The transcript of AI & I with Alex Wieckowski is below.
Timestamps
- Introduction: 00:00:34
- Choose physical books over e-readers to boost your memory: 00:01:36
- Alex’s take on how long books will stay relevant: 00:02:54
- Prompt ChatGPT to find your next read: 00:07:40
- Articulating Dan’s taste in books with AI: 00:13:50
- Use AI to find books tailored to solve your problems: 00:15:46
- How to use AI as a personal study buddy: 00:33:32
- Prompt LLMs to turn insights from books into actionable strategies: 00:41:19
- What Alex’s rule around buying a new book is: 01:02:10
- Alex’s advice for anyone who feels like they don’t have time to read: 01:16:36
Transcript
Dan Shipper (00:00:34)
Alex, welcome to the show.
Alex Wieckowski (00:00:35)
Thank you for having me.
Dan Shipper (00:00:36)
So, for people who don’t know, you are the creator of Alex & Books where you have over a million followers across different social media platforms who come to you for book recommendations, book reviews, reading tips, all that kind of stuff, which I love because I’m a huge, huge book nerd and I’m just really excited to have you.
Alex Wieckowski (00:00:53)
It’s always great to meet people that love reading books. So happy to talk about books and especially how we could use AI.
Dan Shipper (00:01:00)
Let’s do it. So I’ve got to start with books. Why do you like books so much?
Alex Wieckowski (00:01:05)
It happened like during college where I first discovered self-improvement books, which was actually the book on How to Win Friends & Influence People. I’m like, wait a second. You can learn social skills and communication skills from books, especially one book that’s almost 100 years old. And that kind of just blew my mind because I thought there were only textbooks, fiction books, and poetry books. So once I learned there’s this whole genre that could help you, and anything you want to learn about, it’s like, well, there’s a lot of things that I want to learn about, a lot of things I want to improve on. So let me read every single book I can out there to basically improve my life. So that’s basically how I fell in love with self-improvement books.
Dan Shipper (00:01:40)
I love that. Are you a physical book guy? Kindle book guy? What’s your book reading stack?
Alex Wieckowski (00:01:43)
So I definitely use all three. I think each of them have their pros and cons but I really love physical books, just being able to disconnect from technology. I’m a content creator, so I’m on my laptop for hours a day, I’m on my phone for hours a day, so I like just being able to take a book, a pen, and go to the park or go to the beach or something—just disconnect.
Dan Shipper (00:01:59)
I love that. I’m a huge physical book guy. I just feel like with Kindle, I sometimes read it for things where I’m doing a lot of research and I need to page through books really quickly or something like that. But I feel like all the books have the same flavor, the same taste, because it’s all just on the Kindle, whereas with the physical book, it just feels like it’s its own experience because it has a feel and it’s got a cover image and you know, the paper feels different, all that kind of stuff. And I just love that.
Alex Wieckowski (00:02:25)
Yeah, I could definitely relate and there’s actually studies that talk about how if you read a physical book, you actually remember more of what you read because you kind of remember oh, that chapter was on the left side of this page, halfway through the book vs. on the Kindle book, everything was the same. So it’s hard to remember, oh, where was that quote? Where’s that lesson? But with the physical book, you kind of know where it is. So it’s easier to find.
Dan Shipper (00:02:42)
That makes sense. How do you feel, because I love books, all my friends make fun of me because there’s books everywhere all around my house, up to the walls, in the kitchen, all that kind of stuff. How do you feel about the future of books or people’s relationships to reading? I’m sort of worried about whether or not books are going to be around in 100 years or whatever. How do you feel about it?
Alex Wieckowski (00:03:11)
I think either they will be around— I mean, it’s kind of a simple answer, but you have the Lindy aspect of it where books have been around for thousands of years. And that means they’ll probably be around for another 1,000 years. But then on the flip side, technology is moving so fast. Who knows with Neuralink, if you just download a book into your brain do you even need to read it? So, I think books will be useful until that point in time. So for now, for the next few decades, you want to be a reader because there’s a lot of pros to it.
Dan Shipper (00:03:41)
I feel you. I love it. I think they’ll be around for a while. I’m just always interested, especially for people who are creating content that’s not necessarily book content. How do you think about books vs. other types of content, all that kind of stuff? So the topic for today is using AI to read. Can you give us a sort of broad overview of how you’re using AI to read in your life?
Alex Wieckowski (00:04:06)
Yeah. So there’s a lot of different ways to use it. I think we’ll start with some of the simpler ways and then maybe get to the more advanced strategies later on. So one of the simplest ways to use AI is: Let’s say there’s a book you really enjoyed recently. So maybe name a book that you loved in the past month or so.
Dan Shipper (00:04:23)
I’ve been reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s series of sci-fi books. The one I’m currently reading is Children of Memory. But each book in the series is sort of like— The first book is about this race of intelligent spiders and they meet humans and what happens when that happens. And the next book is about intelligent octopuses, space-faring octopuses. And the third one is about crows. And what I really love about it is he’s very good at thinking about, okay, how would an alien intelligence work? And then how would that layer up into the society they build in the technology they use? And specifically for aliens, I mean, how would it work for an actual human—not human—an actual animal intelligence that’s on Earth if they evolved and became way more intelligent, way more advanced. So yeah, it’s a great book.
Alex Wieckowski (00:05:26)
Okay, so this is a great way to use AI. So, if we were at a party and you mentioned that book, I don’t read a lot of sci-fi books, so I don’t really know what it’s about. So, I’d literally just go to the bathroom, open up ChatGPT and be like, hey, can you summarize this book for me in 500 words? So I could go back to you and have a conversation about that book, or just be able to have a conversation with you. So I think that’s one way you can use AI. So just use it as a way to summarize a book that someone mentions so that you have an understanding of what they’re interested in.
Dan Shipper (00:05:49)
Can we see that? What would you use for that?
Alex Wieckowski (00:05:51)
So, I would just type in the name of that book that you mentioned and ask, you know for this specific case I would ask Claude AI or ChatGPT, “Can you summarize this book in 500 words?”
Dan Shipper (00:06:01)
Let’s do it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:06:02)
Let’s see what we get.
Dan Shipper (00:06:03)
Okay go for it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:06:05)
What was the book again?
Dan Shipper (00:06:07)
Children of Memory.
Alex Wieckowski (00:06:20)
Oh, so this is interesting. So Claude AI isn’t able to summarize it. Let’s see if we could use ChatGPT to get a summary. Oh, and look at that. So, ChatGPT is able to tell you more about the book than Claude AI.
Dan Shipper (00:06:39)
Yeah. I mean, I think ChatGPT has that browse feature. So especially for books that are maybe less popular, there’s less stuff online. So it doesn’t necessarily make it into the training data. ChatGPT is going to be a bit better at finding you the answer.
Alex Wieckowski (00:06:58)
Okay. So, for the prompt, I just asked, can you summarize Children of Memory in 500 words, and then ChatGPT gave a summary of the author and said it’s the third book in this Children of Time series. “The novel continues the saga of humanity’s struggle for survival and their interactions with the uplift of the species in a richly imaginative way.” As you mentioned earlier, it talks about humanity’s struggle for survival and this kind of species that’s a lot more advanced than we are. So, that’s just a general summary and then it gives you a lot more information later down the line. And what I really like is you could kind of ask it to maybe summarize the book in two sentences or you could ask it to summarize the entire book in two pages. So you kind of have that spectrum of options.
Dan Shipper (00:07:37)
That’s really cool. Yeah. What’s next? After you do the summary, what do you typically do?
Alex Wieckowski (00:07:41)
In this case you really enjoyed this book, so let’s try to find out what books might be similar to it. So, in this case, I may ask ChatGPT— Let’s see, what was the question I mentioned? Okay, so let’s use this prompt. “I love Children of Memory. Could you recommend a few books similar to it?” Okay, so let’s see what we get here.
Dan Shipper (00:08:24)
I definitely— So, it looks like, so we’ve got Blindsight, The Three-Body Problem, Diaspora, Perdido, Aurora, The Broken Earth, Embassytown. That’s really interesting. So I’ve read The Three-Body Problem. I’ve never heard of Blindsight. Let’s see. “This novel explores first contact with an alien species and delves into themes of consciousness, identity, and the nature of intelligence.” That’s actually cool, quite interesting. I definitely would probably read that. Let’s keep going. So, Diaspora by Greg Egan. So Greg Egan I happen to know. I’ve read one of his other books whose name I’m blanking on, but I really like him as a writer. He’s really good at conceptual sci-fi. This is definitely on point. And one of the things that I think is quite interesting about this is sometimes when you ask for book recommendations from ChatGPT, off the bat it can recommend pretty sort of cliché or books that are too popular. And so I often have to ask it to do off-the-beaten-path-type stuff. But these recommendations are really good.
Alex Wieckowski (00:09:30)
Yeah, when you were talking about the book earlier, The Three-Body Problem came to mind, but that’s the limit of my science fiction reading. So it’s interesting to see that you agree with a few of the books on the recommendation list. And yeah, I like to think of AI kind of as the ultimate librarian. So back in the day, if you really enjoyed the book, you might ask the librarian to give you book recommendations because they probably are the most well read person you know. But now you have AI that’s been able to read through thousands, if not millions of books. So it’s a great way to find your next book.
Dan Shipper (00:09:59)
Totally. One of the things that also is kind of interesting for this. I don’t know if you push it in this direction, but before you ask it for recommendations, if you type in something like, tell me the vibes of Children of Memory. What is it about? What are the themes? What are the ideas? I’m trying to figure out why I like it. And, yeah, if you do that, ChatGPT will often say something that just really puts its finger on what you like about a book or a topic or kind of writing. And once you have that it’s sort of this cheat code where you can be like, okay, I want more of that specific kind of thing. It’s really kind of a magic moment. So let’s see what it said. So, “Exploration of post-human civilizations: The novel delves into the lives of post-human species and their interactions with remnants of humanity.” That’s interesting. “Memory and identity” is another one. “Central to the story is the theme of memory and its impact on identity. Survival and adaptation: blurring of technology and magic, interpersonal and interspecies relationships.” I think this is pretty good. “Philosophical and ethical questions, cosmic horror and hope.” That’s interesting.
Alex Wieckowski (00:11:15)
I haven’t heard that theme before.
Dan Shipper (00:11:17)
Yeah, so it’s a sort of powerful thing. I’m kind of curious, do you have a couple of books that you’ve read recently that you’ve liked? Maybe we could throw it in there and see if we can pull out your taste too.
Alex Wieckowski (00:11:38)
So, I’m reading Andrew Wilkinson’s new book, Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire, but it’s not out yet. So I don’t think—
Dan Shipper (00:11:43)
Yeah, ChatGPT might not have enough about it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:11:45)
Yeah. Well, I’m rereading $100M Offers. So, maybe we could use that book.
Dan Shipper (00:11:47)
Let’s do it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:11:48)
Okay. So let’s ask what are the themes of—
Dan Shipper (00:11:59)
I would say vibes. Because vibes are a bit broader for some reason. ChatGPT likes vibes.
Alex Wieckowski (00:12:05)
I would never think to use that word, but because I’m talking to a robot, not a person. But I’m surprised it’s able to understand what we mean by vibes.
Dan Shipper (00:12:26)
You want to read it out?
Alex Wieckowski (00:12:28)
Yeah, so “We are pragmatic and action-oriented,” which I would totally agree on. If you’re reading nonfiction you’re reading because you want to solve a problem that you’re having. So you want it to be useful and action -oriented because you want to take action on it. “High-energy and motivation” also would agree because you don’t want to read something dull. There’s so many business books that, sure, the information might be great, but if it’s portrayed in a boring tone, it’s hard to read. “Value-centric.” I think that’s also a great point. When I read a book, I try to think what’s the instance per page or wisdom per page. And Alex Hormozi is one of those people where every few sentences he drops a knowledge bomb and it just makes you want to keep reading. “Data-driven, analytical.” I would say another great point here because you don’t want just an anecdotal story where it’s like, alright, here’s why I did it, but here’s data proving it or backing it up. So it’s not just wild claims. He actually has the data to prove it. “Empowering and educational,” would also agree with that. “No-nonsense and direct.” Yeah, that’s another great point. You don’t want to read a book with a lot of fluff in it. You kind of want to get to the meat of the book or get to the insights pretty quickly. And I think he does a great job of that.
Dan Shipper (00:13:44)
One thing that I think is really interesting, too, is I actually also like Alex Hormozi’s business books and I feel like I have a very diverse range of interests where I’m like, okay, I’m into conceptual sci-fi. I really like poetry. And I also really like sales-y business books like Alex Hormozi or whatever. What does that even mean? What is my taste? And ChatGPT is actually quite good at finding the intersections. So if you say something like, “Both of these books are my favorite books. Can you help me explain what my taste in books is?”
Alex Wieckowski (00:14:24)
That’s interesting. So why do we enjoy—what was it—cosmic horror and hope and also action-oriented nonfiction books?
Dan Shipper (00:14:38)
So, let’s see. So, this might be more of my taste since you said you don’t, you don’t read a lot of sci-fi, but it says “complex and thought-provoking content.” So, I always love when ChatGPT compliments me. I love complex thought provoking content. “You appreciate books that challenge your thinking, whether it’s through deep philosophical questions and ethical dilemmas or practical business strategies.” I like that. “Practical and actionable.” We got that. That’s really good. “Exploration of human and posthuman themes.” “High energy and motivational tone.” That is kind of interesting. I think there’s probably some sort of energy overlap between Adrian Tchaikovsky and Alex Hormozi, which I think is a sentence that no one has ever said in the history of the world. But that is true. “Blending fiction with real-world relevance.” Okay. I think these are actually pretty good. I’ve definitely done this before with a huge list of all the books I like and it’s been actually sort of life-changing to be like, okay, now I know what my taste is.
Alex Wieckowski (00:15:26)
Yeah, that’s interesting. So I imagine the more data you input— Okay, here are the 20 best books I ever read. Recommend me the next 20 books I could read. That’s really, that’s really a useful way to use it.
Dan Shipper (00:15:36)
It’s pretty cool. Okay, cool. So we’ve, so we’ve talked about sort of finding, finding the next book to read based on books that I liked. What’s next?
Alex Wieckowski (00:15:49)
So let’s use AI to help us maybe solve a recent problem we’re having or something we want to improve on. So, what would come to mind? What’s the area in your life you want to improve on or maybe a problem that you want to—
Dan Shipper (00:16:04)
This is an interesting one. Let me see if I can find a good problem for us. So basically one of the things— So I run Every, it’s a media company. Got it right here. And we’re growing a lot recently. We’ve got a newsletter. I’ve got this podcast. We have a paid subscription, so people get access to paid articles that we write and we have a really good crew of writers who are writing every day. We publish every day. We also recently added an entrepreneur-in-residence, so he’s helping us start— We have a consulting arm. And then we also have a couple of software incubations, one of which we’re launching a software product tomorrow, basically. We have a couple more in the pipeline, and so there’s all these different things going on which I think is generally— Well, I think it’s one of the good things about me as a company leader is I have a lot of energy and I have a lot of ideas and whatever, but it can also feel a little bit all over the place. And so I think I’ve been thinking a lot about, okay, how do we frame things so that all the whole company is rowing in the same direction, even if we have different writers over here and we have engineers building software over here and we have consultants and whatever. How do we make everyone row in the same direction and how do we get it all to layer up into one cohesive concept of what the company is? And I’ve started to think that I actually got this from a creator retreat that I went on. Because I think this is actually sort of similar for a lot of different creators but I’ve started to think of it a little bit like a pyramid where—and it’s not a pyramid, I promise—but at the bottom of the pyramid it’s sort of all the free content that we have that gets people in the door.
And then the layer above that is sort of our main offer, which is our $20 a month Every subscription. You get access to all of our articles, you get the software you build, you get discounts on courses, all that kind of stuff. And then above that we do consulting and training and then above that we do I’ll do advising or speaking or whatever. And each layer up, it will appeal to fewer and fewer people who pay more and more. And that’s sort of this whole pyramid. but then, I think the big question with the pyramid is, how do I keep everybody aligned together and know what everybody else is doing without creating a lot of meetings? And so it’s a very long-winded way of saying we have maybe a bit of a bigger organization now than we have had in the past. And all the people in the organization are doing different things and I want to figure out a way to keep everybody aligned toward a similar common goal.
Alex Wieckowski (00:18:45)
Okay, so, let’s try this prompt. Let’s go to ChatGPT again. Okay. So the general prompt that I’ve been using is, “I’m currently struggling with [describe pain point here].”
Dan Shipper (00:18:56)
And I just gave you an entire monologue of pains.
Alex Wieckowski (00:19:00)
I’m going to try to summarize it in a sentence. Hopefully I can try it. “So the problem is I’m currently struggling with [describe pain point here]. Could you recommend me three books that will help me solve this problem?” Okay, so let me try to do my best to summarize.
Dan Shipper (00:19:12)
We’ll see how good your listening skills are.
Alex Wieckowski (00:19:14)
“I’m currently struggling with building a media empire and I’m worried about company culture and making sure we are all moving in the same direction.” Is there anything you would add to that?
Dan Shipper (00:19:52)
I think we have different parts of the business and making sure everyone knows what’s going on in other parts of the business and everyone supports each other rather than sort of competing is kind of the way I would frame it. Not even necessarily competing, just being aligned.
Alex Wieckowski (00:20:13)
Okay, so we got it. “I’m currently struggling with building a media empire and I’m worried about the company culture and making sure that we are all moving in the same direction and that everyone is aligned with the company’s mission. Could you recommend me three books that will help solve this problem?” And let’s see what we get from that.
Dan Shipper (00:20:29)
So, you should know, I’m seeing it’s updating its memory. So it’s remembering things about this conversation. So if you mouse over the memory part of it, it will remember that you may want to delete that at some point just so it doesn’t end up giving you the wrong recommendations. But I do love the feature of ChatGPT that starts to build a profile of who you are and what you like. So it gets better over time, which is pretty cool. Okay, but let’s see. So it said Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. “This book emphasizes the importance of understanding and communicating the why behind your business. Sinek argues that great leaders and organizations start with a clear sense of purpose.” That makes sense. Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t. Okay, so also by Simone Sinek, “another insightful book delves into the role of leadership in creating a healthy and sustainable company culture. “That makes sense. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. I think this makes sense. One little wrinkle, which I’m super curious if a book exists here— The style of the company that I’m building is sort of non-traditional and there’s some aspects of it that look like a tech startup, but it’s truly a creator-run business. And I think there’s a different set of rules for creator-run businesses where normally as a business scales, the CEO gets busier and busier and does less and less of the actual, on-the-ground, hands-on work and it’s more just managing teams of people. And I think in a creator-run business, it’s the opposite. The creator still does their thing and the trick is to have teams that can operate while you’re doing the content that gets everyone in the door and can help you do all the other stuff, build the products and all that kind of stuff. So I’m kind of curious if there are book recommendations that are about solving this kind of problem, but specifically for sort of creator-run businesses where the CEO is spending some time managing, but also spending a lot of time just like doing creative work.
Alex Wieckowski (00:22:44)
That’s interesting. For that, maybe we could reverse engineer. Maybe we could think about what companies kind of fit that mold and then see if anyone has written books about them.
Dan Shipper (00:22:50)
That’s cool. So I know a few of these companies. So one company that comes to mind is Bill Simmons has a podcast company called the Ringer. And you know, Bill Simmons is a huge podcaster, a really big-time sports writer too. And he has one of the top sports podcasts in the world. And he ran the Ringer and did his podcast a couple days a week and then sold it to Spotify for a couple hundred million dollars. And I think he’s still some sort of VP or something at Spotify, but he also still runs the Ringer. Sorry, he also still does the podcast multiple times a week. So Bill Simmons is one. Another one is— So Sam Harris has got a podcast, he’s got books, he’s got a newsletter but then he also has this app called Waking Up and so, he’s involved in that to the extent that it sort of comes out of his brain and all of the work that he’s done in meditation and consciousness and all that kind of stuff. But, someone else runs the business day-to-day who I met and he’s very smart. I feel like there are definitely some other people. But also honestly, MrBeast is another one. He’s got a snack brand. He’s got a bunch of other businesses, but he’s still making his videos. He stopped making his videos. So that’s one. And the last one is actually someone who I know. His name is Kevin Espiritu, and he runs this company called Epic Gardening. And he’s amazing, and they have, I mean, he started with just videos, and now I think they acquired a seed company, and they also do direct-to-consumer products. So if you want to buy the best trowel, they have the trowel for that kind of thing. so all those people are, I think, people who are sort of in this mold.
Alex Wieckowski (00:24:40)
Okay. So, I listed all the companies in chat, and I’m going to ask it to maybe name some similar ones just to see if any others come to mind, to see how on-target we are.
Dan Shipper (00:25:03)
Barstool. Yeah. So Bleacher Report and Vox, not really. So, what I think it’s doing is looking for competitors. And I think what we should say is, if you go up and you modify that original prompt, so you see that pencil. I think we want to tell you about the specific thing that we’re looking for, which is companies that are started by someone who’s primarily focused on making content in some form. And where that person leads the company, but is still mostly spending time doing that, doing the content creation. How does that sound? So name similar companies that are started by people making content which are led by the creator, but also manage the business. So I would name some more companies that are started by people making content, where the creator continues making content and leads the business. But who has other operational leaders who manage the day-to-day of the business. And then I would just delete everything up to the Ringer.
Alex Wieckowski (00:26:45)
Do I put “like the Ringer?” Okay. So let’s see what we got.
Dan Shipper (00:26:50)
So we got Barstool, Red Ventures. I never heard of that. It’s a portfolio of digital companies that includes brands like the Points Guy, Healthline, and CNET. Huh. “While Elias provides strategic vision, the operational leadership team manages the daily business activities.” Do you know who Ric Elias is? The co-founder of Red Ventures? No. Okay. Interesting. “Gimlet Media founded by Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber.” So Matt is actually an investor and I know him quite well. And yeah, Alex, for sure. I think it fits this. He was a podcaster and Alex and Matt both did a podcast together during Gimlet. BuzzFeed. I think BuzzFeed’s sort of— But Jonah Peretti is not really— He doesn’t necessarily put his name on the stuff they put out. BuzzFeed is a more anonymous brand. Hello Sunshine. So Reese Witherspoon. Patreon. Jack Conte to some degree. That’s interesting. I love Jack Conte. He’s amazing. And then Rooster Teeth. Interesting. Okay, cool. No, these are good. I’m kind of curious about Red Ventures. What would you do next?
Alex Wieckowski (00:28:00)
So maybe we could ask ChatGPT, have any books been written about any of these CEOs or founders of these companies? Okay, so we’re asking, “Have any books been written about these CEOs or founders of the companies mentioned above?”
Dan Shipper (00:28:28)
Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by 50 Cent. Which CEO is mentioned above?
Alex Wieckowski (00:28:30)
That’s really interesting. So, yeah, I wonder what information is taken from.
Dan Shipper (00:28:33)
Maybe scroll up a little bit. Okay, scroll down. Okay, no, no, no. I want to see the first one. Okay, “While not specifically about Barstool, Curtis Jackson, better known as 50 Cent, shares his experiences and lessons in business and entertainment.” Honestly, I mean he has a lot of businesses. I think that’s actually an interesting comparison. I had not I had not thought that he had the whole Vitamin Water thing. I don’t know. What else he’s done, but like he definitely had a lot of money on Vitamin Water.
Alex Wieckowski (00:29:11)
I think why it’s maybe given these answers. The business model you’re mentioning is pretty new So he can’t really come up with any specific books about it. But I guess 50 Cent you could think of him as one of the original influencers who ended up getting equity in the deal, so it’s like an early form of the business model that you’re doing now.
Dan Shipper (00:29:34)
I think Michael Jordan too, with Air Jordans and Nike. That’s another one. I think there are some differences because at least in the case of Nike. Nike already existed. So, he’s co-creating a product, but for me, we’re building products from scratch rather than necessarily partnering, but it’s a similar flavor of idea. Let’s keep going. This Is Not a T-Shirt: A Brand, a Culture, a Community—a Life in Streetwear by Bobby Hundreds. “This book by Bobby Hundreds, cofounder of the streetwear brand, the Hundreds, provides insight into building a brand community. That’s actually kind of interesting. I think a lot of most fashion companies are made by a person whose name is on the company, like Tom Ford or whatever, and they’re definitely still very, very deeply involved in all the creative decisions which is really interesting. I had not thought of that.
Alex Wieckowski (00:30:23)
Yeah, I never thought about fashion being content-creator led, but you think of him as a content creator. He’s a designer. He’s the business manager. So, yeah, you’ve learned something new.
Dan Shipper (00:30:40)
Yeah, I definitely did. So maybe we could find some. I would love to find books about people who have started fashion businesses, but books that would sort of fit my taste. “Can you find us books about people who started fashion businesses?” Yeah.
Alex Wieckowski (00:31:11)
Anything we should add to that?
Dan Shipper (00:31:12)
Yeah, so, “Can you find us books about people who started fashion businesses who were both the primary sort of creative inspiration and ran the business?” Let’s just start there and we can get more complicated later.
The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane von Furstenberg, “the iconic fashion designer and creator of the wrap dress.” Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardy, “the biography of Coco Chanel, one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century.” I’ve actually always wanted to look into Coco Chanel. That sounds really interesting. The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. Dior by Dior, the autobiography of Christian Dior. The Asylum: True Tales of Madness from a Life in Fashion. Interesting. House of Versace. I think I’ve actually read that because there was a book that came out and there was a movie that came out recently with Lady Gaga about. Was it Versace? Maybe it was about Gucci. I think it was about Gucci.
Alex Wieckowski (00:32:20)
Yeah, she was in that movie about Gucci.
Dan Shipper (00:32:22)
That was a great book and a great movie. So, I’ve not read House of Versace, but maybe I should. This is actually quite good. I noticed you reached your GPT-40 limit. If you need to, I can also drive the next chats.
That’s really cool. This little thing about fashion people have been building these kinds of businesses for a while is really fascinating to me because it definitely does have a lot of the same dynamics where yes, it’s the sort of creative and business person all in one but also I think that the way that you get to be a fashion designer where you have your own house is you have to build your brand first and people sort of start to know your name a little bit. And then you kind of create a product based on that and I think that’s very influencer-y too.
Alex Wieckowski (00:33:20)
Yeah, I definitely agree. I know Ralph Lauren started with the ties and then he got into the suits and then he expanded from there.
Dan Shipper (00:33:22)
That’s fascinating. Okay, cool. So what’s next? What should we look at next?
Alex Wieckowski (00:33:25)
So another way I’ve been using AI is kind of as your personal— I like to call your personal study buddy or your English professor, or English tutor because sometimes I’ve been trying to read more philosophical books, sometimes more fiction books, but these books can be kind of difficult to understand. So, for example, I recently read Siddhartha, which is one of those books that you hear a lot about. Everyone says you should read it. It’s a life-changing book. So I’m like, okay, let me pick it up. Let me give it a try. But it was written over 100 years ago, so it’s kind of old English. It’s kind of a little bit difficult to understand. And as I’m reading it, I know there’s just multiple deeper levels of meaning in this book, and I’m having a hard time kind of comprehending them. So then I’ll ask it, hey ChatGPT, what does the river in Siddhartha symbolize or what’s the meaning of it? And that will help me kind of just understand the themes of the book.
Dan Shipper (00:34:28)
That’s really cool. So, let’s actually do that now. I’m kind of curious. So, you can see my screen, right? So, let’s do that right now. So, basically, I think what we should probably first do is do a little bit of an overview of Siddhartha. Just in case people haven’t read it. “Can you summarize Siddhartha by Herman Hesse in two paragraphs.” Let’s see. “Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a philosophical novel that follows the spiritual journey of a young man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha. The novel begins with Siddhartha, a Brahmin’s son who is dissatisfied with the ritualistic and doctrinal life he leads. Along with his close friend Govinda, Siddhartha sets out to explore different paths to enlightenment. Siddhartha’s quest leads into a new phase of life where he indulges in sensual pleasures and material wealth guided by the courtesan Kamala.” I feel like this is a little bit more in depth than I really want. “Make it three sentences.” I think three is enough. “Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse follows the journey of a young man named Siddhartha as he seeks spiritual enlightenment. He explores various paths, including asceticism, hedonism, and ultimately finds wisdom through the teaching of a simple ferryman named Vasudeva. By learning to listen to the river, Siddhartha realizes that true enlightenment comes from within and through the direct experience of life rather than through teachings or doctrines.”
Alex Wieckowski (00:35:44)
Yeah. So exactly what it says, listen to the river. What does that even mean? So let’s explore. Can you explain that?
Dan Shipper (00:35:49)
Okay, cool. That’s awesome. Okay. So, “Listen to the river. What does that even mean? Can you explain?” “In Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, listening to the river symbolizes the practice of deep contemplative observation and understanding of life and its natural flow. The river represents the continuous, ever-changing nature of existence, where every moment is interconnected. By learning to listen to the river, Siddhartha attunes himself to the present moment and the cyclical nature of life, gaining insights into the essence of reality and achieving a profound sense of inner peace. This metaphor underscores the importance of experiential wisdom and inner harmony in the quest for enlightenment.” What do you think?
Alex Wieckowski (00:36:27)
That sounds like a whole lot of nothing. So sometimes when it gives me an answer like this, whether it’s ChatGPT or Claude, I’ll ask it, can you explain the paragraph above, but use simpler words? Just so it’s more direct and it can’t use fancy words to hide behind what it’s saying.
Dan Shipper (00:36:45)
Okay, “Be more direct.” Okay, cool. So I said, “Can you explain the paragraph above but use simple words, be more direct.” “In Siddhartha, listening to the river means understanding life by paying close attention to its flow and changes. The river represents how life constantly moves and is connected. By focusing on the river, Siddhartha learns to live in the present and see the true nature of things, finding deep peace and wisdom. The idea highlights that real understanding comes from personal experience and being in tune with life itself.”
Alex Wieckowski (00:37:08)
Yeah, that’s a major difference and you want to understand that and it’s just so much more clear what the river symbolizes vs. the paragraph above.
Dan Shipper (00:37:12)
Yeah, I think you’re totally right. I definitely feel like having ChatGPT translate books is such an interesting thing because it’s that book’s in English and I think one of the things AI sort of reveals to us is that there are many different Englishes, spoken by many different subcommunities. And we normally think that, oh yeah, there’s British English and American English, but no, no, no. It’s the English of Siddhartha. There’s people who write flossy books. That’s a different English. There’s scientists, that’s different English. There’s people in tech, there’s a different English than people who are in the oil industry or whatever. And ChatGPT does these really, really good, subtle, universal translations between different forms of English. I think that’s so important for book reading.
Alex Wieckowski (00:38:01)
Yeah. I find it super useful because. Yeah, there’s a lot of books I want to explore, but I know they’re kind of beyond my expertise or just knowledge. So I need someone to kind of help me teach me what the book’s about. So back in the day, you might have gone to take a college course or something. Here and now you just ask ChatGPT, and it’s your personal tutor. So I think that’s a powerful way to kind of use books as your personal study buddy that a lot of people haven’t thought about.
Dan Shipper (00:38:29)
That’s really great. So you read that book recently. You bought it, so you must like it. Tell me more about what you got out of it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:38:40)
I don’t know if I would say I liked it. Maybe you didn’t like it. Well, I want to see why so many people found it valuable or insightful and just kind of shared the common themes of life. So, basically, the main overview is that he goes on to be a Buddha. So he kind of gives everything up. Then he lives this hedonic lifestyle where it’s just pleasure. And that’s also not a good way to go about life. And then he finds balance by being in between. So I think that was kind of the message I took away from it. I also kind of use it kind of you can ask, who are the main characters in this book and what role do they play? Because in this book, there were probably 5-10 different characters. I’m sure sometimes when you read a science-fiction book, there’s 100 characters. So you get lost with them, so sometimes I may ask a ChatGPT can you explain the relations between these two characters in the book, o, can you explain the context behind them? So any question that you’d ask your English professor in college, now I just ask ChatGPT.
Dan Shipper (00:39:38)
I do love that because I read some books— I’m reading this book called Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism right now, which I can barely even say the title of. And it’s by this philosopher Richard Rorty that I really like. And I’ve been reading his books and other sort of more dense philosophy books for a long time and I majored in philosophy in college, so I kind of can wade through some of the jargon, but I always felt like there was stuff in those books that I just was never going to be able to get unless I went back to school and went to grad school, which is always sort of slightly on my mind. But going to grad school just sort of seems like a pain. I don’t really want to do that. And so I was just sort of torn because I want to get more out of these kinds of books, but I don’t want to do that. And I just feel like ChatGPT— I don’t have to go to grad school because it’s really great. I’m just sitting there reading a book and I’ll just take a picture of it and send it to ChatGPT and be like, can you explain this to me? How are you doing this? Do you have a laptop while you’re reading? Do you use it on your phone? What’s your kind of reading with ChatGPT? How does that work for you?
Alex Wieckowski (00:40:50)
So I definitely have the app on my phone. Sometimes I’ll use it there. But, I think personally when I do my reading session, I just like to have a book and a pen and then maybe on the back I’ll write down a few questions and then after I’m done with my reading session, then I’ll go and use ChatGPT and that’ll be my study session. Something like that.
Dan Shipper (00:41:07)
Do you do a study session for every book?
Alex Wieckowski (00:41:09)
No, I would say most of the books I read are nonfiction, so it’s a little bit more direct, it’s more actionable. But I will use ChatGPT— I have this list of lessons from this book, how can I actually go apply it? For example, the Alex Hormozi book recently, he has that whole grand slam offer on how to make a compelling offer. So then I’ll ask ChatGPT how I can apply this to something I’m trying to sell.
Dan Shipper (00:41:43)
Let’s actually do that because I’ve actually done literally the exact same thing. I think there’s something about content creators, business people, using Alex Hormozi’s book to create offers. So, let’s do that. So yeah, tell me about it. Tell me what you did so we can replicate it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:41:58)
So first I would ask ChatGPT, “Can you summarize the main lessons from $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi?”
Dan Shipper (00:42:07)
Oops, I misspelled Hormozi, but I think it’ll probably get the gist. I love when ChatGPT just completely goes down in the middle. “Sure. Here’s a summary of the main lessons.” So, “Value stacking: create an irresistible offer by stacking value. Understanding customer pain points: deeply understand the pain points and desires that retarget audience. Offer creation: break down the components of a great offer into four key elements—the dream outcome, perceived likelihood of achievement, time delay, effort and sacrifice. Pricing psychology: use pricing strategies that enhance the perceived value of your offer. Scarcity and urgency, risk reversal. Irresistible bonuses, social proof and testimonials, market research and iteration, communicating value.” Does this seem like a reasonable summary?
Alex Wieckowski (00:43:04)
Yeah. So a lot of the key lessons from the book, I would specifically ask it can you share more about the offer creation specifically what he meant by creating a grand slam offer?
Dan Shipper (00:43:13)
Okay, cool. “Specifically, can you break down how he constructs a grand slam offer?” So tell me about why you’re asking this question to chat with you because you already, you already know more or less, right?
Alex Wieckowski (00:43:24)
Yeah. So, I kind of understand you know, reading it but I think just having the next steps to be able to apply it to my specific situation, I think it’s super helpful. And then also you can use ChatGPT to kind of do the early work of it, and then you can maybe add the finishing touches or the human touches at the end of it. I think that helps, just helps you move faster.
Dan Shipper (00:43:50)
Yeah, totally. There’s a couple things here. One cool thing about this is that a book is sort of this static thing where you’re doing the work to apply it. And I think that’s actually quite valuable. You don’t want to not have to do the work to apply it. But what’s really interesting is with ChatGPT because it writes out this summary of the framework. You can just have it apply the framework to your specific situation as if Alex was right there, talking to you, which is pretty cool. And I think the benefit of having it right out the framework first, before you say, hey, can you help me construct an offer? Alex Hormozi, is it? Sort of creates a plan for ChatGPT, right? It’s like it knows, okay, this is the first step and it’s going to follow its own plan that it writes, which is kind of cool. Okay, cool. So we’ve got the offer frameworks. We’ve got the dream outcome, the perceived likelihood of achievement, time delay, effort, and sacrifice. And we’re building a grand slam offer. Here’s how to do it step-by-step. Cool. So should we apply it?
Alex Wieckowski (00:44:52)
Yeah. So help me build a grand slam offer for, I guess, my specific case. I’m building a course that teaches people how to read smarter, more productively, and more efficiently.
Dan Shipper (00:45:05)
Smarter, more productively, and more efficiently. “For this chat, I am Alex from Alex & Books—,” just so it can get a little bit more about you in there. “Alex, let’s build a grand slam offer for your course on reading smarter, more productively, more efficiently. We’ll follow the offer creation framework by Alex Hormozi. One, identify the dream outcome.” So one of the things it’s doing here, which I actually don’t really like is it’s just doing the whole thing for you. I think what we want to do is go step-by-step. So we’re going to modify the prompt and say, “Go step-by-step and ask me questions to help me do the work for each step, so we can build our offer and answers together.” I think that’s a little bit better. Because ChatGPT can make stuff up, but it’s not going to be exactly like what you think, and I think it’s better to have it pull it out of you. So, “Identify the dream outcome: The dream outcome is the ultimate result or transformation your customers desire. What are the main benefits and results your students will achieve by taking your course? What does the ideal outcome look like for them?” Oh, that’s interesting. It’s continuing to— Okay, stop. “Only ask one question at a time, and only move on to the next step when I say so.” Okay, that’ll keep it in line. I wonder what— Okay. So, “Step 1. Identify the dream outcome: First, we need to clearly define the dream outcome for your target audience. This is the ultimate result of the transformation they want to achieve by taking a course. Question 1, what do you believe is the ultimate result or transformation that your customers desire from learning to read smarter, more productively, and more efficiently?”
Alex Wieckowski (00:47:04)
They’ll be able to get— Let’s see. How should we put it? If you read more productively, you’ll get more value from the time you spent reading. You’ll be able to remember more of what you read, and which will help you make better decisions and improve your life faster than someone that just reads passively.
Dan Shipper (00:47:37)
Okay, cool. Wow, “My memory is full.” Crazy. Come on, ChatGPT. We’re gonna switch to Claude if you don’t respond. Excellent. “Here’s how we articulate the dream outcomes based on what you’ve shared. By taking this course, you will maximize value from reading, improve memory retention, make better decisions, and enhance your life quality.” Okay. “So next we need to enhance the perceived likelihood that your customers will achieve this dream outcome. This involves building credibility and trust. What are some testimonials, case studies, or success stories you have from previous students or clients who have taken your course?”
Alex Wieckowski (00:48:38)
I have testimonials on the landing page. I have testimonials from bestselling authors, including—
Dan Shipper (00:48:40)
Do you have a landing page where I can just copy-paste them?
Alex Wieckowski (00:48:45)
Yeah. It’s called the Art of Reading. If you just type in Google, hopefully it comes up.
Dan Shipper (00:48:50)
Is it dot com?
Alex Wieckowski (00:48:51)
No, it was like in Kajabi or something.
Dan Shipper (00:48:53)
Ah, we got Tiago Forte. We got Morgan Housel. Wow. You got a lot of good people. Cool. So I’m going to just paste that in here. “Here are some great testimonials. These will significantly enhance the perceived likelihood of achievement, and minimize the time delay. We need to minimize the time it takes your customers to start seeing results. What are some quick wins or immediate benefits your customers can expect to see early on in your course?”
Alex Wieckowski (00:49:26)
All the lessons are short. They’re between 5-10 minutes. They’re broken up into specific problems, so you could go directly to the skill you most want to learn, or reading obstacle that’s your biggest reading obstacle. Cool. Let’s keep going.
Dan Shipper (00:49:50)
That’s fantastic. “Immediate benefits and quick wins.” So it summarizes what we said. Okay, so now we’re on to Step 4, “Reduce effort and sacrifice: What resources, tools, or support can you provide to make the learning process as easy and effortless as possible?”
Alex Wieckowski (00:50:07)
So, each lesson has a one-page summary PDF. So if you prefer reading over watching, that’s an option. And each lesson ends with actionable steps. So you’re not just learning, you’re actually given steps on how to apply what you’ve learned.
Dan Shipper (00:50:24)
Great. Done. Alright, Step 5. “Construct the grand slam offer: Do you have any additional bonuses or special features you’d like to include?”
Alex Wieckowski (00:50:38)
Yeah, I have a list of 100 books that have the biggest impact on my life in a short summary of each one. And then I also have a list of 50 short nonfiction books and 50 short fiction books that people could choose from if they’re looking for a quick read.
Dan Shipper (00:51:10)
Okay. So now it is going to construct the grand slam offer with all the elements combined. “By taking this course, you will maximize your value from reading. You’ll improve your memory retention. You’ll make better decisions.” It’s giving us all the testimonials. I think what it’s probably doing right now is sort of summarizing what is your preferred format for the outcome of this, if this grand slam offer should be more compressed or how does it look when it’s done? Oh, here we go. “Final offer: enroll in the Master the Art of Reading course today and transform your reading skills with short, focused lessons that provide immediate benefits and actionable steps. So, this feels a little bit too. It’s not concrete enough, which is interesting. “Plus, get exclusive access to curated lists of impactful books to guide your reading journey. Learn from the best and make better, more informed decisions in your personal and professional life.” It’s actually not bad. Well, actually, what do you think?
Alex Wieckowski (00:52:00)
I think it’s doing a good job. It’s just a bit too general. If it could use some of the specific responses we’ve used, I think that would make it a more compelling offer.
Dan Shipper (00:52:15)
Yeah. So, one of the things I like to do— We’ll see how it does this. I’ll have it reflect on itself and grade its own work. “Based on Alex Hormozi’s framework above, what do you think of the offer you constructed? Is there anything missing? What can be improved to make it more effective?” Let’s see if it’s self-aware enough to fix these problems that we’re seeing. Okay, so, “Make the dream outcome more vivid and emotionally engaging. For example, emphasize how mastering reading can lead to career advancements.” I do think that vivid and emotionally engaging is right. I would have framed it as more concrete. But yeah, I think, that’s a similar way to say that. “Potential improvements for the perceived likelihood of achievement. Include more specific success stories or case studies. Minimize time delay, highlight specific examples of quick wins.” So yes, we’re getting more concrete, more specific examples. “Reduce effort and sacrifice. So. “Potential improvements offer additional support options, like dedicated—” So it’s asking you to just add more stuff to your offer, which is pretty interesting. And then it’s sort of suggesting examples. So, “To make the dream outcome more vivid,” it’s saying, “imagine being able to read any book in half the time and retain twice as much information, giving you a competitive edge in your career and enriching your personal life with profound knowledge and insights.” That’s actually not bad. I don’t know if you want to promise that specifically. Read any book in half the time and retain twice as much, but it’s sort of on the right track.
Alex Wieckowski (00:54:00)
Yeah, I think it gives you a good idea of the copy you could use.
Dan Shipper (00:54:04)
Yeah. “Join thousands of satisfied students who have transformed their reading skills. Watch this video testimonial from a student who doubled their reading speed and comprehension within just two weeks. Start seeing results immediately. Our students report significant improvements after just the first lesson.” So, this is actually, this is actually not bad. It maybe is going too far in the direction of over-promising, but that’s sort of the framework that it’s using and you can kind of bring it back to being more concrete and more what you actually want to promise, but I think it’s like it’s pretty helpful.
Alex Wieckowski (00:54:35)
Yeah, I think It’s pretty much on par with the information we have. It did kind of go above and beyond with some of the claims, so that I would just edit to make it a little bit more realistic.
Dan Shipper (00:54:45)
I love that. And did you actually use this for constructing your offer? This exact process?
Alex Wieckowski (00:54:55)
Yeah. So I asked it to use the Ada framework. And yeah, I experimented with a bunch of different copywriting formulas. And yeah, I inputted like, okay, here’s what the course is about. Here’s this framework. Write out the copy for it.
Dan Shipper (00:55:18)
I think it’s almost a new format for nonfiction books, like any nonfiction book that has a framework, I feel like you should have a custom GPT that it comes with where it just applies the framework for you.
Alex Wieckowski (00:55:22)
Yeah, I think that’s super helpful because a lot of these lessons and nonfiction books are told through story and the author doesn’t really like, oh maybe give you actionable steps or kind of summarize what to do. But if you kind of ask ChatGPT in this example, and then it’ll ask you a question, you know each part of the formula, and then you input your answer and that’s how you get the specific outcome you’re looking for.
Dan Shipper (00:55:46)
Yeah. The other nice thing about this is it has memory, which we’ve already talked about. And one of the things I use it for is, sometimes there’s a lesson in a nonfiction book where you’re like, oh I just want that just burned into my memory and I want to be reminded of it all the time. So, for me, this didn’t exactly come from a nonfiction book. It came from my therapist. But I think it could have just as well come from a nonfiction book. Maybe he read it in a nonfiction book. We’ll probably say that one of the things I have to work on all the time is I have a lot of people-pleasing tendencies. And I say yes too much and I don’t like saying no, and all that kind of stuff. And if I reduce that down, it’s sort of about fear of the guilt or shame that I would feel in saying no. And so my therapist was like, okay, I want you to ask yourself the question anytime you’re in one of those situations, what would I do? What would you do if you’re not afraid of feeling guilty? And that’s the kind of thing where I was like, whoa, that’s actually a really good question. But it’s really hard to remember. especially when you’re in a particular situation. And so I just went into ChatGPT and put it into my memory. And I was like, anytime I’m making a decision that’s interpersonal, please ask me what I would do if I wasn’t feeling guilty. And I always use ChatGPT when I’m making bigger decisions, and it always asks me that question, and that little simple thing, it’s honestly paid so many dividends, and I feel like the same thing is true. There’s probably lots of these things from different nonfiction books where you’re like, I want to remember that, and ChatGPT is just very good at bringing it up when you need to hear it.
Alex Wieckowski (00:57:27)
Yeah, that’d be interesting if you could have— I’m not sure if there’s a feature or not, but you kind of have saved profiles of, okay if I’m working on a new landing page or sales page, let me go to the copy AI version of this profile vs. if I’m making a big life decision, let me go to the AI profile that will ask me that question and others that will help me make a better decision.
Dan Shipper (00:57:48)
Yeah. It doesn’t have that specifically, but it will select the correct memory for the correct circumstance. So if you’re asking about copy and you have memories that are related to copy, it will go to that. There are also custom GPTs with their own personalities where you could build up an Alex Hormozi bot for yourself or whatever. Cool. So this is really awesome. So we went through the offer. Are there other things you want to talk about?
Alex Wieckowski (00:58:08)
Yeah, let’s see what else we have on the list. So, I guess another great example that I’ve used AI for is let’s say there’s a book I love, so that means I’m a big fan of the author. I admire them. I respect them. We probably have a lot in common. But who are my hero’s heroes? So who is my favorite author to look up to? So maybe if there’s a book you read recently, let’s try to find out who that author’s favorite authors are and who had the biggest impact on their life.
Dan Shipper (00:58:40)
Yeah, I love that. I just love going down the kind of intellectual rabbit hole that influenced this person and this person influenced this person because often the thing that you like most about someone they learned it from someone else, you know? So let’s do that with Adrian Tchaikovsky, the guy who wrote Children of Memory. Because I’m actually kind of curious. So, “I love the Adrian Tchaikovsky series Children of Time. Who are his favorite authors? I want to figure out who influenced him to write this series.”
So it’s doing a little bit of a web search and one of the interesting things is like, having it do a web search, it can be good. If there’s a Google result, someone interviewed him and there’s a thing that’s like, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s top-five favorite books, but sometimes it’s just better to make it not browse and just do it from its memory, because it’ll find like weirder things that are not necessarily like the first thing on Google. But let’s see what it says. So it says, “Gene Wolfe is known for his complex and layered narratives. Wolfe’s work often involves intricate world-building and deep philosophical themes.” That sounds good to me. “Mervyn Peake is famous for the Gormenghast series. Peake’s rich, gothic style, and detailed characterization have left a significant mark on his writing.” “China Miéville: With his unique blend of fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction, Miéville’s imaginative and boundary pushing stories are a clear influence.” Interesting. Cool. I’ve never heard of any of these people, but honestly, Gene Wolfe is pretty cool sounding. Let’s see. I want to look at what Gene Wolfe has written.
“Gene Wolfe, American fiction writer.” Where’s Amazon? Here we go. The Wolfe at the Door is his top book. That’s fascinating. Let’s see. I can’t believe that he wrote a book with his own name in the title. Is it a fiction book? Oh, it’s a brand new collection. Okay. So, I think it’s short stories. Okay. Let’s ask what’s the Gene Wolfe book that’s most similar to Children of Time, because I don’t really want his short story collection. I want something that’s more sci-fi. The book of the New Sun series, The Shadow of the Torturer. Wow, that sounds dark. Okay, The Shadow of the Torturer. Shadow & Claw. Interesting. So that’s actually, it’s not called The Shadow of the Torturer. It sounds like ChatGPT made that up. That’s quite interesting. okay. “The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Wolfe’s most remarkable work hailed as a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis.” That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of him.
So, “It’s the tale of young Severian, an apprentice to the Guild of Torturers on the world called Earth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession and showing mercy towards his victim.” Wow! That’s interesting. “The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian banished from his home as he shakes the mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic.” Cool. I’m sort of tempted to buy this, but I should wait because I just bought a bunch of books.
What is your rule for that? How are you when you buy a new book vs. wait.
Alex Wieckowski (01:02:20)
That’s a good question. So, I have this rule. It’s kind of catchy too. So easy to remember. So, let’s read it when you need it. So you kind of want to identify what’s the priority in your life, what are you working on? It could be like reading for entertainment, or maybe you’re planning on writing your own fiction book. So, maybe now might be time to write fiction books. For me, specifically, working on rewriting the copy for my course. So, reading a lot of copywriting books, which, two years ago, I would have never read a copywriting book. Because it’s just not relevant to me. So it’s no longer interesting, but now because I am working on this project now, copywriting is super interesting. So I would say think about what’s the biggest priority in your life and then focus on reading books in that section. But you could also have a fun book. So I often have a serious book. I’m reading something I want to learn and prove, but then I’ll also have a fun book just because I think if you just read for education, it kind of gets a little bit boring. It’s kind of just watching documentaries all the time. Sometimes you want to watch that movie or watch that TV series—same thing for reading. Sometimes you want to have a fun read. So I would say if you already have a long list of sci-fi books that you need to get through, maybe hold off on buying this book. But maybe if it’s like the last book in the series and you’re ready for something new.
Dan Shipper (01:03:45)
But are you going to the bookstore and get an armload guy? Or are you like I read one thing at a time and I’m like, I don’t start a new one until I finish the last one.
Alex Wieckowski (01:03:55)
Yeah, I try to cap it at three books. Okay. So I like to have maybe a serious book, a more fun book. And then maybe one book on my phone or an audiobook or something like that. So that way, if I’m on the go, I have something to listen to because that way I think you end up just starting 10 different books and you never get through like any of them or you just, it’s just like the shiny new object, just because new doesn’t mean it’s better. So I think a lot of people fall into that trap where buying books and reading books are two different hobbies.
Dan Shipper (01:04:10)
It’s so true. I love that. Buying books and reading books are two different hobbies.
Alex Wieckowski (01:04:20)
It’s great. And there’s a great quote that when we buy a book, we make the mistake of also buying the time to read it. Because, you think about it, a book takes you maybe 5-10 hours to read. So every time you buy a book, that’s if you buy three books, that’s 30 hours of time that you’re kind of investing. So that’s another way to think about it. So I would say maybe read two books at a time or cap it to three.
Dan Shipper (01:04:46)
What’s your fun book right now?
Alex Wieckowski (01:04:47)
So I would say that it’s also a business book, but it’s fun, it’s kind of a business thriller. It’s Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson.
Dan Shipper (01:04:58)
Oh that’s the one you mentioned.
Alex Wieckowski (01:05:05)
So it’s his journey of literally working as a barista, making, I think it was $6 an hour to how he built this company. And there’s actually a lot of drama in it. Right now I’m up to the part with one of his business partners—it’s kind of shady stuff—are maxing out the company credit cards, going to buy expensive dinners and fancy hotels. And he’s actually working on spitting out his own company and stealing clients, but Andrew caught him. So, it might seem like a boring business book. It’s not. It’s kind of a thriller book. So it’s been enjoyable to read and that’s been kind of my fun book.
Dan Shipper (01:05:35)
That’s great. Andrew’s awesome. Do you have any books that have been on your nightstand where you keep meaning to read them and you really do want to read them and you’re going to get to them next, but you never get to them? What are they? Or give me one.
Alex Wieckowski (01:05:47)
Yeah. So, I started it and I’ve been enjoying it. So the book Outlive by Peter Attia, I think. It was just because it’s so long and I’ve read a lot of other health books and it kind of always comes down to the same thing. It’s like, get your sleep, eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and exercise. And although I am enjoying it. It is pretty funny. When I first started reading a lot of books I bought the book War and Peace because I heard it’s like a classic, so let me go read it, and I bought it, and I didn’t know how long it was, and then it came in the box, and it’s 1,000 pages long.
Dan Shipper (01:06:25)
It’s a doorstop.
Alex Wieckowski (01:06:28)
And it’s funny to think I’m a big guy, and I’m intimidated by this book. But yeah, the bigger the book is, the more intimidating to start, because every time you look at it’s like, alright, that book’s gonna take me 10 hours to finish. Yeah, so that’s another helpful reading tip I tell people, is just pick up short books because they’re easier to read, easier to finish, and help you build momentum. So I’m sure I’m gonna get through that book. It’s just gonna be one bite at a time.
Dan Shipper (01:06:47)
Yeah, totally. That’s great. Let’s keep going. What else should we talk about? What else have you got on here?
Alex Wieckowski (01:06:50)
So we’re talking about buying books. So, another way you could use AI is to summarize books to kind of sample them because let’s say you’re in the bookstore. You’re not sure if this book has the lessons you’re looking for. So you could ask AI, hey, can you write a 500-word summary? Or what can you share the key lessons from this book to be able to identify if it has the lessons you’re looking for and if it’s worth reading?
Dan Shipper (01:07:30)
Yeah, no, I like that. I think different pieces of content have different attention spans. And books are obviously a very long attention span format and there’s something really valuable and important about sinking into an idea and a worldview and a writer’s brain for 10 hours or something like that. But a lot of books are just, no, I actually just want the idea given to me in two seconds, you know what I mean? And there are all these companies like Blinkist and whatever that do book summaries. And I think book summaries are sort of, to some degree, derided, people are like, oh, you got to read the whole thing, blah, blah, blah. But I think it’s a very important service to people to have your ideas in different formats and mediums for different attention spans and different channels. And yeah, obviously you want to direct people eventually to the book and have people spend a lot of time with it.
But it is just the way our brains work that we might not want to spend a lot of time on something that we haven’t been convinced to spend time on before. And I think it’s really nice that ChatGPT can summarize things in a form that works for you, the kind of summary you might like, it might be a bit different from the summary that I might like, or might work best for me.
And it’s just so good at doing that. I was doing this a day or two ago, because I’m trying to learn about this— There’s this whole new thing in AI called sparse autoencoders. And, don’t ask me to explain it because I’m still not like fully there, but the basic gist is it’s a method for understanding, or it’s used for a lot of different things, but it’s used more specifically in mechanistic interpretability to understand what’s going on inside of a AI model’s brain when it’s outputting tokens. And so it creates this literally a cloud of content of concepts and you can see which ones are most active when it’s producing different types of text, which is amazing. It’s so cool. And I want to write about it because I’ve been using some of these. There’s one specifically for Claude that I’ve been using that Anthropic put out and I want to write about it. So I need to learn how sparse autoencoders work. And, there’s some technical articles online. There’s literally a single podcast on Spotify that talks about it and it was too technical for me but I just like literally I just went to ChatGPT. I was like, can you explain this to me? And then I went on a walk and I did like the ChatGPT voice thing. And it’s its own podcast created specifically for me to learn about this topic, and honestly I think it’s better than any sort of paper or whatever would have been to just teach me the basics.
Alex Wieckowski (01:10:12)
It’s really good. Okay. That’s interesting. I never thought about that. Yeah, I mean, AI is just moving so quickly. It’s hard to keep up with all this stuff. That’s a really cool feature.
Dan Shipper (01:10:10)
Yeah. And I can’t even read a book about it because it’s too new, you know? So, yeah, so using it for that kind of learning where it’s like, I need this information in a format. That’s right for my specific context. It’s super valuable. What else? Anything else you want to talk about before we close?
Alex Wieckowski (01:11:05)
So this idea to help build a course that teaches people how to become better readers came to mind, but I didn’t know if people would be interested in it. So I literally put out a Google form with two questions: What’s your email? And also what’s your biggest reading obstacle? And for this simple form, I got over 500 responses. and I want to see how we could use ChatGPT to kind of figure out what people’s biggest problems are or just kind of summarize it. So that way we know what people want or what they’re interested in.
Dan Shipper (01:11:26)
I like that. Okay. So I just downloaded the CSV and I’m going to go into my responses and I’m going to upload, okay. So what should I say?
Alex Wieckowski (01:12:00)
“I asked people what is their biggest reading obstacle? Can you summarize all the answers and give me the top 10 most common problems?”
Dan Shipper (01:11:26)
“Give me the top 10 most common problems.” So basically what it’s doing right now is using Python to read the CSV file. And then it’s basically doing a word count to find the most common words and then printing them out, which I actually don’t think we want to do because it’s not going to be like using the sort of LLM brain. So, I might just actually just copy and paste this into a new chat. I’ll just do the C column. That’s good. Yeah. cool. What is going on here? Let’s just do a new chat. Okay. Let’s try this one more. Nope, that’s not working. Okay, I’m just going to do the whole thing.
Okay, “I surveyed people about their biggest pain points when reading for a course I’m running. Can you summarize the top 10?” Cool. “Here are the top 10 pain points. Time management and scheduling: difficulty finding or making time to read due to busy schedules. Struggling to fit reading into daily routines. Retention and recall: difficulty remembering or retaining information. Note taking and annotation: finding effective methods for taking and organizing notes. Focus and concentration: maintaining focus while reading. Avoiding distractions. Motivation and consistency: staying motivated to read regularly. Comprehension and application: understanding and applying concepts. Reading speed and efficiency. Book selection. Balancing different types of reading and handling overwhelming procrastination.” What do you think?
Alex Wieckowski (01:14:25)
Yeah, that sounds about right from what I was reading in the responses. I’d be curious, is it listed in the actual priority? Is time management the biggest problem?
Dan Shipper (01:14:32)
“Is it listed in order of priority? Is time management the biggest problem?” Okay. “The list was not ordered by priority, but rather by common themes observed in the responses. To determine the priority, I would need to analyze the frequency of each pain point mentioned by the survey respondents.” Let’s see what it does. That’s actually kind of interesting. It might take a little while. So we’ll wait for it. I wonder if it’ll actually work.
Alex Wieckowski (01:14:46)
I didn’t know that was a feature where you could show the code as it’s working.
Dan Shipper (01:14:55)
Yeah, so it always says details. I think they try to hide it but like, I really like it as it’s working to show the code because you just never know when it’s going to make a mistake. And so having a broad general sense of, okay, this is kind of what it’s doing. And whether this seems reasonable or not, helps me decide, am I going to trust the output or not? And usually it’s pretty good, but sometimes it does something boneheaded and you’re like, well, that doesn’t work at all, you know? This is going to take a while. It’s being very, very, very slow, which is sort of interesting—slower than normal. I don’t, I think this is— Oh, here we go.
Okay. This is not actually working. So here’s what I’m going to do: “Is time management the biggest problem? Just make your best guess based on what you see here. Don’t write code.” I don’t want her to write code because, okay. It’s going to take too long and I don’t think the result is going to be exactly right. So, “Based on the frequency and emphasis of the responses, the pain points appear to be listed in order of priority with time management and scheduling being most common. So yeah, it does seem like it thinks time management is the most common. Do you think that’s right?
Alex Wieckowski (01:17:07)
Yeah. I hear from a lot of people, like I would read more if I had the time to do it.
Dan Shipper (01:17:10)
What is your general response to that kind of, that kind of person?
Alex Wieckowski (01:17:15)
So in the course, I talk about how you either want to focus on a combination or prioritization. so, either you want to make time ahead of other activities you’re already doing, or combine reading with an existing activity. So for example if you already work out a lot, just listen to an audiobook. Or if you’re spending a lot of time commuting to or from work put on an audiobook while you listen to that or prioritize reading above other activities. So before you put on Netflix, read for 5-10 minutes. Or, before you go to sleep, read a book instead of grabbing your phone at night.
Dan Shipper (01:17:45)
When you see people go from not being readers to being readers what is usually the unlock for them?
Alex Wieckowski (01:17:55)
I think that everyone thinks they’re not a reader but they just haven’t found the right book because everyone kind of basically enjoys reading books as a kid because you have the picture books—they’re fun, they’re light, they’re easy to read. Then, they usually get into science fiction or fantasy books, like the Harry Potter or Series of Unfortunate Events, or Captain Underpants—something like that. So they are enjoying reading but then what happens is you get to middle school or high school where you kind of get to this classic English era where you’re kind of forced to read all these boring books. Like we mentioned earlier, it’s English. The book is in English, but if you need to translate it or if you need to go to Sparknotes to understand it’s not really English. So being forced to read all these books kind of just kills your joy for reading. And then either most people don’t read books for the rest of their life or you know, hopefully they stumble upon a book that kind of catches their eye. Usually it’s like Atomic Habits or How to Win Friends or one of these self-improvement books that kind of make them realize, oh wait, there’s like so much I could learn from all these books out there. Why did I stop reading and it’s because I was forced to read all these books. But now I’m free to read anything and everything I want and I think that’s the unlock,, like once you realize you’re you’re done with school, no one’s gonna assign you these books, you’re not being tested on these books you can read anything you want, I think that kind of opens up the world to them.
Dan Shipper (01:19:15)
That’s great. I love that. And I think that’s a perfect place to end. Love getting more people to read. Thank you so much for doing this with me. This is a ton of fun.
Alex Wieckowski (01:19:18)
Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. Thank you for having me, Dan.
Thanks to Scott Nover for editorial support.
Dan Shipper is the cofounder and CEO of Every, where he writes the Chain of Thought column and hosts the podcast AI & I. You can follow him on X at @danshipper and on LinkedIn, and Every on X at @every and on LinkedIn.
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