INTEGRITY: Integrity means honesty and consistent alignment with personal values and ethics. It means doing what you say you will, when you say you’ll do it, whether or not someone is watching you. It means willingness to accept one’s faults and mistakes and striving for sincerity and authenticity in all you do.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Accountability means transparent ownership of and dedication to obligations. It means you are willing to adapt to whatever life throws at you to make sure you fulfill your promises. It means you are willing to give and receive feedback to achieve the highest results. It means proactivity in recognizing, admitting, and correcting personal mistakes. It means holding oneself to high standards.

CURIOSITY: Curiosity is a form of bravery. It is a willingness to learn more and a passion for opening doors to new opportunities. It means you hunger for knowledge. It means you have an interest in life and all it has to offer. It means you are open-minded and that you examine personal biases and assumptions to ensure you don’t misunderstand others. It means taking risks that the average person wouldn’t.

DILIGENCE: Diligence means consistent thoroughness, resistance to giving up before you’ve given your best. It means having persistent adaptability that helps one to achieve great things. It means you’re willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to fulfill your promises and having the patience to do so.

EXCELLENCE: Excellence represents a commitment to achieving the highest level of quality, performance, and distinction in all aspects of life. It means you have vision for greater things and an ability to recognize and produce quality work. It means you consistently push past boundaries to improve and refine your work. It means you have a passion for new ideas and a lack of tolerance for mediocrity.

AI has been at the forefront of people’s minds since ChatGPT came out. For good reason, too: when it performs well, it’s a revolutionary technology that can, and should, enhance what it touches. Still, some businesses and individuals are categorically opposed to its use.

My Stance

I respect everyone’s right to their personal and/or business opinion. But, while I do respect that right, I cannot agree with an opposing AI opinion, simply because as Jeff Olson, founder and CEO of Neora and leader in the direct sales industry, said, “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.” If you aren’t willing to use AI, someone else will.

In other words, it’s better to jump in now and learn how to harness this new technology while it’s fresh. Yes, there are conflicts surrounding the ethical implications of using AI, but while those kinks are being worked out by the appropriate parties, you should give it a try. You’ll get ahead of the learning curve and the competition.

How I Use AI

The proper way to use AI is to write everything on your own first, but as needed, use AI to keep writing and work around blocks to creativity. AI can and should speed up the writing process, but is not, and cannot be, a replacement for actual work. 

To that end, I have and do occasionally use AI to assist with my creative work. Express consent is a prerequisite before I use the technology. Also, note that when AI is involved, I strive to only use AI in ways that will greatly benefit the end user.

Platforms I Have Used:

I have used Frase, ChatGPT, WhatsApp’s Meta AI, and Surfer SEO for professional purposes. The key detail about using AI for writing is that it’s a skill to know what specific directions to give the AI. Depending on how specific you are, you can get a wide range of results; some work, while others bring less applicable results.

Brief description of Each Platform

Frase

Frase pulls the top 20 competitors for a targeted keyword. It shows the headings across each of these. I am then able to generate ideas and headings from here. I select applicable headings and reword them as needed. Then, Frase can be given specific instructions to write under each heading. Usually, it comes out rough, so I polish what is written and/or write my own paragraphs infused with ideas from the AI paragraphs. Once the article is finished, I put it through a plagiarism checker to ensure that nothing has been copied (unless it is acceptable to do so, such as pasting reviews, quotes, etc. word for word). Net effect: the time required for the writing process, especially the idea generation, is reduced by anywhere from 25 to 75 percent.

Meta AI and ChatGPT

I use ChatGPT and Meta AI in WhatsApp by asking questions related to what I need to write or for things I need to research. When writing, I’ll ask questions like, “What are the top ways strategy can be used by a writer?” . For research, when information accuracy is required, I always instruct the AI to include hyperlinks to its sources to ensure quality control of the results to be studied. If I am ever in doubt (sometimes it brings back generic links, rather than specific ones), I’ll go do the research myself.

Surfer SEO

I have only used Surfer SEO to incorporate and balance out the implementation of target keywords and subject matter-related words that would impact overall page ranking on SERPs. Although articles can be partially or fully written by the platform, I have only experimented with this feature on my own personal projects, never for professional pieces.