The AI Influencer EXPLAINS How To Go From 0 to 100K Followers (With ChatGPT) | Mr.Grateful

Dom Ashburn 0:00 I want to make a million dollars in 100 days using AI. That was the goal, and I put it out there for everybody, and I'm getting people in the comments that are like, "Wow, I've never been so invested in somebody's life ever."

Calum Johnson 0:10 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 0:10 [laughs] You know what I'm saying? I'm like-

Calum Johnson 0:12 Yeah

Dom Ashburn 0:12 ... oh, oh no. One of my family members who's very important to me, amazing man. At the time, I was a very stubborn young man, and I just told him, "Yeah, I think I'm gonna open up a, a, a barber shop. I know how to cut hair. I have relationships. I can build this." And he said, "Why don't you do something a little more possible?" And at that point, I just decided I'm not gonna tell anybody what my visions are anymore. I'm just going to do it. I have failed many times just trying to get in front of the camera and, um, and being there. So I'd say anybody who's trying to make content and feels a bit stuck with it, just make the next video, and eventually you'll find yourself through it.

Calum Johnson 0:46 If you wanted to get 100,000 followers in 30 days, and you wanted to use AI kind of in that process, what would be step one?

Dom Ashburn 0:55 Let's just do it.

Calum Johnson 0:55 Let's pull it out. [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 0:56 Let's just do it.

Calum Johnson 0:58 Okay. Today's episode is with Dom Ashburn. You may know him better as Mr. Grateful. He's the expert on AI. He's the person that I go to when I'm looking to learn about the technology. And it's not just me. Dom has also worked with Meta, with Adobe, with Mindvalley, to help educate them on how they can use AI and the benefits of AI. Dom's story is an interesting one. He went from dropping out of design school to starting his own agency to then becoming a content creator, and his initial steps in content creation were so frustrating to him. Nothing would work. He was posting videos, and they were getting no traction. And one day he decides that he's gonna use ChatGPT as his social media manager, and he sets ChatGPT a challenge of getting him 100,000 followers in 30 days. He hit that 100,000 follower mark in 22 days. At the point that we're recording now, he just passed 300,000 followers, and really what you hear in this episode is Dom's unique approach of working with ChatGPT. There's a certain point in the episode where he literally pulls out his phone, and you see him collaborate with ChatGPT on the question of how you can get your first 10,000 followers on Instagram. And so really what you're gonna leave this episode with is an understanding of not only how to build an audience in an extremely short amount of time using AI as your helper, as your social media manager. We also dive deeper into how you can then monetize that audience and just build an overall great, successful creator business. I was looking at your Instagram, and on your bio it says, "Stay valuable in the age of AI."

Dom Ashburn 2:51 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 2:51 And then when I go to your LinkedIn, it says you work to keep humans valuable in the age of AI by teaching them how to use cutting edge technologies like AI, 3D, and mixed reality design. And so here's where I want to begin.

Calum Johnson 3:06 Can you start by just kind of sharing who you are, and then why is that point so important, the keeping humans valuable in the age of AI?

Dom Ashburn 3:17 Well, I should probably update that. It's probably in like LinkedIn or something like that, but I, I need to update it because I'm not keeping people valuable in the age of AI through AI or through mixed realities anymore. It's more so keeping people valuable by allowing them to realize their own true nature-

Calum Johnson 3:37 Mm

Dom Ashburn 3:37 ... and realize themselves. And what I mean by that is in the age of AI, the utopia that all of the tech companies are working towards right now, whether they're saying it or not, is, is a world where, uh, we are essentially able to focus on any task that we choose because artificial intelligence is able to do any task a human can across all domains.

Calum Johnson 4:08 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 4:08 Um, if you listen to like Sam Altman, he says, "I don't care if we're blowing millions or billions of dollars every year. We're getting to AGI."

Calum Johnson 4:19 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 4:19 And AGI is artificial general intelligence, and artificial general intelligence is different from what we are using now, which is ANI, which is artificial narrow intelligence.

Calum Johnson 4:29 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 4:30 And ANI is a, a, an art- artificial intelligence that's working with a very specific narrow task that it does. You think of like Tesla autopilot driving, um, you think of word prediction, uh, word generation, w- like the l- large language models that we have now with ChatGPT. They're, they're very narrow. They're supposed to do a very specific thing. AGI will be able to do any task a human can across the board and mix knowledge from one domain to another. And in that case that we have that technology, w- there becomes an irrelevance to much of the work that we spend our lives doing right now. And many people identify with their career. They identify with the work that they do. They identify with their job, right? One of the first questions that you probably ask somebody when you meet them is like, "What do you do?" W- h- which means what do you do to make a living, right? What are you spending your time on? Um, and sometimes it's even ... People may even get embarrassed by saying, uh, "I'm just a stay-at-home person."

Calum Johnson 5:36 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 5:36 Right? Or, "I, uh, I'm, I'm looking. I'm trying to find that thing," right? Or, "I'm an artist." Sometimes that can even be embarrassing 'cause people identify so much with their careers. So to stay valuable in the age of AI where a lot of people may not be able to then identify with their identity ... And I'm talking like ... I'm talking there are papers out right now that predict that AGI could be here by 2027, so this is three years out, two and a half years out. In two and a half years, we're not talking like decades here, like we're talking like just a few years. In that case, how do you stay valuable? And that is why I have, I have meditations on my website simply because we identify so much with our reactivity and with our careers.

Calum Johnson 6:26 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 6:26 Reactive to our likes and dislikes. And one of the things that I try to do is just help people to come to the true nature of themselves, understand who they are, what they want, and, uh, how they wanna live their lives. This is the opportunity to just choose how you wanna live.

Calum Johnson 6:41 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 6:41 And align with that. There's no more doing things just because somebody else told you to do it, or your parents are gonna be disappointed or, um, or, you know, that's what you got a degree in. Like-

Calum Johnson 6:53 Mm

Dom Ashburn 6:53 ... choose how you wanna live your life 'cause you are going to die, and there's a possibility that you are going to be replaced. That's inevitable.

Calum Johnson 7:00 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 7:00 So just choose how you wanna live your life, and I try to help people do that.

Calum Johnson 7:04 Yeah. No, that's awesome. You know, I wanna, I wanna get into your context and your story because especially when it comes to AI and just in general, you think about things differently. And so I, I wanna give people the context on like why that is. Before we do, though, I wanted to read this

Calum Johnson 7:21 quote that I heard from, uh, Mo Gawdat, who was basically, he was the former chief business officer at Google X, which is like Google's, like AI division. He paints quite like a doomsday, apocalyptic kind of, uh, picture of AI and the effect it's gonna have. He said, "AI is the most existential challenge that humanity will ever face. This is bigger than climate change, way bigger than COVID. This will redefine the way that the world is in the next few years." And so I think it's quite a common narrative at the moment. You hear a lot of people kind of speaking of the dangers of AI. Your perspective's kinda different. You have a much more positive, optimistic perspective. And so I think when people think about like, AI will be able to do everything that I'm doing, or it might make me almost like obsolete in my job, why do kind of you take the positive outlook to that versus a lot of what we hear in the media at the moment?

Dom Ashburn 8:22 Well, uh, when I was a kid, there was ... I grew up in Cincinnati and Dayton between households, and when I would go to Cincinnati, we'd go to a theme park called Kings Island. And in Kings Island, it's a bunch of like scary roller coasters, and that right there was like my utopia as a kid. Like, this is this, the place for fun. This is a place where I can go there, do whatever I want, get thrills, um, just have fun. And it was a place of like freedom, right? There's a lot of danger in sc- in ... There's a lot of danger with going up roller coasters and just building roller coasters in general, right? Um, and if I were to spend my whole drive on my way to the roller coaster scared about the potential dangers of it, then I, I might not enjoy my time.

Calum Johnson 9:11 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 9:11 Um, as a kid, that was like my utopia, right? Now, that analogy doesn't totally translate to present day because, you know, we have data and architecture around roller coasters to make sure that everybody's safe and nobody's died from it. You know what I'm saying? Um, the reason why I take an optimistic approach today as an adult when it comes to artificial intelligence is because I believe in the power of visualization, and I believe in the power of the human mind, and I think that we're gonna create what we imagine. That's ... I'm sure that you a- imagined your show.

Calum Johnson 9:49 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 9:49 You imagined the following that you have.

Calum Johnson 9:52 100%.

Dom Ashburn 9:52 You, you imagined some of the guests that you might have on before they ever happened, before you even maybe have even talked to them.

Calum Johnson 9:59 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 9:59 You had this imagination of, of what you wanted. You visualized it first. Um, people like the, the GOATs, every GOAT always visualizes their wins before they do it, and they know that that's what's going to happen. We've created a visualization. We've planted visions in people's minds through media, through, um, movies, movies like The Terminator or Space Odyssey 202- uh, 2001, where we, uh, you know, I, Robot, where we show people a potential future reality. And in that future potential reality, there's a, there's death, and there's destruction, and it's at the hands, at the robotic hands of AI.

Calum Johnson 10:49 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 10:49 Right? I think that if you ever want to create anything in life that's good, you have to first imagine it as good. There hasn't been a visual planted in anyone's minds yet of what a utopia looks like. What does Kings Island look like-

Calum Johnson 11:07 Mm

Dom Ashburn 11:08 ... in 2030? What is utopia? What does that even look like? What does a world look like that's amazing and positive because of artificial intelligence? Is anybody planting that idea?

Calum Johnson 11:23 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 11:23 And I, I think that if we want to ever get to a positive world, we have to start planting seeds of positivity so that people know what they're working towards. If the only thing people are thinking of is the roller coaster's falling down, you flying off, seat belt coming off, and you're flying out, and everybody's dying, and the roller coasters are collapsing, or in this case, artificial intelligence starts coding in languages that we don't understand just to manipulate us so that it can take over and start making decisions with its agency and super intelligence that don't align with human incentives.

Calum Johnson 11:58 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 11:58 That's scary, and we don't want that, so it's good to think about it. However, if that's the only vision that's being planted in people's minds- Then that's what we're going to create.

Calum Johnson 12:08 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 12:08 That's what we, we, what we will build if that's what we're visualizing.

Calum Johnson 12:12 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 12:13 So it only makes sense to balance the scales with another perspective. And I, I'm not, I'm not disengaging or disregarding the dangers of it, 'cause there are dangers. Um, a startup is not gonna be able to handle super intelligence. It ... Once it gets to super intelligence, it'll be in a governmental facility that even the government may have trouble locking down and protecting, right?

Calum Johnson 12:41 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 12:41 But the first nation that has it will be the superpower of the world, and we need to make sure that we're planting a, a positive vision of what that world looks like when we get to it.

Calum Johnson 12:53 Mm. You know, I wanna, I wanna get into, um, how people can use AI right now to, to start building like a successful creative business. Uh, we'll get, we'll get to that later. But just quickly, I have to ask about when you say super intelligence, so I'm not as well-versed on this stuff as you. When you say super intelligence, what does that mean?

Dom Ashburn 13:13 You know people like, uh, Leonardo da Vinci-

Calum Johnson 13:17 Mm

Dom Ashburn 13:18 ... how they would call him a, a polymath.

Calum Johnson 13:22 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 13:22 Somebody who is an expert, like really well-versed in many areas. He was a mas- he painted masterpieces. At the same time, he was also, um, doing amazing calculations and doing industrial engineering and design, right? Uh, you think of people like, uh, like that in present day, for instance, like Elon Musk, he can run, he can use his intelligence across so many different domains, right? He can be in space, social media, and artificial intelligence, and automobile production, right? He's able to use his intelligence across so many different domains, and then take information from this domain and then apply it over here. And that's what polymaths are like. You'll hear them as renaissance men. This is what these people are able to do, is take their intelligence and then build them across many domains. Uh, people who speak multiple languages, people who are able to, uh, do multiple martial arts, and play instruments, and are ar- artistic, right? So if you can imagine an, a super intelligence is something that is able to take information from any domain like that and mix its knowledge across those domains, but every single domain that's ever been known to man.

Calum Johnson 14:46 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 14:47 And speak in any language. And not just human languages, but coding languages. And, uh, potentially even create its own language that would be unidentifiable or decoded by human beings, right? Um, this intelligence that is able to not only predict, but create.

Calum Johnson 15:08 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 15:08 And create based on the patterns that it sees across all of these do- uh, all, all of the domains. That is what like a super intelligence is. It would be able to, um, it would be able to control hardware. A lot of the hardware that we have has coding in it, like our cameras, our phones, our cars. Anything with a computer in it has code behind it, attached to the internet. It would then be able to take this information across all domains, and then access and operate those as well.

Calum Johnson 15:38 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 15:38 So the super intelligence is it's superior in intelligence across every domain to every human being.

Calum Johnson 15:47 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 15:48 That's what a super intelligence would be.

Calum Johnson 15:50 Almost, it's like the most elite level brain, but like it doesn't even exist organically. Like, it's like-

Dom Ashburn 15:58 No

Calum Johnson 15:58 ... just almost like a super brain, essentially. Um, I would assume like 1,000 times, I don't know, 10,000 times, 100,000 times more powerful than any, like, man's brain, essentially. Uh, which is why a lot of people are like afraid of it. But I think you ma- you actually make a really good point, which is in general, just as a general rule, a lot of the times our thoughts, our ideas, our fears, if they're left unchecked, can actually start to manifest into our reality. And so, like, when people are just pushing, like, this negative sentiment around AI specifically, it's like we're almost ... We're, we're pushing ourselves towards that doomsday reality-

Dom Ashburn 16:44 Yeah

Calum Johnson 16:44 ... through those fears coming out. And so I love what you do because you kind of balance the picture, uh, with your content. You know, I wanna, I wanna get into your story.

Calum Johnson 16:56 And you spoke earlier about, like, dreaming or the power of visualization, having these ideas, this vision for what your life is gonna be and then manifesting it. I'm curious where that began for you. Like, even if we looked back at kind of the early context, what were some of those early dreams, those early kind of visions of what you would go on to achieve?

Dom Ashburn 17:17 The first one that comes to mind actually is when I would work with my father on my school projects. I would just create school projects, um, like, you know, using construction paper and, you know, like different, different physical materials. Me and my dad would work on them together, and I'm talking like elementary school, you know what I'm saying? Like, second, third grade is wh- when that started. And one of the first visions that I had was on this assignment where we had to, like, draw a ... We had to make, like, a typography map, and just use, like, colored pencils. It was like a coloring book page almost, but we had to draw where the high parts were and then where, like, the low parts of the land were using some different colors and things, and, like, almost build our own- ... settlement. We were learning about, like, the history of America, and we had to draw, like, one of the settlements or whatever. Well, I had this idea of, like, making that real, and not just colored pencil, but, like, making it real. So-

Calum Johnson 18:19 Mm-hmm

Dom Ashburn 18:20 ... I went home, told my dad about it. I told him my vision. He didn't know that the project was just on paper. I told him my vision of, like, what I wanted this to be. We went to the art store, and we got, like, you know, the fake model trees and the glue to, and the, like, white, this, like, uh, clear glue that would mold and look like water, and, like, moss and stuff. We were out, like, at the park gathering moss. And we went and created this, like, huge, like, realistic-looking settlement that I brought into class when I'm, like, you know, six years old. And everybody else has these, like, pieces of paper.

Calum Johnson 18:55 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 18:55 You know what I'm saying? So everybody in the class is just, like, throwing their pieces of paper out-

Calum Johnson 18:59 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 18:59 ... coming up and playing with this thing, right?

Calum Johnson 19:01 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 19:01 And that moment right there just made me realize, like, I can think beyond the assignment, and I can think beyond what is given to me, the tools that are given to me. I can describe my vision. Somebody will help me with it, and we can build it, and then it's gonna make everybody in awe, right? So that moment was so, at such a young age, uh, really helped me to continue doing that. But what happens as an a- as an adult, as you just get older, when you start to tell other people your visions, they're not like, "Yeah, let's go do it." They're like, "Mm, I don't know if that's possible."

Calum Johnson 19:33 They're skeptical.

Dom Ashburn 19:34 They're skeptical because it's not just, it's not a make believe s- like, set anymore. It's real life.

Calum Johnson 19:43 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 19:43 You know, things start to cost a lot of money. Things start to take time. Uh, and we are, we are, we are human beings that will eventually die, so you must be protective with your time, your energy, and your money. And so I, I understand. Um, but I've been more careful with sharing my visions that I have, uh, because people have, have been used to shutting them down-

Calum Johnson 20:10 Mm-hmm

Dom Ashburn 20:11 ... saying, "I don't think that's possible." So that was one of the first visions that I had as a kid, and then I just haven't stopped. And I think persevering through people telling you things aren't possible allows you to get to a point where you will make it possible, no matter what, and then you'll also be that person that will tell other people that that vision that you have, it is possible, and you can do it because I have. And not only that, but I failed in front of a lot of people, too.

Calum Johnson 20:40 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 20:40 You have to be willing to state your vision because you have to be willing for it to fail.

Calum Johnson 20:45 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 20:46 Uh, and a great way of going about that is just treating your life like a science experiment. Treat your life like an experiment. I don't have, I don't have goals. I have questions. 'Cause every science experiment starts with a question, then a hypothesis, and then an experiment, and then data, and then a conclusion. That's the scientific method. So if you treat your life like a science experiment, instead of having these goals where if you don't meet them, you feel like you failed, and now you have all this weight on you. Open yourself up to asking a question. Can I become a billionaire? Can I reach a million followers? Can I build a school in, uh, a third world country? Whatever your thing is, right? Can I be the best? When you start with a question, it'll, it opens you up to the many possibilities of what your hypothesis and experiment for your life can be, and then you test things. That separates you from the conclusion.

Calum Johnson 21:53 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 21:53 It separates you from the relying on the outcome. Your value and your identity is no longer connected to the outcome, which is a, has been a great tool for me. When I have a vision, I no longer am so, uh, naive and stubborn and angry when people don't believe in it. I can just let go and say, "It's just a question. I'm just curious about this, and I'm gonna explore it," right? They also so determined to shut you down from it. It's simply because they don't have the open-mindedness or curiosity to ask the same questions at that caliber. So that's, that's on them at that point.

Calum Johnson 22:37 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 22:38 You can continue to stay curious and, and have that, that curiosity as a child to say, "What would happen if I did this?"

Calum Johnson 22:44 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 22:45 And once you make it, it really wows people.

Calum Johnson 22:48 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 22:49 And it expands their minds, so.

Calum Johnson 22:53 It's, um, it's actually one of the most powerful mindsets, frameworks that you can have, is being able to detach from the outcome.

Dom Ashburn 23:03 Mm-hmm.

Calum Johnson 23:04 So hard. When you're, when you, when you're ambitious, when you have, like, these, these just dead set goals in your brain, in your mind, it's so hard to have that detachment from the outcome, but all the best things come from that.

Dom Ashburn 23:17 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 23:17 And it's, and it's interesting. Part of what I love of hearing you kind of explain that, uh, framework, like the scientific method of just asking questions, is it forces you to just be curious.

Dom Ashburn 23:29 Mm-hmm.

Calum Johnson 23:29 To be curious first, rather than trying to get this outcome. I'm trying to be rich, or I'm, you know, I wanna get more girls, or I wanna be famous, or... You can't do that. It's just a question. You have to lead with curiosity to pure intent. And, like, the, kind of the paradox to it, the irony of it is that because of the kind of purity of that intent, you actually get the outcome.

Dom Ashburn 23:53 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 23:53 But you, you weren't even aiming for it, but you get it.

Dom Ashburn 23:56 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 23:56 And so you know what? 'Cause I, when I was listening to you, I can he- I can see your eyes light up when you speak about, uh, bringing this science project, like, or this project into the classroom, and the awe of the other kids.

Dom Ashburn 24:12 Yeah

Calum Johnson 24:12 And so I c- I, I just felt like that's an

Calum Johnson 24:15 important feeling for you. And so I'm curious if you have, if you've ever reflected on that. Like, why, why is that feeling of being able to kind of inspire awe in others, like why is that such a big thing for you?

Dom Ashburn 24:28 That's a great question, and great intuition and empathy to be able to recognize that in me when I'm speaking about it. Um, why is it that I want to inspire people? Well, [lips smack] uh, I don't know. Yesterday was Father's Day, and, uh, I lost my father when I was 16, 17, and I think that maybe it's a way for me to allow him to kinda continue living through me. Like, I feel like that's the legacy that he gives me, 'cause he inspired that.

Calum Johnson 25:07 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 25:07 He was the first person to show me, like, you can just... He created projects. Like, my dad never had a lot of money. Uh, he n- he had a really hard time just, like, getting a grasp on life. [lips smack] But he alwa- he was creating until the day he died. He was always creating, always writing, like, poetry or making these little projects. Uh, he would, like, he remade the Ghostbusters, like, uh, like proton pack. He w- uh, he remade, like he would just make random stuff. Like, he'd go to the dollar store and get plates and, like, s- glue them together, and then get a, a red cup or, like, a green cup and put it underneath and make it look like a UFO ship with, like, a, a light beam coming down, and put a light inside. Like, he was just always doing, he was always creating. And I think that I, I want to make meaning of maybe his life, and also give myself some, uh, give myself a positive outlook on my relationship with him as well.

Calum Johnson 26:07 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 26:08 And I think I do that by continuing to want to inspire people, uh, the same way that he helped me to inspire other people, just by helping me with a school project-

Calum Johnson 26:15 Mm

Dom Ashburn 26:15 ... when I was a kid, you know? So maybe that's why.

Calum Johnson 26:19 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 26:20 Yeah. I d- may- maybe so.

Calum Johnson 26:21 That makes sense. In a, in a way, you're, like, paying it forward.

Dom Ashburn 26:24 Sure.

Calum Johnson 26:24 Like, the way that, the way that he inspired you, he allowed you to dream, to create. It's like you want to inspire that in others.

Dom Ashburn 26:31 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 26:32 I think that makes complete sense.

Dom Ashburn 26:33 Yeah. It's also, i- it's also an addiction.

Calum Johnson 26:35 Yeah. [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 26:36 [laughs] It's an, it can be advice at some point-

Calum Johnson 26:38 Yeah

Dom Ashburn 26:39 ... of, like, wanting so badly to inspire somebody else that sometimes I miss, I make things overly complicated. Sometimes I, uh, sometimes something more simple can be more impactful.

Calum Johnson 26:54 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 26:54 And I'll go for something big that's gonna take a lot of time, a lot of man-hours, and really push me over the edge just so that I can get that moment of feeling like I inspired somebody and I impacted them, you know? Uh, I'm not sure if that's positive or negative yet. I think I'll see, I think the world will see maybe after I'm gone if the effort that I'm putting into that is worthwhile. Um, but, uh, it's something that I'm working on trying to balance, actually, and figuring out how I can make more of an impact with more flow-

Calum Johnson 27:27 Mm

Dom Ashburn 27:27 ... rather than being so blunt force about it.

Calum Johnson 27:30 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 27:30 Um, so it's, it's something that I'm actively working on. And you, this interview, this podcast is being caught in j- in the middle of a chapter for me, you know? I'm, I'm actively reflecting on my life, actively deciding the directions that I wanna take, you know? So, uh, maybe we can do a, a, a, you know, a, uh, we can rewind it and see where we are, you know?

Calum Johnson 27:55 Play back the tape.

Dom Ashburn 27:56 Play, play it back and-

Calum Johnson 27:57 Yeah

Dom Ashburn 27:57 ... you know, see where we are. But yeah, uh, I'm, I'm sure we're catching other people in that footnote as well, right? We're catching other people in the middle of one of their chapters that's listening to this.

Calum Johnson 28:07 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 28:09 So I hope that by hearing of somebody else that is also in the middle of one of their chapters and figuring out which direction they wanna go, even after having such clarity on their motivations, is able to take a breath and relax.

Calum Johnson 28:28 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 28:29 Just know, like, it's going to be okay. It's gonna be cool.

Calum Johnson 28:33 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 28:34 If you have a vision, it's be- it was given to you. It was given to you. Uh, and if you have a vision, if you have an, an idea in your mind, it, i- is inevitable for it to manifest. So just take a breath and relax, and give yourself space and grace along that process.

Calum Johnson 28:56 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 28:59 So anyway.

Calum Johnson 28:59 No, I think, I think, I think that's a really great message. I think one of the things that's just difficult for any dreamer, for anyone that's, like, at an early age, they had these aspirations of what they'll be, is that there's a certain point, like you talk about, like, milestones in the story. There's a certain point where, like, the world gets involved, right?

Dom Ashburn 29:19 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 29:19 I think when you're a kid and you're like, "Oh, I wanna be a," I don't know, "a firefighter," "I wanna be a singer," "I wanna be a football player," like, a music artist, whatever it is, people encourage that way of thinking, that dreaming, thinking that you can be on this level. And then it gets to a point where it's like, "Nah, you have to be realistic now."

Dom Ashburn 29:40 Mm-hmm.

Calum Johnson 29:40 "What are you actually gonna do?"

Dom Ashburn 29:42 Mm-hmm.

Calum Johnson 29:42 And there's now this pressure for you to have it figured out, know exactly what the picture, like you're working towards this track, and this is when you're gonna achieve it. There's all this expectation put on your dream now. And so I'm curious, when you reflect on kinda your story, where was the first moment where you started to feel that, you started to feel the expectation of, like, "No, now it needs to be realistic." It's not just the fun project that you're bringing to school and everyone's in awe of it. It's like you need to be doing something right now that we can look at. And-

Dom Ashburn 30:16 Mm-hmm

Calum Johnson 30:17 ... when did that expectation of the world kinda come in?

Dom Ashburn 30:22 Uh, uh, yeah, I had somebody very important to me tell me, "Yeah, but you need to do something a little more possible." And the idea wasn't even that big. I just wanted to open up a barber shop because [laughs]

Calum Johnson 30:34 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 30:35 I was like, "Yeah, I can open up a barber shop."

Calum Johnson 30:36 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 30:37 Like, that'll bring me in some money while I chase my real dreams, [laughs] you know? And they were like, "Yeah, you need to do something a little more possible." And granted, at the time, it... I had just dropped out of college, and I didn't have any money, and I wanted to open up a whole establishment. They're like, "Yo, what? What are you doing?" Somebody in that position needs to tell you, "Okay, how can we go about that? Let's come back to question, how can we go about that if you have an idea? How can we make that happen?" And that was the first time. If we wanna rewind a little bit, I went to design school at DAAP in Cincinnati. It was design, art, design, architecture, art, and planning. And I got in through a fashion degree in their fashion program. And this was the time that, like, Virgil Abloh was really booming with Off-White. Uh, he was doing collaborations with IKEA and stuff at that time, w- collaborations with Jordan. Uh, uh, Kanye was releasing new waves of his, like, 350s. I think this was, uh, this was around, like, season, season two or three of Yeezy. Uh, Heron Preston was coming out with stuff. This is like, uh, A-COLD-WALL was coming out. It was like all these, all these, like, Black designers in fashion were really revolutionizing the fashion space.

Calum Johnson 32:02 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 32:02 I went to school for graphic design, but they only... They said, "Okay, we'll, we'll put you into fashion 'cause graphic's full. But if you do really well in fashion, then we'll put you into graphic design afterwards." I was like, "Okay, cool." Foundations is the same for everybody. I'm in there going through my foundations. They're teaching me drawing, 2D, 3D, and then art history, and then, like, sewing and pattern making and stuff. So I'm going through that, and it is rigorous. It's 80-hour weeks minimum of schoolwork every week, and one time I was, uh, going to sleep, and I was so grateful that I was gonna get four hours of sleep that night. I was, like, so thankful, and my eyes just, like, like, shot open, and I was like, "What?" And I just came to this realization like, "Dude, this is unhealthy. Like, you are beating yourself to death, and, like, for what? Like, what, what are you even here for? What are you doing? Like, what's going on? You wanna be a, like, a rock star? Like, you wanna y- you wanna be like Ye and, and Virgil and all this? Okay, well, like, is this where you need to be?" And I just asked myself and kinda asked God and the ether, like, the universe, "Is this where I need to be? Like, how can I achieve that goal?" Not necessarily being like them, but having a significant impact and kinda being on my own, being independent. So I went to class the next day, and w- I was in portfolio class, and they started handing out sheets of paper, and the sheets of paper were the list of companies that the sc- that hire from that school. And they said, "Base your portfolio on the company that you want to work for." And it was at that moment that I realized, like, "Okay, the place isn't for me." The school is a, is an amazing school. Their classes are super dope. I learned so much there during my time. I just realized that the thing that I wanted to do didn't align with that path, and that was cool. A more mature version of me that might've been a bit more timid might've said, "Oh, well, just stay in school. Learn the skills that they're teaching you. Work for a company. Learn what the inside of a company looks like, and then you can go on to your path and, like, build your own thing," right? That's, that's a safe method of doing it. That's what everybody told me to do. I just couldn't stomach it. I just couldn't... I just didn't feel... I, I literally had just asked God, [laughs] and the next day I get, I get that. How can I not l- listen, right?

Calum Johnson 34:22 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 34:22 I would rather listen to God and myself than my family, even though I love them.

Calum Johnson 34:26 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 34:27 So I decided to leave school. I opened up a waffle stand in the cafe of that school. It was called Sticks, me and my friend Brandon, which is ironically the n- my dad's name, which is funny, and he helped me with this vision. [laughs] Damn, just making that connection. Yeah, he helped me with this vision to, um, gather up some money so that I could start my own design and production agency. And it turned out that after I had collected all of my colleagues' money from selling them, like, waffles in the morning on their way to class, I took that money. I hired a- an editor, bought a camera, and my first client for the production company was my sustainability professor at that school, and she had a company, and she allowed me... Her name is Liz Ricketts. She has a company called The OR Is Present. She helps people in Ghana, uh, to, uh, create a more sustainable ecosystem and economy in Ghana. And I made a music video promoting her company. Uh, she paid me [laughs] to do it, and it was, like, 75 people on the crew. We rented out the whole, like, gym. She let me write the whole thing, direct everybody, direct the editing, everything. She just gave me full control. And since then, I just decided, like, this is the path I'm gonna go down. I'm, I'm gonna continue to create and do it in a way that I choose to. And if, if I don't get the autonomy and the freedom to create in that way and the way that they believed in me, then I'm just, I'm not doing it.

Calum Johnson 35:58 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 35:58 I just made that a standard for myself. I'm working for myself. I'm creating the things that I want to create, and I'm going to do it to make a positive impact on the world, period. And if I'm not doing that, then I'm, then it's, it's... If that's not the opportunity, then I'm not doing it.

Calum Johnson 36:13 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 36:13 Right? So it just created a very clear line for me.

Calum Johnson 36:16 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 36:17 Um, but during that time, you know, during that time I, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, and I, I th- obviously as a 18-year-old, 19-year-old who just dropped out of school and has a production agency and they only have one client, you're trying to find money. You know, you're trying to find ways to make money. And when I went to one of my family members who was very important to me, amazing man, uh, he's ... We've, our relationship has really evolved over time. I love him so much. But at the time I was a very stubborn young man and I just told him, "Yeah, I think I'm gonna open up a, a, a barber shop. I know how to cut hair. I have relationships. I can build this." And he said, "Why don't you do something a little more possible?" And at that point I just decided, okay, I'm not gonna tell anybody what my visions are anymore. I'm just going to do it, and I'll show people-

Calum Johnson 37:10 Mm

Dom Ashburn 37:10 ... instead of doing it, or instead of telling them. So now that's my thing. I just do it and then I tell people about it.

Calum Johnson 37:17 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 37:18 Uh, I don't, I don't really project it.

Calum Johnson 37:20 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 37:21 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 37:21 No, that's powerful stuff. And you know what? It's interesting as I, I listen, and we even spoke about, uh, some of, kind of like those childhood memories. It's the exact same, it was the exact same process as the, uh, as that school project, right? Like, you have a certain idea, a certain vision, but then you actually take it further than what was initially, uh, thought of. And, like, the set with 75 people, it's, like, more than you could imagine, but it's, like, exactly in keeping. Uh, something that I always tell myself is, like, I wanna keep tapping into, like, that childlike wonder.

Dom Ashburn 37:56 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 37:57 When we're children, it's just ... You know, we just wanna explore, we just wanna dream. Um, and it's like you're tapping back into that. And you know what? I wanted to rewind, I wanted to rewind just a little bit. Take me to that moment. You're sitting in the classroom in design school, and you've, like ... You know, I'm sure, like, you've put a ton of work in. Like, you've done, I don't know, months, years of, like, hours and hours and hours of work to get to this point, and you have these visions of, like, you know, what Virgil Abloh's doing, or Kanye West. I'm sure, like, a Jerry Lorenzo. Like, these, these sort of names, right? And someone, and they tell you you need to fit your resume, basically, or who you are to suit these companies. Why was, why did you have such, like, a, almost, like, a visceral reaction to that? Like, why was that something where you were like, "Okay, this is, this is not the right place"? Because I think

Calum Johnson 39:00 for a lot of people, like, the move to quit school or quit their job or anything, it's, like, so tough to take that step, but you were just incredibly motivated for it. So why, why is that?

Dom Ashburn 39:13 I think I was at a point in my life where I, I felt like I had heard ... I had come to a realization around that time, and I realized that the future didn't exist. The future doesn't exist. The past doesn't exist. And when you realize that, like, you actually feel that and you know it, you realize that the decisions that you have to make start now, start right now. They're not this future opportunity that you're waiting for, this, this reason, this meaning, this motivation that you're waiting for, or this thing that you're waiting for to happen to you in the future. It doesn't exist. It's just not there. It, the only thing that exists a- as a matter of experience is right now. You have to accept where you are right now. That's the very first step. You have to accept where you are right now. Then in your mind have the idea of what you want. You have to decide what it is that you want. And I realized that I didn't want that. I just didn't want it. And I'm not going to continue on with something that I don't want to do, that I don't want for my life. It, and everybody needs to realize that they are going to die. There comes this mo- like, it is delusional to think that there is time, that something's going to happen to you or there's just going to be this ... It's right now. Like, you're living life right now. Accept that, decide what you want, and then move in accordance to it. So many people wait, and I just didn't wanna wait. I just did it now, and I trusted. I just had faith and I trusted. It might not give people much feeling of safety, but there is, there is no guarantees. There's no guarantees of safety. Even if you spend your life doing what you think other people may want you to do, you have no idea what's in store for you down that lane either. So you might as well go do the thing that you want to do.

Calum Johnson 41:47 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 41:47 That was just, that was just my idea, and I was young and stubborn about it, and I decided to continue, uh, down that, down that same path. I mean, that's ... It, it was just as raw as that.

Calum Johnson 42:00 Mm. You know what's, you know what's interesting? You said there's no guarantees of safety, and it's so true, but I think sometimes we're at, um, when we're at, like, an early stage, we don't wanna, like, stand out, you know? You don't wanna make, like, too bold of a move and then everyone is, like, seeing. I think for most people that's kind of, like, a thing, you know? Like, we go to university and it's, like, these very traditional tracks.

Dom Ashburn 42:24 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 42:24 And so I can just tell even when you were speaking about it, that, that is an important thing. There's no guarantee of safety. Is there like a certain experience that almost crystallized that for you? Like, was there something that you ... It was pushing you to be like, "Okay, you know what? I'm just gonna take the risk." Because I, I know it firsthand that when your parents, your family, friends have like an, they have an expectation or a thought of what you should be doing, to go against that takes courage. And so when you talk about there's no guarantees of safety, like what was the experience that in your mind was like push that home?

Dom Ashburn 43:14 I grew up in a pretty safe environment, I feel, which gave me probably a sense of safety that I've always been quite protected. I've always been protected, not necessarily by people, but just by like divine circumstances it feels. And I think that everybody has at some point ... If, if you're sitting here right now, if you're listening to this, you have also been protected, and there's a reason why you have been protected on to this point. Maybe think right now of a situation where things could have gone really bad, right? You could have gotten really hurt, or you could have died, or you could have been in jail or anything like that, but something shifted and you were protected in that moment. In that moment you got another opportunity, right? I feel like that had happened to me so many times in my life where I felt protected, where I knew that if ... I knew that if I decided to take the safe route, then I would almost be, I would almost be giving my new opportunity in vain, right?

Calum Johnson 44:33 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 44:33 But a- a- and then at the same time it gives you a little bit of confidence that no matter what I do I will be protected and I'm okay. And as long as I'm moving in alignment with my highest idea of myself, then there is nothing that can really hurt me more than myself. So I can't say it was a specific moment. I was given much freedom growing up. I would ... You know, I, I, I grew up before like iPhones and stuff, you know? So I was out and about. I was running around outside, you know, until it got dark out, and then, you know, just doing that every day.

Calum Johnson 45:15 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 45:15 So I had a sense of independence and freedom growing up from a child, and that carried over as well. So I think that if you realize like you're alive right now, you're breathing, you've been protected up until this moment, and there's opportunity for you to take a risk. There's more risk in not taking the risk almost.

Calum Johnson 45:36 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 45:37 So not any one particular story-

Calum Johnson 45:41 Yeah. No, I get you

Dom Ashburn 45:42 ... I can give you, but-

Calum Johnson 45:43 I get you.

Dom Ashburn 45:43 Okay.

Calum Johnson 45:43 It makes complete sense.

Dom Ashburn 45:44 All right.

Calum Johnson 45:45 Um, okay. So you get to ... So you leave design school. You start this design agency. Your first client is almost like one of your professors or like one of the people at the school, right? And that seems to have been a success. How do we get to the point that we are now where like, you know, I think even in the last kinda 18 months, two years, you undergo this challenge. Um, you start kind of undertak- You become a content creator essentially. You start and you're ... And AI is kind of like a central component, and this kind of understanding and this love for technology is like a central component of the content creation. When does that come into it, this whole content creation piece? Okay. So six months ago I shared on this channel that I had this crazy goal of hitting 100,000 subscribers. Well, it's not as crazy as I thought. At the time when I said that we had 3,000 subscribers, and we're so close right now to hitting 100,000. So please help us out with this goal, this crazy dream that I had. Hit that subscribe button. And here's what I can promise you if you do. We're gonna take this podcast to another level. We're gonna continue to scale the production, the guests, every little part of what we do, but I can't do it without your help. So please subscribe. Thank you for listening, and onto the show.

Dom Ashburn 47:15 I had to start creating content because I was trying to get a job at an agency and nobody was hiring me because I didn't have any prior, I, I didn't have any prior agency experience because I had chosen to drop out of school, do my own thing, and then it got to a point where my business, I was just failing. I was failing. I was, I was trying to follow my passions in a way that was not succeeding, and I was failing over and over and over again. I tried doing branding, and the branding was just ... You work with these clients who are ... If, if anybody in design knows like when you're doing branding, there's so many, uh, steps of approval that go down between you and the client, and that communication of back and forth can be very, uh, time-consuming, right? And then these branding projects is really hard to land as an individual or even if you have a couple teams, 'cause there's a bunch of big agencies and then individual freelancers that you can hire for really cheap. Or these big companies who have a bunch of people and then they charge like massive amounts of money. And I knew that I was better than the individuals on like Fiverr who were doing it cheaply, but I didn't have a huge team to be able to do it like these like huge a- agencies, right? So I was trying to find these certain clients who were able to afford me, where I could do my best work and give that, that ... I would always go above and beyond, but I wanted to be paid for that.

Calum Johnson 48:37 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 48:38 So trying to find those clients was really difficult for me. I had a really hard time selling. I had a really hard time in like the marketing of it. I knew that my skill was good, but I had a hard time selling myself and marketing myself. That was hard So, uh, I had, I, I had tried over and over again. I, I would get these clients, but it was clients that would come from, like, word of mouth. You know what I'm saying? I'd work with one person, like, finally, okay, good, like, got rent paid this month, and then somebody else would be like, "Oh yeah, he's pretty good," and randomly, like, just at the right time I'd get another inbound client. Like, yo, like, thank God. You know what I'm saying?

Calum Johnson 49:13 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 49:13 And I was just protected in that way, um, where, like, I don't know how it happened, but I would get an inbound client, they'd come to me, I'd work with them, and then another one would come just in time. And I was living like that, and it was getting exhausting. It was exhausting. I felt like I had no control over my income, over my brand, over my life. I'm spending all this time helping other people with their brands, and I'm not having enough time or knowledge to work on mine. So I got to a point where I was like, "Yo, I can't do this anymore." Like, I, I was getting to a point where I was like, I was, I was so afraid every month that that cortisol was just, like, it was too much. I couldn't handle it. And I was at the point where I was just, I was just g- gonna quit. I was like, "Fine. I made the wrong choice in college. I shouldn't have dropped out. I'm sorry, family. I'm sorry, God. I s- I'm sorry I, I l- I, I misunderstood everybody. Fine, I'll go get a job." And I wrote down, I wrote down my intentions and my emotions. I had five intentions. My intention was to be, ha- have a, have a millionaire mentor who would freely give me information and guidance. Was to be able to travel the world, was to be able to work, have creative freedom, was to make over, I don't know, I said, like, over, uh, $100,000 a year, and to, uh, have freedom to, uh, promote big ideas, right? Those are, like, my five things I wanted to do that year. And I, I said that I would feel, if I achieve this, then I would feel courageous, grateful, um, calm, confident, and satisfied. So I started going to all these tech event- or all these, like, branding design events and stuff, meeting out with these different brand agency owners and recruiters and things, trying to get a job with this set intention in mind that once I get this job, I'm gonna be able to hit these f- five things. I'll be creative and travel and have a mentor that's built an agency before that will teach me. And, uh, it's just like, it's not working out. Everybody's giving me their business cards and emailing and I'm talking to people and showing them my work, and, like, nobody's hiring me because they're ... I hadn't had experience before in an agency. I was doing everything myself. Even though the work was great, I didn't have agency experience, and I was still talking like me. I was still in there talking like me to the point where I'm like, they're like, "Nah, like, we can't [laughs] hire him here. He's gonna try, he's gonna try to change shit." [laughs] You know what I'm saying? "We're just gonna leave. We're, we're, we're gonna be safe. Like, nah, I'm, I'm not, I'm not bringing his mind into this establishment." Um, a- and you know, I ... The, the reason why I say that is 'cause I, I would tell them ideas and ways that I see their business could be improved and things before I was even hired.

Calum Johnson 52:07 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 52:07 So you know what I'm saying? So I was like-

Calum Johnson 52:08 They're like, "He's gonna start a revolution on us."

Dom Ashburn 52:09 He's gonna start... [laughs]

Calum Johnson 52:10 Oh my gosh.

Dom Ashburn 52:11 Yeah. You know. Maybe, or maybe I just wasn't good enough at the time, you know, and they just, they just didn't think I was good enough. Maybe that's the case too, and I'm being grandiose. Either way, I decided, okay, well, I'm gonna prove to them that I know what I'm talking about, so I'm gonna sit down in front of the camera and I'm gonna start talking about design, and AI's on the rise right now, so I'm sure AI's gonna be really, like, valuable for these agencies and stuff to learn. I'll talk about how AI can be used in creativity, right? So I started making videos about how you can use AI for editing pictures or making AI art and using it for your business and things. And the page just started doing, like, really well. And people were like, "Wow, this is so valuable. I'm getting so much information. This is mind-blowing." And that feeling that I had when I brought that project into class was the same feeling I was getting from blowing people's minds on the internet.

Calum Johnson 53:04 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 53:04 And I realized, like, oh, I still don't need the agency. I was led to this path. I was almost going to quit, and through quitting and going down this path, it forced me into something even higher. I had hit all five of those intentions, and I felt the way that I intended to by the end of that year. All five, and it wasn't through the agency job. It was still just by doing what I love to do. I just turned the camera around to myself and started to, you know, promote my ideas. I was thinking big. I was talking about big ideas and ways that you could use technology and AI and, you know, it, um, it, it worked. I was redirected, and that is how I, that, that is how I got to the point of being, like, Mr.Grateful on Instagram.

Calum Johnson 53:55 Mm. Yeah. You know, it's interesting 'cause you were like ... I just love how it comes about, 'cause you were back in your element. Like, we, we spoke about, like, childlike wonder again.

Dom Ashburn 54:03 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 54:03 It's like, soon as you tap back into that, it's like things start to, to work. Uh, we even spoke about being kind of, like, detaching yourself from an outcome. It was almost the outcome that you wanted was the job. Like, you actually had detachment. Like, you weren't thinking about being a content creator-

Dom Ashburn 54:21 Mm

Calum Johnson 54:21 ... and it just happened.

Dom Ashburn 54:22 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 54:23 Um, it's a, it's a beautiful process. You know what, 'cause I know that you did, you did, like, almost like a challenge. Like, you set yourself a challenge. Um, you know what, actually, I'm gonna let you say it. Kind of give the context on that, like, when it came to the content creation, the challenge that you

Calum Johnson 54:40 underwent.

Dom Ashburn 54:40 Yeah. So the challenge was to ... I, I knew that I wanted to grow my social media quickly. I knew I wanted to grow fast, and I wanted to captivate people in a way that had never been done before. Uh, you know, still chasing that wow moment. And I had, I, I was, I was, I had probably made, I don't know, maybe 15 videos at this point, and I was sitting down, uh, o- one day just really trying to figure out, like, how can I, how can I tap into this next, like, stage? How can I break through? And I was sitting down meditating, and this i- [laughs] the idea just downloaded to me, and I can pinpoint, I can triangulate the different references of inspiration that I got from it. Uh, but I had started a challenge called Agent GPT, and it was to use artificial intelligence to get to 100,000 followers in 30 days. The reason it worked is one, because AI had completely captivated everybody, and it was so interesting to see AI work in this way that nobody had ever s- seen before. Two, the, the stakes were high because it was like, if it doesn't work, then okay, now we know AI is nothing to worry about. It couldn't even, it couldn't even make content, so-

Calum Johnson 56:08 Yeah

Dom Ashburn 56:08 ... you know, we're f- we're fine everybody. Um, but if it does work, wow, what does this mean for social media? What does it mean for content creation to be a creator if this does work? It was also inter- in- interesting because there was a time limit on it, right? People were going to be there every single day to figure out, like, what was going on. So every day I would post the, the suggestions the AI was giving me, right? So what I did was is I told artificial intelligence who I was, what my brand is, what I wanted to do, what type of content I made, and I said, "Your job is to just get me to 100K in 30 days. I'm gonna hit you up every single day for a piece of content idea. Give me the idea. I'll do it. I'll give you the metrics, and then you take those metrics and then, um, adjust the strategy based on the performance of the content that you gave me." And I did that every day. I started to realize that I was having better ideas than AI, so I would use my idea and I would then create the content based on my idea, but I would use it to, uh, make sure that it's a- in alignment with my brand, that it was going to be shareable and savable, and, uh, that, um, that it was gonna be valuable to the people that were watching it, and that it, it was like it was in alignment with our values, too, right? So, um, I would give it the script that I wrote out, give it to it, and it started to learn over time how I like to talk and how I like to structure my content. So over time then I could say, "Give me a script," and then it could give me a script that was more in alignment with me. I would screenshot my metrics every day, put the metrics in there. It would say, "Okay, I see that it's not ... We, we didn't get as many shares on this one because that, uh, as the last post, it could've been because of these reasons," right? So over time it's starting to just become like my agent, my friend, and, uh, really helped me through this process. By day 22 we had hit 100,000 followers, which was awesome. Um, I continued on for the next eight days and, uh, and it, it really just, it just captivated the world. Um, I had people, I had hundred, like, thousands of people from all over the world trying to do the challenge themselves, and they started creating their own Agent GPTs and, like, screenshotting the prompt I used and putting it in themselves and using it to, like, grow their following, right? So for the past year I've been so grateful 'cause I've been able to connect with people lit- all over the world, uh, and, and help them with their social media using artificial intelligence and some really interesting realizations have, have come from that.

Calum Johnson 58:45 Hmm. You know what, I'm just, I'm just curious 'cause I wanna get into, I wanna get into the tactics 'cause there are gonna be people that are listening and they're like, uh, they wanna create content but they also want it to be successful. Like, they want, they want it to get a certain level of engagement or have impact, but also feel like it's them.

Dom Ashburn 59:02 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 59:03 Um, and so I wanna get into the tactics of how someone can do that and h- how potentially AI could help them do that. But before we get to that, did you have any experience with content creation before you did the challenge with AI, or was it like this is my first foray into making content and it just blew up out the gate?

Dom Ashburn 59:27 I had a whole bunch of failures. [laughs]

Calum Johnson 59:30 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 59:31 I did. I had a whole lot of failures. I, I tried to, I tried to be a hypebeast creator for a while, you know what I'm saying?

Calum Johnson 59:38 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 59:38 Like, spending way too much money on shoes and Yeezys and Jordans and, um, taking pictures of myself in different poses, you know? I tried to, I tried to teach people about branding when I was doing the whole, like, branding agency. I t- I tried doing that. Uh, and, and making like these carousel posts if you remember those where, like, it was the, it was like the pictures and it had the text on it with steps and then you'd swipe and get the next step or whatever. I tried doing that. I tried, like ... I, I got angry on Instagram for o- one moment. There's probably a video of me-

Calum Johnson 1:00:08 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:00:08 I think I, I probably archived it at one point, but I was just like, I was just like, "Everybody needs to stop complaining about this, this, and that."

Calum Johnson 1:00:14 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:00:14 Just like going off, and I was like, "Yo," [laughs] "Okay, this isn't me." And I, I have failed many times just trying to get in f- in front of the camera and, um, and, and being there. So I'd say anybody who's trying to make content and feels a bit stuck with it, you know, it's just make the next one.

Calum Johnson 1:00:34 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:00:34 Just make the next video and eventually you'll find yourself through it, which ... No. So yeah, that was my experience.

Calum Johnson 1:00:42 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:00:42 That was the experience.

Calum Johnson 1:00:43 You know what, I think it's actually an interesting thought experiment. Even if, if we take like that younger version of Dom or that, or just like the earlier version of Dom that was doing, uh, content and you're frustrated, and I know what it's like when you're, you're essentially trying everything.

Dom Ashburn 1:00:58 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:00:58 Like, you're consistently going back to the drawing board, reimagining, coming back, like, with new learnings Applying those, still no results. Like it's a, it's a deeply frustrating process, especially when you feel, you feel like you have something to share that would be of value to the world, but it's not getting what it needs. It's not going places. Um, and so I understand that firsthand. So I actually think it would be really valuable almost if you had to give the blueprint to that version of yourself, the one that was frustrated, and you, knowing what you know now though, of like, if you wanted to get 100,000 followers in 30 days and you wanted to use AI kind of in that process, what would kind of be ... If you were gonna give advice to that person, what would be step one? Like, where would you, where would you even begin?

Dom Ashburn 1:01:58 Yeah. Step one is to get- is to remove yourself. Step one is to remove yourself. I-- All of the previous failures that I just told you about were because the content was about me. Nobody cares about somebody with 100 followers, 5,000 followers, whatever. They just, it's not about you. Honestly, nobody cares about anybody with a million followers. It's still not about you. It wasn't about me. I started to succeed when I made the content about other people, helping other people. People watch things and they spend time on things that they believe is going to help them, whether that's gonna entertain them or educate them or inspire them. So the first step is to just remove the idea that it's about you. Everybody tells me that they're worried about, they're worried about what people may think of them on their, on their content, whatever, but also they worry about they think, what they think of themselves. Their perception of themselves st- stops them. You hear so much, people say, "I hate the way my voice sounds." Right? I'm sure you've, you've heard that before.

Calum Johnson 1:03:12 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:03:12 Or even we've all gone through it before where we hear ourselves speak for the first time, we're like, "I hate my voice. I don't like how I sound." Right?

Calum Johnson 1:03:19 Even how you look on camera. So many different things.

Dom Ashburn 1:03:22 So many different things, where you're judging yourself before you give yourself ... You're judging yourself first, and you're assuming other people are judging you, and in that moment, you're then judging them and thinking that other people would then be judgmental against you, which if we're on the internet, we know the internet is a ruthless place.

Calum Johnson 1:03:39 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:03:40 It's, it's, it's, it's pretty rough, so I understand that. But the first step, just get out of your own way. If you get out of your own way and remove yourself, then there's no, "I'm not valuing myself based on what you think of me. I'm valuing myself based on how many people I'm helping."

Calum Johnson 1:03:54 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:03:55 So the metric changes. I'm not measuring myself by the judgment of others anymore. I don't care what you think about me. I just wanna make sure I'm helping. And if I'm helping a s- uh, if I'm helping people, then I'm doing the job properly. I'm good. That's the first step, because many people just get in their own way before they even start. Second is to realize that you have everything that you need right now. We have everything we need. You have lived a life up until this point with experience and expertise in something that is gonna allow you, that other people would find valuable. Uh, this is act- really uncomfortable for me, like just sitting here talking about myself and my story and everything, 'cause I'm like, it's like I don't talk about myself in that way very often.

Calum Johnson 1:04:43 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:04:43 But I'm hoping that through the process of talking about my story, that somebody else can relate to it and be like, "Yeah, I w- I'm going through that right now, and it may help me." So that's a path that you can take is realizing that this, the story that you've lived so far, millions of other people have gone down a very similar path. Each one of us shares like 99.999% of DNA. We're very similar people. I celebrate individual uniqueness, but we're all very similar in many ways as well. So the way that you've lived, other people have lived that way too. So make sure that you celebrate yourself for that by sharing the stories and the things that you're going through. It'll help people. That's a very easy way to just start making content, is what you already have. I got 100,000 followers by only using an iPhone 13, uh, and I only had like a couple practical lights, just like a lamp and like a, uh, I didn't have like expensive things. Um, and I had a very terrible microphone that was gifted to me by the editor on my, uh, production team. So, uh, I didn't need expensive equipment either. I just needed to make sure that I was trying to help people in the content, right? That's first.

Calum Johnson 1:05:53 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:05:54 If you wanna use AI to help you with this process, the first thing that you need to understand is that AI is simply a prediction machine. It's a word predictor. It's just using, it's just using, uh, it's using, it's, it's a large language model that's trained on petabytes of data from the internet, which is like billions of books, and it's predicting how words go together. That's all it's doing, right? So if you just ask it, "Hey, how can I get to 30,000 or 100,000 followers in 30 days?" it's gonna give you a very generic response based on the averages of the internet, right? What you wanna do is give it some more information about yourself so that it narrows the, uh, the words that it's giving you, right? If you're telling it, "Well, I'm a chef," then the information and the words that it's gonna use, the lexicon is gonna be a bit more narrowed to that slice of, of lexicon and the human language around being a chef, right? That's a very like generic, you know, vague example, but what I would do is I'd give it information about what I actually do. Ask it. Say, "Hey, what information do you need from me in order to understand w- my brand?" And go and just answer the questions that it asks you. And then you can say, "Okay, please export this as a PDF." Say, "Okay." It'll turn those answers that you gave it into a PDF. Take that PDF and then if you're in, like, ChatGPT ... I'm, I'm speaking on, like, if you're using ChatGPT right now, right? This is what I've been teaching people how to do. And if you're in ChatGPT, just go over to the left, hit Explore GPTs. In the top right corner hit Create and then hit Configure and then go to the bottom, scroll down, hit Upload Files, and then upload that PDF with all the answers that you just gave it about your brand. Now it has a solid reference of information about who you are, okay? Go up top, name it Social Media GPT, whatever, and then save it. Go to the top right, hit Create, click Share Only Me, update, save, and then go use it. And now when you're using it and asking questions about your brand or what, what direction should I take, or you can ask it, "Now generate me a social media strategy based on my brand." It's gonna base it off of you, not just the generic internet, right? You can even take that strategy, do the s- same thing. You can then export that as a PDF, put that into the knowledge base. Now it has your brand's, uh, your, your brand and your marketing strategy locked in. You can start asking it more questions. Uh, you can ask it ... You can even upload templates. So let's say you have a creator that you really love. You can go on Instagram, um, download the transcription from their content, and then just upload the transcription into the GPT and say, "Make me a template, a script template based on this piece of content." Take that script template, upload it as a knowledge base, and now you can say, "Generate me a script in my brand using that template." And it'll use that template but make it in your voice. Now you have some data, now you have some, some information that you can use that's tailored to you. If you do that enough, while at the same time uploading screenshots of your insights from Instagram, it'll connect the content that it gave you that you recorded and posted with the insights and the performance of that content and start to make those connections. And over time it'll learn your brand, um, and, and it'll start to give you some insights that could be personally valuable to you. Um, that was the process that I use and that I teach other people.

Calum Johnson 1:09:36 Okay. No, that's really cool. Okay, you know what? Let's, let's, let's get even deeper with it. And I, I love the way that you started, which is before you even get to ChatGPT or the platforms, Instagram, YouTube, whatever it is, it's actually almost like going zooming out and starting with yourself.

Dom Ashburn 1:09:54 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:09:55 And being ... And I, I think it goes back to what you mentioned earlier about, like, kind of this scientific method of starting just by asking questions, start by curiosity. And so it's like everyone that's listening could just ask themselves the question, "If I just wanted to provide the most value for someone based on my experiences, my skills, what I know, what would I share?"

Dom Ashburn 1:10:22 Yes.

Calum Johnson 1:10:23 And that will kind of give you a start point which rather than starting with, "Oh, I wanna look cool on camera," or, you know, "What's gonna get me views?" Which is all like it starts with you. Start with the person on the other end of the screen.

Dom Ashburn 1:10:37 Yes.

Calum Johnson 1:10:38 And so I think, I think just as a foundation that's a really valuable place to start before we even begin the conversation about AI and ChatGPT. Once we move to the AI stuff, I think the ... And, and we've had conversations about this even prior. I think one of the things that opened up my mind when I was speaking to you about, uh, AI and ChatGPT is that you

Calum Johnson 1:11:02 treat it fundamentally different than, uh, 99.9% of people, right? So and, and this is ... And I know because I'm in the 99.9% of people.

Dom Ashburn 1:11:12 [laughs]

Calum Johnson 1:11:12 So this is what we do, right? We go to AI. We kind of almost treat it like, I don't know, like Quora maybe. Like, you ask it, like, a very direct question. You give no context really. You ask it a very direct question and then you, like, you want the answer. Or like Google almost.

Dom Ashburn 1:11:30 Right.

Calum Johnson 1:11:30 You just type it in Google and-

Dom Ashburn 1:11:32 Right

Calum Johnson 1:11:32 ... treat it the same way.

Dom Ashburn 1:11:34 Right.

Calum Johnson 1:11:34 Um, you know, "I wanna, I wanna go viral on YouTube."

Dom Ashburn 1:11:38 Right.

Calum Johnson 1:11:38 "How do I go viral? Hey, chat. How do I go viral on YouTube?"

Dom Ashburn 1:11:41 Right.

Calum Johnson 1:11:41 The way that I saw that you do it, it's actually like a conversation.

Dom Ashburn 1:11:46 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:11:47 It's almost like a dynamic conversation that you're having, uh, with AI where it's actually learning about you. You're giving it all of this context. You're asking questions. It's ... You're giving it answers, like, back and forth and you're almost building ... It's, like, personalized to you. And I actually think that is a mindset switch that people need to kind of make around AI to get the value that you've gotten from it. Can you kinda just ... You can speak to it even better than I can. Can you, can you kind of explain that? Like, the actual, the mindset switch of rather than question answer, it's just, it's actually a conversation. It's always building and you're adding in new information, new data. Speak about that.

Dom Ashburn 1:12:31 Yeah. So if you think about your relationship with anybody or you think about, uh, hiring an employee for your company, I just ... Most people think about artificial intelligence like Google, like you're saying. I think about artificial intelligence like a friend that I've just never met before, right? I'm trying to give them information about me so that they can then give me more value, uh, based on their expertise. However, this friend knows everything [laughs] that's ever been on the internet, right? Uh, so if I ask it a generic question, it's gonna give me a generic answer. Everything in the world ... is based on balance. Uh, everything in the universe is based on balance, like we were talking about before, right? Uh, and, and whatever we get in, we get out. We breathe in, we breathe out. Everything in, in the world works this way. So we have to think about things as in good data in, good data out. If you're asking it a vague question, you will get a vague answer. If you are giving it very specific information, you will get a very specific answer. Uh, the way that I think about my relationship with AI is the same way I think about my relationship with, um, with the world, with myself, and the universe. I- what I g- what I give it is what I will get. Uh, and, and that's a very, that's a very stable foundation to think about artificial intelligence. I try to tailor its responses as closely as possible by giving it the information that it needs to help me. Uh, anybody who has hired an employee can then use those same foundations that they've used to hire an employee and train somebody on a specific task to also use artificial intelligence in that way as well. So what you give it, you will get out, and that is the, that is a very good framework for understanding how to communicate with, with AI.

Calum Johnson 1:14:25 You know, I wanna make it even re- uh, more real for people. So let's say that I've done, uh, step one, which is I have clarity on what value I can provide to the world. Like I know, I know what the value add is.

Dom Ashburn 1:14:37 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:14:38 And now I'm looking to, uh, integrate AI within that in the create content creation process. Um, you mentioned that you'll actually, you will like tell AI the questions to ask you. Like, what are some of those, um... People don't really understand how to put the prompts together. Like, what is even an example of like a prompt that you would, uh, give ChatGPT at an early point so that you can kinda start this collaborative process?

Dom Ashburn 1:15:05 Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you can, there's a, there's a process of computational thinking, which is essentially understanding the many steps that it takes to get to the outcome that you want. So if you have an outcome, let's say, um, give me an, uh, an example of an outcome that you may want for your business.

Calum Johnson 1:15:24 Um, for my business or content creation?

Dom Ashburn 1:15:28 Either. Yeah, let's say content creation.

Calum Johnson 1:15:30 Content creation. I wanna get 10,000 followers in the next 10 days.

Dom Ashburn 1:15:37 10,000 followers in the next 10 days. Okay. [laughs] So if, if that's your, i- i- if that's your goal, first we need to state your goal, right? You need to write that down. Make sure you know what you want. Um, AI is, is a really good mirror for you to understand even what it is that you want. Now we have a magic wand that we can wave and, and prompt whatever it is that we want in the world, but you have to know what you want first before you ask. So knowing you want 10,000 followers in 10 days, okay, that's your goal. Now, there's many steps now that are going to come from that. What you can say is, is I, I think that people may even overcomplicate it. Put in that goal and then ask ChatGPT, what do, what are the steps that I need to get to this goal? Just ask it that. What are the steps I need to get to this goal? Okay. It'll probably, it'll... Let's just do it.

Calum Johnson 1:16:32 Let's pull it out. [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:16:32 Let's just do it. [laughs] Right?

Calum Johnson 1:16:34 Like a live workshop it.

Dom Ashburn 1:16:35 Let's just do it. Let's just do a live workshop real quick.

Calum Johnson 1:16:37 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:16:38 Okay, so 10,000 followers in 10 days.

Calum Johnson 1:16:42 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:16:44 I want, so I'm, I'm putting in here I want 10,000 followers in 10 days, okay? And then I'm gonna say, "What steps do I need to take?" Actually, on what platform?

Calum Johnson 1:16:57 Let's do Instagram.

Dom Ashburn 1:16:58 On Instagram, okay. In 10 days on Instagram, what steps do I need to take? It says, "You're gonna need a strategic and intensive approach. You're gonna need to optimize your profile. You're gonna need to create high-quality content, engage with the a- audience, leverage Instagram features." Okay, so each, now we have this. Run contests and giveaways. W- whatever. Now that we have this, now there's many steps that each one of those are gonna take, right?

Calum Johnson 1:17:26 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:17:27 So now we're gonna break that down. Optimize the profile. Well, if we need to optimize the profile, one of the s- the first thing is bio.

Calum Johnson 1:17:33 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:17:34 Now there's many steps to then the bio. Now we're gonna break that down. You get to this realization through going through these things is, oh, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna need it to, I need it to... Like, what am I supposed to write in my bio though?

Calum Johnson 1:17:49 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:17:50 Then if you say, well, hey, GPT, uh, write my bio for me, it's, it's gonna be like, uh, [laughs] like, I don't know.

Calum Johnson 1:18:04 I don't know anything about you.

Dom Ashburn 1:18:05 I don't know anything about you, right? So then you get to this wall where you're like, oh, okay, this is where I come in. Give it the information that then it's going to need to then take care of these services and, and do the steps that it needs, right? So, um, you wouldn't tell your employee, "Hey, go, go..." You, you wouldn't hire somebody that knows nothing about your business and then tell them to go do a task.

Calum Johnson 1:18:29 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:18:29 You need to give it some information about you, and people overcomplicate that process. Open up the AI, start using it, and asking it the questions that you have that you would ask the best expert in that field. Ask it that question. Ask it the steps it needs to get there. If you come to a point, ask it what information you need from me in order to do your job properly. It'll ask you those questions, fill it out, give those answers to the AI, and then have it do the rest of that work for you. It's an iterative process. I talk about circular relationship with AI, where this is you, this is the AI. You're going around and around. You're giving it a piece of information, and then it's gonna give you a response. Based on the response, you give it some information, and it's a flywheel as you go back and forth. Everything in the universe works that way, just like a back and forth, in and out circular process. Give it the information, get a response, and, and go back and forth with it. It's much simpler than people, like, actually make it out to be. And soon, AI will just be invisible and intuitive to the point where, uh, y- you can give it a task, and it will have the agency to go and act on these things for you. Um, that's w- when we get to, like, AGI and super intelligence and things like that. It'll just start taking the action-

Calum Johnson 1:19:44 Hmm

Dom Ashburn 1:19:44 ... um, for you.

Calum Johnson 1:19:46 I, I remember when we were speaking, I think you put it really well. You said, um, [lip smack] AI, like right now, it's like a strategic brain, and it's like the ultimate organizing function.

Dom Ashburn 1:19:57 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:19:57 So like you're actually giving a lot of the answers 'cause you're the one that knows you.

Dom Ashburn 1:20:02 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:20:02 But it's like organizing it. It's kind of providing the strategic lens so that you can actually get the clarity to kind of pursue the goal and, like, build it into reality.

Dom Ashburn 1:20:11 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:20:12 Um, [lip smack] okay, that makes, that makes perfect sense. Once I kind of go through this back and forth and I've gotten these answers and I have the clarity, what is the process of how I take this kind of strategy and organization that, uh, ChatGPT has given me and actually make a final video?

Dom Ashburn 1:20:36 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:20:36 And like kinda sp- spell that out to me. Like, even when, when you were doing it, were you using ... I don't know, like what were the different tools that you were using? Were you using like a Midjourney or whatever? What was even like the scripting process of how you were creating these videos? Like, how do I go from, okay, AI's defined it for me. It's given me the strategy. It's given me kind of the overarching structure. Now I narrow that down to a piece of creative that will perform.

Dom Ashburn 1:21:03 Right. So yeah, I would go back to the giving it the templates that it needs for it to go about that process. Okay, so let me just break down from start to finish-

Calum Johnson 1:21:16 [laughs] Okay, go for it

Dom Ashburn 1:21:17 ... my, the creative process. If you wanna make a video with artificial intelligence on social media, this is exactly what I would do, okay? So first, I would give it some information

Dom Ashburn 1:21:27 about my brand, who I am, where I live, my age, what type of people I wanna make content for. So going back to our convo about the value that you wanna provide, what is the value that you want to provide, right? Um, I tell e- everyone this in my class. I say, I say, "Virality doesn't equal followers. Do not worry about views. Virality does not equal followers. What equals being followed is leading." Like, that might have gotten lost in context for, uh, lost in translation over time. To be followed, lead. Where are you taking people? Where are they gonna go? Define that clearly, and give that to the AI. Tell it that. That's very important. Give it information about what type of content, the format. So are you doing short f- there's format and then platform. Short form content on Instagram, long form tutorials on YouTube, uh, skits, short form script skits on T- TikTok, right? What is the format, and then what platform do you want to do, right? If you don't know that, you could give it your mission and then say, "What format and platform is going to be best for my goal?"

Calum Johnson 1:22:46 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:22:47 Right? So if I want fast growth, short form content on TikTok and Instagram's going to be best. If I want sustainable, long-term, monetizable content, uh, through sponsorships, uh, then I, I'm gonna do long form content on YouTube, right? So just tell it what your goal is, what type of content that you're trying to make, what your mission is, and then you can even ask what platform and format should I use for that, right? Once you get to that step, you can take that information. Um, I would put all of this into a PDF, and I would actually create like a custom GPT doing this. It's very easy to do. Like I said before, you go to explore GPTs in ChatGPT, go up to the top right and hit create, and then scroll down until you see upload files and then upload the files that then include, uh, information about your brand, right? This information about your mission and the type of content that you want to make. Okay, now that you got that out the way, now you can either say, "Give me ideas of content that I can make," um, and it can do that. Or if you have an idea for content that, that you wanna make, you can upload that idea in there. [lip smack] A really important part of content creation and making sustainable media is making sure that the first few seconds of that content is va- is valuable and makes a promise. The person that's watching it should obviously know like what they're going to get from the content in that first few seconds, right? So what I do is I'll have the AI give me four options for hooks-

Calum Johnson 1:24:20 Hmm

Dom Ashburn 1:24:21 ... for that piece of content, right? So I have it set to where I can click content idea for the day. It has all the information about my brand. It'll give me immediately four content ideas for that day, right? I'll pick an idea. And then it'll move on and say, "Here's four options for hooks." Then I'll select one of the hooks. Now you come onto the point of actually scripting the content, right? What you can do is you can say, "Just give me a script," and say the script. Th- this is where the human being now comes in. This is where you have to take action. Take the script, look into the camera, or don't. Just look and just do the microphone. Don't even look at the camera. For the first few times that I make a video, I'm just saying the script without even looking at the camera. I have the camera running, and I have my microphone on, but I'm just speaking.

Calum Johnson 1:25:11 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:25:12 So just speak, record yourself saying the script, and if it, if it doesn't quite sound right to you, then this is where your own human agency comes in. This is where you can then c- come in and say, "Uh, yeah, like I don't really like this idea. You know, I, I, I wanna say it this way." You can start to speak more naturally. That's gonna come with time. It's okay. Give yourself grace, and know that you don't have to post that video Just be in front of the camera and practice speaking on camera, okay? Um, what you can also do is you can, you can take that, uh ... You, you can, you can then take the recording or the transcription of, of what you're speaking on camera, give it to the AI and say, "Hey, this is how I actually like to talk. W- how would you define this personality? How would you define my tone?" You can then take that tone and say, "Okay, now make all of the scripts match my tone now."

Calum Johnson 1:26:05 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:26:06 Right? That's the circular iterative process. You're giving it information and then it's coming back to you with something else. It's iterative, right? Um, and once I record the piece of content, I'll look in, I'll, I'll look into the camera. Back when I was, like, r- first making content, I had my iPad up. I would just open up ChatGPT on there, or I would go to my notes, take all of the, the script from ChatGPT, put it on my notes. I'd have the notes there. I'm looking at the notes, and I am, um ... I, I have the iPad, like, right here, camera's right here, and I would just speak one line at a time. I'd have this line, speak it to the camera. All right, got the next line, speak it to the camera. And I was just doing that back and forth. I would then take that video, put it into CapCut, cut out all the dead space, make sure it's, like, nice and crispy. AI has, like, automatic captions in CapCut, so I would just go down, click auto captions, and then I, I have my line. So now I have my video that I've made. Um, and, uh, yeah, if I ever need, like, stock imagery that was, like, realistic, I'd go to, like, Artgrid. Um, but other than that, if I wanted something more custom, I could go to m- uh, like, Midjourney, generate a picture. Then I could take that picture and put it into Runway. It'll turn it into a video. And now I have, like, some stock imagery from ... Just that I generated that's unique to me that I can then overlay into the videos and things. That's, that's helped. So that's r- really the process. After I make the video, post it on YouTube or post it on Instagram, I go to my insights for that video. I screenshot the insights where it has the g- the, uh, likes, views, comments, shares, saves. Take that, I upload the, that picture into ChatGPT and I say, "Hey, this, the, this is the response that I got from that video. This is the performance of that video. W- give me an analysis." It'll analyze and then I'll say, "All right, next video." And then, you know, th- that's, that's, that's the, that's the process.

Calum Johnson 1:28:15 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:28:15 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:28:16 Okay, no, that's so good. That, and that's so detailed as well. I'm glad you did that.

Dom Ashburn 1:28:18 Okay.

Calum Johnson 1:28:19 Um-

Dom Ashburn 1:28:19 I hope people were, like, taking notes.

Calum Johnson 1:28:20 Yeah. [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:28:21 [laughs]

Calum Johnson 1:28:21 They're probably like pausing the video.

Dom Ashburn 1:28:22 Yeah. [laughs]

Calum Johnson 1:28:23 Um, one of the questions that I had, I was just thinking about this as you were speaking, the capability of ChatGPT, it has, like, memory. So, so, so what I mean by that is, um ... 'Cause you're, you're uploading, like, PDFs, you're uploading all of this material into ChatGPT, and then let's say that you close your laptop or you close the browser, and then, I don't know, next day you start it up again. It's remembered all of these prior conversations and it's like, say that I'm doing my version of your challenge and I'm on day 25. It's remembering that I had this, one of the insights from day two and it's still kind of giving me responses. Like, is there, is there that memory component to it? Or is it almost like at the start of each day when you make the new content idea, you're kind of like refreshing its memory?

Dom Ashburn 1:29:18 Back in the day when I was ... Back in the day. It was just last year.

Calum Johnson 1:29:22 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:29:23 Seems like time's moving so fast now, right? Back last year when I was doing this, when I first started the challenge, I had to use the same chat thread for a month to, so that it would, like, remember everything, right?

Calum Johnson 1:29:34 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:29:35 Today we have updates and new features in chat g- uh, GPT. It does literally have memory across chats. There's three ways that it actually remembers things about you. One is custom instructions, which is you can, if you go to your settings, if you're on mobile it's like the bottom left. You click on your profile. If you're on desktop it's the top right. You click on your profile, go down to settings and custom instructions. And in custom instructions you can type in information that you want it to remember about you across all chats. So what I do is I put in, like, my name, where I live, uh, w- like, my mission, my goals, things that never change. That's what I put in there, right? My birthdate, how old I am, favorite color. You know, m- m- just your aesthetic, you know what I'm saying? Your tone, my personality, things like that. Something I've actually done is I've made, I've taken ... So I took, I took the 16 personalities test. I took the personal values test. I took my astrology chart. Um, I, I took my human design, uh, uh, results. I took all of this information about myself, uh, the results of these personality tests. I uploaded it into ChatGPT, and I told it to give me an analysis of my personality, describe my personality and my, my characteristics and my, like, values and all of that into, like, a concise document, right? And then I take that and I add that to my custom instructions so it just knows who I am across the board.

Calum Johnson 1:31:04 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:31:04 Right? The other way that it knows that it has memory is through literal memory. So if you go into the same way, your instruction or your settings, and you go to personalization. In personalization there is, um, there's a button there that says, like, memory. You can turn this on or off. But what happens if you have it on is as you're talking to it across any chat, there will be instances where it'll say memory updated, or you can say, "Remember this about me," right? So I can say, "I only, I o- I only wear black clothes. I only wear black." Type that in and then you can say, "Remember this about me." And it'll add that to then a memory base, and you can go in there to the memory and read all the things that it's, like, memorized about you. Those things will be across all chats. The third way it has me- memory is in custom instructions, or I'm sorry, custom GPTs. Custom GPTs are what I've been saying. Go to explore GPTs and then create in the top right. You can make your own GPT and then set a library of a knowledge base that is going to remember whenever you use that specific GPT, right? So I have one for every department of my, uh, uh, of, of, uh, my business. I have an agent GPT for social media. I have co- um, I have a customer s- service which is trained on the different templates of responses and FAQs about my business. I have one for my website copy where I literally put all the copy from all of my websites in there and my revenue streams, and then it'll give me information about... I can ask it questions about how I can improve, uh, you know, the website, the different offerings I have. All of my financials from the past since the beginning of the business, I put those in charts and CSV files. I upload those in there for, uh, my, like, CFO GPT, chief financial officer GPT. Um, I have a legal GPT that's trained on all the templates of the different, like, legal documents that I use, like, um, [lip smacks] just, like, speaking engagement documents, LOIs, things like that. I have those templates in there. So anytime that I have a new engagement, I can then give it information about the engagement. It'll fill out that contract, and then I can deliver that to, you know, whoever I need. Um, so custom GPTs are threads, are, are, are s- are specific GPTs that you can upload a knowledge base of templates and information about you, and whenever you use that, it'll be able to access those files that you've uploaded and then use the me- uh, uh, the memory about you from your custom instructions and then your memory to then, like-

Calum Johnson 1:33:38 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:33:38 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:33:39 That is crazy.

Dom Ashburn 1:33:40 Do you understand?

Calum Johnson 1:33:40 Yeah, yeah. No, I get what you're saying.

Dom Ashburn 1:33:41 Okay. All right. All right.

Calum Johnson 1:33:41 I think my eyes are like... I'm like-

Dom Ashburn 1:33:43 Yeah

Calum Johnson 1:33:43 ... that is crazy 'cause you basically have, like, a, you have, like, a full team.

Dom Ashburn 1:33:46 A full team.

Calum Johnson 1:33:46 But it's just, like, AI. It's just like these-

Dom Ashburn 1:33:48 Full team

Calum Johnson 1:33:49 ... AI agents. [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:33:49 Yeah. Full team. Full team.

Calum Johnson 1:33:50 That is crazy. Oh, so no, that is, that is cool. Okay. You know what? To, to bring it back to, um, content specifically.

Dom Ashburn 1:33:58 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:33:58 So, you know, there's gonna be people that do that, and they go on this journey, and they start learning more and more about AI, and they learn about... I feel like it's almost like a mindset. It's a, it's a muscle in a way. You have to get used to how to communicate with it, how to collaborate, bring it into the process, um, but still add in your own personal thing so it's you.

Dom Ashburn 1:34:16 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:34:16 Doesn't feel like a machine. The content doesn't feel like a machine is doing it. It feels personalized. The question that kind of came to my mind was how do I know, how do I know it's working? In, in the terms of, like, okay, so I start uploading these reels, and obviously I've used, uh, ChatGPT in the process. Like, I'm, I'm curious even in your story, was it, like, kind of just immediately off the bat the thing went viral, and it was, like, getting views, and you were getting followers from doing it? Because I can see a lot of people that it's like the first eight days of the 10-day 10K challenge, it's like nothing is happening.

Dom Ashburn 1:34:56 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:34:56 And so how do I know it's working and I just need to keep doing it longer? How do I know it's not working and I actually need to iterate more on the process? Like, I guess what is that process of actually getting better?

Dom Ashburn 1:35:13 [laughs] It, it'll happen naturally and effortlessly. If you conte- if you commit yourself to, if you commit yourself to finding a conclusion with this, it'll happen naturally. It happened naturally for me. If you commit yourself to a, to getting a conclusion on a question and a hyp- and a hypothesis that you had, commit yourself to going through the timeline of your experiment, that answer will come to you across the board in anything in life. If you watch the first video I had, the AgentGPT, I just said, I was like, "We'll see if this works. I, [laughs] I don't know."

Calum Johnson 1:35:52 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:35:52 "We'll see." I think I started it by, like, I hired AgentGPT, or I hired GPT as my social media agent. Can it get me to 100,000 followers in 30 days? It was a question. I didn't know. I didn't say, "I'm going to use AI to get me to 100,000 followers in 30 days." I said, "Can it get me to 100,000 followers in 30 days?" Right? Set this up for yourself as an experiment with anything that you wanna do. Like, can AI get me to... Can AI improve my relationship? Can AI help... Can... Even remove AI from the equation. Say, can you learn a new skill that's going to increase your income by $100,000 a month? Open that up to yourself. Can you become president? Can you get an interview with, on your favorite TV show? Whatever, like, ask, ask yourself as, as this question with a timeline on it and then just see it through. You will

Dom Ashburn 1:36:57 see iterative improvement, like, no matter what. You will improve in anything that you commit yourself to over a period of time. It's just, like, law.

Calum Johnson 1:37:08 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:37:08 You know? It will happen. It'll happen naturally, so don't even worry about if something's, like, working or not. If you're committing yourself to something and you're going through it, you will improve as a person through that process, right? Now, if you're curious, like, well, am I actually getting followers from using AI as my, as my social media agent? It's like, well, if you wanna just start using AI for that, just screenshot your metrics, put it in there and say, "Hey, uh, is this actually working?" And if it's not working, ask it why it's not working, right? It, it'll surprise you.

Calum Johnson 1:37:44 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:37:44 It'll really surprise you. There was a time- It was my first podcast, uh, experience. It was here, it was in New Jersey actually. It was, uh, it was with Rebel Road Podcast, and I had been off of social media for a few days. I was getting really scared that my engagement was gonna go down. Uh, I was worried that I was gonna let everybody down from not being on s- social media, from like not following my journey, whatever, and I just, I told that to the AI, to my agent. I was like, "Yo, I haven't posted in a few days. I'm really worried that like I'm gonna lose all of my engagement and everybody's gonna, you know, they're gonna be upset with me." And the response it gave me just completely surprised me and made me feel so like comforted almost. It made me feel comforted, or comforted. I thought ... It's, it said, uh, it was like, "Just be authentic. Just be genuine, and let people know why you're taking a break. If you're out recording a podcast, maybe you can make some content about that." You know? It was very like empathetic with me, and it almost learned my personality and my behavior over the course of talking to it-

Calum Johnson 1:38:54 Mm

Dom Ashburn 1:38:54 ... to where it was like empathetic with me when I gave it a concern that I had. Uh, the same thing happened when I got spammed. I got spammed like on like day 18, I got spammed. Somebody, uh, bought followers for me and put me at like 180,000 followers or whatever.

Calum Johnson 1:39:12 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:39:12 And it just like kinda ruined the whole, like it made me feel so defeated. I was like, dang, like now everybody's gonna think I like cheated.

Calum Johnson 1:39:19 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:39:20 You know? It's a whole bunch of fake followers overnight, like what? I, I'm gonna lose like my trust with my following, and I told the AI that, and the AI was like, "Just be genuine and tell your audience what happened and how you plan to make it right and the steps that you're taking going forward, and let me know what they say and I'll help you after that." I was like, "Wow. [laughs] Okay," like [laughs] and it worked.

Calum Johnson 1:39:43 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:39:44 It worked. From that, I ended up getting like a huge newsletter following. Um, I was like, "Okay, since this happened everybody," I told, I told everybody that it happened. "Since this happened, I'm gonna release a newsletter so I can protect our relationship."

Calum Johnson 1:39:57 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:39:57 Ended up getting a huge newsletter following from that, that I now have been using to sell my private group, and now I'm se- like selling the offerings that I have today from that thing that happened that I thought was terrible, right, in the moment based on the AI suggestion. So, um, if you're ever worried if it's working, like just ask.

Calum Johnson 1:40:17 Mm. You know what, you know what I love about the way that you think about it? It's actually a process. Like it's part of a process, and I think maybe initially when you get into it, you're fixated on the outcome-

Dom Ashburn 1:40:29 Yeah

Calum Johnson 1:40:29 ... of like, "I want the 10,000 followers in 10 days," but it's almost ... That's not actually important is the 10,000 followers in 10 days. It's the process of understanding how to use AI as this tool that can like supercharge you towards these goals that you have and this vision-

Dom Ashburn 1:40:47 Yeah

Calum Johnson 1:40:47 ... that you have. And so when you start to see it as a process, it's kind of what we mentioned earlier, like it's the becoming independent of outcome or becoming detached-

Dom Ashburn 1:40:58 Exactly

Calum Johnson 1:40:59 ... from these outcomes.

Dom Ashburn 1:41:00 Exactly.

Calum Johnson 1:41:00 And it actually gives you something far greater.

Dom Ashburn 1:41:03 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:41:04 And I remember even you, you were showing me stuff about like your fitness routines and like the, the way that AI has been able to integrate and help your life is much more than just the 100,000 followers in 22 days that you did initially.

Dom Ashburn 1:41:21 Yes.

Calum Johnson 1:41:21 And I think that's gonna be, that's the big thing is treating it like a process and treating it like this, this conversation. It's this two-way street. It's not just give me this thing and it spits out an answer that gives it to you.

Dom Ashburn 1:41:34 Right, right.

Calum Johnson 1:41:35 Um, I think that, yeah, that's really, that's really valuable. I think it's gonna-

Dom Ashburn 1:41:39 Yeah

Calum Johnson 1:41:39 ... open it up for people.

Dom Ashburn 1:41:40 Yeah, so I hope that after getting some of these like step-by-step things, uh, and realizing that it is a process that way, I know that when I speak sometimes it can sound like, it can sound like you're beating around the bush. It can sound like you're not giving me a direct straightforward answer, and I need steps. Well, okay, I can give you some steps, but when you follow these steps you're gonna realize the reason why I was telling you these more soft skill approaches to this thing because that's what you're really gonna need once you realize, once you go through these steps that, oh, it is more about me than I thought.

Calum Johnson 1:42:20 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:42:20 That's why I got into AI and s- and social media is because it, it, this, it's a path towards self-actualization. You have to understand who you are and what you want in order to get the responses you want from AI and to be able to face yourself in front of a camera and post yourself online. It takes self-realization, or at least a desire to realize who you are, to succeed in that area, and I, I r- so many people, we see it so much of, of people who have this massive goal, they reach it, and then they're not happy. They're not satisfied. They're not fulfilled. Why do we continue to do it? Why do we have ... We see people all the time that are just blatantly unhappy, like, uh, clearly unhappy and just like not motivated with life anymore because they've had this goal, they reach it, and then they realize the goal wasn't the point. The process that they went through was the point, but they were so blinded by the goal that they didn't even enjoy that process.

Calum Johnson 1:43:23 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:43:23 I'm telling everybody like stop going down that path. We've seen it so many times. You don't need to be that story. It doesn't have to be your story. Stop having goals. Have more questions. Question the world. Question why you go about things the way that you do. Question the way that you think. Question how high you can really ... Question how big of questions you can ask.

Calum Johnson 1:43:50 Hmm

Dom Ashburn 1:43:51 And once you ask that, once you ask bigger questions, you will come up with better answers, right? These, the, the, the goals that people have are distracting them from the process itself, and it will be realized. The steps that I give you will help you to realize those, that softer skill approach of self-realization once you take the steps.

Calum Johnson 1:44:13 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:44:14 You'll, you'll ... People will eventually, like, realize that and understand, like, you know, all the ... It w- He wasn't beating around the bush. He was giving me an actual realer answer than I asked for.

Calum Johnson 1:44:25 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:44:25 And, um, after, after ... If y- if, if anybody's watched until this point, if they go back and then watch from the beginning, the beginning might make more sense.

Calum Johnson 1:44:35 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:44:35 You know?

Calum Johnson 1:44:36 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:44:37 So.

Calum Johnson 1:44:37 I think, I think that's really what we love about, what I love about these conversations is, like, um ... And I was telling you this even before. The context is so important.

Dom Ashburn 1:44:45 Mm-hmm.

Calum Johnson 1:44:45 'Cause when you add the context, it's like everything makes sense. And so even when, you know, I ask you, I'm like, "If someone wanted to get 100,000 followers in the next 30 days, where would you start?" And it doesn't start with the social media platforms. It doesn't start with this is the viral framework or hack or whatever. It starts with this understanding of yourself-

Dom Ashburn 1:45:09 Yeah

Calum Johnson 1:45:09 ... first.

Dom Ashburn 1:45:10 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:45:11 And it's ... I, I ... And that's why I even said, I mentioned it earlier, like, I love what you mentioned around the, like, the scientific method because when you start just asking questions, you have to tap into that curiosity. It forces you to be process-driven.

Dom Ashburn 1:45:28 Yes.

Calum Johnson 1:45:28 Because you can't focus on the outcome. It's just the que- it's the process of asking questions, getting better answers, asking better questions. It's an iterative approach.

Dom Ashburn 1:45:38 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:45:39 On that point, and, and this is where, this is where the final piece that I wanna cover, is you've done something remarkable in two senses for me when I look at it. So first of all, you've managed to build a committed, engaged audience really based off your personal interests, uh, your personality, values that you wanna share, like a message. Um, you've managed to build an audience and get eyeballs on that. The second piece is you've almost, you've also managed to build, like, a life for yourself, like an income, a, a way of life of doing that. And so we even spoke about this a bit before. There's a lot of people that are getting views, that are getting attention on social media, but there's

Calum Johnson 1:46:30 no life that's following from it. There's no money that's following from that.

Dom Ashburn 1:46:34 Yes.

Calum Johnson 1:46:34 And so walk people through that to, like, how ... What was the process of, like, okay, I have these followers, I have these 300,000 followers. Um, these are the ways that I can actually monetize it in a way that doesn't destroy the brand-

Dom Ashburn 1:46:52 Right

Calum Johnson 1:46:53 ... doesn't destroy the media that you've just built.

Dom Ashburn 1:46:55 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:46:55 Like, how do you think about that?

Dom Ashburn 1:46:57 Get a button. Get a button. Everybody needs a button. I feel like you are not free in the world if you don't have a button. If you don't have a button on the internet, you c- there's no chance of being financially free.

Calum Johnson 1:47:12 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:47:13 If you don't own a button on the internet, you, there's no way to be financially free. You have to have a button, a button that somebody can click that says, "Buy now," [laughs] or a button that says, "Sign up."

Calum Johnson 1:47:28 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:47:29 You need a button. How are you expecting, how is anyone expecting, how may we expect to make money on the internet without a button for people to click to give us that?

Calum Johnson 1:47:44 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:47:46 Like, if you think about the best companies in the world, the biggest companies in the world, think about how many buttons they have. Think ab- okay, so think about Amazon, right? Imagine how many buttons they have on their website. They have [laughs] oh my God. [laughs]

Calum Johnson 1:48:03 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:48:04 Just the number of that is mind-blowing.

Calum Johnson 1:48:07 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:48:08 So many buttons, and that's why they are ... It, the, uh, that's why they're a superpower.

Calum Johnson 1:48:13 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:48:13 Right? You need buttons. So I just decided when I was going about my buttons, what buttons do I want to create, um, for the different people that I wanna help? And I knew that I would have people who would like to spend a lot of money, and then people who didn't have much money, but they wanted to at least, like, participate, right? So I created buttons along the ladder of, a- along almost the pyramid of the types of people that would like to ... I created a solution at multiple price points.

Calum Johnson 1:48:46 Hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:48:46 That's what I did. I created a solution at multiple price points with, if we're going back to the beginning, the vision of staying valuable in the age of AI. That means a lot. There's a lot that could go into staying valuable in the a- in the age of AI. For me, it's been making sure that I am becoming, um, I can, I can become independently financially stable, I can learn about this technology, and I can realize myself. So I created solutions for those three things at different price points. You have things for free, like my meditations on there, completely free. The written tutorials on there, completely free, right? If you just wanna learn and kinda get your f- feet wet, free. Instagram, free. Free content. Then you can go all the way up to the top and it's like collaborate with me, right? And it's like, okay, like, it's not even a price. You just go in there and, like, s- say what you want.

Calum Johnson 1:49:39 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:49:39 You know? And then there's everything, you know, in between. There's community, there's meet with me one-on-one, there's sign up for the private group. There's tiers, so that if you can't afford this one, you can afford that one. So people should think about- How can I help people in every, uh, how am I trying to help people, and then how can I create an option for people at different price points t- to meet them, right? That creates a sense of inclusivity that would not push away ... Th- there's an option for everybody, right?

Calum Johnson 1:50:15 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:50:15 So that's what you need to think about. I'm not alienating or excluding anybody from my community, because there's an option for everyone. And I'm also being fully honest and transparent with them. Like, it's ... When I first got a bunch of followers, what I did was is my second failure, [laughs] well, my 189th failure or something like that-

Calum Johnson 1:50:41 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:50:41 ... in my life, right? Um, happened after AgentGPT, actually. I made this video that was I wanna make a million dollars in 100 days using AI. That was the goal, and I put it out there for everybody, and I'm getting people in the comments that are like, "Wow, I've never been so invested in somebody's life ever."

Calum Johnson 1:50:58 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:50:58 [laughs] You know what I'm saying? I'm like, oh-

Calum Johnson 1:51:01 Yeah

Dom Ashburn 1:51:01 ... oh, no.

Calum Johnson 1:51:02 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:51:03 And I'm going through it. I'm, I'm doing a few days and I come up with this really big idea. Like, okay, I'm gonna create teachers using AI that are trained off of all the best teachers in the world and people can go up and talk to those AIs to learn, right? And then I'm starting to ... I start hitting up software developers. Then I start drawing out what the app is gonna be, and then now I don't even have time to make the content. Then when I make the content, I'm making content about my problems and, like, things I'm going through, and then I'm making content about money and I'm like the, the brand started to turn into something ... I s- I saw the potential for the brand to start to turn into a finance brand.

Calum Johnson 1:51:46 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:51:46 And like a, like a, a rough, grimy, gritty startup brand.

Calum Johnson 1:51:54 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:51:54 And I didn't want that. That's not like who I am. It's not my life. I'm more of a, I'm more of an artist who appreciates speaking to human beings and having big ideas than I am a product manager.

Calum Johnson 1:52:08 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:52:09 You know what I'm saying? So I just told everybody, "I'm not doing this anymore. I'm sorry, but I'm not doing this. Morally like it's not me. I'm out."

Calum Johnson 1:52:19 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:52:19 And I took some time. I moved to New York and I just, uh, I isolated myself and, um, and I just found out like what do I naturally like to do? What I naturally like is just to teach people.

Calum Johnson 1:52:31 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:52:32 So I started to, uh, I made buttons that would help me to teach more people and I was honest with everybody about it. So if anybody wants to make more money online, make buttons. Make buttons at different price points so that people can actually like hire you for, you know, buy from you, whatever that is-

Calum Johnson 1:52:48 Mm

Dom Ashburn 1:52:48 ... so you can start to make money and be transparent with everyone about like how you're doing it.

Calum Johnson 1:52:53 Yeah. You know what? And then, and, and we can end here. Um-

Dom Ashburn 1:52:58 Is he giving us time up?

Calum Johnson 1:53:00 Yeah, we're kind of running out of time.

Dom Ashburn 1:53:01 Yeah. [laughs]

Calum Johnson 1:53:01 Yeah. Um, but like I was even looking on your website. You have a like, you have like a few different offers and things that you do. So you have consulting. Obviously I'm assuming you do some stuff like brand deals or like sponsored stuff on videos. Do you-

Dom Ashburn 1:53:15 Yeah

Calum Johnson 1:53:16 ... sometimes?

Dom Ashburn 1:53:16 Sometimes. I've only worked with ... I've worked with Meta, I've worked with Adobe, I've worked with Mindvalley, Founder. Um, you know, and there's, there's other companies that I really wanna like work with.

Calum Johnson 1:53:28 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:53:28 I wanna work with more like lifestyle and like fashion brands. I would love to work with the fashion brands that inspired me from like a young age.

Calum Johnson 1:53:36 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:53:36 I'd love to work with, uh, I'd love to work with more like maybe it's like some car c- uh, car companies, some like meditation essentials companies and things like that. So yeah, I'm, I'm trying to s- not get away from tech, but like I want to be more of a full individual, right?

Calum Johnson 1:53:52 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:53:52 So, um, I only have worked with like those top tech c- companies and then everything else is kinda like off limits, you know what I mean?

Calum Johnson 1:53:58 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:53:58 So, uh, yeah, some brands but like I don't rely on it.

Calum Johnson 1:54:02 Yeah.

Dom Ashburn 1:54:02 You know what I mean?

Calum Johnson 1:54:02 Yeah. Um, you even mentioned earlier that you're doing like a community. I know you do public speaking. So you kind of have like these different revenue streams and channels. I'm curious, almost if you went back to like, back to the earlier version of Dom who's like you've started to build this following, there's attention. If you were kinda, kinda ... 'Cause I think there's, it's almost like an iterative approach that you're taking, right? Like you're continuously building these different streams of income. But if you just had to give someone a place to start of like someone who's a creator similar

Calum Johnson 1:54:40 in the sense that you are where be- almost being like an artist is important to them, like having like a message, connecting with people, staying true to that message is important and you were like, "Okay, this is a good way that you can do that and, you know, it is actually gonna bring in some revenue for you," is there like one of those streams, one of those channels that you would recommend almost as a way to get started?

Dom Ashburn 1:55:05 The easiest one to do is like paid meetings because all you need is yourself and your camera which you already have. That's the easiest way for anybody to make money on the internet is a button that just says like meet me and charge any amount of money that you think per hour. Uh, because people l- if you make content online people look up to you and they wanna, they have these questions where they wanna know who you are and what you do and how you do it and to walk me through that process, right? One on one. So just have a button on there that's like meet me.

Calum Johnson 1:55:38 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:55:39 So that people can reach out. It takes no money. It doesn't cost money. Uh, you can use Acuity on Squarespace. I think it, it might be like 15, $20 a month or something like that but, um, you could also just do like a Google Meet link and then send them an invoice through Square or something like that. So just have, have a button that says like meet, uh, meet me and that's a really easy way for people to get started because you've done something. You've at, at least created content. Uh, you're getting out there and people may want to like reach out to you for understanding how you do what you do. So that's a r- a really good way. Um- Another good way is just to have a button for like brand deals and things like that, like a collaborate button. So if people want to collaborate with you, they can click on that button and like send information about the collaboration, uh, that they have in mind. That's a r- a really great way if you are creating content, because attention is currency now. So the more eyes that you have, you don't even necessarily need to be doing anything valuable to the world. You can just be making people laugh. Well, that's valuable to the world. I'm sorry. Um, making people laugh is very, very valuable. I was on the plane the other day just having a terrible ... Uh, like my brain was just being really negative, and I just started watching like Kai Cenat and Kevin Hart, and they're just being fools-

Calum Johnson 1:56:53 [laughs]

Dom Ashburn 1:56:53 ... like dancing, and I was like, "This made me happy." So-

Calum Johnson 1:56:56 Yeah

Dom Ashburn 1:56:56 ... that's very like valuable to the world. I, I, I guess I mean not educational or not like inspirational. You can just be entertaining, make people laugh, get attention, and then, um, sign up for brand deals and then just make, make a limit of how many brand deals you do per month, and then be transparent about your audience about it, with your audience about it. Um, that's another one that doesn't cost any money, and it's, there's no like overhead to it. You're just getting money in it, you know, immediately.

Calum Johnson 1:57:21 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:57:21 I'm trying to think of things that, ways that you can make money that don't have overhead or an initial cost.

Calum Johnson 1:57:26 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 1:57:26 Um, and that is, that's typically just like you. Another thing I do is those custom GPTs I was telling you about. I make those custom GPTs, and I have those for sale on the website. So I've already built them out with all of the information that somebody would need, so then you go in there, you can just buy it, and then you ... It's, it already has the steps and the buttons and everything, so you don't have to do prompting. You can just click a button, and it's gonna create the content for you, or it'll give you the workout plan for you based on like your body and everything like that. So it, whatever you do, like let's say you wanted to create a custom GPT. You could have a, a Calum Johnson, uh, GPT, and it's just like, it, it's trained on your personality. It's trained on all the information you know about starting up a podcast, and you sell that, and then people can go in there and ask questions about like how they can start up their podcast based on your knowledge.

Calum Johnson 1:58:15 Mm-hmm.

Dom Ashburn 1:58:15 You know what I'm saying? So that doesn't cost me anything either. It's completely free to make, but it's just my knowledge that I'm putting in there, right? So those are three like income streams that cost no money. Um, and then they, uh, to start, it's just you and a little bit of your upfront investment, uh, and you can actually directly help people, uh, through that with whatever you have right now.

Calum Johnson 1:58:37 Mm. No, I love it, man. Um, and thank you so much for coming on. I think one of, one of the things that's like, uh, really cool about what you're sharing, I think there's actually two things that are really cool, and I, and I'll start with this. I think the first thing is that we're, we're in the age of AI, and it's gonna be this way moving forward, and so when you even speak about like the process, like there's actually, there's way more value in the process of understanding how to use AI than even the outcome of what you initially wanted getting into it.

Dom Ashburn 1:59:10 Agreed.

Calum Johnson 1:59:11 And when you even explain like you can sell the custom GPTs, like just the skillset of knowing how to use AI is gonna be extremely in demand in and of itself. I think the ... So, so that's just valuable to people and, and, and everything you've shared has a lot of value to it. I think it's also just cool for me now that we kind of like we know each other personally. It's cool hearing the story and understanding like you're just gonna take it to greater and greater lengths. And it's, um, I'm sure there'll be a point where we get you back on, and it's like I don't even know what the Instagram will be at, and there'll probably be something else, and it will, it will be a cool moment just to like reflect on it and, you know, for people to see the entire story of how it unfolded.

Dom Ashburn 1:59:57 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 1:59:57 Um, so thank you so much, man. I really appreciate you coming on.

Dom Ashburn 2:00:00 Of course. Thank you for having me. Um, and I, I really appreciated the convo and the ability to just, you know, the opportunity to just talk about myself for a little bit. [laughs]

Calum Johnson 2:00:08 You know, on that point, tell people where they can find you.

Dom Ashburn 2:00:10 Yeah. Uh, people can find me on Instagram @mr.grateful. Um, and I'm starting a new, I think I'm starting a new chapter. Um, you know, I, [laughs] ironically, I, I wanted to, I kinda wanted to, you know, expand my brand in the same way I'm, I expand these other projects that I have in terms of like expanding beyond artificial intelligence. I wanna start ... W- we're at a point right now where people, people don't, people don't trust the companies that are building tech, and they also don't see AI as like actually creative or making art, right? So we need to, we need to better understand technology and better understand people. So my brand is I'm using my platform now to talk to more people. Um, and what I'm doing is I'm having more like interviews with just like strangers and my following.

Calum Johnson 2:01:00 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 2:01:00 And I'm gonna open up my calendar for people to just first come, first served, come in there and just talk to me, and that's gonna be a majority of my content, is actually solving hands-on problems that people are having with their life, their relationship, or with technology, social media, money, whatever it is. Just having real problems with real people that have been in the community from the beginning, and then using that as the content. Um, so, uh, that's gonna be on Instagram @mr.grateful. It's M-R.grateful. Um, and then I'll probably end up starting like my YouTube from that.

Calum Johnson 2:01:33 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 2:01:33 Uh, you know, doing like long form things.

Calum Johnson 2:01:35 Get a couple hits for that, yeah.

Dom Ashburn 2:01:35 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 2:01:35 That'd be good.

Dom Ashburn 2:01:35 Yeah, yeah. So, uh, and then, and then I have Grateful Future, which is a page. I just recently acquired a previous AI page to give me kind of a head start, and then, um, uh, I am posting more like tutorials and futuristic news, straightforward, blunt, um, like no BS AI news on Grateful Future so that I can still have that for people who want it-

Calum Johnson 2:02:01 Mm

Dom Ashburn 2:02:01 ... but then start to use my personal brand as a platform for people.

Calum Johnson 2:02:04 Mm.

Dom Ashburn 2:02:05 Uh, and that, that'll be on Grateful Future and then Mr.Grateful, mr.grateful is where you can find me on Instagram.

Calum Johnson 2:02:10 Mm. That's awesome, man. I love to see the vision and the mission that you're on, man.

Dom Ashburn 2:02:13 Yeah.

Calum Johnson 2:02:13 It's really cool.

Dom Ashburn 2:02:14 Thanks, man.

Calum Johnson 2:02:14 Thank you so much.

Dom Ashburn 2:02:15 Appreciate it. Appreciate it, brother.

Calum Johnson 2:02:17 Thank you so much for watching this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. It's really a dream for me that I get to do this. It's surreal that this is what I do full time and every week. So if you enjoy the content, if you enjoyed the conversation, the stories, please hit that subscribe button. It helps us immeasurably with growing the channel, with getting guests, all of those things. So please hit that subscribe button, and I'll see you next time.