I'm about to pick a fight with compassion.

Yes, compassion. That lovely, warm, universally admired quality we're all supposed to have more of. And before you decide I've completely lost my mind, hear me out.

I love compassion. I believe in giving people grace and trying to understand where they're coming from. But I've been thinking about how easily compassion can become an excuse to stop asking questions.

Someone says something offensive? Maybe they're having a bad day. Someone ignores your email? They're probably overwhelmed. Someone behaves like a complete jerk? Well, who knows what they've been through?

All perfectly plausible explanations. But do we actually know any of them are true? Nope. We've just invented a story that makes the behavior easier to accept. And sometimes, in our eagerness to be understanding, we let people off the hook – including ourselves.

So lately, I've been making a conscious effort to be more curious. Because curiosity asks something of us that compassion doesn't always require: the confidence to admit we don't know, ask a potentially awkward question and risk hearing an answer we might not like. It also means giving up our lovely little assumptions about who people are and why they do what they do. And boy, do we love those assumptions.

In this episode, I talk about why curiosity deserves a bigger role in our relationships, how to ask questions that actually get people talking and how a little more curiosity can save us from a whole lot of misunderstanding. I've even got some practical ways to get past those painfully predictable "How's work?" "Fine." conversations.

Give this one a listen. Because you can't really understand someone when you've already decided you know their story and it takes confidence to ask questions when making assumptions would be so much easier.

Ever finish a perfectly ordinary workday feeling like you've run a marathon? You answered emails, sat through meetings, dealt with a few difficult personalities and somehow arrived at 5 p.m. with absolutely nothing left for the people or things you actually enjoy.

And the maddening part? You’ll probably do it all again tomorrow.

My dear friend Bruna De Palo, a fellow neuro nerd, neuroscience executive coach and one of my favorite humans, has a fascinating explanation for why we make life so much harder on ourselves than it needs to be. And it starts with something our brains are very, very good at: conserving energy.

Bruna's new book, The Brain Instruction Manual for Leaders, explores what happens when the way we work, communicate and lead is fundamentally at odds with how our brains are designed to function. We're burning through precious mental energy on misunderstandings, unnecessary conflict and trying to get people to do things in ways that actually make their brains less effective. Brilliant strategy, right?

Now, you know I'm all about confidence and brain science, so this conversation was right up my alley. Because when someone feels threatened, dismissed or backed into a corner, their brain responds accordingly. And good luck getting their best thinking, cooperation or confidence when that happens. The really interesting part is how often we create those conditions without even realizing it.

What I love about Bruna's approach is that she doesn't ask us to become nicer people just because it's the right thing to do. She makes a compelling case that understanding how brains work can make us more effective and leave us with more energy for our actual lives. And you don't need to manage a team to benefit. If you deal with other human beings (and I'm guessing you do), this conversation is for you.

Highlights from our conversation:

• Why an ordinary workday can leave your brain feeling completely spent
• The surprising price we pay for trying to get the best out of other people
• Why the leadership approach that once got results may now be working against you
• How understanding someone else's brain can change a disagreement without changing either person's opinion
• Where the line falls between understanding human behavior and manipulating it

Bruna De Palo is a neuroscience executive coach, keynote speaker and creator of the B.R.A.I.N. Leadership Model™. Drawing on nearly two decades of corporate experience and neuroscience studies at MIT Sloan, she helps leaders understand how the brain shapes behavior, performance and workplace culture. A faculty member at the NeuroLeadership Institute, Bruna works with Fortune 500 organizations worldwide and was recognized among Thinkers50’s Global Top 50 Executive Coaches in 2026. She is the author of The Brain Instruction Manual for Leaders. Learn more about Bruna at brunadepalo.com.

AI is pretty damn seductive. Give it a problem and seconds later it has an answer. Something you don't know how to do? It can probably help. Need to sound smarter, work faster or figure out something that would've taken you half the day? Done.

But can it make you confident? I think it can, but there’s a big catch.

I love AI. My team and I use it for everything from writing and data analysis to design and coding. I’ve even developed a rather personal relationship with my Claude. Used well, these tools can help us become more competent, better prepared and a whole lot more resourceful, all things that can absolutely strengthen confidence.

But our brains have to stay on the job.

Because confidence still requires us to evaluate information, question what we’re being told and ultimately make the call. AI can help us with that, but it can also - and frequently does - hand us a beautifully written, incredibly convincing pile of crap. It can agree with us when it probably shouldn’t. And it has absolutely no idea what that little alarm going off in your gut knows that the data doesn’t.

So how do we get all that extra competence without accidentally putting our own brains out to pasture? That’s what I’m digging into in this episode, including a few ways I’m using AI to strengthen my thinking instead of replacing it. Because the real confidence boost isn't getting an answer faster. It's knowing what to question, when to push back and when the final call still needs to be yours.