How I Used NotebookLM to Build My First Course (And Why It Changed How I Think About AI)

This isn't a tool review. It's the story of how one AI tool helped me turn years of experience into a structured knowledge system and a course.

It Started With a Conversation
I didn't discover NotebookLM through a blog post or a YouTube rabbit hole.
My partner client introduced it to me. He'd been using it and told me about its power, how it could synthesize content, generate structured presentations and produce material that actually made sense of everything you fed into it.
But honestly? I didn't fully understand what he meant until I tried it myself.
The Problem I Was Trying to Solve
I had just made a big decision. I was pivoting building a membership site, creating courses, and packaging everything I'd learned over the years into something I could share with entrepreneurs, startups and people who wanted to start something new but didn't know how to connect the dots.

The problem wasn't that I lacked knowledge. I had years of experience. The problem was that it was all scattered — in my head, in old documents, in notes, in ideas I'd never fully organized.
I needed a way to synthesize everything. To take the raw material of my experience and turn it into something structured, teachable and valuable.
That's where NotebookLM came in.
How It Actually Started — With ChatGPT
Before I even opened NotebookLM, I did something that changed everything.
I uploaded my resume to ChatGPT and used a prompt I discovered from a MITMonk YouTube video. Here's the exact prompt I used:

"You are the world's most sought after business writer. You've reviewed thousands of profiles that led to more business. I'm attaching my resume and the job description for a Digital Marketing Strategist Role in an SME company. Review it and give me a bullet list of ten specific ideas on how to improve clarity and add measurable impact. Your mission is to build my profile so I can attract more business as I recently pivot in building a membership site and creating courses that share my expertise. My goal is to help entrepreneurs, startups and those who want to pivot their business by applying my approach and some tips on how they can get started connecting the dots in their workflows and goals of starting a new business."

ChatGPT gave me a detailed breakdown — what needed improving, what was strong, and a framework I could build on based on my own profile and experience.
That output became my first source in NotebookLM.

A Quick Note Before We Go Further

NotebookLM was a core part of building my first course — but not the only tool. I combine it with other AI tools in my workflow to produce the final output. Some of those tools I keep private as part of the premium services I offer to clients.
What I'm sharing here is the NotebookLM part of the system — which is genuinely powerful on its own and something anyone can start using today for free.
I'm a systems thinker. NotebookLM is one powerful piece of a bigger puzzle. And this post is about that piece.

Want to Learn NotebookLM From Scratch?

Before we dive deeper — if you're completely new to NotebookLM and want a guided walkthrough, I created a free course specifically for this.

NotebookLM Mastery is available free at SK Learning Online — it walks you through everything from setting up your first notebook to generating your own content, slide decks and podcasts.

No technical background needed. Just your knowledge and a willingness to learn.

👉 Access NotebookLM Mastery free at SK Learning Online

Now back to the story — because how I actually used it to build my course is worth knowing.

Then NotebookLM Did Something Remarkable

I started feeding everything into NotebookLM:

• The ChatGPT analysis of my profile and experience
• My own knowledge accumulated over years
• Frameworks I'd been developing
• Ideas I wanted to teach

And NotebookLM synthesized all of it.
Not just summarised it. It helped me see the connections between my ideas, organise my thinking and structure content I'd been carrying in my head for years into something clear, teachable and usable.

From that foundation I built the CONNECT Framework — my five-pillar system for building an AI-powered business. Clarify, Optimize, Automate, Nurture, Convert.

NotebookLM didn't create the framework. But it helped me see it clearly for the first time.

The Three Things That Genuinely Impressed Me

1. The Slide Deck Generation

This was my first real "aha moment."
Using a customised prompt and my own theme guidelines, NotebookLM generated a full slide deck from my content. Not a generic template — a structured, on-brand presentation that actually reflected my ideas and my voice.
For someone building a membership site with no design team and no budget for expensive tools — this was a game changer.

2. The Deep Dive Podcast

The second "aha moment" came when I used NotebookLM's Audio Overview feature — what they call the Deep Dive.
I fed in my course content and NotebookLM generated a conversational AI podcast discussion about my material. Two AI hosts discussing my framework, my ideas, my content — in a way that sounded natural and engaging.
That became the foundation of my AI Video Podcast. I took that audio, built it into a video format using Descript, and created content that would have taken days to produce manually.

3. The Content Studio

Beyond slide decks and podcasts, NotebookLM's Content Studio panel let me generate study guides, FAQs, briefing documents and summaries — all from the same sources I'd already uploaded.
One set of inputs. Multiple content outputs. That's the kind of efficiency that changes how you work.

My Current NotebookLM Workflow

Here's exactly how I use NotebookLM today:

Step 1 — Feed it everything relevant Documents, PDFs, YouTube links, my own notes, ChatGPT outputs, research — anything related to the topic I'm building content around.

Step 2 — Use the chat to synthesize I ask NotebookLM questions about my own material. "What are the key themes across these sources?" "How does this framework apply to a consultant starting out?" It helps me think more clearly about what I already know.

Step 3 — Generate structured outputs Slide decks for courses. Study guides for members. Podcast scripts for my AI Video Podcast. FAQs for my blog posts. All from the same sources.

Step 4 — Edit and personalise NotebookLM gives me the structure. I add my voice, my stories and my specific examples. The output is always mine — NotebookLM just helps me organise and present it.

Who Is NotebookLM For?

NotebookLM is perfect for you if:

• You have a lot of knowledge but struggle to organise it
• You want to create courses, guides or content without starting from scratch
• You need to synthesize research from multiple sources quickly
• You want to repurpose existing content into multiple formats

Who is it NOT for:

• Anyone looking for a simple chatbot experience — this is a research and synthesis tool, not a quick answer machine
• Anyone who wants fully automated content with zero editing — you still need to add your voice and refine the output
• Anyone who doesn't have existing knowledge or content to feed into it — NotebookLM works best when you give it rich, meaningful input

Free vs Paid — Is It Worth Upgrading?

The free version of NotebookLM is genuinely powerful and is where I started. For most consultants, coaches and solopreneurs just getting started — the free tier gives you everything you need to begin.
The paid version (NotebookLM Plus) increases your notebook limits, gives you more audio overview generations and priority access. Worth considering once you're using it heavily and regularly.
My advice: start free. Learn the tool. Build your first notebook. Then decide if the upgrade makes sense for your workflow.

The Bottom Line

NotebookLM didn't just help me build a course. It helped me see my own knowledge differently.
For years I had experience, frameworks and ideas scattered across my work and my mind. NotebookLM gave me a way to pull all of that together, make sense of it and turn it into something I could teach.
If you have knowledge worth sharing — and you do — NotebookLM might be the tool that finally helps you organise it into something the world can actually learn from.

Want to try it yourself?

I built an entire free course around NotebookLM — teaching you exactly how to use it to synthesize your knowledge, build content and create courses. It's called NotebookLM Mastery and you can access it free at SK Learning Online.

Sri Krsna Sagun is a Marketing Systems Consultant and creator of the CONNECT Framework — helping coaches, consultants and SMEs build AI-powered systems that generate leads and free up their time.

This post is part of The Quiet Builder — honest lessons from building a business in the age of AI. Found this useful? Share it with someone who has knowledge worth sharing.