Our New Free Guide “An Introduction to Creative AI”
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Wading into a cold sea of indifference
Image created with Midjourney
Prompt: middle-aged man poised to dive into a cold sea of indifference --ar 16:9 --s 50 --v 6.0
Folks, I am bracing for a tough winter. I live in Southern California so it’s not the weather that’s gonna be tough. It’s my professional life. Here’s where I’m at.
If you don’t believe, why bother?
In the spring of last year, I officially pulled the plug on my old career. The business model for that era was this: make the best videos I could, give them away, money happens. That method worked extremely well for me once, about a decade ago, but it was in terminal decline for a while before I finally let it go.
For the rest of 2023, most of my income was generated by awesome freelance projects for people like Sysdig and Sandwich Video, Generation Genius, Nick Milo and Linking Your Thinking, and Bloomberg Law.
But alongside this work, I was creating impressive growth selling educational products through the Everything is a Remix site. My first little hit was a downloadable guide to writing in ChatGPT. I followed that up by selling pre-orders for an on-demand video course about creating content with ChatGPT. That course is by far the most successful product I’ve ever created.
Even though my educational ventures did well last year, it was still a minority of my income and nowhere near being a livelihood.
My objective this year is this: turn my educational work into a real business. That means it entirely provides for me and my family.
And I don’t have a full year to prove this is viable: I have one quarter. If the metrics aren’t good enough come April, it ends there and I look for in-house opportunities.
One of three futures will arrive come spring.
This attempt fails utterly.
I land somewhere in between and have to make a judgment call.
This works well enough to continue the pursuit.
You won’t hear me say this again, but number 1 is the most likely outcome. That’s the reality for all businesses – they mostly fail.
But I’m putting on the blinders… now. I am going to run at number 3 with all my might, with moronic optimism. If you don’t believe, then why bother? I believe.
Weathering my winter of suck
The product that will decide my fate is Creating Content With ChatGPT and AI 2024. If it can generate the right revenue this quarter, then the journey continues onward into the spring. If not, the path ends there and I move on to something else that is not running my own business.
I am by no means a master of online sales, but I’ve done enough to know this: launches are the easy part.
I have loyal fans and this product had a good launch. But I am now leaving the warm confines of my fandom, you guys, the people who know me and like me and trust me. This winter I am wading into a cold sea of indifference.
I will be doing sales and marketing all day, every day, for three months straight, weekends included. And I’ll be doing it to people who don’t know how I am and don’t care. Rejection and above all, indifference will be constant. Every day I’ll need to generate momentum and sales.
This winter is gonna be challenging. Here’s what will help me weather it.
I am extremely fortunate to otherwise have an awesome life. I will be grateful for it throughout.
I’m gonna celebrate every little win, every click, every newsletter subscriber, every sale.
Above all, I’m grateful that I get to give my all and try. I’m prepared, I’m ready, I’m gonna give this everything I’ve got and the chips will fall where they may.
How can I help?
Some of you might be wondering how you can help. Here are a few ideas.
Buy the course (you can still save $50!)
Share the course on social media
Talk to your company or organization about taking the course or bringing me in for instruction, either on-location or virtual.
Every little thing you can do to help spread the word means a lot to me, folks.
Lastly, if you’re still not sure if you think the course is for you, check out this free chapter which I’m sharing with you guys first, My Journey With ChatGPT.
My Journey With ChatGPT
This is a free chapter from my new course, Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024.
To see the whole course, click the link above!
Transcript
I'd like to tell you about my journey with ChatGPT.
When I first saw generative AI — so text generators like GPT as well as image generators like Dall-e, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney. When I saw these and tried them I had two contradictory feelings.
Firstly, I was blown away that software could do this. Floored. The most stunned I've been by technology. This software was doing stuff I thought only people could do.
Secondly, for doing actual work, it seemed more awesome than useful. I didn't know really what to do with any of this stuff. I used programs like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro early. After you tried those, there was no confusion about what you would do with this software. You would do your work, just better and faster.
AI seemed awesome and historic, but it didn't click for me, I didn't really get what to do with it.
Anyway, I started using it for kind of minor, support tasks. It was saving me some time, but nothing amazing. But unexpectedly, it grew from there, I kept coming back to AI, in particular to ChatGPT, that became the big one. Image generation, which I will cover in this course, I still think is not yet that useful – at least for me right now.
Why did ChatGPT's role in my work expand?
One of the main reasons was I found ways to work around its limitations, which spotted very quickly when I started using it.
But also I found new ways to use it.
In particular, I made seven discoveries. I found seven incredibly useful things that ChatGPT does. Any one of these justifies using ChatGPT. But there are seven of them. I mean, this software is a big deal. The hype is excessive, but I think those people are closer to being right than the people who are dismissive of this technology.
These seven discoveries I have dubbed The Magnificent Seven. And they are the foundation of this course. There is of course, even more than that here, but these are the game-changers.
So if ChatGPT didn't click for you in the past, for doing real work, you didn't get it, you were like what I do with this B-minus grade text, I'm gonna show you what to do with it.
That was my journey with AI. I went from impressed but not a user, to an impressed user. This journey is still ongoing. It continues to grow for me and AI continues to get better and better and integrated into more and more different kinds of software. Everything is gonna have AI features. I mean it, everything. So it is high time to get on this train, it's still early. We're just getting rolling now.
Up next, I'm going to reveal The Magnificent Seven, the seven AI discoveries I made that changed the game for me.
I present them in ascending order, we're starting at the bottom, each of these is a bigger deal than the last.
The first video is an overview, the second is a walkthrough where I show you how to do real work.
Let's get to it.
Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024 is an on-demand video course about crafting content with ChatGPT and AI. Whether you’re a “content creator” or someone who needs to create content as part of your job, this course will dramatically raise your AI game… fast.
New Year’s Resolutions Work. Let’s Make Some.
Image created with Midjourney and Runway
My new ChatGPT course is live! I’m very proud of it and I think it’ll make a dent in your life. See the end of this article for a special launch promo.
New Year’s resolutions are a tradition with a bit of a bad rep. Sure, most resolutions will fail. Almost all attempts at making change in your life will ultimately fail. You exercise for a while, your enthusiasm fades, your workout sessions taper off, and before long you’re back where you were. You revert to our old ways – and you may find yourself demoralized and ashamed to boot.
Of course, if you keep trying, you will eventually break through. This is a certainty. Every major change I’ve made in my life was preceded by a string of failures. I tried to clean up my diet dozens of times before the change held.
Certain moments, though, give you better odds of creating change that sticks. When you get a clean slate in your life, a reset, it’s a bit easier to change your ways and keep it going. For example, when you move or start a new job or begin a new relationship.
Every year we get a new clean slate at the start of the year. And the changes we make at times like this are a little more likely to stick because we feel less weighed down by our past.
Change is hard and it mostly doesn’t work (unless you never stop trying). But the start of a new year provides an unusually good opportunity to pull it off.
Convinced? Alright, let’s make some resolutions!
Step 1: Give this year a theme
Your theme is your mission for the year, it’s the adventure you’re about to embark on.
For me, 2024 is My Best Year Ever. The main focus is my business. I worked all of 2023 creating the groundwork to build a proper business and livelihood. I’ve now got a superb product, a strong market, and loads of ideas and tactics for marketing and sales. I intend to rock the shit out of this year.
In 2023, I created 2X growth in this business in just six months of focus. This year I want 10X.
This could be your year of simplicity, creativity, giving, health, balance, or any realm you want to improve. (Not every resolution needs to fit the theme, but the most important ones should.) Your theme is what will give your resolutions meaning and purpose.
Step 2: Make some resolutions (not too many)
Now make some resolutions! Reflect on the year past. What went well and what didn’t? What are the areas of your life where you’d like to see improvement? What are some exciting and somewhat risky goals you can make?
Remember: a resolution is an activity, not a goal. My 10X business goal for this year is not a resolution. The resolutions are what will help me achieve that goal. “Lose 10 pounds” is a goal. “No snacking after 7pm” is a resolution.
How many should you make? Certainly no more than ten. If you want to keep things simple, three is always a good number. And if you’ve just got a single thing on your mind, one is just great.
I’ve made a few resolutions for my business and a few for my personal life.
Step 3: Write 'em down and put 'em everywhere
Write down the theme for the year and your resolutions and read them every day. Stick post-it notes everywhere, make them a daily item on your to-do list, write them down each day in your journal, whatever. Occasionally relocate them to someplace fresh.
Celebrate the little wins along the way. Get support from friends and family and be your own biggest cheerleader.
2024 is the year to start using AI
Conveniently enough, I have a recommendation for what one of those resolutions should be. This is the year to learn ChatGPT and AI. You should integrate AI into your work life this year, especially if creating content is part — or all — of your job.
And guess who should teach you? Yep, yours truly!
Learning ChatGPT can do any or all of these:
Raise your content creation game
Help you get more done in the same time
Allow you to work less
I achieved the first two of these while creating this course. The course is a bit better than it would have been without AI, and I created over 2 hours of high-quality content in just 2.5 months of part-time-ish work. Most excitingly, I released it on schedule, on Christmas day. Anybody who knows my history knows launching things on time has never exactly been my superpower.
After just the couple hours it takes to watch this course, plus your own practice, you will be good at working with ChatGPT. (For anyone thinking you can binge random YouTube videos and get the same result, sorry, you definitely won’t.)
Get Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024 now.
The regular price will be $199, but the launch price is just $149. And you can save an additional $25 by using this code at checkout: BESTYEAREVER
That code expires end-of-day this Friday (January 5th).
My new course about ChatGPT and AI
I am thrilled to announce my new course, Create Content With AI and ChatGPT 2024, is live!
This is the soft launch phase for this product. The site and supporting materials are still being developed. For instance, the name of the course might change. Or you may find some little glitches and mistakes, but they’ll be getting fixed over the next couple weeks.
50 free book summaries on Blinkist
I have a playlist of 50 awesome book summaries on Blinkist, and they’re totally free. They’re mostly about personal improvement, productivity, creativity, and business. Complete list below.
The Female Brain - Louann Brizendine
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
Expert Secrets - Russell Brunson
Traffic Secrets - Russell Brunson
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding - Al Ries and Laura Ries
Design for How People Learn - Julie Dirksen
How We Learn - Benedict Carey
Testing Business Ideas - David J. Bland and Alexander Osterwalder
Daring Greatly - Brené Brown
Burn the Boats - Matt Higgins
From Strength to Strength - Arthur C. Brooks
Hyperfocus - Chris Bailey
ReWork - Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
$100M Offers - Alex Hormozi
Focus - Daniel Goleman
Life in Five Senses - Gretchen Rubin
How Minds Change- David McRaney
Discipline Is Destiny - Ryan Holiday
Think Again - Adam Grant
Chatter - Ethan Kross
Where Good Ideas Come From - Steven Johnson
Messy - Tim Harford
Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows
Nonviolent Communication - Marshall B. Rosenberg
Mindfulness - Mark Williams and Danny Penman
Wherever You Go, There You Are - Jon Kabat-Zinn
Full Catastrophe Living - Jon Kabat-Zinn
Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Building a Second Brain - Tiago Forte
The Willpower Instinct - Kelly McGonigal
Indistractable - Nir Eyal
How to Grow Your Small Business - Donald Miller
Atomic Habits - James Clear
The Male Brain - Louann Brizendine
How to Raise a Wild Child - Scott D. Sampson
The Myth of Normal - Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté
The Extended Mind - Annie Murphy Paul
Effortless - Greg McKeown
How to Begin - Michael Bungay Stanier
Building a StoryBrand - Donald Miller
Late Bloomers - Rich Karlgaard
Ultralearning - Scott H. Young
The 1-Page Marketing Plan - Allan Dib
Life Is in the Transitions - Bruce Feiler
This Is Marketing - Seth Godin
Hooked - Nir Eyal
Hacking Growth - Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
Make Time - Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Build - Tony Fadell
Exactly What to Say - Phil M Jones
How to Reverse Aging. For a Bit.
In my mid-thirties, I got really into an intense, aerobic form of yoga called Ashtanga. The tougher the instructor, the more I liked it. I’d be sliding around the mat in a sweat puddle just midway through class. I lost weight, gained muscle, felt great.
One day, I ran into a friend I only saw occasionally. She said, “You look younger every time I see you!” Even better, I felt younger.
As positive as these changes were for me, that lifestyle didn’t stick. I’d get on track for a few chapters, but then I’d revert to my old ways.
I've been overweight most of my life. It’s the kind of minor heaviness that basically everyone has nowadays. I'm always strong and sometimes in good athletic shape, but I generally carry around an extra 10 or 20 pounds of fat.
A couple of years ago, I thought I’d finally fixed the issue once and for all. I ended bad habits, started good ones, and reached a healthy weight. Then we had a baby and that went straight out the window. Life became so impossible that I couldn’t cope with not drinking Coke on top of it all.
Folks, I think I’ve finally fixed this, and I think it will hold. Here’s what happened.
Creating the game
In spring of this year, parenting life became more manageable, and my willpower returned. I dropped from 210 pounds to 200 quickly and easily. All I did was moderately improve my diet and exercise.
Then I plateaued for months. Partially, it was because it was summer, and I wanted to have good times with my family. But it was also because a higher level of discipline is required for me to get below 200 pounds.
I needed to change the game—or rather, create a game. I devised a little challenge for myself. I intentionally chose an aggressive goal. I’ll explain why in a bit.
The goal: lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks. That’s 2 pounds per week, which is the maximum considered healthy. The goal was a weight of 190.5.
I set the following rules targeting my worst habits.
No eating whatsoever after 8 p.m
No burgers and fries
No chocolate, cookies, cake, or ice cream
No cola
No lunchtime pizza
Underlying this were some additional informal rules. I would eat healthy and increase my exercise.
Here’s what happened each week.
Week 1
Week 1 was a breeze. I exceeded the weekly goal and lost 2.5 pounds. At this rate, I’ll be done a week early!
Week 2
Yeah, that didn’t happen. Getting the numbers to drop got tough. I also got a cold, so I couldn’t exercise much. I only lost one pound.
Week 3
Week 3 is when shit got real. I got lodged at 195 pounds. Nonetheless, progress was evident. It was just slower and harder. Then, I traveled to a video shoot in San Francisco for a few days. Despite eating well, those days didn’t burn many calories. I came back about a pound-and-a-half heavier.
Week 4
I was slowly losing weight this week but still stuck at 195, the same weight from two weeks ago. Nonetheless, I noticed my appetite feeling lower and my midsection feeling tighter.
Week 5
In the final week, I break through and drop overnight to 193.5.
Final weigh-in!
The goal was 190.5. I got to 193.5, 3 pounds shy of my goal. That’s 7 pounds lost in five weeks. My goal was 2 pounds per week; I got 1.4 pounds.
Even though I missed my goal, this is a huge success. Not only did I shed 7 pounds in five weeks, that weight puts my BMI within the healthy range. At the very top of that range, but still in range.
It’s now been a month since I completed this challenge. I’ve kept up my good habits. There have been some food indulgences, but they’ve been moderated. I still haven’t reached my original target weight—and I’m not even sure I will! The goal now is to continue to lose fat, but I also want to gain some muscle, so who knows what my weight will be. The scale might not be my primary metric going forward.
What I learned
Set the bar too high. Making the goal harder is more fun. If you pull it off, it’s a huge win. If you fail, you still win as long as you make some progress. My goal was just a round number, a direction to head. After the first couple of weeks, I knew I wouldn’t make it, and the challenge became to see how close I could get.
Don’t consider the challenge a permanent commitment. All you have to do is five weeks or whatever schedule you set. If five weeks feels impossible, do one week. After that, you’re free to do what you want. But I bet once you get to that point, you won’t want to lose your progress.
Keep the time frame short-ish, like six weeks or less. It’s easier to stay motivated. If you can’t reach your goal that quickly, break it up into a series of challenges, with good breaks in between.
Weigh yourself every day. In the past, anytime my weight has gotten well out of range, I’ve stopped getting on the scale. No news is good news, right? If you know you’re gaining and gaining, you’ll do something about it.
Lifestyle goals are fun! It makes ordinary little choices challenging and rewarding. For most of us, the only goals we regularly have are projects, primarily for work. Lifestyle goals are less life-and-death than work goals. If you don’t hit your work goal, that could be a severe problem. Lifestyle goals are lower stakes. And when you fail, you can just regroup and try again. If you keep trying, you will succeed.
I got what I really wanted
I don't know if I look younger, but I'm entirely certain I feel younger. I'm lighter, bouncier, and have more energy. I take steps two at a time. Not having that extra weight jiggling around my midsection feels great. And I can now do a proper finger-roll layup in basketball. I couldn’t elevate enough to do that just a few months ago.
Minor health issues have vanished or improved. Knee aches are gone. Backaches, worsened by parental lifting, are markedly better. I have a skin condition called rosacea. It's improved, and a related condition, a form of eyelid inflammation called Blepharitis, has disappeared. Most of what’s going on in these cases is inflammation. I wonder what unseen inflammation has also lessened.
My mental focus has improved, though that may be because of other recent changes. I’m also less irritable, probably because my blood sugar is more level.
But here’s what I really wanted from all this.
High blood pressure and high cholesterol increase your heart attack or stroke risk. I’ve only had normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels when I have weighed less. Before this challenge, my blood pressure was markedly high. Now, it’s only slightly high—or maybe not high at all, depending on which country’s guidelines you subscribe to. I just got a physical, and I’ll know my cholesterol soon. There’s no doubt that it’ll be better.
Of course, I did this for myself, but above all, I did it because I don’t want to be debilitated in old age because of my choices. I don’t want to be compromised in my golden years because Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup was just so delicious. I want to be healthy for Nora and Little Kirby, as well as for myself.
This is a permanent change. There will be some lapses in the future. Life will get in the way. But I’ll get back on track.
Ripple effects
Just as importantly, this little health challenge has had ripple effects beyond my health. It’s given me a feeling of effectiveness and competence during this fumbling chapter of my life. Getting wins, even when they seem unrelated, helps you gain momentum. I chose a goal, had success, and that inspired me to try new goals.
Reader, create a lifestyle goal for yourself. They’re fun and rewarding. It doesn’t have to be about weight or health. Want to read more books? Get more chores done? Make more memories with your loved ones? Give yourself a challenge. I guarantee you won’t regret it.
P.S. Here are the books that inspired me to get into lifestyle goals.
P.S.S. I’ve got an awesome new morning coffee recipe. Try it!
My morning coffee recipe
Photo by Nathan Dumlao, Unsplash
I’m not one for sharing recipes because I’m not very good at cooking or making drinks. But I’ve stumbled onto a morning coffee recipe that I think is delicious. I’m not a coffee nerd, and there’s nothing fancy going on here. It’s a version of Bulletproof Coffee, which accounts for the butter and oil. It also contains LMNT, a salt supplement that I love in coffee. There’s no sugar and no cream!
Not only is this delicious, it provides nice, even energy for the morning and it’s even a bit filling.
Ingredients
16 ounces Four Sigmatic Coffee (or whatever you choose)
.5 tbsp MCT Oil
.5 tbsp Unsalted butter, like Kerrygold
LMNT Chocolate Salt Electrolyte Supplement
Directions
Brew up 16 ounces of coffee. I drink it in a big travel mug. I drink Four Sigmatic coffee, like every other tech douchebag. They’re right—it’s delicious! I buy it pre-ground cuz I can’t tell the difference when I grind beans myself. Again, not a coffee nerd!
Add about .5 tablespoon MCT Oil
Add about .5 tablespoon unsalted butter. Kerrygold is good for this.
Add half a packet of LMNT Chocolate Salt. If you like it salty, a whole pack is great too.
Froth for about 10 seconds. (I use this frother.)
That’s it, enjoy!
A few books that have inspired me lately
This list is related to a recent Midlife Remix mailing. If you’re not subscribed to that, you can do so here.
Here’s the books that inspired my recent “10 pounds in 5 weeks” challenge.
Outlive, Peter Attia
Ultralearning, Scott Young
Atomic Habits, James Clear (thanks Jordan!)
Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, Walter Willett
The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, America's Test Kitchen
A couple of these books come with Kindle Unlimited, which used to be a junkheap, but now has many good books.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Get our free guide, Finish It Now
You have that one project, don't you? The one that haunts you, the one you believe could be truly great. But life's responsibilities keep getting in the way, and it's been sitting on your hard drive for… too long.
You have that one project, right? The one that haunts you, the one you believe could be really good. But life's responsibilities keep getting in the way, and it's been sitting on your hard drive for… too long.
I’ve got a new free guide, Finish It Now, that can help you complete that languishing project in just six weeks of evenings and weekends. Whether it's writing a screenplay, recording an album, creating a game demo, or building a website, you can do it, and you will do it.
I’ll show you how to:
Get Your Head Right
Make the Plan
Carve Your Schedule into Granite
Reconnect, Reevaluate, and Reimagine
Sign up for the Everything is a Remix mailing list and get it for free!
When should you use ChatGPT in your writing? And how much should you use it?
What are the writing tasks that ChatGPT excels at? What are the tasks it’s weak at? And how much can you use it for each?
There are plenty of writing tasks where ChatGPT can save you precious time. But there are also plenty of writing tasks where it can cost you time. It’ll take longer to rewrite and edit ChatGPT’s outputs than just writing the piece yourself.
What are the writing tasks that ChatGPT excels at? What are the tasks it’s weak at? And how much can you use it for each?
The Three Tiers of Writing
What is your writing task? Place that task in one of these three tiers: low-level, mid-level, and high-level. I’ll explain each.
LOW-LEVEL
This is writing that just needs to do its job. It doesn’t need to withstand much scrutiny from the reader because it will get skimmed. Whether it’s “good” or “bad” is determined by whether or not it did its job. You’re not composing beautiful prose here. Some examples: most social media posts, FAQs, terms of service for your site, or summaries of existing text.
MID-LEVEL
This is quality content that should engage your audience more, but it’s not the best you can do. This is valuable content, but it’s not headline material. It’s your content for this week, and you’ll need more next week. You’re probably not going to promote this content for months. Some examples: an article or blog post, a social media thread, or a landing page.
HIGH-LEVEL
This is the best writing you can do. These are big ideas and big swings. This content requires excellent writing and storytelling. It might demand research, analysis, or creativity. You’ll continue to promote or sell this content for months or years. This is your prestige stuff, the centerpiece of your written work. Some examples: a book, video, presentation, product copy, or important articles.
Get the idea? Choose the tier for your task. Is it low-level, mid-level, or high-level?
How much can you use ChatGPT?
The tier you just chose is ChatGPT’s grade for that level of writing. In other words, ChatGPT is excellent at A Tier, good at B Tier, and decent at C Tier. You’ll use ChatGPT less the lower the tier you place it in.
With A Tier, you can use plenty of what ChatGPT gives you verbatim. (But as always, be sure to proof those outputs and edit them.)
With B Tier, ChatGPT will primarily give you raw material that you’ll rewrite. It’ll also give you some usable text.
With C Tier, ChatGPT becomes a support player, a bit like a combination of Google and a human copy editor. ChatGPT can give you information and edit your writing, but most of the work gets done by you. This is ChatGPT at its least revolutionary.
Beware of C Tier
C Tier is where ChatGPT can waste your time. You can end up typing endless prompts as you search for decent outputs or entirely rewriting and rethinking what ChatGPT gives you.
To determine if your task belongs in C Tier, ask yourself the following three questions. If the answer is “yes” to any of them, it is.
Is this a long piece of writing? (Even over a few hundred words is long.)
Is this a complex piece of writing? (Does it have a narrative? Does it have a personal perspective? Is it intended to evoke emotion?)
Is this a very important piece of writing? (Is it very important to you, your audience, or your business?)
Again, ask yourself: is this long, complex or very important?
An important note: ChatGPT is still very useful for supporting C Tier writing.
You need lots of low- and mid-level writing to market and publicize your premiere content. It’ll need social media posts, articles, product pages, summaries, etc. ChatGPT can help you do a lot of that work quickly.
Some of you might be wondering why you should use ChatGPT less and less as the writing task becomes more and more important. It’s simple: ChatGPT writes mediocre text that tends to be bland. In small doses, this works just fine. The text will be repetitive, rambling, and dull in larger doses. If you use ChatGPT where it’s not suited, you’ll just post text nobody will read.
The quality of ChatGPT’s writing might change, but that’s where we are now.
The Take-Away
ChatGPT can do most of the work for low-level writing, a good amount for mid-level, and valuable support work for high-level. You’ll use ChatGPT less frequently the higher you rank your project in these tiers. But for most of you, C Tier writing is a minority of your day, so there are a lot of tasks where ChatGPT can save you some time and spare you some tedium.
As always, be sure to verify any fact ChatGPT gives you. You’re responsible for what you publish, not ChatGPT.
This Week Only, Save 30% on Write Now With ChatGPT.
To learn more about how to write with ChatGPT, check out my toolkit, Write Now With ChatGPT. Use the discount code GPT30OFFOCT and save 30%! (Offer expires October 9th.)
This lean and efficient guide will show how to get real writing done with ChatGPT. I do actual work, and I show you how I did it. There’s no hype and no BS. Read more about it here.
Copying: Where It All Begins
In school, we’re all told not to copy. It’s plagiarism, it’s wrong, it’s a no-go.
And I agree! When you’re young, you need to have things simplified. But there comes a time when you need to revisit copying and understand its creative power.
Let me show you how copying is an essential part of creativity. I’ll do this in the simplest way possible.
This is not a trick question: what is this?
Did you say, “Duh, it’s a circle?”
Ding ding, correct!
Now let me tweak it just a bit.
What is it now?
Yep, it’s the Moon. Still just a circle, but with a black backdrop and some stars -- which, by the way, are also circles.
This is a super basic example of creating by copying. I copied something, tweaked it, and transformed a grey circle into a moon. It’s not high art, but it is creativity in action.
That’s how you create using copying.
We’ll often interpret what we see differently than others. You might look at that original grey circle and see another possibility. Change two colors and presto, the Sun.
Some might see a ring. Take that sun image, switch that circle to a gold outline, and you’ve got a gold ring.
Some of you might see a flat disc, like a plate.
And some might not see an object at all but a round hole, like a ship’s porthole.
How you perceive is creative. We all spot various possibilities in what we see.
And these things we see then become tools in our creative toolkit. We can use these to solve creative challenges.
Circles, for instance, are the building blocks for all figure drawings, including animals.
How to draw a cat, Illustration by colomio
The comic book legend Jack Kirby used swirls of black circles as backgrounds in his panels, adding extra punch to his art.
Jack Kirby’s famous “Kirby Krackle” dot effect
Inspired by Kirby, the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse used circles throughout to create a portal to the multiverse.
Kirby-inspired dots in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
To be clear, copying by itself isn’t creative. But it’s a vital part of creativity. We take existing things and remix them into new things. We use existing ideas to solve our creative puzzles.
In our next exciting installment, I’ll use pop culture to delve deeper into copying and start to unravel this important issue: when is it wrong to copy?
In the meantime, check out “Everything is a Remix Part 1” and see how all musicians rely on copying.
