ChatGPT didn’t screw up your copy. You did.
Blaming AI for a bad output is like blaming your drill because you messed up your deck with it.
I don’t write with ChatGPT. I use it like a creative partner.
I ask it for ideas. I give it angles to play with. And sometimes it spits something out that’s actually great — and I run with it.
But most of the time? It’s generic. Safe. Forgettable.
The problem isn’t ChatGPT. The problem is the prompt.
And the prompt? That’s on you.
This morning, I got frustrated.
I was working on a promo email for a Shopify brand and everything ChatGPT gave me felt like a copy-paste from a customer support script.
What ChatGPT was giving me was worse than nothing. It would have been better to start with a blank screen.
I decided to try one last prompt — a wild one — just to see what would happen before I closed it and wrote the entire thing myself.
I said: “Write this like someone who gives a shit. Make it raw. Swear if you need to.”
Suddenly, it snapped.
The output was night and day.
It wasn’t the usual fluff with some swear words thrown in.
Telling ChatGPT to swear got it out of its comfort zone and into a new mode.
The swearing wasn’t the end goal. I don’t write many swear words in my typical articles. The point of telling it to swear was to shake it up, to give it a new “mindset”.
Most people blame the AI for bad writing. But AI doesn’t write.
It reflects you. Your tone. Your urgency. Your clarity.
So if your output sucks? Look in the mirror.
If you sound unsure, ChatGPT will give you a padded, over-explained answer. If you sound like a robot, it mirrors that tone right back. But if you inject confidence, energy, stakes — ChatGPT actually starts to behave differently.
If you want it to be bold, your prompt should be bold too!
It’s weird, but true: the more human you are, the more human the output feels.
This is why it’s not about clever wordplay or longer prompts. It’s about emotional intent.
Ask it like you’d talk to a teammate who needs to get the job done. Not like you’re filling out a government form.
Bad prompt:
Write a welcome email for a customer who just signed up.
Better prompt:
Write a welcome email that sounds like a founder who actually gives a shit. Make it punch. Be honest. No fluff. Don’t play nice if you don’t have to.
The best writing I get from AI doesn’t come from overloading it with instructions. It comes from giving it energy to work with.
Here’s a cheat code: When in doubt, say, “Write this like someone who gives a shit.”
That one line unlocks a totally different result.
Take ChatGPT out of its comfort zone. That’s where the good shit starts.
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