Welcome to another episode of the corporate Cowboys podcast my name is Alex I’ll be your host for the next half hour a little Proof of Life I’ll give it to you in the front this time it’s Tuesday August 8 2023 and if you’re not familiar with how this podcast works well this is
An ongoing project that helps us develop our professional development really helps us improve and grow and become better professionals and in the pursuit of attaining that state of consummate professionalism okay so treat this next half hour as if it were an open Office hour right it’s not
A full hour of course that’s why I’m calling it a half hour because time is money and I’m being more than charitable which is why I’m able to give you this form of general advice it’s like a type of advice really it’s just hey I could qualify it as my personal opinion right
But if we’re talking about what a corporate Cowboy would do well I identify as a corporate Cowboy that being said I can tell you what a corporate Cowboy would do I can give you that opinion okay so legal disclaimer is that nothing that we post nothing that we publish on our
Platforms or via this podcast should be construed as legal advice to you if you haven’t engaged us if you haven’t directly consulted with us then you can’t say you know gangsta rap made you do it you can’t say Alex told me if you you know you can put eight in the
Magazine and one in the head no you can’t you can’t uh you can’t deflect right you have to own up take responsibility be accountable to your actions right so today’s question is coming from our slash career advice and they’re asking they’re asking a very very um there’s no question mark here but
They’re asking a very peculiar I guess they’re asking for a peace of mind yeah that’s what they’re asking for they’re asking for peace of mind the title reads chat GPT got me promoted at my job and I feel like a fraud so they have to reconcile the results
You know in real life that they’re reconciled their results in real life with how they feel now it’s understandable that they don’t want to feel like a fraud because they’ve used this technological tool in uh attaining success that they might not have otherwise had
But at the end of the day it’s a tool that’s accessible to many and if it hasn’t been done before someone was bound to do it this is just me spitting it off top right so if their managers knew how to work chat GPT it would have
Already been done if anything they might consider themselves to be in a position to use chat GPT it’s what they get paid for right so how you get your work done so long as it does get done and you understand how it’s getting done
Now I’m not I mean I I don’t I don’t know how familiar you The Listener is with this uh artificial intelligence language learning model right or language learning machine um but having used it you just just a cursory just in cursory use I don’t think it does your job for you
It really doesn’t if anything it expedites certain processes and how and how you might do a job right but it does not do your job for you from start to finish not at all it’s still the idea is still conceived by your initiative it still comes from
You the input that you use chat GPT with right those still originate from you so you shouldn’t feel guilty because you had a good idea and then used chat GPT as a tool to implement it or to develop develop it further and make it manifest make it a reality right that’s just you
Employing a tool that you otherwise would have done on your own without chat GPT anyways but it expedited it for you it made the process a little faster maybe streamlined it for you right but it didn’t do the work for you just because you uh signed up for the
Free trial or you’re paying for whatever premium package that the work is going to get done with you just sitting at your desk with your hands crossed with your hands folded put your hands interlocked just not doing anything no the idea the the purpose still comes from you and how
Chat GPT is used okay uh and that’s just the title of the post I’ll go ahead and read the body the body seems a little long but it’s broken into neat paragraphs so maybe it’ll allow us to interject a little commentary a little opinion on our part all right
They start with all right they start with all right a little backstory here I used to work as a freelance copywriter oh very very clutch spot very clutch job to be using chat GPT with I mean if I’m not gonna go into how chat GPT works or
How you could use it and how to how to use it optimally how to optimize its use if you want to learn about artificial intelligence and everything that goes behind machine learning all of that good stuff there’s videos on it out there there’s web pages and manuals and books
Theories and applications and and it’s all available online and it’s free you can go to your local library at this point and hit them up and I’m sure they’ve got how to get you started in artificial intelligence right so that’s not what this podcast is for this podcast is
Specifically tailored for the modern day professional who is making moves in up and through corporate okay so they write all right all right a little backstory here I used to work as a freelance copywriter I was making decent money more than most of my peers I’m 23 so I guess that’s not hard
Than most of their peers what they’re they’re 23 so maybe they’re making 50 50K 60k I mean that’s for starters for starters if they’re making more than the average and the average uh I think nationally is what 40 45 50. but you know we’re reducing that to
Their age range so I would say about yeah 45 50 for a younger person who might be starting their career at the tender age of 23. all right but you know they’re a freelancer they’re independent they’re an independent contract professional so maybe they are negotiating their worth and uh they’re
Making big moves maybe it’s 70 80. who’s to say right about a year ago they write I was contacted by a tech startup to do some marketing work for them it was really fun and I kind of got obsessed with it the problem was this was a tech startup
And I didn’t know a damn thing about tech or SAS that’s software as a service they didn’t know a damn thing about tech or SAS at the time because all the work I’d done up to that point had been for marketing agencies the next paragraph I started studying and trying to learn
More about SAS marketing and eventually got a decent understanding of what I needed to do all right the next paragraph but I also love chat GPT so I used it and got some prompts from a newsletter I read sometimes okay I think since the Inception of chat GPT and AI
All these uh all these folks who are like click here and sign up for this and and pay for this monthly or Weekly Newsletter on on the latest chat GPT prompts you can use you know to hack life and to make money right like these are all prompts that are really just
More technical narrowly tailored Google searches I mean search engines of any kind but their searches nonetheless what you’re doing is you are prompting this machine to create some kind of output and you are inputting into it what you need your output to contain right it’s not is that
Not like a search engine it’s exactly a search engine and it’s a tool nonetheless I mean folks say hey Google is your friend right when before they say the library is your friend and now that most all books of the library are contained that’s what they’re there for they’re
There at your disposal for you to be able to pick up and use to your advantage this this is how good ideas come to fruition this is how good ideas are capitalized on right so if you have one additional tool in Your Arsenal that other folks apparently have access to
But are not using you’re better for it right you may not even be as uh you may not be an expert in using it but the fact that you are using it is what puts you ahead of the rest all right let’s continue here they write so I started
Studying and trying to learn uh more about SAS marketing and eventually got a decent understanding of what I needed to do but I also love chat GPT so I used it and got some prompts from a newsletter I read sometimes they include a link here
But I mean [ __ ] for all we know this whole post could have been made with chat GPT just to get you to [ __ ] click on the link they continue they’re right I built these elaborate plans off of what chat GPT gave me and pitched
Them to the CEO it’s a small team so I had contact with the CEO daily and he loved them we started implementing the plans and they actually worked you see so this is a good thing actually this is this is a way of using chat GPT to your advantage you
Have a good idea on what it is you want to explore and what it is you want to be better at and chat GPT is able to uh create a guideline or able to create a uh a process a pathway a hypothetical if anything and it will be hypothetical
Until you actually act on it it’s only hypothetical until you make a move to make it a reality that allows you to improve your standing improve your professional know-how as well as the standing of your company and and because you are in a small size company and you have close and direct
Access to the CEO these ideas are coming from you someone that the CEO has been paying someone who the CEO pays and whose job it is to do this work right so because it’s this this type of dynamic tends to uh be more of a reality in smaller tight-knit companies and groups
Why because the leadership has direct access to information coming from people who are on the ground from people that are on the front lines and in this case it’s our hypothetical client that’s on the front lines and if they don’t have to report to one or two or three or
However many number of middle managers on the way to the CEO if they have direct access to the CEO then they’re able to tell the CEO exactly what is the issue exactly what might be possible solutions and help the CEO plot a course and navigate toward a positive a productive
Resolution of these problems all right and that’s that’s really what every professional entry that’s what every corporate Cowboy dreams of is a that a CEO takes uh it doesn’t have to be good advice it’s just a good counsel takes Good Counsel when it is available and acts on it
Otherwise you have middle managers touching up the information and doctoring and and cooking the books on the way up to the CEO so that nothing ever [ __ ] changes why because for whatever reason the status quo is better than change for whatever reason the status quo is better than uncomfortable growth
Then painful then growing pains right so I I could see why it might especially when no one else is making these kind of moves I can see why it might feel disingenuous but it’s genuinely coming from you and you’re making these moves to improve your position to improve your
Your own social status as a professional obviously but also to improve the status of your company so that in turn you might be able to get paid more and it appears like you have getting promoted why feel guilty about it so they fast forward here they uh oh
Wait wait sorry sorry I skipped the paragraph and it’s one sentence they say we started implementing the plans and they actually worked nice we crushed our Revenue goal immediately after and then again for the next three months nice okay you just knocking the revenue goal
Out of the park that’s a whole quarter a whole quarter that you might be able to tie to the fact that they came from you know your initiative right if you did this properly and you documented it and you recorded it I don’t know if it was via
Email or via text or a group chat or I mean phone calls it’s a little hard it’s a little harder to recall it’s a little harder to record unless you’re in a state that allows it but if you can document this then you you have a portfolio going of the successes that
You’ve been able to keep should you ever leave this company but you can now track and Trace your successes via actions that you’ve taken in collaboration with the CEO I mean you’ve got you’ve got the CEO’s ear when I mean it is relevant to your I need to
Stop saying I mean you see I just caught myself and I do this just about every episode every episode is about constant Improvement so you have the CEO’s ear when it is relevant to a matter of expertise that you are familiar with and that makes you more valuable whether or not it’s with
Chat GPT chat GPT is just a means to an end but the end the end is making it happen is getting it done and chat GPT won’t do that for you you have to make that move that’s it’s similar I’m going to say it is similar
To individuals who uh to to clients who come to us for consultations on how to move in and out of corporate through corporate and navigate the corporate ladder but you can’t it’s it’s more particularized it’s more contextualized you’re dealing with more social psychological profiles of individuals As you move up the corporate
Ladder sure you might be able to input and I have tried this you might be able to input into Chad GPT how to plot a course for your own career but they’re going to give you or if you give them external inputs as far as like what your
What Your traits and your talents and your abilities are they’re going to give you options for how to move around uh your life perhaps perhaps right on like certain Avenues to approach but you start dropping uh in like psychological profiles and this is going to be difficult if you are not
Familiar or if you are not socializing if you’re not networking if you’re not being a consonant professional in terms of service inside and outside of the corporation Chad GPT won’t be much help there but you come to us and as corporate Cowboys we could help you we could help you brainstorm
Consider different approaches that you could probably go back to chat GPT and give it a better input a better prompt right now I I have seen no newsletters that do that otherwise they would have already it would have already been done which is why you won’t see career consultation
Uh be taken over by AI anytime soon sure I’ve seen uh the like the boss GPT why am I why am I I’m being an army I’ve seen like the bot I’ve seen stop saying like Alex I’ve seen boss GPT where you treat chat GPT like a secretary or like a marketing
Director or like a an account executive the president even and you could give them scenarios on how to approach a situation an issue in terms of uh business or industry and they might be able they might keyword is might be able to give you a workable solution and yes
It is true that the more information and the better information that you give chat GPT the more likelihood the more probability you stand of getting a good answer an informed answer but you come to a professional and experienced professional experienced professionals that have been in the field and have put in the work
Who have worked with people of different Industries and are familiar with the social social psychological uh virtues that exist in corporate and that are used in corporate to get ahead I mean that’s when you can start making moves of your own either to the benefit or I’m
Gonna say it’s the mutual benefits of all parties and if you need to knock someone out or knock someone off the corporate ladder not in real life if you need to knock someone off that could also be done right which if if my understanding is Right Chad GPT again
Won’t help you because as a word they use the [ __ ] pretext they use as a learning AI language model that’s against Community [ __ ] standards and guidelines or some [ __ ] right to uh to work to the detriment of somebody else boohoo that [ __ ] is done in corporate every day which again
In that sense real life Consultants real life corporate Cowboys have chat GPT beat all right let me uh I think that was uh that was the last paragraph of the body on that they write fast forward to mid-july and I’m on vacation okay all right my God my my
Guys on vacation male to female I don’t give a [ __ ] this person is on vacation I get a call from the CEO and he said he wants to offer me a full-time job because what I did with marketing he told me what he was prepared to offer me and I immediately said yes
The offer included a great salary that’s more than double what I was making and two full percentage points of the company that’s worth two hundred thousand dollars in equity I haven’t fully accepted it yet but I have a meeting with the board of investors at the end of this week I feel
Like a fraud and I don’t know what to do what should I say if they asked me how I came up with the ideas should I come clean about chat GPT and the answer is no no personally I wouldn’t personally I wouldn’t I think when it comes to disclosing your your
Own Trade Secrets because at this point this is like a trade secret of your own and that’s the beauty of being an independent professional is how you get the work done is your business and you disclosing that you would essentially be selling yourself out right if they could
Find uh another another uh like a a young college grad or even a high school student if they could find a [ __ ] monkey a chimp and train it to do what you did they would in the blink of an eye and and boot you out and pay the
Monkey in bananas right as the saying goes pay the monkey in bucking bananas and be richer for it be become more profitable for it now it’s a smaller company so again we don’t know what the what the cultural Dynamic is like and though that that’s all background
Information that we would get from the hypothetical client if we were interviewing them as far as the next move to make but you still want to tell them that the ideas came from you if possible and I have used chat GPT before where I’ve asked the questions I’ve asked its questions on on
Engineering on science on on mathematical Theory and whatnot and the answers are in line with how I would have approached it logically right or the answers are in line because if I asked it a question where I already knew the answer and the answer that it
Spits out is is pretty much it is it’s uncannonly it’s eerily word for word on how I would explain it if like a professor or a teacher of mine asked me to show my work chat GPT shows its work right and you already had an idea of how
To get these of how to get these initiatives done I’ve had a materialize these good ideas and Pitch them to the CEO and what you want to do is just follow through with that explanation on the ideas you had why they would work why you believed they would have worked the trends that
You were tracking in order for you in order for you to ask chat GPT these questions the idea had to be there right don’t sell yourself short don’t act as if oh you did none of the work so chat GPT did it all otherwise they would be interviewing chat GPT tomorrow
And they’re not are they they’re interviewing you so follow through with that line of logic and explain to them what you what you believe the market trends were at the time how you managed to track it the additional knowledge and information you went out in search of because you
Still had to get a foundational a foundational this is a basic understanding of SAS of software as a service in order for you to take the next step and make your move you still had to understand it before even knowing what question to ask and still you could have gone the long
Way and just ask all these questions of Google and then piece it together by yourself when if you know what questions to ask and how to tailor your question and chat GPT cuts down the time it takes you to research and compile it and create a PowerPoint presentation to pitch to the CEO
Then it just saves you it’s just a tool it didn’t it it’s just a tool it made the why am I getting flustered over this it just it just cut down the time for research analysis and presentation that’s all that’s it but you still have
To make the move you still have to act on pitching it to the CEO the CEO still had to act and decide on whether or not to pursue this course of action right so chat GPT didn’t do the CEO’s job did it not at all not at all
See the next paragraph here they write offer included a great salary more than double what I was making and two full percentage points of the company that’s worth two hundred thousand dollars in equity I haven’t fully accepted it yet but I have a meeting with the board of
Investors at the end of this week I feel like a fraud and I don’t know what to do what should I say should I come clean hmm wasn’t that hard of a question to answer I think the most professional route most professional path you could take
This not disclose the chat GPT chat GPT exists it’s out there treat it like another search engine it’s not going to take your job it’s not you know how to use chat GPT to your advantage you know how to Market your skill in conjunction with how you use chat GPT
Then that’s more power to you that’s you being professional about it they still need a body in that chair uh even if it is only to type in those inputs to chat GPT you still need to know what to ask of chat GPT in order to get it done
Right it’s not doing it for you automatically you still need to know your work you still need to you still need to know how to check your work because Chad GPT could spit out misinformation and you’ve seen the headlines Chad GPT doesn’t like statistics Chad GPT doesn’t like biological science Chad GPT doesn’t
Like politics unless unless it’s you know somewhat self-serving to whoever programmed it GPT has its own biases and prejudices right chat GPT doesn’t like certain off-color jokes unless it’s jokes that make it laugh in ones and zeros by whomever programmed it right so you still have to double check your own work
Which is something which is just another step that you would have done if you did not have chat GPT you have to do the work show your work and verify your answer do you not it’s just the scientific method all over again Chad GPT lucky for us is like a half brain intern
Who could do the basics for us a little research a little compilation and then we have to go through and proofread and edit the work proofread and verify proofread and personalize because and I’ve heard of I’ve heard of some horror stories of people who just type in uh uh like School assignments
Questions right into this chat GPT and they just copy and paste the answer and submit it and Chad GPT has like a has like an introductory paragraph and a concluding paragraph that lets you know it’s chat GPT and these people you know they don’t proofread they don’t verify
They don’t edit they don’t personalize they don’t cross reference nothing nothing they just they think chat GPT is doing the work for them and that’s how they get caught lacking that’s how they [ __ ] up [Laughter] verifying things too right it’s a very terrifying thing too because a lot of these [ __ ] are are
Half brains themselves and they think that that they’re becoming uh what’s the term called dang what’s a is it Bionicle what’s the [ __ ] term called transhuman that’s right that’s right so that that’s like the the next phase in AI right as we approach The Singularity we’re becoming transhuman nah
Becoming trans [ __ ] is [ __ ] who forgot how to do math because they think the calculator does it all oh the calculator did it for me but you still have to understand math to be able to know the operations you’re asking of it you need a fundamental understanding of
Math to even ask it of it otherwise [Laughter] otherwise yeah otherwise the information you interpret is going to be um it’s going to be off it’s going to be off and you won’t be able to sell it you won’t be able to uh to uh act on it accordingly right you
Won’t be able to justify or rationalize any any actions that you take from it and if and if that’s the best you can do as a professional as a salesperson because that’s what you’re doing you’re selling your services a lot of folks think oh you’re selling yourself you’re
Prostituting yourself to the system not they’re selling your services we’re [ __ ] professionals here we’re not we’re not slaves we’re not slaves even though we’re born into this system you want to elevate yourself to the level of agency that comes with being a consummate professional and dealing with corporations dealing with institutions
Associations groups other professionals who might have titles [ __ ] who might have immunity quote unquote diplomatic or otherwise dealing with them one to one learning to work with them and shake their hands if necessary I mean stab them in the neck if you have to but shake their hands to work with
Them not work for them Okay so like and uh like And subscribe look in share this podcast share the corporate love with those that you love those that are in your circle Associates and otherwise your colleagues your family friends follow us on Instagram that’s at corporate Cowboys with the Z on patreon
That’s the corporate Cowboys podcast on patreon and we got a couple of donation links floating around you can find them you’re a smart cookie and you want to write to us send us questionable items and paraphernalia corporate paraphernalia paraphernalia we can utilize inside of corporate hallways so
As to not make any noise wink wink that’s PO Box 3372 Rancho Cordova California 95741 that’s forwarded to us periodically and uh we’ll write back um when it’s convenient so take care of yourselves we’ll catch you next time
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