Hey there, Modern Writers!

Have you felt like your social feeds have been flooded with ChatGPT and AI-related topics?

A few days ago, Doug Scherer, one of our readers (and a professor, author, and coach himself), sent me a thoughtful question:

It was such a good question, I decided to build an entire article around it. Not just to answer Doug, but because I believe this is one of the most pressing, misunderstood topics for modern authors, thought leaders, and creators right now.

So, here it is. A breakdown of how I actually use AI, how I don’t, and a few very real examples of how it fits into my creative process.

First, Let’s Get Clear on the Real Risk

You might think I'd be afraid of ChatGPT, worried it would take my job as a professor, eliminate books, and generally change the entire knowledge economy. But I'm not. In fact, I've been teaching my authors and students how to leverage generative AI since 2020 (long before ChatGPT was all the rage). To me, generative AI is a tool just like Wikipedia was a new tool, social media was a new tool, smartphones, and typewriters were all new tools.

This tool is particularly powerful, and great power comes with some real risk. You see, the biggest problem with AI isn’t overuse.

It’s lazy delegation.

People let it create, instead of using it to organize. They want it to think for them, instead of helping them think faster, better, and deeper. If you think you're fooling people using ChatGPT right now to create content online... you ain't. We can see it... so you'd better use it to make your content even better... not just to lazily delegate this job to it.

If you take one thing from this article, let it be this:

I use AI to:

• Sort through my chaos
• Organize my own thoughts
• Speed up non-creative tasks
• Punch up clunky headlines or hooks
• Turn long-form writing into short-form repurposing

But I never use it to:

• Write book chapters
• Create original IP
• Replace my voice
• Replicate someone else’s story

But what's the real risk of using AI as a modern author, you may ask? For many marketing activities, the risk is probably low (other than brand risk). But one thing that is a risk is for a modern author... especially if you intend to publish your writing as a book, in a magazine, newspaper, or third-party online source, or for companies and conference materials. We've been very closely monitoring how Amazon and Barnes & Noble are banning books (and authors) who are obviously using AI for the bulk of their content.

So, yes, it's important generally, but it takes on a greater importance if you're creating content to appear in a book, article, or third-party publication.

TLDR: How I Use AI as a Modern Author

My Rule: Use AI to help organize, not create. Amplify, not replace.

The O.R.B.I.T. Framework:

• Organize your materials, transcripts, notes
• Repurpose content into new formats
• Boost headlines, hooks, intros
• Illuminate key insights from large inputs
• Tune tone, grammar, and clarity

Use AI to get out of your own way—but never out of your own voice.

That’s the modern author advantage.

Breaking down the O.R.B.I.T. Framework for Thought Leadership

Let me start with a personal story. Two years ago, I was writing this newsletter and putting out content fairly regularly (usually weekly, but at least twice a month). Newsletters like this take real time... I estimated that each 1,200-1,800-word newsletter (the average length of mine) took me about 3-4 hours to create.

I got busy (working on the Pennymores series and a new nonfiction book)... and my 3-4 hours of dedicated newsletter writing time got compressed. And the newsletter went dark. I considered hiring an intern, and I'd even tested earlier versions of ChatGPT, but none worked...

In December, I took a week and decided to see how to get back into the newsletter game. I spoke to many smart people, interviewed content creators, and talked to people I knew in the technology space. I asked them all the same question:

"How can I use generative AI without losing my voice?"

I realized I didn't need to replace myself—aka, find a ghostwriter, intern, or AI to write long-form content and articles like a 1,500-word newsletter.

I needed help... to do the work required to create a 1,500-word newsletter.

You see, it's not just writing that makes a newsletter great. It's organizing, researching, structuring, editing, marketing, and promoting. In fact, when I deconstructed those 3-4 hours, I realized that only about 45-60 minutes were me writing.

I liked the writing part; in fact, it was something that I didn't want to replace or give away. It was just the other 2-3 hours that often felt hard, boring, or extra.

After figuring out my own strategy as a Modern Author, I created a framework for working with generative AI called O.R.B.I.T.

Real Example: The Super Mentor Newsletter with Stephanie Wisner

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at my recent Super Mentor newsletter I published in April.

I created the Super Mentor newsletter because I want to do more paid workshops, trainings, and speeches at organizations and companies about modern mentorship. If a single reader discovers my work there and their company hires me for a consulting or training gig, that can be a five-to-six-figure engagement for me. A real, legit ROI.

But I also don't always have four hours a week. So I leverage the ORBIT framework to turn four-hours into 60-to-90 minutes (much more reasonable for me). The post was about Stephanie Wisner, one of the most impressive founders and first-time authors I’ve worked with. It might look like a simple article—but under the hood, it was built with the help of AI.

🔹 What I Had:

• The transcript of our interview
• Her LinkedIn bio and company page
• Her book intro chapter
• Notes from our strategy calls
• A short video I recorded for her
• My own book (Super Mentors)

🔹 What I Did:

I dropped all of that into GPT and asked a series of questions and prompts:

That work -- reading, reviewing, pouring over transcripts, etc. -- would usually take several hours. In just a few minutes of providing it all the disorganized but valuable things I already had, it gave me a useful structure: open with a project, show her mentor dynamic, link to the broader lesson, and close with a CTA.

Then I wrote and in about an hour I had a solid draft. I ran it through an editing pass to ask for areas to enhance and improve, and it provided me several things that could be tightened. Then I asked it to summarize the article into a short 300-400 word post that could drive LinkedIn readers to the article.

But if I had asked it to write the article? It would’ve fallen flat.

It wouldn’t know how I talk. It wouldn’t know the subtle tone in her voice when she shared something personal. It wouldn’t highlight the parts of our relationship that gave it all depth.

So I used the O.R.B.I.T. method (specifically three parts of it):

• Organize: Used AI to create a structure from the source materials
• Illuminate: Synthesized the major themes from her transcript
• Tune: Smoothed out a few phrases at the end

That’s it.

I wrote the piece.

But I didn’t spend 3 hours trying to find my notes or reorganize my brain. That’s what AI did.

Another Use Case: Gabby Bernstein & the Book Breakdowns

A lot of the Write Like a Thought Leader newsletters you’ve seen come from a similar process.

Take Gabby Bernstein’s profile as an example:

• I had already broken down her book (Spirit Junkie) by structure and tone
• I had the nearly sixty-minute transcript from her Modern Author Session
• I had some old author notes from a client using Gabby as a model

In truth, I'd probably invested fifteen hours into Gabby's world years earlier, before I even started the newsletter. That investment was valuable, but I needed help to sift through it and help organize it. Once I loaded those up and prompted AI:

Boom. Quotes. Ideas for the opening story. Instant draft of a newsletter outline.

It still took me 90 minutes to write, rewrite, and humanize it. But that’s better than the 3-4 hours I used to spend before AI helped me organize my own thoughts.

This is the biggest impact AI has had on my writing: I can write more, better, and faster... without outsourcing what matters most.

My Daily Rhythm with AI

While many people believe AI is a game-changer for creation, I'm more convinced it's biggest personal impact is as a thought partner. I've created coaching threads to help with my health and fitness, my strategies for my business, and approaches for marketing. That 'thought partnership' approach has been most transformative for me, and something I still feel like is barely scratching the surface.

Separately, I'm using ChatGPT to do some basic 'vibe coding' to develop some tools for Super Mentors. That ability to collaborate and teach is quite amazing. I've become much smarter about Python and actually feel more empowered to create tools for myself now.

And the writing? Well, I still write 2 hours a day. I still take long walks before I write. I still open blank docs and feel imposter syndrome and wrestle with first drafts.

But now?

• I can drop 5 past newsletters in and ask, what themes haven’t I touched lately?
• I can drop 10 LinkedIn hooks and say, give me 3 better ones using a question/quote model.
• I can write 200 words on a new book idea and ask, what framework could I build here?

It’s not my ghostwriter. It’s my co-pilot.

Final Thoughts: When AI Isn’t the Answer

I never use AI to:

• Write my books
• Create my frameworks
• Rewrite another author’s story
• Craft my sales pages

Why? Because these are the places where trust is everything. If someone buys my book or joins my program, they deserve to know it’s me. My words, my stories, my frameworks, my voice. Plus, there are some real risks if your writing will find its way into a book, conference proceedings, or a newspaper.

As Jay Clouse said: Trust is the most valuable asset we have. And if AI ever compromises that, it’s not worth the trade.

I hope this helps... if you aren't experimenting, learning, and testing AI-tools (yet), I strongly encourage that you do. But don't do it in the dark.

What Next?

Do you have a lot of content (blog posts, articles, transcripts, interviews, etc.) and have been struggling to organize it into a book? Schedule a call with me, and I'd be happy to help talk your through the framework I've seen working for people to structure their content using the "Though Leadership Triangle."

Happy to grab 15-minutes to help see if a little structure gets you where you're going: https://go.oncehub.com/ManuscriptsBookTopicChatf​

Have a wonderful week and happy writing y'all!

Eric