Start With A Win - Choose Positivity, Choose Success with Jon Gordon

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Coming to you from Brand Viva Media Headquarters here in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Katos with Start With A Win. Producer Mark. Hey, how's it going, buddy? So good. Awesome.

Starting point is 00:00:34 I love it. Yeah. Our guest today, positive attitude. You know what? I love positivity because it puts a smile on your face. It makes you feel good just being positive. You know what's weird is people who aren't positive don't get stuff done. Yeah, it's hard to be productive when you're not positive.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Ooh, I like that. All right. Today we got John Gordon on the podcast. He is a best-selling author, speaker, and trainer dedicated to educating leaders on the power of positivity. John's principles have been put to the test by numerous Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of 26 books, including The Power of Positive Leadership, and his most recent book, How to Be a Coffee Bean, 111 Life-Changing Ways to Create Positive Change.

Starting point is 00:01:21 Welcome, John. Welcome, John. Wow. That's 111 ways. I know. We had a lot to talk about, but hey, it's great seeing you guys. How are you doing, my friend? I'm doing great. I love the way you start the show with a dance, get you in the good mood, makes you feel good. I'm fired up. And that's a real positive start to the day. But I think we need to let people know, this is not Pollyanna positive. This is not about seeing the world through rose colored glasses.

Starting point is 00:01:47 It's knowing 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. That's the key. That's it. You're absolutely correct here. A lot of people are like, this positive stuff doesn't work for me. It's about turning on the enthusiasm and the focus and the effort in order.

Starting point is 00:02:06 I mean, you talk about grit so much in developing that forward momentum that maybe we get into that a little bit. But I want to dig into the background a little bit. How did you become an expert on positivity and leadership? It seems like an interesting niche to dive into. It really is. And I think it happened because I was so negative, actually. People were surprised to find that out, that I actually grew up in Long Island, New York, a lot of food, a lot of guilt, a lot of negativity, Jewish-Italian family. And so I had to learn to be positive, but I struggled with it. I'm

Starting point is 00:02:40 naturally negative, which has made me a good teacher. It was so bad that my wife almost left me when I'm 31 years old, two little kids, and I'm crumbling from the pressure. Lost my job during the dot-com crash. I thought I was going to make my fortune, had all these shares, helped raise money for this company, and everything went south. And so I was crumbling from the inside out, didn't know how I was going to create my future. And from there, the fear, the negativity, the stress, and everything was beating me down. I was blaming my wife for why my life was so bad. And I needed to change. And she gave me that wake up call. She's like, if you don't change, we're over. So I wanted to stay married. I agreed to change. And that began this journey of researching ways I could be more positive. I also asked what I was born to change. And that began this journey of researching ways I could be more positive.

Starting point is 00:03:29 I also asked what I was born to do. And in that moment, writing and speaking came to me. I'll never forget. And I know I'm doing the right thing because I've written 27 books now, right? So I know I'm doing what I was meant to do, but I will never forget the moment where I said, what am I born to do? All right, I'm going to now write and speak, but I just couldn't write and speak. I had to make sure that I could provide for my family. So I second mortgaged my home, $20,000 in credit cards and opened up a Moe's Southwest Grill franchise burrito shop. Welcome to Moe's. Welcome to Moe's. Everything we had was literally in this restaurant. I violated all business plans in opening up this place, but I had to go for it. I knew I wanted to write and speak.

Starting point is 00:04:06 So here I am like opening this restaurant. I'm now researching ways I can be more positive. I'm having to practice the ideas that I'm actually researching because as you know, a restaurant is hard to open, hard to make successful, but I'm now an entrepreneur in many ways trying to build my business and doing the research at the same time. And so I always tell leaders, because I work with the greatest leaders on the planet now. And so when I talk to leaders, I'm like, hey, this is from personal experience. This is from research. But these are things that have actually been practiced and lived. And I know they work because they help me stay positive. And here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:04:47 Being positive doesn't just make you better. It makes everyone around you better. Well, let's talk about that for a second. And first of all, you said you were naturally negative. What does naturally negative mean? Well, research shows we're all born with like a sort of a positivity set point, just like you're born with a weight set point. Now you can get into the best shape of your life. You can get, be the best version of you. But like me, I'll never look like an Iron Man athlete. I'll never look like a boxer, for instance, who's leaning. I have more of a thicker build, right? But I can get into the best shape of my life from my body, from my fitness. Same way, I'll never be as positive naturally as, say, my wife, but I can actually work to be the best version of myself, the most positive I can be with me. You can rewire your brain from negative to positive,

Starting point is 00:05:34 but I am naturally negative. I first will go towards the negative, and then I find this eternal hope, this optimism, and this belief that somehow, some way, I'm going to make it work out. It's going to turn out okay. I'm not waiting for it to happen. I'm going to take action, but I believe the best is yet to come. But my first thought actually often goes towards the negative. Interesting. And I've heard this perspective that we see the world through the lenses that we see ourselves. I mean, it's, is that true? You know, if I'm, if I just look for negative stuff in the world, am I, does that make me a negative person? Or if I view myself as a negative person, am I just going to look for negative things? I mean, what's your perspective on that?

Starting point is 00:06:19 How we see the world determines the world that we see. So it's how do I see the world? Is it for me? Is it against me? Do I look for the positive or the negative? When I'm facing a challenge, do I look for the opportunity? How can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? How can I get better because of this? When I'm experiencing fear, I can choose love. I'm going to go for love. That's what I wrote about in The Carpenter. Main character's full of fear and he has to learn to build his business with love instead of fear because love casts out fear. And so you're much more powerful when you're infusing love into your life, into your thought process and into your work. What do you love about it? What is it that you truly want to build? Am I going to allow fear to keep me from being my best and keep me from my destiny

Starting point is 00:07:03 that paralyzes me? Or am I going to move forward with love? Like even athletes, I work with a lot of professional athletes and I get them to love the competition again. Like, don't worry about the outcome. Just love the battle, love the competition. And the minute you do that, you actually move to a higher state of mind. You have more clarity, you have more confidence, and then you have more courage. I teach this whole thing now on higher state of mind versus lower state of mind. And love is the force of that. So yeah, how you see the world. Also, yeah, how you see yourself.

Starting point is 00:07:35 I mean, I think a lot of people don't feel worthy, so they never create the life that is meant for them. So they'll get an idea and they'll poo-poo the idea, oh, I can't do that. Or they don't believe it's possible. So they actually cut off the flow of positive energy and ideas and really the possibilities that is meant for them. And that happens so often with people. Your job is to not poo-poo the idea. It's actually to say, I believe it's possible. I'm going to work hard to make it happen. And guess what? If it's meant to happen, it will happen. When you do that, you open up the possibilities, you open up the energy,

Starting point is 00:08:12 you attract people to you, and that's how we build great businesses. That's fascinating as you say that. I mean, first of all, the fear and the love. In my book, I talk about fear and love, and I have a chapter called Party with the Beast. And the beast is that decision that we make between are we afraid or are we in love? You're about to go into a room, and I was a SWAT commander, and you were either afraid of that man in the room with the gun or you were excited to go in and work with that man in the room with the gun. And it's like going to a party. You're either going to hate who's there

Starting point is 00:08:47 or you're going to go there going, I want to meet somebody new there and enjoy myself. It's a decision. It's a switch that we get to make. And I love the, you know, fear is fight, flight, or freeze. Love is unconditional giving. And you've got this, which one do I want to do? It's fascinating when you recognize it in somebody,

Starting point is 00:09:13 because in business so much, and John, maybe you can give us some suggestions. A lot of real estate and mortgage people on here, it's an interesting market. We'll call it that. Everybody's like, it's such a difficult market. No, it's interesting. It's different. It's a different way for you to deploy your tactics. Enjoy doing it and go help people. Because like what you said, whatever is meant to be will happen as long as you pour into it. So tell me about the carpenter. Dig into this love and fear thing real quick for us so we can have a deeper understanding. Well, Pavarotti was asked about his incredible discipline. He said, it's not discipline. He said, it's devotion. It was his devotion to his craft that drove his discipline. Right.

Starting point is 00:09:50 He also said, everybody wants the audience to love them, but I love the audience. And that's the key in business. You love your audience. You love your clients. You love the people that you're working with. When you do that, you become a source of love. And what is everyone looking for? Everyone is looking for love. So when you become love and a source of love, guess what? Everyone is looking for you. So the idea is to provide value, to actually make a difference. How can I love my clients, serve them, show them that I care? Carpenter, the book I wrote is all about three words, love, serve, and care. Yes, you have to design your masterpiece. You have to be a craftsman instead of a carpenter.

Starting point is 00:10:33 That's part of the book. How can I be a craftsman and show up every day to create a masterpiece? I'm going to build with optimism along the way, but then I've got to love. I've got to serve and show that I care. If you do that, you will outperform the competition in any market. And that's the key. I would say, don't focus on building your business. Focus on loving, serving, and caring, and your business will exponentially grow from there. This was all born out of when I worked in the mortgage industry, speaking to all these different companies and all these real estate companies during the great recession back in 2007

Starting point is 00:11:08 Oh, yeah 2008 that was when my career was actually just getting started And I was getting brought into all these different organizations all these companies that were struggling going man We were all killing it in the past and now all of a sudden we're struggling first and foremost. I said, you know what's happening? We're realizing who has been investing in the root. Because if you invest in the root, you're going to get a great supply of fruit. That's your culture. That's your people. That's your purpose. That's your process. We also realize who's been focusing on the fruit. Focus just on the numbers, on the outcome, on the stock prices, on the sales. Focus on the fruit, ignore the root, and the tree dies. And we saw a lot of companies where their roots were actually dying because they were not investing in them. But then a lot of

Starting point is 00:11:50 companies brought me in to speak and I realized, wow, what's happening here is there's a lot of successful people right now doing well during this market. And it was so interesting because what were they doing? They were thinking like a rookie. They weren't worried about the good old days. Some of the rookies were actually crushing it where the veterans were struggling. I realized there was a curse of experience. The curse of experience was longer for the good old days, complaining about the way things were, and they were unadaptable to change. But the rookies didn't know any better.

Starting point is 00:12:18 They were working hard, putting their head down, building relationships, loving, serving, and caring. And their business was exponentially growing during a tough market. And that always lets you know, you can succeed in a tough market. You look at a sports program, for instance, I always see like this underfunded program, like Loyola of Chicago, and they're playing in the final four against all these big name brands and these schools with huge money. It's like, if that school can do it, then other schools can do it. If someone in your team could do it, if someone in your company is doing it, then you could do it too. What are they doing? And there's something different about them

Starting point is 00:12:54 and the actions they're taking. And they are loving, serving, caring. They're thinking like rookies. They're adapting. They're innovating. They're using their fundamentals and their principles, all the things that still work. We can complain about the way things are, or we can actually create solutions and adapt and actually create the future. You know, it's interesting about what you just said, this information about love, serve, care, pouring yourself into this, the rookies that are killing it, things like that. I mean, you talked about the Great Recession, 2007, 8, 9, 10, things like that. I mean, you talked about the Great Recession, 2007, 8, 9, 10, things like that. I was in the California real estate market during that time. Talk about

Starting point is 00:13:30 a horrible real estate market. There were subprime lending. The banks were collapsing. The real estate industry was collapsing. Neighborhoods were collapsing. It was nuts. But the reality is people stepped forward and they said, here's how I can fix it. And what I never heard from them or you are two things, excuses or I can't. You never mentioned excuses in any way, shape or form in what you just said. How is that something that we need to watch for? I mean, that's an indicator of fear to me. It is. You can always find an excuse. It's a way to escape. When the roller coaster is going down and you're on this roller coaster and you think the roller coaster is going to crash because you've never been on one before, that's moving from high state of mind to low state of mind,

Starting point is 00:14:22 right? And you think it's going to crash. What happens is you want to jump off the roller coaster. You want to escape. And people do that on the court, on a field. They do it in business. They don't want to make that call. It's why people drink. It's why people do drugs. It's why people play video games.

Starting point is 00:14:39 It's why they do things that are distractions instead of focusing on what matters most. They want to escape instead of just embracing it and attacking it. The key is to attack that new opportunity. Don't jump off. Stay on the roller coaster. And if you do, what happens is you will actually ride that roller coaster right back up if you don't jump off. And that's what's happening. They're making excuses instead of saying, no, I'm not going to make an excuse. I'm going to stay on the roller coaster and I'm going to find a way forward. Positive leaders, positive teams, the most successful people always find a way forward through their challenge, through their adversity.

Starting point is 00:15:16 I wrote a book called The Shark and the Goldfish years ago. Yes. And it's about the waves of change that are always coming our way. And what happens is successful people, they ride that wave to a successful future because they embrace it. Those who resist the change get crushed by the wave. So just how you look at the change will determine whether you're successful or not. Awesome. It's fascinating because you always see these people, there's always one in a group or a few more in a group. It depends on the culture of that group. But when the leader's standing there and says, here's the challenge, there's always somebody

Starting point is 00:15:46 who says, put me in coach. That person always ends up gaining a promotion, winning awards, outselling the rest, rising in their career. That positive attitude is, it's like, you know, you talk about your roots. That's the roots of leadership right there, it seems. It always goes to your state of mind. It always goes to, am I going to run from the challenge or am I going to attack the challenge? Am I going to embrace it? And there are people that they complain.

Starting point is 00:16:16 I wrote a book, The No Complaining Rule. They're going to complain. And instead of finding a solution, they're going to complain. And it's really an adult form of crying because we actually feel powerless. And that's why we complain. But what you're talking about is people who find solutions. Put me in. I'm going to find a way.

Starting point is 00:16:32 And those people always get promoted, whereas the other people wind up going to another business, another job, or somewhere else. And wherever you go, there you are. If you don't change your mindset, if you don't change your thinking, you will actually keep getting what you are getting. You will keep on having the same challenge come your way over and over again. It really starts with your state of mind. It really is about your mindset.

Starting point is 00:16:56 It is so essential. You can't be a positive leader without a positive mindset. You can't be a game changer or a change agent without a positive mindset. You can't be a game changer or a change agent without a positive mindset. And it boggles my mind how people don't realize how important it is. Being negative, right? Well, let me say, being positive is not going to guarantee you'll succeed. Right. But being negative will guarantee you won't. So I'm going to give myself the best chance to succeed by being positive. Yeah. Being positive won't guarantee you'll succeed, but being negative will guarantee you won't. Write that down, everybody. That is incredibly important there. So you talk about

Starting point is 00:17:34 some of the biggest challenges to being a positive leader. What can we do to overcome some of those? You see leaders burn out all the time. You see leaders hit the bottle, do stupid things, develop these addictions that are just absolutely horrible for their lifestyle, their values, their culture. What can we do to overcome and avoid going down the wrong road as a positive leader? Well, vision and purpose are essential. Where am I going? What is it that I want to build? And why do I want to do it? We don't get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it. And so that why is essential. That purpose is essential. And so is integrity. The word

Starting point is 00:18:15 integrity comes from the word integer, which means whole and complete. So when you are a leader with integrity, you are whole and complete. There's no gaps in your character. There's no gaps between what you say and what you do. There's alignment. So knowing that a leader with integrity is a leader with power. And when you have that power, you're better able to overcome the challenges, overcome adversity, rally your team together. They trust you.

Starting point is 00:18:44 And because they trust you, they will follow you and they will stay with you. And so these are keys. What kind of leader do I want to be? What kind of impact do I want to have? What kind of legacy do I want to leave? And then it's about, of course, staying positive through challenges. You got to know that you are more positive than the negativity that you face. There are people I call energy vampires. And that's a term that I made real popular that energy vampires will suck the life out of you, your team, and your vision. Again, you have to deal with those energy vampires. Gandhi said, I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet and neither should you. So you

Starting point is 00:19:20 have to focus on your positivity, feed yourself so you can feed others. Because if you don't have it, you can't share it. And I think that's the thing that leaders don't do. They don't feed themselves every day in order to take on the challenges. So we're talking about resilience. We're talking about grit. We're talking about optimism and belief and character and integrity. You're doing all the things to help you be a better leader because who you are determines how you lead. And so taking care of you. And then recognizing why you're not a great leader.

Starting point is 00:19:53 And a lot of times we have wounds of the past. We have fears. We have past issues we haven't dealt with. So you got to heal those wounds. I wrote a book called The One Truth that comes out in June. And this is going to be an essential epic book for leaders because I wrote it in such a way that you've never heard the things I've written before. And the whole idea is oneness and separateness. The more a leader or person feels separate, the weaker they are, the more disconnected they are. When people deal with mental health issues,

Starting point is 00:20:21 they all report feelings of feeling separate, isolation, disconnection. And then there's oneness, power, unity, love, and strength. So do you want to be a leader from a standpoint of oneness and connection? Or do I want to be a leader that feels separate and acts in such a way where I am separate? And I share in that book how to become a leader that has wholeness, completeness, and oneness to make you a more powerful leader. But what you'll realize is life often causes us to feel separate, to look outside instead of inside.

Starting point is 00:20:54 I start looking at the numbers. I start looking at the pressure, the expectations, instead of leading from the inside out. And then I'm always seeking instead of knowing. And then I find myself being more negative than positive because the more you move from oneness to separateness, you actually move from positive to negative. The more one I feel, I feel joyful, happy, peace, comfort. I feel excitement and passion, enthusiasm. When I feel separate, I feel fear and stress and anxiety and bitterness and negativity. So think about the two. And by the way, the word anxious means divided. So when you actually are anxious, you feel divided, you feel separate. And it's Greek

Starting point is 00:21:37 root word. People are like, I can't find that, John. Google the Greek root word of anxious. You feel divided. And think about it. Whenever we feel anxious, we feel separate. And look at the world, more anxious than ever. And it feels more divided than ever. And that's why. So we can see how this plays out. And what do they call it? Anxiety. Same root word. Same root. Anxiety, anxiousness, all come from feeling separate. It's like, I'm looking for my keys. I can't find them. I've lost my wallet. I can't find it. You go into panic mode. So I actually, they're lost. And so often when I'm away from home, if I'm a young kid, I feel lost. I'm now scared. But when I feel home and I feel one, then I feel that power. I feel security. I feel strength. So do I feel at home or I feel

Starting point is 00:22:24 like I'm lost looking for something? Awesome. Awesome. Some amazing information there. Everybody, make sure you go to johngordon.com. That's J-O-N-G-O-R-D-O-N.com. You can check out all of John's books, the tools, where he's speaking at, his consulting and training, things like that. Some great information. John also has a great podcast out. So where can we find your podcast, John? Yeah, positiveuniversity.com, Positive University. So yeah, every week we're talking about positivity

Starting point is 00:22:55 with the leaders, overcoming challenges, overcoming change. We also do positive leadership training. So if you're an entrepreneur and you want to be a better leader, we're passionate about developing positive leaders. And we have training events now across the country. Who actually uses these principles? Dabo Sweeney, Sean McVay, some of the greatest leaders on the planet. Dave Roberts with the Dodgers, Eric Spolscher with the Miami Heat. I've worked with the greatest leaders on the planet. Alan Mulally, who turned around Ford and Boeing. When I wrote The Power of Positive Leadership, I interviewed him for a few hours

Starting point is 00:23:29 for that book because he defined his leadership style as positive leadership. So I wove a bunch of the principles that we talked about in that book and also into our training. One real quick thing, love and accountability, for instance. I'll always remember from Alan, as a leader, you got to practice love and accountability. You got to love your team. You got to support them. You got to encourage them. But you got to hold them accountable to the culture, the values, the principles, and the

Starting point is 00:23:54 standards. And the best leaders lead with the combination of the two. Right. And that's something we share in our training, how to do that. Awesome. Yeah. On that note, you have a lot of people go, are we a team or are we a family? The answer is we're a team with family values. It's like you said, the combination of those things, teams hold each other accountable to things that family wouldn't hold

Starting point is 00:24:14 each other accountable to. So team, family accountability or family values, team accountability. So it's perfect. I love that you said that because that's always the key we talk about. You got to be a great family and a great team. So often we're a great family, we love each other, but we're not challenging each other to be great. And then other times, if you're too much of a team, not enough of a family, you're always pushing each other, challenging each other, but there's not enough love there. So what eventually happens is you tune each other out and you burn each other out. So you need the combination of the two. Totally, totally. John, I have a question I ask all of our amazing guests

Starting point is 00:24:50 on this show, and that is, how do you start your day with a win? I love that you call this how to start the day with a win because starting your day with a win is everything. How do I do it? This is what changed my life years ago. From negativity to positivity, I started taking a walk of gratitude every morning. I call it a thank you walk. I would get up in the

Starting point is 00:25:11 morning, still do, and I go for this walk. And while I'm walking, I'm saying what I'm thankful for. And the research shows when you do that, you're flooding your brain and body with these positive emotions that uplift you rather than the stress hormones that slowly drain you and over time will slowly kill you. So by doing this walk each day, you're creating a fertile mind that is ready for great things to happen. You get back to your desk and you are ready to take on the day. You're starting that day with a win and now you're ready to create more wins during the day.

Starting point is 00:25:43 I literally rewired my brain from negative to positive by doing this. It's a game changer. It's a life changer. And I know this, your spouse will like you a lot more when you start doing this in the morning. Awesome. John Gordon, great speaker, coach, author, friend. Thanks for being on Start With A Win. Thanks for having me, guys. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. Thanks for having me, guys. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. Hey, if you want more great content, head over to adamcontos.com. There you can get downloads, blog posts, and access to Adam's social media.

Starting point is 00:26:14 So until next time, remember, start with a win.

Start With A Win - Choose Positivity, Choose Success with Jon Gordon

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