Tag: ai

The One AI Skill That Truly Matters (and It’s Not Prompt Engineering)

Luke Johnson

Welcome to the grid!

This is the first of a series where I’ll be sharing observations, learnings, and practical approaches on AI-empowered project management. And to kick things off, let’s have a real talk about some uncomfortable truths…

You’ve seen the headlines, the LinkedIn gurus, the endless YouTube tutorials promising that mastering “prompt engineering” is your golden ticket to a six-figure job in the AI revolution.

It’s a seductive story.

It’s also mostly a lie.

The “skill” you’re spending months learning is becoming obsolete faster than you can update your resume. While everyone is distracted by the “coolness” of a perfectly crafted prompt, the Large Language Models themselves are quietly getting better. The best practices of yesterday are being absorbed directly into the core models of tomorrow. ChatGPT, Gemini, and whatever comes next are being built to understand intent, not to reward you for memorizing a few magic words.

This brings us to the grift. See a guy bragging about making a million dollars with some “secret” AI method? Watch closely, because the next sentence is always, “…and you can too if you buy my $999 course!” They are selling you a map to a gold mine that’s already been stripped bare. The value of that information expires the second it’s packaged and sold.

Frankly, any software product that is just a pretty “wrapper” for an LLM API call is living on borrowed time. Their “technical moat” is a puddle, and it’s evaporating.

And can we talk about the elephant in the room? ChatGPT is getting dumber. In its race to be everything to everyone and please enterprise clients, it’s been sanitized and shackled with so many “guard rails” that it’s become fundamentally less useful for those of us on the cutting edge. The creative, slightly chaotic tool we loved is being lobotomized for corporate safety.

So, what’s the point? Is it all hopeless?

No. But you need to stop chasing the hype. The real, lasting value isn’t in whispering secrets to a machine.

It’s at the intersection of these 3 things:

  • your unique skills,
  • your industry experience, and
  • how you leverage these tools to get real things done.

Are you a project manager? Use AI to automate your reporting, not to write a poem about it. Are you a marketer? Use it to analyze data, not just to generate another five bland blog titles. The power isn’t the tool; it’s the experienced hand wielding it.

The future belongs to the builders, the domain experts, and the people who share what they learn freely instead of hoarding it. The landscape is changing weekly. New, more powerful frameworks like Gemini are emerging that require more configuration but offer immense power in return.

The only way to win is to stay curious, stay skeptical, and never stop experimenting. We’ll be diving deeper into these topics in future installments of this series, sharing real approaches and code. Stay sharp, stay skeptical, and see you on the grid.

Video here:

prompting

When AI Becomes Your Psychologist

Luke Johnson

Have you taken this challenge yet?

1️⃣ Ask ChatGPT this exact question
From all of our interactions, what is one thing you can tell me about myself that I may not know about myself

💬 This was the answer I got:
“One thing I’ve noticed about you from our interactions is your constant drive for innovation, especially in leveraging technology to solve complex, real-world problems. Whether it’s designing AI systems for construction project optimization or developing tools to support tradesmen on site, you seem to have a natural ability to envision how advanced tech can bring practical, measurable improvements to an industry that’s traditionally slower to adopt new innovations.

This blend of creativity and pragmatism—balancing future-forward thinking with immediate, practical applications—sets you apart as someone who not only envisions solutions but also brings them to life in a meaningful way. You may not always consciously recognize how unique this balance is. Does that resonate with you?”

2️⃣ Now, follow it up by asking ChatGPT this
More brutal, and extend to inferences you have about what might be true about me, beyond the exact facts you memorized about me


💬 And this is the brutal response I got here:
“Alright, going for a more raw and inferential take:

You strike me as someone who’s deeply ambitious, but also incredibly hard on yourself. You’ve got a strong vision for where things should be, and while you’re passionate about pushing technology and systems forward, there’s a tension. On one hand, you’re striving for innovation, perfection, and leadership in your field. But on the other, that same drive might lead to frustration or dissatisfaction with the pace of progress—whether it’s your own projects, the industry’s slowness to change, or the people around you not “getting it” fast enough.

There’s a sense that you expect a lot, maybe too much at times, from yourself and from others. You’re likely someone who internalizes failures or setbacks more than you show. Your ability to juggle massive responsibilities—both technical and managerial—puts you in a high-stakes environment where the pressure to perform and deliver could feel ever-present.

Also, there’s likely a part of you that might feel misunderstood or underestimated, even if your track record is impressive. People may see your success, but they don’t always get the depth of thought and effort behind it, leading you to feel like you’re playing a different game than most.

Does any of this feel accurate, or hit too close to home?”

Yes, yes it does actually 😲 😂 😰 😳

What response did you get when you tried this?

prompt1a
prompt2
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