Hi,

There’s a new kind of guilt floating around entrepreneurial circles, and it’s driving me nuts.

AI guilt. The fear that because you used AI to help with something, people think you didn’t work hard enough or put in real effort.

I see it everywhere. “I used ChatGPT to help draft this proposal, but I still spent hours refining it!” “AI helped with the research, but I did all the analysis myself!”

Why are we apologising for being efficient?

watts not working: Feeling guilty about using tools that make you better at your job.

Nobody apologises for using a calculator instead of doing math by hand. Nobody feels bad about using Excel instead of keeping ledgers with a quill pen.

But somehow, using AI to enhance your thinking makes you feel like a fraud.

watts really happening: We’re confusing effort with value.

Your clients don’t care how many hours you stared at a blank page. They care about the quality of your insights, the wisdom of your recommendations, and the results you deliver.

Here’s the thing: We can all tell the difference. Content that’s pure AI has that generic, soulless quality. Work that’s been thrown together without thought and handed over? Obvious.

But when you combine AI with your wisdom, experience, and judgment? The result shows that depth. The proof is in the work itself.

watts working: People who understand that expertise + AI is the ultimate combination.

They use AI to handle the heavy lifting so they can focus on the strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, and relationship building that only they can do.

They’re not competing on who works hardest. They’re competing on who delivers the best outcomes.

watts the real game changer: Your value isn’t in the process – it’s in the result.

If you’re mixing AI with your wisdom and experience, that quality will be evident in what you deliver. If you’re using AI because you don’t have those things, that’s equally obvious.

Have a week of working smarter, not apologising for it!

Sel Watts

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