The Conversation AI Can't Have

For thousands of years, people have gathered to witness human beings at their very best.

The ancient Greeks built theaters where audiences laughed, cried, and wrestled with the choices of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. They created the Olympic Games to celebrate discipline, athleticism, and the remarkable partnership between mind and body.

Today we fill stadiums instead. Wimbledon. The World Cup. The Super Bowl. We cheer for our side, and somewhere along the way, we find ourselves inspired by excellence on either side — by people who, in a stretch moment, reach beyond what once seemed impossible. The greatest competitors don't diminish one another. They elevate one another. Their commitment draws out the very best in everyone on the field.

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show demonstrated that commitment for me.

He looked straight into the camera and said:

"I'm here because I never, ever stopped believing in myself."

Then he encouraged millions of strangers to do the same.

"You're worth more than you think."

He was speaking from his heart, so the statement still makes me smile.

His conviction took me back to a flight home from Denver, when I realized that believing in myself is about choosing to put my mind and heart where my greatest value is, no matter what circumstances I face.

Above all else, I value love.

Have you ever felt trapped in a situation you couldn't escape, where the only thing left under your control was the quality of your own thoughts?

I have.

The Flight That Changed My Conviction About Self-Talk

About thirty minutes into a late-night flight, a young man near the front of the plane began unraveling. He screamed that he'd been assaulted and that the flight was going down. He filmed passengers. He frightened the flight attendants. He locked himself in the lavatory and made a terrible mess. Every outburst ratcheted up the tension inside that cabin.

Fear is contagious.

I noticed one of the flight attendants was pregnant. She was the one cleaning up the bathroom, tears in her eyes.

That's when my own mind started racing. What if he hurts someone? What if this gets worse?

Burying my face in my hands, I asked: "What can I do?"

The answer came immediately: hold love in your heart. For him. For the flight attendants. For every person on this airplane.

This was the single area where I had control, my mind.

I focused on feeling love and gratitude instead of fear. I dialed into the feeling in my body, and held kindness for others alongside it. With committed awareness of myself, and positive feeling toward everyone around me, the tension in my body lifted..

Over the next ninety minutes, something remarkable happened.

A passenger quietly exchanged seats with the frightened woman sitting beside the young man. A calm, steady presence settled in beside him instead. The flight attendants continued doing their jobs with extraordinary professionalism. Eventually, we landed safely. Seven state troopers boarded the plane, and the young man walked off without any commotion.

As I walked through Logan Airport at 4 AM that morning, one thought stayed with me: maybe where I chose to place my attention impacted the people beyond my own row.

Why Calm — and Fear — Are Contagious

After years of studying mental fitness, one thing is clear: our emotional state influences the people around us. Calm is contagious. So is fear. Kindness is contagious. So is criticism.

Every conversation we have begins with the conversation we're having inside our own heads. That's the conversation that shapes our relationships, our leadership, our families, and our communities.Research on how leaders talk to themselves backs up what that flight taught me directly: how you speak to yourself doesn't stay contained inside your own head. It moves outward, into every room you enter.

And it's the one conversation AI can never have for us.

The Conversation AI Can't Have For You

Ironically, I used AI while writing this article. It's a tool that helps me recognize patterns across years of my own stories, presentations, and experiences. It shows me what I don't always see in myself. My work has always been about helping people recognize the extraordinary influence they have over their own experience, when they tend to their own thoughts first. When I began coaching leaders, some of that focus shifted toward the influence the story inside your head has on the people around you.

That insight didn't come from AI. It came from personal reflection. AI can reveal the pattern; only I can decide what it means, and where to place my attention. Only I can direct the conversation in my head toward who I want to be.

That's the conversation I practice daily, because the quality of our lives and our influence on everyone around us, depends on the quality of the conversation we're having with ourselves.

If one frightened passenger could affect every nervous system on an airplane, imagine what one calm, grounded, compassionate person can do in your family, your workplace, your hospital, your classroom, or your community.

One conversation at a time.

And the most important one may be the one no machine can rehearse for you, answer for you, or live for you. That's the conversation I want to explore next.

Common Questions About Self-Talk and Leadership

What is self-talk, and why does it matter for leaders? Self-talk is the ongoing internal dialogue running beneath every decision, interaction, and reaction. For leaders, it matters because that internal state doesn't stay private. It shapes tone, presence, and the emotional climate of every room they occupy.

Can self-talk really affect the people around you? Yes. Emotional states are contagious in groups, especially under pressure. A leader's internal calm — or internal fear — tends to spread to the people nearby, often before a single word is spoken.

How is self-talk different from what AI can offer? AI can help surface patterns across someone's own stories and experiences, but it can't have the internal conversation for them. Deciding what those patterns mean and choosing where to direct one's attention remain distinctly human acts.

If this resonated, join my newsletter — I share more reflections like this one, along with the small mental fitness practices that help me have this conversation with myself, one day at a time.