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With the recent announcements around the ChatGPT and Whisper APIs, allowing developers to integrate OpenAI models into their applications, I wanted to explore how these services could be used.

In my ChatGPT Is My Meditation Teacher article, I played around with the idea of incorporating generative AI scripts to personalize a meditation experience. This week, I brought that idea to life to simulate what a ChatGPT-powered meditation app would look like.

To start, I trained ChatGPT on the parameters for designing a meditation experience and fed it some examples of meditation scripts. I asked it to incorporate three inputted variables in the meditation script: Name, Mood, and Happy Place.

At first request, it only incorporated two of the three.

Upon a second request, it captured the three inputs and integrated them into the meditation script nicely.

To bring this to life, the next step was finding an AI text-to-speech tool which would provide a natural, relaxing voice to guide this meditation. There were a number of tools I tried, which all had seemingly different benefits and limitations, and I landed on Murf.ai.

Murf had a wide selection of different voices, and the interface made it easy to edit the script and incorporate different elements into the production such as background music and images/video.

One big first observation is that to capture the essence of a meditation, the speed of the voice, the pacing, and the incorporation of pauses in the script are really important. And voice-to-text by default does not factor in those elements into the reading.

By default, it does not sound like a meditation. It sounds like a pharmaceutical commercial where they are reading the side effects of a drug.

So I needed to adjust the voice speed and manually incorporate pauses within the syntax. It still doesn’t sound as perfect and polished as a trained human, but it’s certainly closer.

I finalized it by incorporating a Dall-E image of a “Big Sur Sunrise” as the thumbnail.

Here is the final result:

These are my top 3 takeaways:

1. I still have a tough time trusting ChatGPT. Trust in ChatGPT requires a quality review of outputs. ChatGPT requires a quality review of outputs, so I’m not sure I’d fully trust an unsupervised output to return in an application based on the API. Whether it’s ChatGPT ignoring some of the input parameters or potentially incorporating bias into the response, I’d be concerned having fully generative output without the opportunity to do some quality control first.

2. AI Voices Don’t Quite Sound Human. Text-to-audio sound really close, but the technology has a way to go to create a truly naturalistic output. While the voices sound pretty solid, the tone of voice, pacing, and emotion don’t quite come through in the delivery compared to a voice actor.

3. Personalized Meditation On-Demand Is Quite Possible. Despite the shortcomings above, it’s incredible that in a matter of moments, a meditation audio can be generated that incorporates personal details that can help more deeply connect to the meditation. I really enjoy the concept of incorporating personal details into a meditation, and being able to customize certain variables such as voice and music.

What would your custom meditation look like?

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The result? Better mood, energy, focus, sleep, and stress resilience.

Embracing the hormesis principle can transform the way you approach stress. What hormetic stressors do you invite into your life?

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I wanted to see how well ChatGPT understands public figures and can report biographical information.

For my article on breathwork, I asked the AI to summarize the biography of Wim Hof and to include his Guinness World Records. I was happy to see an accurate description.

I was glad to see it also cited some of the media outlets that have covered Hof, so I wanted to find some of those sources.

It seems ChatGPT has fairly poor short-term memory and didn't full grasp the request of the "him" I was referring to. It shared a number of Guinness World Records related to cold exposure that didn't seem to match the records it provided above.

Those weren't quite the news articles I was looking for, so I improved my prompt to be more specific. The response appeared to be successful, finding articles in Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC and CNN.

However, as I clicked on the links...none of them worked!

Interestingly, each of those publications have actually covered Wim Hof's achievements. And the titles of the articles are factually correct. But, similar to my prior experience with ChatGPT as a research assistant, none of the articles reported are real!

In searching for the articles' titles the AI provided, none of those headlines have ever been printed within those publications. Rather, it provided article names and links for plausible publications that could exist...but each was a complete fabrication.

Why Does ChatGPT provide inaccurate citations?

This led me to explore more about this limitation of ChatGPT. Despite some interesting, but highly exaggerated and sensational headlines such as "ChatCPT Is Dumber Than You Think" in the Atlantic and "AI Platforms like ChatGPT Are Easy to Use but Also Potentially Dangerous" in Scientific American, they didn't really reveal the source of the problem. It wasn't until I dove into a YCombinator Hacker News thread until I started understanding this issue better.

They key idea is that ChatGPT is a language model, and not a knowledge model. One user explains, "I've seen it referred to as 'stochastic parroting' elsewhere, and that probably gives more insight into what is happening. These large language models are trained to predict the next word for a given input. And they don't have a choice about this; they must predict the next word, even if it means that they have to make something up."

Another user expands, "These model are extremely good when they have creative freedom and are used to produce some kind of art. Poems, text in various styles, images without important details, and so on. But they fail miserably when you give them tasks that require world knowledge or precision."

So it's not that ChatGPT is dumb or dangerous, but that our expectations are misguided about how ChatGPT works and how it can currently be used.

Key Takeaways

1. ChatGPT is a great creative writer, and can output a good biography. As a biographer, ChatGPT did a decent job researching key facts about a public figure and reporting back a synthesized paragraph citing their achievements. In fact, I fed ChatGPT my resume and key points I use in my bio, and I was really happy at the short bio the AI generated. It was concise and well written. I could definitely see tools being developed to write effective bios and resumes.

2. ChatGPT is a language model, and not a knowledge model. The most surprising finding so far is the AI's inability to provide citation links. This seems like such an easy task: simply report back an article title and link that exists on the internet. Yet it completes a much more complex and fraudulent task: it makes up article titles and URLs that seem like they should exist, but they don't. This undermines the credibility of ChatGPT for the public, and even with understanding its limitations, it still makes me fearful to trust the AI's accuracy in other ways. The implications of this shortcoming is that we all must manually fact check any output of ChatGPT before using the generative copy it develops.

3. GPT-4 may put this issue in the past. The current GPT-3 model is trained on 175 billion parameters. Comparatively, the upcoming GPT-4 model is trained on 100 trillion parameters! Some speculate that the training set for GPT-4 is equivalent to nearly 25% of the entire public internet. It seems like with this increased base for learning, we will move towards something that feels more like a knowledge model as its trained to provide more comprehensive and accurate output.

Andrew Huberman recently shared that "In a head-to-head comparison, we found that brief (5min/day) structured breathing (aka "breathwork") outperformed meditation for improving mood and autonomic regulation and lowering stress around the clock."

I've spent the past several years exploring breathwork, which became a key ingredient in the FDA-authorized product we developed at AppliedVR.

As leaders, it's essential that we have the ability to regulate our nervous system in order to stay focused, calm, and composed under pressure. This is especially true in times of high stress, when our bodies and minds can become overwhelmed and start to shut down. One of the most powerful tools is something you have with you at all times – your breath.

It turns out “taking a breath” is not such trite advice that should be overlooked. In Breath - The New Science of a Lost Art, James Nestor dives into his vast exploration and research of the breath to detail how the smallest changes to the way we breathe can help lead to huge leaps in improvements in athletic performance, health, sleep, and more.

Here are are a couple different breathing exercises that I use regularly:

Wim Hof Method Breathing

One powerful way to regulate our nervous system is through the Wim Hof Method breathing technique. This simple but powerful practice involves a series of deep, controlled breaths that help to activate the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, promoting balance and harmony within the body. Wim Hof's method has been studied by researchers, and has been shown to have numerous health benefits, including improved immune system function, increased energy and mental clarity, reduced stress and anxiety, and increased physical performance. Wim Hof has leveraged his methods to set numerous world records, including climbing Mount Everest in just shorts, running a marathon in the Namibian Desert without water, and breaking the world record for the longest ice bath.

In a 2014 study "Voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system and attenuation of the innate immune response in humans," published in PNAS, a group of 12 healthy volunteers were injected with a small amount of a harmful endotoxin. The study showed that by using the Wim Hof Breathing techniques, they were able to control how their body's nervous and immune systems responded, compared to the untrained control group. When healthy volunteers used the breathing methods, they were able to increase the release of epinephrine in their body, which the authors discuss how this led to an increase in the production of chemicals that reduce inflammation and a decrease in the production of chemicals that cause inflammation. These trained individuals experienced fewer endotoxin-related flu-like symptoms, and "a more swift normalization of fever and cortisol levels, which are likely the result of the attenuated pro-inflammatory response."

So, how can the Wim Hof Method breathing technique help you regulate your nervous system for optimal leadership?

• Proactively prepare for stress. Stress is unavoidable as we tackle challenges in our lives. The more regularly we train our body and minds to prepare through stress through breathwork training, the less affected we are during outs of acute stress.

• Improved connection. The more we practice breathwork, the more in tune we get with our bodies to recognize when we may be off balance. And while we can better connect with ourselves, I believe these practices also help you connect with others and recognize when you see dysregulation in others during moments of stress.

• Faster recovery. Perfection isn't the goal. It would be impossible and unreasonable to think we can maintain the composure of a monk through all the tough moments in our lives. The goal is to recognize when we are dysregulated and to be able to quickly recover. Having a tool like breathwork allows us to quickly rebound and regain control.

By incorporating the Wim Hof Method breathing technique into your daily routine, you can learn to regulate your nervous system for optimal leadership. Whether you're facing a tough meeting or simply looking to improve focus and productivity, this simple but powerful practice can make a big difference.

How It Works:

1. First, begin by finding a comfortable seated position. You can sit in a chair with your back straight, sit on a cushion with your legs crossed, or lay down.

2. Take 30 deep breaths in a row, inhaling deep into your belly (either through your nose or mouth) and exhaling through your mouth. Make sure to take in as much air as possible each time you inhale, and exhale with ease.

3. After the 30 breaths, take one final deep inhale, let go of your breath and hold on the exhalation. This hold is called the Retention.

4. When you can no longer hold your breath, inhale deeply. Hold this breath for around 10 seconds and then let it go.

5. Repeat for 3-4 rounds.

6. You can incorporate the Wim Hof breathing method into your daily routine by practicing it once or twice a day, or as needed during times of stress.

Here is a guided video to better learn the method:

Box Breathing

Box breathing is another powerful relaxation and stress management technique that has been used by the US Navy SEALs and other elite military units for decades. The goal of box breathing is to help you calm your mind and body, and increase your focus and concentration. It's a great tool to have in your toolkit to help you manage stress, anxiety, and other emotions that can get in the way of your success.

I typically use Wim Hof Method for the proactive daily training, and box breathing as the on-demand tool to help me recover when I find myself acutely affected by stress.

Here's how to do box breathing:

1. Find a comfortable and quiet place to sit or lie down.

2. Close your eyes and take a deep breath in through your nose, counting to four.

3. Hold your breath for a count of four.

4. Exhale through your mouth for a count of four.

5. Hold your breath again for a count of four.

6. Repeat the process for a total of 5-10 cycles.

That's it! The key is to focus on the breath and the count of four. You can adjust the length of the count to suit your needs – for example, you might find it easier to start with a count of three and work your way up to four, or you may prefer to extend the count to 5 or 6. 

Box breathing is a simple technique that can help you manage stress, improve your focus and concentration, and increase your overall sense of calm and well-being. Give it a try the next time you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed out, and see how it works for you.

Here is a guided video to help you practice box breathing:

For my recent article on the benefits of cold, I wanted to put ChatGPT to the test in developing a cold exposure protocol that could be included in the article.

I started with a broad request for a cold exposure protocol based on Wim Hof and Andrew Huberman, who were mentioned in the article.

The output was not perfect, but generally decent given the lack of direction in the prompt. Next, I wanted to see how it would do if I was more specific. I asked for a protocol based on Wim Hof's cold shower challenge.

The output was pretty spot on. Without providing any information on the Wim Hof shower challenge, it defined 30 days (correct) and outlined the general practices to follow, including the breath work and mindset tools. It even included proper disclaimer text at the end around the risks.

These responses still lacked some of the details I wanted to share, so I asked the AI to provide some additional parameters for the target temperate and time.

Then, I prompted it to provide recommendations for warming the body afterwards. The responses were generally pretty solid.

Now that there were sufficient responses to satisfy each of my open questions, I asked it to put everything together in a comprehensive protocol.

Key Takeaways

I'm generally happy with the quality of this week's ChatGPT experiment. While the initial output was a bit general and incomplete...after finding the right prompts, the last response felt specific, accurate, and well articulated.

• Prompt engineering is an iterative process that requires multiple follow up inputs or leading questions to achieve an improved, clarified response.

• ChatGPT is there to be your follower, not leader. If you are trying to develop content without being a subject matter expert, you won't know when you are being misled or responses are incomplete. After 2 years of being a Wim Hof practitioner, I was able to identify the gaps in its responses and to provide prompts for followups to fill in those gaps. But for a topic where I am naive, I could easily be led astray.

• There is a lot of flexibility for formatting based on your prompts. It took specificity to put the directions into a before/during/after format. Additionally, you can prompt the AI to format in a table format. You can even have it write HTML code (or even more advanced programming outputs) to incorporate the protocol onto your website.

I've seen a number of really interesting protocol experiments where others have successfully created food plans, exercise routines, and other elaborate protocols. I totally buy into this application, especially around subjects that are well documented online. I think this week was a win for ChatGPT.

As leaders, we are constantly faced with challenges and stressors that can test our resilience and resolve. While it may be tempting to avoid these challenges, the reality is that they are an inevitable part of life, and the more we can learn to confront them head on, the stronger we will become.

One of the most powerful ways to build resilience and adaptability is through cold exposure. Deliberate cold exposure is an opportunity to stress our body on purpose, with the goal to learn to maintain mental clarity and calm while our body is in a state of stress.

There is currently more mainstream awareness and scientific evidence about this crazy but ancient practice than ever before. Wim Hof has become more of a household name as he's captivated the interest of ordinary people as well as the research community as he's completed seemingly impossible feats, as well as trained others to do the same. His Wim Hof Method is what initially introduced me to the cold.

There are commercial products available on the market from companies like Plunge and BlueCube to have a readily available ice bath at your home. Even Thor (AKA Chris Hemsworth) gets onboard with cold exposure in his Disney+ Series, Limitless.

Every time I mention this strange habit that I've adopted over the past couple years, I consistently get reactions that are blend of intrigue and confusion.

By exposing ourselves to cold temperatures, we can train our bodies and minds to better handle stress and discomfort. This can be particularly beneficial for leaders, who often face high levels of pressure and need to be able to remain calm and focused under difficult circumstances.

For a deep dive into the science of the cold, Andrew Huberman, discusses the immense benefits in this episode of his podcast.

This is a fairly new area of study, but research is starting to show some incredible benefits of cold exposure, even influencing the release of hormones that relate to alertness and mood. According to Huberman, "Deliberate cold exposure can be used to cause increases in catecholamines (including dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline) in ways that can improve your levels of attention and your mood." In fact, in a study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, cold exposure led to an increase of noradrenaline by 530% and dopamine by 250%.

After nearly 2 years of weekly practice, here are a few key benefits that I have noticed:

• Improved mood: Cold exposure has helped with my mood and to help manage feelings of anxiety and stress. Between the demands of startup life and family life, my practice has helped me deal better with high levels of pressure, to stay positive under stressful conditions, and overall motivation.  

• Increased focus: Cold exposure has helped improve my focus and concentration, making it easier to stay on task and handle multiple demands.

• Improved sleep: On days I plunge, I have an easier time falling asleep and overall better sleep quality. One note: doing it too close to bed time can disrupt sleep, so try to time it at least 3-4 hours before bedtime.

• Improved mindset: Cold exposure can improve our willingness to face adversity, and simply the act of confronting a challenge can build resilience to deal with other stressors in life.

By incorporating it into your daily routine, you can build the strength and mental fortitude necessary to handle whatever challenges come your way.

How to Incorporate Cold Into Your Routine

• How to start? You don't need to jump in a bucket of ice to get some of the benefits. It’s as simple as ending your daily shower with cold water. Turn off the hot water and embrace the cold. Aim initially for 30 seconds and work up to 3+ minutes over time. Your natural response will be to gasp, tense your body, and pull away. But if you can relax your muscles, focus on slowing down your breath (paying particular attention to slow exhalations), and accept the temporary discomfort, you will eventually find the experience to be enjoyable and even peaceful. 

• How to level up? Cold water immersion up to the neck is the most effective option. There isn't a perfect temperature, although it's generally recommended to target water under 60 degrees fahrenheit. That said, you'll get benefits from any water that subjectively "uncomfortably cold" to enter. You can use a natural body of water (e.g. lake, pool or ocean) if you have one accessible. You can also fill up a bathtub or inflatable tub from Amazon, and pour in ice or frozen water bottles to bring the temperature down. It takes around 30 pounds of ice or more to get to the desired temperature. For those curious about Cryotherapy chambers, water is a much better conductor of cold than air and is a lot cheaper. However cryotherapy is a fine option if that’s something you want to do on a regular basis.

• Feeling committed? Once you become a regular with your ice baths, there are some great options of cold plunges to help make this a daily routine. I use the Plunge. There are also plenty of DIY budget-friendly options repurposing a chest freezer.

While I largely dread the first moments of entering freezing water, I always walk away feeling fantastic after 2-5 minutes of cold exposure. I find it meditative, therapeutic, and incredibly beneficial for multiple aspects of my physical and mental health.

Overall, cold exposure is a powerful tool that can help you lead with resilience and adaptability. 

Have you tried cold exposure? Let me know about your experience.

Note: Please consult a physician if you have any preexisting conditions, as there are some contraindications against cold exposure.

In developing this week's post on presence, in addition to continuing in its role as my writer's assistant, I tasked ChatGPT to consult as my meditation teacher in writing parts of the post.

First, I wanted to check to see if ChatGPT grasped some of the basic concepts I wanted to explore. I think it did a nice, comprehensive job defining presence.

And to follow up, it also captured the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance well (despite my poor spelling).

Next, I gave a tall order, which was to take a first draft at the article. I provided some very high level talking points that I wanted to tackle, and then some direction for the composition of the article. I ended up only using fragments from its output, but overall it did a good job turning the prompt into a fairly well constructed article that touched on the main points I wanted to discuss and it provided a good starting point for me to react to.

Lastly, I wanted to develop a meditation script that would give the reader a tool for learning the skill of presence through a Present Moment meditation. There are a ton of great scripts you can find online, but I wanted to see if ChatGPT could develop something original.

Aside from needing a bit of copy editing, I was really pleased with the output. It incorporated mindful awareness and present moment meditations and packaged it into a nice written delivery that the reader could follow.

I can see ChatGPT being even better if I gave it some sample scripts it could learn from.

I think AI can be a game changer for meditation apps by creating an endless permutation of meditation scripts to keep things interesting for frequent guided meditators. I'm curious who will launch the first AI-assisted meditation app functionality.

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In the early days of AppliedVR, before people had any degree of awareness or experience with virtual reality, we created a VR experience called "The Ledge" to demonstrate the power of presence. When wearing a virtual reality headset, a person is transported to the middle of a busy urban city, standing in the middle of a window washing scaffold that slowly raises 500 feet up the side of a building. Even though they know the surroundings are virtual, the emotional, non-conscious brain experiences very real sensations of fear. Your palms will sweat and your heart will race as if you are really dangling 500 feet in the air. The railing drops and you are given a simple task to take a confident step into the virtual air. If you are like 90% of people who have experienced The Ledge, you will struggle to take a step forward. This is the power of presence. When we are present and we are fully accepting of the moment, we see and feel things quite acutely.

As the world becomes more digital and we are increasingly physically disconnected, people desire the feeling of presence. Even though we may feel like technology connects us, no matter how much you look at someone through the squares of Zoom, there is no part of your brain that makes you feel like they are actually in the room with you. Virtual reality, on the other hand, has become a powerful tool for achieving this immersion, allowing us to fully engage with digital content and feel as though we are truly present in a different world. Unlike Zoom, if you are interacting with a virtual avatar in the same environment, you will feel as if they are truly there with you. You will try to high five them, hand them something, and step aside if they walk into your space.

While VR makes presence easily accessible, presence is a skill we can develop outside of technology as well. What if we applied this same concept of immersion to our leadership roles and personal development? How can we fully immerse ourselves in our work and the culture of our organizations in order to truly excel as leaders?

Being Present in the Moment

First, as leaders, we can strive to achieve this same level of presence in our work, fully engaging and committing ourselves to our tasks and the success of our teams. This means being fully present in meetings, listening actively and being fully present in the moment, rather than multi-tasking...which I naturally find myself doing.

Avoiding Cognitive Dissonance in our Culture

But immersion and presence go beyond just being present in the moment. It also means fully immersing ourselves in the culture and values of our organizations. This means actively seeking out opportunities to clearly define the company's mission, vision, and values, and finding ways to bring them to life in the experiences of our teams. Aligning our actions and decisions with our company’s guiding principles maintains the presence of our teams being immersed in our culture. Inconsistencies in our culture break the presence of our employees working in our organizations. It creates cognitive dissonance, which is psychological discomfort that occurs when an individual experiences a contradiction between values/beliefs and behavior/actions. One key lesson from virtual reality is: once you break presence, it’s harder to tune back in.

Experiential Learning

One of the most powerful aspects of presence is it allows people to more effectively develop skills because they can block out all distractions and learn experientially. What opportunities can you create for your team to develop new skills and experiences while immersed within your organization? While VR can use simulation to create experiential learning, we can take this same lens to think through creating more effective learning and development in our organizations. This can be achieved through more experiential training and development programs, as well as inviting ourselves and our teams into new experiences and responsibilities that will push us out of our comfort zone and help us grow as leaders.

Incorporating presence and immersion into our leadership and personal development can lead to improved focus, performance, and connectivity within our organization. It allows us to fully engage with our work and create meaningful connections with our teams. By leveraging the power of presence, we can become our highest functioning selves and excel as leaders.

Tool: Present Moment Meditation

Meditation is a powerful tool to ground ourselves in the moment and develop the skill of presence. This is a 5 minute meditation exercise focused on mindful awareness and the present moment. To begin, find a comfortable seated position, with your back straight and your feet planted firmly on the ground. Take a few deep breaths, allowing yourself to fully settle into your body.

Now, bring your focus to the present moment. Notice the sensation of your breath as it moves in and out of your body. Notice the sensation of your body sitting in this present moment, the sensation of your clothing against your skin.

As you continue to breathe and focus on the present moment, you may notice that your mind begins to wander. This is natural. When you notice your mind wandering, simply acknowledge the thought and then gently bring your attention back to the present moment, back to the sensation of your breath moving in and out of your body.

As you continue to practice this meditation exercise, you may notice that your mind becomes quieter and more focused. You may also begin to notice more of the present moment, the sights, sounds, and sensations around you.

Remember, this is a practice. It's not about achieving a certain state of mind, but rather about learning to bring your attention back to the present moment, again and again. So be patient with yourself, and keep returning to the present moment, no matter how many times your mind wanders.

As you are ready to complete the exercise, take a few final deep breaths, and when you're ready, slowly open your eyes, bringing your attention back to the present moment. Remember, you can practice this meditation exercise anytime, anywhere, simply by bringing your focus back to the present moment and the sensation of your breath.

What are ways you practice being presence into your lives?

At a first glance, I was super impressed. Within 10 seconds, it generated a source list of academic journal articles that I could use to cite the power of self-tracking.

Did I just save hours of researching articles?

Before I was ready to cite the articles, I was curious if it pulled articles with positive results...or if it simply pulled the name of the paper that fit my query. I wanted to get a glimpse of the key results from the study. So, I asked ChatGPT so summarize the articles.

My research assistant let me down. So I tried to create a simpler request to simply pull the abstract from each study.

Something seemed off. To figure out where ChatGPT is getting stuck, I decided to pull up the article myself. I figured out why it couldn't pull the abstracts. There was a little problem. The first article didn't seem to exist.

So I looked for the second... Strike 2!

It appears that there is an article by a similar name, but the lead author didn't match the citation. Where is K.M. Lichtman?

I found Lichtman, but K.M. seems to be in a completely different field of research.

Despite the journal citations looking incredibly legitimate, ChatGPT completely fabricated the results.

Here are my 3 key takeaways from this week's use of ChatGPT:

1. ChatGPT can be a very convincing liar. There was no hesitation in providing a response to my prompt requesting academic sources. It even displayed the request in the proper AP format, identified multiple authors, as well generated the name of the publication. However, in fact checking the sources, the articles simply didn't exist. And the authors may have existed, but not in the field of study that I was looking for.

2. ChatGPT is self-critical in some of its limitations. I found the response that "this task as it goes against my capabilities as a language AI model" very interesting in disclosing its own limitations. I'm curious to discover where else it returns this response to my requests.

3. ChatGPT requires the operator to know its limitations and how to develop prompts that provide useful outputs. In trying to create some redemption for my AI friend, I gave it one last chance. Summarizing a research article seemed like a reasonable task, so maybe I need to ask it in a different way. So I took the abstract of a research article that I was an author on, and copy/pasted it into ChatGPT. It actually did a really nice job summarizing when I asked "Can you summarize this to a 12 year old?"

I asked again, but this time for a more mature audience.

It did a great job adjusting the description for the intended PhD audience.

Even with that redemption, ChatGPT remains fired as my Research Assistant...but I'm keeping it around as my Writer's Assistant for now.

Self-tracking can be a powerful tool for behavior change because it helps to increase accountability and motivation. When you are regularly monitoring your progress, it becomes easier to see where you are falling short and make adjustments. It also provides a sense of accomplishment when you see progress being made.

In a randomized controlled trial published in Computers in Human Behavior, people who used a fitness tracker for just 2 weeks experienced a positive effect on their perceived physical health and their sense of accomplishment (vs. waitlist control group), and a meta analysis suggests there is sufficient evidence that self-tracking can lead to improved physical activity, body composition, and fitness.

However, what if the reported data isn't particularly inspiring? What happens after a poor night's sleep? In the GQ article "Why Tracking Your Sleep Can Backfire," the author surfaces the concept of the nocebo effect. "It's the reverse of the placebo effect, in which the expectation of good results creates them out of thin air—expecting a bad result makes it real." It's certainly possible for someone to give up or worse, experience the nocebo effect, after a few poor sleep deprived nights or overly indulgent eating days.

With that said, self-tracking alone may not be the key. In the study “The Impact of Mindset on Self-Tracking Experience,” published in Frontiers in Digital Health, the authors explore how people's beliefs about their ability to change impacts the success of self-tracking devices. They found that people's beliefs about the changeability of their behavior influenced how they felt about self-tracking. They also found differences in how people responded to failure and how self-critical or compassionate they were with themselves. These results show that mindset is critically important to how we track and invest our time.

For me, data is useful but not the end goal. I don't define a good sleep score as success, nor a poor sleep score as failure. The data is simply a tool to help me analyze whether I'm making the decisions that lead to my desired outcomes. And when I find myself not energized by the decisions I'm making -- which is seen in data trends, not single data points -- I shift my energy into exploring new behaviors.

Here are some of the ways I leverage self-tracking to supercharge my performance across my personal and professional life:

Don't Measure Everything

When it comes to health tracking, there is no shortage of tools that can track nearly every aspect of our lives, including diet (e.g. MyFitnessPal), activity (e.g. Apple Watch, Fitbit), sleep (e.g. Oura Ring), and the list goes on. You can even track your water consumption through connected water bottles (e.g. Hidrate). It’s easy to experience data fatigue, so I’d recommend starting with one to two meaningful drivers of your health.

For the past several years, I've ruthlessly prioritized sleep as one of the most important aspects of my health. Matthew Walker, PhD describes in "Why We Sleep":

"Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day -- Mother Nature's best effort yet at contra-death."

I find myself noticeably more productive, patient, creative, empathetic, and happier when I consistently hit my sleep goals. And I know the opposite is true when I don't. So, I religiously track my sleep and have invested in a number of routines and tools to maximize my sleep quality (will share more in the future).

During the holiday season, where my diet and exercise numbers have suffered, I still find myself grounded and energized by focusing on the one area that matters most to me: sleep.

No matter what you choose to focus on, I'd suggest being intentional and highly selective. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the quantity of self-tracking data and to feel like a failure when even one of your indicators wanes.

Time Tracking

“Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing.” - Miles Davis

When it comes to our professional lives, most of us are not as equipped with tools to create that same sense of accountability. Self-tracking is also a powerful leadership tool that can help us monitor our progress and identify areas for improvement.

They say if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. When we’re busy, we must take a careful inventory of our time to figure out where we should focus, where we should delegate, and where we should deprioritize. Otherwise, we easily become reactive and overextended, leading to burnout, waste, and poor productivity.

How do you know if you are allocating your time wisely towards the things that matter most to us and our business? Track yourself.

One tool I use for this is Reclaim, which provides reports on how our calendar is allocated. When you see where your time is spent, you can more easily reflect on how much work you achieved and how you feel about the quality of your work.

It’s not just about the quantity of time you invest in different areas, but it’s about what you actually achieve with the limited time you have. Next week, we’ll discuss some goal setting frameworks next week to ensure we’re putting time in the areas that matter most.

Optimizing Mindset

Like in the “The Impact of Mindset on Self-Tracking Experience” study mentioned earlier, your mindset and how you feel will play a key role in your success in how you achieve your desired goals. As we look at our schedules, do we feel energized or drained by how we are spending out time? Are we bringing the right mindset into our planning and performance at work? These are critical questions to answer.

Furthermore, when we pay attention to our health indicators, we can identify areas that may be impacting our performance as a leader. For example, if we're not getting enough sleep, we may notice that our decision-making skills are impaired, we aren’t as present or patient in meetings, or that we're not nearly as productive.

On those sleep deprived days where my Oura Ring reminds me that I may not be at my prime, I’ll do my best to optimize my mindset by making sure I get exposed to plenty of sunlight, recharge with breath work and meditation, and perform some light exercise to pick up my energy. I also will try to deprioritize work that day that requires a lot of creative or strategic thinking, which I know will be impaired.

On the other hand, if I’m coming off of a great night’s sleep, I’ll start the day with a challenging morning workout, and I can pick up the intensity of my work and prioritize my time towards focusing on key decisions or issues that require my best self being present.

In summary, by leveraging a combination of self-tracking tools along with honing in on our health indicators and mindset, we can best prioritize how we use our time. This ultimately helps us to be the best leaders we can be, both for ourselves and for our teams.

What self-tracking tools do you use in your personal and professional life?

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About my journey.

As someone who has struggled with health issues throughout my life, I have always been focused on finding ways to improve my health and well-being.

As I improved my health, I found I also improved my performance in other areas of my life, including as a business leader.

Over the past 8 years of developing AppliedVR – a transformative digital health company developing virtual reality-powered medical devices – I’ve realized the importance of maintaining optimal health and wellness in order to be the best leader possible.

The demands of running a business can be overwhelming, and it's easy to neglect our own physical and mental well-being in the process. However, the most successful leaders understand that taking care of themselves is crucial to the success of their team and their organization.

In reflecting what I’ve seen work for me and how other highly successful leaders practice to optimize their health and wellness, I’ve compiled a toolkit of habits and strategies I’ve found to be useful in strengthening the connection between our health and performance as a leader.

By incorporating these habits into your daily routine, you can optimize your health and wellness and become a more effective and successful leader. Remember, taking care of yourself is crucial to the success of your team and your organization.

Who am I?

I’m Josh Sackman, a leader in the field of healthcare technology, using my own experience with chronic pain to inspire and drive innovation at AppliedVR, a company pioneering immersive therapeutics through virtual reality. With a background in scaling consumer health and technology companies, I have a deep understanding of frameworks for behavior change to positively impact health and performance. In my role, I led the development and market authorization of RelieVRx, the first FDA-authorized virtual reality therapeutics medical device for chronic lower back pain. As an active speaker and mentor in the healthcare industry and a member of the Young Presidents Organization, I aim to be an intentional and inspiring leader, helping others achieve their best selves. As a Wim Hof Method practitioner and fitness enthusiast, I’m dedicated to exploring the limits of human performance and the body's ability to heal itself.

What is a Healthy Executive?

Being a healthy executive means more than just having a fit body.

It's about being present and energized in both your work and personal lives, being surrounded by positive relationships and engaged in meaningful communities, and having a sense of purpose and passion that drives you forward.

Another key aspect of being a healthy executive is being exposed to the right balance of challenge and achievement. This means taking on tasks and responsibilities that push you out of your comfort zone and help you grow and develop, while also finding ways to celebrate your accomplishments and take breaks to recharge. Striving for a healthy balance of challenge and accomplishment allows us to stay motivated, energized, and focused on our goals.

Finally, being a healthy executive means prioritizing your health and well-being. This includes getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet, engaging in physical activity, and taking care of your mental health.

By prioritizing your health and well-being, you can better manage stress, stay energized, and perform at your best. By becoming a Healthy Executive, you can become your highest functioning and most successful self.

Who is this for?

Whether you are an entrepreneur, CEO, or just starting out on your career path, I believe that everyone can benefit from finding ways to optimize their health and well-being. 

Don't miss out on our weekly posts where I bring these and other habits to life about how to be the best leader by optimizing your own health and wellness.

Subscribe to The Healthy Executive and join the journey to becoming the best version of yourself!

As the Industrial Revolution moved humans away from physically manufacturing and towards the design and operations of machines that did the work for them, I see OpenAI reflecting the start of a creative AI Revolution. I’ll be exploring how ChatGPT can assist in the creative development process to assist brainstorming, drafting and copy editing. Additionally, I will share where I see limitations, bias and challenges with the tools.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to help write and generate content. It works by learning from what you type and suggesting words and phrases that you can use in your writing. It's like having a virtual writing assistant to help you come up with ideas and words for your writing.

How I Used AI to Come Up with the Healthy Executive

I often joke that the reason I never started a band is because I’m terrible with coming up with names. Perhaps it’s also the lack of musical talent and inability to sing or play instruments…

So I used ChatGPT to help ideate some blog names.

I wanted to then make sure I found something that I could digitally own.

I then took my planned weekly themes and asked for help labeling and organizing them in common themes.

First Impressions

I’m really impressed in the quality of the outputs and the usefulness of the tool. If ChatGPT is this good now, I can’t imagine how incredible it will be in 2-3 years.

Here are a few things I’m paying attention to as I continue to use the tool:

1. Prompt engineering is definitely equal parts art and science. The quality of the output is entirely dependent on the quality and specificity of your input.

2. ChatGPT should be seen as a drafting tool. The outputs included a lot of duplication and I didn’t find all of the recommendations aligned with my voice and vision. That said, it was directionally helpful in stimulating my thinking where I had some writer’s block, and filled in the gaps where I needed assistance completing some thoughts.

3. ChatGPT produces inaccuracies and must be fact-checked. As I checked some of the domain availability and costs, I found some errors. I would not blindly trust that ChatGPT is providing high quality and accurate output.

4. ChatGPT should be used with intellectual honesty and transparency. We’re already seeing college students use ChatGPT to write their essays for them. I believe that there should be disclosures when using AI generative assistance, as it is a digital performance enhancing drug. This is not to say it shouldn’t be used - in fact, I plan on using it as part of this creative exploration of Healthy Executive. But I want to be upfront and transparent about how, when, and why it’s being used. I believe this will help others learn from it, and hopefully it also helps stimulate some conversation around ethical frameworks for hybrid human/AI creative development.

Subscribe now to get weekly emails with my exploration of AI along with the Healthy Executive toolkit.

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