Regular Guy, Real AI

Regular Guy, Real AI - Episode 7 - How to Actually Prompt AI

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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AI, prompting, prompt engineering, ChatGPT, AI tools, productivity, small business, entrepreneur, AI for beginners, AI tips, future of work, regular guy real AI, Ken Lawler, business automation, marketing

Regular Guy, Real AI - Episode 6 - How AI is Changing The Way We Work

Last week we said AI isn’t coming for your job. A lot of you wrote in. This week, host Ken Lawler goes one layer deeper: AI isn’t replacing you, but it IS rearranging the furniture inside your job. Same job title — totally different daily experience. Contributor Ellen Walkenhorst brings the story of Maria the baker, who cut four hours of weekly social posts down to twenty-five minutes — not by going faster, but by changing the order of the work. We decode “AI-first workflow” into plain English, then dive into the three shifts changing how regular people approach every task: •  Start at the End — describe “done” first, reverse-engineer from there. •  Edit, Don’t Create — stop being the blank-page hero, start being the editor. •  Prototype in Minutes — test twenty ideas in the time it used to take to test one. The Monday Challenge: Pick one task you do every Monday. Try it AI-first. Time both versions. Email Ken the results — best ones get read on next week’s show. Coming up next week: How to actually prompt AI — three rules that turn a bad prompt into a great one. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AI, artificial intelligence, productivity, future of work, small business, entrepreneur, ChatGPT, AI tools, workflow, marketing, prompting, regular guy real AI, Ken Lawler, AI for non-techies, business automation

Regular Guy, Real AI - Episode 5 - AI & Your Job

Everybody’s asking the same question out loud: “Is AI coming for my job?” This week, Ken gives you the honest answer — no hype, no doom, no tech jargon. You’ll walk away knowing which tasks (not jobs) AI is actually taking, the three buckets every job falls into, why “learn to code” aged badly, and a 15-minute exercise that maps exactly where AI fits in your own career.   WHAT’S IN THIS EPISODE: Ellen Walkenhorst breaks down two fresh AI-at-work headlines — what actually happened vs. what the news said. Mark Sewel decodes the five words you keep hearing (automation vs. augmentation, task vs. job, AI exposure, human-in-the-loop, productivity gain) so you’re never the only one not nodding along. In The Lab, we walk you through the “Task Triage” exercise — a simple way to sort every task you did last week into three columns and find your personal moat. In the Deep Dive, Ken lays out the three buckets of jobs, the quiet winners (trades, healthcare, skilled labor), and how to tell real AI layoffs from layoffs getting blamed on AI. Jesse Primir takes us to a regular Tuesday in 2030 for a plumber, a middle manager, and a high-school teacher — showing what AI quietly does in the background while the real work stays human. Finally, the Regular Guy Tip — “The Boss Translator” — a 30-second trick that’ll make every Slack message and email you send sound like you actually slept last night. THE BIG IDEA: AI isn’t a robot coming to take your job. It’s a new tool your coworkers are about to learn. Be the first one on your team to figure out how to use it well — or be the last. That’s the entire game. Send us your three columns, subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone who’s been losing sleep over this.

Regular Guy, Real AI - Episode 4 - Prompt Engineering Expanded

In this episode you will learn why AI results vary so much between users, the real reason AI does not work for most people, a simple four-part formula anyone can use including Role, Task, Context and Format, a hidden ChatGPT feature that instantly improves every answer, how better prompts can save hours every week, and why the biggest advantage in AI is no longer the tool but the person using it. Ellen Walkenhorst also covers this week’s biggest AI stories including ChatGPT now inside your car, the next OpenAI model getting ready to launch, a surprising tie in the AI race between OpenAI and Google, and the real-world cost of AI infrastructure. If you have ever tried AI and felt like it did not deliver, this episode will change how you use it. aipodshow.com   AI for beginners, ChatGPT tips, prompt engineering, artificial intelligence explained, how to use AI, AI podcast, business AI tools, simple AI strategies, ChatGPT guide, productivity tools

Regular Guy, Real AI - Episode 3 - New Models, Better Thinking

AI just crossed a line—and most people haven’t noticed yet. It’s no longer just answering questions. It’s starting to take action. In this episode of Regular Guy / Real AI, Ken Lawler breaks down one of the biggest shifts happening right now: the rise of AI agents and systems that can actually execute tasks on your behalf. From new model upgrades to AI tools that can run workflows, this episode focuses on what matters—and what it means for you. You’ll learn: • Why AI is moving from assistant to operator • What AI agents actually are (in plain English) • The biggest risk most people aren’t thinking about • A simple tool you can try this week (NotebookLM) • How better prompts instantly improve your results • What this shift means for your business and daily workflow Plus: • The Download — major AI news this week • The Lab — hands-on tool demo you can try today • Decode — breaking down key AI terms • The Verdict — what you should actually take away If you want to understand where AI is going—and how to use it before everyone else catches up—this episode is for you. Listen now. Explore tools, join the conversation, and go deeper: AIPODSHOW.com [http://AIPODSHOW.com] imapworks.com [http://imapworks.com]