Cheese Curds, Old Fashioneds, and Connectedness
· Connection
A late dinner in Madison, a conversation with a friend, and a question that won't leave: have we confused culture with connectedness?
There's just something about Wisconsin. Maybe it's the supper clubs. Maybe it's the Wisconsin old fashioneds. Maybe it's the fact that conversations seem to last longer there.
This past week, I drove up to Madison to spend time with my friend Dana Lytle from Planet Propaganda. Dana is one of those rare people who can talk branding, leadership, creativity, life, and human behavior all in the same sentence without it feeling forced. The kind of friend who asks questions that stay with you long after dinner ends and is always just a call away.
We ended up at Tornado Steak House in Madison, tucked into one of those booths that invites you to stay awhile. Dark wood. Dim lights. The hum of conversation in the background. A place where nobody seems rushed and honestly, neither did we.
Somewhere between talking about projects, leadership, family, and the future, our conversation drifted toward this idea of culture. Not culture in the abstract. Culture in the way it's become almost everything.
Every company talks about culture now. Every brand wants to build culture. Every conference has a keynote on culture. Culture decks. Culture statements. Culture workshops. Culture strategies beautifully typeset in fonts designers like me probably care too much about.
But the longer we talked, Dana shares: I wonder if we've confused culture with connectedness.
[quote:Culture is what we say. Connectedness is what people feel.]
Culture Isn't the Same as Connection
That difference matters more than we realize.
Because you can have values painted across every wall in the office and still have people feel completely alone inside the building. You can have Slack channels buzzing nonstop while someone quietly struggles two desks away.
You can have retreats, swag bags, mission statements, and all the right language while teams slowly disconnect underneath it all.
A recent Harvard study found that more than one in three adults report serious loneliness. The U.S. Surgeon General even compared the effects of loneliness to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day.
Fifteen. That statistic hit me hard. We've never had more ways to communicate, yet people feel increasingly unseen. Phones buzzing. Calendars packed. Notifications nonstop.
But real connection? The kind where someone genuinely feels known? That's becoming rare.
The Do Lectures
At one point during dinner, Dana shared The Do Lectures with me. The deeper I went afterward, the more I understood why it resonated so deeply. Started by David Hieatt in a small village in Wales, The Do Lectures feel almost like a rebellion against the polished performance our world has normalized. Not louder. Not bigger. Not optimized.
Just deeply human.
People gathering in barns, fields, and around campfires talking honestly about creativity, fear, business, purpose, failure, leadership, and life. No pretending. No corporate theater. No pressure to perform. Just stories. Conversation. Presence. And honestly, it reminded me of something we're all craving right now. Not more content.
More connection.
The science supports this too. Researchers studying psychological safety consistently found that trust and vulnerability are among the strongest predictors of healthy, high-performing teams. And the longest-running Harvard study on happiness came to one beautifully simple conclusion: Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Not status. Not followers. Not productivity. Connection.
Real human connection.
Maybe We've Been Building Backwards
Driving home from Madison, I kept thinking about how maybe culture was never supposed to become the destination. Maybe culture was simply supposed to lead us back to each other.
Back to listening. Back to honesty. Back to conversations that don't fit inside a content strategy. Because the moments that actually change us are rarely the polished ones.
They're dinners that run late. Campfire conversations. Someone saying, "Me too." Someone listening longer than they had to. That's what people carry with them. Not the slogan.
Being HumanKind
Maybe that's why this conversation connected so deeply to the Being HumanKind project for me. The book was never really about kindness as a tactic.
It's about remembering our humanity in a world constantly pushing us toward performance, speed, optimization, and noise.
But humans were never meant to thrive without connection.
And maybe the future of leadership, business, creativity, and culture itself isn't about building better systems. Maybe it's about building better spaces for humans to belong.
Places where people can exhale. Places where people can tell the truth. Places where connectedness matters more than performance. Because at the end of the day, I don't think people are longing for more culture.
I think they're longing to feel connected again. And honestly… maybe that's where hope begins.
PS: If you've never watched a Do Lectures talk before, start here. It's beautiful: The Do Lectures Video Library