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The whole thing in four sentences

I'm Brian Cleveland. I'm 55, I work in payments sales, and about a year ago I decided to stop nodding along at AI posts and actually find out what this stuff does.

Every Sunday I write up what I tried that week — what worked, what broke, and the one thing you can copy and use immediately.

It's free, it's about 800 words, and it's written for people who are smart at their job and tired of feeling behind on this one thing.

You are not behind. Most of the people posting confidently about AI are bluffing. I just decided to bluff in public and show my work.

What to expect in your inbox

• Sunday morning. One issue a week. If a week is quiet, you get a shorter one, not a padded one.
• About 800 words. Long enough to be worth it, short enough to finish.
• Something you can steal. Every issue has at least one prompt, tool, or setting you can use that day.
• Honest results. Including the weeks it goes badly. Especially those weeks.

The one habit that changes everything

Most people type one line into AI like it's a search box, get a generic answer, and conclude it's overhated or overhyped. It's neither. It's just that nobody told you the shape of a good ask.

Role (who it should be) → Context (your real details) → Task (what you want) → Format (how you want it back). Then the pro move: Constraints — telling it what to leave out.

Ten extra seconds. Completely different answer. There's a full page of copy-paste examples here.

Then do exactly one thing

Not five. One. Open Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini — the free version is fine — and paste this in:

Change the brackets to fit your house. Then — and this is the part people skip — ask it one follow-up. "Rework it so leftovers from one meal get used in another." That second ask is where the whole thing stops being a party trick.