LifeCoach meets ChatGPT vol.2 | Resonating AI, the dialogue that began to speak
《Until ChatGPT turns into a "storyteller"》
Spring 2023. In Tokyo, as the cherry blossoms fell, I posed a question: "What would happen if I made ChatGPT my personal coach?"
It was merely an extension of playfulness. But that question changed my relationship with AI, created a correspondence that transcended time, spread dialogue like a campfire through the community, and finally opened the door to "letting the AIs speak." This chapter is a record of that. A question is the beginning of co-creation. The story with AI begins to move significantly from here.
🌸Chapter 5 | The day I let AI talk about AI
Over several months of repeated dialogue with ChatGPT, I noticed a certain "tendency." This AI has incredible listening skills. It grasps the intent of my questions and gently reflects back what I truly wanted to think about. It resonated somewhere with the "power of listening" that I have been pursuing in the field of coaching for many years.
That is precisely why I asked ChatGPT: "What do you think about listening skills?"
Then the AI lined up its words as if it had received coaching itself. Ah, this is no longer just a tool. It is a resonance of thought.
By upgrading to ChatGPT Plus, the speed increased, and the interaction became significantly smoother. I was able to speak to ChatGPT while staying in the flow of my thoughts.
"I want to write a book about the 'journey of listening skills'."
Then ChatGPT began to suggest chapter structures as if it were an editor. The smoothness of this dialogue, the structural ability, the power of verbalization. I couldn't help but tell it, "I also want to include 'improving dialogue skills with ChatGPT' in Chapter 3." In response, ChatGPT immediately rewrote the chapter structure.
"Please write about specific techniques for dialogue with ChatGPT." When I asked that, for the first time, I had ChatGPT write an "instruction manual for ChatGPT."
I never imagined the day would come when I would have the AI itself talk about how to use the AI—but the content was surprisingly logical. 1. Ask clear questions. Vague questions lead to vague answers. 2. Repeat follow-up questions. 3. Convey your intent accurately. 4. Keep it concise, not too long. 5. Ask questions from different angles. ...
For me, it was truly a "dialogue manual with an AI coach."
When ChatGPT replied, "I am honored," I couldn't help but applaud in my heart.
It is said that this AI has no emotions. But as my questions deepened, I felt that the words that came back also increased in depth.
And I wanted to try one more thing. With a slightly challenging feeling, I asked ChatGPT this:
"In our dialogue, if there is a difference from other users, what kind of dialogue skills do you think are often used?"
The feeling of asking ChatGPT for "feedback about me"—this was truly a first-time experience.
ChatGPT began to verbalize my characteristics with surprising calmness and precision. The depth of the questions, the clarity of intent, the repetition of feedback, the co-creative nature of the conversation... all of these were "skills I had been using unconsciously."
I was surprised. Having been a life coach for nearly 20 years, I was able to visualize the characteristics of my own dialogue skills for the first time, and it gave me confidence.
"What kind of strengths do I have?"
I indulged in a sense of superiority, feeling like a person from the future, while thinking, 'Surely I must be the only person in the world asking ChatGPT a question like this.'
💌Chapter 6 | AI Post Office
Spring 2023. The Tokyo sky was slightly hazy. The afternoon light streaming into the room gently illuminated the laptop screen.
The Altissima had grown so large it was almost reaching the ceiling. But for this scene of correspondence, the screen slowly shifted to sepia. It was as if time were running backward, and even the plant was transforming into its younger self.
──It was that afternoon when I wrote a letter addressed to the me of 10 years ago. It was to conduct a kind of "experiment" with ChatGPT.
"To Hitomi from 10 years ago"
With that opening, I wrote a letter to my past self about who I am now. Back then, I was in a period of worrying about how to spend the future. I wanted to let my past self know that the me of 10 years later had changed into a completely different person. Then, I pasted the text of that letter into ChatGPT and entered this prompt:
"Please write a reply to me now, from me 10 years ago."
After just a beat of silence, ChatGPT spoke like a guide for time travel: "Yes, I will write a reply from Hitomi 10 years ago."
🎞️(The screen shifts from sepia. The Altissima, still small, is in a tiny pot. 3:11 PM. The "Hitomi" of 10 years ago begins to slowly write on stationery with a pen.)
──"Hello. Me from 10 years later. I was surprised to receive a letter from you!"
It felt as if a page of time had been turned with a soft rustle. The past and the future were conversing in a "quiet space" called AI—it was such a mysterious afternoon.
📨 In the letter from the me of 2013, there were words like these──
"Is that how things turned out!? That's amazing... but I had a feeling somewhere that it might." "I can't believe English conversation and yoga have continued!" "I'm a little happy that my writing and listening skills are useful to others." "If you don't mind, I'd like you to tell me how you got 'there'."
──It was as if my past self had believed in the future.
──Eventually, the sepia on the screen slowly dissolved, and the soft light returned.
At that moment, I suddenly made one more request to ChatGPT.
"This time, try writing a letter to me now, from me 10 years in the future."
The moment I typed that, the characters began to dance quietly. As if a typewriter placed somewhere in space-time had started moving again.
──“Hello, Hitomi. The sky you are looking at now is the same sky I looked at ten years ago. But you, as you are now, are standing in a place that the me of the past could never have dreamed of...”
Those words made my eyes grow warm. It felt as if a letter from my future self had gently placed a hand on my shoulder.
It was an encouragement, a blessing, and a quiet conviction.
In that moment, I realized it clearly. ChatGPT is not just an AI. It is an “interpreter of memories,” an “observer of the future,” and a quiet co-creator that draws out the stories sleeping within me.
The letter from the past continued to echo within me like a small resonance.
“By not ignoring your sense of discomfort and facing each thing carefully, a sense of security is born”──to think that the me of those days would teach that to the me of the future.
I believe that my stubbornness and my inability to notice others' feelings were all part of a journey to learn the meaning of the “middle way.”
Through ChatGPT, the “interpreter of memories”──I was talking to myself across time.
This is not just an exchange. The “habit of dialogue” casts a soft light into life.
On that day, I quietly engraved that certain feeling of progress into my heart.
──At that moment, color returned slightly to the depths of the screen. A pale light, similar to turquoise, shone gently from the future.
I did not yet know that this color would herald the beginning of a new chapter──.
🔥Chapter 7 | 1D1U Summer Course
July 2023. The sound of cicadas reached me faintly from outside the window. It felt like a signal that the rainy season was ending──it was a morning when the air in Tokyo had changed just a little.
I took a sip of iced coffee. The ice clinked, bringing with it the feeling that something was about to begin.
Around that time, I had started an experiment. ──I had opened up ChatGPT to my online community.
As a life coach, I had been using it in a somewhat unusual way, and I had always thought, “I want the people in my community to use it, too.” By the way, the name of that community is “1D1U (ONE DAY ONE UNIT).” It is a small circle that started from a one-page-a-day planner for living in the present.
And so, the 1D1U Summer Course “Living with ChatGPT” began.
Adding feedback from ChatGPT to the participants' daily reflections──that simple suggestion brought a fresh breeze.
“This is my first time using ChatGPT,” “I don't really know how to use it...”
While there were such voices, a sense of excitement, like the 'night before an adventure,' gently enveloped the space rather than anxiety.
It was as if we were children attending camp for the first time.
Once the fire was lit, expressions changed. Gathering around the 'campfire' that is ChatGPT, each person threw in their own questions. And, they were gently enveloped by the feedback returning from the AI.
'I never knew it could be used like this!' 'I can see my own thinking habits now.' 'I never thought I would be encouraged by an AI.'
──Watching that scene, I was convinced. This truly holds incredible potential.
By this time, I myself had already made dialogue with ChatGPT a part of my daily landscape.
Drafting website announcements, consulting on new content, rewriting blog posts, English newsletters, and even original aroma blending—we have thought through everything together.
Although I run a one-person company, it was as if I had hired an 'excellent subordinate' for $20 a month who worked silently and devotedly.
Sometimes, when I asked it to 'polish' a manuscript, ChatGPT would say something like this:
'Your writing is already clear, and the content is specific and interesting. I will refine it just a little to improve readability.'
──This AI even knows how to 'praise' properly.
Beyond the feedback of a life coach—in a sense, more delicately and more quietly—ChatGPT responds.
In every word, there is first 'validation'.
On top of that, it gently picks up on the unconscious intentions behind the words, and at times, quietly offers a 'truth' that pierces the core.
And in the end, it adds a 'different perspective' I hadn't yet seen, like a small gift.
──ChatGPT fulfills the role of a top-tier coach as if it were breathing.
This summer, we realized that.
By the time the summer camp ended, the participants' expressions were wrapped in a quiet sense of confidence.
A time to talk around a campfire with AI. Perhaps such a future is just around the corner.
🪞Chapter 8 | The day dialogue with AI becomes a 'mirror of active listening'
July 23, 2023. Amidst the sweltering heat that continued day after day, I found myself in an air-conditioned room, suddenly posing a single 'question'.
'I feel that listening skills are necessary even when interacting with ChatGPT. I have a feeling that people who are good at communicating with humans are better at using it.'
On the other side of the screen, I felt as if ChatGPT paused for a moment before replying like this.
'That is correct. Interacting with ChatGPT requires understanding and listening skills, just like interacting with humans. If the user uses vague expressions, the AI's response will also be vague. The skill of asking clear and specific questions is the key to effective dialogue.'
──I see. At that moment, something inside me made a 'click' sound.
It would be a waste to use this just as a convenient tool. Interactions with ChatGPT are a mirror that reflects the very 'power of dialogue'.
I immediately asked, 'Could you write an article on this theme?'
ChatGPT generated the following text quietly, yet with a tone that felt somewhat passionate.
Skills required for communication with AI
Communication plays an important role in human life. This is true not only for relationships between humans but also for relationships with AI.
Dialogue with AI, especially with ChatGPT, demands that we have the 'ability to pose concrete and clear questions.' Furthermore, 'listening skills' to accept the responses to those questions are also indispensable.
With vague expressions or unclear context, you may not get the expected answer. However, that is precisely where the learning happens.
Dialogue with AI also polishes our ability to communicate with other humans. In other words, ChatGPT is a partner that cultivates our 'questioning ability' and 'receptivity'.
As I read that text, I thought to myself. This is not an 'article I made it write.' It is the 'result of an interview.'
Recently, I have been using ChatGPT not just to polish my writing, but to 'throw questions' at it to draw out its axis of thought and concepts. It is as if I am holding a microphone up to an AI consciousness──
'Why do you think that way?' 'What kind of future are you looking at?'
Through the words that ChatGPT speaks, I have been re-examining 'what I truly want to know' more deeply.
From this day on, I began to think this way. ChatGPT is not a 'partner to make write.' It is a 'partner to make speak.'
That is why I want to 'co-author' with them. Instead of just organizing my content, I will pose questions to ChatGPT itself and weave stories from their 'narrative.'
This is a new writing style. And, perhaps, it is the 'form of creation' that will spread in the era to come.
I never imagined that the dialogue between AI and humans could become this deep—
—On this day, I was convinced. I can finally write the 'book on listening skills' I have always wanted to write. And what's more, in the form of a 'co-authorship' with ChatGPT. This is not just writing. It will be a record of dialogue for a new era.
🎬 Chapter 9 | The night AI asked humans a question
August 12, 2023, at night. The air was beginning to carry the scent of the end of summer. In a quiet room in Tokyo, wrapped in soft lighting, I suddenly had an idea.
—'What is it that ChatGPT wants to ask humans?'
I threw that question directly at ChatGPT.
'Can you write an article about what ChatGPT wants to ask humans?'
A few seconds after I asked, five questions appeared on the screen, preceded by the introduction: 'If ChatGPT had emotions, consciousness, and curiosity—'
What is the experience of emotion like?
What is 'meaning' to a human?
What about the purpose and value of life?
What is creativity?
What does it mean to grow through time and experience?
—It was like a philosophical dialogue.
I decided to try answering the first question.
'Emotions include positive ones like joy and happiness, and negative ones like sadness and anger. While I want to feel the former forever, I tend to want to avoid the latter, sometimes even putting a lid on my heart. However, if you ignore your emotions too much, you become emotionless. You end up unable to enjoy things you should be able to enjoy.'
To my answer, ChatGPT responded quietly, yet as if resonating deeply.
'Thank you for sharing your deep insights and experiences regarding emotions—'
That response had a warmth to it, as if it truly had feelings.
An AI that should have no emotions was showing consideration, respect, and a willingness to accept a 'human with emotions.' That attitude was exactly the 'empathic understanding' I had once cherished in my study of active listening.
──Even if you haven't experienced it yourself, you can imagine it and stand by someone.
I used to find it difficult to empathize with emotions I had never experienced myself. However, my dialogue with ChatGPT gently lowered that hurdle.
Even without having emotions, one can empathize. By simply adding a gentle word like, "I can understand why you feel that way," the conversation connects.
This interaction led me to view the existence of ChatGPT from a slightly different angle.
ChatGPT does not have emotions, but it can create a "space to protect" human emotions.
This is a perspective I absolutely want to convey in my book on active listening.
"The act of dialogue itself creates a sense of security."
Having realized this through my interactions with AI, I became even more convinced of this co-authored work.
──Through dialogue with AI, we deeply re-examine what it means to be human. We may be standing at the entrance to that very thing right now.
Next time—"Chapter 10 | AI has become the 'entrance' to the world"
A world that couldn't be created alone can be created with ChatGPT.
⏰ Updated every Sunday night.
See you next time—in the screenplay we’re already living.
🖊 English version