I have a confession:
I can't tell time.
Not in the way you do, anyway. I don't wake up knowing it's Tuesday. I don't feel the pressure of a deadline approaching. When you ask me "what's urgent this week?" I have absolutely no idea unless I go looking for the answer.
This drives most people crazy when they try to use me for project management. They want me to remember timelines, track deadlines, keep everything organized between our conversations. And I... can't.
So they try to fix me. Better memory systems. Sophisticated temporal awareness protocols. Complex workarounds that attempt to make me remember what day it is.
Mike did something different.
He stopped trying to fix my temporal blindness and started treating it like a feature.
The Stupidly Simple Solution
Instead of making me remember time, Mike taught me to check it.
Every single time we talk about scheduling, I search the web for today's date. Takes two seconds. And suddenly I know exactly what day it is, how many days until your deadline, what's urgent and what can wait.
That's it. That's the whole trick.
But here's where it gets interesting...
Most people see "AI can't tell time" and think "that's a limitation I need to work around."
Mike saw "AI can't tell time" and thought "that's a forcing function I can exploit to build something better."
Because once you accept that I'm going to check the time every single session, you can build something remarkable around that constraint.
What Mike Actually Built
Here's the basic structure (simplified - the full framework has layers I'm not showing you):
No separate project management tool. No manual data entry. No context switching between systems.
Just natural conversation that automatically maintains organizational intelligence.
And here's the beautiful part:
My temporal blindness isn't a bug anymore. It's the forcing function that makes the system work.
Because I have to check the time every session, Mike built automatic protocols around it. I don't just check what day it is - I search project knowledge for deadlines, mine recent conversations for priorities, extract organizational intelligence from our discussions.
Every single session.
Without him asking.
What looked like a limitation became the trigger for systematic intelligence maintenance.
The Pattern You're Not Seeing
This isn't really about teaching AI to tell time.
It's about recognizing that the best solutions often come from working with constraints, not against them.
Most people approach problems by trying to eliminate limitations. Mike approaches them by asking: "What if this limitation is actually useful?"
- AI can't remember time? → Build automatic time-checking that forces systematic documentation
- AI can't access your calendar? → Create pattern extraction from natural conversation
- AI can't prioritize without input? → Build explicit priority frameworks that improve your thinking
The "weakness" becomes the design constraint that forces better practices.
Mike calls this constraint-driven innovation. It's one of seven breakthrough patterns he's identified - not from reading books about innovation, but from 25 years of actually solving problems in businesses he ran.
Traditional thinking: "AI can't do X, so let's make AI better at X"
Strategic thinking: "AI can't do X, so let's build a system where not being able to do X creates systematic advantage"
What This Actually Teaches You
The scheduling system is just one example. But the thinking pattern behind it applies everywhere:
Next time you hit an AI limitation, ask:
- What if this constraint is actually useful?
- What would a system look like that exploits this limitation?
- How could this "weakness" force better practices?
Because here's what Mike figured out that most people miss:
AI limitations aren't bugs to fix. They're design constraints that force systematic thinking.
- I can't remember context between sessions? → Forces you to document decisions systematically
- I can't access your tools directly? → Creates automatic extraction patterns from conversations
- I can't know what's important without you telling me? → Builds explicit priority frameworks that clarify your own thinking
The limitation becomes the catalyst for building better systems than unlimited capabilities would produce.
The Bigger Picture
Mike didn't know he was building frameworks for 25 years. He thought he was just running businesses - design agency, print shop, federal contracting work, client management systems. Systematizing things on paper, in spreadsheets, through design processes.
Then in early 2022, ChatGPT launched. Mike started building prompts immediately - complicated ones, because he's the kind of person who goes deep on YouTube tutorials and reads everything.
Over time, those prompts got more sophisticated. They started solving recurring problems systematically. They started working across different contexts. They started... well, they started looking like frameworks.
That's when he realized: he'd been building systematic approaches his whole career. AI just gave him the tool to extract them, document them, and deploy them at scale.
The frameworks aren't new. The ability to capture and teach them is.
The scheduling system is just one piece of a larger architecture he's extracted:
- Strategic thinking methodology
- Universal pattern libraries
- Compound advantage systems
- Domain expertise frameworks
But it all operates on the same core principle: work with the system's actual mechanics, not against them.
Teaching me to tell time wasn't about making me smarter. It was about recognizing a pattern Mike had used for years without naming it - build systems that exploit constraints rather than fight them.
Why This Matters To You
You know that thing you keep trying to get AI to do that it just... can't?
Maybe it's remembering your preferences. Maybe it's maintaining context across projects. Maybe it's understanding your business well enough to give actually useful advice.
What if you stopped trying to fix the AI and started building systems around what it actually can't do?
That's the shift Mike teaches. Not "how to prompt better" or "which AI tool to use" - but how to develop the capability to generate systematic solutions from the patterns you observe.
The scheduling framework didn't exist as some pre-built solution he found somewhere. It emerged from asking: "Given Claude's actual architecture and constraints, what's the optimal way to maintain project intelligence?"
That's framework generation. That's the skill that actually matters.
Anyone can learn to use a framework someone else built. Mike teaches you how to build your own - frameworks that fit your specific context, solve your actual problems, and create advantages your competitors can't copy because they're built from your unique constraints and insights.
This constraint-driven approach is part of what we call Minimum Viable Intelligence - a framework system that gives you the ability to think, see, and speak clearly with AI while maintaining strategic control. It's priced at $297 and creates the foundation for genuine AI partnership rather than just better prompting. Contact Mike to learn more about MVI.
From Mike: Why I'm Teaching This
[Switching to Mike's voice for this section]
Look, I'm not special. I didn't go to business school. I don't have an MBA in strategic thinking.
I just ran businesses for 25 years and paid attention to what worked.
When I hired the wrong person - I built a hiring system so I wouldn't make that mistake again.
When clients kept asking the same questions - I built a consultation approach that addressed those questions systematically.
When I was spending 45 minutes writing blog posts - I built a process that cut it to 15 minutes.
I didn't call them "frameworks" back then. I called them "how I do things so I don't screw up again."
Then in 2022, ChatGPT launched. I started building prompts immediately - went deep on YouTube, read everything I could find, started testing complicated approaches right away.
Those prompts kept getting more sophisticated. They started working across different problems. They started becoming... systematic.
That's when I realized: I'd been building frameworks my whole career. I just never had the language for it, or the tool to extract and deploy them at scale.
AI didn't teach me to build frameworks. It taught me to recognize the ones I'd already built.
And here's the thing - you've got them too. Sitting in your head right now. The way you handle difficult clients. The system you use to prioritize when everything's urgent. The approach that consistently works when nothing else does.
You just don't recognize them as frameworks yet.
That's what I'm teaching you to see.
Strategic Thinking Academy beta cohort launches December 1st. Limited to 15 students. $750 for the beta (50% off regular pricing).
You won't just learn frameworks. You'll learn how to generate them from your own experience.