Note: this Field Note has been generated by AI (kind of seems on point at this point...)

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It started with a sales problem.

I wanted to get better at selling my services—not just talking about what I do, but actually landing work in a way that felt intentional and clear. I turned to The Challenger Sale, hoping to sharpen how I led discovery calls. The core idea made sense: guide the conversation, reframe assumptions, teach with insight, and position yourself as a trusted advisor.

So I began tightening my approach. I drafted better questions. I worked on articulating value more clearly. I tried to be more assertive in the right ways.

But the deeper I went, the more off it felt.

It wasn’t that the method was wrong, it just didn’t fit the kind of work I do. I wasn’t selling a feature set or a roadmap. I was selling transformation. Change. The kind of thing that lives just under the skin and only works if someone is ready to wrestle with it.

So I took a step back. What was I actually trying to do in those early moments with a potential client?

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I wasn’t trying to close, I was trying to open

That’s when I started playing with a new idea: what if the “pitch” wasn’t about convincing someone to work with me but about inviting them into something reflective and a little weird? What if I led with emotional friction instead of functional value?

Enter: Aura Flame.

At first, it was just a name for a different kind of sales philosophy, something warmer, more human, more emotionally tuned. But it quickly evolved. ChatGPT and I imagined a prompt that didn’t ask about goals or budgets, but about the quiet, looping thoughts that get in our way. The kind of prompt that might turn someone’s burnout or confusion into something slightly enchanted.

The Aura Flame Prompt became part self-therapy, part fever dream. A question followed by an AI-generated image that transformed whatever sticky feeling someone described into a surreal motivational poster, something you might have found on a VHS tape in the '90s, somewhere between a lava lamp and a tarot deck. Soup dolphins. Grocery owls. Phoenixes offering Tupperware.

Kind of absurd, but also, somehow, it worked. So far, people have resonated with it, not just because it was weird and a bit funny, but because it named something. Or reframed it. Or let it breathe.

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What changed was the tone, and maybe me too a bit

As I refined the prompt, I started to find a distinct voice. Not just for the tool, but for myself. I leaned into mischief. I gave myself permission to be over-the-top, in the most lovingly ridiculous way. The more I shaped the language and structure, the more it felt like I was crafting a small ritual, something I could offer as a gift instead of a lead magnet.

I tuned the image generation to echo those classic black-border posters you’d find in a ‘90s guidance counselor’s office.

And I started sharing the prompt. Not to sell, but to connect.

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What I ended up with was more than a prompt

I ended up with a new way to show up in my work. Not more persuasive, but more honest. Not more impressive, but more open.

Aura Flame is another signature ritual, a strange mirror I can hold up for people (and for myself.)

I started out trying to get better at sales. I ended up with a phoenix, a crockpot, and a dolphin made of alphabet soup.

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And somehow that tracks.