How to Level Up Your AI Skills Beyond Basic ChatGPT Prompts (Part 1)
David Zenler 
You're probably using AI wrong. Here's how to fix that and reclaim your life in the process.
We are currently at a pivotal moment in history. This isn’t just another tech trend. This is fire. This is the wheel. This is the invention of the automobile.
I decided it was time to give you something of massive value. So, we are going to be talking all about AI. And not just the "write me a poem about a cat" kind of AI. I’m talking about the stuff that actually changes how you work, how you live, and how much time you get to spend doing the things you actually love.
Because here is the reality: Everyone coming up after us? They are going to live with AI as normal. It will be like electricity to them. But for us? We are the ones who get to shape it. We are the ones who get to decide how this tools serves us. And there has never been a bigger opportunity to grab this technology and run with it than right now.
So, grab a coffee (or a beer, if it’s that time of day), and let’s dive into how to stop using AI like a rookie and start using it like a pro.
In this post:
The "Beginner" Trap: Are You Just Using a Fancy Search Engine?
Be honest with me for a second. Where do you think you are on the AI skill ladder? Beginner? Intermediate? Advanced?
Most people tell me, "Oh, I use AI every day, David! I'm definitely intermediate."
But when I dig a little deeper, I find out they are basically using ChatGPT or Claude as a glorified Google. They ask a question, get an answer. Ask for a recipe, get a recipe. Maybe they ask it to write a generic email.
And look, that’s fine. That’s useful. But it’s like buying a Ferrari and only using it to drive to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
The real magic happens when you stop treating these tools as individual islands and start building automated workflows.
I’m talking about a symbiotic relationship where one AI feeds into another. Imagine a world where you have ChatGPT talking to Claude, which then feeds a prompt into Midjourney to create an image, which then pushes content directly to your social media scheduler.
Most people are doing one-dimensional tasks. They create a graphic. Then they stop. Then they go to another tool to write some text. Then they stop.
That’s the old way. The new way is thinking about the flow.
Practical Magic 1: The "Eye" of AI (Images & PDFs)
Let’s get practical. I want to show you something that still blows people’s minds when they see it for the first time.
We all know AI can read text, right? But did you know it can "read" your messy handwriting, your screenshots, and your slide decks?
The Screenshot Hack
I demonstrated this live. I took a screenshot of a random image that had text on it—some design I’d worked on. I didn't type a single word of that text. I just dragged that image directly into Claude (or ChatGPT) and gave it a simple command:
Boom. In seconds, it analyzed the image, pulled out every single word of text, understood the context, and gave me a perfect summary. But then I got cheeky. I said:
And just like that, it translated the text from the image into German.
Think about the time-saving implication here. You could be at a conference, take a photo of a slide or a handout, upload it to your phone, and have the AI transcribe and translate it before you’ve even left the room. You can take a photo of your bank statement (careful with privacy, we’ll get to that!) and ask it to categorize your spending.
The PDF Slide Deck Analyzer
We took it a step further. I uploaded a PDF slide deck—one of those "Problem vs. Solution" presentations we used to market a course.
I didn't want to copy-paste twenty slides of text. I just dropped the PDF into the chat and said:
It read the entire document. It didn't just give me the text; it understood the structure. It knew what was a heading, what was a bullet point, and what was a takeaway.
PRO TIP: If you are a course creator, this is gold. You can take your old presentations, feed them into AI, and say, "Turn this slide deck into a script for a video lesson" or "Turn this presentation into a 5-day email challenge."
⚠️ A Serious Note on Privacy (Don't Skip This!)
Before you go uploading your tax returns or your secret family recipes, we need to have a serious talk.
AI learns from you.
These models are Large Language Models (LLMs). They get their "intelligence" from data. If you are on a standard plan and you have "Memory" or "Model Training" turned on, there is a chance that what you type could be used to train future versions of the model.
If you are dealing with client data, sensitive business numbers, or personal financial records, you need to go into your Settings.
- • In ChatGPT: Go to Settings > Data Controls. Look for "Chat History & Training" and turn it off if you need to be secure.
- • In Claude: Check your privacy settings similarly.
Always assume that if you put it in the chat, it’s not 100% private unless you have explicitly locked down those settings. Be smart, guys.
Practical Magic 2: Content Repurposing on Steroids (The Video Hack)
This is where we get into the heavy lifting. This is the stuff that saves me hours every single week.
When you record a session on Zoom (or Zenler Live), and you save it to the cloud, you usually just download the video file (MP4), right?
But if you look closely at your download options, you usually get a bundle of other weird files:
- .VTT or .TXT: This is the transcript/captions.
- .JSON: This is a data file that acts like an index of everything that happened.
- .TXT (Chat): A record of everything everyone said in the chat box.
Most people ignore these. I love them.
Step 1: The Prep
I took the .VTT transcript file and renamed it to .TXT. Now I have a timestamped script of every word I said.
Step 2: The Prompt
I opened a brand new chat in Claude. I uploaded the Transcript, JSON file, and Chat log. Then I gave it this specific prompt:
"Please give me these things:
1. A description
2. Chapter marks
3. Key messages"
Step 3: The Result
It didn't just summarize. It gave me a YouTube-ready description, Clickable timestamps, and a list of key takeaways. It’s like having a VA who watched the video, took notes, and wrote your marketing assets—except it cost pennies and took 30 seconds.
The Meta Move & The "Developer" Hack
Here is where it gets Inception-level cool. I asked the AI to write a blog post *about* the session, *based on* the session, while I was *still in* the session. And then... I asked it to code it.
I know a lot of you get scared when I mention "HTML" or "CSS." You think, "David, I'm a creator, not a coder!" But AI bridges that gap.
I simply asked:
"Give me a beautiful HTML version of the blog. But it needs to go into a 'div' tag. It needs to be inline styling. And it needs to be self-contained."
The Result: It spat out a block of code (like the one you are reading right now!). I didn't write a line of code. I just asked for it.
The Real "Why": Time = Life
I want to end on a serious note. Why do we do this? Why do I geek out about saving 15 minutes here or an hour there?
It’s about your life.
Time is the one thing you cannot buy. It is the one resource that never replenishes. I work hard. I work 70-hour weeks sometimes. And I know that if I can save an hour a week for 30 people in my Accelerator program, I have collectively saved 30 hours of human life. That makes me feel good.
For you, using AI isn't about being lazy. It's about preventing burnout. It allows you to put 100% of your creative energy into the 10% of work that only you can do—the teaching, the connecting, the inspiring.
Ready for Part 2?
We barely scratched the surface here. In the next session, we’re going to go deeper. If you want to get serious about selling your expertise and using tools like this to run your entire business, you need to be on Zenler.
Get Started with Zenler for FreeSee you in Part 2. Stay awesome, guys.