Dan Martell - The Only Skill You Need to Succeed in the AI Era

00:00:00.000 People are going to be replaced by AI way faster than they think because AI isn't just getting

00:00:05.560 quicker. It's mastering almost every skill that humans rely on. I've spent the last five years

00:00:11.140 building AI companies, training teams, and helping founders redesign their workflows around AI.

00:00:16.700 And I can tell you with 100% certainty, the people who will survive and win are not the

00:00:22.660 most skilled at AI. They're the ones who think about AI in a completely different way. So I'm

00:00:27.380 going to share with you the only trait you need to be successful in the AI era. But to do that,

00:00:32.260 there are a few mindset shifts you need to master first, starting with using AI as a trainer. 0.98

00:00:38.320 Most people think AI is going to make them dumb. They think if AI thinks for them, their mind

00:00:43.380 weakens. It's almost like saying a calculator makes you worse at math. It just allows you to

00:00:47.740 do more. The truth is, if AI can strengthen your thinking, you will get sharper and more dangerous.

00:00:52.940 I am a better entrepreneur times 100 because of AI.

00:00:56.820 For example, I've been traveling the world

00:00:58.640 with my kids and they're homeschooling.

00:01:00.540 The school said, no using AI to do their work.

00:01:03.860 I don't want them to use AI to do their homework.

00:01:06.660 I want them to use AI to learn.

00:01:08.500 So what I did is I sat down with them

00:01:10.180 and I created a system prompt that's specific to each kid.

00:01:13.620 It takes the thing that they're interested in,

00:01:15.740 soccer, by who they wanna learn from, Ronaldo,

00:01:19.100 and it teaches them physics and math and English

00:01:21.560 through that lens.

00:01:22.580 why is that not a good idea?

00:01:24.520 And then when they're doing the test,

00:01:25.600 100%, 100%, 100%. 0.98

00:01:27.400 Did that make them dumb or it taught them to learn faster? 0.88

00:01:30.240 So you have to use AI as a helper, not a crutch. 0.95

00:01:33.460 Now, once you start using AI to level up,

00:01:36.740 you will start noticing something new.

00:01:39.320 Some of the ideas it presents you,

00:01:41.360 some of the content, some of the decisions it suggested,

00:01:44.480 they just feel better and you can't explain why.

00:01:47.300 Which leads us to our next mindset shift, taste.

00:01:50.100 Taste is essentially your ability to spot excellence instantly.

00:01:54.620 And the only way your taste can grow,

00:01:56.480 your ability to find it is through excellence in

00:01:59.120 because then you can find the excellence out,

00:02:01.220 which means you have to get exposure.

00:02:03.220 It's kind of like Rick Rubin, the music producer.

00:02:05.520 He's worked with like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lady Gaga, Adele.

00:02:09.340 When he hears music, he can't tell you what is going to be great.

00:02:13.500 He can just tell you when he hears it.

00:02:15.440 I have no technical ability and I know nothing about music.

00:02:20.100 You must know something.

00:02:21.080 Well, I know what I like and what I don't like.

00:02:23.620 That is taste.

00:02:25.120 Excellence isn't just random.

00:02:27.540 It's a pattern your brain learns to recognize.

00:02:30.600 And your prompts to get AI to do things for you

00:02:33.000 can only improve once your taste improves.

00:02:35.540 So here's how you can build a stronger taste for yourself.

00:02:38.040 The first thing, immerse yourself in excellence every day.

00:02:41.160 The truth is, if your friends aren't on the journey

00:02:44.360 of trying to be the best at something,

00:02:46.020 it's gonna be hard for you to find great stuff.

00:02:47.860 If your coworkers aren't always trying to find

00:02:49.540 the best way to do the work. It's going to be hard to be exposed to great work. My philosophy

00:02:54.360 is proximity is power. If you want to improve your taste, go get around people creating excellent

00:03:00.620 work. Second is you have to study the masters in your field. Every discipline has mastered. I

00:03:05.800 hire the best coaches to teach me things because I believe it's better to pay for the blueprints,

00:03:11.040 pay to be exposed to mastery. Because when I'm in it, that energy, it almost like integrates into

00:03:16.700 my beingness and the best part is that even if you can't pay for a great coach they're all out

00:03:21.820 there and they're creating content like this so for example if you're a startup and you want to

00:03:25.900 learn how to pitch your startup better go on youtube and you will find these pitch competitions

00:03:30.460 you can search for all the top winners and third use social media as a master class not entertainment

00:03:36.380 i can't tell you how many people just waste their time doom scrolling feeding their brain brain rot

00:03:42.380 when they could be using their feed to feed their mind follow people that are 10 steps ahead of you

00:03:47.660 find the people that are creating content if you're a chef trust me the chef creators are

00:03:52.300 out there if you're an entrepreneur they're out there if you're a musician they're out there like

00:03:56.700 go use your feed and make sure it feeds you excellence by inspiring you to create great work

00:04:02.700 and finally when you see something great ask yourself why does this work because it'll get

00:04:07.420 your brain to analyze things and try to find the patterns. Like I said earlier, you want to teach

00:04:12.720 your brain to identify the patterns of greatness. And the more you can be exposed to it, the easier

00:04:17.300 it's going to get. Most people just consume and leave it at that. It's like reading a book. I want

00:04:21.560 you to consume and ask the question. That's like studying a book and there's a difference. Now,

00:04:26.420 if you're a business owner and you're thinking, but Dan, I barely have enough time to run my

00:04:30.780 company. How am I supposed to learn all this AI stuff? This is exactly why I built my AI

00:04:35.740 implementation playbook. It's a detailed step-by-step guide that you can hand to every

00:04:40.020 department head in your business so that they can get 10 times more using AI workflows. You get your

00:04:45.900 time back while your team gets more efficient. So if you want a copy, just DM me AI business on

00:04:50.120 Instagram or click the link below and I'll send you a copy for free. Now, developing taste helps

00:04:55.240 you know what's great today, but if you want to be successful in the AI era, you need to master

00:05:00.620 your ability to see what will matter in the future. Which brings us to our next point,

00:05:05.140 vision. Vision is the ability to see a future that doesn't exist yet, but should. And most people

00:05:12.780 don't spend enough time in the future. It's our job to actually know where the world's going,

00:05:19.100 to see 18 months in the future, to look around corners for our customers. And AI gives you the

00:05:24.600 space to think even bigger. The other day, I'm mountain biking with my friends. As I'm coming

00:05:29.360 down i have an idea about robotics and i think about how could i enter and invest and how big

00:05:34.580 of a market could this be in the future so i open up my phone load up grok it's got this version

00:05:39.720 called heavy it's wild to watch it literally execute 100 ais at once doing research for you

00:05:45.620 and coming back so i craft the prompt asking it for research and history examples and what could

00:05:51.720 it mean and how many units and what would it be priced at and how much money that whole market

00:05:56.040 could be over the next five to 10 years and it went off for 27 minutes and came back and gave

00:06:01.160 me an answer that answer allowed me to enter in as an investor in the robotic space with a ton

00:06:07.320 of confidence backed by data it gave me the data but i had to have a vision for action that's still

00:06:13.960 on me so this is how you build your vision muscle first off you have to block out time to actually

00:06:19.240 do deep thinking every week you should have a block time called thinking time and in that time

00:06:24.840 you literally force yourself to think about the future use that space to actually do research

00:06:30.680 talk to the ai consider it a research co-pilot a buddy most people don't get any thoughtful

00:06:37.680 outputs because they don't ask it any thoughtful questions you know i was hanging out my buddy

00:06:41.680 nick he has a sign company and i was like if you're not looking into robotics you should he's

00:06:45.500 like what why would i want to look into robots i have a sign company ask ai next thing you know

00:06:51.940 He's going to frigging Brazil to the number one robotics event for sign companies.

00:06:57.120 If you don't use it to help it craft your vision, you can't build that muscle.

00:07:00.860 And that's why you have to create time to actually think about it.

00:07:04.440 Number two is we want to study breakouts outside of our industry.

00:07:08.340 If you already know what you know and everybody else knows what you know,

00:07:11.240 then where's the innovation?

00:07:12.440 Where's the breakthroughs?

00:07:13.300 When you look at the examples like Henry Ford learning the whole assembly system

00:07:18.560 by watching the meat packers in Chicago

00:07:20.880 and he applied it to cars.

00:07:22.320 That's where the innovation came from.

00:07:23.800 When I look at my life,

00:07:25.040 I'm taking inspiration from other industries.

00:07:27.600 I'm taking stuff from media and applying it to AI.

00:07:30.660 I'm looking at music producers and saying,

00:07:32.580 what can they teach me about creating software?

00:07:34.640 Do you see how like crazy of a connection,

00:07:36.500 yet it is all connected?

00:07:37.840 You're not gonna find the innovation in the cross section 1.00

00:07:40.280 if you're not out there studying them.

00:07:41.800 And last, you have to use AI

00:07:43.580 to pressure test your assumption and ideas.

00:07:45.520 One of my favorite use cases

00:07:47.260 is to put the audio version where I can talk to it,

00:07:50.040 that little blue bubble in ChatGPT,

00:07:52.060 and I'll go for a run and I'll talk to it while I'm running.

00:07:55.060 And then what I do is I use it to help me project scenarios.

00:07:59.660 I'll say, what if this?

00:08:00.720 What if I chose to do this?

00:08:01.840 What if I sold this company?

00:08:03.180 What if I decided to do this?

00:08:04.520 What if I transferred people around?

00:08:06.200 And the more you talk to it,

00:08:07.840 the more you'll hear it reply back to you.

00:08:09.920 It'll teach you how to think about vision.

00:08:12.560 And then you can even say,

00:08:13.620 hey, I feel like I think too small,

00:08:15.280 force me to think bigger.

00:08:16.300 and it'll ask you questions that'll get you to think bigger.

00:08:19.220 Your AI can be your partner

00:08:20.580 in learning how to think with more vision.

00:08:23.500 Do you know Chad GPT?

00:08:24.460 You can actually ask it to send you a daily summary

00:08:26.880 on anything.

00:08:28.080 And I haven't analyzed the previous day

00:08:29.980 top trending news or things I need to know about

00:08:32.280 as an AI investor.

00:08:33.940 And then when I go to the gym,

00:08:34.800 I hit the play button so it reads it to me.

00:08:36.720 Every day, AI is keeping me fresh with new ideas

00:08:39.940 so I can think about the vision

00:08:41.340 and how those things can be connected.

00:08:43.000 If you do this, you'll allow yourself

00:08:44.940 to look way out into the future

00:08:46.720 rather than staying stuck in your today.

00:08:49.420 Being able to visualize the future, it is a superpower,

00:08:52.600 but even the best ideas die

00:08:55.000 if people don't wanna help you execute them.

00:08:57.320 See, there's a shift that will transform you

00:08:59.360 from an individual with just ideas

00:09:01.080 into someone who people trust to implement them.

00:09:03.960 Which takes us to our fourth mindset shift, care.

00:09:07.240 AI can mimic intelligence, it does that really well,

00:09:10.080 but it can't mimic genuine care.

00:09:12.440 Care is people feeling that you want to see them win, not just yourself.

00:09:17.600 You can't solve real problems if you can't see through their eyes.

00:09:22.240 And the best entrepreneurs can do that.

00:09:24.100 AI can't do that.

00:09:25.120 And the coolest part is the easiest way to show care to somebody else is to make other

00:09:29.820 people's needs your own.

00:09:31.820 See, most people don't understand the most valuable companies in the world.

00:09:35.180 NVIDIA has created 28,000 millionaires.

00:09:38.680 Microsoft, 12,000 millionaires.

00:09:40.820 Jeff Bezos only owns 8% to 9% of Amazon.

00:09:44.940 The company's worth $2.24 trillion,

00:09:47.940 which means that 91%, 92% of the money ever made by Amazon

00:09:51.720 made other people rich.

00:09:53.600 So if you truly want to be successful in this new AI era,

00:09:57.640 then you caring for other people will make you different

00:10:01.820 because everybody can use the AI tools,

00:10:04.060 but you're gonna use the AI tools,

00:10:05.520 plus you're gonna show up and make it about them.

00:10:07.700 In a world of infinite outputs,

00:10:09.480 care is the ultimate input. Here's how you strengthen your care as a leader. First off,

00:10:14.540 get to know your people, get to know your clients, get to know your community. You know,

00:10:19.020 every time I interview somebody, I always ask them the same questions. In five years,

00:10:22.940 you're waking up, you're living your dream life. What does it look like? If I can understand their

00:10:27.360 dreams and goals, then I can figure out how to align ours as a company to theirs. And then they

00:10:32.860 wake up every day, pushing themselves forward. I don't ever have to remind them. Be specific.

00:10:37.740 thing. I want to ask them about their family, their personal life, their desires. When they

00:10:42.000 say they want to buy a dream home, I want to know where and what it looks like. The second

00:10:46.160 thing is always ask for feedback by trusted people. My rule is I can't get better if I

00:10:52.140 don't know ways to get better. I can't give feedback if I don't ask for feedback first.

00:10:56.620 So if you have something you want to say to somebody to help them out, first ask them

00:11:00.680 to give you feedback. And that actually shows them that you care. The ultimate form of flattery

00:11:05.840 to somebody is to actually ask them their opinion.

00:11:08.160 If they feel like you care, they'll care about you.

00:11:11.760 If they feel like you don't care, they won't care.

00:11:15.300 And that's something AI cannot do.

00:11:17.640 And last is celebrate them.

00:11:19.560 I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs

00:11:21.260 or leaders out there that are like,

00:11:22.720 well, if I celebrate them,

00:11:23.860 maybe they'll take their foot off the gas.

00:11:25.900 It's like, what are we talking about?

00:11:27.920 Celebrate the milestones, celebrate the success.

00:11:30.840 My big thing is praise in public.

00:11:33.560 And if you've got to criticize, do that in private.

00:11:35.840 Use the tools. Slack, shout them out. If they win really big, maybe share with your whole social

00:11:40.920 media account. Just today, Sam, who's my creative director, posted a banger video on his page

00:11:45.440 and I took it and I shared it to my audience and I said, follow Sam. I want people to see what

00:11:51.040 excellence looks like and I want him to know I appreciate that stuff. And if that doesn't

00:11:55.920 convince you to care more, let me just share one simple thing. The whole point of business is to

00:12:00.900 develop people. If you wake up every day to be rich, guess what? You'll go through a lot of

00:12:05.560 people because you'll have to keep going through people that are willing to wake up for a little 1.00

00:12:09.080 bit and put up your bullshit. But if you actually wake up and make it about them, they will wake up 0.99

00:12:14.300 to make it about the business. And if you own the business, that's how everybody wins. So don't

00:12:18.960 forget, we build the people first and the people build the business. Developing all these mindset

00:12:24.140 shifts is great, but there's really only one trait that matters more to be defensible against AI.

00:12:30.200 be the director not the doer most people treat ai like a faster pair of hands it's kind of like

00:12:37.600 buying a self-driving car and then reaching over and still putting your hand on the steering wheel

00:12:41.460 it's like let it do the work winners treat ai like a team they direct a few months ago i had

00:12:48.600 a leadership training and at the end of it i was very clear my whole team every person in the

00:12:53.820 company had weeks to demonstrate to me how they could get AI to do 92% of their work. And trust

00:13:00.760 me, that one confused people, scared people, and really worried people. But I needed them to hear

00:13:06.180 it. There's no future where AI can't do your work. So if you can't figure out where it can support

00:13:12.180 you at 92% and you become the director and it's the doer, then you'll always be behind where we

00:13:18.220 need to be as a team. AI will always be consistently more productive doing. It doesn't sleep. It

00:13:24.400 doesn't take vacations. It doesn't complain. It doesn't call in sick. Learn to set up the

00:13:28.700 automations. Be the director, not the doer. So here's how you become the best director in your

00:13:34.520 work. First off is we use the 10-80-10 rule. At the end of the day, the first 10 is 10% ideation.

00:13:41.000 I want to sit down with my team, maybe my mentor. I want to collaborate. I want to ideate.

00:13:45.300 The other 80% is the doing.

00:13:47.900 That is where AI can take whatever you gave it as an input

00:13:51.340 and turn it into almost completed work.

00:13:54.720 That last 10% is that taste we developed earlier.

00:13:57.520 It's where you come in and you give it

00:13:59.360 that final integration into the business, right?

00:14:02.040 It's Elon Musk going on stage

00:14:04.220 and presenting the products they built,

00:14:06.340 but the AI did all the execution.

00:14:08.700 Next, we have to switch from push prompting

00:14:11.540 to pull prompting.

00:14:12.920 See, most people get out of AI essentially a mirror of what they ask for.

00:14:18.460 Innovation can't happen if you're kind of guiding it based on your questions where you want to go.

00:14:23.360 So instead of telling AI how to do it, tell it what you need and have it ask you the questions so that it can do it for you.

00:14:30.900 AI has more information, more context, more wisdom than you'll ever be able to even potentially remember in your brain.

00:14:36.500 So you got to actually have it guide you to the best outcome.

00:14:39.900 Kind of like fill in the blanks.

00:14:41.260 See, most people do all the work themselves

00:14:43.720 and then go to AI to have it fill in the blanks.

00:14:46.280 I'd much rather have AI do all the works

00:14:49.180 and then I come in and I fill in the blanks.

00:14:51.600 And last, you have to build AI-first workflows.

00:14:54.700 Pretty much everything in your life is a workflow.

00:14:57.500 It goes from raw materials to finished goods,

00:14:59.300 from ideas to some kind of output.

00:15:01.280 And if you can figure out within there

00:15:02.920 where you have bottlenecks

00:15:04.120 and you can learn the AI tools to automate that

00:15:06.880 and design it,

00:15:08.280 That is the future of being a director in this AI era.

00:15:12.060 You need to adopt that mindset.

00:15:14.120 AI can teach you how to set up everything.

00:15:16.620 When I was working with my CFO to automate all of our financials,

00:15:19.800 he at first said, well, I can't do it because I don't know how to do it.

00:15:22.700 And I was like, write the code to integrate the systems.

00:15:25.100 And he wrote the code.

00:15:26.180 Oftentimes, people are just pretending not to know

00:15:28.380 that AI can literally write code for you to get anything done.

00:15:32.540 By doing these three things,

00:15:34.260 it'll allow you to be the director, not the doer.

00:15:37.960 and be successful in this new AI era.

00:15:41.020 When you make this shift,

00:15:42.280 AI stops overpowering you and starts empowering you.

00:15:46.200 That's how you stay ahead.

00:15:47.820 All that being said,

00:15:49.220 your biggest edge in the AI era isn't speed or tools.

00:15:53.220 The people that are like nerding out,

00:15:54.460 like what model should I use and what tool should I use?

00:15:56.780 They're missing the whole point.

00:15:58.100 It's actually becoming the kind of person

00:16:00.560 who thinks clearly, leads boldly and cares deeply.

00:16:04.580 The humanity of it, people forget.

00:16:06.920 it's human being, not human doing. AI is here to amplify you, not replace you. But you've got to

00:16:13.440 learn how you use it to still accomplish things in your world, to add value to your customers,

00:16:19.460 to your team. But if anything, give you the time back to be more you. So think about it for

00:16:25.100 yourself. What's the one area that you've used AI in your life to get more time back so that you

00:16:30.640 had that time to amplify who you are? Write it below in the comments so you can inspire other

00:16:35.500 people that watch this to consider different things that you're using AI to implement what

00:16:40.380 I just shared so that you can become more. And remember, if you want access to my own

00:16:44.500 AI implementation playbook, just DM me the words AI business on my Instagram or click

00:16:49.360 the link below in the description. Now, if you want to learn how to get insanely rich

00:16:53.640 with AI in just 20 minutes, click here and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - February 06, 2026

The Only Skill You Need to Succeed in the AI Era

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