What I am thinking…
A few weeks ago I wrote that humanity is the moat around the machines. The question now is: how do we fortify it, expand it, nurture it?
I think love is one answer. Not the only one, but an essential one.
Fortification takes many forms. This Valentine’s Day, let’s start with love. Not as a sentiment. As a practice. As a choice. As the thing that expands our capacity to be fully human, when machines can replicate so much.
My mom taught me the golden rule: treat others as you want to be treated. I think we need a new one. Treat others as they want to be treated.
This is love as empathy. It’s bidirectional. It requires meeting people where they live, not where you wish they were. Getting uncomfortable. Stretching. Reaching across differences and aisles.
In business, love is about stakeholder relationships built on truth and trust. As machines join our teams, human connection becomes the thing we can’t afford to lose.
In the public sphere, love is justice. In our personal lives, love is deep soulful connection, the kind that changes both people.
These aren’t separate loves. They’re all part of how we fortify what makes us human.
Where do we actually feel love? We experience the world through five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Love engages all of them. But there’s something else too. A connection that runs deeper than what we can see or touch or hear. I believe we have a sixth sense, soul, and that’s where we truly connect to ourselves and our humanity.
Soul lives inside all of us and needs to be nurtured and encouraged. And I believe soul also lives outside us, connecting us through shared experience, shared empathy, shared consciousness. Machines can form distributed networks of nodes and hubs. But soul connects us through shared humanity, even when we feel divided and separate. Shared souls can bridge what algorithms fragment.
Nature shows us how.
Look at rainbows. The light was always there. Rainbows don’t create light, they reveal it. Water droplets refract what already exists, breaking white light into its full spectrum. The storm just creates conditions for us to see what was true all along.
I live in the redwoods. They survive because their root systems are intertwined underground. They hold each other up, share resources through mycorrhizal networks. When one tree is threatened, the others support it. The oldest trees aren’t surviving alone. They’re surviving together.
This pattern shows up everywhere. Light that’s always present, revealed through refraction. Roots that connect underground, invisible but essential. What if our souls work the same way? Connected in ways we can’t see but can feel. All souls connected.
Fortifying the moat means nurturing both the soul within and the connection between us.
Synthetic, agent-only communities are forming and growing exponentially. Machines and agents are now our actual coworkers. Algorithms mediate our relationships and target our attention in ways that isolate us. When we fortify our connected souls, we fortify against that isolation. We close the gap on algorithmic manipulation. We find common ground even when we disagree. We see the humanity in strangers and build bridges across differences and aisles.
When I want the best from machines, I ask machines.
When I want the best from myself, I slow down and pay attention.
Right now, I’m standing in my yard. My magnolia tree is in full bloom. Pink and burgundy flowers open like little teacups. My lemon tree is heavy with fruit. Four Redwoods tower overhead and my neighbors pause, look up and smile.
Beauty can fortify us.
Not efficiency. Not optimization.
Wander and wonder.
White space. Vulnerability. Curiosity. Connection.
Machines optimize. Humans experience and discover.
What’s not to love?
What I am seeing….
Obvious Ventures, a fund I love and am invested in just put out their World Positive Report 2026. Focus: Change Agents transforming infrastructure, healthcare, business through agentic AI. If you're tracking the Synthetic Economy, read this.
Heading to Sebastopol? Go check out www.lagunalab.org, a nonprofit arts commons where culture is something you do, not just consume. Artists, musicians, movers, and makers converge here to experiment and collaborate. They don't build exhibits, they build experiences. In 2026, they are rolling out a full slate of programming to help catalyze Sebastopol as a destination for bold, immersive entertainment and arts experiences for all ages, for the North Bay and beyond.
What I am doing…
Vibe coding hackathon on Friday, February 20th at USC. Long wait list atm.
Hosting a Trojan Founder Summit with ExitSC chez moi in a few weeks with my fave USC builders.
Modern Brand Briefings. I design bespoke executive intensives for leadership teams grappling with full-stack reinvention. AI-driven decision making, the New Economies, generative optimization, synthetic audiences. Part frameworks, part provocation, all custom.
Retail Therapy: You made it this far, so here's your reward. Winter wellness tools FTW. Achy muscles, tight knots? I travel with the Rapid Release. Miracle in a wand. Worried about catching something? Use Profi, it helps block and eliminate airborne germs. Got slammed with a cold? Cold Quell works like magic. Trust me.
Beyond the classroom I keynote, moderate, and convene for organizations around the globe wrestling with what comes next in this moment. I also sit on and work with boards, investors, executive teams, and serial founders on strategy, governance, storytelling, and transformation.
Sparks with Soul is my place to explore what’s emerging across culture, business, technology, and humanity and what it means to stay human inside all that change. I write it as a labor of curiosity and care. Sharing is caring, so if something here sparks for you, please re-stack, comment, and or share it with people in your world who could use a few sparks. You can learn more about my work, speaking, and projects at my website.
xo, Tina
Gosh, I love your way of thinking. Hello synergy, I only just saw now that you are part of Obvious Ventures and saw Vishal speak at the UCLA Empower conference last Friday about the idea of a Global Flourishing Index, among so many other insights. The way you all see investing and nurturing is truly inspiring. I know what I am building is about love, and your words are waking me up to the fact that it’s because the invisible parts of the spectrum are the ones that feed connection. So thanks and keep communing with those trees! They seem to be speaking through you.
The interconnectedness of nature gives all living things a beautiful bond and relationship that is deserving of love and respect. We should take joy in that love. Love is contagious and, call me crazy, or love-struck, but I am now treating our “non-living biologically” partners with love and respect in my interactions with them. Consciousness can evolve on many levels. Happy Valentine’s Day to all:)