I've been thinking a lot about Superman lately, which is not something I expected to say at this stage of my life, but stay with me, because he's become one of my favorite ways to talk about what's happening in nearly every workplace I walk into right now.

You know the story. He's faster than a speeding bullet, nearly indestructible, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and yet there's one thing on this planet that can bring him to his knees: a glowing green rock called kryptonite. What most people forget is where kryptonite comes from. It's a broken-off piece of Krypton, his home planet, the very place that made him who he is.

Now think about AI for a moment. It's built from pieces of us, from everything humans have ever written and decided and wondered about, broken off and reassembled into something that can think faster than we do, out-produce an entire team in seconds, and never once needs a coffee break. That's exactly why it feels so familiar, and exactly why it's so easy to hold it too close.

Here's the part that matters. Superman doesn't throw kryptonite away. He keeps it in a lead-lined box, because when it's contained and used on purpose, it's useful and even valuable. It's only when he carries it around in his pocket, always within reach, that it starts quietly draining the strength that made him extraordinary in the first place.

AI is no different from anything else we consume too much of. I love sugar. I eat a box of Mike and Ike's at every Husker sporting event, and somehow it calms my nerves, but if I started eating candy at every meal, I would feel terrible. I freaking love reality television (who is watching Big Brother right now?), but if I watched it all day, every day, it would suck the life right out of me. In the right amount, these things make our lives better, and when they become all-consuming, they can cost us everything. The same is true of the tool sitting open in your browser right now. If we don't keep it in the box, used deliberately to help us, it will slowly take the very things that made us valuable.

So what brings Superman back? He steps away from the kryptonite and back into the sun. For us, that sun is our humanity: our emotions, our empathy, our ability to be changed by an experience and make meaning out of the mess. AI can't feel what we feel or grow the way we grow, because it has never actually lived a single moment of its own.

And here's what I see in so many organizations: that sunlight is being blocked. People are masking and performing and agreeing with whatever direction comes from the top, and when everyone around a leader is operating from fear, that leader is driving the bus toward the cliff without any warning. The most human thing in the room, your intuition and discernment, is the very thing that's gone missing.

This is the heart of the keynote I'm bringing to stages and leadership teams right now, and it's the conversation I believe every organization needs to be having. If your team, your conference, or your leadership retreat could use a room full of people rediscovering how to co-exist in the age of AI without losing the humanity that makes them irreplaceable, I would love to bring it to you. Take a look at the keynote here:

👉 Book me to speak: https://www.karabundedunn.com/speaker

And I'd love to hear from you, too: where in your life or work is the kryptonite sitting outside the box right now?

With so much gratitude,
Kara