Why Authentic Stories Matter More Than Ever in an AI World | Gabrielle Dolan | 719

What do you do when you see a leadership skill that everyone uses but almost no one takes seriously? More than 20 years ago, Gabrielle Dolan, she goes by Ral, among her friends, noticed the most effective leaders, presenters and change makers all had one thing in common. They told stories. The challenge was that few people believed storytelling belonged in business. In this episode, we explore how Rao built a thought leadership platform around an idea that many at the time dismissed, and how her persistence, curiosity and conviction helped her change the conversation. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Gabrielle, or as you like to be known, Ral. Yes, Ralph. Everyone calls me Ral, except my husband and my mother when I'm in trouble. That second one, everybody has the name that you cringe when you hear from your mother, right? Yeah, yeah. In fact, now it's even my kids. I probably don't get in trouble from my mother much these days, but my kids, you know, if I do something, they'll go. Gabrielle was like, oh. So I want to begin with your origin story into thought leadership. You were working in corporate in Australia and you noticed there was a gap that nobody was really focusing on. What was it and what did you do? Yeah, so in a nutshell, the gap was storytelling training. So I worked in corporate Australia. I was in the senior leadership roles. My last. My last couple of roles, probably the last two or three years, was in change management roles. So, you know, rolling out, major digital transformation, although we didn't call it digital transformation and we think you just called it technical change, but rolling out, you know, massive change that would affect every employee and, you know, so you'd have a change manager that would have to go out to the business units and talk about why we needed to change and what they needed to do. And as you would probably know, implementing change in organizations is hard. And what I started to notice is that I sort of shared a story once and it was just sort of a personal story about why we needed to change. And it wasn't a silver bullet, but I sort of noticed that people tended to get the message better. They tended to not be as defensive. And then I started to notice all the really good leaders that I thought were really good leaders when I heard them speak, were sharing stories that the brilliant presenters, you'd think back and look at the brilliant presenters and they were sharing stories. Even when I did, you know, I did an mba, and I think back to the great lecturers I had. They were all sharing stories. So I was Starting to think that storytelling is a skill. And just like it's, you know, it's a. It's an influencing skill, it's a communication skill, it's a leadership skill. And just like any other skill, it could be, you know, taught and learned. And. But there was this thing going on in my mind. It was like story. When I spoke people about storytelling in business as a leadership skill, the reaction would be like, what the hell has storytelling got to do with business? Like, why, you know, we're. We're numbers, we're data, we're blah, blah, blah. I. Oh, that belongs in marketing rather than. Yes, yeah. Or they go, ooh, once upon a time, and I came across a book written by Stephen Denning, and it was called the Organizational Guide to Storytelling. And Stephen Denning, he was actually born in Australia, but he lived most of his life in the US and he was a ex senior executive at the World bank, so. An ex senior executive, the World Bank. And he had written this book on storytelling. And when I read it, it made complete sense to me that this was a leadership skill and a communication skill. And the fact that anyone was going to be a finance person, it was going to be somebody at the World bank, right? Yeah, yeah. And the fact that a senior exec, an ex senior executive, the World bank had written a book on storytelling just gave it legitimacy to me. I just thought if, you know, if a senior exec is writing a book on this, there's something in it. And I, you know, in previous roles in corporate, I had been in learning and development roles. So I had the skills and experience to design leadership programs and deliver leadership programs that I had done that. So I knew I had those skills. And I just thought, I think I could be the one that teaches people storytelling. So that was. That was sort of. That was 21 years ago I made that decision and have been doing it ever since. And yeah, it was a bit of a. Bit of a risk, but, you know, here we are. So you talk about making that decision. Did you do some of that work internally within your company or was this. And I need to step out and make this my own thing. And how did you make that decision? Yeah, so I must admit I had started to experiment a little bit with storytelling myself, just sort of testing it out and, you know, in my job. But I guess that the decision was. So I had this sort of idea brewing in the back of my head, but the decision was almost forced upon me because the. The organization was going through a massive restructure, and it, you Know, and I, but I had applied for the job, so I, I still hadn't decided to leave. And I applied for. It was like the head of, the head of learning and development for the organization and, and Bill, I was so sure I was going to get the job. And like so many other people told me, oh, you're issuing. Anyway, I didn't get the job. And I still, I still remember the meeting, sitting across the table from the manager who was telling me who, who I was, you know, really respected and had known really well. And she just said to me, she said, raoul, I'm not going to offer you this job. And she explained why, which all made sense. And she said, what do you think you're going to do? And I just said, I think it's time to go. And I still remember her putting her hand over the table and like touching my hand and said, I think it's time for you to go too. That you've always, you've always said you wanted to sort of do something on your own, like take this as an opportunity to go. So I remember walking out and I remember ringing my husband who worked, who literally worked across the road, but it was very unusual for us to talk to each other during work. And he said, oh, what's happening? I go, I've just decided to leave, Leave National Australia Bank. That's where I worked. And he went, oh, okay. And he goes, well, knowing you, you've probably thought about it for a while and I'll, you know, if that's what you want to do, I'll support you. And I'm thinking, haven't thought about it for that much, but it was like, I guess I had thought about it, but this was the push. So I saw that as the push. I was working on a project, so I was in those change management roles and I, and I said to my manager, look, this, I will leave, but I will stay on the project till it rolls. It was rolling down, so I stayed for another three or four months. And Bill, I kept waking up every day over those three or four months thinking, there's going to be one day. I go, what the hell are you doing that day? So tell me about that day. No, it didn't happen that day never happened. It never happened of, you know, when I thought, what am I doing? What am I doing? It didn't happen. And I guess because I was still working and had three or four months to start preparing for this, it didn't, it didn't feel like a. Just the decision, you know, I Guess the decision, when I say the decision was forced upon me, I could have stayed and got another job, so I could have done that. And I just kept thinking, you know, if it, I'll just give this a go if it doesn't. Our children were 2 and 5 at the time. So even though we had made, you know, a big decision for me to leave and you know, I, my husband was working and he was on good money, I was on more money. So we, we still made a decision to drop our income by about 60% but we were still okay. And I had, there was a retrenchment package there. So there was a bit of financial security. And I just thought, I will just give this a go. And the, if the kids are 2 and 5 and if it doesn't work out, I will at least been at home with the kids for a while and I can always go back and get another job. So that was, that's where I sort of started. And it'd be fair to say it was pretty slow for. So let me ask a few questions. You have an interest in storytelling. You say, okay, let me give it a go. What were you thinking? Were you thinking, I'm going to do research, I'm going to write a book, I'm going to speak, I'm going to do workshops. What was that initial concept that you thought you were doing? Yeah, so my, the initial concept, I was going to run training workshops. So that's what I knew. So when, you know, when you talk about like thought leadership, it's like what your ex, what is your expertise? So how do you deliver your. And then how do you deliver it? So I always knew I was going to deliver it in training workshops. And then, you know, so I was, I devoured then every book. So I devoured Steve Denny's book and Annette Simmons wrote a book. So there was other books coming out. I had, I sort of knew what worked and what didn't incorporate how, you know, good ways to teach it. So I sort of had this workshop. Like, sort of like it'll be a one day workshop and I'll teach people storytelling and I'll save the world. And how's that go? Well, it actually went all right. The workshop, it took a while to get a client because remember this is, this is going back 21 years ago when I would say I'm teaching people storytelling and everyone would go, hang on, you left your senior job at National Australia bank to teach people storytelling? Okay, like, are you mad? Like, what, what is this about? This is, this is Crazy. So I, I, I, I had to spend a lot of time educating the market that this was a legitimate skill. And in fact, some people. When you say a lot of time, how much? Oh, so my first, I remember I left in February of 2005. The first client was November that year. And the first client. So that, that's a, that's almost a year of no sales. Yeah, my first. Oh, it felt like, it felt like, oh, my God. This is, maybe this is not, this is not going well. I mean, I knew it would be slow, but I didn't think it would be that slow. And also the first client was my previous manager from years ago and he, I loved him as a manager and he's, he had an executive coach and his coach had mentioned storytelling as a skill. So he, he brought me in and when, when I started the company, I started with another person as well. There was two of us. So he brought us in. But there was, so it was great. We had our first sale, but there was a bit of part of me, Bill, going, maybe he's just feeling sorry for me and he's like giving me. So even though it was a first sale and it was with a great, like a great organization, there was a part of me going, oh, maybe, maybe this is a one off. Because he's feeling sorry. Will I get sale number two? Right? Will I get sale number two? And then, you know, I did get sale number two, but it was, it was still very gradual. I would have. Then afterwards, clients say, look, I know we really need to teach our leaders storytelling, but can we call it something else? Can we call it communication skills? Can we call it influencing skills? I mean, this is, this is how sort of like almost dirty the word storytelling. Can we not use the S, can we not. Yeah. Not use the S word? Because they knew if they said we're doing storytelling training, no one would turn up. But if they said we're doing influencing training, they would. And I said, yes, you can. And I was happy with that because it is influencing skills and it is communication skills. They're just going to learn to do that via storytelling. So that was 21 years ago. That was the environment we're in, which is very different to now. But that was the environment for a long time. Okay, so you've gotten your second client. You're getting people asking, can you do things? Did it pick up? Continue to pick up? Was there a moment of, did you get to that moment of, okay, what am I doing? And when did that happen? Yeah. So it gradually went Along. So again, like I said, there was, there was two of us and we were gradually, sales were sort of coming in but like nowhere, nowhere near what I expected. And I, maybe this is a foolish thing to do, but I kept reflecting on what I was earning in corporate Australia and what I was earning now. And it was nowhere near that. Now I know that's only one measure that I had a lot of flexibility and like I said, I was, I was home with the kids. The kids were 2 and 5 and you know, had a lot of time to drop them off to school and do all that stuff. So that, that was there. It happened that, that probably went on for about seven or eight years. What happened? It was probably a year. The turning point was probably a year where May, May, my business partner initially had a five year plan. We would do this for five years. You know, I think we had great grand plans that we'd build up this training company and sell it. And that clearly was right, not happening. And that was our five year plan. And after about seven, seven years it was, you know, our priorities I guess were slightly changing where, you know, I wanted to do some stuff, she wanted to do other stuff. And so we just decided, you know what this is, probably run its course and we'll separate and I'll keep doing storytelling, you keep doing storytelling. But I, I added other stuff. Like I added presentation training and you know, even at 1, even at 1 point thought leadership training and doing other stuff. So now I was out on my own and my husband, who fully supported me previously to leave my job, was becoming increasingly unhappy working in corporate Australia. So he, he was just, and I remember he came home and said to me once, he goes, I just don't want to do this anymore. And he said I would, I would be more fulfilled and more happy if I was a handyman. That's what I want to do. And I remember at the time going, I'm not sure we can afford you to leave at the moment because remember I was still earning like not a, not a lot of money. And I said to him, give me 12 months, just give me 12 months. And I think it was a combination because people often ask what happened then because in that next 12 months I quadrupled my sales. In fact, it went five times. It went like, it went, I know, like about a hundred 120,000 to 720,000 in, in, in one year. And, and people are. What happened. And part of me, I don't even know, but I think what I could put it down to is with when my husband said he's really unhappy. And I. I just thought, okay, I've got to take this really seriously now. And, you know, I probably was taking it seriously before, but it was like, ramped up, you know, when you sort of go. So it's like when you're running, when you're running and you think you're running the fastest you can, but if someone goes. Go faster, you can actually go faster. So you thought you were running as fast as you can, but you weren't. And then I think it was that plus that I was on my own and I was just doing stuff that was I wanted to do and felt, I don't know, just felt more aligned and things could move faster. And so there was that. And then it got to the point where I. I think it was actually after about nine months, I said to him, you know what? We're financially, we are super cool. If you want to leave, you can leave. And so, you know, it took a few months for him to work through a few things, but he left. And how did it feel knowing that you were basically now the breadwinner and, you know, through thought leadership. Yeah. So it was one of those. A couple of things happened because. Because my business had grown so much, I was now in a position where I needed like, you know, an assistant, executive assistant to help me. And so one of the teachers that taught my kids, she and I had sort of become to know her, and so, you know, we'd sort of become friendly. And once she made a funny comment about if you ever need an assistant, you know, maybe I could do it. And I was writing out the job description, and I sort of just kept thinking she actually would probably would be pretty good at this. So I offered her the job. And, you know, again, this took a few months for her to decide, but she actually decided to leave her teaching career and come and work for me. It was in the exact same week that Steve put in his resignation. And I. Bill, I remember this day so clearly. I went to the accountant. I had to meet him with the accountant for some reason. And it was the same week. And my accountant said to me, he went. And he probably said it as a very flippant comment, but he said, gee, you better make sure this works. Now you've got two people respons. Like you're responsible for two people. And I remember coming home thinking, I. I remember actually feeling physically sick. And I'm not. I'm not exaggerating that. I actually felt like I was going to vomit because I thought, she's left her teaching career to come work for me. And look, yes, she could always go back, I guess, and my husband, I guess, could always go back and get another job. But he left and I was. Now, you know, people often talk about the primary breadwinner. I've got a very strong appreciation for the heavy weight that can happen. And I just remember feeling physically sick. And I was, I was doing a bit of one on one coaching at that time. And I remember I had a mentoring session and I, instead of me mentoring this guy, I was just going, blah, blah, was like going out of it. And I still remember him saying to me, goes, oh, And I, and because I was talking about all the self doubt, what if this doesn't work? What if people, what if people just suddenly stop buying this? What if, what if, what if, what if I was going into a spiral of self doubt, which is very unlike me. Very, very unlike me. People would probably say that I'm the one of the most confident people they know. And I still remember him saying, he said, raoul, please don't tell me you have self doubt, because if you have self doubt, we are all screwed. It was just like. And I think it was what I, I just needed. I just what I needed. And then I was fine. But it was, but it was. I said, I can still remember that physical feeling. I want to turn our question, Ral, to you starting out in storytelling where you said, hey, I can absorb stuff. And you said, I got this book and I got that book. And you were taking other people's ideas and building a workshop around it. Yep. At what point during the journey did you start saying I. Oh, and my ideas go in here. When did you make that transition from synthesizing others. Yep. To really developing your own work? Yeah, look, I think that happened from the start and I think when I look at thought leadership, you always, like, you're never starting from scratch. You're always, oh, absolutely. It's not a new conversation. It's not a new conversation. Storytelling precedes written writing. Exactly. Like, you know, writing, not Britain writing. I did not invent storytelling. Right. I always liken it, Bill, to, you know, I love cooking and I've got some dishes that people refer to it as like, oh, my Ral's bloody Raoul, your slow roast lamb. It was like, well, it's actually a Jamie Oliver slow roast lamb. And I just, you know, tweaked it and added a few. It's just like any good chef will tweak it. So that's what I think of Thought leadership soup. So right from the start, even when I was designing day one and reading these books, I was going, yes, I agree with that, but I don't think this will work in a corporate setting and I'm going to change it. So it was all the classic thought leadership. Yes and. Or, yes, but. Right. I was doing that from the start. I came across eventually, we. We had some mentors and they suggested writing a book. So that's when you have to sort of go deeper and go, what is this really about? But I remembered I was speaking to a client. I don't know, this, this might have been about like six or seven years in. And I said something about, well, you know, I want to be known as a thought leader in this space. And he said, you already are the thought leader in this space. And I still remember this conversation. I was like, why did you not tell me that before? It's like, you know, because people don't tell you that. But it was. But so in answer to your question, that happened from the start and then gradually, I think, you know, it just weaves over the 21 years that this is genuinely. Or my IP, but I would be saying that was even years ago. And of course attribute. Fully attribute other stuff. But yeah, you know, now, now I've got. I teach a framework of storytelling and people would know that, that that's Gabriel Dolan's framework. That's, you know, my ip. So I think if you. Anyone stepping into the thought leadership space, you've got to. You got to understand you're standing, you know, on the shoulders of giants. But what the conversation has been. Yeah, it is currently sort of get a sense of where it's going. Yes. And then figure out whether there's something you disagree with or something you want to amplify or. Yeah. No one's ever asked this question. Yeah. And you find your own lane, I think, through that process of engaging with the past. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I, I say to people, it's like, it's your ex. No one's had the exact same. Your experience. You've got a different experience, you've got different stories, you've got a different take on thing, you've got a different. You've got a different way of expressing your thought leadership. So mine was, you know, and I know when I left, I knew storytelling was professional. I wanted it to be seen as professional because again, I was getting pushed back. I like, once upon a time, like fairy tales is like. No, it's not about that. This is not fluffy. This is not fluffy. Yeah, right. It's. It's professional. It's a professional skill that, you know, good luck to you if you don't want to learn it. Right. But I also knew it was different. And so without knowing it, I wanted to adopt my brand, to be like that, that storytelling was professional but different. And so that was, you know, I sort of took that on in the way I presented my thought leadership. Like, you know, people tell me I'm really funny. The amount I do keynotes now as well, and the amount of times like this would happen, probably every single keynote I do, I would have a handful of people come up and say, have you ever thought of being a standup comic because you're so funny? And so I'm delivering it because I truly believe if you can entertain people and educate them at the same time, that's better than educating them and boring them. So if you can be funny and engage and keep the momentum and the timing, which is its own challenge and skill, but it's all about how do you connect with someone and bring them into an idea. Yeah, humor's a good way to do it. If you. If you can't. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think there's a saying that the closest connection between two people is a laugh or something. So if you can get people laughing, they're connecting with you. And then, of course, storytelling is a brilliant way to connect with people. So I've got. I've got the two. I feel like I've got the two happening in my keynotes. I'm telling stories which people are loving and connecting with it, and I'm being funny, which they're loving and connecting with it, and they're walking away learning something. Ron Chernow, in his biography of Mark Twain, tells the story of Twain giving his first keynote speech, or his first speech. He rents out a hall in San Francisco, hires a couple people to sit in the audience to be shills and laughter. And he thinks, okay, this will work because he's got to pay off some debts. He comes out on stage, stands stock silent for about a minute, and the hall is silent, looking at him going, oh, this is awkward. This is self consciousness. He's paralyzed, right? And then he said, well, this is my first time doing public speaking, and quite honestly, it's probably going to be my last. I'm sorry. He then goes on to be one of the first, you know, true global keynoters around the world in the age of steamships. But he too, had to find the way to break that connection and bring that humor to the audience. Yeah, yeah, I did know that. And that's, that's a great example of starting a speech with both authenticity and humor. Like, he probably genuinely felt that, but I'm sure the audience would have laughed. Exactly. Yeah. He was ready to go. This was an experiment that won't work. I got to come up with something else. Right, so you've now written books, you've got your own frameworks, you do keynotes both in person and virtual. What lights you up these days? What do you love doing about the thought leadership work and why? Yeah, thank you, Bill. That is such a great question. I had a bit of a health scare last year. Like about a year ago. It was breast cancer. It was pre cancer. So I, I feel like I got the, you know, when people have those, I got those life changing moments. I feel like I had one of them but without, without the fear of dying, which is the best way to have, which is the best way to have one of them. But it was still, it was, you know, I've always had a very good, strong work life balance and, and, and, you know, if I don't want to do stuff, I don't do it. But this, this took it to a whole new level. And so I, you know, and I turned 60 next year. So what I'm excited about, it's almost like I had 20 years in corporate, I had 20 years running. Storytelling. Storytelling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm really excited about what the next 20 years will be. It is still, it will still be storytelling. I know that. So I, I love getting the opportunity to do keynotes around the world. Like, you know, I've been in quite, you know, recently been asked to speak at a conference in Milan and do work in Morocco. And like five years ago I would have been going, I think financially I would have been, well, it's not really worth it. And I'm away and now I'm going, yay, let's go for it. Great opportunities. I'm very excited about the latest book I've written because I feel like, I genuinely feel this would probably be the last storytelling book I write. But I did, I did think about that. The last book. I said that as well. But I feel like this is the 20 years of my thought leadership career. So this is the capstone, this is the it. Yeah. And, and I just want, I just want as many people to understand the power of storytelling and learn how to do it. And so I'm excited about talking about storytelling and story intelligence and book and, you know, via people like this, by you giving me the opportunities. And what I'm also excited about as well is I have my own podcast, and it's called Keeping It Real with Jack and Raoul. And, you know, I'm the ral, obviously, and we have so much fun doing that. You know, it's once a week. It's all around career advice and, you know, insights and tips around leadership or just career development. And I love doing that. And what I. In fact, just this week, I was speaking with Jack, my co host, and we were talking about, did we discuss our goals? And it goes. My goals were to have fun to. Once you. Once you've decided, it's almost to expand your thought leadership. So, like, if you're coming up with a new podcast episode every week, you gotta do it. So, like, that's exciting. Expanding my thought leadership. And I said, yeah. The other one is this is a legacy you're leaving. And whether it's. Whether it's a business thing, but, you know, our great, great, great grandkids who are never gonna meet us, they can at least listen to us and go, hey, great, great, great grandma was pretty cool and funny. And so that what lights me up. So there's a thread of storytelling there, even in terms of telling stories to people that you may never meet directly, whether those are the people that you train and they go on, or they learn something from a book and they go on to tell stories. It's making an impact, your stories, generationally, even through the podcast audio. As you said, if you're grandkids. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, and that's what, again, the power of storytelling, it can. It can go from generation to generation to generation, whether it's just in an organization as such or whether it's in, you know, a whole culture. So you've studied storytelling now and practice storytelling as a thought leadership area for 20 years. How has your perspective on storytelling changed over that time? And why does it matter? What is it that lights you up? Because to talk about anything for 20 years takes exceptional passion about the subject. Yes, it's. It does. So I. I think my thoughts on storytelling haven't changed. I still believe it's. It's one of the most powerful leadership, communication, parenting skills you could have. Like, whenever you're trying to influence and communicate what happened about two years ago that I guess resparked. My passion is that I would be running workshops and I'd have more and more people say to me, will AI replace storytelling? And Bill, seriously, the fact that people were even asking me this question horrified me. It was like, why, why would you think that I would replace your storytelling and that, you know, well, you can just get AI to write a story? And, and so I was seriously horrified. And, and I just thought in a world of distrust. So we are, we are in such a world of distrust. Like, there's, we don't trust governments. We do, we see things online. Is it like, you know, I has ruined, ruined the pet videos, the animal videos that used to go, oh my God, that's so cute and amazing. Now you go say, and so they've just destroyed it. It's just destroyed that. And in a world of AI generated content, it's. I truly believe that our authentic stories are needed now more than ever. And so that's my passion. It was like, the other question I got, Bill, was, can you use AI to help with your storytelling? And initially my reaction was like, no, that's cheating. It's, it won't be real, it won't be authentic. But I as my publisher actually said, well, you know, if you're the, if you're the expert in this, you probably need to, you know, start looking into it. And I did look into it and I, My, my mind changed on that, that you can use AI to help with your stories, help find them, help refine them. And I talk about that in the book, but you don't want to lose your voice. And more and more now, I'm seeing the biggest danger with AI is that people are losing their voice. And what they're doing is they're putting stuff out there and it's AI generated. They, you know, they might tweak one or two words, but it's still sounding like AI and then it's all sounding the same. And, and that to me is a real danger that they're putting. We're putting efficiency ahead of effectiveness. And yes, AI can be helped help you. And I think thought leaders can really fall into this trap where it's really good to generate content. But is it your own? Does it sound like you in the first place? And is it you? Is it. Can you explain that? Because you've got to take responsibility and accountability for every single thing that comes out of your mouth or keyboard. And if it's a bit of AI stuff in there that you go, oh, that's not really me, or I can't explain, it's, it's yours. There were seven points last time. Now you're saying there are four, and it's a two by two Matrix. What are you talking about? I don't know. That was what came out of AI today. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I thought you were asking me that question. I'm going, I can't remember that. No, no, no, no. But I'm saying in general, you, you got to be account. I was over Easter. It was, it was Saturday night. We were sitting there and Anchorman was on, you know, the old Anchorman movie. And there was, you know, the scene where the classy San Diego stay classy. And, and Veronica Corningstone she' Anything on the tele. And so she puts on Go F yourself, San Diego. And he just says it and then his whole career's destroyed. And I thought, oh, my God, that, that reminds me. And then we have the montage of him just going into, going into a jacket, a classic. But that reminds me of. He like, AI if we just put stuff out there and it's AI and we. It. It will still reflect badly on you if it comes out of your mouth. So, yeah, we don't, we don't want to sign off with Go F yourself, San Diego. Well, and I think to your point on storytelling, it's one of the longest running legacies that we as humans have. I mean, go back to the Epic of gilgamesh, you know, 5,000 years ago, if I'm remembering right. Yeah. And those stories still echo down. Yeah. The question is. Well, I reference AI story echo. Any more than three minutes? Probably not. Probably not because it's missing something. And I ran a test in the book to test my stories against AI but yeah, yeah, I, I even, I always reference our, you know, I'm from Australia, our first nations people. We've got the oldest culture in the world going back 60. Latest is 65,000 years. And their Dreamtime stories, the messages have stayed through those stories. And they're talking about stories that have been passed down for tens of thousands of years and the message has remained the same. But yeah, that's AI stories will not replicate that. No, I sort of feel, you know, Bill, I feel like, you know, you and I are both old enough to remember when PowerPoint came in. Remember, PowerPoint came in and we got so excited with this new technology and thinking, oh my God, all the, you know, we can, you know, move the things and sound of 1990s visual website clip art. And so we, we got sort of sucked in that this is going to make our presentations better because of the technology. And of course, it didn't, you know, the death by PowerPoint came about, about. And I think this. I think we're in a similar spot where we're thinking, AI amazing technology, which it is, is going to make everything better and make our stories sound better and our content be better. And it's not. If you hand over control to it, it's not. I think that's true not only in business. What is the story of the business? What's the story of the leader? What's the story of the customer? What's the story of the person who's interacting with the customer? And it's absolutely true in thought leadership. Yeah. What is your story? Yeah. What's the story of the idea that you are carrying for a period of time? Like you said, hey, I started this 20 years ago. I know there's a time that I will set my thought leadership of storytelling aside. Story will continue. It's how we carry the ideas that matters. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. We're on the same page. I want to thank you for a great conversation. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks, Bill. And I really appreciate the opportunity and loved your questions. Okay, you've made it to the end of the episode and that means you're probably someone deeply interested in in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are three recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game in thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you're looking for strategy or maybe you want to polish up your ideas or even create new products and offerings. I'd love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.