Why I Built an AI Reality Check for My Business - Extended

Hey. Hey. It is so great to see you. Welcome back to another episode of the Right on Time podcast. Hanging out and connecting and diving into those things that are right on time and are going to shift how you operate in your business, in your life, and have ripple effects. And today's episode is one of those things that I've been working on for a while and just recently thought, oh my gosh, I have to share this with you in case it benefits you too. But before we dive in, I also got to tell you, I really want to keep it real here. And I almost did not record this episode this week, but I am committed to us connecting more this year. To me. Connecting to me. Open the door for connection. So I just got back from a yesterday. I was planning to sit down and connect with you here, but we had some technicians come by. The day got a little bit wonky. I needed to work on some some other writing projects, so I missed my window in the morning to connect here. And then today I was pretty committed. It's one of the top two things that I need to do today, actually, top three. And an added thing was that I had to take my 11 year old to an appointment this morning. So I got back, I'm like, all right, let's just go, let's just hang out. So I grabbed a cup of coffee, I made my notes. So I was clear and organized as we dive in here. And speaking of all of this, you can already hear that there's a lot shaking, right? And I know that there's a lot shaking for you too. And at any moment we have a decision to make to take action on the things we want to move towards. Not huge, massive action necessarily, but even small steps like sitting down here for however long. We're going to sit down and connect today. And it's a step I continually need to take. But sometimes we resistance pops up. Actually, today is a day I had. Usually during the week I would be doing something else in this moment in time that I'm sitting here with you now. But sometimes we've got to shift our priorities and shift our routines. And I know also after a whole lot of years of paying attention to things like this, that when I operate in alignment with my values, when I operate in alignment with who I am in my normal operating patterns and routines, I tend to get better results. Now, is that to say I won't change my habits and routines from time to time? Oh, yeah, no. We change habits and routines all of the time. In fact, every time I move countries or Continents. There's usually a necessary shift in routine and, and habits. So yes, we make shifts and we make changes, but there are just some things that are core to who I am or are a part of who I am or what our lifestyle is that I am going to have to be mindful of so that I can still get the things I want to get done. I can still do the things I want to do and keep focus on things that are important to me and make progress without sacrificing or operating against who I am. It's almost like that sandpaper feeling comes to mind. So as we think about this, this is what I want to share with you today. I want to share with you a specific tool that I've been using for about a year now, maybe just over a year actually, that has helped me dial in and align the strategy and the steps I want to be taking with who I am, where I am, and what is core to me. So what is this? Well, it's something very simple that you can put in place immediately inside of ChatGPT or Claude. And I'm going to break this down and tell you how I use it and what I use it. But essentially, let me grab a sip of coffee first here and put this down. Essentially, this has become my personal check in for how I operate my sort of personal OS or my CEO Reality check folder. And this started with one single prompt. But then I realized, ooh, let me group these all together and just kind of look at these things holistically, look at how I operate my routines, my patterns, my leadership and bring it all into one. So I'm not operating in any one area of my life in a silo. And essentially what I have done is I have taken a collection of prompts and conversations and chats and I'm going to tell you exactly what they are and I put them into one folder inside of ChatGPT. You can also put them inside of an artifact in Claude. This year I landed in ChatGPT a little bit more. Previously I was in Claude a little bit more and I'm dipping my toe back into Claude Claude. So I went Claude. ChatGPT, going back to Claude, you got to do what works for you. And so I took all of these sort of personal development reflections, all the things I know about myself, and very specific prompts, and I put them into one folder. So when anything comes up, one project or one artifact, I'm just going to use the folder language. So I put them into one folder so that they all play off of each other and it all is integrated. Let me break this down a little bit more because when we look at our leadership in an integrated way, we're going to show up better and we're going to be looking at ourselves in operating in alignment with ourselves as a whole versus piecemealing it a little bit here, a little bit here, breaking it apart when we are naturally not designed to operate that way. So here's what I have in my CEO Reality Check folder. This is a place that tells me the truth of about how I am operating. And so it started with a brutal CEO feedback prompt. In fact, I don't know where this thing originated. I did not make it up. A friend shared it with me and then after that I saw it from other colleagues as well kind of popping up. But this is a question that's going to allow you to zoom out and identify patterns in how you are building, growing, running, leading your business. Especially if you have already been operating and connecting in ChatGPT or in Claude with some things, even if you haven't been. My clients have used this prompt and it has just pulled things about them that it sees in other places on the Internet and given some pretty accurate feedback. So I am actually I can send you this prompt if you message me on instagram@amber McHugh.com Instagram and send me the word reality. I will send you this full prompt, but I'm also going to read it to you quickly if you want to type this real quick or just make some mental notes if you are on the go. And here's the prompt that started this all that is going to give you feedback that was like oh my gosh, that feels so real and so on point. So be ready for this. The prompt is I want you to act as a brutally honest executive mirror. I'm not looking for motivation, reassurance or surface level feedback based on everything you know about how I operate. Reflect back to me the patterns you see in how I lead, decide and move through my business, where I'm likely overcompensating over, controlling or overextending the same issues or dynamics that keep resurfacing under different circumstances, where my stated goals and my actual behavior are out of alignment. And then tell me what am I doing that's working because it fits how I'm wired, what is costing me more energy than it should, and what may be avoiding, rationalizing or delaying without realizing it. Don't soften it, don't optimize for my comfort. I want clarity, pattern recognition and truth. Even if it's uncomfortable. And by telling me, if I do nothing differently, what is the most likely outcome over the next step? 6 to 12 months. Honestly, as I read that, it looks like someone prompted ChatGPT to create this prompt. It reads very ChatGPT, but still, the feedback that I got from it was so interesting. And it was just a different lens that went beyond surface level feedback and it removes the fix me energy to just being objective, being clear, letting me know what you see based on these patterns. And it was leadership focused, not productivity focused, which there's some key differences in there. And this feedback was very surprising. Some of it I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Some of it was like, I don't want to hear that. I'm not ready for that yet. One of those things was actually that really kind of stung and I wasn't ready for it yet. It stung because it's true. But it's that I need to be doing more connection. I need to be showing up more organically online and in the places that I do marketing, et cetera. And that was spot on because I just wasn't ready when I first did this. I was in a busy season, like, oh, I can't do that yet. I'm not ready for that. I disagree. So my banter was with like, okay, I hear you, but I can't do that right now. Or I hear you and I need to do this in the most efficient way possible. So I just dug in there more and more and more and more. Now I'm in a place where I'm connecting more and able to do some of this organic, so to speak, marketing. More. More on that later. But this is an incredible prompt. So again, you can message me@amber McHugh.com forward/instagram, send the word reality, and then we'll just zap this prompt right on over to you. But this kicked off like, oh, that's interesting. I just had it in a chat at first and I thought, let me put this into a folder and I'm going to have this personal development CEO reality check folder that I build upon and I maintain. So less more about business and execution, it became more about personal reflection again. When we look at ourselves and how we lead in an integrated way, it's going to be more impactful. So the next thing I added were my personality assessments. I didn't want to look at this strictly in terms of business execution alone. I wanted to look at it and how I do business, how I show up in life. So what did I load There I don't want to forget anything. I loaded in this personal OS section, my human design, my enneagram, my Myers Briggs type, my astro cartography. Do you know what astro cartography is? This is so cool. If you don't know what any of these are, you can easily find assessments to do online and look into them more. But astrocartography was one that was actually new to me this year. And because I move so much when I learned of this, actually my friend, colleague C.L. becky Launder shared this with me. And because I move so much, I was like, oh my gosh, how have I not heard about this sooner? So astrocartography basically takes your astrology, but it then layers it over locations to identify what locations, different locations mean to you, what they're going to do for you, what energy they're going to give you or not give you. So I immediately, when I learned about this last summer, actually I was like, I gotta know. So where did I get my astro cartography information done? I actually got it at a website called Astro Seeks. You can check this out. I found another podcast, actually. Maybe at some point this year I'll reach out to the person who was on this podcast. You can search it up. There are not very many podcasts that came up for me in terms of astrocartography and you can find that where you listen to your podcast. But astrocartography showed me, as I looked it up, that where I was living in Abidjan Cultivar was so good for my soul. It was nourishing. It was a time for reflection and connection with friends in person and to ground in. And I was so relaxed, so at ease, so happy living in Ava. But it was not one of my more energetic, high performing locations or seasons. Zagre, Croatia, on the other hand, is a place where my creativity gets unlocked, my leadership shifts and I'm feeling it. I've only been living here three and a half months. I'm feeling it, I'm sensing it. It's coming to life in different ways. And then the other place, we're building a house in Wisconsin and that place is even like a higher energy location for me, which was such a relief, but because it's going to be freezing cold there. So I was like, okay, well at least it's a good, it's on one of my lines in terms of astrocartography. And I am going to energetically feel great when I'm there, even if I'm a little cold. So I put all of this into the personal operating system. Now what is this doing? It's taking sort of the brutal CEO feedback and how I'm operating day to day. And then it's looking at my tendencies, reflections and assessments of who I am and how I tend to show up and it's sinking all of that. So recently I was looking at like how I manage my day and my 24 hour work week goals and then my movement goals, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like, what should my operating rhythm be throughout the year? And it gave me some feedback like, okay, based on what you want to launch this year. Business strategy, which is also in this folder. What's my business strategy and my plan and my goals for the was said, okay, based on the things you want to do. Here's when I think you should go live with certain campaigns. Here's when I think you should launch certain things. And they were all out of winter season and in warmer weather as it got warmer, I'm like, listen, I can't not do anything for the first quarter of the year. So we went back and forth a little bit and it also called to light this rhythm that I pour in energy. But then I also need breaks. So I've got to go, I've got to rest, I've got to go, I've got to rest. So as I bantered back and forth between what I'm doing, what I want to be doing, and how I tend to operate, some interesting insights came up. One of the suggestions that came up based on what I want to do and my human design was go strong for about 10 days, then take a solid break, go strong for 10 days, then take a solid break. And it's also, I don't know about you, but I come back from that holiday season where, where we've got lots of downtime, lots of renewal, my clients, my colleagues, my team, and then I come back supercharged, ready to go. So fresh, so many ideas. That's why I tried to build in those breaks throughout the year. Right. Quarterly, I take a pretty solid break every month. I have a week blocked on my calendar. It's called my productivity week. So I have lots of white space there where other medians can't just unexpectedly pop up. I'm really extra intentional about that one week progress per month. But this recommended take the 10 days and then a break. So that even brought it closer together for me. And it just underscored why those breaks are so important to me. And it helped me remember, oh yeah, you need those breaks. Because when you come back from those breaks unlocked, ready to go. And so it's not a rhythm that I need to be go, go, go all the time. But go rest, go rest, go rest and make sure I build those cycles in so that I can hit those goals that I want to hit. What else is in this folder? Well, let me tell you, mindset. Lots of mindset obviously happening here. But there's Another prompt, the 10x coaching prompt. Again, I don't know where I got this one. Maybe from Kathy. Kathy might have given me this one. I'm not sure if I can figure out where. We'll make sure we give credit where credit is due. But this coaching prompt is also a little bit long. When you send me the word reality, we'll also include this. But I'll summarize this. I want you to act 10x coach who's focused on expansion, not overwhelm. I'm not asking how to work harder or add more. No thank you. Given my current goals, capacity and how I operate, identify constraints, show me where I'm thinking too linearly or incrementally, point out what would need to be removed, simplified, delegated, deprioritized for a 10x outcome to even be possible. Then answer. If I were designing this for ease and leverage, what would change? What assumptions would need to be challenged? What would this look like if it were aligned with my energy instead of against it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then end by telling me what is the smallest strategic shift that would create disproportionate impact? You know, I love to operate this like this. You know, I love to think about, okay, what are our 100 bills? If we're going to put energy in somewhere, where is the place that we should put it for the highest impact? Those big ticket items, the big kahuna, the yes, the $100 bills. Not the ones, not the fives, not the 20s. We want to stack your honeys. So this is one of those questions and conversations that is also in this folder. Then I mentioned that I have my strategic plan and my goals in here already. Yes. And the final piece of what I included in this folder was related to energy and lifestyle goals. So we're looking at all of the things here. And included in this sort of series of lineup of chats is my body composition goals and what I'm doing to achieve those so I can build plans around it. My macros. I track my macros in here and I'm going to share with you some changes I just recently made to dial this in a Little bit more. And then my movement, what I'm doing, my goals, my objectives, my current trends, and then my optimal day schedule. So I play with my optimal day schedule a little bit with all of these things in mind. What's happening in our life? You know, where are we moving, what's going here? We're in the big transition season right now. I've got a lot of travel coming up. How do I fit all of these things in? Just fresh ideas on that. I don't go too deep there because I have my own systems for that. Very specifically called the 24 Hour Work Week. But I and our CEO schedule Zyri, so, so good. That's in the 24 Hour Workweek. But I want to keep an eye on these things. I'm like, oh, this is part of my personal development, my business and personal development. And again, these things go together for me. So I just popped it all in one folder. I have since just about a week ago, I broke those things out. Body composition, macros, movement, out into their own folder. Because I wanted those things to be a little bit more tightly accessible for me with the click of a button. And I was working on some new things there. But what are these things? Body, composition, this is me just looking at what movement I'm getting in, what results I'm getting, where I want to be going, and then strategy around my program design for that. With that, I have other external programs I have enrolled in to sort of learn a little bit more about this. And I've shared like, okay, here's what I've learned from so and so. Here's what I learned from Alicia. So I want to pull that. I make some notes on that here. And then I reflect. I'm like, why? Why should I do this? Does this work for me? How does this compare to what I've already been doing? Because the information's already in there. Then I've got my macros in there. But here's a shift I recently made as I pulled these into another folder. I track my macros inside of an app called Carb Manager. I've also tried MyFitnessPal, but Carb Manager is just a little bit simpler for me. Bare bones. I don't want a lot going on in there. So I track my macros in Carb Manager and then I'm loading them up to this conversation every week or sometimes more if I want to. Like, how am I doing today? I really need to close this gap. What should I do there? Why am I doing this? I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. I have looked back at seasons in my life where I have paid attention to the things I'm putting in my body, particularly related to my migraines and chronic migraines. This is so random and so niche and so weird. But when I was eating vegan keto in Ethiopia, I felt so good, right? And I was looking back at that, I'm like, man, I felt really good, right? So I monitor these things and I've got food intolerance tests done before and notice that when I oh man, egg is a little bit tricky for me. Red dye number nine, garlic is tricky for me. So I've observed specific foods in my diet and that impact me and trigger migraines or. Right. Just like a racing heart or attention, like high sound sensitivity, sound light sensitivity, migraine sort of building maybe if I don't stop it or shift something in that pattern. So I'm watching my macros because it makes me feel better. And when I feel better and I have more energy, guess what? I can show up and serve better. I can have energy to move forward towards those goals. I can be more present for my family and the people that I love and I care about. So. So that's a big reason why I'm tracking those macros. And one thing that recently came to light through actually reflections and work I did with Hamlin's work is I noticed I might not be eating enough. So I was looking at some of my macros. I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm just a little bit too under. So I feel full each day. I'm getting some of my macros in, but I needed to eat just a little bit more for some of my output. Then I'm also tracking my movement in this folder and what is my movement I'm throwing in? Oh, I did a bunch of steps. These are averages. I'm not putting this in every day. Those things are tracked on my OURA ring, et cetera, when I want to go look at them or want to look at trends. So I'm not hyper attentive to this, but I know steps over time and may put that in there to sort of reassess and reevaluate trends. Pilates my schedule, my strength schedule used to be HIIT and CrossFit. I shifted some of that later recently. I'll go into detail on that maybe in a few weeks as I sort of play with that and have some results for you on that. But I've got all of this energy lifestyle happening in there. So That I can reflect a little bit like we talked about in last week's episode and see trends and see what is serving me more and what's helping me show up better or not. So. And then the optimal day schedule. I already shared a bit on that. So these are the things that I have in this folder and it truly helps me. I've got my notes here, I think some notes. So I didn't miss anything when I was sharing it with you. I think I covered all of the elements in this folder. And also, you know what I'll do? I will just give you a picture of this little list and outline when you Instagram message over the word reality. So abramathug.com Instagram will take you right to my Instagram DMs and it's going to send you the brutal CEO feedback prompt, the text 10x coaching prompt, and then this, the outline of all of those things that I put in this folder together. Okay, I think that's everything. Why do I do this? Because I like to see how am I doing. You know, when you've got a goal, it is so important when you want to shift something in your life and we want to make change this awareness of, wait, how am I operating today? So we can identify where you are versus where you want to be going and start to look at the steps that we need to take in between to get there. And that's it. I had a trader once say to me, I brought him some data points, I brought him some numbers. And he's like, why? Why do we care about the numbers? I'm like, oh, it's just data. Like, I'm not hanging up on this. I'm not tripping out about this. But it's just data. Like, how do I feel? How's it going? Am I making progress? Am I not what's shifting, what's not? And how do I feel about that? Sometimes it's fine, sometimes I'm not okay with it. And this is just a lens to sort of help me collect data points, look at the truth of the reality of what is happening, and then identify, do I want to do something different or not? So if you are one who would look at all of this and be like, oh my gosh, way too much, that will stress me out. Throw it away. Don't even, don't even listen. But if this is interesting to you and you are keen on looking at your personal assessments and integrating them and using them to lead better and live a more beautiful life, then this might be exactly what you need. So have fun getting your reality check and organizing all of this. It's not going to take you much time to throw this together and again, it's gonna be as good as the information that you share. And honestly, I don't share everything inside of this world. But even without sharing every single little detail and thought that I have. Cause there are some things, you know, we just wanna keep private. Even without sharing that. It has given me so many reflections and so many little ahas to dial it in moment to moment between conversations I have with friends and colleagues and coaches and consultants I'm working with. So all of that said, I hope that you have fun getting your CEO reality check and if it doesn't serve you, I hope you just listen and keep on driving. It was so fun hanging out with you today. I am so glad I showed up. I cannot wait to hear from you and I really hope this benefits you in some way. And just a reminder, whatever you are working on right now, wherever you are headed, stay in action on it. Little by little it's going to add up and you are right fricking on time. See you soon.