THA S02 EP#37 - Do More by Doing Less: The AI Priority Reset

Michael Cupps closes out Season 2 of The Habit Architect with a conversation he's been looking forward to for a while. His guest, John Lurtz, is the Co-Founder of MorelandConnect, a Cleveland-based custom cloud software company, and someone Cupps has known for years. The two have a lot of shared professional history, which makes this one feel less like an interview and more like two people who've both been around long enough to say what they actually think.

John's story starts on a football field. He was a collegiate player headed toward the NFL until a broken neck in a 1998 game in college changed everything. What he carried out of that experience wasn't bitterness. It was the same discipline and habit of preparation that football demands, applied to business and computer science. He went on to join Accenture, co-found multiple companies, and is now running MorelandConnect alongside raising six kids in Cleveland, Ohio.

The conversation covers what happens when companies rush toward AI without cleaning up their priorities first. John makes the case that the fundamentals haven't changed. You still need to know what's important now, what to hand off, what to drop, and what only a skilled human can own. AI accelerates execution. It doesn't fix broken thinking about where to focus.

Cupps brings the Eisenhower Matrix into it, specifically the quadrant most people avoid: the one where you just stop doing the thing. John ties that directly to his concept of extreme ownership and where it can actually work against you if you never learn to let go.

They also get into MorelandConnect's Foundation platform, which the company built to address one of the most stubborn problems in enterprise technology: disconnected data systems that speak different languages. John explains how Foundation uses AI to accelerate mainframe modernization, a challenge that has been growing for decades and is now finally solvable at scale.

The episode ends with Season 2's new closing question, introduced as a potential Season 3 signature: what have you handed off to AI, and why did it stay on your list so long? John's answer is arrangement letters and statements of work, something that used to eat hours and now takes minutes.

Season 3 launches in late June with a sharper focus on AI and priority management for teams.

The Habit Architect is sponsored by Enterprise Diagnostics and Time Bandit

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Habit Architects. This is a kind of a monumental episode, not only because of our guest, but because we are wrapping up season two now. It's been a really good season. It's we've seen the viewership go up significantly. The replays have gone up significantly. We've had some great guests, and we're gonna f- we're gonna end it with a even better guest, so I'm excited about that. Cupps: 0:35

Do go out and check out the free priority matrix on on the website at time- timebanded.io. It's free to use. Get get that downloaded and start using it because priority management is what we're gonna focus on in season three, and we're gonna focus on it from a couple perspectives, certainly individually and as well as companies. Cupps: And that's why John Lurtz, who's our guest today, is gonna be a great guest to kinda wrap up season two and kinda get us ready for season three because he has done some incredible things in his journey. He's he was a collegiate football player, so that alone tells you about his ability for preparation discipline, habits, all of the things that we talk about. Cupps: But he's also co-founded businesses and d- participates with his children six of them,

which can be taxing, I'm sure, from a time perspective, but joyous from a relationship perspective. And also, he volunteers time to academies, et cetera. So there's a lot going on there, and what I'm gonna talk with John about a lot is how do you even prioritize that, and then how does the company prioritize things and things like that. Cupps: 1:35

So we're gonna get into that. Again on the... While we bring John up forward and let him introduce himself, if he'd... Better do- do certainly your podcast channel that you get this on, like it, subscribe to it, send it to friends. This last week I asked you to send it to 10 friends. This week, send it to five friends. Cupps: How about that? We'll take it easy on you. But it does help us grow the view- viewership if you like and subscribe and make comments. Hello, John. How are you? John: Hey, Michael. How are you? Good to see you. Cupps: Good to see you, too. For, just for full disclosure, everybody watching this, John and I worked together years ago and stayed in touch. Cupps: He's a great individual, and I'm glad to consider him in my network of friends as well. So John, good, it's really good to have you on the show today. John: I appreciate that, Michael. Michael, you are one of the greatest rainmakers that I've worked

with, ... with a strong foundation of Texas charm, I like to call Cupps: it. Cupps: Thank you. I don't usually get compli- complimented when I bring a guest on, but that's awesome. I like to compliment you and I... Hopefully I captured some of what is about you. But why don't you start? Why don't you give us a short introduction to you and to Morelin, and then we'll dig into it a little bit further. John: 2:35

Yeah, that sounds good. It was a good intro. I I like to introduce myself as a failed NFL athlete. ... Spent most of my younger years lifting weights and playing football. Ended up breaking my neck in a game in college in 1998 on September 5th. ... So that changed my trajectory from headed to the NFL to what do I do now? John: And, You mentioned a little bit about the consistency and the habit forming that I learned in football. I was able to apply those same fundamentals once I got hurt, to business and computer science a- and AI. It went a long way having that foundation because what you learn in football is simply this:

If you're willing to work harder than everyone else, then you will succeed. John: And that same basic principle applies in every other area of your life, including business. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely it does. And a- about that so it's an interesting thing when you think about athletes that migrate into the business world for whatever reason. Yours was because of an unfortunate injury. Cupps: 3:35

Oh, but you would've done it eventually anyway, 'cause we all age. They w- I haven't seen anybody figure out how to avoid that part of it. But you've taken on a lot since your football career in the sense of starting businesses, starting a family that... and a, not just a small family, a big family. Cupps: You've got a lot of things bouncing around. John: Yeah, I sure do. Yeah so after football, I had to quickly change my major from underwater basket weaving to computer science and business ops. And I graduated with that, and then joined Arthur Andersen Consulting which is now Accenture. John: I'm old enough to have joined pre-IPO, but I'm not old enough to have made any significant money when

Accenture IPO'd, so that's why I'm still working. But- Yeah ... loved Accenture. If you don't know the company well it's the largest system integrator on Earth, and they do so much work in so many industries. John: 4:35

And when you go there, really one year at Accenture is like five to seven years in any other industry. You're going to different clients, learning different technologies. You're in the boardroom at 23 years old trying to help business executives figure out what to do. And so it really is a, an incubator to success for anybody that joins. John: So huge proponent of joining one of the big four consulting firms out of college for anybody that has kids and is trying to encourage them down a career path. But after that ultimately my wife of 27 years she was frustrated 'cause I was gone a lot. And she wanted to have kids. John: And you mentioned in the intro that we have six children. And we had... So we had four girls. Our fourth daughter had some heart trouble had to have open heart surgery at seven days old. She's doing great now. She's 12 years old.

Awesome ... and so I really wanted a football player to kinda do what I did. John: And so we, we had a boy at number five. He's 10 now. And when we turned 40, my wife Jenny came to me and said, "You know what he needs?" I said, "What?" And she said, "He needs a brother." I said, "Great." We were blessed with a, another pregnancy and when the baby was born, it was a beautiful little blonde hair, blue-eyed girl. John: So we have- Yeah. Exactly ... we have five daughters and one son. And, He is Cupps: surrounded by- John: 5:35

Yeah, he's surrounded. He's- ... he's a boy, though. He's definitely different. Yeah. I'm ha- He loves all the sports, and I have the great- Yeah ... opportunity to coach him in different things, which has just been amazing. John: But through all that, you mentioned did some real estate investing did a few startups, especially in the IoT space. ... I was part of a startup called Entwine Connect where we built a UDP hole punching protocol that was transaction persistent that was the foundation for things like Skype and Nest thermostats. John: And- ... so we had this. We went to market. We

had our smart thermostat on the shelves at Home Depot. The first month was 50,000. Second month was 500,000 in sales, and we crested a million. And then Nest released with, VC backing and multimillion- Yep ... dollar marketing budget, and so our sales dropped off. John: 6:35

That was one fun startup that I did along the way. Yeah. Also founded a company that does a lot in transportation. So we manage about 3,000 snowplow trucks across the US. Wow ... we have a gateway computer on those video cameras, hydraulic sensors. So it really collects all this data, sends it up to the cloud, then it allows, the DOTs to redeploy assets as they're fighting snowstorms in the northeast and midwest. Cupps: That's amazing. And when was that? That, that's- John: So that started around when you and I were still doing a little bit of work together, so this was 2011- Oh, okay. Okay ... 2012 timeframe. Yeah. And still a customer today- Yeah, that's amazing John: so we're almost 15 years with them. Cupps: That's amazing. There was a comment that says, "Girls can play football, too," in the chat. So just so you know. I'm sure your girls are

active and do, have a lot of hobbies and things as well, John: they sure can. And my oldest daughter really gives him a run for his money. John: So- ... as a 10-year-old boy starts to push his limits with his parents, and especially his dad and his older siblings. And, Cupps: Yeah ... John: she can still whoop him pretty good, so I'm excited about that. There you go. There you go. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah Cupps: 7:35

let's talk about I, let's talk about the discipline of football and then how that transpired into you running businesses because, I think that the you talked about discipline, working hard is one thing, but there's also, you've gotta be smart in how you spend your time where you spend your energy, things like that. Cupps: So can you talk a little bit about maybe the skills you learned in football and how they transpired or just how you had to reassess them? John: Yeah, a- absolutely. There's there's a lot you learn in football, and I would say the- The one thing that a coach in college told me was, in order to win, you have to know what's important now, W-I-N. John: And as you go through life, you get better at determining what's important now because

there's always many priorities many things competing for your attention. If you ask people for advice, they'll tell you things. And so ultimately, your success is defined by your ability to discover what's important now and then do it. John: 8:35

And so- Yeah ... in, in football that's easy because there's not that many variables at play, right? You need to be physically fit, you need to be in the weight room all the time, you need to be studying the game film, you need to know your position or the playbook. Like, all those things are important, and you can work on all those at the same time. John: But at, in business, as to stay ahead of the wolf pack there's a million variables coming at you at any moment, and sometimes- Yeah ... you make mistakes. Sometimes you- Yeah ... focus on the wrong thing and that's okay. And another thing you learn being an athlete and playing football is you're gonna get knocked down. John: You're gonna fail a play. John: Yep. And what defines your success is your ability to get back up and keep moving. So it's the same thing- Yes ... in business. Yeah ... you can work really hard on a deal,

think you've got it in the bag, it's a no-brainer, it's a perfect fit for your company, for them, and then ultimately you lose. John: And so you have to be able to reflect on that and figure out the reason- Yep ... why, and then refine your approach and get better next time. Cupps: Yeah, and I love you, I love that you took it there first. I like the win analogy, too, and I wanna get back to that in a minute. But what you just said there I think is important because so many people when they lose they feel like they lost or they got rejected. Cupps: 9:35

They spend tomorrow and the next day thinking about it, and it's not helping them get up and go to the next opportunity, right? And so many people catastrophize what happened as opposed to looking forward, and I appreciate you saying that. I just think that's a great perspective that whether you're a sales rep in, in the field or a CEO in the boardroom it, those, that fundamental still applies. John: Yeah, we so the quick funny story. I was coaching the third grade tackle football players in Hudson, Ohio, the Hudson Hawks organization, which I absolutely love. So this was two years ago, and our boys

were 4 and 0. They're doing great. They all think they're gonna go division one. They're having a great year. Cupps: Yeah. John: And we come up against this team Kenmore, and these boys looked like they were grown men already. And so they also had 48 kids. We only had 16 on our team. And so- Cupps: Wow ... John: 10:35

we were just getting pounded. We ended up losing the game 20 to eight, and by the end of the game, I barely had enough kids that weren't hurt or pretending to be hurt, or sitting with their mom and crying, 'cause these guys were so big to even finish the game. John: And so ultimately we got done and we went over and the offensive coordinator said some words to the team. And, in youth sports, the team meets with the coach, but then all the parents come and linger around to hear what the coach says. And, Yeah ... so I got right down on their level and I said, "Guys, a lot of you guys made me proud today, and some of you guys really hurt my heart." John: And so you can see their faces are like heart. They're like what's coach gonna say next?"

And I said, "Many of you guys fought hard all the way to the end of the game, even though we were losing and getting beat. But some of you guys decided that you wanted to say you were hurt and not participate and not play." John: 11:35

And I said that's not good." I said, "Football is not about running, it's not about tackling, it's not about blocking, it's not about throwing, it's not about catching, it's not about scoring. Football is about getting beat and not quitting. And what you guys need to take away from this, those of you that decided to quit today, was never do that again for the rest of your life." John: And some of the kids are crying, they're getting emotional. And the one dad says to me after that, he goes, "Hey, Coach, how about that speech before the game next time?" Cupps: That's a good point, but it probably had to be said. Yeah. And I think we generally have not, taught our kids that. I'm not... This isn't a criticism of education. It's not a criticism of parenting. It's just, I think that our generation of parents, John, are

we- tended to do more for our kids than our parents did for us. And what that in- you know, inherently built was this, if somebody's always gonna take care of it, then you don't have to take care of it yourself. And I... And sometimes it wasn't purposeful. We do things for our kids because we love them and we want them to do well. Cupps: But I think that there's a... i, and I don't wanna get into a Millennial, Gen X fight, you know- Yeah ... any of that. But you know what I'm saying, right? John: 12:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, There one of my friends would put it this way. He's from Nigeria grew up with nothing. ... It's Dr. George Ochenjole. John: And now he's one of the most successful orthopedic surgeons at University Hospital here in Cleveland. He operates on all the Browns players. He's just a phenomenal guy, and he would say this. He would say "Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. John: Hard times create strong men." And so we only have our context of our short lives that we've been around here,

but this cycle perpetuates- Yeah ... in every generation- Yeah ... in every society across all of humanity. And I feel like now with all of the things that these, our kids have today that just makes their lives so easy it's gonna come into a difficult time here eventually. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We can get it back on business. I di- I think I've- Yeah ... with six kids, I bet you have some good parenting advice, but that's a different podcast, so I appreciate that. Sure. I went on that tangent, but I do think what you said there was meaningful to me as well about your team and so on. Cupps: 13:35

So do you t- you ta- you talk about a concept called extreme ownership. And, and- ... why I thought, why I related to that is I teach a lot of people how to use the Eisenhower Matrix. Do cer- things first. These are the most important and urgent things. Do those first. And that's easy to understand. Cupps: It's some of the other quadrants that I pe- I think people get stuck in, and particularly the one that is drop it, right? Stop doing that, right? Ta- There, there's... You've got things on your to-do list that either just go to your to-do list tomorrow, next week, e- next month, et cetera, and they're just not something that you

do. Cupps: And in business, you really have to figure out, for lack of a better word, where to cut your losses, and sometimes you're doing activities that just aren't helping everything. So how do... does that go into your extreme ownership kind of feeling or concept? John: Yeah. A- absolutely, it does. I think, extreme ownership can also be dangerous. John: 14:35

So you can make a lot of overreaches, and you can become a micromanager if all you ever do is say, "I'm an extreme owner, and I'm gonna watch every detail and make sure this goes perfectly to plan. And no matter what I need to do, whether it's shoveling something off the ground or doing something, I'm gonna do whatever it takes as an extreme owner." John: And that's an important trait that ownership trait that you can't teach. Yeah ... people can work at it and become better at it, but ultimately has to come from within them. That's why it can't be taught. It has to be discovered on your own, what that means. But the one of the fundamentals to being able to grow in business and

scale yourself is what you just said at the end of the Eisenhower fundamentals, which is know when to drop it. John: And so- ... I know that there's engineers that aren't gonna do it as well as I would've done it back when I did real work 20 years ago. But that's okay. You have to assign it to them and let them do it. A friend, close friend once told me that you have to know who you are, what makes you great, and then train someone else to be you, and then get out of the way. John: 15:35

Yeah. That's how you scale. And if under the cloak of extreme ownership you never get there that's not good 'cause you'll never be able to scale yourself. So I look at the entrepreneur world, the startup world the business owner world, everyone has extreme ownership or they wouldn't have been there in the first place. John: So the next leap after becoming an extreme ownership person is being able to pass on the work to other people and actually let them do it. It- it's never gonna be to your standard, but that's

okay. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah that's good, a great observation. Thanks for repping that, that way. Cupps: I think that, that's the right perspective. And that leads me into kind of wanting to talk about your current business, but also just the landscape that your current business is in. And with AI, there are so many opportunities. There's so many possibilities. There are so many choices business leaders can make and it- they're easy to make, right? Cupps: 16:35

'Cause you can vibe code something in an afternoon, and you solve a little problem there. You could... A- and so I... what interests me about this topic is that how should a company prioritize where they invest? They're... Not only I'm talking capital outlay for the projects, but also their time. If you're asking- your team to go build that little vibe code thing, what is that taking away from? It may be the right thing. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying how are you prioritizing? And you deal with business leaders all day every day- Yeah ... talking about these things. And there's so many possibilities. Cupps: How are they sifting through it, or how are you guys helping them? John: Yeah, absolutely. So Moreland

Connect has always done this. We help companies solve technical problems that they can't solve themselves. Said a different way we provide technical solutions to business problems, and so we've always done that. John: 17:35

And with AI in the last almost three years now, we've been able to do that much more effectively, much quicker. For instance, we're migrating hundreds of mainframe applications to Java for a multi-billion dollar company. And with AI we're able to do that really quickly because we know how to prompt it properly, and it can do all of this grunt work that a human used to have to do, and it can collapse timelines from months to days. John: And- It's so powerful, but it has to be in the hands of a really talented engineer that already knows the fundamentals of programming and knows how to architect. If you give it to someone right

out of school and they don't know those fundamentals, they can prompt and vibe code some code, but then when it's time to push that code to production in a secure way in a way that a company can depend on and it will never fail, they just fall apart. John: 18:35

There's all this discussion about AI and we're not gonna need people to write code anymore. That's simply not true. You still need- ... a human brain to understand the business problem, to architect the technical solution, and then to make sure that each layer of that technical solution is built properly. John: Now, the built properly, back in the day when you and I worked together, it was thousands- Yep ... of hours for programmers to do that. Yep. Now it can be tens of hours in the hands of a skilled engineer that knows how to architect. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. But a- and because of that ease, or not ease, but short timeframe to pot- potential results, it almost feels like companies are tackling, let's do that, let's do that, let's do that, let's do that." Cupps: But what are

the habits and the structure around saying which application should migrate first? Which one should just go away because they're not needed anymore? Those business processes and things like that. Do you guys have a methodology? I know your product is Foundation, so if you need to pull in some aspects of that, or is it just the business process stuff that you guys go and help and consult with com- companies on where to start? John: 19:35

Yeah, that that's one of the things that sets Morlan Connect apart from all of our competition, is because we have a leadership team and a senior team that understands business. Because we all worked at Accenture, Deloitte, or KPMG back in the day, or McKinsey. So we're able to... Look, every CEO, we'll, you'll sit down with them, and after they decide that they trust you and they're gonna open up and share things with you, once you get them to that point, they all have an idea of what they think they need. John: And our job as technology consultants is to listen to them, understand their idea,

but then help them see things that they didn't notice based on our experience across hundreds of other companies in the same industry and in different industries. So we have a much greater view of the world than a CEO that's focused on one company or one industry. John: 20:35

That's true. And so oftentimes the things that are on their list will still be a priority and still be important, but if there's other things that we've strategized and innovated on together, other ideas sometimes those things come to the forefront. And it all comes down to the basic three that you know, Cupps. John: It's saving time, saving money, or providing peace of mind. And so- Cupps: Yeah ... John: once you get them to open up about those things and you share other ideas, And then usually after those meetings the sales process is pretty easy because they say just tell us what to do. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. John: You prescribe a solution to their business issue. John: And oftentimes the Morling Connect

team is the one to build that. But if we're not, that's okay. We- we're still- Yeah ... adding value, and the most important thing to us is to serve that company and that customer and help them get where they need to be. Cupps: Yeah, and that's great. And so you, you chase elk around every now and then as a hunter, I think. Cupps: 21:35

I do. Yeah. And so do you... i... Do you have an analogy of how to look at a modernization project, let's say? And i- is there a, is there an analogy there about knowing terrain and things like that, that you wanna share? John: Sure, yeah. So I began hunting elk in 2013. We ended up buying 252 acres in Guffey, Colorado. Cupps: Nice ... John: it's a lawless county. There's no county sheriff, so it's a little crazy out there. Oh. I won't take my son there until he's 16, let me just put it that way. And we hunt with rodeo cowboys. So if you've ever seen the series Yellowstone and the bunk house- Yeah ... those are the people that we hunt with when we're out there. John: So it's a little nuts. But, so the analogy part is, You can't just walk into the

mountains with a gun and hope to shoot and kill an elk. John: You have to study the pattern of those elk and when they're coming up the mountain, when they're coming down. You have to study the terrain. What are the pinch points where they're gonna walk single file so you can get a good shot? John: 22:35

You have to study the landscape. Where is the water that they're gonna go to in the evening? Where is the bedding area that they're gonna go to at night? And then you have to... Another one is, how will we get this animal off the mountain? So you- ... you can shoot a beautiful elk, but if you shot it on the side of a jagged ridge where you can't get to it to process it, then that's not good. John: So there's all these different factors when you're going into an elk hunt, and it's the same in business. You have, In IBM training, they would call it the three Rs, the rules, the roles, and the routes of any business department any business process. And so when you go into, let's say it's a manufacturing department,

you need to understand what are they making, what are the rules on how they make that, what routes do they take across the manufacturing floor, and what roles do all these people play as they're doing this? John: And you have to invest that time and energy. You have to look at the landscape, look at the terrain, look at the pattern of all these people, in this sense, not elk, Yeah ... before you can really prescribe what to do. Yeah ... if you just march in there with AI or an ETL back in the day when we worked together and said- Yeah John: 23:35

"Let's just plug everything into this," but if you don't understand what they're doing and why, it's a waste of time. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good analogy, too, and that's, that is something that I think there are a lot of agencies or whatever you wanna call them that are now AI-enabled and they'll come build agents for you. Cupps: And that's great to a s- to an extent, but if it's a critical process, you might need a little more thought in it. So then that's what you're applying is a systematic approach to the three Rs that you mentioned there. So

that's awesome. Yeah. Now tell us a little bit more about Foundation, your product. Cupps: It's it's obviously built AI native, all that stuff, but can you just give us a highlight of the capabilities of it? John: 24:35

Yeah. So we started to see common patterns across our customer base as they were struggling to implement I- AI asking us for direction. And it's interesting where you and I worked together in the past around data sources and ontology and data translation and moving types from place to place, That problem, even though we've been working on it, Cupp, since the '90s- Cupps: Yeah, John: yep John: it hasn't been solved yet. And 25 years ago we would've prescribed web methods or some other ETL to help with that. Cupps: Yep. John: And now we can do the same thing with Foundation AI. And within our AI framework in Foundation, we can quickly tie in these new data sources. And then in the same way that AI helps you write

better emails do spreadsheet analysis, it can also do the data translation and mapping like- It's the work that we used to pay engineers- Yeah John: 25:35

lots of money to do. It- it's just done. And then it's really you're sitting with the business user looking at the Foundation AI screen and saying, "Okay, is that all right?" And they say- Yeah ... "Yeah." And sometimes there's something that's not quite right. And sometimes systems, as 'cause you're a data guy things will be formatted in a different way. John: And so what Foundation does... So let's say in manufacturing you have sales orders with sales order line items, and then you have production orders with production order line items, and then- Yeah ... a nested line item underneath that. And so those things don't exactly map together, but you can create rules within Foundation that allows you to map those two data elements together. John: So now you can build a sales application that allows people to provide quotes that are detailed with

timelines and dollar amounts that is tied directly to historical production data. So it's not just- Yeah ... sales being sales, it's actually built on top of reality. Cupps: Yeah. Yeah, and that's a critical element there that I think a lot of people don't understand, is that you have systems in your enterprise today, and they probably have the same data element, but it's called something different. Cupps: And that interpreter that you were talking about is the, is one of the most critical things in AI especially, so that's awesome. John: 26:35

Yeah, that's- That's awesome ... the other thing we're trying to do with Foundation is, You'll laugh when I say this, but Moreland Connect would like to save the world from the mainframes. Cupps: Yes. John: So every time you do a banking transaction, there's some IBM server in a closet somewhere that is transacting that data, and IBM has made many billions- Yeah ... of dollars on these things through the years. And- Cupps: Yeah ... John: if you've been in these environments, don't touch the mainframe, don't look at it, don't breathe too hard in this room. John: Yeah. Certainly don't turn the light off, Yeah ... because

these things are still running, and they're running great, but there's no one that can fix them now. And so- Cupps: Yeah. Yeah ... John: AI has unlocked this... So there's this tremendous cost to migrate all these mainframe applications with 40, 50, 60 years of data- Yeah John: 27:35

and process built into them. It's such a huge cost to rewrite all these things in the traditional way- That we can never do it. Now with AI, especially with Morlin Connects Foundation AI, we can use our platform to modernize these mainframe applications into a modern language John: that can then be hosted on the cloud in a secure way. So I really think there's gonna be a tremendous growth in the tech industry around this mainframe modernization. It's already starting. We're doing- Yeah ... quite a bit of it here in the Cleveland market, but it's a global issue. Cupps: Yeah, it is. Cupps: And it's not a specific industry. You mentioned banks, which are heavily invested in it. Healthcare, which I've spent a number of years in, they, every claim that, that gets processed in

healthcare probably runs through a mainframe somewhere in the, in that- Yeah ... in that value chain and that's adding cost to that claim as well. Cupps: So it's an interesting- Yeah ... challenge that, that you're addressing, and I think it's an important one. And I agree with you, it's now easier than it has been. I wouldn't call it easy, but it, but with- in the right hands with the right tools, it becomes a manageable project that, that will be successful. Cupps: Yeah. John: 28:35

The issue is there's... people that all know COBOL and Fortran and Delphi are all retired. Yes. And now with AI and within Foundation, we've created a agent expert in those- Yep ... three old languages. So we have a Fortran agent expert that we can point at their Fortran code base. John: Wow, nice. Yep. And because this agent is an expert, it can look at it and it can say, "Okay, here's exactly what's happening." Yeah ... "Here's a spec for how you would create this in Java, and here's our first pass at how we-" Yeah ... "would build this out in Java." So now you've gone from here's the existing mainframe app, here's the Java app, and having to do all that yourself. John: Yeah.

It's done the first pass for you, and so now you're just testing. So you're doing- Yeah ... user acceptance testing over here, and you're looking for gaps. ... And then after that, of course, you have to wrap security and everything else around it in a release production schedule, all those things that are important in an enterprise application. John: Yep. But it's it's just amazing. I'm so excited about it. It is. We were worried that there would be less for us to do, but- ... it turns out it's the opposite. People are writing- Yeah ... so much more code now that the demand for us has gone through the roof. So we ... Cupps: Yeah. John: 29:35

When you come visit the Cleveland office, you'll see we're, we've, we're bursting out of this building. John: We need a new location. We're trying to expand to Nashville and Milwaukee, all these things- Yeah ... just to meet the demand. Cupps: Yeah. Come on down to y'all's street too here in Texas. John: Yeah, Cupps: I will. A lot going on here, so yeah. So that's awesome. A couple of things. Thank you for that about Moreland, and there's a s- ticker that's going, and we'll put it in the comments for everybody if they wanna go check out your website and reach out to you. Cupps: But I do always ask one question at the end of this. But let me... Before

I do that, what's- Yeah ... I was sitting here looking at us both on the screen, and we look like we're sitting almost in the same office complex. But I'm sitting in Frisco, and you're in Cleveland. Yeah. But the background's kind of vaguely sim- it looks like a little more wind here in Texas than in Cleveland, but it's it... Cupps: That's funny. We- And then I was wondering- ... John: we picked one of the nice days in Cleveland. There's only a handful of 'em every year. Cupps: Yeah. We picked John: it deliberately. Cupps: So you're gonna get outside after this is over, right? John: I am, yeah. Cupps: 30:35

Yeah. So the other thing I'm just wondering where the TikTok videos of you doing underwater basket weaving are because you'd mentioned that you had to change your major. Cupps: So I'd really like to get a front track on those things. John: I'll post them on my LinkedIn so you can take 'em down this weekend. Cupps: Yeah. Perfect. The question I ask everybody is what's a habit that John Loerts has that's non-negotiable? You do it whether every day, every week whatever it may be. John: Yeah it's it's a state of mind, and it's do what you say you'll do on time, the first time, every time. John: That's it. Cupps: Perfect. Perfect. So it's a commitment to

that, right? That that's- John: Yep. Cupps: So- No matter what- One, ... John: you have to get it done. Cupps: Yes. That's awesome. No John: excuses. Yep. Cupps: Yeah, I app- appreciate that. Cupps: 31:35

There's... We're walking away from this podcast with a lot of very good win, the three Rs and your habit there. The one question I do have for you that we're gonna start embedding in our series s- season three, sorry, not ser- series three, season three, is what is one thing that you used to do all the time but now you've s- found a way to do it with AI that you no longer have to worry about? John: Arrangement letters. Ah. So we have 60 to 80 new projects every year, and so I've trained a coworker with different tasks. So now what was my big time stink in the past was just creating new arrangement letters and statements of work and contracts for new clients, and now- Cloud Cowork gets me 99% of the way there- That's awesome John: and I just prompt it with a few things. And because I have domain knowledge in what we've done, I can say "Remember, we did this over here, it's very similar." And so it can churn out these

timelines and delivery letters really quick. So that's been amazing. Cupps: That is awesome. That is awesome. Thank you for that insight. Cupps: Thank you for the discussion today too, John. I- always en- it's always good to catch up with you and what you're doing there, it's good work, and what you're doing with your family is even better work. So really excited for you on the, on all fronts. John: Appreciate that, Michael. It's great to see you. Cupps: Yeah, good to see you. Just real quick I know there is a ticker, but it's morlingconnect.com. Is that right? John: That's right. Cupps: 32:35

And then find John on LinkedIn. He's active there, and he can, you can DM and get get into a conversation with him. So that's it for season two, and John, glad you could be the last guest on it. Cupps: We are gonna start season three next week. I'm gonna be in Portugal, so we're gonna take a week off, and we'll get back at it the last week of June, and looking forward to season three. Like I said we're still gonna stay focused on priority management, habit tracking, things like that, but it's gonna be a little more business-focused because there's so many opportunities in, in, especially in the mid-market that John covers where companies have huge opportunities, but priority management and