Outsourcing your power to AI

Transcript

Welcome to Meaningful Work Remarkable Life.
I’m your host, Brook McCarthy, and I’m a business coach, trainer, and speaker living and working on the unceded lands of the Cammeragal people here in Sydney, Australia.

In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love *and* money, magnifying your impact, and doing work you feel born to do.
We explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work, and the meanings we derive from work.

Peanut butter toast and watching endless *Seinfeld* reruns.
This is my enduring memory of being depressed.

This depressive episode lasted for many, many months before I finally saw a little chink in the armor — a tiny glimmer of something that *wasn’t* depression — in which case I clawed my way towards it until it became a kind of self-fulfilling thing.

Little bit, little bit, little bit.
There was less of the gray and more of the sunshine.

One of the things I found intensely difficult during this depressive period was making decisions.
Hence, the repetition of peanut butter toast and *Seinfeld* reruns.

Even something as simple as going out to see friends—which I barely did—
was hard. Let’s pretend I *had* been invited somewhere on a Saturday night.

I practiced my small talk.
I practiced my conversation.

I used to joke about it with my parents—
but there’s truth in it too.

I didn’t have the wherewithal to even make decisions about *what to talk about* with friends. Not strangers—friends.

So I’d read the news headlines and practice what to say.
Because even the smallest things became really, really difficult to decide on.

This is not unusual for depression—
that heightened sense of potential disappointment in the expected outcome.

And those negative emotions—regret and disappointment—
they don’t just impair our attention and memories.

They also impair our ability to process information.
They mess with our decision-making skills.

So today we’re talking about *decision-making*.
Specifically, decision-making in the age of AI.

This cheery episode (don’t worry—it *does* get better)
is brought to you by my brand-spanking-new **Momentum Mastermind**.

Momentum is a full year of working closely with me—
from August 2025 to July 2026.

It’s something I created in direct response to the specific challenges I see coming down the pipeline for business owners.

And one of those challenges is AI—
its effects on our businesses, yes,
but more specifically, on our decision-making.

Now, the internet has *always* been a threat to our businesses.

Which is kind of ironic, right?
Because it’s also *how* we make our income. It’s how most of us even *exist* in business.

Pretty much all of my business comes from the internet.
And I’m confident that even if I never left the house again (a miserable existence, sure), my income wouldn’t really dip.

So while the internet makes our businesses possible,
it also poses a threat.

It’s brought our competitors closer.
It’s made it easier for *many, many* more people to start businesses and compete with us.

Now—
competition isn’t a problem if you’re adept at rendering your competitors irrelevant with sparkling marketing and dandy branding.

(Yes, I have to stop and focus every time before saying that—sparkling marketing, dandy branding.)

But it *is* a threat to our ability to work effectively.

Because now we can see our competitors up close and highly visible in a way we couldn’t before.

And this is *hugely* detrimental to many business owners.
I see this every week—wrestling with *comparisonitis*.

And the kicker is: the business owner can fool themselves into believing they’re “researching” or “learning”…
when really they’re stuck in the death grips of inadequacy and overwhelm.

It’s not just that.
We are losing the ability to hold attention—both other people’s and our own.

How exotic is it now to just sit and read a book?
I *have* to put my phone in another room. Otherwise, I’m guaranteed to get distracted. It just won’t happen.

So attention is scarce.
And *our business* is one tiny sliver of the thousands of things vying for our potential clients’ attention.

Let’s talk about FOMO for a sec.

It’s easy to ridicule, but it has *real* and negative consequences.
Massive anxiety. Depression. Disconnection. Burnout.

All this *choice*—not just for clients but also for *us*—means we’re reluctant to commit to anything.
Especially in big cities.

I had a client recently running courses around Australia and she said, “My god, Sydney is driving me insane.”

I get it. We’re flaky here. Because there are just too many options.
So people wait, they postpone, they hold off just in case something better comes along.

In short, we are becoming more fickle.

As a business owner, being in the grips of FOMO is *disastrous*.
Because you’re constantly changing tack. You have no real strategy.

You waste money, time, energy.
You jump from coach to coach, course to course, strategy to strategy.

You’re always looking for the *next* thing that will save your business.
And you never stick with anything long enough to make it work.

Do that long enough and you’ll not only see zero results for your effort,
but you’ll start to erode your trust in yourself.

Your trust in your own judgment.

And if you add a side of jealousy and depression?
Well, you may as well go back to working for the man.

Now let’s take a left turn and talk about how decision-making actually works.

There’s a neuroscience model called **accumulation to threshold**.

Picture your brain like a bucket—
as you gather more information, it fills. Once full, you reach a threshold. Then a decision happens.

But this model *relies* on a few things.

Like access to *accurate* information.
If you don’t see the car when you’re crossing the road—there’s a problem.

And of course, your values, priorities, beliefs, and biases influence decisions too.

One person sees a yellow light and slows down.
Another speeds up. Same data—different decision.

So where does AI come in?

AI affects the type *and quality* of information we’re seeing.

There’s fake info. All the time.
I Google stuff constantly, and Gemini (Google’s AI) just makes things up when it doesn’t know the answer.

Algorithms are feeding echo chambers.
They’re boosting content that aligns with *previous* preferences—reinforcing our biases.

That narrows our worldview and shrinks our brain’s ability to adapt.
It makes it harder to question, to reconsider, to discern.

Add deepfakes and synthetic voices and we’re in a full-blown **trust recession**.
We’re starting to *doubt everything*—even the true stuff.

The real danger?
Outsourcing.

Outsourcing our creative thinking.
Outsourcing our discernment.
Outsourcing our *responsibility*.

Let’s take those one by one.

Your **creative thinking** is the thing that makes you distinctly human.
It’s deeply tied to problem-solving. And we are *all* creative.

To be human is to be creative.
Not necessarily in the traditional artist way—but in the “solve tricky problems in surprising ways” kind of way.

But when we *stop* thinking creatively and ask AI to do it all, we weaken the very thing we most need in business.

We also need greater **discernment**, not less.

Just because something sounds smart and shiny doesn’t make it *good* or *true* or *useful*.

And when we outsource our **responsibility**, that hits the hardest.

Because responsibility is what gives us self-satisfaction.
The joy of progress. The deep pleasure of knowing, *“I did that.”*

Blaming the algorithm, blaming the market, blaming AI—
that’s a dead end.

So. What can we do about it?

We can **create more than we consume**.
We can **commit to making decisions more quickly**.

Because what is overthinking, really?
It’s *resisting* making a decision.

The word *decide* comes from Latin *decidere*—to cut off.
To cut off other options.

That’s what good decision-making does.
It narrows the focus. It moves us forward.

That’s why we created the **Momentum Mastermind**—
to help people carve out regular space to make decisions and move forward.

Quarterly in-person and online gatherings.
And daily, weekly habits to keep choosing, keep cutting through, keep trusting yourself.

When you’re having a bad day (and I definitely do), you do the **self-binding**.

Ask yourself:
What’s the most valuable thing I can do in the next 10 minutes?
In the next hour?

Discern the **big decisions** from the **small ones**.

The small ones don’t need your drama.
The big ones need your space.

Know what you need to know—and no more.
Put a full stop after things. Keep moving.

Momentum is a space to build creative thinking, self-trust, discernment, and responsibility.
Because when you give *those* away to AI, you give away your power and your joy.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Let’s not end the conversation here.
Find me on Instagram (@brookmccarthy — no E).
Find me on LinkedIn, Substack, or at [hustleandheart.com.au](https://www.hustleandheart.com.au).

Let’s talk.

**And one last thing**—
If this episode got you thinking, got you excited, or helped you see something differently, could you do me a quick favor?

Write me a short review.
It helps other values-based business owners just like you find this show—and that means the world to me.