Using AI as a Socratic Dialogue Partner: Niche Dialoguing Pt 2
Using the framework of Niche Dialoguing - a Socratic process designed to tease out the specific mission, personal purpose, and marketing differentiators associated with your business - I carried out an example exercise using ChatGPT.
Below is the total transcript from this exercise.
I start with an initial prompt explaining what I would like to accomplish from this dialogue session.
ChatGPT proceeds to ask me a series of 10 questions that helps boils down my business’s niche.
It provides a nice summary and clear marketing next steps for me upon completion,
Please feel free to use any examples or prompts you see here to inform your own relationship with ChatGPT.
Let’s begin
Ryan: I'd like for you to act as a dialoging coach with me. I want to get to the bottom of my professional niche. I work in the human services industry, coaching and helping therapists grow their practices. I have an idea of my niche, but would love to interact with you back and forth to flesh it out. Could you interact with me by asking 10 questions (waiting each time for my answer before asking the next question), that mirrors Socratic questioning, that help me get to the meaningful root of my professional niche? For example, why certain professional areas are important to me vs others, and other probing, important questions that could help me make a parallel between professionally significant events and my niche.
ChatGPT: Absolutely, Ryan. I'm honored to support you in this kind of deep inquiry.
I’ll ask one question at a time, with the intention of slowing things down, drawing out meaning, and helping you reflect on what matters most in your work. We’ll aim to connect values, personal/professional experiences, and the impact you want to have.
Let’s begin.
Feeling Alive With Your Work
1. When you think about the moments in your work that have felt most alive or “on purpose,” what was happening—and who were you helping?
Ryan: I've really enjoyed discussing the structure of the mental healthcare industry. It's a pro-social, altruistic endeavor that has always felt good to me. Specifically, I've loved situations where I was teaching or explaining or translating concepts in this area to other professionals. I've worked directly with mental health clients in the past, I've enjoyed it, but have seemed to shift away from it as time went on. I also love the creative and expansive, future thinking aspect of the mental health industry. I love thinking about how this can look and feel different and thus create a better future.
The Significance Of A Professional Shift
2. Why do you think you’ve shifted away from working directly with mental health clients—and what does that shift say about what you value most in your role now?
R: Definitely because of the emotional weight it would take on me. I would feel drained after work. I also found myself not holding the best boundaries. I saw clinical work as very disciplined, and I think I'm naturally more expressive. I've gravitated toward mental health business and working with professionals where boundaries are less important, and I can be more 'myself' for lack of a better term.
Feeling Like “Yourself” Through Work
3. If being more “yourself” is part of what you’re drawn to now, what parts of yourself feel most alive, expressive, or valued in your current work with professionals?
R: There is certainly a creative bone that has always existed in me, but I've never known how to translate it to my work. I'm not an artistic, even though I've tried. I love the process of creation I guess. I really love helping others unlock their process of creation. Especially in mental healthcare.
Connecting The Outer Mission To The Inner Mission
4. When you help someone in mental healthcare unlock their own creativity—what do you believe that actually unlocks for the field as a whole? Why does it matter to you?
R: I believe that each mental health professional has a valuable lens to offer. Every therapist and practice is different. Helping them find their voice will in turn help people who are attuned to listen to and find value in that voice. Unlocking professional's creative voice will increase the access and ability for individuals to find the best fit professionals for their care. Infusing our personal stories can unlock the biggest healing for others.
Call On Life Experiences
5. What experiences in your own life—professional or personal—have shaped your understanding of how important it is to find “the right fit” in mental healthcare?
R: Personally, I've seen several therapists throughout my life. Some have been great, some of which I had to leave because I moved or life happened. I've found an incredible therapist who fits me super well right now - and has been with me for over 4 years across some big milestones. I've also worked with individuals with very diverse life experiences and clinical diagnoses. Trauma work, specifically, requires a high degree of sensitivity. Psychedelic healing brings another dimension to healing as well. I feel that there are so many tools out there, combined with the personal stories of each provider, that understanding each through engaging business stories, marketing, and offerings is the best way to make good clients and providers find each other and stick.
Where Along The Process Do You Add Value?
6. When you think about your ideal role in helping providers and clients “find each other and stick,” where do you see yourself on that bridge—are you the architect designing it, the guide walking them across, the storyteller describing it, or something else? Why?
R: I like the idea of being the architect in this example. Creating systems, examples, and resources for this bridge to happen. I don't know if helping either side cross is the best fit - but the design of the bridge that allows for both parties to express parts of themselves - professional & personally - is very attractive and fills me with creativity, while still allowing for the logistics and execution that is grounded.
Architect Mode
7. When you’re in that “architect” mode, what kinds of challenges or problems in the mental health space most excite you to solve—and why those in particular?
R: The accessibility problem - the idea that therapy isn't 'right' for some people. I believe everyone is right for therapy and therapy can be right for everyone. I believe creating offerings and having personal marketing can help professionals find their clients and vice a versa. As well as attract new professionals into the healing professions who might not otherwise pursue that path.
Envision The Success Of Your Work
8. When you imagine a future where your work has been wildly successful, how has the mental health field changed? What’s different about who’s providing care, who’s receiving it, and how it’s happening?
R: There are many options - not just psychotherapy - to receive support and care. There are many mental maintenance constructs in our society, built in aspects to our schools, work settings, social settings. A lot of individuals can provide support professionally, there are other professional pathways to take to help folks, beyond counseling and therapy. There is therapeutic and pro social mental health content, podcasts, TV shows, etc.
What Is Your Unique Contribution To This Vision?
9. In that future you just described, what is the unique role you played in bringing it about—what is it that only you could have contributed to make it happen?
R: The creative consultant to help bridge the gap between a healer's story and their professional's offering.
Why Does This Matter So Deeply To You?
10. Why does it matter so deeply to you that healers share their story—and that it’s connected directly to what they offer professionally?
R: Because I've been impacted by the uniqueness of others' stories. The more vague or general a story has been, the less I've connected with it. The details and honesty around a human story can have a profound impact. And at the end of the day, how I learn, relearn, and integrate my own story is the biggest lesson of all.
The Summary
Ryan, based on everything you’ve shared through these 10 questions, your niche comes into focus like this:
You are a creative architect and consultant for mental health professionals—someone who designs the systems, frameworks, and stories that help healers translate their personal truths into offerings that attract the right clients, expand access to care, and enrich the mental health field as a whole.
Your work is driven by:
A belief that therapy (in its many forms) can be right for everyone.
A vision of diverse, integrated mental health supports woven into everyday life.
A conviction that authentic, detailed personal stories are the most powerful way to connect healers with those they’re meant to serve.
A preference for designing the bridge rather than directly guiding people across it—creating conditions for authentic matches to happen naturally.
Next Steps to Flesh Out Your Professional Path
Niche Statement Development
Example starter: “I help mental health professionals translate their unique stories into creative offerings and systems that connect them with the clients they’re meant to serve.”
Signature Process Design
Name and map your “bridge-building” process (e.g., Story-to-Structure Framework, The Authentic Connection Blueprint).
Offer Suite Alignment
Build services that match your niche: storytelling workshops, branding strategy, offer design, creative consulting retainers.
Visibility & Authority
Examples: LinkedIn articles, podcast interviews, speaking engagements at mental health conferences.
Network with the Right Circles
Focus on communities of progressive, creative mental health professionals—especially those in trauma-informed care, integrative healing, and alternative modalities.