A reflection on AI, creativity, and whether outsourcing thinking is weakening originality, discernment, and personal voice.

The Rise of AI and the Pressure to Produce More

With AI being so accessible and people feeling the pressure to produce more.. is the ability to just THINK becoming a rare commodity?

I’m all for using AI in certain instances but is there a line where it is becoming waaayyy too much of a dependence and then people are incapable of forming their own thoughts and ideas?

Like I know in the general sense everything is borrowed, there’s no original thoughts and blah blah…

But still, something direct from channel is felt.

Where Do Our Ideas Actually Come From?

You might be drawing inspiration from a lot of places… like when I write it’s coming from a whole lot of different influences:

• conversations I’ve had with people

• conversations I’ve overheard while out

• client work

• books I’ve been reading

• commentary I’ve seen online and noticed a common thread in multiple posts

• shows/films I’ve watched

• music I listen to

• events I go to

• being out in nature

• places I’ve travelled to

• just general lived experience

I notice threads, I draw observations, and I share my perspectives.

This is also why I journal every morning, so that my thoughts are coming from my channel before I come and write anything.

I notice patterns and draw parallels and then I just write about things that are alive in me.

Where I notice I struggle is if I’m trying too hard to speak to the right people, to get my message right, to make sure my content is doing a particular job.. when I get into that state of overthinking, or I feel the need to turn to AI, I can see how the writing loses essence.

At that point I step away… I know I’m in a phase of refinement and I do want ro improve my copywriting and sales skills.

But not at the cost of losing my voice.

I’m a natural storyteller, I’m a blogger, I studied journalism.. so writing is something I’ve always done.

But when it comes to skills that translate to buyers, and now that my goal is to speak to a different audience.. I do need an element of refinement.

When AI Enters the Creative Process Too Early

So there’s a line I’m dancing at the moment. How do I refine enough to cut through to the right people, while also not losing me?!

How do I leverage AI in ways that support my creative process without hindering it?

I actually did a live about this yesterday cos I’ve noticed if there’s times when I jump into Claude or ChatGPT too early, then my process is completely ruined. My mind gets clouded and confused. It’s like I stop hearing myself. So I’m setting much firmer boundaries and time limits around my use.

I also think there’s a wider conversation here around outsourcing our thinking in general.

I saw a post from a coach calling out someone who had stolen her post, plugged it into AI, asked it to change the language, and then reposted as her own. This coach went through line by line and pointed out how obvious it was that it was her original post.

The AI version sounded terrible anyway.

The message was the same but the essence and personality that made the first one so good was all gone. Duh.

The Difference Between Inspiration and Outsourcing Thought

That’s what happens when it’s not ideas and thoughts coming direct from your own channel.

You can borrow and copy all you like… you can ask AI to pump out hundreds of posts… but if you’re not deeply connected to that message. If you don’t have the felt sense and lived experience to talk about it from your own perspective, then do you even have any business sharing it?

Or are you just adding noise for the sake of staying relevant?

And what’s the point of building a brand on the back of someone else’s thinking? People are gonna sense the disconnection and you’re not gonna get the results cos deep down there’s shame and feelings of not good enough, and whether you realise or not, it’s gonna be leaking out.

Words are only one part of the equation. There’s soo much more that is happening beneath every post. And people can feel that.

If you can’t even think for yourself, how connected to your work are you really?

Ethics, Originality, and the Copying Problem

Then there’s the whole topic of ethics.. we know that’s become quite questionable with AI having been fed writing from alll kinds of sources.

But does that make it ok to just start blatantly stealing?

And it’s not like it’s only happening now that AI is here. I actually read an email this morning from a CEO who is doing a confessions series.

She was sharing how many years ago she wound up in the middle of a legal battle between two of her clients. One client noticed the other one was copying a lot of her work.

Not just content, but full on offers, sales pages, courses, assets… everything. She had the evidence to prove it so she ended up taking legal action.

The coach was upfront with this client and said she wouldn’t be able to say anything to the other one and vice versa. But she waited to see if the other one would own up or mention it.

It went on for a while and she never did, and then one day she just started sharing a story about how the other one was being mean to her. Never owned up, never admitted to her mistake etc. So the coach fired her, even though she was a higher paying client.

Because it was out of integrity to support someone who would do that.

So of course, copying existed before AI. People likely do it for all kinds of reasons - feeling inadequate, feeling pressure to keep up with a fast paced industry.. Just genuinely not caring and only thinking about what they have to gain.

But should we just turn a blind eye to it and say oh well, because that’s what AI does anyway?

I like that this coach called it out. I’m not sure what the response to her comment on the post was.

She only posted the screenshot of her comment, not anything else.

What We Lose When We Stop Thinking for Ourselves

But I think this stuff needs to be called out more. This is how we ended up with an industry of people who continuously make promises they can’t deliver.

It’s actions like that… it’s people who think they’re entitled to overnight success and don’t have to put in the work to master their craft.

Who lead people in under false pretenses and then have nothing of substance to deliver. Who then end up causing more harm than good.

I think what this really comes back to is our relationship with productivity and overnight success. The industry has glorified quick wins and fast money and anyone who isn’t feeling that instant gratification feels pressure to prove they can do it too.

People have become far too obsessed with the shiny results, that they will blur lines to get there faster.

I think the more advanced technology becomes, the more we have a responsibility to slow down and stay connected to ourselves. To make sure what we’re putting out is in integrity with our levelof mastery.

This is why I specifically tend to work with people who work in these fields. With modalities that bring people back to their bodies.

I may not be qualified to facilitate somatic and shadow work. But I’ve done enough of it to know, this is vital to our evolution. To our thinking and creativity. To keeping us connected to our humanity.

So I want to support people to have these messages reach farther and wider..

Because people who are connected to themselves are less likely to outsource their thinking.

The thing that concerns me isn’t necessarily AI.

It’s what happens when we stop practicing discernment.

When we stop questioning and sitting with ideas long enough to decide what we actually think about them.

What Are We Actually Building?

If we outsource enough of our thinking, eventually we lose confidence in our own ability to know. And when that happens, it’s very easy to start believing whatever the loudest voice in the room is saying.

Whether that’s AI, a coach, guru, influencer, the media, a government, or anyone else claiming to have the answer.

If we lose the ability to sit with ideas, wrestle with them, form opinions, connect dots, develop discernment and create from lived experience...

What are we actually building?

What are we actually contributing?

What are we actually saying?

In a world that seems increasingly obsessed with output, speed and volume, maybe the ability to think deeply, create intentionally and form your own perspective is becoming one of the most valuable skills we have.

My Work, Systems, and the Value of Human Thinking

I’ve also been thinking about this in correlation to my own work.

After conversations with my coach where I’ve voiced frustrations about giving so much of my thinking away for free, I’ve recently removed free discovery calls and made the entry point to working with me be a Systems Diagnostic.

I’ve also added two distinct pathways to working with me.

Consulting or Done For You.

Because what I realised was, people would often hire me to do the thing for them, but then they’d start asking me how, or ask for guidance on other things... and I’d willingly give all this information away.

And then be inadvertently supporting them to do the thing without me.

Now, I don’t want to create people who are permanently dependent on me. I actually like being able to show people how to do things as I think it’s important for people to know why their systems are set up a certain way, and how to maintain it themselves, or at least have the processes documented correctly so they can outsource to a VA.

But.. if I am giving that level of support it’s a different offer to just done-for-you services and that’s a clear distinction I had to make. And boundaries I’ve had to communicate with clients recently.

When people hire me they’re not really paying me to click buttons inside software.

They’re paying for my ability to see things they can’t see. To notice patterns, connect dots, recognise where something’s about to break. To know when it’s a systems issue vs a messaging issue, or when something should be automated.

That comes from years of being embedded in the back end of all kinds of businesses, developing a particular way of seeing. So anyone who works with me isn’t just paying for skills, they’re paying for the thinking behind it. My thinking and way of seeing things is unique to me and that’s what actually sets me apart.

In an era where so many people seem to be so quick to outsource their thinking.. is this actually becoming one of the most valuable and sought after things we have? And something we should be working to preserve at all costs.