Jason Taylor 0:00

Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook podcast. I'm pretty stoked today. Michael Cups is joining us, who is the vice president of data intelligence practice at Rulesware. He helps healthcare and middle market companies turn complex data into smarter operations. What I really like what Michael's accomplished, though, is he is the author of The Time Bandit. And I've read The Time Bandit. It brings amazing kind of step-by-step things that we should do to get our time back. And he's the host of another podcast called the Habit Architect Podcast, which I've been uh very fortunate to be part of as well. So, Michael, uh welcome to the show. Yeah, it's great to see you again, Jason, as always. Yeah, excited to have you on. You know, I was telling my uh friend over the weekend, I really enjoyed our conversation last time that you and I had because I'm one strong believer that there's only one thing that's finite in the world, and that's time.

Michael Cupps 0:49

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 0:50

Right. And I know that I have a certain amount of uh hours during a day, and uh what I do with those hours or how I spend those hours is incredibly important. And like most human beings, I don't think I'm as efficient as I usually can. And I think a lot of leaders out there, which is what our podcast is all about, leaders and culture, I think that they struggle with just making sure that they find time as well, and how can they be more efficient and use their time a little more practically?

Michael Cupps 1:15

Yeah, absolutely. And you said something there that I think you didn't say these words, but I think the worst words ever are save time. And because you can't. You can't save time. You know, there's no bank you can put it in. It's it's churn it's churning, you know, it just keeps going. So you have to figure out how to use that time.

Jason Taylor 1:29

Yeah.

Michael Cupps 1:29

Not just for work, but for everything.

Jason Taylor 1:31

Let's get into some of your leadership principles right off the hop, because I I love your kind of uh take on culture and leadership and just working with people. So, you know, you've been quoted as saying most companies don't have a data problem, they actually have an intelligence problem, right? Yeah. And what does that distinction reveal about leadership today?

Michael Cupps 1:48

Yeah, to clarify the comment, I I'm not saying they don't have intelligence, but what happens with the world of data is we're presented with so many points, data points, whether it's a dashboard, whether it's something in a in a system we use, but rarely is it what to do with that data. That information is interesting. If it's just for reference purposes, it should state that, right? That's just reference. If it's some action that needs to be taken, what is it? And a lot of the things that companies look at when they get this report is just that. They don't know what to do with it. You know, it's interesting. Oh, it's going down, it's going up, but what do I do? And that that's what I mean by that. And so what that means about leadership is think about it. I mean, data for data's sake is is useless.

Jason Taylor 2:24

Yeah.

Michael Cupps 2:25

What data points are going to help you drive the action that needs to be taken, whatever that is. It's so easy now to create dashboards, it's so easy to connect systems and see the data, but what is that data for? Is what a lot of teams are lacking. And especially when in a corporation, there's a group called a business intelligence group, and then there's the operations group. And while they do try to interact and collaborate, it's usually like, look at this data. And the operations people are going, okay, thank you. And they don't know what to do with it, right? So it's that kind of scene, I think.

Jason Taylor 2:54

Yeah, I agree with you so much. I often say garbage in equals garbage out. And we are inundated with so much data now. What we have to actually now hone in on as what data do I actually need and what do I actually need to take a strong lens at? And what do I just push to the side and say doesn't matter to me, not right now.

Michael Cupps 3:11

Yeah, that data tax, that last thing you mentioned, it's a problem. I I would I'd rephrase your say and say garbage in, friction out. If it's the wrong stuff, people don't know what to do with it, that means everything's gonna slow down.

Jason Taylor 3:21

Yeah.

Michael Cupps 3:21

That friction can create big problems downstream.

Jason Taylor 3:24

Yeah, absolutely. Michael, you've worked across many different, you know, divisions and industries and whatnot. You've crossed law, tech, operations for the past 30 years. I know everybody thinks you're 29 on this podcast. Yeah, I look at it he's been at it for more than 30 years. How has that cross-functional lens shaped how you lead teams?

Michael Cupps 3:41

Yeah, it's an overused word now, but I would say empathy, really. And I I encourage every leader, that old adage, if you can walk a mile in my shoes, I think a leadership in particular needs to see that perspective. And it's hard to get when you don't ever do the job or you see the job differently, even across those functions that you mentioned, to understand what the legal team is trying to do versus the operations team is very different because the operations team just wants to get that contract done so they move on. But there are stipulations in there that they've got to figure out to protect company or protect individuals or whatever it may be. And so just getting that lens, any company that has the ability to move people around as they're grooming people to get into leadership, I strongly urge that because that is the biggest eye-opener I I see. There was a reality show, I forget what was it, Undercover Boss or something like that, right? Yeah. And what I loved about, I didn't really particularly always enjoy the show, but what I liked about it is it put that CEO in a position that they had never done before. And in that's an enlightening moment, right? So I think that works across across groups as well.

Jason Taylor 4:39

You're right, too. And I remember that show actually, and it was amazing what they discovered just by being in the shoes of somebody else.

Michael Cupps 4:45

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 4:46

A lot of times they were just like, I had no idea this was actually happening in my company.

Michael Cupps 4:50

Yeah. It's amazing. And and so most of my career have been from a tech perspective, right? So the lens of tech, whether it was a a user of the tech or building tech for somebody. And I think that's the one thing, and certainly in the age of AI, is we have to understand the work before we can really apply technology to it. We've all been a part of a piece of software that was supposed to solve a problem and we feel like it creates more problems. And so that lens is really important, I think, for the technologists of the world today, or or maybe just the problem solvers, I should say.

Jason Taylor 5:18

Yeah. How do we build that clarity though? So instead of being, you know, so relying on the dashboard and getting addicted to dashboard, whatever those data points are, how do we actually build that clarity and know how to talk to each other? What's your suggestion?

Michael Cupps 5:33

Yeah, I mean, I'd like to say that there's here's use this, and it's a recorder and sees every bit of work and stuff like that, but that still misses that gets the linear action. So it doesn't necessarily get the why. And so that that word is what I try to use. When we're talking to customers or we're talking to uh project leaders, it's we have to ask why. We just have to start asking that question because just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. And just because we've been doing it the same way for 20 years doesn't mean we should keep doing it. And we need somebody, I say brave enough because sometimes they put very new people or not much seniority into the project management role or the business analyst role. Okay. And that's a really important starting question to ask. And sometimes they don't feel like they have the authority to ask, but we have to ask that question. We have to ask why. What is that data for? Why how are you using it? Why are you using it that way? If we can't inject that into our analysis, then we're gonna get the same kind of dribble out or the friction out or the you know the garbage.

Jason Taylor 6:24

Yeah, absolutely. So you often speak about complexity within operations, and you were going down that road just now, which I want to kind of go a little deeper in. So, what in your opinion, Michael, is the first cultural shift needed before systems can improve?

Michael Cupps 6:38

Yeah, yeah. So if you think about just business, and so I've done a bit of fair work in healthcare, the US healthcare system, which is even more complex than some. And the first thing I noticed about it was the volume, the sheer volume of things going through our healthcare system, not only millions and millions of claims, but line items on those claims that mean something very different. It could be a procedure to a medication to all these things. So the complexity is in the system already. So now what happened is these firms just started adding and layering on these what were fixes at the time. And they might have been absolutely a great fix at the time, where they added a manual entry or some sort of branch in a process that has to take place for compliance reasons. And then they never kind of took that out of the business. They just put something else on top of it and put something else on top of it. And now we've got this kind of layer cake of processes and policies and systems that we just try to make it work, right? And that's what's happened. And so at some point, you know, you hear about these multi-million million dollar transformations. They're not really transformations in the sense of they're changing their business, they're changing the way they run the business, and it hurts. But now I think we can start looking at things like that and just asking that question and then starting to build a system or build intelligence and reasoning into it that can take some of that complexity out or delegate it to something else like a reasoning engine like AI or ML. The risk is don't just layer it on top of the old process. You need to also kind of think about the reasons why we have this process. Is it the right one? Is it the most efficient? Does it serve us today? Because a lot of those systems, especially if you get into banking and healthcare, they're still sitting on a mainframe, right? Wow. And the mainframe is one of the most efficient computing devices ever. I mean, the speed at which it works is great. But if you've ever seen a screen, it's green, it's a little dill, and the keyboard is you have to know these secret things, but yet we're still on them, right? And maybe we need to be on them, but there's got to be a way to rethink it as opposed to just putting something else on top of it.

Jason Taylor 8:29

Yeah. When you work with a leader, what do you think is the number one thing that takes their time? Because you obviously have done a deep dive in this, but you know, I think you're going to go down to systems and whatnot, but like how do you advise leaders to say, hey, let's get your time back, and here's where I think you need to start.

Michael Cupps 8:43

Yeah. So what I see them stealing their time the most is I'll say the word yes. They say yes to everything, even if it's an acknowledgement, they kind of accept every bit of work coming their way. Now they may be diving it out or whatever, but the minute you take in that work and you don't prioritize it, you're toast, right? Because now you've got a lot of things, you don't know where to start, you don't know what to do. And if we can just get people to think about that simple Eisenhower matrix concept, which is is it important and is it urgent? Right? You can still say yes, but if it's not urgent, it can still be very important, but you don't have to put any brain cycles into that until next Thursday or next Wednesday or whenever for people to actually realize that if they control their time by the choices they make, and they so many people make a decision that everything's important and everything's urgent, and then they're just loaded.

Jason Taylor 9:29

I love that you said that. I was looking at one of my old day timers. Remember day timers?

Michael Cupps 9:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Taylor 9:33

Some people are gonna say, what the heck is that on this?

Michael Cupps 9:36

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Jason Taylor 9:37

I was looking at, I was cleaning up and in an old box I had a day timer, and I looked at this foolproof system I had, right? It was A if it was important, B if it wasn't uh as important, and C if it wasn't very important, right? Yeah. What a genius of a system. And then I'd even add something like 911 besides something that's like really important, right? And I looked back, and so funny how you just brought that up because I looked back and every single one of my items for the day was AAAAA 911 911. And it's just because I was leading a team at the time, I just wanted to make sure we did everything, right? I was actually doing nothing, right? Yeah. Or I was doing a whole bunch not really well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's it's amazing when you actually say, and what I like to do is I like to put projects or things that happen throughout a day in one of four quadrants. So, and I I look at an axie. One of the axes is importance and one of the axes is urgency. Yeah, right. And I find that leaders live in an urgent zone, so urgent and important, but you just said it perfectly. If everything's urgent, nothing's really urgent. Right. Exactly. Right? And how do we make it so it's less urgent? It's just so well planned that we actually don't find that it's urgent anymore.

Michael Cupps 10:46

Exactly. And and it's not that it loses importance. If Jason, if you're my boss and you tell me this is important to you, and so now I own that importance with you. If I ask the question, when does this need to be? And you say, Oh, by the fifth of next month or something like that. Okay, great. Now I don't want to put it off till the fourth, but I don't have to do it this moment. And when you disrupt yourself in that moment is when you lose track. The other thing we do sometimes is we make it harder than it has to be. You can see this happen in some people. They they get that task and all of a sudden they're finding 12 reasons how it's gonna go wrong. And all of a sudden it's become bigger than it is. Sometimes you can just plow through it. Let's get it, let's do it. And then if you do hit a problem, then deal with it, but don't create a problem first. And that time problem is one of those that they create first. Well, gosh, my schedule's full. What am I gonna do? And okay, is it important? Is it urgent? And it could be a partial thing. I did a workshop last week, and one lady who's a participant said, Well, I do these long-running contracts and then, you know, I have to get it done. And I said, get what done? She said, Well, I do this first, and then somebody does this, and then I do this. And I said, Okay, just worry about that first part. Do your first part, then it's on to somebody else. You go work on something else. You're not sitting there waiting for it to come back, right? Yes. But we create these very complex systems in our head that that just block us sometimes.

Jason Taylor 11:51

Do you think we create those systems almost show that the company needs us or something like that? I often wonder why we do that.

Michael Cupps 11:57

Yeah, that's a great observation. I think sometimes it is. I think sometimes it is, and we want to show how wrong word, but maybe we we want to show how smart we are, you know, and how valuable we are. That's one thing of it. The other thing that I think happens, and especially in our world today where phones and iPads and everything can alert us and tell us, and the news feels overly negative, I think we start with a doubt. I mean, we almost see everything with a doubt in our head and a doubt in our mind. I can't do that or I shouldn't do that, or whatever it is. And when you start with that framework, it's really hard to see the other side of it.

Jason Taylor 12:28

So true. So true. Michael, you wrote the time bandit around prioritizing things and making sure we knew our priorities. What is one-time habit hurting executives more than they realize?

Michael Cupps 12:40

Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's lack of consistency. However, that instantiates itself into the real life, you know, the leader that's always chasing the shiny object just is a whiplash to the team. The leader that won't make decisions fast enough is bogging down the team. Whatever your pace is and your process, just be consistent with it over and over. And that also applies to how you operate on a daily basis, you know. It may sound predictable, but sometimes people, especially if you're a leader, your team needs predictable because chaos throws them all out of whack. And and so I think consistency is the biggest thing I would say to people. I agree. And do you suggest that leaders actually communicate what their process is to their team? Absolutely. Absolutely. If they really want to run a well-run team, they do, right? Because if I say, Jason, I need you to build me a spreadsheet to show how profitable we are, and then I leave, right? And you're like, you know, okay, and you're trying to interpret what you think I meant, but maybe I meant a specific product line or something like this. And without all that clarity, it's just we're wasting time a lot of times because we're trying to build to something that I'm thinking that you didn't ask for, right? And so clarity is a really big thing. And not only clarity about what to do, but why are we doing it? I think a lot of leaders leave it out. You know that you see it all the time. I do it because I said so. That maybe that's tied to moms more than anything. Just why do I have to do that? Because I said so. Well, that's a really bad system. If they're asking why, if their curiosity is absolutely there, then feed that curiosity because they will do better work. If you show them why we're doing this for better customers, for more money, whatever whatever it may be, they will get on board with it faster and probably do a better job.

Jason Taylor 14:16

Yeah, I actually I talk about the why creates belief. Belief fuels the passion. And guess what? Passion rarely fails.

Michael Cupps 14:23

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way to put it.

Jason Taylor 14:25

Right. So how do we create that belief to fuel that passion is absolutely incredibly important to an organization.

Michael Cupps 14:31

Yeah, especially as a leader. Because one of the things, one of the challenges leaders have is they probably used to do some of those jobs. They probably did it pretty well and then they got promoted.

Jason Taylor 14:39

Yeah.

Michael Cupps 14:40

So they, you know, they just expect everybody to do it the way they did it, but times change, processes change, you know, systems change. And so I think that's one fault that you could probably have as a leader is to think that the way you did it five years ago is the way it should keep being done, right?

Jason Taylor 14:53

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about something that's come into everybody's world. Uh, a little thing called AI. I'm not sure if you've heard about it yet.

Michael Cupps 15:00

No, I haven't.

Jason Taylor 15:01

Exactly. So what separates leaders who actually use AI strategically from those who simply chase trends?

Michael Cupps 15:08

Yeah, so a good question, Jason. I think it is using AI strategically in the process of which it needs to be, not just chasing the shiny objects, but actually looking at whatever the problem is and assessing what you need. And and uh, what I mean by assessment is not hire Bain or you know McKenzie or any of the for that nine months and they deliver a hundred PowerPoint slides to you. There are ways you can get to a quick assessment and understand what it means to you. And then that's the real thing is what can AI do for us that is either stripping us of doing things that are just menial tasks, or can it reason faster than we can, and then we can get a better outcome. So there there really is a couple of uses for AI. I I encourage every company, particularly mid-market, because they can do it now affordably, is look at those 20% of things that are manual handoffs or things that are being data entered into a spreadsheet or whatever, and just take those 20% and go ahead and automate those because now you're gonna free your people up to look at things that we can think bigger about and all those tasks get done. And so that if you want to get started, start there and then start looking at more strategic things, which brings in more reasoning and things like that. And then you're evolving with the technology because the crazy thing about AI, Jason, is you know, what is it? Anthropic's Fable is out now. Just, I mean, what was it, two months ago was a different one. And that and and the speed at which they're doing things is crazy and good, but you can't adopt it all at the same time.

Jason Taylor 16:32

Yeah, it's amazing. I love how you have a lens on people because I'll talk to leaders all the time and I'll say AI doesn't always replace the person, but the person that doesn't know how to use AI will be replaced. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so you know, it's one of those things that have has come into the world that isn't going away.

Michael Cupps 16:49

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 16:49

Right. So we've got to use it to your point on how can we be a little more productive, how can we be a little more efficient, and how can we get people doing really important things as opposed to those mundane automatic things that we can actually figure out along the way.

Michael Cupps 17:03

Yeah, and you know what's I'll tell you a story that really blew me away. This happened about a month or two ago. I was talking with a customer and we were talking their team, and there was a uh a lady in there who was probably, let's just say, early 60s. She's got retirement on her mind. Sure. And there was a millennial on the same team. And what blew me away is the the lady with retirement on her mind was adopting AI as fast as she could. She was just loving it. And then the millennial was like, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, and it's gonna take my job, right? And you would have thought about I would have thought the reverse of that. I thought a 60-something-year-old would say, I'm afraid of it, right? It'd be the opposite, yeah. But she was adopting it, and when I really got to know them, there were two different mentalities. The elder lady was, she was a problem solver. She liked to solve problems. That was her who she was. The other one wasn't quite sure what they wanted to do with their career. They were young in their career and they weren't quite sure, but they were insecure, you know, about it. And so it was it what really was a a weird thing because that the the one that was adopting it, she knew she wasn't getting rid of her job. She was there until she retired because she was that valuable to the company. So she was really figuring out how can we make this better, how can we do this better? And it made me chuckle and appreciate that everybody has a different perspective on it.

Jason Taylor 18:11

Yeah, absolutely. You work with many different teams, but if you can look at, let's look at middle market CEOs, right? So not a massive company, but a pretty good company, right? So if you could ask yourself, what do you think is one of the most uncomfortable truth middle market CEOs need to hear about team performance?

Michael Cupps 18:31

That's a great question. I think that the interesting thing is that, and this is gonna sound negative, but I don't mean it to be, and I'll come full circle, but I think what they underestimate is the concept of team. So a CEO oftentimes says, this is the way we're gonna do it, and everybody's on board doing it for the greater cause. But when you when you get back in your job, that sales leader's thinking about sales, the customer support leaders thinking about customers, the marketing person's thinking about whatever it is they're doing, and they all get into these things, and it's not that they don't care about what collectively happens, even if you compensate them differently. When we get into our job, we're doing that job for that reason, and sometimes those conflict with each other, particularly if you think about customer support and sales, right? There's sometimes sales are selling things and customer support has to deliver it and support it, and it just becomes this conflict, and neither of them are wrong. But the CEO, if they're not getting into that mix with them, into that valley with them to say, okay, where's it coming off? And then you change product direction or that, it gets a little wonky, I think. And even though as a team they all support the greater cause, they're doing their jobs in that little one. And I think by the way, AI can fix that, not fix it, but it can give us clarity in that too, because these signals that occur in our customer base or our products or what have you, give them a signal, but then give them an action. And not just, you know, one of the things I hate, I hear this a lot, we need a customer health score in it. Jason, your customer health score is 60. And you go, okay, is that good? Is that bad? I don't know. And if you're a salesperson, is that does that really affect me? I don't know. If it's customers 60, okay, whatever. And then, you know, somebody over marketing going 60, oh, that's awesome. Look at us. And everybody's got to, okay, what does 60 mean to us? And if it doesn't say to sales, this means here's the actions that you can take. CS, you do this, marketing, you do this, then we're wasting our time. We're just kind of all surrounding the number of 60 and going, okay, cool. And I think that CEOs need to think about that. Implement it with outcome in mind.

Jason Taylor 20:19

So true. If I have a question for you, and I'm going to put a little spin on this. So if a leadership team wanted to have an unfair advantage in the next 12 months, where would you tell them to start first, other than AI?

Michael Cupps 20:30

Other than AI?

Jason Taylor 20:31

Yeah.

Michael Cupps 20:31

Then I would tell them to understand the their business processes, understand why they're doing things the way they are. And once you evaluate that, put a lens on it that's important to you, your company values that gets overused sometimes, if it's profit, if it's, you know, growth, whatever, put that lens on it and say, does that process support our value? And and you've got to be, you've got to be a little more detailed than just saying, you know, and superficially, understand the way that people are working. I think amazing things happen when you inspect work with an objective eye. You can then start saying, wow, we're wasting time here. We're we're missing something here that could make it much better. And people just don't take the time to do that. So if if I'm a mid-market operator right now, I'm figuring out a way to quickly assess how we operate and strip away the stuff that doesn't serve our value and get to it. All right. And now I would I would add on there, AI can help you do that fast.

Jason Taylor 21:23

Yeah. I know. That's why I said other than AI. Yeah. You host many conversations on habits and sustained performance. If I had to ask you, what one daily discipline do the strongest leaders consistently protect in all the leaders you work with, what would that one discipline be?

Michael Cupps 21:40

Well, if I'm gonna say something specifically, in the two years I've been doing the Habit Architect podcast, overwhelmingly sleep. There's been a massive focus on making sure that we all get the the rest we need. And a lot of the leaders I interview say they make sure they get sleep. However, whatever mechanism they're using to do that, they do that. But if you rise above that, to me, what that means is They are really consistent about making sure they have a few habits that they do every day, every week, whatever the frequency is. And so the reason they sleep as much is because they have a habit that prepares them to sleep and they get up at a certain time and know they're not, they're not laying awake at 3 a.m. saying, What have I done? They lay their head down and they're they're ready to rest because they've cleared the headspace. And then when they get up, they go take on the next day with whatever system they have. So I think consistency is the thing, but the one that just keeps popping up, every time I ask that question at the end of my podcast, they go, Oh, sleep. Sleep's the most important thing.

Jason Taylor 22:29

I hear it all the time too. It amazes me like how every leader's on it. And before, it was almost like a trophy that you could say, I could go on three hours sleep, or I could go on four hours sleep, or I don't need much rest, and I'm still gonna perform. And it's totally shifted. People are saying, Well, that's crazy. You should you need to get your sleep done.

Michael Cupps 22:45

Yeah, you're absolutely right. You're right. It was a badge of honor. I took a red eye and I'm still here, kind of thing. And they're like, Okay.

Jason Taylor 22:51

Yeah.

Michael Cupps 22:51

Not anymore.

Jason Taylor 22:52

So that's good. I think it's great. And I actually talked to a leader the other day, and he said to me, uh, he was taking a red eye from the western part of our country. And he said to me, he was just, he just looks absolutely drawn. And he said, I will never do that again.

Michael Cupps 23:06

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 23:07

He said, It has put me off my game for the last two days. And he said, I just will never do it again. It the way I felt the last two days is not worth it. Exactly. And I thought, good on him for just saying, Yeah, I'm not doing that. I need my sleep.

Michael Cupps 23:19

Well, yeah, exactly. And I'll tell you, I have a similar story. Well, you and I both went through a a health scare and lives, and absolutely when that happened to me, I had to take assessment of what I was doing to myself too, right? Yeah. And I used to take red eyes all the time. And I took one after I finally, you know, got back into the workforce and stuff like that. And I thought, I feel sick. I just feel physically sick doing that. And I just thought I I put a rule, I don't take red eyes anymore. You know, and if I am my flying international, then I make sure that there's time or my my habits leading up to it is where I can sleep on that plane somehow, right? Just something like that. So maybe everybody's getting that awakening that to perform you gotta be ready. You gotta be ready. And you know what?

Jason Taylor 24:02

You don't see athletes perform on little sleep. Exactly. It's actually over and above. The team will say, It's afternoon nap time for our game tonight. And they'll actually like I've worked with some athletes and they'll say, I can't talk to you at that point because I have to have a nap at that time. And you're just like, Okay.

Michael Cupps 24:19

Yeah.

Jason Taylor 24:19

Totally.

Michael Cupps 24:20

Right? Which is spectacular. Exactly. You know, some people might say that's so they perform on the field, but performance is all of it, right? They have to think quickly. They have to, their body has to act. You know, it kind of gives everybody that reset, and and you have to do that in your job, even if you're an accountant, you know, sitting down looking at a spreadsheet, you still have to have that restful mind that you can act on.

Jason Taylor 24:39

Absolutely. Michael, you've been generous with your time. I have one more question for you before I let you go for the day. And that question is this there are many young leaders just striving for advice from leaders that uh have been through it before. If you had to give a young leader coming out of college, university today one piece of advice, what piece of advice would that be?

Michael Cupps 24:58

Listen.

Jason Taylor 24:59

Love that. Yeah, listen. It's amazing. I look back at my my career and I think, oh, that was so gross the way I handled that.

Michael Cupps 25:06

Yeah, exactly. It's a hard thing to learn, especially when you're young and you have more maybe hormones than we do these days, but you want to be assertive and you want to be the one to answer the right question, all that stuff. But sometimes just listening longer and understanding what you're hearing will serve you better.

Jason Taylor 25:21

So yeah, great answer. Michael, with that, I really appreciate you giving me some time today and sharing your leadership and culture knowledge and you know, all your little tidbits and nuggets of of great information with us. I love your book, The Time Bandit. For anybody who is looking for a great read, it is a it's a phenomenal read. So uh pick it up and we'll share the link as well with it in our podcast as well. Michael, and with that, I thank you and uh have a great day.

Michael Cupps 25:44

Yeah, thank you for having me. I enjoyed the conversation.

Jason Taylor 25:46

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