LinkedIn Live

Direction Over Speed: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI

#TimTalk

with Timothy "Tim" Hughes · DLA Ignite · July 7, 2026
TimTalk - Direction Over Speed: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI with Michael

ABOUT THIS CONVERSATION

A conversation on why direction matters more than speed in the AI era, the human side of change, and what AI can never replace.
AI is about to expose what's broken, at scale, in ways that can't be hidden anymore.
KEY TOPICS
- Why moving fast in the wrong direction is worse than not moving at all - The four compass directions from The Digital Compass — North, East, South, West - Why AI is amplification software — and what that means for fractured cultures - The role middle managers play in every failed AI initiative - How to protect the first hour of the morning - What AI can never replace — trust, presence, and real mentorship


Direction Over Speed. In this 20-minute conversation on #TimTalk with
Tim Hughes, Michael Earls unpacks why the biggest challenge of the AI
era isn’t keeping up with the technology — it’s remembering where
we’re actually trying to go.

Drawing from more than two decades of enterprise cloud and AI
transformation work, and from his three-book series on leadership
and clarity, Michael explores the human questions that don’t have
software answers. Why AI initiatives stall. Why middle managers
quietly decide adoption success or failure. Why the leaders who
invest in trust, mentorship, and presence now will compound in
ways their competitors can’t understand.

The conversation moves through the origin moment behind his first
book — a 4:30 AM Cincinnati kitchen and one sentence in a notebook
that became the spine of everything that followed — and lands on
the paradox at the center of this era: the more capable machines
get, the more valuable human presence becomes.

About Tim Hughes: Timothy “Tim” Hughes is Co-Founder and CEO of
Digital Leadership Associates (DLA Ignite), one of LinkedIn’s top
sales experts and author of Social Selling: Influencing Buyers
and Changemakers.

Watch the full 20-minute conversation on LinkedIn Live via the link above.

EPISODE DETAILS
HOST
Timothy "Tim" Hughes
SHOW
#TimTalk
COMPANY
DLA Ignite
DATE
July 7, 2026
FORMAT
LinkedIn Live