The Pre-Mortem

Read the obituary before the funeral — make AI write the story of how your plan failed.

Here's my plan: [the plan].

It's one year later and this plan failed. Write the story of what went wrong.

Replace anything in [brackets] with your real thing. The prompt is deliberately short — resist the urge to pad it.

Which of those failures is already starting?

When to use it

Before committing to anything — a plan, a launch, a big purchase.

Why it works

Asking "what could go wrong?" gets you a polite list. Asking for the story of how it already failed gets you the specific, believable chain of events — and the follow-up turns hindsight into something you can act on today.

How to run it

1. Hand over the plan

   Give the AI the plan exactly as you intend to run it.
2. Ask for the failure story

   Tell it: "It’s one year later and this plan failed. Write the story of what went wrong."
3. Find what already started

   Follow up with "Which of those failures is already starting?" — then fix those first, or stop.

From the video

I ran it on a system I'd already built. Half the failure story was already true. I shut it down that week. Cheaper to read the obituary before the funeral.

The video for this one drops on @espoai — the page is live so the prompt is yours already.

Make it yours

The same method, pointed at the situations people actually hit.

Here's my plan: I'm launching [the thing] on [rough timeline] to [audience], and success looks like [the goal].

It's one year later and this launch failed. Write the story of what went wrong.

Here's my plan: I'm about to spend [amount] on [the purchase] because [the reason].

It's one year later and I regret it. Write the story of what went wrong.

Here's my plan: I'm hiring [the role] to [what they'll own], paying [comp].

It's one year later and the hire failed. Write the story of what went wrong.