Issue #11: Stop Outsourcing the Most Human Part of Your Job (Before It’s Too Late)
You’ve been here before. And it sucks…
You're on a Zoom call with seven people across four time zones. Three of them are half-listening while answering Slack messages. Two haven't turned their cameras on. And you've got eight minutes to get budget approval before someone's "hard stop."
Your deck is flawless. Your data is airtight. ChatGPT even helped you tighten the executive summary. (No judgment... we've all dipped our toes while some of us are straight bathing in it.)
But six slides in, you can feel the energy dying. The camera-on people are nodding politely. The camera-off people are probably making lunch. And you're watching your perfectly logical proposal lose the room in real time.
AI can generate the analysis in 90 seconds. It can write the summary, build the business case, and probably present it better than half the people on this call.
But it can't make anyone care.
That takes emotion. Connection. The human moment that makes something matter. Pathos, people. Pathos!
And if you can't tell that story in a way that cuts through the clutter, you're basically just adding to it. Another Teams video they'll watch on 1.5x speed. Another email they'll skim between meetings and forget by lunch. Or another summary written by the same AI that created the content in the first place. (Do you think Claude gets the irony?)
AI is efficient. Human communication is effective. And they're not the same thing.
AI gives you the cleanest path from point A to point B. But humans meander. We digress. We take the long way around to make a point.
And that "inefficiency" — the pauses, the detours, the emotional weight we carry into a room — is exactly what makes storytelling beautiful, compelling, and emotionally charged. It's what makes people actually give a damn.
Every "give a damn" moment in business is a story you're telling someone. Your boss. Your board. Your team. Your client.
The question isn't whether you're telling stories. It's whether you're telling compelling ones. Or whether you've outsourced the most human part of your job to Sam Altman or Elon Musk.
In 2026, human connection will matter more than ever. It's one of the only things AI can't replace so it might even be a tool for non-obsolescence. A competitive advantage.
Plus, your team doesn't just want a vision... they want to feel why it matters.
And no chatbot can deliver that with your voice, your bumps and bruises, or your slightly-too-long metaphor about the time your toddler locked you out of the house. (That one always hits.)
This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain on Story.
Let's talk science.
In The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall nails it:
"We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories."
That's not a metaphor. That's neuroscience. Our brains are wired to process the world through narrative. It's how we make sense of chaos, connect with others, and decide what matters.
In fact, our love of stories runs so deep we daydream up to 2,000 times a day. When bored for even a second, boom… story time. (Like right now. Don't lie. I can take it. Maybe.)
Here's where it gets wild. Princeton researchers discovered something called neural coupling. When you tell a compelling story, the listener's brain activity literally synchronizes with yours.
You're not just sharing information. You're creating shared experience. The listener's brain mirrors the storyteller's brain. That's why stories spread and spreadsheets don't.
People remember stories 22 times more than facts alone. Stanford proved it. And they have some real brainiacs over there. So, when you lead with data — and an AI-driven facsimile of authentic emotion — in the hope of getting people to care, you're fighting an uphill battle against evolution itself.
Annette Simmons describes this perfectly in The Story Factor. Great storytelling blends three elements: ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). That's the persuasion trifecta.
Facts alone are just logos. But stories activate all three. They make people think, feel, and trust you at the same time.
And that's the part AI can't fake. It can generate emotional language. It can structure a narrative. But it can't deliver your credibility, your bumps and bruises, your lived experience.
Trust doesn't come from perfect phrasing. It comes from a human being willing to show up, be real, and say "this mattered to me — and here's why it should matter to you."
It doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be your own.
🧂 Why Storytelling Works
You know this stuff works. Every great book, great movie, great song — they all start with a great story that connects emotionally. (Including — and especially — Chumbawamba. We have all been knocked down, only to get up again).
So, this isn't motivational fluff disguised as leadership advice. It's hard-wired neuroscience that explains why some leaders move people and others just move PowerPoint slides.
Here's what happens when you master storytelling in the modern workplace:
Your Brain on Story Releases Five Powerful Chemicals Tension triggers cortisol, grabbing attention. Emotion releases oxytocin, building trust. Resolution delivers dopamine, locking memory in place. Add endorphins from humor and serotonin from inspiration, and you've got a neurochemical recipe for recall, connection, and action. Those are the things you need convincing when a client to buy something, a boss to give you a promotion, or a child under 9 to go to bed on time.
Async Work Killed Your Presence, Stories Bring It Back Your pitch is a Loom video watched at 1.5x speed. Your update gets skimmed on someone's commute. Your deck gets reviewed at 11pm between emails. You don't get body language, follow-up questions, or real-time rapport. You get four minutes of attention and one shot to land the message. If your story only works when you're in the room, it doesn't work. Period.
Attention Is the New Currency (And Stories Buy It) Your colleague is multitasking in Slack. Your boss has six more meetings today. Your client is choosing between you and two other vendors while their kid screams about snacks. Nobody has time for 40 slides. But they'll always stop for a compelling human story that makes them give a [beep]. That is your simple objective: make your audience care.
🍴 Try a Bite This Week
You are already telling stories. Now you need to shift your mind from being an analyst or designer or sales rep who tells stories to being a storyteller who analyzes, designs, and sells.
The good news is you don't need a Hollywood screenwriter's skill set. You just need to stop defaulting to AI and data dumps and start defaulting to authenticity and real moments… aka, lead with emotion — you know, the human part.
Here are three ways to make your stories land this week:
🍴 The Async Story Test Record your next update as a two-minute Loom or voice memo without slides. Just you. Just the story. If it doesn't land, your story isn't strong enough yet. In 2026, if your message only works with 30 slides and you physically in the room, you've already lost. Practice telling it like you're leaving a voicemail for someone you respect. That's the bar now. No slides. No charts. Just the story that makes them care.
🍴 The "Camera-Off" Reframe Assume half your audience isn't fully present. (Because they're not. And you know it.) Your opening needs to grab attention in 10 seconds or less. Start with the moment, the problem, or the tension — not the context. "Last week, a client walked. Here's what we learned..." beats "So just to provide some background on Q4 performance metrics..." every single time. You don't get a warm-up. You get 10 seconds. Use them.
🍴 Human Moments Beat AI Summaries Next time you're tempted to let AI write your update email, ask yourself: would this make me stop scrolling? If it sounds like every other AI-generated corporate update, rewrite the opening line yourself. One sentence. One human moment. One reason to care. "This idea almost died in committee… Here's why it didn't." That's a story. The rest is just reporting or regurgitation. And nobody remembers reporting or wants to remember regurgitation.
A Final Thought
Storytelling is the most human thing we do. It's how we've passed down wisdom, built movements, and made sense of the world for thousands of years.
It's a vehicle for innovation and progress, and in many cases, connection and joy. A vehicle that hums along at home and in the workplace. Fine-tuning it helps the journey we are on and revving it up can take us on ones we've never even imagined.
So, let's not be content bumping along in a lime green Pinto. Sure, we won't all be Bentleys and Lambos, but we can all upgrade to at least something with heated seats and a moonroof.
And we certainly shouldn't hand the keys over to Grok. I mean, do you really want something named Grok navigating the road — let alone human emotions?
For the record, I'm not anti-AI. I actually love it. (I talk to Claude more than my wife now and we are all happier for it).
But I also love the art and science of storytelling. And those two things don't have to be at odds.
Use AI. Let it write your first draft, clean up your grammar, tighten your prose. But don't let it write the one thing that still requires you to show up as a human. The moment that made this matter. The tension that made this real. The reason someone should care.
When everyone's drowning in AI-generated content, async updates, and back-to-back Teams calls, the one who can tell a story that feels real is the one who wins.
Not because they're more polished. Not because they have better slides. But because they made someone stop, pay attention, and actually give a damn.
And that's something no algorithm can do for you. Yet.
🌶️ Add Your Spice
What's the best story you've ever heard at work that actually made you change your mind or take action?
Share it in the comments. Your story might be someone's wake-up call to ditch the deck and just tell it.
If this resonated, share it with someone who has stories worth telling — and is ready to tell them.