#7. Learning Method: Learn from First Principles

Introduction to First Principles Thinking

Imagine for a moment that you know nothing. You are a blank slate, but you possess a powerful tool: the ability to ask “why?”

You encounter a rocketship and wonder how it works. A helpful engineer explains that rocketships carry people to space.

But your mind is not satisfied.

• Why do rocketships carry people to space?
• What makes them fly?
• What are they made of?

You keep digging deeper and deeper until you hit the bedrock of fundamental truths.

This, in essence, is First Principles Thinking – a method of inquiry that relentlessly pursues the foundations of any given problem or subject.

By discarding assumptions, analogies and conventions, First Principles Thinking deconstructs the complex into its essential components.

From this vantage point of core elements and basic truths, innovative solutions and groundbreaking ideas can be constructed.

First Principles Thinking has been used by folks from Aristotle to Elon Musk.

It has powered the innovations of the Wright Brothers, the theories of Einstein, and the business breakthroughs of Amazon and Tesla.

As a learning tool, it provides a sturdy scaffold for grasping subjects at a profound level and generating novel insights.

In this post, we’ll explore how you can wield the power of First Principles Thinking to level up your skills in marketing, business, creativity and personal growth.

We’ll dive into thought-provoking prompts and real-world examples to train your mind to think from first principles.

Get ready to embrace your inner 4-year-old and ask “why” with the unfettered curiosity of a child. Your next great idea is just a few questions away.

How to use the Prompts here

1. Copy the prompts in this article directly into your chatbot: Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini Pro, etc. Expand it. Savour the results.
2. Modify the prompts to your context. Play with them. Relish the possibilities.
3. Reflect on how you can use prompts to find answers to urgent, pressing questions using Chatbots and get into the habit of a dialogue with AI.

Prompts For Marketing

Tired of recycling the same old campaign ideas?

It’s time to strip your strategies down to their bare essentials. Imagine your brand as a blank billboard in Times Square – what fundamental truth would you paint on it?

Get ready to demolish your marketing assumptions and rebuild from the ground up. These prompts will challenge you to rediscover the core of what makes your audience tick.

1. pH-Balanced Brand Revolution: As the CMO of Bloom Skincare, you’re tasked with transforming a generic soap into a skin-loving superhero. Deconstruct the current brand perception, target audience needs, and competitive landscape using first principles thinking. Then, construct an innovative, omni-channel campaign that redefines Bloom’s position as a nutrient-packed, pH-balanced powerhouse. Your mission is to make consumers fall head over heels for Bloom’s skin-caring brilliance.
2. AI Health Guru Launch: As the marketing director for CompleteWellness, a new AI-powered health and wellness coaching app, you’re up against market leader Boom. Your challenge is to develop a go-to-market strategy and messaging framework that clearly communicates the app’s unique value to health-conscious millennials. Leverage influencer partnerships, content marketing, and digital advertising to drive awareness, downloads, and engagement. Make Boom look like yesterday’s news!
3. Retail Brand Metamorphosis: As a brand strategist for a major retailer, you’ve been hired to shift perceptions from a brick-and-mortar discounter to a premium omnichannel brand. Develop a multi-year brand transformation roadmap that balances bold moves with authentic extensions of their heritage. Consider implications on assortment, pricing, store experience, loyalty program, and marketing mix. Turn this discount dud into a premium stud!
4. Disruptive Skincare Launch: As the brand manager for BioVedic, a new direct-to-consumer skincare brand, you’re tasked with developing the brand strategy from scratch. Define the brand’s purpose, personality, positioning, and visual identity. Create a launch plan that generates buzz and trial through PR, social media, sampling, referrals, and paid acquisition. Make BioVedic a disruptive force in the skincare industry!
5. B2B Customer-Centric Transformation: As a marketing consultant for Marketing Force, a global B2B technology company, guide them through the transformation from product-centric to customer-centric marketing. Define the key pillars of customer-centricity in B2B, recommend organizational changes, new capabilities, and agile campaign processes. Illustrate your thinking with a pilot integrated campaign.
6. Luxury Brand Turnaround: As the marketing VP for Farmany, an underperforming luxury fashion brand, diagnose the root causes of the brand’s decline using first principles. Develop a bold turnaround plan that clarifies the brand’s iconic status while recruiting new generations of affluent consumers. Bring your strategy to life with a 360 relaunch campaign.
7. Digital Needs Hierarchy Reimagined: As a digital marketing strategist, reimagine Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for the digital age using first principles thinking. Create a new hierarchy that reflects the realities of our digital world, considering the impact of technology and social media on fundamental human needs.
8. Customer Journey Epic: As a customer experience manager, reframe the customer journey as a Hero’s Journey using first principles thinking. Create a new framework that turns the customer journey into an epic quest, identifying how a brand can act as a mentor to guide the customer to transformation.
9. Consumer Tribe Taxonomy: As a market research analyst, classify consumer segments as ‘tribes’ using first principles thinking. Develop a taxonomy that goes beyond demographics, breaking down the fundamental behaviors, values, and social structures that define each segment.
10. AI Marketing Evolution Narrative: As a marketing futurist, write the story of AI and Machine Learning as Marketing Skynet using first principles thinking. Create a thought-provoking narrative that explores the future of AI in marketing, including ethical and strategic implications of AI evolving from a tool to a sentient marketing entity.

Prompts for Business Leaders

The business world is evolving faster than ever, and yesterday’s solutions are today’s dead weight.

It’s time to channel your inner Sherlock Holmes and investigate the fundamental truths of your industry.

Picture your company as a startup again – what bedrock principles would you build upon?

1. The Alien CEO Challenge: As the newly appointed CEO of a Fortune 500 tech company, imagine you’re an extraterrestrial being who just landed on Earth. With no preconceived notions of how things “should” work, how would you approach your core business processes? Consider how your alien perspective might revolutionize everything from product development to human resources.
2. The Time Machine Experiment: As the visionary founder of a cutting-edge renewable energy startup, transport yourself 100 years into the past. How would you build your industry from scratch using only the basic technologies and resources available then? What fundamental principles would guide your approach to creating a sustainable energy future?
3. The Toddler’s “Why?” Marathon: As the Chief Strategy Officer of a global e-commerce giant, channel your inner curious toddler and ask “Why?” five times for every aspect of your business model. How deep can you go before hitting bedrock truths about consumer behavior, supply chain dynamics, and digital marketplaces?
4. The Reverse Engineering Riddle: As the Head of Innovation at a leading automotive manufacturer, take your most successful vehicle model and mentally disassemble it into its most basic components. Now, rebuild it from the ground up, questioning every assumption along the way. How might this process lead to breakthrough designs for the future of transportation?
5. The Desert Island Innovation: As the Executive Director of a non-profit organization focused on clean water access, imagine you’re stranded on a desert island with only the raw materials found there. How would you recreate your core service of providing clean water solutions? What are the absolute essentials of water purification and distribution?
6. The Interdisciplinary Insight: As the Chief Marketing Officer of a major financial institution, choose a completely unrelated field like ecology. Identify its fundamental principles of ecosystem balance and adaptation. How can these be applied to solve current challenges in the rapidly evolving fintech landscape?
7. The Blank Slate Brainstorm: As the CEO of a legacy media company, imagine your entire industry vanished overnight. With no existing models to follow, how would you solve the fundamental need for information and entertainment in the digital age? How would you rebuild a media empire from scratch?
8. The Quantum Leap Quest: As the Chief Technology Officer of a global logistics company, imagine a breakthrough in teleportation technology made traditional shipping obsolete. How would you rebuild your value proposition from first principles? What new services could you offer in a world where physical distance is no longer a barrier?
9. The Martian Market Entry: As the President of an international hotel chain, you’re tasked with establishing your business on Mars. With a completely different environment and constraints, what core principles would guide your approach to hospitality on the Red Planet? How would you redefine luxury and comfort in an alien world?
10. The Microscopic Magnification: As the Chief Experience Officer of a social media platform, zoom in on the smallest, most fundamental interaction your business has with a user. What basic human need or desire are you truly fulfilling with each like, share, or comment? How can you rebuild your entire strategy around this core truth of human connection in the digital age?

Prompts For Creatives

Feeling trapped by the rules of your craft?

It’s time to break free from the creative cage and rediscover your artistic DNA. Envision your mind as a primal canvas, untouched by conventions or trends.

These prompts will guide you to the essence of your creative spirit, helping you forge entirely new paths of expression.

1. Visual Symphony Composition: As a graphic designer, imagine orchestrating a symphony of visual harmony using first principles thinking. Break down the principles of design composition and explain how balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, and rhythm can be orchestrated to create masterpieces that resonate with viewers on a visceral level.
2. Typographic DNA Decoding: As a brand identity specialist, use first principles thinking to break down letters into their fundamental components. Explore how these typographic building blocks can be manipulated to convey a brand’s essence and tone, creating a unique visual language that speaks volumes without saying a word.
3. Brand Chimera Creation: As a branding consultant, envision a brand identity as a mythical creature born from the fusion of logo, color, typography, imagery, and voice. Using first principles thinking, dissect these elements and explain how to create a cohesive brand identity that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Multimedia Storytelling Tapestry: As an integrated marketing strategist, consider how campaigns weave together multiple channels into a tapestry of storytelling. Using first principles thinking, unravel the core elements of a multimedia campaign and explain how to plan and execute it for maximum impact across diverse platforms.
5. Interactive Experience Architecture: As a UX designer, explore how we bring the inanimate to life in interactive design. Using first principles thinking, deconstruct the process of creating user-centered experiences through wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, building digital environments that feel intuitive and engaging.
6. Photographic Moment Alchemy: As a professional photographer, analyze how photography captures moments in time. Using first principles thinking, break down the elements that make a photograph impactful – light, composition, subject, emotion. Explain how to wield these elements to create stunning images that tell powerful stories.
7. Illustrative Imagination Synthesis: As an illustrator, consider how illustration breathes life into imagination. With first principles thinking, dissect the core components of a compelling illustration – line, shape, color, texture, space. Describe how illustrators can manipulate these to create captivating visuals that transport viewers to new worlds.
8. Packaging Form and Function Fusion: As a packaging designer, explore how packaging design marries form and function. Applying first principles, dissect the anatomy of effective packaging – structure, materials, graphics, information hierarchy. Explain how to optimize each for product protection and customer appeal, creating designs that stand out on shelves.
9. Kinetic Narrative Choreography: As a motion graphics artist, consider how motion graphics add kinetic energy to storytelling. Using first principles thinking, break down the building blocks of animation – timing, spacing, anticipation, follow through, staging. Describe how to orchestrate these principles for fluid visual narratives that captivate audiences.
10. Immersive Brand Environment Engineering: As an experiential designer, analyze how experiential design immerses people in brands. With first principles thinking, deconstruct the architecture of a memorable brand experience – space, sensory elements, interaction, emotion. Explain how to design environments that resonate on a visceral level, creating lasting connections between brands and consumers.

Prompts For Personal Growth

The path to personal evolution isn’t a straight line – it’s a journey to your core.

Imagine peeling back the layers of your personality like an onion, right down to your fundamental truths.

These prompts will challenge you to question everything you think you know about yourself.

1. Strength Spectrum Mapping: As a career coach, guide your clients to break down their strengths into core components. What fundamental skills, knowledge, or traits make up each strength? For each component, explore why it’s a strength and how it provides value. Then, reconstruct a plan to leverage these strengths by applying the core components in innovative ways across different aspects of their career.
2. Emotional Trigger Deconstruction: As a therapist, help your patients identify situations that provoke strong emotional reactions. Break these down into basic elements – the people, settings, words, or actions that triggered the response. For each element, delve into why it has such a powerful effect. Examine the fundamental assumptions and thought patterns that turn the trigger into an emotional reaction, and rebuild healthier responses.
3. Future Self Architecting: As a life coach, guide your clients to envision their ideal future self in detail. Deconstruct that vision into its basic elements – specific characteristics, achievements, relationships, and lifestyle desires. For each element, explore what fundamental value it represents and how it reflects core purposes and priorities. Use this to architect a path to their ideal self by acquiring critical skills and overcoming root barriers.
4. Goal Genome Sequencing: As a productivity expert, teach your audience to take their big visions and break them down into fundamental components – the major milestones that represent progress. For each milestone, identify core metrics that define success. Examine the key actions required to reach each milestone and reconstruct the vision as a series of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant goals with clear time-bounds.
5. Obstacle Dissection Lab: As a business consultant, help entrepreneurs identify major external or internal obstacles that could derail their ventures. Break these down into basic elements – specific events, resource constraints, skill gaps, or competing priorities. For each element, analyze why it threatens progress and what fundamental impact it would have. Use this to develop robust contingency plans.
6. Habit Hierarchy Construction: As a behavioral psychologist, guide individuals to deconstruct their daily routines into individual habits. Analyze each habit’s core components – cue, craving, response, and reward. Explore how these elements interact and reinforce each other. Then, reconstruct more beneficial routines by strategically altering key components of each habit.
7. Value Vector Analysis: As a personal development speaker, lead your audience through an exercise to identify their core values. Break down each value into its fundamental aspects – the beliefs, experiences, and influences that shaped it. Examine how these values guide decision-making and behavior. Then, help participants align their actions more closely with their core values for greater fulfillment.
8. Skill Synergy Synthesis: As a learning and development professional, guide employees to break down their job roles into essential skills. For each skill, identify its basic components and how they contribute to job performance. Then, explore how these skills could be combined in novel ways to create unique competencies that add value to their organization.
9. Relationship Resonance Mapping: As a couples therapist, help partners deconstruct their relationship dynamics. Identify core interaction patterns and break them down into their fundamental elements – words, actions, emotions, and underlying needs. Examine how these elements resonate with each other, then guide couples to reconstruct healthier patterns that meet both partners’ needs.
10. Mindset Metamorphosis Blueprint: As a motivational speaker, lead your audience to dissect their current mindset into its basic components – beliefs, attitudes, and thought patterns. For each component, explore its origins and impact on behavior and outcomes. Then, guide participants to reconstruct a growth-oriented mindset by challenging limiting beliefs and adopting empowering thought patterns.

Tested Prompt 3, Future Self Architecting, On ChatGPT 4 Plus.

Prompts for Content Creators

Feeling like your content has lost its spark?

It’s time to ignite a bonfire of creativity by stripping your craft down to its essence. Picture your platform as a blank page, waiting for the most fundamental truths of human connection.

These prompts will push you to rediscover what truly captivates an audience, free from algorithmic pressures or viral trends.

1. The Alien Influencer Experiment: As a TikTok creator, imagine you’re an alien who just crash-landed on Earth and decided to become a content creator. With no knowledge of human conventions, how would you approach creating and sharing ideas? Consider how your otherworldly perspective could lead to innovative content formats and unique interpretations of trends.
2. The Caveman’s First Vlog: As a YouTube educator, picture yourself as a time-traveling caveperson tasked with creating content about modern life. How would you explain complex topics like smartphones or social media using only the most basic concepts? Use this primitive lens to simplify your explanations and make your content more accessible.
3. The Five-Year-Old’s “Why?” Marathon: As a podcast host, channel your inner curious kid and ask “Why?” five times for every aspect of your content creation process. How deep can you go before hitting bedrock truths about communication and storytelling? Use this exercise to uncover fundamental insights that can enhance your podcast’s depth and engagement.
4. The Desert Island Content Challenge: As an Instagram influencer, imagine you’re stranded on a desert island with only the bare essentials. How would you create and share content using just the resources available to you? This constraint can inspire creative solutions and help you focus on the core elements that truly resonate with your audience.
5. The Emoji-Only Narrative: As a Twitter personality, if you could only use emojis to tell a story, what fundamental elements of storytelling would you focus on? How can this simplification improve your regular content? Use this exercise to distill your messages to their essence and enhance your visual storytelling skills.
6. The Sensory Shift Saga: As a food blogger, pick a sense other than sight or sound. How would you create content that primarily engages that sense? What core principles of engagement can you apply to your usual medium? This challenge can help you develop more immersive, multi-sensory content experiences.
7. The Intergalactic Content Exchange: As a LinkedIn thought leader, imagine you’re tasked with creating content for an alien species with no concept of human culture. What universal principles of communication would you rely on? Use this scenario to identify the most fundamental aspects of effective business communication.
8. The Quantum Leap Quest: As a Twitch streamer, if a new technology made your current content format obsolete overnight, how would you rebuild your approach from scratch to still connect with your audience? This thought experiment can help you stay adaptable and focused on your core value proposition.
9. The Reverse Engineering Riddle: As a newsletter writer, take your most successful piece of content and break it down to its most basic components. Now, rebuild it from the ground up, questioning every assumption along the way. This process can reveal hidden strengths in your writing and inspire new approaches.
10. The Microscopic Magnification: As a Pinterest content creator, zoom in on the smallest, most fundamental interaction your content has with your audience. What basic human need or desire are you truly fulfilling? How can you rebuild your entire content strategy around this core truth? Use this insight to create more meaningful and impactful visual content.

Tested Prompt 9, Reverse Engineering Riddle, In Perplexity.

Prompts for Entrepreneurs

It’s time to channel your inner mad scientist and deconstruct your business atom by atom.

Imagine your venture as a blank slate, unburdened by industry norms or investor expectations.

These prompts will challenge you to rebuild your business model from its most basic truths. 

1. The Alien Entrepreneur Challenge: As a tech startup founder, imagine you’re an extraterrestrial being who just landed on Earth with a mission to solve a human problem. How would you approach building a business without any preconceived notions of how things “should” work? Consider how your alien perspective might lead to groundbreaking innovations in product development, team structure, or customer acquisition.
2. The Time-Traveling Startup: As a sustainable energy entrepreneur, if you could send your current business idea back to the stone age, how would you implement it using only the basic resources available then? What core principles of renewable energy would still apply? Explore how this primitive lens could simplify your approach and reveal the most essential elements of your value proposition.
3. The Toddler’s “Why?” Marathon: As a fintech innovator, channel your inner curious toddler and ask “Why?” five times for every aspect of your business model. How deep can you go before hitting bedrock truths about value creation in financial services? Use this exercise to uncover fundamental insights that could revolutionize your approach to banking or investment solutions.
4. The Desert Island Venture: As a food delivery app creator, imagine you’re stranded on a desert island with only basic tools. How would you recreate your core service? What are the absolute essentials of your value proposition when stripped of technology? This constraint can inspire creative solutions and help you focus on the core elements that truly matter to your customers.
5. The Reverse Engineering Riddle: As a biotech entrepreneur, take your most innovative idea and mentally disassemble it into its most basic components. Now, rebuild it from the ground up, questioning every assumption along the way. How might this process lead to breakthrough discoveries or more efficient drug development methods?
6. The Interdisciplinary Insight: As an e-commerce platform founder, choose a natural system like coral reefs and identify its fundamental principles. How can these be applied to solve current challenges in online retail? Consider how the diversity, adaptability, and symbiotic relationships in coral ecosystems could inspire new approaches to marketplace dynamics or customer engagement.
7. The Blank Slate Brainstorm: As a transportation startup founder, imagine the entire automotive industry vanished overnight. With no existing models to follow, how would you solve the fundamental need for personal mobility? This thought experiment can help you break free from industry conventions and envision truly disruptive solutions.
8. The Quantum Leap Quest: As a cloud computing entrepreneur, if a breakthrough in quantum computing made current data storage methods obsolete, how would you rebuild your value proposition from first principles? This scenario can help you stay ahead of potential disruptions and identify new opportunities in data management and processing.
9. The Martian Market Entry: As a vertical farming entrepreneur, you’re tasked with establishing your business on Mars. With a completely different environment and constraints, what core principles would guide your approach to sustainable food production? Use this otherworldly challenge to push the boundaries of your agricultural innovation.
10. The Microscopic Magnification: As a social media platform creator, zoom in on the smallest, most fundamental interaction your business has with a user. What basic human need or desire are you truly fulfilling with each like, share, or comment? How can you rebuild your entire strategy around this core truth of human connection in the digital age?

Prompts for Product Managers

It’s time to put on your archeologist hat and dig deep into the bedrock of user needs.

Envision your product as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist yet.

These prompts will push you to uncover the fundamental truths of user experience, free from feature bloat or competitor copycatting.

1. The Alien User Story: As a product manager for a cutting-edge AI assistant, imagine you’re designing your product for an alien species with no concept of human technology. How would you approach solving their core need for information processing and task automation without relying on existing UI/UX conventions? Consider how their unique physiology and cognitive processes might influence your design decisions.
2. The Time Machine Product Test: As a fintech product manager, if you could send your mobile banking app back to the 1920s, how would you adapt its core functionality to be useful without modern technology? Think about how you could leverage the app’s underlying financial principles to create value in an era of physical ledgers and cash transactions.
3. The Toddler’s “Why?” Sprint: As a product manager for a project management tool, channel your inner curious toddler and ask “Why?” five times for every feature in your product. How deep can you go before hitting the bedrock of true user value? Use this exercise to strip away unnecessary complexities and focus on the core benefits your tool provides to teams.
4. The Desert Island MVP: As a product manager for a social media platform, imagine you’re stranded on a desert island with only basic materials. How would you create a minimum viable version of your product? What are its most essential components for fostering human connection and information sharing? This constraint can help you identify your product’s true core value proposition.
5. The Sensory Shift Challenge: As a product manager for a smart home device, if your product could only interact with users through sound (not sight), how would this constraint force you to rethink its core functionality? Consider how you might use audio cues, voice commands, and sound-based feedback to create an intuitive and effective user experience.
6. The Reverse Feature Teardown: As a product manager for an e-commerce platform, take your product’s most popular feature – say, the recommendation engine – and mentally disassemble it into its most basic components. Now, rebuild it from scratch, questioning every assumption along the way. How might this process lead to innovative new approaches to personalized shopping experiences?
7. The Interdisciplinary Product Mashup: As a product manager for a fitness tracking app, choose a completely unrelated field like architecture and identify its fundamental principles. How can concepts like spatial design, balance, and structural integrity be applied to solve current challenges in motivating users and visualizing their fitness progress?
8. The Quantum Leap Scenario: As a product manager for a ride-sharing service, if a breakthrough in teleportation technology made your product’s main feature obsolete overnight, how would you rebuild your value proposition from first principles? Consider how you might pivot to leverage your existing network and logistics expertise in a world where physical transportation is no longer a barrier.
9. The Martian Product Launch: As a product manager for a productivity software suite, you’re tasked with launching your product on Mars. With a completely different environment and user needs (like time delays in communication with Earth), what core principles would guide your approach to helping Martian colonists stay organized and efficient?
10. The Microscopic User Interaction: As a product manager for a streaming music service, zoom in on the smallest, most fundamental interaction a user has with your product – perhaps the moment they press play. What basic human need or desire for emotional connection through music is being fulfilled? How can you rebuild your entire product strategy around this core truth of auditory experience and personal expression?

Conclusion

The first principles thinking is your trusty machete for hacking through the jungle of information overload and conventional wisdom.

By ruthlessly breaking down problems to their fundamental truths, you can rebuild creative solutions from the ground up that shatter assumptions and unlock innovative breakthroughs.

The prompts we’ve explored provide a starting point for flexing your first principles muscles, whether you’re tackling challenges in marketing, business, creativity or personal growth.

But remember, prompts and frameworks are merely kindling – you must bring the fire of deep reflection, bold experimentation and relentless execution to forge insights into results.

It enables you to see beyond best practices and benchmarks to uncover the core value you can deliver in fresh ways to your target audiences.

AI Tools that you can use

The prompts on Phewture are AI tool agnostic.

They should work on GeminiPro, ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Even on free tools such as llama3 by Meta which you can install on your desktop.

• ChatGPT and Gemini Pro can read Google Files by way of attachment
• Claude can read PDFs.
• Perplexity can read text files and PDFs.

Use these capabilities to upload your prompts and get the best out of these tools.

You will have to use the following prompt, if you follow the file upload method: Please complete the tasks outlined in the attached document.

Next Steps

1. To help you find your way around Phewture, I have put together a set of AI Recipes under Wayfinding. Do go through these and you’ll navigate like a pro through this stream of consciousness. 😄
2. The Learning Methods are exercises that I’d recommend if you wish to wrap your head around the possibilities of using AI Recipes at work, or for play.
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