You're not alone. You're simply prompt-shy.

The good news: Anyone can prompt AI with greater sophistication and confidence to get greater results, starting the second you finish this column.

It's worth it to pay $20 a month to access the newest models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. This is a tech that improves week-to-week and month-to-month. If you use the free tier, you miss out.

The prompt: "I am the CEO of Axios writing to an audience of smart professionals with mixed AI feelings and experience. I want to write a Finish Line column in Smart Brevity style that provides specific, actionable ways to instantly improve someone's AI prompting skills. 500 words tops."

The prompt: "Knowing the context and intent, pose five questions that will help sharpen the final column."

The prompt: "Here are five previous Finish Line columns. Commit to memory the style, voice and length for all future Finish Line prompts or columns."

The prompt: "Good start, but too corporate. Rewrite it more conversationally and with more punch. Shorten the paragraphs by 50% and remove buzzwords."

The prompt: "This is exactly the output I want going forward. Reverse engineer it. Write me a reusable prompt — including the role, tone, structure, length, vocabulary and formatting rules — that would reliably produce work like this. Make it specific enough that I can paste it at the top of any future request and get the same quality."

I asked lots of people why. Put simply, parents don't know what to say — and kids don't know where else to turn — with so much changing so fast. So here's another look at AI and beyond.

For better or worse, you're living through history, with once-in-a-century changes happening in technology, politics, media and how you work. I can't sugarcoat reality.

The people who'll thrive in the next decade won't be the smartest or first to master it. They'll be the ones who use it smartly for their specific job. That lane is still wide open. It can still be you.

It's fine to be skeptical or even a little scared of AI. It's not OK to ignore it. It would be like refusing to use the internet.

Start using AI for something other than searching for an answer or rewriting a paper. Don't ask Claude or ChatGPT to do the work. Ask it to make you better at the things you don't want to do. Do that every day for 30 days. You'll be in the top 5% of your generation.

Whining or worrying about this does only one thing: It gives someone else a leg up. Most people take crappy jobs before finding good ones.

Out-hustle your peers. Apply to more jobs than they do. When you get one, outwork them. Beat them to the office. Use AI better. Be the most competent person in the office and the kind of coworker others admire.

The skills that compound aren't in course catalogs. They're writing clearly, thinking clearly, selling your ideas, handling hard conversations and learning fast when the thing you just learned goes obsolete. Do all of this and there's zero chance you won't eventually succeed.

Things aren't remotely as gloomy as your TikTok algorithm might have you believe. This isn't a get-off-your-damn-phone rant. I want you to realize the apps you use are engineered to convince you that life is worse than it is. They keep you engaged by pointing out what's wrong or scary.

These are the simple facts: Violent crime is down. Your peers are smoking and drinking a lot less. More Americans are literate, housed and fed than at any point in history. We're curing cancers we couldn't touch a decade ago. You're living in the safest, richest, healthiest version of America — and being told every 30 seconds it's ending.

It's not. This is a great country.

You control when you wake up. What you eat. Whether you exercise. Whether you pray, meditate or take five minutes to think. What you read, watch and listen to. How you treat the person in front of you. Whether you send the text, make the call, apply for the thing, show up for the friend.

Every one of those is a decision. Every one makes you a little better — or a little worse. Nobody else is making these decisions for you.

When it gets hard, control what you can control. AI can't do that for you. I can't do that for you. You can. It's quite liberating, even empowering.

Throw yourself into action — and to people.  If you're truly so worked up about politics, don't vent. Volunteer. Vote. Use social media to spread smarts and sanity. Worried about poverty? The environment? Homelessness? Go make a difference. You can, even if it's small.

Here's the pattern I've noticed in every successful or happy person: They showed up. They volunteered. They applied even though they weren't qualified. They said yes before they were ready. They just did things, anything, to create natural momentum in their life. 

Worst case? You're too busy to fixate on the craziness around you. Best case? You change the world. And I'm right — again.

I know this: You're not alone. You're not crazy. You've got this.

I'm rooting for you. Go make it happen.