The craft · operator manuals + AI-for-X
The comparison library explains what each adjacent role does. These manuals go further. Twelve operator manuals walk through the work itself, step by step, with the stress tests Stan runs in the background. Seven AI-for-X manuals show where AI pays, where it harms, and where it never goes.
Operator manuals AI-for-X tier
Why these pages exist
The comparison pages answer one question: when does the business need a business coach instead of a lawyer, accountant, board, coach, peer group, or LLM. That is the buying decision.
Operators kept asking the next question. What does the work itself look like? What do I run before I bring in the role? Where do I test my own thinking so I know when I am the constraint and when the situation has outgrown me?
These manuals answer that. Each one walks an operator through one adjacent discipline: what the work requires, the full process, how to fact-check the output, and the moment to escalate.
Tier one · twelve operator manuals
01 · AIpaired with advisor-vs-ai
Knowing how an LLM actually works, drawing the full process before you prompt, building the flow, stress-testing every output, and using AI as the help tool it is.
Open the manual →02 · Coachingpaired with advisor-vs-coaching
The questions an executive coach actually asks, the ones you can ask yourself with a notebook, and the limit beyond which a coach earns the seat.
Open the manual →03 · AI for coachesextension of /coach-yourself
For coaching offers that want to use AI to run intake, session prep, follow-up assets, and the back office without leaking client material or losing voice.
Open the manual →04 · Accountingpaired with advisor-vs-accountant
The five views every owner should pull monthly, the questions to ask the accountant, and the gap between recording the past and understanding the decision.
Open the manual →05 · Boardpaired with advisor-vs-board
Self-imposed governance: the four artifacts that hold a founder accountable when no fiduciary body is doing it for you yet.
Open the manual →06 · Consultingpaired with advisor-vs-consulting
The brief, the workplan, the deliverable, the test of done. Run a real internal project without paying for the deck.
Open the manual →07 · Exit planningpaired with advisor-vs-exit-planning
The personal pre-work owners skip and pay for later: what you actually want, what the business has to look like, and what you stop running before the buyer arrives.
Open the manual →08 · Influencepaired with advisor-vs-influencer
What a senior operator gets from publishing, the cadence that survives a real week, and the tactic stack that does not turn the founder into a content machine.
Open the manual →09 · Peer grouppaired with advisor-vs-peer-group
Three to five operators, a real cadence, a written charter. Most of what YPO and Vistage deliver, run by you, on the decisions you actually have.
Open the manual →10 · Interim CXOpaired with advisor-vs-interim-cxo
What it actually means to hold a CXO seat for ninety days: the brief, the operating cadence, the artifacts you ship, and the moment to hand it over.
Open the manual →11 · Legalpaired with advisor-vs-lawyer
The decisions a founder routinely files without naming the legal layer. A self-audit, a question stack for counsel, and the line you do not cross alone.
Open the manual →12 · Selfpaired with advisor-vs-therapist
A short self-check protocol for the founder who keeps making the same call at 11pm. Not therapy. The structural floor under the decision.
Open the manual →Tier two · seven AI-for-X manuals
Each AI-for-X page draws the scope diagram for one profession (HUMAN owns · AI assists · NEVER), names the workflows, and gives the second-brain stack adapted to that role's hard floor: bar rules, MNPI, deal confidentiality, audience trust, regulator data rules.
AI · lawyerssolo & small firm
Research, drafting, checking, and document automation without breaking privilege, fabricating citations, or crossing the rules of professional conduct.
Open the manual →AI · consultantsindependent & boutique
Throughput on the back-of-house: research, hypothesis trees, deck mechanics, model audits. Methodology and perspective stay yours.
Open the manual →AI · accountantssolo & small firm
Throughput on categorization, reconciliation, variance narratives, and tax research. Audit trail intact, sign-off stays human.
Open the manual →AI · boardschairs, NEDs, secs
pre-brief throughput, briefing notes, governance research, action tracking. MNPI never enters; fiduciary duty does not delegate.
Open the manual →AI · exit plannersboutique M&A
Comp transactions, CIM mechanics, model audits, diligence prep. Code-name protocol keeps the live file sealed.
Open the manual →AI · creatorsoperator-publishers
Idea capture, drafting support, repurposing, comment triage. Voice and source stay yours; fabrication does not enter.
Open the manual →AI · interim CXOsCFO, COO, CRO, CMO
Onboarding compressed from weeks to days. Artifacts, decision drafts, handover-from-day-one. The seat itself stays human.
Open the manual →AI · coachessolo & small team
Intake, session prep, follow-up assets, and the back office. The business is the work; AI does not enter the session.
Open the manual →Two roles deliberately have no AI-for-X manual: therapists, because a public manual should not normalize work below the clinical and ethical floor, and peer groups, because a self-organized loop is not a profession to scale. The comparison library covers both directly.
When the manual is no longer enough
These manuals exist so you can outgrow them. When the work in front of you carries too much consequence for a manual, bring the live situation to Stan.
Work with meStan replies directly within 48 hours · Send the situation
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