Breaking Free of Manufactured Disconnection: A Vision for 2025
There is no shortage of problems the world is experiencing these days. I’m sure it would not take you long to come up with a list of things in our society that could be improved. From ongoing expansive wars, the widening wealth inequality gap, increasing homelessness and poverty, corruption in politics, more frequent natural disasters; the list is long.
But, what if the greatest crisis of our time was not these problems directly? What if the majority of these problems stem from one core issue? The issue? Increasing disconnection and division.
What if the solution to our problems comes not from directly confronting them, but first from us re-learning how to connect with each other and work together?
I believe one of our biggest crises today is a crisis of connection. I’m devoting 2025 to facing this problem head on, and I hope you’ll join me.
A Crisis of Connection
You’ve likely heard a similar statement over the past few years: In a time where humans are more connected than ever through the internet and other forms of technology, people are actually feeling more disconnected than ever. The “loneliness epidemic” is affecting people all over the world, and increasingly so.
In the United States, we’ve increasingly prioritized individualism over collectivism. We’ve had political division for a long time, but it has grown worse in the past decade. Where we once were able to debate and speak through our differences, we now are seeing devastating division across our communities and within our families. People in traditional leadership positions are telling us that if someone disagrees with us, they should be our enemy.
In social media, hateful and divisive posts are prioritized over positive posts. Algorithms are controlling what we see, influencing our emotions, and prioritizing conflict over collaboration. Now, artificial intelligence is flooding every aspect of life. Combined with traditional algorithms, AI is contributing to a disconnection from our humanity and creativity in addition to being disconnected from other people.
Rather than sourcing our beliefs by forming them in our own hearts and minds, technology is leading us more into group think as we offload so much of our “thinking” and creativity to machines. I recently saw a compelling (and scary) video on the topic here.
I’ve been calling all of this manufactured disconnection. Sure, disconnection can happen for many reasons, but never before have we seen such a deliberate focus on making sure we stay divided. This is only going to get a lot worse in 2025 as artificial intelligence pervades more of our lives, combining with our existing forms of disconnection.
But, it does not have to be this way. We have a choice in the matter, and I believe we can overcome this obstacle that lies at the heart of so many of the issues we face today.
The Opportunity Ahead
One of the great things about awareness is that once you have it, you can make change. I’ve been somewhat scattered in terms of what feels important to me in the past few years. 2024 was a year of learning and awareness for me, and I feel more confident than ever, not only in what feels important to me, but also in what we can do to address the problems we face.
I do believe we can change course. We can make disconnection and systems that encourage disconnection our enemy, rather than people. I think this year will be pivotal when it comes to choosing connection over conflict. To that end, these are the areas I’ll be focusing on to try to make an impact against manufactured disconnection in 2025.
Connection, Communication, and “Social Health”
I believe that before we can connect with others, we first have to learn to connect with ourselves. We have to dive deep into our own beliefs, views, and wants of the world. And, that we need to source these beliefs from within, not from what an algorithm feeds us.
Once we’re better connected to ourselves, we can work to improve our connection with others. We can learn communication skills fit for our modern times and approach conflict with curiosity. We can do this by practicing with others, lean into some of our fears rather than running from them, and simply by rejecting the idea that disagreement should equal disconnection.
One of my favorite books of 2024 was “The Art and Science of Connection” by Kasley Killam. In it, the author describes how “social health”, our relationships and connection with other people, is equally as important as our physical and mental health. I 100% agree. This book put into words so much of what I’ve been feeling over the past few years.
Not only can we solve problems through being more connected, we can literally live healthier and longer lives. If that is not a reason to put some work into being more connected with ourselves and others, I don’t know what is.
Authentic and Conscious Leadership
I recently wrote that we are also dealing with a crisis of leadership in our society. Those in traditional leadership positions that are supposed to guide and inspire us are increasingly inauthentic and untrustworthy. People are craving trust and healthy guidance, but are getting a consistent stream of gaslighting and modeling of damaging and divisive behavior.
You’ve likely heard the phrase: “we are all leaders”. I genuinely believe this to be true. I believe that we all have unique traits that allow us to help others learn and grow, but are held back by the idea of what leadership “should” be.
In a world where algorithms and AI are steering us towards how we should look, act, feel, buy, think, and more, it has never been more important to cultivate a practice of authenticity. From this place we can find our “zone of genius”, share our passions with the world, and guide others simply by modeling healthy behavior. Combine this with noticing and encouraging growth in the unique skills of others and you have an excellent recipe for leadership.
From this foundation, cultivating more leadership skills that help people solve problems,collaborate, and innovate, are only a step away.
Solidarity and Community
I believe that underneath all of the culture war issues we are told to fight about, most human beings want similar, if not the same things. We want our families and friends to be healthy and strong, we want to live as comfortably as possible, and we want to see those that we love thrive.
With many of the forces on the planet telling us who we should hate and that disagreement equals disconnection, it is no wonder that we’ve forgotten all the areas where we agree.
In addition to learning how to connect with and lead others, I believe that finding areas of solidarity will be crucial in reversing the negative trends we are facing. We need to learn to reconnect with our friends, family, and especially our neighbors.
We can use learnings from our work in authenticity and leadership as inspirations for forming and facilitating groups where we can learn from and inspire others. From here, we can also further tone our muscles of transforming conflict into collaboration.
With this foundation, we can take action to solve problems and affect change. Change that has a bigger impact the more people we bring into our circles. It will be tough at times to gather with people that have vastly different beliefs but again, we need to remember that underneath it all, we highly likely want the same things. This is exactly what the systems of power in the world don’t want; people finding common ground and connecting for a shared purpose.
How Do We Do It? The Path Forward
In spending the last year researching connection and leadership, I’ve never felt more clear on my path around this. Throughout 2025, I’ll be sharing as much as I can to do my part in fighting manufactured disconnection and relearning some of our lost humanity.
In case it was not clear my focuses of the year will be helping anyone to:
Better communicate and connect with others
Become a better leader in anything you do, build trust through authenticity
Learn how to build groups and community
In doing so I plan to offer:
Live and virtual events every 1-2 months
Video and written resource guides
Links to resources and books that have inspired my own work
On-demand courses (I’ll be experimenting with my first one in the first half of 2025)
A virtual community to better collaborate on all of these topics (this is a goal for the end of the year, or early 2026)
Join Me on the Journey
The best way to stay up to date on my offerings is to join my monthly newsletter.
In joining the newsletter you’ll get:
Early notice of all my posts and events
Quick tips and practices you can try in your day
Full access to the materials I release throughout the year
Discounts on paid events and content
Additional highlights of trends and inspirations I find relevant
I have hope. I believe all of this is possible. It won’t be easy. But, I think we can change course from a path of division and disconnection to a place of collective progress. It will take time too. But, I’m committed to the cause, and I hope you’ll join me on the journey.
Thanks for reading!
