Originality of Thought

The words on the page aren't the work. The thinking behind them is.

There's a conversation happening right now about AI and authenticity that I think is aimed at the wrong target.

Publishers are refusing manuscripts with any AI involvement. People on LinkedIn are dismissing content because they can "tell it's AI." Occasionally, they’re right.

Many times, they just didn’t realize what good writing looked like in the first place, and certainly didn’t read the textbooks the bots were trained on.

AI bots overuse em dashes. It's a clear tell. I've been using them longer than the bots have, and now I can't. Many of the other mechanisms people are flagging as 'AI' are often just good copywriting… making three subpoints, leading with the problem, writing in short punchy sentences. They're tells because they're best practices, which we don’t see often.

I get it. I understand the instinct to call foul ball, but I think we're calling out the wrong culprit.

There's a profound difference between using AI to generate slop based on the aggregated mediocrity of whatever it scraped from the internet, and using it to organize thoughts you actually had.

I speak out loud. I brain dump. I argue with the output until it sounds like me. Blame it on my particular brand of neurodivergence, but it’s helpful. I’ve written about this before. It’s like having a partner, and my thoughts are much more thorough and developed as a result.

The thinking is mine. The keystrokes are a collaboration.

This week, while I was doing exactly that, the bot shot this back to me:

"The question worth asking is: what are we actually trying to protect? Originality of thought, or originality of keystroke?"

I didn't come up with that exact phrasing myself. But it's pretty good. It’s on point, on brand, and worth sharing.

Would it be any different if I ignored it out of some sense of artistic integrity, only to remember it in three weeks when I can't recall where I heard it first? Would it be any more valuable then?

Given all of the media we consume, what’s an “original” thought anymore anyway?

Ghostwriters have existed forever. Editors shape work profoundly. Researchers hand off findings to writers who didn't do the fieldwork. Nobody calls that fraud.

The line we're drawing right now isn't between authentic and inauthentic. It's between visible and invisible assistance.

That's a different conversation entirely. It’s one worth having, but I don’t think that’s the one we’re having.

This Week's Read

Hope is not an inbound strategy.

Most sellers have one of three relationships with inbound: waiting for it to work, posting constantly without a clear picture of who they're talking to or what they want them to do, or blaming marketing for leads that were never going to come anyway.

This week's blog names all three, and what good actually looks like.

Read it →

Deeper Thought

Last week's prompt: What do you enjoy learning about, even if it's random?

Just about anything, honestly.

I'm wired for curiosity. If you go to the museum with me, plan on being there a while. I'm particularly drawn to science and the way things work. The human body fascinates me. Structure relates to function, and organisms have evolved into exactly the machines they need to be. That idea alone could keep me busy for a lifetime.

This week's prompt: What kind of schedule feels best to you?

Take a walk. Think about it. Reply and tell me yours. I'll share mine next week.

Give This A Listen

I was a guest on The Exceptional Sales Leader podcast this week with my colleague Darren Mitchell.

I’ll tell you what, he wound me up and let me go. I don’t know if I crossed the line between having a lot to share and just plain talking too much, but upon listening back, we touched on a lot of different subjects, from my origin story to what I’m working on now.

Check it out. Apple. Spotify.

The Shoutout

Fierce. Relentless. Contrarian.

That's Leslie Venetz, and I mean every word as a compliment.

Those qualities are behind both a world-class opportunity creator and a USA Today bestselling author. But what I admire most about Leslie is how she's pointed them. You can't just pick up the phone and yell into the void. You have to earn the right to have the conversations you want. Be someone worth talking to. Have something worth talking about. Leslie gets that.

What I've watched her do from the very beginning of her consulting business is protect her time fiercely, setting standards and precedents that most people wait until they're "established" to enforce. I was skeptical when I first saw it. Years later, I'm not skeptical. I'm taking notes.

Also, last week she was kind enough to explain oysters to me. Grateful for all of it.

The Nudge

If your team has a quarterly kickoff or an annual sales meeting on the calendar and you want something that actually sticks, not just another keynote people forget by Monday, let's talk.

Cheers,
JB