Episode 577: Jon Gordon: The Psychology of Optimism, Better Habits, and Stronger Leadership

24:39And everyone usually has a different word. And I tell people, just ask for your word is, be open to it. Your word will come to you. There's a word that is meant for you. And when you find that word or it finds you, you then decide to live that word for the year. Like my word is build this year. We're building a house. We're building our business, building this whole focus on leadership development that we're doing. So it's build. And every day I wake up, okay, we got to build this. In years past, it's been purpose. Another year, it was whole. I want to become more whole. Another year was still, just to spend more time in stillness and be still.

25:19Each year, it's been a different word, but you do this with your team. You do this with your family, where each person picks a word, and then they share it with each other. And why they chose the word. Here's the power. Why? Because the why behind it is what gives it meaning and power. So what is your word for the year? And tell us why. And now we know you better. We know what's driving you. We know what your word is. And now we can help you live your word for the year. There's a company I work with Hendrick Otto and their headquarters, they had a one word car with all of the words of all the employees on the car.

25:50As a reminder, every day they're walking into work to live their word for that day. And so like you said, you said that when you pick your word, you should just look up and it will come to you. Yeah. What if it doesn't? It does. I, yesterday I was trying to figure out my word and I, you need a couple more days. Having more, how, like how long should it take? I want to know how long it takes to get the word. Because I mean, there were a few different words that came to mind. And then I kind of was like, I don't know about that word. Maybe that word. I don't know. So as a word comes to you, write it down.

26:24And none of the word comes to you. Maybe it's this word. Write it down. Okay. Another word. Okay, I'll write this down. And then you go, okay, what word is more important than the other words? Which word trumps the other word? And like your message is that by picking a word, not fill in the blank. Like it does what? Like if you have just one word, not a. Yeah, well, the one word is sticky. The one word allows you to focus. Every New Year's people pick resolutions. The resolutions do not last. Nine out of 10 people fail with their resolutions. And most people fail by the end of the first month.

26:59They don't even make it to February. Right. But one word sticks and you'll live your word. You'll focus on your word. You can do your word. And it's like a word that is something that, I don't know, it comes to life as you live it. Like the year I picked surf, I had serve as my word. I said, okay, how can I put this into practice? And this is good for people listening. You pick your word, then decide how you're actually going to put it into practice in your life. Right. For me, serve more at home. So I began doing laundry at home. That was one way I knew I could serve. Right. Did that. And then on planes when I was traveling, I would help people with their luggage.

27:33And so I would take their carry on and put it up in the overhead bin for them. I did that all the time. I still do it to this day when I'm flying. Commercial. I will help people with their luggage. Commercial. Yeah. How often do you fly private versus commercial? Mix your boat. Depends on the client. Okay. Depends on the client. So if I'm doing a school district, you can't expect a school district to pay for private travel. Nor would you want them to. But if it's a big old company, yeah, they'll fly your private. So it just depends. Okay. So when you get hired by a sports team, what's typically the topic that they're hiring you for?

28:05versus a corporation? What are the top three things that people hire you to talk about? It's either power pots to leadership, talking about leadership to be a better leader. Lately, it's been the seven commitments of a great team, which is one of my more recent books. I love that book, the seven commitments of a great team because every team must make these commitments if they want to be great. So everyone on the team makes the commitment and when they make the commitment to the vision and mission, the commitment to giving their best, The commitment to getting better, the commitment to each other, the commitment to connecting.

28:42When they really live those commitments, man, you see this team come alive. We did it with UCLA women's basketball and Corey Close. I did the seven commitments with them before the season. And it was so cool to watch them and win a national championship. And Corey said, our team decided what our vision and mission was, and we committed to it as a team. So I love commitments because they're so tangible. So a lot of times I've been speaking on that more recently in the last couple of years. Before that, it was the power of positive team. What are the principles and practices that makes a great team great?

29:16So I'll talk about that. I'll talk about a culture of greatness, how to build a culture of greatness. I'll talk about the one truth, how to play with a high state of mind instead of a low state of mind. As I go to speak to more teams for this training camp coming up, I'm gonna talk on the power of positive habits. I'm gonna talk about habits that will elevate you, your career and your performance. So I'll talk about that. So over the years, it's been different topics, but I love doing it. And I love speaking to sports teams because when you go in there, you're talking to the best of the best and they still want to get better.

29:47And if you can say one thing that will help you, help them get better, they're going to listen. They're going to follow. If you can't help them get better, you're wasting their time. So you got to go in there knowing, okay, I'm here to help them get better. And I'm going to say something that's going to help them get better. It's not about you. It's about making them better. And when you do that and you watch them like tune in and listen, and you know, you made a difference. You said something that truly is going to impact them. No better feeling. And then you see it on the field and you see that team rise to a higher level.

30:17I worked with the Jaguars last year to watch that team come alive, to make it to the playoffs, to transform the city. They were like a different team, a different organization, a different culture. That coach, William Cohen, did such an amazing job. That organization did an incredible job. So working with them and then seeing the fruit of that is an incredible feeling. Do you do one-offs or are you kind of like a high-performance coach? Yeah, no, it's more coaching and one-offs. Do you go in multiple times? Yeah, it all depends. So sometimes it's one talk to a team during training camp. Right.

30:56Other times it's a series of talks and coming back and working with the team. other times it's I'm coaching the actual coach and I'm working with the coach and I can't say who I've coached but I've coached a number of of championship winning coaches which has been which has been awesome when Dave Roberts got the job with the Dodgers I met with Dave and worked with Dave to help him build his culture and his leadership again I'm not working with him now but early on those first three four years we worked a lot and to watch him do what he's done has been incredible. I love Dave Roberts. So that was multiple visits.

31:33Other times it's speaking engagement. Other times it's coming, working with the team, working with the coaching staff, working with the leaders of the organization. I can have the greatest impact when I work with everyone in the organization from the top down. And sometimes I'll work with a president, a GM, and the coach to make sure they're aligned. So just the three people. So it's not really a speaking gig. No, that's more consulting, coaching, and helping them become more united. Again, what happened was I started out as a speaker. I really started out just speaking. Then you're in, you're seeing what the issues are.

32:09And I have a consultant mind, right? I'm here to solve problems. So then I start to see what the challenges are. I start to come up with solutions. I wrote the no complaining rule. I wrote difficult conversations don't have to be difficult. How do we deal with negativity on our teams and our organizations? How do we build a great culture? How do we deal with a toxic employee? How do we deal with people who are focused on their own agendas instead of the agenda of the team? So you start to see all the issues. Those are all questions I have for you today. Okay. Okay. And like, you just basically just did the podcast.

32:37I want to know all of those because I think it's very important in terms of people who are, how does a leader become a better leader? What is the number one skill set that they need to improve? Such a great question. The number one skill set on how to be a better leader. I believe it starts with you becoming more whole for yourself and within yourself. Because when you're more whole, when you've dealt with your issues, when you've healed your wound, you become a leader who can heal others and help others. And you have greater moral authority when you are someone who's actually dealt with your issues and your challenges and your past, and you've healed your past.

33:17That's why forgive fast is one of my favorite habits. Because you can't lead someone if you haven't forgiven them. Right. But if someone, I agree with you, but let me say this. So like if I'm a leader and I need a lot of help because I'm just not connecting to my, you know, in my opinion, everything comes from the top down, right? So if you have a shitty leader, you're going to have a shitty culture and all the things, right? It all starts with your leadership. With your leadership, right? So if someone is having, like, what if they just don't have, if they are not good at connecting, What's the first thing that you do when you go in?

33:53Like, what do you try to get that leader to be better at? Okay. So the power of positive leadership really explains what you're asking in terms of how do you become a better leader? First and foremost, you focus on your own positive mindset. So are you negative or positive? And how can you start feeding yourself every day in order to feed others? So you're doing that. You're working on your positive mindset and we have practical strategies for that. One of the habits in the book is become your own greatest encourager. Encourage yourself through the challenges. Don't beat yourself up. Don't get down.

34:24Don't get negative. You stay positive. It sounds cliche in Pollyanna. No, you stay positive. You stay resilient. So that's one thing you need to do as a leader. Then you have to have a vision and mission. Where are you going? And why are you going there? And you really have to be walking and living that vision and mission. Then you can rally your team towards it. But if you don't have one, they will not follow you. And if you're not someone they want to follow, they won't follow you. So that goes to being a person of integrity as well. You have to make sure you are living with integrity and being a person of integrity, which means what?

34:59What you say and what you do are in alignment. There's no gap in your character and there's no gap between what you say and then what you do. Okay, the next step in this leadership framework is I got to build great relationships, which you just asked. How do you build great relationships? How do you get your team to want to follow you? Four C's, four C's, communication, connection, commitment, and caring. So first, it starts with great communication. Are you communicating with your team? And this is where a lot of leaders struggle because they don't, and sometimes I don't. I got to take the blame here as well.

35:34We don't communicate well. Why? We're so busy and we're so stressed. We're so focused on just trying to get through the day that we don't take the time to communicate the things that matter most with the people that matter most. Where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it. So we have to make sure we are filling the void with great and clear communication, with clarity. Clarity leads to focus action. So are you providing clarity? Are you communicating? And by the way, communication, the word shares the same etymology as commune, community, or communion, which means to join with.

36:12So leadership is about joining with, becoming one. So we should communicate to connect. You know, I keep on going back to this whole culture beat strategy idea because it's such an important thing. And if you look at companies that are really thriving, they all have a very specific corporate culture, right? And so if you have someone who joins the company and they don't fit that culture, chances are they're not going to stay very long, right? Is there a strategy to build culture? Yes, there is. And that's what I've been doing actually, and create a culture building process. That's hard. How do you build culture?

36:53You have to first identify what your core values are. Yeah. So you first develop what the core values are. And your vision and mission. So where are we going? Why are we going there? And what are our core values? What do we stand for? Now, here's a really cool culture hack that I haven't shared with a lot of people. I'm going to share with you, and this would be great for your listeners to hear. This is how you actually create a great culture with great core values. You ask yourself, what are the characteristics that we're looking for in the people that we want to hire to bring onto and into our company and our organization?

37:27What are their characteristics? as you think about those characteristics, those are actually your core values. Because you want people who represent your core values and live and believe and breathe your core values. Well, when you bring on people who have those core values, that's your core value. So you might as well create those as your core values. So I'll ask a leader, tell me what your core values are and they'll tell me them. And then I ask them the question, tell me about the characteristics you want and the people you're bringing into your organization. and I'll see if they're aligned.

37:59If they're not aligned, I'll show them and explain this to them. Then they go, ah, I got it. And then they realize, okay, I got to actually probably recreate and relook at my core values. And then also, this is a big one. What's your core values? What's the essence of you? When I work with a leader, it's like, what's the essence of you? What do you stand for? What matters most to you? Because when you can live your authentic self and your core values every day, that culture is going to come alive. If you're picking words that actually have nothing to do with you, that you don't care about, that you're not going to live as the leader, that culture will not be created well because it's actually not authentic and it's not a part of you.

38:40It doesn't represent your essence. Culture is the living, breathing essence of what an organization values, believes, thinks, says, and does. So it starts with what you value, what you believe, what you think, what you say, what you do. You're the leader. Then leadership team, do we value this? Do we believe this? Do we think this? Do we say this? Do we do this? And then your organization, you bring people on who value that, believe that, think that, say that, and do that. That's how you create a culture. You want diversity of people, but you don't want diversity of values. Remember that. That's a really good point.

39:13I like that. Also, you said that leaders need a microscope and a telescope. Yes, that goes to the vision and mission. So once you create your vision and mission, pull your telescope. what's the big picture vision and mission of where we're going? And then Zoom focus. What do we need to do each day to bring that vision and mission to life? Because a lot of times we have the big picture vision and mission, but we're not executing on a daily basis. And there's a lot of leaders with great visions and great missions, but they're not great in operations and they don't have a team to actually execute in the Zoom focus way.

39:46You got to do both. I got to tell you to be honest, That's my biggest struggle. I'm a visionary. I got a big vision. I have a team. And I find myself going, okay, guys, we got to make sure we're Zoom focusing. And what I realized is I need people around me who are great on the Zoom focus side because that's not my greatest struggle. It is for myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're visionaries and then we're moving on. So we need strong operation teams to do great work. That's 100 % true. So that's hard, right? Because a CE, if you're a founder of a company, typically they are visionaries and they're not necessarily operators.

40:17So what is someone supposed to do? They're supposed to hire an operator? Yeah, the visionary must hire an integrator who is going to be able to run and operate the company. You need a second in command that can run things for you. Is there a difference in the talk you would give to a sports team versus a leadership team, a C-level team, and a business? They might include some of the same principles. Okay. They might include the same commitments. Like I've done seven commitments for corporate, very successful companies. And I've done seven commitments to a professional football team. Same seven commitments talk, but principle story application.

40:56This is how people should give talks, by the way. This is a great way to give a talk. Principle story application. You share the principle. Then you tell a story that brings the principle to life and makes them feel. So my sports story is going to be different than my business story. Right. And then. That's the hardest part. And then how does it apply to you and how do you apply it? PSA, I'll call it, by the way, PSA. Principle, Story, Application. I have a framework. We actually give this framework away to people who want it. I love that because that's like, it's hard. Like I always find it difficult, the story part, right?

41:27Because are you pulling stories from yourself or are you pulling stories for something else? It's a mixture. And, you know, you're a great speaker. And by the way, yeah, when my name comes up, your name comes up a lot as well. Isn't that cool? Really? Yeah, it comes up. But you collect stories. I think it's one of the most important things you can do as a speaker and as a leader is to collect stories and have different stories that bring different principles to life. And I'm always looking for different stories. And a lot of times life will give you new stories to tell. Like a lot of those are in this book.

41:58Like as I wrote this book, I was thinking of the habits. And I'm like, all right, what story is going to make this habit compelling and bring it to life? And people have told me like this book is really engaging and very compelling. And it's a quick read. Because it's easily, for that reason, it's easy because you can follow it fast, like squat like a child. It's a quick habit, but it's also a quick story that tells you why this is important and also makes you want to read more of it. Because there's a bunch of habits in it that I was like, I talk about this all the time. Like, you talk about this, about having a habit before the habit.

42:31Yes. Right? Because this is where people get so stuck. like and you I love of course I resonated with me because you're talking about a fitness kind of situation story right like if you want to work out you got to have your clothes out the night before and all these things you know right so you so you would if you were teaching this habit yes to go back to what we're talking about yeah teaching this how you would then tell the habit and then you'd say oh there was one time where I didn't put my stuff out and here's what happened right and it's a funny story about searching for the thing and it's dark and you hit your head on the counter or whatever.

43:03That would be a funny story at that event to tell about that habit and then to apply to them if I'm talking to a football team. So make sure when you're in your locker, you put your stuff out ready before you go out to the game and you have all your stuff aligned. Or you put your cleats on and make sure they're tied well, just like John Wooden would say to make sure that you're tying your shoes because you don't want to get blisters. And then - Did you ever speak with him? Never got a chance to talk to John Wooden, but Corey Close was very close with him. I know people that were, heard amazing stories.

43:35But yeah, I've learned a lot from John Wooden. But I would tell that story. Or you would tell the story to a business audience. You would say, hey, the habit before the habit. If you want to send a video to your clients, like three clients a day, just to encourage them to say hello to them, to connect to them, write down the name of the three people that you're going to do the next day. And when you wake up, you already have the list of the three. It's going to be easier to do those videos. So I just shared an application for that audience. Right, exactly. But I think it's a very important thing because otherwise people get very, that's when people fail.

44:08The start is always in like, the failing is always before the actual thing, right? Because things will happen. You'll get like sidetracked. Like I always say, like, I do not allow myself to do anything before I do this particular thing. Before I do anything, I have to drink my water with lemon. Before I do anything else, everything has to have a non-negotiable before to get the other thing done. It removes friction. It removes friction. Remove the friction. And you're more likely to do the habit. Yes. That's why it's actually, is it the first habit in the book? Yes, the first habit in the book is to do the habit before the habit.

44:44That's why I liked it. Yeah, I love doing that. It's a great way to start. What habit did you forget or you wish you would have put in the book that you didn't? You know, I've been thinking about this a lot lately because there's a habit. I keep kicking myself like, why did you not put this in the book? And it's the habit to actually get rid of your worst habit. Because that worst habit is what will ruin your life. These are habits that will elevate your life. But that worst habit will ruin your life. And if you have this worst habit and you're still doing it, it's really hard to replace it with positive habits if you still have the worst habit.

45:17So I should have said, get rid of your worst habit. Whatever it is, we all have one. Do you have yours? I have one we gotta get rid of our worst habit I knew you were gonna ask me that I've been trying to think of my worst habit and don't lie, don't give me your like you know, the kind of like PC one, oh you know I work too hard, baloney I wanna know your worst habit my worst habit is I care about people too much that's a bullshit type I'm totally kidding what's your worst habit? I was thinking about it because I don't gamble I'm not a big drinker at all I don't eat like poorly I don't watch porn, I'm not a porn guy I don't watch TV a lot I mean, I would say one of my worst habits is I probably watch too much sports and no, because if you watch too much sports, it can keep you from being your best and I probably eat too many potato chips because I love potato chips I don't believe you Those are your worst habits.

46:19You eat too many potato chips. My daughter gives me a hard time. My daughter says, like, my dad is so disciplined, Greek yogurt is his dessert right now. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. So I'm thinking about my worst. Like, if I had to pick a worst habit, it would be more on the spiritual side. Like, my worst habit, I think at times, you know, there's too much pride. if I have a worst habit I you know will focus sometimes more on you know numbers than than impact you know even though I'm really big on impact I'll sometimes let the numbers get the best of me like my worst habit is probably scrolling on social media and looking at social media and going you know like you know like like like oh I need to be doing this I should be doing this I should be doing that like that that might be like one of my worst habits and and lately what I've been saying with that though is, you know, I know it's a bad habit because I'm scrolling and getting frustrated because the algorithm, like trying to figure out the algorithm is just driving me nuts.

47:14What's on your algorithm? Like, no, like the algorithm in terms of like - And what's on it though? Like when you're on your social - What keeps on showing up for me? Yeah. A lot of pizza. Pizza. Really? Yeah, pizza and chocolate chip cookies because I do love chocolate chip. I can't eat them because I'm allergic to eggs. So I can't eat chocolate chip cookies. So, but I've been seeing a lot of And a lot of leadership stuff, I guess, will come up. A lot of spiritual stuff will come up for me. I'm a faith-driven guy, so a lot of sermons will come up. So I'll see a lot of those. Who are the other people in your field that you look up to or think that do a really good job?

47:48Yeah, I have colleagues that I really, really have befriended in this space. And there's others that I'm not a fan of, and there's others that I think are doing a great job. Like Ed Milet is a good friend of mine, And I think Ed is really a powerful speaker. And Ed just shares his heart. I've been with him and just watching him move the audience, you know, really inspires me. I think Dan Martell is doing a great job on social media, especially just sharing the concepts he's sharing and teaching what he's teaching. I said I'm a person of faith. Josh Howerton is doing a great job on social media, sharing a lot of faith messages, watching him do that and sharing that.

48:29One of my mentors was Ken Blanchard. And that's not a social media guy, but he wrote The One Minute Manager. And he made me want to do this work. So he's definitely one of my heroes. What's his main thesis? The One Minute Manager was to catch people doing things right. It's one of the habits in the book. If you catch people doing things right, they will do more things right. So The One Minute Manager is to recognize and praise someone in that minute. And it sold out 20 million copies. Wow. Yeah, it was written in the 70s. And he's now 87. Right. So instead of catching someone do something poorly and be like, aha, catch someone doing it right.

49:11Because there is like a lot of research back in that, right? If you praise people and validate them, they'll do more good work versus the opposite. It's the carrot stick analogy, right? You know, the whole idea is if you want people to do more things right, then praise them for what they're doing right. And the more you praise them, they'll actually do it more and more. We think we have to correct, but actually the praise and the recognition causes them to do it more and more. And I got to say, as a parent of two kids, when my kids were younger, I did not do that early on. And I really almost messed my daughter up in terms of her athletic career.

49:51I had to step back and then come back to be an encourager and a recognizer and a praiser. Made all the difference in our relationship. And she's speaking now. She's now 28 years old and she speaks all over. There's no way she would have wanted to do this work if I had stayed that way. So what would be your advice if someone is not doing a good job and they are like you can't praise somebody if they're lazy or like quite honestly like bad at their job. Right. Like there's a whole like let's be honest like this generation is lazier. They're coddled more. They don't want to work. I can go on and on.

50:30Do you know how many people I know, how many friends I have? It's like it's so hard to find somebody who's really, really hard working these days. Okay. So there's three reasons why they're not doing a good job. One, leadership is not training and developing them. Okay. Two, they don't have the capacity. They don't have the skill and they need it. And three, they just don't want to. And if they don't want to, you got to let that person go. You got to let them off the bus. You give them a chance to get on. But if they don't get on, you have to let them off. I want people who are committed. I got five Cs that people should use when hiring people.

51:09And you said it earlier, culture fit is one of them. They have to have culture fit. They have to have the right character. Do they have character? Are they going to be honest? Do they have integrity? Do they have competence? Do they have the skill? Are they committed? We talked about this earlier. You got to be committed. And I want people who are committed and willing to do the work. and they got to be a coffee bean. And if you're a coffee bean, guess what? You're going to be a great employee. You're going to be someone who's going to make a difference. What do you mean coffee bean? I knew you were going to ask that.

51:38What is a coffee bean? Take a carrot and you put that carrot into boiling hot water. What happens to the carrot? It gets softened. It gets weakened in the environment. You take an egg and you put that into boiling hot water. What happens to the egg? Softened. No, it actually gets hardened. Hard-boiled eggs. Oh, I guess. Well, I think if you're right. Yes, yes. Yes. Okay, fine. It gets hardened. All right. So you have hard-boiled eggs and you have the carrot getting weakened and mushy, both being affected by the environment. Life is like a big pot of boiling hot water. We don't want to be the egg.

52:13We don't want to be the carrot. We want to be the coffee bean. You take that coffee bean and you put that into boiling hot water. Even if it's not ground up, within an hour, it will actually make coffee. It will transform the water. So you want people who will transform their environment. but not be impacted by their environment. They'll be people who transform environment. They transform companies and organizations. You're a coffee bean. Wherever you go, you make a difference. You impact that organization. You impact those people. So you want to hire coffee beans, people who believe that they can actually impact the people around them and transform them.

52:47This is a transformative concept. I just shared it the other day with a bunch of educators, school leaders in Florida, and I shared this one concept at the end with them and they were like, their eyes opened. You have the power to transform your school district, to transform your school, your community. Every day, go out and do it. You want people then who believe they can and who will go and do it. Did you think of this whole coffee bean analogy? So what happened with this is really cool. I wrote a book called The Coffee Bean with Damon West. Damon West was in prison and he learned the lesson from another prisoner who said, Wes, be a coffee bean after teaching him how this all works.

53:27transform the prison. Don't let it transform you. Don't get all those tattoos. Don't get into any hate groups. Don't become a person that your mother doesn't recognize. Damon West was sentenced to 65 years in prison for getting addicted to meth and then burglarizing homes and create a whole crime ring in Dallas, Texas. So Damon West gets out after seven years and then is on parole for life, but gets out in seven years. Why? Because he transformed the prison he was in. He became a coffee bean. So what does Damon do? He's a former college football player. He starts speaking to college teams. Dabo Sweeney at Clemson football had Damon come and speak.

54:13And Damon did a coffee bean talk. I'm there speaking to Clemson. And Dabo says to me, we just had this guy, Damon West, talk about the coffee bean. He's like, man, incredible story, Credible message. And the minute he said that to me, I had a visual of a cover of a book called The Coffee Bean. And as he's telling me about it, I'm like, this is what I teach. We create from the inside out. Because for years I was teaching the powers within you to create the world outside of you. And The Coffee Bean was the perfect analogy for that. So I reached out to Damon. I said, Damon, hey, we should do this book called The Coffee Bean.

54:45And he goes, you're John Gordon. You didn't do the book with me. You can do it on your own. I'm a nobody. I said, Damon, we're supposed to do this book together. I see your name on it, and we should do this book together. I'm going to give you half of my royalties and half of my advance. I don't know why, but I was just led to do it. No way, it's so great. I did it. I did it. And Damon tells the story all the time now. Damon has spoken to millions of people now. He does this every day. He speaks almost every day to a different group. He goes into prisons. He goes into companies. He goes into sports teams.

55:19He goes into organizations. So now both of us are out there speaking all over, sharing that coffee bean message. And he's had such a transformative impact on so many groups. One group, which is really cool, is a school district in Brevard County. They gave the coffee bean to 5 ,000 sixth graders. 5 ,000 sixth graders. They gave the book to read because it's a very short read. It has illustrations. It's pictures in the book. It's a short book. You can read it in 20 minutes. So they gave it to all their kids. suicidal ideation went down. Visits to counselors went down. Problems at the school went down.

55:56They actually got funding and they actually presented to the governor of Florida what they did at their school district with this foundation. And they had an incredible transformation and impact with that. So if Damon and I don't get together, this doesn't happen. And it was a meant to be situation when you really think about how cool that is. So Coffee Bean, Damon West, Big shout out to him. But again, I gave him half my advance. And the cool part of that, I know it's a God thing. Why? Because when Damon got that money and gave it to his parents, he owed his parents$50 ,000 for their legal fees.

56:33That's what I had given him actually as the other half of the advance. The advance was$100 ,000. And I gave him$50 ,000. And he went and did that. And now the book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Oh, yeah. Hundreds of thousands. How many books do you typically sell per book? Like, I know that Energy Bus was 3 million, but like, what was the other one? Total, for all the books, it's been about 6.5 million right now and growing. You know, for me, it's not about selling books. As an author, you know, you don't make a lot of money on books. No, no, you don't make a lot of money. It's about impact.

57:00It's about people reading those books and making a difference. But each book depends. I mean, Power Positive Leadership is several hundred thousand. The Carpenter is several hundred thousand. The No Complaining Rule is 700 ,000. But The One Truth might be at 70 ,000 right now. I'm hoping that reaches more people because it's such an impactful book. So each book, I would say, definitely gets over$100 ,000. Okay. So could you sense me about like you're writing, you have another five books in you to write, or how do you spend the majority of your time? Is it speaking? It's mostly speaking. And now it's been running our company, our leadership development company.

57:32We have a certified positive leader program. We're actually developing leaders. So we've been doing that a lot now. How do we do that? Through our program. So we have masterclasses. We have coaching. We have our portal where they come in. They have all these tools and resources to be a better leader. And every month there's a masterclass on different topics. I do a quarterly mentorship with the group. It's almost like a university in a sense. I've created actually John Gordon's Positive Leadership Institute. And our whole goal is to develop positive leaders who make a positive impact in every business, school, team, organization, and community to create a more positive world.

58:08I love that. And that's what we're focused on now. So I have this team. I have this group of trainers. I have a group of certified trainers. We have our marketing team. We have our operations team. So I find myself a lot now running, running the company, but I really have to do find a second in command. I really do. I have a great marketing guy now. He's, he's awesome. I love him, but I need to find probably someone who's going to be a second in command for our future to really take this to the next level. Next level. How much more levels could you have? I mean, this level, well, you know, for the past 20 years, it's been me writing and speaking doing what I do.

58:42So that level's at the highest it could be. But I always believe I can grow. I always believe I can get better. So I say highest it can be. I mean, I'm at that level, but I want to go even higher to get even better, grow even more. But for this, this is a new venture. So this has a lot of room to grow because it's something I'm growing with my daughter. My son's involved. My wife's involved. We're all involved. It's a family affair, basically. It's really a family thing that we're focused on. My daughter runs a Certified Positive Leader program now. Now my son is in sales on the sales side and together, like it's about living this mission every day.

59:16Cause the idea is that, you know, there are a lot of leaders out there who don't know how to lead and they don't have the tools and they don't have the training and they're put into these positions by companies and yet they don't know how to lead. And a lot of companies will not spend money on training program. So we made ours very affordable for these people to actually come through our program to develop. Harvard is like 40 to$50 ,000 to go through our program. Ours ranges from$997 ,000,$5 ,000 to our highest is$10 ,000. Wait, Harvard, what did you say? $40 ,000 to$50 ,000 for a leadership program to join Harvard to learn how to be a leader, like an executive leadership program.

59:49Oh, you mean the executive leader? Yeah, program. I was going to say - No, just the university is what? $80 ,000 to$100 ,000. $75 ,000 a year. Yeah. But you're right. That executive program is about 50 ,000, 50 ,000. Yeah, 40 ,000, 50 ,000, 60 ,000. Ours, maximum$10 ,000. And I know our program literally will be more effective and has been more effective in terms of developing leaders to give them practical tools to go lead their teams. Because we're all about principles which inform and practices that transform. I love that. Okay, ready? I'm going to give you some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

1:00:19Rapid fire, meaning like one or two sentences. Are you ready? Are you saying I'm long-winded? Maybe. No, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. We met and she, we just met and she said, it's like we've known each other. Yeah, I feel like I've known you for 100 years already. Okay, first question. If you could put one sentence on a billboard, what would it say? Stay positive. Stay positive? Okay. What's one conversation that changed your life? Wow. The conversation I had with my wife when she threatened to leave. And if I did not change, I would not be who I am today. You know you're the right person when they give you strength.

1:00:54Who believed in you before you believed in yourself? Tony Chiazza in ninth grade. He encouraged me to go out for the lacrosse team. I tried to quit. I couldn't catch and throw. He said, you're not quitting. One day you're going to play in college. One day you're going to play in the Ivy League. I would go on to play lacrosse at Cornell University. Neither of my parents actually graduated from college. And so I never knew even what Cornell was or what the Ivy League was. But he believed in me and he changed my life. Because he believed in you? Yeah, because he said, I'm in ninth grade. One day you're going to play in college?

1:01:29One day you're going to play in the Ivy League and I go to play at Cornell University and that experience truly changed my life going there. Man, Tony Chiazza. Can positivity be learned? Yes. I believe it can be learned and it can be developed. We could all become a better version of ourselves, a more positive version of ourselves. And I'm living proof because I'm naturally negative. So you can actually rewire your brain from negative to positive and you can develop. It's like a muscle that you can develop. And you can learn it by doing strategies and techniques to help you with more resilience and optimism and belief.

1:02:06So, because in my brain, I think everything could be a skill. Likeability could be a skill. Boldness is a skill. This is what I talk about. I agree with you. I think positivity could be a skill too. It is a skill. You practice like anything else. You want to be better at lacrosse, you practice lacrosse. If you want to be better at being bold, you practice being bold. If you want to be a better karate, you know, you get the gist. You can also practice being more positive. Our leadership training, we have people write down their negative thoughts. And then we have them write down their positive thoughts.

1:02:34And we say when the negative thought comes in, you replace it with that positive thought. Talk to yourself. Don't listen to yourself. That is a habit and a skill you can do on a daily basis. And the more you do that, you will actually develop a stronger mindset, more mental toughness, and more resilience. Talk to yourself. Don't listen. It's a skill. First of all, you put that in the book, right? That's a positive habit. One of my favorite habits. It changed my life too, that habit. I have that highlighted. don't like, basically it says you can talk to yourself, but don't listen to yourself. Right.

1:03:03Don't listen to all those negative thoughts coming in. But talk to yourself. I love that. Well, here's the deal, Jen. Negative thoughts are going to come in, but when they come in, do you agree with them or do you discount them? Negative thoughts are lies that will tell you things about yourself and your future that just aren't true. And I ask people all the time this question, do your negative thoughts come from you? And people say, yeah, they're in my head. But here's the next question. If you believe that, who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Would you ever choose a negative thought?

1:03:29If it's coming from you, why would you choose that negative thought? You wouldn't. It comes in. It comes in so fast, we believe it. You're not the thoughts you think. You're the thoughts you believe. So only believe the positive thoughts. And if the negative thought comes in, talk to yourself with a word that you do believe, an encouragement that you believe, and then move forward. And if you don't believe it, keep encouraging yourself until you do. What's more important, optimism or discipline? I'm going to say... Of course, optimism. Of course, I'm going to say that because you have to believe that tomorrow will be better than today.

1:04:02You have to believe in the future to have the discipline in order to create it. Ooh, I like that. That's a good one. I like that. Okay. I like that a lot, actually. I was almost stumped there for a second. I know you were. I've got a lot here to stump you, but okay, I just can't see without my glasses. That's like really unbelievable. What's one question every leader should ask? their team? What's it like to be led by me? What's it like to be led by me? So they can give you feedback. And then what can I do better would be the next question. Right. I have one where I have to ask it on a scale of one to 10, how connected are we on a scale of one to 10?

1:04:44They're going to tell you, and then you ask what would make it a 10? Cause you're going to get great ideas on how to become a more connected team. That's a really good question. Great question. This is my, this I do with leaders. I will sit down and help them create their plan to lead their team. I ask this to everybody. How important is being likable? Very important. So if you're likable, you can actually be more tough with your team. I call it love and accountability. You got to love your team. And when you love them, you earn the right to challenge them. But when you challenge them, you have to be someone that they like and someone that they know loves them.

1:05:19And so the more likable you are, you can then challenge them, but they're still going to be okay with that. But if you're a jerk and you're not likable and you're tough with your team, they will tune you out and you will burn them out. So you got to be likable because they have to want to play for you. They have to want to work for you. Likeable helps you go a long way in terms of how you can lead your team. I think it's the most underrated, undervalued skill there is in business. I agree. Okay. Really good. So you and I are - Yeah, totally agree. I've been thinking a lot about this because let me give you an example.

1:05:50Bill O 'Brien. I was just with Bill O 'Brien, coach of the Boston College Eagles football team. He was the coach of the Houston Texans. He coached Tom Brady for the New England Patriots. And there's a scene where he is just going off on Tom Brady on the sidelines. And it's still iconic to this day. Well, Bill is a tough guy. Bill will drive you. But Bill is very likable. And I knew it. I'm like, I bet that guy's really likable. I just spent time with him. Loved him. He's so likable. Just such a great dude. But he's a hard ass. He's hard, but he's so likable. and so we're walking by his what's his name?

1:06:23Bill O 'Brien we're walking by his players as we're walking by in the lounge we're hanging out they're like watching TV he goes can I get you a drink or something can I get you some water as he's walking by to mess with him like can I get you some water would you like some food can I get you a sandwich like just as he's walking by to mess with them but funny and I just thought this guy is hilarious so he'll drive him but he's likable and they know he loves them so they play harder for him. I totally agree with that. I do a whole thing on this. Likeability is kind of one of my pillars. That's why I'm asking you.

1:06:56So I'm going to keep on going. What do you think makes somebody likable? What's the number one quality that you think makes someone likable? Wow, such a great question. Never been asked that before. What makes someone likable? You should come to my speaking games. Yeah, I would love to see that. Do you give a whole talk on what makes someone likable? Yeah, I did a whole viral talk on this. Okay, this is key. So don't steal it from because I'm going to come after you. No, I'm not going to. I'm a positive guy. You can be positive and also be a thief. No, I'm not a thief. But I love that actually.

1:07:23I love that you do that. I would say what makes someone likable is when their personality, like you have to have a personality that is likable. You also are likable when you smile. I think that makes you likable. I think you're likable when you have a great sense of humor and you're likable when you actually care about people and they know you care about them and they can feel your genuine authenticity. And when you are, you're more likable. Tell me what I'm missing. Okay. I'll tell you. I always want to learn. I've deep dived on all of this. Okay. And there's a lot of things that go into the soup of likability, right?

1:07:58But you've touched on a lot of them. The three top skills for people to be likable is authenticity, empathy, and enthusiasm. Okay. So they're all variations of what you said. enthusiasm is kind of like a positivity you gotta be careful on that because enthusiasm can be too much enthusiasm and people get turned off if it's too much but enthusiasm, the way I talk about it is more about being kind of like a positive person being a positive force, not a negative force because that negative Nelly that comes in will ruin everything, you know, it's like when you have a batch of blueberries, you have one bad blueberry in there, everything else will become rotten because of that one bad blueberry.

1:08:44Right. I love that. So it's that. And then authenticity. I think that you can get away with murder. If people think that you are a real person, that's genuine and that you care about them. So the empathetic piece and you can get away with anything. So you can't fake it though. But you can't fake it. But this is, this is, this is the whole thing. When you're authentic, you can't be, that's why like your friend, when you said that, it kind of reminded me of me a little bit. Cause like, I'm a hard ass. You don't know me very well. I can see that though. I can see it. But I'm like kind. Yes. You know what I mean?

1:09:14Right. So I can get away with it because I'm actually a good person and I care. Right. So I can, my, my people's threshold is much better. Right. Versus me just being a total bitch. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm just being honest. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I've seen that play out a lot. Right. A lot of businesses, a lot of scenarios like that. And people could say, oh, women are always considered bitchy and men are considered this. No, you could be a bitch and you can be like an asshole. Right. So those are things that are real, right? But I think that if you have like those three type, those things, there's like, obviously there's like, people love people who are funny and self-deprecating and all these things.

1:09:49I was going to say, self-deprecation, I think is important. It's very important. I share a lot of self-deprecation on stage when I speak. Yeah, me too. And people really do connect to that when I'm honest about that. Right, because I think a turnoff, to me, just how there's all these things that make someone likable, there's a lot of things that make people unlikable, right? And one of them is when people take themselves way too seriously. I hate those people. You know what I mean? Like if you came in here and thought that you were like all that. Yeah. Are you doing? Yeah. Or like just like couldn't, you couldn't laugh at yourself.

1:10:18Right. Oh, yeah. You know, like you, you became very endearing when you thought that you're like shirt, you don't look good in your shirt. Right. But like, it's, it's human. Yeah. People like to connect to human people. Right. Oh, yeah. You're going to be mad at me that I said that. In all truth, I came in and my wife and I flew here from Florida last night and I'm all bloated from the flight. I always get bloated. So it's like, lately I've been like, I'm working out, I'm walking, and yet I'll travel and I'll get inflamed. So I was feeling very inflamed today. No, but I think it's very cute and endearing, right?

1:10:49Because it's like, of course, we all can relate. So when someone takes themselves too seriously and shows up too polished. We think there's something. Right. Like it's a turnoff. Yeah. Right? Insufferable people. Yes. so let me ask you have you written about this? are you going to write a book on this? well I talk about it I've been talking about it a lot you need to do a book on it there's a book called The Likeability Factor an older one but you need to do a book about I think you should do a book about likability and unlikability and I think the two together I see something about the cover with both somehow maybe I should but it's the idea of that because I think that's so important because again positivity and likability go hand in hand I'll never talk about likability It's just not my thing.

1:11:31But when you talked about it, you lit up. But you steal it from me. Never. You lit up. The one thing I can honestly say, 33 books, I've never stole anything. I don't steal. I'm teasing you. No, no, but I just know. I know what I'm meant to write, but I always see when someone else is meant to write something. My wife has Gordon Publishing now. We're helping people publish their books. And we can always tell when someone's meant to tell that story. It just oozes out of them. You lit up the minute you started talking about likability. You know why? You love it. You're passionate about it. I am super passionate about it.

1:11:56You should write about it. You know why I'm passionate about it? because I wrote a book called Bigger, Better, Bolder. Yeah, but I know that book. Okay. But I did a TED Talk on the idea of being bold before I did the book. And it went viral, like really crazy viral. So I wrote the book. Okay. And I would get questions all the time like about being bold, like how to be bold, how to be bold. And my whole thing is being boldness is a skill, blah, blah, blah. Right. And then when I started to really think about it, I realized that it's really, you can't be bold. There's a precursor. Right. Right. The habit before the habit.

1:12:28Yeah. Right. Yeah. The precursor to being bold is you have to be likable first because it's much easier to get away with being bold if you are likable. Yes. So that's when this whole likability thing ticked in my head. And then I got asked to do a different TED talk. And long story short, it didn't come out as a TED talk. I think it might come out of TED talk. So I don't know if it's going to happen. But I did it as a TED talk. Okay. But then it never there was like a tech tech not like a technical issue. Yep. So then I started doing it as clips and it kept one after another became like a viral clip, a viral clip, a viral clip.

1:13:01But I do believe that like I am passionate about it because I think the reason why I've had any success in my life isn't because of my college or this or that is because of the fact that like I was, I was likable to somebody and I connected with somebody and that led me to the one thing. And then that led me to another because I believe everything is about the relationship. It doesn't matter how much schooling you have, how much talent you have, how much anything you have. If you don't have that, you're never going to get as far in life. There's a ceiling to everything. I love it. A title just came to me, but I'm going to share it after we're off camera.

1:13:37Don't forget it. I don't want to say it now, but I'm going to say it to you. I think it could be pretty cool. You may not like it, but I'm going to share it with you. Okay, good. Tell me. I want to know. I think it's cool, but I think you should definitely do a book on it. I always see when someone should do a book on something. Really? the process is so hard like it's a long process I mean with the publishers like oh my god it's going to be out in three years no we do it you can do it with Gordon Publishing and you can do it in six months and have it out is it the kind of publishing company that like you charge me for like to do the book we would charge you but here's the deal you own 100 % of the rights and the royalties when it's done but it's a real book it comes out as a real book so why didn't you do your book I am going forward what do you mean why didn't you do this book Because I had a three-book contract with Wiley.

1:14:20With who, Wiley? Wiley. Wiley, okay. Yeah, and I signed a three-book contract during the pandemic. So now that I'm done with my three-book contract, I'm going to be doing books with Gordon Publish because that's a model that I should have been doing all along because you make so much more of your books when you own the rights. As an author of a publisher... Well, you never make money off of books. You make about, yeah,$2 a book or something like that. But when you own the rights to your book, you make$10 to$12,$15. Most people don't make money off of even those books. The only person I know who's ever made money off of a book that was self-published, honestly, is Dave Goggins.

1:14:54David Goggins. He did a self-publishing book, Can't Hurt Me, that was self-published. He sold 5, 10, 20 million books. I mean, he made a fortune off of it. Most people don't make money off of that, though, that I've seen, that I know. Yeah, and I'm not, like you said, are you one of those publishers? Yeah, We Charge, but we're doing Michael Chan was book, The UFC Fighter. We're doing his book. We do a lot of CEO leader books because they want control of their book. They want to get out sooner. And our books look like a real book, not a published book. That's our advantage. And Gordon Publishing, since I've written so many books, I'm known in the publishing world.

1:15:26Well, yeah, you've written 100 ,000 books. And I love that our model is helping people. We help you write your book, create your book, put it out in the world. Great title, great everything. And then when it's out there, you now have a book that represents you, and you're making all the money off of it. We're not getting a dime. So it's like you're paying us to just help you create a great product for yourself. And we love doing that. I love that. You just pitched your new company. So one of my next rapid fire questions is - And we want your book. Yeah. I would love to do that book because that book is like, everyone needs to read that book, especially the title I have.

1:15:57Yeah, really? Yeah. Okay, maybe we can do it together. Okay. Because that was my next question to you. What's your challenge you're taking on now? Is it the publishing company? No, because my wife's, that's her passion. And I need to tell you, I didn't want to do it. I was not interested at all because I have so much going on. She would come with me to events and every time she was with me at an event, someone would ask her about writing a book, working on a book and asking help with it. And she goes, I think I'm going to start a publishing company. I'm like, honey, I have no interest in that.

1:16:24I don't want to do it. It's not for me. And she said, well, I want to do it. And so she's been doing it all herself. Got to give her all the credit. I talk about it because I've seen the impact of all the authors and how it's worked. Who have you done so far? How many people? About 20 books. And we've got another 20 in the queue. Get out. Kathy Rogers' book, Doug Dentler. Like all these really cool, cool people who are building their, some are building their brands with their book and coming out doing it. Some already have established brands. One book is Chris Maleo's book, The Chairleader. Chris hired a guy as a coach, as a high school coach.

1:16:58He hired a young man who had cerebral palsy, nonverbal, couldn't speak and became a coach during that season and transformed the team. It's going to be a movie. That's beautiful. It's going to be a movie. It's a beautiful story. He actually just got contacted by Hollywood, someone who just read the book. and said, this needs to be a movie. And we've talked about it being a movie. We did his book. I love that. So yeah, we're only doing books that make impact. So we will not do just anyone's book. They have to have a book that we believe will make an impact to do it. So, but my biggest challenge, you asked, my biggest challenge right now is no doubt building this training company where we help people learn positive leadership, lead with positive leadership, and then teach positive leadership.

1:17:38So we have a certified trainer program. We have the certified positive leader program. and we have how to learn to be a positive leader. Now that we have this institute, that's the biggest challenge because it's building something for the future from scratch, you know, from scratch. I had my life of writing and speaking and that was wonderful. Now I'm dealing with this every single day. And as you know, when you're building a company, so many challenges. But you know what's been cool? I wrote The Power of Positive Leadership. When I wrote that, I didn't have a team. I was working with all the great leaders, teaching them, but I didn't have a team.

1:18:10and now I have 15 people on my team. Isn't that interesting? So I'm reading my own book now going, oh, what did I say on page 95? That's right, I have to stay positive right now. Oh my, it's so hard, yeah. I'm literally, you know what, I'm reminding myself with the principles going, John, you wrote this, you gotta live it because it is hard. So I have so much more respect and admiration for leaders even more now than ever and I'm able to relate to them on a level that's just different now because I'm leading my team and dealing with all the challenges. I know their problems so much better. It's easy when you're a consultant and you're like, well, do this, do this, and do this.

1:18:44Totally agree. When you're living it, it's so much harder, but you learn more and I'm able to help them grow because of that. Was there one thing, has there been anything that you've changed your mind, like one piece of information or advice that you've changed your mind on? When I initially wrote The Energy Bus, I wrote about George having his vision and mission, the main character, and bring it to his team and say, okay, here's my vision and mission. I want you on my bus now I would write it as George met with his team and said what should our vision and mission be let's create it together and then let's get on the bus like let's get more buy in at first

1:19:24that's important yeah in a corporate I was thinking of the entrepreneur mind where you know where you're going you know your vision and you're taking a team and let's get on but there's a lot of situations where you already have the team and you probably should take it to them first and go, all right, guys, what's our vision? What's our mission? Where do we want to go? What do we want to create? So I would say that was, that's one of the things I've changed my mind on. I've changed my mind on a lot of things, but I would say that was one. Another one is maybe like, you know, this might be funny, but maybe not be like, like maybe we didn't go to the moon, you know?

1:19:57Like my daughter's trying to convince me that we did not actually land on the moon. And I sort of go, maybe we didn't because when you really look at it and in the 1960 something, 70, did we really have the technology? for the president to talk to the astronauts like in outer space during that time? Did we really have that technology? Oh, so you think that didn't happen? I don't know. I don't know. I question it. I question it. Is that interesting? Yeah, I question it. I don't think that's so crazy to think that either. I question it and I'm just not sure we had that technology to go to the moon at that time.

1:20:29At that time. So you think it's - Now we could, I believe. But then I don't think we had that technology. I think it was all done for the arms race to develop, you know, to get support behind it. I think there's been a lot of things that have been done along the way that were communicated to us to get the people to buy in that may not have been true. Who was the most impressive leader? By the way, I've never said that before publicly, so. Don't worry. I think that's interesting. I didn't, I wasn't expecting you to say that. And I'm not saying, again, and if I could be proven. That's a conspiracy theory.

1:21:04We call that, but if I could be proven wrong, I'd be fine to be proven wrong. I know. But no, you're just saying that. I'm saying I question that. Look at the – it's 1968, 1970. You're allowed to question whatever you want to question. What kind of technology did we have to go to the actual moon? What did we have? I don't know. When you think about it, it's just hard to put all the pieces together. And again, did we really have the technology for the president to be on the phone with the astronaut in outer space at that time? I can't even get a signal now in a lot of places. I know that. How did that happen in 1968, 70 years old?

1:21:40That's true, actually. Okay. So I don't know. Fair. Yeah, I don't know. I like that. That's fair. I don't know. Okay, I have one more question for you. Who is the most impressive person you've ever met in your life? Wow. I mean, I can't say there's been a lot. Okay, but name one. Dave Robertson is the best. Sean Bivet is amazing. Dabo Sweeney is unbelievable as a leader. Like one of the best. Did you ever meet any world leaders? Yes. I mean, I met Bill Clinton. I was not impressed. I was going to say, I find in life, quite honestly, and John, tell me if this is you too. I took a hike with RFK.

1:22:13RFK and I went for a hike. You take a hike with everybody. Oh, really? I thought I was special. No, unfortunately. And I'm not impressed, to be honest. But maybe other people would be. Did you go to a hike with him? I didn't, but I probably could if I asked. I mean, I think he's fine. I don't think he was one of the most impressive people I've ever met. I mean, no shade at him. He's fine. I'm just not really like, he's not like someone I'm like, oh, wow, I got to meet that guy. You know? Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed our hike. We had a nice conversation. Where was it? In Florida? No, Santa Monica. Oh, Santa Monica.

1:22:46In the hills there. I mean, really sweet guy. Nice conversation. How did that even happen? That's a long story. Okay. Well, we have time. Can you make it into it? When he was initially running for president, we had a place out here in Santa Monica, and we were invited to come just hear what he had to say. Oh, I was invited to that too. Yeah, over there in Palisades. I went to this thing where he was talking before he was even running for the thing. Was I there? No, this was when he was actually officially running. Oh, this one. No, he was officially running here too, but he was running for president.

1:23:20He wasn't running for the other thing. Yeah, he was running for president. Right, so we went to that, and I asked him a question on culture. what his core values were. And then someone came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, will you talk to him about culture? Because that's really a great question and something we really need to talk about. And someone I think knew who I was and they said, would you do that? I said, yeah, sure. And so we went for a hike a couple of days later and talked about culture and talked about his core values. And I gave him my opinion on what I thought he represented, what his essence were.

1:23:53and he asked me some questions. We had a nice conversation with his dogs as we're walking up the hill there. And yeah, just a sweet guy. Something I never expected and all of a sudden next thing you know I'm hiking with RFK. No, he's actually my friend's uncle. Oh, really? Yeah, another Kennedy. So listen. Does she get along with him? I think she does. Is this part of the family that they don't? Oh, I know. There's a whole part that hate him, the other part like him. It's like a whole thing. they get along very nicely. The things he has shared make a lot of sense in terms of his positions on health and so forth have been pretty accurate of what he's been sharing.

1:24:32I have no problem with him at all. I mean, I have really no problem with him but when I think of the most impressive people in the world, he's not one of them. No offense to him. I'm sure he's very smart. He's very fine. He's great. I mean, fine. I'm just saying of all the people in the world. I like Condoleezza Rice a lot. Okay, so now we're talking. I always thought, like, I met her at the San Francisco 49ers training camp when I spoke to them. Okay. And she was there, and we had a nice conversation, and I thought, she's really impressive. I would vote for her for president. I liked her, too.

1:25:08Yeah, I liked her a lot. She was very impressive. And I even say, like, I even put her on the ballot as my choice for president when I was voting. She was good. She's someone I would vote for. I liked her a lot. Did you meet Bill Clinton or work with Bill Clinton? No, I was speaking at an event and he was there speaking as well. And I was in Atlanta, but it wasn't great because he hit on my wife. He did? Yeah, so it's a whole other conversation. Oh my God, tell me what happened. No, I'm not even going there. What do you mean? That's the best thing you said all day. Finally, I'm getting some kind of good juice.

1:25:39I want to know the tea. Wait, you're talking about the secrets of life and that was the best thing. I don't want to talk about leadership anymore. I want to know how Bill Clinton hit on your wife. That's much more exciting. and I'm sure people are much more interested in that. What happened? We just were at the event and she was there and he just was giving her the googly eyes and like shaking hands, greeting people. I was backstage with him, but he was there and as he was doing it, he just stopped and wouldn't continue on, kept going to her and there was more to the story than that. Tell me, wait, I'm listening.

1:26:11I can't, I just can't. I'm listening. I just can't, I just can't. How many years ago was this? Oh, this was many, many years ago. Like how many? This is when he was, I think he was president. This is when he was still president. Oh my God, like 30 years. Was he stripping Monica Lewinsky at this time? This was in Atlanta. And so I was in my 20s. So yeah, this would have been in the 90s. Oh my God, which was like 35 years ago. Oh geez, okay. Yeah. I was hoping it was more recent than that. No, no. But I met George, George W. as well. But did you work with any of these people? work with. Like did anybody, who is the most impressive person that hired you?

1:26:51There's a lot of CEOs that are just like unbelievable. Like Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbell soup is very impressive. Amazing individual, Doug Conant. He turned around Campbell soup. I mean, I would say he's pretty amazing. Evan Spiegel hired me, you know, with Snapchat and, and, you know, to do what? A speaking gig. So Evan was really struggling with, with Snapchat. Yeah. I remember years ago. 2017. And he read The Power of Positive Leadership, like right when it came out. And I get a call out of the blue from his team. And I didn't even know who he was really and didn't know he was married to, you know, a famous model and so forth.

1:27:32Was it, what was he married to? Really great, great, really great guy. And so he reached out and then I went up to Napa where they were having just his leadership retreat. and I went and worked with his leaders, his top leaders. And we talked about positive leadership and how to turn around the company. It's really cool. I had him on a podcast and he shared how that meeting, how that time, what I taught them was a game changer. They turned around the company during that time. And it was positive leadership that helped them turn around. I love that. I mean, that's billions of dollars in profit.

1:28:12So when leaders say, well, what kind of return can you provide? Well, I work with Snapchat and help them turn around their company. It took another company from 60 million to 100 million, this company billions. I mean, I've helped these collective leaders probably make billions and billions of dollars. And all these sports franchises make billions of dollars and work in growth and championships and what those are worth. So, yeah, so I would say, you know, a lot of CEOs that I've worked with, some I can't say because, you know, confidentiality. but some of the largest companies in our country will call me up and ask for my advice, and I'll give them advice on leadership, which is, again, so ironic because I was a horrible leader and not the most positive person on earth.

1:28:51Life is full of irony, by the way. It's amazing what God could do. Yeah. I always say I'm proof that miracles are possible. Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, I find life to be super ironic. Yeah. It's wild. It's an amazing journey. I could never imagine what I'm doing now. My parents never made more than$30 ,000 a year combined. you know, now I'm$80 ,000 for a keynote. So it took my parents almost three years to make what I make in one speech. And I think about that all the time. Like, I really am very grateful that I get to do this. And my wife and I give a lot back. Like we are just so grateful and we don't think we're better than anyone.

1:29:23We just know that we've been blessed and very lucky because my life could have turned out many different ways, many times, many times, but by the hand of God. I love that. Oh my gosh, John, I'm so happy to have you on the show. I loved being on it. You were awesome. Thank you. You're so awesome. I feel like I met a sister from 100 years ago. I was going to say, doesn't it feel like we've known each other 100 years? We're both Jewish, so there you go. I know. I am 98%. I said 100 earlier. I'm a 98 % Ashkenazi Jew, which we probably have ancestors who are from the same place. Probably, yeah. I'm part Austrian, Russian, some Polish, Lithuanian.

1:30:02I don't know what your background is. Polish, Russian. Well, a lot of Israeli. Okay. A lot of Israeli. Your family from Israel? Yeah, my mom's Israeli. Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay, then you're more Sephardic then. I'm more, no, I'm actually more Ashkenazi. I'm Ashkenazi. I'm half, well, my grandmother is from Poland. Okay. My grandfather was Israeli. My mom was born in Israel, blah, blah, blah. We're probably related, you know. Yeah, we're probably like second cousins. Yeah, we probably are in some capacity. because my daughter just went on genealogy.com and started doing research on that. And we found my biological father's side of the family and where they came from.

1:30:43And then my grandmother's side of the family. Like my grandmother, I found out on my grandmother's side, she's Austrian, but my grandmother's father and mother came from Romania and Ukraine. So Romania, Ukraine, but they met in Austria. So I'm actually part Ukrainian, part Romanian, but that met in Austria. So I always thought I was just Austrian, but oh, I have Romanian and Ukrainian. Wow. And Sean McVay's wife is from Ukraine. Really? Yeah. So I texted him. I said, hey, I found out I'm part of Ukraine. He goes, I knew you had some toughness in you. Yeah, right, right, right, right. Because Ukrainians are really tough.

1:31:16Very tough. I mean, unbelievably tough. Yeah. So again, I guarantee we have some ancestry, no doubt. There's no doubt down that path. I just chose to become a follower of Jesus on this journey. I was going to bring it up, and I'm like, I'm not even going to go there. But why did you do that? I had an encounter with Jesus that changed my life. I had a spiritual encounter. I never thought I would believe what I believe. It's been a miraculous encounter. What do you mean you had an encounter? So I was a Buddhist, and I was a New Ager, like a lot of Jews. And I was a meditator. And I was seeking, like seeking, and always struggling with this anxiety and fear that doesn't go away.

1:31:57so you really you really have anxiety to us i was i would not anymore i don't not anymore my faith changed me transformed my heart and soul and so what happened was what year are we talking we're talking in uh nine no we're talking i became a follower of jesus at 35 when i was 2000 and wow 2006 2007 yeah but i'm 55 now so 20 years ago but 35 is pretty old when you know to to have that transformation. And what happened was I was struggling with all of that. And I remember I was meditating. I started seeing a glowing cross in my meditations. And then a friend of mine during that time gave me a sermon and the sermon was called why I follow Jesus.

1:32:40So I listened to it and it was about, it was about Jesus as the Jewish rabbi. And it talked about how he was Jewish and it talked about how he walked and why the disciples would follow him because they were Jews. They were Jews and they followed him because he was a rabbi and said, come and follow me. Like someone actually believed in them. And it was called Covered in Dust. And it was about why Jesus would go from town to town. And when someone like did not get on the bus, did not follow them, just, you know, cover in dust. Just keep walking, take the dust off your feet and just dust off and go.

1:33:12And I'm listening to this sermon about Jesus, the Jewish rabbi, and it just really spoke to me. And then I said this prayer, I said, all right, God, if he is who he said he was, you know, show me the signs. so I'm driving down to Orlando and I'm looking to the left and I hear look and I turn to the right and there's a sign on the billboard that says Jesus is the answer so I got these encounters with glowing crosses and that sign I go see a Buddhist energy healer a Buddhist energy healer so I go see him and I go hey Don I'm having all these problems in my stomach he's working on my stomach he's doing Thai organ massage he's like a rolfer if you know any of that yeah I love that yeah he's doing all that I'm really into that I always saw the world in terms of energy.

1:33:55So I believe in energy medicine, all that good stuff. And I still do. And I said, Don, I'm seeing all these signs. I said, Jesus is the answer. What do you make of that? He goes, oh, that's simple. I'm a Buddhist. I'm trying to attain enlightenment on my own. He goes, with Jesus, all you do is believe and receive. I said, what do you mean? He goes, Jesus takes your soul pain. He takes your heavy vibrational energy. Christians call it sin. He goes, you can't connect to a perfect, harmonious, energetic God if you have heavy vibrational energy. He said, Jesus just takes that so you can connect to God.

1:34:23I said, can I take someone's soul pain? He goes, can you handle your own? And I walked out of there believing that Jesus, literally the purpose was to take my burden, my pain, allow me to connect to the Father, Yahweh, the Jewish God that we believe in, and would connect me to him. And in that connection, I would find peace and joy, love and power. And that is what's happened in my life. It has transformed my life. no anxiety heart soul power transformation peace has changed me so that's that's my faith journey i never thought i would share that with a fellow jew like that but but that but it changed me so it's why i believe and i'm not saying everybody you know should believe what i believe that's just my story and that's what's happened to me but then i meet all these other jews that are now followers of jesus too i was at a passover seder with a bunch of jews who became followers of jesus One guy died, a Jew, and came back to life.

1:35:21And Jesus came to him when he was dead and literally brought him out of it. And he was alive and has now fallen Jesus. These incredible stories. Rabbi Jason Sobel. Just go read Rabbi Jason Sobel's books. They're amazing. He gives the context of Judaism and Hebrew and how it all connects. How the New Testament and the Old Testament are connected. and you can see that one connects to the other and that it can't be explained by human hands. And you can see how God orchestrated all. And that's why I say we're one team. We're not on separate teams. We're on one team. Because my relatives, when I became a believer from Long Island, my Jewish relatives, they were like, I can't believe there's so few of us and you left the team.

1:36:04I go, no, we're still the same team. We're on the same team. We're all one team. We're not meant to be separate teams. And my goal is to unite people. And I meet so many Jews who have so much amazing faith. And there's so much power in the Jewish tradition that people need to understand and live. I have many Jewish friends who don't even know about their Jewish tradition. They don't know about their heritage. They don't know about the old stories of David and Solomon. Yeah, but that's also pretty sad. It's very sad. They need to. I wish people were more knowledgeable and more educated. Oh, they need to.

1:36:36And took that initiative for themselves. There's so much power in it. There's so much power. I tell my Jewish friends, I'm like, just get back to your faith. There's so much power in the Jewish faith. So what does that mean if you're like a Jew for Jesus versus a Jew for what? So the only difference is that I believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And I believe that. You believe that he's still coming. You believe that he's still coming. Yeah, I do. Because the Jews believe that he's still coming. And I believe that all the signs and my own experience shows me and tells me. That he's here. He already came because he's already living in me.

1:37:07Oh, okay. Does that mean you don't sound like him? The spirit lives in you. But you could still celebrate all the Jewish traditions. It doesn't change. I am never going to change. I am still of Jewish heritage. Would you celebrate Passover? Yeah. Would you celebrate Yom Kippur? Do you fast on Yom Kippur? I did. I didn't this year, but I have in the past. But do a lot of Jews for Jesus celebrate that? Yeah, people still honor their past traditions. You can still be Jewish and still believe in Jesus. Yes, some do. Yeah. There are others that do. Yep. the thing is you're then why is there such a negative connotation when Jewish people become Christians is it because we're such a small community and people feel like you're going to a different team right like you're like kind of giving up on our Jewish heritage because there's so few of us if they come after the Jews if people do I've got to take a stand for the Jews because that's something that I would never ignore the Jewish people because that's part of who I am.

1:38:13So it's like you don't give up your heritage and who you are and what makes you who you are. But at the same time, I would say my faith in God, like overall, my faith comes first. But my faith also says, stand up for people. But I'm best inclined not to go after people, but to unite people and connect people and be someone who could be a bridge rather than divider. But if someone's attacking someone and they're going to try to kill them and come after my family, well, then you would have to fight back in that regard and take a stand for those who are getting hurt. And so for those who are being attacked and like, I have really good friends who are Jewish.

1:38:51Mike Levine is the head of CA sports and he's often post, you know, about, you know, about just, you know, and I'll reach out to Mike. Hey Mike, I stand with you. Like I will always stand with my, you know, with the people. So when October 11th happened, what happened with you? Did you stand with the Jewish people? Oh, yeah. I mean, no, it was, you know, when you see that happen, it was just pure heartbreak. I mean, just heartbreak. But I have to be honest, I would take a stand with anybody who was attacked that way. Like, I would feel that. I have empathy, a lot of empathy. So I would feel that for any group that was attacked that way.

1:39:24But, like, my wife and I had dinner with a bunch of Israelis. And great conversation, just on hearing their standpoint, how they see the world. And it was so interesting. And they talked about October 11th and just hearing it from their perspective. A good friend of mine, Mark Lawrence, you know, Lawrence Foods, just a great human being, very strong in his faith and, you know, supporting Israel. And I'll listen to Mark and hear his standpoint. So do you support Israel? Of course. I mean, but, you know, there's a difference. Like, it's like saying, like, do you support, you know, everything the U.S.

1:39:56government does? Like, I don't have to support everything the Israeli government does to support Israel and the Israeli people, right? I support America. I'm a huge believer in America. I'm a big fan of America. I love our country, but I also know that our government is very corrupt at times. Our government can be very corrupt. I think most governments have corruption to it. So when you say support Israel, it's like it's not this blanket thing. They're like, I'm going to support everything about Israel and everything they do. Just like I believe in America, but I'm not blind to the fact that there's a lot of corruptions in our government over the years.

1:40:33from Republican, Democrat, and all different political persuasions. Absolutely. So at times I think, I did run for city council when I was 26 years old in Atlanta. So there were times I think maybe I'll run one day. But I also know that it's so divisive. And there are power structures put in place that can destroy your life. And that's the scary part. If you're not of that power, you go in with your beliefs, ideals, but if you're not part of that power structure, they could destroy your life and they could destroy you. So there's a lot of thought around that. Like maybe I'm just supposed to stay and do what I'm like.

1:41:10If I was ever, but if I felt God calling me, because again, I know God calls me because every book I've written, I get an idea and I write it in three and a half weeks. Wow. Yeah, so I know that. So when an idea comes, I know I'm just meant to write it. If I get called and go, all right, I want you to go run for office, I will follow and I will do that. Like I'm pretty obedient. Like I literally have, as I'm walking, I get ideas. I get inclinations of what I'm supposed to do. And you're a good human being. Yeah. And I have good intentions. And that's the most important thing. And good human being.

1:41:40You have to have good intentions, good actions. And you have to care about people and do the right thing. That's a great point. And live with integrity. And I know like me, you know, I always live with the end of mind. Like 25 years from now, they're going to be telling stories about you. What kind of stories do you want them to tell? Well, I think also they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Oh, that's good. Right? So it's got to be good action. That's why the good action piece is the most important part. Yeah, the good action says who you are. Yeah. Everyone has, I don't think any, most people are not malice or have bad intentions.

1:42:10It's what happens after that, right? It's like, they said the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but then something happens and it turns to not so good. We could do a show where we just talk about different topics. I know. We could literally go back and forth with different topics. I know. Because as you're saying that, I think, you know, one thing I do want to say to people listening because we talked about Jewish and Christian. I know you probably have Jewish listeners. I saw this pastor the other day give a great lesson where he said, you know, he goes, if someone of my faith tried to tell you how to live and what you should believe, he said, I'm sorry, because we should not be doing that.

1:42:41If you read the Bible and what Jesus said to do, you're literally not supposed to do that. You're supposed to just live that way. Yeah. That's a good point. And I shared it with my son. And my son has a really strong faith. And he goes, no, dad, the Great Commission. The Great Commission means you go make disciples. And the idea is that I said, Cole, yeah, there's the Great Commission, but that means telling people about Jesus and how he changed your life is actually the Great Commission. But you're not supposed to tell people how you should live and the values they should have. You're supposed to live those values and tell people how God changed your life.

1:43:16And that's what you need to do. So I wrote this today. it came to me I said don't tell people how to live but share how God and the Holy Spirit lives in you and transforms you yeah that's the key I love that yeah oh my god okay my leg's falling asleep I need to like wrap this thing I swear these chairs are like how long have we been talking I don't it seems like it's forever so many hours I don't even know but the only reason my new chairs haven't come into my studio so these are like I have like sciatica on this leg and it is killing me you remind me of my Jewish cousin by the way you remind me of my cousins really Really?

1:43:49I said, my sciatica, my back. It's like, what am I going to do about that? Like, oh, my God. How am I going to deal with this? I mean, the minute I walked in, I'm like, oh, there's my sister. There's my cousin. That's so funny. Oh, yeah, it's hilarious. Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's hilarious. Oh, my God. You're going to have a guest in your Jupiter or whatever. Yeah, you can come visit us anytime. Oh, you're so nice. I'm going to. It's 5 o 'clock. We've been talking for, you don't want to know how many hours. Okay. An hour and a half? No, way more. Two and a half. What? Yes. I was supposed to meet our friend David Nurse for Hamburg as well.

1:44:21Sorry, David. Oh, are you serious? Yeah. Well, you're a little late. Sorry, David. I saw you a couple weeks ago. This is fine. Exactly. You're not meeting David Nurse right now. Okay. So, guys, pick up the book, The Power of Positive Habits. John Gordon, follow him on Instagram. And please, this is where I say to you guys, if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, please, I always forgot to say something. It makes such a difference in the algorithm and all the things that are important on the back end to make this podcast go, go, you know, continue to, to, to move and go. So please subscribe.

1:44:55And, um, thank you so much for being my guest. It's a great one. Definitely subscribe. Thank you. Thank you guys. Bye.