On Tuesdays, I try to get out of my environment. If not off my computer completely, at least away from my desk.

Today, I ventured to a coffee shop and found myself seated next to a meetup for people practicing their Italian. I don’t know their exact schedule, but I ran into them there last month on a Tuesday as well.

A pretty varied crew — old, young, men, women, students, retired — about 8 or 9 people both times I’ve seen them.

What struck me this time was how the dynamics shifted as each person arrived.

The first arrival finished his pastry before anyone else showed up.

The second came in and started fielding questions in Italian about her recent trip to Mexico.

The third came in quietly and just listened.

The fourth came in loudly, sat at the head of the table and drew most of the attention for the rest of the hour.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh trickled in, got settled, and popped into the conversation when they could.

Chatter continued, jokes were made, some English was interspersed when someone got stuck.

And that’s when it struck me.

You could spend hours on Duolingo or any AI-trained language app and still not replicate the same beautiful chaos and unpredictable mess that you get from a group of humans gathered.

And that collective chaos is where you can truly practice, learn, and grow your craft.

I see the parallel in our consulting work clearly.

I work with new(ish) consultants to build out their positioning and the verbal and visual narrative that carries them to market.

We go back and forth 1:1 at length and often bring in AI to brainstorm and pressure-test.

But the real epiphanies come when my client takes their consulting narrative out for a test drive.

Out of the safety zone I’ve created as a thought partner.

Away from the helpful, but ultimately manipulatable AI co-pilot.

And rather, they seek out real feedback from their past and potential clients.

Bounce a sharpened point of view off a live audience.

Apply a new signature framework to a real client context.

That’s when you really know if it has legs or not.

Whether it can survive the complexity of the human mess.

Besides, that beautiful mess is the reason our role exists in the first place.

💡

-Wes

P.S. Speaking of humans getting together...

If you’re in the Seattle area, the Seattle Solos in-person meetup has migrated to Luma!

​Subscribe to our calendar here - and get details about our next meetup on May 27th.