As we forecasted in Chapter 1, we now return to our opening analogy: the seesaw.

On a seesaw, you can't always control the ride. The power shifts back and forth, depending on when you're on the bottom, with your feet firmly on the ground. And if you're the kind of person who jumps off the seesaw when you're on the bottom, in that power seat, then it's very possible that, after a while, no one on the playground will want to be your seesaw partner. This is play, yes, but serious play. You burn your trust and you pay the price. Playground rules – forever.

Authenticity is about trust, too. Is there a person handling this transaction? Can that person be trusted? Or, if the transaction is somehow automated, does it feel supervised in some way by a human or does it feel like poetry written by a robot – a little bit off, a little hollow, missing an inner subjectivity?

Sometimes authenticity can be conveyed via an emoji. Sometimes, it requires a handshake. Many scenarios can engender productive, supportive win‐win‐win exchanges, so long as human intelligence is analyzing the context of the exchange and human warmth and intention are conveyed when need be.

We want our mortgage calculations done by a computer, not by Jack or Betty in the back office in the bank with his or her calculator. On the other hand, we want the initial information about our loan shared with us by a person, not a generic report. The latter situation, when we're getting ready to commit to a monthly payment that is beyond what we are used to paying monthly for anything in our lives, is, in a word, terrifying. It requires steadying analysis and nurturing compassion. It sometimes requires us to ask – or answer – the same question a few different ways. Sometimes, even, it just needs the simplicity of a “when I was in your shoes” story. As a good teacher knows, there are usually several paths through any lesson worth learning. And many, many more ways to educate someone for judgment, precision, and autonomy.

Good teachers – or sellers, leaders, trainers, or service professionals functioning as teachers – know how to grasp, and if need be, redirect the understanding of the people with whom they engage. They know how to communicate, bidirectionally, to ensure that student behaviors are shifting to lead to enhanced student outcomes. They know how to convey authenticity by understanding context, which is a critical part of our next chapter.