A podcast conversation with Alex Wieckowski (creator of the Alex & Books newsletter and author of Learn to Love Reading) about using AI to become a smarter reader. Host Dan Shipper and Alex demonstrate strategies live, including prompting ChatGPT for book recommendations tailored to solving specific problems, using large language models to explore the themes of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, and turning frameworks from Alex Hormozi's $100M Offers into an actionable course-building strategy. They also cover building a reading habit, why physical books may boost memory, advice for people who feel they don't have time to read, and predictions about how brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink could change reading. # Channel Presentation Observations — "How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI - Ep. 30 with Alex Wieckowski" ## Explicit Self-Description Evidence ### Show / Channel Identity - The channel appears to be named **"AI and I"**: the closing exhortation says *"subscribe to Ai and I"* and refers to *"this show."* - The host identifies himself as **Dan** (guest: *"thank you for having me Dan"*), and the outro names **"Dan Shipper"** as the show's figurehead: *"a journey into the future with Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship."* - The episode is explicitly numbered — **"Ep. 30"** in the title — indicating an episodic, interview-style format. ### Claimed Scope - The outro self-describes the scope as ChatGPT/AI-focused education: *"pure unadulterated knowledge bombs about chat GPT."* - The title frames the topic as AI applied to everyday knowledge work: *"How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI."* ## Intended Audience - **Curious AI users / knowledge workers** who want practical prompting demonstrations. The format is heavily demonstration-based: the host and guest run live prompts (e.g., *"can you summarize children of memory in 500 Words"*, *"I'm currently struggling with [pain point]… could you recommend me three books"*). - **Content creators and creator-business operators**: the host describes at length running a media company — *"I run every... it's a media company"*, with a newsletter, podcast, paid subscription, consulting arm, and software incubations — and explores *"Creator run businesses"* as a distinct business category. This strongly suggests an audience overlapping with creator-entrepreneurs. - **Readers / book enthusiasts**: guest Alex Wieckowski is introduced as creator of **Alex and Books** with *"over a million followers"* who come for *"book recommendations book reviews reading tips."* ## Observable Presentation Patterns ### Format - **Long-form conversational interview with live screen-shared AI use.** The two participants interact with ChatGPT and Claude in real time, discussing tool differences (e.g., *"Claude AI isn't able to summarize it... chat GPT is able to tell you more about the book"* because of its *"browse feature"*). - **Practical, prompt-recipe style teaching.** Reusable prompt templates are articulated, e.g., *"I'm currently struggling with [describe pain point here], could you recommend me three books that will help me solve this problem"* and asking AI to *"explain the paragraph above but use simple words."* ### Demonstrated Positioning - The host repeatedly connects books/reading to AI tools and to his own business, positioning the show at the intersection of **AI, reading, and creator business strategy**. - The episode ends with an enthusiasm-heavy, promotional outro: *"hit like smash subscribe and strap in for the ride of your life."* ## Guest Positioning (Channel's Choice of Interlocutors) - Guests are presented as domain experts with their own audiences (Alex's follower count and course, *"the art of reading"* landing page with testimonials from *"bestselling authors"*), indicating the channel books established niche creators as guests. ## Summary - **Claimed scope (creator statements):** ChatGPT/AI knowledge show; interview series with Dan Shipper. - **Demonstrated scope:** live, hands-on AI use for reading, learning, research, and business-building, aimed at AI-curious readers and creator-entrepreneurs. # Delivery Observation: "How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI – Ep. 30 with Alex Wieckowski" ## Overview Two-speaker conversation (host Dan, guest Alex) conducted as a **live, screen-shared demo**: much of the episode consists of the speakers typing prompts into ChatGPT/Claude in real time and reacting to the outputs. Delivery is casual, collaborative, and improvisational rather than scripted. --- ## Tone and Register - **Consistently casual and conversational.** Heavy use of filler "like" throughout both speakers: *"so I like to just be able to take a book a pen and like go to the park or go to the beach or something"*, *"it's kind of like a thriller book."* - **Warm, affirming back-channeling from the host.** Dan repeatedly validates: *"I love that," "that's really cool," "totally," "that's great."* - **Enthusiasm expressed through repetition:** Dan says *"I'm like a huge huge book nerd"* and *"let's let's let's let's do that."* --- ## Vocabulary and Recurring Phrases - **"That's really cool" / "really cool"** appears repeatedly from both speakers (e.g., Dan: *"that's really cool"*, Alex: *"that's pretty cool"*). - **"Kind of" / "sort of"** as frequent hedges: *"kind of like a business Thriller almost"*, *"I'm sort of worried."* - **"All that kind of stuff"** — Dan uses this phrase multiple times: *"book reviews reading tips all that kind of stuff"*, *"it's got a cover image and and you know the paper feels different all that kind of stuff."* - **"You know"** is a very high-frequency filler, especially from Alex: *"you know fell in love with self-improvement books"*, *"so you know back in the day."* - Shared metaphors: **"ultimate librarian"** (Alex), **"personal study buddy or like your English Professor"** (Alex), **"cheat code"** (Dan), **"knowledge bomb"** (Alex, later echoed by Dan in the outro). --- ## Teaching Habits and Structure ### 1. Demo-driven instruction Alex teaches by prompting the AI live rather than explaining abstractly: - *"so maybe name a book that you know you loved in the past month or so"* - *"let's see if we can use maybe chap GPT to get a summary"* - Each segment follows a pattern: **state a use case → run a prompt → evaluate the output.** ### 2. Offering reusable prompt templates Alex repeatedly frames prompts as generalizable templates: - *"I'm currently struggle with [describe your pain point here]"* - *"could you recommend me three books that will help me solve this problem"* ### 3. Simple-then-advanced sequencing Stated explicitly: *"I think we'll start with some of the simpler ways and then maybe get to the more advanced strategies later on."* ### 4. Corrective prompting as a teaching move Both speakers model refining AI output: *"can you explain the paragraph above but use simpler words"*, *"okay stop doing too much... only ask one question at a time."* Dan names this habit: *"sometimes it does something boneheaded and you're like that's that doesn't work."* ### 5. Host models the learner role Dan positions himself as the less-expert user whose real problems get worked on live (his company alignment problem, his taste in books), e.g., *"so we're going to modify the prompt and say go step by step."* --- ## Communication Patterns - **Collaborative prompt-editing:** the speakers verbally co-draft prompts: *"so name similar companies uh that are started by people making content um where the Creator continues making content and leads the business..."* - **Concrete anecdote anchoring:** Alex grounds advice in personal stories (How to Win Friends and Influence People, Siddhartha, his survey with "over 500 responses"). - **Recurring rule-of-thumb formulations** from Alex: *"read it when you need it"*, *"buying books and reading books are two different Hobbies"*, *"cap it at three books."* - **Self-deprecating and playful asides** from Dan: *"it's not a pyramid to I promise"*, *"that's a sentence that no one has ever said in history of the world."* - **Meta-commentary on the AI itself:** both narrate tool behavior, e.g., Alex noticing *"it's updating its memory"*, *"love when chat gbt just completely goes down in the middle."* --- ## Notable Isolated Moments (Not Established Patterns) - **The outro voice-over** (final transcript block) is a sharp tonal break — hyperbolic marketing language: *"you absolutely positively have to smash that like button"*, *"I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you."* This appears to be a distinct segment, not representative of the conversational delivery. - Dan's extended monologue about his company structure (the "pyramid" explanation, ~[1031]–[1143]) is the longest single-speaker stretch and self-consciously labeled: *"that's a very long winded way of saying."* --- ## Uncertainty Notes - Speakers cannot be fully distinguished in the unlabeled transcript; attributions above rely on conversational context (e.g., the guest discussing "Alex and books," the host discussing running a media company), so some quote attributions may be uncertain. - Frequency claims ("repeatedly," "high-frequency") are impressionistic from reading the transcript; no exact counts were tallied. # Position Extraction: "How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI – Ep. 30 with Alex Wieckowski" ## Participants - **Dan Shipper** — host ("AI & I" podcast), runs a media company, philosophy major background - **Alex Wieckowski** — creator of "Alex & Books," 1M+ followers; guest ## Positions on the Future of Books ### Alex Wieckowski - Books will likely persist via the **Lindy effect**: "books have been around for thousands of years and that means they'll probably be around for another thousand years." - Qualification: technology (e.g., Neuralink-style direct brain download) could eventually obsolete reading; "books will be useful until like that point of time happens." - Recommends being a reader "for now and for the next few decades." ### Dan Shipper - Expresses worry about whether books will exist in 100 years but says "I think they'll be around for a while" — a tension he leaves unresolved. ## On Reading Formats - **Alex**: uses physical books, Kindle, and audiobooks; prefers physical books to "disconnect from technology." Cites studies (unspecified) that physical books improve memory because readers recall spatial location (e.g., "that chapter was on the left side of this page"). - **Dan**: prefers physical books; Kindle books "all have the same flavor" whereas physical books are "their own experience." ## Positions on AI as a Reading Tool Alex frames AI as **"the ultimate librarian"** — able to draw on thousands of books for recommendations. Demonstrated techniques: - **Summaries for conversation**: prompt ChatGPT to summarize a mentioned book in 500 words. - **Book recommendations**: prompt for similar books; Alex qualifies that ChatGPT often defaults to "cliche or too popular" books, requiring prompts for "off the beaten path" picks. - **Taste extraction**: Dan's technique — asking ChatGPT for the "vibes" of a book to articulate why you like it, then requesting "more of that." Dan calls it "sort of life-changing" for understanding his own taste across conceptual sci-fi, poetry, and business books. - **Problem-solving recommendations**: prompt "I'm currently struggling with [pain point], recommend three books to solve this problem." - **Study buddy / tutor**: Alex used AI to parse *Siddhartha*'s symbolism (the river); when the answer was verbose, prompted "explain in simpler words, be more direct." - **Applying book frameworks**: had ChatGPT apply Alex Hormozi's *$100M Offers* framework to build a course offer — but insisted it "go step by step and ask me questions" rather than doing the work for him. ### Dan Shipper's notable claims - ChatGPT functions as a **universal translator between "many different Englishes"** (philosophy, tech, science subcommunities). - Replaces grad school: he felt dense philosophy (Richard Rorty) was inaccessible without further study; now "I don't have to go to grad school anymore." - Critique of AI output: the constructed offer was "a little too general" and "maybe going too far in the direction of over-promising" (e.g., "read any book in half the time") — needs human editing. - Prefers making ChatGPT "show the code" so he can judge whether to trust the output; notes "sometimes it does something boneheaded." - Prefers disabling browsing sometimes so results aren't just "the first thing on Google." - Advocates **self-reflection prompts**: asking the AI to critique its own work. - Used ChatGPT memory to internalize a therapeutic question ("what would you do if you weren't feeling guilty?") — says it "paid so many dividends." - On summaries: book summaries are often derided but provide a valuable service; content should exist "in different formats and mediums for different attention spans." Used ChatGPT voice mode as a personal podcast to learn about sparse autoencoders — "better than any sort of paper." - Suggests every framework-based nonfiction book "should have a custom GPT that comes with it." ### Observed failures (both speakers) - Claude AI could not summarize *Children of Memory*; ChatGPT could (attributed to browse feature / training data coverage). - ChatGPT slowed/failed at analyzing a survey CSV; the code-based word-count approach was deemed wrong for the task; Alex switched to pasting raw responses. - ChatGPT appeared to invent the title "The Shadow of the Torturer" (Dan: "sounds like ChatGPT made that up"). ## Dan Shipper on His Business Problem - Runs a growing media company (newsletter, podcast, paid subscription, consulting, software incubations); worry is keeping everyone "rowing in the same direction" without excessive meetings. - Describes a **pyramid business model**: free content at the base → $20/month subscription → consulting/training → advising/speaking. - Argues **creator-run businesses** have inverted scaling rules: the CEO-creator keeps doing hands-on creative work while teams operate around them, unlike traditional companies where CEOs become pure managers. Examples he cites: Bill Simmons (The Ringer), Sam Harris, MrBeast, Kevin Espiritu (Epic Gardening). - Noted fashion as an unexpected parallel (Ralph Lauren "is a content creator"); Alex adds Lauren started with ties. ## Alex's Reading Advice - **"Read it when you need it"**: choose books based on current life priorities (e.g., copywriting books only now that he's rewriting course copy). - Pair a serious book with a **fun book** — reading only for education "gets a little bit boring." - Cap at **three books** at once; "buying books and reading books are two different hobbies." - Buying a book implicitly commits 5–10 hours of reading time. - Recommend **short books** to build momentum (re: his stalled thousand-page *War and Peace*). - **Unlock for non-readers**: everyone enjoyed reading as a kid; being forced through "classic English era" school books "kills your joy for reading"; the unlock is realizing "no one's going to assign you these books... you could read anything you want." ## Unresolved Tensions - Dan's stated worry about books' 100-year future vs. his closing optimism — never reconciled. - AI over-promising in marketing copy vs. desire for concrete, realistic claims — resolved only by "human editing," which both acknowledge as necessary. - Trade-off between AI browsing (better coverage of new/obscure books) and non-browsing (weirder, less Google-first results) — left as situational. # Speaker Attribution & Provenance Record ## Video **Title:** How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI - Ep. 30 with Alex Wieckowski **Video ID:** 01a0f15b-095a-7a48-8213-6dd0970802a6 **Format:** Interview/conversation podcast episode with live AI-tool demonstrations ## Speakers & Roles - **Dan Shipper** — **Host/creator** (identified by name in transcript: "thank you for having me Dan"; references running "a media company," the "every" paid subscription business, this podcast). Primary interviewer. - **Alex Wieckowski** — **Guest**. Creator of "Alex & Books," described by host as having "over a million followers across different social media platforms" for book recommendations, reviews, and reading tips. - **Closing voice (unidentified, possibly scripted/AI-generated outro)** — speaks after the interview ends with a promotional subscribe message addressed to "Dan," ending "Dan I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you." Role uncertain; explicitly flagged as unidentified. ## 🚩 Promotional Segments - **Closing outro:** "you absolutely positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to AI and I… hit like smash subscribe" — explicit **like/subscribe promotion** for the show. - **Guest course references:** Alex promotes his course **"The Art of Reading"** (landing page, testimonials from Tiago Forte, Morgan Housel, bestselling authors) and describes his offer-building process using it. - **Host business references:** Host describes his own media company's products (newsletter, paid subscription, consulting arm, software incubations, an imminent software launch) — self-promotional context, not flagged as sponsored ad reads. - **No third-party sponsor advertisements or paid product placements identified in transcript.** ## Referenced Sources & Third-Party Claims ### Books & Authors Mentioned (by speakers) - *How to Win Friends and Influence People* (Alex — his entry to self-improvement books) - Adrian Tchaikovsky: *Children of Memory*, *Children of Time* series (Dan) - *Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire* by Andrew Wilkinson (Dan; Alex's current "fun book") - *$100M Offers* by Alex Hormozi (both; used in live demo) - *Start with Why*, *Leaders Eat Last* (Simon Sinek), *The Culture Code* — ChatGPT recommendations shown - *Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter* (50 Cent), *This Is Not a T-Shirt* (Bobby Hundreds) — ChatGPT results - Fashion founder books: Diane von Fürstenberg, Coco Chanel (Justine Picardie), *The Battle of Versailles*, *Dior by Dior*, *House of Versace* - *Siddhartha* by Hermann Hesse (Alex, live demo) - *Outlive* by Peter Attia, *War and Peace* (Alex) - *Blindsight*, *The Three-Body Problem*, *Diaspora* (Greg Egan), *Aurora*, *The Broken Earth*, *Embassytown* — ChatGPT recommendation results - Gene Wolfe (*Book of the New Sun*) — ChatGPT result; **host noted a possible hallucination**: "it's not called The Shadow of the Torturer, it sounds like ChatGPT made that up." ### Tools Demonstrated - **ChatGPT** (with browsing, memory feature, code interpreter, voice mode, custom GPTs, GPT-4o rate limit reached) - **Claude AI** — noted as unable to summarize *Children of Memory* in demo - **Anthropic sparse autoencoder / interpretability research** — mentioned by host - **Blinkist** — mentioned as book-summary company - **Google Forms** — Alex's 500+ response reader survey ### Third-Party Claims (unverified in source) - Alex cites **"studies"** that physical books improve retention vs. Kindle — no specific citation given. - Mentioned companies/people: The Ringer/Bill Simmons/Spotify, Sam Harris/Waking Up app, Mr. Beast, Kevin Espiritu/Epic Gardening, Barstool, Red Ventures/Ric Elias, Gimlet Media (Alex Blumberg, Matt Lieber — noted as an Every investor), BuzzFeed/Jonah Peretti, Hello Sunshine/Reese Witherspoon, Patreon/Jack Conte, Rooster Teeth, Michael Jordan/Nike, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford. - Host attributes a personal prompt ("What would you do if you weren't afraid of feeling guilty?") to **his therapist**. ## Availability Limits & Uncertainty - **No curated metadata supplied** beyond title and transcript. - Comment availability: **not stated** in source. - Speaker identities inferred from in-transcript address ("thank you for having me Dan") and self-descriptions; no external verification available. - Closing promotional voice: **role and identity uncertain**. - Quotes/prices (e.g., Ringer "sold to Spotify for a couple hundred million dollars") are speaker claims, not verified facts. I'm sort of worried about whether or not books are going to be around in 100 years or whatever like how do you feel about it books have been around for thousands of years and that means they'll probably be around for another thousand of years but then on the other flip side it's like technology is moving so fast like who knows with like neurolink if you could just like download a book into your brain like do you even need to read it so I think books will be useful until like that point of time happens Alex welcome to the show thank you for having me Dan uh so for people who don't know you are the creator of Alex and books where you have over a million followers across different social media platforms who come to you for book recommendations book reviews reading tips all that kind of stuff which I love because like I'm like a huge huge book nerd and I'm just I'm just really excited to have you yeah so he great to meet people that love reading books so happy to talk about books and especially how we could use AI let's do it so like I got to start with like books like why do you like books so much uh it happened like during college where I first discovered like self-improvement books which was actually the book at How to Win Friends and Influence People I'm like wait wait a second you can learn social skills and like communication skills from a book especially one book that's almost 100 years old and that kind of just like blew my mind CU I thought there were only textbooks fiction books and like poetry books so once I learned there's like this whole genre that could help you in like anything you want to learn about it's like well there's a lot of things I want to learn about a lot of things I want to improve on so let me read every single book I can out there U to basically improve my life so that's basically how I you know fell in love with self-improvement books I love that are you a are you a physical Book Guy Kindle book Guy what's your what's your book reading uh stack so I definitely use all three I think each of them have their pros and cons uh but I really love the physical books just being able to like disconnect from technology like I'm a content creator so I'm on my laptop for hours a day I'm on my phone for hours a day uh so I like to just be able to take a book a pen and like go to the park or go to the beach or something and just disconnect I love that I'm a huge physical book guy I just feel like um with Kindle I I sometimes read it for things where I'm like doing a lot of research and I need to like page through books like really quick or something like that but I feel like all the books have the same flavor like the same taste because it's all just like on the Kindle whereas with the physical book it just feels like it's its own experience because it has like a feel and it's got a cover image and and you know the paper feels different all that kind of stuff and I just I love that yeah I I could definitely relate and there's actually studies that uh talk about how if you read a physical book you actually remember more of what you read cuz you kind of remember like oh that chapter was on left side of this page like halfway through the book versus on the Kindle book everything was the same so it's hard to remember like oh where was that quote where was that lesson but with the physical book you kind of know where it is so it's easier to find that makes sense how do you feel like cuz I I love books all my friends make fun of me because like there's books like everywhere like all around my house like up up to the walls like in the kitchen like all that kind of stuff and um like how do you feel about the the future of books or like people's relation ships relationship to reading like um I'm I'm sort of worried about whether like whether or not books are going to be you know around in 100 years or whatever like how do you feel about it I think either they will be around I mean it's kind of like a you know simple answer but uh you have like the Lindy aspect of it where books have been around for thousands of years and that means they'll probably be around for another thousand you know years uh but then on the other you know flip side is like technolog is moving so fast like who knows with like neuralink if you could just like download a your brain like do you even need to read it uh so I think books will be useful until like that that point of time happens so you know for now and for the next few decades you want to be a reader because there's a lot of Pros to it I feel you no I I I love it I I think they'll be around for a while I'm just always interested especially for people who are creating content that's not necessarily book content like how how you think about books versus versus other other types of content and all that kind of stuff um so the the topic for today is uh using AI to read can you give us like a sort of broad overview of like how you're how you're using AI to read in your life yeah so there's a lot of different ways to use it I think we'll start with some of the simpler ways and then maybe get to the more advanced uh strategies later on uh so one of the simplest ways to use AI is like let's say um there's a book you really enjoyed recently so maybe name a book that you know you loved in the past month or so um I've been reading um Adrian chovsky uh series of uh of sci-fi books um the the one I'm currently reading is about is uh children of memory um but each book in the series is sort of like like the first book is about this like race of intelligent spiders um and they like meet uh they meet humans and they that's kind of like what happens when that happens and the next book is about octopuses intelligent octopuses space fairing octopuses and the third one is um uh is about crows um and what I really love about it is he's very good at thinking about okay how would like an alien intelligence work and then how would that layer up into like the society they build and the technology they use um and specifically for uh for by aliens I mean like how would it work for like an actual human not human uh an actual uh animal intelligence that's like on earth like if we sort of Evol if they evolved and became like way more intelligent way more advanced um so yeah it's a great book okay so this is a a great way to use AI so if we're at a party and you mentioned that book I I don't read a lot of sci-fi books so I don't really know what it's about so I L just go to the bathroom open up chat and be like hey can you summarize this book for me in like 500 Words so that way I could go back to you and have a conversation about like you know that book or like just you know be be able to have you know hold a conversation with you so I think that's one way you could use AI so just use it as a way to summarize you know a book that someone mentions so that way you have understanding of like what they're interested in can we see that like how what would you use for that uh so I would just type in uh the name of that book that you mentioned and ask you know uh for this specific case I would ask Claude AI or chat gbt and ask it like can you you summarize this book in 500 Words let's do it let's see what we got okay um go for it what was the name of book again children of memory oh so this is interesting so CLA AI isn't able to summarize it uh let's see if we can use maybe chap GPT to get a summary oh look at that so chat gbt is able to tell you more about the book and Cloud AI yeah I mean I think um you know CBT has that browse feature so especially for books that are maybe like less popular or there's less stuff online so it doesn't necessarily make into the training data Chach is gon to be a bit better at uh finding you the finding you the answer okay uh so for the prompt I just asked Can you summarize children of memory in 500 Words and then chat gbt uh gave a summary of the author and it says uh it's the third book in this children of Time series the novel continues The Saga of humanties struggle for survival and their interactions with the uplifted species in a richly imaginative Space Opera uh so like you mentioned earlier uh it talks about Humanity struggle for survival and this kind of species that's a lot more advanced than we are uh so that's just you know a general summary and then it gives you a lot more information later down the line and what I really like is you could kind of ask it to maybe Summarize the book in two senses or or you could ask it to summarize you know the entire book in like two pages so you kind of have that spectrum of options that's really cool yeah what what's next like after you do the summary like what do you what do you typically do um so in this case you know you really enjoy this book so let's try to find out uh what books might be similar to it so in this case I may ask uh chat gbt um let's see what was the question okay so let's use this prompt you know I love I love the children of memory could you recommend me a few books similar to it okay so let's see what we get here I definitely so it looks like so we got blind site the three body problem diaspora Puro Aurora the broken Earth Embassy Town that's really interesting so the I've I've read the three body problem I've never I've never heard of blind sight let's see this novel explores first contact with an alien species and delves into themes of Consciousness identity and the nature of intelligence that's actually quite interesting I definitely I would probably read that um let's keep going uh so diaspora by Greg Ean so Greg Ean I I happen to know like I've read uh one of of his other books uh who's the the name is I'm blanking on but I really like him as a writer he's really good at conceptual sci-fi this is like definitely on point and one of the things that I think is quite interesting about this is um uh is a lot sometimes when you ask for book recommendations from chat gbt off the bat it can recommend like pretty um sort of cliche or like books that are like too popular um and so I often have to like ask it to do like off the beaten path type stuff but the these recommendations are really good yeah yeah when you talking about the book earlier um three body uh problem came to mind U but that's like the limited of my like science fiction reading uh so it's interesting to see that you know you agree with a few of the books on the recommendation list and um yeah I like to think of AI kind of as like the you know the ultimate librarian so back in the day if you really enjoyed the book you might ask the LI librarian to give your book recommendations because they probably the most well- read person you know but now you have ai that's been able to like read through you know thousands if not millions of books so you know it's it's a great way to find like your next book totally one of the things that that that also is kind of interesting for this I don't know if you push it in this direction but if if you before you ask it for recommendations if you type in something like um tell me the Vibes of of children of memory um like what is it about what are the themes what are the ideas um I'm trying to figure out why I like it and um yeah yeah and if you do that like chat gbt will often say something that just like really puts its finger on like what you like about a book or topic or whatever or kind of writing and once you have that it's sort of like this cheat code where you can be like okay I want more of that specific kind of thing okay it's really kind of like magic moment so let's see what it said so um exploration of post-human civilizations the novel delves into the lives of postum species and their interactions remnant of humanity that's interesting memory and identity is another one Central to the story is the theme of memory and its impact on identity um survival and adaptation blurring of technology and Magic interpersonal and interspecies relationships I think this is pretty good um philosophical and ethical questions Cosmic horror and hope that's interesting I haven't heard that theme um yeah so so it's it's a sort of powerful thing like I'm kind of curious um like for you do you have a couple of like books you've read recently that you've liked like maybe we could throw it in there and see see if we can pull out your taste too um uh so I'm I'm bringing this um Andrew Wilkinson's new book um Never Enough from Baris bista to billionaire but it's not out yet so I don't think ch ch might not have enough about it yeah um I'm rereading hundred million doll offers uh so maybe we could use that book let's do it okay so let's ask it uh what are the themes of I would say vibes because Vibes is a bit broader for some reason chat chbt likes Vibes I would never think to use that word like because I'm talking to like a robot not a person but I'm surprised it's like able to understand what we mean by Vibes yeah you want to read it out yeah so we have uh prag and action oriented which I would totally agree on if you're reading non-fiction you're reading because you want to solve a problem you're having so you want it to be you know useful and action oriented because you want to take action on it uh higher energy and motivational uh also would agree on because you don't want to read something dull there's so many business books that like sure the information might be great but if it's portrayed in just like a boring uh like boring tone it's hard to like you know read it uh value Centric uh I think that's also a great Point like when I read a book I try to think what's the insense per page or wisdom per page and Alex Heros is one of those people where it's like every few sentences he drops like a knowledge bomb and it just makes you want to keep reading uh data driven analytical uh I would say another great Point here um because you don't want just anecdotal story where it's like all right here's what I did but like here's you know data proving it or backing it up so it's not just like wild claims he actually has the data to like prove it uh empowering and educational uh would also agree with that uh nonsense and direct um yeah that's another great point you don't want to read a book with like a lot of fluff in it um you kind of want to get to like the Meer of the book or get to like the insights uh pretty quickly and I think he does a great job of that totally one thing that I think is really interesting too is like I actually I also like um like uh like Alex hor Mo's business books and like um I feel like I have a very diverse range of Interest where I'm like okay like I'm in into conceptual sci-fi I really like poetry and I also really like salesy business books like alosi or whatever like what does that even mean like what is my taste and Chad is actually quite good at like finding the intersections so if you say something like um both of these books are my favorite books can you help me like um uh can you help explain what what my taste in books is that's interesting so why do we enjoy uh what was it Cosmic horror and hope and also action oriented fiction books so let's see um so this this might be more more of my taste since since you said you you don't read a lot of sci-fi but it says complex and thought-provoking content so I always love when chat GPT um compliments me I I love complex thought-provoking content um uh you appreciate books that challenge your thinking which is whether it's through deep philosophical questions and ethical dilemas or through practical business strategies I like that practical and actionable we got that that's really good exploration of human and postum themes high energy and motivational tone that is kind of interesting I think there's probably some sort of energy overlap between Adrien CH chaikovsky and Alex Heros Heros which I think is a sentence that no one has ever said in history of the world um but uh but that is true blending Fiction with real world relevance okay I think these are I think these are actually pretty good i' I've definitely done this before with like a huge list of like all the books I like and it's it's it's been like actually sort of life-changing to be like okay now I know what my taste is you know yeah that's interesting yeah so I imagine the more data you input like okay here are the 20 best books I ever read yeah recommend me the next 20 books I could read yeah that's really that's really a useful way to use it that's pretty cool um Okay cool so we've so we've talked about sort of like finding finding a next book to read based on based on books that we've uh uh books that I liked what what's your what what's next um so let's use uh AI to help us U maybe solve a recent problem we're having or something want to you know improve on um so what would come to mind maybe like what's the area in your life you want improve on or maybe a you know a problem that you want to this is this is an interesting one um let me see if I can find a good problem for us so basically um one of the things so so I run every it's a media company um got it right here um and and we're we're growing a lot recently um we've got uh we've got a newsletter I've got uh this podcast um we've we have a paid subscription so people get access to like um paid articles that we write and we have a we have a really good crew of writers who are who are writing every day we publish every day um we also uh recently added an entrepreneur and residence so he's helping us start uh we have a Consulting arm um and then we also have a couple software incubations one of which uh we're we're launching a software product uh tomorrow basically we have a couple more in the pipeline and so there's all these like different things going on um which I think is like generally uh well it's I think it's like one of the good things about me as like a I don't know company leader is like I'm I have a lot of energy and I have a lot of ideas and whatever but it can also feel a little bit all over the place um and so I've thinking I've been thinking a lot about like okay like how do we frame things so that all the whole company is like rowing in the same direction even if we have different like we have writers over here and we have Engineers building software over here and we have consultants and whatever like how do we make everyone Row in the same direction and how do we like get it all to layer up into like one cohesive concept of what the company is and I've started to think of it um I actually got this from a like a Creator Retreat that I went on because I think this is actually sort of similar for a lot of different creators um but I've started to think of it a little bit like a pyramid where and it's not a pyramid to I promise um but like at the bottom of the pyramid is it's sort of like all the free content that we have um that gets people in the door and then the the layer above that is sort of like our main offer which is our $20 a month every subscription you get access to all of our articles you get um you get the software build you get discounts on courses like all that kind of stuff and then above that we do like Consulting and training and then above that we do like I'll do like advising or speaking or whatever and and each layer each layer up it's uh it will appeal to fewer and fewer people who pay more and more um and that's sort of like this whole pyramid um but the I think the big question with the pyramid is like how do I keep everybody aligned um together and knowing what everybody else is doing without creating a lot of meetings and so that's a very long winded way of saying like we have like maybe a bit of a bigger organiz now than we have had in the past and all the people in the organization are doing different things and I want to figure out a way to keep everybody um aligned toward a similar common goal and yeah okay um so let's try this prompt um let's go to chat GPT again okay so the general prompt that I've been using is I'm currently struggle with uh describe your pain Point here and I just gave you an entire like monologue of I'm I'm I'm going to try summarize it in a in a sentence hopefully I can try it uh yeah so the prompt is I'm currently struggling with described paino here uh could you recommend me three books that will help me solve this problem okay so let me try to do my best to summarize we'll see how good your listening skills are I'm struggl um okay okay I'm currently struggling with um building a media Empire let's say and I'm worried about um company culture and making sure we are all moving in the uh same direction um is there anything you would add to that I think like we have different parts of the business um and making sure everyone knows what's going on in other parts of the business and everyone that supports each other rather than like sort of competing is like kind of the um a way I would I would frame it not even necessarily competing just like um being aligned okay so we got I'm uh I'm currently struggling with building a media Empire and I'm worried about the company culture and making sure that we are all moving in the same direction and everyone is aligned with the company's Mission uh could you recommend me three books that will help solve this problem and let's see what we get from that so it's you should know um I I'm seeing it's updating its memory so it's it's remembering things about this conversation so if you Mouse over the memory part of it um it will remember that about you you may want to delete that at some point uh just so it doesn't uh end end up giving you okay I know end up giving you the wrong recommendations but I do love that feature of chat gbt is like um it starts to build a profile of like who you are and what you like so it gets better over time which is pretty cool um okay let's see so uh it said uh start with why how great leaders Inspire everyone to take action by Simone synk this book emphasizes the importance of understanding and communicating the why behind your business synic argues that great leaders and organizations start with a clear sense of purpose that makes sense Leaders Eat Last why some teams pull together and others don't okay so we're uh also by Sim Simone snek another insightful book um dels into the role of leadership and creating healthy and sustainable company culture that makes sense the culture Co code the secrets of Highly Successful groups I think that I think this makes sense one one like little wrinkle which I'm like super curious if there a book like exists here is that the the style of company that I'm building is like um sort of non-traditional and it like there's some aspects of it that look like a tech startup but like it's a it's truly a Creator run business and I think there are like there's a different set of rules for Creator run businesses where like um normally as a business scales like uh the CEO gets busier and busier and does less and less of the like actual like on the ground like Hands-On work yeah and as more just like managing teams of people um and I think in a Creator run business it's the opposite like the Creator like still does their thing um and the trick is to like have teams that can operate while you're doing the content that like gets everyone in the door can help like you know do all the other stuff like build the products and and all that kind of stuff so I'm kind of curious if there are book recommendations that um that are about solving this kind kind of problem but specifically for like sort of Creator run businesses where the like the CEO is like yeah spending some time managing but it's also spending a lot of time just like doing creative work um yeah that's interesting um for that maybe we could reverse engineer maybe we could think about what companies kind of fit that mold and then see if anyone has written books about them that's cool I would um so I I know I know exactly if a few of these companies so one company that comes to mind um is um Bill Simmons has a a podcast uh company called The Ringer um and you know Bill Simmons is a huge podcaster like really big time sports writer too um and he like has one of the top sports podcasts in the world um and he ran the ringer and did his podcast like a couple days a week um and then sold at Spotify for a couple hundred million dollars and I think he's like still some sort of like VP or something at Spotify but he also still runs the ringer um uh sorry he he also still does the still does podcast like multiple times a week so Bill Simmons is one another one is um uh so Sam Harris has like he's got a podcast he's got books he's got a newsletter um but then he also has this app called waking up um and um and so like he's like he's involved in that to the extent that like it sort of comes out of his brain and all of the work that he's done in meditation and Consciousness and all that kind of stuff but like he has someone else runs the business dayto day um who I met and he's very smart um I feel like there are there are definitely there are definitely some other people but uh Alo honestly like Mr Beast is another one like he's got like uh he's got like snack a snack brand now he's got a bunch of other businesses but like he's still making his videos not like he like stopped making his videos so um that's one and the last one is actually someone who I know is um his name is Kevin Espiritu and he runs this company called epic gardening um and he's like he's amazing and and they have like I mean he started with just videos and now they like I think they like acquired like a seed company and they all they also do direct director consumer product so like if you want to buy like a a like the best Trel like they have the Trel for you you know like that kind of thing um so all those people are are I think people who are sort of in this mold okay uh so I I listed all the companies in chat GT and I'm going to ask you to maybe name some similar ones uh just to see like if any others come to mind to see like how On Target we are bar stool yeah um so Bleacher Report and Vox not really um so what I think it's doing is it's like it's looking for like competitors and like I think what we should tell it if you if you go up and you modify that original prompt see that pencil yeah um like I think we want to tell it about the like specific thing that we're looking for which is like um companies that are that are started by someone who's primarily focused on making content in some form um and um where that person like leads the company but is still mostly spending time doing that doing the content creation how does that sound so name similar companies that are started by people making content um which are led by the Creator but um also manage the business um so I would say like name similar companies uh that are started by people making content um uh where the Creator continues making content and leads the business um but um but who has who has other operational leaders who who manage the day-to-day of the business and then I would just delete the everything up to the ringer um put like the okay so let's see what we got sweet so we got bar stool Red Ventures I never heard of that is a port portfolio of digital companies that includes Brands like the Points Guy health line and that huh while elas provides strategic Vision the operational leadership team manages the Daily Business activities do you know who Rick elas is the the co-founder of Red Ventures no okay interesting gam media founded by Alex Bloomberg and mat Matt lber so Matt is actually an every investor and I know him I know him quite well um and yeah Alex Alex for sure I think Fitz this he was a he was a podcaster and um was like one of like Alex and Matt both did a podcast together during uh during gimlet BuzzFeed I think buzzfeed's sort of but like Jonah Prett is like not really like a like he doesn't necessarily put his name on the stuff they put out like BuzzFeed is is like a more Anonymous brand um hello sunshine so Reese ree Witherspoon patreon Jack kti to some degree yeah that's interesting I love Jack H he's amazing um and then Rooster Teeth interesting okay cool no these These are good I'm kind of curious about Red Ventures um but yeah what would what would you do next so maybe we could ask chat GT like have any books been written about any of these CEOs or founders of these companies that's great okay so we're asking it uh have any books been written about uh the CEOs or founders of the companies uh mentioned above hustle harder hustle smarter by 50 Cent which which CEO is mentioned above that's really interesting so they like yeah I wonder what information is taken it from maybe scroll up a little bit uh okay scroll down okay oh no no go I want to see the first I want to see the first one okay well not spefic specifically about bar stool Curtis Jackson better known as 50 Cent shares his experiences and lessons in business and entertainment honestly like I think I mean he like he has a he has a lot of businesses I think that's actually an interesting comparison I had not I had not thought of that like he had the whole vitamin water thing I don't know like oh yeah what else what else he's done but like he definitely made a lot of money on on vitamin water I I think why it's maybe given these answers like the business model you're mentioning is pretty new so it it can't really come up with any specific books about it but like you know I guess 50 Cent you could think of him as like one of the original influencers who end up getting equity in the deal so you kind of it's like an early form of the business model that doing now I think um Michael Jordan too um like Air Jordans and with Nike like that's that's another one um I think there's there are some differences because like in in the case of at least of the case of Nike like Nike already existed um so he's like co-creating a product but like so for me like we're building products from scratch rather than like necessarily partnering but it's a similar flavor of idea yeah um let's keep going so this is not a t-shirt a brand a culture a community a life and Street Wear by Bobby hundreds um this book by Bob Bobby HS co-founder of the street wear brand the hundreds provides insight into building a brand and Community that's actually kind of interesting like I think there's a lot of like most fashion companies like are um made by like a person whose name is on the company like Tom Ford or whatever and they're definitely still like very very deeply involved in all the creative decisions um which is really interesting I had not thought of that yeah I never thought about fashion being like content creator LED but you think of Polo Ralph Lauren led by Ralph Lauren like he is a content creator he's a designer he's the bus manager uh so yeah you learned something new yeah I definitely did so maybe maybe we could find some like I would love to find books about people who have started fashion businesses but like books that would sort of like fit my taste um or um about who started yeah started people who started can you find those books about people who started fashion businesses yeah keep going anything we should add to that yeah so can you find us books about people who started fashion businesses um who were um both the primary like sort of creative like inspiration and ran the business um let's just start let's just start there and we can get more complicated later the woman I wanted to be by Diane von fenberg the iconic fashion designer and creator of the rap dress kokel the legend in life by Justine picardi the biography of kokel one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century I've actually always wanted to look into Coco Chanel that sounds that sounds like really interesting um the battle of versai the Knight American fashion stumbled into the spotlight and made history Dior by Dior the autobiography of Christian Christian Dior the asylum the true Tales of Madness true Tales of Madness from a life and fashion interesting House Of Versace I've actually I think I've actually read that um because there was a book that came out there was a movie that came out uh recently with Lady Gaga about um was it Versace maybe it was about Gucci I think it was about Gucci yeah yeah she was in that movie about guc yeah yeah yeah that was that was a great book and a great movie um so I've not read the house of Versace but maybe I should um this is actually quite good um uh cool um I noticed you reached your gbt 40 limit um if you need I can also Drive um the next chats um that's really cool I actually I just this little thing about like fashion people have been building these kinds of businesses for a while is like really fascinating to me because it it it definitely does have a lot of the same Dynamics where yes it's the sort of like creative and business person all- inone but also I think that the way that you get to be a like fashion designer like where you have your own house is you have to build your brand first and people sort of start to know your name a little bit and then you like kind of create a product based on that and I think that's very like influencer e too yeah yeah I definitely agree I know um Ralph Lauren started with the ties and then he got into the suits and then he expanded from there um that's fascinating Okay cool so what's what's next what should we to look at next um so another way I've been using AI is kind of as your uh personal I like to call your personal study buddy or like you know your English Professor English tutor uh because sometimes like I've been trying to read more philosophical books sometimes like more fiction books uh but these books can be kind of difficult to understand so for example I recently read a sedor which is you know it's one of those books you hear a lot about everyone says like you should read it it's like lifechanging book so I'm like okay let let me pick it up let me give it a try but it was written over 100 years ago so it was kind of in like Old English so it's kind of like a little bit difficult to understand and as I'm reading it I know there's like just multiple deeper levels of meaning in this book and I'm having a hard time kind of comprehending them so then I'll ask it like hey chat gbt um what does the river in sarra symbolize or what's the meaning of it and that will help me like kind of just understand kind of the themes of the book that's really cool so let's let's actually do that now I'm kind of curious so you can see my screen right so let's do that right now so basically I think what we should probably first do is like is do a little bit of an overview of sartha just just in case people people haven't read it um okay uh can you summarize sidartha um by Herman hes in uh I don't know uh two paragraphs let's see um sartha by Herman H has is a philosophical novel that follows a spiritual journey of a young man named sartha during the time of the Buddha the no begins with sartha a Brahman son who is dissatisfied with the ritualistic IND doctrinal life he leads along with his close friend ginda sartha sets out to explore different path to Enlightenment um the sar's quest leads him to a new phase of life where he indulgers in central pleasures and material wealth Guided by the ctis and Kamala I feel like this is like a little bit more in more in depth than I really want yeah um make it uh two sentences make it three sentences I think three is enough um sartha by Herman H follows the Journey of a young man named sartha as he seeks spiritual Enlightenment he explores various paths including aestheticism Hedonism and ultimately finds wisdom through the teaching of a simple Fairman named basua by learning to listen to the river s dartha realizes that true Enlightenment comes from within and through the direct experience of life rather than through teachings or do doctrines yeah yeah so exactly what it says listen to the river like what does that even mean so let's uh let's explore like can you explain that okay cool that's awesome uh okay so listen to the river what does that even mean can you explain in sedara by Herman hes listening to the river symbolizes the practice of deep contemplative observation and understanding of life and its natural flow the river represents the continuous everchanging nature of existence where every moment is interconnected by learning to listen to the river sartha attunes himself to the present moment in the cyclical nature of Life gaining insights into the essence of reality and achieving a profound sense of inner peace this metaphor underscores the importance of experiential wisdom and Inter Harmony in the Quest for enlightenment what do you think okay that sounds like a like kind of like a whole lot of nothing so so sometimes when it gives me like answer like this whether it's chat or Claud I'll ask it like can you explain can you explain the sense the paragraph above but use simpler words um just so it's more direct and it can't use like you know fanasy words to hide hide behind what say okay be more direct uh okay cool so I said can you explain the paragraph above but use simple words be more direct in sedara listening to the river means understanding Life by paying close attention to its flow and changes the river represents how life constantly moves and is connected by focusing on the river sartha learns to live in the present and see the true nature of things finding deep peace and wisdom the idea highlights that real understanding comes from personal experience and being in tune with life itself yeah that that's like a major difference anyone could understand that and it's just so much more clear what the river symbolizes versus the paragraph above yeah I I think I think you're totally right I definitely feel like um having chbt translate books is like such an interesting thing because it's like that book's in English you know like and I think I think one of the things sort of reveals to us is that um there are many different englishes um spoken by many different subcommunities and we normally think that like oh yeah there's like British English and American English but like no no no it's like there's like the English of sidartha there's like people who who write philosophy books that's a different English like there's scientists that's different English or whatever there's people in Tech was a different English than people you know I don't know uh people who are in like the oil industry or whatever um and so like have and and chishi does these like really really good subtle Universal translations between different forms of English I think that's so important for book reading yeah I find it super useful cuz yeah there's a lot of books like I want to explore but I know they kind of beyond my um like expertise or just knowledge um so I need someone to kind of help me teach me like what the book's about so you know back in the day you might have gone you know taken like a college course or something here or now you just ask chat gbt and it's like your personal tutor so I think that's uh like a powerful way to kind of use books to yeah as your personal study buddy that a lot of people have thought about it's really great so so you read that book recently you brought it so you must like it like tell me more about like what what you got out of it um I don't know if I would say I would like I liked it okay maybe you didn't like it yes so well I want to see like why so many people found it like valuable or insightful or and it just kind of shared like the common themes of Life uh so basically the main overview is he goes to be a Buddha so he kind of gives everything up uh then he lives this like honic lifestyle where it's just like pleasure pleasure and that's also not a good way to go about life and then he finds like balance by you know being in between so I think that was like kind of the main message I took away from it um I also kind of use it kind of uh uh you could ask like who who are the main characters in this book and what role do they play CU you know in this book there's probably you know five 10 different characters I'm sure sometimes when you read a science fiction book there's you know 100 characters yeah so you get lost with the so sometimes I may ask chap GPT like can you explain the relationship between these two characters in the book or like can you explain the context behind them to just another way it's like any question that You' ask your English professor in college now I just asked chat GPT I I do love that because I I read some books like um I'm I'm reading this book um called pragmatism as anti-authoritarianism right now which is a I can't even I can barely even say the title um and it's by this philosopher Richard Roy that I really like and I've been reading his books and other like sort of more dense philosophy books for long time and um like I I majored in philosophy in college so like I kind of can Wade through some of the jargon but I always felt like there was stuff in those books that I like just was never going to be able to get unless I went back to gra like went back to school and went to grad school which is always sort of like slightly on my mind but like going to grad school just like sort of seems like a pain like I don't really want to do that and so I was just sort of like torn because I'm like I want to get more out of these kinds of books but like I don't want to do that and I just feel like chat gbt just like completely like uh I don't have to go to grad school anymore CU chat gbt which is really great like I'm just sitting there like reading a book and I'll just take a picture of it and send a chbt and be like can you explain this to me yeah are you how are you doing this like are you do you have a laptop while you're reading do you have you use it on your phone like what's your kind of like reading with chat GPT how does that work for you um so definitely I have the app on my phone sometimes I'll use it there um but yeah I I think personally when I do like my reading session I just like to have a book and a pen uh and then maybe on the back you know I'll write down a few questions and then uh after I'm done with my reading session then I'll go um and use chat gbt and that'll be like my study session something like that yeah and you do you do a study session for like every book uh no I would say most of the books I read are non-fiction so it's a little bit more direct it's more actionable uh but I will use maybe chat gbt kind of like okay I have this like list of lessons from this book how can I actually go apply it um like for examp example the Alex heroi book recently um you know he has that whole Grand Slam offer um how to make like compelling offer so then I ask chat gbt like how can I apply this to something I'm trying to sell let's actually do that because I've I've actually done literally the exact same thing like appar I think there's there's something about like content creator business people like using Alex rosi's book to like create offers so like I want to let's let's let's let's do that so um yeah tell me about tell me about what you did so we can replicate it uh so first I would ask uh Chad you know can you summarize the main lessons from $100 million offers by Alex Heros okay by Alex horoi um oops I misspelled hormos but I think it'll probably get the get the gist love when chat gbt just completely goes down in the middle okay um sure here's the summary of the main lessons um uh so value stacking create an irresistible offer by stacking value understanding customer pain points deeply understand the pain points and desires of your target audience offer creation break down the components of great offer into four key elements the dream outcome perceive likelihood of achievement time delay effort and sacrifice pricing psychology use pricing strategies that enhance the perceived value of your offer scarcity and urgency risk reversal irresistible bonuses social proof and testimonials market research and iteration communicating value does it seem like a like a reasonable summary yeah so a lot of the key lessons from the book I would specifically ask it uh can you share more about the offer creation specifically what he meant by creating a grand slam offer um okay cool specifically can let's say can you can you can you break down how he constructs a grand slam offer so tell me about why you're asking this question to chbt because you already you already know more or less right yeah uh so I kind of understand like you know you know reading it um but I think just having the next steps uh to able to be able to apply it to my specific uh situation I think is super helpful um and then also if you use chat GPT to kind of do the early work of it and then you can maybe you know add the finishing touches or human touches at the end of it I think that helps helps you move faster yeah totally yeah like the there's a couple things here like one is um the cool thing about this is like a book is sort of like this static thing where you're doing the work to apply it and I think that's actually quite valuable like you don't want to not have to do the work to apply it but what's really interesting is with CBT like because it it writes out this like uh this summary of the of the framework you can just have it apply the framework to your specific um situation as if Alex was right there like talking to you which is like pretty cool and and I think the the like benefit of having it write out the framework first before you say hey can you help construct an offer like Alex her Moi is it sort of creates a plan for chat TBT it's like it knows okay this is the first step and it's going to follow its own plan that it writes which is kind of cool yeah um Okay cool so we have we've got the offer framework we've got the dream outcome the perceived likelihood of achievement time delay effort and sacrifice and um we're building a grand slam offer uh here's how to do it step by step cool so should we apply it yeah um so help me build a grand slam offer for uh uh I guess my specific case I'm building a course that teaches people how to read uh smarter more productively and um more efficiently smarter more productively and more efficiently uh for this uh chat I am Alex from Alex and books just so it can get a little bit more about you in there okay sure Alex let's build a grand slam offer for your course on reading smart more productively and more efficiently will follow the offer creation framework by Alex formosi one identify the dream outcome um so one of the things it's doing here which is uh which I actually don't really like is it's just like doing the whole thing for you um I think what we want to do is like um go step by step so we're going to modify the prompt and say go step by step and ask me questions to help me um uh I like do the work for each step um so we can build our offer and answers together um I think that's a little bit better because like CHP can make stuff up but it's not going to be like exactly like what you think and I think it's better to have it like pull it out of you um okay so identify the dream outcome the dream outcome is the ultimate result or transformation your customers desire what are the main benefits and results your students will achieve by taking your course what does the ideal outcome look like for them Oh see it's that's interesting it gives you options okay it's continuing okay stop doing too much okay only only ask one question at a time and only move on to the next step when I say so okay that'll that'll keep it in line the Rob getting out of hand I wonder what okay um okay so step one identify the dream outcome first you need to clearly Define the dream outcome for your target audience this is the ultimate result of transformation they want to achieve by taking your course question one what do you believe is the ultimate result or transformation that your customers desire from learning to read smarter more productively and more efficiently they'll be able to get uh let's see how how should we put it if you could read more productively you'll get more value from the time you spent reading uh you'll be able to remember more of what you read and which will help you make better decisions and improve your life faster than someone that just reads passively okay cool wow my memory is full crazy come on chat GB we're gonna switch to Claud if you don't respond excellent here's how we articulate the dream outcomes based on what you shared by taking this course you will maximize value from Reading improve memory attention make better decisions and enhance your life quality um okay so next we need to enhance the perceived likelihood that your customers will achieve this dream outcome this involves building credibility and Trust what are some testimonials case studies or success stories you have from previous students or clients who have taken your course uh I have testimonials on the landing page um I have testimonials from bestselling authors including do you have do you have a landing page where I can just copy paste them yeah um it's it's called the r of reading uh if you just type into Google hopefully it comes up is itom uh no it was like on kajabi or something uh no the SEC the second one yeah ah we got Thiago Forte we got Morgan how wow they got a lot of you got a lot of good people cool so I'm going to just paste that in here here are some testimonials cool great testimonials these will significantly enhance the perceived likelihood of achievement minimize the time delay we need to minimize the time it takes for your customers to start seeing results what are some quick wins or immediate benefits your customers can expect to see early on in your course uh all the lessons are short they're between five and 10 minutes um they're broken up into specific problems so you could go directly to the skill you most want to learn or reading obstacle that's um the your biggest reading obstacle um cool let's keep going that's fantastic um immediate benefits in quick wins uh so it's summarizing what we said okay so now we're on to step four reduce effort and sacrifice what resources tools or support can you provide to make the learning process as easy and effortless as possible uh so each lesson has a one-page summary PDF so if you prefer reading over watching uh the as an option and each lesson ends with actionable steps so you're not just learning uh you're actually um given steps on how to apply what you've learned great done all right step five construct the Grand Slam offer do you have any uh additional bonuses or special features you'd like to include yeah I have um a list of the 100 books that had the biggest impact of my life in a short summer of each one and then I also have a list of 50 short uh non-fiction books and 50 short fiction books that people could uh choose from if they're looking for a quick read okay so now it is going to construct the grand SL offer with all the elements combined um by taking this course you will maximize your value from Reading you will improve your memory retention you'll make better decisions um it's giving us all the testimonials I think what it's probably doing right now is it's sort of like summarizing each like what um what is your preferred like format for like outcome of this of this Grand offer should it be more compressed or like how does how does it look when it's done oh here we go final offer enroll in the master of the art of reading course today and transform your reading skills with short focused lessons that provide immediate benefits and acual steps so this feels a little bit too um it's not concrete enough um which is interesting plus get exclusive access to Cate a list of impactful books to guide your reading Journey learn from the best and make better more informed decisions in your personal and professional life it's actually not bad yeah um well actually what do you think uh I think it it's it's doing a good job it's just a bit too General like it if it could use some of the spe specific um you know sponsors we've used I think that would make a more compelling offer yeah so um one of the things I like to do uh we'll see how it does on this is like I'll have it reflect on itself and cre its own work like um okay based on um Alex horos framework above um what do you think of the offer you constructed how what's is there anything missing um what can be improved to make it more effective see if it if it's self-aware enough to to fix these problems that we're seeing okay so make the dream outcome more Vivid and emotionally engaging for example emphasize how mastering reading can lead to Career advancements I do think that Vivid and emotionally engaging is right I would have framed it as like more concrete um but yeah I think I think that's a similar way to say that um uh potential improvements for the perceived likelihood of achievement include more specific success stories or case studies um minimize time delay highlight specific examples of quick wins uh so yes we're getting more concrete more specific examples um reduce effort and sacrifice so potential improvements are offer additional Support options like dedicated so it's it's asking you to just add more yeah add more stuff to your to your offer which is pretty interesting um and then it's then it's sort of like suggesting examples so for the make the dream outcome more Vivid it's saying imagine being able to read any book in half the time and retain twice as much information giving you a Competitive Edge in your career enriching your personal life with profound knowledge and insights that's actually not bad um I don't know if you want to promise that specifically read any book in half the time and retain twice as much but like it's sort of on the right track yeah I think it gives you a good idea of like copy you could use yeah join thousands of satisfied students who have transformed their reading skills watch this video testimonial from a student who doubled their reading speed and comprehension within just two weeks start seeing results immediately um our students report significant improvements after just the first lesson so this is actually this is actually not bad um like it maybe have it maybe is going too far in in in the direction of like over promising but like that's sort of the like framework that it's using and you can kind of like bring it back to like being more yeah more concrete and more what you actually want to promise but I think it's like it's pretty helpful yeah I I think um it's pretty much like on par with what you know the information we have uh it did kind of go like above and beyond with some the claims so that I would just like edit to make it a little bit more realistic I love that um and and did you actually use this for construction you offer like this exact this process yeah so I asked it to use like the Ada framework um and yeah I experimented with different um a bunch of different like copywriting formulas and um yeah I inputed like okay here's what the course is about here's this framework uh you know write out the basically the copy for it um yeah I think it's like a it's almost like a new format for nonfiction books like any non-fiction book that has a framework I feel like should have like a a custom gbt that it comes with where it just like applies the framework for you yeah I think that's super helpful because a lot of these lessons and non-fiction books are told like through story and the author doesn't really like maybe give you like actionable steps or like kind of summarize what to do but if you kind of ask you know chadt in this example and then it'll ask you you know a question for you know uh each part of the formula and then you input your answer and that's how you get like the specific Alchemy you're looking for yeah the the other nice thing about about this is like um it has memory which which we' which we've already talked about and one of the things I use it for is like sometimes there's a lesson in a non-fiction book where you're like oh like I just want that just like burned into my memory you know and I want to be reminded of it like all the time so like for me um this didn't exactly come from a non-fiction book it came from from my therapist but like I think it's like it could have just as well come from a non-fiction book maybe he read it in a non-fiction book we'll probably say that so like one of the things that that's like uh just like a thing that I have to work on all the time is I have like a lot of people pleaser Tendencies um and I say yes too much and I don't like saying no and all that kind of stuff and if I kind of like reduce that down it's sort of about like fear of like the guilt or shame that I would feel in like saying no um and so my therapist was like okay I want you to like ask yourself the question anytime you're in one of those situations like what would I do what would you do if you're not afraid of feeling guilty um and that's the kind of thing where I was like whoa like that's actually a really good question right um but it's really hard to remember um especially when you're in a particular situation and so I just went into chat GPT and put it into my memory and I was like anytime I'm making a decision that's interpersonal like please ask me um what I would do if I wasn't feeling guilty and um and I always use chbt when I'm making bigger decisions and it always ask me that question and that like little simple thing it's like it's honestly paid so many dividends and I feel like the same thing is true there's like all there's probably lots of lots of these things from different non-fiction books for like I want to remember that and Chad is just very good at like bringing it up when you need to when you need to hear it yeah that'd be interesting if you could have I'm not sure if this is a future or not but you kind of have saved profiles of like okay you know if I'm working on a new landing page or sales page let me go to the copy AI version of this profile versus like if I'm making a big life decision let me go to the you know the AI profile that will ask me that question and like others that you know will help me make a better decision yeah it doesn't have that specifically but it will select the correct memory for the correct circumstance so like if you're asking about copy and you have memories related to copy it will go to that there are also custom gpts with their own person personalities where you could like build a Alex horos bot for yourself or whatever um yeah um cool so this is really awesome uh so we we went through the offer is there are there other things you want to you want to talk about uh yeah let's see what else we have on the list oh um so I guess so another great example that I've used AI for is you know let's say there's a book I Lov so uh that means I'm a big fan of the author I admire them I respect them uh we probably have a lot in common um but who are you know my heroes here Heroes so who you know who is my favorite author look up to so maybe if you know there's book you read recently let's try to find out who are you know that author's favorite authors and you know who had the biggest impact on their life yeah I love that I like I just love going down the kind of like intellectual Rabbit Hole of like this person influenced this person this person influenc this person because like often the thing that you like most about someone is like they learned it from someone else you know um okay so let's do that with let's just do that with aan chosy the guy who wrote children of memory because I'm actually kind of curious so um I love Adrian chikosi um's series children of time um who are his favorite authors something like that I want to figure out um who who influenced influenced him to write this series so it's doing a little bit of a web search and one of the interesting things is like so having it do a web search it can be good um if there's like a Google result like someone actually went and interviewed him and there's like a thing that's like Adrian triops is like top five favorite books but sometimes like it's just better to like make it not browse and just like do it from from its memory because it'll find like weirder things that are not necessarily like the first thing on Google but um let's see what it says so it says Jee wolf known for his complex and layered narratives Wolf's work often involves intricate World building and deep philosophical themes that sounds good for me um mvin Peak famous for the Gorman go series peak's gr Gothic style and detailed characterization have left a significant mark on his writing China meville with his unique bun of fantasy horror and specul fiction M's imaginative and Boundary pushing stories are a clear influence interesting cool um I've never heard of any of these people but honestly Gene wolf is like pretty cool sounding let's see I want to look at what Gene wolf has written Jee wolf American fiction writer uh where's the Amazon here we go the wolf at the door is his top book um that's fascinating um let's see I I can't believe that he wrote a book with his own name in the in the title is it a fiction book uh oh it's a it's a brand new collection okay so it's it's like I think it's uh it's short stories okay I want to like what's his let's see what's um let's ask like what's uh the genan Wolf book that's most you know similar to children of time because I don't really want his short Story collection I want like something that's more sci-fi the book of the new Sun series The Shadow of the torturer wow that sounds dark um okay the shadow of the torturer uh where are torturer Jean wolf okay Shadow and Claw interesting so um that's actually it's not called The Shadow shadow of the torture it sounds like Chach made that up that's quite interesting um okay the book of the new son is unanimously acclaimed as Wolf's most remarkable work held as a masterpiece of science fantasy compar comparable in importance to the major works of tolken and Lewis that's interesting I've never heard of him um so it's the tale of young sarian an apprentice to The Guild of torturers on the world called Earth exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession showing Mercy toward his victim wow that's interesting yeah the claw of the conciliator continues Saga of sarian banished from his home as he undertakes a Mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient Relic cool um I'm like sort of tempted to to buy this but I I should wait because I just bought a bunch of bought a bunch of books um yeah what is your rule for that like what are you how how are you uh when do you buy a new book versus like waight that's a good question um so I have this rule uh it's kind of catch you too so easy to remember so just read it when you need it uh so you kind of want to identify what's the priority in your life what are you working on um and it could be like you know reading for entertainment or maybe you are planning on writing your own fiction book so maybe now might be time to write fiction books uh for me specifically you know working on rewriting the copy for my course so reading a lot of copywriting books um which you know two years ago I would have would never read a copyrighting book because it's just not relevant to me so it's no longer interesting but now because I am working on this project now you know copyrighting is super interesting uh yeah so I would say you know think about what's the biggest priority in your life and then uh focus on reading books in that section um but you could also have you know a fun book so I often times you know I'll have like a serious book I'm reading something I want to learn improve on but then I'll also have a fun book just because um uh I think if you just just read for Education it kind of gets a little bit boring it's kind of like just watching documentaries all the time sometimes you want to you know watch that movie or watch that TV series uh same thing for reading sometimes you want to have like a fun read um so I would say you know if you already have like a long list of sci-fi books that you know you need to get through maybe hold off on buying this book uh but maybe if it's like the last book in the series and you know you're ready for something new that might be the time to get it but are you like go to the bookstore and get like an arm load guy or are you like uh I I read one thing at a time and I'm like I don't start a new one until I finish the last one yeah I I try to cap it at three books okay so I like to have you know maybe like a a serious book like a more of a fun book and then maybe one book on my phone or like um Audi book or something like that so that way if I'm on the go have something to listen to uh cuz that way I think you end up just you know starting 10 different books and you never get through like any of them or you just um you know it's just like the sh shiny new object like just because it's new doesn't mean it's better uh so I think a lot of people fall into that chap where they you know buying books and reading books are two different Hobbies so it's so true I love that buying books and reading books are two different Hobbies it's great and there's great quote that like when we buy a book we make the mistake of we're also buying the time to read it cuz you know you think about it a book takes you maybe 5 to 10 hours to read so every time you buy a book that's you know if you buy three books that's 30 hours at a time that you're kind of uh you know investing yeah so that that's another way to think about it so I would say you know maybe read two books at a time or cap it till like three what's your fun book right now uh so I would say um it's uh it's also a business book but it's like a fun it's kind of like a business Thriller almost it's uh Never Enough from Barista to billionaire by andreww Wilkinson oh that's the one you mentioned yeah yeah yeah so it's his journey of literally working as a barista making I think it was like $6 an hour to how he built this company and there's actually a lot of like drama in it like uh right now I'm up to the part with one of his uh business partners um is kind of like uh doing like shady stuff like maxing out the company credit cards going um buying like these expensive dinners and like fancy hotels and he's actually working on spinning out his own company and like stealing clients but Andrew caught him uh so it is kind of although it's like it might seem like a boring Business book it's not it's kind of like a thriller book so you know it it's been enjoyable to read and that's been kind of like my fun book that's great Andrew is awesome um do you have any books that are like that have been on your like nightstand where you're like you keep meaning to read them and you really do want to read them and you're going to get to them next but you never you never get to them yeah what are they um or give me one uh so I started it and I've been enjoying it so the book outlive by Peter AA uh I think it's just because it's like so long and I've read a lot of other like Health books and it kind of always comes down to the same thing it's like you know get your sleep eat eat a lot of fruits and vegetables exercise um and although I am enjoying it it is like you know um it's pretty funny uh when when I first started like reading a lot of books uh I bought the book Bor in peace because I heard it's like a classic so let me go read it and I bought it and I didn't know how like how long it was and then it came in the box and it's Lally it's a thousand pages long door stop yeah and it's it's funny you think like you know I'm a big guy and I'm intimidating by like this book but yeah the bigger the book is kind of like more intimidating to start because every time you look at it it's like all right that book is going to take like 10 hours to finish yeah so that's another like helpful reading tip I tell people is like just you know pick up short books because like they're easier to read easier to finish and help you like build momentum uh so I'm sure I'm going to get through that book it's just you know going to be like one bite at a time yeah totally that's great um let's keep going what um what else uh what else should we talk about what else what else you got on here uh so you know we're talking about like buying books uh so another way you could use AI is to summarize books um to kind of like sample them because you know let's say you're in the bookstore you're not sure if this book has like the lessons you're looking for so you could ask AI as like hey can you write a 500w summary or what can you share the key lessons from this book um to be able to identify if it has like the lessons you're looking for and if it's worth reading yeah no I I I like that like I think um different pieces of content have different attention spans um and um like books are obviously like a very long attention span like format and there's something like really valuable and important about like sinking into an idea and a worldview and like a a writer's brain for like 10 hours or something like that but a lot of books are just like no I actually just want the idea given to me in two seconds you know what I mean um and there are all these companies like blinkist and and and whatever that that do like book summaries and I think like book summaries are sort of like to some degree like derided like people are like oh you got to like read the whole thing blah blah blah but I think it's like actually a very important service to people to like have your ideas in different formats and mediums for different attention spans and different channels um and yeah obviously like you want to direct people eventually to the book and like have people spend a lot of time with it but like it is just the way our brains work that like um that we might not want to spend a lot of time on something we haven't like been convinced to spend time on before and I think it's like really nice that CH PD can summarize things in a form that works for you like the kind of summary you might like it might be a bit different from the summary that I might like or might work best for me and it's just so good at doing that like I I I was doing this like like a day or two ago because I'm trying to learn about this um there's this whole new thing in AI called sparse Auto encoders and like don't ask me to explain it because like I'm still not like fully there but like the basic gist is like it's a method for understanding it's used for a lot of different things but it's used more specifically in like um mechanistic interpret interpretability to like understand what's going on inside of a AI model's brain when it's like outputting tokens um and so you can like it it creates this like literal like cloud of cont of of Concepts and you can see which ones are most active uh when it's producing different types of text which is like amazing it's so cool and I wanted to like write about it CU I've been using some of these um there's one specifically for Claude that I've been I've been using the anthropic put out um and uh and I I want to write about it so I need to learn how spars Auto encod work and like there's some like technical articles online there's like literally a single podcast on Spotify that talks about it and it was like too technical for me um and but I just like literally I just went into chat gbt I was like can you explain this to me and then I went on a walk and I did like the chat gbt voice thing and it's like it's like an it's it's its own podcast like created specifically for me to like learn about this topic and like honestly I think it's I think it's better than any sort of like paper or whatever would have been to to just teach me the basics like it's really good okay that's interesting never thought about that yeah yeah it's yeah I mean AI is moving so quickly it's hard to like keep up with all the stuff that's a really cool feature yeah and it's not even it's like I can't even read a book about it because it's like it's too new you know um so uh so yeah so using it for for that kind of like uh like that learning where it's like I need it I need this information in a format like that's right for my specific context it's like super valuable yeah um yeah what else any anything else you want to talk about before we before we close um yeah so uh this this idea to like help build like a course that teaches people how to become better readers came to mind but I didn't know if like people would be interested in it so I literally put out a Google form with two questions like what's your email and also what's your biggest like reading obstacle and uh for this like simple form I got over 500 responses um and I want to see like how we could use chat gbt to kind of like figure out you know what are people's biggest problems or just kind of like summarize it so that way we know like what people want or what they're interested in I like that okay so I just downloaded the uh the CSV and I'm going to go into my responses and I'm gonna upload okay so what what should I say um I you know I asked people what are their biggest uh what's their biggest reading obstacle can you summarize all the answers and give me the top 10 most common uh I guess problems give me the top 10 most common problems so basically what it's doing right now is it's like using python to like read the um uh read the CSV file and then it's like basically doing a um like a word count to like find the most common words um and then printing them out which I actually don't think we want to do um because it's not going to be like using the sort of like llm brain so like I might just actually just copy and paste this into a new chat um or I think you just cop the C column the C column and I'll just give you I'll just do the C column that's a good idea um cool oops okay what is going on here okay let's just do a new chat okay um let's try this one more nope that's not working okay I'm just gonna do the whole thing okay um I surveyed people about their biggest pain points when reading for a course I'm running can you summarize the top 10 cool here are the top 10 pain points time management and scheduling difficulty finding or making time to read due to busy schedules struggling to fit reading into daily routines retention and recall difficulty remembering or retaining information note taking annotation finding effect effective methods for taking organizing notes focus and concentration maintaining Focus while reading avoiding distractions motivation and consistency staying motivated to read regularly comprehension application understanding and applying Concepts reading speed and efficiency book selection balancing different types of reading and handling overwhelming procrastination what do you think yeah yeah that sounds um about right from what like I was reading the responses i' be CES is it listed in the actual priority like is time management the biggest problem uh listed um in order of priority like is time management the biggest problem okay the list was not ordered by priority but rather by common themes observed in the responses to determine the priority I would need to analyze the frequency of each pain Point mentioned by the survey respondents let's see what it does that that's actually kind of interesting um it might take a little while so uh we'll we'll wait for it to I wonder if it'll actually work wow I didn't know that was a feature where you could to show the code or as it's working yeah so it says always show details I think they try to hide it but like I really like as it's as it's working to show the code because you just never know when it's going to make a mistake and so like having a broad General of like okay this is kind of what it's doing and this seems reasonable or not like helps me decide like am I going to trust the output or not um and usually it's like pretty good but like sometimes it does something boneheaded and you're like that's that doesn't work at all you know this is going to take a while um it's being very very very slow which is sort of interesting slower than normal I I think this is oh here we go um okay this is not actually working so I'm going to um here's what I'm going to do uh is time management the biggest problem um uh just just make your best guess based on what you see here um don't write code I don't want it to write code because um it's going to take too long and I don't think it's it's going to the result is going to be exactly right so based on the frequency and emphasis of the responses the pain points appear to be listed in order priority with time management scheduling being most common so yeah it does it does seem like it thinks time management is is the most common do you think that's that's right yeah I hear from a lot of people like I would read more if I had the time to do it what is your general response to that kind of that kind of person uh so in the in the course I talk about how you either want to focus on a combination or prioritization so like either you want to make Time ahead of other activities you're already doing or combine reading with an existing activity so for example you know if you already work out a lot just listen to an audiobook or if you're spending a lot of time commuting to or from work you know put on an audiobook while you listen to that um or prioritize reading above other activities so like before you put on Netflix you know read for five or 10 minutes or you know you know before you go to sleep uh read a book uh instead of you know grabbing your phone at the end of the night when you see people go from not being readers to being readers like what is what is usually the unlock for them I think that everyone thinks they're not a reader uh but they just haven't found the right book uh because everyone kind of basically enjoys reading books as a kid like because you have like the picture books they're like fun they're light they're easy to read uh then they usually get into like the science fiction or fantasy books like the Harry Potter uh Series of Unfortunate Events or like Captain Underpants something like that uh so they are enjoying reading uh but then what happens is you get to middle middle school or high school where you kind of get to like this classic English error where you kind of forc to read all these boring books like we mentioned earlier it's it's engl it's the book is in English but if you need to like translate it or if you need to go to spark notes to understand it it's not really English uh so being forced to read all of these books kind of um just kills your joy for reading um and then either most people don't read books for the rest of their life or you know hopefully they stumble upon book that kind of catches their eye uh usually it's like Atomic habits or like how to win friends or like one of these self-improvement books that kind of uh make them realize like oh wait there's like so much I could learn from all these books out there you know why why why did I stop reading and it's because like I was forced to read all these books but now I'm free to like read anything and everything I want and I think that's the unlock like once you realize uh you're like you're done with school no one's going to assign you these books you're not being tested on these books know you could read anything you want I think that kind of opens up the world to them that's great I love that and I think that's a perfect place to end love love getting more people to read thank you so much for doing this with me this is a ton of fun yeah it's been a lot of fun thank you for having me Dan oh my gosh folks you absolutely positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to Ai and I why because this show is the epitome of Awesomeness it's like finding a treasure chest in your backyard but instead of gold it's filled with pure unadulterated knowledge bombs about chat GPT every episode is a roller coaster of emotions insights and laughter that will leave you on the edge of your seat craving for more it's not just a show it's a journey into the future with Dan shipper as the captain of the spaceship so do yourself a favor hit like smash subscribe and strap in for the ride of your life and now without any further Ado let me just say Dan I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you