All Things Human with Adele Wang
How power works, in people and in machines. Especially in this time of massive and hyper-rapid change. Adele Wang watches how people behave, in organizations and in ordinary life, and says the part most people leave out. Some episodes are about work. Who decides, who gets blamed, what happens when nobody quite owns a decision. Some are about relationships. Why you know your neighbor's dog's name and not theirs. What we want from each other and what we're willing to admit we want. The through line is the same either way. What's really going on underneath the thing everyone agrees to say. đź’Ś Join the conversation and get more exclusive insights at https://adelewang.substack.com
Episodes
Adele published a quiet episode about walking her dog. Within a day, dozens of emails arrived pitching podcast guests, and nearly every one quoted the exact same abstract phrase back to her. None of the senders had listened. This is what happens when the effort that used to prove attention gets automated away, and why nobody in the production machinery has a clue that it failed the end recipient. The irony is that most of the pitch...
You can know a person for years and never learn their name. You know their dog, though. You know Max is reactive, that Sophie just had surgery, that the golden at the corner loses his mind the second he spots you. The human stays a little bit of a mystery, and somehow that works fine.
This is a solo episode about the friendships that live entirely on the sidewalk. How a dog gives two strangers permission to stop and talk. Why the do...
Psychologists call it contamination theory. When something pure comes into contact with something threatening — even at trace levels — we consider the whole thing spoiled. Researchers are now finding the same response in how audiences value creative work that involves AI.
In this episode, I walk through a recent University of Chicago study where participants bid real money for art prints at different levels of AI involve...
"I Was Breaking the Internet. Then My Brain Broke First."
Why is everyone generating so much content than ever before?
Today, millions of creators are using AI to produce content faster than humans can consume it, leading to "Content Shock."
Episode Description: I Was Breaking the Internet. Then My Brain Broke First.
We are currently living through the loudest, fastest, and most saturated era in human history...
About this Episode: This is a Raw Memo edition of All Things Human. In the spirit of staying authentic and keeping the conversation moving, I’m skipping the studio polish and the theme music to bring you a thought exactly as it happened.
In this memo:
- The "Type 3" Distraction: Why some public behaviors feel like a "system failure" rather than a simple annoyance.
- Unclosed Loops: T...
Have you ever had an automated system deny your loan, flag your social media post, or change your work schedule without explanation?
In this episode, we dive into the "talk of the town" in tech circles: AI Governance. What is AI Governance?. While it sounds like a dry topic for lawyers, it’s actually a deeply human issue that impacts our daily lives and livelihoods.
We explore the growing "accountability gap" where decisions ar...
Many conversations about AI-driven job losses frame entrepreneurship as “freedom.” But what if you don’t want to start a business? In this episode, I talk honestly about why not everyone is wired to be a solopreneur—and why that matters as AI reshapes work.
This episode is for people who have been laid off or displaced and are quietly overwhelmed by the pressure to “figure it out” on their own. Th...
What Solopreneurs Need To Understand About the Attention Game
What is the Visibility Industrial Complex?
The Visibility Industrial Complex is a system where solopreneurs are pressured to remain constantly visible in order to be seen as credible, relevant, or legitimate — even when that visibility no longer leads to connection or meaningful work.
Why does marketing feel exhausting for solopreneurs?
Because visibility prac...
Why performative networking is failing and how to reclaim real connection in the age of AI
If you’ve ever stood in a room of 50 people, clutching a coffee cup and waiting for a 29-second countdown to pitch your business to a room of people who aren’t actually listening, you’ve felt the "Chamber of Commerce" exhaustion. We have replaced real relationship-building with "Identity Flashcards"—a phenomenon I call ...
We are living with a quiet internal split — and most of us feel it, but few can name it.
On one side of us is the part that uses AI, productivity tools, and digital systems to stay relevant, visible, and competitive.
On the other side is the part of us that longs for what feels real. Presence, trust, effort, and genuine human connection.
In this episode, Adele Wang explores the growing emotional and relational tension of these t...
What is the one word that makes corporate leaders more squeamish than "taxes" or "sex"?
Power.
In the coaching and development world, people are allergic to the word. It sounds dirty. It sounds like corruption. So, the word got rebranded to "Empowerment" because that feels safe. It feels internal. It feels like yoga.
But in this episode, I argue that this semantic shift is actually dangerous. By confusing the feeling of empowerment wi...
The irony of this was not lost on me. It's frankly embarassing to see this.
It's obvious, once you know how to look.
Maybe you can relate. Maybe you're already feeling that disembodied feeling when you encounter vanilla smooth AI-generated content. It looks fine. It looks great. But doesn't actually really say anything.
Why? Because there's no distinction. There's no point of view.
It's all just very smooth and vanilla.
The AI detector ...
Did you know that of all the possible uses of AI, the one that's the most popular right now is therapy? People are using AI as their own online therapist to work out their issues. What does that mean, for our mental health?
This episode challenges what you believe about connection, AI, and human emotion. I sat down with Dr. Marlyn Wei, a Harvard and Yale trained psychiatrist who has been at the forefront in exploring the connection ...
Most business leaders think they know how to profit from AI. Even though no one actually says it out loud, a lot of the push is coming from the desire to become more efficicent, reduce staff, and enjoy the jump in profitability. Those are certainly true. But by looking at AI with the lens, it's likely many business owners are also, at the same time, likely to miss the real opportunity worth millions.
In this episode, AI consultant a...
Are dating apps ruining romance, or just reshaping it? It was super fun to have a deeply human conversation with Connell Barrett, bestselling author of Dating Sucks, But You Don’t and host of The How to Get a Girlfriend Podcast. Often dubbed the real-life Hitch, Connell shares how AI, apps, and filters are rewriting the rules of love, while us as regular human people still long for something that's real.
We talked about why mo...
🎙 Is AI Better at Being Human Than We Are? 🤯
Why is it so hard to have conversations with people who fundamentally disagree with us?
If you're like me, it can make you anxious and stressed. But at the same time, maybe you actually DO want to understand how and why someone feels the way they do. Because you care about them...but...
Maybe you're absolutely baffled at their world viewpoint. How and why do they feel the way they do??
Esp...
As a former perfectionist, I spent years on personal development, leadership growth, therapy, and coaching—but I still felt stuck. If this is you, you’re not alone.
In this episode, I reveal the fundamental flaw in the coaching industry and why two dominant coaching approaches—emotional processing and mindset work—often keep people spinning their wheels. You could say I'm the anti-personal development coach.
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We’ve been told to “build a better relationship with ourselves” as if we’re two separate people. But what if that’s the very thing keeping us stuck? In this episode, I explore a profound idea from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle: the illusion of self-improvement. Basically, when we try to “fix” or “improve” our relationship with ourselves, we unconsciously create a split&mdash...
Many people who are stuck are determined to never feel pain because they think it's "negative". But the irony is that the insistence on only focusing on "positive things", and resistance to feeling their whole feelings, even painful stuff, is often why people are stuck. What people resist, persists.
In this thought-provoking episode, I share the latest research on the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), authenticity, and human connection. From the rise of AI-generated content to the ethical dilemmas businesses face, I explore questions like:
- Can you really tell when something is AI-generated?
- How does AI impact consumer trust and relationships?
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