Podcast

Episode #41 Charlene Li

 Business and People Podcast With Walt Bayliss

Charlene Li, on Disruption And How To

Deal With It For Growth
Growth is hard. It always will be, so - let's do it
anyway!
Business and People Podcast With Walt Bayliss Episode #41:
Charlene Li, on Disruption and how to deal with it for growth.
Best selling Author, Charlene Li talks openly with us on how to
BE Disruptive and manage growth, even if the thought of it
scares you. Enjoy (and don't forget to hit subscribe at
http://businessandpeoplepodcast.com :) )
Subscribe at: http://businessandpeoplepodcast.com

Business and People Podcast With Walt Bayliss. Subscribe at http://businessandpeoplepodcast.com

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Walt Bayliss: 00:13 Hi everyone. This is Walt Bayliss from the Business and People Podcast. Today, we have an
unbelievable special guest. She is a Harvard graduate. She now sits on the board of directors of Harvard. She is the

founder of Altimeter, which was bought out by profit in 2015 she's the best selling author of six books globally, including
groundswell and she is an amazing human who talks about disruption in the social media environment and in the digital

age that we live in. She talks on stages all around the world as literally just got off the plane right now and I'm just thrilled
and honoured to have with me on the show. None other than Charlene Li. Charlene, thank you so much for joining us.

Charlene Li: 00:51 Thank you so much for having me here.

Walt Bayliss: 00:52 Oh, it's, it's incredible to have the opportunity to speak with UCLA. You have, just looking at your bio is,

is like reading like the best, best of the best of who's at the who. It's the incredible story. How did this all come together
for you?

Charlene Li: 01:06 I kind of fell into it. I, I thought I'd become a, an analysts, a technology and business analysts for a
couple of years so I could raise my kids. And it just kept going on and on and all of a sudden I turn around. I was like,

eight years had gone by like, what am I going to do with my life? And so I decided to just kind of keep things fresh. I wrote
a book because I was curious about this whole social media space. I thought it was going to be pretty big. So back in
2008, I wrote a book called groundswell, my first book and did really, really well. And after that I decided to go start my

own company Altimeter. And then co kept writing books and then sold it in 2015 and now I continue to be an analust at

Altimeter. And am speaking, just wrote another book. I'm starting to invest in, serve on boards and have what would call, I
would call a portfolio career. Yeah.

Walt Bayliss: 02:02 So I've noticed that you've, you've been featured as a TEDx Ted speaker. You've spoken to IBM to

boast to, to some incredible companies around the world. Oracle, I think you were leading the keynote there with Oracle.

Like, I mean, the, the opportunity to move from the analyst role into now as you said, a portfolio career. Did that happen
because of the books? Because of, of being the Author?

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 Business and People Podcast With Walt Bayliss

Charlene Li: 02:23 It was very much because of the books. I mean, a lot of people write books in order to have speaking

cause it's hard to make money just on books. But I, I think I'd never wrote a book to get more speaking. I've always wrote

a book to answer a question I was curious about that I, that could potentially help other people. And along the way, if
you're helping a lot of people, then people want more of it. So I, I think the speaking was one way that I found to be really

compelling and I really enjoy it. To be able to move people from one place to another in less than an hour is something

that I, I really enjoyed. I love creating that aha in people's lives.

Walt Bayliss: 03:00 Very cool. Super cool. And you're obviously affecting a lot of people. You've got more than a quarter
of a million followers on LinkedIn and we're, we're invited to be a LinkedIn influencer. I mean, it does, it, does it astound

you sometimes that your message that you're sharing has, is reaching and influencing so many people.

Charlene Li: 03:18 You know, I w I was just in Sao Paolo and this one person came up to me, he goes, your first book

Groundswell made a huge difference in my life. I am where I am because of that book. Wow. You know, I'm just humbled
by that. I mean, I've never sent out the book to, you know, really changed people's lives, but people would come up to me

and say, wow, this, this is really, your books have really moved me. Your work really makes a difference. And it is an

incredible honour, honestly, to think that it makes a difference. It's a huge motivator to keep going and keep digging,
looking for those stories and ideas with people.

Walt Bayliss: 03:55 Do you find, I, I, you still engaged in that research onto the next book. I know your, your latest book,

which is the disruption mindset. Are you, are you constantly looking, analysing with your, with your past? Are you looking

for the next topic? I just an interested person.

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Charlene Li: 04:11 You know, the hardest part about writing a book is when your editor says no more changes. No, but I've

got so much gotten so even now as I've been, cause I finished the book in the beginning of April in a sense, I've been

writing and researching. I'm like, wait, there are all these other things. And for example, one person asked me what are
the three questions I need to ask? And I'm like, that's a great question. What are the three questions you need to ask? And

I'll be like, okay, these other three questions like, but it's not in the book, you know, so it's like the forward for the next one.

Okay. Yeah. [inaudible] And yet it is the conversations I have about the current work that I do in the past we've had it done

that really spur my curiosity. Second, what else is out there? What are they other questions to be asking?

Charlene Li: 04:57 So a big question I'm looking at right now is when we talk about digital transformation, but it there by

some estimates, only 8%,8% of companies are successful at this. Wow. Oh, why is it so hard? What are the reasons why

it's not working? And I think a lot of it is because we talk about digital transformation at this sort of executive level and

then the people actually have to operationalize it. The people who are in the trenches, the managers doing operations
every day, they go like, I'm not going to go do that. Yeah. So like how do you, right, it's consultant and executive speaker

one side and the people who I should do the work on the other side and the two just do not meet. This is like, I have no

idea what you're talking about. No, I, I kept stop what I'm doing today to transform.

Walt Bayliss: 05:43 I noticed that with, with the lightest article that you wrote, which was a, the report in, in digital

communication being adopted throughout an organisation. And, and your report actually the, the baseline of that was

that everybody thinks it's a good idea but it gets lost in the middle where there's no kind of a transition from the executive

team to the, to the workers at the front line being able to change their communication channels to work in a different way.
And are you finding that not just with digital communication but with so many other things as well?

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Charlene Li: 06:14 Everything. I mean, again, you think about it as the permafrost, the frozen middle, but some people call

it but they have no reason to change the, we haven't been very successful with explaining to them what's in it for you to

go through the changes to adopt these new behaviours. So use these new technologies and we just say, just do it without

really involving them in that process. And so in some ways I think the companies who have been successful at do this,

and this is the research I want to do now, is they actually go slow to go fast. Okay. Slow way down. They slow way, way
down and are able to do that.

Walt Bayliss: 06:50 Yeah. Now, Charlene, one of the things that as I look at what you've done, but the word that jumps out

at me the most in addition to digital is the word disruption. Why has that been such a fascination for you?

Charlene Li: 07:03 Yeah, because I think we all want digital and innovation to be easy. You want somebody to give us a

nice big fat, easy button, press it and then what it's done and I just went, you know? No, no, no, no. How do we think about

disruption as a normal state and how do we actually thrive with it? Some people, some organisations, they seemingly just

kind of flow through all this disruption and they were able to deal with it. They were adopting to it. They kind of run

towards it rather than shy away from it. What does it, how do they do this? What is it that they drink every morning? Cause
I want some of that when I go and talk to them, I'm like, Oh no, it's awful. I mean they'll just, they'll just as disruptive as we

are, but at the same time they have a different way of thinking.

Walt Bayliss: 07:49 They embrace it. But even though they hate it, they're chasing it.

Charlene Li: 07:53 You know what disruption is, is hard. If you mean it's, I, I, I wish it was a magic wand. I wish it was a

fairy godmother who could make it all. And, and I think the reality is, let's have an honest conversation about growth,

about change, but really about growth. Cause I, I think that we've been thinking about disruption backwards. You look,

we're looking for some magic bullet, some magic technology that's going to make disruptive growth easy. Like, Oh, that's
the answer, which is do that and we're done. Yeah. It's not, it's not because both is disruptive. If you want to grow

exponentially faster and better than everyone else. So he want to drive higher growth and, and greater impact. It is going

to be hard. It is going to be painful. It is going to be disruptive. There's no way around it. Growth is hard.

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Charlene Li: 08:43 And for us to keep fooling ourselves to think that growth is going to be easy, it's not again being having

an intellectually high integrity conversation about this. Yeah. So I, I feel very strongly that let's think about disruption in a
very direct and honest way. Have a great conversation about this to say, you know, we know what we have to do to grow

to X. I talked to most executives and asked them, what would it take for you to grow twice as much next year as you did

this year? W what would you do differently? And he goes, Oh, [inaudible] let me tell you what do these like buy things

differently and exactly what we would do. I don't want like, why don't you do it? Then they go, because it would be

incredibly hard. You'll probably miss our Mark. It could be just highly disruptive. And they'd realise they're talking to me

like, Oh, that's a stupid reason. You're like,

Walt Bayliss: 09:32 They're talking themselves out of two X growth because it's going to be difficult. Like so. So you're

literally concentrating on say, look, this growth is going to be difficult. So either do it or die

Charlene Li: 09:42 [Inaudible] and they also say even if we were to try to do two lines, you probably wouldn't hit it. We

probably hit like 50, 60% of that and I'm like, isn't 150% better than 100%?

Walt Bayliss: 09:56 Wouldn't that be a yes from me? I would be thinking that for sure.

Charlene Li: 10:00 This is how they think about things anymore?

Walt Bayliss: 10:01 How do you, how do you find that most most, let's say most disruptive thinkers? How do you find that

they process things differently than other people? How do they change the way they look at something and make it into a

future plan rather than most of us, we look at it and see satisfied

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Charlene Li: 10:20 Simple thing that disruptors do. They think about the future and they think about a future customer.

And because they have such a clear idea of who that future customer is, they will make the investments today and make

the sacrifices today a hired people dedicate the resources to go after that future customer. They're going to still focus on

the current customers, but they're really to take on these unprofitable customers because they know that's where the

growth is going to be. This is why startups have a huge advantage. Startups don't have a current customer to worry
about. They have nothing. They have nothing. So they go after the only thing that they can, which is the future customer

and the minute they get a current, they get a customer, they fall into the same trap as every other incumbent. Establish.

Walt Bayliss: 11:06 What is the solution there? Like how do you solve that?

Charlene Li: 11:09 You, you have to be constantly training yourself saying, I love my current customers. Love you guys,

love that you're profitable. I'm going to take that profits in invested in the future. Hmm. Constantly. Cause you know that

the current customer is not necessarily your future customers as it might be, but chances are they aren't. Yeah.

Interesting. I'm slowly convinced that something's out there. So I go about and ask people to show me those strategic

plans. Most people show me a 12 month budget. Right? Sure. This is how much we're going to spend. Plan. Tell me the
difference. Show me. And so when you have a strategic plan, it says, I know where I want to be three years from now and

here are the steps I'm going to take today to reach that plan, that go three years from now and the most forward thinking

companies always have a plan three, five, 10 years out into the future and they're executing on that plan.

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Charlene Li: 12:00 Not disruptive companies have a 12 month budget and it's just so the end of the current year. Yeah, the

next plan and last few months of the previous. And so you can't make any longterm investments cause your point of view
is only within the next 12 months or shorter. Yeah. And it's not not a strategy, it's there almost like a report afterwards

isn't it? [inaudible] It's, it's looking backwards. I talk about how you have to have your customers and especially your

future customers in your dashboards. And so if you are thinking about all the things they have to do operationally to make

sure execution happens, a lot of the operating metrics we have are backward looking. They tell you how you have done, I

don't know, tell you how you're going to do in the future. Wow. So you need a good balance. But I find, I asked people

show me this was your plan.

Charlene Li: 12:49 Tell me who your future customers. Show me your dashboards. And then the fourth thing I do is I tell

me how many of your meetings start on time. Well, tell me about that one because I think the most disruptive organ

disruptive organisations, I'll also the most ordered, most organised have the greatest amount of process work done. And

because they execute on work so well, they just operate really well. They don't have to focus on those things so they can
spend all of their time, all of the energy focusing on that future. Wow. [inaudible] if you think about it, most companies

don't have the discipline of even having good meetings though calendars are packed with meetings, have most

executives are calendered all the way to the end of the day in 15 minute increments. So when do they have time to sit

back and think about the future? When do they have time to think and do work and the higher up you are in the

organisation, the more time you have to set aside and close off so he can think about work on these future plans.

Charlene Li: 13:50 Wow. Because if you don't then who will? Yeah. How do you a pause there for a second cause I'm just

letting that sink in. How do you answer to somebody who finds themselves a victim of disruption? In other words, we've

always done it this way and we've been successful. [inaudible] Now we're being taken over by [inaudible] the startup, the,

the, the, the person that we didn't even see coming. I'm sure as we look globally shelling, there are businesses right now

that are going, Oh my God, we are getting absolutely done over by a company that we didn't even pay credit to six months

ago. How do you address an executive team who find themselves in that struggling situation? I would say some of them
are like that. Most of them are like, I can see this coming on the horizon. I can see it like a truck barreling towards me.

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Charlene Li: 14:38 What do I do? Not quite there yet. They still have prophets. There's still have options. They still have

cash when you have cash because cash is King. You have options. The question, if you can see this big, huge semi-truck

coming at you, what are you going to do to prepare for that milk, your profits or you're going to take those profits and

invest them in a future direction. And the hard part is if you've never an, if we haven't done this on a routine basis, which

is think to strategically think into the future, make these sacrifices is really hard to do.

Walt Bayliss: 15:14 Yeah, definitely. Because you've always done it this way.

Charlene Li: 15:16 Yeah. And so yeah, the only fighting chance is to move into that transition as quickly as you can get on

board and go into a mode of fighting mode that says who are our future customers going to be? Instead of being

defensive, be offensive, be on the offence and say, how can we create that growth? How can we find new customers?

Who are they going to be and be ready to make the pivots that you're going to have to make. Making investments in the

short term. I talked to one CEO once and he was like, you know, this is my industry. Industry's being so disrupted. What do

I tell my board? [inaudible] Gotta tell them the truth. You know, this is a dying industry. We cannot maintain the profits are

going to have to take up profit head, not pay out dividends and invest that in the future. He goes, they will never accept
that. And I said, then you're going to lose a company. That's exactly what he did. So he said, I may as well sell the

company to the highest bidder that I can and get out while I can and has he done? So he got out.

Walt Bayliss: 16:19 Wow. So it's either, it's either get hit by the semi-trailer, which is, you know, get wiped out, down to

nothing or move into the next lane, which is invest what you've got now into what you think and you're going to be taken
over. But hopefully you can get some ground back as the time goes. Yeah.

Charlene Li: 16:35 Hopefully you can find another person who doesn't, who would think that these profits are going to

continue. Hopefully you can get somebody who's hopeful enough and maybe not. So I'm open to seeing the potential
coming this threat coming in and, and get a sucker to buy your business before they can [inaudible].

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Walt Bayliss: 16:52 Wow. Yeah. And then like terrible phrasiology but yeah, absolutely. Right. So in terms of, in terms of

advice forum from you to, to anybody that finds themselves in that situation, it's stomped down, no matter if you find
yourself behind, start now think about that future customer. How are we going to attract them? Who are they? Who are

you going to need to be to be attracted to them and just start working that environment even though you're going to be

behind?

Charlene Li: 17:15 Yeah. I just, yeah, I just spoke to a bunch of family businesses yesterday and you know, these are
traditional, big, large industry, you know, family businesses and they're very traditional because we've done those way for

three generations. Ah, you know had the young people in the company like how do I get my grandfather listen to me? And

what you can't, it's less about talking about the methods as it is showing them where this future customer is talking about
who they are going out and getting data and evidence. Because if you go just by hearsay, like this is the way we've always

done it. Okay. Can you give us evidence that always doing it this way? [inaudible] Is going to continue to be the way,

what's evidence? Can you bring grandfather? I'm going to be evidenced to you. I'm going to bring you data and those

interviews. Oh, and if you convince them this, like this is not about doing things a best way or not, this is about where the

market is moving to. If you can help them understand that this is a better way to serve an unmet need in the marketplace,

see it as an opportunity rather than a changing from the past. It's about building on the past and moving into the future.

That's a much better way to be moving them. I see actually things happening.

Walt Bayliss: 18:35 Yeah. And in fact losing that losing that generational business as the young people are just flocking to

their own startups, et cetera. Shelly, I would imagine that having the reputation and the role that you have sitting on the

board of directors that you sit on and, and being the public speaker and figure that you are, you would have a lot of people

coming to you asking for advice that would be saying, Charlene, I've just started my business. I'm struggling to find

customers, you know, all of that kind of thing. Do you, do you welcome that or do you kind of try and push that away when

you're, when you're out in the bed?

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Charlene Li: 19:09 Oh, when I'm at my my speaking engagements, I always put up my contact information. Okay. And I say

to people, I put this up cause I want to hear it from you. I want you to see how you're doing and want to connect with you.

I can't guarantee you that can give you all the advice, but I do want to hear about what's working for you, what's not,

because this is how I learn and produce more research. Think people are really respectful. They reach out. They say thank

you. Every once in awhile they you know, say to me, Hey, you know, could I ask you out for coffee? And I usually have to

say I can't, but do you have a question? I'm happy to try to ask that question. Like, does one person asked me by email, I

have a meeting next week with my executives. What three pressures should I be asking them to, to make sure that we're

on the right track for our digital transformation? I go, that's a great, you know, and so that's how I learn. Otherwise, how

would I, I can't sit here in my office at my desk and come up with great ideas. I need to do research. You can get your
future customers. Absolutely.

Walt Bayliss: 20:12 That's so cool. I mean, that's really cool. Can I ask you then a 62nd challenge. So we've done this with

a few of our guests and I'm just fascinated to hear your answers here. So here's the 62nd challenge you bump into

someone. The context is you bump into someone that you haven't seen for 10 years. They've always been an employee at
a C suite level in an executive role, and they've finally decided now in their mid thirties that they're going out on their own.

They want to go and start their own thing. They've got this great idea. They do met, meet up with you for coffee, and they

say to you, Charlene, I'm just getting started. What advice would you give to that person to make sure that they had the

best chances of the next

Charlene Li: 20:47 Six to 12 months being everything that wanted it to be? It's the same. It's the same question I put to

everybody. Really understand who, what the customer problem is that you're trying to solve your problem. Is it a tangible

problem? Is it, is it the problem that you think is there, or is it something even deeper than that? That shoe, that first

problem that you identified, it's probably not the right problem. It's probably one to three levels down to really understand

what that real problem is. Dig down deeper. Like why is this a problem? What causes that? And keep asking all those

whys. I find that a lot of entrepreneurs come up with an idea because it's something they see and feel. Yeah. But it's not

necessarily a real problem because it's a problem that may be significant in their life. But is it a problem that many people

have?

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Charlene Li: 21:40 Is it a problem that nobody else sees or knows how to address? Uber is a great company, highly

disruptive. What was the interesting new technology that they use? There was no new technology. It was location built

into the phone that had been around fall out, but nobody was using it in the way that they were using it to solve a

particular problem that they saw could be huge. And so I like to say to people, you know, think about the problems you

could solve. You don't have any good problems. Here's a way to find a problem. Go follow a working parent around for a

day. You know what it's like to be a working parent. It doesn't make their complete nightmare. Go and solve the problem

of a working parent, especially a working mother, and you have them already market that's global, that's a global billions

of dollars that you could make.

Charlene Li: 22:31 Go solve their problems. And in fact, you know, taking that forward going solve the problem of the

market sector that you're looking for. Like if you've built a business to business app, you're creating something in a, in a,

in the manufacturing space, going to follow someone in that space for a day and makes sure that your problem is

addressing the, your solution is addressing their problem. I love that. So being a w, you know, sitting down with somebody

and saying, okay, you just starting out, great. Define the problem that you're solving for your customers to six, seven

levels, as many levels deep as you can and that will, that will give you the best chance of your future success, which I

absolutely love, Charlene. Knowing what you know now in your career, having followed the path that you follow, what

would you do differently? Oh, how many places can I start?

Charlene Li: 23:19 I think when I started altimeter I didn't put it a strong enough two things I didn't focus on and they're

not my natural tendencies and I'm one of them. I'm much better now at which is really thinking about governance and

process, how you're gonna make decisions. And, and this is the advice I give to people. When you're starting a business,

you get your partners to go, this is great. We're enthusiastic wearing pearls. Not everything is awesome. Right? And you
don't talk about the inevitable day when you guys disagree. Definitely come a day when you are at loggerheads with each

other. How do you resolve that? How are you going to dis agree and tell when everybody's happy to talk about that? Yeah.

And, and that's the time to talk about it. And, and I, I was really fortunate that I had great partners that we would

disagreed.

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Charlene Li: 24:10 We worked it out. We were too. And so we eventually through, but it was, it was not without a lot of

pain and agony cause we didn't think about this in advantage. Sure, sure. The other thing is I really credit on my other
partners. They were much better at this than I was, is really thinking about your culture, about your values and living your

culture and values every single day. It tends to be something that you think of as an afterthought. Like, Oh, get them out

to doing the culture thing. Sometimes it is the number one thing you have to do. It's one thing to have your strategy. It's

other things like that. But if you do not have a strong culture to be the engine that drives your strategy, you have nothing.

And in fact your strategy will probably change, but your culture has to be strong in order to absorb all those strategy

changes because you may be going down the path you think this is a customer problem yourself.

Charlene Li: 25:00 Oh Nope, it's wrong. We got to completely shift and pivot. You can't do that unless your culture is

strong. How I think creating that or mapping that out. You think about how you want to work, you know, how do you, and I

look at it this way, values can be just words on the wall or you can actually put say, how do we use our values? So one of

the things that we did, altimeter Lee began our, our team meetings each week, vice asking people how do the values

come to play? How did, how did they, how were they helping you to get through a tough time or decision? And so you don't

have to name all of them. It's completely voluntary, but people was like, Oh yeah, you know, I ran into this place where

integrity was an issue. No, I was having problems with somebody and I was really having, I like just didn't want to talk to

them and address them.

Charlene Li: 25:52 And I said, you know, I can't have integrity in my relationship with this person unless I tell them how I

feel about some things. So made me get up and go and have that tough conversation, that conversation. So much so that

there was nothing between us. We can be in integrity with each other. So in terms of that being a reflection in the culture,

it's almost, it's verbalising it, it's, it's making it formal in terms of this is who we are and the way that we work before we

get into strategy to to really cement that as a core of, of, of what you're doing. Yeah, because I, the, I write up, I wrote

about this in my book and when I asked people how did you build culture, it came down to two things. It's beliefs and

behaviours. That's all it is. And so your culture is made of a bunch of beliefs and then the behaviours, your values are just
words on a wall.

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Charlene Li: 26:43 What you leave those values mean, and I'll give an example. One company I've worked with had the

value respect and in the beginning it was about everybody has a voice. So we had to have respect for each other and not

be unkind to each other. And over time it morphed into respect means not disagreeing with each other in public. Right. It's

completely different. And they were realising that they couldn't go through the kind of changes and transformations they

wanted to unless they address that because people would always just kind of keep it inside and out when we say what
was on their mind. So the executives explicitly went out and encouraged and said new things and encourage new

behaviours. So they would begin every meeting saying everyone's going to voice their opinion about what's really going

on. And I encourage you to be completely honest and tell us because we won't know anything and I respect you for saying

this, I want to hear your voice.

Charlene Li: 27:38 So they actively had to encourage new behaviours too. We define what the belief of respect meant.

Wow. So what do you believe in how you behave? I love that. And you know, in terms of how to live the values that you put

in together, that's really cool. Cause we all have things in our coat and our companies that are just kind of wacky, you

know, like I don't know why we do that. That's, that's broken. This is holding us back. Yeah, sure. And then I go, so what

are you doing to change that? Because you go, well, this is where the culture where it's like, no, it doesn't have to be that

way. We can begin to act in a different way. We can begin to believe in different things if we don't think that is helping us.

I talked to a group of CEOs over the last couple of days and they said, Oh yeah, my culture is kind of wacky.

Charlene Li: 28:19 And I go, well, what do you do to change it? Because that's the culture. I can't change. You are the CEO,

it's your company. What do you mean you can change it is if you can't, who can? Like that's the like there is nobody else.

The buck stops with you. Absolutely. So I, I think that culture is one of those sayings. We all know how important it is, but

we don't invest in nearly enough time into making it, being intentional about the kind of culture we want.

Walt Bayliss: 28:45 If the people who are listening to this getting nothing out of it. Other than that last little bit, Charlene,

I'll be through like investing and defining that culture and being able to move that forward I think is amazing. Charlene, tell

me again, I'm so respectful of your time and I'm not going to take up too much more of a toll.

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Charlene Li: 29:00 I'll only keep grilling you for a few more minutes. What would, what would people find surprising about

you? I actually like to jump off of high places. Okay. Risk thing and adrenaline. What is it like the adrenaline there is a ride

at a local and amusement park where you go up in the seat about like, you know, 30 stories or whatever it is and then they

just drop you straight down. Is this like these, just get that. I love that. So I won't go to the amusement parks on off hours,

like Friday night at six o'clock, nobody's at the park. And so I can just stay on the ride and go on and over and over and

over again, like need some lines and I do love and I was banned from jumping, you know, doing skydiving and budget,

jumping until my kids grew up cause it was too risky.

Charlene Li: 29:49 So I made an agreement to my family that I would not do these things. Now it says my kids are ground.

I was guide diving for the first time last year. That had such a great time as excited as I can jump on a plane at 18,000

feet. So much fun. So cool that I love the fact that you have the agreement with your family not to do that until the kids

have grown and flowing so that you, you know, if I die the kids are still going to be okay. Like that's very, very cool. I love

it. So Shelley, being S being in the role that you are in and looking forward in terms of business and things that are

happening, what do you see for the future for you? What's, what's coming down the pipeline that you're excited about? Oh,
I am excited about writing more books, speaking to more people.

Charlene Li: 30:34 But I'm also very passionate about creating a movement of disruptors. I have a new little passion

project I have called quantum networks. So it's quantum-networks.com and it's the I, the idea is to create a movement of
disruptive leaders because I believe so strongly that we need to create more change in this world. There's so many

problems to be addressed, both not only in our organisations, but also in our communities and societies. And being a

disruptor is really hard work. It's a very lonely place to be. So I want to connect all these disruptors together so that we

can be better disrupters together and support each other constantly. Often networks.com yeah, quantum dash networks

with ms.com. Nice. I think now it's kind of a mess. It's really a mess, but that's how it should be. Let's just say what is, I

mean, I announced it about a week and a half ago and the day I announced it, the site went completely down.

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Charlene Li: 31:37 I'm like, Oh great. Yup. That's going to happen. I said, get my security certificates. I'm like, ah, great. So

this is one of those things. And of course the book can catch up with you on charleneli.com which is where they can find

out about your books and you know, your speaking engagements and that kind of stuff, which is great. Shelly, thank you

so much for the opportunity to come in and speak with you, especially regarding disruption and the end communication

within organisations and how to change the way of thinking to make sure that the future of customers B are going to be

able to come through the door again. I'm so grateful for your time. I know that you just jumped off a plane. Thank you so

much for sharing and for coming with us. And I so look forward to seeing what you've got coming through. It's really

saying so much for having me on your show. It's great. Thank you.

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