A strange thing happened to me last week. I stopped creating content.
Life got in the way, in the best way.
My children were away for a few days, which is rare, and I found myself saying yes to opportunities I wouldn’t normally have. I caught up with friends. I went to a load of music events. I stayed out late. I laughed a lot. I even picked up a summer cold along the way.
By every content creator metric, it wasn’t a particularly productive week! By every human metric, it was one of the richest weeks I’ve had in a long time.
It made me think about something I believe we’re going to have to confront over the next few years. For the last two decades we’ve been rewarded for documenting our lives.
Share the insight and post the photo. Capture the moment and turn the experience into content.
Now, AI can generate polished content in seconds. The ability to produce words is no longer scarce.
Human experience is.
That’s why I’m banging the drum on what I’m calling The Human Renaissance. It’s not a rejection of AI, it’s quite the opposite. I use it every day.
But as technology becomes better at creating polished communication, the value of genuinely human communication increases.
Perspectives don’t come from sitting behind a screen all day.
They come from living and having difficult conversations.
From watching your children grow up, making mistakes, travelling, trying something new. From spending time with people who challenge your thinking. From being fully present in moments that never become LinkedIn posts.
I spend much of my career helping leaders, founders and speakers develop talks that change minds.
One thing I’ve learnt is that audiences rarely remember perfectly crafted sentences.
So this summer, if you have the opportunity, give yourself permission to spend a little less time creating and a little more time collecting experiences.
Have the conversation, or go take the walk. Go to the gig. Leave your phone in your pocket (or even your house) every now and then.
The quality of our communication has always depended on the quality of the life behind it.
I’m running an experiment called Thinking Out Loud where I share my thoughts without much forethought. Come join me on Instagram @helenpackham
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