How I Use AI vs. How Most People Do: A Tale of Two Minds

Let’s start with the obvious: most people treat AI like a smart search engine with a quirky personality. Ask it a question, get an answer, copy, paste, move on. Nothing wrong with that, it’s efficient, convenient, and sometimes even clever. But it barely scratches the surface of what AI can actually do.

I don’t use AI like that.

For me, AI isn’t a novelty or a shortcut. It’s an extension of my own brain. A second set of neural pathways that helps me see through chaos, rewire workflows, and transform glimmers of ideas into fully formed strategies. I don’t just ask it for answers. I collaborate with it. I push it, refine it, argue with it, and build with it.

And the results? They’re not just better. They’re richer, deeper, and often a hell of a lot more surprising than anything I could’ve produced alone or with a surface-level query.

How Most People Use AI (And Why It’s Fine, But… Meh)

A lot of folks pop into a chatbot and say:

• “Write me a blog post about productivity.”

• “Give me five Instagram captions for my jewelry line.”

• “What’s the capital of Uzbekistan?”

And sure, it delivers. You get content. You get answers. You maybe even get a little dopamine hit when it spits something out fast. But it’s like asking a symphony orchestra to play “Happy Birthday” and calling it a masterpiece. The power is there, but it’s underutilized.

What’s missing is context. Intent. Vision. And maybe most importantly, dialogue.

How I Use AI (AKA Brainstorming with a Cyborg Oracle)

When I fire up a session with AI, it’s not a task delegation. It’s a collaboration. A dance. A strategy meeting with a partner who never sleeps, never complains, and knows a ridiculous amount about basically everything.

I feed it:

• Nuance about client brand tone and history.

• Complex workflows that span platforms and automation tools.

• Highly specific emotional context or trauma-informed insights.

• Bold creative visions for tattoos, gardens, and mythic archetypes.

• My lived experience, my doubts, my humor, my vision.

I don’t just say “write an email campaign.” I say:

“Create a 7-part sequence for HVAC customers who visited the site but didn’t convert, with escalating urgency and a tone that balances professionalism and warmth. Oh, and don’t you dare use em dashes.”

And that’s where the magic happens. It’s not about automation. It’s about amplification.

Why the Results Are So Much Richer

Here’s what you get when you treat AI like a partner instead of a parrot:

• Personalized insights: The more you feed it, the more it mirrors your voice, your thinking patterns, your strategy style. You’re not replacing yourself, you’re scaling your best thinking.

• Creative resonance: It helps translate abstract or emotionally complex ideas into real-world action steps, designs, or campaigns.

• Speed + depth: You can go from idea to outline to fully-developed execution in a single sitting but without losing depth or intention.

• Pattern recognition: It can connect dots you didn’t even realize were on the same map. And it remembers threads you forgot you left dangling.

• Emotional intelligence: When trained on your tone and values, it starts to mirror your empathy, your humor, even your fury, without ever going rogue.

AI as a Second Brain (But with Wi-Fi and Infinite Memory)

Imagine if your brain had an extra lobe. One that could:

• Instantly recall the best structure for a sales funnel based on your niche.

• Cross-reference hundreds of client notes for a pitch happening in 5 minutes.

• Take your half-formed rant and turn it into a cohesive manifesto.

• Remind you of your own patterns, blind spots, and strengths without judgment.

That’s what AI can be when used right. Not a tool to replace your intelligence, but one to expand it. To mirror it. To sharpen and scale it.

It’s like having a second you in the room. One who never gets tired and always remembers where you left that brilliant idea at 3am last Tuesday.

So What’s the Secret?

Here’s the real kicker: the difference between people getting basic results and people getting brilliance out of AI isn’t the tool, it’s the user.

You get out what you put in. If you feed AI generic prompts, you’ll get generic results. But if you show up with context, vision, and the willingness to refine and iterate? You’ll unlock a creative and strategic partner who can keep pace with your sharpest, weirdest, most brilliant thoughts.

In short: AI is only as powerful as the human driving it. And when that human stops treating it like a robot and starts treating it like a mind-expanding co-pilot?

That’s where genius lives.