I thought today was going to be simple. I’d open my laptop, update an old Geopats Abroad episode title, sip my coffee, feel productive, move on.
But nope.
Instead, I found myself deep inside one of those prompt-chaining moments where ChatGPT gives you something technically correct… and totally underwhelming. And honestly, these moments have become kind of fun for me. They remind me that I’m not just typing words into a box , I’m reshaping the box.
And that shaping?That’s the part I find exciting.It’s the part we don’t talk about enough, how much control we actually have.
This example happens to be about podcast SEO, but let me say this loudly and early: this applies to every kind of writing prompt. Blog posts, email drafts, captions, scripts, landing pages, grocery lists if that’s your thing.
The whole universe of writing gets better when we remember we’re not at the mercy of the first output. We get to steer the ship.
Anyway. Let me show you what happened.
🧪 The Tiny Prompt That Started It All
Like I said, I was working on revamping an older episode. When I edit or relabel anything, I always start with the transcript because I want the output grounded in the actual conversation.
So I dropped the transcript in and:
Me: “How about six keywords for strong search?”
And yes, I admit it: vague.But I like vague. Vague gives me room to move.
Chatty:
* Hangzhou
* China expat
* White snake legend
* Living abroad stories
* Young writer journey
* China culture
And at first glance, it looks fine, right? Solid nouns. Cultural references. Some structure.
But when you’re thinking like a human doing a real search, these fall apart pretty quickly. “Living abroad stories”? Who types that? “Young writer journey”? Zero people on the planet.
Even “white snake legend” feels like something you’d search after you already know the legend, not before. And my whole point here is finding people who don’t know the reference, but would love the episode anyway.
So I sat with this lukewarm list and realized the problem wasn’t ChatGPT’s ability — it was my instruction. “Strong search” means nothing if I don’t say what “strong” refers to. Search behavior is specific. Humans are inconsistent. And ChatGPT, at its core, predicts what humans usually do… which isn’t necessarily what we want it to do.
So I clarified the prompt.
Pass it on
Know someone who’d be interested in this AI pondering?
🔄 The One Nudge That Changed Everything
So I started to prompt chain:
Me:
“Are these the kinds of terms people would actually type in when searching for this episode in places like Google or podcast apps?”
That’s it. I didn’t rewrite the world. I didn’t write one of those 40-line mega-prompts. I didn’t structure it like a template from an AI guru.
I just nudged Chatty to think about humans instead of patterns.
Chatty:
* Hangzhou stories
* Moving to China
* Expat life China
* White Snake myth
* First year in China
* Chinese culture experience
Immediately better. Suddenly these aren’t academic terms, they’re things I’ve literally seen actual people type into expat groups, Facebook threads, Reddit posts, even my own searches back when I was considering a move.
And this is the part that still makes me grin:one small clarification reshaped the whole output.
Not a massive explanation.Not a mini-lecture.Just a nudge.
That’s the control we have.And that’s the part that lights me up.
🧭 The Pattern Hidden in the Keywords
Here’s the fun surprise: once I looked at this new list as a whole, I noticed something I hadn’t expected. They follow the chronological timeline of an expat:
* Moving to China → the moment before you even know the word “expat” applies to you
* First year in China → the crash landing phase where everything is exciting and terrifying
* Expat life China → the phase where you realize this identity might actually fit
* Chinese culture experience → the subtle “ohhhh, so that’s what’s happening” moments
* Hangzhou stories → the grounding in place and narrative that holds the whole thing together
The keywords accidentally created a map. And that’s when I thought: maybe the tool didn’t just give me better words, maybe it gave me a better understanding of my own content.
This is what I mean when I say prompting feels like collaboration.
I’m not telling Chatty what to write and waiting passively. I’m shaping, adjusting, redirecting, learning. It’s alive. It’s flexible. It’s playful.
I thin
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