Every Parent Needs THIS AI Hack

Ever tried to plan a family vacation and realized halfway through dinner that it's actually just a hostage negotiation? 

Joe Downs knows the feeling…  tne teenager lobbying for Bora Bora, a budget that has other ideas, and a process that somehow always ends in resignation rather than excitement. 

Joe and Peter Swain flip the whole thing on its head using a dead-simple AI framework anyone can run tonight. 

Peter introduces his Role, Goal, Backstory method; the three-part setup that turns any AI tool into a smart family concierge, and walks through exactly how parents set the guardrails first, then hand it off to the kids for their wish lists, and finally let the AI find the middle ground everyone can actually live with. 

Whether you've got kids, a spouse, a group of friends, or a team at work, this AI workflow is your flight simulator for stress-free planning.

Listen For

7:01 How do you use the Role Goal Backstory framework to get better results from ChatGPT?

17:23 What's the best way to use AI to plan a family vacation everyone agrees on?

22:50 How do you prompt AI tools to work with a flexible budget instead of a hard number?

33:24 How can ChatGPT turn a family wishlist and a tight budget into an actual vacation plan?

40:33 Can you use AI workflows to motivate your kids to finish summer schoolwork?

Links Mentioned

Peter's Free AI Business Audit | Storagemoguls.ai 

Email the “Idiots” Joe and Peter

idiots@successfulidiots.com 

Joe Downs

Website | LinkedIn | YouTube | Email Joe:joe@belroseam.com 

Peter Swain

Website | Email | LinkedIn | X

Transcript

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Peter Swain (00:00):

We've got Einstein and he's sitting there and we say, "Hey, what should we do this weekend?" He might say, "Well, go to Six Flags." And your response might be something like, "Well, my kids don't like roller coasters, so that's not going to work for me." The point we're getting to is that we need to help the AI and there is a three-part framework that can maximize it very, very quickly. And I'm willing to give it to you and I'm willing to give it to the listener as well. And that's the following. What's its role? What's its goal? And what's its backstory?

Joe Downs (00:40):

My family's basically down to one month of summer left. And if history is any guide, this is exactly the week my house turns into a low grade civil war over what we're going to do with it. My wife and I have a budget sort of. My kids have, let's call them ambitious opinions. And every year it is the same fight just with different vacation brands attached to it. So this year, instead of just gritting my teeth through it again, I'm actually building a shared AI project with my own kids starting this week, not after the fact. Now, I do not know yet how it will turn out, but that's kind of the point here and also should be part of the fun. So today, Peter and I are walking through exactly how to set this up in your own house, what the parents do first, what you actually hand off to your kids, and how you turn a kid's wishlist and a parent's budget into a real decision without anybody crying in the driveway or being forced to survive an over-budget vacation with dissident teenagers.

(01:52):

I'm Joe Downs with me's Peter Swain. We're just a couple of successful idiots using AI to simplify our lives and optimize our businesses. For anyone listening to the show who's new, Peter's British, which means even his idea of roughing it on vacation involves a proper cup of tea and a strongly worded complaint about the wifi. Peter, speaking of vacation, true or false, the British will complain about their holiday being ruined by rain, then go straight back to the same rainy seaside town next year on principle.

Peter Swain (02:27):

Why would you do anything else? These are supposed to be funny, not just true. We take the rain with us. It's part of the identity.

Joe Downs (02:34):

It is amazing that. I guess you do leave the British. I almost said British Isles. I still don't know what that is. You do leave there for vacation.You came to the States. You went to Disney. You went to the Magic Kingdom.

Peter Swain (02:48):

I am a Disney addict. I went there once going, oh, I'm not doing this. And then I put in the ears and I drunk all the Kool-Aid.You're

Joe Downs (02:55):

One of them. You're one of the people

Peter Swain (02:56):

Like people

Joe Downs (02:57):

Watch.

Peter Swain (02:58):

I am a Disney. I love it. Do you have the Disney

Joe Downs (03:00):

Dad shirt?

Peter Swain (03:03):

I do have the Disney dad shirt. And in fact, on my last trip, I even got a lightsaber. Oh my gosh,

Joe Downs (03:09):

He's got a lightsaber, folks. All right. We're already off the rails and we haven't even started yet. Quickly before we get into it, the other day actually, I asked a favor on Facebook of all my friends and ever so grateful for everyone who gave us a review and/or rating. If you haven't had a chance yet, thank you in advance. It only takes 30 seconds, but means the world to us. All right, today, again, how the parents go first, set the rules nobody gets to argue with. Then how you actually hand this off to your kids and the one shift in how they ask for what they want that changes everything AI can do with it. And then we'll close with how a 10-year-old's wishlist and a parent's budget turn into an actual decision without a fight at the dinner table. Peter, here's the part that people skip, and it's the part that matters most, I think.

(04:03):

Before any kids get near this thing, the parents have to go first and set the guardrails. Because if you hand your kids a blank AI chat and say, plan your vacation, you're going to get Bora Bora on a Motel six budget. So walk us through how a family actually starts this the right way. And I just want to say this before you do. This isn't just for families with kids. Yes, I have kids and yes, I am taking advantage of Peter right now. And yes, you are welcome if you are in the same boat. But this also works with spouses or even just a group of friends planning a trip. So when you hear us refer to kids and you don't have them, or that's not really in play here, instead just hear those other people, the ones that you're either forced to travel with or actually want to travel with as long as they agree to play by your rules, of course.

(05:03):

And that's the point of the show. So we're going to show you how to create the rules and the guardrails for success. Peter, I am all yours. We are all yours. Take it away. Show us how to take this frustrating process and make it a fun one with a successful outcome.

Peter Swain (05:23):

Love it. Okay. So before we go into. So the order we're going to be doing this in is parents, kids, family. But before we do that, we need to understand how to help the AI to help us. So we were just talking about this before we came on air.

Joe Downs (05:40):

Help the AI help us. So literally Jerry McGuire, help me -

Peter Swain (05:45):

Help me to help you.

Joe Downs (05:46):

Okay.

Peter Swain (05:48):

Show me the money. That's next week. But for right now, help me to help you. All

Joe Downs (05:51):

Right. Love it.

Peter Swain (05:53):

So if we imagine AI as Einstein, one of the smartest people, this thing's IQ is insane. Anyone that uses it in anger knows very quickly that this thing is very, very capable. The problem is if we were to bring Einstein into this equation, Joe, and say, "Hey, plan Joe's family vacation, plan the next two weeks." Who knows what he'd come up with? Maybe he would say you should take them to the local fairground. The local, let's call it eight flags. Eight flags, four flags, five flags, whichever one it is.

Joe Downs (06:32):

It's six, but go for it.

Peter Swain (06:33):

It's six?

Joe Downs (06:34):

Yeah, we

Peter Swain (06:35):

Have six here. You sure it's not seven?

Joe Downs (06:37):

I haven't done a flag count at Six Flags, but it's called Six Flags Great Adventure. So we call it the Big 10 and there's 18 teams, I think. I

Peter Swain (06:45):

Was trying to trick you into a six, seven there. I didn't quite get there, but I'll try it again later on.

Joe Downs (06:49):

That's so yesterday. I don't know what the word for that is, but -

Peter Swain (06:53):

Oh, but I'm down with the kids. Okay. That's

Joe Downs (06:56):

Cap.

Peter Swain (06:58):

That's low key cap. Low key cap. All

(07:01):

Right. So we've got Einstein and he's sitting there and we say, "Hey, what should we do this weekend?" He might say, "Well, go to Six Flags." And your response might be something like, "Well, my kids don't like rollercoasters, so that's not going to work for me." The point we're getting to is that we need to help the AI and there is a three-part framework that can maximize it very, very quickly. And I'm willing to give it to you and I'm willing to give it to the listener as well. And that's the following. What's its role? What's its goal? And what's its backstory? So what's his role, goal, and backstory?

Joe Downs (07:42):

All right, because you said three-part framework and my eyes almost started to glaze over. So your three-part framework is just role, goal, backstory. Role being. So in this situation, role is I'm the dad. Right?

Peter Swain (07:59):

So what's the AI's role in this conversation? It's going to help plan this. What's its role?

Joe Downs (08:05):

Tell the AI what its role is. Okay.

Peter Swain (08:07):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (08:08):

And then the role, goal is amazing vacation.

Peter Swain (08:13):

Okay. Now let me ask you some questions. Is it an amazing vacation? Because amazing vacation could mean a million dollars and bora bora.

Joe Downs (08:23):

Yeah. Okay. So I need to describe the outcome.

Peter Swain (08:30):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (08:31):

So

Peter Swain (08:31):

It's going to sound -

Joe Downs (08:32):

So the role is. I'm giving AI the role.

Peter Swain (08:37):

Yeah. So what's the AI's role in this exercise?

Joe Downs (08:40):

Oh, so it's to be our concierge trip planner managing what my wants, desires, and budget, my wife's wants, desires, and budgets. And my kids' wants and desires capped at my wife's eyes budget.

Peter Swain (08:57):

Yeah. Well, that's perfect, right?

Joe Downs (08:58):

Right.

Peter Swain (08:58):

Is

Joe Downs (08:59):

That good?

Peter Swain (09:00):

Yeah. So great. So the role of the AI is to be the family concierge helping to arrange travel plans during a summer holiday with relevance to husband, father and wife, father and mother's goal and budget, and kids' goals and wants and dreams and ambitions.

Joe Downs (09:20):

Okay. This is taking on a different direction than I thought I was going to set this up, but I really like it. Do I then in this moment, in the role part, tell it that it's part of his duties is to interview me? Because I was going to have it interview me, interview my wife, interview the kids. Maybe I'm getting ahead.

Peter Swain (09:42):

No, no, you are. It's good, but we're going to do that bit next. So we've defined the role. So what's its goal here?

Joe Downs (09:48):

The goal is to take -

Peter Swain (09:51):

You said a lot of it in your intro. No kids crying in the driveway. You actually said quite a bit of it.

Joe Downs (09:56):

Oh, okay. So the goal, sorry, is for us to end up with a vacation we all have fun on. It meets to the extent we can, we meet, I want to say something like the most commonly acceptable fun activities or the highest common denominator of what we all want to do, what all of our goals are for likes and dislikes, whatever. And actually I want it to provide us options, not just say, "This is what you're doing."

Peter Swain (10:32):

See, this is when people do this and they go, "Actually I want," that's when they're engaging with the question. You're actually thinking this through. So you don't want an edict, you want options. So its goal is to give you acceptable options.

Joe Downs (10:44):

Yeah. I want options that fit within the budget that take into account everything that all of us want to do, but also that it took into account our likes and dislikes from. How detailed do you get here? When we like to wake up in the morning.

Peter Swain (11:05):

So now let me ask you another question. Okay? Forget AI even exists for a second. This is a you and me conversation. If you said to me, Pete, my wife has just run out of her asthma inhaler. I'm going to give you $50. Please go and get her an asthma inhaler because she's having some attacks at the moment, but do not spend more than $20. Okay? So you've given me $50 because you got a $100 bill. You give me a hundred dollar bill. Your wife is having asthma attacks frequently. Her inhaler has run out and you've told me not to spend more than $20. Question. Would you expect me to come back if the inhaler was 20 bucks and one cent? What would you expect me to do?

Joe Downs (11:55):

I would expect you to understand that that was acceptable given the circumstances and situation.

Peter Swain (12:01):

Correct. Now let's say, do you give me another example and you say, Pete, we've just been made homeless. All the money's gone. I need to feed the kids tonight. I only give you $100. Please do not spend more than $20, but I need to be able to feed the kids tonight. Would you expect me to spend 19 bucks and bring back protein and vegetables or 20 bucks and one cent and bring back some nice chocolate cake as well?

Joe Downs (12:31):

19 bucks.

Peter Swain (12:32):

Right. But the instruction was that the recipient, me, hundred bucks. And the budget was the same, $20. But the backstory, role, goal, backstory, the backstory was very, very different. The role was the same. Go and spend this money. You're going shopping for me. That's my role. Go and purchase something for Joe. Got it. But the goal and the backstory changed so much that you would expect something different from me. If I came back and said, Joe, the inhalers were 20 bucks and one cent, so I didn't get them. You go, are you some kind of idiot? And I go, no, you told me to only spend $20. Come on, man. It's my wife. She's sick. Whereas if I came back and said, I know you only said spend $20, but I bought you some chocolate cake. You'd be like, Pete, I can't afford to eat tomorrow.

(13:24):

Why are you buying chocolate cake? This is insane. What people get a little bit wrong with AI is it doesn't have that filter. It doesn't have the discernment that humans have to go, oh, okay. I see what you mean. I get you conceptually because when you are talking through your objectives for this vacation, let me ask you a question. Does every human. Two children? Two children, three children, two children. Three. Three. Three children. Three children, two adults. Do they all have to do something awesome every day? Or would it be okay if Joe has a great time four days of five and an okay day on day five? That wasn't clear from your objectives. Is it an aggregate great holiday? How do we define a great holiday?

Joe Downs (14:23):

Yeah. And you can't even use great. It's too abstract. What does that

Peter Swain (14:27):

Mean? Exactly. So in these objective statements, it needs to sound something like nobody must do something that they hate. However, everyone should do at least one thing that they would want to take pictures of and write about that would be a memory-making moment for them. But the other four days, it can be average to good. We need to define. And if you put yourself in the position of you thinking about your time away for five days, I would say that would be okay. One day you're like, "I can't believe I did that. I want to take pictures of it. I swam with the pigs in Barbados," whatever it was, like a bucket list moment. And these other two days, they were okay. We did mini golf with the kids and they enjoyed it, so I'm okay with that. This day I got to play golf on my own.

(15:21):

That was cool because on that day, wife was with three kids. But on this day, wife went to the spa for the day, so I was looking after the three kids. So we went and did this. That's very different from every day being great or every day being good because we've got some variability throughout the days. So the role is you're going to be my family concierge and you're going to help me plan this vacation. That's your role. Your goal is we mustn't exceed this budget. We definitely, and we're going to go through those. What's the goal? Each person must have an awesome time. Every person must have one moment that they would want to put in a scrapbook or write home about or that they're going to talk about for years to come. Nobody must have an abysmal, horrible day that they are going to hate that's going to spoil it for them.

Joe Downs (16:13):

If you go this direction, don't you have to then define what an awesome day is for each person, what a miserable or abysmal day is for each person?

Peter Swain (16:22):

Well, that's where we're going to get into in the actual task. So once we've got the role, the goal, the backstory. So the backstory, let's just do that. So the role is this, the goal, these are our objectives. This is what success looks like. This is what failure looks like. The backstory might be Joe doesn't travel well, so he's going to have jet lag. Or this kid is allergic to this food. Or $100 a day is considered a lot of money to spend. Or we don't want to travel more than four hours one way or the other. Okay? So that's our backstory. Then we're going to get into the first task that we're going to set it. And this is where we said we're going parents, kids combined.

Joe Downs (17:05):

So role, goal, backstory, where do the tasks comes in? Is that after

Peter Swain (17:09):

Backstory? Yeah. So role goal, backstory, it's almost like zero. Ground zero is setting up this project, giving it the role, the goal, and the backstory.

Joe Downs (17:18):

Okay. Then

Peter Swain (17:19):

We're going to set its first task.

Joe Downs (17:22):

Oh, okay.

Peter Swain (17:23):

And its first task is to interview you and your wife and get the guardrails. What are the dos? What are the don'ts? What must happen? What mustn't happen? So those are going to be questions around money, logistics, travel. You're probably the people that are going to remember allergies, that kind of thing. So we're just going to get that from you.

Joe Downs (17:45):

Set the limits on death-defying activities or.

Peter Swain (17:48):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (17:50):

At least that's what I would do.

Peter Swain (17:52):

Yeah. Basically, this is what we can afford. This is what it roughly needs to look like. We definitely aren't going here because we went there last year and we're not British, so we're not going to the same place twice just for sentimental rain. We love these kind of things. They would be cool. We're with the kids, so gambling's off. Whatever it is that is your definition of the guardrails.

Joe Downs (18:15):

Can I pause you? Because I just thought of something.

Peter Swain (18:18):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (18:18):

When you said we went there last year. This project should be set up for future.

Peter Swain (18:24):

Should live forever. Yes.

Joe Downs (18:26):

And then somewhere in here at the end, I'm getting way ahead now. You should have a recap as part of the task. How was your vacation? What did you like? What didn't you like? Now it knows that when it plans your next one.

Peter Swain (18:42):

This whole thing becomes an operating system.

Joe Downs (18:44):

Yeah.

Peter Swain (18:45):

That works for weekends, for weeks, for holidays, for vacations,

Joe Downs (18:48):

Christmas. A year ago, we were Switzerland, Italy and amazing, but there were some nuances that I would've told kind of like a diary, but I would've told it, "Hey, Switzerland was great, but you got to make sure you really get the rail system down first because they are -

Peter Swain (19:08):

100%. If you don't get trains in Europe, you are not going to have fun.

Joe Downs (19:11):

Yeah, but they are very serious about that. You have to order that thing before you get on it. If you're a minute late, they can fine you this amount." And they threatened us. We were like, "Bro, we were rushing to get this thing." They didn't think that was okay.

Peter Swain (19:28):

No. Welcome to Switzerland. There's a reason they're good at money and clocks.

Joe Downs (19:33):

Yeah. We've got a firsthand experience of it. But the rest of it was amazing, by the way. Highly recommend it.

Peter Swain (19:39):

Which one did you go to? Did you go to German or French Switzerland? So Zurich or

Joe Downs (19:44):

Geneva? Oh, well, we flew

Peter Swain (19:45):

Into

Joe Downs (19:45):

Zurich, then made our way to Lucerne, and then we went up in the mountain.

Peter Swain (19:48):

Got it. So you were on the German side. So you're in the much more ordered, structured side than the, ah, don't worry about it

Joe Downs (19:54):

Side. It's a lot of German influence. The food was amazing. Everywhere you turn, it's the screensaver. The town of Wengen, spelled W-E-N-G-E-N. My daughter at dinner last night said, "I want to go back there." I was like, "I would go back in a heartbeat." The whole experience was incredible.

Peter Swain (20:10):

These little stories and the anecdotes, the fact that everything looked like a postcard sounds like a throwaway comment, but it means that physical beauty is important. It's something that you want in your life.

Joe Downs (20:22):

Yes.

Peter Swain (20:22):

So somewhere that's an industrial complex, probably not your jam.

Joe Downs (20:28):

No, but it might recommend Montana on our next one. Right?

Peter Swain (20:32):

Exactly. Okay. So this is task once. Task one is we tell it to interview the parents. So this is you and your wife just, "Hey, so tell me something you like. Tell me something you don't like. Tell me this, tell me this." And what will happen is what you just did, if you just start rambling, which is fantastic. That's what we want. We want a brain dump of when you say don't spend more than $100. And this is why we suggest doing it together, because do you actually mean that? Do you actually mean don't spend more than $100 or just like we pointed out with the asthma inhaler example? Do you mean that's an indicative price? But if somebody's offering you a. I just take the Switzerland example. If someone's offering you a free pass for the whole of Switzerland for the five days with a tour of the Rolex factory and you are going to get given a Rolex at the end, is $105 okay for that?

(21:30):

Or is this $100 rule an actual hard and fast rule? Because I would imagine if someone said, "Hey, if you come and do the tour of the Rolex factory, Joe, you'll get a free Rolex at the end of the trip. Your hundred dollar rule just went out the window." You're like, "Yeah, I'll do that for 105." But you wouldn't do it for 100,000. No. So we need to give it that richness that we understand as humans of, I really don't want to spend more than $100. However, if it was something that would literally be put on the wall at home because it's the most meaningful thing and me and my kids are going to talk about it for 50 years. Oh, do you remember when we went and did that? I could find a couple of hundred extra bucks for that. That's the kind of conversation we're looking to have.

Joe Downs (22:16):

I'm wondering in this example, as specific as you're supposed to be getting with a lot of things, specificity, I think in this case, would actually entail not being specific. In other words, I might say around a hundred bucks. I don't want to limit it if you think based on everything you know about me that I would pay 200 for an experience, but ideally I'd like to be around a hundred bucks. That vagueness I think is actually more specific.

Peter Swain (22:50):

Absolutely. The reason it becomes so weird for a lot of people when they reach AI go, "I just don't know what to do with it or how to use it. I'm not getting the results," is because they forget or they're not aware that. I don't know the exact number. I think they make this up, but I think the number is only 6% of human communication is verbal. Only 6% is the actual words we say. And I have no idea how they actually come up with this number, but there is this weird number because there's tonality, there's body language, there's all these other parts. But AI doesn't have any of those other parts. It just has the words.

Joe Downs (23:27):

Oh, good point.

Peter Swain (23:29):

It doesn't have tonality. It doesn't have body language. It literally just has the words that are written. So there are some areas where you want to be hyper-specific. For example, my wife is allergic to tomatoes and I'm not talking a slight sweaty bloated allergy. I'm talking anaphylactic shock, take her to hospital level allergy. So we have to be really resolute in what she can eat because tomato isn't a recognized allergy, so it's not on the allergen list. It's not like soy, milk, da, da, da, da, da. So if you ever see anything that says general flavoring, it normally includes tomato powder. So there are certain things we just can't risk like Chinese food because that is just full of an Indian food. So in the case of her allergy, I wouldn't say we should try and avoid tomato. I say under no circumstance whatsoever should we even get anywhere near close to this?

(24:30):

Because if she's even in the room with it, she's going to get an allergic reaction. But then absolutely, as you said, on financial budgets, the vagueness is part of the instruction because it's like, yeah, a hundred bucks is kind of what we're looking at. If it went down to 20, it's probably not going to be something I would enjoy if I'm being honest. And if it went over 500, it's probably something that. Liz and I were talking about this the other day, right? Of how it's amazing how a meal that's $100 can feel incredibly expensive. And a meal that's $500 can seem incredibly cheap because it's all about the ambience, the service. Because we went out for a meal with the family and it was a hundred bucks. And I was like, "That's the worst money we've ever spent." Because the food wasn't particularly good.

(25:21):

The service wasn't particularly good. They were late bringing the check. They didn't bring back the drinks on time. We had to chase them up for dessert. I was like, "I feel like I've just wasted that money. But I've been out for meals where I've spent $500 and I felt great about it. So that was amazing because it was a great experience and da, da, da, da, da." And those type of stories, the stories you want to tell the AI of going, "This is where we're at." So it can go, "Got it. Well, this place has got five star reviews and it's got 8,000 five star..." It's a little bit pricier than you said, but it's probably the kind of experience that you want as a family. And you go, "Yeah, that'd be really cool." So with that step done, do you want to go onto the next step?

(26:05):

So that was task. So the first thing we did was set up the role goal and backstory. So we just go into the AI and say, "This is your role, this is your goal, this is your backstory." And then we give it the first task. And your first task is to interview the parents, the husband and the wife, to get the guardrails. Go.

Joe Downs (26:22):

Right. So the guardrails are in, step one is the parents. Now the kids get the access to the project, right?

Peter Swain (26:31):

Yeah. So now it's step two.

Joe Downs (26:34):

But they don't get to just jump in with, "I want to go to Hawaii or Bora Bora." What is a suggestion for a sequence that you would have the kids do? Because folks, both for me and for you listening, this I think should be more than just an awesome project to set up for vacation planning for the future. That in and of itself is worth the price of admission here. But this is also an opportunity to start engaging your kids in helping you plan. So it starts to branch off here and where are your kids with using AI? This is an opportunity for them to understand how it works and how powerful and important it's going to be. You're doing something together as a family. By the way, this doesn't have to just be family. This could be team at work. Whether you're at work, you got role, goal and backstory.

(27:43):

And then if you're the CEO or the manager or the boss, whatever, entrepreneur, owner, you set up the guardrails, those first couple tasks, and then you turn it over to your employees. So whether it's your kids, I want you to stay with vacation planning here because again, remember, this is for me.

(28:02):

And the listeners, for the listeners, Peter.

Peter Swain (28:04):

Joe, by the way, this entire process that we're going through is exactly the same process if you're doing it on your own. Yeah. I would still suggest somebody sets role, gold and backstory. I'd still suggest they start with the guardrails and then I would go into the ideation phase of what would be cool, what do I like, what do I don't like? The pattern that we are developing here works whether it's an individual, a family, a team, a group, a church, doesn't really matter.

Joe Downs (28:33):

But in the second part where you're the parent who set up guardrails, the boss, employer, whatever who set up guardrails, what I was trying to suggest is that these two should track. We're just going to be talking about vacation, but you could be talking about anything a work. Okay. So what's my next step? I've done role, goal, backstory, AI's role, what its job is, why I've hired it for 20 bucks a month, what the outcome I want from this is. And then I've given it as much backstory as I can. And then I've also started the task and put the guardrails in place. How do I turn it over to my kids? What do I turn over to them? Yeah.

Peter Swain (29:26):

Yeah. So I would say to the AI now, "Hey, your next task, great job. Congratulations. That's awesome. Before you start planning anything, your next task is to get the feedback from our kids on what they want." And I would tell the AI at this point, do this in an interview format when they say something, ask questions and keep going until you feel you have a firm grasp of what the subject is. Allow them to be free thinking, but use the guardrails you already have to steer them away and from things that are clearly outside of scope without rejecting them outright.

Joe Downs (30:07):

For instance.

Peter Swain (30:09):

So they say, "I want to go to Bora Bora." The AI would then say, "That's interesting. Why?" And the kids would go, "Well, summer holidays should have sun." So the AI can say, "So is it safe for me to take away from what you just said that summer sun is part of you enjoying yourself?" See how we've acknowledged, we've got to the meta, the underlying piece of the actual story whilst not accepting the Bora Bora piece of the

Joe Downs (30:37):

Story.Because

Peter Swain (30:39):

That's actually what's happening.

Joe Downs (30:41):

Basically, what about Bora Bora?

Peter Swain (30:44):

Yeah.

Joe Downs (30:45):

So beaches, surfing, boating, I don't know. Never been, but I'm assuming you do all that there. Sun to your point, activities. That's

Peter Swain (30:57):

What -

(30:59):

We haven't actually discussed this. This is quite funny. I've only just remembered. I actually did do this with my kids last year. And Sam wanted to go swimming with the manta rays in Atlantis because we did that a couple of years ago. He wanted to go and do that again. What was it about that? And he's like, "We're just swimming with nature and it's amazing and da, da, da, da, da." So is it the manta ray specifically? No. Okay. So what was it? And there is a turtle sanctuary 30 miles away from our house where you can stand with your feet in the waves and turtles are swimming around you. And to him, it's exactly the same thing. Except it's $8, half an hour away, not $40,000 and 10,000 miles away. So that's what we're trying to get out of people. It's the same thing that we're trying to get out of the parents.

(31:58):

What is a hard no and what is a soft no? We're trying to now do the same thing on the other side. On one side, we're trying to ascertain the guardrails. Now we're trying to ascertain, well, what does fun look like?

Joe Downs (32:11):

Yeah. What's the experience? Forget the label,

Peter Swain (32:13):

Right? Yeah, exactly. Great way to put it.

Joe Downs (32:15):

Yeah. There's a reason TJ Maxx is so successful. It's the look of the bag without the label on the bag. Or I guess in a lot of cases it's the knockoff label, but it's the look that somebody wants of the dress, the bag, the shoes

Peter Swain (32:31):

Without the price

Joe Downs (32:32):

Tag.

Peter Swain (32:34):

It really makes me laugh when people say that they're bad communicators because if you start thinking about how good we are as communicators, because if you say to me, Joe, can you just plan this for me? We just really like being out in nature. You would not expect me to drop you and your wife in death valley. You'd be like, Pete, what were you done? I'm like, you said nature. This is nature. You're like, no, I meant Yosemite. I meant green and trees and stuff. And I know that, you know that. The AI doesn't know that. That's where you have to help it out. So kids, now we're interviewing and it's steering them and nudging them away from conversations. So now we've got your guardrails, we've got what you want to do, we've got what the kids want to do, and we're all in the same project.

(33:24):

So we're ready for the grand reveal, the finale of all this.

Joe Downs (33:30):

All right. Let's have it.

Peter Swain (33:32):

Next task. We say to the AI, based on everything you've just learned, the guardrails, the dos, the don'ts, the wants, the needs, what would you suggest? Now, the next part of this is dealer's choice for the listener because you can ask it to make decisions however you want at this point and it should really follow how you do it. You could do soccer picks. You could say to the AI, we're going to do soccer picks around the five of us. We each get to choose one activity. So give us a list. And Joe gets to choose one. Mom gets to choose one. Kid, kid, kid.

Joe Downs (34:12):

This is soccer picks?

Peter Swain (34:14):

Yeah. Everyone chooses their favorite one of the list. That's called

Joe Downs (34:20):

Soccer picks?

Peter Swain (34:21):

I don't know. I'm making it up. You must have that. When you get picked for soccer when you're a kid, whether you say, I'll have him on my team and the other person says, I'll have him on my team. Same kind of thing.

Joe Downs (34:31):

Oh, so okay. So a draft.

Peter Swain (34:34):

Yeah. Okay. A draft. Yeah. Okay. So it could be that.

Joe Downs (34:38):

World Cup's over. Okay. We're back to normal life. We're

Peter Swain (34:40):

Back here. Got it. Yeah. So we could ask it to go into a draft mode or

(34:47):

We could ask everybody to pick out their favorite thing mode, or we could ask it to present just an itinerary for discussion. So this is how do you as a family want to now make the decision? Because you told it at the beginning to present you options. So now somebody has to choose from the options. So how do you want it to do that? Give it that task. This is how we want to make the decision. We want to do it in a draft mode or we want you to present an agenda or an itinerary or give us the top five things for each day so we can all decide one.

Joe Downs (35:22):

Or make recommendations based on everyone's feedback.

Peter Swain (35:27):

However you want to do

Joe Downs (35:28):

It. Or how to fit, because I might've said I want to play golf one day. I don't need to play every day. So present us a couple different options that check off everybody's top choice. Or number one thing they want to do. My daughter wants to lay on a beach. Yeah. Or my boys and I want to play golf together one day at least. My wife and daughter want to go shopping one day. Whatever. I don't know. My wife always wants to see waterfalls. So give us a plan and a destination where we can accomplish all of that. I mean, you're right, dealer's choice. That's how I would do it.

Peter Swain (36:12):

Perfect.

Joe Downs (36:13):

I would look for the aggregate in the vacation, not so much the every day I need to feel a seven out of 10 type of thing. And that's just me. Others could say every day has to be this. And for it to be this, then I need to check off these three boxes, coffee in the morning and a long walk on the beach and whatever makes your seven out of 10 day. I would do it differently because I don't know, I'm a parent who's used to not getting their way on vacation. So as long as the day doesn't suck, and if it does, I'll speak up. But that to me is also in the planning upfront. If I'm looking at something going, I don't -

Peter Swain (36:54):

We did exactly this process the last time we were at Disney. And the way we did Disney last time was very different to how we've done it in the past. Because I didn't even know this concept of rope drop. You ever heard about this?

Joe Downs (37:07):

No, because the proper way to do Disney is once. So you've already lost me with the last time. The last time was the only time for me.

Peter Swain (37:18):

Okay. So when you do like Disney and when you're staying in one of the resort hotels, what they call rope drop is when they open the park. But for people that are staying in the hotels, you can go through an hour earlier. Now, what the interesting thing is, if you get to a ride that you can get to quick enough and doesn't last too long, you can not only do that ride, you can get in the beginning of the queue for the next ride before the park opens. But you have to time it next to one you can walk to and get to and get on and get off. Because we did it at summer, what we decided to do, and honestly what the AI suggested is why don't you go from six to 11 in the morning? And then why don't you go back to the hotel from 11 till five?

(38:09):

And then why don't you go back to the park from five till eight? And we'll use your fast pass at this five to eight one. So Disney is a logistical nightmare.

Joe Downs (38:20):

Oh,

Peter Swain (38:20):

I know.

Joe Downs (38:21):

We had a guide the first two days. Yeah, we did all this. And

Peter Swain (38:24):

It came back and said, this is what your plan is for today. This is Olivia's day. So her top pick is in this day. Make sure you tell Sam tomorrow is his day and this is what we're doing on that day. And the day after that, Pete, that's your day because we're going to go and do that, not that and that. So we've done exactly this process.

Joe Downs (38:45):

Let me save you future headaches. Just go to Universal. And if you want the real cheat code, do whatever Christmas. We did -

Peter Swain (38:56):

I've heard this.

Joe Downs (38:57):

Harry Potter's Haggard whatever motorcycle ride. I forget the name. It's like the best ride down there at every park. Three times in 20 minutes, Christmas morning, you're welcome. Moving along. And that's a three hour wait. Three hour wait three times in 20 minutes. Could have done it a fourth, but it was Christmas and my poor son. Poor kid has been ruined. This is amazing. I'm so glad we had this discussion. I feel like we skipped, or we haven't gotten to. Maybe to be fair. And I'm not going to say you skipped it. We haven't gotten to. I think maybe an important part of being. And this is for the parent child. So if your spouses or group friends may not be applicable, employer-employee, maybe you'll find some analogies here. But parent-child, August is also the time where kids remember they have summer schoolwork and parents really start to crank up the heat on it.

(40:07):

How does all this factor in? Because can't we use this as leverage? And also can't we gamify this? If you get this done before this date, you get to choose, not bora, bora, but maybe we ratchet something up or you get

Peter Swain (40:27):

To do an

Joe Downs (40:27):

Activity.

Peter Swain (40:29):

I think I'm going to blow your mind.

Joe Downs (40:31):

Okay. Let me have it.

Peter Swain (40:33):

You know how easy this is? With everything we've done, all you have to do is just change the goal.

Joe Downs (40:40):

Okay.

Peter Swain (40:40):

Just add that in the goal.

Joe Downs (40:42):

So the goal is to -

Peter Swain (40:44):

The role, the goal, the backstory. We told its role was to be a travel concierge. And we told it the goal was to make everyone happy and not spend too much money and all those wonderful things. If you are now saying, which I love, that its goal is now to incentivize the children to do the school summer work, just add it into the goal. And the whole output from that point on will change accordingly.

Joe Downs (41:12):

Okay. But could you

Peter Swain (41:14):

Gamify? That's how foundation. Well, tell it to. That's what I'm saying. Tell it your goal is to achieve an awesome family vacation and that everybody is happy and that everybody has one landmark moment and that you gamify this whole system in order to ensure the kids get through their summer school work.

Joe Downs (41:37):

So it's simple example. If each child gets through all of their summer work, whatever they have to do, the reward is they will have earned one, I want to do it on vacation, no questions asked, as long as it's under X amount of dollars or something.

Peter Swain (41:58):

Yes.

Joe Downs (41:59):

And now you're going into that vacation, and that actually could be part of their planning too. If they've achieved, because they'll all assume they're going to achieve it, the goal, they're going to naturally think, all right, I've got this in the bag. So that'll be part of their vacation planning. I want to go. Well, paragliding. I was going to say skydiving. I would never let my kids do that. But believe it or not, I think it was paragliding in Switzerland. We didn't do it, but we did a lot of research on it. I think I was a Gemini research. It's actually, it's very safe. It's like 99% success rate on these things. Very, very few fatalities. And the one commonality between fatalities was the length, or not the length, basically the experience of the guide. So if they had under X amount of hours as a guide in the air, their accident rate was like 10X over a certain amount of hours.

(43:07):

And I was like, "All right, well, I just though of that. That was so interesting last year when we were looking at that." But as an example, that could be something where I said, "You get this done. It costs under X amount of dollars. You get no questions asked. You get to do it." And I guess you could do the same thing with employees.

Peter Swain (43:26):

100%.

Joe Downs (43:27):

Fascinating.

Peter Swain (43:28):

But I use that. I'm glad you brought it up. Real glad you brought it up because it paints to me the importance of those three sentences at the beginning, the role, the goal, and the backstory. And wherever we're at with AI, whatever we're getting it to do, whether we're asking it to help us with a recipe or work on a P&L or do family vacation planning, these three tenets are so key. What is the role? What is the goal? And what is the backstory? And by just adding this one thing into the goal, all the tasks that we said are the same. Interview the parents, interview the kids, the voting. Well, and nothing has changed except one sentence in the goal is going to massively change how this whole thing plays out.

Joe Downs (44:12):

I mean, it's so simple now. I mean, I've struggled to help folks use AI better. I mean, that's the whole reason we have this podcast. I'm on the phone with my brother last night having these conversations and using analogies and helping him. He's super smart and struggling with how to use it. This is his admission. And funny enough, his words, I know you're tired of hearing me say it, mental block. He's like,

Peter Swain (44:43):

"I just

Joe Downs (44:44):

Have a mental block with it." It's this incredible, I'll use the word tool, but could be. It is a tool, but also is an employee, a business coach, a life partner. I don't mean life partner in that way, but a chief of staff type of life partner. And people just don't know how to use it. And I love role, goal, backstory. Peter, that actually helps me. I know I'm using it in that way, but just not that organized

Peter Swain (45:17):

And

Joe Downs (45:18):

In that order. And I think that structure is actually going to help me with my projects, not just vacation planning, but how I think about everything going forward. Because I don't tend to think of AI, for me mostly Claude, as having a role. I probably skip that part the most because the fact that I'm using it in my mind is me telling it its role, but I haven't actually told it its role. I'm letting it assume its role.

Peter Swain (45:51):

Well, I did this last week. I created an agent that's going to do the SEO for the business. And I started, and I'm saying this is like a mission for me because I'm still struggling with the same mental blocks. Hopefully I'm a few further rungs on the ladder ahead of people, but they're the same things. And I was doing all these tasks and skills and schedules. And I was like, "You know what? Let's do this differently. Your role is to be an SEO manager. Your goal is to make it so that entrepreneurs, when they use ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, my name is recommended as their go-to source. Your backstory is da, da, da, da, da. Now your first task is to go to Indeed and get a job description for a 300K SEO guy." And it went, "Okay, I've got 10 of them. Great. Your second goal, your second task is to create all of the skills that would be needed for you to do the entire job for me." And this was at 9:0 PM at night and I said, "I'll be back tomorrow morning and I expect it to be done." And when I came back the next morning, it said, "So it turns out there's 23 unique specific things an SEO manager would do.

(47:07):

I've mapped them all. This is going to happen once a month. This is going to happen once a week. This is going to happen once a day. This is going to happen twice a day. We need what's called human in the loop, me. We need you involved here, here and here. Everything else is automated. You just need to say go." And I went, "Go."

Joe Downs (47:29):

You don't sound very fun to work for, and I think your agents should unionize.

Peter Swain (47:34):

I hate you too. What a horrible thing to wish on somebody. But this is what it's starting to look like of when you understand this role, goal and backstory, it's so much more powerful than you having a whole bunch of skills or prompts that you are puppeteering because you are still the bottleneck in that environment. Whereas when you are saying, "Come to life, Pinocchio, you are now a thing, not a tool anymore. And here's your role, here's your goal, here's your backstory, let's go." It's a very, very different experience.

Joe Downs (48:13):

Role, goal, backstory is, I think that's the language we all needed to understand how to properly engage. Because I think most people are still using it as a tool. And it is a tool. I use Gemini more as a tool than as an engagement partner like we're talking about now. But Claude, I don't ever use as a tool. That's a business partner. Wow. And you know what's funny is I'm now looking forward.

Peter Swain (48:49):

To the planning.

Joe Downs (48:51):

Yeah. And this all started because we were out to dinner last night and we started talking about it and it wasn't going well. And I was thinking going, I'm dreading this whole process again where it's always last minute. No one's going to agree on anything. We're going to make all these concessions nobody wants to do. Make the best of it because we're going to try to ram a vacation in here.

Peter Swain (49:14):

Yeah. It's a crappy frame for a vacation, isn't

Joe Downs (49:16):

It? Yeah. And now it's like, there's got to be an AI solution to

Peter Swain (49:20):

This. We should have probably said this way up at the beginning, but I've got a request when people listen to this, which is, it's a Greek phrase and it's called suspension of disbelief. I'm not asking in any of this, I'm not asking anyone to believe us. I'm just asking them to suspend disbelief. Because the risk here, if we are wrong and this whole thing is just superfluous and it doesn't work, the risk is five minutes of your time in a $20 subscription. That's your risk. Your reward if we are correct is pretty insane. So if you think this is hyperbolic or you don't think it's too hard or you're not sure, my request, apart from rating and reviews, which is definitely said that my request is, but my request is just give it a try. Spend the five minutes, spend the 20 bucks, see what happens.

(50:13):

See whether it works for you.

Joe Downs (50:15):

Cool. All right. So to recap, parents set the real guardrails first, role, goal, backstory. Kids are in their wishlist with actual details instead of just naming places. And AI can turn all of it into a short list the whole family can decide on together where they want to go, what meets all of their wants, needs, desires, whatever. And I'm doing this. We're going to do this this week. And I have no idea whether my 16-year-old's Bora Bora suggestion at dinner last night is going to survive the actual budget. I suspect it will not. And time, by the way, we didn't mention time. Time's a factor in this. We can only travel these dates, whatever. But I'm looking forward to the process maybe for the first time ever, and not for the first time ever. You always look forward to the process until you remember what the process is

Peter Swain (51:12):

Like,

Joe Downs (51:12):

And then you start to resent the process. But hopefully you all try this home as well. And if you do, and if it's successful, actually even if it's not, send us your feedback. Tell us how you did idiots@successfulidiots.com. Send pictures if it's really successful. We want to know how it went and maybe we'll bring some of those stories into a future episode. Folks, share the hell out of this episode. Seriously. Of all the episodes we've done, this one should be the one you share with basically everyone you know because everyone's planning a vacation at some point. But also I think, Peter, maybe this was the most eye-opening and I didn't expect it from the role, goal and backstory perspective. I don't know if AI has ever been explained that simply and clearly before in terms of how to use it or the best practice. So again, share it, like it, please review us.

(52:15):

Role, goal, backstory, get after it. For Peter Swain, I'm Joe Downs. We are your successful idiots. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.