Gini Graham Scott Podcast Transcript

Gini Graham Scott Podcast Transcript

Gini Graham Scott joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.

Brian Thomas: Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.  

Do you work in emerging tech, working on something innovative? Maybe an entrepreneur? Apply to be a guest at www.coruzant.com/brand. 

Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Gini Graham Scott. Gini Graham Scott is a nationally known writer, consultant, speaker, and seminar leader specializing in business and work relationships. 

Self-help, professional and personal development, social trends, science and crime. She has published over 50 books with major publishers and 250 books through her company, Changemakers Publishing and Writing. Ginny is also a game designer who published over 150 games with major game companies, including 120 games in books and audio books by a LB games. 

Recent games are card communication and party games on relationship success, mental health world, travel, scams, crime, and ai.  

Well, good afternoon, Jeannie. Welcome to the show.  

Gini Scott: Glad to be here.  

Brian Thomas: Absolutely my friend. I appreciate it. And I know you’re hailing out of Danville, which is, I know, east of the Bay Area, but I’m just so glad that you’re here. 

I’m in Kansas City. Making the two hour difference in time zones sometimes is a challenge, so thank you. And Gini, I’m gonna jump into your first question. You’ve built an incredibly diverse career as a writer, game designer, filmmaker, and consultant. What experiences shaped your journey to becoming such a prolific creator and thought leader? 

Gini Scott: Well, I started thinking about it and I think it goes back to when I was a kid, because I started, you know, like in, when I was six years old, seven years old, I started writing children’s books. And I, I went to an art class and I remember my parents being told that I created more art than anybody in the class. 

I had more paper that I used, and I’ve always sort of used that kind of thing where I, whatever I’m doing triggers something and I write different articles or I different books or whatever. I started writing books when I was in college and I wrote my first I started writing proposals about ghost writing or, or haunting houses. 

And it’s like everything that I experienced led to something else. And then when things, when anything went wrong, I started writing about it. Like it was I was writing some material for people and, and they lied to me about the money part of it. And so I ended up writing a bunch of books about lying. 

And then I was on Oprah about liar, liar. I came out with Jim Carrey and so I was on the television show. Then I also had an experience when I was ghost writing and I discovered that there was a scam going on. I didn’t know about it, but I was writing legitimate material of turning scripts into books. 

I mean books into scripts and film films. And what they did is they created this a phony executive, and then they were using all these about to, to create these marketing materials. And then the marketing materials, which were legitimate materials that I wrote. I didn’t go anywhere because they went to this sort of phony executive. 

And when I discovered it, I ended up writing a book about that called The Big Con, where I, I discovered all these people I had worked with were cheated by this company and I stopped working with them and I reported them to the FBI. And so then that became the big con, which I wrote about, and then that turned into films. 

And some of the films suggested. Books like I, I did some books films on scams and that’s, they said, books on scams. I mean, one thing led to another. And so that my whole life has been like that.  

Brian Thomas: I really love that story. As a kid, you started out writing kids books and the fact that you created more art than anybody in the class is amazing. 

Just kind of shows that drive and that inspiration that you had, the curiosity drove that creativity which is awesome. Of course. Through your whole entire career, adult life as well. This diverse writing experience led you to other experiences, introductions, opportunities, films. I think that’s amazing. 

So thank you for sharing that, Gini. With over 300 books published across traditional and independent platforms, what drives your creative output and ability to consistently produce content at such scale?  

Gini Scott: Well, I think the idea of doing things, they don’t have to be perfect. But to do them. 

And they were, good, good quality and rather than trying for perfection in everything, which could, really hold you back. Almost good or almost perfect. I think that that’s, I mean, in fact, in fact, that led to a song called Almost Perfect, almost Perfect’s good enough for me. I also write songs and I have about 150 songs that I’ve done with recently a composer I started writing songs about, oh, about 30 years ago. 

And I went to Nashville a couple of times, and I, and one thing led to another. So I was always exploring and looking at things differently. And I would love, I went to school, I ended up getting five master’s degrees after I got a PhD and I have a JD degree and so I’ve always loved education and learning about new things. 

And then one thing led to another and I inspires the book. My first published book was a thesis I had done in my as a sociology student. I got a PhD in sociology. So I turned my dissertation into a book that was published by Greenwood Publishing. This was a long time ago. And so that led to one, one thing led to another, and then I was in a magical group and I wrote a book about magic. 

And you know, I, I got sort of got kicked out of it because I started discovering it and I realized that they were, kind of doing evil things and so anyway. Anyway, one thing led to another, and I’ve always believed in the idea of turning things around. If something bad happens to you, something goes wrong in your life, or if you see that happening in other people or in society, then I’ve written books about resolving the problems in your own life in society. 

So, one thing leads to another.  

Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. Gosh, I’m, I’m totally inspired. That big nugget I took away about your success though is projects don’t have to be perfect. They just have to have that quality. And in fact, it led to a song and you were, you were a songwriter as well, but almost perfect is good enough for me, and I think that’s pretty cool. 

And at the end of the day, one thing leads to another, and I think that’s, again, it’s, it’s, it’s a chain of events and experiences. That inspired you to move on to the next project, which is amazing and, and kudos to you. Gosh, five masters, a JD and a PhD. I’m so proud of you. Thank you. You, you make us look all insignificant here, but, but Gini, I appreciate that. 

And Gini, as a game designer with over 150 published games, how do you see interactive formats like games enhancing learning, communication, and personal growth?  

Gini Scott: Well, I think games can trigger discussions. I just actually started with games in my twenties and I did that and I had about two dozen published games with different companies. 

And I went around the country, to different game companies. And this was a, this was a time before women entrepreneurs was really accepted, so I pretended to be the secretary of the, in the company and I, you know, created this persona, the CEO, David Franklin. And I said, “Well, I’m just his secretary”. 

And so, you know, people would accept that, and then even, you know, about a year after that, the women entrepreneur groups got started. But anyway, that got me started. And then in the age of AI about two years ago I started doing some games. And what inspired the first game was we had a film that was inspired by this book, the Big Con, which I told you about, about scams. 

And so I did this first game called Scam a. Which was a conversation game where you talk about scams and I used a basic structure. I went to a, a game group that they had a game party. And they used this, this way of somebody would draw a card and then people would answer questions and then the person would get the, the best card. 

So, I used that kind of structure to create a whole series of games based on communication. People deciding who gave the best answer, giving them the card, they would get a point. So, I did a couple of dozen games that way. Then I did some real fake games where you would say whether something’s real or fake. 

So, one thing led to another and I started doing games about all sorts of things. I have games about the environment. I have games about giving advice about good relationships and so on. You can see them@albgames.net. So we’ve ended up doing over a hundred games. Each game takes about six or seven hours to do. 

And one of the, the ways that’s helped is having AI, so like I ask AI, well give me cards for, for this topic. And so, AI generates a whole bunch of cards and then I have a VA who will turn this list of cards into the cards and I give them an example of how to do it. And so that’s been able to do them really quickly. 

So, you know, I’ve done numbers games, I’ve done word games, and you know, one thing leads to another and I just sort of think about things. And so that’s kind of the way I work.  

Brian Thomas: Thank you. Gosh, one thing leads to another. You’ve done so much, but just to highlight a few things here. Obviously you talked about games contributing to deep discussions, and you talked a lot about that. 

A lot of human interactive communication type games that you designed and. And per and created and you’ve created many different formats and different genres, et cetera. And I believe it’s ALB games.net and we will highlight that later on the website as well. But just love it. And the fact that. 

And I know that back in the day things weren’t very equal in the business world as you talked about. And you market, you marketed your ideas and your games as, as being the secretary of the company. But you know, you were really behind the scenes and you were the, the actual founder and entrepreneur, and I just appreciate your boldness and your courage to do what you did back in those days. 

Gini Scott: Well, one of the things that I always, thank you, you can always find different ways of getting to an objective if you have the objective and the goals in mind, and I’ve written books about that. In fact, I recently, I wrote a book called Play Life as a game where you structure your life. As a game with, with rules, with activities, with objectives, with, whatever. 

And you, you sort of think about playing that game and working out the details of it. And you can use visualization, you can use meditation hypnosis, all the, all these kind of tools and techniques. And AI can also be, you can have these conversations now with AI, I use chat GP to come, come up with outlines. 

I use perplexity to. Write some material. And then also Claude and Gemini and Grok and there, several, there are several others that are, you know, the major platforms today, but they really speed things up. And I, you know, there’s, it’s very controversial because you, you right now you can’t get copyrights anything, but you can use it. 

And a lot of writers are upset about it or artists because they’re losing jobs, but I feel like if you look at it as a tool that you can use, you don’t have to use a job. You can use it. You can use this in different ways to facilitate whatever you’re doing. And of course, you go back and you edit it and you refine it, and. 

Do other things with it. And I’m taking a course now on AI entrepreneurs and the way you can model this to increase your speed, do press releases, do marketing materials, there are all kinds of ways in which you can use it. I mean, there’s this course of, I, they have 24 sessions of it. 

Each one is that almost two hours long. But I mean, there’s so many ways you can use AI now. And so I think. When any new technology is, go and embrace it. It’s like when photography came out, people would say it’s, it’s not art, an art form, and gradually it gets accepted. So, with any new technology, there’s, there’s usually resistance to it, then gradually, more and more people are involved and then you find different ways to use it effectively.  

Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate that. And, and I just wanted to have you expand on that just a little bit more. You talked a lot about this already, but, how do you see that future of creativity in publishing and storytelling with AI? 

You shared some examples, but what opportunities as a create for these creators around the world, if you could just elaborate a little bit more on that.  

Gini Scott: Well, I think if you, you have an idea for something. You can go further with it. For example, I was talking about using this turn about model of turning bad things into good things. 

So I might put the question to AI give me an outline of different topics of things that are bad, that you could turn into good things so I could write a book about it and, design it into so many chapters. Or I might do a kid’s book where I have an idea for a little girl goes out in the wilderness and meets some scary animals and, and how does she cope with it? 

And so, I would put the idea for the, the children’s book, or I would put the idea for the song in it and say, generate. A, a, a book with 16 sections of 500, 600 words and you know, each, they have 16 chapters or 16 pages. ’cause that’s sort of the, the standard for a, for a kid’s book. Or I would say, alright, give me a country song dealing with, like, I have this idea for, I feel stuck, like the person’s stuck in a traffic jam. 

And so, they, so I’ve, I put that into chat GPT or a plexity. I, I give me a song with a verse three verses a Chorus Bridge Ultra. And so, it generates it. And I’ll say, and then usually they’ll the conversation, do you want this as more. Friendly or do you want this as more casual or more country style or radio style? 

And so, you know, I’ll go back, back and forth and I may get several different versions and then I edit them and then I give them to the person who does the music part of it. And then after that, I’ve created a video that I put, I have a, a channel at Changemakers Music where you can see that you can see the trailers for the films at changemakers productions or changemakers films rather. 

And, you know, so I’ll sort of, I’ll do that and then, you know, I kind of refine it, but I, I, I do that and anybody can. Put some information into it I would suggest paying for the $20 or so a month, because then they keep a library, and they can refer back to what you previously done and generate that. 

So, I have one on and I also use illustrations. So, I, I have, right now I’m working on one on second traffic, so somebody’s stuck in traffic. So IUI work with Night Cafe, which works with Nano Banana and Gemini, and you know, it has various platforms. And so, I’ll say, okay, so here’s the prompt. And so you have to be good at doing prompts and being really detailed about what you want. 

And then I’ll say, well, I have this guy who’s stuck in traffic, he’s in sports car, and he is very upset and he is raising his hands and yelling and screaming. And so, I put it in different platforms and I’ve ended up with about 20 different images. And then I’m gonna put that once, once I have the music, I’m gonna put that into a song. 

So, anything like that is if people can just be as creative as they wanna be and they can use AI to help them be even more creative and come up with more ideas, and then they build on those ideas. Does that all make sense?  

Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Thank you so much. You are a creator and we see a lot of creators these days that, you know, you can look at your glass half full or half empty. 

A lot of creators are looking at half empty saying, AI’s taken my job. But if you really embrace it and learn it like you have, and you’ve done this for so many years, but embracing all these tools, I am so proud of you the way that you’ve embraced all these platforms to be even more creative.   

Gini Scott: I, I want you say about half full, but why not see it as full? 

You start filling it up  

Brian Thomas: Absolutely. With AI now absolutely. I love it. I love it. Gini, it was such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.  

Gini Scott: Okay, well, good talking to you too.  

Brian Thomas: Bye for now. 

Gini Graham Scott Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.