Embracing Emergence in Leadership and Innovation

Steve Schlafman is using a $20 ChatGPT subscription to expand his consciousness.

He’s doing this through:

• Advanced dream work—Steve records himself talking about his dreams every morning, uploads the transcript to ChatGPT, and prompts the LLM to analyze it like a Jungian dream analyst would. The model pulls out archetypes and hidden emotions that he would’ve been oblivious to.
• Creating living records of meaningful experiences—Instead of losing key insights from therapy or coaching, Steve uses the LLM to highlight emotional patterns, pick out recurring symbols, and build a personal growth timeline.
• Leaning into voice interfaces—Diagnosed with ADD as a child, Steve often lost track of ideas because his brain processed information faster than he could type or write it out. AI voice interfaces free him to process information in a way that’s more natural to him.

Steve is a former VC-turned-executive coach and the founder of @downshift, the “decelerator” for founders and executives. If you think this episode is too “woo” for your liking, Steve argues that you might be over-indexing on just one way of experiencing the world. 

We see the world through four windows: thinking, sensing, feeling, and imagining—and according to him, the last two are often ignored. So if your rational mind has always run the show, Steve invites you to let your feelings and imagination take the lead.

This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI to understand themselves better—and grow.  

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Timestamps:

1. Introduction: 00:01:07
2. The power of treating your startup as an evolving entity: 00:03:00
3. Building a business as a means of self-expression: 00:05:27
4. Prompting ChatGPT to do Jungian dream work: 00:17:45
5. Why you should listen to this episode, especially if it feels too “woo’” for you: 00:21:44
6. Visualizing Steve’s dream with ChatGPT: 00:36:31
7. Creating living records of meaning experiences with AI: 00:47:38
8. If you tend to think faster than you can type, lean into voice interfaces: 00:49:37
9. How Steve writes with AI: 00:52:13
10. How AI will disrupt traditional coaching and therapy: 00:54:03

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

• Steve Schlafman: https://www.schlaf.co/ 
• Downshift, the “deaccelerator” that Steve founded: https://www.downshift.me/ 
• The book by Bill Plotkin that Steve talks about: Soulcraft 
• A piece Steve wrote for Every, a couple of years ago: “Why Is It So Hard to Change?”