708 Navigating IT Challenges with Marnie Stockman

[Uncle Marv]
All right. I had stopped you. You were starting to talk about a 15-year-old and a bicycle.

[Marnie Stockman]
Well, it was just, this is how I accidentally found it. I mean, I, it was interesting. I told her I was interviewing and, um, I said, one of the questions they're going to ask is what is my superhero power?

And that's kind of a weird thing to answer. And she said, well, you know what your superhero power is. Now keep in mind, she's 15.

If you haven't hung out with 15 year olds recently, you may not want to get what you want to hear. So I was a little nervous about this. And she said, your superhero power is you always aim to help people become the best version of themselves.

And I thought, okay, I think my superhero power is raising a 15 year old who's going to say that. Um, but when I first started teaching and people ask my philosophy of education, I would say, I believe it's every teacher's responsibility to help students become the best versions of themselves. And Ted Lasso says, it's not about the wins and losses.

It's about helping the folks on the field become the best version of themselves. So sometimes you just happen to come across it by happenstance.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Um, so wow, that's a nice little masterclass on, uh, core values. Are you putting together a masterclass at some point on this stuff?

[Marnie Stockman]
We are actually, I just uploaded the first, um, module. So we have built, so we've got the book and we, and a lot of folks have asked us for an audible version and the book has a lot of worksheets and things in it as we're trying to figure out how that would work. And we realized that a masterclass would make a lot of sense.

So we're not just reading the book, we're actually creating new activities that folks can go through. So one of the things that we end up talking about a lot is leadership. And you mentioned it earlier is not just for the CEO of the company.

Quite literally, everyone is a leader, right? In a boardroom, a classroom, a locker room, a living room, and you need to learn your own personal leadership to guide yourself to where you want to be. So this masterclass is on personal leadership and there is absolutely a section on core values where, which is why it quickly came to mind as I was recording yesterday.

Like, yeah, ask where he got angry. Yeah, I just went over that activity yesterday. So we are going to have that out very soon.

We're aiming for the end of the month. We're pretty excited about that.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So now shifting gears here, I need to ask this question. Legally, did you run into any hurdles with using lasso as your mantra there?

[Marnie Stockman]
So I love that question because I have a good legal answer. We actually went to an intellectual property lawyer and I talked to the woman who wrote What Would Ted Lasso Do? And her intellectual property lawyer.

So there is legislation around the Dow of poo, Winnie the Pooh, not what most people write. So you know, as a human, people have a right to go after political figures or whatever because there's freedom of speech, etc. But it was weird when folks started saying things about somebody else's idea or intellectual property.

So the legislation around someone else's intellectual property is you can't act like you wrote the original. So we did not. You cannot act like the original writers wrote your book.

So we have unauthorized, you know, on the front of our cover. You cannot use any of the original graphics or visuals from the original. And then lastly, is you have to bring a new idea to the original piece of work.

So we couldn't just write a summary of Ted Lasso. We had to do something different. So the book is very different.

It parallels, you know, leadership lessons from Ted Lasso, plus our lives, plus thought leaders in the space and leaders in the world. So we were in the clear on that. But that's why.

There is actually legislation around it.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Well, the book I get, I was actually worried about the podcast when I heard you playing clips. And I'm like, are you allowed to play clips from shows?

[Marnie Stockman]
So it's interesting. That for sure is a slightly more gray area. Yeah.

They often talk about if you've got like less than 30 seconds, et cetera. At some point, someone may come ask us about it now. Because the show is on Apple TV plus and is getting like you have to subscribe in order to be on Apple TV plus Apple TV seems to be very supportive of having folks because believe me when I tell you, we are not the only ones putting clips out there.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, yeah, I ask that because, I mean, I've thought about doing stuff here. I've had some music stuff pop up, which technically is a little different because they are aggressive.

[Marnie Stockman]
Correct. Correct. So in this case, it is asked for forgiveness instead of permission because there's no real place to get that.

So but we at the beginning, we didn't put clips. We were we would talk about them, but then we really do like to add them in. But we certainly could pull them should anyone ask us about that.

But we've not had any conversation about that.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, so I guess let's go back to the beginning there in terms of what was it that really inspired you to write this book?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. So if you've seen Ted Lasso, it is so relatable and there is an almost cult like following on the Internet of people who want to be better because they watch Ted Lasso. All the inspirational quotes, be curious, not judgmental, be a goldfish because they have a 10 second memory.

You know, just all of the positivity that goes with Ted Lasso is really powerful and it is well branded. Right. And it's one of those forever shows like The Office, like everyone recognizes an office meme.

Even if you haven't seen Ted Lasso, you recognize a Ted Lasso meme. So that was the first bit of it is when Ted Lasso came on, Nick, my business partner, said you need to watch Ted Lasso. And he probably told me that three times.

And he finally said, no, really, I think you are Ted Lasso. And so I need you to watch it. Right.

So there was a parallel there. Also, Ted Lasso had three seasons and it's the same three seasons we grew Lifecycle Insights and sold it. So there were some interesting parallels of the fish out of water story.

Right. We came from the world of education, landed in MSP space. Ted went from American football to European football like we didn't know the language.

He didn't know the language. So all of those similarities made for fun parallels. And then we were so after we had exited ScalePad, we were in an airport and I was listening to the book 10x is easier than 2x.

So if you're trying to 10x your business, you have to think about how to do things differently. And we looked at the bookstore shelf and said, you know, I've written a few books for MSPs. But we said, well, if we borrowed a book that was for the general audience that would fit on that bookshelf, that would 10x the business.

So that is, it was kind of all of that combined. And I mean, frankly, the amazing relatable leadership lessons in Ted Lasso made that a no brainer.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. Now, in terms of relatable, and you talked about mirroring the three years, did you actually use things that you saw in Ted Lasso and then try to incorporate them into Lifecycle Insights? Or did you like channel anything that way?

[Marnie Stockman]
So I did not watch the first season when the first season came out. So Nick finally convinced me to start watching in the midst of season two. And from there, I would say that the quotes and those types of strategies are really what kind of would come to mind and would use them, but not in marketing or anything, because I was later in the watching of Ted Lasso than it being paralleled all the way along the way.

So not exactly. But there were certainly some things like team building and I could see how we had done some similar activities.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. So the Lens of Leadership podcast technically could be almost like a guide, because you're actually going to relive the episodes, giving the leadership lessons. So this masterclass, this this thing, is this going to become such a big thing where you're actually doing workbooks and spinoff books and stuff like that to go deeper into some of these lessons?

[Marnie Stockman]
You know, we would love to hear which way we should take it. So we think the masterclass is very much. So I'll give you a sneak peek into it.

We haven't talked about this yet. I haven't said it out loud to anyone other than Nick, as a matter of fact. So part of the masterclass, again, it's a personal leadership.

So it is not how to build a business. It is focusing on your core values, your vision, et cetera. And part of what we're doing is getting people to reflect so that we can help them create a personal pitch deck.

So if you think instead of a resume or a LinkedIn profile, this is really like who you are at the core, because we find that, well, frankly, on LinkedIn, my profile first looks like I'm a bit sporadic and can't quite figure out who I want to be, whereas I recognize kind of how I leveled up every time I change jobs because I know what skill set I learned in there. Instead, it looks like she was a math teacher and owned a knitting shop, like went to the MSP face. Who is this?

I don't make sense on LinkedIn, but if you got my personal pitch deck, I'd make sense. So that is part of what we're doing. And beyond that, we then want to know what would make sense.

Would it make sense for us to do workbooks or other masterclasses? And we'd really love to get back into software and help folks network and really connect in meaningful ways, because we believe that is what helped us at Lifecycle Insights more than anything else. And we believe that there's not everyone knows how to use the power of networking and have an actual plan to create and build a network.

So we'd love to work on that with software.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. You got my mind spinning here. So this personal pitch deck.

So you have that active right now. You have a personal pitch deck that when people ask who Marnie Stockman is, you can show them that.

[Marnie Stockman]
So I have my personal operating system and my communication guide. I'm probably 10 days away from having the full pitch deck done. I haven't drafted.

But if you go on leaditlikelasso.com and pull up the resources page, the personal operating system, yeah, you it is sort of funny because some people will do that before they talk to me. I jumped on a call with a perfect stranger the other day, literally did not know this human at all, but they had been to the site and they were like, oh, my gosh. So and started talking to me like we've been buddies for forever.

And meanwhile, I'm like, I wonder how you pronounce their name.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. All right. So, yeah, I don't do that deep a dive.

I know you.

[Marnie Stockman]
So you would it would have been odd for you to have to click on all the pieces. But I will tell you, from a business perspective, that is one of the things that we did at Lifecycle Insights that I think every MSP should do with their employees. So the first person we hired at Lifecycle, I had to let go because the alignment just didn't work.

And I wasn't sure why. And I'm always one of those people that assumed like I clearly I didn't communicate something right either in the interview process or in the onboarding process. And so I then created my own communication guide, which is like how to work with Marnie Stockman, Doc.

And when we hired our next customer success human, we had him fill out his personal communication guide. And it was extremely helpful because, you know, there are little things, like I said, I don't like being interrupted when I'm being productive. So I told him exactly how to interrupt me and when.

And, you know, yeah, you might be a night owl, but I'm not going to answer you after 9 p.m. So that's going to make you mad that you can't get an answer. We should come to a consensus on how we're going to work together. And so the communication guides on the resources and inside it, there's a blank template.

And I was working with one of the PSAs in the space who said, I'm going to have every member of our company fill out their own communication guide because I think this will help create that alignment.

[Uncle Marv]
So the first thing I will say in regard to that is on the resources page, folks, it's not something that when you get there, it's going to ask you for your name and email and all of that stuff. They are they are PDFs that just open and you're good to go.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So you made a couple of. Yep. There you go.

You made a couple of questions, a couple of comments I want to go back to and ask about. So part of me wanted to ask you, you know, Lifecycle Insights, I mean, that three year cycle kind of like it's like a hockey stick in my mind. It may not be you, but that's how I kind of saw it.

But in hearing you talk about leadership and customer success out on the road after the fact, sometimes I want to ask you, are there things that you would have done differently looking back?

[Marnie Stockman]
Hmm. It's funny because I have said out loud the words before, like the thing that people will ask, what's so surprising about the success of Lifecycle Insights? And I said, I think the thing that was so surprising is that we created a plan and followed the plan.

So it didn't seem all that surprising when we got there. Right. We really stuck to it.

And I so I have one of my best friends always says, you're no revisionist like it's happened. It's fast. I'm like, so is there anything I would have done differently?

You know, COVID popped up right after we started, so we had to rethink. Straight out of the gate. So I honestly can't think of places.

I mean, there are always little things like, you know, maybe don't launch that piece of the product or don't do this, but we really tried to be super transparent. And one of the things that was really important to us is in our weekly meetings, as you mentioned earlier, is we would have folks vote on product requests. And so we didn't build what we thought the space needed.

We built what we heard was needed. I mean, so there are always maybe we should have done this or that instead, but we built what folks needed. So I can't come up with something.

I feel like I'm not a good answer on that.

[Uncle Marv]
I like that because I try to live my life with, you know, you can't have regrets. You can't spend time looking back and wondering what if you did what you did and you live with it. So I like that answer in the sense that, you know, this is what I plan to do and I did it or this is what I plan to do.

It didn't work out. I understand why. Let me pivot.

Let me do something different. I mean, that's kind of how I look at it. But it's funny.

Sometimes I'll ask that question to people just to see in there. You know, some people live with regret, which I find as a leader, you really don't want to do. But a lot of leaders do.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah, it's not helpful because you can't change what happened. I am very much like I will apologize if I've done something wrong and I will thank you if I appreciate something. But that only happens once because at that point it has happened and now we need to move on.

So like and I can remember telling my dad, like, OK, I've apologized and I was wrong and I can't like that's not going to change what just happened. So can we get to problem solving mode on what to do moving forward? It's funny because one of my dad's it's as a matter of fact, I wrote in the book, dad was the one that told me, don't be sorry.

Be right. Like you don't have to apologize if you're always trying to do the right thing. And when I was teaching, my students would be like, Ms. Stockman, that's the wrong way to grow up. You weren't even allowed to be wrong. I said he was trying to say, if you don't like apologizing or being embarrassed, then pick the right thing, not what you want to do, but the right thing to do. So he always sort of forced me to like look forward as opposed to dwelling on what happened.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. That's an interesting concept. I was going to ask you about that.

So I had a teacher in college that had a similar saying, but it was it was it's just as easy to be right as it is to be wrong. And I was like, that doesn't make any bit of sense.

[Marnie Stockman]
That can't be true. Yeah, no, this was this was more as you're making decisions. And it's you know, he said that a lot when you're a teenager, right?

Like, you know, what's the right thing? It's not about what you want to do. What's the right thing to do?

Fine, I'll do my homework. It was typically like, yes, I will do my homework before I go play a game or whatever.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. In her defense, I think what I ended up learning from that is with the amount of time that you spent learning and studying or trying to find a way around a problem as opposed to finding the right solution. When you look at how much work you do to get out of doing something, you could have used that same amount of effort to be on the right path and do it right.

[Marnie Stockman]
So I saw a meme the other day that said and beating yourself up worked. It would have worked by now.

[Uncle Marv]
That's a good one. You find a lot of memes, don't you?

[Marnie Stockman]
I do. You know, the Internet is so I and I have two 20 something children who find the ones like this sounds like mom shipping my way.

[Uncle Marv]
Wow.

[Marnie Stockman]
But I read a ton of leadership books, and so a lot of it is sort of a leadership lesson that's been turned into, you know, I mean, I mean, yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So another philosophy that I've heard you use a lot was another saying that I don't I know where you got it, but I want to see you. I want to hear you tell the story. Kill him with kindness.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah, yeah. That's my mom. And so a mom was a teacher, she was a middle school math teacher, and I was a feisty little smart, smart mouthed child.

And she would just say, like, you get you always get more flies with honey than you do with like if you think about what they want and align it with what you want. You will be much more effective than trying to come at it in an antagonistic way. So my daughter had a harder time figuring this out.

She was in third grade and she wanted a rain stick and she came storming up from our shop and said, mom, dad and David won't make me the rain stick. And I said, why would they? And she said, because I wanted one.

And I said, what would they care about that? And, you know, her thinking was like, well, because I'm Josie, because I said so. Have you met me?

And I said, little miss, I'm going to tell you one of my like I'm going to tell you something. And as Grumps, that's my dad always says, like, use your powers for good, not evil. When I tell you this.

And I said, what are they going to get out of that? Nothing. But what is something that you could do for them that would make them want to do it for you?

And she said, well, David doesn't like doing dishes. And I said, and she said, hmm, so I could maybe go offer to take his chores, dishes for the week if you'd make me a rain stick. I said, well, now you're talking right.

And like, what would dad like? So she started saying, oh, if I can make it about something they want, then I can get what I want. So I, you know, I was teaching customer success way to my seven year old.

But really, again, to sell precalculus to 16 year olds, it's way much better to get them to want to learn precalculus than force them, bully them, demean them into learning it. So it's all the same thing. It is customer success at its core.

[Uncle Marv]
I was just going to say, this sounds like you are taking a customer centric approach and just adapting it everywhere you can.

[Marnie Stockman]
Everywhere. Well, and that's the other way. When you think about core values, I say how you do anything is how you do everything.

And if you say, OK, Marnie, customer success, how does that work in the grocery store? How does that work here? How does it work there?

Like I behave that way everywhere in work, in home, on a team.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. And the way that you act in private and the way that you act in public should be the same.

[Marnie Stockman]
You know, when I was teaching, you know how grownups, the principals, et cetera, come in and observe classes to give teachers feedback. Right. That's always the random stranger that was sitting in the back of your class.

So one day I had been observed and I told some goofy story in class as I in a shocking turn of events. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you. And when the observer left, it had been my principal.

One of the kids said, Miss Stockman, you are just as goofy when somebody is in the class as when they're not in the class, not like. And I said, don't you dare tell me about another teacher. I don't want to hear it like everybody else has got their own business.

They're like, OK, but I'm just saying, you know, I don't want to hear it. And I said to them, if you believe that you are doing the right thing, then it doesn't matter who's in the room. It doesn't matter who's in the room.

So I think, again, it's that authenticity piece. It's like, I believe that building. And now what I didn't say is, yes, when I tell these goofy stories, I'm building relationships with you.

So you want to play the game with me because you are 16 year olds and there are 30 of you and one of me. And the only way I can get you to want to learn pre-calculus is to believe that we're all in this together. Right.

But I didn't say, I just said, if you don't believe you're doing the right thing, why are you doing it? And they're like, huh, that's probably a good life lesson. I'm like, huh?

Yeah. What do you know?

[Uncle Marv]
So let me go back and let's, well, let's go way back.

[Marnie Stockman]
Way back. Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
Cause I want to know what was it like for you growing up to get you on the path that you ended up? I mean, you mentioned volleyball. Did you play volleyball as a sport in school?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Including college I did. So I was very athletic.

I was a little tomboy. If anybody's curious what a 53 year old version of a tomboy volleyball is, looks like it's me. Um, so I was the only girl on the boys' baseball team.

So which, which will lead me to one of my favorite quotes, uh, which is if you have a chip on your shoulder, use it to bet on yourself. So that was not easy. I am small.

I've always been the littlest one. So I was, you know, the little girl on the boys' baseball team.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, um, was that because it was a small town and, or just because you wanted to play baseball and you were going to do it?

[Marnie Stockman]
I told my dad that, um, that I wanted to play baseball because frankly, it was a little bit harder in softball. The softball teams weren't as good. Um, they were, they, they just, they didn't know the game.

They weren't as skilled. So it wasn't as competitive. Um, and I, so I've always been competitive.

So I told dad that I'd rather play baseball. And he told me that he would sign me up for baseball. Um, but I had to learn to throw and compete with the boys.

And so every night for 30 minutes, I can remember crying because, you know, girls' shoulders are actually built differently, which is why they typically throw differently. But my shoulder actually now is not, is now built way differently because dad would have me practice getting the right throwing motion to throw like a guy. And, um, so he worked, he's like, if you want to do that, then you are going to put in the work.

And I, you know, like I could have picked lots of things, but I do think that is part of what very early on. I mean, that's when I was in second grade. I started that.

He said, if you want that goal, here's the work to do it. And then my mom would say that one of my superhero powers is self-discipline and that I would stand out there and cry for 30 minutes, um, until he let me throw the way I wanted to throw. Um, because I really wanted that goal.

So there was, you know, the effort behind it.

[Uncle Marv]
Interesting.

[Marnie Stockman]
So sports, sports, did you do, did you do very good at math?

[Uncle Marv]
Did you do student government?

[Marnie Stockman]
No student government. I was not the cool kid at all. Okay.

Student government. I didn't have a boyfriend until college. I was definitely a nerd for sure.

I, it was kind of funny. My first year teaching, I was 21 when I started teaching high school and kids would jokingly ask me out. And I was like, this is ridiculous.

I've been asked more as a first year teacher than I've been asked in all of my high school career. And of course the answers were always, no, my husband doesn't let me date. But, um, uh, no student government.

I was very active on, so I played volleyball, basketball, softball, golf, tennis in the summertime, always athletic, I was valedictorian. So I was always the nerd. I worked two jobs in high school.

I was a waitress and I worked in a knitting shop. So I was always pretty motivated.

[Uncle Marv]
A knitting shop.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah.

So I, I nannied, I babysat a lot for a woman who owned a knitting shop and I wanted a job, like I was somewhat coin operated. And, uh, she said, well, I have a knitting shop. If you learn to knit, then you can work in my shop on Saturdays.

And my, my mom and you weren't, and you weren't busy enough. I know. I, I'm one of the, I told you I like productivity, right?

Like I'm not making this stuff up. I really do like to be productive. So I went in the shop, and I bought blue yarn.

I knit myself a summer top. I wore it the next week. And she said, okay, you're hired.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. But was it fashionable?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. I mean, I only, I, I still, I don't tell me you still have it. I don't still have it.

I don't know where that one landed, but, um, yeah, I mean, I, I wear all the stuff that I knit, so my, and my daughter who's 23 approves it. So yeah, I'm going to say it was fashionable.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. All right. That gives us a good sense of what, uh, what you were like and what, uh, drives you, I guess, and, um, so it's, it's not caffeine or drugs that keep you going.

[Marnie Stockman]
Oh, no, no. My students would always say, Ms. Stockman, like how much coffee do you drink? I'm like, ah, none at all.

Like you wake up like this.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yes, I do.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So let's see. So lead it like lasso.

You're still talking on the circuit. You're still doing stuff, creating a master plan. Uh, was, is that kind of the, uh, the masterclass?

[Marnie Stockman]
Is that the, the stealth project that kind of gets mentioned that you're working on what we would like is feedback in the masterclass as to what portion of the next thing we want to build. So in the back of the book, we outline sort of three different ideas, um, of software that we would like to build. So the masterclass is a feedback mechanism.

So we can see which of the problems really seem to be the biggest. We're all about, obviously like asking folks for what needs to be built and then build that we don't just build on a whim. Uh, so this is sort of part of that.

Yeah. The stealth mode project.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I guess I should ask, uh, when and where can people get access to all of this?

[Marnie Stockman]
Uh, so lead it like lasso.com is the easiest way to, you know, find many of the things we are at lead it like lasso everywhere. Like all of the social medias, we got the lead it like lasso. Um, and then on LinkedIn, I'm thankfully easy to find because there are no other Marnie Stockman's out there.

Um, so if anybody wants to connect, we've ended up chatting with book clubs and companies. And it's interesting. Some of the Nick and I really found in the past two weeks, we've had three military organizations reach out to us, which is fascinating.

One of them’ s a think tank, which the problem solvers in us are like, yeah, can we come visit you live? I got fascinated by that.

[Uncle Marv]
So if all this takes off, you know, there's not going to be much room for you to stay in this, uh, MSP space.

[Marnie Stockman]
Like you said, well, you just never know. Like why not? I'd like to be productive.

I've had two jobs, three jobs my whole life. Why not?

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. All right. So everything basically starts and ends at lead it like lasso.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yes.

[Uncle Marv]
Except for another podcast that you're doing the bits and books podcasts.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. So that's for Ray Orsini's the MSP multimedia network. Um, I do that.

Uh, I host that show for them. So that is an open podcast, an open book club rather. So that is, I, we pick a book every month.

We meet the last Friday of the month. And for folks who have read the book and want to join the call live, we have the zoom and you can come on and we chat about really, I have questions from the book that we specifically say, how would, how can we interpret this in the MSP space specifically, and then we also have a YouTube live stream if folks just want to watch instead of being on live. So we have read some of the ones behind me, which I find, uh, I think it's fun to see how we can take different leadership and business books, um, specific to the MSP space this month.

We're reading Jane McGonigal's reality is broken. Uh, what's the subtitle? Cause I think the MSP space loves this.

Why games make us better and how they change the world. I made both of my children read this. I think it's a really important book for the world.

[Uncle Marv]
Really?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Yeah. Um, because it can talk about her, her thesis is that we can in fact save the world through games done right and collaboration.

And she talks about the, like the epic. It's just, it's really interesting. I think it's important for business owners.

I think it's important because my son is a gamer and he loved the book. My daughter is a marketer and she loved the book. It's just really good to see.

I talked, so there's a, an older woman who walks the same street that I walk and she has a book club of all older women. And she said, well, you're always reading a book when you're walking, right? Do you have any suggestions for my book club?

And I said, yeah, I think you should read reality is broken. And she said, why? That doesn't sound like something a bunch of old ladies would want to read.

And I said, well, one of the games they talked about was they needed to have quick identification of where a E D the defibrillator devices are in the world. Um, for medics. And so they made a game where you would get points and it got to be like Marnie Stockman's a D if I found a new a D and put it on the location tracker.

So there was a whole game around this and it is how they populated the locations of, of a D's across the world. And when I told her that she's like, all right, yeah, I'm in. That's interesting.

[Uncle Marv]
Very interesting. So I will say thank you for having me on last month when we did that. Well, I was quite surprised because when we met in Tampa, the book club came up.

I'm not sure how, I think maybe I mentioned that one of the things that I thought about doing was a book club. And you're like, no, I got one. And you asked me for recommendation.

And all of a sudden, the next thing I know it's, it's the next book mentioned in the club and I'm like, okay. Either they don't have books or they're just taking suggestions. Willy nilly.

So how, how do you pick the books?

[Marnie Stockman]
So we do put out a poll. Um, unless there is a special reason or event for me to pick one. So this month there's a company call that's just started called slightly smarter that is trying to get authors, um, you know, exposure for authors.

And by chance they read lead it like lasso and posted a review. When I met with them, they wanted to do a slightly smarter book recommendation, like kind of crossover with bits and books. So, so I wanted to pick a book for this next one that would be beyond just a MSP focus, and I think reality is broken is a good one for everybody.

Um, but we try to pick different categories of business. I could just sit in leadership books all day. I've got a whole shelf of them, but to be able to talk marketing sales, customer success, product, you know, all of the pieces that an MSP would want to think about, so we're always taking votes from the community and many times they'll, they'll just, like, if I'll say, this is why we want to use this one, they're game.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Very nice. So yep, folks, bits and books podcast.

And, uh, that is out there as well. Uh, once a month, right?

[Marnie Stockman]
Once a month. Yeah. The last Friday of the month.

[Uncle Marv]
All right.

[Marnie Stockman]
That's the easiest way to find that is to either go on YouTube and subscribe to that or find me on LinkedIn. Cause I always get, I, you know, I get tagged when they start promoting that and I will promote it.

[Uncle Marv]
And the, uh, lens of leadership podcast. Uh, when will season two start?

[Marnie Stockman]
So that should be at the beginning of September.

[Uncle Marv]
All right.

[Marnie Stockman]
So like to catch up, watch them all and then we'll be ready for season two.

[Uncle Marv]
So like a regular TV series, right?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Nice. Well, Marty.

Wow. Uh, we went all over the place. Like we thought we would, we suspected we might.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So anything right now that's like burning in your head that I haven't asked you about with all the stuff you got going on, something you, you know, you, you're just waiting to, you know, shout from the Hilltops.

[Marnie Stockman]
There is something I'm waiting to shout from Hilltops, but I need one more week before I can shout it. Actually, I need until August 1st. So the next time we chat, I will shout it to you.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. August 1st. I'm writing it down here.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
I will reach out and can I get an exclusive?

[Marnie Stockman]
I think you might be able to, my business partner.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. We will work on that. No, Marnie Stockman, everybody.

Um, all those links will be in the show notes to everything that she's doing. And if anybody wants to challenge and think that you're doing as much or more than her, I'm going to say no.

[Marnie Stockman]
I don't know about that.

[Uncle Marv]
Marnie, this is good. Thank you very much. Uh, we've, we've, we've crossed spheres a few times and, uh, talked about getting you on the show and we finally did.

And I think I'm going to have to break this into two parts, but, uh, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And look forward to doing it again.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to it.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. That's going to do it folks. Thank you very much for listening and, uh, head over to the website to get all of the episode notes and the links to all the stuff that we talked about, and we'll be looking forward to chatting with her again and seeing what comes next, but that's going to do it for now.

We'll see you soon. And until next time. Holla.