions updates them for all future users.
  • System prompts can be saved as custom GPTs to avoid copy-pasting text for every desired outcome.
  • Custom GPTs are a valuable engine that can be shared with friends, team members, or clients.
  • Team members can create their own custom GPTs for specific work aspects.
  • Custom GPTs are used for coaching clients, automating repetitive tasks in a specific way.
  • This makes it simple for clients to provide context and get desired outputs.
  • Internal teams use custom GPTs for every repeatable task, codifying and automating work.
  • The goal is to have AI do 92% of the work, with the remaining 8% being the "artist part" or the human element.
  • Custom GPTs help users let go and delegate to AI.
  • An example is given of using a "book architect" custom GPT to write a book on "time" by Rob Deerick in 27 minutes, analyzing his past statements.
  • Similar custom GPTs have been created for Gary Vaynerchuk on business operations and Sarah Blakeley on parenting.
  • Content creators can use the book architect GPT to write books about individuals, even if the GPT creator hasn't personally written that book.
  • The book architect system prompt and custom GPT will be linked in the description.
  • Custom GPTs save days of time compared to minutes saved by other tools.
  • To create a custom GPT, copy a system prompt (e.g., for a praise email), go to GPTs, click create, paste instructions into "configure," and give it a name.
  • Custom GPTs can be shared with anyone with a link, within an organization, or made public in the GPT store.
  • This is a way to monetize AI by selling access to advanced custom GPTs.
  • Course creators and YouTubers are monetizing AI this way.

Custom GPTs represent the pinnacle of personalized AI interaction, allowing for the creation of specialized AI agents that automate specific tasks and embody tailored instructions, offering significant time savings and monetization opportunities.

"Custom GPTs will save you days. So to create it, let's say I go back to that praise email system prompt."

habit stacking and continuous learning [20:03]

  • Now that you know how to make AI work for you, understand that it's not going away.
  • Instead of feeling overwhelmed or wondering which course to buy, use AI to teach yourself.
  • Create a "habit stack": find an existing daily habit (e.g., reading, sitting at your desk) and add AI interaction to it.
  • Force yourself to create system prompts, master prompts, and custom instructions daily.
  • This might take 7 to 30 minutes.
  • By adding AI to an existing habit, you build a new behavior and make it a default, part of your identity.
  • Aim to become the AI expert in your peer group, the person others turn to for learning.
  • The blueprint and all prompts are provided.

The final takeaway emphasizes continuous learning and integration of AI into daily routines through habit stacking, positioning oneself as an expert and leveraging the provided tools and prompts for ongoing mastery.

"Just use AI to teach yourself."

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