You know, it often feels like most of us, when
you use something like chat GPT, it's like we've
been handed the keys to this incredible futuristic
spaceship. Yeah. But we only ever seem to use
it to order pizza. That's a great way to put
it. We sense the power, right? This thing could
go interstellar, but somehow we feel like we're
stuck in first gear. Exactly. there's that feeling
you're missing something deeper, just scratching
the surface. And it's moving beyond just asking
for answers, isn't it? It's more about, like,
engineering thought itself. That's the core idea.
Welcome, everyone, to the Deep Dive. Today we're
really digging into how you can shift your use
of ChatGPT from a simple answer machine to, well,
a true extension of your own thinking. We're
pulling from Max Anne's Beyond the Answer Machine,
and the goal today is pretty ambitious. It is.
We want to give you a comprehensive playbook,
really. We'll cover the basics, the best practices.
Then we'll get into project -based workflows,
specific problem -solving prompts, critical thinking
exercises. And even how to teach the AI how to
think. Right, which all comes down to prompt
engineering. That's just the art of crafting
really effective instructions for the AI. It's
key. Okay, so let's start with that foundation.
The guide emphasizes four core practices that
many people... uh tend to overlook yeah these
are fundamental if you want to get serious first
up specify your output format don't just ask
for stuff command the structure you want meaning
meaning tell it you want a checklist or a table
with specific columns like feature benefit use
case maybe you need valid json data or a youtube
script outline be explicit it needs that direction
ah okay so instead of just ideas it's give me
five ideas formatted as a list with summaries
got it exactly second is The job title trick.
Even though these models are smart, giving the
AI a specific persona or job title is still incredibly
useful. Like telling it to be a specific kind
of expert. Precisely. Act as a financial advisor
with 20 years experience. Or you are an expert
health coach for busy parents. Or even something
fun like you're a drunken pirate if you need
entertaining coffee. It frames the knowledge
and the tone. Okay, that makes sense. It immediately
focuses the AI. And the third one, I think this
might be the most critical, be ruthlessly specific.
Oh, absolutely. It's the classic garbage in,
garbage out principle, right? Vague prompts get
vague answers. An amateur asks, give me video
ideas. Right. A power user says, give me five
video title ideas under 50 characters focused
on creating FOMO for productivity content, targeting
short form video platforms. See the difference?
Context, constraints, detail. That's gold. Okay.
And the last one. Master iteration loops in a
single prompt. This is powerful. You make the
AI improve its own work within one command. How
does that work? Like ask it to draft a marketing
email, then in the same prompt, tell it to critique
the weaknesses of that draft, and then rewrite
the email based on its own critique. Wow. So
it becomes its own editor. Basically, yeah. A
whole creative team in one prompt. So what's
the immediate shift someone can feel just by
applying these basics? Being explicit format,
persona, detail makes the AI far more useful
right away. Okay, that's the foundation. Now
let's level up. Moving from single prompts to
more systematic workflows using chat GPTs. Projects
feature. Yeah. You mentioned this lets you create
specialized AI assistance. Exactly. Projects
are like dedicated workspaces. And the magic
ingredient is custom instructions. Think of these
as the AI's permanent prime directive for that
specific project. So it remembers context within
that project. It provides persistent context.
The AI learns your specific needs, your style,
your goals for that task over time. It gets smarter
about helping you specifically instead of starting
fresh. every time. That sounds like a huge efficiency
boost. Can you give some examples of these projects?
Sure. A really popular one is the personal journal
assistant. Here, your custom instructions tell
the AI its role. Listen, give feedback, maybe
point out blind spots, offer support, or even
tough love if you asked for it. And you feed
it personal context. Critically, yes. Your name,
maybe your job, your goals, recurring challenges.
Then you can just brain dump your thoughts. And
because the AI has all that background. It gives
you a more objective, informed perspective. Like
a super patient sounding board that actually
knows you. Precisely. Another great one is the
explain this for me research analyst. Essential
if you need to grasp complex stuff quickly. Like
for research papers or dense articles? Yeah.
The custom instructions make it an expert at
breaking things down with analogies. And you
specify a very structured output format. What
kind of format? Things like a simple explanation
for a five -year -old, a high -level summary,
key takeaways, a good analogy, what's new about
this, future implications, a quick soundbite,
and crucially... Why should someone care? So
you could feed it a super technical paper, say,
on a new AI game engine. And bam, you get an
instantly digestible structured breakdown. No
waiting through jargon for hours. How do these
custom assistants really make everyday tasks
easier? They just remove so much mental load
and decision fatigue because they already know
your context. Right. Okay, we've got our AI assistant
set up. Now let's talk specific copy -pastable
prompts for real -world problems, the life -changing
stuff. Absolutely. Let's start with something
practical. The wellness optimizer. The prompt
is super direct. List three simple but powerful
wellness habits for sleep, digestion, and mental
clarity. Break them down. Morning, midday, evening.
Each habit must take less than five minutes for
a very busy schedule. Ah, so it cuts through
the noise and gives you actionable, quick wins
that fit a real life. The more vague advice.
Exactly. Now, what about learning? So many people
get stuck with, where do I even start? Or they
read something and it just goes in one ear, out
the other. Yeah, the retention problem. AI is
a game changer here. For the where do I start
paralysis, use the 30 -day master plan. You basically
ask the AI to be a world -class curriculum designer
for whatever hobby you want to learn. How specific
do you get? Very. Create a detailed 30 -day learning
plan for hobby, say, drone photography, taking
a beginner to intermediate. Assume 45 minutes
practice daily. Include theory, practical exercises,
weekly goals, gear recommendations, and a final
capstone project. Wow, that's like getting a
personalized course outline. It really is. Someone
used this for drone photography, and the AI laid
out week one, hovering landing, week two, edit
a 30 -set clip, week three. Shoot a 60 -sec sequence
straight from camera. Week four, plan and edit
a two, three minute mini film. It just removes
all the guesswork. OK, brilliant. And for the
retention issue, the in one ear, out the other
problem. That's where active recall comes in
using the learning reinforcement quiz. Simple
prompt. Act as my study partner. I just studied
topic. Ask me 10 challenging questions. Don't
give answers until I try all 10. Then provide
a detailed answer piece. So it forces you to
retrieve the information, not just passively
reread it. Exactly. It makes learning stick.
And if you want to go deeper, there's the secret.
How does that work? So it leads you to the understanding
instead of just giving it to you. Mm -hmm. It's
a fantastic way to build real intuition. You
know, I still wrestle with prompt drift myself
sometimes, getting the wording just right. But
this Socratic approach, it really pushes past
surface -level understanding for me. So how do
these prompts truly accelerate personal growth?
They remove friction and turn passive learning
into active, tailored practice. Much more effective.
Okay, this next part. This feels like where things
get really profound. Using AI not just for answers,
but... to ask better questions, becoming a sparring
partner for your own thoughts, a personal red
team, as the guide calls it. Yeah, this is shifting
gears. You stop seeing it as just an infosaurus
and start using it as an intellectual challenger.
First up, the assumption destroyer. What does
that do? Every belief, every plan we have rests
on hidden assumptions. This prompt digs them
out. You say, I believe your belief. Act as a
masqueradogician. What are the hidden assumptions
I'm making? Then give me the strongest steel
man argument against my belief. So if I said,
I believe remote work is always more productive,
it would first point out assumptions like everyone
has a good home office setup or all tasks suit
remote work. Exactly. And then it would present
the strongest case for why office work might
be better in some scenarios. Not to prove you
wrong, but to make your own thinking more robust.
Makes sense. What's next? The devil's advocate
or a premortem. This is vital for de -risking
anything new. You lay out your plan. I'm planning
to detailed plan. You're my trusted advisor,
but play devil's advocate. Give me the most compelling
data -driven arguments against doing this. Oof.
Sounds like it could be a dose of harsh reality.
It often is. Like, someone planning an indie
game launch on Steam used this. The AI came back
with brutal stats. 19 ,000 new games last year.
Median lifetime earnings under $500. Massive
marketing challenges. It forces you to confront
the downsides up front. Necessary, though. Okay,
what else? The consequence mapper. This explores
the ripple effects of decisions' second and third
order consequences. How does that work? You say,
I'm thinking about making a decision, like quitting
my job to start a business. Map out the likely
second order consequences of consequences and
third order consequences, both positive and negative.
So for quitting the job, second order might be
income stress. Third order could be kids seeing
entrepreneurial resilience. Or maybe relationship
strain. Precisely. It helps you think through
the longer term, less obvious impacts. Then there's
the personal blind spot finder. This one's intense.
How so? It uses the AI's memory within a specific
project, you ask. Based on all our previous conversations
in this project, act as an executive coach. Identify
my top five recurring blind spots or cognitive
biases. Ooh, that requires some bravery. It really
does. This is not for the faint of heart. You
need to be ready for potentially blunt feedback.
It's powerful for self -improvement, but yeah,
needs emotional readiness. And there's one more
advanced one here. The outside view forecaster.
Yeah, this tackles our natural optimistic bias,
drawing on Daniel Kahneman's work. You state
your plan. I'm planning to launch a new podcast,
maybe. Contrast the inside view, my hopes and
specific plans, with the outside view. Find real
-world data, statistics, base rates for similar
projects. What is the statistically most likely
outcome? So it grounds your personal optimism
in historical data for similar ventures. Often
less rosy, I imagine. Often, yes. but incredibly
valuable for realistic planning. So how do these
critical thinking prompts fundamentally change
our approach? They force us to think critically
and consider perspectives way beyond our own
assumptions. Okay, now shifting slightly. Let's
talk about using ChatGPT as a kind of cognitive
toolkit for managing everyday negative thoughts.
Structuring self -reflection. Right. And this
needs a huge flashing disclaimer right up front.
Absolutely. This is not therapy. It is not medical
advice. It is never a substitute for professional
mental health support. This is purely a framework
for structured self -reflection on non -clinical
everyday stress using principles from cognitive
behavioral therapy or CBT. Understood. For personal
insight only. So how does the CBT workflow prompt
work? It guides you through challenging, unhelpful
thoughts. Exactly. It turns the AI into a compassionate,
objective journaling guide. It walks you through
the process step by step, asking questions one
at a time. What kind of questions? First, what
was the situation? What emotions did you feel
and rate their intensity? What were your automatic
thoughts? Then it helps you identify common cognitive
distortions in those thoughts, things like all
or nothing thinking, catastrophizing, mind reading.
After identifying distortions, it guides you
to create a more balanced, realistic reframe
of the thought. Then, crucially, it asks you
to propose one tangible action step you can take.
And it finimes with a simple, positive one -sentence
affirmation. You can give an example. Sure. Say
a YouTuber sees their views dip. Situation. Low
views on new videos. Emotions. Anxiety 710. Self
-doubt 810. Automatic thoughts. My new videos
are failing. I'm losing my touch. Everyone's
bored. AI helps identify distortions. All or
nothing. Failing. Mind reading. Everyone's bored.
User that creates a reframe. Growth isn't always
linear. Some videos underperform. I'm still creating
valuable content. AI suggests an action. Analyze
my top five performing videos for common elements
and offers an affirmation. I grow through every
experiment, one video at a time. So beyond the
practical steps, how does this method impact
well -being? It helps break negative thought
loops and leads to actionable clarity, which
can be really empowering. Makes sense. Okay,
before we move to the advanced stuff, let's take
a quick moment for our sponsor, Midroll Sponsoread.
And we're back on the deep dive. We've covered
a lot of ground. from foundations to specialized
assistance and critical thinking. Now let's talk
cheat codes. Quick shortcuts. Yeah, these are
super handy for quick results. First one, ELI
5. Explain like a 5. Simple enough. Just take
your complex topic followed by ELI 5, like quantum
computing ELI 5. It dumbs it right down to the
core concepts. Great starting point. Nice. And
the opposite. TLDR. Too long. Didn't read. Paste
in a long article, email, whatever, add TLDR,
and you get a quick, concise summary. Huge time
saver. Okay. What about jargonize? Humanize.
These are cool. Humanize takes technical text
and makes it plain English. Jargonize does the
reverse, takes simple notes and makes them sound
more professional or technical. You can even
chain them. Humanize a dense report to understand
it. Then jargonize your simple summary into a
formal brief. Clever. And the last one. The Feynman
technique. Ah, yeah. Named after the physicist
Richard Feynman. You ask the AI, explain complex
topic to me using the Feynman technique. It forces
the AI to explain it simply using analogies as
if it were teaching it. It really helps you identify
gaps in your own understanding. So how do these
simple tags make interacting with AI more efficient?
They instantly reformat responses, saving you
time and significant mental effort. Quick wins.
Got it. Okay, now for the really advanced stuff.
We're talking strategies that don't just ask
for output, but actually teach the AI how to
think about a problem, manipulating its cognitive
process. This is where it gets really exciting.
These aren't just clever prompts. They're like
cognitive algorithms based on AI research. First,
Tree of Thought 2T Exploration. Think of it as
the multiverse approach. You force the AI to
explore multiple distinct solution paths before
picking one. The prompt structure is key. Solve
complex problem. Explore three distinct and creative
solution branches. For each branch, outline your
chain of thought. Critically evaluate each branch
on a 0 -10 scale for correctness, efficiency,
and creativity. Finally, select the highest scoring
branch and justify your choice. So for a big
problem like job loss due to AI, it wouldn't
just give one answer. Right. It might explore,
say, a rapid reskilling path, an AI dividend
path, and maybe an augmentation first work design
path, scoring each one based on the criteria
you set. It's amazing for complex strategy where
there's no single obvious answer. That's powerful.
What's next? Self -consistency voting. This boosts
accuracy, especially for factual or problem -solving
tasks. You ask the AI to solve the same problem
multiple times using slightly different reasoning
paths each time. How does that work? The prompt
would be like, solve task, generate five independent
reasoning paths to get the answer, return the
final answer from each path, then hold a vote
and choose the majority answer. Provide a definitive
explanation based on the consensus. It leverages
the wisdom of the crowd within the AI itself.
Interesting. Then there's the reflection self
-critique loop. You called it the Gordon Ramsay
prompt earlier. Huh. Yes. Because it's tough
on its own work. You turn the AI's critical eye
on its own output. Prompt. First, answer question
task. Then, enter critique mode. Identify all
flaws, errors, or gaps in your own draft. Finally,
produce an improved final answer that fixes all
the issues you identified. And it actually finds
flaws in its own first attempt. Oh, yeah. Often
quite harshly. Then it produces a significantly
better V2. It's like built -in quality control
for creative or analytical tasks. Incredible.
What about the personal consultant prompt, the
automation audit? This one's super practical.
The AI acts like an external consultant looking
for automation opportunities in your life or
work. How do you set that up? Act as a senior
automation consultant. Ask me up to 10 diagnostic
questions to understand my role daily routines
and uncover repetitive tasks in my job life.
Based on my answers, rank the top five automation
opportunities. Suggest specific tools or a tech
stack for each. Provide a high -level, step -by
-step implementation plan. So it interviews you,
then gives you an action plan. Exactly. Someone
use this who is a content creator. The AI identified
bottlenecks like chaotic video ideation, manual
sponsor tracking, etc., and suggested tools.
like monday .com, RSS feeds, and automation platforms
like N8N. Very cool. Okay, last one. The world
engine. This sounds different. it is this showcases
the ai's ability to maintain a persistent state
for interactive storytelling or simulations the
prompt structure is key you are a world engine
genre g solar punk mystery maintain a dynamic
world state based on my choices narrate the current
scene vividly always offer me three clear distinct
branching choices for my next action weave the
consequences of my choices logically into the
evolving narrative whoa Imagine the possibilities
with this world engine. It's like building your
own interactive narrative playground where your
choices genuinely shape the story, potentially
endlessly. It feels like we're just scratching
the absolute surface of what these models can
really do creatively. It really does feel like
that. It's a glimpse into truly interactive,
persistent AI experiences. So how do these advanced
methods truly elevate the AI beyond just answering
questions? They transform it into a strategic
thinking partner, not just a content generator
or answer bot. Okay, let's bring this all together.
As we wrap up this deep dive, the central message
seems crystal clear. ChatGPT isn't just an answer
machine anymore. It's really a thinking machine.
That's the absolute bottom line and the real
power. It's all in the setup. Generic chats give
generic results. But using projects with tailored
custom instructions, that turns this general
tool into a whole team of specialized assistants
built just for you. And the goal shifts, right?
It's not just about getting better answers from
the AI. Exactly. It's about you developing better
thinking habits. The act of structuring a problem
clearly enough for the AI forces you to clarify
your own thoughts. Prompt engineering is critical
thinking practice. And iteration is key. Those
advanced techniques like self -critique or tree
of thought, they force the AI to refine, improve,
and explore options. Quality comes from that
process. And don't forget memory. Within a project,
the AI remembers your context, your goals, your
style. It gets smarter about you over time. That
persistent context is maybe its most valuable
asset for personalized help. Right. This deep
dive isn't just theory, though. We really want
you, the listener, to put this into practice.
So we've got an immediate action plan, a challenge
for you this week. Yeah, let's make this real.
Four things to try. One, set up your first project.
Pick one recurring task, journaling, health tracking,
summarizing news, whatever, and build a dedicated
project with detailed custom instructions. Really
define that AI assistance role. Okay, number
one, build a project. Two, be brave. Try the
personal blind spot finder prompt within that
project or another one. Ask the AI to identify
your recurring biases based on your chats. It
might be uncomfortable, but potentially transformative.
Number two, find blind spots. Gulp. Three, experiment
with one advanced technique. Just pick one people,
maybe the self -critique loop on something you
write or the devil's advocate for a plan you
have. See how it changes your process. Number
three. Try one advanced prompt. And four, run
the automation workflow finder prompt. Seriously,
audit your daily routines. Ask the AI consultant
to help you find things you could automate. You
might be surprised. Okay, four steps. Project,
blind spots, advanced prompt, automation audit.
That's the challenge. And maybe a final thought
to leave people with. Stop treating ChatGPT like
a fancy search engine. Start treating it like
this incredibly patient, knowledgeable, and yes,
powerful thinking partner. It's like a second
brain that can challenge you, simulate possibilities,
help you structure your thoughts. Because honestly,
the people who master thinking with AI, not just
asking AI for things, they aren't just going
to be more productive. They're actually going
to be smarter. OTRO Music.