Conquer yourself: How to use AI as your ultimate sparring partner
The saying, “To conquer oneself is a greater task than conquering others,” reflects the philosophy of Shaolin Kung Fu to emphasize self-mastery and personal development through intense physical and mental training. Conquering one’s own weaknesses, bad habits, and negative emotions is seen as more profound than developing powerful fighting techniques to prevail in an external battle. In this regard, AI assistants – when used with discipline – can be the perfect sparring partners to help us develop the humility to overcome our blindspots and grow beyond our limitations.
Generative AI and LLMs are pattern recognition tools that excel at generating critiques by recognizing inconsistencies, logical fallacies, and deviations from established best practices. Below, I will review how I used my AI assistant (Gemini 2.5 Flash) to write, Why Pay More? How Brands Can Wield AI Tools to Build Unscalable Human Value. I highlight the multiple ways that I used AI to “conquer myself” forging a stronger core thesis, removing mediocre ideas, and writing a better essay than I thought possible.
I sometimes get inspired to write an essay by a news event that I feel I can apply my own perspective on. With the recent flooding of social media with videos from Chinese factories claiming to sell luxury goods directly to consumers at rock bottom prices, I felt there was a connection to be made with some previous research I had done about off-price retail. I asked Gemini to sketch out a simple outline and draft of an article that combined my previous research and some of my thoughts on recent events. My initial angle was simple, this direct from the factory selling on TikTok is just the next evolution of off-price retail.
Prompt: Please see my previous post about off-price retail in the attached pdf. I want to add a twist based on current events. There is now a tariff on goods coming into the US from China. As a result many retailers who source products from China have cancelled their orders, leaving the suppliers to take the losses. The interesting twist is that many of these manufacturers have now turned to TikTok claiming to be suppliers to luxury brands, suggesting that consumers can buy from them directly at 10% the retail price. I think this phenomenon is a kind of iteration of off-price retail. Let’s explore this thesis. Please generate a simple outline and draft that we can work on.
View a copy of the full draft - Google Docs
The initial drafts captured basic concepts of off-price retail and the recent news event, but one of the goals of my blog is to develop actionable points of view based on my explorations and analysis of emerging trends. I knew we needed to do better. To conquer the laziness of simply putting two ideas next to each other and expecting an insightful thesis, I asked Gemini to push me.
Prompt: Act as if you are a professional editor from a publication like the Harvard Business Review. What would you criticize in the outline or the thesis that should be made stronger?
This initial feedback spurred me to conduct additional research and reflect on the types of jobs that humans should focus on when many of the existing jobs can be replaced or significantly automated with AI. In addition, I began to consider the influence of major e-commerce players like Shein and Temu. As I iterated on the outline and ideas, I wanted to get feedback from some more relatable voices.
Prompt: I am considering the rise of DTC Chinese platforms SHEIN and Temu as a more mainstream disruption that has essentially created the "brand" of Chinese factories. They are able to manufacture or copy anything. So my thesis might be that due to the rise of SHEIN and Temu, consumers may believe luxury brands are sourcing some of their products from Chinese factories, or at least they believe that a product priced 80% lower than the name-brand is likely still "good enough" for them. Channel the voices of Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway from the Pivot podcast. Have them criticize the outline and thesis to make it stronger.
View a copy of the feedback from AI Kara and Scott - Google Docs
I got a kick hearing the voices of Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, the hosts of one of my favorite podcasts, Pivot. More importantly though, AI Kara and Scott convinced me to conquer my discomfort with abandoning the initial connection I had made with off-price retail. This led me to a stronger thesis: in an algorithmically optimized world, the only defensible advantage for brands is unscalable, human connection.
I then developed several anecdotes to illustrate how humans can leverage our unique humanity to create “unscalable advantages”. I wanted to share a memorable anecdote that personally demonstrated to me the power of the scent to recall emotions and memories. But again, I wanted to make sure that all of my examples strongly reinforced my core thesis. So cue AI Kara and Scott to give me some honest feedback.
Prompt: I’ve completed a 2nd draft of my article. Please have Kara and Scott provide their feedback.
View a copy of the new feedback from AI Kara and Scott - Google Docs
This feedback helped me conquer my attachment to a romantic anecdote that didn't clearly show how an immersive sensory experience created a competitive advantage. So I scrapped that anecdote and created a new example that made it into the final draft. Ultimately I used Gemini countless times to refine the thesis, structure, and content of my essay. The final version is almost completely unrecognizable from the initial draft.
Recently, Cassie Kozyrkov, the former Chief Decision Scientist at Google, implored the employees at her new venture to use AI to “Please cheat at your job.” While AI tools will undoubtedly improve at telling us how to do our jobs, a more effective way to “cheat” is to use them to channel an expert who can tell us what we are doing wrong. As someone who relies on written documents and presentations to be effective at work, I believe I’m a “good” writer, but I feel over the past several months using AI tools in this way has allowed my writing and communication to evolve to another level.
The discipline to accept critical feedback is the key to personal growth. Responses from AI tools can be tailored to be challenging and action oriented as well as patient and supportive. Even more, AI feedback is available on demand at any time and at any level of detail, which would be challenging for even the most dedicated of human coaches or mentors to match. Ultimately the most difficult part of using AI tools in this way is conquering the very human desire to avoid uncomfortable situations. The willingness to push the button again and again, seeing all the ways that we are wrong, is how we will continue to grow and develop new higher-order skills.
