The prompts you're overlooking: the importance of inner knowledge in the age of AI

I'm guessing you're hiding a superpower right now - and I'm guessing it's the one that your clients are hiding too. What is it, why is it critical, and how can you leverage it in your marketing?

With AI on the scene, the experts say the best prompts produce the best results, but there's one kind of prompt too often overlooked. Are you missing out?

There's an emerging trend in executive and leadership coaching at the moment.

In response to the increased adoption and integration of AI, the skills and natural aptitudes needed to keep teams engaged, productive and well are changing. We're told that human skills are the most coveted currency in the age of AI, and no matter the dizzying task-completion speeds of tools and agents, scrutiny, judgement and a human eye are more important than ever. These are not only essential for preventing mistakes but also for spotting opportunities, building lasting relationships and predicting trouble rumbling down the line.

In other words, it's a story of knowledge and wisdom.

Cold intelligence and bone-deep intuition.

Logical conclusions and human responsiveness.

The leaders, CEOs, HRDs and teams you're coaching, training and structuring - their roles are changing, and so are their needs. If their needs are changing, so are your services. If your services are changing, your messaging needs to as well. The story and tone that worked for you five, even three years ago, may not be what you need now.

And the superpower you need to thrive in this time of change? It's already alive and well inside of you.

What is it?

In the age of AI, the answer is unsurprising but ironic.

It involves engaging with the illogical, the fleshy and the irrational just when we're being told to develop our machine-thinking skills. It involves leaning into our beliefs, rather than away from them and being open to interesting opportunities hitherto unimaginable.

Your superpower is the unique, soulful landscape within you.

Beliefs step forward to centre stage

Here's the case.

What underpins this judgement now critically in demand? Experience? Time in your role? On-the-job training? What about outside influence? Hobbies, family, friends, mentors, travel and faith? Because if we can access all the facts we'll ever need at the click of a button, what difference does the individual's knowledge bank make?

The answer lies in how they've lived that knowledge.

It becomes less about what they've done on paper and more to do with what they've done as human beings.

More than ever, bringing the entire self to work has its advantages:

• When situations arise, there's an ability to see wider context beyond the team, organisation and sector right out into the world and how it functions as a whole.

• When tensions are high, stress abounds, or there's a bad apple in the barrel, an understanding of human nature gives us the chance to see what's behind disruptive behaviour.

• When the shit hits the fan, the ability to spot and respond to happenstance patterns is a clear bonus. Opportunities for optimism present themselves, not in a superficial way but from a base confidence that all will be well - and if it isn't, we'll work it out.

• And when the situation is pretty dire, or mood is low, faith in things bigger and wider than our small lives gives us the focus and energy we need to keep going. Whether that comes from within or from a higher authority, these circles and cycles remind us how insignificant yet utterly remarkable we are.

So beliefs, however intangible, have always given leaders the grounded prompt they need to see, speak, plan and act with discernment.

Only now it is critical to make even more space for them. Commercial as well as human success rely on it.

Too woo for work?

But how far do you go? From my perspective, I've worked with some very outwardly straight-laced coaches in the past who, when you scratch the surface just a little, have rather diverse beliefs. Many keep these hidden, fearing that they won't be taken seriously, but after talking to them for a while, I discover quiet knowings that underpin their practice in powerful ways.

And then there are the coaches who have been 100% out of the closet for years and they're making a huge amount of difference. Individually and collectively, they're turning the tide and bringing something rather game-changing in their field.

Breaking new ground

So with this need to go deeper, we're moving from the soft sand that was once sufficient into the grainier, grittier, more substantial material underneath. This is a space of vulnerability.

How safe will your clients feel sharing this with you? How will you help them leverage what they find?

The answer lies, I believe, in going there yourself and that means being brave and showing up. Drawing on prompts you may not have had the guts to do so before.

Your difference is your brilliance

As machine learning and thinking take a greater role, our offline, fleshy, messy and temporal selves are needed even more. AI has a brain, but it can't yet pick up on the gentle nuances in a face-to-face meeting, the inflections in someone's voice over the phone or the emotions underlying behaviours. It doesn't have the human intuition to recognise bullshit, sense wider mechanisms at play or know when just because something can be said it shouldn't be. It can't know something's off just from a feeling and decisively act on it.

That comes from the neural links in your brain and your gut, your senses and the power centres in your body. For some, this includes drawing down wisdom from guides, gods and other ethereal sources.

But I hear getting messages from the cloud is all the rage these days.

So where do you start?

I'm not saying you start posting astrological charts or reels of you chanting in the woods (although go ahead if that's your beautiful thing). It's just a matter of changing the lens and cracking open the door to other parts of you where the magic lies.

Here's a process you can try to get you going with your next campaign, thought leadership piece or newsletter, allowing that which is within to prompt you:

1. What's the stone-in-their-shoe problem your audience is commonly dealing with right now? Use stories from the rock face like situations you've come across and conversations you've had (anonymised, of course). What trends have you noticed, particularly the ones that nobody else seems to be talking about? Write it down because this is rare gold dust and part of the story that nobody else can tell.

2. Next, note down the ideal situation your clients want to get to. What are their desires, what would make them successful, and what are the solutions you've either dreamt up or you've seen working in the field? Again, gold dust. This kind of offline wisdom is unique, fresh and irreplicable.

3. How are you the bridge between one and the other? What is it about your faith, beliefs, unique abilities and intangible talents that gets them there? Where do you draw your wisdom, intuition and gumption from? You can't fake this, and your audience will know. It's the kind of inner knowledge that AI has no access to.

In other words, where's the well and what's in it?

What beliefs can you bring to play covertly and explicitly?

Because here's the thing: you don't have to lay everything bare. You can allow your whole soul to underpin your message and then pick and choose the parts you want on display. At the end of the day, everything happens by consent, and there's a world of difference between stepping out of your comfort zone and going to the god this is awful zone.

Bravery is infectious

The most successful coaches I've ever worked with have one thing in common: they go seek their clients where they are right now and fully meet them there. And if their clients yearn to bring more of themselves to work, not just be taken seriously but to be seen as a soulful human and commercial success trailblazer, that's most wonderfully and wholly facilitated. It's a remarkable thing to watch.

So, the superpower you're choosing to hide? Is it time to let it out?

And the prompts you're ignoring? Listen in, and you'll bring it all to life.

In our AI age, these could be just what a person or an entire organisation needs to boost human confidence, enhance tangible skills and show up fully as the leaders tomorrow is calling for.

Be unafraid.

I'm Amanda and I've been writing for coaches, therapists and healers since 2019: those strictly straight-laced and those knee-deep in magic. As long as they believe in what they do, I'm there for them. And I'm here for you too. If you'd like a chat, please book a slot - no pressure; all you're signing up to is a 20-minute conversation. If negative, fear-based marketing is getting you down, read more on how to sell effectively with feel-goods and if you're worried your AI-written content is lacking the human touch, I've left some tips here.