Lone Wolf Unleashed - avoid exhaustion, reclaim your time using tools, systems and AI

Mike Fox

Lone Wolf Unleashed with host Mike Fox, founder of Action Advisory, provides practical solutions for business owners overwhelmed by administrative tasks and seeking more personal time. Rather than endorsing impractical hype, the podcast focuses on actionable steps and frameworks to help entrepreneurs streamline their operations without compromising growth. Expect candid discussions, dark humor, and tools to eliminate bottlenecks, aiming to help listeners reclaim their time and improve work-life balance.

  1. 4D AGO

    How to Tell If AI Has Made YOU The Bottleneck In Your Own Business

    AI is supposed to make you faster. So why are you more buried than ever? I'm Mike Fox from Lone Wolf Unleashed — and in this episode, I'm talking about something I'm living right now: AI burnout. Not the kind where you're exhausted from using AI, but the kind where AI has moved so fast through the front end of your processes that you've become the bottleneck. Multiple clients. All at the same stage. All waiting on me. This episode is a systems diagnosis of a problem every solo founder is going to hit as they adopt AI tools — and a practical framework for what to do about it. What you'll learn: Why AI creates a "wave" of output that crashes into the human layer of your processHow running multiple client projects in parallel compounds the bottleneck effectWhy you can't just throw unreviewed AI output at clients — and what's actually at stake when you doThe "unicorn hire" mistake most business owners make when they finally decide to bring someone onWhat a "pilot" actually looks like — and why that's the person you need, not a technical specialistHow to use part-time contractors and VAs to unblock specific functions without over-hiring If you're starting to move faster with AI but feeling more overwhelmed, not less — this one is for you. Head to lonewolfunleashed.com/resources for tools and frameworks to help you manage what AI is building up in your business. Mentioned in this episode: This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network Blogging Masterclass with Holly Christie, Nikki Pilkington and Kane Mitchell https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/masterclass

    20 min

  2. MAY 11

    The Right Way to Transition Work to AI Agent Teams and Work 4 Hours, NOT 3 Weeks

    Lots of people are handing work to AI agents and crossing their fingers. This episode is about doing it properly. Hi, I'm Mike, host of Lone Wolf Unleashed. This week I walk you through the controlled, step-by-step method for transitioning your work into an AI agent team — so you stay in control, your quality holds, and you don’t end up with an agent deleting your production database. The short version: you don’t hand everything over on day one. I'm going to teach you "The Two-Lane Method" and explain how to hand work to AI Agents in a controlled way. And I bring receipts. One of my own processes went from three weeks to four hours. A 96% time reduction. Listen to hear me walk you through it. Chapters00:00 Transitioning work to AI agents in a controlled manner 00:16 Back from the Investors Forum — Sydney & Melbourne 00:36 Warren Otter’s multimillion-dollar exit story 01:02 Human in the loop — what it means and why it matters 01:24 How I build AI skills from real work 02:14 Process diagrams, LinkedIn, and learning by doing 02:39 From task-based to workflow-based thinking 03:20 Why you can’t hand everything to an agent team on day one 04:18 The two-lane model: your lane vs the agent team’s lane 05:10 Shifting reviews down into the agent lane 05:40 What to keep in your lane vs what to delegate first 06:44 Why control matters: the AI database deletion story 07:27 Build skill by skill, then string into a pipeline 07:58 Using separate manager and QA agents for review 08:51 Why it’s not just “checking its own homework” 09:55 The end state: one input, one output, you’re not in the middle 10:28 Real result: a task reduced by 96% 10:50 The business requirements document use case 13:07 From three weeks to four hours 13:17 What this means for your business 14:00 Resources at lonewolfunleashed.com Resources: lonewolfunleashed.com/resources Mentioned in this episode: This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/

    17 min
  3. Zooming Out From AI: The Persona and Values Framework and Why Your Business is YOU

    MAY 4

    Zooming Out From AI: The Persona and Values Framework and Why Your Business is YOU

    Everything will still be here when we get back to AI... Hi, I'm Mike, host of Lone Wolf Unleashed. This week I'm doing something a little different — zooming out from all the systems, the tools, and the tech to talk about the thing that actually underpins everything in your solo business: you. If you're a solo founder, you know the feeling. Work coming from every direction. Kids getting sick. Clients to juggle. Hours that never seem to end. You started this business for a reason — flexibility, financial freedom, intergenerational wealth, doing cool stuff with cool people. Whatever it was, it was yours. But somewhere along the way, you've become one person working two people's hours. This episode is about zooming out and remembering why. I walk you through the first P in my Five P Framework — Persona — and why getting clear on who you are, what you value, and why you started has to come before any system you build. Your values don't just inform your decisions — they determine them. Which platforms you use. How your processes run. What you do and don't send. Your dreams are the architecture. Your systems are built to serve those dreams. The solo business is you. And that's not a motivational slogan. It's operational reality. Chapters 00:00 Taking a break from AI — zooming out 00:36 The thing that matters most in your solo business 01:00 Solo founders: getting hit from every side 02:16 The solo business is you 02:48 Why Mike started his business 03:46 What are your reasons? Zoom out. 04:43 Sitting in the car in tears — keeping going anyway 05:28 Good systems make the dream possible 05:56 The Five P Framework: Persona first 06:49 How your values shape your decisions and processes 07:33 Systemisation starts and ends with you 08:16 It's okay not to want this anymore 09:31 Wrap-up: reaffirming why you're in this Resources: lonewolfunleashed.com/resources Mentioned in this episode: This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/

    12 min
  4. AI for Information Routing: A Three-Layer Framework for Solo Founders

    APR 27

    AI for Information Routing: A Three-Layer Framework for Solo Founders

    AI isn't taking your job. It's taking one layer of it — and most people are getting that distinction wrong. In this episode of Lone Wolf Unleashed, I walk through a three-layer framework for understanding where AI actually fits in your business: information routing, judgement, and signals. AI is excellent at the first layer. It can't do the other two. We cover why mass layoffs are misreading the boundary, why accountability sits with you (not the model), and a simple way to find AI-ready tasks in your own day. If you run a service-based business, this is the lens to use before you automate anything. Chapters00:00 — The premise: AI isn't taking all the jobs 00:46 — Layer 1: Information routing (what AI is excellent at) 01:17 — Layer 2: Judgement (and the new transparency legislation) 02:04 — Layer 3: Signals in the physical environment 02:30 — Why wholesale layoffs are misreading the boundary 03:51 — Freeing middle managers to make good decisions 04:50 — How to apply this to your own business 05:55 — Worked example: my podcast content workflow 07:08 — Communication is performance 07:49 — Connected systems in 2026 08:21 — Recap of the three layers 09:37 — A 95% time-saving benchmark 10:13 — Closing thoughts More from Lone Wolf UnleashedOther episodes: https://lonewolfunleashed.com/episodes/ Resources: lonewolfunleashed.com/resources Mentioned in this episode: This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/

    13 min
  5. The Target Operating Model Approach to Building AI Agent Teams with Paperclip

    APR 20

    The Target Operating Model Approach to Building AI Agent Teams with Paperclip

    Most AI agent content is hype. This isn’t. I’m Mike, host of Lone Wolf Unleashed. This week I walk you through how I implemented my first AI agent team using Paperclip — an open-source multi-agent platform — and more importantly, the methodical approach that made the result controllable rather than chaotic. The short version: I started with a target operating model in Obsidian, not with the tool. People, process, technology, on a page. I handed the architecture to Claude, spun up a “CEO agent” in Paperclip, and let it form a team — CTO, business analyst, content writer, marketing manager, clips publisher — that now runs my content pipeline from Asana through Descript, SharePoint and into Metricool. Architecture before automation. Human-in-the-loop, non-negotiable. You’re still the master of your business. Listen to hear me walk you through it. Chapters 00:00 First AI agent team, implemented 00:30 Why Paperclip (and going from local to cloud) 01:18 Starting with a target operating model in Obsidian 02:03 Handing the architecture to Claude 02:22 The CEO agent spawns the team 03:40 The content workflow: Asana → Descript → SharePoint → Paperclip → Metricool 05:04 Matching agents to models: Opus, Sonnet, Haiku 05:56 Routines instead of manual triggers 06:40 What took the time (spoiler: it wasn’t the agents) 07:34 Human-in-the-loop and run history 09:10 You are the master of your business 10:54 The 80/20 rule for phase-one builds Resources: lonewolfunleashed.com/resources Mentioned in this episode: You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/ This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network

    14 min
  6. Efficient AI Knowledge Wiki Strategy

    APR 13

    Efficient AI Knowledge Wiki Strategy

    Are your AI tools burning through tokens faster than ever? You're not alone — and in this episode I'm sharing the framework that's changed how I manage knowledge and query AI at scale. I'm Mike from Lone Wolf Unleashed — I help solo founders build business systems so they can switch off sooner and live larger. Today I'm walking through Andrej Karpathy's wiki methodology, how to implement it in Obsidian, and why it reduces AI token consumption by up to 85% compared to traditional approaches. I also cover how I've applied this directly to Lone Wolf Unleashed — building a target operating model, setting up agent teams in Paperclip, and designing a content production architecture that closes the gap between production and distribution for a solo operator. If you're hitting your AI limits, spending too much on token-heavy workflows, or just looking for a smarter way to manage your business knowledge — this one's for you. ────────────────────────────── Chapters ────────────────────────────── 00:00 — Introduction: Token limits and why this matters for solo founders 00:43 — How Andrej Karpathy's wiki methodology works 02:50 — Setting up a wiki ingest workflow in Obsidian 03:33 — Why the wiki is 80–85% more token efficient 04:38 — Visualising knowledge connections with Obsidian's graph view 05:56 — Replacing a team of analysts as a solo operator 06:43 — Target operating models and the 5Ps framework 07:50 — Introducing Paperclip and automated content production 10:13 — Building an AI Business Analyst assistant 13:00 — What this means for your business and your life 14:21 — Resources and wrap-up ────────────────────────────── RESOURCES ────────────────────────────── Wiki resources and setup guide: https://lonewolfunleashed.com/resources ────────────────────────────── CONNECT ────────────────────────────── Website: https://lonewolfunleashed.com Email Mike: mike@lonewolfunleashed.com Mentioned in this episode: You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/ This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network

    17 min
  7. Solopreneur Workflow: Simplifying Big Data Analysis with AI Agents

    APR 6

    Solopreneur Workflow: Simplifying Big Data Analysis with AI Agents

    Your AI tool isn't broken. It's just full. Hi, I'm Mike Fox, host of this podcast, "Lone Wolf Unleashed." I help solo founders systemise their businesses so they can switch off sooner and live larger. This week I'm pulling back the curtain on a real data project: 103,000 rows, a client locked into Microsoft Copilot, and a categorisation task that would've taken weeks to do manually. Here's what I worked through — and what you can take straight into your own business. The context window is the AI's working memory. Once it runs out, the quality of your outputs tanks — or the conversation just stops. Understanding this constraint is the difference between AI that saves you hours and AI that wastes them. Working within real-world limitations (not every client is on Claude), I built a strategy to break down a massive data set into token-efficient chunks, set up a structured workflow for Microsoft Copilot to process them in sequence, and then used a manager-agent review layer to QA the outputs before any human had to. The same principles apply whether you're running Claude, ChatGPT, or whatever tool your organisation has decided is the one. The constraints change. The framework doesn't. What you'll learn: What a context window is and why it limits what your AI can do with large data setsHow to make your data and your prompts token-efficient before you send themA practical chunking strategy for splitting large Excel or CSV files across multiple AI sessionsHow to use a manager-agent role to review and QA your AI outputsWhich model settings to use for heavy analytical tasks If you're using AI to make decisions — not just write emails — this episode is for you. Resources, frameworks, and tools: lonewolfunleashed.com/resources Mentioned in this episode: This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/

    14 min
  8. Hiring and delegating as a Solo Operator so you can keep your sanity (and your afternoons free)

    MAR 30

    Hiring and delegating as a Solo Operator so you can keep your sanity (and your afternoons free)

    Running your own business shouldn’t feel like a never-ending marathon. If you’re clocking 60-hour weeks and dreaming about hiring your first employee just to claw back some sanity, this episode is for you. Hi, I'm Mike Fox, host of this podcast, "Lone Wolf Unleashed." In this episode I'm tackling the not-so-glamorous reality of delegation—why just deciding “I’ll get someone in to handle my marketing” won’t cut it, and why human beings bring as much risk as reward. Forget wishful thinking: you’ll learn why setting up solid processes, documenting your tasks (with templates to shave off real hours), and mapping out a hiring strategy are essential before posting a job ad or starting interviews. Timestamped summary: 00:00 Setting up a hiring process 04:57 Delegating tasks in your business 09:46 Crafting interview questions and contracts 13:21 Delegating your first hire Mentioned in this episode: This podcast is part of the Podknows Podcasting ICN Network You might also like... Check out the "Websites Made Simple" podcast with Holly Christie at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/

    16 min
See All (40)

Trailer

About

Lone Wolf Unleashed with host Mike Fox, founder of Action Advisory, provides practical solutions for business owners overwhelmed by administrative tasks and seeking more personal time. Rather than endorsing impractical hype, the podcast focuses on actionable steps and frameworks to help entrepreneurs streamline their operations without compromising growth. Expect candid discussions, dark humor, and tools to eliminate bottlenecks, aiming to help listeners reclaim their time and improve work-life balance.

Information

You Might Also Like