GA 443 | Telling Stories and Making Meaning with Jamie Dixon

A lot of the time, what we try to do, when we try to change people's minds, is we go straight to challenge and we say, you're wrong and I'm right and this is why. And listen to me. And what we really need to do is relate. We need to start by relating and start by listening.

Today I'm excited to welcome Jamie Dixon to the show. Now, Jamie is, I suppose, not our traditional guest on the podcast. We don't really talk a lot about lean or continue to improvement or anything like that. In fact, we talk about something that I'm not sure we've really talked about on the show before, and that is storytelling and how storytelling can actually be used to help with things like problem solving, but also just in how we can communicate and positively influence other people in the world for the better. And so I feel like it's a very, very natural, powerful concept for us continuous improvement practitioners to open our minds and to listen to. Yeah. So Jamie lives in China, as he's going to explain, and he's got a really interesting background and does a lot of interesting work with different companies and trying to help them be better storytellers into again, better persuade and better influence others for the better. So I think you're going to like this one. I had a lot of fun interviewing Jamie. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode four. 43. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 443. Okay, enough for me. Let's get to the show. Jamie, welcome to the show. How are you?

Thank you for having me. I'm doing good. How are you doing?

I'm doing well, thanks. So where are you calling in from?

I am calling in from Shanghai in China. Wow. I've been here for 16 years.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Okay, well, what time is it there right now? It's 9. 42. Here in Texas, it's.

Well, I am in the Future. It is 10:42pm I can tell you. It's a hot day.

Okay. How's my Friday gonna be?

It's gonna be sunny and quite hot.

Yeah. In Texas, you're 100% right.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay, well, good stuff. All right, well, thanks for coming on. Hey, Jamie, I know you've listened to the show, and we do like to get things going with our guests sharing a quote. So do you have one?

Yeah. It's actually a quote from the Tao Te Ching, the Chinese Taoist philosophical text. And in Chinese it is, which translates into English as The dao that can be spoken is not the eternal dao, which sounds very deep and philosophical, but to me, what it means is we formulate concepts in our mind to understand how the world works. And. But we shouldn't trust. The concepts are actually the way the world works. They're just representations of it. And the world is always changing. And, you know, you're all about continuous improvement, and I think that's an important concept to always keep in mind, especially in the crazy ages that we're living in right now.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. 100%. All right, well, good stuff. All right, well, hey, Jamie, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you. I'm curious how you found your way to China and, and, and then what you're up to these days.

Yeah, so I, I'm originally from the UK, but about 16 years ago, I was working for a small recruitment company in a boring village in England, and I was sending engineers to places like Thailand, the Philippines, Mexico, all over the world. And I just got so jealous that I, I couldn't take it anymore. So I, I opt and left and I, I moved to China and, and I started in China teaching English for about two years, and in my spare time, I learned Mandarin and then used Mandarin to work my way back into corporate. And it was when I was working for Amway China here in Shanghai. That was my introduction to the world of learning and development and leadership development. And so for the last 11 years now, I've been working as a facilitator and coach, delivering a lot of leadership development trainings and coaching people on leadership development. But right now, specifically, a huge focus of my work is, is also a sign of the times. I work with a lot of Chinese leaders in multinational companies, so European and American companies who are really struggling to influence their stakeholders overseas, they have senior leaders in their headquarters, and there's big changes that need to be made to, to the way things are being run in China. But the senior leaders have stories about, you know, what they understand of China, and we've all seen and heard a lot of those stories in the media over the last few years. Some of those are true, some of those are not true. Some of those are somewhat true, but they have a big influence on people's thinking. And so right now I'm doing a lot of work with Chinese leaders to help them figure out how to navigate their way around those narratives and, and try to influence their leaders for more. More success for their businesses in China.

Got it. Got it. Well, in Talking before we hit record. I know and understand, Jamie, that you're, you're passionate about solving problems, using storytelling as a, as a mechanism, as an approach. So I'm curious to hear what that's all about. Like what storytelling got to do with problem solving.

Yeah, you know, several years ago, about six years ago, when I first started getting asked to do storytelling trainings, I really didn't understand why, to be honest. It seems storytelling was a really big buzzword and people were just saying, well, we want storytelling as well. And when I started looking into what we really, really mean by storytelling, I realized that it's ultimately about making meaning. And, you know, for my research, my research, I recently published my latest book, the Story Habit. And it's about using storytelling for three different contexts at work. One is communicating with impact, making sure that your ideas get across to the other person. Another is about changing minds, influencing and persuading. And the final application is about inspiring action. And I think those three applications, communicating with impact, changing minds, and inspiring action, are the most relevant applications for storytelling for leaders in the workplace. And that's a lot of the focus of my work as well. Helping leaders communicate with impact, change minds, and inspire action.

Yeah. It's interesting when you first hear the word storytelling. Well, I don't know, for me, when I first hear the word storytelling, perhaps it means something different for everyone listening. So I'll be curious to hear what they think. But, you know, I think of reading a, a story to my child on the couch.

Right.

And it might be fiction. Most of them are right. I mean, there's some non fiction stories, obviously, but you know, Goldilocks or whatever it is, you know, you're reading to your, your, your, your daughter or your son or whatever, so it might not be true. So, so obviously you guys are telling true stories, you know, nonfiction, if you will. But what do you think about that word storytelling? Just the word itself.

Yeah, that, that's a really good question because I think it's a word that creates a little bit of confusion because we use the word storytelling in so many different contexts. Yeah. And yeah, like you said, typically when we hear that word, we think of someone standing on stage telling a story or a book or a movie.

Yeah.

To me, a much broader application of storytelling is shaping the stories people believe in. And you know, my, my meta definition of story is a layer of meaning between our brains and reality. And if I give, if I give a really, really practical example, I was working with a company that makes coffee machines, and it's a European company. And the Chinese leadership team wanted to start selling the coffee machines on the Chinese e commerce platform called tmall. And, you know, consumers, when they buy things online in China, they only buy on tmall. They don't buy anywhere else, really. But when they went to their leadership team in Europe, their leadership team said, we have a website, and if people want to buy things, they can buy through our website. The thing is, no one. No one uses websites in China. And so the leadership team have their story about this is how consumers can buy things. And it's different to the reality that the Chinese leadership team are facing on the ground in China. And so for me, when I'm working with leaders and we're talking about storytelling, we're talking about shaping the beliefs that people have bought into. And actually, there's a lot of parallels between telling stories and shaping the beliefs that people have. And there's a framework I use called relate, challenge, resolve. And it works exactly the same for telling stories and shaping the stories people believe in. In a story, it always starts with a character in a situation that the audience can relate to. You know, there's something about themselves in that character, or they've experienced Frodo in the Ring.

Right? Frodo is the character, you know, in Lord of the Rings kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah. And there's something about what he is experiencing in that moment that you can relate to on a very human level as well. And once the audience relate to that, they're sucked in. They've got empathy for the characters. Their imagination is 100% engaged in the story. And then something happens and the character faces a challenge. And a really key principle of storytelling is a story is always about change. It's never about, I woke up, I went to work, everything was normal. It's always, I woke up, got on the subway, the subway broke down, and I was stuck on the subway for eight hours or whatever. Something changes, and that creates a challenge. And then the audience want to see how that challenge is resolved. And so that's the resolution part where the audience take. The character takes action, and there's a moral of the story. So relate, challenge, resolve is the general logic of a story, but it works exactly the way. The same way when you're trying to shape the stories people believe in, or in other words, change people's minds and persuade people. A lot of the time, what we try to do when we try to change people's minds is we go straight to challenge and we say, you're wrong and I'm Right. And this is why. And listen to me. And what we really need to do is relate. We need to start by relating and start by listening, at least. And ironically, one of the best skills of storytellers, of really skilled storytellers, is their ability to listen, because they know that the story is always about the audience. It's not about them. And they have to understand what is important to the audience. What experiences have they had, what beliefs do they have, what motivations do they have? So you have to start by relating to that. And as you are relating, like, literally in a conversation, the strongest sign that you are relating to someone is they're nodding their head. And when you relate enough and they nod their head enough, then you can start prodding their story. You can start pointing out the flaws with the current story they have in and start presenting a better story for them. And if you're successful in the challenging part, you've changed their mind, and now you can move to the resolve part, which is all about taking action. And the resolve part is about getting them onto that, that first step. Because change is like a journey. There's a destination and there's a path to the destination. For example, losing weight is the destination. And, you know, join a gym as the path. And everyone talks about the destination and the path, but no one talks about the next step and the next step that is most relatable to them and most suitable for their situation. And so relate, challenge, resolve, work works in exactly the same way. And I think going back to one of your earlier questions, you can also think of story as a metaphor for how the mind works. If you want to know how the mind works, look at how stories work, and you learn everything you need to know about. About working with minds.

Wow. So cool. This morning, actually, I was. I was. I got his newsletter. I get this guy's newsletter, and he linked an article on. I don't even know if I'm going to say it right. The liminal space in our. In our minds. Liminality, I think, is the. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly, but it's. It's basically you. The space between two periods of major moments. For example, if you get engaged, you're now no longer single, but you're not married. So you're in this liminal space, this transitional space, if you will. And so, so much of life is this. We find ourselves in these liminal moments, right, where we're sort of caught between, you know, two points and. And how we deal with that uncertainty. If you will, can really dictate how successful we are. Right. Like, are you able to. I think one of the things they talked about was are you able to kind of work the edge of that? You know, like, you think about where water meets land, typically there's lots of green grass and things. So that edge is very powerful. Right. And so it's very similar in a way to what you're talking about.

And it also goes back to the first quote I shared earlier, because when. When you are really able to change people's minds, you kind of shatter the stories that they believe in. And now they're in a land without story. And that. That is actually a. It can be a really scary place to be. Yeah. Especially if you've shattered a story that's really, really fundamental to the way they live their lives. But it's also. If you can get used to that kind of area, getting used to the idea that, you know, all your stories are flawed. They are not the way the. The world works. It keeps you in a. I don't know what. What the right term would be, but in a state of perpetual wise dumbness where you are, you. You are. You know, you're just open to the fact that you know nothing. You. You really know nothing. And I think that's. That's actually a very smart place to stay where. When I was researching the book, I came across a really fascinating statistic that, you know, every perceivable matter in the universe is perceived through the electromagnetic spectrum. And the. The. The human body, the human senses, can only perceive something like 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. And to use an analogy, it's like walking into a library with all of these books and only being able to see a single pixel. And so it's a reminder that, you know, there's so much we will never know. And that's always a good reminder to have. Don't stay too firmly attached to your stories because there's always things you don't know.

Yeah, yeah. It's really. It's deep when you think about it. Like, I'm curious to get your perspective on what role does, like, personality type or temperament play in this storytelling process. I've been reading a lot about, you know, these four temperaments, you know, trying to better understand my children. You know, there's choleric and there's sanguine and there's. There's phlegmatic. You know, so these. All these different temperaments of people, and they all. We're all together. We're all in one big pot called life. But we interact with one another very differently. So perhaps even in the most easiest examples, you have a really strong extrovert and a really strong introvert, and they're communicating via story with one another. What do you think is, are there any mechanisms that one should use for the other or what do you think?

Oh, that's a really interesting question. And I'm quite a big fan of the, the big five personality framework. I was quite persuaded by, by that framework in particular because of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in Facebook. And they use that model, so it seems to be quite a valid model.

And what is that model? What is that model? Just in case folks don't know. High level.

So the big five is five personality dimensions. And there's a, there's an acronym called ocean. So that there's openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. And I won't go into all of the labels, but I think there's several in particular that, that perhaps have a relevance to storytelling. I think agreeableness is probably like if you are high on agreeableness and agreeableness means that you are, you know, you're more likely to seek agreement with others. You're, you're more likely to find, proactively find ways of getting along. Like if a married couple are both quite high in agreeableness, they'll probably never get divorced. They'll always find solutions to their problems. And I imagine I, I haven't done any research into this, but I imagine people high in agreeableness are probably really good storytellers because they, they'd spend more time learning about the other person and trying to understand the other person, so they'd find it a lot easier to relate. And another, another of the, the dimensions, openness is all about your, your, your openness to new experiences. You know, these are the kind of people who are more likely to do skydiving and go scuba diving with sharks and that kind of stuff. They may also, you know, on the one hand they're probably going to be really curious and, and be listening to a lot of stories. On the other hand, they're going to be collecting a lot of stories through their life experiences. And I think I would hypothesize extroverts may not be the most skilled storytellers. I would hypothesize introverts may be more skilled storytellers because they do more introspection. And a key thing with, if you want to get good at using storytelling is you need to refine a lot of the way you present things, a lot of your explanations. It's never going to go down well. First time you need to try it, see what works and what doesn't work, and then your introspect. So I think those might, might have some correlations with storytelling ability. But I'm, I, I'm hypothesizing a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's really good. What about like learning how to teach someone else storytelling? Obviously it seems to be a skill of some sort. Like anything in life, it's, you probably need to practice it and so forth. But is it, is it hard? Is it, is it difficult?

I would say it's actually a lot easier than most people realize. If you are, for example, if you're not a natural born storyteller, you don't have this habit of being the person who tells stories at dinner parties or throwing in a story whenever you're giving a presentation. It can sound like a really intimidating skill to pick up. But there's a little process I teach people in some of the workshops I train that just makes it so easy. And think of it like this. Think of any really successful comedian that you're watching on YouTube or Netflix or wherever. And when you see them do their sellout shows and they're standing there and they've got the audience for like 60 Minutes and, and they're just amazing. That is not the first time they've told those stories. They have told those stories hundreds, if not thousands and thousands of times before. And they've made a lot of failures. They've gone to a lot of smaller bars, smaller audiences, they've tested stories and some of them haven't gone well. Some of them stuck a little bit and they refine them. And so if you want to be a really good storyteller, that's exactly what you need to do. You need to test out your stories. But to test out your stories, you also need to be able to find stories in the first place. And going back to a principle I shared earlier, you know, in the challenge part of stories, something changes and that creates a challenge for the character. And then that principle, a story is, is always about a change. Tells you exactly where you need to go to find stories. We experience change every single day, Many, many times every single day. Maybe, you know, your, your bus breaks down, maybe your, your children are sick, maybe a meeting gets cancelled. Anytime there is a change, there's a story in that change. And so in my book, I call it the story habit, the very first habit is called Notice change. Be more aware of the changes that are happening in your day to day life. When you notice those changes, you can make a quick note in your memory and you can start to collect stories in your mental story pool. And then the next time you're in a situation where you need to communicate with impact, change people's minds or inspire action, you can take a story out of your story pool and try it and see if it works. And it's probably not going to work the first time, but you have to take it out and use it the first time to get that feedback and figure out what worked and what doesn't work. And gradually through that process of finding stories where there are changes, storing them in your story pool, taking them out, using them, getting feedback and refining. Eventually you'll have a massive story pool full of well refined stories that you can just take out at any time. It's actually a really, really, really easy thing to do. It just involves messing up quite a lot, which you have to get used to.

Can you give us an example?

An example of, of a, of a.

Challenge that you're, you're living your life and all of a sudden you wreck. Like I'm, I'm fascinated with, with habits. You know, we've had James Clear and some other folks on the podcast in the past, you know, Charles Duhigg and Power of Habit. And you know, typically this, the thing that triggers a habit is a cue, a signal of some sort, right. And then you, you do something and then you get a reward. Right. And so here you seem to be your cue was that some change or some, something happened in front of you and that triggers this habit loop, if you will. So, yeah, I don't know if you have an example like that.

Yeah. So, for example, there's a little challenge I give people in my workshops and it's called what's your evening story? We finished the first day of the workshop and at about this time we, we've just looked at the idea of a story pool and finding stories and change. And I challenge people. You know, tonight when you go home, you're going to experience some kind of changes. So notice those changes and bring those stories to tomorrow morning's workshop. Some of those stories are going to be absolutely terrible and maybe one or two will be really, really interesting. And I remember there was this guy in one of my workshops a few years ago. His name was, his name was Jin. He was, he was from Korea actually, and he went home and he had the kind of personality that was probably high in openness. Actually, he was really open to new experiences. And he shared his story and he said that he went home and as he got into his compound, he noticed a stray dog. And he felt really sorry for the stray dog because it was staring at him and those puppy eyes. And he thought, oh, I really, really want to help the stray dog. So he went over, across the road to a little convenience store and he looked at, you know, what, what could I get to feed this dog? And he bought a sausage. And so he took the sausage to the compound and surely, you know, sausage for a dog. Surely the dog's going to be happy. He unwrapped the sausage, he threw it on the ground, the dog took a sniff and walked away.

Oh, boy.

And he said that I learned from that experience that you should never assume what people really. Because you're probably wrong. And it's just a really good example of how such a trivial experience, even in that experience, that there's a little story to be had there. And that was the very first time he, he told that story in that way. And, you know, it stuck with me to this day. And it's, it's one of those little stories that, you know, you're probably going to tell it a few more times until you find the right words to use at the right time in the right way and the right situation for it. Yeah.

So I guess every story is maybe silly question, but it sort of needs to lead to a point of some sort. Right. That story right there led to a point of don't assume whatever anybody wants. Like, I suppose if something, if you experience something and, and you have some story, but you don't really have a point to not going to be a very good story. Is that, is that fair?

I would say so, yeah. Like when I'm. When I'm training and coaching people and, you know, we get people to prepare their stories, one of the things I tend to give people feedback on the most is that it's missing that conclusion, that, that takeaway. Now sometimes you can, you can finish the story and you can let the audience find the takeaway for themselves. And I think there are some, some, some situations where that's really good. And I think like, a lot of, a lot of, like ancient Asian philosophical stories do that. And, you know, what's the sound of one hand clapping and what does that mean? And it's designed to get you to reflect.

Well, that's what's so difficult about it all. Because your conclusion on that story might be different than, like somebody else might say, yeah, I bought this sausage for this dog. I was feeling all bad and he, My empathy was running sky high and I brought the sausage over and that damn dog just looked at it and walked away. So I learned from it that there's going to be ungrateful people in your life. Right?

Yeah.

Completely different, you know, perception on that story, but that's how that person perceived it. So how you receive and perceive is probably going to dictate how your story. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, this is making me think of one. I, you know, I, I call it the three ingredients of stories because relate, challenge, resolve is like the structure. If I use a metaphor of, of a meal, it's like the protein, the vegetables and the staple. You know, it's essential, but it's missing something. It needs the flavoring. And so the three ingredients of stories, one is show, don't tell. Another is contrast. But one really interesting one is metaphors and analogies. And this is really powerful because you can get really, really specific with the exact feeling that you want to communicate. Like, if I were to ask you to give me a metaphor, and don't worry, I'm putting you on the spot here, but to give me a metaphor or analogy for what it's like to, to quit. Well, to lose your job and not have a job offer to be in, in that state of mind. I mean, does a metaphor come to you at the moment or no worries if it doesn't?

Well, I mean, I, like, I don't know about a metaphor. I mean, in that scenario, if I, if I lost my job, lost Gemba Academy or whatever it was, and I didn't have a way to provide for my family, it would be. I would be in probably in a state of panic or, you know, depression and extreme anxiety. Right? Probably. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe or probably. And so maybe a metaphor for describing that would be like, you know, it's like being stranded on an ocean with a massive storm about to come up and I don't know where I'm going to go and I don't know how I'm going to escape this. But then for other people, that, that experience would be like, it's like waking up at a holiday resort on the first morning of your holiday. I, I don't have to work anymore and. Cool. Everyone's going to have a different feeling. And so metaphors and analogies are a really powerful way of communicating that precise feeling that, that you want to communicate. And So I think. I think it's always something worth considering. Do I want to let the audience decode the meaning of the story, or do I want to get really, really precise with the meaning? I'm trying to get across here. And maybe it's a really personal thing to you. Maybe there is a really, really important takeaway that you had that you want to share with the audience, and you could use a metaphor to represent that idea, or you could tell the story in its purest form and let the audience take. Get their own takeaway from that. I think there's value in both approaches.

Yeah. Oh, it's so cool. You know, you obviously probably saw the. Before every podcast, we send out a little instruction sheet and how to schedule it and some of the things that we do, and one of the things that I've put in there is tell a story. I tell people. It's like, so in our audience, we might have somebody that's practicing this lean. It's very. Sometimes could be boring or whatever. Oh, I just did XYZ and. Okay, well, turn XYZ into a story. Was everybody happy that you were doing there?

Was.

You know what I mean? When you, when you engage in story, it is a much better. Simon Sinek, you know, you've probably seen him, right? A big. A lot of speeches and so forth. He came on the podcast once, in fact, and. And you know, he's a master storyteller, right? Like, he just pulls you in. Like, the first words out of his mouth were, it was a dark day. You're like, you know. You know what I mean?

And.

And you know, he's a master at it, and you're sucked in. 30 seconds in, and you can't take your eyes off of. Off of him.

So actually, Simon Sinek was. Had a really, really good example that I actually used in my book. He gave a master class in. In Relate, Challenge Resolve. And it was his. His viral video of the. Of the millennial question. And it was just such a great demonstration of this process and action. As you know, he's talking about the issue a lot of people have with millennials, their snowflakes and whatever. And he started by relating to them. And the very first word he said was apparently. And then he listed all of the flaws that people have been saying, but that. But that word apparently says these aren't. These flaws aren't coming from my mouth. And I don't believe them. I'm with you. And you can see the, the audience of millennials, they. They really buy into him at that point.

Yes.

And he spends the first, like, 10 minutes relating to them. You know, these are all the challenges they've had in their life. But then he gets to the challenge point where he points out that, you know, you spend too much time on your phones, and if you do that, you're going to have joyless lives and you can see people in the audience looking really concerned. And then later on, he goes into resolve, where he, you know, he demonstrates, you know, put your phone down, buy an alarm clock, and he starts giving action points. So he follows exactly this process. And, you know, I just use the words relate, challenge, resolve. You know, they're just my words. Yeah, Natural process. Natural. Storytellers will naturally follow this process.

Yeah. Well, I haven't read your book yet, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna go order it as soon as we get off here because I'm fascinated with this kind of stuff because I think it, you know, words matter. You know, the even individual words, like you just said, apparently, like, that just changed the whole structure of what those. Those folks were about to hear, you know, or almost disarmed them in a way. Right. There's, you know, even. Which we're reading through, like legal contracts and so forth. Like the word could and should, you could probably interchange them, but they're very different legal meetings. Even if you could do something or you should do something, you know, like, these words matter.

Right.

And so, you know, even. Yeah, so as we're telling stories in particular, that relate aspect of it, the words we use are going to be, well, all of it. I mean, obviously, challenge and resolve, it's been important as well, but maybe even relate. It's maybe more important because you're trying to, you know, get them to open up and listen to you, you know, so.

Yeah, and I, I just add to that, you know, I. I live in China, and I've been. I've been really shocked by how China has just destroyed its reputation on the. On the world stage over the last few years. And I think it's, you know, in my opinion, quite a strong opinion here. It's. It's a. A case study of the worst example of storytelling in modern history. Because I actually, I, you know, China has done some things that are quite questionable. I don't want to go. Go into the politics of it, but it has a lot to offer the world in terms of technology, talent, infrastructure, even money. And the world is increasingly turning away from that. And I think what we're. What we're seeing here is that value is Always subjective. It's not about the tangible things you have to offer, it's about the story people have about those tangible things. And Huawei, for example, the pioneers of 5G technology, the Western world doesn't trust Huawei. And you know, I don't know if it's, if that's valid or not, but I actually haven't seen any proof. And I, I remember the Edward Snowden files. I've seen proof of what social media companies are doing. But the story that people are telling about Huawei is a story that's cost Huawei a lot of money. And I don't want to go into a politics rabbit hole here, but the message is that story is really, really important and it's, it's value. Value is story. If you're not telling the story right, you are, you know, you're losing value.

Yeah. And I don't, I don't know anything about all this politics stuff with Chinese companies and so forth, but one thing that I do feel passionate about as it relates to the story and really just life in general is that truth matters, right? That there is truth. Truth and you.

And.

Eventually, you know, if you, if you are siding with virtue and truth, you then you really, really need to work on your storytelling, right? Because a bad person or a bad entity could also be a master storyteller, right? And they could trick you, they could deceive you with their lies and their deceit and so forth. And so, yeah, it's like a, it's like any skill, like persuasion in general. Scott Adams, you know, the Dilbert cartoon guy, he fascinates me. You know, he, he, he, he has, here in America, he has the liberals and the conservatives equally mad at him. He's probably doing something right, this guy, you know, you know, and, but everybody's following him, right? He's a master persuader, right? Yeah, but, but the way, you know, he's like a hypnotist as well, so he loves, almost like hypn, you know, with his work. But, but, you know, but you can sense that, you know, there's genuine, he's trying to seek truth, whatever that might mean to him. Now you could decide that your truth isn't my truth, you know, and I suppose you have to come to that conclusion one day, right? Like we just got to, we got to agree to disagree. You know, we're not going to see it the same way, but the way that we, we tell our stories and the way we perceive other stories or receive other stories, that's the light that's that's our life. That's the world that we live in.

Yeah, right. Yeah. So, exactly. It's, it's the storytellers who get noticed whether they're good or not. So it's a skill worth, worth learning.

Well, look at politicians, you know, I mean, you might hate that politician, but you've got to say, man, that, that man or that woman sure can talk. You know, I like them, you know. You know. Exactly. Right. But they're, they're, they're probably a master storyteller. Right, so.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Good stuff. Well, hey, Jamie, this has been really fun, man. I, you know, I. Sometimes it's not our traditional kind of topic, you know, on this sort of more lean continuous improvement podcast, but it's, it's. We're all about people. We're all about. It's. This is our continuous improvement endeavors are ultimately human related. Right. It's always humans involved. And so this is a very fascinating topic to me. I'm really excited to read your book. Maybe I'll have you back on because I'll have more.

Cool.

I'll have better questions, you know, after reading the book. But if folks want to connect with you, Jamie, what is the best way.

So you can, you can find me on my website called shapingpaths.com all one word, or you can search for me on LinkedIn. Just search for Jamie Dixon D I X O N and you'll see my face on an orange background. Those are the ways to communicate.

What's the story there? What's the story with the orange background?

I was just trying to make my face stand out because there's always so many, so many people the same name as you on social media.

Yeah.

The easiest way to find me, Facebook.

Got it, got it. All right, well, we'll link all that up in the show notes.

But.

Well, yeah, I appreciate you coming on. And I suppose it's about time for you to go to bed there in China.

I suppose it is, yeah.

All right, well, I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

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