Simon Rinne: G’ day guys, and welcome to another episode of The Mindful Men Podcast. I’m your host, Simon Rinne, and today we’re getting mindful about ChatGPT and how artificial intelligence can help businesses and content creators to create content.

​ Today I’ve got something a little bit different. I’ve used ChatGPT to write the script for today’s episode.

We’ll start with talking about what it is before I give it the tricky task of explaining how men can make friendships. Now, as this is a silo episode, I’ll be changing the voice of ChatGPT, so it doesn’t sound like I’m interviewing myself. So hopefully you can spot the difference between my voice and ChatGPT.

So, let’s get into it. A chat with GPT.

G’day ChatGPT. I’d like to start this episode by asking what the hell are you? You’ve been all over the news lately, so tell us what ChatGPT is.

ChatGPT: ChatGPT was developed by Open AI with Elon Musk, an original co-founder of the company. ChatGPT is an example of the rapid progress being made in the field of artificial intelligence and the potential for these technologies to transform how we interact with machines and each other in the future.

The goal of ChatGPT is to improve the ability of machines to understand and respond to natural language in a way that is more accurate, nuanced, and human-like. This has important implications for a wide range of industries, including customer service, healthcare education, and more.

Simon Rinne: How can ChatGPT help with content creation?

ChatGPT: ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for content creation by providing assistance with idea generation, content planning, writing, personalization, and optimization. By leveraging the capabilities of AI and machine learning, it can help content creator to save time and effort while producing high quality content that resonates with their target audience.

Simon Rinne: And on that, I was hoping ChatGPT that you could help me with today’s podcast. In my therapy sessions with men, we often talk about the importance of our social circles and how friendships can help us through tough times. One of the key issues for men that I work with is how do we create new and meaningful relationships as adults?

We all remember how easy it was as kids, but it’s much harder for us to build friendships as adults. Can you help us understand the importance of male friendships?

ChatGPT: Sure, I’d be happy to help. Let’s get started. Many men feel that they don’t have close friendships or don’t how to build and maintain them.

This can lead to feelings of isolation, loneliness, and even depression. Research shows that men with strong social support networks, including friendships, have better mental health and overall wellbeing. Friendships can provide emotional support, a sense of belonging and a feeling of being understood. They can also provide opportunities for social activities and personal growth.

Simon Rinne: Yeah, great points there, ChatGPT, have you got some tips on how men can build and maintain

ChatGPT: friendships? Let’s start with building and maintaining friendships, and this takes effort, so don’t wait for others to reach out to you. Reach out to. By suggesting that you go grab a coffee or attend a social event together, find common interests because these are often the foundation of building friendships.

Consider joining a club or a sports team, taking a class or attending events related to your hobbies and interests, or even using social media groups to connect with people who share your passions. The next one’s been a good listener and show interest in others. This is an essential component of building strong friendships, but it’s also about showing the genuine interests in other people’s experiences and perspectives.

Avoid interrupting or dominating conversations and give the other person your full attention. The next one’s being willing to share your own experiences and vulnerabilities. Now vulnerability is a critical component of building friendships, but being open and honest about your experiences and struggles and being willing to share your feelings and emotions, you can create a deeper level of trust and understanding between you and your friends.

Now, the next one’s about making time for social activities. Regularly schedule social activities in with your friends because this is important in maintaining and deepening your relationships. Make a point to attend social events such as parties, dinners, or outings or plan activities such as hiking, playing sports, or attending concerts together.

And lastly, use technology to your advantage. Stay connected with friends who live far away. And this could be challenging, but technology can help bridge the distance, use video chat platforms, social media, instant messaging to stay in touch, regular. Make a point to schedule virtual get together, such as game nights or movie nights to stay connected despite the distance.

Simon Rinne: Wow, it sounds so simple when you say it out loud. I was hoping you could expand on this and tailor these points to blokey men.

ChatGPT: Sure. Here are some tailored versions of the tips for men who may identify as being blokey. In regards to being intentional blokey. Men may be more likely to prioritize work over other commitments.

But make it a priority to connect with your mates, even if it means rearranging your schedule or stepping out of your comfort zone. Now, common interest for bloke men are things such as sports fishing or DIY projects considered joining a local sports team or attending a car or bike show, or even volunteering for a community project that aligns with your interests.

In terms of listening, blokey, men may be more comfortable with banter than deep conversations. However, being a good listener is still an essential component of building strong friendships. Perhaps put the banter away and really listen in. Now, vulnerability is where some blokey men can come unstuck. They can feel pressure to maintain a tough exterior and avoid showing their vulnerability.

However, by showing your own experiences and struggles, this can help build deeper connections with your mates. Consider sharing stories of challenges you’ve overcome or struggles that you’re currently facing.

But it all needs time. So, make sure you’ve got the time to connect. A lot of blokey men like to prioritize catching up at the pub, but you can also build deeper relationships when you’re attending a sporting event, going camping or fishing, or taking a road trip.

And just because men may be at distance apart, it doesn’t mean that they can’t catch up over the phone or social. This can be a challenge for those of you that don’t like using technology, but it can certainly help.

Simon Rinne: Yeah. These make perfect sense, and I think many of our listeners would agree on these points even if they don’t want to admit it.

But I was wondering, you mentioned vulnerability before and many blokes don’t like this word as it suggests weakness. Can you talk a bit about vulnerability and why this is actually a strength and not a weakness?

ChatGPT: Yeah, certainly. Vulnerability is often misunderstood as a weakness, particularly among men who may feel pressure to present a tough, stoic exterior to the world.

However, vulnerability is actually a strength, an essential component of building strong friendships. Sharing your own experiences and vulnerabilities can help create a deeper level of trust and understanding between. It can also create opportunities for your mates to support you and for you to support them when they need it.

Vulnerability is not about being weak or helpless, but about being authentic and honest with yourself and others. When you open up to your mates and share your struggles or challenges, you’re showing them that you trust and value their friendship. This can create a safe and supportive environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their own experiences and feeling.

in addition to this being vulnerable, can help break down the barriers of toxic masculinity, which can limit men’s emotional expression and create harmful social norms around what it means to be a man. But being vulnerable, you’re challenging these harmful norms and contributing to a culture where it’s okay for men to be open and honest about their emotions and experiences.

So, while vulnerability may feel uncomfortable or even scary at first, it’s an important aspect of building deep, meaningful relationships that can support you through life’s challenges.

Simon Rinne: I think a lot of people out there, myself included, struggle when they’re opening up for the first time or to someone new, but the more we practice it, the easier it gets.

Now, you mentioned before that vulnerability can help build and maintain friendships even for blokey men. Why do you think that is?

ChatGPT: Well, when you’re vulnerable with someone, you’re opening yourself up to the possibility of being hurt or rejected. However, when you take the risk and share your thoughts and feelings and experiences with someone, it can help to build trust and deepen your connection with them. By showing your vulnerability, but demonstrating that you trust the other person and that you feel safe with them.

It can also improve communication between people. When you share your feelings and experiences, you’re opening up a channel for honest and open dialogue. This can help to resolve conflicts, build understanding, and deepen your connection with the other person. For example, when you are vulnerable with someone, it can help them understand you better and see things from your perspective.

This can increase their empathy towards you and help them to be more supportive and understanding. Now, as we’re talking about making and maintaining friendships, I think adults are in a good position of knowing what they want from a friend. And for most of us, that’s deeper connection. Vulnerability can help to create a deeper emotional connection between people.

When you share your innermost thoughts and feelings with someone, it can create a sense of intimacy and closeness that is hard to achieve in other ways. And the last thing I’ll add here is that vulnerability requires emotional intelligence. This is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.

When you practice vulnerability, you’re honing your emotional intelligence skills, which can help you in all areas of your life, including your relationships.

Simon Rinne: ChatGPT, thanks so much for talking to me about how we can make friendships, particularly for those of us who are a bit blokey and struggle with this.

ChatGPT: You’re welcome, Simon. Making friends as a man can be challenging, but it’s an important part of building a support network and maintaining good mental health. Remember to be yourself. Take initiative and seek out opportunities to meet new people. With patience, persistence, and a positive attitude, you can build meaningful connections with others and enjoy the benefits of friendship.

Simon Rinne: So, there you have it, a discussion with ChatGPT about how men can make friendships, but how did that all work? Well, it’s a simple process. If you head to chat.openai.com or search openai.com and on that website you’ll see a try ChatGPT box. Hit that and create a free account. Now, once you’re into the website, you’ll see a box that you can simply type a question in or start a conversation.

Now for this episode, I was interested in what topics ChatGPT would recommend for a podcast. So, I simply typed in “write a script for a podcast tailored to men”, and within about a minute ChatGPT spat out an introduction for a podcast talking about the importance of male friendships. This gave me the theme and six overarching tips in the forms of dot points on maintaining male friendships.

But I wanted it to go a bit deeper, so then I asked it to expand on those six tips, and again, within two to three minutes, I had six paragraphs about things like intention, common interests, listening, vulnerability, social activities, and technology. But it still only painted a bit of a picture. So, I asked it to tailor those paragraphs for blokey men, and off it went again before I asked it to expand on vulnerability.

So within about 15 to 30 minutes, I had enough script for a 15-minute podcast. It was that simple. now to give you a guide. If I was writing that script myself, it would’ve taken about one to two hours. So that’s a huge time saving from a content creation perspective, but also small business and family perspective.

So, from that point of view, I loved it. I loved how it tailored content to my specific needs, and very quickly. Now the downfall is that the content is about two years behind, so I wouldn’t be using this if I was talking about current events happening in the world. And also, you need to be sure that ChatGPT is spitting out factually correct information.

This was okay for this episode because I agreed with all the tips that it was given me on male friendships. But if you need to be accurate, and also you need to attribute the content to its proper author, you may want to tread carefully by fact checking the information that it spits out, but also adding in references wherever you need to.

But all in all, ChatGPT was a really easy tool to use for content creation, and I’ll be giving it a go for future episodes and maybe even some blogs from my website. I hope you enjoyed this episode about ChatGPT and how it helped me write content for the podcast. My name is Simon Rinne, and until next time, stay mindful.