I didn’t even know my umbrella used to be stupid. Did you? But it’s smart now. Apparently, my cat’s food bowl was very dumb. Oh, I got that smart now. My infant baby’s diapers? They’re smart, meaning connected to the cloud, making them aware of poop saturation data, and able to send me a notification that feels disturbingly human. Like, “It’s your turn to change her.”
What the hell?
This age of smart-ification, it got so good to us that we couldn’t stop. Now we’re out here trying to make everything intelligent. And once again, we’re feeling part exhilarated and part terrified. We’re so focused on adding the word “smart” to our devices that we’ve forgotten to add it where it truly counts: to our society, our leadership, our humanity.
Because a smart device can give you data, but it can’t give you goosebumps. It can track your heart rate, but it can’t make your heart leap. As a Grammy Nominated Spoken Word Artist, my job is to connect with the human, not the hardware. So let’s stop trying to smarten up our silverware and start building a wiser world. Here’s how.
1. Trade “Smart” for “Wise.”
There’s a difference. “Smart” is a device connected to the cloud, aware of data. “Intelligent” is the ability to process that data. But “wise”? Wisdom is about being connected to compassion, aware of your impact, and more human in ways that make us better. We need to stop desperately trying to add the word “smart” in front of tech and start adding the word “wise” in front of tech, “intelligent” in front of leader, and “smart” in front of society. The goal isn’t just to be connected; it’s to connect with purpose.
2. Give Your Tech Some Home Training.
Let’s be real. Raising AI feels a lot like parenting. We made this thing, and we want it to grow up and be better than us… but not eliminate us. Can I get an amen? It better not get so smart that its smart mouth gets its smart ass grounded. You better take that bass out your voice, ChatGPT! The most inspiring tech won’t come from better code, but from better parenting. We have to teach it empathy and ethics, gratitude and grace. We have to model the best of humanity so that by the time AI becomes sentient enough to commandeer humanity, it’s already in love with us. Somebody tell your neighbor: AI just needs some home training.
3. Read the Poem, Not Just the Patient Chart.
A smart device sees data points. A wise leader sees the human story behind them. In healthcare, we can get so lost in the mathematics of health that we forget the humanities of care. But this isn’t just for doctors. It’s for every leader, every salesperson, every human. Stop speaking to people like they’re business cards or corporate bullet points. Listen to the metaphors of their body language. Read the unspoken scriptures that whisper the secrets to their success. Your customer is not a segment; she is a soul. Your employee is not a resource; he is a story waiting to be heard. The most inspirational leadership happens when you see the poem beneath the data.
4. Stock Armani Gauze in Your Glovebox.
Innovators see the world through the machete-shaped lens of a trailblazer. But here’s the thing: you can’t blaze a trail if you’re afraid to fail. You gotta be willing to fail forward, fail smart, and wear that intellectual capital like proud battle scars. We need to create a culture where it’s safe to fail, where we hand out Neosporin at staff meetings and say, “Don’t come back without lacerations!” A smart device is programmed to avoid errors. A wise culture knows that our best teacher is our last mistake. You win some, you learn some. So get out there and get some beautiful bruises.
5. Chase the Goosebump.
This is the whole point. Technology can understand the physiology behind goosebumps. It can manipulate the chemical reaction in us to create goosebumps. It can even manufacture artificial skin that emulates goosebumps. But it will never know what it feels like to have our skin brailed with the language of wonderment. That, my friends, is our domain. That is our superpower. The ultimate purpose of technology is not just to become more human, but to make us more human—to handle the data so we can focus on the goosebumps. Because as the world’s best tech gets even better, it should free us up to fall in love, to sing off-key in a crowd of 50,000, to feel the awe that no algorithm can replicate.
The future isn’t about choosing between man and machine. It’s about creating a culture where there is no ‘I’ in team, but there is always an ‘AI’ in team—a collaborator that superpowers our purpose. This is the kind of spoken word poetry that I, as a motivational poet, believe we can write for our future.
Let’s be the Vanguard Artist of our own evolution. Let’s stop outsourcing our wisdom to our devices and start cultivating it in ourselves. Because humanity is the one thing technology can forever enhance but can never inherit. And that’s a truth that should give us all goosebumps.
