The world is AI obsessed, and the coaching industry is no exception.
Companies like EvolveWell use “intelligent digital tools” (a clever euphemism to sidestep controversy) to facilitate coaching transformation.
I’ve stumbled across ChatGPT prompts promising to use AI as your psychoanalyst to reveal your blindspots and unconscious patterns. One of my clients is building an AI-assisted tool to facilitate deeper insights from spiritual and self-help books.
Where does that leave the traditional tools of coaching transformation?
The Wheel of Life. Assessment tests. Good old-fashioned journaling.
Why hire a coach when AI can fast-track your transformation with custom prompts and data-driven action plans?
Well, I’m not ready to declare the death of traditional coaching just yet.
There’s something alive in real-time conversations. Something unpredictable, raw and deeply human.
The bizarre question a coach asks that unlocks a breakthrough. The depth of a potent silence.
The connection that happens when people listen and simply be together.
A chatbot can’t touch any of that.
Even journaling engages the brain in a way AI messaging cannot. Writing longhand, morning pages and doodling in the margins is a portal to discovery.
But I’m not here to bad mouth technology. When used properly, I think it can help come back to the most important thing:
The joy of being human.
For coaches, this means reducing the friction of tech issues and administrative tasks so they can focus on connected conversations and sharing.
For clients, it means using the right tool at the right time. Journaling one day. An AI-generated vision board the next.
When we stay close to the fundamentals of human connection and transformation, they inform how we use technology.
To do this, we’ll need to avoid being seduced into outsourcing our creativity and critical thinking to AI assistance. We must not buy into the FOMO that causes us to blindly follow the newest “digital intelligence tools.”
When we’re led by the simplicity of human connection and inner guidance as the source of transformation, it becomes a trustworthy navigator in the technological battle for our attention.
If this makes me a bit old-fashioned, so be it.
And that brings me to something that beautifully blends the old with the new…
🌍 EarthJams is happening on April 22nd!
It’s a global movement to return to our natural connection with the Earth, shared through the magic of modern technology.
Musicians, movers, artists and lovers of nature will gather outdoors to co-create spontaneous performances with the land, sky and each other.
I’m leading an EarthJam on the beach right here in Portugal. Want to jam with us or host your own? You’re invited:
Yours in love and play,
Steph
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