Newsletter #26
Are we giving away our ability to create?
Hi there,
Something's been niggling away at me. You might have been noticing it too, but haven't quite put your finger on it yet. And it all has to do with how we’re using Artificial Intelligence.
I seem to be using AI tools all the time now. ChatGPT, Claude, Midjounrey. They're so good at generating ideas and seem to be getting better at a frightening rate. They're fast, they're articulate, and they can come up with an answer to just about anything you throw at them.
But here's the niggle I’ve been noticing.
The more I rely on these tools, the more I worry that I might handing over something really important. My ability to think for myself and create from within. And I’m sure I’m not the only one noticing this. What I’m worried about is the danger of losing our creative sovereignty. The part of us that, for thousands of years, has been trusted to come up with the ideas that have guided us through life. Inspired ideas, not just clever responses.
And I suspect most of us haven't even realised we're at risk of losing this innate creative ability.
Here’s a series of questions to ponder;
Are you using AI to generate marketing ideas, map out business strategy, create social media content, fix life’s little problems, work on life’s bigger issues, all of the above? Yes - we all do. It’s amazingly helpful.
Is the output you get generally good quality? Yes - it really is. It sounds professional. It's well structured. It ticks all the boxes.
Do the answers feel right? Does the AI output genuinely feel what you need right now? Mmmm. I’m not sure the answer is always yes. Not really. It feels fine most of the time. But when I dig a bit deeper there’s often something missing. The responses are good but they just doesn't feel quite ‘me’.
And that's not a knock on AI. AI is great. AI is doing exactly what it's designed to do. It's pulling its answers from patterns. Millions of them. It gives you answers that work for ‘most’ people in a ‘similar’ situation. And that's genuinely useful.
But AI can't feel what you feel. It doesn't know what's right for you specifically in your particular situation. It can't sense what your human needs are or what your business culture values at this particular moment in time. It doesn't have access to the internal knowing that you carry. That subtle sense of yes, this is it. This feels right.
That's not something you can prompt your way to.
So I've been working on something. A model or a framework of sorts, based on our innate ability to sense our way forward. This isn’t a tool to replace AI. This is something that can work alongside it. The goal isn't to stop using AI tools. The goal is to strengthen your own human ability to know what's right. To restore faith in your own ability to create. To nurture the capability to make inspired decisions. For yourself, your team, your clients, your future.
It’s something I’ve been practicing for a few years now.
It’s something humans have relied for millennia but has fallen out of favour recently.
It’s relatively simple to do.
It’s called contemplation.
The Art of Contemplation
The contemplation model for business I’m evolving is structured around four ‘felt senses’. These are;
A sense of groundedness in yourself. That settled feeling of being enough. Of not getting lost in the false stories of ego. A focused, calm, peaceful state of being. This one needs to come first, because without it, nothing else lands properly.
A sense of connection to what you're creating. This could be your business, a project, a relationship, an idea. The key point to acknowledge is that the thing you are focusing on is not you. It is something that has its own essence and own energy. It is a living thing in its own right. Other people may well be involved with this thing but what’s important here is that you feel a strong connection to it. You get it. You care about it. You feel its essence.
A sense of sufficiency and security. Not that everything is perfect or guaranteed. Just that you know there’s enough. That you are enough. That you have enough. That there will be enough. Enough time, enough resource, enough information. And you feel that. You don't just think it. There is no sense of lack. No sense of scarcity.
A sense of clarity about what wants to emerge. Not a plan you've forced together. Or a set of goals that you want to achieve. More like a quiet pull of emergence. A direction that feels right for you and the issue at hand. You want to sense a future emerging rather than one you've talked yourself into.
This is the essence of contemplation. When all four of these ‘felt conditions’ are present, you actually have the spaciousness and freedom to make a really good decision. An inspired decision from within. You don't need more data. More analysis. More prompts. You just need to tune in.
So what does that look like in practice? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure yet. I’ve got some ideas in mind based on the work I’ve been doing. I’ve also been doing a lot of research for my second book, so there’s some nuggets in there too. But ideally, I’m looking for people to try this out with me.
At the moment I suspect the process looks something like this;
first you identify the issue at hand. You pose a question. You ponder the question. You refine the question.
Next you use AI. You get some ideas. They will likely be very useful starting points. But don’t settle for these as your final solutions. Then you pause. You check in with yourself against those four senses. Do I feel grounded enough to judge this issue properly? Do feel a sense of sufficiency, or am I still anxious about something that might influence my judgement? Does the idea connect to the real essence of what I'm building? And does it feel like something that naturally wants to emerge? Something that the world will effortlessly adopt? Or am I just going along with it because it’s convenient and sounds plausible?
Sometimes the answer will be yes. Sometimes it won't. Both are fine. Both are information. You keep working on all four of those senses until you get an solution that is right because it ‘feels’ right. Or a better question to dwell on.
The good news is that there are ways you can nurture all four of these senses to increase your ability to make inspired decisions.
Once again, this isn't an anti-AI stance or a call to ditch it. These AI tools are here to stay, they're powerful, and they're genuinely helpful when you use them well.
However, this is a call to not lose yourself in the machine. To retain your creative sovereignty. To remember that you have something AI doesn't; a felt sense of what's right. For you. For your people. For the work you're here to do.
I'm building this model of contemplation to help leaders nurture this ability, not just in themselves but across their teams. I want leaders to create cultures where inspired ideas don’t happen by chance or rely on a clever prompt. I want leaders to expect their teams to deliver inspiration all the time. Because they come from a place of real connection, real sufficiency, real clarity.
That ability isn't gone. Yet. But it might be getting weaker if it isn’t cultivated. If that feels like something you’d benefit from for yourself, or your business, or your team, then please do get in touch. I know it won’t take much to make human creativity feel good again.
I'd genuinely like to hear from you on this. Think about the last time you had an idea that felt truly inspired. Not just good. Inspired. What was different about that moment? I'd love to know. Drop me a message.
Until next time,
Simon