Sometimes the most important stories are hiding in plain sight. Today’s Good Morning Wake County explores three discoveries that will change how you think about what actually matters.
This morning I found myself reading the obituary of a man named Jeff Jeffries from Cary, North Carolina. You’ve never heard of him—neither had I until yesterday. But something about his story stopped me in my tracks and got me thinking about what we value versus what’s actually valuable.
Jeff had the kind of resume that impresses people at cocktail parties: Naval Academy graduate, Marine who served in Vietnam, nuclear engineer with a PhD, federal judge deciding America’s energy policy. I mean, come on—save some achievements for the rest of us, Jeff.
But here’s what made me keep reading…
The Legacy That Actually Mattered
The people who knew Jeff best won’t remember his reactor safety expertise or his judicial opinions. They’ll tell you he was “a mentor to numerous men as he lived-out being a disciple of Jesus to the best of his ability.” They’ll mention his “infectious smile and genuine interest in others” that “touched the hearts of so many people.”
Jeff didn’t just give career advice or networking tips. He taught people how to actually live. How to be present. How to show genuine interest in others instead of just waiting for your turn to talk.
And here’s what struck me: Jeff had every reason to lead with his credentials. The guy had more letters after his name than a pharmacy. But that’s not how he chose to show up in the world.
At some point, he must have realized what most of us figure out eventually—that nobody’s really going to remember us the way we think they will. The degrees and titles? They fade pretty quickly. But the person you helped when they were struggling? That doesn’t fade. It gets passed along.
Jeff chose impact over legacy. And honestly? That might be the smartest career move any of us can make.
400 Million Years of Overlooked Genius
But Jeff’s story got me thinking about something else entirely: how often we miss the most obvious solutions while we’re busy trying to be impressive.
Case in point: sharks have been swimming efficiently for 400 million years. Those rough scales that feel like aggressive sandpaper? They’re not just intimidating—they’re engineering marvels that disrupt water flow so precisely that sharks move like they’ve got some kind of cheat code the rest of us don’t know about.
So naturally, it only took us until 2024 to think: “Hey, what if we stuck this on airplanes?”
I love humans. We’re so smart and so slow at the same time.
There’s this company in Australia—MicroTau—that figured out how to recreate shark skin using lasers and turn it into basically a really sophisticated sticker for airplanes. Not built into the plane. Not painted on. Just applied like putting a screen protector on your phone, except it saves millions of dollars in fuel costs.
Four percent fuel savings per flight. On 100,000 daily flights worldwide, that’s billions in fuel costs and millions of tons of carbon that never hit the atmosphere.
Delta’s already testing it. The Air Force stuck these patches on cargo planes and supersonic prototypes. They work.
The solution was literally swimming around the entire time we’ve been trying to figure out efficient flight.
The Jobs AI Can’t Touch
Which brings me to the conversation I keep hearing everywhere—coffee shops, family dinners, random places where people think out loud about whether their job’s going to exist in five years.
Because apparently, we’re really good at missing obvious solutions, but we’re also getting really good at building machines that can do our jobs.
AI isn’t coming anymore—it’s here, making coffee and taking meeting notes and probably doing some of your spreadsheet work better than you do. A third of American workers are worried AI will take their jobs or cut their hours. After everything we’ve been through—pandemic chaos, return-to-office drama—now we get to compete with employees that never take sick days or ask for raises.
Fun times.
But then I found this quote from Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison that made me sit up and pay attention. He told business leaders in Washington: “AI isn’t going to fix a hole in your roof. It’s not going to respond to an electrical issue in your home. It’s not going to stop your water heater from leaking.”
And I just… yes. Exactly.
When your basement’s flooding at 2 a.m., you’re not troubleshooting with ChatGPT. When your furnace dies in January, you need someone who knows the difference between a thermostat and a heat exchanger and can fix the actual problem.
Ellison’s advice to young people obsessing over corner offices? “Stay as close to the cash register as you can. Stay close to the customers, because you will always have employment opportunities to grow.”
Now look, I’m not saying AI won’t disrupt a lot of jobs—it absolutely will. If your work involves processing information, writing reports, or following predictable patterns, you should probably be thinking about this now rather than waiting to get blindsided.
But Ellison’s point stands: the jobs closest to real problems and real people? Those aren’t going anywhere.
What Connects These Stories
Here’s what I keep thinking about after reading these three stories: maybe the most valuable things have been right in front of us this whole time. We just had to stop trying to be impressive long enough to notice what actually works.
Jeff Jeffries built a legacy one conversation at a time. Australian engineers saved billions by copying shark skin. And Marvin Ellison reminded us that in a world of artificial intelligence, human intelligence still matters most—especially when it comes with compassion and the willingness to show up when things get hard.
Why These Stories Matter
These aren’t feel-good stories designed to make you optimistic about the future. They’re not breaking news that will be forgotten by tomorrow. They’re simply true, overlooked, and genuinely worth knowing.
In a world where most news is designed to trigger immediate reactions, Good Morning Wake County takes a different approach. We ask: What’s happening that’s worth knowing about? Not because it will fix everything, but because it’s true and it matters.
Join the Conversation
Found something worth knowing in today’s stories? Share this episode with someone who might appreciate learning about Jeff’s approach to building relationships, biomimicry breakthroughs, or honest perspectives on AI-proof work.
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Because sometimes the most important conversations happen between people who respect each other’s ability to think.
Good Morning Wake County is produced in Wake Forest, North Carolina, bringing overlooked stories to people who want to know what’s really happening in their world.