I was on a plane recently when the guy next to me figured out I sketch for a living.

“You should build an AI bot to do what you do,” he said, scrolling through my LinkedIn posts.

“Train it to draw like you, send it to meetings in your place. You’d be making money while you’re sitting at home.”

He was excited about the possibilities. Scale without effort. Automation without limits. Who doesn’t love that?

Then, not five minutes later, he leaned over again.

I kid you not, he said, “Actually, my company could really use your help. Our team listens to customers, but we’re not really hearing them. We keep building products nobody wants because we’re missing something in the communication.”

Tried not to laugh while processing the contradiction.

In the span of a few sentences, he’d suggested replacing myself with a machine and then asked for help on a problem only humans can fix.

Does that pretty much sum up where we are right now?

A Flawed Drawing

A few days after that flight, I was working on my daily drawing practice. Gustav Mahler this time, along with one of his quotes: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.”

I got so absorbed in the details that I ran out of space and didn’t have room for the top of his head.

I did not “chop off his head” on purpose. But looking at that flawed drawing, something clicked into place.

I’d rather have this imperfect, human-made sketch than anything technically perfect that a machine could generate.

Each pen stroke is a commitment. The self-care of creating it is priceless. Each drawing becomes part of my story in ways no algorithm could replicate.

During those 50 minutes I spent drawing, my phone lit up constantly. Six text messages. Nine LinkedIn notifications. One Instagram follow. Nine emails. I could have stopped to check any of them.

Instead, I stayed present. I remained in a state of focus that felt like pure bliss.

That airplane conversation kept echoing: we’re so eager to automate the things that actually center us, then wonder why we can’t connect with the people right in front of us.

The Fear in the Room

AI comes up in a lot of workshops I’m in, and I’m seeing something that concerns me.

When a sketch includes a robot or highlights automation, people don’t look all that excited about the future. They kind of look scared about their relevance, job security, and place in a world that seems increasingly eager to replace them.

But faces light up when we talk about human connection, about really listening to each other, and about the irreplaceable value of genuine understanding. Those are the moments when people lean in.

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I’m not anti-AI. I’m pro-human.

I’ve worked around technology since 2004, and watching wave after wave of “revolutionary” change. The pattern is always the same: we try to remove humans from the equation, then discover how essential we actually are.

I feel compelled to say this out loud because I see the toll this is taking on real people in real rooms doing real work.

We’re not obsolete. We’re more necessary than ever.

Every Stroke Is Protest

So I keep drawing by hand. Deliberately. Intentionally.

Every stroke of the pen is my protest. My solid stance that I will never be obsolete.

Not because I’m stubborn or resistant to change, but because I’ve discovered something valuable in the manual process.

The commitment required for each mark. The way imperfection tells a more honest story than perfection ever could. The focus that emerges when you can’t undo, can’t edit, can’t perfect with a click.

When I choose pen over pixel, concentration over notification, presence over productivity, I’m not just making art. I’m preserving something essential about what it means to be human in our work.

You have these moments, too.

The conversation that requires your full attention. The problem that needs your intuition, not just your analysis. The person who needs to be truly heard, not just efficiently processed.

What work in your life deserves the irreplaceable human touch?

Maybe it’s time to stop asking what machines can do for us and start asking what we can do that machines never should.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that guy from the beginning? He asked me about my work because I was drawing a napkin for the flight attendant. I drew him one right after. Something AI can’t do. Funny how that works?

Grateful you are here,

Wade

PS - I’m completing a course on how to do this for yourself. Just reply “Wade, Draw!” and I’ll send you the sneak peek.