Personalized ChatGPT Business Coach
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Sam built an AI-powered system to extract personalized business insights from biographies. Here's how he did it and why it works.
The core problem with reading business biographies
- Hard to track timelines across 400-500 page books
- Difficult to know what applies to your specific situation
- Historical dollar amounts lack modern context (e.g., $50,000 in the 1930s = $8,000,000 today)
- Reading multiple biographies on the same person provides different context but is overwhelming
The solution: Bio to Notion tool
- Built using Claude Code/Cowork in 45 minutes
- Uploads 1-5 biographies (PDF, EPUB, MOBI, or text) on the same person
- Processes them into a structured Notion page
- Creates a "business Wikipedia" with financial focus
What the output includes
- Executive summary: 3-5 key bullet points from the subject's journey
- Financial summary: Deep dive on numbers (Wikipedia lacks this detail)
- Visual timeline: Photos relevant to different eras for context
- Founder's playbook: Insights tailored to your specific business challenges
The personalization layer
- ChatGPT configured as a "business coach" with context on:
- Your strengths and weaknesses
- Problems you complain about day-to-day
- Your current business challenges
- The "Founder's Playbook" section becomes "crazy tailored" to what you're experiencing
- System remembers what types of anecdotes resonate with you and surfaces similar ones
Why pre-reading context matters
- Reading Wikipedia or summaries before the book helps you:
- Put information into buckets while reading
- Know what to look forward to
- See patterns and cracks forming (e.g., knowing divorces are coming helps spot relationship issues early)
- Having the "scaffolding of the story" prevents bouncing before getting to good stuff
Making it even more powerful
- Use an AI agent to automate the entire pipeline:
- Find relevant biographies based on your interests
- Download the PDFs/EPUBs
- Process them through the tool
- Deliver via email or personal podcast feed every Monday
- Feed back what you remember and why to make the system smarter over time
- Create a "README file" of anecdotes that resonate with you
The therapeutic value
- "We don't need therapy, we need history"
- Reading about real adversity (war, Great Depression) puts modern problems in perspective
- Seeing successful people do "low status" things (Ted Turner pushing a ball with his nose, getting stitches for a publicity stunt) removes ego barriers
- Realizing "if he's willing to get on his hands and knees, there's nothing beneath me"
Technical setup
- Uses Claude Code/Cowork (Cowork is easier interface for Claude Code)
- Takes about 5 minutes to process
- Output is publishable as a "Samapedia" of business biographies
- Can be turned into a personal podcast feed
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.