How I Realised I've Been Hiding in Plain Sight

I didn't see it in myself first. I saw it in someone else.

I was reading something someone had written, someone credible, someone whose work I like, and there was nothing wrong with it. It wasn't one of those obvious ones where the AI is screaming at you from every sentence. This was subtler than that. But I could still feel it. Something was missing, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time. I just felt myself distance from it.

Then it happened again, closer to home.

I was working on prep for my new keynote, called ‘Don't Leave Your Song Unsung’. I'd been using AI to help structure some thoughts, which I do often and don't think is a problem in itself. What I wanted was an overview to work from but what I got was technically excellent and completely hollow. My speaker coach calls it smoothing over, and that's exactly right. It's articulate, accurate, sound and intelligent but just hasn't got the magic. It can even quote you back in your own words and still feel like nobody.

I threw it out and started from a blank page. What came out was so much better, because nobody else, no human, no technology, could have recreated it.

Watching Myself From the Outside

The next layer of this is the one I find hardest to admit. I had a run of podcast episodes recently where I read a script AI had written for me. A hundred percent my inputs, my verbatim quotes where I'd asked for them, but the structure and the flow weren't mine and I could tell. What I didn't know was whether or not you could.

Then I watched two other people, both of whom I like and respect, both of whom are genuinely excellent at what they do, deliver content I knew had been written this way too. One I only heard, one I watched perform it beautifully on camera. I still knew. And even more interestingly, I couldn't tell you what either piece was actually about now, because my attention had shifted entirely from the message to noticing the production behind it.

That's the cost nobody talks about. It’s not that the content was bad. It's that once you notice the it’s ai, you stop hearing the message.

You Can Be Everywhere and Still Be Nowhere

I have allowed, in some cases, these automations to do too much of the heavy lifting and it loses my essence in that process.

I'm a self confessed tech geek. I love systems, automations, anything that creates efficiency, and there's nothing wrong with that in itself. The trap is when it goes too far, when the structure stops supporting your voice and starts replacing it.

There is something I want to be really clear about. This isn't an argument for throwing out every system you've built. If it's not in the diary, it doesn't happen, and the same is true for content. Without structure, I know exactly what I'd do. I'd show up in huge bursts when the ideas are flowing and then go quiet for weeks at a time, and that doesn't serve anyone.

Tech and systems mean consistency is covered even when I am busy with life, and the real me is there too, showing up in real time and sharing the journey. That's the version I'm working towards. A combination of the system and making sure I'm still inside it.

Introducing the Entrepreneur Diaries

This is why I'm starting something new this month. I'm calling it the Entrepreneur Diaries, and it's going to run alongside everything else for the rest of July. Some of it will still be planned, because that consistency matters. But a good chunk of it is going to be raw, unscripted, thought out loud in real time, the version of me that doesn't get smoothed over by anything.

We work so hard to build the machine, but it actually is a longer game and not as powerful a game. When you just get your camera out and talk to it, it's more effective and less time consuming.

Both versions have their place. The planned content keeps the consistency going. The raw content is what actually connects. July is where I'm letting both run together, properly, and inviting you to come along for it.

If you want the structure and the systems handled so you've got the headspace to show up as you, that's exactly what eSCHOOL is built for. Take a look here: lucyshrimpton.com/membership