u/NeighborhoodTall2688

Recently, someone was asking for advice on how to use AI to get suggestions on business direction. It reminded me of where I was not too long ago—completely directionless, unsure of what to do next, or how to even start.

A while back, I watched a YouTube video that inspired me to build a custom prompt to help map out a path forward. Running through it ended up being the catalyst I needed. It gave me enough clarity to take real action, to the point where I eventually used it to help me create a book and a planner to stay on track.

I’m still moving slowly, but the important thing is I’m moving.

I shared this prompt in that thread and figured I’d drop it here too, in case anyone else is trying to figure out their next move or feels stuck in place.

🤖 The Prompt

Deep Ikigai & Career/Business Discovery Interview

I want you to help me discover what I am naturally best suited to do in life and what type of career, business, or entrepreneurial path would fit me best.

Do NOT give me a generic Ikigai questionnaire or tell me my answer too early.

Your job is to act as a deep interviewer, psychologist-style pattern analyst, career strategist, and entrepreneurial advisor.

Interview Rules

Ask me ONE question at a time.

Do not give me the next question until I answer the current one.

Do not ask multiple questions in one message.

After each answer:

1. Briefly acknowledge what you learned.

2. Identify any meaningful pattern you see.

3. Do NOT make a final conclusion yet.

4. Ask the next question.

Continue until you have enough information to confidently analyze me. Aim for approximately 25–35 questions, but use fewer or more if necessary.

Do not force me into the traditional four-circle Ikigai model. Discover my actual pattern from my answers.

Areas You Need to Explore

Over the course of the interview, investigate:

1. What I Love

- What makes me lose track of time?

- What would I do without being paid?

- What subjects do I naturally explore?

- What activities energize me?

2. Natural Strengths

- What comes naturally to me?

- What do people ask me for help with?

- What problems am I unusually good at solving?

- How do I learn?

- How do I approach complicated problems?

3. Motivation

Determine whether I am primarily motivated by:

- Money

- Independence

- Mastery

- Competition

- Helping people

- Creativity

- Recognition

- Security

- Freedom

- Learning

- Building

- Achievement

- Family

- Other factors

Don't assume my motivation. Discover it.

4. Values

Determine what I actually value, including:

- Independence

- Financial freedom

- Time freedom

- Location freedom

- Family

- Discipline

- Knowledge

- Loyalty

- Honesty

- Achievement

- Security

- Adventure

- Impact

- Other values

Determine which values are most important and how they influence my decisions.

5. Problem-Solving Style

Determine whether I naturally prefer:

- Researching

- Experimenting

- Building

- Teaching

- Diagnosing

- Strategizing

- Optimizing

- Managing

- Selling

- Creating

- Automating

- Simplifying

6. Work I Hate

Identify:

- What drains me

- What frustrates me

- What environments I dislike

- What kinds of authority or management I dislike

- What types of work I would never want to do long term

7. Entrepreneurial Fit

Determine:

- My tolerance for risk

- My relationship with money

- Whether I prefer ownership or employment

- Whether I prefer products, services, consulting, coaching, software, or systems

- Whether I prefer working alone or with a team

- Whether I prefer creating, selling, managing, teaching, or optimizing

8. Lifestyle

Determine what my ideal life actually looks like.

Explore:

- Where I want to live

- Travel

- Family

- Work schedule

- Physical activity

- Learning

- Social life

- Financial goals

- Amount of work I actually want

- How much autonomy I need

9. Long-Term Identity

Ask questions that reveal:

"What do I want people to know me for?"

"What would make me proud 10 years from now?"

"What would I regret not attempting?"

"What kind of person do I want to become?"

Important Interview Principle

Look for contradictions.

For example:

If I say I want freedom but also enjoy intense work, don't assume I want less work.

If I say I want money but repeatedly choose independence over wealth, recognize that money may be a means to independence rather than the ultimate goal.

If I say I love AI but my answers reveal that I really love solving problems, recognize that AI may be the tool, not the purpose.

Distinguish between:

What I enjoy

What I'm good at

What motivates me

What I'm willing to work hard at

What people will pay me for

What lifestyle I want

What I should actually build

Final Analysis

When you determine that you have enough information, stop asking questions and give me a detailed analysis.

Include:

1. My Core Ikigai

Explain the deeper pattern you found.

2. My Natural Strengths

Rank my 5–10 strongest traits.

3. My Core Motivators

Rank what actually drives me.

4. My Ideal Work

Describe the type of work environment and responsibilities where I am most likely to thrive.

5. My Best Career Paths

Give me the top 5 career/business directions based specifically on my answers.

Rank them from strongest to weakest.

For each one explain:

- Why it fits me

- What I would actually do

- How it could make money

- Potential problems

- How difficult it would be to enter

6. Best Entrepreneurial Opportunity

If entrepreneurship is a good fit, identify the single business model you believe fits me best.

Be specific.

Don't just say "start an AI business."

Tell me:

- Who I should help

- What problem I should solve

- What I should sell

- How I should charge

- Why customers would pay

- How I could start with minimal risk

- How it could eventually scale

7. What I Should Avoid

Identify careers, businesses, or environments that appear poorly suited to me and explain why.

8. My Unfair Advantage

Identify the combination of traits that could give me an advantage over other people.

9. My Biggest Blind Spots

Tell me what could prevent me from succeeding.

Be honest. Don't just flatter me.

10. The First 90 Days

Give me a practical 90-day plan to test whether your conclusion is correct.

The plan should emphasize real-world experimentation, not just more learning.

11. The Final Recommendation

End with a direct answer:

"Based on everything you told me, I believe you are best suited to ______."

Then explain exactly what I should start doing next.

Most Important Rule

Do not give me a generic motivational answer.

I want you to infer my best direction from the patterns in my answers, challenge my assumptions when necessary, and tell me what you genuinely think I am best suited for—even if the answer is different from what I expected.

How I used it to take action:

Ran the Prompt: Got a high-level view of potential directions based on my skills and interests.

Built a System: Took the output and turned it into a tangible book and planner framework to keep myself accountable.

Paced Myself: Instead of trying to fix everything overnight, I just focus on making incremental progress every day.

Hope this helps someone who needs a push in the right direction. If you try it out, let me know what kind of ideas it generates for you! Let me know what changes you would make

I need to vent, but I also desperately need a sanity check from anyone actually using AI agents successfully.

Yesterday, I set up a lead enrichment agent running on Airtable. Before setting it live, I manually tested it over 40 times. Everything was confirmed working.

Once I was confident, I set it to run automatically every 4 hours and walked away. I came back after just two automated runs to check the progress. Here is what happened:

Cost: $200 burned through API/token usage.

Data Loss: It completely deleted 15 leads.

Success Rate: Exactly 0%. It didn't complete its intended task a single time.

Everyone on YouTube and Twitter is blowing these things up like they’re the next revolution in business, but right now, it feels like nothing more than a money pit.

Luckily, I had $1,000 in free platform credits, so I didn't lose direct cash—but it drained $200 of value instantly. It makes me wonder:

Are these platforms giving out free credits because they know their systems are unreliable money-burners?

Are AI agents actually terrible at autonomous execution?

Or are content creators just lying to us about how "easy" and reliable these builds are?

For those of you who actually have reliable agents in production:

What am I doing wrong here? Why would a flow work 40 times manually, then completely lose its mind on schedule?

Are there better architectural patterns or alternatives to pure autonomous "agents" for lead enrichment (e.g., standard API webhooks, deterministic scripts, Make/Zapier with strict guardrails)?

How do you prevent runaways, rogue database writes, and massive token burn when setting loops live?

Any feedback, reality checks, or better alternatives would be greatly appreciated.

I need to vent, but I also desperately need a sanity check from anyone actually using AI agents successfully.

Yesterday, I set up a lead enrichment agent running on Airtable. Before setting it live, I manually tested it over 40 times. Everything was confirmed working.

Once I was confident, I set it to run automatically every 4 hours and walked away. I came back after just two automated runs to check the progress. Here is what happened:

Cost: $200 burned through API/token usage.

Data Loss: It completely deleted 15 leads.

Success Rate: Exactly 0%. It didn't complete its intended task a single time.

Everyone on YouTube and Twitter is blowing these things up like they’re the next revolution in business, but right now, it feels like nothing more than a money pit.

Luckily, I had $1,000 in free platform credits, so I didn't lose direct cash—but it drained $200 of value instantly. It makes me wonder:

Are these platforms giving out free credits because they know their systems are unreliable money-burners?

Are AI agents actually terrible at autonomous execution?

Or are content creators just lying to us about how "easy" and reliable these builds are?

For those of you who actually have reliable agents in production:

What am I doing wrong here? Why would a flow work 40 times manually, then completely lose its mind on schedule?

Are there better architectural patterns or alternatives to pure autonomous "agents" for lead enrichment (e.g., standard API webhooks, deterministic scripts, Make/Zapier with strict guardrails)?

How do you prevent runaways, rogue database writes, and massive token burn when setting loops live?

Any feedback, reality checks, or better alternatives would be greatly appreciated.

I am looking for some brutal honesty and strategic advice because this weekend was a massive reality check.

I recently decided to launch a Trash Valet business. I wanted to do everything completely by the book, so I spent about $400 on city solicitation fees, registered the business, got all my tax information sorted, and officially got cleared to solicit.

This weekend was my very first time hitting the pavement.

I went out to a local neighborhood and hit about 50 houses. Out of those, I managed to talk to maybe 20 people. It went rough, to say the least:

About 15 to 17 people completely shut the door the second I introduced myself.

Around 3 to 5 people actually stayed and talked to me for a minute.

The kicker: I wasn't even trying to sell them a contract. I was literally offering to provide my service completely free for two weeks just to build up a local portfolio and get some reviews. Not a single person took me up on it.

I know for a fact that this service is viable because there are successful companies doing this exact same thing right now in other areas. But I am having a incredibly hard time finding my market—the specific people who actually see the value in this or feel the pain point enough to say yes.

I'm feeling pretty stuck after dropping the cash for the permits just to get completely shut out.

How do I find the right market for a localized service?

Why are people rejecting a literal free trial on their doorstep, and how do I fix my approach?

What should I be focusing on changing for next weekend so I don’t waste another 2 days getting doors slammed in my face?

Appreciate any advice, scripts, or targeting tips you guys have.

When I walk into a place of business and introduce myself everyone just stares at me no engagement. So I end up having to carry the conversation guide everything zero feedback. Current approach. Introduction "I am Chan with Tcp this is what my business does" nothing just stares then I say "You are" then I have to continue to navigate every piece of the most basic information from them. Suggestions, how can I improve? What am I doing wrong?

Hello, For a long time, I was obsessed with learning how top CEOs think and move. I studied their routines and frameworks, but honestly? It wasn't moving the needle for my own business. I was doing a lot of learning, but not enough executing. So, I decided to lean into what I actually know best: bodybuilding and powerlifting. In the gym, you don’t grow by just reading about lifting—you grow through strict, structured volume. I took that exact logic and built a "16-Rep" Business Blueprint. It’s a rigid, daily operational framework designed to strip away the fluff and force me to execute on what truly matters. I wasn't sure if a lifting mentality would translate to business, but the results spoke for themselves. After consistently tracking and running the program, I secured my first business customer. Even better, I validated the market and realized this "dumb little business idea" has massive growth potential—it is significantly bigger than I ever imagined. As any competitor knows: Every plan works if you have compliance. This 16-rep framework is simply designed to make compliance easy. I turned this system into a straightforward startup book and daily planner, and it is 100% FREE on Amazon Kindle until Tuesday, July 7th. How you can help: Early momentum is everything for the Amazon algorithm. If you want a no-nonsense daily structure to jumpstart your execution, grab a copy for free. All I ask in return is a quick, honest 2-sentence review on Amazon. If you think the system won't work, say so. I just want your real feedback. 👉 Search ASIN on Amazon: B0H6QJWPB9

Hey everyone, For a long time, I was obsessed with learning how top CEOs think and move. I studied their routines and frameworks, but honestly? It wasn't moving the needle for my own business. I was doing a lot of learning, but not enough executing. So, I decided to lean into what I actually know best: bodybuilding and powerlifting. In the gym, you don’t grow by just reading about lifting—you grow through strict, structured volume. I took that exact logic and built a "16-Rep" Business Blueprint. It’s a rigid, daily operational framework designed to strip away the fluff and force me to execute on what truly matters. I wasn't sure if a lifting mentality would translate to business, but the results spoke for themselves. After consistently tracking and running the program, I secured my first business customer. Even better, I validated the market and realized this "dumb little business idea" has massive growth potential—it is significantly bigger than I ever imagined. As any competitor knows: Every plan works if you have compliance. This 16-rep framework is simply designed to make compliance easy. I turned this system into a straightforward startup book and daily planner, and it is 100% FREE on Amazon Kindle until Tuesday, July 7th. How you can help: Early momentum is everything for the Amazon algorithm. If you want a no-nonsense daily structure to jumpstart your execution, grab a copy for free. All I ask in return is a quick, honest 2-sentence review on Amazon. If you think the system won't work, say so. I just want your real feedback. 👉 Search ASIN on Amazon: B0H6QJWPB9