Your best prompts are your worst enemy

I just spoke with an accountant in Geneva. He told me such a strange story, and one so essential for 2026, that I have to share it with you.

He was out for a walk at Genève-Plage, on the shore of Lake Geneva, last weekend. Strolling along the water, he spotted a copper lamp in the sand. The kind you see in fairy tales. He picked it up and rubbed it, just to see.

I'll spare you my first questions. But yes, a genie came out.

And this genie was different.

"Not three wishes," the genie told him. "Answers. As many as you want. Ask me any question, and I'll give you the answer."

Marc, the accountant, gave it a try. "How do I get rich?"

The genie sighed. "Work hard. Save. Invest. That's it."

"That's it? Everybody says that."

"You asked me a vague question. I gave you a vague answer. I'm not an oracle, but I have an answer for everything. Want better? Ask better."

Marc got it (or so he thought). He rephrased.

"I'm 38, a self-employed accountant in Geneva, two kids, I make CHF 110,000 a year, I have CHF 50,000 in savings. How do I double my income in five years without changing careers?"

The genie smiled. He gave him a plan. Precise. Methodical. Which clients to target, which engagements to prioritize, how to build his brand, which municipality to pick for taxes, which software to learn.

Marc followed all of it. To the letter.

Five years later, he was making CHF 220,000 a year.

He came back to see the genie. He was holding the lamp, looking sad. He rubbed it gently. The genie came out and recognized him.

"Marc. You made it, didn't you? You believed me. You did what I told you."

Marc took a deep breath.

"I make CHF 220,000 a year now."

"So it worked."

"It worked."

Silence.

"But?"

Marc looked at the ground.

"My wife left fourteen months ago. My kids don't talk to me anymore. I haven't taken a vacation in three years. I sleep four hours a night. Yesterday morning, shaving, I didn't recognize myself in the mirror."

The genie looked at him. Calmly.

"And you've come to ask me why."

"Yes."

The genie gave a slight smile. Not unkind. Sad.

"You asked me how to double your income in five years without changing careers. I told you how, exactly. You never asked me whether that was what you should be asking."

Silence.

"Let me repeat my rule. I have the answer to everything, but I'm not an advisor. I give what I'm asked for, with the precision I'm given. And you gave me precision about the wrong question."

Marc stood there a long time without saying a word.

After a few minutes, he finally spoke. "So how do I know which questions to ask?"

The genie shook his head.

"That one, I can't answer. Not because I don't know. Because the answer only exists inside you."

This story is exactly what's happening between you and AI in 2026.

Marc had started to understand something when he asked his second question. He'd sensed that by giving more precision, more context, more numbers, he'd get a better answer.

But what Marc didn't fully realize is that this first lesson has no bottom. You can keep digging forever, and you'll always find another layer of context that changes the answer.

But you won't necessarily find what you really want.

Because getting a good answer and getting what you want are two different things. And what separates them is harder, rarer, and nobody teaches it.

Together, these two lessons are becoming the real edge in 2026. Not better prompting, but something else, something that happens before the question.

What you just read is an excerpt from next Sunday's Ergon Report. In the full issue, we'll look at exactly:

• the five-layer context framework every leader and professional should know, and why 90% of prompts in companies stop at layer 1 when the value is in layers 4 and 5,

• the three-step test to spot a bad question before you ask your AI, and the mistake brilliant leaders make precisely because they're brilliant,

• why "write a better prompt" is exactly the trap, and the counterintuitive reversal that changes everything (one word in your prompt is enough to trigger it),

• the artifact that comes with this issue: a quick tool to run on any question before you ask your AI, that tells you whether you're about to make Marc's mistake.

To join The Ergon Report before Sunday, start here.

See you Sunday,

Salim

P.S. Subscribe now and you also get access to ErgonOS on presale. It's the AI platform I'm launching this month. You enter your tasks, your profession, your company, and the Ergon AI (trained on every report) tells you where AI can save you time, and where it can't. You can also ask it all your strategic questions so you make the right calls over the next eighteen months. The presale offer is reserved for subscribers who sign up before ErgonOS goes public.