Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Jon Gordon: Your Purpose is Greater than the Challenges - 093

Episode Date: April 5, 2019

Are you naturally negative? Because if you are, you are just like best selling author and highly sought after keynote speaker, Jon Gordon. You would never suspect that Jon is negative, however, because he preaches positivity and purpose: and does a damn good job at it! Watch or listen to this episode to discover how to let positivity impact both your professional and personal life, and how it will lead you to more success.   “The most selfish thing a human can do is say; I’m not capable” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover: 1:20 - How leadership came to life for Jon, and how he wants to spread the wealth when it comes to culture and leadership 6:00 - The catalyst that Jon used to be successful, and why you should too 8:15 - Why it is important to promote in yourself, especially if you believe in what you stand for 12:30 - Why positivity in business is more important than you think 23:00 - Why you need to exile those negative voices in your life and live inside out   “Don't focus on you, focus on what you’re giving” “I was actually miserable and negative” “I felt like I was meant for more” “Don’t say it’s not possible” “The purpose is greater than the challenges” “I am naturally negative” “Don’t waste your energy on those who arent on your bus” – Jon Gordon   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @jongordon11 Buy Man Up and get Bedros’s High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow  

I always say, if you're scared of public speaking, just remember your job is to give them a gift. So you're getting up there to speak, give a gift to the audience, and know that you're here to give them something. Don't focus on you. It's about what you're giving them. And the many of you focus on the audience, not trying to get something for yourself, you're giving, not receiving. From there, you're not going to be nervous because I'm here to make a difference. Hey friends, welcome to another episode of The Empire Show. Today we're doing an inside look on someone that I look up to, Mr. John Gordon, author, of 16 books and one of my favorite books, The Power of Positive Leadership.

John Gordon, welcome to The Empire Show. How are you, sir? Great. Wonderful. Hey, so you have done something really cool with our FitBody family, and that is to meet up with our top franchise owner, Matt Wilbur. He owns seven Fit Body Boot Camp locations in Michigan, and you guys met up in Chicago. Chicago, if I'm not mistaken. And I think it was a big leadership lesson training that you did, right? Yeah. And I'm curious how you started off in leadership and how you got into consulting organizations, big organizations, in fact, on leadership and their team building.

First, they were an awesome group. I mean, I just loved them. They were just incredible hungry, wanted to learn. They just soaked up everything. But for me, it started years ago where I said, okay, what am I born to do? Why am I here? And writing and speaking came to me. I was about 29, 30 years old. And so I started to write and speak about positivity. So I'd go to organizations talking about positivity and being positive, but it wasn't really about leadership. And as I was working with these organizations, I realized that their culture was bad. And so it didn't matter how much I was talking about positivity if they didn't have great leadership, if they didn't have a great culture. So I start to think about ideas in terms of leadership and culture. And then actually working with all these various leaders like I have in Fortune 500 companies, sports teams.

So I'd work with Clemson football for the past seven years. years. So I work with Davos-Sweeney. I get to see his leadership. Dave Roberts with the Dodgers. I see his leadership. I love sports because you can see how they can lead a team and get a bunch of people together very fast because you can tell if a team is not connected. You can tell if they have a lot of negativity. You can tell if they're not committed. So you can see all these things. So I've learned from a lot of these leaders and then I now write about it. So I don't have all the answers, but I learn from great leaders like you, how you build your business. And then from there, I share what I learn and then I also get great ideas and how I could help them put into practice.

So you kind of had this idea at the age of 29, like, what do I want to do the rest of my life? And you go, I want to read and talk about positivity, right and leadership. Well, it was brought about by my wife who said, if you don't change, like, you're out of here. Like, we're over. Tell me about that. So that was the wake-up call because I was actually miserable and negative. So people think I'm Mr. Positive because of these books that I write. But I actually go very negative and naturally negative.

So my wife's like, look, I love you, but I'm not going to spend my life with someone who makes me so miserable. I had two small children. I was just scared of death. Career wasn't going well. A lot of fear. Wasn't living the life that I wanted to live. So I felt like I was meant for more, but for some reason it was unattainable. So this was in your 20s?

Yeah, towards the late 20s. Younger, opened the bar and bucket. I'm 24. Started a nonprofit. Ran for City Council. went door to door to 7,000 houses, felt like I could do anything. Then I go work for a dot com,

dot com goes like this and crashes, and it was around that time where everything was falling apart. So marriage, young kids, everything's falling apart. And so I said, okay, after she said, like, you need to change. I'm like, all right, I need to change.

I really do. So how can I change? And why am I so miserable? I got to stop you for a second. You were immediately open to the idea of changing. There was no dig my heels in. why do I have to change, why don't you change? A lot of...

A lot of guys like that would get defensive and they wind up getting married to another person after they sabotage that relationship and wind up learning the lesson later on or perhaps never learn it and go through multiple marriages. And be miserable their whole life. For me, I knew I needed to change. I wasn't happy with who I was.

That's what I was trying to get to. I was being negative. I knew that something was wrong. And so I said, all right, why? And it was spiritual. I said, all right, God, why am I here? And I wasn't spiritual. For the first time, I'm like, God, I know I'm here for a reason.

Like, what is my purpose? And that's when writing and speaking came to me. Like, just came to me. Had you done it before? No, not really. I mean, I had started a nonprofit, the Phoenix organization. We raised money and volunteered for youth-focused charities. So I would speak every month at our monthly event.

Sure. But it wasn't like I was going out giving talks. Because you're a phenomenal speaker. Oh, thank you. I don't think that, but thank you. And it's something I've done a lot of over the years. But in the beginning, it was not phenomenal. And I was just out there just doing it.

So I just winged it. Like, okay, I'm going to go speak. I didn't go to Toastmasters. I said, I'm just going to go start giving talks about this message to anyone who would listen. I did 80 free talks. No kidding. 80 free to begin with. And was this so that you can get better at speaking or because you were so passionate about the message?

You didn't care about the money. Yeah, I didn't care about the money. And it was about sharing the message. And I knew that no one would pay me. I just had to go do it. Sure. And but then I started getting paid. like, okay, $500.

Someone said, we'll give you $1,000. $2,000. I remember said, all right, now I'm a $2,500 speaker. And I'm like, all right, now I'm a $5,000 speaker. And I started doing more. Okay, I'm $7,500. I would just say it, I'm $7,500. And then I'm like, all right, I'm $10,000.

Was it scary every time you raise your prices? Yes, because then you didn't know if people would book you at that price. And yet every time I raise my price, I wind up getting booked more, which is wild. Why do you think that is? I think value. I think maybe they perceive. the value as you charge more so now you must be better. But I also think that it was just also because I believed.

I think when you put belief out there and you say, you know what, I'm ready for this, I believe in this, I could do this, you then receive what I believe God has for you and what other people perhaps see in you. So I think a lot of people, they get an idea that comes in their head. They get an impulse. It comes to them, but then they go, nah, I can't do that. Or I don't deserve that. Or, no, that's not possible.

And so they don't believe it's possible. So they never activate and they never create what is actually in store for them because the idea came to them, the impulse came to them. And it came to you for a reason. Your job is not to question it. Your job is to believe it's possible and go for it. So am I hearing you say, Mr. John Gordon, that when an impulse or an idea comes, it's typically our purpose speaking to us?

if some ideas will come and just because you get a vision doesn't mean it's meant to happen right now. Sometimes it's meant to happen later on. But we do get ideas and impulses that we do have to be open to. And again, you have to make sure it's the right idea, the right time. But when it comes, don't say it's not possible. Don't just discount it. And don't think you're unworthy to receive it or to achieve it. Because I think for me it was like, yeah, I'm going to go for it. I had no fear. I was just like, yeah, I'm going to go do this. I'm going to go share this message. How did you have the purpose was greater than the challenges.

Ooh. So where did the self-worth come from, where most people will say I'm not worthy and it's not possible, well, you said, effectively by taking action on it, you said I am worthy. Right. How does one build that self-worth? I struggled with self-worth for a long time and felt unworthy. Even when I started speaking, even when I was writing books in the beginning, who am I to write these books?

Who am I to give these talks? why would people listen to me? Like, who am I? And I started to say during my walks, I am worthy. I'm worthy in you, God. Not in myself, but in you. I'm worthy to share this message. I'm worthy to help people.

And what I realize is if you have a purpose, I said your purpose is greater than your challenges, but you have a purpose to make a difference, then you're worthy in sharing that message to make a difference. Because if you don't, you can't benefit people. Sure. So if you don't do this podcast, you can't benefit people. If you don't have all your incredible gyms,

you can't benefit people. And so sometimes people say, well, it's self-promotional. Well, no, if the goal is to promote to then impact others and make a difference, there's nothing wrong with that. You need to promote. I think about that every time I feel weird about promoting something new, if I never promoted the energy bus, I never wrote that book, and I never went on a 28 city tour,

paid for it by myself, the publisher wouldn't pay for it, and went out there from city to city with five people, one city, 10 people another, 20 people another. If I never did that, I wouldn't be where I'm today. I wouldn't be reaching the people. I wouldn't have received the email from a guy who said he read the book and saved his life because he was going to commit suicide. And so by being willing to just go out there and do it and knowing that your purpose is greater than the feeling of unworthiness, then you become worthy, I believe, in your purpose.

You become valuable when you add value to others. Isn't that powerful? And that's so true. And I've often felt that one of the most selfish things we can do as humans is say, I'm not capable or that's not for me. because that's such a selfish thing. We do that to protect ourselves from rejection, potential rejection, but what about the guy who would have killed himself

had he not read your book, right? What about the lives that you changed that would not have changed could you not written your books? And so it is the most selfish thing to do to say that I'm not worthy or that this is not for me to say that out of fear

and you just prove that statement. And when people are scared of public speaking, which a lot are, I always say if you're scared of public speaking, just remember your job is to give them a gift. So you're getting up there to speak, give a gift to the audience and know that you're here to give them something. Don't focus on you. It's about what you're giving them. And the many you focus on the audience, not trying to get something for yourself, you're giving, not receiving. From there, you're not going to be nervous because I'm here to make a difference.

Have you ever been nervous speaking? All the time. Every talk I am very nervous before the talk. Even now? Yeah, even now. Because you're really calm as a cucumber when I watch your YouTube videos. No, very nervous. Being a former athlete, it feels like game day. Get out of here.

Every talk, it's like the news. You don't see it when I watch the videos. Because probably the video we're showing is when I get into a rhythm and get into a flow. But that quarterback when he starts a game is really nervous, but once you get into the flow of the game, you're not nervous anymore. So I think in the beginning, I'm always nervous, but once you get into the flow, then it goes well. But I've, in my talks, what I do now is I try to actually create a flow that allows me to get comfortable and then know, And once I get comfortable, okay, now I can go. So I almost build that into the talk to allow me to get comfortable at first.

Don't come out with, you know, too strong, too fast. Come out a little slow, but then build up and then go. Gotcha. So do you have a, I'm just curious, you have a ritual that you go through before getting up on stage? I don't. You don't? I don't. I don't.

I don't. I was just curious. Yeah, no, I just, to me it's, you know, I think it's about just trying to focus on making a difference. So it's that ritual of getting away from. and saying, okay, how can I make a difference? But I was with Erwin McManus last night. We were at the Clippers game, and he's a speaker and about 12 years older than me,

and incredible speaker. He's a pastor, and pastors to me are the best speakers. I studied them because they're incredible. And he's one of the best speakers I've ever heard. And he said, good speakers want the audience to feel something. Great speakers feel something, and they invite the audience to join them in that feeling. That last night, when he said that to me, I'm like, okay, that's going to be part of my new ritual going forward,

is to really focus on that feeling and sharing that feeling with the audience, rather than just trying to make them feel something. Now, your talks and really what you're an expert in is positivity. And you started off with positivity, but you quickly learned that, gosh, I got to really tie this into leadership. First of all, before you go into leadership, why positivity? Because that sounds so airy-fairy. Right? I mean, most people go, well, that's pretty airy-fairy. What do I need positivity in my business for?

What's your answer to that? Yeah, well, we all need it. And I'm sort of a champion of that. And all the research shows that positive leaders outperform negative leaders. Pessimists don't change the world. Naysayers talk about problems that don't solve them. Critics write words, but they don't write the future. Throughout history, it's the positive leaders, the believers, the dreamers, and the doers that change the world just like you.

And so we need positivity because negativity will sabotage our business. They'll sabotage our teams. So the answer to that negativity is positivity, not polyam positive, but how can we build great relationship? How can we lead with optimism? How can we confront the negativity that exists on our team to be a more positive team? How can we have difficult conversations in a positive way so that we're truth tellers and dealing with the real issues and yet growing from that?

So to me, the umbrella is positivity, optimism, belief, overcoming the negativity, overcoming the fear, overcoming all the things, the adversity that will sabotage your team in your organization, and then how to be a more positive leader to be your best, but then to lead your team and bring out the best in your team to go forward together in a positive direction. Yes, on every level there. And yes, because very similar to how you said earlier, you said, I want to paraphrase this, you said you were organically negative when your wife... I am naturally negative. Yeah, and I even not, like, Naturally negative.

Even now. Even now. But it's my default, I would say. Just like we all have the weight set point. No matter what, someone could try to diet as much as possible, they may not get to the same place that someone else who is naturally thinner will or work out. You may build muscle quicker and faster. So we all have genetic disposition.

So for positivity, some of us are more positive than others. Research shows that. Some are born more naturally negative. plus environmental influences. My dad was a New York City cop, you know, undercover narcotics. Oh, boy. Yes, he was shot a few times. My dad was not too big on positivity.

Well, he saw the underbelly. Right. Right. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was battling the drug cartels on the streets of New York City. So you grew up in that environment. Maybe that's part of it as well. But, you know, you can become more positive.

So I'm a living testament to that you can actually become more positive because now when I wake up in the morning, I feel a lot more positive. I feel really good. Very rarely do I go negative. So it's not like I go there, I just naturally there. But now it's become more of my state to be positive, optimistic. It's like I call it feeding the positive dog versus the negative dog.

Every day you feed that positive, you weed the negative. If that's a garden, you feed the positive weed the negative. One day is not going to do much. But we didn't feed the garden for a week, a month. Okay, the garden starts to look a lot better. A year. Wow. It's a nice garden.

Seven years, a lifetime, a magnificent garden. So to me, the garden of my mind is now flourishing all that I've done over the years. And everyone could do this. That's the great news. And that's what I teach. And I love it because I'll meet people from five years ago or 10 years ago now that I've been following my stuff. And they're like, man, I've been doing all these years. And I'm getting all these now living testimonials of people that have been doing this, that it works.

You've got to do the work. But we can all become the best version of ourselves. the most positive versions of ourselves. Makes sense. So would you say that, you kind of alluded to this, but would you say that positivity or negativity is predisposed versus how much of it comes from environmental exposure? It's like everything. I think it's a mix of nature and nurture. So I think it's a mix of a lot of things. But I think genetically disposed, we naturally tend to go toward the positive or the negative based on our genetic disposition. I do believe that. So let's talk about then making money. Like my wife is naturally positive just so you know. Okay. Yeah, she's

naturally positive. So it had to be almost, no offense, but she was probably allergic to your negative vibes. If she's organically, naturally positive, she had to be allergic and probably more hypersensitive to negativity, right? Yeah, oh, definitely. And but also tough enough, you know, she's Irish Catholic, tough enough that she would, yeah, she doesn't drink, she just doubles up on the fighting. We'll send her a little snippet of this. She broke her brother's nose. We put it that way when they were younger.

Yeah, she's tough. So just to know that she's not, she wasn't willing to just be a doormat and take it. And I wasn't physically abusive or anything like that, but I definitely, you know, verbally wasn't always nice and I was just, you know, always negative and taken out in her. And I blamed her for why my life was miserable. So she forced me to own it. That's why in the energy bus, one of the key rules, the first is you are the driver of your bus. You first have to own it. You have to realize you're driving the bus.

And so, yeah, so she was a big factor in me changing and naturally positive wouldn't allow me to be negative. Makes total sense. And so as I said, let's really focus now on how do we make money with being positive and through leadership? Because after all, we're on the Empire show. When we want to build an empire and I'm a big believer in having tons of money, like a surplus of I'm not talking about wealth. I'm talking legacy where my kids, kids, kids can have money for one purpose. I want to buy back my time from so that I can enjoy the hundred years or so I'm going to spend on this planet.

I want to buy back as much of my time as possible. I have experiences that give me memories with my kids and my family and of course to give back to the causes that I believe in for me at Shrineer Children's Hospital, Compassion, International, and Toys We're Todd's. We donate millions of dollars to those three organizations. For that to happen, I need people's money. in exchange for 10x of value that I'm going to deliver. How does becoming an effective leader, a positive leader, make me more money?

Well, I love that you said first off, they're going to live 100 years. That's optimism right there. I'm an optimist. And being a positive leader is everything because it's going to allow you to build the company you need to be successful. To have sustained success, you're a positive leader, and that's why you're able to build the success you have. You can't do it if you're a pessimist, you can't do it if you're negative, and you're

to sabotage your team. So if you're an entrepreneur, it gets really challenging. You face a lot of obstacles. There are many times you want to give up. One of my favorite things I wrote in the positive leadership is that the power of positive leadership is that every day you got to show up, you do the work, where they praise you, where they criticize you, you show up and do the work. You overcome your adversary. You overcome your challenges. You keep showing up. You keep doing the work. And every day you put one foot in front of the other continuing to build your business. But you have to believe in what you're building. You have to have a vision. You have to have a vision. You have to have a vision of what you're building. When I look at a Clemson football team, which when DaBow got the job

as the head coach, he asked for a TV for his office. They said, we don't have it in the budget. So he went out and built his own, bought his own TV, put in his office. Well, recently, Clemson built a $55 million facility with all the TVs that Daabot wanted. Why? His positive leadership. He built a successful program that's now playing in another national championship coming up. And so that's leadership right there. And so you can't build a great team if you're negative. You can't build a successful business if you're negative. In the short run, we see it a lot. In the short run, you can lead out of fear. You can get people to do what you want out of fear. Being cut throat. Cut throat. But those principles do not last in the long run. I truly believe

they don't. And even if they build you enough money and success over time, let's, we call it, I just said success. That's not success though. If you have all. this money, but you're isolated and you're by yourself and no one wants to be around you, what kind of legacy you're leaving there. So how can you build the success, build the wealth? And I agree, why shouldn't we build wealth? Why shouldn't we have an abundance mindset? People think, oh, you know, I don't feel right if I build this or if I make too much.

No, make all that you can so you can give more and more away. It's like you can't help someone who's sick if you're not healthy. So the more you are healthy and wealthy, you can help so many people with it. And it's going to be that positive mindset that allows you to overcome the challenges and adversity. Because I love speaking entrepreneurs because, you know, again, as one, you know, there are many times I wanted to give up and said, no, no, I got to stay. I call it staying positive.

Like, that's what it is. It's staying positive. Even when there's negative stuff happening around you. Even when there's negative stuff. How do we stay positive? Not polyana positive, but how do we stay positive through challenges, through adversity, dealing with an energy vampire that's sabotaging your team, dealing with a customer that just, you know, basically just found another supplier of someone else.

When you were dealing with one person at a time like that in a positive way, over time you're going to build great relationships and success. John, walk me in the audience through a process because you hit the nail on something very powerful. Whether you're an entrepreneur or you just have an idea right now or you're just a regular human living life, there's a energy vampire in your life. I call it crabs. And I call it crabs because of this. In 2005, my wife and I went on a cruise.

not because I can afford it, but because her grandparents, we had just gotten married, were kind enough to invite us on a cruise to Alaska. And we were walking in Ketchikan, Alaska. The cruise ship docked itself for a couple of days. And there was a gentleman who was crab fishing and then putting these little crabs in a five-gallon bucket. It's probably five or six crabs in the bottom of a bucket. And as I'm looking inside his bucket, I saw one ambitious crab crawling on top of all the rest and reaching up to the rim and pulling himself up.

And I said, sir, your crab's about to get away. And he goes, watch what happens next. And all the other crabs at the bottom grabbed it by its hind legs and pulled it down. And he said, see, crabs are self-policing. And I realized in that moment, I've got crabs in my life. I've got negative people who are trying to hold me down, who tell me I can't do it, that I'm not worthy, I don't have the education, what makes me think I'm so special, and that I have to part ways with them.

How does someone deal with an energy vampire in their life? Well, first and foremost, Gandhi said, I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. And so you do not allow any. one's negative energy to hold you back. Do not allow their negativity to sabotage you and what you're here to do. Your positive energy, your belief, your vision, your optimism, your faith must be greater than all the negativity in doubt. So first off, I know my positivity is more powerful than your negativity. I mean, it was a great lesson from my dad, told my dad I want to be

a writer and speaker, his response, what the heck you want to do that for? That's a load of junk. That won't amount to anything. And then a few years later, I got on the time. Today Show. And as I'm walking out of this Today Show interview, it was a great interview. He saw it on TV. He's like, you mother, I just saw you on TV. You really made a difference. We're so proud of you. We always knew you could do that. You know, he didn't remember being negative. Huh. And I learned right then and there, not everyone's going to see what you see. So you don't waste your energy on those who don't get on your bus. You keep John driving. And you know what? Leave those passengers aside. So when Dad made that statement, when you said, hey, dad, I want to, you know, speak and write about

positivity what was your response seeing to me it was like he doesn't know okay any better like what what does he know like he's not right see I fought my dad tooth and nail when he said I shouldn't be a personal trainer there's no money to be made in it right I didn't know any better right and I just said no that's you know I just I really didn't even give him a hard time I just went okay whatever dad and I move forward so it's like you don't give that energy you don't give that any time you just continue to move forward I think too often we listen to those negative voices and we need to understand that we don't create our world outside in we create inside out so it's a really important principle of leadership and I call it inside out so as an

entrepreneur you have to live inside out creating through your spirit your passion your purpose your joy the power is on the inside and it's greater than all of the voices on the outside so when you understand that we create inside out that's where the power is so writing a little book right now with a good friend of mine Damon West and the book's called the coffee bean and when you put a carrot into hot water what happens to the carrot, it softens. And when you put an egg into hot water, what happens to the egg? It hardens.

It's hardened by the environment. The carrot is weakened by its environment. But you put a coffee bean into hot water, what happens? It transforms the environment. So being an entrepreneur is understand that we transform our environments from the inside out. Brilliant. And the power is on the inside.

Now, again, I can teach you strategies in how to build a business. I know you do that, but when you understand this principle, principle and you understand that this is really the understanding and the perspective that you have to have. There's so much power in that and that's truth. And as you move forward as an entrepreneur as a leader, living that truth and acting on that truth will carry you so far. You actually were living that way. You just didn't know you were doing that.

You were just doing it. Some people naturally have the inside out. But when some people understanding it and get it for the first time, changes everything. Game changer. Now, you work with sports teams. you work with athletes, you work with celebrities, you work with big businesses. Yeah, a lot of Fortune 500 companies. All of them have one thing in common.

They're adults. And you showed up to our headquarters and we were upstairs. And you handed me two things. You handed me cookies. And you handed me a children's book. And I've got both here. But let's talk about this children's book first. The Hard Hat for Kids.

And my dear friend, Andy Forsilla, wrote a book. book about Otis and Charlie played a win. It's a children's book and I bought 250 copies and sent him to my kid's school because I believe in helping kids become entrepreneurs. And other than Andy, you're the only other person I've seen with such tremendous information and influence write a children's book and why did you write this? It's actually my third one. So I wrote The Energy Bus for Kids, then thank you and good night, which is about teaching about gratitude. And then this one was about teaching kids how to be a great teammate. So I wrote the hard hat for

adult, which is about 21 ways to be a great teammate. It's a true story that book about a young man who died on the field, played Cornell lacrosse like I did, but played 11 years after I played, and he died on the field. He got hit in the chest with the ball and died on the field. But was the most incredible teammate, loyal, selfless, hardworking, and people still live their lives. His teammates still live their lives today based on him. And the kind of teammate he was. He had such a huge impact. And that Cordela Cross program has been forever impacted by him. But that day, he died.

He just left an incredible legacy. So all the proceeds from that book go to his foundation. And this one. So this is not about him. Sure. I didn't want to carry that pain that, you know, again, that the old book shares. But this is a story about a young girl who's a great basketball player, and she's on a mostly boys team, and she's the best player in the team.

But she's all about scoring. She's not a great teammate. Ah, she's a great player. She's not a great teammate. And yet, but Jacks is a great teammate. So she has to learn from Jacks how to be a great teammate because she doesn't win the hard hat because she's not a great teammate. The hard hat is given to the best teammate.

And so she wants to win the hard hat. So it's a story about that. And we're getting feedback from kids and parents. It's hilarious because parents are reading this book with their kids and they're like, I'm bringing it to work with me tomorrow. Even though it's a kid's book. Really? They're bringing it to work to share these simple principles of we,

before me. So working with the Rams. One of the key messages for the Rams has been we before me, the LA Rams. So it's the Rams, it's workplaces, but it's also kids where we teach them, don't focus on me, focus on we. And when we help others improve, we improve. When we help others get better, we get better. To be a successful entrepreneur, we went back to positive leadership that you were talking about earlier. I believe it's about loving, serving, and caring. That's, you know, from my book, The Carpenter. That's positive leadership. If you love what you do and you love others, you serve way to serve through your business and make an impact, and by serving, I mean, hey, you

can make money off of serving your clients, but you're still serving and you show you care, I always say, don't focus on building your business. Focus on loving, serving, and caring, and your business will exponentially grow. Focus on we before me and your business will exponentially grow. How can we add value? How can we serve? Now I'm curious. This is your third book, in the children's line. The children's book. What made you want to even consider writing your first book in children for children? So the energy bus has been my most popular book by far, more popular than all the others combined. And people kept on asking for a kid's book.

Because in the adult book, the bus driver Joy makes George Reed from a children's book to show them how simple the lesson is. And so people kept on asking for a children's book. Gotcha. Yeah. And so I had to do it. What the funny thing is when my publisher, I asked him to do a kid's book in the beginning after the energy bus just came out, and it wasn't successful yet.

It hadn't done well. No, no, we don't do children's books, which they don't. But then when people were asking for it, and then the energy bus became a bestseller, it started to get out there. He goes, you know, we should do a kid's book. What a great idea, right? Yeah. So it was pretty funny.

You know, I'm really glad that you did this, and I'll tell you why, because we see the repercussions of, I'm going to be very honest with you. I go on rants to my wife about parents who don't, who neglect their parenting and create savage little children who become savage adults who are either bad employees, bad teammates, or bad business people, and therefore literally scar an industry or scar a company or scar a group of customers or clients.

And it really starts at this level. It does. I mean, what you just said, It's so true. College sports in the corporate world, everyone's been taught, like when they're younger, it's about me, me, me. Selfies, it's the selfie generation. It's about what college you're going to, about what sports program you're going to play out. It's all about you, you, you get to this team, and now you have to become a teammate. College coaches are reaching out to me all the time. These guys are all focused on themselves. This team is all focused

focused on these parents, it's not the kids' fault. The parents now more than never are so focused on you're going to be taking music lessons every day for the next month. And when you get to this concert, it doesn't matter what other people are playing. It's about you, you. So it's all about you, you, you. We're not teaching them about generosity. We're not teaching them about being great teammates. And we're so self-focused now more than ever.

And so I think kids are now becoming very self-focused. And you're right. That's going to lead to more and more problems as they get to the workplace, as they get to colleges. They don't know how to help anyone else. No, no, they don't. And so that's why one of the reasons why I did that too is because, like, okay, we got to give this message to kids. Because if we could start now, we can reverse the trend of the me generation, the selfie generation.

I always joke, but it's really true. And when you take a picture, you know, and that picture with a group of people, and someone sends you the picture, or you look at it, who do you look at first? You look at yourself? Look at yourself. Because we are naturally self-focused. Nothing's wrong with that. We are. But we have to learn, I believe, from that natural inclination to then focus on others.

Yeah, I love that. I serve the picture, especially my wife's picture. Like I, if she looks good, that's all that. You do this here, right? I do, I do. I've learned. It doesn't matter. If they look good, it's a great picture.

That's a good picture. One of my eyes could be crossed, the other one could be closed, it doesn't matter. That's a great picture. That's a great picture. John, you showed up with another thing. And before we started, I actually had the double chocolate chip version. It was a double chocolate, or you had three flavors. It was chocolate chip.

Yeah, double chocolate. It was the double chocolate version. And it was amazing. And I said, hey, I really love your palate. because the way you engineered it, it's a little on the saltier side, and I love salty. But these cookies, the positive cookies, are a little different than the typical cookies, not just because they're gluten-free and vegan, which is your gluten-free and vegan. But what makes these positive cookies?

So what makes them so unique is that inside every rapper is a card with an encouraging quote. And that's why I did this. I had no interest in being in the cookie business. It was the idea that through the cookie, we can encourage people. And so you open up that wrapper, and there's going to be a different quote inside with a quote of encouragement. You send a positive cookie to somebody who's struggling, or you're a parent. You want to send them to your kids. You want to send them to your friends.

You see it on the shelf. You get one. It's about knowing that you can feed yourself with positivity. One of our main themes is feed yourself with positivity. Feed your positivity. And so that's what we want to do. So that was my interesting gang involved is how can we use this as a vehicle to encourage others? So I know I'm not in the cookie business.

I'm in the encouraging business. But I knew it had to be good. So we had a food scientist create a vegan, gluten-free cookie that is off the charts that you would not know is vegan and gluten-free. And so, because you can have all the encouragement in the world. If it's not a good cookie, no one's going to share the encouragement. So the goal was, okay, it's a protein-based cook. So it's protein, yet it's not too high because a lot of protein cookies

get very pasty and very chalky. So we knew we couldn't have it too high. And if they have it high, then they have to add all these fillers and different things to try to make it tasty, but then it's not good and not healthy. So I said, okay, we said, let's go for health, let's go for vegan, gluten-free, protein, with a great message inside. Fascinating. You know what I love about you is you are organically such a great marketer.

You think about what you do. There's such empire builders, listen up. Listen up. He said, I'm not in the cookie business. I'm in the positivity messaging business. Now, you know that there's people out there who are probably, probably not following you on social media. They're not coming to your website.

They're not going to your seminars and workshops. They don't work for the companies or the sports teams that you consult with. But they do walk through grocery stores and they go, hmm, a cookie. And they could use a positive message and they could one day become a customer. Right. They may and you know, but I'm not even thinking of that, but I bet that's going to be a really cool buy product. Without question, man.

Of that, of that. And yet people who may not know me will now find me. But again, it's not my encouraging, just I have a few of my quotes in there, but I'm about one 80th of the quotes. I wanted to make sure that this wasn't about me. We get quotes from all these different people. I want one of your quotes for the future cookies. I love that.

So we want to pull from inspirational people, classic quotes, the most historic people of our time, great leaders, so that we can pull these quotes that when you open a cookie, you're going to know you're going to be encouraged. It's cool, though. People have said right away, like, oh, it's like a fortune cookie. That's what I said.

But a positive American version. But I'm like, exactly. That's something that we reimagine the fortune cookie in a positive way. Dude, by the way, speaking of a food scientist, I had no idea that food scientists exist. So had I met you two years ago? Either did I. Right?

Had I met you two years ago and you said, hey, I hired a food scientist? I would say, John, what is that? But two years ago at Calvary Chapalcino Hills, Pastor Jack Hibbs brought up a food scientist. And I forget what the context was. But afterwards, I went to meet him in the hallway. I said, hey, nice to meet you.

So what do you work for? Who do you work for? He says, oh, I work for the Free Delay Company for Doritos. Oh, what do you do for Doritos? He goes, my job and my two other scientist teammates' job is to make sure that the Dorito chip melts just right in your mouth to tantalize all the taste buds to get you. you to reach for one more. Now, as a personal trainer, as a fitness expert, I started to panic in

that moment. I'm like, wait a minute, you are the enemy, right? Like, your job is to get people to scientifically crave more of the bad stuff. Like personal trainers, gym owners, health food experts don't have scientists working for them like Doritos does. And so it's funny that you mentioned a food scientist because I didn't know they exist until I met one in person who in my mind was the enemy because getting people to eat more crap. Right. And we went through a lot of You went the opposite way here. Yeah, we went through a lot of iterations of this, though. I mean, this was probably our 10th iteration that we got it right.

And my partner, who I went to high school with, so he joined me early on in doing this, so we're having a great time. You know, went to high school, we've known each other forever. He is not a very healthy person, and his family doesn't eat healthy. Hope he's not listening and watching this. But we knew that if he liked it and his family liked this healthy cookie, then we'd be the case. So he was like our test market that we had to please mark.

Like a one-man giddy-pigy. Yeah. And we knew if you liked it, we'd reach the masses. Because it couldn't just be like people who are gluten-free or vegan. We had to make sure that they liked it. And once they actually liked this formula, we all knew we had something. It's like a 10th version. That's nuts.

It took a while. That's nuts. John, how does someone connect with you, reach out to you, learn more from you? They could just go to john-gordon.com, J-O-N-Gordon. Twitter is, I'm pretty active on Twitter. At J-O-N-Gordon 11. Yeah. Instagram, J-N-Gordon, 11.

And I manage my social media. People often think I have someone who does it for me, but I manage my social media. Good friend Daniel, who still works with me all these years. He helps me a little bit, but I mostly manage the entire thing. That's great. What was the one thing, if there was anything, that I should have asked but haven't?

Wow. Probably what's your favorite strategy for being positive or for staying positive? Oh, yes. And I would say it's the best advice I ever heard from Dr. James Gills. He's the only person on the planet to complete six double Ironman triathlons, double Iron Man, which means you do an Iron Man and then 24 hours later you do another one. Last time he did it, he was 59 years old. And he said this to me.

He said, I've learned to talk to myself instead of listen to myself. He said, if I listen to myself, I roll the negative, all the fear, all the doubt, all the reasons why it's not going to work. If I talk to myself, I can feed myself with the words and the encouragement that I need to keep on moving forward. So talk to yourself instead of listen to yourself. And entrepreneurs really like that kind of message. They find it really helpful. Because every day we go out there, all the negativity in the world. Now you just talk to yourself with the truth that you know.

And know this, that negativity is always going to come in. Negativity will always come in. But those negative thoughts are not coming from you. How do I know? You would never choose to have a negative thought. True enough. We never would. So they come in.

Don't believe the negative thoughts and the lies those negative thoughts tell. Let's say you're not worthy. this isn't going to work. What are you crazy doing this? So and so you're not going to be successful enough. No, no. You just go out every day with your passion, your purpose, your love, and you speak truth to those lies that, you know what,

you're here to do this great work. You're here to create a great business. You're here to build an empire. And that's possible. And as you believe it's possible, you will then go and create it. And so walk in that truth, not the lies. I love that. Talk to yourself and don't listen to yourself.

Mr. John Gordon, thank you so much for being on the Empire Show. We appreciate you. It's an honor. Guys and gals, if you like this episode, and I know you do, please give us five stars of rating. Share this. Leave comments below. And of course, take a screenshot, share it on social media. And above all, tell your mama all about it.

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