In this inspiring case study episode, Jeff Ross sits down with Zak Brown, one of his ChatGPT Unleashed students, to unpack Zak’s transformational journey—from stuck, scattered, and overwhelmed to finding his voice, dialing in his brand, and stepping into leadership with confidence. 🚀 Together, they dive deep into the messy, real-world work of building a personal brand, leveraging AI as a tool (not a crutch), and embracing the grind toward freedom and purpose. If you're struggling with clarity, confidence, or getting traction in your business—this is a must-listen episode to remind you: your story matters, and your transformation is your testimony.
1️⃣ The Power of Slow Growth:
Zak shares how slowing down, learning the fundamentals, and embracing the journey led to real momentum—not false starts.
2️⃣ From Scams to Significance:
Zak opens up about overcoming crypto scams and shady deals to rebuild with purpose and authentic leadership.
3️⃣ Using AI to Create Real Connections:
Learn how Zak uses ChatGPT not just for content creation, but as a second brain to craft deeper, more meaningful conversations.
4️⃣ Finding Your Voice Through Consistency:
Why showing up consistently with small wins stacked over time is the real key to influence—and income.
5️⃣ The Unseen Battles Behind Entrepreneurial Growth:
The emotional and mental battles every entrepreneur faces—and how embracing “the suck” leads to mastery.
💡 "Everyone wants success overnight. But the reality is, transformation is a day-by-day journey." — Zak Brown
💡 "Your story isn’t for you to keep—it’s a gift to help others move forward." — Jeff Ross
💡 "AI plus your heart = your superpower. It's not a replacement. It's an amplifier." — Jeff Ross
🔥 If Zak’s story inspired you, DM Jeff the word “Unleashed” to find out how you can join the next ChatGPT Unleashed mentorship cycle.
🔥 Share this episode with someone who's ready to finally get out of "Sucksville" and start their journey to "Awesometown" 🦘🚀.
🔥 Don’t forget to subscribe, review, and drop your favorite dad joke—we love to feature our listeners' jokes on the show!
🎧 Listen Now:
▶️ YouTube: Laptop Lifestyle Dads Channel
🍏 Apple Podcasts: Listen Here
🎧 Spotify: Catch the Latest
🧠 Stay caffeinated. Stay legendary. Remember—your messy story today will be someone’s breakthrough tomorrow.
This is Jeff Ross, signing off with another boom sauce episode on The Laptop Lifestyle Dad Show! 🎙️🦘
Jeff Ross (00:00) Well, g'day legends and welcome back to the Laptop Lifestyle Dad Show. Hey, this is where we help everyday legends master AI, social selling and attraction marketing so they can begin to build time freedom and financial freedom into their lives. More importantly, it's all about focusing on making memories with their families, not just making money. G'day, my name's Jeff Ross. I'm your host, proud dad of three amazing boys, speaker, coach, the caffeinated kangaroo, ready to bounce into another Boom Source episode.
And today's guest is one of my very own students. Been working very closely together now, one-on-one for over the last 12 months. So we've got Zach Brown all the way from Thailand. He's an ex-pat. He's been one of my students for the ChatGbT Unleashed program. Absolute legend. He's gone from sucks full and gone from stuck and scattered to showing up with purpose, to starting to figure it out one step at a time, right? He's doing the work. He's doing the messy transformation.
So Zach is our husband, he's a father, he's a purpose driven entrepreneur who joined our program feeling overwhelmed by the tech, unclear on his message and unsure how to even start to build momentum. Fast forward to today and now, well, he's found his voice, he's dialing in his brand and he's on his way to awesome town. So let's unpack that journey together. So Zach, let's take it back to where you met before we became together. I want to probably start actually, with you sharing your story.
You know, before you met Jeff Ross, you know, what was life like and you know, what was the struggle? You know, let's start there and unpack what the journey's been like. And you sort of set up the, you know, we talk a lot about the before and after state, right? So let's, let's talk about the before. What's your story, Zach, and what was that like?
Zak Brown (01:47)
Well, there's a lot of mess. There's a lot of mess in there. ⁓ Well, before, when I originally lived in California, I was working five jobs and I was just going crazy, right? And then I got the opportunity to move to Thailand. When I came to Thailand, it's been such an amazing adventure, then my wife decided that we're have a baby. So we got pregnant and had a baby. And I started thinking, my God, how are we gonna support a child in Thailand?
with our current finances. So I started jumping into more digital marketing and finding other ways to my income. I did make a lot of mistakes along the way. I fell into some crypto scams. I fell into some really shady, shady deals that was not great for us. But in that journey, I actually did find Jeff in that. ⁓ Before Jeff, I was trying to do anything, anything and everything I could.
So I was really happy that I actually found this. I jumped on his free master class and just connected immediately. I did the five days of ⁓ chatting to get bleached and then signed up for his one-on-one service. And it's been absolutely life changer for me.
Jeff Ross (03:02)
I you, man. And look, this is not a Fluff's Just Ego session either. This is short sharing the raw, the real, the vulnerable, the reality of it all, right? And I'm gonna be doing a series here of interviewing a few of our students to really bring in the realistic viewpoint of, look, everybody's going through a similar struggle. Your story is a little bit similar to someone else's out there, right?
Zak Brown (03:12)
Yeah.
Jeff Ross (03:30)
Our stories is not for us to keep, it's for us to share, to bring in some hope, some peace, some clarity, you know, to be able to help people on that transformation journey. So let's talk a little bit about the shift. You know, what's been one of the biggest light bulb moments or the turning point, you know, with working with me, what tools, strategies or lessons, lessons have helped you to move forward? Like I know that you haven't got to the top of awesome town yet, right? It's a journey.
It takes time, takes persistence, takes tenacity. But you're moving forward one step at a time, right? So yeah, let's talk about the shift. What's been one big light bulb moment for you that's helping you on that shift?
Zak Brown (04:12)
I think the biggest thing I've learned in this journey is that it really is a process. ⁓ Everyone wants to have instant success overnight or within a few weeks, but it doesn't work like that. ⁓ There's a lot of systems that I've had to learn about, a lot of things that I didn't know before, and I just thought, okay, I have so many friends on Facebook that of course they'd want to jump on with me or something.
Why would they not? It doesn't make sense because this is the golden opportunity right now. Why aren't they listening to me? And so after dialing back and taking a look at my message and how I was actually approaching the whole situation with them, then that's when things started to change. So it's a day by day thing, not a one message solves everyone's problems thing.
Jeff Ross (05:03)
Yeah. And so let's talk about, know, when you first came to me, you're caught in the system because this is what everybody does, right? It's the don't know any better. So we'll follow the, you know, the leaders and imitate where we promote, we pitch, we try and sell everybody. Right. And that's what we're taught, you know, as network marketers from day one, go and reach out to your hundred list, go and, you know, reach out to your warm influence. And, and then what, you know, then what, and then it's like, and then we,
Then you've got the reaction as like, here comes Jeff again. he comes back again. What's he trying to sell me this time? So let's talk about the reality of that and how has been working with me and the learning AI supported you to get past that stage, to become more purpose driven and show up and be more consistent in, your documentation of the journey versus just being in court in the noise and
You know, the, trying to pitch everybody who can come near you, you know, and shout out now from the rooftops. Cause like, was guilty. Like I've been there, done that too. And it's like, you know, that's you follow the masses, right? But you know, starting to create your own brand and develop that, like what's that shift been like for you? And I suppose the question for it all around this is, is let's do deep, deep dive into the mindset and the why behind it. All right. Like, you know, we show up.
And if we can come up from this space being attached to the result, it's very disheartening. But you've your, can see you're going for your transformational shift now, like you're showing up with more purpose. You're showing up with more intent. So what is the driving force behind that? And what was the shift in that conversation to help you to go through that conversation?
Zak Brown (06:49)
That was a one. But I think the biggest thing ⁓ that I've gotten from all this between the conversations and the tools is, one, everyone has their own journey. And they use questions and talking to people and not worrying about the end result. Because something like this is not for everybody. And I understand that. And before, I thought it was for everyone. But it's not.
Jeff Ross (07:16)
There you go.
Zak Brown (07:19)
So that's one thing. And then with the questions, I found using tools like ChaiGBT has been really helpful with identifying different aspects of a person's responses. So I've been able to have a conversation with someone. And then if I get stuck on where we can guide that conversation to, I've utilized that tool to help guide me to craft better ⁓ connections with people, ⁓ which has been really helpful in the long run of things.
and you're not spinning your brains, if you feel like a conversation has kind of gone dead, you can use that to kind of pick it back up again and continue moving forward. And if you get to a great end result, awesome. If you don't and you find out that they're ideal for working with each other, then that's okay too. ⁓ But at the end of the day, I've always wanted... ⁓
my friends, my family to be able to elevate themselves. And everyone's struggling in some aspect, whether it be financially, emotionally, physically. There's something that everyone can benefit from. And no one's perfect. I'm not perfect. Jeff's not perfect. But we can all do something to build ourselves up in some way. And I would love to help people find that thing and help build them up.
and just be better for themselves, better for their family, better for their friends.
Jeff Ross (08:46)
Brilliant. So if you had the opportunity to go back in time and go back to see yourself, you know, five years from now, what advice would you give yourself?
Zak Brown (08:59)
That's hard because, I mean, in this space, it'd be more about the branding and the ⁓ take your time, don't try to rush it, don't try to rush through the trainings. When I signed up for a digital marketing course, I asked, okay, how quickly can I go through this thing? Watching a video a day or two videos a day to try to implement everything really quickly. So I'd say slow down on that side.
But also, my journey at this point has led me to this now. Through all the crypto scams and everything else, if I didn't do all that stuff, I would not be here at this point in my current state. I think I would still be quite miserable, even though I did go through those crypto things. And just searching for something and just digging at, grasping at air.
Jeff Ross (09:55)
Yeah.
And that's, and I wanted to highlight that, right? Because we've got to go through our struggle, you know, to get to the other side of that so we can realize, you know, have some empathy and have some understanding of what other people are going through their struggle. You know, so it's, it's all about the hero's journey, right? We're not, we're not the hero of the story. We're the hero makers. We're, we've got to be a guide. You can't be a guide unless you beat up the mountain a few times.
or, you know, even gone down a few cliffs, right? You've got to understand what they look like to help people avoid those cliffs and, you know, right steps to take on this. So this whole conversation comes around down to leadership. So I would say, you know, you're definitely growing and maturing as a leader and you very much remind myself, you know, remind me of myself, you know, 10 years ago where I was at. What would you say to your journey of leadership and how are you growing in that space?
Zak Brown (10:49)
The way I'm growing is I'm starting to identify where my strengths and weaknesses are. And then also in the people that I'm speaking with, I'm trying to assess where they are and where I can help build them up and where they can help build me up. It's a win-win situation. Not everyone's a leader in all levels and not everyone's weak in all levels.
Jeff Ross (10:56)
Brian.
Zak Brown (11:15)
So everyone has some kind of aspects that they are building up or they have, they maybe just don't know it yet.
Jeff Ross (11:21)
Yeah. So with working with me and the rest of the community, because it's not just me, it's very much a community activity. And, you know, you're very much involved in our Unicircle conversations that we run on Thursday morning. And we've been going through John Maxwell's 21 Laws of Leadership. You know, that and the Chat-Chat, Big Tag, and LESH program and all the mentoring that I've been giving you over the last 12 months. What results have you personally seen with helping you get clear and consistent? And how has your confidence, your engagement
Yeah, your income shifted. Like I know it hasn't been dramatic, but it has been some wins. What's different about now working with me 12 months later than it was when we first started?
Zak Brown (12:02)
my confidence level and having more of a direct path of what I know I need to do. Obviously, there's always going to be ups and downs in your feelings, your emotions, and your progress, but the overall trajectory has been up and more consistent ⁓ over last 12 months. It's been really nice. It's been nice. People have been noticing. People have been reaching out to me more. And I feel more comfortable about talking about everything that I am doing.
Jeff Ross (12:06)
Cough
Zak Brown (12:31)
Before, it was more of, ⁓ I'm too scared to post about this. I don't want people to judge me, you know, but people will judge regardless of what you're doing.
Jeff Ross (12:41)
Yeah, yeah,
they will write. So let's embrace it and let's, you know, crap some rhino skin. And this is the thing I want to address because a lot of people don't get past this messy transformational work, you know, and the reason most people get into this industry and give up and essentially call this industry a bit of a scam and all that sort of thing is because they don't take ownership of what they need to take ownership of or live a life above the line, right? They're all in that blame, excuse and denial.
And one thing I've always seen about you, Zach, is you've always stepped up to the plate. You've always gone look at it. Okay, this is not happening to me. It's happening for me. How can I grow through this and step up? and you know, this, this journey that you're on, it'll be the toughest transformation journey that you ever go on from zero to 10 K is the hardest journey anybody ever goes on. I reckon, especially as an entrepreneur, because we've got to figure some shit out. We're going to figure out how to be a communicator. We've got to figure out how to be a leader.
We're going to figure out some marketing stuff and all of that side of things. And they're all new skills that you're learning. So what would you say right now, looking at the trajectory that you're on, what is the biggest skill that you've taken away with working with me? And what is the area that you still need to work on?
Zak Brown (13:59)
I would say the biggest skill I have taken away is building up my personal brand and being able to massage that to more connect with the people I need to, I mesh with better. the, sorry, what was the second part of question?
Jeff Ross (14:18)
What do you say is one of those skills that you need to identify that you still need to work on?
Zak Brown (14:20)
⁓
When I am speaking with somebody, sometimes I do still hesitate on actually asking the question of if they want to be interested or look at another opportunity. I find myself almost being too much of a nice guy, talking to them, getting their life story, and then when I get to a certain point, it's almost too late to say, hey, so, want to check out this thing I'm doing now?
Jeff Ross (14:47)
Yeah.
You're, ⁓ put into the friend zone, right? Yeah.
Zak Brown (14:51)
Yeah, yeah.
That's that.
Jeff Ross (14:55)
Yeah,
yeah, exactly. That's what it is, right? This is why I relate to metaphors and dating all the time is because, um, you know, this is, this is what everybody else does, you know, and we go through these transformations. So thank you for being really transparent with me and, for our audience too. Cause I think this is very valuable to, for them to understand like, yeah, someone else is going through that journey and, I, you know, it's okay to suck.
Like embrace the suck because that's where you're to get to the other side of it and become a master. The only difference between sucking and mastery is 10,000 hours of practice. You know, it's just getting in there and failing forward fast. So AI is not necessarily a replacement. It's not a crutch. How has chat CPT changed the way that you think about content, messaging, automation? You know, we very much say it's AI plus our heart equals our superpower. So
Yeah. First question is, is how has ChatGBT and AI supported you on your journey and help you to change the way you think about content and messaging?
Zak Brown (15:57)
I've been able to discuss the things that I've done in my weekly basis and give it to Chachi Mutin to expand on those thoughts that I have, which have been really great. So if I just talk about taking my son out to the swimming pool and the emotions that came out, and I can make that a longer, more relatable story to people who are in the same situation. And same thing with business, any business struggles I have.
I can talk to chat and come up with solutions to overcome those issues. It's kind of like a second brain that you can utilize and bounce ideas off of and there's no judgment there. You can talk about anything and regardless of how ridiculous it may sound, they're not going to judge.
Jeff Ross (16:42)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I actually think it's quite useful that it's got no emotional context sometimes because it could just give you the raw truth if you ask it to. But although it is biased, it will always aim to please you. You've got to make sure that you give it a nudge to say, hey, no, don't try and please me. Give me the raw truth. So that leaves my next question is, have you got any favorite AI prompts or hacks that you now swear by?
Zak Brown (16:56)
Absolutely
I really love utilizing, putting speeches together and utilizing the different voices of Barack Obama or Simon Sinek or Richard Branson, whomever, whatever emotion I want to get to. So I can write a speech up and then put it in and write this out as Barack Obama would say and combine with these other people and it will completely change the tonality of the entire thing.
Jeff Ross (17:43)
Ha
Zak Brown (17:43)
And it's been fantastic. It's been a really good way to evoke more emotion and really hit home runs out there.
Jeff Ross (17:51)
I love it. I love it. I'll have to use that one. I remember using a favorite speech of mine is Steve Jobs when he's talking to the Apple team and yeah, this one's for the misfits, the troublemakers, the rule breakers, you know, that type of And I've used that in content in the past and it speaks right directly to the heart of those who want to challenge the status quo and you know, that creates some really awesome content. I love it. So final question, you know,
Zak Brown (18:05)
Yeah.
Jeff Ross (18:18)
If you had to give our audience one takeaway lesson, you know, you're like, had the opportunity, you know, short-term to, you know, teach the audience some lesson and give them one takeaway, you know, one piece of advice, one thing that they could take and run and go and implement right away. What would that be?
Zak Brown (18:37)
I think one thing that you could do right now is thank the people who are following you. Thank the people who like your posts or comment. Send them a private message just thanking them without any ⁓ context or trying to get anything out of them. But show your appreciation and that's going to help build up your credibility in the long run.
Jeff Ross (18:44)
Brilliant.
Yeah. Attitude and gratitude. I love that. And the law of reprecocity and, and it's, you know, it's, we talk about a lot about the law of magnetism, right? And the, you know, like attracts like, and, know, so this is all about having fun with it. It's about inspiring people and, you know, helping people to take action. And, you know, we're not here to make friends, but we can make some really awesome friends through this whole journey. And, you know, I've actually met Zach personally, when I went to Thailand last year and, my son and Lachlan got to know Zach and we had some
really awesome burgers there and Phuket. It was one of the hottest days I've ever experienced in my life. Sweat just pouring off me. But it was an amazing experience to meet someone that I've been talking virtually and be able to shake his hand and meet him in person. So Zach, I look forward to the next in-person meetup. Well guys, Zach, it's been a pleasure, mate, you know, going on this journey. We're just getting started. You know, I'm on this journey for the long haul with you. It's been such a powerful reminder that clarity beats chaos.
Zak Brown (19:33)
you
Absolutely.
Jeff Ross (19:57)
And when you combine faith, purpose and the right tools and you have the right support, the right community, that's where the magic happens. So, hey, if Zach's inspired you and your readers stop spinning your wheels and you're finally ready to step up and master the tools, grow your personal brand, build your tribe around you and share your message with the world, then you need to come and have a chat. I'll drop the link in the show notes. I'll give you the opportunity. Come book a discovery call with me. Or you could just message and say,
the word unleashed for more info on how you can work with us. So that's all we have for today's episode. Make sure you stay caffeinated, stay legendary. And before we sign off, I asked Zach to come up with his dad joke for today's episode. So Zach, what is our dad joke for today?
Zak Brown (20:38)
you
Why did the scarecrow win an award?
Jeff Ross (20:47)
because he was outstanding in his guild. But I'm... I wouldn't be able to call myself the King of Dad jokes if I didn't know the answer to that one. Well, thank you very much, Legends. It's been an absolute pleasure. This is Jeff Ross and Zach Brown signing off for the Laptop Loss.Dad Show. We'll see you on the next one.
Zak Brown (20:50)
Yes! Too easy! ⁓
Hahaha!
Okay.