🎧 Listen to the podcast version of this email here.
I saw a LinkedIn post today by someone complaining about AI bots commenting under his posts.
Apparently "the comments were generic, robotic, and completely missed the point".
His solution?
He built an AI bot that helps people write better comments.
The irony made me smile.
Let me be clear. I use AI all the time.
I use it to structure my thinking for newsletters like this one. I use it to track my exercise and calorie intake. I ask it for advice on small injuries, cocktail suggestions, travel ideas, and a thousand other little things.
It’s a phenomenal tool.
And how wonderful is it that we suddenly have access to something this powerful?
But there’s an important difference in how I use it:
I don’t use it to outsource me. And my creativity. And my personality.
The ideas are mine, the doubts are mine, the questions are mine. AI just helps me clean things up.
Think of it as a very capable personal assistant that is with you 24-7.
And that distinction matters.
Because it has never been easier to produce content for the sake of producing content.
If you are, say, a leadership coach, you can easily generate 52 weeks of newsletters about leadership in a few seconds. Pick a niche, press enter, and there it is.
You could copy, paste, and publish all year.
Impressive, sure, but also incredibly generic.
And AI tools will only get better at hiding that they are, well, AI tools.
But here lies the big fat problem:
If you outsource your thinking, then what exactly are people hiring you for?
If you’re a business coach, consultant, trainer, or facilitator, people don’t work with you because you have a clever framework; AI can generate frameworks in seconds.
People work with you because of how you think.
How you approach a problem. How you challenge assumptions. How you see patterns others miss. How you use that framework to get results.
For many solo professionals, their thinking is the product.
Now this is where comments come in.
If you believe the online gurus, commenting is a growth strategy. Spend hours every day leaving comments under other people’s posts and you’ll get visibility.
In theory, that makes sense.
In practice, most comments look like this:
“Great insight.”
“This really resonated.”
“Love this perspective.”
Every time I see one of those, I honestly don’t know how to respond.
Thanks, I guess?
If your thinking is the product, your comments should reflect that thinking.
Not generic praise, filler nor AI slop people can now smell from a mile away.
Real thoughts.
You could, for instance, propose a challenge.
Give a different perspective.
Share an example from your own experience.
Even a bit of humour (I love GIFs)
That’s where people start to see how you think and that’s what makes someone interesting to work with.
Here’s the other thing:
Most solo professionals don’t need thousands of customers.
Many of you sell higher-value work. Or at least with a higher price tag. So in reality, you might only need a handful of great clients each year.
So why behave like you need to leave ten thousand comments every day to reach that massive audience?
Instead of writing twenty quick ones, why not write three thoughtful ones instead?
Make them count.
Leave something behind that adds to the conversation and shows people how your mind works.
Right now, with AI everywhere, the last thing you should outsource is the thing that actually makes you valuable.
Your thinking & your personality.
If anything, this is the perfect moment to double down on being human.
And one of the easiest places to do that is in how you interact with the people around you.
Make it a great day
