Build Your Own AI Workspace

Companion handout to “AI and Running a Coaching Business,” Starting Strength Coaches Conference, Omaha, September 2026. Nick Delgadillo.

Why bother

An AI model off the shelf has three things: what it was trained on (the public internet up to a cutoff date), what it can look up on the web when you ask, and, in some tools, a memory feature that keeps fragments of your earlier chats. None of that contains your prices, your doctrine, your staff, or what you told a member last month. So it answers with the average gym owner’s answer, in the average gym owner’s voice.

Pointed at a workspace, the same model reads your folder before it answers. Your doctrine, your templates, the answers you already give, one page per person with open items and a dated log, and a rules file that says what it may draft and what it may never send. Now it can quote your price in your words, and it can tell you that you decided something in July.

A workspace is a folder the assistant reads first. This handout is how to fill it.

What you need: one folder, and one AI tool that can be pointed at it. The folder used throughout this handout looks like this:

my-gym-workspace/
  rules.md        what it may do, what it never does (read first)
  about-us.md     who we are, what we charge, how we talk
  inbox/          voice notes, transcripts, forwarded email
  people/         one page per person: open items, log
  projects/       one page per project, dated decisions
  knowledge/      doctrine, approved answers, templates

The names are a suggestion. Keep them if you have no reason to change them; the prompts below use them. Any tool that reads a folder on your computer, or a “project” you upload files to, works the same way. Pick the tool after you have written the first three files, not before.

Step 1. Set up your context

One folder the assistant reads before it does anything. Three things go in first.

Write these first

about-us.md, one page. What the business is, who works here, who the members are, what you charge, how you talk.
rules.md, one page. Never invent a number or a name. Draft, never send. Ask before closing anything. Your gate list: the five things a person always decides (anything to a member or staff that reads as coming from you; money; hiring and firing; a change to a lifter’s program; anything public with the brand on it).
knowledge/: five approved answers. The answers you already give members and staff, written the way you say them. One file each in knowledge/, dated.

Keep it usable

Plain text files, kept short, one topic per file.
A date at the top of every file.
Curate: five good files beat five hundred pages of pasted chats.
Tell the assistant: read this folder first, and say so when the answer is not in it.

It takes about half a day to start and ten minutes a week to keep up.

Prompt 1a, about-us.md

Interview me one question at a time until you can write about-us.md, a one-page file about my gym: what we do, who works here and what each person does, who our members are, what we charge and for what, and how we talk to people. Do not guess at anything. When you have enough, write the file with today’s date at the top and show it to me before saving it.

Prompt 1b, rules.md

Write rules.md, a file you read at the start of every session we work together. It contains: (1) never invent a number, a name, a price or a quote; if you do not have it, say so and ask; (2) you draft, you never send; (3) ask me before closing, deleting or changing anything; (4) when two files disagree, the newer dated one wins, and you tell me; (5) this gate list, where a person decides every time: [paste your five lines]. Date it, then read it back to me in your own words so I can check you understood it.

Prompt 1c, knowledge/

Ask me the five questions members or staff ask most often. For each one, ask me to answer out loud the way I actually say it, then write it down as its own file in knowledge/ with a date at the top. Do not improve my wording. Do not add anything I did not say.

Step 2. Set up your second brain

One page per person in people/, one page per project in projects/. Same shape every time. This is working memory: it changes every week and should. The context folder from step 1 is the durable part.

The template

Name · role · how we work together

Open items
- What · who owes it · since when
- What · who owes it · since when

Log (newest first)
- Date: what happened, what was decided
- Date: what happened, what was decided

The habit that feeds it

After a call or meeting, hand it the transcript or a two-minute voice note.
It proposes new items and log lines. You keep or drop each one.
Closing an item is your call, never its own.
Then ask it: “What did we decide about X?” “Who owes me what, and since when?”

Start with your staff, three or four pages. Add a member’s page the first time a decision about them is worth remembering.

Prompt 2a, First page

Make a page for [name] in people/ using this shape: their role and how we work together at the top; a section called Open items with one line each, in the form “what · who owes it · since when”; and a section called Log with dated entries, newest first. Here is what I know about them: [say it]. Show me the page before saving it.

Prompt 2b, The habit

From now on, whenever I give you a transcript, meeting notes or a voice note, do this: read it, identify every person who has a page in the folder, and propose new open items and log entries for each of them. List the proposals and wait for my yes on each one before writing anything. Never close an open item yourself; only propose it.

Prompt 2c, Recall

Check the pages in the folder and tell me: what did we decide about [topic], and when? And who currently owes me what, oldest first? Point at the page and the dated line for each answer.

Step 3. Set up the analysis layer

Hand it the inputs and one question. Keep the yes or no.

What you hand it

The transcript, the two documents, or the export from your scheduling or accounting software.
One question: compress this, compare these, find where this contradicts what we decided, or what should I ask next.
The shape you want back: one page, a table, a list of who owes what.

The standing rule

Every number traces to a source you can open, or it gets marked [unverified]. If it cannot point to where a figure came from, the figure does not go in the report. Put that sentence in rules.md.

Start with one report

The one you rebuild by hand every week. Write down its columns and where each number comes from. Have it drafted in that shape. Check it against the source the first three times, then spot-check. Once the shape is stable, it becomes your first scheduled routine.

Prompt 3a, The rule

Add this to rules.md: every number in anything you produce must trace to a source I can open (a file in the folder, an export I gave you, or a connected system). If you cannot point to the source, mark the number [unverified] in the text. Never fill a gap with a plausible figure.

Prompt 3b, The first report

Here is the report I rebuild every week: [describe or paste it]. These are its columns, and this is where each number comes from: [list them]. Draft this week’s version in exactly that shape from these sources: [attach or name them]. Mark anything you cannot trace [unverified]. Then list every number and its source so I can check them.

Prompt 3c, Compare and contradict

Compare these two documents and give me one page: what is the same, what differs, and anything in either one that contradicts a decision recorded on a page in the folder. Quote the line and name the page for each contradiction. Then tell me the one question you would ask next.

Step 4. Connect the drawers

Add one connector at a time, let it read before you let it draft, and nothing sends without a person.

A sensible order

#	Drawer	Access
1	Email	read, then draft
2	Calendar	read
3	Files and sheets	read, then write
4	Gym scheduling	read
5	CRM / leads	read, then draft
6	Accounting	read only

The rules

Add one, use it for a week, then add the next.
Read access first. Drafting only after a month of clean reads.
Keep the list short enough to say out loud.
Write the list into rules.md, with what each one may do.
A person always sends.

In most tools this is a settings menu called connectors, integrations or MCP. You sign in to the service once and choose what it can see.

Prompt 4a, First connector

I have connected my email. For the next week you may read it, and nothing else: no drafts, no replies, no labels, no deletions. Add that line to rules.md. Each morning, list the threads that need a reply from me and what each one is waiting on. Do not write any replies yet.

Prompt 4b, Adding drafting

Update rules.md: for email, you may now draft replies, and you save them as drafts for me to read and send. You never send anything. You never reply to anyone directly. Confirm you have written that down, then show me the current list of everything you are connected to and what each connection may do.

Step 5. Audit and improve on a clock

The system is never finished. The upkeep is small if it is scheduled.

When	Do
Weekly, 10 minutes	Have it read the whole folder: what is stale, what contradicts itself, what did I say I would add?
Every time it bites	Add one line to rules.md so that failure cannot repeat.
Monthly	Prune: which files were never read, which answers changed, which pages have no open items.
Quarterly	Read the connector list and the gate list out loud. Remove what you cannot justify.

What the audit catches

A confident wrong number. Trace it or mark it unverified.
Two files that disagree. Newer dated one wins, and the assistant says so.
A robot wearing your name. Sweep for machine tells before it ships as you.
A search result treated as the whole picture. Open the thing before saying what is missing.
“Done” that was not checked. Check the file or the sent folder first.

Every rule in my system was added after it bit me once.

Prompt 5a, Weekly audit

Read every file in the folder. Report three lists: (1) files that look stale, with the date on each and why you think so; (2) places where two files or pages contradict each other, quoting both; (3) things I said I would add or fix, according to the pages, that are not there yet. Propose a fix for each item. Change nothing until I say.

Prompt 5b, After it bites

You just [describe what went wrong]. Write one line for rules.md that would have prevented it, in plain language, and show it to me before adding it.

Prompt 5c, Monthly prune

Which files in the folder have you not needed to read in the last month? Which approved answers have changed since they were written? Which person pages have no open items and no log entry in 60 days? List them with a recommendation for each: keep, update or archive. Do not archive anything yourself.

The test for whether the setup is working: every answer it gives should point at a file in your folder. When it cannot, that is either a missing file or a guess, and either one is worth knowing.