Stop Using AI Like This. (It RUINS Your Brand)

you try to use AI to replace your thinking, like you're not thinking first, you're not providing any context, it's going to give you something really flowery. And more importantly, when you use it in this problematic way, you're skipping the embodiment of your work. People crave you being authentic and original, and if you can't embody your work first before you bring it to AI, you're just manufacturing this embodiment. An authority. It's not original. We're going to be talking about AI today, how to use AI ethically in your coaching business. AI is all the hype. It has been. It's everywhere right now. And depending on who you talk to, AI is either the thing that is going to save you hours of time and you want to use it. It's going to buy back your freedom. You got to work smarter, not harder. Let's go AI! Or if you talk to somebody else, they're gonna say, uh, this is the thing that's gonna ruin trust, this is ruining creativity, it's taking jobs, it is not in alignment with your coaching business, you're out of integrity, yada yada. So honestly, both perspectives exist for a reason. I deeply understand both sides. I want to break it down. This episode is about AI, yes, but it's also about ethics, always disclosing when you use AI. I think transparency is key. People want to see that. Actually disclosing when you use AI can boost your engagement rate. It's like people are playing a game. Is this really you or is this AI? It is going to be about leadership. It's about how we lead when AI exist. We're in the AI Renaissance, as I call it, but it's not here to replace us. So how do we remain a leader when we're using AI? Discernment— when we should use AI and when we shouldn't use AI, and how to use AI in a way that supports your coaching business instead of hollowing it out. That's what we're going to talk about. And then yes, I'm going to talk about Carly Hill AI as well. This is all of my AI agents that I have built to help you have more freedom in your life. I built Carly AI very intentionally. It's actually one of the most badass things I have ever created to date, and everybody who has Carly AI is absolutely raving and they're obsessed because Carly AI is meant to help you do all of the marketing, all of the sales, all of the funnels, and create your lead magnets, figure out your niche, do a brand audit so that you can buy back your time. We have to leverage AI, but we need to do it in a way that is intentional, that we're still using discernment and having leadership, and we're using it in an ethical way. So let's dive in. Why does AI feel so charged? Why does it— this topic feel so charged when people talk about AI? It's like we tense up in our body some way. And for a lot of coaches, especially therapists, healers, service-based professionals, everybody that I work with, AI does bring up a real concern. And this is things that I hear all the time. Well, is this cheating? Am I being authentic? Does this cheapen my work? What if clients feel misled? What if I become replaceable? This is a big one. So here's what I wanna say clearly. This fear is not irrational. I get it, but it is often misdirected in my opinion. The real fear is not AI. We can leverage AI. The real fear is losing relevance. It's losing originality. It's losing trust. It's losing your voice, or it's just being straight up fake and pretending that you know something you don't. People can very easily take AI-generated created content. They can pass it off as their own insights. They can pretend to be an expert in a field where they may have little depth or knowledge about the area. That's scary, and it is happening, but it also makes us stand out as creators because people are valuing being original more than ever. People are valuing being authentic more than ever. Literally all you have to do is be original, not a robot, and then you win the game. How cool is that? I place a lot of value on developing original content and protecting my IP, my intellectual property. I am a content creating machine. My mind is always observing, innovating, observing human nature, seeing patterns. In those observations, looking at the gaps in the field. That's what I mean by innovating, filling those gaps. I feel compelled almost 24/7 to create frameworks accordingly. I'm always thinking of new ideas to do things faster, easier, and then I create a proven proprietary system. That is just what I do as an innovator. My hard drive, my operating system, is a treasure trove of content that I have created it. So yes, I place high value on developing original content, but I'm also not afraid to use AI as a partner to refine my ideas, to brain dump, to draft things. But here's the thing: I'm leading. I still have leadership when I use AI. I'm training it. It is not replacing me. So many people are using AI to write their social media post, and it's falling on deaf ears. Why? Because it sounds like AI. It's not following proven copywriting frameworks. There isn't any personality behind it. They're using it to replace them, to take a shortcut, to cop out of being the visionary, to cop out of being the leader. They want the easy button. So let's get grounded on what AI is and what AI isn't. AI is not a replacement. It's not a replacement for your thinking, for your ethics, for your leadership, for your relationship with your people. It's not a replacement for discernment. You will— if you take anything from this episode, take this— you will always remain the visionary in your business. You will always remain being the CEO in your business. AI cannot replace that. AI is a tool, and like any tool, it depends how you use it. The impact of AI depends how you use the tool. So let's talk about ethics when it comes to this, because AI can be incredibly helpful when it's used in the right way, when it's used to brain dump like I was saying, when it's used to support your thinking, when it's used to organize all of your ideas. So you brain dump and then it organizes them. It's speeding up your execution, it's reducing friction, but again, you're still leading the train. When you try to use AI to replace your thinking, like you're not thinking first— for example, you're trying to figure out your niche and you're not providing any context or thinking, and you're just like, here's something super basic and now spit me out a niche— it's going to give you something really flowery. It's gonna have platitudes and clichés. It's not gonna pass what I call the high-ticket test. It's you trying to avoid clarity, press that easy button. And more importantly, I think when you use it in this problematic way, you're skipping the embodiment of your work. People crave you being authentic and original. And if you can't embody your work first before you bring it to AI, you're just manufacturing this embodiment and authority. It's not original. So ethical AI— because I still want you to use AI, I just want you to use it in the right way— ethical AI amplifies your expertise. Unethical AI, it's going to replace it. And we can't have AI replace you. If you don't understand what you're teaching, AI shouldn't be doing it for you. If you don't have clarity, AI can't invent the clarity for you. See what I'm saying? AI can't be inventing ideas for you. You have to bring ideas to AI and they can refine them. If you don't have a perspective first, AI shouldn't be faking the perspective for you. You should bring the perspective to AI and then it can help you wordsmith it. Leadership still comes first. And if you don't have this leadership as you're using AI, you're going to blend in. You're going to blend in. People will forget about you. You're going to fall on deaf ears. And the work that you're supposed to do, it's not going to get in the hands of the people that you're supposed to help. Okay. One of the biggest myths that I hear about AI is, well, if people know that I use AI, they're not going to trust me. And that's not true. As long as you use it in the right way. I think actually in my experience the opposite is true. When it's done right, people can respect it. When you're transparent, people can respect it. Trust isn't built by pretending to do everything manually, especially as we're in an AI renaissance. Trust is built by being honest, by being intentional, by being clear about where AI supports your business, your work, and where it doesn't. I like to use AI to generate photos sometimes when I need something for social media, but I'm always transparent about when it's an AI-generated photo or the fact that I'm even using AI-generated photos in the first place. Oftentimes you can't even tell the difference, but I like to be transparent. I do a mixture of both. You can very clearly tell because I'm doing a mixture of both. Sometimes I'm wearing zero makeup and I'm in a baseball cap, and other times I have a blazer on. Just be clear about where AI supports your work and where it doesn't. I like to use AI to help me outline content, but I decide what stays, what doesn't stay. I like to use AI to help me draft ideas, but then I need to throw my voice back in. I need to throw my personality back in. I need to throw stories back in. AI can help me think, but it doesn't think for me. I need you to not rely on AI too much. Your clients don't need you to be robotic or perfect. In fact, nobody likes a perfect person. Your people need you to be real. Your people need you to be responsible. Your people need you to be a thought leader, and you can't be a thought leader without thinking first. AI can't just think for you and replace you. So here's places where AI can be used ethically, effectively inside your coaching business. Some tangible examples: content ideation and organization. So you plug in the frameworks. This is what one of my AI agents does. Okay, Sally the social media writer, she's gonna write all of your social media posts for you. But only after you give it content ideation is it going to organize all of your thoughts. Only after you work with Nancy, the niche finder, who's gonna help you refine your niche, pass the high ticket test, is it then gonna move you into writing your social media content. It can help you draft emails. I have Emily, the email marketing writing assistant. That's a mouthful, but she writes all of your nurture sequences. All of your funnel email sequences, your opt-ins, even for client fulfillment. So any email sequence that you need, okay? But drafting those emails and then you review them. Drafting your posts, your outlines, your scripts, but then you review them. You infuse yourself, your story, your personality back into it. Maybe brainstorming messaging and positioning. I love to use AI for SOPs. Workflows, everything internal. My team has an AI agent where essentially instead of going and asking me all the time in my Slack, they just go to my team. AI is attached to my SOP library, all of my systems. It's trained on that, so it can compress time in this way. It can make execution faster, but it's not meant to replace client discernment, trauma-informed judgment. Absolutely not. Ethical decision-making, emotional attunement, coaching presence. So yes, AI can help you move faster, but it can't help you lead better unless you're already leading. You have to lead. I wanna talk a little bit about why I built Carly AI, because this matters as we're tying this into the ethical conversation, because I didn't build Carly AI to replace learning marketing, learning sales, learning how to refine your messaging. I didn't build Carly AI to just create generic content or turn people into these copy and paste brands. I'm all about helping you stand out, but I built it to help you reduce the overwhelm. I know you're short on time, everybody's busy. I built it to help you support clarity, help coaches think better, not think less, but think better. I built it to help you reflect your voice, have a conversation with you, but not override your voice. It's built around proven frameworks, not fluff. It's built around powerful questions. It's not just a shortcut, but it's going to help you make decisions. It's not going to replace decision-making. It's not a decision replacement. But it is going to support your decision. See the difference? Here's the thing. When I was doing one-to-one sessions, power hours, I still do them, but not very often. People would come with a slew of questions and then we would jam out and we would finish early and they're like, whoa, how did we get all of this done so fast? But it was because I was using all of my AI agents that I had trained to support clarity. To reduce the overwhelm, to go faster, to think better, but not thinking less. It was reflecting their voice back to them. It was collapsing the timeline. And so that's when I released it to the public. I used it for myself first in my business. Then I let my clients use it. I used it with clients, and then I released it for anyone and everyone to use who's building an online coaching business. And like I said, it's one of the baddest, most badass things I've ever created. It's designed to sit alongside your expertise. It's not just supposed to stand in for your expertise. That distinction matters, and I feel like I am driving this point home, but I will say it till I'm black and blue in the face. It is not meant to replace you. You still have to lead. The biggest ethical risk, in my opinion, with AI misuse is the overdependence. When you're too dependent on AI and you can't think for yourself anymore, this is where the visionary dies. This is when coaches really start outsourcing all of their thinking, all of their messaging, all of their strategy, all of their identity. Yuck. Nobody wants that. It's a tool. Don't lose your authority. AI should reduce friction, help you go faster, but it's not meant to replace leadership. It's not meant to replace a visionary, a creator. If your business collapses without AI, or you can't build it without AI in general, you're not using it ethically. I don't know what I did with AI before. I don't know how I built my business to where it is without AI, like, because I use it a lot. But again, it's not replacing me. I'm still thinking. I'm not using it as a crutch. I know what it's like to build without AI. I still exercise my brain. Without AI. I'm still in rooms with visionaries and creators getting raw, authentic leadership advice. So use it ethically. Don't erode it. Don't rely on it too much. Think and test yourself. Could you explain something without AI? Anytime you try to maybe go use AI, well, how about you try to write it yourself first and then bring that to AI? Does this actually reflect your lived experience, or is AI making up a story for you? Is this helping me lead, or is AI watering down the story and I'm hiding a little bit? So test yourself. If any answer feels off, pause. Give it a break for a week. So AI is here. It's here to stay. It's not going away. Pretending it doesn't exist That doesn't make you more ethical. What it comes down to is how you use it. Use it well, use it ethically, and it can and will buy back your time. It will reduce burnout. It will help you support sustainability in your business. We're building lifestyle businesses, freedom businesses. It is going to free you to focus on what actually matters, but don't use it if it's going to dilute your voice. If you're going to be a copy and paster, if you're just looking for an easy button, it's going to undermine your trust. And trust is what's going to help you get your dream clients. You need to keep that rapport with them. I need you to stay original. I need you to stay original. That's it. That's how you're going to win the game. So my belief is super simple. Ethics to me are not about avoidance. But it's about responsibility. That's what I mean by leadership. So if you do want support, if you want to use AI ethically, if you do want to shortcut your success in a way where you are still remaining the leader, the visionary, then check out the notes for Carly Hill. It is your fractional CMO. It's going to help you tremendously with marketing. It is AI agents that align with your values, your expertise, your leadership. That's why Carly AI exists. My love is with you. I'll see you guys in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Thriving Therapreneur podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter, and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales, and adding coaching ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on, and I'll see you around.