You know the feeling. You arrive home but can’t quite remember the drive. You answer “Good, you?” before the other person even finishes asking how you are. You sit through a whole meeting, nodding along, only to realize you have no idea what was decided. That, my friends, is your brain on autopilot. It’s the leading cause of “how did I get here?” moments and the number one killer of “what if?” ideas. It’s not personal, it’s just… busyness.
As a spoken word artist, I’m obsessed with the rhythms of life, and I’ve noticed autopilot has the most boring rhythm of all. It’s the same beat, day in and day out. It’s predictable. It’s safe. And it’s a cage for your creativity and your humanity. Growth is uncomfortable. It requires disrupting your current form. So how do you beat disruption to its destination? You become the glitch in your own system. You interrupt yourself.
Here are five ways to grab the controls back from your autopilot.
1. Ask “What If?” in the Middle of “What Is.”
You’re in a meeting. The conversation is following the same tired script it always does. The agenda is a carbon copy of last week’s. Right there, in that moment of soul-crushing sameness, I want you to do something radical. I want you to interrupt. Not the person speaking, but the convention. Ask the question that opens a door: “I know this sounds crazy, but what if…?” What if there’s another way? What if we approached this like we were kids in a sandbox instead of executives in a boardroom? Innovators see the world through the machete-shaped lens of a trailblazer. “What if?” is the first swing of that machete.
2. Schedule a “Shiny Object” Session.
Remember this? “First, I’m going to… ooh, shiny object!” We’ve been trained to see our curiosity as a distraction, a bug in our productivity software. I say it’s a feature. Instead of fighting it, schedule it. For 15 minutes a day, give yourself permission to chase that squirrel. Click the weird link. Go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Read about something that has absolutely nothing to do with your job. Remember the carpenters who got their best ideas for respiratory masks from inline skaters? The more distant the field, the more novel the ideas. That “shiny object” might just be the flash of a game-changing innovation.
3. Start with a Human, Not a Headline.
The autopilot way to start a meeting is with the agenda. The numbers. The bullet points. You’re talking to business cards, not human beings. Stop it. As a motivational poet, I’ve seen that the single best way to connect a room is to start with the human. Before you dive into the data, ask a real question. “What’s one small win you had this week?” “What’s one thing you’re looking forward to?” “What’s the best thing you ate?” It feels weird at first. It feels… personal. Good. It should. Because we only let business up in our personal space because we want to keep business in a purposeful place. Acknowledge the human first, and the professional will show up with their whole heart.
4. Find Your “Scrawny Yvonne Lewis.”
On the fifth-grade playground, my dodgeball team was on a losing streak. I kept picking the biggest, strongest boys—the obvious choices. My trusted advisor told me to pick “scrawny Yvonne Lewis.” I protested, but I did it. And Yvonne “The Arm” Lewis led us on a five-week winning streak. Autopilot tells you to go with the obvious solution, the safest bet, the biggest boy in the lineup. I’m telling you to look for your Yvonne Lewis. Look for the idea that seems scrawny. Seek out the perspective you always overlook. Go to the conference breakout session that has nothing to do with your job. True high-performance energy doesn’t come from comfort; it comes from the collision of different perspectives. Hire for combustion, not for comfort.
5. Tell a Story. Badly.
“Uncle Koo, will you tell me the story of Cinderella?” If I treated my niece like we treat our customers, I’d say: “Sure, sweetie. Be nice. Be home by midnight. Women love shoes. The end.” She’d never ask me for a story again. Your audience knows your products by heart. They aren’t moved by data; they’re moved by the experience. The next time you have to give a presentation, I challenge you to frame your key point as a story. Even a bad one. Even the “women love shoes” version. You don’t have to be a Grammy Nominated Poet, Sekou Andrews, to tell a story. You just have to be human enough to try. The act of trying to find the journey, not just the destination, will change how you communicate forever.
Autopilot is for machines. Interruptions, glitches, and uncomfortable questions are for humans. This is the heart of powerful spoken word poetry, and it’s the heart of a powerful, engaged life. It’s the work I do as a Vanguard Artist and Grammy Nominated Spoken Word Artist Sekou Andrews, helping people find their voice by first finding their humanity. The most inspirational technology you have is the story that connects you to another person. Don’t let a machine fly it.
So go ahead. Be the glitch in your own groove.
