More Human

I haven’t flown into a completely foreign country on my own in quite some time. I’ve forgotten the feeling of being totally lost in a city. Travel has a way of stripping away competence. You become, almost immediately, a beginner. New streets, new sounds, a foreign language…the strange, humbling experience of needing help to do even the simplest things.

I was using Google Translate, of course. Holding my phone up between myself and strangers, letting the algorithm do its best impression of understanding. Sometimes it worked surprisingly well. Sometimes it produced something completely absurd. We would laugh. We would try again.

But what I kept noticing is that none of the tech is the real bridge. The real connection is the moment I looked someone in the eyes and worked it out together. A quick nod or kind smile with a squint of the eyes — any effort to meet each other halfway without the luxury of perfect words. It was so simple it almost feels naive to name. But when it happened, and it worked, we could feel it in our chests. Something tiny but true passing between total strangers.

Being there made me think about writing and sharing with you in this technological boom we’re in — more surrounded, flooded really, by language.

Machines can already explain almost anything. They can summarize articles, generate insights, offer tips, and produce endless clean paragraphs that sound like they know what they’re talking about. And some of that is useful. Truly.

But it also makes me wonder what will become rare? And in turn, what will become valuable?

I don’t think it will be more information. I think it will be presence.

The feeling, through a conversation, an experience, and even a screen, that there is a real person on the other side of the words. Someone who has wrestled with what they’re saying or writing. Someone who is seeking to understand, getting lost, and trying to share bits of life and work the best way they know how. 

That’s when information will land on a deeper level.

I actually think this is the work of every leader today. No one needs you to be perfect. Instead, be an honest, human translator. Parse what matters most in ways that can be understood, felt, and shared.

So here’s to a year of sharing...no matter how good the technology gets. 

And to being more human, together.