Host Ken Lawler tackles the skill nobody teaches: prompting. Because the secret nobody tells you is that most people aren’t bad at AI — they’re bad at asking. The words you type in matter more than which AI you’re using or which subscription you paid for.

Contributor Ellen Walkenhorst opens with her brother-in-law Tony — a contractor who spent 40 minutes getting AI garbage out of a six-word prompt, then got a usable client quote in 4 minutes once they fixed it. Contributor Jim Kinder decodes “prompt engineering” into the simplest mental model you’ve ever heard: you’re briefing a smart intern.

Then the Deep Dive: three rules that turn a bad prompt into a great one.

•  Set the Scene Before You Make the Ask — stop leading with the verb.

•  Show, Don’t Just Tell — examples beat adjectives, every time.

•  The Second Prompt Is Where the Magic Lives — the first answer is the rough draft.

The Monday Challenge: Take a prompt you used recently. Rewrite it using the three rules. Follow up at least twice. Email the before-and-after to Ken — wildest results get read on the next show.

Coming up next week: AI hallucinations — what to do when AI gets it wrong with full confidence.

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