"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That Sucks." - Jeff Hammerbacher, former Chief Data Scientist, Facebook
My oldest son is a junior in high school, putting us in the prime sphere for discussing options for higher education. As is my trend, we are veering left while the world veers right. Amidst LinkedIn influencers and Silicon Valley smooth brains advocating for a live gleaned by content creation, AI self-"education" and the general dumbing down of the American populace, he, my wife, and I are zoomed on the question:
What kind of mind, heart, and capacity prepare you to be a robust and resilient contribution to a good society?
A lot of folks think this kind of thinking is foolish and archaic, stuck in a past era that moves slower, cares about things like people, nature, and mutual well being. I am, as I mentioned, foolish enough to believe that thinking about each other, being able to converse across systems both verdant and decaying, and not selling yourself out to the latest fad is something worth pursuing.
We've discussed mostly medical arenas, as that is his interest... a completely foreign topic to me as I would rather eat glass than think about an open wound. (The joke is that eating glass produces an open wound... there. I did it. I explained the joke.) EMT. Nursing. And lately ER medicine. I blame The Pitt.
But last week, as we were driving through the gorgeous campus at the University of Kansas for funsies on our way back from New Mexico, he shared that he had ethics and philosophy on the mind. "I want to be able to know why the right thing is the right thing and be able to explain it." It seemed, to him, a logical pre-requisite for a life in medicine.
Did I burst open with parental pride? Not quite. That might have produced an open wound, and he is, as of yet, untrained.
Later, when the topic came up again, I repeated my consistent refrain: there are a billion good options; this isn't one decision its a thousand, and I want you to do what makes sense to you (within reason.) As parents who've made it past toddler know, at some point you look at them and you realize: this child is mostly baked with only a gooey center that I need to make sure doesn't spill out all over the highway. Other than that... they've got to figure this out themselves.
His brothers were among us and I used the moment to say something that I've been wanting to say, but hadn't yet found the words: "Please make better choices than we did." My generation spent its best efforts turning the real world into the internet, the internet into a drug-peddling slot machine, and that slot machine into a replacement for critical thought. None of those technologies had to turn out that way, but we built them without a second thought to consequence, to context, and yes... to philosophy.
To move forward doesn't require a luddite's abandonment of progress. It requires leaders, deep in their context, grounded in an accurate view of their current risks and opportunities, free to make strategic decisions. If you're obsessed with efficiency shortcuts, you're not running a business, you're assembling your own replacement on the back of someone else's AI.
The risk lies in leaders who believe that technology alone, contextless, value-free, extractive, and unmoored from the real needs of customers, team members, and societies are somehow a replacement for life in human form. These pied pipers are slowly hollowing out their own industries, not with technology but a base misanthropy. They are attempting to lead a cultural revolution of anti-humanism, not solve fundamental problems.
By contrast, trust-made leaders, Undivided Leaders, aren't notable for their technology selections, but for their clarity, grounding, and strategic simplicity. They are built to overperform.
They aren't wooed away from their problems by quick fixes and shiny objects. They resist, constitutionally, the woo to fragmentation and distraction that our era thrives upon. They see problem solving and opportunity as a function of the mind, of allegiances, of trust, of the joyous delivery of remarkable value.
Part of the flaw of automated thinking is that it pulls everything out of context, parsing into fractionalized bits of attention and tactic chasing. It makes the questions of place, time, person, and feeling into questions for algorithms to spin up the feeling of attention. While promising personalization, it pulls people into raw averages, dehumanizing them and the connections we share along the way.
Mistakes have been made by attributing the current economic standstill to AI. This degradation is generational, My generation, primarily. A generation trying to build a world of shortcuts, not solutions. Vibes, not value. Without a dramatic change in course, it will be the legacy we leave to the world.
One of my favorite things about Gen Z is their sniffer. They have been surrounded by bullshit all their life, the fakery at scale that the current stage of the internet and media provides. They've watched people my age slide into fakery to just survive the last decade of uncertainty. They've zagged against the Millennial zig of using "authenticity" as a trading card on the internet.
All real quotes. And all rising in prevalence. These fresh faces start turning 30 next year, and like every generation before them, they will look at the world we've built for them and run the other way. Mostly to irritate their Millennial overlords and Gen X posers.
One of the reasons I started training folks in the six factors (and twelve competencies) for Undivided Leadership, the human element in Trust-Made Growth® is because strategy comes from the grounding (or lack thereof of the leader). My team can step in and work with your team on moving strategy from reactive to proactive. I can help you prioritize next best growth action that keeps your integrity clear and doesn't succumb you to Big Tech Tax and tactical waste. And we will continue to do that. But all of it is leader dependent. Leaders who are undivided in their attention, their integrity, their strategic consistency, their prioritization.
If you lead a venture today. Here's your action plan for grounding:
My work is dependent on a new and rising cadre of leaders—of all generations—willing to re-integrate all the layers of our thinking, acting, and being. The work of the Liberal Arts. The work of the Philosopher Kings, if you will. We could wait for Gen Z to do it, as I suspect they will, but I'd rather link arms with all of you and do it together.
Forward, forward,
Nick
PS - Take a look below. We've got strategic sprints, 1:1 coaching opportunities, analytical testing, and career development across the Trust-Made Growth system. You can invest a month or build toward a full transformation. You can work on your own venture, or get trained to offer TMG solutions to others. The important part is to start.
Stay brains on, heart open, forward progress.
