linkedin.com/in/todduterstaedt

fromfoundertoceo.com

meetme.so/TalkWithTodd

itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/from-founder-to-ceo-podcast/id969226465?mt=2

Russ Johns 0:29
Are you as excited as I am for the pirate broadcast today? I hope you are because we have Todd in the room. And I like Todd, Todd's interesting people doing interesting things. So good morning Todd. How are you today this fine day in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Todd Uterstaedt 0:46
Russ it's a sunshiny day in Cincinnati as you can see behind me. Yes. I love it.

Russ Johns 0:52
I think the sunshine it's gonna be a beautiful day here in Arizona as well. So we have no reason to complain about the weather. The only challenge we have is that we're not going to get to experience it the same way we have in the past so

Todd Uterstaedt 1:09
We will adapt and overcome.

Russ Johns 1:11
Absolutely. Absolutely. So for those that do not know you intimately and as well as I do, would you give someone a little bit of a heads up on what your you're doing and who you are and how you got here to this LinkedIn place they call the pirate broadcast now that you're a pirate.

Todd Uterstaedt 1:33
I know Well, first of all, I'm a big Cincinnati Reds see, showing everyone my stuff here and there's the stadium behind me over this way. Right I live in Cincinnati big reds fan. We will get back to Major League Baseball at some point in time in the future. And yes, and so I'm also the host of the from founder to CEO Podcast where we interview, fast grows founders about their anti heroes story from founder to CEO, and a husband and the dad of two kids, former Army officer and I think I ended up on the pirate broadcast because you and I are good friends you said to me, hey, Todd, you want to come on my pirate broadcast? I said, Sure. Anything for Russ Johns because we all love Russ Johns.

Russ Johns 2:26
Oh, thank you, Todd, thank you so much. I really appreciate the fact that you're here because one of the things I think is really important for us to understand is that we all have interesting things going on in our lives. And I mean benchmark items, not in was standing in the universe right now. We all have things that we've done, and we've accumulated experiences, and you've been podcasting for a while now. And I love your podcasts that I love.

Todd Uterstaedt 2:55
Five Years!

Russ Johns 2:57
Five years!

Todd Uterstaedt 2:59
This week!

Russ Johns 2:59
Nice work. So I just love the idea that we can take something, an idea, a concept, just a seed of a start, and grow it and develop it. You've been doing this for five years now. And it's grown fairly substantially. So those that don't, aren't aware of your podcast, tell them, tell them a little bit about what it's about, and in a little more detail in what the numbers look like for you.

Todd Uterstaedt 3:30
Yeah, well it started out kind of in a special way. So I'm an executive coach, and I work one on one with CEOs and founders all the time. And so, about five years ago, I started get lots of phone calls from founders in the Midwest, who said, Hey, Todd, we're getting traction. We heard you're a good coach, could you coach me? And our business wasn't really set up with them Russ.

Russ Johns 3:54
Yeah.

Todd Uterstaedt 3:54
And so I felt bad because we were too expensive for many founders and two time Consuming and it just wasn't a good fit.

Russ Johns 4:02
Right.

Todd Uterstaedt 4:02
So, podcasting has been around for a while, as you know. But I didn't quite understand there that time period that was getting more and more popular because everybody could listen to podcasts on their smartphone. So I said, I'll just start a podcast, but not like every other entrepreneur podcast or founder podcast, one where founders tell their real stories of the mishaps, the mistakes, the misconceptions that molded them as a leader, hello, former Army experience

Russ Johns 4:35
Experience.

Todd Uterstaedt 4:35
Experience! Yeah that's right! Don't you get tired of hearing everyone's hero's story? I mean, you do after a while like, you can go read Fast Company and Entrepreneur Magazine and watch all the PR shaped stories.

Russ Johns 4:53
Sure. Sure. The polished.

Todd Uterstaedt 4:56
That's right. That's right.

Russ Johns 4:57
Yeah,

Todd Uterstaedt 4:57
that's right.

Russ Johns 4:59
I want to hear the Other side the journey too, you know.

Todd Uterstaedt 5:02
Yeah, so Exactly, exactly. So I launched it with like no business behind it like no monetization plan. And I was kind of stunned about how it took off.

Russ Johns 5:16
Yeah.

Todd Uterstaedt 5:16
And now we have hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs around the world that listen to it each week. And we only do it's only 40 minutes a week. On Tuesday mornings, we go live. So it has been, it's been a joy and a pleasure to kind of walk beside a lot of these very brave founders to come on the show and get very candid.

Russ Johns 5:37
Yeah, and I think the whole network and the environment that you're living in with these founders, and the journey that you take them through on a regular basis is phenomenal, because I think allows people to be not completely transparent sometimes. And a little bit vulnerable to at the same time It really, we all want to be able to see, where were you on when you first started? Where were you when you were struggling? What failures did you have? Because everybody can react to that respond to that. It's that connection. It's like, I am exactly where you are right now. So that's the beauty of what you're doing in the in the program too is you're bringing those points out. And the patient can everyone can relate to that.

Todd Uterstaedt 6:28
Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that? Go ahead.

Russ Johns 6:32
Go ahead.

Todd Uterstaedt 6:33
Well, it's funny you say that, but everyone could relate to because I have a little funny story about that. I was at an event and a guy was walking by and he says to me, I know you. And I was like, okay, and he walked away. He was like, Okay, this crazy person, right? And so he came back. He's like, Oh i know you! I listened to your podcast when I'm traveling The country I was like, okay, and he says, I really like it. And I said, he says, well, let's get together for lunch. And so Russ you don't know. Everyone says, Okay, well connect with me on LinkedIn first. So we got together for lunch. And I said to him, did you have a hard time find a place? He says, No, he says My office is right across the street. And I said, Well, what I said, My office is across the street, and we find out that we are two doors down from each other had never met before. Oh, so. So I said to him, why do you listen to my podcasts? He says two reasons. One, you always have guests who are doing new, innovative, disruptive things. And I like to see and hear what we might be able to take advantage of for a business for me personally. And then the second thing is I listen to the story. And I want to know in that transformation story, hey, have I already conquered the story that they talked about? So I can go like this?

Russ Johns 7:50
I made it through that one.

Todd Uterstaedt 7:54
I made it through that one Right, right. or they say Oh, do I need to pay too. And to that situation that may be coming up in my entrepreneurial from founder CEO story. So it's kind of interesting that you know, when you do podcast and as you know, you've got the pirate broadcast. I mean, you don't always know who's listening, but you feel good that you're helping people.

Russ Johns 8:16
Well, if you can send a message out, and you can craft the conditions in which people can receive value. There's always going to be an audience.

Todd Uterstaedt 8:28
Yeah.

Russ Johns 8:28
It may be a small audience, it may not be a huge audience. However, it's always nice to have a larger audience, you know, downloads, there are a good number to review and say, they're going up this week. current conditions may change and evolve, how we look at that. I think it's really important though, and I and that's why I selected the platform the way I did is because, yep, in my younger years, I always had this One of my favorite jobs is just a, like a part time job I was filling in with was office supplies,I was selling office supplies,

Todd Uterstaedt 8:33
I didn't know that

Russ Johns 8:57
I was delivering office supplies. And you'd go in this industrial district and you'd see all these buildings and all these companies that had names on them that you had no idea what they did. And I always found it fascinating. It's like, I wonder what they do. I wonder how they do this. I wonder how they produce that. And you don't necessarily it's almost like you don't see a red car until you buy your red car. Oh, yeah. And then and then it's like advertising I got an advertising and outdoor advertising. You never notice a billboard. Until you understand what it is to do work on a billboard. Right? So some of these things I want to bring out those ideas and those concepts with the Pirate broadcast and and talk about some of the things that are unique and unusual about your business in your industry. And podcasting is something I haven't had really a lot of time to talk About and also you do professional coaching you do business coaching and you do a lot of great work in that area as well. So it's just, you're just an interesting person doing interesting things. So it's like, it's a great topic. It's like, and if somebody can you know, find some value from that? It makes my day. It sets my tone. So,

Todd Uterstaedt 10:24
I love what you're doing. I love the pirate broadcast.

Russ Johns 10:27
Well, it's Thank you so much, Todd. I really appreciate that. So podcasting, where do you see your podcasting journey? evolving into I know that there's probably some things that are on top of that surrounding it or complementing it that you could actually take a look at and consider in the future?

Todd Uterstaedt 10:47
Well, I'm excited because after five years we've figured out a lot what a lot of founders have struggles with the means and help with and we're about ready to Launch founder of life, which is a platform that helps founders with their health, their development and their success. And we've been working on it for a while probably going to lead with this program I created called stress free founder that helps founders be able to identify. Well, it's not hard to.

Right, right. I mean, there's nothing look too far for stress right now, right?

Russ Johns 11:27
No. No.

Unknown Speaker 11:28
But what we find is that there are these, these triggers of stress that are above and beyond help, diet, exercise and sleep. And so we really want to help founders, help them as a person. And they've come to us for many years now for five years for a lot of help. So it's time for us to be able to get a little bit more organized about that and provide them a home, a safe home so that they can explore their own health and well being their own development and leading to their success which has a big impact on them. success of the business?

Russ Johns 12:01
Absolutely, absolutely. The more efficient the founder can run, the more efficient everything around them can run.

Todd Uterstaedt 12:09
Absolutely. Yeah. I think that the other issue is that the emotional energy that fuels a startup often comes from the founder or the co founders. And that fuel helps them to be able to get the the wheel turning enough to be able to get momentum. And I mean, you got to protect that emotional energy, that entrepreneurial energy, and it's hard. It's really, really hard because now,

Russ Johns 12:37
It is really hard.

Todd Uterstaedt 12:38
I mean, the last two weeks to Russ, right, and it's gotten even harder for people.

Russ Johns 12:43
So lots of distractions, lots of distractions. And I think let's talk a little bit about energy because I think it's important because I think we only my philosophy or my thought process has always been We only have X amount of time. And within that X amount of time, we have only so much mental energy to do the things that we have to make decisions about. So anytime we can build a system to reduce our decision fatigue is going to improve our decision, our process, right?

Todd Uterstaedt 13:20
Yeah.

Russ Johns 13:21
And then any systems that we can do to eliminate decisions are going to help build our system. And then once once the founder gets to a point where they can hand off, document and delegate all of that stuff, then they become closer to the CEO where it's all visionary. They have to have the vision in order to and they focus on what is going to be moving the company forward, the organization forward. And I think a lot of people get stuck in the decision in the minutiae of the business and they churn. They continue to churn in indecision and not completing things because They can't decide. And I think that catches, I see catching a lot of founders in that kind of gets stuck in that arena. Have you seen that? You want to speak a little bit about that?

Todd Uterstaedt 14:12
Well, I think you're right on. I mean you're a founder, I'm a founder. We start doing a lot of things. We wear many hats. We get attached to many those hats.

Russ Johns 14:28
Their my babies.

Todd Uterstaedt 14:29
That's Right! And the journey from founder to CEO is this sequence of peeling off the things that we were doing, and getting comfortable lifting and shifting our gaze from the product or the service that we worked on to empowering and building a team that works on the product or service. And that's easier said than done.

Russ Johns 14:54
It's a lot easier. In fact, I have started a lot of startups. And I have lots of experience at not doing that very well. So it's really one of those things that you have to think about and consider along the way of like, How quickly can I delegate this? How quickly can I shift it off my plate and get it to someone else's plate. And it takes a while for that trigger to switch. And without somebody like yourself coaching or guidance, or at least planting the seed, I think a lot of us are going to miss out on that boat. And that's why I believe that coaches need coaches and we need to have guidance and people around us that can call us out on our shortcomings, center failures and our blind spots, I guess you could say, and it's really about that whole process of evaluating where you are And where you could be in what you need to do. And it is a process. So what do you what's one of the recommendations you put in position as you go through this process? What's your epiphany bridge that allows people to see that potential?

Todd Uterstaedt 16:22
I think it starts with a very simple thought. And that is, do you really know yourself? And , if you can cross that chasm and say, probably, but maybe not, right, and explore the possibility that there are parts of you that you don't really know. Then you can start being open to feedback. Then you can start being open to other ideas, then you can start being open to understanding what you just said where your blind spots are. And once you You start kind of mapping all of that. And it's easy to map, we, there's all sorts of ways of measuring that. Then all of a sudden, you start saying things like, okay, it's not what I do, but who I need to find, to be able to do the things that are going to help my startup or my scale up grow. It becomes a who question, not a what question. Once you have traction, and you have product market fit, and you have a product or service that people are telling you that they want to buy, and so, I think that's the hard part. It starts saying, Hey who are you and what are your real true strengths? I fortunately, I encountered a lot of that about myself when I was an army officer, because I was horrible in so many situations. And I remember, I look back I'm a little bit embarrassed now like holy mackerel, I said those things. I did those things. And so I kind of got some of that during that time period. And then I went to corporate America for a bit and then I became an entrepreneur leader, myself. You realize you're like, whoa, I'm really not good at that.

Russ Johns 18:05
That is not my strength! That is not my strength!

Todd Uterstaedt 18:09
Especially when you see other people who are really good at it, you're like, Oh, yeah, they're really good at that. So I think that's the most important thing. You have to kind of get over yourself and say, Okay, what am I? What is the real core piece of me that contributes to the success of our startup or scale up? And what do I need to do to find other people to be able to do the things I'm just not good at?

Russ Johns 18:33
Yeah. Fill in the blanks. That's

Todd Uterstaedt 18:36
Yeah,

Russ Johns 18:36
I just want to remind everybody that that is so powerful and I want to give a shout out to some of the people in the room here. Todd, we got quite a group of people that have joined us today, Wendy. Thank you. So I'm glad you got to watch this this morning. Rihanna, thank you so much for being here. Kathy Randall and Calvin are in the house today.

Todd Uterstaedt 19:04
Alright!

Russ Johns 19:04
Laurie Knutson. Fred Costa Latasha from Houston. Thank you so much for being here Kathy Meyers. We are bringing podcast is what is helping us sail through the communication challenges we're facing these days especially the physical proximity yes absolutely true. We can continue to learn and enjoy and appreciate what we're doing. Marine wixom thank you so much for being here. Roz Lowe I appreciate Kenyatta! thank you so much Kenyatta. What's happening? Gabriel? He's actually in Facebook. So Gabriel. Good morning, fellow pirates. Yeah, who else is here? Oh yeah, we got Leslie. ,

Todd Uterstaedt 19:36
My buddy form Cincinnati. Hey, Les,

Russ Johns 20:06
my development in success was put on pause

Todd Uterstaedt 20:13
No, it's just getting started Les you know that Les is a good guy. Les does a lot of video work call les for your video work he's a good guy.

Russ Johns 20:21
Awesome, awesome, I was getting ready to put that shift that hard stop. So we are really in a place of transition and I think that's the other part that being a founder and a CEO and entrepreneur and all these people are It almost has to become second nature to us to have the ability to adapt. Like when you discover new things about yourself and you say, Well, I'm okay I'm not really that good at this task or this event. I got to document delegate, document delegate. And so it's a process, and it's an evolution. And so I really applaud you for doing what you're doing with the founders and CEO, podcast. And it's really a matter of being able to really understand what you really want to do with your yourself and what direction you want to take. What are some tools that you make recommendations for people along the journey for identifying self reflection or just taking on that ownership of, yes, I want to be good at this. And I'm not, yeah, because that's sometimes a bitter pill for some people.

Todd Uterstaedt 21:49
I know. Well, there's one great tool, you can do a very easy way or you can get complicated about it. And one is To do a self 360 degree evaluation, right? So you can sit down with your team members and say, Hey, listen, I'm open, give me feedback and just receive and take notes. If you've been good at cultivating a culture of openness and transparency, your team members will feel comfortable doing that, right. But if you haven't, there may be some reticence around that and they may not want to share

Russ Johns 22:27
and call you out on your misbehavior.

Todd Uterstaedt 22:33
Or you can hire someone there's planning tools. So we use a tool through the Center for Creative Leadership to be able to help measure that in a quantitative way around competencies and skills leadership. So you can go all the way from Hey, just interview people around you as a founder, all the way over to hiring someone to kind of do a survey of a qualitative we interview people or around you or you can do kind of a survey and get people to kind of comment, I think The key is, here's what I find. I mean, I've done lots of 360s. I've coached over 2000 people, what I will usually find is these usually just one little thing right now in our life as an entrepreneur, there's kind of getting in the way of our ability to be able to continue to grow because we are growing. Like you can't grow, the business can't grow unless you're growing, right? And I'm kind of uncovering that, right? What's that little thing? That little thing gets in the way. It's usually not a big thing, because I mean, listen, entrepreneurs make things happen. founders make things happen and we will find a way. But is that the way that's going to be sustainable, and yet kind of uncover some of those things about yourself, that get in the way of being able to kind of do the things that are necessary to continue to grow and listen, I mean, Russ, I've been inspired by the thousands of entrepreneurs around the world right now who are reading bettering themselves in their businesses real time, haven't you?

Russ Johns 24:03
Yes, absolutely. It's amazing. Yeah. And I see this as a I see this as more a time of shifting. Rather than growth in a different direction. We've been in. Since we're going to be forced to make changes, let's make change in a positive direction. And I think I see so many people doing so many things in a positive way that I'm encouraged by it myself.

Todd Uterstaedt 24:34
Yeah, me too. Me too. I mean, I believe that it's the entrepreneurs that are going to solve the world's problems. And we have proven that time and time again, with many examples of that

Russ Johns 24:47
Over and over again, the abundance and flexibility of our mindset, and our ability to change and be fluid in the market is going to be the saving grace in all of this I believe, and I really believe that conversations like this are really gonna make a huge impact on other people that are available and and listening into it. And podcasts are not going to go away they're going to continue and pivots are going to like Angie says pivots are important right now making our own pivots. And are some of the choices we're making. And some of the pivots that we're making in our business as well.

Todd Uterstaedt 25:27
Absolutely. I mean, tomorrow on my podcast, I have Ann Milan. She's the founder and CEO of solid core. Those of you out there may know solid core may have one near near where you live. And she got very candid when I interviewed her last week and will go live tomorrow. Tomorrow morning on Tuesday, the 31st. She talked about how she had to fire 98% of her over 600 members of her team got wrenching but listening to her kind of work through this calculation. And many people have asked me last couple weeks on how do we work with as well. It's about how do you address the real pressing needs of the present, but build and look toward the future without being inappropriately opportunistic. And she describes the steps she took to be able to communicate with her with her team what she's doing to try and make sure that when this is over, she can emerge even stronger. And it's women like her. Men like Daniel Wiener, who was on the podcast last week, who has fantasy of autobiography, trying to make sure we don't spam everyone anymore with email. It's these men and women who, to Angie's point that you just mentioned, are pivoting and adjusting so that they can emerge from this stronger will emerge from the stronger unfortunately, people are dying. And we don't want that to happen. But we also have to those of us who are healthy focus on how can we help and serve others at the end of all this during and also at the end. And I truly believe that people like Ann and Daniel who was on last week are going to continue doing things like that.

Russ Johns 27:10
Well, Todd, this has been phenomenal. I appreciate you and all the work that you do in the founder from from founder to CEO podcast and I love the fact that we're personal friends as well. And I look forward to more episodes of your podcast coming out and if you if you could leave some nugget of knowledge with us at the end, just kind of exit strategy on ideas. What would you want to leave with the world today?

Todd Uterstaedt 27:44
Every day journal about what you're feeling and doing right now, every day because many of you will have books at the end of this and you will have captured your feelings, emotions, facts, and then only that it'll help you process your thoughts to be able to get Through all the craziness right now, because you will get through and journaling and getting the ideas and cleansing your brain. Getting out on a piece of paper is very helpful. And I highly encourage that.

Russ Johns 28:14
Awesome. Todd, as always, I love seeing you and I look forward to the next time. So, every Tuesday,

Todd Uterstaedt 28:25
Every Tuesday 1am eastern time we go live with a new episode of another founder, telling how their mistakes their mishaps and their misconceptions helped transform them to a CEO. I'll put it in the show notes and we can actually enjoy it and share it as well and I rebroadcast and now you're officially a pirate so you can actually

I'm so excited about that. Thank you!

Russ Johns 28:45
you wearing red anyway, so

Todd Uterstaedt 28:46
that's right, okay. You can see it. Whoo, go red. We love you too, Russ. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Russ Johns 28:55
And, as always kindnesses, cool smiles free and you enjoy the day.

Todd Uterstaedt 29:04
You too. Take care




Historically, pirate broadcasting is a term used for any type of broadcasting without a broadcast license. With the internet, creating your own way of connecting has evolved.  

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