Ever get stuck on a big life decision? I know I have. You sit there weighing the options, wishing you could just ask your personal heroes for advice. Well, one user came up with an absolutely brilliant way to do just that using a dedicated ChatGPT thread.
They call it the “Council of Ghosts”: a personal tribunal of their idols, ready to give them challenging, in-character advice. It’s not about getting comfort; it’s about getting clarity through confrontation. This is a total game-changer for thinking through tough problems.
✍️ How to Build Your Own Council
It’s surprisingly simple to set up. You just create a new chat and feed it a master prompt that establishes the rules of engagement.
📌 First, create a dedicated, separate chat thread for your Council.
📌 Next, choose your council members. These are your heroes, role models, or even fictional characters you admire.
📌 For each member, define the specific traits you value. (e.g., “Ron Swanson: Practicality, simplicity, no-bullshit self-reliance”).
📌 Set the core rule: you want challenging, in-character advice, not soft reassurance. Tell the AI the members can and should contradict each other.
📌 Create a trigger phrase to start a session, like “Council of Ghosts: Session [date]”.
✨ The Core Idea
The goal is to create what the author calls “fire-based identity confrontation.” You’re not journaling; you’re standing before a tribunal that will poke holes in your logic and force you to defend your choices.
The prompt explicitly tells the AI:
“Each figure will speak in character and challenge me, no soothing, no soft reassurance.”
This is what makes it so powerful.
💡 Potential Use Cases
The author has used this for some seriously heavy stuff, and you can too.
⚖️ Analyzing big job offers.
❤️ Navigating tough relationship questions.
🌌 Working through deep, existential thoughts.
🚀 Gaining perspective on your own goals and beliefs.
This method helps you see your own problems from multiple, powerful perspectives in real-time. It’s an awesome hack for self-reflection.
Check out the full Reddit post to see the author’s complete prompt and their awesome list of council members!
Create your own “Council of Ghosts” to help with big decisions
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