Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening,
everybody. Welcome to today's episode of the
Never Peak Project Podcast. I'm your host, Coach
Ranger. And as always, today's episode is going
to be focused around helping you get better.
At the Never Peak Project, really what I believe
is that the best is yet to come. And the reason
I say that is because every mountain in life
that we climb, there's always another mountain
ahead of us. us. And that is really just the
core of what I believe is possible for each of
us. That if we are able to learn different tools,
if we're able to find ways to support ourselves
on this climb that we make every single day up
whatever mountain we choose to ascend, we will
be able to get up that mountain faster, better,
stronger, and be more well equipped to hit that
next mountain that we want to climb. And the
tool that we're going to be talking about today
is artificial intelligence or AI. Throughout
this episode, I'll be sharing just a few of the
tools that I personally use to make my life as
a solopreneur, as a small business leader, easier
to manage. Because just like the cotton gin or
the automobile, like all these advancements,
there are definitely some downsides that come
to them, to their implementation, to their use.
But I do think that for the most part, there
are a lot of benefits and positives that are
arising from us being able to utilize these technologies
for the advancement and betterment of our business,
our community, and our world. So sit back, relax,
grab the beverage of your choice. As always,
I have a cup of cold -blooded caffeine company
coffee in my cup. But go ahead, sit back, and
we'll dive into today's episode. Now, really
at the core of today's episode, the state that
I want to go in this episode reminding you of
and reminding myself of, being a solopreneur
means that you have to wear a lot of hats. You
are the marketing department. You are the unpaid
intern. You are the CEO. You are the sales guy.
You are a little bit of everything. Honestly,
over time, all those different hats that we wear
really starts to weigh down on us and we start
dropping them. They start falling to the wayside.
You know, if maybe copywriting isn't your thing,
you're not going to put as much time and energy
into that as you might be doing with sales or
networking. Or if content creation isn't your
forte, but you understand that in today's consumer
economy that we are constantly looking for content
to consume and more things to learn and things
to bring in, but we're not focusing on that.
it can really cause just this ripple of hats
to start falling and really things just hitting
the ground, never to be picked up again. And
really, I think that that is where AI and these
different software and SaaS tools really help
us make sure that we can lighten the load by
being able to almost outsource very cheaply some
of these things that we have to do, these actions,
these inputs, and makes it to where we can really
focus on the aspects of our business that we
love the most. And that we're honestly... a lot
better at than other areas. Really, this episode
is a peek behind the curtain of what I here at
Within Range Coaching and the Never Peak Project
podcast are using to lighten that load. I don't
use too many AI tools at the moment. In next
week's guest episode, we're going to have an
AI expert on who's going to give some more background
information regarding some tools that you may
be able to use in your business. So stay tuned
for that. Be sure that you're subscribed so that
you get the notification when the episode goes
out. What I want to be at the forefront of this
discussion around AI and the information that
I'm putting out about it is AI doesn't replace
creativity. That is not what we should be using
it for. We should be using it as a way to support
our own personal creativity so that we can put
more out into the world that is better, more
effective. and honestly transformational for
the people in our audience and those that we
want to serve. AI is a tool, not a crutch. It
should not be used as a way to limit your creativity
or bypass the creative process. It should be
used to support it. Now, really one of the main
ways that I use AI, the biggest tool that I use,
of course, is ChatGPT. I call ChatGPT Chad because
a member of my Toastmasters ProMasters club,
she wrote a speech using Chad, and she told us
that she had Chad's help. And then in the middle
of the speech, she revealed that Chad was actually
ChatGPT. So throughout this episode, I'll be
referring to ChatGPT as Chad, just as a quicker
way. But really, I think we're... Chad and other
products like him really shine are in automation,
organization, and momentum. It's not replacing
your originality or your own personal intuition.
It's really making sure that you are able to
take all of these thoughts or ideas. And I know
as solopreneurs and entrepreneurs in general,
we have a ton of ideas constantly all the time.
What I think the beauty of it is, if you're able
to get all that out on a piece of paper or in
a Word doc, even if it's not... very pretty to
look at, but the ideas and the originality is
there. The Chad, the program, can take that information
and make it more organized so that you can really
evaluate it with a fresh pair of eyes to say,
okay, is this a good idea or not? So I think
that is just like a very small way of saying
that AI is more of a teammate than it is a full
-on aggressive takeover of your business. This
is not a way to replace you. It is a way to make
sure that you are being as effective as possible.
Because at the end of the day, you do really
still need vision, empathy, and a really clear,
strong message. I just believe that AI helps
you deliver it better. and faster i've already
alluded to it but the first tool that i like
to use is chat gpt or chad I personally pay for
the premium version, which is about $20 a month,
and I use it for a ton of stuff. It's really
the workhorse of the AI tools that I use. It
can do just a little bit of everything. It can
help out with writing, copywriting, editing,
creating images or mock -ups, and I think it's
just really that initial idea generator for a
lot of what I do. For example, earlier I was
talking a little bit about organization. One
of the things that I wanted for my podcast was
a very clear idea of what I'll be talking about
throughout the entire year. Now, I went to ChatGPT,
I uploaded all the information about my podcast,
the title, the cover, what my vision, my mission
for it is, and just like my own ideas behind
it. I then asked it to ask me a few questions
to help clarify the direction I want to take
the podcast in. And then after those questions,
asked it to generate a bunch of title ideas for
the podcast and the direction that I want to
go in. It generated probably like 50 or 60 different
podcast episode ideas based around those answers.
So there's still a lot of information in there
that is myself, my own ideas, my own. beliefs,
thoughts, worldview, etc. But the... Program
was able to take all of that and put it into
a concise list of actual topics. I then took
all those topics, put it into an Excel sheet,
and that is how I am basing out my content for
basically the entire year. So that's just one
of the very small tools that I use it for. Another
one is copywriting. I love writing. I think it's
very fun. I think it's very cathartic and useful
for me in terms of getting ideas out or getting
past certain things. But when it comes to copywriting
and writing captions for posts, I have such a
hard time with it. I fall very much into that
analysis paralysis idea where if it doesn't feel
like it's 100 % perfect, I don't really want
to put it out. The way that I use ChatGPT in
that regard is I type the ideas. I put in the
transcripts for the shorts. I type in what I
really want at the essence and the point of the
post is, and then it's able to take that information.
organize it, distill it down, get rid of the
extra fluff, and just give people that are reading
exactly what they need to know. I love that.
It cuts out a ton of time in terms of editing,
of finding the right words to say. Now, there
are times where I put something in there and
it gives me an output that I don't really love.
That happened the other day. It was like, I help
good people get gooder. And that was the thing
that it said. And I was like, what are you doing,
Chad? So I was just like, LOL, like, that's not
what I wanted. I talked to my chat GPT very much
like it's a human, like I'm talking to a person.
So it kind of took on that personality. I was
like, dude, what are you doing, LOL? That doesn't
make any sense. Like, that sounds so... cheesy
and weird. And it was like, LOL, haha, you're
right. Here's a different version. So I think
the other thing with that is that if you are
putting your own voice, your own brand and your
own personality into the platform, it's going
to give it back to you. That's what I really
love about it. It's able to take those ideas
again and put out a still, still a little bit
of a watered down version of you. From what I've
noticed, it's not 100%. ranger right and i think
that's the thing to remember is that it's saving
me some time without taking up all of mine why
i use it fast flexible saves hours and just a
ton of mental clutter is organized at this point
a lot of my emails i do put through chat gpt
just to make sure that i make sense i feel like
written word can be very People add a lot of
their own personal beliefs and worldview into
what you say. You might not put a period somewhere.
You might put an extra comma or maybe the words
you're using might come across a little bit harsh.
And I just use it to make sure that the message
is very clear in what it is that I'm saying so
there is less chance for a miscommunication.
So again, the first AI tool that I use is ChatGPT.
It's really the workhorse. It can do a ton of
different things, whether it is mock -ups for
your business cards with the Dolly extension
when you pay for the premium version, copywriting
really helping you with your Instagram or TikTok
captions, and also just regular editing. I tried
to use Grammarly free for a little bit, and I
kind of just found it cumbersome. It just pops
up at the worst possible times, and it doesn't
really help a lot with multiple issues. I think
you only get like four or five suggestions a
day. Whereas with the paid version of ChatGPT,
I can just plug pretty much whatever I want into
it and it won't stop. So that is my number one.
I love Chad. The second one is going to be Riverside
AFM. Riverside FM. It is not quite an AI tool
per se, but it is a AI -powered recording software
for podcasting. Now, the reason that I love it
is it's what I'm recording my podcast on right
now. Every episode of The Never Peak Project
has been recorded using Riverside FM. And what
I really love is it is so easy to edit. These
single episodes, all I do is record. I've been
talking for about 13 minutes. I'm going to record
out some pauses, some coughs, some things here
and there, and it'll be pretty much ready to
upload right then and there. And that's because
it doesn't, you don't have to do the thing where
you say something like, whatever. And then you
have to find it in the audio file. You have to
split, find where you stopped saying it, find
where you started saying the next thing, and
then cut out that section and make sure all the
audio levels are equalized and blah, blah, blah.
You're able to just record the episode. It transcribes
it for you immediately. You can just go in there
and cut out the parts that you don't want anymore.
And it automatically squishes it. The other thing
that it does with that transcript is it lets
you copy it immediately. Like I said with the
chat GPT, I take the transcript and put it into
Chad, and it gives me some SEO -focused show
notes and title suggestions. That saves a ton
of time. I've tried writing out show notes for
myself. I did it for the Within Range Coaching
podcast the first season when I was doing my
walk across the country. And oh my gosh, it took
me maybe 30 minutes to an hour every time I did
the show notes just because I didn't want to
miss anything. I didn't want to lose out on stuff.
But once I started using ChatGPT, it takes just
a few minutes. Make sure that if you are using
it for show notes that you... Ask it to put in
the placeholders for any links that you may mention
or resources throughout the episode. There have
been times where I say, oh, I'll put that in
the show notes. Totally forget. I don't tell
ChatGPT to look out for those. And then somebody
says, hey, I thought you said that this e -book
or something would be in the show notes. And
I have to go back and fix it. And then it's like,
well, shoot, how many people were looking for
it that didn't say anything? So again, just a
way to use it as a tool. The other thing that
I love about it is it does automatic background
noise removal. Sometimes I have a fan or a heater
or just like some kids yelling outside. For the
most part, it edits those soft ambient noises
out. So you get nice, clean, crisp audio. The
other thing is that automatic audio leveling
feature. So sometimes the guest might be higher
than you are, or you might be lower than the
guest, or your microphone is turned down, et
cetera, et cetera. It kind of automatically fixes
that so that it's not one of those weird things
where person A is kind of talking like this and
very quiet and relaxed, but then person B is
talking very, very, very loud. Now there's different
personalities there, et cetera, but you get the
point. It makes sure that things are more equal
throughout. It makes it sound like I kind of
have like my own little full editing team, even
though I do it all by myself now. And it's just
very much, it's easier for that post -production
editing, but that is what I use Riverside FM
for. I do pay for the premium version. I can't
remember how much it is off the top of my head,
but I think it's only about 12 to 15 a month.
So if you're doing a podcast or you're thinking
about it, Get Riverside FM. It'll make your life
a heck of a lot easier. The other thing that
I use is Opus Clip. Now, this is an AI -powered
short -form video generator. And what I really
love about it is you can just take any video,
like the podcast, for example. I do my episodes
anywhere from about 15 to 60 minutes. You just
take that file, upload it to Opus Clip, either
the actual file through your web browser, or
if you upload it to YouTube first and you take
that link. Put it into Opus Clip. It gives you
a bunch of clips to use for social media. What
I also love about it is most of the clips are
under 90 seconds. And I think it might be different
now, but for Instagram, for Reels, your video
had to be under 90 seconds. Otherwise, it starts
chopping it up kind of weird, and you lose out
on content. So really, the benefit here, again,
is it is saving a ton of time. Instead of me
combing through an hour plus of content to try
to find the best snips, And really just kind
of bogging my mind down about what do people
want to hear, etc. It just gives them to you
on a platter. Now, there are quite a few limitations.
What I have noticed is when I record episodes
with a guest, especially if there are two guests,
like when I did my episode with The Living Project,
the two gentlemen that are walking across the
country right now, what it would do in a weird
way was like, it could recognize that there were
two people on the other screen, which I thought
was awesome. But it would take one person's face
and the other person's face and kind of mesh
them together. So it was almost like their heads
were combined or my head was above. And then
it would switch to where I was on the top of
the screen and then I was on the bottom of the
screen. It was just confusing. So, again, there
is that aspect of it finds those moments in the
interview where people would want to hear it
and see more. But you might still want to go
in there and edit it to make sure that it actually
makes sense for you and your content. Sometimes
it also has some like little glitches and whatnot.
But again, for saving hours upon hours of getting
that short form content, I think it's well worth
spending an extra five to ten minutes per clip
to make sure that it's good. The other thing
that I've learned how to do with it recently
is combining or linking my Instagram and YouTube
channels to it so that I can just go in there,
do the editing, and then just ship it out from
there. What I was doing in the past was editing
the short form videos, downloading it, putting
on my desktop, going to the meta content creation
area, uploading the video, putting the content,
putting the caption, putting the cover photo,
and then scheduling it from there. But you can
just do all of that inside the Opus Clip platform.
It does auto -generate captions for you. And
I don't 100 % love the captions that they give
you automatically. So I do still run the transcript
through ChatGPT to get something more in my voice
and in my style of content. I use a lot of emojis.
I think it's easier on the eyes, easier to read
for social media. The point is, again, it saves
time, but it's not a perfect. system. I think
that you still have to add that human touch,
even if it's through Chad a little bit, making
sure that it sounds like you is so important.
The other thing, just like an honorable mention,
something that I do use, which I think everybody
kind of has to use right now with Google, is
their new Google Chrome AI. What I like about
it so far is if you Google something, it kind
of gives you like the high level takeaways or
kind of condenses a lot of information. So if
you're looking for a very quick answer to something,
it'll just kind of put it there. It kind of puts
like the base level information right there.
You still want to look at the actual sources
and make sure that it's doing it correctly. Because
again, with all these platforms, it's not always
100%. You still want to make sure with your own
eyes that it is accurate as possible. But, for
example, this weekend at my day job at the Chamber
of Commerce, I had to find a bunch of emails
for local restaurants. Now, I don't know if you
know this, but it is extremely hard to find emails
for restaurants. I think that they don't typically
want people to send them emails because they
just want the phone call. Or for a large event,
they just want the inquiry through the contact
form. But what I've noticed is... It's hard to
find the email. But when I type in McDonald's
Half Moon Bay email, in the overview, it gives
you the email based off of other web searches
that it's done in the past. So it's able to kind
of almost go through that information faster
through those web pages and give you what you're
looking for. So I think that that's a cool little
feature. Again, I kind of briefly mentioned it
earlier, but I had the free version of Grammarly
installed. It just felt... very rigid. I didn't
really like it a whole lot. It kept slowing down
my writing process because every time I mess
something up it does a little pop -up near the
cursor and then it gets in the way and I didn't
really like the suggestions that it was giving.
I felt like it wasn't taking into consideration
a lot more of what I had been writing. Maybe
if I have the paid version it would be better
but so far I am unimpressed with the free version
of Grammarly and at this time I will just keep
using Chad. There are a few flip sides of AI,
and I don't really want this to be a huge portion
of this, but I think things to keep in mind and
acknowledge, there's three main areas. There
is the lack of originality, the environmental
impact, and then misinformation. So the very
first one, lack of originality, I think that
people can fall into the trap of, oh, I made
this using AI, therefore it is my own original
work, etc, etc. I think that the whole point
of These systems and models that we have right
now is that they're generative AI and that they
kind of take information that is already out
there and then make something from it. There
is a very fine line to walk between I created
this and I used AI to generate this. Because
again, like for my walk, I'm writing out every
single day, everything that I remember from those
175 days that I was out on the road. I haven't
put any of it through. chat GPT just yet, but
I probably will, because I want to make sure
that it maintains a certain tone throughout the
entire journal, or at least the tone is consistent
with what is written. I want to make sure that
it's not confusing. I want to make sure that
it sounds good. Whereas I do think that if I
were to say, hey, I walked across the country,
write a story about it, that's not original.
I don't think that that works in the same way.
I think that there is just that human insight
that you need to make sure that you're constantly
injecting into the content. Otherwise it can
feel very faux and disingenuous. The other thing
is the environmental impact. Now, this isn't
something that I know a ton about. Tune into
our episode next week. I'm going to ask the AI
expert about it just to see if she has any further
insights. But I do know that it takes a lot of
computing power and energy to do these language
models, to use AI. So it's one of those things
that I do believe is kind of like Bitcoin and
Ethereum. Like when you're mining for those cryptocurrencies,
it draws a lot on the power system. Therefore,
you're... using a lot of energy and that can
cause issues with the power grid, etc. Really
just an externality to be aware of more than
anything else. And then again, misinformation.
Chad isn't always right. I'm going to put this
into my chat GPT later and it's going to know
that I don't think that that's always right.
So sorry, Chad, but I'm sure you can understand
that the models from my understanding are based
off of information that humans have put out and
we ourselves as humans. are not always correct.
Therefore, the sources that it could be using
may not be the most up -to -date. They may not
be accurate. It may have found an article from
20 years ago about something that has changed
18 years ago. So it's just take everything with
a grain of salt and make sure that you're combing
through it, that it's accurate and usable for
whatever use case that you have. That's basically
about it in terms of some best practices that
I try to use. Use AI to start the work and round
it out, not necessarily to do everything. I think
that beginning and end are the best places to
use AI, but you should be the one doing the 90%.
You should be recording the podcast. You should
be writing the majority of the blog post. You
should be doing the work. AI should just help
you get started or get to the finish line. Really,
I like to use it for template building, you know,
email intros, captions, and then going back and
humanizing them. And again, final thing, AI doesn't
replace people. It just gives people more space
to do what truly matters. Working on the business,
working on the mission, rather than getting bogged
down by the extremely small details. That's really
all that I have for today. Again, the main tools
that I like to use are ChatGPT, Riverside FM,
Opus Clip, a little bit of Google Chrome AI,
and then I tried out Grammarly. Wasn't a big
fan of it. Let me know what kind of content and
AI you guys use. What do you use? Do you use
Claude? Do you use ChatGPT? Do you have a preference
one way or the other? I would super love to know.
I'm going to be posting this episode on Instagram.
And just let me know in the comments what you
think. I'd love to kind of build up a resource
for people to understand the pros and cons of
the different AI platforms. But again, thank
you so much for listening. At the end of the
day, your attention and time are the most valuable
resource that you have. And if you're listening
to this episode, you chose to spend a little
bit of it here today. And I hope that I was able
to make it worth your attention. Thank you so
much. I will be putting my ebook down in the
caption below. Go ahead and just grab that completely
free 50 page ebook. Nine lessons that I learned
on my walk across the United States of America
and how you can apply that to your life. There
are some stories, lessons, and some tools that
you can use to take your vision and turn it into
reality. Remember that the best is yet to come.
As long as you are willing to make the decision
every single day to never settle, never quit.
and never peak. I'll see you guys in the next
one.