As you may know, once a month, I share a prompt you can experiment with in ChatGPT or another AI tool.
The goal isn’t to make you faster at email or meeting notes. It’s to use AI as a thinking partner, something that can challenge your perspective and help you see leverage you might currently be missing.
This month’s prompt is designed to surface the invisible constraint in a situation.
Most leaders assume the biggest constraint in a problem is time, resources, or people. But very often the real constraint is an assumption no one is questioning. When that assumption gets exposed, entirely new options can suddenly appear.
Give this one a try.
Paste the following into ChatGPT (or your AI tool of choice):
I want you to act as a strategic advisor.
Here is a situation I’m currently working on:
[Describe the project, problem, or goal in 3–6 sentences.]
Step 1: Identify the 5 assumptions I may be making without realizing it.
Step 2: For each assumption, explain how it could be limiting my thinking or options.
Step 3: Suggest 3 alternative ways to frame the situation that would open up more strategic leverage.
Step 4: If you had to bet, what is the single hidden constraint that is most likely slowing progress?
Want to take it one step further?
After you run the prompt above, try this follow-up:
Now assume the opposite of my main assumption is true.
How would the strategy change?
What new options would suddenly become possible?
This simple move can dramatically shift how you see the situation.
Your Turn
If you try this, I’d love to hear what happens.
What assumptions did the AI surface? Did anything surprise you? Did it open up a new idea or direction?
Just hit reply and let me know. I LOVE hearing what people discover when they experiment with these.
See you next month with another prompt.
