← The ChatGPT Experiment - Simplifying AI For Curious Beginners
The ChatGPT Experiment - Simplifying AI For Curious Beginners
Ep 68 - Cloning Yourself with ChatGPT: George B. Thomas and the Superhuman Framework
00:56:15
Episode Summary In this episode of the ChatGPT Experiment Podcast, host Cary Weston sits down with George B. Thomas—HubSpot expert, content strategist, and passionate advocate for human-centered technology. They dive deep into how AI, especially...
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- [00:00]
Kerry Weston
What's standing between you and your first sale on Shopify? Time, Expertise. Resources. What if you could multiply all three product descriptions done. Store insights delivered 2am Customer questions handled instantly. Entrepreneurs on Shopify are reaching their first sale faster with AI that works with you. Go to shopify.com firstsale to see how entrepreneurs use AI to grow their businesses faster at shopify.com firstsale We've talked about.
- [00:32]
George B. Thomas
Curiosity a lot on this episode. The word that kept like just smashing into the front of my cranium was like, oh, courage. Yeah, like you, you've curiosity and courage. Like if you can align those two as you move forward. Now we're talking.
- [00:57]
Kerry Weston
Hey there. Welcome to the ChatGPT experiment podcast designed to help curious beginners better understand just what the heck this whole chatgpt thing is and how to get some nuggets to help you make better use in your personal or professional life. My name is Kerry Weston. I'm your host and today I'm super psyched. I have a guest that you guys are going to absolutely love. Got George B. Thomas with me and a quick overview here. George is a sought after speaker, trainer and content strategist. He's got a decade over a decade of experience helping businesses and individuals flourish. And I want to tell you a few things that really caught my eye about George when he sent me his background. He is passionate about aligning purpose, passion, persistence and love to build unstoppable teams and cultures. Absolutely love that. He's all over HubSpot. He is the HubSpot Man, 42 HubSpot certifications, deep expertise in AI, inbound marketing, all that stuff we're going to get into. But here's what I really, really love and here's why I know that we are Ken. Whether speaking to a room of industry leaders or creating impactful content, he brings empathy, creativity and practicality to every interaction. George. Absolutely love that. Welcome to the show, my friend Carrie.
- [02:14]
George B. Thomas
Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here and have this conversation. I am, I am anticipating great things over the next 30 to 45 minutes, my friend.
- [02:25]
Kerry Weston
Love it. And I was just thinking we go way back. Do you remember the first time we actually met?
- [02:29]
George B. Thomas
You mean yesterday?
- [02:31]
Kerry Weston
Yesterday? I love it. And you got me right off the bat where we were talking about a problem outside of this conversation and you said, man, I just like to keep it practical and I like to be value added and think about the person on the other side and the things that you had said. I said, that's exactly where we're at. You used the word curiosity twice. This group is all about being curious and I encourage them all the time. I think the number one superpower and understanding anything in life, honestly. But ChatGPT specifically is your own curiosity. I know you bring that to the table too, right?
- [03:05]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, I think there's a couple things being curious. But then for me, one of the things I'll say is a superpower is trying to figure out how to simplify the complex. And if you're trying to simplify the complex, if you come to the table with curiosity and one last piece, you ask yourself, is it possible you're giving yourself the freedom to play and to test? And when I think about chat, CBT and some of the things that I've done, the magic moments have been out of playing and testing and then having those, oh my God, like moments that happen.
- [03:39]
Kerry Weston
Yeah, yeah. I've shared this way back, I think last year on the show. But I'll tell you real quick, I know you're going to appreciate it. I am a straddler generation. And so what I mean by that, in school I was like the last front that saw the one computer, the one TV on the vcr, on the rolling cart, like the computer typing classes came in as I was leaving, all that kind of stuff. So my first paper in college, I passed in my first paper in college and got a big old red F on it, just F. And it said, you can't handwrite papers in college. You have to type. And I said, I don't know how. And they said, you better go find out. And that was my introduction to curiosity. And that's been by necessity, one, but two, you're exactly right. I didn't wait for someone to tell me what to do and how to do it. You just got to dig in out of necessity, be curious. And that's been a lifelong path of learning. I know you're, you're the same. We've had a couple conversations and yeah, that's where you live, right?
- [04:37]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. I love, I love your story because again I'm, I'm sitting here wondering, are we close to the same age? Because listen, we're about to have a conversation about chat, GPT, AI and, and what I've been doing and, and where we're at. But I want everybody to realize that like at 3 years old I was in a one room log cabin with no running water. At 9 years old, I was riding my pony to a one room schoolhouse in 7th grade, I was like, what do you mean? I need to, like, type. Like, I'll never use a keyboard. And. And by ninth grade, I was actually teaching people how to do basic coding because we had finally got this thing called an Apple computer in. In the. So, like, Right. So, like, I have this, like, whole life that was no Internet, like, no technology, and now, like, it's okay. How do I figure this out as I go? And by the way, it's been that for everything. Photoshop, Lynn, you know, lynda.com before it was LinkedIn learning or HubSpot, HubSpot Academy or, like, whatever I'm curious about, I figure out the vein of education to dive down into. And so podcasts like this or other folks, like, immediately jumping on and going, okay, I see something happening. AI this is like the cotton gin. This is like the printing press. This is like the Internet. Like, holy crap, how do I dive in, get curious, and start to swim as quick as humanly possible?
- [06:07]
Kerry Weston
Yeah, yeah. And my goodness, you just introduced 19 different exit roads here that I can take down. But I think. I think the first thing that resonated with me, what you said, Photoshop and software specific, is there's two paths. There's the overwhelming path of, oh, my goodness, Photoshop does a thousand things. I've got to learn them all right? And what I tell people is, with Photoshop or anything else, go learn the five things you're going to do 95% of the time and nail it. Right? And so with ChatGPT, it's the same thing when I have presentations and workshops with groups. The number one anxiety, the number one fear, the number one frustration, roadblock, whatever you want to call it, to people actually using it is thinking they have to go learn this software. They have to go learn all of these things. I'm like, no, man, just talk to it. Just. Just ask it the question. Right? And you're off and running.
- [06:57]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, it's. It does come down to the Pareto's principle. Like, what's the 20% that I need to know that I'm going to use throughout the day? And what's funny, Carrie, is people might deal with the same thing I deal with is I. Sometimes I feel maybe it's guilty, maybe it's frustrated, maybe it's sad. I don't even know what really emotion to put to it, but I'll see people doing some things that are cool, and I'll be like, well, why can't I do that? Or should I do that? And, like, 90% of the time, it's like, actually, that doesn't even fit into my daily workflow. Like, why am I stressing about that? And so like thinking that we have to eat the whole cookie instead of just the pieces.
- [07:37]
Kerry Weston
I never leave a cookie uneaten. George. We need a different analogy.
- [07:40]
George B. Thomas
There we go. I don't even know what to throw in there. But like, we, we need to figure out, figure out the morsels that make sense for us. And I love to. In the intro, you talked about business and personal life. Because I use AI in both.
- [07:57]
Kerry Weston
100%. 100%. And for so many of us, there's a blended line there anyway, you know, if I can make, you know, I read something yesterday. Don't let the. Don't fill in the gaps of your personal life with extra work and don't fill in the work with the gaps of your. And all that kind of stuff. Like. But so many people here are. They don't have. Yes, yes, we have nine to five. Shut it off. Don't have to think about it till 9:00 tomorrow morning. People. Absolutely, 100%. But the world that you and I live in is filled with people. You told me the story about responding to an email, 10:30 on Saturday night. We're filled with people that, whether it's good or bad, whether it's healthy, unhealthy, whatever word you want to use, we're always tied to the work we do. And that could be because either there's too much to do when we're overwhelmed, which I hear that a lot, or it could be the opposite, which is, man, I'm passionate about this. This is who I am. This is what I do. This is an extension of my soul. This is my value, my purpose on this. And I'll be doing this anyway. Right. So there is no five o'clock punch out.
- [09:03]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. I think for me it comes down to. And again, being an agency owner. Right. And being somebody who helps humans with HubSpot. It could, it could very easily be done where I could fill my entire schedule and like burn out and. But I do try to like, start at a certain time, end at a certain time. But then here's where I go with. If I'm going to do something out of Those certain times, 1. Am I excited about it? If I'm excited about it, it's okay. Even if it might look like, smell like, feel like work, if I'm excited. For instance, last night, I'm sitting there, I'm speaking at Inbound. Later this year in September, I'm on my couch, I'm Watching a so you think you can dance show with my wife. We're sitting there and we're enjoying it. But I'm also on my phone with ChatGPT, working on a project that is, like, doing all of this research and like, future articles and like a deep dive into the Superhuman framework because you. You brought up purpose, passion, persistence and love to the Superhuman framework so that I can start to align what I actually want to bring to the audience and how I want to bring it. Why was I doing that? Not because I had to. I was excited to. You also brought up the phone conversation or the messaging at 10:30. Here's the thing. If it's important, and by the way, there can be a couple of different reasons why it's important. And it might be the person, it might be the opportunity, but here's where I go. If it's important, I'm going to do it. If I'm excited, I'm going to do it, by the way, if it's important and I'm excited. Whoa. I'm going to do it. By the way, that messaging at 10:30. It's important and I was excited about it.
- [10:47]
Kerry Weston
You and me both, brother. Because we had the same experience and it was. I agree with you 100%. And I saw. I want to get to the Superhuman framework here in a second because that's really what I'm excited to talk to you about. I know you are, too. And I watched some of the stuff last night. I saw the demo and the videos that you're doing, and I really want to dig into that because talk about curiosity, talk about purpose, talk about passion. That brings it all together and I love it. And I was in Chicago a few weeks ago with my friend Marcus Sheridan, and we're doing the. He's doing his launch of his second of his third book, actually.
- [11:16]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [11:17]
Kerry Weston
And he's.
- [11:18]
George B. Thomas
He's endless customers, I think.
- [11:19]
Kerry Weston
Endless customers 100. And he's. He comes from River Pools. That was his first. First business. And they still use River Pools as kind of an experiment for all the things that he talks about, Right?
- [11:30]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [11:30]
Kerry Weston
So he talks about. To your point, if it's important. And he mentioned that if you can get back to an inquiry, if you can get back to a customer that's interested or whatever within five minutes, I think it is something like that. The lift is like 600% that you're going to get the conversation and get to business. So when we talk about having businesses of our own, we talk about passion and. And, you know, professional and Personal overlaps and whatnot. You know, the ability for us to say, I'm glad you found me, you know, and by the way, how can I help? And the quicker we can do that, if it matters, if we're excited about it, that's so, so important. So, man, Superhuman Framework you've mentioned a couple times.
- [12:08]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [12:08]
Kerry Weston
I don't want to take for granted that anyone listening knows what the heck we're talking about. So break it down like an eighth grader, and then let's dig into this.
- [12:17]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. So first of all, the reason that we can even talk about this is because of chat GPT, right? And. And the fact that I saw a problem, I wanted to figure out how I could fix the problem. And then all of a sudden, I realized that the problem aligned with multiple things that I was passionate about in my life. So the Superhuman framework, it began originally as, like, a personal growth framework, which what it is, is there's four cornerstones, and it's purpose, passion, persistence, and love. And then there's 10 H pillars. And now if you're listening to this and you have never met me, you're like, well, why H Pillars? Well, I do a podcast called Hub Heroes. I've done probably 5,000 tutorials on HubSpot where I end the videos of happy, helpful, humble, human. And so even before I started to build the Superhuman framework, I was actually living a framework of things that I paid attention to, like holistic and hustle and health and all of these things, like happy, helpful, humble. So it's the four cornerstones supported by the 10h pillars. And this is like, hey, here's how we can create and be better humans as we move forward. So then I started dissecting this thing, and I was like, well, what if you applied this to marketing? Or what if you applied this to HR Curiosity, right? And so I started literally going down the vein of, like, here's what the Superhuman framework is. Please do this swot analysis of if we used it for marketing, and is it a good idea, bad idea? Where does it fall apart? Is there any frameworks like this out there? Surprisingly, no. Like, there are frameworks, but nothing that ties into the human side of things.
- [14:04]
Kerry Weston
Let's pause. Can I pause you right there? Because I want to jump. I want to spoil the ending first because I want folks to understand the impact of what you're about to share. If you fast forward to the end, the value of all the framework, the value of all the work, the value of all this focus that you've put into has Led to what? And then we'll go back to the details. What is the headline on this whole thing?
- [14:25]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, the headline is we're living in a world where the new Bitcoin, the new gold bar, the new thing that you'll want, want more than anything is a human experience, a relationship, and a set of people around you more than you have ever wanted in your life. Because of everything we're talking about here today being AI assisted, AI powered. And so if we think about that, what does that do from a user experience standpoint? What does that do from a core values, mission, vision? Like everything you do as an organization has the ability to change from the old way to the new way. And let me give you a real interesting example of how this ties into some things. You mentioned Marcus Sheridan, by the way, and I got a pleasant surprise because, by the way, I used to work with Marcus for five years before he wrote the book. They ask, you answer. He would go and teach people about content, and I would teach them about HubSpot. And we started the HubCast back in 2013. It was the first HubSpot specific podcast. And it was like peanut butter and chocolate, or peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and pickles, whichever you like best. But at the end of the day, I was doing some research on one of the core pillars and helpfulness, and it brought up a use case, actually three use cases. But one of them was they ask, you answer. And I started to laugh because I'm like, oh, my history and who I am and what the world has created me to be is coming full circle, because here is something that I've been a part of that is going to be part of the thing that I'm creating. So, again, it's. If I boil down to one word, Carrie, it's transformation into the direction that we're heading into based on the way that the world is changing.
- [16:18]
Kerry Weston
And I was hoping you'd bring this up, but you've actually. You've cloned yourself, brother.
- [16:23]
George B. Thomas
Yes. Yes.
- [16:24]
Kerry Weston
You've cloned yourself.
- [16:25]
George B. Thomas
Yes.
- [16:26]
Kerry Weston
And you've cloned yourself using this framework and all the things we're going to talk about. But the punchline and what I saw yesterday was a clone that not only just uses words like you, it sounds like you, it is a clone of you. Right?
- [16:43]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. Let me get into that a little bit because I think it's very important. Again, if you're. If you're sitting here, you're listening to this, obviously you're interested in ChatGPT, so let's do a little bit of, like, here's what happened to get us to what Carrie just mentioned. One, we've had this mindset of, like, how. How could we use this tool to figure out the essence of who I am? Then we also understood that there's these building blocks that have to be part of whatever we're doing. Because I come from, like, the content creation space. Like, I like writing blog articles and doing video scripts and creating, like, that kind of stuff and been doing it for years, by the way. We'll circle back why that's important. But we started to put these building blocks together of, like, here's Chat GPT helping us figure out our Personas, marketers, and business owners. Here's Chat GPT helping us figure out what our voice and tone is based on the content we've created. Here's Chat GPT helping us figure out all the words that we never want to use or the words that we want to use. Humans over people flourish over thrive. Here's ChatGPT helping us figure out all the grammar stuff because we don't want EM dashes or double dashes. And so, like, we're figuring out all of these bricks and blocks. And one of the most magical things that we did is I do this podcast called beyond you'd default. We had done it for about a year and a half, and I put every transcript of every episode into a ChatGPT project. And I gave it this quite extensive prompt that was actually like three or four prompts together. And by the end of it, I would have, what are the core values that George must have based on this transcript? What are the mindsets and what are the beliefs? And so then when we had all of those episodes done, we did another chat where we said, look at this entire project and give me the top 10 core values, the 25 mindsets, and the 25 beliefs. And when I started to read that, I got goosebumps and I got emotional because it was literally like a digital version of me. And so fast forward, when we decided that we were going to clone our like me for the organization. And I say we because I'll get to like all the people that are using it in different ways. One of the things that we immediately knew was, yes, we want it to help people with HubSpot, yes, we want it to help people with a superhuman framework, but it has to have the essence of me, George B. Thomas, if it's going to be a clone. So we gave it the core values, the mindsets, the beliefs. We've even Given it information around the fact that I love Stargate in Star wars and Fast and Furious and Avatar, so it knows some of those things. But then also we started feeding it information. And when I say feeding it information, based on the technique there, we gave it two different YouTube channels that I have, we gave it two different websites that I have, we gave it 2 different podcasts that I have. And so it just started absorbing all of this historical value. First human centric, how I've been showing up in the world as a happy, helpful, humble human in the HubSpot and marketing space into this closed LLM. And all sudden we had the ability to type with it. We had the ability to call it, which I was able to train it on my voice, which, by the way, when you train people on HubSpot, in video or on calls, you have a plethora of audio that you can just be like, here I am. Make it sound like me to the point. We even gave it an 8, 7, 7 number. So if people want to be on the move and call it, you can talk to it. And so think about having this, like, human who is very human. Centric value first. Core values like down to earth. Let's simplify the complex. Let's help you get your thing done on speed dial. Like, holy crap. And so, Carrie, the. The. The moment that I knew that we're onto something special was one. It used a word that I made up years ago, automagical. And I was like, oh, my God, I didn't train you to use that. You're just using that. And it started ending some of the conversations with, don't forget to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And I'm like, oh, come on. Like. But that's because it was looking at the videos and so it was pulling that in and it knew it was important. And then the other piece that kind of got interesting before we dive into the, like, the next versions of what clones and how people are using them. The next piece where I knew it was exciting is it was remembering content that we had created and answering questions I didn't know that it could answer. Because I forgot we wrote that article. I forgot we created that video. I forgot because over years, like, you're. You're create, publish, create, publish, create, publish. Of course you're sharing on social too, but sometimes you forget about the massive library of education. Well, guess what? This thing doesn't forget. So all of a sudden it was spitting things out about Zoho and Salesforce versus HubSpot, and I'm like, did we. Where'd this come from? And then all of a sudden, I was like, oh, that's the article it's looking at. Okay, never mind. We did talk about that.
- [21:47]
Kerry Weston
Now pause again. 19 exit rows. Here we have content creators that listen to this show. And one of the things, myself included, and you just alluded to it, one of the things that gets in the way when you're a volume producer of any kind is actually remembering what the heck you wrote and where it is, right? And so the gift that you just gave yourself, your company, your organization, the people using it, of having a direct access to the memory, the advice, the resources, that in and of itself is invaluable. One of the things, you know, I'm a certified coach in. In Marcus's program, and one of the things we're talking about, man, is, you know, making it easy for the buyer and. And, you know, getting to the point where they can understand at their own convenience the information that they need to make a confident and comfortable decision. Right? And if we're gonna. If we're gonna do that, we need to have access and understanding as to where all these resources are if we create them. And. And wouldn't it be great if there was something like what you're talking about that could just tap into this library and say, hey, here's the situation. You should share these three resources, or you should share this and this kind of stuff. But you're going beyond that. Like, you're not just regurgitating the library. Like, this is an interactive component.
- [22:59]
George B. Thomas
So. So there's a couple of things I'll throw out here. It very interactive, very important to us, by the way. And let me explain why. The why or my because is, is this. I don't feel there should be any language barrier, revenue barrier, or any other thing that gets in somebody's way of growth. And that could be growth personally, that could be growth professionally, whatever it is, that could be an entire business. Like, I just. We're in a world where that just needs to not be a thing. And so I know that I can't speak 57 languages. I know that as a human, I need to sleep, but I know my clone doesn't need to sleep. I know that my clone can speak 57 languages. I also know that there's versions of my clone. So, for instance, if you're a creator and Carrie, kind of what you're saying, there's definitely immediately the external use of here is my digital version of me. And by the way, you can interact with it for Free. Or you can monetize it. And it could be something like what we're doing where, like, first, a small amount, 25 bucks a month, unlimited access to the content and brain that is George B. Thomas. I'll get to why that's super powerful in the future here in one second. But I also want you to think about the internal version of this. I've had employees. Never until this time have I had this, but I had an employee who said, hey, if you ever need a testimonial about how good the clone is, because I use it on the daily basis, like, to help them get their work done. And also. But even to, like, hey, what does the employee manual say about this? Or what are. Like, this is this. And. But. But literally, I've given them my brain 247 whenever they want it to be able to get the things done. And what's fun about that is the internal version can even hold different information so we can add in, like, what's the ClickUp, best practices, what are SOPs, like, all of that. So now if you're ever. If you're a business owner or content creator, you're like, man, if I could just clone myself, you can. Like, you. Like, you literally can. And so you can have these different instances. But let me circle back around to why. I don't know if the world understands where we're at or how powerful this could be. And by the way, if you're getting curious, you can go to GeorgeB thomas.com forward/done, and it'll take you right to the tool that I use to do the thing that we're talking about. But just use that link, go there, and if you have any questions, make sure you hit me up. I won't charge you. I'll just talk to you about it for free. Because I'm super passionate about cloning human expertise. Carrie. I haven't told a lot of people this, but I literally have a draft book that we're working through that I want to get out to the world of, like, cloning human expertise and why it's important as we move forward. But here's why. I knew that the game was changing. I sat here and as somebody who has created courses, who has created content, who has a. Community hub Heroes, right? Community hub heroes for people who listen to podcast news, HubSpot. I'm like, well, why historically have people been doing this? And I came to the conclusion that a lot of it is learning. Yes. Although, if you look at the stats of how many people buy courses and don't actually make it through the whole course. Then you have to ask yourself, is it about learning? And I came back to is, it's about. It's. It's about access. They just want access to you as the human and to spend time with you and to learn from you and get whatever it is that they need. And so your clone can provide that. I went on LinkedIn the other day two different times, and I showed two different use cases of where we're going or where people have the potential of going. The first one I actually went on and I did this video where I was like, hey, George, I want to learn about inbound sales. Can you please tell me what a course outline would look like if you were going to teach me about inbound sales? And my clone then gave me the outline and then I said, hey, George, can you go ahead and teach me module one, lesson one? To which my clone then taught me module one, lesson one. But then I asked, hey, can we actually do module one, lesson one again? But I own a pet grooming company, which, by the way, I don't own a pet grooming company, but I. So then it repositioned it to the context of a pet grooming company for inbound sales, to which then I could ask it, well, what list should I have in HubSpot based on what you just told me? And then I went back and said, okay, can we do module one, lesson two? And I wanted to have fun, so I said, but this time, teach it to me in Spanish. And so it started teaching me lesson two in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I could only let it go for so long. And I'm like, okay, actually, actually, George, I have a question. Can you teach me module one, lesson two in English? My point here is why would I create a course when I can give somebody the technology to create a choose their own adventure of the thing it is that they actually want to learn based on the context of who they are and the business they have. It's all in there. You just have to ask the right questions or understand how to get it to give you the thing that you want there. And so the other thing I did, which was fun is we went and we inputted all of the inbound speakers so far of inbound 2025. And I did a video and I showed where, if I was a marketer, what were the top five sessions that I, as a marketer, should attend? What are the top five sessions as a salesperson I should attend? And so literally, it was helping me Figure out the attend, like, what I'm gonna do at the inbound 2025, not as a speaker, but as, like somebody who's gonna be traveling around the halls when and where. You know, how many times since 2016, 2015, 2014, I've been asked, hey, how do I figure out the right agenda? Well, now my. My clone can help you do that.
- [28:52]
Kerry Weston
And so, just so good. I'm just sitting here watching because this is like, it's. It's awesome, brother. And, you know, three months ago, I didn't have this problem, so maybe the agenda that I built that was based on something else. And all of a sudden I get a call, I'm losing my biggest client or I got a big opportunity, and now I've got to have a different. On the fly. You're like, hey, here's the situation, right?
- [29:12]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [29:12]
Kerry Weston
Oh, yeah. Well, you. Let's scratch this one. Let's go this one. I've got a. I've got a graduating college senior. I've got a sophomore in high school, and I've got an eighth grader. And so the eighth graders are going to high school next year. And we're going through. Right now, we're going through, what classes do we take next year, Right?
- [29:30]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [29:30]
Kerry Weston
Now tell me in your lifetime, who is more confused and overwhelmed than an eighth grader going into high school trying to figure out what academic course they're supposed to go on right now? Tell me for a second. I want. When I have educators that listen to this podcast, because not only have I talked to them, I've heard from them, how fantastic would it be for an 8th grade boy who has this academic history and this interest to be able to say or with their parents even, right? Hey, what should I do next year? I'm going to a new school, new environment, new everything, Right? Four schools becoming one. I mean, socially, all. Academically, all these things are changing. Guide me. Right?
- [30:12]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [30:12]
Kerry Weston
And what do we do now? We. We wait in line for two weeks to get a half hour with a guidance counselor that throws you a couple brochures and says, hey, go figure it out. And you're talking about real time, authentic access in a relatable way to information that could literally change somebody's life in the moment.
- [30:29]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. So I love that you went down this road, because I'm not saying that just content creators or thought leaders or, like, should clone themselves. I'm saying any human has the potential to do this. So the fact that you did, like a guidance counselor, imagine all the files, all the Information, all the stuff in your brain that you could feed a clone. And then it could literally be 24,7 support. Because, by the way, you're a guidance counselor because you love humans. You want to see that the humans are like, making it through the process the best that they can. Or even teachers. I have a teacher friend, by the way. Kerry, this blew my mind. Where. And I won't say the school or the area, but they literally have to almost create their own curriculum because the school really doesn't give them the thing to, like, do the thing that they. And I'm like, you know, you live in a world, right, where like, I could help you build the curriculum and I could help do the research and then you as the expert can like find comb tooth, make it what you want it to be. But then also if you've done that work, like, you could literally clone yourself. So imagine this. You're a teacher, but your clone is the tutor. And now your student can come at 9:00, 10:00 and ask a question instead of having to wait till they get to class because they're trying to finish their schoolwork. Like a digital tutor, like. And the reason I'm so bullish on the part when you brought up the guidance counselor and education is because, by the way, this could be an education machine, it could be an information machine, it could be a service machine, it could be a sales machine. You can teach it to do whatever you want it to do with the information that you're giving it. So it literally could be anybody creating this version for themselves. Like, imagine a pastor, oh my gosh. And all the things that they could put into a clone. And I'm doing that on purpose, by the way, because my spiritual brethren and, and women are like, oh, this is creepy. Ah, maybe, maybe not. But if there was a pastor who had a clone, and I knew that if I had a question that was real important to my life that I could go and interact with it, you better believe I would.
- [32:49]
Kerry Weston
All right, so let's go there, brother, because I'm going to go on the opposite side of this conversation. And it comes up time and time again. I know it comes up in your world, it comes up in mine. And I remember writing an article, I'm going to say 15 years ago anyway, where I had somebody ask me, what's the next trend in marketing? And I answered, authenticity. And I said, the. The availability of being authentic and caring about the person you're talking to or selling to or working with is going to be a Trend that needs to be grabbed because we are moving to a point where friends are no longer somebody that you have a relationship with. It's a number on a screen, Right. We're moving from paper to plastic. We think that interacting with a keyboard is real interactions. And we have kids. I just shared with you. My three. And two of them are scared shitless to actually walk up to a counter and talk to a human looking eye to eye. Because they'd rather text them, right?
- [33:47]
George B. Thomas
Yep.
- [33:47]
Kerry Weston
And so all of these things that you're sharing with me, duplicating cloning, putting brains together, virtual access. Why are we excited about removing authentic connection and replacing it with a computer in a world that we know needs more compassion, more love, more humility, more helpfulness. What do you say if I throw that out?
- [34:14]
George B. Thomas
I don't. I don't think I'm losing authenticity. I'll just tell you that, like, listen to this conversation that we've been having so far. You asked me about the superhuman framework. Purpose, passion, persistence, love. By the way, my clone has been trained on what empathy is, even though it probably can't be empathetic. Right. When you talk to it because of the language that it uses and the. The sound that it brings, it feels authentic to who I am. I literally had one person who dialed the 877 number and then had to message me on Facebook and then did a video of like and sent it to me of her speaking with the clone. And she's like, I was having a bad day. Oh, I was having a bad day. And then I interacted with your clone, and I immediately felt better. Carrie, that doesn't happen if your clone is not being authentic to who you are as the human that people are used to seeing. And this is one core thing that I've always said is, like, I want to be who I am. No matter if you see me on stage, no matter if you're sitting in my backyard at my fireplace or, like, I just want to be me. And so anybody who's going down this road of building the clone, you've brought up a great question, because they should be thinking, how do I make it authentically me? So now I would literally say, if you see me on the stage or if you're in my backyard or if you're interacting with my clone, I want you to get the same experience. I want you to get the same feels. And so, again, this is why I brought up at the beginning the technique of, like, the core values, the mindsets, the. The belief, the essence that that brings the authenticity or the vibe or the feel, whatever words you want to use. Here's. Here's the other piece. I know with this technology. So actually, let me back up. About five years ago, I had a major shift in my mindset. I used to be this guy who would hustle my face off, and I was all about success. How do I become successful? And about five years ago, I decided that I was going to stop chasing success. And I wanted to chase significance. And I wanted to actually get to the end of my life and just be able to ask the question of, like, I just want to see the ripples. Like, can I just see the ripples of the actions that I took to how I might have made this world a better place? I can tell you right now with this technology and the, like, earnest focus. I mean, listen, I have a team of humans who are daily giving it HubSpot updates because HubSpot is always updating their software because we care and we want it to be the best. I'm always trying to figure out things at a deeper level around the superhuman framework or things around, like, why do people deal with imposter syndrome so that, like, we can train the clone on the thing. And by the way, I should say this. Every time you create a new video content creator, every time you create a new podcast, like, it's automatically syncing into your clone. So as you get smarter or you're helping other people get smarter, your clone is getting smarter as well. Anyway, I want to see the ripples. And so I know, Carrie, with this technology and how we're building it, there will be the ability to have more ripples than I, as one human being, could create. Because now the clone could be authentically showing up, giving advice, helping out 247 worldwide. I can't be worldwide. I can't be 24 7. So that's why this excites me to be able to hand it off, to then also know that if it can't answer the question, it tells people that they should probably have a call with me. And also, if they get into a conversation and wanted to reach out to me, they could just reach out to me and I would have a human conversation with them. Like, somehow we'd make it work. Like, I'm not removing myself from the scenario. Key, key thing. How do you use chat, GPT? How do you use AI? How do you do a clone scenario? Like, we're talking about to augment yourself. That's my thing. How do I augment me as a human? As we Move into this new world of, like, hyper technology.
- [38:48]
Kerry Weston
All right, last bucket of water I'm throwing on your backyard fire here, brother. Okay, yeah. So two things. We've all seen the Matrix, or we know about the Matrix. So there's going to be glitches. So something's going to happen. Right. How do you become accountable? How do you stand to be accountable for something that your clone does or says that you wouldn't or that you didn't allow or that. So let's take the accountability of your own authenticity. How do we do that?
- [39:10]
George B. Thomas
Yep. So there is features and functionalities in the tool that I'm using. And again, georgebthomas.com Cologne if you want to check it out and you're curious that you can say, don't talk about these things. Right. And so, for instance, one of the things that my clone is not allowed to talk about is politics. Not going there, not doing it. Don't want to. Now, will it talk about religion? Yes, because I'll go there. I'll have that conversation. And. And if anybody wants to have that conversation with me, I'll gladly have it. But it's mainly programmed to talk about HubSpot. There. There are safeguards, Right. So in the software, you can even put like a legalese piece in there. You can do specific words that if it hears somebody say that, you get a notification. And so now if all of a sudden somebody said something that was off the rails, you'd get a notification and a. You could either remove them if they're doing something in the wrong way, or more importantly to your question, if you knew it was of real importance that you reach out and talk to them, or they get help dependent upon, like, I'm thinking about, like, you know, a therapist decides to clone themselves. Like, are there safeguards you could put in place if somebody said certain words? Absolutely. And so again, it's. It's for us, it's like, what are the guardrails and what are the goal posts? And so if you pay attention, I have. I had this historical boss. He said, what is it? Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Right?
- [40:45]
Kerry Weston
Yeah. I have a friend that's in hospitality, says sell the dream service. The nightmare.
- [40:49]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, like, if you think about that, like, here's all the good stuff that we can easily create, but, like, let's look at the guardrails we need, or, like, what's the nightmare that we need to prevent? Again, it's AI you can train it, you can give it the information to like, fight against that.
- [41:08]
Kerry Weston
So Chat GPT is programmed to not say, I don't know. Like it's programmed to give you an answer. And sometimes that answer is bogus. Right. So safeguards there.
- [41:17]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. So the one thing that I couldn't have and, and this is the only reason, not the only reason. This is one big reason why I was like, oh, this is the platform I'm going to use. It won't hallucinate because it's a closed LLM. It's going off of the information that you've given it. And there's also a feature where you can say, if you don't know the answer of this, here's how I want you to respond. So, like, if you ask it this crazy thing and it had no clue, it would literally be like, I don't know the answer to that. So you might want to schedule a call with George B. Thomas and see if he knows. And so zero hallucination, the ability to have the guardrails and then also the ability just to provide thousands of home runs or touchdowns or whatever sports analogy you want to put in there for me, it just becomes well worth it. And by the way, there's not many times that I get a notification that it can't answer a question because to date, we're at like 16 million plus words in the closed LLM around the superhuman framework, HubSpot, personal growth, business growth. Like, we're, we're, again, we're actively trying to make this be an amazing tool for humans to use as they move forward.
- [42:29]
Kerry Weston
So you used a second. I don't want to get too technical, but you've used the phrase closed lmm a few times. And so this is not relying on a public ChatGPT format. This is a lockdown, kind of standalone version, right?
- [42:42]
George B. Thomas
Yep. Yep.
- [42:43]
Kerry Weston
Cool. I've watched you. This is going to go out on audio, but I've watched you as you've shared with me here on this call. And it's okay to say this. I know you've got emotional a couple times, like you've had a pause and I was doing a conversation. I was doing a workshop a couple weeks ago, and I talked about how this has literally changed my life because I'm able to work with people who have problems, who have goals, who have frustrations, and I'm able to make a meaningful difference in a way and at scale and at pace that I've never been able to do before. And I know that I'm adding value. I know that I am being human. I'M knowing that I'm being empathetic and I'm able to understand and help at a pace and scale. Like I said, that just didn't seem possible. You asked at the beginning. I've been around the sun 52 times and so the advancement of where we've been in those 52 rotations has been just breathtaking. But I gotta say, the last two or three in terms of what we're talking about here, the ability for me to confidently look at somebody who has a business and is stressed about the business, wants to grow, the business, has an opportunity, deals with humans, deals with customers and needs help. I can confidently look them in the eye and say, I can help you. Yeah, we can figure this out. And it's not because I'm using ChatGPT as the end all, be all. It's because it's a tool that allows me to take what I know, take who I am, take what I believe, take what I preach and accelerate it to a point that I never thought possible. And I get choked up when I say that because not only is it changing my world, but the comments I get back from business owners that I work with, just the thank yous, like the ability for them to have peace in whatever they're working on, however we wanted to find peace, it's breathtaking. It's, it's, it's moving, right?
- [44:38]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [44:38]
Kerry Weston
And when you're in a job that's supposed to be helping humans, when you can do more of it, man, the day becomes a lot more fulfilling.
- [44:46]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. So the thank you for years has been my fuel. Like that's why I've done, you know, the 4 to 5,000 HubSpot tutorials because I'll get people like, oh, thanks. This made my life easier. I even had a couple of HubSpot employees thank me for doing HubSpot tutorials because they used it during their onboarding process to get hired at HubSpot, which would never was the, the point of doing those tutorials. But let me give you a story of where I'm like, oh my God. And by the way, it was after this that I brought the team together and we started doubling down on what we would build this to be and the amount that we would talk about it. And also the fact that I wanted to write a book to get out to the world. I'm sitting in my office, by the way, I work remote. The people I see is my family and the people I see are people on the other side of the screen. I'm sitting there and all of a sudden, I get this message from a friend on Facebook, Chris Green. And it's a video. And he does this video and he goes, you know, ladies and gentlemen, typically I would be in my office working on a HubSpot workflow for a couple hours, but I just have to get on here. By the way, I didn't ask him to do this. He goes, I just have to get on here and tell you. I signed up for helper.georgebthomas.com for his HubSpot helper, and I was able to get the workflow done in minutes instead of hours. And so now guess what? I can be out here enjoying the sunshine. I can be out here enjoying life instead of stuck behind my computer working on a workflow. And, dude, I started to get emotional as I was walking watching this, because if I can give you more time. No, no. If my clone can give you more time back in your day, if my clone can enable you to spend more time with those you love or doing the thing that you love, I'm good. I'm good.
- [46:45]
Kerry Weston
Yep, yep. Yeah, that's, you know, and it's not the clone, it's you. Right? It's the purpose, it's the value, it's the mission. It's you. But again, to scale that and have impact beyond your capability and your capacity is a gift. Right? We always. You hear people say we should always have eulogies before people die because the. The ability to hear what other people share and feel and in. In life is something that we miss. Right? I mean, some of the best things said about us, the most sincere secrets, the most compassionate comments are made when we can't hear them. And wouldn't it be great to have the ability of. Of receiving that or giving that a little bit more? So very.
- [47:28]
George B. Thomas
So let me. Let me give you something. It's a little bit out there, but it makes me giddy to think about we're in a world where I'm putting all this effort into the clone for the next 5, 10, 20, however many years I have to circle this planet because, by the way, I've had 53 rotations. I got you, brother.
- [47:49]
Kerry Weston
53 is coming in August, but I'm holding it off as much as I can.
- [47:52]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. 54 in September for me. So it's like, okay, can. Can the world slow down? Because we're getting there way too quick. But. But what makes me giddy to think about is we live in a world now where I could put things in place to where the payments for my Clone could be being made just forever and for whatever. And I think about like a grandson of mine coming to the clone and being able to ask Grandpa George. Oh, I'm getting goosebumps, brother.
- [48:23]
Kerry Weston
I knew you were going to go there and I, and I didn't want to bring this up because it's, it's, man, it's a topic, but you're exactly right. Keep going, brother.
- [48:30]
George B. Thomas
Yeah. And all of a sudden, you know, a grandson can come to the George clone and just start to ask it questions of like, hey, I know you built this business. Like, what were the three things that you paid attention to? Or like, why were you so focused on human first? Or why did you create so much effort into doing this thing? And literally somebody that I may have met for a while or somebody that I may have never met that is in my family line or outside of my family line, being able to have that impact even when I'm gone, brother, makes it just. Why not?
- [49:09]
Kerry Weston
Let's just go. Let's just go once. How did you meet grandma?
- [49:12]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, yeah, right. Which, by the way, is a great story.
- [49:17]
Kerry Weston
Yeah. Well, we got to do this again. We got to do this again.
- [49:21]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [49:22]
Kerry Weston
Hey. What, what haven't we shared? You, you're in this world as much as I am. What, what haven't we shared? What's your nugget? What's your comment when people say, what do I need to know? What's the basic stuff? What are you sharing to people about their approach, how to look at this, how to overcome all those roadblocks, fears, anxieties that we've been talking about?
- [49:40]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, the, the biggest thing is I get frustrated and that that's the direction I'll go in when people want to over engineer this, when they want to put a limiting belief in their brain because they think they have to be a tech nerd to do this. I will tell you everything that we've talked about and everything that I've accomplished. I had nothing to do with prompt engineering or coding or it was. I've literally had a thousand and one conversations. I've been curious and asked questions. I've poked holes at my own belief. I've stepped out in faith and just like realized this is a journey again, being curious and testing. And so what I would want the listeners to do when next time you head into chat CBT and you've got these great ideas is gone. Is it possible? And then take a journey and find out. Because that, my friends, is where the magic moments will be.
- [50:39]
Kerry Weston
Yeah. Story time again. We'll give you a couple stories, and then we'll. We'll. We'll send you on your professional way here. I think I'm talking to you, actually. I could be talking to the clone right now and not know it. Like, you could actually be outside in the sunshine. I don't know.
- [50:52]
George B. Thomas
Well, the video. The video isn't good enough yet. But the day that the video gets good enough, there is a video version, but, no, it's the real George V. Todd Thomas here today.
- [51:03]
Kerry Weston
So I think I shared with you. If I didn't, then I'll just repeat myself, or if I did, I just repeat myself. But for 20 plus years or 25 years, I had an agency. 20 of those, I was blessed to have an amazing business partner. And before that partnership came, one of the turning points in my professional life was begging to get attention. I remember getting an alumni magazine, and there were two alumni on the COVID and they had formed an agency in Boston, and they made the COVID And I'm 10 minutes away from the university. I went to the university of me. So I pestered the magazine. I said, you don't have to go to Boston to find. I had an alumni work with me. I had two employees, me and one other person, right? And we were both alumni of the university. I said, you don't have to go to Boston. We're doing it right here, you know, 10 minutes away.
- [51:50]
George B. Thomas
There you go.
- [51:51]
Kerry Weston
And I pestered and pestered and pestered, and, you know, it took. I think they gave me an article in the next, you know, because just to shut me up, they're like, yeah, okay, whatever, we'll give you an article. I didn't make the COVID by the way, but I got an article, okay, so a new ad, a new athletic director comes to town, and he wants to do a coaches show. They don't have a coaches show. He sees the alumni magazine, he sees these two people 10 minutes away from campus, gives me a call and brings me up, tells me what he wants to do. Can you do this? Of course I can do this. I got no idea what I'm doing. Got no freaking idea what I'm doing, right? But I believe, George, that life is about collisions that you make and the opportunities that come from them. You just got to go find them, right? And so we went back and forth, back and forth. And I remember I created the proposal. We had the conversation, and he said, all right, let's do this. Signed it, and I left that day and threw up in the parking lot. I'm like, what am I going to do? And I got no idea what I'm doing. No. I have no right to be here. No idea. And that one interaction, that one collision, changed the course of where my agency and where my professional kind of ventures went. And there's a few of those along the way. And you've got those two. You've got those accidental collisions where you said, yes, and I'll figure it out later. And there are moments, you know, taking a different way home from work, right? Going for a walk down a different street, like, going somewhere foreign and just seeing what happens, where you get out of our comfort zone. And I think this is one of these areas that we've been trained in life, that a computer is garbage in, garbage out. The computer is an exaggerated calculator, right? It's a storage file. It's a calculator. It's no more than that. It takes commands and gives you something back. And then the paradigm shift, though, of this conversational software that allows you to talk to it and get real conversation back forth, however we define real. And I get all that, but it's a paradigm shift that people yet don't understand in many, many rooms that I'm in. And you've seen this, too.
- [53:44]
George B. Thomas
Yeah.
- [53:44]
Kerry Weston
When they do the light. When the light bulb hits, man.
- [53:47]
George B. Thomas
Oh, yeah.
- [53:48]
Kerry Weston
It's like whole. And look at my. I'll show you my inbox. People are just saying, you're changing my day because of this thing you said or this thing you shared or this thing you taught. Like, I didn't think it was possible. And to your point, if you doubt it's possible, ask it if you're having a problem with something, if something's taking too long, ask it for help, right? And the last thing I'll share with you is, is every project I believe in life has three components. The ideation stage, the busy middle, and then the finishing, polishing and getting it done phase, right? And we spend so much time in that busy middle. That's the treadmill of wasted time, right? Where, yeah, we might ideate, but then we get so tired in that. In that middle that we don't. We don't add the special sauce at the end because we're exhausted. We just want to get it done. And if we can just shrink that busy metal to a point where we can put more energy and effort into ideation, more effort and energy into putting our expertise and polish at the end, that's the gift. And so when you talk about Chris Green being in the sun or anyone else that says, listen, this thing's allowing me to get five extra hours in a week or I go do this because I never could. That's the gift. And that's where I start to get emotional. That's when I start to see busy people with meaning in their life spending more time doing things they want to do. Right. And so that's what I love. And I'm hearing you saying the exact same thing.
- [55:04]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, absolutely the same thing. It's funny as you're telling that story, Kerry, we've talked about curiosity a lot on this episode. The word that kept, like, just smashing into the front of my cranium was like, oh, courage. Yeah, like you've curiosity and courage. Like, if you can align those two as you move forward. Now we're talking.
- [55:30]
Kerry Weston
Brave new world, brother. Hey, George, absolute pleasure having you on. This is great. I know there's gonna be a ton of value here. People want to find out more about you. I know you've said it before and I'll put it in the show notes, but go ahead, tell us. Tell us where we find out more about you, what you're doing, whether it's this project or what you. What you do on your regular day.
- [55:48]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, listen, you can go to georgeb.thomas.com or you can go to sidekickstrategies.com. those are the two websites. You can find me on LinkedIn. If that's your place to hang out again, you can search George B. Thomas. If you want to interact with the clone, head over to helper.georgebthomas.com and interact with that. And I'd love any type of feedback once you've gone through that process.
- [56:09]
Kerry Weston
And I noticed you used GBT the other day. I caught that.
- [56:13]
George B. Thomas
Yeah, yeah, it's hard. It's chat GPT, but my initials are gbt, which, by the way, Carrie, I tried to buy the domain. I didn't have an extra $60,000, so I didn't do it.
- [56:26]
Kerry Weston
Cloning money is our next project, George.
- [56:28]
George B. Thomas
There you go.
- [56:29]
Kerry Weston
All right. Pleasure having you. Thanks for being on the show. And I gotta have you back. Gotta have you back again.
- [56:36]
George B. Thomas
Sounds good, brother. Thanks.
- [56:37]
Kerry Weston
All right, we'll talk soon. Bye.
- [56:45]
George B. Thomas
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