0:03 I tried to exchange a $30 bag of dog
0:05 food at Petco for another $30 bag and
0:10 the cashier was like, "That'll be $30
0:11 because I used rewards which are
0:13 non-refundable, but I was just I was
0:14 doing an exchange. I wasn't doing a
0:16 refund store policy. Sorry. There's no
0:18 way to fix it." She points to the screen
0:19 and she's like, "No, it won't let me. I
0:20 don't have the authority to do
0:23 overrides." Full stop. At that moment,
0:24 she wasn't even a person anymore. She
0:26 was just like a biological interface, a
0:29 meat suit for the software.
0:32 So I was like, "Can a manager override
0:35 it?" So she waves him over, comes over,
0:37 click, click, click, smile. Sorry. It's
0:39 kind of a dumb policy. Have a good day.
0:41 Why did that start so complicated? It's
0:43 because we're living in an algorithmic
0:46 age. Today, I want you to show you one,
0:47 how forcing yourself to follow
0:49 nonsensical rules actually [laughter]
0:52 physically hurts you. Two, why the human
0:54 override is the only way to protect your
0:58 dignity. and three, how one moment of
1:01 breaking the script can change a life.
1:03 So, it often feels like there are more
1:05 benefits to defaulting to rigid policy
1:07 enforcement. It's easier, it's safer,
1:11 and sometimes feels good. Like, I don't
1:12 have a lot of power, but I I definitely
1:15 have the power to like not help you. And
1:18 the problem is is when you surrender
1:21 your judgment to rigid rules, we aren't
1:23 actually winning. We're damaging our own
1:25 psychology. Psychologists call this
1:27 surface acting. Forcing yourself to
1:30 stick to a script you know is wrong.
1:31 According to research published in the
1:33 journal of occupational health
1:36 psychology in 2024, this surface acting
1:38 is the leading predictor of
1:42 cardiovascular strain and emotional
1:44 exhaustion. It literally hurts your
1:47 heart to act like a machine. A 2024
1:50 study in behavioral sciences found that
1:52 when um workers are stripped of
1:55 decision-making power, it triggers a
1:59 state of perceived threat. Your brain
2:01 perceives that lack of autonomy as
2:04 danger creating constant level panic. A
2:08 2024 report by insightful on workplace
2:11 stress confirms that this dynamic in a
2:14 uh is the primary driver of it doesn't
2:16 matter that you are limiting yourself.
2:17 That's actually worse. You are
2:19 practicing self- eraser. You are
2:22 training yourself to be helpless.
2:26 So what is the alternative? I'm
2:27 [laughter] I'm not asking you to be a
2:29 better employee so that I can get my $30
2:31 rewards back.
2:34 I'm asking you to perform the human
2:38 override for your own sake. A 2024 study
2:39 from Harvard Business School highlights
2:42 that while AI can predict data, it lacks
2:43 the theory of mind. It can't understand
2:46 empathy or ethical context. Everyone is
2:48 scared of AI. They think it's going to
2:51 take over yet all of our jobs. But we
2:53 are willingly erasing the one advantage
2:56 that we have over AI, our humanity. The
2:58 machine, it creates an algorithmic cage.
3:01 But you have the key. We often say that,
3:03 you know, I don't want to I don't just
3:05 want a paycheck. I want to feel like I
3:08 what I do matters because deep down we
3:09 know that shaping this world around you
3:12 is the only real power that there is.
3:14 Start being human again. And the
3:16 interesting thing is is that the most
3:18 insignificant thing to you can actually
3:22 have a profound effect on someone else.
3:24 So for this last story, we are going to
3:27 travel to 1994, a world of zero
3:29 tolerance. A world where we follow the
3:31 algorithm no matter what. Where you get
3:33 to picture me as a high school student
3:39 with a glorious 1.97 GPA and over 3,800
3:41 truencies, the teachers had actually
3:43 stopped caring about me and they only
3:46 kept tabs on me to see
3:48 um if so they had a pool going. They
3:51 basically had bet on whether I was going
3:53 to die, go to jail, or get pregnant
3:55 first. And they they openly were
3:58 gambling on this. According to the CDC
4:02 2024 summary on school discipline, rigid
4:04 zero tolerance policies don't fix
4:08 behavior. They are linked to suicide and
4:11 hopelessness in students. My file had
4:13 some great comments about me. My
4:16 favorite one was views education as
4:18 completely irrelevant.
4:20 There were two days per semester that I
4:23 used to go to school and I went to every
4:25 class. Guess what it is? Guess what they
4:28 were? It's my midterms and my final. And
4:30 then I would set the curve out of
4:34 defiance because you know what? I didn't
4:36 think my education was irrelevant. It
4:40 was actually really important to me.
4:44 But the ironic thing was is they viewed
4:47 my mastery of the subjects as irrelevant because
4:50 because
4:52 they had a zero tolerance policy for
4:54 missing homework assignments. They
4:56 didn't care that I was in an unstable
4:59 and violent home where my basic needs
5:00 weren't being met. I didn't have school
5:03 supplies. I didn't have a safe space. I
5:04 didn't have a place to do homework.
5:05 There was no way I was going to be able
5:08 to do that. So no matter what, I was
5:11 going to fail that class. No exceptions.
5:14 The counseling admin who had to deal
5:15 with my steady stream of paperwork
5:18 crossing her crossing her desk process.
5:20 She she took she paused. She looked at
5:22 my information. She made a judgment call.
5:24 call.
5:27 She performed a human override. She
5:28 ignored the try policy and she gave me a
5:31 safe haven in her office. She showed me
5:32 how to get to get a work permit. She
5:33 showed me how to navigate public
5:36 transit. And when I was almost 16, she
5:37 gave me this pamphlet, the California
5:40 High School Proficiency Exam. And then
5:42 on my 16th birthday, the very first day
5:45 I was eligible, she drove me there to my
5:49 exam. So I came back a few years later
5:50 and she was, you know, because I to
5:52 thank her. I was really grateful. And
5:54 she was oddly surprised at how grateful
5:56 I was. She was like, "All I did was let
5:58 you sit in my office when I knew you
5:59 weren't going to go to class." I was
6:00 like, "But you gave me all that
6:02 information, all the pamphlets." She
6:04 goes, "Well, I work in the counseling
6:08 office here. That's my job."
6:10 I said, "Well, you drove me to the
6:13 exam." And she laughed and she goes,
6:16 "You are not very hard to impress. Give
6:18 it a few more years, you'll learn that
6:20 giving somebody a ride, it's actually
6:23 not that big of a deal."
6:25 So, you know, I actually secretly
6:28 entered that faculty pool
6:31 when I was there and I tossed a few
6:34 dollars in and I put my money on the
6:37 death pocket because I honestly I didn't
6:38 think I was going to make it out
6:41 actually, but
6:45 I did and I am alive today
6:49 due to what she sums up as.
6:51 It was just a reindeer. any decent human
6:54 would have done it. And I'm not entirely
6:58 sure that's true. So here's my ask not
7:01 for your boss, but for you.
7:02 The next time someone asks for an
7:04 exception or you feel like something is
7:07 kind of wrong, pause. Don't just say
7:10 computer says no, stop. Ask does this
7:13 rule make sense right now? Do an
7:15 override. If you can help, help. If you
7:18 can bend the rule, bend it.
7:20 even if it's difficult or do it to be
7:22 rebellious but mostly do it to remind
7:25 the world and yourself that you are not
