Write out how you do it

Before you start: Have you received your Autonomy Architecture Blueprint?

Your results will personalize this entire learning path.

Welcome to Install 2, Write How You Do It, of Learning Path 6: Human First AI Fluency. Today you'll write down how you do your one skill, step by step, and add your best past work to your library. It takes one 50-minute session.

Last week, another seller I coach sent me a write-up of one of the biggest deals of his career. It was an eight-figure deal with a bank, and he broke down how he won it in eight steps.

The deal almost didn't happen. It sat in his forecast for January, and then it pushed. Then the pandemic hit. When it finally closed two years later, it came in at about three times the size of the first forecast.

Writing it down took him back through it all. "Sometimes I forget how hard these deals really are," he said. Seeing the whole deal laid out also reminded him how much work he'd done. "It's nice to have it on a page."

Before our call, I marked up his draft. Most of my notes were small: simplifying the words and supporting it with facts he could defend if someone asked, "How do you know?"

The reason this seller is working through this exercise is that he is looking to transition out of a traditional SaaS company and into a top AI-native company. He wants to capture his biggest deal wins and turn them into web artifacts and content that can help him attract the right executives.

With that in mind, I told him eight steps is a lot for a busy executive to grasp. So I gave him the simplest test I know: "Could they repeat back to you what they just read or what you taught them?" If not, group the eight steps into three to five phases.

He'd already started turning the write-up into a website with AI. But right now, he said, it's "heavy AI," and the tools keep "taking my writing and then putting it into AI writing, which I don't want."

"I'd rather have it be my writing."

Last week, you named your one skill and placed it on the Craft Continuum. This week, you write down how you do it.

Most of us can do our best work, but we can't explain it. We just do it. That works until you need to teach it, defend it in an interview, or hand some of it to AI. As I said in the primer, AI can only build upon what you give it. If you never write down your way, it fills the gaps with everyone else's way.

Today has two parts:

Then you run one test. Could someone you don’t know be handed that artifact and repeat your process back to you? If not, it's too long or too complicated. Three to five steps is typically the limit for most people, so you'll group your steps into three to five phases.

Over time, those phases become what I call your signature system: the way you do your work in a unique way to deliver value to others.

→ Human: 10 minutes, no screen. Pull out your skill card from Install 1. (No card yet? Take two minutes and write down the one skill you'd build if you had to choose today.) Pick one piece of past work where you did that skill well. It can be a deal, a deck, a business case, a project plan, or a hard email. On paper, list every step you took, in order. Go fast and don't clean it up. If you have twelve steps, write twelve. Then put a star next to the one or two steps most people around you skip.

→ Professional: 20 minutes. Pay “the tax.” Next to each step, write one line in your words: what you saw, what you decided, and why. Then group your steps into three to five phases, and give each phase a plain name someone newer than you would understand. Last, save a copy of that past work in your My Library folder, with customer names and anything your company wouldn't want shared taken out. You can do it by hand or by voice using Wispr Flow. It can be messy, as long as every word is yours.

→ AI: 15 minutes. This time, AI plays the new hire. Open a new chat in whatever AI you use (or your company allows). Type in or upload the document or a photo of your steps, your phases, and your past work, leaving out customer names and anything your company wouldn't want shared. Then paste this prompt:

→ Back to you: 5 minutes. Read the page out loud. Did the AI's repeat-back match what you meant? If it got a step wrong, that step needs clearer words, so fix it on the page. Cross out or remove anything that doesn't sound like you. Save it in your My Library folder next to pages one and two, along with your past work. That's page three of your library. (Skipped Install 1? Start there. This page builds on your skill card.)

My skill is writing with an editor's eye, and I'm practicing it inside my book's manuscript.

When I marked up his deal write-up, I tagged every note with one of these principles:

That list is how I need to write with an editor’s eye, written down.

Then I looked at principle three. I told him eight steps were too many. My own list had eight. I merged two while writing this lesson, and it still has seven.

I'm also adding one new step from a call with a professional editor last week about my book: read each chapter out loud before I edit it.

So this week, I'm running today's install on my own process. Here’s where I landed in my process for writing with an editor’s eye:

Once the phases are clear and instructive, this page goes into the library my AI guide works from. That way, it edits the way I edit.

Hit reply (or comment below if you're reading on the web) with one sentence: your skill, and the three to five phases you grouped it into. I read every reply.

TIME COMMITMENT: 50 minutes, inside your weekly 60-minute block.

Next up: Install 3, Write Your Standard. You’ll write down the standard your work has to meet: who it’s for, your point of view, and what Elite looks like.

Stay human, friends.