Why You Should Talk With AI, Not To It
AI shouldn’t be treated as a tool. The real magic happens when you use it as a conversation partner
“The quality of your thinking is determined by the quality of your questions.”
Tony Robbins
The overlooked skill that separates great thinkers from lazy prompt-jockeys
If you’ve spent any time playing with ChatGPT, Claude, or other AI tools, you’ve probably seen some magical results: smart answers, fast summaries, maybe even a piece of content or two that made you do a double-take.
But if you’ve also walked away thinking “this isn’t quite what I meant” or “why is it so shallow?”- you’re not alone.
Here’s the hard truth no one wants to hear: AI isn’t underperforming. We are.
The real problem? We’re treating it like a vending machine.
Type request.
Press enter.
Get result.
Judge.
But that’s not how humans work. And it’s not how powerful tools work, either.
The Prompt Isn’t the Point
We’ve become obsessed with “prompts” like they’re spells from a Harry Potter book.
There are prompt marketplaces, libraries, templates. People charging for PDFs of “500 killer ChatGPT prompts for business owners.” And sure, some of those might be useful.
But prompts are not magic incantations. They’re just the start of a conversation.
And the real magic happens when you stop asking AI to do something and start asking it to think with you.
Why One-Way Prompts Fall Short
Let’s say you ask ChatGPT to “write a business strategy for launching my product.”
It will reply - probably in 10 seconds - with a clean, generic structure that could apply to just about anything.
And that’s the problem.
The output will be polished. But it will be bland.
It won’t factor in your actual goals, your available time, your constraints, your unfair advantages, or the emotional drivers behind why you’re launching anything in the first place.
That’s not ChatGPT being bad at its job.
That’s you not giving it a job it can succeed at.
AI is only as good as the information you give it - and the questions you encourage it to ask.
Shift the Relationship: Ask AI to Ask You
The breakthrough for me came when I stopped viewing ChatGPT as a machine that could answer questions, and started using it as a tool that could ask better ones.
Now, when I’m planning something big - say, a new course, a client proposal, a content series - I don’t just type in a prompt and hope for the best.
Instead, I start with something like this:
Act as a strategist helping me clarify my thinking. I’ll give you a rough idea of what I want to do, and I’d like you to ask me one question at a time until you fully understand my goals, constraints, and context.
And then I tell it what I’m working on. That’s it.
What comes back is rarely earth-shattering. But it is often surprisingly useful.
Because suddenly, I’m being asked things like:
Who is this for, and what problem are they struggling with?
What would success look like for you?
Are you working alone, or do you have a team?
What constraints - time, money, energy - are you working within?
Are there any existing materials you’ve created that we can build on?
These aren’t fancy questions. But they’re the kinds of questions that clarify your thinking - and allow the AI to provide more intelligent responses later.
This is what most people miss: ChatGPT won’t usually ask you these questions unless you tell it to. It’s not a mind reader. It's a mirror.
If you want deeper output, you need to invite deeper input.
Why One Question at a Time Matters
Here’s a critical tip that makes this process manageable: always ask ChatGPT to ask you one question at a time.
Otherwise, you’ll get hit with a wall of 10 questions in one go. That might seem efficient, but it actually creates a cognitive bottleneck. You end up skipping questions, giving shallow answers, or ignoring the ones you don’t immediately know how to answer.
By pacing the conversation - one thoughtful question, one clear answer - you unlock a level of focus that makes everything downstream sharper.
You also start building a rhythm, which mirrors the kind of back-and-forth you’d have with a really good coach or business partner.
This Isn’t About AI Being “Smart”
I want to be clear: this isn’t a magic setting. Your AI solution isn’t “waking up” when you talk to it like this. It’s still just doing what it was designed to do: respond to input in a statistically likely way.
But the act of turning it into a two-way conversation transforms your role from passive user to active collaborator. It forces you to reflect, clarify, and sometimes even admit you’re not sure what you’re trying to achieve.
And that’s the value.
It’s not about AI thinking for you.
It’s about it thinking with you.
And when used like this, it becomes an accelerant.
A way to go from vague idea to focused plan far faster than if you were stuck in your own head.
Real-World Use Cases
Here are just a few ways I’ve used this technique in my own work:
Planning: Instead of asking ChatGPT to "write a content strategy", I walk it through my audience, time constraints, preferred formats, and energy levels. The result is a strategy I can actually follow.
Client Proposals: Before drafting anything, I ask ChatGPT to interview me like a consultant—uncovering key details, blind spots, and potential upsells I’d missed.
Content Brainstorming: When outlining a piece of writing, I’ll ask for one prompt at a time based on what it knows about my topic and audience. That single shift leads to stronger, more relevant ideas.
Goal Setting: Instead of setting vague quarterly goals, I ask it to help me define success, account for my health limitations (I work four hours a day post-stroke), and reverse-engineer a plan that makes sense.
In each case, the value wasn’t in the answer.
It was in the conversation that led there.
Anyone Can Do This
You don’t need plugins. You don’t need memory. You don’t need to be a developer or prompt wizard.
All you need is this simple prompt:
Act as a strategic thinking partner. I’ll give you a rough idea of what I’m trying to do. Please ask me one question at a time to help me clarify my thinking and get to a better outcome.
That’s it.
Start there. And answer honestly.
You’ll be amazed at what happens next.
Final Thought: The Tool isn’t the Limit
It’s easy to blame AI for weak output.
But more often than not, the problem isn’t the tool.
It’s that we’re asking it to do too much with too little.
If you want your AI assistant to act more like a coach and less like a confused intern, you have to treat it like a conversation - not a command line.
And if you do that consistently, you’ll stop getting generic, forgettable answers - and start getting tailored insight that actually moves your work forward.
Don’t settle for bland output. Ask better questions—and start a better conversation.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time!
— Simon
Aha
https://substack.com/@martinzuzak/note/c-130292734?r=3en26e