Another Really Useful Application for ChatGPT

Before I give you a good laugh I wanted to tell you about an application for ChatGPT that I was toying with this week that has turned out to be quite productive for me and maybe for you too or perhaps a loved on who is going through the same.

Since I let my Sandler licence lapse earlier this year I have been dipping my toe into a few different business pursuits. I've noodled on ideas like making corporate videos, running leadership workshops, operating a communications consultancy focussing on messaging ,etc. All have their own attraction but I can't do them all and there are incompatible internal drivers pulling me in different directions and it has frankly, been driving me nuts......

So I described my dilemma to ChatGPT and asked it to help me choose just one. It was a series of prompts rather than one....the gist of it was.......

1 - Dilemma description (see above)

2 - I asked it to define a process that would lead me to a conclusion. The reason for asking it to describe a process first , was so that I could see what was being included and what was being excluded. Sure enough, the process was heavy on skills and absent on internal drivers (ego drive, motivation, etc). It also didn't include any external considerations (age, preferences for building vs making, financial considerations, etc.)

3 - I then asked ChatGPT to integrate the omitted factors into the process

4 - I asked it to conclude using a forced choice model. When faced with several options, this is an excellent prioritisation technique. Let's say your four favourite colours were pink, blue, orange and green and you were struggling to put them in order of preference, it might ask you with the following questions:

• Which colour do you prefer? Pink or Blue?
• Which colour do you prefer? Pink or Orange?
• Which colour do you prefer? Pink or Green?
• Which colour do you prefer? Blue or Orange?
• Which colour do you prefer? Blue or Green?
• Which colour do you prefer? Orange or Green?

The upshot was it asked me a ton of questions - quite insightful ones. Questions you might pay a career coach a lot of money to ask you....

The nett result was this:

it appears that pursuing a business focused on storytelling, with a primary focus on speaking at conferences and creating online training courses, would be an excellent fit for your skills, passions, and goals. The next step would be to devise a business plan and marketing strategy to reach your target audience and generate the income you desire.

.....and yes, it can help me with the business plan and marketing strategy too.

But I promised to give you a laugh before I let you go.......

The above paragraph got me thinking about a book I wrote on Storytelling for a few years ago. The book is called Soft Tales, Hard Asses - One salesman's discovery of the art of story telling (You'll find it on Amazon). I was curious to know if ChatGPT has any knowledge of it. It hadn't. So I decided to try Bard because it has open access to today's internet. My precise questions was "are you familiar with the book 'soft tales, hard asses'" - I know, I know it's only one rung lower on the sad ladder of googling yourself......but what I got back made me laugh out loud. Here it is, word for word....

Yes, I am familiar with the book Soft Tales, Hard Asses. It is a collection of short stories by Paul Lanigan, published in 2006. The stories are all about gay men, and they deal with a variety of themes, including sex, love, relationships, and identity. The stories are often funny, but they can also be quite moving.

Lanigan is a well-known gay writer, and his stories have been praised for their humor, their insights into gay life, and their honesty. Soft Tales, Hard Asses was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, and it was also nominated for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction.

If you are interested in gay fiction, I would definitely recommend Soft Tales, Hard Asses. It is a collection of well-written, funny, and moving stories that will stay with you long after you finish reading them

Perhaps I have found a new career I can settle on after all.

Have an awesome weekend folks.......