This AI prompt helps you prepare for a meeting with someone by thinking through their side before you walk in. You tell it what you know about the person & it works out what they might be worried about and what would make the meeting worth their time. It doesn’t write you a script.

The Carnegie conversation planner

The idea here is solid in theory. Take Dale Carnegie’s principles (show genuine interest, give honest appreciation, handle disagreements gracefully) and turn them into prompts you can run before real conversations.

The question is whether scripting “genuine interest” with AI actually produces anything genuine.

Here’s a prompt from the set of 7:

I'm meeting with [PERSON/TYPE OF PERSON] about [SITUATION/CONTEXT]. Help me prepare to show genuine interest in them using Carnegie's approach: 1) What thoughtful questions can I ask about their interests, challenges, and experiences? 2) How can I research common ground we might share? 3) What specific compliments could I give about their work or achievements? Create a conversation plan that makes them feel like the most interesting person in the room.

The post includes 6 more that follow the same structure. Each one names a Carnegie principle and asks the model to write your lines for you.

The model doesn’t know the person you’re meeting. It doesn’t know what you actually find interesting about them. So it produces generic Carnegie-flavored filler.

“Ask about their challenges.” “Find common ground.” “Give a specific compliment about their work.”

They’re fortune cookies dressed up as preparation.

If you could do that on the fly, you wouldn’t be asking AI for help.

You know those conversations you rehearse in the shower? The perfect thing you should’ve said? They never go that way in real life. Someone interrupts. The topic shifts. Now you’re improvising 30 seconds in and it’s nowhere near what you had in mind.

Same problem here. Except now you’re improvising AND trying to remember a script that isn’t yours.

The post says “it’s not manipulation, just better technique.” But a technique that replaces your attention with generated scripts is the opposite of what Carnegie was teaching.

His whole point was to actually care.

The prompt that helps you prepare for a meeting

The useful version doesn’t write your lines. It helps you think about the other person before you walk in. You’re coming up with your own topics of conversation so you’ll have a better chance of remembering them.

I'm meeting with [person] about [situation]. Here's what I know about them: [anything you genuinely know, even if it's just their role and one recent thing they worked on].

Help me think through their perspective. What might they be worried about going into this? What would make this conversation feel worthwhile for them, not just for me?

Don't write me a script. Just help me show up thinking about them instead of thinking about myself.

One shift made the difference.

The original asks “what should I say?”

This version asks “what should I be thinking about?”

One produces lines to memorize. The other produces awareness you can use when the conversation goes somewhere you didn’t plan.

Original post by u/EQ4C. Link

When the meeting is a hard conversation

If you’re dreading the meeting, the hard conversation prompt gives you an opening line and phrases for when they get defensive. If they’ve already sent you something tense, the angry message prompt finds the real problem under the tone before you reply.

This teardown first ran in issue 2.