I did not expect the World Cup to get me in my feelings. But here we are.

What’s getting me isn’t the soccer.

It’s watching people arrive here from all over the world, carrying a whole idea of what America is. The version built from headlines and the internet, all the loud and divisive stuff.

And then they actually get here, and they’re losing their minds over our Buc-ee’s gas stations. Over Sonic ice. Over air conditioning. Over Kansas City barbecue and Boston beer, over strangers just being kind to them.

There’s a reason this lands so hard. In psychology, it’s called the Contact Hypothesis, and it says something simple and powerful: you can’t hold onto a flat cartoon of a group of people once you’re standing right next to them. The caricature doesn’t survive real human contact.

And this is what we find in leadership.

Because someone on your team is carrying a flat little story about you, too. She’s cold. He’s impossible. They don’t respect me. And you’re carrying one about them, too. Those stories don’t break down over email or in a performance review. They break down in contact. In the five real minutes where you finally see the actual human behind the title.

That’s the whole job of leadership, and I work with it a lot in organizations: simply breaking down self-imposed siloes.

So, getting back to the World Cup and what it is helping me get in touch with… seeing us through fresh, kind eyes. Getting to feel proud and hopeful about where we are again, after feeling divided for so long.

Maybe things aren’t as broken as we’ve been told. Maybe we’ve just been standing too far apart.

Where could you close the distance this week?  DM me and let me know.

Cristina “new FIFA fan” Filippo