Brian Gubernick outlines five ways to use ChatGPT: as a decision-making partner, a content engine for emails and posts, a document summarizer, a tool to rewrite difficult messages in the style of experts like Warren Buffett, and a routine designer for workouts and meetings. He provides sample prompts for each and argues that mastery of AI, not just awareness, will separate high-performers.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. There is a tool that is sitting on your phone and your laptop right now that can make you faster, clearer, more effective, more efficient, not just in business, but in life. It's not hype. It's not a gimmick. It's the real deal. You probably know about it. If you don't, I don't know where you've been living for the past couple of years, but it's called ChatGPT. You are probably very familiar. Here's the truth. I think that most people are not even close to scratching the surface with ChatGPT. I know that I've taken a couple of classes around AI and ChatGPT. Learned how to better prompt. I am using it pretty much all day, every day right now. I haven't been to Google in a couple months at a minimum, and I know I'm still very far behind and not scratching the surface. That being said, though, I'm going to give you 5 ways that I think you could start using ChatGPT immediately to help you think better and help you communicate more, more clearly. Save time. And it doesn't matter if you're, if you're just leading a business or leading people, you're just trying to stay ahead, whatever it may be, these things will work for you. So let's, let's dive in. Number 1, we've talked a lot here at No Days Off over the past couple years about thinking time. Well, ChatGPT can be a thinking partner, not just this task tool that I think it's used as most of the time. If you're stuck on a major decision, I would maybe prompt ChatGPT in, in a way like this. I'd say, act like a trusted advisor, help me weigh the pros and cons of fill in the blank, the decision, and then ask me 3 follow-up questions I should reflect on before choosing. So whenever I have a significant decision to make, I will ask Chat to act like a mentor, act like a business coach, act like a trusted advisor, and help me weigh the pros and cons of the decision. And then I'll say, give me 3 follow-up questions, or give me 5 follow-up questions that I should, I should reflect on before choosing. So for example, maybe it's, help me think through whether I should sell my second home to buy a commercial property. Lay out the financial pros and cons the lifestyle impact, and the long-term implications. Ask me 3 follow-up questions that I should, I should reflect on before making my selection. I think this works because you get clarity without emotional bias. I think it helps you slow down. It helps you step back. It's like having a second brain of sorts, but this brain is not emotional and does not panic. So the first way to use it, think through some complex decisions with more clarity. Number 2, create fast and personalized content, but do it at scale. ChatGPT is a content engine. You will not have, or you should never have, this blank page syndrome anymore. So an example of a prompt might be, write a 200-word email about why consistency beats intensity in business. Use a direct tone, include a short story, and close with a question. It's so, so awesome. Like that simple prompt. Now you can have a more detailed prompt to get you an even better answer, but you'll have an immediate 200-word email that will make a lot of sense around consistency versus intensity. You can use this for podcasts, podcast transcripts, turning those podcast transcripts into reels, maybe turning internal documents into client-facing documents. Maybe you could draft LinkedIn posts in your voice. Whatever it may be, you can use ChatGPT as a content engine. If you're not doing it, you better start. And if you are doing it, ask better questions, have better prompts, and see what more you can get out of it. Content that used to take a couple hours to create now takes 5 to 10 minutes, and it sounds even more like you. It's just kind of crazy. Number 3, I've been doing this a lot lately. Summarize long content in seconds. You're too busy to read a 20-page or 30-page or 40-page PDF, or you're too busy to listen to an hour-long recording of something. So what I would do is load that PDF or load that recording into ChatGPT and say, summarize this document or this recording into one paragraph executive summary with 3 bullet points. On what I should do next. Or maybe even, uh, say, review this document, now rewrite it as if I need to explain it to a freshman in high school. I love that prompt because all you're really doing is, is cutting through the clutter. I think you get the signal with— in a scenario like this without all the noise, and it makes you faster. It gives you— makes you, uh allows for, I should say, sharper decisions. Number 4. Now this is where it starts to get into life a little bit. Communicate better, especially when it's hard. What do I mean? You can use ChatGPT. You should be using ChatGPT to not just improve emails. I know a lot of you are using them for emails. I know this because you don't take that hyphen out between some words that Chat loves to use. And so You blow your cover. By the way, the writing style is probably not like yours. But emails, I see it showing up all the time. But are you using ChatGPT for texts? Are you using it for meeting invites? Are you even using it for conflict resolution? You could use prompts like, make this email sound more confident and less apologetic, or rewrite this message to give clear feedback without sounding so harsh, or help me follow up with a client who's gone cold. But do it with— do it, uh, in a friendly manner versus direct. Now, one bonus opportunity here: I love to reference experts in respective areas when I'm prompting, uh, in trying to improve communication. So for example, uh, that very first example I gave you, make this email sound more confident and less apologetic, maybe you want to say channel your inner Warren Buffett. Now, how would Warren make this more confident, less apologetic? Or maybe you want to say, hey, help me follow up with the client who's gone cold. Make it friendly, not direct, be vulnerable, and channel your inner Brené Brown. Or rewrite this message to give clear feedback. But channel Chris Voss. Do it the way Chris Voss would do it for somebody that needs feedback around their performance. Those names I use may not have been the greatest fits, but pick the experts in those respective areas and ask ChatGPT to act as that individual, or to at least leverage that individual's knowledge or behavior. This removes all the emotion from the editing. You stop second-guessing how you sound, and you start getting better results when you do this. And then number 5, design smarter routines and smarter systems. I use ChatGPT to build personal routines all the time, business routines all the time. For example, uh, create a 5-day workout plan for a 46-year-old executive who's training for 2 marathons coming up. Make this workout plan 3 days of strength and 3 days of running each week with 1 rest day. The output is amazing for something like that. Or maybe it's build a 30-minute weekly one-to-one agenda for me and my marketing director that focuses on metrics, goals, and accountability. Or give me a Sunday night reset routine to to prep for the week ahead as a business owner that has 2 kids? Now again, the more descriptive you could be with the prompt, the better the response you're gonna get. This routine right here, number 5, gives you structure, I think, without wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel. You get a starting point, you get there fast, and then you could tweak it, tweak it to fit your real life. So here's your No Days Off Challenge. I want you to pick one of these 5 areas: decision-making, Content, summarizing, communication, or routines. Pick one of those 5 and have ChatGPT create a— or give ChatGPT a real task today and, and ask it for output. Treat it like a partner. Treat it, treat it like someone you've known for a while. The winners over the next 5 years, in my opinion, won't be the ones who know about AI. They'll be the ones who know how to ask it the right questions and leverage it to its fullest. I think today is maybe a start in helping you drive towards leveraging it in the way that, in a way that could really kind of take you to the next level. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
