To A.I. or not to A.I. – The Practicals

“A dead thing can go with a stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

– G.K. Chesterton

Part II

I wrote about my early iteration of AI use in the last Climb and how it sent some bounds for me creatively and what I was willing to do with it. Today, I’m going to write about the models I use as a company of one to expand my productivity as I grow as a company of one.

Large Language Models (LLMs)

This is the popular commercial line that everyone has been buzzing about. Aside from large industry and defense, a lot of money is going into this space to the race for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), a coveted trophy in the AI wars. Think of it as the internet personified.

Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI, Alphabet are huge players on the scene. It’s like watching a horse race, depending on the week, one pulls ahead of the pack. While I’ve had my hand in the cookie jars, there are two I found that pull ahead and that have been super helpful.

ChatGPT by OpenAI: While many people are still using this program to write emails, review products, and create graphics, the real power of this is unlocked with very specific and detailed prompts for complex tasks – starting with the end in mind.

Here are three highly compelling ways I use Chat.

1. Agent – With this model, you can set it to work alongside you with its own workspace. I give it prompts to work and opens a browser to automate, pausing only to ask questions. I’ve had it work in my CRM, complete coding and SEO projects on my website and blog, navigate and research websites, including my LinkedIn to find my ICPs. It’s like having an active employee to do mind-numbing tasks that frees me up to do more important things. 

2. Personal assistant – Your very own Jarvis. This part has been especially helpful as I build various projects. You have to train Chat in how to talk to you. I prompt it to always tell me what is true, don’t tell me what I want to hear, challenge my assumptions, and provide sources. It knows my DISC and mental capacities, and offers options and workload that complement my strengths and weaknesses.

   • Input is important: You can upload files that teach your Chat how to best serve your mission. My personal assessments, my writings, retreat models, talks, sessions, trainings, formats, business plans, goals, and more are all uploaded to train Chat on how I operate as Righteous. From there, when I ask it to prepare my next retreat format or talk, it already knows the way I prepare – so it tees up my starting spot.

   • Voice Mode: I talk to a robot. It actually helps me to practice articulating outloud with feedback. If I’m giving a talk or practicing my sales work, it’ll give me objections that I need to think on my feet for. A worthy adversary.

   • Projects: There are ways to segment your work into Projects and specialize each with its own rules and purpose. For example, my favorite one is “Righteous Co. Development”, a project where I’ve uploaded my business plans, who I serve (ICPs), important strategic sources I’m learning from, and more to help with important business planning and operations.

   • Social media: It would take me forever to sit and recreate content or draw from my sources. I just don’t have that time. So, I’ve taken the transcripts from the podcast, my book, blog and imported them with the prompts to mine key quotes and lines to share. That alone creates a content funnel rich with opportunity that I then process out to various formats.

3. Research – Deep research on Chat is incredible, but maybe not the best at the moment as Claude from Anthropic has just overtaken the scene… for now.

   1. Talk and session preparation – Low hanging fruit here but when I prepare for a talk, it knows I’m Catholic and provides and sources catechism and Scripture references. I’ve never seen it give me less than what is true in this.

   2. Competitive analysis – I’ve been able to not only find but chart the competitive market for ministry and business where Righteous is engaged. This creates an ongoing assessment of how I operate with data and information that just isn’t readily available out there for where I operate.

   3. Best practices – Here is where your prompts really matter and get the most bang for the buck… Strategy is moving so fast, especially in tech, media, and marketing. Deep research into the top in the scene allows you to not only compile the strategies, but also the who’s-who operating in these spaces that is most effective right now. Not yesterday.

Ok, that’s a lot. But that’s a glimpse.

Grok by xAI: This one has become my junk drawer. Not because it’s garbage, but it does the things I don’t want Chat to mix up. Chat is finely tuned for Righteous Co., other inputs will muddy the water. Grok? Super interesting. Coming from Elon Musk’s world, it doesn’t play games with political correctness. Other projects and fact-checking run through here. Sometimes, I’ll give the same project I ran through Chat, a go through Grok and get a different perspective. Its media production and spreadsheet game is a little better here too.

Media Production

Opus Clips: I’ve always enjoyed doing video production. But it’s time-consuming. Just doing the podcast is a production. I’m hands-on with that. I couldn’t imagine having to mine an hour to two-hour conversation for moments I could strip down to reels and shorts. This program has saved me sooo much time from manual editing as it highlights 100+ options drawn right from my own videos in just one click.

Suno: A recent find, but creates on-brand, royalty-free, and algorithm-friendly music. It’s just a small thing for me, but makes a difference because music captures something.

Video Assortments: Still in development for my needs, but using digital assets will be really important ahead. I’m working on Ray 3, Banana, Supercool, Midjourney to realize some other visions, Righteous and non-Righteous. It’s crazy what these are capable of.

Productivity

Samcart: Samcart is a tool I just started implementing after having an eye on it for sometime. They’re upgrading my payment interface and marketing/web development. They have some powerful AI elements in their systems that help integrate with other operations. Pricey. But pulls somethings together that I can not do myself, and honestly would never be able to.

Evernote: My old workhorse, tried and true, got an upgrade! I’ve been using Evernote forever. Big advocate (but honestly, might be getting edged out…) All of my notes taken in probably 15 years reside here. Weekly Planning Sessions, meetings, event planning, notebooks of learning from classes and webinars, every session I’ve led, client notes, business plans, man. Name it, it’s here and organized. I’ll probably make a book out of this someday.

But.

It just got a new AI model to make this thing even better. I just started scratching the surface of what it can do. But power me up Scotty.

———

So that’s a lot.

And I feel like I’m just glossing over it.

Here is what I’ll do, because there is one thing really worth spending time on, safety and ethics.

As powerful of a tool AI can be in helping you lead, it also has the power to destroy. If you’re familiar with the palantir from Lord of the Rings, kind of like that. Interestingly enough, a big defense AI firm chose the name. Just like the internet, you can use it for good or use it for evil.

Beware.

I think we’ll round this out next time with that in conclusion.

If you need any help creating your dashboard that pulls it all together, just getting acquainted, or just want to talk shop. Let me know! I actually like talking this stuff.

Adam Jarosz is the founder of Righteous Co. and author of “Iron Ore: Journal of a Man” – a company built on faith, formation, and adventure. With over twenty years of experience in ministry and business, Adam leads retreats, coaches men to be the leaders they were called to be, and writes from the trenches of entrepreneurship.

He’s a husband, father of four, and believer in Christ and His Church, the power of grit and grace, and good bourbon. Follow along for insights that challenge, encourage, and call you higher with his newsletter, sign up to get it right in your email box here: The Climb.