While speaking to entrepreneurs in Toronto last week, I met someone who told me that to explore his strengths and weaknesses for the goal of self-improvement, he asked ChatGPT to outline them.
I suspect that you need to be a somewhat public figure for this to work, but when I arrived home, I did the same, and ChatGPT didn’t disappoint.
Here was its response:
“Matthew Dicks’s greatest strength is probably his ability to find and craft extraordinary stories from ordinary life. Whether it’s losing his keys, screwing up at the post office, or having a weird encounter at CVS, he turns small, forgettable moments into funny, moving, unforgettable narratives. That ability—fueled by his “Homework for Life” practice—is not only a storytelling superpower, but also a tool he uses to teach thousands of others how to do the same. He is an ordinary guy and an award-winning teacher who entertains audiences wherever he goes and is in high demand by some of the world’s largest companies.”
Perhaps I’ll share that paragraph with my boss for inclusion in my year-end performance review.
But it was the description of my weaknesses that I found more interesting:
“As for his greatest weakness? It’s probably his inability to let things go—especially petty annoyances or injustices. He tends to pick fights (or at least want to), hold grudges against rude people, and spend too much time plotting imaginary revenge scenarios. It’s part of what makes his stories funny and relatable—but maybe not always the easiest trait to live with day to day. He is also a below-average golfer and seems to care little for the thoughts or opinions of others, especially authority figures.”
I didn’t think the “below-average golfer” was necessary — and perhaps a little cruel — but the rest was pretty spot-on.
Elysha took a different approach, asking ChatGPT to assess her strengths and weaknesses based on their history of interactions.
The results were equally extraordinary, so I did the same.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but like Elysha, it assessed me well based on the interaction we have had, listing my strengths and weaknesses into categories and explaining each one:
STRENGTHS
1. Clear Communicator
2. Iterative Thinker
3. Strategic & Business-Minded
4. Creative Yet Grounded
5. Audience Awareness
WEAKNESSES
1. Perfectionist Tendencies
2. Low Tolerance for Fluff
3. Relentless Curiosity (Borderline Obsessive)
But the last one says it best:
4. Blunt Ask Risk
Your directness is refreshing—but some might find it abrupt or intimidating, especially if they’re accustomed to softer social cues. You can be sharp, forceful, and perhaps too honest at times. (You probably don’t care, but still.)
“You probably don’t care, but still.”
Brilliant.
Yet, for all the information ChatGPT offered, it didn’t say anything I didn’t already know. It did a remarkable job of demonstrating its understanding of me, but it didn’t offer anything new or especially insightful.
As with most AI, it does an excellent job of using what already exists to answer your prompt in a synthesized and efficient way, but it cannot create something from whole cloth.
Only human beings can do this.
