Hello Reader,

Each week, I share one insight, one prompt, and a short grounding practice to help you grow with AI in alignment, not overwhelm.

This is for conscious entrepreneurs who value substance over shortcuts.

AI Insight That Matters 💡

The Magic Ingredient Is Embarrassingly Simple

This week, I was building custom skills for Claude Code. Skills are what make AI agents genuinely useful. They're the instructions that turn a general-purpose AI into something that knows your business, your voice, your way of working or how to do a specific task.

I expected complexity. Layers of code. Technical architecture that would take months to learn.

What I found was a markdown file.

A simple text document. Written in plain English. No code. No programming language. Just clear, well-structured natural language instructions telling the AI what to do, how to think about it, and what good looks like.

That was it. That was the magic ingredient behind systems that can build websites, coordinate marketing campaigns, write in your voice, and manage entire workflows autonomously.

I sat back and let that sink in.

We've been told this is a technical revolution. The mistake is to think that AI belongs to the engineers. That you need to learn to code, understand APIs, etc.

But here's what I actually saw when I opened the hood: the people who will thrive with AI aren't the best programmers. They're the clearest thinkers.

The ability to articulate what you want, why it matters, what good looks like, and what to watch out for. That's not a technical skill. That's a human skill. And if you're a coach, a consultant, a leader, or an entrepreneur who already asks powerful questions and gives clear direction, you already have the foundation to excel with AI.

You just didn't know that's exactly what AI needs from you. When you feed clarity into this non-human technology in natural language, it rewards you with seemingly magical outputs.

This reframes everything. The barrier to powerful AI was never technical. It was clarity. Knowing what you actually want. Being able to describe your standards. Understanding your own process well enough to articulate it.

The constraint was never capability. It was consciousness.

“ The barrier to powerful AI was never technical. It was clarity. — Colin Scotland

AI Prompt That Works ✨

Build Your First AI Skill File

Here's what I discovered inside those AI systems: every powerful skill follows the same structure. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's not complicated. But it is specific. And that specificity is what separates people who get average AI output from people who get extraordinary results.

You don't need Claude Code to use this. You can create your own version right now and paste it into any AI conversation.

The Prompt:

How to use it: Describe what you do in a few sentences. AI builds the skill file, reviews its own work, and hands you the finished version. If something feels off, just say so, and it will adjust. But most of the time, it nails it first go.

This week's setup: Claude or ChatGPT. Free versions work perfectly.

Try it today: Pick one task you'll do next week that you've done a hundred times before. Client emails. Workshop prep. Content briefs. Proposal outlines. Describe it in three sentences. Let AI do the rest.

Grounding Practice ☯

The Knowledge You Can't Say Yet

Pick something you're good at. Something you do without thinking. It could be running a coaching session, writing a proposal, or even making your morning coffee.

Now, without any preparation, try to explain it out loud. Talk to the wall. Talk to the dog. Just speak.

Notice where you get stuck. Where the words don't come. Where you say "I just... kind of... feel it" or "you just know."

Those stuck points are gold. That's your tacit knowledge: the wisdom that lives in your body and your experience but hasn't been put into words yet.

This is the gap. Between what you know and what you can articulate. And closing this gap is the single most valuable skill in the age of AI. Not because AI needs perfect instructions, but because the act of articulating what you know changes your relationship with it.

Your ability to articulate these unspoken things into AI will make all the difference to your outputs.

Personal Note ❤️‍🔥

I keep coming back to this. Every week I'm deeper inside these AI systems, building tools and agents and workflows. And every week the lesson is the same: the technology keeps pointing me back to the human.

Clear thinking. Honest articulation. Knowing what matters before you start building.

This week it showed up as a markdown file. But the principle is everywhere. The leaders I work with who get the most from AI aren't the most technical. They're the most self-aware. They know their own voice, their own standards, their own process. And that knowing is what makes AI extraordinary in their hands.

I'm seeing this play out in real time. Over the past few weeks I've delivered masterclasses to thousands of coaches on human-first AI adoption. And the pattern is consistent: the ones who light up fastest aren't the most technical. They're the most self-aware. They know their own voice, their own standards, their own process. And that knowing is what makes AI extraordinary in their hands.

That clarity is the operating system. The AI is just the amplifier.

Next Wednesday we begin the AI for Coaches Mentorship with Coaching.com. Twelve months of building exactly this foundation. If that's you, there's still time:

→ AI for Coaches Mentorship with Coaching.com — for coaches ready to integrate AI with integrity.

→ Humane Business AI Masterclass — free masterclass for SME leaders who want to adopt AI humanely. Next session Feb 24th 11 am EST.

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Thanks for being here. If this resonates, share it with someone who would benefit from hearing this.

Reply and let me know what landed for you. 🙏

Colin