We all know that talk is cheap, so we tend to believe what we see more than what we hear. Your real friends are the ones who show up to help you move, not the ones who tell you how they’ll always be there for you. A good boss is the one who gives you time off when your mom dies, not the one who says, “I care about you!” and then asks you if you might have time to polish the PowerPoint between the wake and the funeral.
Unfortunately, when we want to transmit wisdom, words are often all we have.
Which continues to be an immense, unsolvable, and underappreciated problem.