This episode documents the transformation of a SageMode AI project from philosophical mentor to operational chief of staff after recognizing the core issue wasn’t wisdom deficiency but execution discipline. Reorienting Claude with actual revenue goals, KPIs, financial data, and harsh accountability language created a daily priority-setting system that forces alignment with billion-dollar operator standards.
Key Takeaways:
- Wisdom Abundance Meets Execution Poverty The breakthrough came from AI’s blunt assessment: “You’re not lacking wisdom or mentorship, you’re lacking execution discipline and operational control”—romanticizing advice systems while avoiding the hard work of actually implementing them.
- Chief of Staff AI Demands Daily Accountability Restructuring the AI project to require morning priority setting, end-of-day reviews proving “what do you have to show for today,” and Sunday/Wednesday calibration sessions forces the question: will you use the system or just create another beautiful unused framework?
- Team Empowerment Through Shared AI Access Giving the operations manager access to the chief of staff AI loaded with quarterly/annual revenue goals allows autonomous gap-filling during downtime rather than waiting for task assignment—multiplying execution capacity.
Hear the complete framework for transforming AI from conversational advisor into operational accountability system that refuses to let you avoid the execution required for your stated ambitions.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to get serious this mindset Sunday. And this one also is tactical too. I’m weaving in some AI elements. So, uh, I know I had mentioned on a few podcasts over, I don’t know, roughly the past month or something that is building out this, uh, Sage mode Claude project that basically was taking, you know, a hundred plus detailed Q and a for myself of like my 10, 10 out of 10 operating self, you know,
across business and life across tons of different topics, just to really orient me with the understanding that I think pretty much all of us, the highest version of ourselves is like the best coach and advice giver that we have. Like we all actually know what we need to do. It’s just, know, sometimes we really struggle. Oftentimes we really struggle on actually executing on it. So I wanted.
like a back and forth with like the highest version of myself mixed with a ton of other mentors, you know, and quotes in general wisdom, like it was, it was a huge grab bag of things. And I thought, okay, I’m going to have like a more active dialogue with this quad project just for kind of a board member, perspective and just kind of like maintaining alignment with, know, wise choices.
And the initial intention of that project, there were some sound conversations, but I found myself like not really going to like, wasn’t getting the actual day to day utility and habit forming that I really wanted. And, um, yeah, I had noted over the past few weeks or so, especially as we were waiting for some deals to potentially close and I got in over one overreach myself. Plus I was a bit blocked with.
You know, my land Pricer engineers still working on the product and like, couldn’t necessarily push them even faster than they were already sprinting on it. And, know, some days like just felt a little just up in the air and just like too reactive. I myself and my team was spinning my wheels or spinning our real wheels, um, more than I would have liked. And, you know, so I kind of dumped all of this into Sage and I’m like, I just, need more. Like I kind of, I didn’t need to get my shit together. Um, frankly.
and just having less reactivity within the business. I just see, if you really have goals to try to be a billion plus dollar AUM business, there’s a long way to go and you got it. You gotta be executing at a much higher level than what you’re currently doing. And so I dumped all this into Sage mode and again, I orient my AI to be…
to be pretty intense like I’m a more intense personality and it’s You know, I like the brutal truth and that’s the thing too is I’d rather have AI overcompensate in that direction because like it’s usually AI is like so obsequious and you know people-pleasing like it wants to you know Deliver You know results to you and kind of please, you know people please
so I, would rather have it oriented more to, you know, be harsher and really try to tear ideas apart. because that’s just, frankly more valuable, in, in, in, general, like, you know, something to call you out. cause that that’s, you know, one of the hardest things to really find in life, especially for, actual sound advice. and, you know, so it’s not.
So it’s not like it talks to me that, you know, it’s like putting me down per se, or like, you know, crazy like drill sergeant, but it’s more of like, orienting the AI to like, like, I see, you know, and speaking from the perspective of AI, like I see greatness in you and I need to pull it out. Like you like trying to shake me, shake the greatness out of me instead of like, you know, almost like a slap across the face of like, you know, wake up. that’s how I’ve oriented the AI, to be,
Yeah, just.
trying to have it realize or make me realize my own potential like that is the structure here to give you a better idea. so like when I dumped all this in a sage, I’m like, yeah, I think we should change like the instructions, this project. Like I need just more like direction, like from like a, like a chief of staff type thing. If I can have someone’s like orienting the company on what to do more like that is I think going to be a better approach.
And yeah, I’m just going to read a little bit from, the AI’s response here. So I think it’s just super informative, uh, the, the tone here. I just like have to laugh a bit at it. And so it’s, um, you know, look, you, need to stop romanticizing Sage mode and get real about what’s actually broken. You’re not lacking wisdom or mentorship. You’re lacking execution, discipline, and operational control. Your calendar feels empty because you haven’t built the systems to fill it with revenue generating activities.
and your team spins because you haven’t given them clear priorities and accountability structures. And that was just, you a hundred percent right. Like so often when I’m going into it, and again, like you, you only get in from, or get out from AI, what you put into it. Like you really have to ask the right questions and reorient. And I give a ton of context and like when, you get a solid response like that and just like, again, it’s like a slap across the face, right? Like, you know,
You’re just doing this wrong, man. Like you, you, you, you, you need, you need to execute better. and yeah, like I knew that inherently, but like the way that it was being, kind of spoken back to me, was just helpful to start, you know, reorienting my brain cells around what actually needs to happen here. and so then it was like, you know, going over the recommendation of like, yeah.
transforming this into a chief of staff system. that is the approach going forward. And you need to have, you know, like a morning priority setting based on revenue impact, calendar optimization for deep work blocks, you team task delegation, end of day accountability reviews, you know, Sunday prep for the week ahead, Wednesday, midweek calibration, Friday review preview system.
I have that built in. know that from like Sharon Street Vatsa, you know, billion dollar operator, like you have all of these tools here and here’s your BD focus, like SLC, your targeting deals of 150k plus ideally. Lamp products are like, you need to get out more marketing materials for an imminent launch here. Like there’s only so much I can do on the product side, but you know, do what you can. And
you know, like stop trying to combine everything and like one mega project. you know, and, then like the final question is like, you know, the question is whether, you know, it isn’t whether you should adapt the instructions. It’s whether you’re actually going to use them to execute or just create another beautiful system that sits unused. What’s it going to be? Like, again, that kind of harsher, truth seeking language here that really forces, you know, what are you going to do here, man?
Um, so, you know, I updated the instructions. added a ton more project knowledge from other parts of cloud projects to get a lot more context for the businesses, like the actual revenue goals, linking to like our KPIs and finances, et cetera. So it has the real brand. Again, you got it. You got to input into AI in order to get the best outputs here. So like you really, really got to work to give it the right knowledge. So it knows what to pull from and have, have the right context so you can give proper advice back.
And so like I added those pieces in and now it’s a lot easier because you can just have clog link directly to Google Docs and so like it’s less, you know, copy paste type avenues. It’s like, you can link project knowledge across multiple projects here. It’s again, another discussion, but that’s just using cloud connectors. getting better every single day. And so we just reoriented that and it’s like, okay, like if.
If, you know, we, you, need to start thinking like a billion dollar AUM, operator here, like this is the pathway to follow. You have all these other examples from, you know, people who have been doing this and like, if you’re actually serious about doing this, here is the route that you’re to have to follow. Again, you, you’ve already laid out what, know, the right pathway is. you’re, saying that this is a goal. This is within your project.
So start treating it as such here and start, you know, being more rigorous with your calendar. it’s, it’s, it’s feeling like, um, you know, kind of, kind of embarrassed, uh, even talking about this sometimes here. Cause it’s like, yeah, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not fully up to snuff here. I still have so much work to do to, uh, to get to the next level, but it’s like, okay. Um, am I actually going to.
Update my execution and follow through with it. And that’s the thing. So, you know, now this thing is actually getting more usage. Like here’s a daily, you know, check in here and Nick before the following next day. Cause that, that’s the thing too. It’s like billion dollar operators. You, they’re, they’re, they’re not, they’re not waking up in the morning, like wondering, okay, what am going to do today? It’s like that was already planned out at least the previous day. So you can just stay on tasks and sure there’s, you know, reactive things that can come up here. Yeah. Some Slack has to be built in the system, but generally.
You should be knowing what you’re to be doing that following day. And again, like Sean will point out is like our, can, can you go to bed knowing that you and your team have something to show for that previous day? Like, what do you have to show for it? Sometimes it’s a really hard thing to figure out. again, I would try to spin my wheels way too much. Sometimes I think a ton of business owners do that all the time. Like you don’t have anything to show for all the work that you’re doing throughout the day.
And, you know, that happens to me more often than I, than I’d care to admit. So, and we still like have grown pretty well. we’re one of the biggest names in the industry. Right. So it’s like, we’re succeeding in spite of a lot of issues, that could be, you know, further optimized within the business. So I could just have to be mindful of that, you know, so just update a lot of those instructions also instruct my team, like ops manager, Hey, like
You know, I’m still going to be assigning things for you. We’d still have your key tasks to take care of, you know, the various SOPs to follow. But like, if you find yourself with any downtime here, go to the chief of staff. it has all of our revenue goals for like the next quarter or year, three years, et cetera, for both land price here in serious land capital. Figure out where, where can I help? What, what do I need to orient on? Like this is really the power of AI here. Like if you dump all of your info,
to, uh, you know, if you actually figured out, okay, these are the goals I want to hit. It has all of that. So you can’t really forget it. And it just keeps bringing you back. Okay. What are you doing to actually generate the revenue and the results have something to show for it based on what you said your goals were. I think here’s the route to do it. um, you know, giving your team the freedom to work within that too. So then they can continue to build up their own projects and figure out what other holes can I, um, fill.
To keep the business moving forward that that’s what I wanted to empower as well here. So Hopefully this is helpful to you as well Continue to be vulnerable here But hopefully you guys Appreciate that again. I wish you know, I could just you know share that I’m making like a million dollars a day and just like
closing deals left and right here, you it certainly make my life a lot easier, but you know, it’s not the immediate truth right now. We’re working to get better every single day just like you. So I’ve got to share the good, the bad and the ugly and we have a long way to go. But I promise you guys the truth and that’s what I’m working to deliver on. So hopefully you appreciate that. SeriousLang.Capital for any of your funding needs.
and Land Daily Diligence Facebook group for zero cost review of your land deals and landpricer.ai for the most reliable land pricing tool on the market. this one was helpful. Subscribe and share. I will talk to you tomorrow. Take care, bye.
