I remember giving advice once to a writer when they were first starting out (this writer is thriving by their own merit and one of my favorites I’ve had the pleasure of working with just as an aside). The advice though was to avoid the thesaurus at the outset of creative exploration. Focus more on researching relevant topics – get as smart as you can on the topics. A play on words, a double entendre… they’ll get the job done.
But to be clever, you must be an expert.
You need to be an insider with knowledge that only the audience (your fellow experts on the topic) would understand to then take your cleverness as close in or far off as you’d like.
This thought was reignited in 2024, coining what I call (and I’m sure others have called something similar) “Consumption Autonomy.”
If you’ve ever designed a custom ChatGPT, you know all about that left panel where you go to train it up. You’re dropping web addresses, content, guidelines – all that good stuff – to ensure it has the exact filters to provide the support you need. While it’s an imperfect science, it’s been a very useful tool to help with a first-round gut check before pulling in a more human lens. But the takeaway for me:
We need to be equally purposeful about the content we consume to inform our filter. It’s incidentally made me much more choiceful about the kind of content *I* view / read (whether by avoiding certain low-value content or gravitating toward more high-value content). Because if you’ve created a custom ChatGPT, you know how touchy they can be – devaluing their role simply by dropping in the wrong information. It alters the entire filter. It’s the same lesson I shared several years ago and am relearning through a new lens. And an important one as we the inundators of content are also inundated with content.
Me beginning to see my own mind as equally susceptible to faulty filters has been empowering and a great reminder that we all have autonomy in our consumption. And with that, we have a responsibility to ourselves to play an active role in creating more purposeful filters enhanced by more high-value information.
What are some examples of content you’d recommend looking into? I’ve been recommended “The E-Myth” which is great and “Never Eat Alone” is one I’m enjoying now that I definitely recommend!
