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

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Are your thoughts helping you move forward, or are they quietly running your life? We talk a lot about positivity, discipline, leadership, and good habits, but very few people understand how those things actually work together. Negative thoughts can feel true simply because they show up fast. Bad habits can undo years of progress. Leaders can have a great vision and still lose their team because they do not communicate, connect, or create trust. And being hardworking is not always enough if people do not want to follow you. This matters because success is shaped by what you believe, what you repeat, and how you show up around other people. Real confidence comes from learning how to challenge your own thinking, remove friction before a habit begins, communicate with clarity, and become the kind of person who strengthens the environment instead of being controlled by it. Positivity is a skill. Likability is a skill. Leadership is a skill. And all of them can be practiced. Jon Gordon is one of the most influential leadership authors and speakers in the world. He has worked with CEOs, professional athletes, championship teams, coaches, and major organizations across business, sports, and education. He is the author of 32 books, including The Energy Bus, The Power of Positive Leadership, The Coffee Bean, and his latest book, The Power of Positive Habits. His work focuses on helping people build stronger mindsets, better habits, healthier cultures, and teams that perform at a higher level. What's Discussed: (03:05) How The Energy Bus went from 30 publisher rejections to selling more than three million copies. (09:05) Why positivity is a skill you develop, especially when negativity comes naturally. (14:43) How connection and disconnection affect anxiety, clarity, focus, and performance. (18:39) Why physical habits like lifting weights can build discipline, confidence, and mental strength. (24:40) How choosing one word for the year can create more focus than setting another resolution. (33:16) Why becoming a better leader starts with addressing your own wounds, habits, and mindset. (36:21) How communication gaps create negativity and confusion inside teams. (37:46) The culture-building question every leader should ask before hiring someone. (43:16) How the "habit before the habit" removes friction and makes consistency easier. (45:43) Why one destructive habit can undermine all the positive habits you are trying to build. (01:03:37) Why you should talk to yourself instead of automatically listening to every negative thought. (01:05:15) Why optimism may matter even more than discipline. (01:06:39) How likability helps leaders challenge people, build trust, and demand more from their teams.   Thank You to Our Sponsors! Magic Mind: Head over to magicmind.com/jen and use code JEN at checkout. Momentous: Ready to try supplements that actually do what they claim? Head to livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 35% off your first subscription.  Therasage: Visit therasage.com and use code JEN to get 15% off your order. Your skin Prolon: Prolon is offering listeners 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Kion: Visit getkion.com/habits for 20% off. TruNiagen: For supplements that are rigorously tested, third-party verified, and actually deliver what's on the label, head to truniagen.com Find more from Jen Cohen:  Website: jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements   Find more from Jon Gordon:  Website: jongordon.com Instagram: @jongordon11 Books: jongordon.com/books Facebook: Jon gordon YouTube: @jongordon11 LinkedIn: Jon Gordon  

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs, athletes, and experts to uncover the habits and strategies that actually move the needle in your health, happiness, and success. And today I'm sitting down with John Gordon, one of the most influential leadership authors and speakers in the world. He has worked with everyone, CEOs, professional athletes, championship teams, and some of the biggest organizations in business and sports. He is the author of 32 books, including the Energy Bus, which was rejected by 30 publishers before selling more than 3 million copies. And his latest

book now is called The Power of Positive Habits. In this episode, we get into what positivity actually means, why negative thoughts do not deserve your automatic trust, and how leaders create strong cultures, the habit you need to build before you build any other habit. and why one destructive pattern can cancel out all the good habits you're trying to create. We also talk about why optimism may matter more than discipline and how likability gives you the ability to challenge people without losing them. This conversation will make you rethink positivity, leadership, confidence, discipline, and the way you speak to yourself when things get hard.

What John shares in this episode will give you practical tools to stop laying your thoughts run your life, lead people more effectively, and build habits that actually stick. So let's dive in. All right, you guys, welcome to habits and hustle. Do we have a treat for you? We have John Gordon on the podcast. Let me just quickly read his bio here, okay? John Gordon is one of the most influential and sought after leadership authors and speakers today. He's a consultant to numerous leaders, CEOs, NFL, NBA, and MLB coaches, championship teams, and high performers, and an inspirational teacher who has helped millions of people have a more positive mindset. He is the author of 32 books, including 19 bestsellers and five children's books. His books include the timeless classic, The Energy Bus, which has sold over three million copies, the Carpenter, which was a top five business book of the year, training camp, the power of politics,

leadership, the power of a positive team, the one truth, and his latest release the power of positive habits. This is going to be a podcast you definitely want to listen to if you want to basically uptick your life in any way possible. And these are proven strategies that will help you grow exponentially. So stay tuned for this one. And thank you, John, because I'm telling you, I've never seen anyone write this many books and be that busy. I don't know how you do it. Is chat GPT like writing your books at this point? No, I was writing before chat GPT was even around. My wife will often ask me advice for her post and she calls me John GPT. Really? Yeah, so I've been writing for a long time. When I started writing in 2006, this book, the energy bus, came to me on a walk. And I'd even know I

could write a story, but I got a vision for this story. And I sat down and I just started writing this book. And in three and a half weeks, I was done. And again, I didn't know I could write a story, but I did. It was rejected by 30 publishers. Yeah, I saw that. But eventually, a publisher took it on John Wally and Sons. It came out. And after five years, it became a bestseller. And after five years? Took five years. To become a bestseller. By the habits and hustle. I love that. Okay, wait, before we even go into the, because I want to talk about the energy bus, because that's like a massive hit. We've got to do these shots for magic plan. Okay. This will keep you, John, super focused and very alert.

Okay, these are very, they're basically... No, it says magic mind. Is this something I should be concerned about? No, no, no. Like magic mushrooms? No, it's not magic. It's basically Aschwaganda. Okay.

It's just going to be keeping you. It's basically helped people like stay focused and it's basically performance basically. And this is why I want to do it with you because you are like the king of all high performance. So how do I not do this shot with you? All right. Okay, let's do it.

Ready? Cheers. This one's also caffeine-free. It's good, right? It's very good. Mm. Okay. Love it.

That's good, right? So now you're going to be super locked in, and I want to hear all about this energy bus, because that was your, is that kind of what put you on the map? It did. Okay. When that book came out, people started reading it, and not a lot initially. Right. But those that did started to bring me into speak.

And then after that, I got more and more speaking engagements from that. sports teams, corporations. All from that one book. What were you doing before that? Let's go back to the beginning. Because to become now, like, you are like a very, you're like one of the OGs in speaking. Like I think, in leadership. In leadership.

Like, you know, people know Tony Robbins, obviously. Right. And you have other ones that kind of, kind of sprout up here and there. But I'd like to know how you're, like, what your background is to even become, to get to that place. I only think one guy probably John Maxwell has worked with. with more organizations, more teams, more companies, more school districts. But I don't even think John has worked with as many school districts and sports teams as I have. Really?

I've reached a lot of leaders over the years in terms of just going to work with their leaders, their organizations, their teams. And so it started with me actually struggling and figuring out what I needed to do with my life because I lost my job during the dot-com crash. In my 20s, I was an entrepreneur. And I opened up a Mo's Southwest Grill franchise in my early 30s because I literally lost my job during the dot-com crash. I put these investors together, had 100,000 shares, thought I was going to make my fortune, and the company went south, went bankrupt. So then you just thought, so one day you're like, I'm just going to write this book, Energy Bus.

Well, what happened was I lost a job? And I'm like, what am I to do with my life? How am I going to support my family? Right. Okay. And I was really struggling. was being really negative to my wife. And she had enough of my negativity.

She said, if you don't change, we're over. Because she was going to leave. I had to change. I wanted to stay married. And so I began researching ways I could be more positive during that time. Because I was naturally negative. Miserable, negative, mad, said, I'm 100% Ascanazi Jews. So I was born with anxiety.

Yeah, you said that earlier. Yeah. And it's true. Exactly. And like, basically, you're probably like nervous a lot. Yeah. And anxious. And stress.

Yeah. And so I lose my job. Pessimistic, cynical. Oh, now I call myself a pessimistic optimist. That's right. Right. So I don't know how to pay the bills. And I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I know I want to be more positive.

So I began researching ways I could be more positive. I began writing about what I was doing. I began a weekly positive tip. And I had five subscribers at the time, my mother, my brother. And this was before they were social media. Right. I had one of the first e-newsletters out there using constant contact to send my newsletter out. And again, people were reading it and then started to share it. And that's

what got me doing this work. Next to, you know, I started writing books and I wrote the energy bus in 2006. But I had to say, you know, in my 20s, I was a mover and shaker. I opened up a bar 24 in Buckhead, Atlanta when I was when I was young, 24. I was very involved in the community, a nonprofit organization. I started called the Phoenix organization. We raised money for youth-focused charities. So I always had the mind of an entrepreneur. So when I became a writer and speaker, for me, it was like, okay, I had this mind of an entrepreneur, a former athlete. So I naturally fit in terms of speaking and writing to business people. But how do you become a speaker like that? Because again, like if you haven't done it before, you write a book, okay, a lot of people

can write a, like a lot of people write books, doesn't make them a naturally gifted speaker. Right. Did you practice it? Like, because you're a big thing, like, when I was doing a lot of research on you is like they're actually comparing you with me a little bit in terms of like our well be yeah because well not not to the not because i'm like you but what i it was more about messaging like i talk a lot about action and grit and they're like they're like you talk and then they're like john talks a lot about the power of positivity positivity and like what it takes in a in a you know how culture is so important it trumps talent it trump so like you know how that happens when you start going down the AI tracks.

And I always found it interesting. I wanted to ask you because where did this mess? Is it because you were a naturally more negative or pessimistic person that you kind of, you know, kind of really kind of doubled down on the positivity train in a way, you know, you know, kind of to be one of the success skills that made you who you are? Like how did you kind of go from? I think it's so ironic that this is my life's work. because I am naturally negative.

So I had to work at being positive. And as I began doing it myself, that quest to get better myself led to a mission to help others get better. And as I began writing about it and then speaking on it, I began seeing the impact it was having. Like, I was born to share this message on positivity,

but not polyaniposite. Tell me what your message is. It's not polyanipositive. It's not about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. It's knowing that you have the power to overcome the thorns. And it's not about ignoring reality.

It's about maintaining optimism, belief, and faith in order to create a better reality. It's knowing that there's going to be a lot of adversity. There will be challenges. There will be obstacles. But you have the resilience, the belief, the mindset to overcome. So for me, when I talk about positivity, it's a positive mindset that we have to have. And then that positive mindset helps you become a more positive leader. A more positive leader is better able to lead their team.

And what happened was I initially was speaking a lot on positivity. initially. As I began working with all these different companies and organizations, I began to see leadership needed this more than anyone. And a leader needed to be able to transfer their belief, their optimism. A leader needed to develop the relationships of their team to be able to be strong and united and connected. They needed to commit more to their team. So I began to see how these leaders needed to become a positive leader to make a greater impact. And I often say, Positive leadership is the competitive advantage. Like Alan Mullaley, when he turned around Ford, they were losing $13, 14 billion.

He defined his leadership style as positive leadership. He was able to turn around the company because of his optimism, his resilience, his mindset, but also the way he led his team and built a great team. A negative leader will not build a great team. And a pessimist will not change the world. It's the optimist that changed the world. When you're investing in companies and leaders, you want someone who believes they can actually change the world,

but also will take the action in order to do it. Right. So for me out there, it's this positivity, mindset, leadership, then teamwork, a positive team, a positive culture, and of course, positive habits and action. It all goes hand in hand, and I become an expert in culture, working with so many organizations and teams, actually have a whole culture-building process.

I sit down with a leader, and I help them create their culture literally from scratch. If they don't have a culture, I'll help them create it from scratch. If they have one, I'll help them make sure that it's actually strong and the core values are what they really should be. Because a lot of times, they have these core values that are buzzwords and a bunch of jargon, but they don't mean anything to anyone. So I can literally help someone create their core values, their culture from scratch.

I'll do that. On the mindset side, I can help every leader, every team, every athlete perform at a higher level because I've become an expert in the mindset. because there's a lot of books on mindset, but a lot of people don't understand how thoughts really work. So I also go into that from a mindset perspective. So how do you know? So this is what I wanted to know.

So like how do I know these things? How do you know these things? You're not like a psychologist, right? You're not, right? What's your degree in? My degree is in government and economics and human ecology. And I have a master's in teaching. And the funny thing is, you know, it's so funny.

You do have a master's in teaching? Yeah. Okay, from Cornell. No, I have a degree from Cornell and then a master's from Emory in teaching. So you do. Okay. Yeah, I taught school for a year. I often joke when I speak to educators.

Really? And then I opened up a bar after that. So teaching showed me to open up a bar. Exactly. But I still consider myself a teacher because at heart, that's who I am. People say that I take complex subjects and topics and then make them simple and practical they can act on. And that's what I love to do.

But no, I'm not a psychologist. and people say to me all the time, are you a psychologist? No, but it's amazing how many psychologists actually read my books. Right. So many do and use them and their practice. I was going to say, you know, like sometimes

it's also people just have a knack, a talent, and then you've honed it and craft, you've obviously honed it over all these years. When you first started doing this 30 years ago, what were you speaking about different things than you're speaking about now? How is it evolved over the last? Yeah, that's such a great question.

Well, talk about knack. My biological father, He's a psychotherapist and social worker. And he didn't raise me, but he's my biological father. And I coach and help a lot of people. And it's not therapy, but I take them from wound to healing. I really help them move from wound to healing. My brother is a chief marketing officer of a company.

Which one? Do I know the company? Gallagher Bassett. I don't know what that is. It's a subsidiary of Gallagher, the very large insurance company. You would know Gallagher, massive company. but he's a chief marketing officer for Gallagher Bassett, and they do a lot of great work,

but he also is a coach. Like, he coaches leaders all the time in his work that he does. So it's funny, we both have that knack to do that. And so in many ways, I think life prepares you for the work that you're meant to do, but also spending time with leaders. Also, I have done a lot of research. And as I'm working and writing books, I'll get new ideas and I'll get new thoughts.

And then sometimes I'll be walking and an idea will come to me. I was walking in Santa Monica a few years ago when the idea for the one truth came to me. And that book is revolutionary in terms of mindset. It teaches that everything comes down to connection and disconnection, connection and disconnection. And when you're connected, you'll be in a high state of mind. When you're disconnected, you're going to be in a lower state of mind. The root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide.

So when you're anxious, you actually feel separate and divided. All mental health disorders. report feelings of isolation, disconnection, and separation. When someone has trauma in their life, a neurological separation happens in their brain. There's a disconnection. Schizophrenia means split mind, bipolar two pulls. Everything comes down to disconnection.

Now, connection, there's a feeling of oneness, of wholeness. And when you're connected, joy and peace and love. And what we saw during the pandemic, we saw people feeling very disconnected and isolated, And it's why they struggle with their mental health. Those who are able to feel connected spiritually, whatever your faith tradition is, but when you feel connected to the creator, spiritually,

connected to other people, connected to yourself, that's when you feel more whole. That's when you're happier. That's when you feel more joy and more powerful. So everything comes down to connection and disconnection. So it's a framework. And I've had people to try to refute it. You can.

It came to me at a walk. I had the ideas. I was getting literally downloads. Two circles. One circle has a thousand. The other circle has three dots. Which mind will perform at a higher level? The three dots.

We know this, right? Not the thousand. The thousand is a cluttered mind. Well, when you're disconnected, anxiety, it's a lot of clutter in your mind. When you have the three dots, that's a lot of clarity, a lot of focus, a lot of positivity. So anyway, that's how it comes about. Like, I'll get ideas, I'll get thoughts. I start to write them down.

I start to test them. I get in a call talking to Sean McVey, the coach of the Rams. Sean, I got this idea that just came to him. I want to talk to you about it. And I share it with him. I love that. Met with Doc Rivers, the former coach of the Clippers. Sat down with Doc over there at Shudders.

We're sitting there, told him about the whole one truth and explained it to him. He goes, I see to my players. As you're talking about, I literally can see who has a high state of mind, who has a low state of mine. Yep, shared it with him. So I'll start sharing with the different coaches and leaders right now, and that's how things evolve. And again, I'll write a leadership book. It's based on my work over the years with all these leaders, and I see a pattern of how great leaders lead. And that becomes the book.

is a book. So basically, how did you get into all the sports, not just teams, but like organizations? You do multiple teams with the NFL, multiple teams with the MLB, multiple teams. So like, what was your first? And like, and I want to know what you talked about then and what your big thing. And when people call you now to talk versus what they call you then about to talk. Oh, you asked me earlier how things evolve. Yeah. And you kind of like, and you didn't answer the question. Yeah, I'm going to answer it right now. I'm going back to it. Okay, I'm going to answer it right now. How did things evolve? When I first started, you would love this.

I started speaking about health and wellness and energy, mental energy, physical energy, emotional energy, and spiritual energy. Okay, I like it so far. I was beginning on that. And every time I talked about, like, health tips, I felt like I was someone's mother telling them what to do. Yes. And I felt drained when I did it. But every time I talked about positivity and positive energy, I felt alive. When I talked about a positive mindset, it just lit me up.

Okay. And that's what I knew. I'm going to spend more time on the mental side of positivity and less time on physical tips, health and wellness. Even in the new book, The Power of Positive Habits, many of the tips, and most of the tips are actual mental habits because thinking is a habit. Yeah, and by the way, I will say this, that the physical is just like kind of like the

byproduct. It's all mental. Yeah. Like I just did a TED talk. It's not even out yet, but it will be, about how I learned more in the gym than I did in my, in my MBA program. I love that. Because it teaches you like fundamentals about mental strength and discipline and patience and all these things. So to me, the physical is just a manifestation of what's going on in the mental.

And you have to do the mental first before kind of, you know, until it trickles down physically or vice. They both interplay. Yeah. The reason why people do physical is to get to the mental strength. and the mental strength feeds into the ability to believe in yourself to do the physical. Like if you walk every day and you exercise, that exercise is going to make you feel so much better mentally. A hundred percent. It helps you not only with focus cognitively, but it also, like you said, it just, it makes you, your mood enhancement. It's funny because in your new book, I'm reading through it,

and it's all these mental habits. And then it's like lift weights. And I'm like, huh? I'm like, whose book is this anyway? Because you see, it makes it, that is a habit. That is a, it helps in all these other areas. Well, and writing this book, it was great because I did a lot of research on physical habits that we should be doing that we're not doing. Like, squatting like a child. When I first started this after writing the book, it's coming out. I'm like, oh, I better do some of these habits. I start squatting.

And I couldn't get past the chair. Right. Like I couldn't go lower than the chair. Now I can go almost all the way to the ground. It's an amazing habit doing that every day. Right. Everything you do. Or the dead hang.

The dead hang is unbelievable for your back, for decompression, for your health. What a great habit. So a lot of the physical habits I put in there. I had to research, but I've been doing those habits now. Game changer in your life and they make you feel better. I feel younger now at 55 than when I was in my 40s. Right, because now you're like taking everything. Physical, yeah.

And it goes handing out. Lifting weights, I started lifting weights during the pandemic. again, because I used to lift weights, and I stopped for a while. I'm at a party. Ed Milet's there. I saw this in the book, yeah, yeah. I read, I wrote about it in the book, that's right. And I saw Ed and he was jacked, and I'm like, I'm not jacked.

I used to look like that. I'm going to get back to that. But he's probably on something. I'm not going to say one way there or if, because I really don't know. But I don't know. Ed works out a lot. So he really does take care of his body. But just seeing him jacked, I'm like, you know what?

I need to get back to that. And I started lifting. And I've been lifting ever since. I feel so much better, so much stronger. So my initial start in this world was on physical health, wellness, mental health and wellness, emotional energy, spiritual energy. So this is almost like full circle right in the power of positive habits. It brought me back to my beginning.

And what I've been doing over the last 25, 30 years, and then putting them in one book that people could then use. So that's how I started and that's where I am now. Now, I'm going to do other books going back towards business. I have fables I want to write, but I knew I needed to write this book to share the collection of those habits. But that's how I got started. And then when I was working with all these different companies go in there to speak on positivity,

positive energy initially, I'm looking around and I'm like, well, they're all jacked and excited. Like they're fired up. But leadership is not. Leadership is not looking very positive at all. They look lame. And one of the employees at one of the companies, I'm not going to say who, came up. to me and said, you know what, John, this is great.

But our leaders are not here, and they're not doing this, and they need to. And right then and there, I made a decision. I'm going to impact the leaders. Because leaders impact people, companies, organizations, families, communities, countries. I'm going to impact leaders.

And that was a decision I made intentionally. I said, I'm going to start writing about that. And that's what led me to write the power of positive leadership. The carpenter. Carpenter is a great leadership book. And all these different books on leadership. The carpenter, you've got to read that.

You'll love the carpenter. Tell me the main theme of that one. It's the greatest success principles of all and the greatest success strategies of all. There's three. Okay, tell me. Love serving care. You love people. You love what you do.

You serve to make a difference. You serve others. It's not about you. It's about serving to make an impact. And it's about caring more. And I always tell people, don't focus on building your business. focus on loving, serving, and caring. And if you do that, your business will exponentially grow.

And that's how I've gone in my business. I love my clients. I love people. I go and serve them. It's not about me. It's about them. And it's about caring more. When you care more, you stand out in a world that doesn't seem to care.

But when you care, that is a success strategy. That's true. Caring is. I mean, you know, a lot of this is so, it resonates so much. Because especially in the world we live in now, Everything is based on, you know, AI can write an email, a PowerPoint, it can do a marketing plan, but there's zero connectivity and connection, right? AI is not going to make you laugh until you cry, right?

Like, AI's not going to make you feel something. I think now more than ever, it's more about connection and connectivity than ever before. And so when you talk so much and like your message is similar about that, right? Like people are craving connection versus disconnection. You know, you were saying, which you said something a couple times about words and serving and all these things. And you gave a really good way to kind of do it. And I think it's one of your habits actually. Is that pick a word?

Yes. Right? And focus on that word for the year. Can you talk a little bit about that? This is one of the best exercises that we teach and share. You pick a word for the year. One word that gives you meaning and mission, passion, and purpose, one word that will drive you to be your best. And 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 wanted to become more whole. Another year was still, just to spend more time in stillness and be still. Each 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 Auto and their headquarters,

they had a one-word car with all of the words of all the employees on the car. As 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. Yesterday, I was trying to figure out my word, and I... You need a couple more days. 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, you write it down. And 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, 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. But resolutions do not last. No.

nine out of ten people fail with their resolutions. And most people fail by the end of the first month. They don't even make it to February. Right. But one word six. 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 pick serve. 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. And 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 my, you know, if I'm doing a school district, you can't expect a school district to pay. for private travel, or would you want them to? But if it's a big old company, yeah, they'll fly your private. So it just depends. So, okay, so when you get hired by a sports team, what's typically the topic that they're hiring you for versus a corporation? Like, what are the top three things that people hire you to talk about?

It's either PowerPots, the 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. When 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 years. Before that, it was the power of positive team. What are the principle and practices

that makes a great team great? So 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 going to talk on the power of positive habits. I'm going to 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 of sports teams because when you go in there, you're talking to the best of the best, and they still want to get better. And if you can say one thing that will 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've 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. I 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 huge, like a high-performance coach? Yeah, no, it's more, it's more coaching and one-offs.

Do you go in multiple times? Like, do they hire you? It all depends. sometimes it's it's one talk to a team during training camp. Right. Other 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 championship winning coaches,

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. Other 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. Right. 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 then 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. And 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? Right. 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 the issues.

Okay. Okay. And like you just got basically just like did the podcast. I 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. That'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. It all starts with your leadership. With your leadership, right? So if someone is having, like, what if things are, 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? Like, what do you try to get that leader to be better at? Okay. So the power 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 be yourself up. Don't get down. Don't get negative. You stay positive. It sounds cliche and Polyana. 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? What 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 Cs. Four Csies. 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. We don't communicate. Why? We're so busy. Right. 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.

So 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. Love it. 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? 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?

You have to first identify what your core values. 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 and the people that we want to hire to bring onto and into our company and our organization? What 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 characters you want and the people you're bringing into your organization. And I'll see if they're aligned. If they're not aligned, I'll show them and explain this to it. And then they go, ah, I got it.

And then they realize, okay, I got to actually probably recreate and re-look 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 the 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. Yeah. 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. It 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. I 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 of 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-focused way. You got to do both. I'm going 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 realize is I need people around me who are great on the Zoom-focused side because that's not my greatest struggle. It is for myself. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, 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 CEO, like if you're a founder of a company, typically they are visionaries and

they're not necessarily operators. So what is someone supposed to do? They're supposed to hire an operator? Yes. 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 us?

team versus a leadership team, a sea 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. This 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, principal 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? Because are you pulling stories from yourself or are you pulling stories for something else? It's a mixture. You know, you're a great speaker.

And by the way, when my name comes up, your name comes up a lot as well. Isn't that cool? Really? Yeah, it comes up. 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. Like, 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. 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. Yes.

It's a quick habit, but it's also a quick story that, like, 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, have a hat, like, you talk about this about having a habit before. the habit. Yes. Right? Because this is where people get so stuck. Like, and you, I love, of course, it 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 were talking about, you were teaching this habit, 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. Right. That would be a funny story at that event to tell about that habit. And then to apply to them if I'm talking a little 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. You put your cleats on and make sure they're tied well just like John Woodrow and say to make sure that you're tying your shoes because you don't want to get blisters. Did you ever speak with him?

Never got a chance to talk to John Wooden's. But Corey Close was very close with him. I know people that were heard amazing stories. But 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. Right. 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. The 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 don't,

I would do not allow myself to do anything before I do this particular thing. Like before I do anything, I have to drink my water with lemon before I do anything else. Like everything has to have like 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. That's why it's actually, is it the first habit in the book? Yes, the first habit in the book is to the habit before the habit. That'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. So I should have said, get rid of your worst habit. Whatever it is, we all have one. Do you have yours? Yes, we all have. I have one. We've got to get rid of our habits. What's your worst habit? I knew you're going to ask me that.

I've been trying to think of what my worst habit because I don't like. 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, bologna. I want to know your worst habit. I just, I'm just, my worst habit is I'm, I care about people too much. Oh, but don't. No, I'm kidding.

I'm totally kidding. I'm totally kidding. What's your worst habit? You know, I was thinking about it because I don't gamble. I'm not a big drinker at all. Okay. I don't eat like horily. 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. Oh, this is such nonsense. No, because if you watch too much sports, it can keep you from being your best. Okay. And I probably eat too much, too many potato chips because I love potato chips. But I haven't.

I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Those are your worst habits. You eat too many potato chips. My daughter gives me a hard time. My daughter says like, my dad, That is so disciplined. Greek yogurt is his dessert right now.

Oh, really? Yeah, like, so I'm thinking about my worst, like, if I had to pick a worse 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 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, oh, I need to be doing this. I should be doing this. I should be doing that.

I was going to ask you that. That might be like one of my worst habits. 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. What'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. Really? Yeah, pizza and chocolate chip cookies, because I do love chocolate chips. I can't eat them. I'm allergic to eggs, so I can't eat chocolate chip cookies. So, but I've been seen 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 they do a really good job? Yeah. There's, you know, I have colleagues that I really, really, have befriended in this space. And there's others that, you know, 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. I think Ed is really a powerful speaker. And Ed just shares his heart. I've been with him and just watching, watching him and 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 Howardton is doing a great job on social media, sharing a lot of faith messages watching him do that and sharing that. What 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 up 20 million copies. Wow.

Yeah, it was written in the 70s. And he's now 80. He's now 87. Right. So instead of catching someone do something poorly and be like, aha, catch someone doing it right? Because there is like a lot of research back in that, right? If you praise people and validate them, they'll do more.

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 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, like, 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, I had a 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 it. 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. Yep. Right? Like, 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. Like, do 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. And 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're going 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. We mean coffee bean. I knew you could ask that. What 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?

Softwood. No, actually gets hardened, hard-boiled eggs. Oh, I guess, well, I think if you... Yeah, okay, fine. You're right. Yes, yes. Okay, fine. It gets hardened.

All right, all right. So you have hard-willed eggs and you have the carrot getting weakened and mushy both being affected by the environment. Life is like a big pot of bowling hot water. We don't want to be the egg. We don't want to be the carrot. We want to be the carrot.

We want to be the coffee. 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 environments. 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 could actually impact the people. impact the people around them and transform them. This 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 open. 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. Transform 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. and Damon did a coffee bean talk. I'm there speaking in Clemson. And Dabo says to me, we just had this guy, Damon West, talk about the coffee bean.

He's like, man, incredible story, incredible 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. And 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 it. 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. Like he speaks almost every day to a different group. He goes into prisons. He goes into companies. He goes into sports teams. 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 6th graders. 5,000 6th graders. They gave the book to read because it's a district. 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. They 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 being, Damon West,

big shout-out to him. But again, I gave him half my advance and the cool part of that, I know it was 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. That's what I had given him actually as my 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? 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. It's about impact. It's about people reading those books and making a difference. But each book depends. I mean, power positive leadership is several hundred thousand.

the carpenters several hundred thousand. The no complaining rule is 700,000. But the one truth might be at 70,000 right now. And I'm hoping that reaches more people because it's such an impactful book. So, you know, each book I would say definitely gets over 100,000. Okay. So could you sense me about like you're right? 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. We 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 you have master classes, 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 master class 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. I 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 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 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. So that levels 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, you know, 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. Oh. My wife's involved. Like, 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. My son is in sales on the sales side. And together, it's about living this mission every day. Because the idea is that 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 $40,000 to $50,000. to go through our program. Ours ranges from 997, 5,000 to our highest is $10,000. 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. Oh, you mean the executive leader? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, no, just the university is, it was like $80,000. 75,000 a year, yeah. But you're right, that executive program is about 50, 50,000. Yeah, 40, 50,000, ours maximum 10,000. And I know our program, literally, it 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. You're ready? Rapid fire, meaning like one or two sentences. Are you saying I'm long-winded?

Maybe. No, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. We met it and she just met it and she said. It's like we've known each of. Yeah, I feel like I've known you for 100 years already, okay? 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 high ham today. You know you're with the right person when they give you strength.

Who believed in you before you believed in yourself? Tony Kiyazza in ninth grade. He encouraged me to go out for the lacrosse team. I try 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.

One 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 Kiyazza. 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, 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. So, because in my, it's in, in my brain,

I think everything could be a skill. Like ability, it 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 right down their positive thoughts. And 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 to that habit. By the way, I have that highlighted. Basically, it says you can talk to yourself, but don't listen

to yourself. Right. Don't listen. to know all those negative thoughts coming in. But talk to yourself. Yeah, because I love that. Negative thoughts are going to, 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? If 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. You 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 the like to be led by me? What's the like to be led by me? so they can give you feedback, and then what can I do better? Would it be the next question.

Right. I have one where I have to ask it. On a scale of 1 to 10, how connected are we? On a scale of 1 to 10, they're going to tell you, and then you ask what would make it at 10? Because you're going to get great ideas on how to become a more connected team. That's a really good question. Yeah, great question.

This is what 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 loved them. And 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've 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 in sick. Yeah, totally agree. I've been thinking a lot about this

because let me give you an example. Bill O'Brien. I was just with Bill O'Brien, coach of the Boston College Eagles football team. He was the coach of Houston Texans. He coached Tom Brady for the New England Patriots. Okay.

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.

Loves him. He's so likable. Just such a great dude, but he's a hard ass. Yeah. He's hard. But he's so likable. And so we're walking by his- What's his name?

Bill O'Brien. Okay, Bill O'Brien. We're walking by his players as we're walking by in the lounge. We're hanging out. They're 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 your sandwich? Like just as he's walking by. That's a great point. 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. The likability is kind of one of my pillars. That's why I'm asking you. So 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? Did you come to my speaking agent? Yeah, I would love to see that. Do you, do you give a whole talk on what makes someone likeable? Yeah, I did a whole viral talk on this. This is key. So don't steal it for me because I'm going to come after you. I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I'm a positive guy. You can be positive and also be a thief. I'm not a thief. But I love that actually. I love that you do that. I would say what makes someone and likable is one, 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. And there's a lot of things that go into the soup of likability. right, but you've touched on a lot of them. The three top are three top skills for people to be likable is authenticity.

Okay. Empathy. Empathy. And enthusiasm. Okay. So they're all variations of what you said. Enthusiasm is kind of like a positivity. You'll be careful on that because enthusiasm can be too much enthusiasm and people get turned off.

A hundred percent. But enthusiasm when I, the way I talk about it is more about being kind of like, kind of being like a positive. person. Right. And 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 get a batch of blueberries, you have one bad blueberry in there, everything else will become rotten because of that one bad blueberry. Right? 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. But you can't fake it, though. But you can't fake, 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, because, like, I'm a hard ass. Yeah. 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? Right. So I can get away with them because I'm actually a, I'm a good person, and I care. Right. So I can, my, 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 a bitchy and men are considered this. No, you can be a bitch and you can be like an asshole. You know, 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. I was to say self-deprecation, I think, is important. It's very important. I share a lot of self-deprecation on stage when I speak. Me too. And people really do connect to that when I'm honest to 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 you couldn't laugh at yourself. Right. Oh, yeah.

You know, like you became very endearing when you thought that you're like shirt, you're looking in your shirt. Right. But like it's human. Yeah. People like to connect to human people, right? Oh, yeah. You're going to be mad at me that. No, 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 in flames. So I was feeling very in flame today. No, but I think it's very cute and endearing, right? Because it's like it's like, of course, we all can relate. Yeah. So when someone takes themselves to. seriously and shows up too polished. Right. Like it's a turnoff. Yeah. Right. Inseparable 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 a lot. So what I do a book on it? There's a book called the likability factor, an older one, but you need to do a book about, I think you should do a book about likeability and unlikability. And I think the two together, and I see something about the cover with both somehow. Maybe I should. But it's the, it's the idea of that because I think, think that's so important because, again, positivity and likeability go hand in hand. I'll never talk about likeability. It's just not my thing. But when you talked about it, you lit up.

You lit up. The one that I can honestly say, 33 books, I've never stole anything. I don't steal. I'm teasing. 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 that. 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. I am super passionate about it. You 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 a really crazy viral. So I wrote the book. And I would get questions all the time 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 realize that it's really, You can't be bold. There's a precursor. Right. Right? The habit before the habit.

Yeah. 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. I did it as a TED talk. Okay. But then it never, there was like a tech, like a technical. issue. 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. But 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. Don'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 would like 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? Yeah. 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 could do it with Gordon publishing, and you could 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% on the rights and the royalties when it's done. Yes. But it's a real book. It comes out as a real book. So why didn't you do your book with them? I am going forward. What do you mean? Why didn't you do this book? Because I had a three book contract with Wiley. With who, Riley? Wiley.

Wiley. Wiley. Yeah, and I was, 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 Publishing. 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, I think, you never make money off the 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 those books. The only person I know is ever made money off of it. of a book that was self-published, honestly, is Dave Gagins. David Gagins. He did a self-publishing book Can't Hurt Me that was self-published. He sold five, 10, 20 million books. I mean, he's, 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 Chanow's 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. And I love that our model is helping people like, 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 pitch your new company. So what are my next rapid-fire question is. And we want your book. I would love to do that book because that book is like everyone needs to read that book, especially the title I have. Really?

Yeah. Maybe we could 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. I 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 ourself. 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. Yeah. Kathy Rogers book is Doug Dendler. 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 Malayo's book, the chairleader. Chris hired a guy as a coach as a high school coach. He 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. 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. So yeah, we're only doing books that make impact. So we will not do, and just anyone's book. They have to have a book that we believe will make an impact to do it. But my biggest challenge you ask, 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. So 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. And now I have a, you know, 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 reminding myself with the principles going, John, you wrote this. You got to 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, do this. Totally 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 saying, 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. That's important.

Yeah. In a court for... Yeah. I was thinking of the entrepreneur in 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? Like 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 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. At that time. So you think it's a... 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-end 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, 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.

They would call that. But I, if I could be proven wrong, you know, I'd be fine to be proven wrong. I know, you're just saying that. I question that. Look at the 16th, 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? That's true, actually. Okay.

So I don't know. 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 it's been a lot. Okay, but name one. Dave Roberts is the best. Sean McVeigh is amazing. Dabo Sweeney is unbelievable as a leader. Like one of the best. Did you ever mean any world leaders? Yes.

Okay, name one. I mean, I met Bill Clinton. I was not impressed. I was going to say, like, you know, I find in life quite honest, and John, tell me this is you too. I took a hike with RFK. RFK and I went for a hike. He takes 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 hike with him? I didn't, but I probably could if I asked. I mean, I think he's fine.

Yeah. I don't think he was one of the most impressive people ever met. I mean, do you, 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. In 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 you 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, it was like, he was running for president. He wasn't running for the other thing. Right. Yeah, he's running for president. Right. So we went to that and I asked him a question on culture. Of course he did.

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? 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.

And he asked me some questions. We had a nice conversation with his dogs as we're walking up the hill there. And yeah, just sweet guy. Okay. Something I never expected and all of a sudden that's, you know, I'm hiking with RFK. No, he's, he seems, he's actually my friend's uncle. Oh, really? Yeah, another Kennedy.

Yeah. So listen. Does she get along with them? I think she, yeah, she does. It's just 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 nice place. 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. I 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. Yeah.

No offense to him. I'm sure he's very nice. 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. I like Condez Lisa Rice a lot.

Like I always, okay, so now we're talking. I always thought like, so that's more impressive to me. I met her. I met her at the San Francisco 49ers training camp. Okay. 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. Yeah. I liked her a lot. And I even say like, Like, I even put her on the ballot as my choice of president when I was voting.

She was good. She's someone I would vote for. I like 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 it was, I was in Atlanta, but it wasn't great because he hit on my wife. And so. He did?

Yeah, so it's a whole of the conversation. Oh, my God, tell me what happened. No, I'll not even go in there. That's the best thing you said all day. Finally, I'm getting some kind of good juice. I want to know it's a tea. We'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, wouldn't like shaking hands, greeting people. I was back, you know, stage with him. But he was there.

And as he was doing it, he just stopped and like wouldn't go continue on, kept going to her. And there was more to the story than that. Oh, wait. I can't. I can't. I just can't. I just can. How many years ago is 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, he was. Oh my God, like 30 years. Was he, 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. We're talking 35 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I was hoping it was more recent. No, no. Okay.

But I, you know, I met George, you know, 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? There's a lot of CEOs that are just, like, unbelievable. Like, Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbell's Soup, is very impressive, amazing individual, Doug Conant. He turned around Campbell's Soup. I mean, I would say he's pretty amazing.

Evan Spiegel hired me, you know, with Snapchat. Okay. And, you know. To do what? A speaking gig? So Evan was really struggling 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 know who he was really and didn't know he was married to, you know, a famous model and so forth. 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 a mind of 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. Yeah, that was billion. I mean, that's billions of dollars in profit. So 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 in 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. Life is full of irony, by the way. It's amazing what God could do. Yeah, I always have 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 can 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 key. note. 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. We 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 love to be an honor. You're awesome. Thank you. You're so awesome. I met a sister from a hundred years ago. I was going to say, doesn't it feel like we've known each other a hundred years? We're both Jewish, so there you go. I know. I am 98 percent, I would say 100 earlier. I'm a 98 percent Ashkenazi Jew, which we probably have ancestors who are from the same place. Probably, yeah. I'm all part Austrian, Russian, Russian, some Polish, Lithuanian. I don't know what your background is.

Polish, Russian. Well, a lot of Israeli. A lot of Israeli. Your family from Israel? My mom's Israeli. Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay. You're more Sephardic then.

I'm more, no, I'm actually more Ashk. Well, my other, I'm half, well, my grandmother is from Poland. Okay. Okay. My grandfather was Israeli. My mom was born in Israel, blah, blah, blah. We're probably related, you know, down. Yeah, we're probably like second cousins.

Yeah, no, yeah, like, we probably are in some capacity because my daughter just went on genealogy.com. Okay. And started doing research on that. And we found my biological father's side of the family and where they came from. And 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 and 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 McVeigh'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. Because Ukrainians are really tough. Very 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, I just chose to become a follower of Jesus on this journey. I didn't even, I was going to bring it up and I'm like, I'm not even going to go there. But I don't, why did you do that? I had an encounter with Jesus that changed my life.

I really had a spiritual encounter. I never thought I would believe what I believe. It's been a miraculous, like, 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. So you really have anxiety to a certain level? I was.

Not anymore. I don't. Not anymore. My faith changed me. Transform my heart and soul. And so what happened was I... What year were we talking? We're talking in...

No, we're talking I became a follower of Jesus at 35 when I was 2006, 2007. Yeah, but I'm 55 now, so 20 years ago. But 35 is pretty old when, you know, 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. me a sermon, and the sermon was called Why I Followed Jesus. So I listened to it, and 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 did not get on the bus, did not follow them, just covering dust, just keep walking, take the dust off your feet and just dust off and go.

And I'm listening to this sermon about Jesus, the Jewish rabbi, and it just really spoke to me. And then I said to this, I said this prayer. I said, all right, God, if he is who he said he was, 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. This says, Jesus is the answer. So I got these encounters with glowing crosses. That sign. I go see a Buddhist energy healer. A Buddhist energy healer. So I go see him. Hey, Don, I'm having all these problems with my stomach.

He's working on my stomach. He's doing Thai organ massage. Yeah. He's like a rolfer, if you know anything of that stuff. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, he's doing all that. I'm really into that. Always saw the world in terms of energy.

So 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.

I 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, God, 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 my faith journey. I never thought I would share that with a fellow Jew like that. Yeah. But that changed me.

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. And Jesus came to him when he was dead.

And is like dead and literally like brought him out of it. And he was alive and has now following Jesus. Like 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. Yeah, 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 orchestrate 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 you. There's so few of us. us and you left the team. I 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 not. 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. And took that initiative for themselves. There's so much power in it. There's so much power in it. I tell my Jewish friends, 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 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 and i don't and i right because the does that mean you don't sell it lives in you but you could still sell celebrate all the jewish traditions it doesn't change i am never going to change i am still of jewish heritage like would you celebrate passover yeah so would you celebrate yumki poor yeah do you fast on yumki poor i did i didn't this year but i happen but okay but do a lot of jews for jesus celebrate that people still honor their Their past traditions. You can still be Jewish and still believe in.

Do they do Shabbat? Yes, them do, yeah. There are that do. That do? Yep. The thing is your... The wise there's such a negative connotation when Jewish people become... Christians?

Is it because we're such a small community? Yes, and people feel like you go into a different team. Right, like you're like kind of giving up on our Jewish heritage. On your Jewishness. Because there's so few of us. And here's what I happen then. after the Jews, if people do. I've got to take a stand for the Jews because like,

like that's something that I would never ignore the Jewish people because that's part of who I am. So 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 gonna 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. Michael 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, I stand with you. Like I will always stand with my, you know, 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. But 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 her 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 here's 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. government does? Like, I don't have to support everything the Israeli government does. Right, right, right. support Israel and the Israeli people, right? Yes. I support America. I'm a huge believer in America.

Like, 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. It's right. I'm going to support everything about Israel and everything either.

Just like I'm going to, I'm America. 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 from Republican Democrat and all different political persuasions. Absolutely. So at times I think, you know, 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, if 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 even, you have to have good intentions, good actions. And you have to care about people and do the right thing 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, like they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Oh, that's good. Right? So it's got to be good action. It's good. That's why the good action piece is the most important part.

Yeah, good action says who you are. Yeah. Good. Everyone has, I don't think any, most people are not malice or have bad intentions. It'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, you know.

We can literally go back and forth with different topics. I know. Because as you're saying that, you know, one thing I do want to say people listening is we talking 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 try to tell you how to live and what you should believe, he said, I'm sorry because we should not be doing that.

If 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. And then I share 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,

Oh yeah, there's the Great Commission. But that means telling people about Jesus and how we change your life is actually the Great Commission. Yeah. 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. And 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, I don't know, I don't know, so many hours. I don't even know, but the only reason when this, my, 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?

My sciatica, my bag. It's like, what am I going to do about that? Like, oh, my God, how are we 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. You're going to have a guest in your Jupiter or whatever you go. Well, you're in where, yeah, you can come visit us anytime. Oh, you're so nice. I'm going to. At five 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, for hamburger as well. 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 Dave a nurse right now. Okay, so guys, pick up the book, The Power 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, you know, continue to move and go. So please subscribe. and thank you so much for being my guest.

It's a great one. Definitely subscribe. Thank you. Thank you guys. Bye.