He’s Using AI to Optimize His Life - Ep. 53 with Jonny Miller

Jonny Miller uploaded his entire life to ChatGPT to use it as the ultimate AI coach. He created what he calls a Codex Vitae—with core personality traits, values, goals, burnout signals and more to load into ChatGPT. It hyper-customizes his responses, to help him access deep meditation states, create custom supplementation plans, and do deep research on areas of brain and body that he finds interesting. Jonny runs a course on nervous system mastery, hosts a podcast, coaches founders and CEOs, and is building a wellness app—all using AI. As a long-time friend and writer for @every, I was psyched to have Jonny on AI & I to talk about how LLMs are expanding the breadth and depth of what he can do. We get into: Energy as your greatest asset: Jonny’s philosophy around pursuing a non-traditional path—like us at Every—by fiercely protecting his energy and optimizing for “aliveness” instead of higher revenue figures. ChatGPT projects for everything: His use of projects in @ChatGPTapp to organize different areas of his life; for example, he uploads his meditation journal to a Jhana project and asks it for advice when he’s struggling with the practice on a particular day. Deep research in action: How he uses @OpenAI’s deep research to tackle practical questions about moving his family to Costa Rica, hilariously esoteric ones about whether there’s a connection between Pokémon and shamanism, and everything that lies in between. The rise of “centaur” teams: Jonny’s belief that @kevin2kelly’s prediction around “centaurs”—human + AI teams outperforming either human or AI working alone—is becoming our reality. This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI for personal development, coaching, or to build systems that can understand you. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:31 Dan and Jonny’s approach to running non-traditional businesses: 00:02:18 How Jonny uses ChatGPT to deepen his meditation practice: 00:12:04 Jonny uses AI to research a theory of how trauma is stored in our bodies: 00:25:44 Dan’s theory around how AI is changing science: 00:31:28 Jonny’s method to build personalized AI coaches: 00:32:35 How Jonny used OpenAI’s deep research to plan a move to Costa Rica: 00:47:07 Dan is developing an app that can predict his OCD symptoms: 00:52:50 AI makes the idea of a “quantified self” useful: 00:55:42 The future of human-AI coaching teams: 00:58:28 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Jonny Miller: @jonnym1ller The nervous system mastery bootcamp: https://www.nsmastery.com/ His podcast: Curious Humans with Jonny Miller The nervous system regulation mobile app: Stateshift Jonny’s method to build your AI coach: http://BuildyourAIcoach.com More about Jhana: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/20/meditative-states-as-mental-feedback-loops/ Buster Benson’s Codex Vitate: https://2019.busterbenson.com/beliefs/ The pieces Jonny has written for Every: “The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System,” “The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional,” “How to Pay Off Your Emotional Debt,” “The Art and Science of Interoception”

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Shipper?

  One of the things that you've been working on yourself is using AI for coaching.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  What I tried to do was create a template for this thing I call a codex vitae. I basically thought about, okay, what would be the the most important questions that if the AI had access to, it would be able to give me like much, much, much more relevant and personalized responses. So everything from like, what is my ideal weekly calendar? What are some energetic black holes, reactivity triggers, burnout warning signs, decision making principles, biomarkers, biometrics, prior experiment results, really like everything, like as much self knowledge as you have. This is the one that I created for myself, which has like core personality traits. This is the bit that I was gonna scroll to was like decision making principles. To what degree does it really factor this in when I'm asking questions?

• 0:47Speaker 01

  I'd say my experience has generally been that it has, and it's reminded me of some of these at times when it's been super helpful to do so.

• 0:54Dan Shipper?

  I think a way to frame all of this is quantified self is finally useful. Sometimes one little reminder of a specific thing is like enough to just like totally change how you're thinking about something. Nerdy achiever people like us, we've always collected these sort of principles or like mental models or whatever, but you used to have to like remember them.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:15Dan Shipper?

  Which is a huge bummer.

• 1:31Dan Shipper?

  Johnny, welcome to the show.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  It's great to be here, Dan.

• 1:34Dan Shipper?

  Great to have you. So for people who don't know you, we are good, very good, longtime friends. You are the creator of the nervous system mastery course and the host of the curious humans podcast. You're also have been an every writer for a while and just, just an incredibly interesting, fun, smart, helpful human. So I'm excited to have you on the show.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's very kind, man. Yeah, I've been getting so much inspiration from this podcast specifically. And so I'm, yeah, really excited to dive in and see what we explore.

• 2:08Dan Shipper?

  I love that. I can feel it in the, in the, in the notes you sent over. They're, they're very, very detailed.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Giant brain dump. Yeah, sorry for that.

• 2:16Dan Shipper?

  We have a lot to talk about. I think the place that I wanted to start actually is.

• 2:23Dan Shipper?

  Is sort of in, I think there's a lot of overlap in the kind of business that we're building and then sort of AI, how AI starts to fit into that. So the way that I've been talking about every recently is as a multimodal media company. So we do, we publish writing, we publish courses, we publish podcasts, we publish videos and we publish software. And thinking about every as sort of this ecosystem with many different parts where we, you know, we build audience through all the stuff, all the content that we write and sometimes with the software that we make and then we push that audience to the, the related products that we have. And that's how we fund the business and make more, make more great stuff. And I think you're also doing that. It maybe looks a little bit, a

• 3:07Dan Shipper?

  little bit different, but like explain how you're thinking about your own business and, and how AI fits into that.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, totally. I'd love to. So I think this has actually been like a recent conscious shift in my mind in terms of like how I think about the work that I do. So I started out as a kind of founder, went through the startup thing, then shifted into coaching, then my role became more of like teacher and like curriculum designer for nervous system mastery. And now I feel like I almost view my role as like a kind of steward of this emerging ecosystem. And part of that is just because there are so many different projects that I've started, I'm involved with and collaborating in. And they will a kind of like, they will have a central thread, but I really enjoy the, I enjoy bouncing between

• 3:56Speaker 01

  different kind of mediums, different types of projects, some of it's solo, some of it's collaborative. And I've been starting to think more about like, how, how am I like, almost like the conductor of this kind of like orchestra or the gardener, like, like you said, the gardener of the garden, like tending to different seeds and like seeing, you know, where is my attention best needed? And then also, how do these projects, as with every, there's, there's always overlap between some of the, some of the kind of overlapping Venn diagrams. And so it's really fun for me. And obviously, we can get into this, but AI is very supportive, I would say, when you're trying to do like 10 things at once. There's obviously dangers to that as well. And that's something I've been trying to be conscious of in terms of like, what is it that I actually say no to and how do I?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Protect my time and not get too, you know, pulled in in a thousand different directions. But I'd say the last few months, it's felt very generative and it just feels like, I think it's the way that I'm wired is to kind of be this almost like, kind of constantly curious, like aspiring polymath type approach to business building.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And it's fun. Yeah.

• 5:02Dan Shipper?

  Me too. It sounds like that we're just in exactly the same place and I'm kind of curious. How that journey has been for you because you know, we both come from startups and in the traditional startup world, you're not supposed to do things like this. You're supposed to, first of all, you're definitely not supposed to like write or make podcasts or whatever. If you're running a company, you're supposed to be doing real work. Second of all, you like, you, you must focus. You can't be doing five things at once because you can't do any of them well. And I think what's kind of interesting is like for me, yeah, I just like, I want to do 50 things. Like I just love that. That's why I'm very curious. I want to read a lot of stuff. I want to be having and be involved in all these different projects. I get excited about stuff and I go down rabbit holes.

• 5:45Dan Shipper?

  And I think you're, you're pretty similar. And what's interesting to me is, I think that that's just like an archetype of someone who ends up being a good internet writer type person. Is you have all these curiosities and you're sort of this multi, multi talented polymathic type person. And a business where you, you can build up this, this sort of ecosystem is actually like the right kind of business for someone like that. But it's a bit of a struggle to almost allow yourself to do that because typical business advice is you must focus on one thing and do it really well and don't do any creative work while you're doing it.

• 6:27Dan Shipper?

  You have to like manage the team and like raise the money and, and, and whatever. And maybe at the beginning you, you built some of the product, but like, that's only at the beginning. What, what has that journey been like for you and, and just like psychologically?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah. It's a great question. I, I'd say that, I mean,

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Honestly, if I was like optimizing for revenue and money in the short term, that might be a better route. But I think I'm kind of like optimizing for aliveness and trusting that like the more energy I have for this work, the more that that feeds into the things I create and the work that I do and the partnerships that I form. And so I'd say that like some of the struggles that I have is like deciding how and where to spend my time. I think that's probably like the number one thing. And I found that not giving myself too many kind of like hard deadlines has been very helpful because it allows me to move fairly fluidly depending on like where my interests are.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  So I don't know, to give an example, Kate from Every sent me an email the other day being like, hey, would you like to write a guest post about AI coaching? And I was like, yeah, that actually sounds great. I'll just like ditch everything I was doing and just like draft this essay.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  And like, you know, there's a scenario where like, maybe I could have been spending my time on, you know, something else, but that was just what was exciting for me. And so that's what I leant into towards doing. And I think that's how I've been kind of thinking about this ecosystem in terms of like, how is it fueling my aliveness? And then also trusting that kind of tending to these projects. And for me, I'd say, I mean, maybe similar to Every, I have like one big project, which is the nervous system mastery course. That generates, you know, a good chunk of the revenue. But then there's like the state shift app, there's the calm cards project that I'm doing, there's the podcast, there's writing.

• 8:24Dan Shipper?

  Well, tell us what those are, just so for people who are listening, so they get a sense of the breadth of the ecosystem.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. So the nervous system mastery course is a cohort based course, only two a year. So fall and spring. So a lot of spaciousness in between, which I really like the cyclical it of that as well, because it allows me to shift between different modes. There's almost like writing and promotion mode, going on podcasts, then there's teaching mode, then there's reflection mode, then there's just like spaciousness for several months. And then the other kind of, I'd say like ancillary side projects that are bubbing up are the state shift app, which is a kind of.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Kind of nervous system regulation iPhone Android app with some AI features as well.

• 9:03Dan Shipper?

  And you're working on that with Cassius Kiani, who's also in every EIR. So a lot of overlap.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Cassius is great. He's a smart cookie, that guy.

• 9:12Dan Shipper?

  He is, yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  And Calm Cards, which is another collaboration with a company called Holsteep. And that's kind of like a beautiful card deck based on nervous system down regulation practices. This is the podcast, which I've been doing for five, five or six years now, which is kind of like free mentorship, but also where I just get to like have interesting conversations with people that I enjoy spending time with. And then there's in-person retreats, one-on-one coaching that I do sometimes.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Writing for folks like you guys. So those are, and there's also some leadership projects at a very, very early stage. But yeah, those are for sure the main ones.

• 9:50Dan Shipper?

  In your mind, like, how does it all fit together? Or are you, do you feel, when you say it has unifying thread? Like, how do you, how do you think about what that is? And how do you think about communicating it? So other people understand it, if you do, if you do at all?

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the unified thread externally is promoting nervous system literacy. And creating the conditions for aliveness in other people.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  That's probably the central thread. And that, and that looks differently depending on the project as well. But that's, that's the central thread for most of the things that I'm working on.

• 10:29Dan Shipper?

  Okay. And, and how has AI changed how you're able, what you're able to do, or how you're doing what you're doing?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, one thing that comes to mind, I think you said this on a podcast the other day, but like, you felt like AI makes you excited to wake up in the morning because you can just like,

• 10:49Speaker 01

  ask like really interesting questions. And I also paid for Pro and have deep research. So that's just been unbelievably fun to explore. So I'd say like, there's the, I just get to kind of ask questions, you know, maybe 10, 15 times a day, especially when I'm outside and going for a walk. But I'd say more generally, it's, it's definitely allowed me to become a.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  You know, like eighty percent good at all of the, all of the various different hats that I wear. And, and I'm, I'm very conscious that I think my, my like skills or zone of genius is really in like curriculum design, facilitation. I'm probably like a grade B marketer, like I'm not that good. And in terms like business strategy as well, I give myself like B to C. So really using AI and you know, stuff like business admin, taxes, looking for an executive assistant.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  There's, there's so many things that I think it's just like allowed me to do the work of probably like five to six people or more to, to some degree.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  And it's just, yeah, it's, it's just reduced a lot of the friction that I think I would have had for my own ignorance, frankly.

• 12:04Dan Shipper?

  Here's something that I, I just want to see if you're, if you're willing to share is I, I know you're using it for Jhana practice.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 12:11Dan Shipper?

  Totally. I want to see how you're doing that.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I'd love to. Yeah, yeah. Well.

• 12:14Dan Shipper?

  Is it working?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  I'd say, I'd say it is. Yeah. Um, working. Yeah. To, to some degree. What I find is, do you want to explain what Jhanas are for people who might not be?

• 12:22Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, if you're listening to this podcast or watching and you don't know what Jhanas are, please turn it off.

• 12:32Dan Shipper?

  I'm just kidding. Um, they're like, they're like, kind of like the new hot meditation state that, you know, I think a lot of the AI people like Nick Camerata got really into like a couple of years ago. And then it sort of spread to like all the rationalists and like Slate's our codex at a big article about it. But basically the, the idea is,

• 12:55Dan Shipper?

  if, if you learn to direct your attention in such a way that you can attend to

• 13:02Dan Shipper?

  states of pleasure in your body, attention works as a little bit of a feedback loop. And there are ways to reliably attend to things that feel good in your body. So as to create a feedback loop so that it sort of like takes over your whole body and you achieve a Jhana, which. There are different levels of Jhana and different levels of Jhana have are different feeling states, but it's basically like a state of bliss or joy is the is the first one. And there's all these like new, uh, new meditation companies like this company called Journey, which does Jhana focused retreats. They're like not a traditional lineage. They

• 13:41Dan Shipper?

  just they kind of just like take pragmatically from every teacher that they that they run into and and the idea is, yeah, you can reliably access states of pleasure and joy like on command and they seem to have a pretty high success rate. So I I've honestly thought about going because it seems kind of fun. But but yeah, so that's the that's the the brief introduction to the Jhanas.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Great. Awesome. So um, this context from my side. So I actually just got back from facilitating breathwork at one of the Journey retreats.

• 14:13Dan Shipper?

  Oh, no way. How was it?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  It's amazing. Yeah. I and I did one of their 10 day or week long retreats last summer. And I've been Stephen, one of the founders, has been kind of coaching me as well. So I've been using Stephen's feedback alongside Chat GPT.

• 14:27Dan Shipper?

  And did you get, did you like, did you Jhana? What's your Jhana level?

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually hit it on the first day.

• 14:34Dan Shipper?

  No way.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I've been working on getting, I think the frame that Stephen and I have is like deterministic access to Jhana's one to four within like, within like 30 minutes. That's kind of the goal at the moment. And it's, man, it's honestly that like the difference between a day where I spent like 60 minutes in Jhana for in the morning. It's almost like a reliable indicator for like a nine or 10 out of 10 day. It's like,

• 14:59Dan Shipper?

  Really?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  It's it's really phenomenal.

• 15:02Dan Shipper?

  What was the thing that like, uh, that like unhooked you or got you into it on the first day?

• 15:10Speaker 01

  I guess, I mean, I've done a number, yeah, I've done maybe probably like eight or nine extended meditation retreats before, never Jhana specific, but I've got a fair amount of practice under my belt. And I was just really motivated, honestly. I was like, this sounds amazing. I just like dove in like full steam ahead and it is frankly, I think it's like, it feels like one of the most meaningful ways that I can spend my time.

• 15:34Dan Shipper?

  That's great. That's great. So yeah, tell us about, what is this document? What are we looking at? And for people who are listening, basically he's got to open a Word document that says Jhana Exploration Log. So I guess it's just a journal.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is essentially a journal and one of the ways that I appreciate the way that they teach Jhana practice is like designing your own experiments. So instead of kind of just following a guided practice, you're more of like constantly trying things, trying different frames or moving your awareness in different directions or like, I don't know, some of the prompts are like, can I do this at a hundredth of the effort? Or one that I was applying was like, like saying, I don't know, or like feeling into the humidity, the humidity of whatever arises. And then I've basically been keeping a journal and this document I just export as a PDF.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  And then I'll upload it to this project. I've generally been using projects in ChatGPT to kind of organize, again, kind of speaking to the ecosystem thing where there's like each project will have a different set of obviously project files and instructions. And so in the case of Jhana Coaching, it has the, the journey instruction booklet that is basically kind of their recommendations for how to practice and then my own experiments and explorations. So, I mean, this morning, this morning was actually a little bit of a like more of a struggle. So I could say like, this morning I.

• 17:09Dan Shipper?

  I don't see, if you're typing into ChatGPT, I don't see, I don't see that.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry about that. Yeah, let me just, so yeah, so instructions relatively short here. I appreciate Robert Bayer's framing as well. So I was like, please share in the style of Robert Bayer.

• 17:24Dan Shipper?

  So it says, basically, you have you're open, you have a, you have a project in ChatGPT, a Jhana coaching project. It has custom instructions. And it's basically asking you to like, reflect back what you hear. And then it also has files. So your log and then the journey, basically manual.

• 17:45Dan Shipper?

  And so what you're saying is you're typing into your Jhana coaching project. This morning, I attempted to drop into Jhana, but I felt like I was distracted.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And couldn't access J1.

• 17:58Dan Shipper?

  What and couldn't access J1.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Advice do you have for me to try again later?

• 18:07Dan Shipper?

  So this morning, I attempted to drop into Jhana, but felt like I was distracted and couldn't access J1. What advice do you have for me to try again later? And basically, and this is with GPT-45, it's going to search through all your, all your notes, the guide, all that kind of stuff. And it's saying, it sounds like this morning's attempt to drop into J1 felt elusive because distraction was quite present. And you and pulled you away from the entry point you were seeking. This is perfectly natural. Such experiences are simply part of this subtle practice. One thing Robert Bay might gently suggest is to start by recognizing what your experience this morning, that your experience this morning is not a failure or setback. How were you relating to these distractions? Was there subtle resistance, et cetera, et cetera?

• 18:50Dan Shipper?

  Remembering from the journey instructions booklet that meditation doesn't require a forcing kind of concentration, but rather something closer to gently resting in an easeful openness. I really like that, like sunbathing on a warm day.

• 19:02Dan Shipper?

  Reflecting on your notes, a few guiding points arise. Approach your next sit with curiosity. Effort and ease, as you noted, the aim isn't to force entry into J1. Springboard practice reminder.

• 19:14Dan Shipper?

  Okay, so this is, this is good. What like, what do you think? And how does this compare like to working with a teacher or doing it on your own? Or yeah, how does this make you feel?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yes, I, I think particularly the, the prompt around relaxing expectations. I think one of my biggest barriers is almost like trying to force my way there, or like having like a really strong expectation to get into that state, which is actually like one of the main things that blocks me.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  So I think like just being reminded of that on a fairly regular basis is very helpful.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I thought that the Yeah, kind of the recommendation for like, starting from humility as kind of a ringboard practice is often also like a really nice reflection. And sometimes, I didn't think this was the case this morning, but sometimes there'll be like, an emotion that I'm not feeling or not, or maybe not even aware of that is like blocking, like Stephen calls it like being Jhana blocked. And it's essentially just a cue that like, there's something, some emotion in your system that is like looking to be felt. And so starting with like humility or like, I'm sorry, can also be a nice way in as well.

• 20:24Dan Shipper?

  What do you think the I'm sorry is about? Who, what are you, who are you apologizing to?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  So it's, um, the I'm sorry is they have like a forgiveness meditation practice. That's, um, I kind of view it through the lens of internal family systems. So, you know, sometimes there might be a part that was felt rejected, or maybe something happened yesterday that's, it felt a sense of shame, things like that. And so just by, um, doesn't have to be, I'm sorry, but like, uh, kind of bringing a sense of like loving warmth towards it. Um, is generally really good for inviting it back in and then it will stop resisting. And that will allow the like Jhana juice to flow again, so to speak.

• 21:06Dan Shipper?

  Very cool. And, and so this is, this is how you use it basically is you're, you go in and you talk to it. Is this like every day or what's the usage pattern?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, I, I've typically been, so I, I've been trying to kind of do small journaling after the practices in the morning. And then I'll add it to the Google Doc and then usually on the weekends, on Saturday or Sunday, I'll re-upload the PDF document to this as like an updated version and then get like more meta reflections of like, okay, how do I want to approach the practice? Next week. And yeah, it's been, I'd say there were like a couple of, there was a breakthrough, I'd say like, a week, a week ago, 10 days ago, maybe that, um, like reinvigorated my excitement for it as well.

• 21:48Dan Shipper?

  Wow. What was it?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  It was, it was being able to like spend probably like an hour and a half in the fourth Jhana state.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  But like, it almost, it almost feels like a kind of altered state of consciousness in a way that the other three don't. And it was the first time I'd had that since the retreat in the summer. And it was just like, like, wow, it felt like, uh, what's, what's the best way to put it?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Almost that I had like so much clarity over almost any area of my life and I could have like dropped in an area and I would have just had like perfect clarity around like whatever that was and combined with just a sense of a lot of ease and just like deep sense of well being as well.

• 22:37Dan Shipper?

  Interesting. And did chat GPT figure into that breakthrough at all?

• 22:42Speaker 01

  So I, I think I've been, so I've been working with Stephen and chat GPT for maybe three weeks. So I think the combination of the two.

• 22:49Dan Shipper?

  Who's better?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  I mean, chat GPT is definitely more available.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  And, and I think what I liked about it as well is it's there like right after the session to and so, so a way that I've like more generally been using chat GPT is mornings, I'll kind of do computer work, calls and things. And then I'll take our dog for a walk in the afternoon. And while I'm going for a walk, I'll just be kind of like voice recording memos into chat GPT. And Jana practice is like one of the things that I'll talk about.

• 23:25Dan Shipper?

  Interesting. And so it's not advanced voice mode. It's like you're pressing the record button in chat GPT.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 23:33Dan Shipper?

  And how, cause I used to do that, but then it used to, it used to crash if you went for too long. And now I could, I've been able to do like two or three minutes without it crashing, which has been good. And, but I don't know how long it goes. Like, how long do you typically record into it?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  I typically won't do like super long recordings. So I'll do maybe, um, yeah, maybe like max two minutes and then, cause you can see the text and then I'll just like maybe tweak the text if I said something wrong, if it didn't get something, but usually it's amazingly good at transcribing. And then get a response and then send another one and get a response and send another one. And then maybe summarize at the end for like, like takeaways of things. But that's been, it's just been really fun. And I can do it like when I'm in the sunshine, I'm like in the park. And that's also when I think some of the, the more important ideas and reflections come through as well, whether it's related to Jana, business, personal, you know, whatever's, whatever's going on.

• 24:24Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, I love being able to like think on the move. And think, and just generally like think not at a desk. Like one of the things I've been doing recently is, um, in the new iOS, it's like really easy to.

• 24:37Dan Shipper?

  Make a note and then record a voice note into note and then it has it will transcribe it automatically and then you can just press copy and paste the transcription into chat GPT. So in the morning, I just like lay on my couch and just like free associate for like a couple of minutes. And then I just like throw it into chat GPT and and that's that's another nice way to do. And I like that, too, because it means the text is like in Apple Notes. So like, I can get it in other circumstances, you know?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, I tend to I've been trying to kind of organize because for a while I just use chats in chat GPT and it almost became like too confusing. So I've really found that separating out different projects and specifically like for the different projects in the ecosystem for nervous system mastery, but then also like it was like one for personal reflection and there's one for like a research project that I'm involved with around latches. There's a we're moving to Costa Rica in the summer. So that's like

• 25:36Dan Shipper?

  What's latch? What are the latches?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Latches are, have you heard of a guy called Mike Johnson?

• 25:42Dan Shipper?

  Maybe it's a pretty common name. There are a couple of Mike Johnsons.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  He's also adjacent to the Jana community, but basically he has a fascinating theory around that's building on predictive processing. It's called VASO computation. And the TLDR of his theory is that he thinks he's found the biological mechanism for how trauma is stored in the body. And so but this hasn't been tested like it's still very much a theory and a thesis. And so I was using I can maybe share the screen again here to give like a specific example. But so let's say, yeah, Operation Latch Hunting. So basically.

• 26:22Dan Shipper?

  For people who are listening, he has a chat GPT project called Operation Latch Latch Hunting.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:28Dan Shipper?

  And the first, the first chat is VASO computation ultrasound testing. What does that mean?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  So so the the TLDR of the theory is a biological mechanism of how trauma is stored in the body. And Mike's theory is that it's stored in the smooth muscle tissue using the latch mechanism. And that, you know, when someone does breathwork or a psychedelic journey or has an emotional cathartic moment, these latches will kind of open and release.

• 26:56Dan Shipper?

  What's a latch?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  So the latch is how the smooth muscle tissue will kind of like tense and contract. And like store or buffer the emotional experience for the future, which creates a buildup of tension in the body.

• 27:10Dan Shipper?

  I went to a massage therapist the other day because I've been having back problems and she, I laid down and she was like, even your scalp is tense.

• 27:24Dan Shipper?

  So I've probably got some latches to do with.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  In your scalp, yeah, it worked too. But so the exciting thing here was was like, how could we, let's see if I can, I'll just kind of go through some of these threads and see what we can find. But basically, I think this one was about seeing like how much it knows about the latch mechanism and how it works. I was asking questions like, could they last months or years?

• 27:48Dan Shipper?

  Wait, can I just stop you there? So like,

• 27:53Dan Shipper?

  you're saying like, okay, so you have a chat, tell me, stop at one of these. Okay. Can latches, you have a chat with ChatGPT, you're saying could latches last months or years? And then it responds, lol, no. In all lowercase. Latch states are not known to last anywhere near months or years. They can be maintained for extended periods, minutes to hours in some cases, but not on those absurdly long time scales. Like,

• 28:18Dan Shipper?

  tell me about the personality that you've given ChatGPT here. Is that is that common to every, all of your projects?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's funny. So when I was doing this, I was using the the Eigenrobot's custom instructions. I don't know if you've seen it on Twitter. But it's like all lowercase and it's like, please use zoomer slang and like give me like fun abbreviations and have a sense of humor. And I enjoyed it for, I'd say like, maybe a month or so. And then at some point I was like, this is kind of getting tiring.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  And so I changed it to something that was like more, more myself.

• 28:51Dan Shipper?

  That's very funny.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  But yeah, so that that's, but then going back to like how I've been trying to use it, both trying to get a fellowship funding for my research, but then some of the interesting stuff. So we've been thinking about, okay, how could we?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  How could we use an ultrasound device to actually map these latches and create like a blood flow map in the body, which would essentially be like a map of where where trauma is stored in the body. And so you could do before and after experiments, let's say before a long breath work retreat or before a Jhana retreat or before psychedelic assisted therapy, etc. And so the theory was, and ChatGPT is actually incredibly helpful, maybe not this particular thread, but in giving, giving, see if I can find the thread. Maybe it was this one. Nope. It's probably one of the ones in the chats, but it gave

• 29:53Speaker 01

  us kind of an overview of all the different blood flow mapping technology that was out there. And then kind of gave me a list of companies to reach out to, to see like, hey, could we get get a hand on this unit and actually use it into a into a test. That's cool. I think this was, yeah, so it helped to create this document.

• 30:12Dan Shipper?

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• 30:57Dan Shipper?

  for an exclusive 50% discount on all annual plans. That's jotform.ai/danshipper. In the AI era, the human customer is still king. Create your AI agent today with JotForm and turn every customer interaction into an opportunity to delight with instant thoughtful responses. Okay, so this this latch, this is this latch thing is very interesting. I really want to know, like, if it, if you do an experiment with it and how it turns out. I've been really into like all the sort of. Okay, I just get on my soapbox for one second.

• 31:31Dan Shipper?

  I think the idea of science being done by non-scientists is gonna be more and more common.

• 31:41Dan Shipper?

  I've been doing a lot of this stuff myself and I think a lot of like all the AI stuff makes the tools of science available much more broadly and changes, I think, what science is. So I really wanna know if this works for you. But I think one of the things that that you've been you have prepared to share or and have been working on yourself is using AI for coaching, which is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. When GPT three first came out and chat GPT first came out, like that was one of the first things I did is start started using it for for therapy and look at look at me now.

• 32:18Dan Shipper?

  And I would love, I would love to know like what what you're doing and and specifically, I think you're building, you're building little bots for yourself and and thinking about how to teach other people how to do that. So tell us about that.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. So I can, I'll just share my screen with this window here. This kind of

• 32:38Speaker 01

  this project kind of emerged from a workshop that I did for the nervous system mastery community. And so this was like originally designed to be for like a nervous system coach, but then I realized it could also apply to many. And I think some of the some of the like, or one of the insights I had from my own experimentation was

• 32:58Speaker 01

  that specifically like the more context that I gave it, the more useful it was. And it seems like most people that have been trying to use it for coaching have been

• 33:09Speaker 01

  give only really giving it context based on either the memories that it has from previous conversations, or just like very basic information about the problem they're having. And so What I tried to do was create a template for this thing I call a Codex Vitae, which is basically like Book of Life from this guy Buster Benson that did this back in the day. And so I basically thought about, okay, what would be the the most important questions that if the AI had access to, it would be able to give me like much, much, much more relevant and personalized responses. So the idea was to basically go through this list. So everything from like, what is my ideal weekly calendar?

• 33:54Speaker 01

  What are some energetic black holes, reactivity triggers, burnout warning signs, decision-making principles, biomarkers, biometrics, prior experiment results, really like everything, like as much self-knowledge as you have available to kind of upload into a document. Now that the the context windows is so large, it almost doesn't seem like that's a bottleneck anymore. And and so I've been kind of obviously experimenting with this for myself. And then I think the other kind of key piece is deciding like what it is you need support with. And so this is the the kind of set of custom instructions that I've been both using for myself and then adapting for some of the coaching clients that I have.

• 34:40Dan Shipper?

  And so basically like, so this is this is a website, right? Where do we find this?

• 34:46Speaker 01

  So this is just, I just host it on Notion, it's build your ai coach.com.

• 34:50Dan Shipper?

  Okay, build your ai coach.com and it's got like

• 34:54Dan Shipper?

  instructions to build, yeah, basically build your your coach. And the first set of instructions is like options for like the custom instructions, the style of communication, all that kind of stuff. And it's saying, you're a world-class coach, your purpose is to provide insightful, wise reflections. You have access to my Codex Vitae, the document and the projects filed, which is what you were talking about before, which is like all the context on your life. And then there's some stuff around the style of communication. Speak with direct honesty, playful reverence and compassionate challenge, ask potent questions. You're iconic but impactful, fewer words, deeper resonance, no wasted sentences. This is really interesting. So are you like, are you saying that this is good for everyone? Or is it just like giving people jumping off points and they can sort of like tweak it depending on what they like?

• 35:38Dan Shipper?

  Like if I like being complimented, then I could say, please compliment me.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So, so this is kind of like, like a base template. And I think there was, um, there was another version where like you can like, if you want to give it a name, you give it a name there. Um, and you can also share like in the context of coaching, some people might have different goals. You know, um, some clients are more focused on like, how do I become a better leader? Others are more focused on how do I work with anxiety? So I think getting clear on what your specific goals are and putting that into the, the context piece. Um, and then there's also a section around reflective practices, which basically give the AI coach permission to, you know, go down some of these different paths. And so that's kind of the setup piece.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  And then kind of going down to, so I, I think also cadence is somewhat interesting to talk about as well. Because what I like about having a human coach is that, you know, we meet once every two weeks. There's a kind of defined time. There's also financial stakes involved as well. So there's like, I show up with a certain amount of energy and enthusiasm. And so I think I like having, I like, I've added like a weekly 45 minute session to my calendar where I just like, used to, to have conversations and play and experiment. And then I've kind of been collecting questions or prompts that I've found useful or that I've heard other people use that have been helpful.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  So these ones are kind of more oriented towards the nervous system work, like what emotions might I be avoiding? Help me do an energy audit, set boundaries, explore a real time trigger, personalized supplementation, template for saying no.

• 37:15Dan Shipper?

  Is the supplementation plan thing, does it work?

• 37:18Speaker 01

  It's it's good, man. Yeah.

• 37:20Dan Shipper?

  Really?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  It's actually surprisingly good. I mean, so I I've been working with a guy called Marek, who's a fantastic functional nutritionist. And I basically compared like what he recommended versus what the chat GPT recommended. It was very similar.

• 37:34Dan Shipper?

  Really?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Diagnosis as well. Yeah, I was I was.

• 37:38Dan Shipper?

  Fascinating.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Really impressed.

• 37:39Dan Shipper?

  And what is what does it need to do good supplementation? Like, I have like, you know, what's that blood thing that Huberman promotes?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Like function or?

• 37:50Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, it's one. It's like one of these things that like they'll send someone to your house and get get lab labs, basically like I have that. Is that enough to do my supplementation plan?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think a basic blood panel. So I did. I'll see if I can find it here, but I did the

• 38:06Speaker 01

  blood work.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  I did superpower, which did the blood work. And then he recommended an organic acids test, which.

• 38:15Dan Shipper?

  Who's who's he? The the?

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Marek, who is my my functional nutritionist. And so and that's, I think this is supplement recommendations. Yeah, here we go. So let me just share this. So I was also specifically looking to improve my fertility because my wife and I are looking to start conceiving. And so this PDF was the organic acids test. It's basically saying like, here's the gist. And then it gives here's the action plan, support mitochondrial function, neurotransmitter, enhance detox pathways.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Next steps.

• 38:51Dan Shipper?

  And that's interesting.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And yeah, checking with Marek, it seemed like it was pretty much on point.

• 38:59Dan Shipper?

  That's really interesting.

• 39:01Dan Shipper?

  And I'm curious, like, for this Codex VTE thing, like, one of my experiences, I do this to you, like, on a probably a smaller scale.

• 39:12Dan Shipper?

  Where when I learn stuff about myself, I'm like, please remember this thing about me. I'm like a people pleaser. So like, make sure that I'm not like doing that or, you know, ask me. I have this this thing that's been really helpful for me, which is when I'm making a decision, ask me what I would do if I didn't feel guilty.

• 39:30Dan Shipper?

  Which I think is very effective for people pleasers, or at least my style. And but I find that it brings it up in situations where it's not necessarily appropriate.

• 39:45Dan Shipper?

  Not not not like it's inappropriate, but but more like it probably doesn't apply. Or like it feels like it's trying to massage. Anything I not anything but like trying to massage more things about what I'm talking to it about. Into this whole like people pleaser thing than I think is appropriate.

• 40:06Dan Shipper?

  And so have you found that? And if so, like what are how do you work around it? Or do you just not find that?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  I am, I haven't found that, but I guess like maybe on a more meta point, when I get a response from chat GPT, I'm more like looking for the nuggets of gold as opposed to like buying everything that it says. And so even if like 80% of it is like on point, then that's somewhat worth it. And so

• 40:32Dan Shipper?

  Even if it's 10%, if it's the right 10%.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Right, exactly, exactly. So to kind of maybe give like a more personal example, like this is the one that I created for myself, which has like core personality traits.

• 40:43Dan Shipper?

  Oh, wow. We got to start from the top. Okay, so core personality traits. And this is a document. This is your codex vitae. Johnny is likely an Enneagram three with seven tendencies. What's a three?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Three is like the like the achiever, I think, is the Enneagram name for it.

• 40:59Dan Shipper?

  And what's a seven?

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Seven is like the adventurer.

• 41:03Dan Shipper?

  Well, that's interesting.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Try a thousand different things.

• 41:06Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I so I used to be a nine, which is see things from all angles. Like the harmonizer, whatever negotiator, can't remember. And but now chat GPT says I'm a four, which is like the.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Loyalist?

• 41:23Dan Shipper?

  It's a creative, like, basically like flighty creative.

• 41:30Dan Shipper?

  With like, it's like a one or a three or something like the achiever, achiever thing, I think, is the, is the wing.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  You think that's the impact of AI on you? Has turned you into like?

• 41:40Dan Shipper?

  Definitely. No, I, I think basically what it is, is it's the impact of over the last like couple of years, I've gotten much better about just being able to like, know what I want in situations involving other people and not like lose track of myself. Um, like it would literally would be very hard for me to even know what I wanted in a lot of like interpersonal situations. Uh, it would just get too stirred up. And I've been much better about like being able to maintain my sense of self. And it turns out when I am able to maintain my sense of self, I like have a lot of very strong creative desires that like shift a lot.

• 42:18Dan Shipper?

  And I've become like sort of a crazy artist, um, which is fine, you know? And, uh, it was always in there. It just like got, it just got swamped by this, this other, um, sensitivity that I have to other people and needs and all that kind of stuff.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 42:35Dan Shipper?

  Yeah. Okay, so Enneagram three or seven tendencies, core values, integrity, courageous, curiosity and aliveness, very nice. Attentions and intentions and goals, preparing for fatherhood. Medita- uh, personal, uh, meditation, reliable access to John and one through eight, creating functional strength, love that. Um, what's foiling?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Oh, it's, um, uh, it's basically surfing with a hydrofoil. So it's like, like, uh, it looks like a magic carpet where it like goes above the water and then.

• 43:03Dan Shipper?

  That's sick. That's like what Mark Zuckerberg was doing, right?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know, maybe.

• 43:11Dan Shipper?

  Never mind.

• 43:15Dan Shipper?

  Okay, business, uh, seventeen hundred total, N S M students, a thousand paid users, three thousand. This is cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have stuff. I have stuff like this. Like I have a notion page that's basically like this.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. So then there's like a kind of ideal day, week architecture that's in there as well. And then this is, this is the bit that I was gonna scroll to was like decision-making principles and I'll try and update this on a. At least like a monthly basis. And this is exactly like the thing you were talking about around the people these tendencies. And sometimes I'll in a chat thread, just like mention something to see if it remembers that I write this and it generally seems to.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  But I guess the question is like, to what degree does it really factor this in when I'm asking questions? But I'd say my experience has generally been that it has, and it's reminded me of some of these at times when it's been super helpful to do so.

• 44:09Dan Shipper?

  I have the same experience, even if it sometimes overdoes it. And that is super helpful. Like sometimes just that, like one little reminder of a specific thing is like enough to just like totally change how you're thinking about about something. And I feel like nerdy achiever people like us, like we've always collected these like sort of principles or like mental models or whatever. But you used to have to like remember them.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Which is a huge bummer.

• 44:41Dan Shipper?

  And now you can, you can, you can be that kind of like pack rat for like interesting little tidbits or decision making principles and chat GPT can remember it for you and you can keep the ones that seem to stick around and seem to actually work for you and to get rid of the ones that don't. And I think that's so powerful.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then I mean, ideally over time as well, like this document. So I only made this a few weeks ago.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  And I, you know, hopefully it gets better. And like, what I want to do is have sessions where I almost like have conversations and think about, okay, how do I, how do I update this? And what are some of the questions that are most alive for me?

• 45:19Speaker 01

  So and then kind of have my calendar in there as well. So it's been, it's been really, really valuable. And it's just been really fun as well. Like it's given me another. I think reason to do a deep dive into like self exploration in in recent weeks.

• 45:35Dan Shipper?

  Are you using four or five for this? Or like, what's your model of choice these days?

• 45:38Speaker 01

  I've been using generally four or five. I think the writing, now that I've taken away the AI robot instructions, I'll show you what the customer instructions I've done because I've thought about these quite a bit as well. This this actually made a big difference to me, I'd say, in terms of like, the just the amount that I used it because it it felt like it knew me more.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  And so let's see if I go to where is it? It's under share.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  So I've I've gone back and forth between Claude and ChatGPT.

• 46:15Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, are you using Claude still?

• 46:17Speaker 01

  I do use Claude sometimes. I think for like writing purposes, sometimes it like gets my voice better, I've noticed. But let's see. So if we go customer ChatGPT.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  So.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Maybe I see this. This one's probably better.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  So yeah, I kind of like, this was a similar version to what was in the document. And then.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the other thing is you can't use Opro on projects. So it's between O1 and 4.5. And O1 I'll use occasionally if it's like a business problem, but four or five more for just kind of back and forth exploration and reflection.

• 47:04Dan Shipper?

  Are you using deep research? I feel like you'd be a huge nerd for deep research.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  I love deep research.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  It's unreal. It's.

• 47:12Dan Shipper?

  Isn't it so cool?

• 47:13Speaker 01

  It's just so, so fine. I mean, to give like a practical example, let's see in Costa Rica. So we very recently made the decision to buy land and move to Costa Rica.

• 47:24Dan Shipper?

  Wait, that's awesome. But why are all your chats? Why do they have emojis? Is that like a projects thing? Or did you set that?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  I have added them because.

• 47:33Dan Shipper?

  By hand?

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just like rename them. I like rename the chat. Something about it, I do the same with tasks as well. Like it allows me to like, it's almost like get an overview. I don't know. It also just looks aesthetically pleasing. So it's like a weird.

• 47:48Dan Shipper?

  So you tend to use like a single chat for a long time rather than starting a new chat every time?

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Um, it it depends, I'd say.

• 47:59Dan Shipper?

  So you're you're renaming chats even if it's like not even if it's like a sort of more throwaway one or?

• 48:05Speaker 01

  If it no, i- if it feels like a thread that I want to revisit, I'll keep it. Otherwise, I'll just like let it be or archive it.

• 48:12Dan Shipper?

  Okay, this is it just look, everything looks so clean. I wish I was like.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  I'm trying to find out where um, so I think we did like a risk profile, but there was there was one that was like, maybe I can just search for it.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Basically, I was like, deep research, please figure out like, what are all of the logistical steps needed to move to Costa Rica?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  I think it was like.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  How to get to go, oh, man, um, maybe I can't find it, but it was a deep research that basically.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  I think it was this one, land purchase guide. Yeah, so it was like, everything that Katie and I need to consider in order to move to Costa Rica. It was incredibly helpful because.

• 49:00Dan Shipper?

  Wait, can you scroll up? Because I want to just give people a sense for like what what what this is. Okay, so you said, my wife and I are considering buying land in Nosara, Costa Rica. And please create a detailed brief outlining it and and ask you some follow ups, which it always does, which is kind of interesting, but is also kind of annoying because sometimes I'm just like, just do it like.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, and sometimes it's helpful, right? I mean, sometimes I'd say like, do it. And then otherwise, in this case, it actually was helpful.

• 49:24Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, yeah. So you so you answered some questions and then it says, okay, so then it created moving to Nosara, Costa Rica, a step by step relocation guide. Land purchase and process financing overview, buying property in Costa Rica as a foreigner is very feasible. And it's just like. The most detailed step by step land purchase steps in Costa Rica, find a reputable Realtor and the right plot, hire real estate. Estate notary, make an offer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like all like some of this stuff is stuff that you would like be able you'd be able to find it online, but it's just. Putting it all in a single place and sort of tailoring it to you. Um, choosing, shipping belongings from Costa Rica, like what the timeline is.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  I wouldn't have thought of the kind of applying for residency piece, imports, import taxes. Um, there was an area on how we'd move our dog as well, which was also helpful. And like how to know if we would be, um, able to get residency there as well.

• 50:21Dan Shipper?

  Interesting.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  It's just like everything that we need. And this was done in, you know, 15 minutes or less. Um, and I've been kind of going through it, you know, we're only like a third of the way through because we're still early on in the challenge, in the, in the process. But yeah, bringing our dog and like everything we need to factor in. And it's just been incredibly helpful. And this was like all from one, you know, one minute prompt. Um, and so I've, I've been doing it for that. And then also just like, uh, I have like a, I've only started adding chat threads to this, but things like, um, like what are some of the implications of, uh, mu- of, of, of money with like AI? And it prepared this, uh, where's it gone?

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Uh, maybe it was, it was a different thread. But I've, I've really been enjoying deep research.

• 51:13Dan Shipper?

  ASI impact strategy above. Like maybe Pokemon and Shaman.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was, that was the thing that I was just like, like late, late night. I was like, I wonder if there's like a connection between Shamanism and Pokemon there.

• 51:25Dan Shipper?

  I would love, like, that's what I want. I want to have like a little section in everywhere. It's like your most embarrassing chat GPT question, you know, and people can like submit it.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so, so like this, um, my wife was away for like a couple of days and I was just like, you know, just like pondering questions like in the, in the evening as you do. And I was like, oh, what?

• 51:46Dan Shipper?

  Men, men needs, men need, need hobbies, you know, potential outcomes of artificial intelligence in the next three, five years.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Like an armchair philosopher's dream, right? It just gives you like all of these, all of these, I mean, there's half a small book here essentially. And, and it's also like really well written as well. It's not like just AI slop. I think a lot of it is actually pretty, um, well thought through. It's got, it's got the point where it's like worth reading.

• 52:13Dan Shipper?

  One of the things that I've been doing that you might like, if you're into this is it gets better with better sources. And so I built this app, I vibe coded this app that I've been calling Deep Background. Where I can just upload anything onto Deep Background and it turns it into a website. And so then I have a website of all my sources that is like agent friendly and I can just give it to Deep Research and be like, here's a question, here's like all my notes, all my books, like whatever you want, just like only use this site. And it works. It's pretty cool.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Huh. Wow. Wow. How is your, I was, I meant to ask you about the, you said that you were designing or vibe coding an app for your like OCD and like tracking. And it's like, is that, is that still happening?

• 52:59Dan Shipper?

  Still happening. What's, what's funny, which maybe you'll appreciate is, so like the app works. Basically, the way it works is.

• 53:09Dan Shipper?

  I have a little bit of a log where I can, I can go to the app and I take an OCD test every day. So like, how, how are my symptoms? It's a standard OCD inventory called a Y box test. And then I also do a,

• 53:25Dan Shipper?

  I take a video of myself talking, just talking about my day. And then it sends it to this emotion embedding API. So it turns it into like basically where, where am I in emotion space? And the hope is I'll be able to train a model to predict from my video.

• 53:44Dan Shipper?

  What my OCD score is and then maybe.

• 53:48Dan Shipper?

  If that works, predict it a day in advance. So like, when is it going to get worse? When is it going to get better? All that kind of stuff, which would be really fun.

• 53:56Dan Shipper?

  Cause if you can predict it a little bit, there's all this stuff that you might be able to do treatment wise, like maybe I just like bump a little more Zoloft the day before, you know? Like, you know, stuff like that, which would be kind of fun. I don't really know. So anyway, uh, so that whole thing works and I have a bunch of data. The problem is that I have not been symptomatic.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Is that a problem?

• 54:16Dan Shipper?

  It's horrible.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  We need to trigger down to OCD so he can get his app to work.

• 54:26Dan Shipper?

  Which is, I mean, that's a pretty crazy thing for me. Like for many years. It was, it happened, it was, it was a lot. It was a lot that I was, I was symptomatic. It just has not been as much of a problem, but it, it, it has always been a little bit more episodic where it'll come and go. I would say like, I haven't really had anything significant in like three months, but. It'll definitely come back. And when it does, I will like, um, I'll gather more data and then I think I'll have enough. And I'm like, basically in the process of hiring a researcher to like, help me put it all together. Um, we just have a bunch of other stuff going on every wise. So like cash wise and focus wise, I've, it's been a little bit more back burner, but

• 55:06Dan Shipper?

  it's something that we will do for, for sure this year, uh, assuming things go well and that I think will be really, really, really cool.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it sounds amazing. And that's maybe a nice segue to, um, so, something else I've been thinking about is like, AI coaches feel like they're decent now, uh, like certainly valuable. And I've been thinking about like, what are some of the maybe like innovations or things that would allow them to be even better and like as good as humans. And so I'm curious like what your thoughts are on that. And then I have some thoughts as well that I've, I've been noting down.

• 55:42Dan Shipper?

  Well, I mean, the, the obvious one, based on what we're talking about, like, I think a way to frame all of this, um, is quantified self is finally useful.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 55:55Dan Shipper?

  Um, it used to just be you gathered a bunch of data because you're like a nerd and you're like, this is so cool. Like, look, I look at my heart rate over time or whatever, you know, or like, look at my habits. Um.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Look at my pretty visualization that I printed, printed into a book and.

• 56:09Dan Shipper?

  Um, and I was, I'm guilty, like, I do that too. Um, but now we can use it to like, train a model to be like, well, how does X affect Y? Or like, what am I going to feel like tomorrow or whatever? Or just throw it, throw it context wise into chat GPT and be like, what do you notice? Which I do all the time anyway, with dreams. And I mean, one of the really fun things is just doing with meetings and just be like, what, how did this go? You know, um, like we had a big, not big crisis, but like a, we had a little crisis, like a little ba- baby crisis this morning and I had to kind of like assemble the team and be like, okay, what's, what's the status and what's going on and how do we fix it? And

• 56:49Dan Shipper?

  I was trying to figure out my strategy and I was also just interested in like, how did I handle this? And I threw it into chat GPT and I was like, just give me some feedback and it, it helped me a lot. Um, it's really nice to have just like a calm, considered, friendly person being like, here's, here's what I think, you know? Um, and I think that that's also the case, like, you can think about coaching, there's two ways in which AI can be helpful for coaching. One is, um,

• 57:16Dan Shipper?

  As a sort of like low cost alternative for people who wouldn't ordinarily like be able to have a coach or want to have a coach or therapist, which I think is super valuable and really important. And then the other one is as a sort of

• 57:31Dan Shipper?

  like complement to or augment augmentation for a coach that like almost embodies what the coach might do or becomes something that the coach relies on to like get feedback from and basically have a relationship with where that thing can be available all the time. Because coaching as it is, like your coach, when when someone's working with you once a week,

• 57:55Dan Shipper?

  if they really want to and they put in the work, you can make that work. But if it's sort of like, well, I'm going to show up once a week, but you have to do all the all the heavy lifting and I'm not going to think about it until next week. There's only a limited amount that you can really do with that person.

• 58:09Dan Shipper?

  But but AI allows you as a coach to have much deeper insight into what's actually going on and the ability to like basically have some touch points throughout the week with whoever you're working with in context. And I think that helps create more progress.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. So that's something that I've been thinking about a bit as well. I remember this is like back in maybe 2013, 2014, when AlphaGo just kind of like beat some of the the chess. And there was this, I think Kevin Kelly maybe coined this, but it was this idea of like centaurs where human plus AI teams were better than just AIs.

• 58:45Dan Shipper?

  Did he coin that? He's a beast.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  He's a beast. I mean, I read it from him. I assumed he coined it, but he he said everything relevant to AI like 10, 15 years ago. But I think this idea of centaurs is actually relevant here in coaching because

• 59:01Speaker 01

  like for me, knowing that like my clients have access to these like AI bots that I've kind of created. And then they can not only implement the stuff that we talked about in in our session, but then also continue having chats and then bring stuff to the next session. What I'd love, like where I see this going would almost be like a like a three way chat thread where they could like tag me or tag the AI. Or I could see all the conversations they're having and maybe like chime in if AI hallucinates or gives them advice that I'm like, actually, no, that's that's a terrible idea. But it feels like such a like such a value add. And then I'm imagining as well, like once. Like, let's say you use the Hume API and maybe like the sesame powered voice as well and like

• 59:44Speaker 01

  voice crosses the uncanny valley. Basically, I think that will that will really unlock like a new mode as well. And then if you combine with what you're saying about the quantified self, if you can kind of pull in all of that data, maybe from like Google or to do list apps or API. And this and like the deep, like the codex veto, the deep context gets like just added to like automatically without you manually having to do it. Then I think it just like unlocks so much usefulness.

• 1:00:11Dan Shipper?

  Yeah, totally. This is actually an interesting question for me because like with the with the OCD sort of quantified self thing, like I eventually want to add other people to like build models with or for to predict stuff. Do you have a thing that you'd want to be predicted?

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Um, a thing, uh, how likely am I to get into Jana the next day?

• 1:00:36Dan Shipper?

  That's kind of cool, right?

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And there's actually a number of like, I've been tracking factors in terms of like, if I sleep more than eight and a half to nine hours, it's more likely. If I have a less stressful day the day before, it's more likely. If I accessed it meaningfully in the previous week, it's more likely. There's, there's actually a bunch of variables I'm kind of tracking for myself that I think would inform the the odds or the reliability for sure.

• 1:01:00Dan Shipper?

  Fascinating. Yeah, it would be fun because like eventually what I want to be able to do is have you be able to post a bounty and be like 10 grand if you can predict it 20 grand if you can make it more likely, you know?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  I got that.

• 1:01:17Dan Shipper?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Dan Shipper?

  Anyway, we'll see. Interesting. Um, yeah. Anything else you want to you want to go through today? Anything else we haven't covered?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  No, I think I think that's pretty much it. There's nothing else that kind of comes to mind.

• 1:01:31Dan Shipper?

  Sweet. Um, well, Johnny, this is, this is awesome. Always a pleasure. I love what you're doing. If people are interested in your course or in your app or anything else you're doing, where can they find you?

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks, Dan. The best website is ns mastery.com. And that's the nervous system mastery course. There's links to a free self-assessment, to the state shift app. And yeah, and then the curious humans podcast is actually they can listen to the conversation we had a few weeks ago. That's one of the recent ones. And that's just curious humans on most podcasts apps.

• 1:02:06Dan Shipper?

  Awesome. That was honestly one of my favorite episodes I've ever I favorite interviews I've ever done. So thank you for that. People should definitely check that out. Sweet, man. Well, I'm excited to hang out. I guess we'll I'll see you. I'll see you sometime in May. So I'm excited to do that.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, epic.

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  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.