Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #165: Take Your Life From Negative To POSITIVE With Jon Gordon Best Selling Author & Leadership Speaker

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

In This Episode You Will Learn About:  Finding power in who YOU are  How to talk to yourself instead of just listening  Becoming the BEST version of yourself   Tools for developing a positive mindset  Resources: Website: ww.jongordon.com & positiveuniversity.com   Read The Energy Bus Join The Power Of Positive Leadership  Listen to Positive University Podcast LinkedIn & Youtube: @Jon Gordon  Instagram: @jongordon11 Facebook: @jongordonpage Twitter: @JonGordon11 Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order by Friday and You Receive My $500 Bonus Bundle for FREE as a big thank you! Click here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Show Notes:  It’s REALLY hard to be positive sometimes. When you focus on gratitude, you feel blessed instead of stressed! Remember, the mind is like a garden, we must weed the negative, and feed the positive. Tune in now to learn how you can train your brain from negative to positive, and find clarity within yourself.  About The Guest: Today we are joined by one of the top leadership and positivity speakers in the US! Our guest, Jon Gordon, the New York Times best selling author of The Energy Bus, has sold millions of copies and helped countless people find clarity within themselves! He’s written 23 books and has some of the BEST positivity training out there. He’ll share his expertise with us so we can all work towards a more positive mindset! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We always blame the circumstance, but it's not. It's always our state of mind. It's how we respond to the circumstance that we're facing. When you have a lot of clutter in your mind, you have a lot of thoughts, a lot of revved up thoughts, you have a lot of negativity and fear coming in. If you think about that mind, that's a lot of clutter, you have a low state of mind. When you have a very clear mind, not a lot of clutter, there's a lot of faith, there's a lot of trust, there's a lot of love when being in the zone.

There's not a lot of thought. And that provides clarity. And so clarity is what creates confidence. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back.

I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. This is the first time in the history of this show that my guest is not letting me read his bio. but I'm actually happy about it. Let me tell you why, because the bio is not good enough for who this person is, because this person is unbelievable, All-Star, who just came into my life unexpectedly, literally gift from God, helping me so much from another new friend that, again, I've met none of these people in real life, but I love them through Zoom and through the computer.

And my guest today is a New York Times bestselling author of the Energy Bus sold millions. That's millions and millions. of copies of his book. He's written, I believe, 23 books. He's married to the most unbelievable woman, Catherine, who has an unbelievable podcast coming out. And she is just a great support, just like he is. John Gordon, I'm so grateful to have you here with me today. Heather, great to be with you. And thank you for being such an encouragement to Catherine, her podcast, her career. You've been a model in so many ways. I appreciate that. And I just love your work, love what you do. And it's an honor to be with you. John, this is so crazy.

And if you guys haven't heard of John Gordon before, he's literally one of the top leadership and positivity speakers in the U.S., one of the largest authors in the country. I mean, he's huge. And the time that you've given me to help me on my journey thus far, I'm just, I'm so incredibly grateful. You really, what I like so much about you is the way you portray yourself on social media aligns with who you are in real life. And that is not always the case. I appreciate that. It has to be authentic. It has to be real.

That's what I'm best at is just being myself, not being anyone else. And when you're yourself, you can actually find a lot of power in being who you are instead of pretending to be someone else. As you know, that's where confidence comes from, being who you're meant to be. That's so true. And for a long time specifically in corporate America, I tried to fit a mold that I thought would, you know, make me more accepted or help me to get elevated more rapidly or whatever it was. And now, after being fired, I finally show up.

as my real self. And I agree with you. I feel much more confident in who I am. You know, I don't have to practice everything so much. So I think that's great advice for people is to just show up and be that real version of you. And when I talk about positivity, it's funny because I'm very honest and I tell people I am not naturally positive. It's like ironic, this is my life's work because I have to work really hard at it. I grew up in Long Island, New York, in a Jewish Italian family, a lot of food, a lot of guilt, a lot of wine, a lot of whining. And so my family was not very positive. I had to learn to be positive and grow into becoming more positive. It's taken a lot of work. I've actually rewired my brain from negative to positive. So when I teach, I tell people,

I'm a good teacher at this because I've had to work at it. I've had to really become it. I wasn't always positive. And now it's actually much more my natural state after doing so much of this work. I mean, I think you were just quoting pit bull there from took my life from negative to positive. So I love that. Absolutely. Okay. So you didn't. start out positive, you went through challenging times in your life, I would love to hear about that and how your trajectory changed and brought you to where you are today. What were those pivotal moments in your journey? Well, the biggest moment was when Catherine came out to me and she said, I love you, but I'm not going to spend my life with someone who makes me so miserable.

Like, you need to change. And I just lost my job during the dot-com crash. So fired, as I know you have been. And I was fearful, anxious, stressed. We had two children very young. I was being miserable. I was blaming Catherine for why my life was so bad, why I wasn't living up to my potential. And she gave me an ultimatum. She's like, I'm not going to live like this. And it was a great ultimatum because I needed to change.

And so I wanted to stay married. I loved her. And so I begged her to stay. She agreed to stay. And I agreed to change. And I began this journey of working to become more positive. I started to research ways I could be more positive. This was during the emerging field of positive psychology.

And so I was practicing all these different ideas. I was taking walks of gratitude. The research shows you can't be stressed and thankful at the same time. If you're feeling blessed, you won't feel stress. So I was doing that. I was focusing on what I get to do instead of what I have to do each day. So I shifted half-dos to get-to's. I was talking to myself instead of listening to myself.

Instead of those negative voices, I was speaking truth and words of encouragement. So I'm literally walking, talk to myself. My neighbors think I'm crazy, but I'm doing this on a daily basis. And I really started to pray. I started to pray. And those prayers start to have a huge impact on my life, on my heart, on my soul. So that was a huge impetus to change doing this work. It didn't happen overnight.

The mind is like a garden. You get to weed the negative. Feed the positive. Do it for one day. It's not going to do a whole lot. But if you weed the negative, feed the positive for a week, a month, a year. For me, it's now been over 15 years. That garden starts to look magnificent.

But it's been a lot of work and it's been a lot of changing. I've got to credit Catherine a lot for her support, for her staying with me, and for her to be strong enough to say, listen, this isn't working. I'm not doing this. And because she was strong, I had to change. We wrote a book called Relationship Grit Together, as you know. And it's not a book about how great our marriages. It's a book about how we've had to overcome all the obstacles and challenges to become

who we are and to have the relationship we have now. And it's the mistakes I made along the way. She didn't make any mistakes. I made the mistakes. And there's no mistakes that Catherine made in the book because she didn't really make any. I made them. And it's about how we work through them and during that time. So it's definitely a journey.

When you go put yourself back when you were just fired and I'm sure your confidence was so low, full of self-doubt, wondering what's next. And then Catherine hits you. I know it ends up being a great thing, but she hits you with this ultimatum. In some ways, many people would crumble under that pressure when you decided, okay, I'm going to, instead of crumbling, I'm going to take action steps to move forward.

That sounds really hard to me, knowing how badly it feels in those low moments. And many get defensive, and they're not willing to change. And so they don't change. And then you get divorced. And so I had a choice. Get divorced or look at myself.

and be willing to change. So you have to be willing to look in the mirror and say, okay, am I the person that I want to be? Is there a better version of myself that I can be, that I can become? And the answer for me was yes. So you need to start working at that and becoming that person. Where was that guy who played lacrosse at Cornell University

and felt like he could accomplish anything? I had lost that guy and I needed to find that person back. So many of us do. And I like the way that you just described that because it reminds me of when I was younger and in sports and really feeling on top of the world and that anything truly is possible. And then so many of us get chipped away by negative things happening, whether it be pandemic or economy or whatever challenges that we all face. And over time, that can definitely erode your confidence. What are some of the ways that you teach people to build their confidence back up in moments like that? Well, the best advice I ever heard is from Dr. James Gills.

he's the only person on the planet to complete six double Ironman triathlons. That's a double Iron Man. It means you do an Iron Man. A day later, you do another one. And the last time he did it, he was 59 years old. He was asked how he did it. He said this. I've learned to talk to myself instead of listen to myself.

If I listen, I hear all the fear, the negativity, the doubt, all the reasons why I can't finish this race. But if I talk to myself, I could feed myself with the words and the encouragement that I need to keep on moving forward. So it's about talking to yourself and not listening to yourself. It's also about knowing that those negative thoughts that are coming in are not coming from you. I always ask professional athletes when I work with them. Your negative thoughts come from you. And they always say, yeah, of course, they're in my head. Here's the next question.

Really? Who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Would you ever choose a negative thought? I wouldn't. Would you ever choose a thought that sabotaged you, that told you weren't enough, that the future was hopeless, that you're not going to make it? You wouldn't choose those thoughts. So they're always coming in. they come from consciousness, they come from a spiritual place.

And here's the deal. Just because you have a negative thought doesn't mean you have to believe it. And so when you're dreaming having a nightmare, are you choosing those thoughts? No, they're always coming in. So don't believe the lies that those negative thoughts or those bad dreams tell you, instead speak truth to the lies. And the truth is, you're here to do great things. The truth is there is greatness inside of you.

And spiritually, I truly believe God put that greatness inside of you because you were made in the likeness and image of God. And so if you're made in that likeness and image, there is greatness within you to accomplish great things. And that's why everybody wants to be great. Everybody deep down wants to be great because they know there's greatness within them. They just have these voices that say you're not great.

You're not enough. You're not going to make it happen. And so you have to speak truth to those lies. And the more you do, and I've done this in my own journey, my own walk, over time, you start walking in that truth. You start walking in that power. The other key is to help people understand how consciousness works and how mindset works. For instance, one day you're in traffic and it bothers you.

The next day, you're in the same traffic and it doesn't. You're listening to a good song. You're in a great mood. It doesn't bother you. Is it the traffic, Heather? No. If it was the traffic, it would have the same response, the same effect, every single time. Think about when you were in college, you had a paper due or a project.

You couldn't get your head around it. You were stuck. you couldn't finish it. And then one day, all of a sudden, it just shifted. You're able to bang out that paper and it just flowed. What happened, right? Something changed. Was it the paper?

No, it was your state of mind. Where people come back from the war, about 8% to 20% of the people come back with PTSD. Think about that. Some people, they come back from the same experience. Some have the PTSD. Others don't. So is it the event? Is it the circumstance?

Is it the traffic? Is it the war? No. we always blame the circumstance, but it's not. It's always our state of mind. It's how we respond to the circumstance that we're facing. When you have a lot of clutter in your mind, you have a lot of thoughts, a lot of revved up thoughts, you have a lot of negativity and fear coming in.

If you think about that mind, that's a lot of clutter, you have a low state of mind. When you have a very clear mind, not a lot of clutter, there's a lot of faith, there's a lot of trust, there's a lot of love. Think about that. When you're praying, you're connecting, you're in those moments of when being in the zone, There's not a lot of thought. And that provides what happens is that provides clarity. And so clarity is what creates confidence.

People think the more confident I am, the more clear I am. No, the more clarity you have, the more confidence you have. You see it. There's a flow. You could actually anticipate the next step. And in those moments, we have a lot of confidence. We have great clarity. And so an elevative state of mind brings more clarity, which brings more confidence.

When you have a lower state of mind, a lot of clutter, a lot of fear, a lot of doubt, a lot of negativity, you have this lower state of mind. Things bother you more. You feel more insecure. You're cluttered, lower state of mind. As a result of that, you feel very insecure and unconfident. Is that making sense? Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with lux essentials that feel effortless and look polished. They're perfect for layering, mixing, and building a wardrobe that lasts. Their versatile styles make it easy to reach for them day after day. Quince has all the staples covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. Their wardrobe essentials are crafted to last season after season. Their Italian wool coats are real standouts. They're beautifully tailored to soft to the touch and built to carry you through years of wear, not just one season.

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do you also believe in your surroundings, cluttering your surroundings, contributing to that lack of clarity? I would agree that everything is energy. And so from a feng shui standpoint, everything is energy. So you have a lot of clutter physically, physically that energy can affect you. But again, we always create from the inside out. Confidence comes from inside, the essence of who we are determines what we create in the world. And so you should be in a prison cell.

You should be able to be in a cluttered environment and still know that that stuff around you has no power over you. You are more powerful than your circumstance, your environment. It's the coffee bean, the carrot, the egg analogy. You put a carrot into boiling hot water. What happens? It softens. It gets weakened. You put an egg into boiling hot water.

What happens? It gets hardened by the environment. You can get bitter and angry and frustrated by the situation you're dealing with. You can be like the carrot where you get weakened, fearful, stressed, anxiety, or you can be like the coffee bean. You put the coffee bean into boiling hot water. And that coffee beam will transform the water into coffee. Think about that. It's not impacted by the environment like the carrot or the egg.

instead it transforms the environment. And that is our power. From inside of us, we can transform every environment that we're in, every interaction that we're having. And it's like Catherine, I will fight over the dishes. Sometimes she loves to leave her dishes in the sink. Of course he does. He's creative, spontaneous, right?

For me, I'm like, no, I eat, I do my dishes, and I put them away right away. And a lot of times the clutter and the dishes will bother me. But deep down, what I really know, the truth is, it shouldn't bother me at all. It's lower state of mind letting it bother me. I'm looking at my environment thinking it can impact me. The real power is knowing that you can impact your environment. Think about social media. Gandhi said, I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. And so for social media, I change it to, I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their

dirty tweet. And so you should be able to, you should be able to look at social media and say, you know what? The objective is not to get rid of it. It's to look at it and know that those comments or what someone says has no power over you. So you're more powerful than the tweet than what people say. So you should be able to look at things going on in the news and the social media and say, I'm more powerful than that. Now, I do advise people shut it off if it's bothering you. If you can't handle it. But the real power lies in, how do I raise my consciousness level? How do I raise my state of mind to the point where this stuff is, lower than where I'm consciously, where it doesn't bother me. I rise above it. I see it for what

it is. And I know that I am more powerful to create a positive future regardless of what I'm facing. I know that one of the ways in your past, and I don't know if you're still doing it, that you were able to declutter your mind or you started down the journey was really getting into meditation at one point before you really tapped into your faith. Where does meditation fit into this whole journey for you at this point? I think yoga, meditation, all of these different disciplines are really great for actually creating a clear mind. It's great for getting rid of the clutter.

It helps you create connection. Connection is what helps bring clarity, which brings confidence. So connection brings clarity, clarity realizes and leads to confidence. So when you have this connection through meditation, you're connecting some believe to nothingness if you're a Buddhist. I believe when you meditate or pray, you connect to everythingness. You connect to the creator of the universe. You create to God.

You create to everybody, everything, this incredible universe that we're a part of. Universe, by the way, means one song. So we're all living in a one song. One songs don't happen by accident. They are created. There's a creator of the one song. So I believe in a creator of the one song we are living in. And so if you understand that you're living in a universe, a one song, you are now connecting

to this incredible energetic universe of consciousness. And you're connecting to so many people. You're connecting to God. And from that connection, you find a lot of clarity. So yoga, playing a sport you love, playing an instrument, wherever you find your zone, wherever you find your flow, when you're in those moments, they're very spiritual experiences because you're connecting almost to the supernatural, almost to a higher level. of consciousness when you're in those moments. And so I truly believe that that's what leads to

connection. So I'm all for anything that allows you to connect. But it doesn't have to be meditation. It doesn't have to be yoga. It doesn't even have to be prayer. It could be a walk. It could be taking a shower where most of us get our ideas. It can be finding stillness in the course of a drive. It can be listening to music and dancing, which so many do, right? So there's so many ways to find connection. The key is to find it that allows you to have the clarity that gives you confidence. Remember, what elevates our state of mind? When I talk to professional athletes and I share with them this framework, I was asking, what should be your next question? And they say, how do I raise my state of mind? Right? Because if you have a lower state of mind, how do I raise it?

The most powerful way of all is love. It's love. When you receive love and you are loving, that is how you become a powerful force in the universe and love casts out fear. So when you're feeling that love and you're leading with love, doing what you, you love, fear dissipates, you become one in that moment because you are created with love. You are here because of God's love, I truly believe. And that love drives you to love others. And then because of that, you become a truly powerful force. And that elevates your state of mind to overcome the challenges you face.

So from a practical standpoint, when I speak to athletes, it's like, or anyone performing, you're in the moment, you're fearful, maybe you're getting on stage and you're a little nervous. Just love what you do. love speaking as you do so well. Love the audience. I know you're at your best when you're just loving what you do

and loving the audience, right? That's when you feel it. That's when you come alive. If you're worried about what the audience thinks, you're now in fear mode, not in love. And so when you share that love, wow, you're most confident in those moments. So I've actually been very nervous before speeches.

I still get nervous. There are times I actually feel insecure, even though I've given thousands of speeches. And in those moments, I remind myself, just love that you get to do. do this, love the audience, and love sharing this message, and the rest will take care of itself. And don't worry about what people think. And by the end, it usually works out well when I do that.

Have you ever given a TED Talk? I gave a TEDx talk. And it was a spontaneous TEDx talk that was not planned. My only TED Talk, you'll find it on YouTube. You'll find it on there. I did not, I winged it because I arrived. I had just spoke to the San Francisco 49ers football team. I was meeting with coaches all day talking to them, giving coaching and giving advice and just doing a lot of that stuff. And I had to get up really early to get to the airport, like four in the morning to go towards the East Coast. And so now I'm flying all day. I'm exhausted. Sort of like how I feel right now. I arrive. I arrive. And as I'm walking down the stairs, I see that the people picking me up are wearing Ted shirts. I'm like, oh, I love Ted. I'm like, yeah, we're having an event right now tonight.

Tomorrow is your event for our school district, but we're doing a Ted, TED, you know, series tonight at the same theater. You know, someone just canceled, do you want to do a talk for us? And I said, no, I do not want to do a talk for you all. No. I said, I haven't slept. I just spoke. No, I'm exhausted.

No. We're on our way to the hotel. On our way, they said, how many people are going to be there? He said, like, 500. And it hit me, John, this is your vision. This is your mission. You said to encourage and inspire as many people as possible, one person at a time, you're not living your vision and mission if you don't do this. I said, hey, all right, I'll do it.

We went to the hotel. I changed it to my suit because I was wearing like a t-shirt and shorts, changed to my suit. We drove right to the place. And five minutes later, I was on stage giving a spontaneous TED talk. It actually went pretty well. It was a pretty cool message. Got a great response. I don't think it was my strongest talk. I had a cold. I was, you know, I was all nasally even more than I am now. But it was, it was cool to do. That's unbelievable. The reason why I asked you I've never been more nervous for any talk in my life than when I gave my TEDx talk. And so it's so interesting to hear how you literally winged it day of not at your best. And that to me just expresses how much confidence and belief you have in yourself,

which I'm over here applauding you because that is very, very impressive to take that little red circle without practicing. I can't wait to watch it now. It might have been better for me because maybe if I had. too much time to think lower state of mind clutter, right? I would have been worried and fearful and probably would have been too nervous. But instead, it was spontaneous on the fly, love the audience, love sharing this message. And as a result of that, I actually had a high state of mind when I gave that talk, right? So it's an interesting study. There's this kind of mindset that we always have to

prepare to be great. And I do believe in preparation. I do believe we have to work at craft, but there are times where a golfer will show up, didn't get to prepare, they go right on the tea, and they wind up having an amazing round. What happened? It was their state of mind. Something about it was still elevated. Sometimes the player is just seeing the course so clear that hitting the ball cleanly. They're hitting well. Tennis, we just see the same thing. It's all just flowing. What is it? Can't explain it. We're not robots. We are mental, emotional, and spiritual beings and of course physical. But actually, we're made of energy equals MC squared.

So our bodies are 100% energy, just vibrating slow enough to appear solid. So if you understand that, it's all about energy. How do we bring a higher state of energy everything we do? That's when you have great confidence when you have this clarity, connection, and energy that is flowing, if that makes sense. It does. It does make sense. So thank you for sharing that. Can you share a little bit around how you entered into this journey of faith and coming from Judaism, growing up from Judaism?

What is that transition like? Because that's not something that I've covered much on this show. Yeah, we really didn't go to temple or anything. My mom was Jewish. My dad who raised me was a New York City police officer and Italian. And so he was Catholic. So we never went to church. We never went to temple.

I was bar mitzvahed, but it was like a crash course bar mitzvah just because they wanted me to understand my heritage and just go through the. the ceremony. So I learned a little bit about my heritage and my faith. And we would celebrate Passover in different holidays. So I understood the Jewish tradition, I would say, but it wasn't much of a religion for me. And either was Christianity. And then I always had this belief in a God, though. I always believed that there was a God who was watching me, cared about me, and loved me. I always felt that. It was like this presence that I felt. So I was a seeker. And then in my 20s, meeting Catherine, I was really into Buddhism and meditation. And, Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer and all of the different disciplines that came with that and chakras and

all that great stuff. And so I learned a lot in that. And I think it was great. Like I really look back on it. It really helped me because I was a seeker looking for God. And I was looking from a spiritual lens. It was very spiritual. I just didn't have religion, but it was very spiritual. And then someone introduced me to Jesus. And Erwin McManus, who's a pastor in LA, who I just love, his, his sermon that I was given really spoke to me. For the first time, I was like, wow, this Jesus sounds pretty cool. I want to learn about him. And so to this day, I consider myself a follower of Jesus.

It's not like I consider myself a certain religion. I'm a follower of Jesus. Jesus didn't come to make Christians. He came to make disciples. And if you understand what he taught and how he lived, it's so powerful. Now, again, I did accept him as my savior because I realized I needed a savior because I couldn't save myself. And I believe that's why he came. And so it's funny coming from the Jewish background who, you know, Jesus was Jewish and this journey of seeking God and looking for God and then

believing that Jesus was part of the completion of that story. The Jews believe in just the first part of the story. They don't believe in the second part. They believe in the Old Testament, not the New Testament. So the New Testament is the second part of that story, which I have come to believe in. If your anxiety, depression, or ADHD are more than a rough patch, you don't need just another meditation app. Takayatry makes it easy to see a psychiatrist online using your insurance in days. Takayatry is 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, and more. Unlike therapy-only apps, tachyotry is psychiatric.

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That's tachiatry.com slash confidence to get matched in minutes. Because I've seen the impact it's had in my own life. Like when I came to faith, it changed everything. Like I always knew of God and believed in God, but when I really came to believe in Jesus, it was like this incredible burden was taken from me that allowed me to connect to the creator of the universe in a deep, intimate way. And that actually is what Christians believe. They believe that

that Jesus came here to reconcile us back to God to really be one with God and have a deeper relationship and connection in him and through him and with him. And so through that connection, right, we talked about there's more clarity, there's more power, there's more faith. And that's my journey. Like, that's my life. People cannot believe who knew me years ago. that I'm doing this. They're like, I was just with my buddies from college. They're like, how are you doing this? How have you written 24 books, have sold 5 million copies impacting the world the way?

You were so unconfident. You had no confidence in college. You were always so insecure. And I was, like, I was so insecure for so long. And when I came to faith, I found this confidence. It wasn't like, oh, okay, you come to faith and then, you know, like God will turn around, your life. No, I just found this faith and this faith gave me strength that I needed to pursue my dreams and goals of whatever I was meant to do. And I have to say, my dreams and goals came from when I asked

God what I was born to do. Why am I here? I didn't choose this. This chose me. So I surrendered, like, I will do whatever it is you want me to do. My prayer was use me, God, for your purpose. Guide me towards my purpose. Just use me. And it's been my prayer on. going. And so I'm constantly being used. So I know I'm here for a greater purpose. And that gives me a lot of confidence for today. When you know your why, you will know the way and you will let obstacles get in the way. And we don't get burned out because of what we do, we get burned out because we forget why we do it. So it's the purpose that keeps you fresh, keeps you going, keeps you strong. So I often say my faith in God doesn't make life easier. It makes me stronger. And on my own,

I am fearful, but with God, I am faithful. And so I find a lot of confidence in that connection, right in that faith. And it's funny, being a Buddhist and meditating when I would do that, that's when God started to show up. That's when God came in in my meditations. God's like, okay, you're silent now. You're still, now I can start talking to you because I was actually meditating. And next thing you know, I started seeing a glowing cross. So my story is pretty interesting that way. But that's my journey. That's what happened to me. I connected and all of a sudden God started to come in. Same thing happened with Scott M. Peck, who wrote the road less travel. remember that book? He as a Buddhist found his faith, you know, from a Christian perspective,

through meditations and his Buddhist disciplines, which is pretty interesting. Wow. And some of the things that you've seen since you found your faith are mind blowing, like the speed at which you write your books. That's such a great, great observation because the fact that every book I write takes about three and a half to four weeks, the garden, one of my most recent books took about two and a half weeks. So these books, books really do come to me. I pray. I get the idea, the vision of what I'm supposed to write. And I don't write one until I have that vision of what it's supposed to be. And all of a sudden, once it comes, it just flows and I write each day. So I do have to get up every morning and make

that choice to write in the morning. Tune out email, tune out the noise. Don't check social media, write each morning. But when I do that, I'll take a walk, I'll come back, I'll write some more. And then that night, I'll edit what I wrote. I will then make some changes. I'll get some new ideas. I'll write them down. The next morning I get up, I write again, I go pray, I do the same thing. So the discipline combined with, you know, the insight and the vision that God gives me is really powerful in terms of writing these books. So I give all credit to God in my books, and I am not the author, just the pen.

It's the only thing you can explain that someone like me who really, my English teacher said, I shouldn't go to Cornell because it will be too hard for me, could write this many books and have the impact I've had through these books. as a result of that through my faith. Again, it's a story of surrender. It's a story of trust. It's a story of saying, okay, there's something greater than me. I'm open to it.

Use me for your purpose, guide me. And I know that my life is short and temporary. It's not going to last forever. And so while I'm here, allow me to make an impact, allow me to make a difference, and use me for that purpose. And that came from someone who was selfish, controlling, and negative, and who really, whose wife came an ultimatum, and who also God used to then do something good in this world.

And I think about my wife too, Catherine deserves so much credit because she also built me up and believed in me and supported me. And I think that's what I love to do for people and for you as well. Like I know what your potential is. I know the greatness within you. I know the books you're going to write, the talks you're going to give,

you're going to write even more books than your writing. So I see that. I see that in people. And Catherine did that for me. She really believed in me. I would not have been able to do this if I didn't have her support. And I love to give support to others. I love that you said that about Catherine, because not only does she support you,

is she your champion, but she also held you accountable when she needed to. That's what leadership is all about. Love and accountability. So when I speak on leadership, which I do often, I don't usually talk about these things, Heather, in my talks, just so you know. My audience is, I love talking about it here. It's pretty cool that we are. But I usually talk about positive leadership.

And a big part of that is love. And love and accountability. You got to love them up. You got to have standards, but you got to hold them accountable to the culture, the values, the principles, and the standards. And when someone's not living up to their potential, because you love them, you do need to challenge them to be their best. Because if you really love someone, you won't settle for anything but them being their best. You love your son. You're not going to let him settle. You're going to push him and challenge him to be great. My mom did that for me. Almost too much, though. But she pushed me a lot, but almost too much, but I know I wouldn't be pursuing things and going after things if it wasn't for

always doing that to me when I was younger. John, thank you so much for your message today. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. And personally, thank you so much for all the help that you give me and have given me. And I'm just, I'm so grateful for you. Where can everybody follow you, find you, and catch up with you? Just go to john gordon.com, j-on-gordon.com or Instagram, Twitter at J-O-N-Gordon 11. And I want to encourage everyone to read The Garden.

I think if you heard this interview and you're really interested in my work, read the garden. It will inspire you, encourage you. You'll learn about the five Ds that you have to face and overcome those five Ds and how to overcome them and win the battle of your mind to have more confidence, more faith, more belief. And I think it will really speak to you. So hopefully people check that out. Heather, thanks so much for having me. What an honor.

And I'm excited about your new book coming out. Can't wait to see it just impact a lot of lives. Thank you so much, John. I will link the garden in the show notes and to John's Instagram and his social media. I followed John on Instagram. And if you ever need to pick me up, head over to his page. And he's always there for you. Until next week, keep creating your confidence.

And we will be right back.