September 3, 2025 • 40 mins
How do personal stories create connection, shape leadership, and build lasting legacies?
Jon Goehring, Coach Jim Johnson, and Dr. Rehnuma Karim welcome Steve Mann — author, global entrepreneur, philanthropist, and legacy storyteller — for a heartfelt conversation on the profound power of storytelling in leadership and life.
Steve shares his journey from a diverse global career to authoring Stories That Shape Us, a guide to passing down wisdom, joy, and love to the next generation.
Drawing on decades of experience, he reveals:
Resources Mentioned:
Jon Goehring, Coach Jim Johnson, and Dr. Rehnuma Karim welcome Steve Mann — author, global entrepreneur, philanthropist, and legacy storyteller — for a heartfelt conversation on the profound power of storytelling in leadership and life.
Steve shares his journey from a diverse global career to authoring Stories That Shape Us, a guide to passing down wisdom, joy, and love to the next generation.
Drawing on decades of experience, he reveals:
- How everyone has stories worth telling and why they matter more than data
- The transformative power of embracing your authentic self and clarifying personal purpose
- Storytelling as a tool to bridge divides, build empathy, and inspire action
- How leaders can foster team identity by aligning personal and organizational goals
- Key strategies to identify, craft, and pass on stories that create meaning and impact
Resources Mentioned:
- Stories That Shape Us — steve-mann.com
- Bonus chapter & storytelling tools — download today at steve-mann.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today and Better Tomorrow and the podcast
to get you there.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You can find out more at Teechbetter dot com. Slash
podcast stories get people humanity, which you don't get from data,
and those are both things that people I think are
desperate for in this age. Dream dreams and don't let
people beat them out of you. Dreams are why we
(00:28):
have spaceships. Dreams are why I have a pacemaker that
keeps me alive. Dreams are why we make progress. But
I think it's hard to really be a leader and
tell you have, at least to some degree, answered that
question for yourself. Who am I in relationship to the universe?
(00:49):
Who am I in my family? Who am I in
my relationship with God?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Leadership is changing.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
And it's hard to keep up. But the good news
you can be a leader too. You can be an
emerging leader. Welcome to the Limitless Leadership Lounge, a try
generational conversation for emerging leaders. Come spend some time with
us to discuss leadership from three angles. The coach Jim Johnson,
the professor, doctor Renuma Kareem, the host, John Gering, a
(01:29):
monthly guest, and you get in on the conversation on
Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to follow us on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker. So come on in and
make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's another week inside the Limitless Leadership Lounge. We call
this a try generational conversation for you, the emerging leader.
Maybe you've just gotten that first leadership position and you're like, WHOA,
this is different than I expected. Leadership is something that
we can get better at. And that's why we have
this podcast for Because coach Jim Johnson spent decades as
(02:02):
a leader in the athletic world, doctor Numa Kareem has
also spent a good amount of time as a leader
in the academic world and of her organization heroes. For all,
I'm John Garing, and I like to say I'm just
along for the ride and here to learn. Coach, you've
also brought along. Speaking of learning, we're going to learn
a lot from our guest Steve Mann today, So go
ahead and introduce our guests and let's dive in.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah, I'm excited to introduce Steve. Steve was introduced to
us with Nick Cudginson and his team member Evan Hacker,
and we're really excited to have him. So let me
share a little bit about Steve and welcome to the show.
So Steve is an author, a speaker, a legacy storyteller, advocate.
He's a global entrepreneur, philampartus and mentor. He has lived
(02:45):
and worked worldwide, from Africa to Southeast Asia. He has
founded and co founded multiple businesses in Charito Foundations. He
is passionate about freedom, equality and storytelling as a tool
for connection. He's dedicated to helping families pass down wisdom
through personal stories. Steve has a new book out that
(03:05):
we're excited to call Stories that Shape Us a guide
to passing down wisdom, joy and love to the next generation,
and says we're here to help young and emerging letters. Steve,
I know you'll be a great guest for us. Welcome
to the Limitless Leadership Lounge.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Hey, thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
So Steve, I got to dig right in because I
also have been a speaker for almost twenty years, and
I know how important storytelling is not only a speaker,
but certainly as a leader. In fact, I used to
give my players of stories all the times. I used
to kid them that I give them stories of warnings
and examples to try to give illustrations to help them
as they move forward in their lives. So tell us,
(03:45):
can you be zero down to a couple keys to
be in a more effective storyteller? Because I think as
a leader, you have to become I call it the CST,
the chief storyteller.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I think number one is start. I talked to so
many people that go, I don't have any stories. I'll say,
let's take some periods of your life, like when you
were just got married or you just started a business.
Tell me what happened there? This happened? How did that
make you feel? Appreciate? They're telling me a story. But
people don't generally think stories, so they just think of
(04:20):
parts of their life. So if I can get people
to equate those parts of their life and start telling
me a story, then I go, aha, you just did.
And so I think that's number one is to realize
you do have stories. I think number two is what
I hear all the time is I don't have really
anything important to say. I haven't done anything that wants
(04:40):
to hear about. And so you just told me a story,
and I find that really interesting. I'd like to know
more if I tell you a story on this one.
I had a good friend I don't say George Utah,
and this friend of mine, he is a little lower
than I am. Grew up in Las Vegas in the
fifties when Las Vegas was one of the most segregated
(05:02):
cities in the country, and he's white, lived in the
white section, but when he hit sixteen, his father sent
him over to work for an uncle in the black
area of Las Vegas. He was the only white guy there,
and his first reaction was, I hate everything about this,
and I don't like my boss, and they're mean to me,
(05:23):
and nobody wants to listen. They want me to do
all the work. And he goes on and tells how
he started getting acquainted with people, and pretty soon his
boss was asking him for a ride home, and he
grumpily did it. And then his boss said can you
pick me up? And he grumpily did it. And then
(05:43):
he said, when you come, could you honk so I
don't have to get out of bed any earlier, and
he's thinking, you lazy guy, how can I have you
as a boss. They came to find out that his
boss got a girl pregnant when he was sixteen, never
could finish school, quit everything he was doing, and was
now having working two full time jobs and some part
(06:07):
time jobs and just to keep food on the table.
His kids were now about college age, and he wanted
him to honk when he came home because he had
just gotten to bed and he wanted to get as
much sleep as he can. He said, it just changed
my whole view of him and everything going on. And
I said, have you written this down anywhere? I no.
(06:31):
I said, you know what, sometime maybe it's a grandchild,
maybe it's a great grandchild you don't even know. They
might read your story or hear your story and go, wow,
that was my great grandfather. Listen to that experience, that's
part of me. Maybe I ought to listen to what
(06:52):
he had to say and be a little more open
things so you can change things in the future. If
you'll write that story down. He goes, I never thought
of that. You do have stories, and you do have
important things to share.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
And Steve, you're so right. I'm sucker for great stories.
So I'm always connecting stories. When I'm in the plane
or anything like, I'm talking to people and that enriches me.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Instead of just putting.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
My headphone and shutting the world out, I try to
connect with people, so that really helps. And you're so
true right that stories are I think stronger than statistics.
And while I'm also I'm a speaker, and i also
give leadership training, and when I'm giving those stories from
my life, I feel my audience is connecting more with
(07:42):
me and.
Speaker 6 (07:43):
They're trusting me as a speaker.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
And many of those CEOs came up to me and
said that those boring Instead of those boring datas, when
you are telling us stories, we could really apply those,
implement those, and we are becoming empathetic on those areas.
So there are so many stories, and I'm as a storyteller,
would love to hear your wisdom on what makes a
(08:08):
good story. There could be stories that cannot reson that
might not resonate, but there could be stories that really
have impact.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
So how would I know that this is a great
story to tell?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think that we live in an era, an age
where we are bombarded with data we have stuff coming
from the Internet, from social media. We're about to get
swamped by AI, whatever that means. And we have no
lack of data and people get that, but they have
(08:44):
a difficult time trying to put that data in perspective,
trying to evaluate it, trying to say what does it
mean to a human being? What does it mean to me?
And that's what stories do. And so you know, when
you go to tell a story, I think maybe the
basics down if you haven't done anything, But the more
(09:04):
detail you can go into, the better. People want to
find a way to connect that story. It may be
where it happened, it may be who you were with it,
maybe the smells. But if you can give enough detail
that people can connect to the story, then they go, wow,
that's great. I think the other thing is realize what
(09:26):
stories do. Stories get people prospective, which you don't get
just from data. Stories get people humanity, which you don't
get from data. And those are both things that people,
I think are desperate for in this age.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, when I started my business a few years ago,
I thought that I needed to be the authority in
the field. So of course what I thought was hammer
home the statistics and the book knowledge and tell all
that on social media and make myself into this authority
write it's blog posts about nerdy audio standards and stuff.
(10:03):
But what I'm realizing now as my entrepreneurship journey continues,
that storytelling is really the best way to relate to
an audience. So for an entrepreneur who's trying to position
themselves as an expert in a field, how do we
leverage the power of storytelling to do that so we're
not just regurgitating boring statistics but making it more relatable.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, in the book, there's a bonus chapter that people
can download, and it's how do I talk to friends
and family about controversial issues? Because we don't and we
avoid it like the plague, And so we talk about
the movie we saw or what we had to eat,
(10:47):
but we don't talk about things that are important. And
in that bonus chapter, I go through some how to
talk about people And one of the things I talk
about is just what you said, data. We use data
as a weapon too much. We don't use it to enlighten,
We use it to bombard, to rebut and that doesn't
(11:09):
go very far with people listening. They can find the
data somewhere else. They don't want to listen to a rebuttal,
but they don't often get understanding perspective. How does that fit?
What does that do for me? Why? And so I
think people need to be judicious about the use of data.
(11:30):
Maybe almost ask permission to share some data, but tell
why they're using this piece of data and why it
came from them, what it means to them. Then that
data can become useful. But if we're just using data
to beat people up, we don't get very far.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Good point, Steve, I got to delve in because our audience,
we do have quite a few people that are in
the entrepreneur and I know you started many businesses and
also charitable foundations as well. You share a couple ideas
with your experience how you're able to start and build
a flourishing business.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I think we're both a business and foundation. The starting
either one, I think comes from a lot of the
same resources, the same background. I think one thing you
do is you listen a lot to other people, and
that's where you get ideas, and that's where you get
invited things. If you never talk to anybody but sit
(12:32):
and read books, you're not going to hear about the
ideas I was doing this, Oh, I wonder how that
would fit with this, and then you go, wait a minute,
I have something that might be useful in that. And
pretty soon you're talking and you start a business, or
pretty soon you're talking and you start a humanitarian foundation.
But the first thing is you got to be out there.
(12:55):
The second thing is you got to take some risks.
You don't start a business or foundation without taking a
little risk. Years ago, I used to consult and one
of the things I would find when I was consulting
with new inventors is the majority of them never got
their invention to market because they were always trying to
(13:15):
perfect it, and by the time they got it perfected,
technology had passed them up. And I used to do
some work with Tom Peters. I don't know if you
remember Tom. He wrote Toward Excellence was the best selling
business book of its hera. And one of the things
Tom used to always say was ready fire, aim and
there's a lot of truth for that. He would say.
(13:38):
I found it to be true. Is we spend so
much time aiming that we'd never get around to the firing.
And sometimes you need to just shoot it out there.
And learn from it. I think I don't like a
lot of things that Elon Musk does, but when he's
building rocket ships, he's not afraid to go blow them up.
His view is that's how I learned to build a
(13:59):
rocket ship. But I think we are so afraid it's
going to blow up that we never launch it. And
so the second thing I would say, you've got to
take some risk. The third thing is it's going to
be a lot of work. Whether it's a foundation or
it's a business, they are not nine to five jobs.
Maybe the other way around, they're more probably twenty four
(14:22):
hour jobs. My role in life as I've chosen to
have it as I am not a great long term
manager and it doesn't really interest me. But I do
like to start things. I like to get them going.
I like to gather people around. And I guess that
would be the next one is you're not going to
start that business by yourself, and you are not the
(14:45):
smartest guy on the block, and you've got to find
the people who have the skills and the knowledge that
you don't have, and your role and I think this
is what leadership is, to find them, pull them together,
get them to work together. Then you go places.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Steve, I got to delve in a little deeper because
I think that's so true. But so give us your advice,
and how do you find those right people, because that's
a real challenge.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I guess the first thing is you've got to be
out where people are. Tell another story. I had it
terrific professor in graduate school, and he taught a class.
It was called ethics, but it was really you would
take an issue like environmentalism or healthcare or whatever, and
you start you study all the pros to that, and
(15:33):
then you study all the negatives, and then you'd battle,
and you'd go through that whole semester. At the end
of the semester, he said, what did you What did
you think of class? I said, I really loved it
always also really hated it. He said, why is that?
I said, because I love being passionately devoted to a cause.
But when I understand both sides, it's harder to do
(15:56):
that expiled and he says, see, that's the role of
the education, hated man, to keep the two sides from
killing each other while you work out solutions. And I
think that applies in finding partners too. If you're only
looking for people who are just like you, you're not
likely to find the best partners. You've got to open
(16:18):
yourself up a little bit, look at what people are feeding,
how they interact, how they do things. Many years ago,
we used to run management evaluation classes down in Monterey,
and you could pretty quickly tell who had more potential
because you give them these complex tasks. And some would say,
(16:40):
I don't have the tools. That's not been delegated to me,
so I really put that to the side. Others would say,
I don't have the tools either, but I bet I
can find them and let me go here, I'll make
this a little different and I'll change this. And they're
the ones who we would pretty quickly identify as having
a lot of potential. So when you're out looking for people,
(17:02):
you're not just looking for degrees, in fact, degrees you
can buy somewhere. You're looking for how do they interact
with other people, how do they think, what is their mindset?
What have they done that would show me that they
can do that in the kind of organization I'm putting together.
(17:22):
But again, it's open yourself up, look outside, find differences.
But also while you're doing that, you also have to
find people who can work together, and so we got
to have the people skills that allow them to work together.
They're not just in it for their own ego.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Steve, I would like to hear your costs, because nowadays
we are observing that the world we are not opening up,
we are closing down.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
We don't want to We don't tolerate each other's opinion.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
If anybody disagrees with us, then they're the enemy. We
are having these kind of attitude which is creating a
lot of conflict all across the world.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
So both this part of the world and my part
of the world.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
And while we are while I was going through your
bio one thing, and you are into freedom, and I
will dive into a little uncomfortable topic. I've always watched
Piers Morgan and he had this both view on Israel,
Palestine and on many issues.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
And recently it's no more than numbers.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
He were saying that the numbers did not change me,
but the stories did. Fifty thousand kids killed or thirty
thousand kids killed. Those things didn't change him. But when
he saw a father being hopeful, sitting on the rubble,
trying to find food and also giving peers Morgan some food,
offering food and things like that. Then he saw the
(18:44):
humanity and now his tone has changed. So my question is,
from your point of view, how can we connect like
this world with dystopian like Trump's government and we are
kicking out the immigrants and things like that. What would
be you are if you were in this position? How
would you use stories to create a better world where
(19:06):
empathy rules instead of hatred. So I'm feeling this like
this is a different world that I have been living
in right.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Now, maybe a couple of stories that I had just
come back from Africa and I had gotten up in
the morning, Jetlagg turned the television on and the trade
towers were coming down, and then after that all I
started seeing was hatred for Muslims and Europes and the
(19:40):
East coast of Africa is primarily Muslim and these are
the people I've worked with and loved and took care
of it. And I thought, maybe the biggest tragedy come
out of this is turning a whole country to hate
a whole group of people that they know nothing about.
But we tend to do things like that, and it's
(20:00):
a tragedy. It leads us into more and more problems.
As we try to keep out immigrants, as we try
to attack the universities, as we try to only accept
people who look like us, we're the ones who lose.
We lose that the differences that make things go. We
lose the ingenuity that makes things go. I just I
(20:23):
spent six years of my life, seven years in Africa,
and love the people, love the place. And I just
saw an article from Bill Gates, people saying and people
wanted he's going to spend his two hundred billion dollars
in the next twenty years, not leave it forever. And
he yesterday said, people ask where am I going to
put that? He says, I'm going to put most of
(20:44):
that into Africa. Because when I'm in Africa, I see
the hope, I see the energy, I see the creativity,
and I see them taking ai and just embracing it,
whereas we're looking at all the problems that may cause.
And I'm going, yay, Bill Gates, because Africa has been
that downtrodden, discouraged, written off continent in the whole world.
(21:10):
And that's not the Africa. I know, that's not people.
I know they haven't had the opportunities, but they have
the ability and they have the creativity. And another just
quick story. Years ago, I was on a kind of
march for freedom from the train station of Boisiaho to
the capitol, and when we got there, I was asked
(21:33):
to give a talk, and in the talk I said, look,
we're all here trying to look for a better, more
open world. But you don't have to go start a foundation,
you don't have to even be on a march, you
don't have to write a book. If all you would
do is next time you see a person of color
(21:56):
or a different religion or different dress, and instead of
turning around and walking away, go over and say hi.
I think if we could all do that, the world
would change. The world changes as people, as individuals change
far faster than rules and government laws.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
So true, and I think being friends with people from
all over the world. I have friends in eighty eight countries.
One of my best friend is from Israel and she
was in Mosad and we became very close friends. Both
of us now understand each other's point of view and
instead of the judgmental we are trying to find a
(22:38):
solution of how we can unite.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Don't you get angry when you get trying to people
try to force you into your Antithemitic or your pope
of stadium.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
And I've no kicked out of the university because I
was just showing a documentary to bring unity between Palestan
and Israel.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
My age.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
One of the students said that I'm an anti Semitic
person and racist. So I have been kicked out from
last year. I cannot teach at the university.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
The university and the students loss. I believe that I
can be pro Israel and pro Palesigme. I don't need
to be prot Yahoo, I don't need to be pro
their governments, but I can be pro the people.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
That's where we've got to find the solutions.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
And the leaders who see the people, not the politics
behind it.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And I'm guessing that a lot of this, Steve, is
why you do some of the philanthropic work that you do.
Tell us a little bit more about that work that
you do, and correct me if I'm making an assumption
to tell us some of the reasons behind why you're
so into philanthropy.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I think it's not that this happened or this happened.
It's a whole life of experiences. When I was a kid,
I could to see I didn't I could I was nearsighted,
and I couldn't play sports because I couldn't see them
all unless it hit me. But what I could do
is read, and I read voraciously, and I was struck
(24:13):
by various things. And one of them I remember to
this day was a book about Albert Schweizer and setting
up his medical situation in Africa. Now I'm a little
boy on a potato farmer night out. Africa is something
on a map that you may or may not see,
but it stuck with me, and I think I would
ask questions and I would talk to people, and I
(24:38):
started doing a lot of international travel and met more
and more people doing more things, and then started after
we sold that company, I started going with them on
some of their trips and learning more about things around
the world. And then I got into position where I
could start doing things with some of those people. And
(24:59):
I remember coming home home one time from this humanitarian
trip to Africa and I was asked to go to
a meeting and I didn't really know what it was.
It turned out it was a meeting, a church meeting,
and trying to convince people to go on senior missions.
And I turned to my wife and said, hey, we
can't do that with six depended children who cares. Want
(25:19):
to go to Zimbabwe and see if we can make
a difference with aids. She said, let's go. And you
got to choose the right wife. And literally five months
later we had sold everything we had and we were
living in Zimbabwe, running around trying to figure out how
we could make a difference. Zimbabwe then had the highest
(25:42):
age rate in the world, about thirty eight percent of
all adults were HIV positive. Back then, that meant you
were dead in five years. And so we started discovering
and then started creating programs to help teenagers, young people,
young adults keep from getting needs. But I think it
(26:04):
was a dream, and in fact, in the book, one
of the things I talk about that people ought to do,
whether that's young leaders or youth, dream dreams and don't
let people beat them out of you. Dreams are why
we have spaceships. Dreams are why I have a pacemaker
that keeps me alive. Dreams are why we make progress.
(26:27):
And so I go through exercises to try to get
kids to what really are your dreams? First thing, they
always tell you is what they think you want to hear,
or what their parents want them to say. No, no
that's not what I want. What are your dreams? Then
they'll get maybe a little better. I remember one group
on time, I said, maybe imagine yourself start naked on
a Harley writing through the Sahara Desert. Oh wow, you
(26:51):
mean you want what I'm really dreaming. Yeah. Then they
put those up and I say, now do something about
that makes it, makes something happen. Another story another professor
at Resure School, he had a classwa had to write
about ourselves, take all kinds of personality tests and intelligence
tests and interview people. And one of the things I
(27:14):
put in the book was that I'd like to climb
Mount Evers. He was fascinated that by the professor, and
he says, you must do a lot of climbing. I said, no,
I don't climb anything. He said, you must do a
lot about door stuff. No, I mean you don't do that.
He looked at me and he said, Steve, most people
who climb Evers go outside. So I took the summer off.
(27:39):
The next summer and works as a waiter in Jackson,
Hawaioming and learn to climb. I never made it to evers,
but it didn't make any difference. But his message was
take that dream and do something about it, even if
it's just a little step. But you've got to take
that little step.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Great point, Well, Steve, let's tell me a little bit
to share a little bit about for the readers for
your new book, stories to shape us, and maybe just
share one story from the book. So what was the
purpose of writing the book and what are you hoping
the reader will get out of it?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I had written a little life history. It's pretty boring.
He was here, or my wife forced me to do it.
She said, all the grandkids need to have so they'll
never read it. And when I looked at it, I said,
you could read that, and you still have no idea
what I believed, what was important to me, what I
would like to pass on. So I started trying to
(28:36):
say would I like to pass on? And I identified
seven traits and four principles and three beliefs that were
important to me. They're not necessarily the most important in
the world, but they were important to me. Then I
illustrated that each one of them with about five stories
from my life. And as I was going through that process,
(28:59):
I said, there are a lot of people I think
who would like to pass on their own wisdom and
to their grandchildren, but they don't know how. And so
I started changing the tone of the book a little
bit and turn it in a little more of a
work book. Here's how you can identify what's important to you.
Here's how you can identify the stories. Here's how you
(29:21):
can pass that off to start discussions with your grandchildren
and great grandchildren. And so I'm hoping that as people
read the book, some will just have fun reading the stories. Some,
I hope, will start sharing those stories and reading the
book together with grandchildren. Some I hope will start saying
(29:43):
he did that, but I did this, and they start
talking about their own things. Some I hope will be
motivated to go take action on something. But I'm hopeful
that more people who read the book will identify what's
important to them and find ways to pay.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
So, Steve, my last question to you, what legacy would
you like to leave behind?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Ooh, nobody's ever asked me that question before. I know
some things. It's not going to be it's not going
to be a fortune. It's not going to be people
who care about who I saw, and when I talked
to the legacy I would like to leave behind is
(30:28):
you know, he tried to make a difference in the world.
He tried to make things better. And if you look
at the sum of my life and the things that
I've done, people could say it was a good life.
He blessed the lives of a lot of people, and
his children and people around the world. If people could
(30:49):
think of me that way, I'd be thrilled.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
I think that is called success. We try to measure
success in so many ways. But it's one a little story.
When my father passed away in twenty fourteen, I was
in the rooftop just thinking about all the memories, and
there were some few people who were passing by our
house and they were saying, oh, but the person who
lived in this house who passed away yesterday was really
(31:15):
a good man. He was the most caring in neighbor
and always helping each other. And that is when I
started crying, and I felt that should be all our
legacy to live a good life. And when I pass
I leave the world, they will say that she was
a good person. So I think that was the And
you just said.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
That, yeah, My wife and I were talking to the
kids once. We were saying, no, we don't want to
get buried, weren't to just get cremated. And so one
of my daughters sends these two little lawn gnomes and
she made her husband fill a hole through the bottom
so they were empty. He thought this whole idea was terrible,
(31:57):
and she says, I want online to say she was nice,
and it's pretty good. So I had them put online
on the little hat. Him not so much. But the
two of them together made things work beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Ste if you mentioned it earlier, you mentioned the bonus chapter,
and I know that on your website there's an opportunity
for people to get the bonus chapter from Stories that
Shape Us. Is that something we can still take advantage of?
And where would we be able to grab that book
and learn more about you?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, the book is should be it's too Amazon now,
but that takes him a couple of weeks, and so
in two or three weeks it'll be available on Amazon.
The bonus chapter, both in audio and in PDF, should
be available on the website actually by the end of
(32:54):
this way, for first next week, and you don't need
to purchase the book to download the that bonus chapter.
But if you go to Steveman dot com, that'll take
you to the website and that will tell you some stories.
It will tell you how to download the chapter and
tell you when the book's available.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Man with two ends right, Steve.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yes, Yes, te Ve dash m A n N dot com.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Bev Man with an extra end.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
And ask one final question you don't mind, John, double
rap up here, Steve. When I was doing research on you,
one of the things that struck me very powerful because
I do a lot of leadership talks around the country. Fact,
I'm coming out of your way to Utah to speak
to a business and I'm really big on clarity of
purpose and personal beliefs. Can you delve into that because
(33:47):
I think that's so hugely important for people, because I
always kid John and reneum of the first person you
got a lead as yourself, and so if you don't
have clarity of who you are and what you stand for,
then you tend to fall for anything. Can you tell
then to just close here about how strong it is
to have clarity of your purpose and personal beliefs.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, And I think that clarity is always being clarified
as we go through and have more experiences. When I
finished the book, I went through it and I said,
I can't wonder if there's any commonalities that I have
in the traits or the beliefs or the principles. And
I looked at the traits that I said, those already
(34:29):
focus on. You can do something, make a difference, Go
do something, take action. I looked at the principles and
they were tended to be all around liberty and freedom
and fairness. And I looked at the beliefs and they
were all around who are you? Who am I? And
trying to help people identify who they are? And I
(34:54):
think that's a lifelong process. But I think it's hard
to really be a leader and tell you have, at
least to some degree, answered that question for yourself. Who
am I in relationship to the universe? Who am I
in my family? Who am I in my relationship with God?
(35:17):
And I think in most of our cases we have
the ideal and where we are. But if we have
the ideal, you say, I'm a person who's trying to
have this kind of relationship with God. I'm a person
who's had trying to have this kind of relationship with
the universe. I'm this kind of person who's had trying
to have this kind of relationship with the people around me.
(35:40):
We're part way there, and having that identity helps us
do other things. One other just quick story. I had
another brief professor Wise. He said before playing tennis on
the top of the Empire State building, we play a
lot better tennis if it's a twenty foot fence around us.
(36:02):
And I think having identity, having work through our own
beliefs on who we are, that's what gives us that fans.
If we understand we are, we can play a lot
better TEMs inside that boundary. That explanation, that's.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
A true great picture. I love that, and that picture
was very vivid, but I still love that. As a
tennis player and coach, I know you can resonate.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Too exact because I want to play tennis, but I
don't want to fall off the top of the Empire thing.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
That's right, Steve.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
We've learned a lot from you. A couple of the
big takeaways obviously the power of storytelling, which is huge,
and then also just you being a good person is
another thing we can take away and how we can
all strive to be that because it's ultimately what matters
in life, right, so many of us are chasing things
that don't ultimately matter in our final moments. Here tell
(36:54):
us a little bit about what the future holds for you.
Are you having any other book projects coming at, any
more philanthropic efforts that you're looking to do, or are
you going to kick back and take it easy a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
One of the things I've learned that I'm a total
failure at is retirement. It's simply impossible. My life has
been a series of almost reincarnations at different places different people.
Is teaching, starting a business, starting a different kind of business,
raising a family, going to school, going on a mission
(37:30):
for a church, moving to Africa, working on ads. I've
spent a lot of time in the Philippines working on
human just poverty alleviation. And I came back from my
last kind of away area, which was just in Las
Vegas working on implementing creating a program to help people
(37:52):
become more self reliant. Came back to Saint George and
then it was okay, Now what I didn't really push
it because at least in my life, those things have
always just shown up. And in this case, what started
to evolve was this idea of creating a book and
a great book that could help people pass on their
(38:15):
wisdom and help the people on the other side, the
great grandkids, find that wisdom and find that perspective that
they're looking for, find that humanity. And so I think
for the next little while, it's going to be trying
to get that book out to as many people as
I can get it out to and help them work
(38:37):
through the idea of what they could do after that.
Who knows. I'm seventy six, so I'll give myself to
seventy eight eighty doing that, and then we'll see it
won't be retirement.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
They can imagine Steve dash Man as Tve dash M
a n N dot com. To grab that book and
to learn more about Steve's amazing work. Steve, I know
we don't often get down to Utah, but when we do,
we'll have to link up with you because you're doing
some awesome things and well we certainly appreciate you. Thank
(39:14):
you so much.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
That would be terrific. Yeah, yeah, now I'm in southern Utah.
The warm part, the warm part, Okay, George is right
on that, almost on the bad report, and it's a
northern end of the Mohave Desert. And so it's red
rock and mountain biking and hiking and canyons and let's
(39:36):
get together.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
It all sounds beautiful and you're far out away from
Skinwalker Ranch and all the crazy Utah stuff here. Yeah,
that's so cool, Steve. Thank you again for your time today.
We learned so much from you.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been great
to have the discussion.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and spreagare. You can also get in on the conversation
find us on Facebook and Instagram. Then tell three of
your friends to join in as well, Coach Renuma and John.
We'll be back again next week for another try generational
(40:15):
leadership discussion. We'll talk to you then on the Limitless
Leadership Lounge.
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today and Better Tomorrow and the podcast
to get you there.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
You can find out more at Teechbetter dot com. Slash
podcast stories get people humanity, which you don't get from data,
and those are both things that people I think are
desperate for in this age. Dream dreams and don't let
people beat them out of you. Dreams are why we
(00:28):
have spaceships. Dreams are why I have a pacemaker that
keeps me alive. Dreams are why we make progress. But
I think it's hard to really be a leader and
tell you have, at least to some degree, answered that
question for yourself. Who am I in relationship to the universe?
(00:49):
Who am I in my family? Who am I in
my relationship with God?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Leadership is changing.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
And it's hard to keep up. But the good news
you can be a leader too. You can be an
emerging leader. Welcome to the Limitless Leadership Lounge, a try
generational conversation for emerging leaders. Come spend some time with
us to discuss leadership from three angles. The coach Jim Johnson,
the professor, doctor Renuma Kareem, the host, John Gering, a
(01:29):
monthly guest, and you get in on the conversation on
Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to follow us on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker. So come on in and
make yourself comfortable.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's another week inside the Limitless Leadership Lounge. We call
this a try generational conversation for you, the emerging leader.
Maybe you've just gotten that first leadership position and you're like, WHOA,
this is different than I expected. Leadership is something that
we can get better at. And that's why we have
this podcast for Because coach Jim Johnson spent decades as
(02:02):
a leader in the athletic world, doctor Numa Kareem has
also spent a good amount of time as a leader
in the academic world and of her organization heroes. For all,
I'm John Garing, and I like to say I'm just
along for the ride and here to learn. Coach, you've
also brought along. Speaking of learning, we're going to learn
a lot from our guest Steve Mann today, So go
ahead and introduce our guests and let's dive in.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Yeah, I'm excited to introduce Steve. Steve was introduced to
us with Nick Cudginson and his team member Evan Hacker,
and we're really excited to have him. So let me
share a little bit about Steve and welcome to the show.
So Steve is an author, a speaker, a legacy storyteller, advocate.
He's a global entrepreneur, philampartus and mentor. He has lived
(02:45):
and worked worldwide, from Africa to Southeast Asia. He has
founded and co founded multiple businesses in Charito Foundations. He
is passionate about freedom, equality and storytelling as a tool
for connection. He's dedicated to helping families pass down wisdom
through personal stories. Steve has a new book out that
(03:05):
we're excited to call Stories that Shape Us a guide
to passing down wisdom, joy and love to the next generation,
and says we're here to help young and emerging letters. Steve,
I know you'll be a great guest for us. Welcome
to the Limitless Leadership Lounge.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Hey, thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
So Steve, I got to dig right in because I
also have been a speaker for almost twenty years, and
I know how important storytelling is not only a speaker,
but certainly as a leader. In fact, I used to
give my players of stories all the times. I used
to kid them that I give them stories of warnings
and examples to try to give illustrations to help them
as they move forward in their lives. So tell us,
(03:45):
can you be zero down to a couple keys to
be in a more effective storyteller? Because I think as
a leader, you have to become I call it the CST,
the chief storyteller.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I think number one is start. I talked to so
many people that go, I don't have any stories. I'll say,
let's take some periods of your life, like when you
were just got married or you just started a business.
Tell me what happened there? This happened? How did that
make you feel? Appreciate? They're telling me a story. But
people don't generally think stories, so they just think of
(04:20):
parts of their life. So if I can get people
to equate those parts of their life and start telling
me a story, then I go, aha, you just did.
And so I think that's number one is to realize
you do have stories. I think number two is what
I hear all the time is I don't have really
anything important to say. I haven't done anything that wants
(04:40):
to hear about. And so you just told me a story,
and I find that really interesting. I'd like to know
more if I tell you a story on this one.
I had a good friend I don't say George Utah,
and this friend of mine, he is a little lower
than I am. Grew up in Las Vegas in the
fifties when Las Vegas was one of the most segregated
(05:02):
cities in the country, and he's white, lived in the
white section, but when he hit sixteen, his father sent
him over to work for an uncle in the black
area of Las Vegas. He was the only white guy there,
and his first reaction was, I hate everything about this,
and I don't like my boss, and they're mean to me,
(05:23):
and nobody wants to listen. They want me to do
all the work. And he goes on and tells how
he started getting acquainted with people, and pretty soon his
boss was asking him for a ride home, and he
grumpily did it. And then his boss said can you
pick me up? And he grumpily did it. And then
(05:43):
he said, when you come, could you honk so I
don't have to get out of bed any earlier, and
he's thinking, you lazy guy, how can I have you
as a boss. They came to find out that his
boss got a girl pregnant when he was sixteen, never
could finish school, quit everything he was doing, and was
now having working two full time jobs and some part
(06:07):
time jobs and just to keep food on the table.
His kids were now about college age, and he wanted
him to honk when he came home because he had
just gotten to bed and he wanted to get as
much sleep as he can. He said, it just changed
my whole view of him and everything going on. And
I said, have you written this down anywhere? I no.
(06:31):
I said, you know what, sometime maybe it's a grandchild,
maybe it's a great grandchild you don't even know. They
might read your story or hear your story and go, wow,
that was my great grandfather. Listen to that experience, that's
part of me. Maybe I ought to listen to what
(06:52):
he had to say and be a little more open
things so you can change things in the future. If
you'll write that story down. He goes, I never thought
of that. You do have stories, and you do have
important things to share.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
And Steve, you're so right. I'm sucker for great stories.
So I'm always connecting stories. When I'm in the plane
or anything like, I'm talking to people and that enriches me.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Instead of just putting.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
My headphone and shutting the world out, I try to
connect with people, so that really helps. And you're so
true right that stories are I think stronger than statistics.
And while I'm also I'm a speaker, and i also
give leadership training, and when I'm giving those stories from
my life, I feel my audience is connecting more with
(07:42):
me and.
Speaker 6 (07:43):
They're trusting me as a speaker.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
And many of those CEOs came up to me and
said that those boring Instead of those boring datas, when
you are telling us stories, we could really apply those,
implement those, and we are becoming empathetic on those areas.
So there are so many stories, and I'm as a storyteller,
would love to hear your wisdom on what makes a
(08:08):
good story. There could be stories that cannot reson that
might not resonate, but there could be stories that really
have impact.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
So how would I know that this is a great
story to tell?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think that we live in an era, an age
where we are bombarded with data we have stuff coming
from the Internet, from social media. We're about to get
swamped by AI, whatever that means. And we have no
lack of data and people get that, but they have
(08:44):
a difficult time trying to put that data in perspective,
trying to evaluate it, trying to say what does it
mean to a human being? What does it mean to me?
And that's what stories do. And so you know, when
you go to tell a story, I think maybe the
basics down if you haven't done anything, But the more
(09:04):
detail you can go into, the better. People want to
find a way to connect that story. It may be
where it happened, it may be who you were with it,
maybe the smells. But if you can give enough detail
that people can connect to the story, then they go, wow,
that's great. I think the other thing is realize what
(09:26):
stories do. Stories get people prospective, which you don't get
just from data. Stories get people humanity, which you don't
get from data. And those are both things that people,
I think are desperate for in this age.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah, when I started my business a few years ago,
I thought that I needed to be the authority in
the field. So of course what I thought was hammer
home the statistics and the book knowledge and tell all
that on social media and make myself into this authority
write it's blog posts about nerdy audio standards and stuff.
(10:03):
But what I'm realizing now as my entrepreneurship journey continues,
that storytelling is really the best way to relate to
an audience. So for an entrepreneur who's trying to position
themselves as an expert in a field, how do we
leverage the power of storytelling to do that so we're
not just regurgitating boring statistics but making it more relatable.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, in the book, there's a bonus chapter that people
can download, and it's how do I talk to friends
and family about controversial issues? Because we don't and we
avoid it like the plague, And so we talk about
the movie we saw or what we had to eat,
(10:47):
but we don't talk about things that are important. And
in that bonus chapter, I go through some how to
talk about people And one of the things I talk
about is just what you said, data. We use data
as a weapon too much. We don't use it to enlighten,
We use it to bombard, to rebut and that doesn't
(11:09):
go very far with people listening. They can find the
data somewhere else. They don't want to listen to a rebuttal,
but they don't often get understanding perspective. How does that fit?
What does that do for me? Why? And so I
think people need to be judicious about the use of data.
(11:30):
Maybe almost ask permission to share some data, but tell
why they're using this piece of data and why it
came from them, what it means to them. Then that
data can become useful. But if we're just using data
to beat people up, we don't get very far.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Good point, Steve, I got to delve in because our audience,
we do have quite a few people that are in
the entrepreneur and I know you started many businesses and
also charitable foundations as well. You share a couple ideas
with your experience how you're able to start and build
a flourishing business.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I think we're both a business and foundation. The starting
either one, I think comes from a lot of the
same resources, the same background. I think one thing you
do is you listen a lot to other people, and
that's where you get ideas, and that's where you get
invited things. If you never talk to anybody but sit
(12:32):
and read books, you're not going to hear about the
ideas I was doing this, Oh, I wonder how that
would fit with this, and then you go, wait a minute,
I have something that might be useful in that. And
pretty soon you're talking and you start a business, or
pretty soon you're talking and you start a humanitarian foundation.
But the first thing is you got to be out there.
(12:55):
The second thing is you got to take some risks.
You don't start a business or foundation without taking a
little risk. Years ago, I used to consult and one
of the things I would find when I was consulting
with new inventors is the majority of them never got
their invention to market because they were always trying to
(13:15):
perfect it, and by the time they got it perfected,
technology had passed them up. And I used to do
some work with Tom Peters. I don't know if you
remember Tom. He wrote Toward Excellence was the best selling
business book of its hera. And one of the things
Tom used to always say was ready fire, aim and
there's a lot of truth for that. He would say.
(13:38):
I found it to be true. Is we spend so
much time aiming that we'd never get around to the firing.
And sometimes you need to just shoot it out there.
And learn from it. I think I don't like a
lot of things that Elon Musk does, but when he's
building rocket ships, he's not afraid to go blow them up.
His view is that's how I learned to build a
(13:59):
rocket ship. But I think we are so afraid it's
going to blow up that we never launch it. And
so the second thing I would say, you've got to
take some risk. The third thing is it's going to
be a lot of work. Whether it's a foundation or
it's a business, they are not nine to five jobs.
Maybe the other way around, they're more probably twenty four
(14:22):
hour jobs. My role in life as I've chosen to
have it as I am not a great long term
manager and it doesn't really interest me. But I do
like to start things. I like to get them going.
I like to gather people around. And I guess that
would be the next one is you're not going to
start that business by yourself, and you are not the
(14:45):
smartest guy on the block, and you've got to find
the people who have the skills and the knowledge that
you don't have, and your role and I think this
is what leadership is, to find them, pull them together,
get them to work together. Then you go places.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Steve, I got to delve in a little deeper because
I think that's so true. But so give us your advice,
and how do you find those right people, because that's
a real challenge.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I guess the first thing is you've got to be
out where people are. Tell another story. I had it
terrific professor in graduate school, and he taught a class.
It was called ethics, but it was really you would
take an issue like environmentalism or healthcare or whatever, and
you start you study all the pros to that, and
(15:33):
then you study all the negatives, and then you'd battle,
and you'd go through that whole semester. At the end
of the semester, he said, what did you What did
you think of class? I said, I really loved it
always also really hated it. He said, why is that?
I said, because I love being passionately devoted to a cause.
But when I understand both sides, it's harder to do
(15:56):
that expiled and he says, see, that's the role of
the education, hated man, to keep the two sides from
killing each other while you work out solutions. And I
think that applies in finding partners too. If you're only
looking for people who are just like you, you're not
likely to find the best partners. You've got to open
(16:18):
yourself up a little bit, look at what people are feeding,
how they interact, how they do things. Many years ago,
we used to run management evaluation classes down in Monterey,
and you could pretty quickly tell who had more potential
because you give them these complex tasks. And some would say,
(16:40):
I don't have the tools. That's not been delegated to me,
so I really put that to the side. Others would say,
I don't have the tools either, but I bet I
can find them and let me go here, I'll make
this a little different and I'll change this. And they're
the ones who we would pretty quickly identify as having
a lot of potential. So when you're out looking for people,
(17:02):
you're not just looking for degrees, in fact, degrees you
can buy somewhere. You're looking for how do they interact
with other people, how do they think, what is their mindset?
What have they done that would show me that they
can do that in the kind of organization I'm putting together.
(17:22):
But again, it's open yourself up, look outside, find differences.
But also while you're doing that, you also have to
find people who can work together, and so we got
to have the people skills that allow them to work together.
They're not just in it for their own ego.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
Steve, I would like to hear your costs, because nowadays
we are observing that the world we are not opening up,
we are closing down.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
We don't want to We don't tolerate each other's opinion.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
If anybody disagrees with us, then they're the enemy. We
are having these kind of attitude which is creating a
lot of conflict all across the world.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
So both this part of the world and my part
of the world.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
And while we are while I was going through your
bio one thing, and you are into freedom, and I
will dive into a little uncomfortable topic. I've always watched
Piers Morgan and he had this both view on Israel,
Palestine and on many issues.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
And recently it's no more than numbers.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
He were saying that the numbers did not change me,
but the stories did. Fifty thousand kids killed or thirty
thousand kids killed. Those things didn't change him. But when
he saw a father being hopeful, sitting on the rubble,
trying to find food and also giving peers Morgan some food,
offering food and things like that. Then he saw the
(18:44):
humanity and now his tone has changed. So my question is,
from your point of view, how can we connect like
this world with dystopian like Trump's government and we are
kicking out the immigrants and things like that. What would
be you are if you were in this position? How
would you use stories to create a better world where
(19:06):
empathy rules instead of hatred. So I'm feeling this like
this is a different world that I have been living
in right.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Now, maybe a couple of stories that I had just
come back from Africa and I had gotten up in
the morning, Jetlagg turned the television on and the trade
towers were coming down, and then after that all I
started seeing was hatred for Muslims and Europes and the
(19:40):
East coast of Africa is primarily Muslim and these are
the people I've worked with and loved and took care
of it. And I thought, maybe the biggest tragedy come
out of this is turning a whole country to hate
a whole group of people that they know nothing about.
But we tend to do things like that, and it's
(20:00):
a tragedy. It leads us into more and more problems.
As we try to keep out immigrants, as we try
to attack the universities, as we try to only accept
people who look like us, we're the ones who lose.
We lose that the differences that make things go. We
lose the ingenuity that makes things go. I just I
(20:23):
spent six years of my life, seven years in Africa,
and love the people, love the place. And I just
saw an article from Bill Gates, people saying and people
wanted he's going to spend his two hundred billion dollars
in the next twenty years, not leave it forever. And
he yesterday said, people ask where am I going to
put that? He says, I'm going to put most of
(20:44):
that into Africa. Because when I'm in Africa, I see
the hope, I see the energy, I see the creativity,
and I see them taking ai and just embracing it,
whereas we're looking at all the problems that may cause.
And I'm going, yay, Bill Gates, because Africa has been
that downtrodden, discouraged, written off continent in the whole world.
(21:10):
And that's not the Africa. I know, that's not people.
I know they haven't had the opportunities, but they have
the ability and they have the creativity. And another just
quick story. Years ago, I was on a kind of
march for freedom from the train station of Boisiaho to
the capitol, and when we got there, I was asked
(21:33):
to give a talk, and in the talk I said, look,
we're all here trying to look for a better, more
open world. But you don't have to go start a foundation,
you don't have to even be on a march, you
don't have to write a book. If all you would
do is next time you see a person of color
(21:56):
or a different religion or different dress, and instead of
turning around and walking away, go over and say hi.
I think if we could all do that, the world
would change. The world changes as people, as individuals change
far faster than rules and government laws.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
So true, and I think being friends with people from
all over the world. I have friends in eighty eight countries.
One of my best friend is from Israel and she
was in Mosad and we became very close friends. Both
of us now understand each other's point of view and
instead of the judgmental we are trying to find a
(22:38):
solution of how we can unite.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Don't you get angry when you get trying to people
try to force you into your Antithemitic or your pope
of stadium.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
And I've no kicked out of the university because I
was just showing a documentary to bring unity between Palestan
and Israel.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
My age.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
One of the students said that I'm an anti Semitic
person and racist. So I have been kicked out from
last year. I cannot teach at the university.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
The university and the students loss. I believe that I
can be pro Israel and pro Palesigme. I don't need
to be prot Yahoo, I don't need to be pro
their governments, but I can be pro the people.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
That's where we've got to find the solutions.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
And the leaders who see the people, not the politics
behind it.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And I'm guessing that a lot of this, Steve, is
why you do some of the philanthropic work that you do.
Tell us a little bit more about that work that
you do, and correct me if I'm making an assumption
to tell us some of the reasons behind why you're
so into philanthropy.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I think it's not that this happened or this happened.
It's a whole life of experiences. When I was a kid,
I could to see I didn't I could I was nearsighted,
and I couldn't play sports because I couldn't see them
all unless it hit me. But what I could do
is read, and I read voraciously, and I was struck
(24:13):
by various things. And one of them I remember to
this day was a book about Albert Schweizer and setting
up his medical situation in Africa. Now I'm a little
boy on a potato farmer night out. Africa is something
on a map that you may or may not see,
but it stuck with me, and I think I would
ask questions and I would talk to people, and I
(24:38):
started doing a lot of international travel and met more
and more people doing more things, and then started after
we sold that company, I started going with them on
some of their trips and learning more about things around
the world. And then I got into position where I
could start doing things with some of those people. And
(24:59):
I remember coming home home one time from this humanitarian
trip to Africa and I was asked to go to
a meeting and I didn't really know what it was.
It turned out it was a meeting, a church meeting,
and trying to convince people to go on senior missions.
And I turned to my wife and said, hey, we
can't do that with six depended children who cares. Want
(25:19):
to go to Zimbabwe and see if we can make
a difference with aids. She said, let's go. And you
got to choose the right wife. And literally five months
later we had sold everything we had and we were
living in Zimbabwe, running around trying to figure out how
we could make a difference. Zimbabwe then had the highest
(25:42):
age rate in the world, about thirty eight percent of
all adults were HIV positive. Back then, that meant you
were dead in five years. And so we started discovering
and then started creating programs to help teenagers, young people,
young adults keep from getting needs. But I think it
(26:04):
was a dream, and in fact, in the book, one
of the things I talk about that people ought to do,
whether that's young leaders or youth, dream dreams and don't
let people beat them out of you. Dreams are why
we have spaceships. Dreams are why I have a pacemaker
that keeps me alive. Dreams are why we make progress.
(26:27):
And so I go through exercises to try to get
kids to what really are your dreams? First thing, they
always tell you is what they think you want to hear,
or what their parents want them to say. No, no
that's not what I want. What are your dreams? Then
they'll get maybe a little better. I remember one group
on time, I said, maybe imagine yourself start naked on
a Harley writing through the Sahara Desert. Oh wow, you
(26:51):
mean you want what I'm really dreaming. Yeah. Then they
put those up and I say, now do something about
that makes it, makes something happen. Another story another professor
at Resure School, he had a classwa had to write
about ourselves, take all kinds of personality tests and intelligence
tests and interview people. And one of the things I
(27:14):
put in the book was that I'd like to climb
Mount Evers. He was fascinated that by the professor, and
he says, you must do a lot of climbing. I said, no,
I don't climb anything. He said, you must do a
lot about door stuff. No, I mean you don't do that.
He looked at me and he said, Steve, most people
who climb Evers go outside. So I took the summer off.
(27:39):
The next summer and works as a waiter in Jackson,
Hawaioming and learn to climb. I never made it to evers,
but it didn't make any difference. But his message was
take that dream and do something about it, even if
it's just a little step. But you've got to take
that little step.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
Great point, Well, Steve, let's tell me a little bit
to share a little bit about for the readers for
your new book, stories to shape us, and maybe just
share one story from the book. So what was the
purpose of writing the book and what are you hoping
the reader will get out of it?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I had written a little life history. It's pretty boring.
He was here, or my wife forced me to do it.
She said, all the grandkids need to have so they'll
never read it. And when I looked at it, I said,
you could read that, and you still have no idea
what I believed, what was important to me, what I
would like to pass on. So I started trying to
(28:36):
say would I like to pass on? And I identified
seven traits and four principles and three beliefs that were
important to me. They're not necessarily the most important in
the world, but they were important to me. Then I
illustrated that each one of them with about five stories
from my life. And as I was going through that process,
(28:59):
I said, there are a lot of people I think
who would like to pass on their own wisdom and
to their grandchildren, but they don't know how. And so
I started changing the tone of the book a little
bit and turn it in a little more of a
work book. Here's how you can identify what's important to you.
Here's how you can identify the stories. Here's how you
(29:21):
can pass that off to start discussions with your grandchildren
and great grandchildren. And so I'm hoping that as people
read the book, some will just have fun reading the stories. Some,
I hope, will start sharing those stories and reading the
book together with grandchildren. Some I hope will start saying
(29:43):
he did that, but I did this, and they start
talking about their own things. Some I hope will be
motivated to go take action on something. But I'm hopeful
that more people who read the book will identify what's
important to them and find ways to pay.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
So, Steve, my last question to you, what legacy would
you like to leave behind?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Ooh, nobody's ever asked me that question before. I know
some things. It's not going to be it's not going
to be a fortune. It's not going to be people
who care about who I saw, and when I talked
to the legacy I would like to leave behind is
(30:28):
you know, he tried to make a difference in the world.
He tried to make things better. And if you look
at the sum of my life and the things that
I've done, people could say it was a good life.
He blessed the lives of a lot of people, and
his children and people around the world. If people could
(30:49):
think of me that way, I'd be thrilled.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
I think that is called success. We try to measure
success in so many ways. But it's one a little story.
When my father passed away in twenty fourteen, I was
in the rooftop just thinking about all the memories, and
there were some few people who were passing by our
house and they were saying, oh, but the person who
lived in this house who passed away yesterday was really
(31:15):
a good man. He was the most caring in neighbor
and always helping each other. And that is when I
started crying, and I felt that should be all our
legacy to live a good life. And when I pass
I leave the world, they will say that she was
a good person. So I think that was the And
you just said.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
That, yeah, My wife and I were talking to the
kids once. We were saying, no, we don't want to
get buried, weren't to just get cremated. And so one
of my daughters sends these two little lawn gnomes and
she made her husband fill a hole through the bottom
so they were empty. He thought this whole idea was terrible,
(31:57):
and she says, I want online to say she was nice,
and it's pretty good. So I had them put online
on the little hat. Him not so much. But the
two of them together made things work beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Ste if you mentioned it earlier, you mentioned the bonus chapter,
and I know that on your website there's an opportunity
for people to get the bonus chapter from Stories that
Shape Us. Is that something we can still take advantage of?
And where would we be able to grab that book
and learn more about you?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yeah, the book is should be it's too Amazon now,
but that takes him a couple of weeks, and so
in two or three weeks it'll be available on Amazon.
The bonus chapter, both in audio and in PDF, should
be available on the website actually by the end of
(32:54):
this way, for first next week, and you don't need
to purchase the book to download the that bonus chapter.
But if you go to Steveman dot com, that'll take
you to the website and that will tell you some stories.
It will tell you how to download the chapter and
tell you when the book's available.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Man with two ends right, Steve.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yes, Yes, te Ve dash m A n N dot com.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Bev Man with an extra end.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
And ask one final question you don't mind, John, double
rap up here, Steve. When I was doing research on you,
one of the things that struck me very powerful because
I do a lot of leadership talks around the country. Fact,
I'm coming out of your way to Utah to speak
to a business and I'm really big on clarity of
purpose and personal beliefs. Can you delve into that because
(33:47):
I think that's so hugely important for people, because I
always kid John and reneum of the first person you
got a lead as yourself, and so if you don't
have clarity of who you are and what you stand for,
then you tend to fall for anything. Can you tell
then to just close here about how strong it is
to have clarity of your purpose and personal beliefs.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, And I think that clarity is always being clarified
as we go through and have more experiences. When I
finished the book, I went through it and I said,
I can't wonder if there's any commonalities that I have
in the traits or the beliefs or the principles. And
I looked at the traits that I said, those already
(34:29):
focus on. You can do something, make a difference, Go
do something, take action. I looked at the principles and
they were tended to be all around liberty and freedom
and fairness. And I looked at the beliefs and they
were all around who are you? Who am I? And
trying to help people identify who they are? And I
(34:54):
think that's a lifelong process. But I think it's hard
to really be a leader and tell you have, at
least to some degree, answered that question for yourself. Who
am I in relationship to the universe? Who am I
in my family? Who am I in my relationship with God?
(35:17):
And I think in most of our cases we have
the ideal and where we are. But if we have
the ideal, you say, I'm a person who's trying to
have this kind of relationship with God. I'm a person
who's had trying to have this kind of relationship with
the universe. I'm this kind of person who's had trying
to have this kind of relationship with the people around me.
(35:40):
We're part way there, and having that identity helps us
do other things. One other just quick story. I had
another brief professor Wise. He said before playing tennis on
the top of the Empire State building, we play a
lot better tennis if it's a twenty foot fence around us.
(36:02):
And I think having identity, having work through our own
beliefs on who we are, that's what gives us that fans.
If we understand we are, we can play a lot
better TEMs inside that boundary. That explanation, that's.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
A true great picture. I love that, and that picture
was very vivid, but I still love that. As a
tennis player and coach, I know you can resonate.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Too exact because I want to play tennis, but I
don't want to fall off the top of the Empire thing.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
That's right, Steve.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
We've learned a lot from you. A couple of the
big takeaways obviously the power of storytelling, which is huge,
and then also just you being a good person is
another thing we can take away and how we can
all strive to be that because it's ultimately what matters
in life, right, so many of us are chasing things
that don't ultimately matter in our final moments. Here tell
(36:54):
us a little bit about what the future holds for you.
Are you having any other book projects coming at, any
more philanthropic efforts that you're looking to do, or are
you going to kick back and take it easy a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
One of the things I've learned that I'm a total
failure at is retirement. It's simply impossible. My life has
been a series of almost reincarnations at different places different people.
Is teaching, starting a business, starting a different kind of business,
raising a family, going to school, going on a mission
(37:30):
for a church, moving to Africa, working on ads. I've
spent a lot of time in the Philippines working on
human just poverty alleviation. And I came back from my
last kind of away area, which was just in Las
Vegas working on implementing creating a program to help people
(37:52):
become more self reliant. Came back to Saint George and
then it was okay, Now what I didn't really push
it because at least in my life, those things have
always just shown up. And in this case, what started
to evolve was this idea of creating a book and
a great book that could help people pass on their
(38:15):
wisdom and help the people on the other side, the
great grandkids, find that wisdom and find that perspective that
they're looking for, find that humanity. And so I think
for the next little while, it's going to be trying
to get that book out to as many people as
I can get it out to and help them work
(38:37):
through the idea of what they could do after that.
Who knows. I'm seventy six, so I'll give myself to
seventy eight eighty doing that, and then we'll see it
won't be retirement.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
They can imagine Steve dash Man as Tve dash M
a n N dot com. To grab that book and
to learn more about Steve's amazing work. Steve, I know
we don't often get down to Utah, but when we do,
we'll have to link up with you because you're doing
some awesome things and well we certainly appreciate you. Thank
(39:14):
you so much.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
That would be terrific. Yeah, yeah, now I'm in southern Utah.
The warm part, the warm part, Okay, George is right
on that, almost on the bad report, and it's a
northern end of the Mohave Desert. And so it's red
rock and mountain biking and hiking and canyons and let's
(39:36):
get together.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
It all sounds beautiful and you're far out away from
Skinwalker Ranch and all the crazy Utah stuff here. Yeah,
that's so cool, Steve. Thank you again for your time today.
We learned so much from you.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been great
to have the discussion.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and spreagare. You can also get in on the conversation
find us on Facebook and Instagram. Then tell three of
your friends to join in as well, Coach Renuma and John.
We'll be back again next week for another try generational
(40:15):
leadership discussion. We'll talk to you then on the Limitless
Leadership Lounge.
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