
Cary dives into how he's using ChatGPT not just as a business tool, but as a personal assistant—something he’s calling his “second brain.” Inspired by a listener named Jessica, he talks about using ChatGPT’s memory to create weekly...
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C
Welcome to the ChatGPT experiment, the podcast designed to help curious folks better understand just what the heck this chatgpt stuff is all about and hopefully find some useful ways that you can incorporate it into your personal or professional needs. My name is Kerry Weston. I am your host and I got a whole bunch of stuff that I'm gonna throw at you today. Kind of a hodgepodge, a follow up. Just some really good presentations, conversations that I've taken some nuggets away I want to share with you and hope it's. Hope it's valuable for you right first time listeners. Hey, welcome. I appreciate you joining the community. First of all, just want to start off busy week for me. I spent the first part of the week out in Chicago. I'm a certified Marketing coach with Marcus Sheridan. You may have heard me Talk about that before. It's a framework called they Ask youk Answer. Flew out to Chicago, spent some time with Marcus and his team. It's always good to recharge your batteries and take a look at things in a different point of view. Flew back. Had to cut it early and float back. Flew back because I had a couple ChatGPT presentations here in Maine. Every year the Governor holds a an annual marketing conference for tourism and they asked me if I would present for ChatGPT and I did one on ChatGPT for marketing. Had a standing room only audience and at the very beginning of it, cool enough, the Governor of Maine walked in. So I thought it would be a great time to take a selfie. You can see that if you find me on LinkedIn. By the way, you can see the selfie that I took with the Governor and the the group of folks that I was talking to. But. But really great feedback, really great energy. I'm finding that there's a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of curiosity for ChatGPT, but also a lot of misinformation, which is what I'm trying to do here is break down those barriers that keep people from experimenting or using it or getting the most out of it. And I'm going to walk through a few of those here today. According to the mailbag. Got a couple comments. I've had a lot of conversations. Last week was full of trainings. It's awesome to get to meet you guys by the way. And chatgptexperiment.com is the website. I do one on one trainings and last week I had one every day and so it was really great to get to see and meet and share and I love the feedback you're getting. And one person I wrote in a mailbag been using chatgpt a lot since we've talked and this person has been writing a book and they were really stuck on it and said thank you for the lesson. My book has literally taken off since we've spoken. Right from the Governor's conference I got a mail that says, Carrie, I almost didn't go to your ChatGPT presentation because I've been to so many that were a waste of time offering little to no actionable advice. I'm so glad I changed my mind. The way you showed us how to use it, walking everyone through how to talk to it. It was great and I'm excited to go back and put this to use in the office on the website chatgptexperiment.com I do have a free download. So if you have been using this or if you're just a beginner, I've got a free download on five things that I think are important for everyone to remember as they're using ChatGPT. Regardless of why these are called Evergreen Principles. It's right on the homepage. It's a free download and I'm gonna, when you, when you do that, by the way, you'll get the guide off the bat and there's no catch, there's no fee, you're not gonna get marketed to and sold to and all that kind of stuff. But I'm looking at the, there's a follow up email that you are going to get. It's going to have a picture of me saying thank you. It's going to say your CHAT GPT resources. But I also want to share that there are more things that come with the guide. Okay. So I'm looking at it right now. The guide is called 5 Essential Chat GPT Tips for Practical Beginners. That's the name of the guide. That's what you'll get. That's@chat GPT experiment.com. there's also in that email a video teaching ChatGPT how to write like you. And so in the conversations I've been having recently, both in the seminar and one on one, there is still that disconnect between using ChatGPT to write in an authentic way, to make it sound like you, to use the words and phrases and tone and style and voice. Right. Because by default it's not going to. Doesn't. It doesn't know to do that for you. You've got to kind of train it. And I think the, the phrase that I keep coming back to is this is an amazing intern. That's my definition of AI when it comes to ChatGPT. Is this an amazing intern? But that intern really needs your guidance. It needs your direction. Right. And the more you feed it, the better off it's going to work for you. And so the video teaching how Chat GPT to write like you is included in the email that you're going to get when you download the five essential tips. Okay. There's also, and I forgot, I forgot about this actually, if you are using it for business or marketing, there's a document that comes with the email that says it's a collection of business and marketing prompts and exercises. And again, I've got this up here in front of me and I'm just going to share with you what's in this thing. You've got a business executive briefing prompt. It's developed to help you do research on businesses, get in depth. You can build an audience. This is help to help you get the best audience for a particular company, maybe yours. There's a prompt here how to build common questions from your audience, frequently asked questions, and how to build a script to interview you. It will interview you with those questions so you can get the answers out of your head. There's a quiz here if you want to learn how to build your voice, tone and style to go along with that video. There's a quiz here that you can literally copy and paste. And ChatGPT will quiz you and ask you questions and it will determine your voice, tone and style profile that you can use. Right? Then once you've done that, my God, there's a lot in here. The article creation, right? Once you've got voice, tone and style, there's a prompt here that you can use directly with ChatGPT that you can actually start to create articles, outlines and thinking. There's a social media post creator. I'm giving you a step by step prompt that you can copy and paste to create social media posts. And I'll give you an example on that document of what came out of the prompt that I created. Modify it for your own, but you're going to see the thought and logic behind it so you can make it your own. There's a website story brand copy prompt so you can create website messaging, right? Copy and paste and walk you through it. Alt tags replicating a document. If you have a document you want to replicate, this is a prompt to help you do that. So listen, there's more in there. I just didn't realize that someone shared with me. They downloaded the resource the other day and they said, my goodness, there's more than what you promised. And I, I guess there is. I forgot I put all that stuff in there. So. And then lastly there's a step by step guide to building your own focus group, your own customer focus group. So if you are a nonprofit or a business and you deal with members or customers or volunteers and you want to have a way to practice and run things by, if you could benefit from having a focus group, step by step guide to doing that here. So all kinds of stuff comes with that guide, by the way, I just want to share with you. Trying to give. I really think, I truly believe that ChatGPT is a gift. And the more that we understand this gift, the more valuable our days can become, right? And in that workshop, I did at the governor's session the other day, I said, please raise your hand if you have too much extra time in your day. Please raise your hand if you have too many resources to work with that are valuable each and every day. Please raise your hand if you work with too many helpful people who are taking things off your plate each and every day. Please raise your hand if you have too much money at the end of the month. Right. You can see we're going with this. We're all struggling with time and priorities and resources and funds. Wouldn't it be great if there's a way of clearing some of that up, making it easier, being more efficient? That's really where I come from when I say chatgpt is a gift. And I'm hoping to give you some of the nuggets that I've learned as I've played with this so that I can pass that gift on to you, because I really do believe, I really believe that if you pay attention to what you do every day and utilize a partner like this, you can have some significant benefit. In fact, where I'm going to go with the rest of today's show is inspired by Jessica, a listener of the podcast, and downloaded the guide last week. And when you download the guide, I have a question in there. What's your goal? Right. What's your chat GPT goal? And Jessica's goal was helping me sort my life out, work and personal, ultimately using it as an assistant. Right? Ultimately using it as an assistant. If you caught the last episode, I started talking about ChatGPT's memory and I told you that I was going to start to set up a personal accountability partner, a second brain, if you will, that would organize thoughts for me, challenge me, be proactive in reviewing my schedule, my to do, help me think out loud, challenge me. And it's done that. So when I left off with that episode, I was heading to Chicago and I had it set up so that every Monday it would prompt me and we would start going through this. So I've had two instances with it now the previous Monday, which is I'm recording this on a Friday. So this is four days ago. And I also did it this morning because I'm jumping on a plane on Sunday. We're heading to Aruba for school vacation. So next week is a no work for me, I hope. And so I wouldn't be here on Monday. So I said, let's do it on this Friday instead. So I've had two instances now of using what I talked about building in the last episode. So I wanted to report back on how that's going real quick. Number one, I want to share with you that I had the most productive Monday ever. Right? That's a big, bold statement. But I did run this assistant, this personal assistant, this accountability assistant on Monday while I was in Chicago. And it was awesome. It was truly awesome. And it asked me things about my calendar, about my day, about my goals, challenged me, and I told it to do that. And I shared with you some of that language last time. But it really was great to have a sounding board and something. I was going to say someone for a second there, but something to ask me questions and to challenge and make me think what a productive morning. Okay. The only shortcoming is I told it that I cannot be held responsible for starting the meeting all the time. And it said that it would prompt me as I opened ChatGPT, and it didn't do that yet. Okay. So I had to say, hey, it's Monday. And then it said, it is Monday. Let's start our weekly check in. So I had to trigger it. So I'm hoping I can get to the point where that task, it doesn't require me to say, hey, let's start this thing. Right. But anyway, besides that, once I kick started it, the ability of the day, the exercise, tremendously, tremendously valuable and really got a lot done in just that I spent an hour with it going back and forth. And one of the things I did was I copied my. I took a screenshot of my calendar ahead and I pasted the calendar in and I said, take a look at this and, and ask me about these appointments and these events. And it did. And so it started to understand what I was up against for the week and what I was doing, what my goals are. And it's asking me because it wants to check back and help me be accountable and follow up on things that are happening. Right. And so this Friday, the second version of this, he went back and it said, again, I had to say it's Friday. And it started. So again, I'm trying to figure out how to get it to do it automatically, but that's a short piece at the moment. That's something I can get through at the moment. But it said, how was your week in Chicago? How was your meeting with so and so? Right. How did this go? How did that go? What do you want to do differently? What's challenging? What's on your mind? And it went through. So, Jessica, when you wrote helping me sort out my life, work and personal and using it as an assistant. I thought of you because that's literally what I'm doing. And I'm going to share these things as I, as I learn them with you in hopes that perhaps you all can model something similar too. But I got to tell you that aside from having to prompt it, which I'm going to figure out how to, how to not have to do that, having someone remember, I'm just going to say this to you. Having somebody remember what it is that you're supposed to be doing, some things that you have to think about preparing for meetings or asking about how this meeting went or this call went, and then saying, do you want me to remember anything? Or prompt you to want to work on anything? How can I help? Just having somebody literally say, how can I help? Right now? Think about that. How often in your day do you have somebody say selflessly, how can I help? And have it be a place where it's not going to be harder to do than not to do. Okay, so we, we all have people in our world that say, how can I help? And you know that's going to be harder to take them up on the offer than it would just to be to do it yourself. We all fall into that trap. But I'm telling you that that's me, by the way, right? I'm good at delegating, but I'm impatient if someone doesn't get it. And so I can teach and coach, but if it's my time, if it's my task, if it's my opportunity, if I feel that I can just jump on it, more, more than likely I will, right? And so having someone say, can I help? How can I help in a meaningful way? And knowing by the way that it's going to be helpful, it's going to be easier to use than not to use to know that it's going to be productive. I just got to share with you that it's been, just in this one week, it has been remarkable. Remarkable. And so one another layer on top of this, what I've been doing now is if I have a phone call or if I have a thought, I'm opening up ChatGPT on my phone and I'm saying, hey, in our next session, remind me to talk about this. Or I had this call and this came up and I want to explore it with you next time, right? And again, it's the memory. It's not in the same conversation. It doesn't have to be in a custom GPT. It's just a Collective memory. And so it says, got it. I'll remind you on our next call to talk about this or to do this or that. Someone mentioned this and it did. This morning, it did. So when I opened it up, it said, hey, you mentioned that you wanted to talk about what, whatever it was. And then, do you want to do that now? And I got. Just. Just getting out of your head. I was actually in an Uber when I said, you know, I had this conversation with XYZ and I want to talk about our next session. I just dumped it into ChatGPT and it came back. Now we all have to do lists. We've all done Google Docs, we've all done calendars, but those are not interactive. Here's the difference. The Google Doc, the To do list, the calendar, it doesn't work with you. It's just a place for you to store stuff, which is great. However, imagine if that to do list could come back and say, hey, you put this on the to do list. What about it? What do you want to do? What does success look like? What are you challenging with? What are you thinking about? That's what this is doing. And it's fascinating. It's so early in the experiment for me that I know there's going to be things that I'm going to learn and have to tweak and maybe not even like. But Jessica, your goal is the same as mine. Helping me sort my life out, ultimately using as an assistant. And so I'm using the memory, I'm using what it knows about me to schedule a regular second brain conversation where I can get things out of my head and I can work through problems and I can talk about meetings and I can plan emails and all these things. And it's really becoming a two way task list. I never said that out loud until now, but think about that for a second. It's a two way interactive task list. It has a fixed agenda. It knows to ask questions. It knows enough about me, right? So again, the question that prompted this for me was this. And you can try this on your own. What do you know about me personally and professionally? And then feed off that, fill in some blanks, correct the wrongs. But that led to the ability of one of my. One of the things that I was challenged with, as I mentioned, was I don't stick to habits long enough to be productive oftentimes. And that's a shortcoming of mine, Right? That's a blind spot. And so it said, I can help with that. Would you like to set up A meeting and go from there. But it started with that question is what do you know about me? Okay. Now if you've tried that, if you're interested in that and you want something more like it, here's something really cool. Here's a, Here's a question that I put into ChatGPT that was really interesting and eye opening. And when I say eye opening, if I could put it in all caps, by the way, I will, I put, now that you've been working with me for some time, please identify my five blind spots. My five blind spots. That's risk of faith when you ask that, right? But now that you've been working with me and know a little bit about me, tell me about my five blind spots. And it was amazing. It was scary and honest and right. It was right. And because I've set up this assistant right where I've got this cadence now, where I'm checking in and there's an agenda and I'm talking to it and it's that two way interactive. I took the blind spots, one in particular and I added it and I said, would you include this as a goal? I want to correct this. I want to work on this as a goal in our regular sessions. This would be terrifically helpful for me. And it did. And it said, okay, I got it. And it came back during my session on Friday. And I said, you mentioned that this is what you want to talk about. Let's work on that right now. And so, Jessica, thank you for your note because it sparked me wanting to talk about this more with you all because I think there's some others out there, like Jessica, that need help sorting things out. And this is a tool. It's not gospel, it's not the answer, It's a tool. But much like every other tool, if you use it in a way that is meaningful and valuable to you, you're going to get some incredible benefit. And that's really where I talk about the gift. It really is a gift. Chat, gptexperiment.com. i'm going to keep talking about this. Personal assistant, the weekly agenda, the Second brain. This is really a breakthrough for me. And you don't have to be an advanced user to get benefit from it. That's the best part. If it doesn't know a lot about you, you can tell it what you needed to know. You can tell it what position you're in. Right? You can tell it what your goals are, what you struggle with. So just think out loud. What if you had the opportunity on a weekly basis to review goals, to do's, challenges, problems, whatever. With somebody that could be challenging you or making you think or asking you questions, or at least remembering and reminding you, Would that be helpful? Would that be helpful to your day? Would that be helpful to your life? The the two Way to Do list. So, really excited to continue to talk about this, share the experiences with you. I'm looking my week ahead once I get back from Aruba. I got four more trainings. That's just awesome. Like I said, I really like talking to you guys, meeting you guys, helping and sharing. The reasons that people are looking to use CHAT GPT are really varied and wide. It's really cool. It's a really cool aspect to be able to sit and listen and talk and help. So that's. You can do that on chatgpt experiment.com too. If you want to set up a training session, it's your hour. What you want to do is up to you and walk through some things. If you've got questions about what I'm talking about here, I can, I can work through it with you. So it's a live session. It's not recorded, although I can record the notes and send them to you. And we'll use ChatGPT together and I'll share with you how I talk about it. We'll take your challenges and your goals and work it up for you so you can have some value in real time. Okay, so if I do get to talk to you, that'd be awesome. If you're using it, share with me how you're using it. I always appreciate hearing how people are finding their own benefit as we experiment this thing together. So that's it for this week. A whole bunch of stuff out of my head. Thank you for the feedback. Thank you for the opportunity to continue to hear from you and engage in the community. Go get the guide, go get the resources, learn from it, share from it, help someone. And if you want to talk, we can do a session. You'll find me right on the website. Okay, so I am off in 36 hours. I'm off to Aruba for the first time and never been there. So as you're listening to this, this will come out while I'm in Aruba and I'll see what kind of trouble I can get into down there. Probably a little bit too much of vitamin C, Vitamin D. I mean, not having that from a winter in Maine is the. Is the first goal. Right? And we'll go from there. So, hey, listen, your curiosity, your input, your experience is the most important thing as you learn and get to use ChatGPT in meaningful and valuable ways. So until we talk again, thanks again for joining the show. Stay curious. Okay, we'll talk soon.
A
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B
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Episode Summary: Ep 66 - The Second Brain Experiment: Developing A 'Two-Way' To-Do List
Podcast Information:
In Episode 66 of The ChatGPT Experiment, host Cary Weston delves into his latest project: developing a "Two-Way" To-Do List, which he refers to as a "Second Brain." This experiment leverages ChatGPT's capabilities to act as a personal accountability partner, helping to organize thoughts, manage schedules, and enhance productivity.
Cary begins by sharing his busy week, which included attending a marketing conference in Chicago with Marcus Sheridan's team, and presenting on ChatGPT at Maine's annual marketing conference for tourism. He highlights the positive reception he received, including a memorable moment where he took a selfie with the Governor of Maine.
Notable Quote:
"I'm finding that there's a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of curiosity for ChatGPT, but also a lot of misinformation, which is what I'm trying to do here is break down those barriers."
— Cary Weston [02:15]
Listeners have provided encouraging feedback, with one user mentioning that Cary's presentation helped kickstart their book project, and another appreciating the actionable advice provided in his sessions.
Cary promotes his free guide, "5 Essential Chat GPT Tips for Practical Beginners," available on chatgptexperiment.com. This guide includes:
Notable Quote:
"ChatGPT is a gift. And the more that we understand this gift, the more valuable our days can become."
— Cary Weston [08:45]
The core of this episode revolves around Cary's experiment with ChatGPT acting as a personal assistant to create a "Two-Way" To-Do List. This system is designed to not only store tasks but also interact with the user to enhance productivity and accountability.
Cary explains how he set up ChatGPT to function as an accountability partner. This includes:
Notable Quote:
"This is an amazing intern... but that intern really needs your guidance. It needs your direction."
— Cary Weston [12:30]
Cary shares his personal experience, highlighting that using ChatGPT in this manner led to his most productive Monday ever. The AI assistant not only helped organize his tasks but also provided meaningful prompts that encouraged deeper reflection and planning.
Notable Quote:
"It's a two-way interactive task list. It has a fixed agenda. It knows to ask questions. It knows enough about me."
— Cary Weston [19:10]
While the experiment has shown promising results, Cary mentions a few challenges:
Cary credits listener Jessica for inspiring deeper exploration into this experiment. Jessica's goal to use ChatGPT as an assistant to sort out her life, both personal and professional, mirrors Cary's objectives. This synergy showcases the practical applications of ChatGPT in real-life scenarios.
Notable Quote:
"Jessica, thank you for your note because it sparked me wanting to talk about this more with you all."
— Cary Weston [22:00]
Looking ahead, Cary plans to continue refining his Second Brain experiment after his upcoming trip to Aruba. He emphasizes the importance of using ChatGPT as a tool to enhance daily productivity and personal growth.
Notable Quote:
"Your curiosity, your input, your experience is the most important thing as you learn and get to use ChatGPT in meaningful and valuable ways."
— Cary Weston [23:45]
Cary encourages listeners to download his free guide, share their experiences, and engage with the community through one-on-one training sessions available on his website.
Conclusion Episode 66 of The ChatGPT Experiment offers an insightful exploration into leveraging ChatGPT as a personal productivity tool. Cary Weston's "Second Brain" experiment demonstrates the potential of AI to not only manage tasks but also to actively engage and enhance personal accountability. Through practical examples, free resources, and listener stories, Cary provides a comprehensive guide for beginners and seasoned users alike to harness the full potential of ChatGPT.
Stay Connected:
Final Note: As Cary prepares for his trip to Aruba, he remains committed to sharing his journey and discoveries, inviting listeners to stay curious and embrace the transformative capabilities of ChatGPT.