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Russ Johns 0:03
Welcome to the #piratebroadcast. I'm Russ John's, the host and I've been doing this for over a year now. I wanted to take a moment on this anniversary, which was actually, technically, yesterday the 17th. I wanted to anticipate some large event or some epic thing. I thought to myself, there are a lot of people that have a lot of things going on. I thought I would just kind of tell my backstory and where I'm going and what's going on in the world of the #piratebroadcast and kind of what motivates me to bring people to the #piratebroadcast. Some of the things that I'm doing in the background are probably unnoticed or a lot of people are unaware of what I do in the background. So I just thought I would share a few things and share a few details and answer a few questions.

Jeff young here and is saying Happy anniversary, you old pirate you!! Namaste! Love you, Jeff. Man, you are part of the reason that I broadcast the#piratebroadcast. The reason why is because of all of the impact that people have had on my life and the things that they've done to support me and assist me and lift me up when I really needed to make a difference.

I grew up this middle age, not middle age, I didn't grow up middle age. (laughs) There's just nothing elaborate or extensive in my life. My parents weren't rich, they weren't wealthy, but we had a lot of love and a lot of kindness and a lot of tenderness and at the age of 11, I got a drum set for Christmas. That was amazing and it actually set a tone for everything I did in my life because I wanted to play music. I wanted to produce music, I wanted to create music. I wanted to go out and play and perform.Then I started performing, long before I had a driver's license, I had a band, we used to play in the garage. No weddings or parties or things like that. I'm sure we were probably terrible, but people thought we were fine. We were practicing. Thank goodness my mom would allow me to practice drums in the basement. I would practice and practice and practice. It was that stage of my life that really defined a lot of what I did and how I operated.

Jeff, it was great to see you in the #LinkedInLocal pop up last night. Wasn't that a great event? I'm gonna take a sidebar here because we had a #LinkedInLocal pop up with Kenyatta Turner and Art Jones, and it was well over 30 amazing individuals that were in this pop up and that's the kind of activity and access that we have have with each other these days. I've always been able to connect with individuals and collaborate and create communities. That was one way we can do it right now. I guess the story of today is how do we adapt to what we're doing and how we need to do things going forward. We have Charmara here and he says, tuned in from Sri Lanka. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you. I love that you're here. Thank you so much. Eileen says, good morning all. fantastic. It was really nice to see...I started out as a child...your "middle age" has me beat, says Jeff Young. No, I started out middle age, so it's too funny. Gabriel asks, what was the name of the band? The first band that I remember starting and there were a couple others, but the first band I remember starting was a band called Special Delivery because we went down to the post office and grabbed a bunch of stickers from the post offices that said, Special Delivery, and we put them on all our equipment. Then we made stencils with Special Delivery and made a whole big deal out of it. It was fun. It was great. It was amazing. I just really enjoy and appreciate thinking about those moments. In fact, the last band I was in, and then I went through several different bands was when I was 16. I was old enough to drive, so I started playing clubs, mostly really bad, rough, country bars that really didn't care who was in the club at the time. I've seen some interesting events and adventures in bars. That's a story for another day. That's all I'm gonna say about that one.

I wanted to be with you guys yesterday, from Jill Sullivan. I was working until six last night, please invite me again. I'd love to join you. We will definitely be doing some other pop ups. The whole point of a pop up if you missed it is, it's a random event, inviting a lot of people and talking about a couple of different subjects. We went out in breakout rooms and we had discussions and we had a couple of themes that we wanted to express and we had some ideas and adventures and a lot of people that I found myself being surprised by the people that I didn't know and it was very cool. So, I get to meet new people and connect with a few more people on LinkedIn. So that was fantastic. So yes, Jill, you will always be invited. Thank you so much.

Sarathy is here. Hi, Russ. I'm not sure why your picture doesn't show up today.You're on YouTube. Okay. Gabriel says, creating a community is special and the people who you connect with are amazing. Well, you're an amazing individual, Gabriel and thank you for attending the pop up, the #LinkedInLocal pop up. I appreciate what you did and what you contribute to and I'm always amazed about how much connection and engagement you have. It's really one of those things that you have to work at. Fortunately, my business is busier than it ever has been in the past. So my opportunity to engage is not as much as I would like it to be. However, it is still in place. So it's there.

Jill Sullivan says, love the name "Special Delivery." Yes, I thought it was brilliant at the time. It's just like, okay, not knowing anything about trademark or any kind of, labeling or branding ability. It was just me, as a kid, being, hey, these stickers are already made for us. Good morning, Russ, says, Hiett Ives. Good morning. How are you doing in Houston? I hope you're making connections and collaborating with some people out there as a result of being on the #piratebroadcast. Do you have any questions? How was your photoshoot, by the way, let us know how the photoshoot went at George R Brown. Sarathy says, Namaste everyone. How was the week guys? You know, I'm gonna say, my week was very productive. My week was very productive. Jeff Young says, I always knew you "ROCK," Russ. You still make great music, my friend. Thank you. Gratitude. I love that. Jeff, I really appreciate you, love you. It's really a matter of continuing to play the music to continue to put yourself out there and be present. It's really about the community. My goal is that, by lots of measures, I probably shouldn't be here, so the fact that I am here means that I should probably continue to give back to the community and help others along the way. When you lift them up. Great format with the Breakout Groups, too, Howard Kaufman says. He was there, he joined in and I had never been in a breakout group, so it was a new experience for me. I thought it was fun. You go out in the breakout room and get a topic and do this and I have to give hats off to Kenyatta for that. She's the master at the breakout rooms and zoom sessions. It was fun. Jill Sullivan says. sounds fun, Russ. It was fun. Who else was in there that enjoyed it and had a good experience? I had a great experience. Michael ray is here. Michael Ray Smile. Kindness, another pirate. Michael, thank you so much for all you do you #smilesarefree and #kindnessiscool. I know you know that. Appreciate it.

Oh, I got bit by a dog yesterday morning and was visiting urgent care. I'm sorry to hear that. Hiett. I've been bitten by a dog before and it's never fun. I hope you're okay. Heal well and relax for the weekend, hopefully. Jeff Young says, yeah, what Michael Ray said. I love this. Sarathy says, remembering America. You can do magic and you know you're the one to put out the fire. Magic. I'm not sure I know that. Breakout on zoom is good. I was in a breakout room today. Fantastic. Hiett Ives says, photo shoot will appear on Website with both GRB and Hilton Hotel clips. Well, I'm glad that you still got the clips done, Hiett. I appreciate the fact that you're there. Share them out with me when you get that done.

I was telling the story, and I'll get back to the story because it's important to kind of share what my perspective is because we all have a journey. I did this music thing, you know. I literally played all the way through high school. I played at least three nights a week. I got paid for this and there are times where I would get home at 2:00-3:00 in the morning and get up and go to school. Then in the summertime, I usually worked for my dad. He was in construction. I grew up in construction and so I go to work early and come home late and take a nap and then go play music at night. Then go home and go to bed and get up and do it again. It was really amazing. Then, when disco was famous, I actually played country music. I was playing six, seven nights for years. I played professionally. I had a great life. I was in Utah and I skied during the day and played music at night did a little partying here and there. It's pretty good lifestyle. Then I joined another band, a rock and roll band, in the in the 80s and started touring and playing music in the northwest and Canada. We actually had a 33 foot Bluebird bus and we had a great time. Six guys in a bus traveling from city to city. We'd typically play from a Monday to Saturday night, load up the equipment on Saturday night, drive to the next town and set up our gear and then start playing Monday again Then play for the week in the town and usually college towns and playing the college circuit. It was a great time, but we had a lot more expenses being on the road. I just loved the idea of going into a new town, meeting new people, new friends and faces. I think back from now and think about social media and how it's impacted me and how I don't necessarily have a lot of the connections that I had from back then. I don't really have a lot of connections from high school. I build networks wherever I am, and then surround myself with people. Now that social media is around, I get to surround myself with people that are all over the world. It's a different story right now. It's a different time. If you haven't seen the social dilemma, it's a movie out on Netflix right now. It's an eye opening perspective on some of the things that are taking place in the world today and with social media. It causes and creates a little reflection on what we're doing. I'm not going to go into it right now; however, it kind of makes you wonder what we do. This is another reason why building real connections in the #LinkedInLocal pop up, live events, networking and having friends that you can call. I've been in Masterminds for years. After I got off this call, I'll have a Mastermind call, and I'll be connecting with people that I've known for years that keep me accountable, give me advice, helped me out and I recommend that to everyone that I know as I'm coaching people. Cathi Spooner says, good morning. Sarathy says it's from the band America. The lovely 80s Yeah, I love the 80s. The 80s were very good to me. Except the end of the 80s which brings me to another story. How are we doing on time? Time. It happens so quickly.

So tell me what you're doing today. Did you know that you can get #piratebroacast products from the russjohns.com website? Just saying. #kindnessiscool #smilesarefree t-shirts.YouTube, I'll watch that, Jeff. I'm not gonna play it right now, though. Hiett says, I'm wearing shorts today with multiple wounds healing. I walked the same routine this morning - with a stick - and no dog. All is good!!! Good to hear. Sarathy says, nice to hear about the bandwagon. You still make music. If you do, let's jam a track. I play guitar, too. That's fantastic. There's a couple of people online that play. We could probably have a #LinkedInLive band playing different tracks.

So I want to get back to the story about this journey I had. I toured, playing music, I loved music. It was the only thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life. That's what I thought. I woke up, I practiced, I played. I always had drumsticks in my hand. I attempted to play guitar for a while and I took piano lessons for years. It just didn't take. It's like how I type right now, I have to watch every finger and I have to look where my fingers are. So I never got to the point where I could...I was touch typing. Now they call it keyboarding or, I don't know what they call it. Anyway, all of these adventures tie together to become part of our lives. We have another opportunity to do this and not every experience is good. Sometimes an experience takes you down a path that changes the direction in your life and that that actually took place in my life and I want to share something, a little period of time in my life. For those on podcasting, I want to show a picture of what this looks like in the late 80s, in my adventure.

That didn't really work out for me did it? (shows picture) There we go. So what you're looking at is me in a hospital bed at the beginning of a two year rehab. I'll give you a little backstory. If you haven't heard this backstory, it's this adventure in my life and there's lots of stories around. I ended up in Portland, Oregon. I was working for a company, an advertising company, my first experience in advertising. I started in Utah. I started this adventure in Utah working in billboards and advertising. I ended up in Portland, Oregon, through a long series of adventures and then I fell three stories off a billboard. Now, unfortunately, I fell. Fortunately, there was a young boy at a bus stop across the street that saw me fall and told his mother, hey, mom, look, that guy just jumped off the billboard, which wasn't accurate because I didn't jump. I it was a complete accident. This was in the early days of...I had a harness and and the process was you hook your hook ladder over the top of the billboard, then you hook yourself onto the ladder. Well I was on the process of getting on the billboard and my ladder fell and I fell off with my ladder. I broke eight rungs of aluminum ladder. The ladder hit the ground and slowed my descent, fortunately, it was slowing my descent and not killing me. Unfortunately, it clotheslined my arm and stretched my arm and shattered my elbow, my wrist, my finger and my knee. It did a bunch of damage. So it's a picture of me in the hospital recovering and this is after several surgeries. I nearly lost my arm. They wanted to take my arm off and they didn't because of a Dr. Morris Hughes. Doctor Hughes said, we can save this arm and and he ended up dying in a terrible plane crash that he was flying to help people in Ontario, Oregon. Anyway, that's another story. I started this journey of reconstruction but in my arm, I have motion, but I don't have an elbow and I don't have...so the bone, you have two bones in your arm and once fused at one end and once fused at the other end, and it's just muscle holding my arm off. So it's kind of interesting. I've never allowed it to really slow me down that much. A lot of people don't notice unless they know me. It's one of those things you just learn to adapt with and become resilient with, so I just wanted to share that image with you to give you the idea that some of this journey is directly because I had an experience that changed the direction in my life. The direction that it took me was, I came back to the same company 2 years later and I became the Safety Director. Then I became the IT director. I got into technology because of the safety...I had to write fall protection documents. I created fall protection programs for the outdoor industry. I created a lot of regulations that saved people's lives and a chain of events that saved the company. actually, a lot of money and I won awards for this. As a result of that, I learned how to operate a computer. Then I became the computer guy in the company and converted to server, client server technology in Windows 6.1. Networking and I installed email and I installed the first email in the company. All of these transitions and all these changes and evolutions in life are a direct result of getting a little bit of information. Knowing when an opportunity shows up and taking an opportunity and saying, I know I can do this. I can try this. I don't know. I don't know the answers now. I can try this now. This is something that you really have to think about, going forward. Where we are today is, how can I take what I'm doing right now, add or enhance or expand on what it is I'm doing and know that it's gonna be okay. I just want you to know that that's part of why I want to encourage other people to do what they can do and help them along the way. I became a teacher. I used to train defensive driving, first aid CPR, I actually became a firefighter and EMT after I fell. All of these adventures and events and things that took took place are a direct result of wanting to care about making a difference, taking action and helping others and extending the invitation to help others along the way. I remember the story about the fall.

Jeff young says, all part of the journey, Russ, I know if you fall seven times you'll get back up EIGHT. I will definitely do that. Wendy Gilhula says, I am sorry I had to miss last night. That's okay. We'll have more. Slaptagz says, it's a buffet, take a taste, then go back to the good stuff. I love you, Sheri. Wendy says, so true. This is how to pivot. And you pivot. We're the accumulation of our experience. I know you know, people that are stuck in drama, they're stuck in the place and that doesn't allow them to evolve. There's been times in my life that have been very dark. I worked myself nearly to death, literally. It's not always easy to see what you're doing when you're in it. So I want to share the #piratebroadcast. I want to share with other people, highlight other people along their journey and allow people to understand that there are things that are out there that they may be able to do. Richard Branson says, say yes to the opportunity and then figure it out along the way. That's how entrepreneurs do it. I encourage you to do the same. Even if you're inside a company. I worked 25 years in companies that no longer exist. I worked my way up the corporate ladder a number of times. Those things evaporated. I've been an entrepreneur for years in and out. Music as an entrepreneur, I actually had a shavings business that actually delivered shavings for horses that are in stalls and, people that want to spend a lot of money on their horses, and lots of different activities like that. I used to sell light bulbs to companies. It's crazy. It's like, all of these adventures along the way. You have an opportunity right now to be resilient, you have an opportunity to make a difference. You have an opportunity to make something special in someone else's life. I encourage the pirate community to become a movement. I encourage people to join in, make those connections, bring those people together and #makeitmatter. It's really important to know that you can. Kon says, I think most of us can point to the "milestone" events and decisions that impacted the course of our life. Absolutely, positively true. Sometimes they're a big impact, Kon, and sometimes they're just a subtle change in direction. What I learned and maybe you can add to this is security is never guaranteed. Safety can sometimes be an illusion. The promise of tomorrow is never given, so it's one of those things. Sarathy says, all the adventures teach us practical training to enhance the new folk, and we can always do it, no matter what our age. That's true. That is true, Sarathy. Kon says, we can only connect the dots looking backwards. I love that statement. I think that's a quote from Apple. Apple. What's his name? Apple? Yeah. Why do I do that? Hiett says, ife is always moving forward. It's a responsibility to make things matter. Absolutely. Sarathy says, Kansas carry on wayword son. Yes. I love that. Wendy says, you can always learn life lessons where you are. Always. Kon says, so true.

I just really wanted to share a little bit, a little snippet on the anniversary. Also I want to ask a favor of everyone because I've created over 250 episodes of this #piratebroadcast. I've booked people five days a week for a year. Now, imagine most businesses...imagine how many conversations that would take to actually book a meeting every single day, for a year, day after day, week after week, month after month. Then imagine what process I have to use in order to accomplish that goal. Two things come to mind: number one, I am actually going to talk about this and share this information on a dub video, a dub webinar on the 30th of the month. I'm going to have a dub webinar. I'm going to be sharing a lot of the tips that I use. In fact, I'll probably be sharing everything. So join the dub webinar. I'll put the links in this episode. You can actually join that webinar and learn what's behind the curtain and how I do this process. Another adventure I want to share with you and I'm going to continue to share and I'm going to be sharing this more is, through this year of experience in booking this and training a team and building systems out and developing this process for the #piratebroadcast, I've developed the pirate syndicate, which provides this service to business owners that want to show up and broadcast and have the authority to actually do a show without having to deal with the technology, the overwhelmingness of all of the details, the scheduling nightmares and everything that goes along with it. So I'm going to be sharing that more in the in the next year and going forward. I asked the pirates if you know people that would like to start their own show or learn more about how to start a show, or produce results with the show, I want to have that conversation with you. I want to be able to receive introductions and communications from the pirate community, because I think that's important. Everybody has a gift. Everybody has a message. I know there are people out there that just don't know how to start. if I can be the spark to that fuel, that allows them to ignite, excite, and get out there and share their gifts. I think we'll be in a better place. The next thing I'm going to be doing is I'm producing shows for other industries and other people and other shows. If that's of interest and can expand your horizons on what's available in the marketplace today, I have some of those events and adventures coming up, as I help other people, produce shows, produce outcome and produce results. I think it's important that the pirate community continue to grow and evolve. I considered also having a a private "ask me anything" session...Mm hmm. Oh, I'm losing my voice...on a regular basis. So it'd be like an AMA, ask Russ, for the pirates. So I'm thinking about doing that. Let me know if that's of interest to you, or you would be interested in participating and having a conversation like that. I think it would be fun. I want to wrap this up because I know it's over time, but I just want to say thank you so much to all of you in the pirate community It really means a lot to me. Cathi Spooner says, the key is mindset and keep getting back up. That's true. Kon, says, Steve Jobs. Yes. I'm a huge fan of Steve Jobs. Sometimes my mind... I've dropped my head a few times, Kon. I've had skull fractures and things like that. So the fact that I'm even able to walk and talk is sometimes...well, I broke my hip this year, so I'm not walking as well as I could, you know, but that's another story for another adventure. Jeff Young says, proud to be a pirate, Russ. Please let me know how I or my network can be of help. That means a lot, Jeff. That really means a lot to the bottom of my heart. A LinkedIn user says, we're on the same page, Russ. I feel we are all in a "all hands on deck" season. Everyone has a gift to share. Some don't know exactly what their gift is. If they do, they might not know how to get it out there. That is so true. Now I want to wrap it up and I want to just say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the adventures and activities and stories and everything that has taken place in the last year. I look forward to many more and just sharing people, their gifts, their message in what is going on in their world and making it easy for people to do that. So I need to come back here. Cathi says yes, that sounds like a great idea - ask me anything. My second monitor died, so that's why I'm not looking. I'm looking at another screen here. Thank you so much, everyone, have a fantastic and amazing weekend. As always, this video and all of the others are available on russjohns.com/piratebroadcast. You can join me five days a week 7am Arizona time because why? #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and I want you to #enjoyyourday. Take care, everyone.

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