How To Win At Business Transformation For The New Economy

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest. He's going to be full of wisdom regarding all things business and the new economy. But before I talk to today's guest, or we talk today's guest, I miss if I didn't properly introduce my co host. You know him, you love him. The professor, the brain, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com thelandgeek how are you, Mark?

I'm great.

How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. Are those your dogs in the background, Scott?

Can you hear the dog barking?

I hear the dog, man. I think you gotta feed those dogs.

He, he, sadly, he is, I think he has, like, dementia. He's an old dog and like, literally about a month ago, he just started randomly barking at nothing. He'll just stand there and bark. So he's blind. He might be going a little crazy, not sure. But I think he's under control now.

Well, that's all right. Well, I'm really excited to introduce today's guest. Steven L. Blue is in the business of transforming failing and fading companies into global powerhouses. With 40 years of leadership experience, Steve is a proponent of changing the thinking, culture and product lines of established companies to help them survive and thrive in the new economy. However, he cautions that a combination of planning, appropriate timing, and knowledgeable action are essential to ensure a successful transformation. And it is not without risk. The advent of high tech products, services and processes have wrought a major shift in communication and in how we conduct commerce. Steve's focus on helping companies and organizations adapt to change in the economy is a major challenge. It is aptly called a metamorphosis. He is the author of the new book titled Metamorphosis. He's also a regular contributor to Fortune and entrepreneur. Steven Blue, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Well, thanks, Mark. It's a pleasure to be here. That's a hell of a mouthful. I'm going to have to commend my public relations people for giving you all that.

Well, no worries, no worries. So, Stephen, let's rewind the tape and let's just kind of talk a little bit about how you developed a view of the world where you could say, okay, here's what companies are going to need in order, because everything's changing so fast in order to make successful transformation into this new economy.

Well, you said it yourself, Mark. Everything is changing so fast. And the problem with a lot of companies, especially rust Belt and odline manufacturing companies, not only are they not changing fast enough, they're not changing at all. They wish for and opine for better days. And what I call fat, dumb and happy CEOs just sit there and hope that they'll make it to the retirement finish line before the board ousts them because their company went belly up. And that's what's going to happen to every manufacturing company particularly and almost any company if they don't change and get with the times and stay ahead of the curve. They're just going to go belly up.

You know, with China, India, you know, and we just can't compete necessarily in those sort of those labor markets, right? They're always going to have cheaper labor. The question then becomes, can we even compete in this new economy? And if we can, where do we make this metamorphosis?

Well, you hit on a, right, on a good point. But you can't out cheap the Chinese. There's just no way. And you know, I've been around for four years in leadership positions and I remember 40 years ago, manufacturers, we were chasing cheap labor in South Carolina and then we started chasing it in Mexico, then we started chasing it in South Vietnam and China and other places. And eventually you run out of places in the world to chase cheap labor. So you better not be manufacturing your product set that is labor intensive. You have to have a product set that is what I call intelligent intensive, meaning that it has high technology products that are, that are patent protected as much as you could protect that from the Chinese, patent protected and have really, really, really high margins. Instead of what a lot of manufacturers do is they rely on the patents that they do have. And then when those patents expire, they're surprised by somebody who knocks off the product and then their margin starts getting squeezed and squeezed tighter and tighter. So what every industrial company ought to be doing, if it isn't already, is they ought to be building intelligence into their products.

Scott Todd, what are your thoughts?

Well, like, like Steven, so how would they do that? Like you know, I've got this product or you know, like I'm a retailer, you know, obviously this isn't really geared towards retailers. It's more geared towards, like you said, the rust belt, et cetera. So a steel mills, right? Like how am I, how, how do you transform like a steel mill that's done the Same thing forever and ever and ever into, you know, something that has some current proprietary technology.

That's a big question, Scott, with a long answer. That would take more time than I have. But I'll put it in a nutshell for you if I can. The first thing these companies have to do is you need to change your mindset and just take, well, steel mills, probably the best and the worst example. Most fat, dumb and happy CEOs have a mindset that they can't do anything because the world around them has constrained them. And so therefore they start believing that they can't do anything. And then they go convince their boards, I can't do anything. So they don't get fired when they haven't done anything. And then the boards try to convince the shareholders. So it's a sort of a death spiral of what I'll call negative think. The first thing you have to do is you have to accept the fact that you will be out of business. And if you don't make a major transformation, because if you don't accept that fact to begin with, well, Scott, you're not going to take any risks, are you? You're not going to spend any money, are you? Because, hey, everything's going to be fine. So that's the first step to going down the road of transformation is accept the fact that you have to do something and then you have to do a deep dive with a bunch of outsiders because insiders can't do it or they would have done it already. You have to do a deep dive and what's available in your marketplace to capture what could you develop, where are your skill sets and so forth. I'll give you an example, Scott. When I transform the current company I'm the CEO of, we're in the rail industry and we were a dumb plastics and metal manufacturer. Now we're almost all high tech products. We looked out into the industry and we said, okay, what can we win at out there in the marketplace that isn't already won by somebody else? And that led us to a particular place or two in the marketplace where we could develop products. But you had to start with, where can I win at what's not being served by the marketplace? Now they're sort of plain vanilla questions with a different twist. If you can't win at it, I don't care if the market needs it or not. There's no sense in development because you'd lose your tail.

So, Steve, that leads me to another question. As the leader this business making this metamorphosis I could imagine that management is entrenched in what they're currently doing. Nobody likes change. Nobody likes radical change.

That's right.

How is the leader of your business? How did you get everyone on board and singing and reading from the same song sheet, if you will, and adapting these new technologies?

That's a good question. I mean, it comes in three parts, and this is the part. CEOs don't like it when I tell them this. The first part is you have to have a cultural transformation. You need to change your culture from whatever it is now to whatever it needs to be to be a high technology company or to be a completely, radically changed company. And if you look at the culture conditions on anybody, any company you want to name, they aren't ready for a radical change. So you have to develop that culture to get them ready. CEOs don't like to hear that because they think, I'm talking about the free beer and pizza for lunch bunch. And I'm not. I'm talking about a culture. While the example I use all the time is Cirque du Soleil. Have you seen a Cirque du Soleil show?

I love Cirque du Soleil.

I know. And actually, Cirque du Soleil is interesting business case study from how they, you know, morph the traditional circus into what it is now. I won't go into that, but the Cirque du Soleil performers come to work every single day wanting all jazzed up to do better tomorrow than they did today. Right? That's the essence of it. And they're on the edge and they're on the wire, and they want to do, you know, terrific things. And they want to prove that they're, you know, the best performers around. And I say to CEOs, that's the kind of mindset you should have when you start developing your culture. And they look at me and they go, you're crazy, kid. This is, you know, this is a workplace. This isn't a performance. These aren't performers. These are workers. And they should do what they're told. And they'll never be like that because they hate where they're working. And then I say, well, Mr. CEO, whose fault is that? They hate where they're working. So you start with that mindset and that model, and we don't have time today to go over all the steps, what I call the seven steps of cultural transformation. But you have to do that first. Get the now you've got the team. And if you read any of Collins's Work, you got the right people on the bus. You got to have that first. Because otherwise, if you try to have the entrenched management, the people who don't want to change anything, it's not going to work with them. And then when you get the right people on the bus, they're still going to be afraid of a big transformation, particularly if it involves designing and manufacturing products they've never done before. So you have to help them understand how the process works. You have to train them, you have to teach them, you have to coach them, and you have to assure them that when we get on the other side, you're still going to have a job, because I'm going to morph your skills from the old skill set to the new skill set.

Yeah, that makes sense. Could we take it from sort of the macro strategic piece of it where you break down these seven steps of transforming your culture. Would you mind sharing an anecdote of how you personally had to, you know, sort of get your own team on board for this radical metamorphosis of change?

Yep. And the short answer is I replaced every, almost every last one on my senior leadership team because they didn't want to go along with the program. I. I did. Because if you don't get the guys at the top on even, forget it. Because all the people below, they only parrot what the people above are doing. And you can't expect people below to do what the people above are not willing to do. And after a short while of coaching, not a long while, because, you know, the market and your competition doesn't give you all your lifelong to fix this kind of stuff. After a short while of coaching, I would say about 3/4 of my leadership team, I just fired them, replace them with people that were willing to go along with the program. I'm not saying they were bad people. And the old, you know, methodologies and the old, old paradigms, they were just fine. But when we had to move to the new paradigms, you got to replace them if they don't want to move with it.

Yeah.

Scott.

Todd, I mean, you're coming from a Fortune 300 background. You know, does this resonate with you? You've seen some management changes?

Yeah, yeah, it does and does. And, you know, it's amazing because, you know, there is the mindset that the shadow of the leader, right? Like the leader sets the intent of the entire organization and the leadership team to that component of it. And it's amazing because I've seen executives who basically led, right, like they were leaders like they went in there like, hey, listen, here's our vision of what we're going to go do. And they got everybody around it, right? And you know what? Change freaks people out, especially when you're dealing with. With changing our organization. Because what happens is when you change that organization. And it was just mentioned, oh, man, I'm going to lose my job. Oh, man, this company's changed. I'm going to lose my job. And ultimately, I think it's a failure of leadership if you don't. If you don't encourage people, hey, listen, we have to change so that you don't have to lose your job. In fact, you need to change to protect your job. And look, you may or may not like the new job, and it's okay because we're going to grow this company and we're going to grow our revenues and we're going to grow our profitability. So with that growth, now you get to look at other jobs and you can grow into other jobs. But it's amazing because I've seen then leadership where there was no vision, right? Like, and when there's no vision of a company, the best analogy I can have is like, we were when we went from a leadership where there was a vision to a leadership with no vision. It's like being on a cruise ship. And, like, you're sailing somewhere. You go out on deck and the wind's blowing through your hair, and then all of a sudden the captain, new captain of the ship, puts it in idle or shuts off the engine, and you slowly coast. And then you go outside and you're like, there's no. It's dead. The company dies. And Mark, I would equate that to. In our business, to. If you're not mailing and marketing, it's just like going without a vision.

No. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'd like to know, Steven, what is the number one reason most companies fail when they try to make this transition?

Well, the number one reason being the people around them and Scott made a good point. Are not on board. If they're not on board, they will torpedo you a million ways and you won't even know that it's happening. And all. And then one day you'll just, you know, walk into a meeting and you say, you know, I don't understand. I want. This thing isn't working now. Everybody is going to show all, yeah, we're doing our best, boss. We're doing our best boss. So you got to smoke out the. What I call them is blood sport committees, you know, if you've guys worked in big companies, Scott, it sounds like you have. So you'll resonate with this is if you ever walk into a meeting with a new idea of 12 people in a big corporation, bring that idea up, what kind of reaction are you going to get, Scott?

Oh, you could. It could be like, we don't do that here or we tried it or yeah, it's not going to work here.

Exactly right. And so the bloodsport committees, they get paid to show how smart they are and everyone's trying to outsmart the next guy in these meetings. And that's the whole problem and why most initiatives fail because you got to start, you have to start with the senior leadership team. They're either on board and you'll know it. If they're not, I mean, they may be nod their head yes, but you'll know if they're on board or not. You replace that level. Now, this is the long term process. I mean, the naysayers will say, oh yeah, but you can't do that. Well, you can't go out of business either. Then you get that next layer in place and this is getting your culture ready. And then that next layer's job is to get the layer below them. Hopefully you don't have any more than three layers in your organization. Get that layer below them replaced and ready and replenished and on board. And then only then can you tackle the workforce because otherwise everybody would be against it. The other thing you said, Scott, was really important, and I agree with completely, is you got to paint both sides of the picture to employees. You just can't say, here's all the great things that are going to happen. We come out on the other side because that's not good enough. Most people are driven more by fear than they are by desire. And it's what I call, you do the El Dorado or you get El Chapo. I tell them all the good things are going to happen when we do this. And I say, here's all the bad things that are going to happen if we don't do that. And you pound that message home every time you can, every chance you get. I did it with my employees, I did it with my board, I did it with my shareholders. And it's a never ending drumbeat.

So, Stephen, Will, your methodology of, let's just say looking at the world in a way, you've got rapid change and if you're, you know, if you're not sort of, you know, let's just take like a blue ocean strategy Approach. Because you, you mentioned Cirque du Soleil. Right. So just for those of you that haven't read Blue Ocean strategy, Cirque du Soleil is a great case study. You've got the theater and you've got the circus and Cirque du Soleil lowers the overhead both and creates a whole new business opportunity for kids and adults to enjoy this whole new segment with no competition, whilst also improving margins, lowering their overhead. So if you take it, let's say you don't have a board, let's say you don't have shareholders and you don't have employees, how would you recommend the methodology that you're looking for laying out metamorphosis be applied to these smaller entities?

Well, I was a little confused when you said no board, no shareholders and no employees. I don't know, like a sole proprietorship.

Like a smaller company. Well, or fewer employees, let's say less than 10 employees.

Okay. Well, you know, the smaller companies have a built in advantage. The bigger companies don't have. They don't have as much bureaucracy. I wouldn't say they don't have any bureaucracy because every organization from your church to your grocery store to your business has some sort of bureau bureaucracy. And of course you want to limit it. And what I would suggest to people like that is if you need to make a change, then you need to step outside of yourself and you need to step outside of your own comfort zone and you need to get outside help. You need to have somebody who can walk in there and hit you over the head with a baseball bat and say, why the hell are you doing it this way? Why aren't you doing it another way? Because otherwise everybody needs help. I need it, you need it, Scott needs it. Everybody needs help in climbing out of their own paradise from time to time. I'll give you an example. These days things are going good in my company. Just going, you know. And years ago I learned when I got too comfortable in how good things were going, there was a hand grenade ready to get thrown at me. And I just didn't know where it was or there was a minefield. And then all of a sudden, boom. And it blow up my face. Like, oh man, things weren't as good as I thought they were after all. So now these days when I think things are going really good, then I start hunting, I start digging for what am I missing, what am I not seeing? What's about ready to blow up my face and every. So therefore it doesn't happen. And that's the analogy I would use to sole proprietors. Of course, sole proprietors normally don't think everything's going great because they're fighting for survival and they need cash every day. But I would say get out of your comfort zone. Find somebody radical, find somebody like you guys who can put a different twist on them and shake up their thinking. Because we all need that sometimes.

No, I love it. I mean, Scott, how often do we mention the trapped by expertise sort of mindset where you need those fresh eyes to see what you can't see anymore?

Yeah.

Wait, sky, you're on mute.

Sorry about that. I think it's funny because I think it works both ways in terms of one of the things I talk about a lot is that there's an important thing that I do in my business where every month I sit down and I draw swim lanes of my business, 30,000 foot view of how the business operates or how ideally it's supposed to operate. And I question, like, it's not just I draw this thing out just to draw it, I draw it. And I'm questioning like, this is the way that I think it should work, but does it really work that way or not?

Right?

Like, because essentially I know what I've defined as the happy path to success. And essentially I'm wondering like, is this really the way it works or oh man, we had a flaw here where this is not working the way I think it is. Let me go dig down and work on that. And then, you know, like I. At the VIP groups at boot camp, at the VIP groups, I take the coaching students in the room and I draw it out again. And it's funny because at the last boot camp, someone said to me, hey, Scott, why are you still doing that? And I'm like, I don't know, right? Like that's a very good question. I don't know. And they're like, well, is it there technical reason why? And I'm laughing because I'm like, I.

Can'T tell them why.

Like, I can't tell you why. It's just what I do. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. And you know what I had to do with Mark is, you know, we got the digital mailboxes that we get our offer letters back and I also have a local mailbox. So I have two mailboxes here, right? One for the stuff that really needs to get mailed to me and then the other stuff for the kind of the, the offer letters. And what's nutty is that, why don't you just do it the Same thing. The same. Why don't you just have them all go to the digital one? I'm like, I don't know, can't tell you.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Steven, how often do you stay up at night and think about the future with artificial intelligence, big data, algorithms, and the disruption that these technologies could have, not just on manufacturing, but just on the world as a whole where, you know, some people are thinking, you know, huge swaths of the economy, there won't be jobs. What are these people going to do?

Yeah, you know, I'm reading a book. This can be your tip if you want, or it doesn't have to be called 20. Give me a second. 21 rules for the 21st century.

Oh, Yuval. Noah Harari, I love that book.

Yeah. And one of the things that he points out is the point you just made, what he calls the useless class, I think it is millions and millions of people will be displaced by artificial intelligence and by the year 2050. And he makes a compelling case for the social and governmental impact of that. And if you look at a manufacturing company or any company, we can't even know what the impact of artificial intelligence intelligence is going to be in the future. I mean, I know people who say, yeah, but, you know, we, you know, we don't. I'm not worried about robots because we're in software development. And if you don't think AI is going to be able to take over yourself software development, they will. In fact, they'll do it. Yeah, I'll do better and it'll do faster. And I can't say I lie awake nights worrying about that because honestly, there isn't a thing I can do about it.

Right.

And if I weigh, lay awake all night worried about it, but there isn't a thing I can do about it. It's coming and it's like, it's not going to be like the Industrial Revolution. It's not going to be in the past where one job might have been eliminated, another job gets created. It's going to be massive. Just, just jobs just eliminated. Because AI and they'll be making all the decisions, the AI is going to make all the decisions on whose job gets eliminated. Right, right.

I mean, I know, Scott, for you, you like to go to Big Blue and use the quantitative analysis tool that's free. And you know, it's. We're already sort of being programmed to use these, these free big data tools to help us, you know, look at our business in a fresh new way in where sort of, you know, it Used to be like, if you go into business, you had to sort of like these business instincts, and now it's could just be data driven.

Well, they, there's a good case to be made that AI can simulate the instincts because they aren't really instinct, they're pattern. They're pat, like you read in that book. They're patterned instincts.

Right, Right, exactly. These biochemical processes that we really can't control and our brains are being hacked by these algorithms, if you will, or eventually will be, you know, so when you combine all that. But, you know, read the book for sure, but. So, Stephen, last question before we get to the tip of the week. What's your favorite case study for metamorphosis of a company that has succeeded using your methodology of transformation?

You know, there are, that's a really good question. There are, there's none out there that I'm aware of. It doesn't mean that there aren't any out there. It just means I had my researchers dig pretty hard to find me somebody that did this successfully. And the closest thing I could come. There are two examples. One is Encyclopedia Britannica, which successfully metamorph themselves into the digital world. Where they went wrong is they hung onto the brand of Encyclopedia Britannica and they thought that had value in the 21st century, and it doesn't. So they sort of, sort of got there, but sort of didn't. The other one that I cite in my book is Nokia, which started off as a paper mill, morphed themselves into making rubber boots and galoshes and rubber products, then as everybody knows, morph themselves into the cell phone business and high technology electronics. And that's the closest thing that I've been able to find to anything that has been done successfully.

All right, fantastic. Scott. Todd. Yeah.

You know, Mark, I'll tell you the. I don't really have a case obviously for that piece, but I'll tell you there are many case studies about people not taking action, Right. And one that I always think about not taking action was Borders. And at Borders, Borders was really struggling. You had, you had Amazon, that came out with the Kindle for electronic books. You had Barnes and Noble, that came out with the Nook and Border, sat on the fence. Right. Like when you see the market changing around you. You know, first of all, the Kindle was not a surprise, should not have been a surprise to everybody because, man, there was rumors about it. I mean, how many times, like, even before the Kindle, how many times would you read a PDF on your computer like man, it'd be nice to read this thing in something smaller than a laptop. So it should not have been a surprise. But Borders, Borders didn't know which way to go. They didn't know whether they should create their own device. They didn't know if they should adopt, like, the Nook. They didn't know if they should adopt the Kindle. In fact, they kind of. They kind of sat on the fence and they kind of adopted both. Okay. Like, for a very short time, they adopted both technologies, and then they imploded. Why did they implode? They imploded because they didn't. They didn't change. And the thing is, is that just as. Just as the example, the example of Nokia, you've got to evolve. Whether you've always got to be evolving, you've got to be growing, you got to be looking, and you got to be looking for those. The smoke, Right? Like, just as we talked about earlier in today's podcast, where if things are going great, that's not the time to sit back on the laurels and hit the golf course. That's the time to like, start to figure out, like, where's there smoke? Is there smoke out on the horizon? If so, what should I be doing about it? Ultimately, I think that as the CEO of your own company, you know, people love to say, like, oh, man, well, my sales aren't where they should be. Okay, great. What are you doing about it? Because you're ultimately the one that has to change.

That's right. You don't want to ever believe in sales. Guys, when he tells you next quarter will be better. Don't ever believe that. Because on the next quarter, you know what I'm talking about, Scott, you get to the next quarter, it's going to be, well, okay, I was just a little off the forecast. It'll be the next quarter. But you raise a good point about Borders. They. In any moment of decision, it was General Patton or somebody said, you can make the right decision, you make the wrong decision, or you can make no decision. And if you make no decision, that's guaranteed to be the wrong decision. Your point about Borders and the reason that they. This is a speculation, okay? The reason that they didn't decide on either one is because they had a bloated corporate bureaucracy and had a bunch of bloodsport guys in a room arguing over what the right thing to do is, and therefore they did nothing.

Yeah. It's funny because I always tell. I try to teach my kids, like, listen, I don't care if you. I Do care. Like, I want you to make good decisions, right? And I want you to be right. But at the end of the day, I want you to make a decision. Like to me, the mere fact that you made a decision is half the battle, right? Like, it could have been the wrong decision in hindsight, but the mere fact that you made a decision to pat yourself on the back and learn from it and go forward. But when you can't decide, when you can't make a decision, that's like the worst formula ever because you'll never get anywhere.

It's an imperfect world, right? In business, we never have all the facts right? You get as many as you can and you get as close as you can. Then you have to move on because you'll net. And these committees sit around, these big companies go, well, I'd like to have some more information on this. I'd like to have some more information out there killing themselves, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll tell you why everyone should go out and invest in their time and their money in Metamorphosis and get the book is because, you know, I can't think maybe Ray Dalio of a recent book of somebody who's been in the trenches as long as Stephen Blue and is willing to generously share their expertise and wisdom with all of us. So whether you're a Fortune 500 CEO or a solopreneur, just in the 30 minutes that we've been talking to Steve, here's a guy that knows how to lead companies, grow companies, and has the track record of doing it. Not somebody that pedantically sits in an ivory tower as a Stanford economics professor doing the research and doing case studies. And this is somebody who's breathed it, lived it, and is continually doing it and sharing his wisdom and expertise with all of us. So, Stephen Blue, thank you so much.

Thank you. You want my tip? I don't want you forgetting.

Now's the time.

I think you're mentorship read. I know you got a format, Aaron. I don't want you, I don't want to mess it up. Here's my tip. Go out by the book called Disrupt or Die. It's written by the guy that did the forward on my book. His name is Jedediah Yueh. U y U E H He's a Silicon Valley legend now that he's had two or three startups that he sold for mega bucks and now he's, I believe, the CEO, chairman and probably majority shareholder and Delphi out in Silicon Valley and follow him on social media because Anything Jed says is worth listening to.

Disrupt or Die. Phenomenal. I'm gonna get the book right now.

He's got a better title than my book. You know, I've been jealous of that. But you know, honestly, the book, the title I wanted for my book was Fat, dumb and happy CEOs, but my publisher didn't like that, so they wanted something a little more polite.

No, no, I like it. I like it. Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Not fat, dumb and happyceos.com It's Mark. So. So, as you know, I have been making a transformation away from my Mac to back to a PC. And one of the things that I really, really missed is auto expander, right? You know, like this auto expander that we use all the time. And I had a hard time finding one that was like reasonable and affordable. And finally I found the website, phraseexpress.com phraseexpress.com you can download it freeware and it is available for Mac as well. So it's, you know, it will serve the people that are looking for some way that you can just type in your own shortcuts and have it auto expand. Check it out.

Phrase express.com I love it. I can't believe. Speaking of metamorphosis, you're metamorphosis to the dark side.

I never heard of that. I just never heard of that.

Never heard of someone moving two windows?

Yeah, I never heard of that.

Well, I will tell you that, you know, I could go into my reasoning, but I really like the MacBook Pro. I really like it and I like my iPad. And the problem is, is that when I would travel, I'm traveling with two devices. And I'm like, this has got to be a better way. I was told many years ago by an app by the Apple development team when I was in my other corporate world, don't worry, there's gonna be a blending of them. Okay, well, the blending that only ever came was multitasking with double pushing the button on the iPad. Like, that's the blending. And so I keep waiting and finally I read an article a few months ago that basically said, listen, you're never gonna have a MacBook Pro with touchscreen or the ability to write on there with a stylus simply because it will cannibalize the iPad sales. And they don't want to do that. And I'm like, introduce the world of Microsoft Surface. So now I have the best of both worlds. That's.

You know, I hate that corporate argument because if you don't Cannibalize your own product that your competition, nobody else will. It's crazy.

This thing does it, believe it or not, this iPad or this Microsoft Surface does it. And it's crazy. And so that's where they're going to lose people. And you know what? It's funny because just a few weeks ago, Microsoft did overtake Apple for the most valuable company in America. And it's like this battle, but they've got good stuff right now, so off I go.

Microsoft Surface. Is that what it's called?

Yeah, I've got two of them. I've got the Microsoft Surface, which is this device. Sound like a commercial now this device, and it's a 12 inch screen. It has the keyboard that attaches to it. So this is like the laptop. And then I actually have the Surface desktop called the Surface studio. It's a 28 inch monitor sitting right here. 28 inch monitor. And it also allows you to write on it with a Surface pen. So I can do handwritten notes, I can mark up stuff, I can take notes by hand all through here. It's good stuff. So I've been enjoying it.

And you know, if you want to.

Convert to the dark side, Mark, you're welcome over here anytime.

You know what? While you were talking, I was just starting to read chapter one, the idea I see Dead companies disrupt or die. If Steve Liu recommends the book, I'm reading it. I'm not gonna bother with that. I'm just kidding. I probably will go to the Surface. But you know Steve, when I see his Surface, I'm gonna have to get it. Anyways, my tip of the week is learn more about stephen blue@stevenlblue.com and certainly pick up his new book, Metamorphosis and check it out. I promise you, it will move the needle in your life in some way. So, Steve Blue, are we good?

Hey, great talking to you guys. Enjoyed it, Scott.

Todd, are we good?

We're good, Mark.

All right.

I want to thank all the listeners and just remind you the only way, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Steven Blue from StevenLBlue.com is if you do us three little favors. You gotta subscribe, you gotta rate, you gotta review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supporthelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. All right. I want to thank all the listeners and let freedom ring. Thanks, everybody.

I love that ending.