Ever feel like your brain is spinning with too many ideas, options, or tech paths to choose from? That scattered, stuck feeling doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, it means it’s time for a better system. 

In today’s episode, Tara Bryan talks about the If/Then Strategy - a powerful, practical tool you need in your business toolbox. Whether you’re planning a new offer, simplifying your tech stack, or just trying to clear the mental clutter, this simple logic model (especially when paired with an AI tool) will help you move forward faster and more confidently. 

💡 Walk away with a practical method to simplify complexity, reduce decision paralysis, and get better outcomes, without overthinking or burning out. 

🧠 What You’ll Learn:

• How to use the if/then strategy to organize ideas and plan with clarity
• Why AI tools like ChatGPT are the perfect partner for scenario planning
• A real behind-the-scenes example of simplifying a complex certification build
• How to reduce team misalignment and get to the best solution faster
• Why this process saves time, money, and mental energy

⏱️ Chapters:

00:00 – Intro: Why if/then is more than just an old primary school math concept

01:00 – Using an AI tool to simplify strategic thinking

02:30 – Mapping out scenarios with if/then logic

04:00 – The tech project: When too many options create chaos

05:15 – Different expert opinions = complexity overload

06:30 – Feeding your AI tool all the options to find the best path

07:30 – From overwhelm to clarity: Choosing the simplest solution

09:30 – Compressing weeks of planning into hours

10:45 – A final word: Clear minds take action

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🎯 Take the Scalable Expert Quiz to discover your next best step!

About Me:

Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results. 

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business. 

Join us each week as we dive into different strategies, tactics and tips you can apply immediately to your business.

To learn more:

Find us at https://www.taralbryan.com

Here are two ways we can help you create, grow and scale your business:

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Download our free 50 Ways to Engage Your Customers guide or Schedule a 30 minute call with Tara to talk about our offers that will help you master the game.

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Mentioned in this episode:

https://taralbryan.com/step/15-learn-to-scale-call

Tara Bryan: 00:00:00

Welcome to The Scalable Expert, the podcast where we unlock

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the secrets to building a business

that grows with you, not around you.

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I'm your host, Tara Bryan, business

strategist, mentor, and creator

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of the INFINITE SCALE Method.

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If you're a coach, consultant, or

service provider who's maxed out

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: 00:00:15

with one on one work, overwhelmed by

the grind, and ready to scale your

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expertise into a business that works

for you, then you're in the right place.

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Each week I'll share actionable

tips, inspiring success stories,

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and proven strategies to help you

reclaim your time, grow your income,

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and create a business that delivers

results without sacrificing quality.

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Let's dive in and make your

business INFINITELY SCALABLE.

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Hey everybody, welcome to today's episode.

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I am thrilled that you're here.

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In this episode, I want to talk

about the if/then statement.

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Now, who would have known that

we would actually use some math

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concepts from our school days.

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But this is one that I love and and

I won't admit a lot of times, but

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math is not my favorite subject,

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I'm just gonna say.

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However, the, if/then statement is

one of my favorites, and maybe it's

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because I am a closet computer nerd.

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But it's so powerful and so I want to

walk through a couple of exercises with

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you today on the podcast around some

if/then statements because I think it's

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really powerful to use as you're trying

to work through various scenarios or

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challenges or just things that you're

trying to solve in your business.

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Now, I will I will give you the caveat

that one of my favorite things right

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now to do is when I'm using ChatGPT

specifically, but it could be any AI tool,

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one of the biggest benefits of those tools

is it becomes your checks and balances.

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It becomes, you're, I always say

that it organizes my brain, right?

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If I'm writing something out, I'm

like, okay, so here's a scenario.

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Here's what I'm thinking.

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Here's what I wanted to do.

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How do I make that happen?

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I can put that in ChatGPT and it spits

out a couple of different options for me.

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And I'm like, oh, interesting.

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Okay.

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So that's great.

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And what I end up doing most of the

time with ChatGPT, just so everyone

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knows is I'll be like, okay, yeah,

that's great, but I wanted to do this.

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Or what if we didn't

use this piece for this?

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Or, what if we looked at it this way?

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And every single time it comes back,

oh, yes, that's such a great idea.

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Or, that's such a great

addition to the conversation.

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Yes, Let's go with that scenario.

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And then it will write out a new scenario.

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And so I always love it,

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I'm like, oh yeah, I'm so smart.

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But what happens is in my point in

bringing this up is that it's a great

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tool to help you work through the if/then

statements that are going on in your brain

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around things that are happening, right?

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If we do this, what's the consequence?

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If we do this, what happens next?

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If we do this, then this

is the outcome, right?

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And, you could do that on your own, right?

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Or you just write out, okay, let's think

through how all these pieces work, but

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the fast way to do that is to put that

kind of if/then scenario into ChatGPT

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and have it organize it, and format it,

in however way you want it formatted and

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then use it as a way to either validate

your thinking, challenge your thinking,

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or just come up with a different easier,

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or even more complex approach that

will help you not only articulate what

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it is you're trying to work through

but also give you the step by step

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framework for what that is, or the step

by step guide for how to implement.

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So let me give you just an

example to bring this home.

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So we're working on a really large

certification program, where we're

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automating a number of different tools

and they have to talk to each other.

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Which is a really fun, juicy project.

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So if anyone is geeky like me and loves

to talk systems, give me a shout, and

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you and I can talk about it all day long.

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But there's some complex things

that we need to have happen in

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this, particular, use case with this

customer that they're asking for.

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And and so we know the tech, we

know the if/then statement, right?

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If somebody puts this in,

this is what needs to happen.

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This is what needs to be spit out.

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But as you are aware, in most cases,

there are a number of different

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ways to accomplish one outcome.

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Especially in Techland, right?

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Like you, there's lots of different

ways to get to the answer.

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And a lot of times, the way that

we used to get to the answer was,

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I have experience with this, or,

someone else has experience with this.

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Or we can do some custom

blah, blah, blah, right?

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So everyone comes from

a different perspective.

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So my developer is going to have a

completely different way that they're

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going to look at it than the way that I'm

going to look at it, because I'm looking

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at it from a different lens than he is.

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But, when we can put it into ChatGPT

and be like, okay, so what is the

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most simple, the easiest, the least

expensive, whatever your criteria

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is, for how to accomplish this?

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Then you can start looking at it from

the different perspectives without

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that communication barrier, right?

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And so I love to use ChatGPT

for this purpose and diving

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into those if/then statements.

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So what was really cool is what we ended

up doing was we put in our parameters,

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we put in our inputs, and said, if

this happens, then we want this to

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happen, what is the most streamlined and

effective path to go from here to here?

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What we got from that whole

experience was something that was

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much more simple than we had even

anticipated at the beginning.

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And so it's so exciting when you think

about, not only, like, how do you leverage

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if/then statements, because ,they're

super powerful in everything that you do.

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If you're struggling to make a

decision, if you're struggling to

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figure out how something works,

put it in an if/then statement.

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I promise you, it will help you.

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Even old school, this is the way

that I work a lot of times, is I'll

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grab a piece of paper and I'll be

like, if, and then, a blank line,

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and then, and then a blank line.

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And then I can start putting in

various scenarios to try and get what

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is in my head and download it out

into something that, can be usable.

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And then if you have other people

do that, then everyone is putting

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their own lens through the problem.

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And then you can start

having the conversation.

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So I had a conversation with my

developer and he said, and, you

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know, let's do it like this.

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I had a conversation with another

developer who was working on a

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different part of the project,

and he said let's do it like this.

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I put it in front of somebody else

who is more like a systems person,

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a project management person,

and she said, do it like this.

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Then I put it down and I

came up with do it like this.

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And then we put all of those scenarios

into ChatGPT and said, okay, so look

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at these scenarios and then decipher

based on how this works, what is

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the most simplified easy and the

least you know, complicated approach

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using this specific tech stack.

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Tell us how we would do that.

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And it came back and it was like,

oh my gosh, that is amazing because

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it was completely different than all

of the responses that we all had.

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But what it did is it put

it all together, right?

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And it said, okay, based on your

requirements, based on what you

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want, based on what's available,

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here's the best approach to do that.

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And then the cool thing around that,

other than how cool it was that we got

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to that outcome of what we could do.

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And I will tell you that even the two

developers I talked to, both of them

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were like, oh, that's really complicated.

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I just don't know if we can do that,

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blah, blah, blah.

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And then what actually got spit out was

just a lot more simple because we didn't,

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like the system didn't have all the

garbage in our head of all of the things.

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I've done it this way, and I've done

it that way, and I think I can do this

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way, and I think I can do that way.

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And the system doesn't have that, right?

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And so it was able to really

create something that was much

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more streamlined than any of

us could come up with separate.

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Then, what happened is that then

you can say, okay, great, now put

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together a step by step guide, and

you can say a non technical step by

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step guide, and give me all the things

that, that we need to do step by step,

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like in an SOP, very specific around

implementing this particular approach.

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Super.

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Then it goes through and it does that.

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It's all organized, it's

all formatted, it's great.

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So then you have that, and then you can

hand that off to the person who's gonna

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be doing the work and that they have

a now a step-by-step path to follow.

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Now, the best part about all of this is

all of that work got condensed into a

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very small window of time so that instead

of taking, days and weeks and months and

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sometimes longer to build things, we're

able to build them very quickly, very

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easily and in a way that minimized the

amount of complexity, minimized the cost,

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and allowed us to have something that was

scalable without being so totally randomly

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crazy that it was too complicated.

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And and again we have the skills, we have

the expertise to be able to look at it

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from that filter and say, oh yeah, that

makes sense, that's how we would do that.

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And and that is, in fact,

the best way to do it.

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So don't just trust ChatGPT that they're

going to tell you the best way, but

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put it through then back through the

lens of, poking holes in it to make

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sure that it is the right approach.

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And so that if/then statement, matching

it with the simplicity of having a tool

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that helps just take all of the mess that

we, our brains bring to a project and

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put it into a succinct format and then be

able to quickly give those instructions

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to yourself or to other people,

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will help you so much as you're

building things and moving

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forward in your business.

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And so if you are in that place

where everything feels a little

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overwhelming, and you're stuck in

your head, I do totally 100 percent

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recommend that you use ChatGPT as

sort of your filter for simplifying.

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And it could even just

be like, hey, ChatGPT,

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mine has a name, maybe yours has a

name, I don't know, but hey, ChatGPT,

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take all of these random thoughts

and organize them for me into some,

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pattern so that I can move forward.

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And see what that does for you because

the number one reason why we don't move

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forward is because we're overwhelmed

in our heads with all of the things.

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And so let ChatGPT organize those for you.

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And for those of you who are like,

oh, AI is taking our lives and we

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shouldn't be using it for anything.

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I'm telling you that you don't need to

use it to write something for you, but

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using it to do this will so help you

just stay connected and unoverwhelmed.

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We'll use that as a word so that

you can keep moving forward.

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So go use it.

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Let me know how it goes.

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I would love to get your feedback

on that and how you have used it

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to move you forward with something.

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All right, thank you so much for

being here for this episode.

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In the meantime, if you like this episode,

go give it a a subscribe, do all the

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things, no matter where you're watching.

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I appreciate you so much and

we will talk to you next week.