- You’ve tried AI. Asked a question. Got frustrated. Gave up.
- You keep pulling the AI lever, asking follow-up after follow-up, hoping this time you’ll hit the jackpot.
- You’ve heard AI will “transform your business,” but session after session leaves you more confused than when you started.
The problem isn’t the tool. It’s the expectation.
Forty-Five Minutes of Disappointment
I was sitting in my office one evening, convinced I was about to have an AI breakthrough. I don’t even remember my original question; what I remember is what happened next.
I asked a question. Got an answer. It wasn’t quite right.
So I asked a follow-up question. That answer spawned another question. Then another. Then another.
How many times have you circled back to rephrase the same request, hoping the AI finally understands what you’re after?
Forty-five minutes later, I was exhausted; discouraged. And here’s the cruel irony: I had less clarity than when I started. Sound familiar?
Each question felt like pulling the lever on a slot machine. Maybe this one will be the jackpot. Maybe this follow-up will finally give me what I’m looking for.
It never came.
I finally closed my laptop at 11:47 PM. Not with satisfaction; with defeat. Disappointment after disappointment had worn me down until I couldn’t pull the lever one more time.
Have you been there? That place where you’re too tired to keep going but too invested to walk away empty-handed?
The Keurig™ Revelation
The next morning, I was making coffee. Put in the pod, pushed the button, out came my espresso; simple, predictable, done.
(Coffee snob confession: I don’t actually own a Keurig™. I make pour-over most mornings. But when I’m in a hurry, I have a Nespresso pod machine that makes real espresso. That particular morning? I was in a hurry.)
Standing there with my espresso in hand, watching the machine’s simple process, the connection became clear.
I had been treating AI like a pod machine. Put in the question, push the button, get out the perfect answer. Input, output, done.
But AI isn’t a Keurig™. And when you treat it like one, you get the slot machine experience instead: endless lever-pulling with mounting frustration and diminishing returns.
So what is AI, if not a Keurig™? When was the last time you approached a tool with genuine curiosity instead of demanding instant results?
The Pour-Over Process
AI is like pour-over coffee.
Think about what pour-over requires. You grind the beans fresh. You measure them carefully. You add just a little water first and let it bloom; the grounds need time to release their gases before they can properly extract.
Then you pour slowly; deliberately; with intention. You pause. You watch. You adjust.
What if the best results come not from speed, but from the pauses between each step? Are you willing to slow down to get better outcomes?
Pour-over coffee isn’t faster than a Keurig™. It’s not easier. But the results? Deeply satisfying. Nuanced. Yours.
What if AI could feel like that?
More Than an AI Principle
Years before my AI revelation, I had already made this shift with actual coffee. I moved from easy pod-based brewing to deliberate, intentional pour-over. Alan Fadling captures this beautifully in his piece Morning Coffee, Morning Communion, where he describes the unhurried ritual of hand-grinding beans, measuring precise grams, and taking time to be present in the process.
This isn’t just an AI principle. It’s a life principle.
At Edens View, we call this contemplation. It’s one of the five pillars in the Architecture of Transformation™. Make a deliberate choice to slow down, to be present, to prioritize depth over speed. Whether it’s coffee, AI, or leadership, the principle holds. Rushing produces shallow results. Intentional contemplation produces something that’s truly yours.
The morning I connected my AI frustration to my pour-over practice, I realized I had been living this principle in one area of my life while simultaneously ignoring it in another.
The Contemplation Pause
The shift came when I learned to pause.
When I’m working with AI now and I feel that familiar pull to ask just one more question, to pull the lever one more time, I stop. Often I wait overnight.
What insights are you missing because you’re moving too fast? When did urgency become more important than quality?
That pause does something powerful. It gives me time to actually think about the results. To sleep on them. To let my own insights emerge rather than outsourcing so much of my thinking to the machine.
And when I come back the next morning? I often have a fresh question. A new word. An adjusted angle. Something that came from my contemplation, not from the AI’s endless generation.
The difference is tangible: Before? Exhausted confusion. Now? Results that feel tuned in with who I am and what I actually need.
The Genius of the AND
Juliet Funt, author of A Minute to Think, describes what she calls “white space“:
“White space is the strategic pause taken between activities. It’s a chance to take a breath. It’s the time when we recover our brilliance, see the big picture, ask the important questions, and make wise decisions. Without it, we’re running on empty, making choices out of reflex rather than reflection. White space isn’t wasted time—it’s the oxygen our best thinking needs to survive. But in our achievement-addicted culture, we’ve confused motion with progress, and we’ve forgotten that the pause is where the magic happens. We schedule ourselves into oblivion, then wonder why we feel perpetually behind. The irony is that the very thing we think we can’t afford—a minute to think—is the thing that would make everything else work better.”
AI creates an interesting tension with this insight. It can accelerate activity beautifully; it can also eliminate the white space where your best thinking happens.
The answer isn’t to avoid AI; the answer isn’t to let it consume every pause. The answer is both: use AI as a tool and protect the white space where contemplation lives.
What if the pause between prompts is where your best thinking actually happens?
Three Approaches, Three Outcomes
The Keurig™ Expectation: Simple input, push button, perfect output. This is what we want AI to be. It’s also a fantasy.
The Slot Machine Reality: Keep pulling the lever, hoping for a jackpot, getting disappointment after disappointment. This is what happens when the Keurig™ expectation meets the actual tool. You eliminate every moment of white space, replacing thinking with frantic questioning.
The Pour-Over Practice: Intentional input, deliberate pauses, contemplation, adjusted questions, deeply satisfying results. This is what AI can be, when you approach it differently. You protect the white space where insight lives.
Which approach describes your current AI experience? The difference isn’t in the AI. It’s in you.
The Four P’s: Your Pour-Over Protocol
If you’re caught in the slot machine spiral, here’s how to shift. I call it the Four P’s:
What would your next AI session look like if you treated it like brewing pour-over coffee?
Prepare. Before you type anything, spend two minutes thinking. What are you actually trying to accomplish? What would success look like? What do you already know about this? The quality of your input shapes the quality of your output. This is white space before you begin.
Are you prepared to invest time in preparation before you type your first prompt?
Pause. Give yourself three follow-up questions maximum before you stop. Not because more is bad, but because more without thinking is just lever-pulling. When you feel the urge to ask “one more question,” that’s your signal to pause. Protect the white space.
Ponder. When you get a response, sit with it. What’s useful here? What’s missing? What do you think about this? Often I wait overnight. Morning clarity beats midnight frustration more often than not. This is white space for integration.
Pivot. When you return, bring something from your own contemplation. A new angle. A better word. An adjusted direction. The AI responds to your thinking; give it something worth responding to.
Prepare. Pause. Ponder. Pivot. That’s the pour-over protocol.
Pro Tip: Ask the AI to ask you questions one at a time. This slows the process and lets the questions, like pour-over coffee, bloom.
The Deeper Truth
AI isn’t going to give you clarity. That’s not its job.
What are you bringing to your AI sessions right now? Is it confusion and urgency, or intentionality and clarity?
AI amplifies whatever you bring to it. Bring confusion and lever-pulling, you’ll get more confusion. Bring intentionality and contemplation, you’ll get something that actually feels like you.
The business owners who are thriving with AI aren’t usually the ones who found the perfect prompt. They’re the ones who’ve learned to pause. To think. To protect the white space where brilliance emerges. They treat this powerful tool like the pour-over process it actually is.
It takes longer. It requires more of you. And the results are worth it.
What would change if you stopped pulling the lever and started brewing with intention? What would become possible if you brought your best thinking to the AI instead of expecting the AI to do your thinking for you?
The next time you sit down with ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or the latest AI tool, try the pour-over approach. Prepare before you prompt. Pause before you spiral. Ponder before you proceed. Pivot with your own insight.
What becomes possible when you stop treating AI like a slot machine and start treating it like a craft?
You might be surprised what brews.
For Personal Reflection
Before your next AI session, consider these questions:
- What’s your current AI expectation? Are you treating it like a Keurig™, expecting instant perfect results, or approaching it like pour-over, where the process matters as much as the output?
- Think about your last frustrating AI session. How many follow-up questions did you ask? What would have happened if you’d paused after three and slept on it?
- What are you bringing to your AI interactions? Urgency and confusion, or preparation and intentionality?
- Where else in your work or life are you eliminating white space when you actually need it most?
- If you adopted the Four P’s (Prepare, Pause, Ponder, Pivot), what would change about your next AI session?
- What would become possible if you brought your best thinking to the AI instead of expecting the AI to do your thinking for you?
David Limiero is an executive coach and consultant who helps overwhelmed leaders move from overwhelm to overflow. Learn more at edensviewcoaching.com