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Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:20] I was having a coughing fit there for a second. It's another day for a #PirateBroadcast™ and we have a third time pirate in the room. And three times Steve, happy birthday. Welcome back to the #PirateSyndicate™ #PirateBroadcast™. Thank you.

Steven Sullivan: [00:00:41] It is so good to be here on my birthday, celebrating it with you and anybody who's watching. My birthdays for me are special because each year it's like another notch of success. Some people look at it as it's another step towards death. For me, because I had that life and death experience through cancer ...35 years this year. So each birthday becomes another year past a time where people didn't expect me to live.

Russ Johns: [00:01:15] Every day is a gift, right?

Steven Sullivan: [00:01:17] Every day is a gift.

Russ Johns: [00:01:19] Yeah. Yeah. That's the way I look at it. The aches and pains I feel from my experiences in the past and being broken and everything else, is just an indication that I've lived. It's that I've thrived and lived and I've had experience, and there's a lot of things that we can do and be, and say and complain about. You talk a lot about leadership. You talk a lot about stories and how you can overcome some of these challenges and I think it's really important for people to think about the, "what if" rather than the "can't." Remove the can't from your life and just continue to improve what you can and move forward with that.  Tell us a little bit about what's going on in Steve's life recently based on your birthday. And I know you have a book that's going to get released here shortly. You're doing some 30 day video stuff with a couple of people. So jump into a couple of things that you're doing. So keep us updated on things.

Steven Sullivan: [00:02:21] Yes, I'm in the last editing stages of my manuscript for my book that is titled apples and oranges on your team. Bite-size stories to expand influence. So it's a compilation of short stories that generate reflection for leaders to think about how they're interacting with their teams with each other. Bottom line is the crux of the book is to help people understand how to put people first in the leadership consent. That's what we need today. Historically, we've had a lot of command and control from the top down. And some companies still operate that way, but the younger generations are not happy with that. The younger generations are looking for a different type of leadership style, something that's more personal, something that allows them to contribute to something that might even give them meaning. And so just working in a job to get a paycheck, like some of us did so many years ago, no longer cuts it. And if you want to keep good talent around and have your company excel, you need to learn how to implement and have people first leadership. Because as you build up the people and help them become their best, then your team becomes the best and your company can become profitable and productive because of the efforts of your team.

Russ Johns: [00:04:06] Yeah. I was having a conversation yesterday with Bob Sieger and one of the things we were talking about, I think it was off camera was the idea that when you fill a position in an organization, a lot of startups have multiple hats that a single person wearing multiple hats. Cause there's a lot to do, a lot to create, a lot of development going on. And if you can build a team, Steve, that where everybody is doing what they enjoy doing, and they can add value to that position. It's so much better than just filling a slot to get a task done. There's a lot more value, a lot more investment in the job and in the strategy. And I asked my team members, it's oh, wow, are you enjoying what you're doing? Are you thriving in what you're doing? Do you feel like you're getting something accomplished? And if the answer is maybe, I don't know, it's like, that's when you want to dig a little deeper as a leader and find out what they really enjoy and what they can continue to enjoy in their position.

Steven Sullivan: [00:05:15] Yeah. And for me, often trying to talk to leaders about learning the strengths of the individual. What breaks do they bring to the table? Gallupcon has nicely define that through their strength finder assessment of 34 types of strengths that you'll find in the business world. And if you can understand what those strengths are and the different team members and what their strengths are, you can now begin to. Bring people together who compliment each other and consequently have greater success because they can, one can excel in one area and another can excel in a different area. But there's a lot of leaders who don't even understand the value of people on their team. They see them as bodies doing a task.

Russ Johns: [00:06:11] Yeah. A chess pieces in the game. Yeah. I want to think about people. I want to make sure that we say hi to a few pirates in the room, right? Michael Baker, always a wonderful supporter. And I just enjoy all of his feedback and everything. He says, happy birthday. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much. Jenny Gold up in Colorado. Good morning pirates. Happy birthday, Steven. Hey, stay warm, Jenny. Yeah, stay warm Jenny. Leslie from the Tundra of Houston, what's going on in Houston? I was talking to a friend in Houston and he took a picture outside his house and he says it's only, it's been snow on the ground twice in 23 years.  I think I was there and I think it was 2009 or something like that. Eight was the other time. It's crazy.

Steven Sullivan: [00:07:09] So like I said, some Chicago weather down South.

Russ Johns: [00:07:13] Yeah, no kidding. Michael Baker says be present in the moment and be open. To the opportunity. Absolutely fantastic. Oh, and Mark O'Brien is here. Ahoy mateys one pirate to the others. Mark is an awesome individual. He's does very creative work. He's a someone I consider a friend and just an amazing individual. And Jenny saying good morning, Leslie. And this is the point of people. Steve is the idea that we have these connections. We have these conversations and that's what the #PirateBroadcast™ is all about. Robina Tower. Go away. I don't know. I don't know. I can't, it's not time to go away yet. Michael, make it clearly define your goals and objectives in your mission. Absolutely. Hey, Steve here. Thank you. Love you. Robina says, Oh, sorry. I forgot to say please having a great morning today and Angie says happy birthday to you.

Steven Sullivan: [00:08:31] Thank you so much.

Russ Johns: [00:08:33] Russ Hedge says you're both so awesome. Thanks for all you do. Thank you, Russ. Likewise, back at ya. And our friend, Sarathy, hi everyone from Briani land. Thank you so much for being there. And here s Nick. Nick,' i love what you're doing. Thank you for the work in telegram All the work that you're doing, period, we got to catch up soon. Mark O'Brien says right back at you Russ. Sarathy says Namaste to you all. Russ and Steve. And Kate O'hara, Florida is the best bike ride beach. No shoveling.

Steven Sullivan: [00:09:14] Hey Kate, I'm coming down to your place.

Russ Johns: [00:09:16] I'm right there with you in Arizona. So love it. Darleen in Florida, morning. These are all people that are engaged and involved in the community. And it's all about leadership and it's people like yourself coming on the #PirateBroadcast™ and sharing stories, Steve, and doing great things online, offline, and in alignment with what your goals are. So happy birthday, number 35. survived and looking forward to more. And so the book is wrapping up final editing stages. So have you committed on a date or are you holding off on that yet?

Steven Sullivan: [00:09:58] Each day they commit to, seems to be another milestone of a mistake. Would have to say once the manuscript's done, there's still work to be done. There's a lot of work. Yeah. The cover, all that stuff. That still has to be there. So I'm probably three months off. So hopefully by May I'll be able to launch it officially. And I should have some earlier copiers and copies for marketing before that as well. But yeah, that is the goal. I just gotta do it.

Russ Johns: [00:10:35] It's one of the things that we were talking about before the show and I really truly believe, I'm really at the point now where I have to pull the trigger on, the #PirateSyndicate™ is growing. I've got people actually working on a project this week and Tracie actually Tracie's in the room today. Good morning pirates. Happy birthday, Steve. Good morning. Tracie she's the producer of the #PirateBroadcast™ and she's part of the #PirateSyndicate™ and she's doing some other shows this week and all of these individuals that want to learn how to produce shows. Want to learn how to go live and actually create a brand or a business or any kind of a topic around video. I really feel like it's time to actually create a course and put it out there.  Need to create some more courses. I have courses on the #PirateSyndicate™ and I've created a lot of courses over the years and I think that I like yourself on the book. You just have to put a focus on it. You have to put some time and attention into it and you have to complete it and get it out there. So I'm looking forward to that.

Steven Sullivan: [00:11:50] Have you thought about, like Gabe cause I saw the fabulous Silverfox lady there. Come on. Yeah. Some of us have been a part of his show and he's trying then to launch other people into doing shows under his umbrella, so to speak. And that might be another way for you to broaden the #PirateBroadcast™. As long as you've got this team producing it, you don't have to be involved, but you can look at how they leverage the team to maybe produce a few more people doing live shows that are brand oriented that tie in and all that other stuff.

Russ Johns: [00:12:39] It's interesting you should say that because I've created six different ways to create a business and monetize live streams. And so I actually put together a presentation for some individuals that were thinking about. They were wondering how we could do that. And so I put a presentation together and outlined six different ways you could actually monetize a live stream and create a business from it. And so that would be a part of a workshop that I'd be doing, I would launch with the workshop on that subject because a lot of people don't know or they're not experienced or they haven't seen some of the ideas that you can actually develop from live streaming and video on how to monetize it. It's usually something you do to send people to another platform. However, there's a lot of different ways you can put it together. So developing those ideas, I think would be a great strategy.

Steven Sullivan: [00:13:44] Yeah. I'd  love to take that workshop or see that workshop.

Russ Johns: [00:13:50] Yeah. So if there's anyone else that would like to have a workshop about how to create a live video stream, how to monetize it, how to create a business from it. Send me a message. I'd love to hear from you. And it's just, I love this . Darleen says I'm all about the production side. Jenny Gold and she goes, yes, you have. I've shared it with Jenny. I shared it with her. I sent it over to her, enjoying it, Russ. Happy birthday, Steve. Thanks Nancy. Up early in the morning, today is really early. Yeah. Sign me up for the workshop. I love that. I love that.  Like the sound of that. Darleen he says, I like the sound of that. That is what the #PirateSyndicate™ does. That is what the #PirateSyndicate™ does. Yes. That is what the #PirateSyndicate™ does. It brings people together to actually produce shows for other people as well. And we're producing shows. I got actually multiple shows going on this week through the #PirateSyndicate™ live streaming, multiple events, multiple days, and teaching people how to produce. Sharing producers that know how to produce with people that need help. And Nancy says, happy birthday, Steve Sullivan, I enjoy celebrating and being celebrated. You are celebrated.

Steven Sullivan: [00:15:10] You're an awesome person, Nancy. 

Russ Johns: [00:15:12] So moving forward I'm opening the doors to the #PirateBroadcast™ and the #PirateSyndicate™ and like Gabe, there's a lot of ways that we can produce results for other people. And my whole purpose, Steve, as is to help other people along their journey. Your journey with leadership is helping leaders see the light in and thrive in other people, in other individuals. And so what is happening with you as it relates to video? Cause I know you mentioned something in the video project. So talk a little bit about that.

Since they're not comfortableSteven Sullivan: [00:15:52] doing video or hasn't even really done a video for LinkedIn in terms of a video post there's a group of us that we yearly do this.

Russ Johns: [00:16:13] You locked up there for a second, Mike.

Steven Sullivan: [00:16:16] Yeah, I must've locked up cause I just saw a thing spinning around, but we have this yearly group where we invite people in that are potentially new to video who would like to learn to do video posts too. To get over, their discomfort to get more comfortable in making videos. And this group includes some amazing people like Rob House and his creativity .Pix Johnson and her energy from the Australia side, Janata Med, and his abilities  to help people with all things  equipment. And then if you have any questions on how to do video or live stream or any of that, he can use, he can walk you through all the equipment on that. Wilton Rodgers is a part of that group. We'll be talking about leveraging video for business. My participation in that group is largely to help people learn how to tell stories. They can get their message out there through story. And each year we have probably a dozen or more people who come in and some of them do videos every day for the whole month. There's two videos, maybe half, or maybe even a half dozen times. It doesn't really matter how many videos you do. You're still have access to a group of people who will support you and give you information.  We had a organizational meeting other day where we talked about we're going to do weekly zoom calls for the people that are in that group, where they can come on and they can ask questions about videos and we'll focus those zoom calls around, one on equipment, one on storytelling, one on business. Leverage. So if there's anybody watching this today who wants to get into video, reach out to me, direct message me. We'll be glad to sign you up. 

Russ Johns: [00:18:28] Nancy asked the question where can people sign up? Where can folks sign up?

Steven Sullivan: [00:18:33] So they DM me or Rob house or Pix Johnson. If you know any of those people, you can Nancy I'd love to see you join the group.

Darleen says, I wantRuss Johns: [00:18:45] to be a better storyteller. Just started learning. Fantastic

Steven Sullivan: [00:18:48] Oh yeah. So I. I love to sit down and talk to people about storytelling because that's the one thing I've done in my journey on LinkedIn without realizing it, I started telling stories. I started writing stories and along the way people have said, hey, Steve, you're pretty good at it.

Russ Johns: [00:19:14] You did your story Saturdays for a long time and still, yeah, still doing them and a lot of amazing analogies and,  the things that came out of that, I always enjoyed them. Fortunately, or unfortunately the results of the #PirateBroadcast™ I've been getting booked on other projects. So my time on LinkedIn has not as been as active as I would like it to be. So it's a catch 22. When you get client work  it's a challenge to stay engaged all the time, but I really work hard at it and I love the opportunity to catch up with people like yourself, Steve.

Steven Sullivan: [00:20:01] I do as well. The one thing about LinkedIn is it's connections. And, as you engage with people, you build those connections. You build those friendships offline. Oftentimes, I have more friends in my life now from around the world than I've ever had because of all the connections and offline conversations and various virtual meetings or whatnot that I participate in.

Russ Johns: [00:20:28] Yeah. The amazing thing is how available being online and on video is. 10 years ago, even it was more of a challenge, a lot more technology, a lot more skill was required to set up your equipment and get everything dialed in and you'll make sure you have a good connection. And a lot of individuals didn't have access to this and now we have access and we can reach people from around the world and it's just a different time in place right now. And it's amazing that we have this technology to connect us, to allow these connections, to take place these friendships, to grow. And I just think it's so important for us as a civilization to start connecting the dots, make sure that we are talking about, we instead of me and we have this idea that we're all connected. We all have a thread. If we talk to someone long enough, Steven tell stories and exchange stories, we all have a common thread. Family, friends, the belief that something is going to be improving. And all of these ideas are something that we can actually hold onto and grow from. And I think it's just an incredible time  and I thank you so much for publishing your stories, putting video out there, working with creatives to do this work. So thank you so much.

Steven Sullivan: [00:21:53] You're welcome. Russ.  I enjoy coming on your show. Like I think back about a year ago when we did the January 1st show where I got the opportunity to turn the tables and interview you. We need to do that again. I need to make you walk the plank.

Russ Johns: [00:22:15] No kidding. No kidding. It's been a fun adventure and I think this show right now is  356 episodes consistently. So five days a week, every single day, I'm booking people out into April now. And it's really important for me to make sure that people have a voice. They have an opportunity. They have a stage to actually go out there and share their story  and be part of the community become part of the pirate community. Cause it's about kindness for me. It's one of those things that we all have something to contribute. We all have a gift and I think it's important for us to recognize that.

Steven Sullivan: [00:23:02] Yes. And your gift of inviting people on and sharing airtime and all that has helped a number of us  continue to broaden our brand, so to speak and awareness to people in the world and to establish even newer connections with people that  see us on a show like this and they reach out and then things can continue to grow from there.

Russ Johns: [00:23:29] Yeah. And like you were talking about with Gabe. Gabriel has evolved and expanded and explored new horizons and he continues to do that. And I just applaud his efforts and his energy that goes into that. And, people like Nancy and people like Darleen and Tracie, and Angie, and all of these individuals that are really amazing people that are in my life. All of these,  everybody on this show right now has been touched or touching me through being present and being available on the show and, friendships like you. We actually met through LinkedIn and we've evolved and continued to contribute to each other's life. And it's really about what is the value we can deliver and what we can actually contribute to the society around us. And, it always amazes me where people shine and how they come up with their scenarios and, or their stories. And when they share their stories, it's, it deepens the connection as well. It's amazing.

Steven Sullivan: [00:24:38] And this world where there's so much misinformation, false this and false that there is a hunger for that real connection where you're meeting real individuals are communicating on a real level. And that's the value of programs like yours.

Russ Johns: [00:25:01] Nancy says we are more alike than different. Amen. I believe that a hundred percent Kate says storytelling and anthropologically  is our genes for survival. Yes. So true. Absolutely true. Sarathy says strong relationships, build strong connections and groom friendly and excellent business relationships. And keep that smile with that cool glasses. I love you, man. Monetize. Nancy says monetize is not a four-letter word. You are so true. You're so true. I don't know whether there's a certain identity and the idea that. I give so much away. I, and I think, okay, I know it, why shouldn't I share it? And I do share it. And I think that there's also an opportunity to actually create abundance. And if you create abundance and you share it, the pie gets bigger, it doesn't get smaller. The pie gets bigger when you start sharing things and you share ideas and it's are you afraid? Somebody's going to steal your idea. It's no, because they have to go do something with my idea. How many times have you thought of an idea? And then pretty soon you don't do anything with it. And then it goes out and creates somebody else creates it with that idea. It's I thought of that 10 years ago. It's well, yeah. But did you do anything about it 10 years ago? Typically not. Yeah. The most, mostly documentation is what Gary Vee says for our global hemp platform would be super valuable. Sign me up, too. Kate, we'll talk. I still owe you a phone call actually. Thanks, Kate. And there's so many people out there that are evolving in the creative process. And I think it's platforms like LinkedIn and video that allows people to access new ways of creating or expressing their stories and sharing their stories. Steve, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you and I appreciate all the things that you do in the community. Happy birthday. I love what you're doing and please continue to do it. Keep shining the light on out there for other people to come on board. So where would you like people to connect with you at?

Steven Sullivan: [00:27:41] The best place is LinkedIn. That's the only real avenue I have. I've pretty much dumped Facebook. .Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn.

Russ Johns: [00:27:53] So anybody that's not connected to Steve. Go connect on LinkedIn going to wrap it up today. Thank you so much, Steve, for being here. I really appreciate you. And as always, let's continue to do this and do this again in the future, and you can interview me next time. All right.

Steven Sullivan: [00:28:11] Okay, good. I'll look forward to it.

Russ Johns: [00:28:14] Thank you everyone for being here, go and subscribe. Go track that the YouTube channel. So you get notifications and subscribe to that. Hit that bell. Make sure that you're getting notified. All right. Thank you everyone. As always, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday. Take care.

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