I Got Called Out For Using ChatGPT... Here's What I Learned

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories, it's about the grit it takes to get there.

Hey everyone, this is Julie. Welcome back to another podcast episode here at Million Dollar Grit. Today I've titled this, I got called out for using ChatGPT and Here's What I Learned. And I think this is going to be an interesting episode because I was in one of my Voxer groups in my mastermind, and one of my coaches, Helen, posted a link of a guy who wrote, "Is ChatGPT making everyone feel inauthentic?" And so I want to dive into this topic kind of in depth because I'm using chat all day, every day, and I believe many other people are as well. And at the same time, I have a core value of being authentically myself. So how do we break this down? First and foremost, the sort of, I don't know, temperature out there on social media is that if you use a lot of emojis, if you use the em dash, if you use words like unlock or forge, or, you know, more I don't know, words that we don't typically use in everyday vernacular, you are using chat. And what's happening is people are recognizing these signals. They're glossing over your content. They're not reading it as much. They think that maybe it's inauthentic or you didn't spend any, uh, any time on it, right? So that's like the surface level temperature. It's one of those things we, I think I talked about it with Cathy. On an episode over on the Gorgeous Effect podcast where it's kind of like Ozempic, where everybody's taking it and losing weight, but nobody wants to admit that's what they're doing. That's sort of what's happening with ChatGPT. Like, everybody's using it to write their emails, write their ads, write their copy, but nobody really wants to be found out about it. And if you get called out, then you feel kind of ashamed. So That's sort of the backdrop, but I want to first address the reality that human beings, when they start to see something a lot, they tend to filter it out, right? So there is truth that this poster is saying, which is like, hey, if we start to get a lot of this content, it is going to essentially get put in the bucket of noise. And so if you're a marketer or a business owner, and you want to be paid attention to, this kind of copy is not going to get you there. It might right now still because it's not fully flooded the marketplace, but eventually it will flood the marketplace and those signals will cue all of your viewers to not pay attention, not read, because we know it's not fully generated by you. And so from a marketing angle, it's going to require us to consistently pivot, innovate, write differently, speak differently, kind of hit, hit something from an angle that people aren't expecting because human beings pay attention to novelty, they pay attention to curiosity, and they tend to ignore and filter out that which becomes common, right? And so that's the reality. The secondary consequence could be that people will feel there is a lack of human energy in your words. And that is something that's a little harder to distinguish, but when they, when they feel that, it will naturally feel inauthentic, even though you may be really authentically trying to communicate. So that's a surface-level argument. Now I want to get to my story, which is, uh, I got called out for using chat, and here's what I learned. So I'm going to set the stage. I have 70 one-on-one clients, so I have hours and hours of Voxers every day. Some of those Voxers are quick questions. Some of them are long audio messages with lots of layers and emotions and subtext. And it's a, it's a huge mental lift for me every single day to sort through all of this and try to give the best advice possible. So sometimes I get high stakes messages and what I mean by that is these are messages where someone is being extremely vulnerable with me, and so it feels high stakes in the way I respond because I don't want to shut someone down, I don't want to cause any harm. They're in a vulnerable state, they're exposing themselves. And as someone who has a lot of things to do and a lot of clients, I oftentimes am working through my messages in sort of a systematic, logical way. So I have a tendency to be really direct or give advice, and sometimes I can knock people off their center, not meaning to, because I'm so matter-of-fact. And this has been a, you know, a handicap, if you will, or, you know, an issue over the last 7 years. So I got this long text And I have been transcribing all of my audios into chat for a lot of reasons. Number 1, to help make sure I don't miss any questions. Number 2, to keep a running record so that if my memory starts to go, I can go back to that chat and say, hey, can you remind me what we talked about? Also, I like to have chat's eyes to see if there's subtext that I'm missing, right? Because we all listen through a certain lens. So I have this habit. So I got this message. I read the debrief, I listened to the message, and then my instinct was to respond with advice. So I wrote some advice, and then I paused because I was like, I don't know if this is gonna sound okay. It's gonna— it might sound too direct. So I went back to chat and I said, listen, it's a high-stakes conversation, this is my advice, but I feel like I need to say something like that shows that I'm holding space. Because I was, but I, I was just moving fast, right? So I did And Chat gave me something to say, so I said it. And so I put what Chat said first, and then I put what my advice was. And she's a hilarious client, love her to death. She comes back and she's like, did Chat write that? And I was like, yeah, yes it did. But I did explain, I said it wrote half of it and it didn't write the other half. And, um, but the heart intent was that it felt high stakes and I wanted to show up clearly, kindly, and thoughtfully, because that was my heart. And so it was one of those moments where it was like, it's not that I don't exactly know what to say, it's just I want to make sure I say it well. And so that is a reason where I think, you know, if someone writes to me and they write in a way that feels more polished, you can interpret that as they're doing that inauthentically, or you can interpret that as they care enough to try to communicate clearly. And that is really heart intent. And it's very difficult unless you have a relationship with someone to know the heart intent. So we're stuck with this ambiguity, right? So if you're on social media and you're reading an Instagram post and it's really well thought out, is the heart intent there, hey, I care about this and I want to communicate really clearly, or is the heart intent I just want to turn out content for views, likes, and shares, right? And again, those are two very black and white extremes, but there could be something in the middle. So how do we do this, right? We want to use chat. We want to have the benefit of being able to, um, use it to be clear. At the same time, we don't want to be accused of being inauthentic. We also don't want to read a bunch of inauthentic writing. It is a little bit of a conundrum, right? There's not really an easy answer here. But it does require us to all have radical self-responsibility about how we use the tool. So, uh, a couple things. Number one, I think that chat, for people who are overthinkers, anxiety, tend to be perfectionists, chat can really help you regulate your nervous system, especially in high-stakes conversations. And it helps you take a pause, it helps you filter out the things you probably don't want to say, and articulate what you actually do want to say without getting hijacked by emotion is one of the most powerful tools I have ever used. And I do not think that we should shame people for using it. I have many times put up difficult text messages, put them up in chat, said, hey, I'm having an emotional reaction to this, help me work through that, help me understand what's going on, and then help me articulate what I actually want to say, not what my emotions are saying, right? So I think that's really powerful. When it comes to marketing, right, I would say right now my brain is in Chat, but my writing is still me. So the majority of my writing now is still all mine, and that's because I have a very strong voice that people have gotten used to. And if I start using Chat to write, it's going to be painfully obvious because of how dialed in my voice is. So my brain is using chat so that I can flesh out my ideas, but my writing is still me. However, for a lot of people who are not writers, who don't know how to write, this is the first time where they feel like they can write or they can get their thoughts out in a coherent way. And so who am I to sit on this side and say you're being inauthentic? Because one person might actually be inauthentic, trying to sound smarter than they are trying to churn out content. Another person might be doing it authentically because they just want to communicate. So it's— we— it's really learning how to drop the judgment. And so that is going to be a hard thing for us to discern, and it's going to require discernment. I think I talked about how the value of the future is going to be wisdom, because wisdom requires us to take a look at the context and discern what's really going on. And that's not always easy to do. So we can make blanket statements like, if you use the em dash, you know, you should never be paid attention to again because you're using chat. But that's making a judgment call based on your judgment of the person's intent, right? And so, uh, that would be— that would be my sort of call to everyone, is to drop the judgment, to recognize there are two extremes of heart and intent behind using chat. And then there's all those shades of gray in the middle. But from a marketing perspective, originality is going to continue to be the differentiator, right? And so raw, real, flawed voice will rise in premium because it's more scarce, right? So quirks, your rhythms, your edges, your mistakes, your grammatical errors, like those are the things that are going to alert people to the fact that you are human. So from a marketing standpoint, you may want to consider that and consider using chat as your brain and less as your scribe, because there's going to be a difference in how it's received. I will continue to use chat in high-stakes conversations. I will continue to use it to help me explore subtext and to know what is going on. And I will tell you that my heart intent in using chat is to be able to communicate clearly, is not to ignore people that are talking to me, but to really understand what people are asking for when they talk to me so that I can show up in the best way possible. And I think, you know, it was hilarious, and I'm, I'm really glad that she said that because it caused me to think about it, and it caused me to say, hey, I can see why maybe you were like, do I matter? Like, why did you write that from chat given that I'm a writer? And also for me to acknowledge that Like, I felt a little insecure that I wasn't sure that I was going to respond in a way that was going to be beneficial to her because I'm just so dang practical all the time. I tend to forget some of that emotional, uh, validation, flowery type stuff that people really need. It's not flowery, it's actually really, really important. So anyway, take this with a big grain of salt. I think that if you are using chat to write, that is okay. If you are using chat to think, that is okay. If you get caught using em dashes, that is okay. There are going to be as many bad actors as there are good actors, and we need wisdom to discern the heart intent behind people using chat-generated content. Talk soon. And there you have it, folks, another dose of Million Dollar Grit.

I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.