Initially, it was purely practical. The kind of productivity bump that feels like a legal upper. Summarize that meeting? Done. Draft that follow-up? Already sent. Ten options for a headline? Delivered in five seconds. It was like hiring a tireless intern with no breaks and zero ego.
That’s when it stopped feeling like a productivity tool and started acting like a kind of “honest” mirror. One that didn’t flinch, didn’t flatter, and didn’t let me look away. It wasn’t making me smarter. It was making it harder to ignore how often I wasn’t thinking at all.
That realization didn’t just shift how I worked—it changed how I coached. Before, I saw myself as the one asking hard questions, holding space, and stretching the frame. But once I started using AI in my prep and eventually, in my sessions, it became an unexpected partner. Not because it gave better advice. It didn’t. However, it revealed blind spots that neither I nor my client had anticipated.
What came back wasn’t perfect, but it was new. Fresh angles. Psychological patterns. Alternative framings. It opened up thinking that had gone stale. One client described it as “talking to my future self.” That landed. I know some coaches call this cheating. I don’t. I think not using it, consciously, critically, and creatively, genuinely, is shortsighted.
Yes, AI can write your emails and polish your slides. That’s convenient. However, it comes with a critical cost: the loss of friction; those uphill stretches, like sliding up a mountain on touring skis before you get to ski down. It’s the effort, uncertainty, and resistance that force you to confront your thinking. And friction is where clarity lives. Writing isn’t typing. It’s thinking. If you offload the hard part too early, you lose more than time; you lose the insight that comes from wrestling with your thoughts.
Now, AI isn’t just a background tool in my workflow; it's also an active presence in my coaching. I use it to test logic, surface assumptions, and map blind spots. Sometimes live, sometimes in prep, always in the post. It’s become a method of thinking, not just a means of execution.
So don’t start with the tools. Start with the question: What kind of thinker do I want to become? Then open a chat and start writing. Not to go faster, but to go deeper.