THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Elevate Your Leadership w/ Jon Gordon

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Leadership is the KEY to success. I’ve got one of the world’s greatest leadership experts here with me on The Ed Mylett show and he’s revealing million-dollar secrets of being a GREAT LEADER! Jon Gordon is a bestselling author and keynote speaker. He has inspired readers and audiences around the world and his principles have been put to the test by numerous Fortune 500 companies, professional and college sports teams, school districts, hospitals, and non-profits. His clients include The Los Angeles Dodgers, Campbell’s Soup, Dell, Southwest Airlines, Miami Heat, The Los Angeles Rams, Snapchat, Clemson Football, West Point Academy, and more! We all know it takes a great leader to run a great business, coach a great team, or lead a great family. I could think of no better person to help you become the leader you were born to be than my good friend, Jon Gordon. In this interview, Jon is revealing his leadership framework with ACTIONABLE STEPS you can implement day by day to shape your mind to become a successful leader in your business, in your faith, in your family, in your fitness… in EVERY area of your life! You’ll learn how to alleviate thoughts of fear and stress that drain you and replace those thoughts with those of positivity that uplift and SERVE YOU. You have the power to transform your environment instead of letting your environment change you. BECOME THE LEADER YOU WERE MEANT TO BE!

This is the Edmmerlidge Show. Welcome back to Max Out everybody. My guest today is a very unique man. He has an ability to communicate on a multitude of topics that I think are relevant for this time with most of you and what you're going through in your lives. And so he's an expert on leadership. I find his conversations about faith-fascinating, belief being positive. I find his conversations about leadership the best I've heard. So he's really an expert and I think in multiple areas, but has just a very unique gift to communicate his thoughts. And so today's going to be remarkable for all of you already know that in advance. So John Gordon, welcome to the program.

Hey, thanks for having me. I think the world of you, I love your work and I just think you're amazing. I brother, I, I gotta say one thing I didn't say in the intro just because we'll talk about it later. This man's often, I think it's 23 books, it's probably more than that now, but and they're so good. I think you know, I was telling you, as we were starting that I'm very familiar with your work. I've read a lot of your books. I love the energy bus, the garden I love, your new book, relationship grit.

We can cover all of this stuff, but what fascinated me about you, was doing research, because you're this super positive dude, people think I am too. And privately, people that know me very well know, that doesn't come natural to me. I'm sort of a natural, I'm not a natural,

but like I can very easily gravitate to be a very pessimistic person. I have to work on being positive. It's sort of a muscle I built. And I've heard you said the same about you. Is that really true? A guy writes all this stuff about being positive? It is true.

It's ironic that I do this work because I am not naturally positive. I grew up in Long Island, New York and a Jewish Italian family, a lot of food, a lot of guilt, a lot of wine, a lot of whining. And so my mom was Jewish. A dad was an Italian New York City police officer undercover narcotics. And so he was a badass and a loving guy, but just probably one of the most negative people on the planet. You'd get up in the morning. Hey, good morning, daddy'd say, what's so good about it? And so I think the sun turns out to be you. Yeah, so so growing up in that in that family, right, you go up with more of a, you know, a negative mindset and not not a lot of positivity. So I think naturally, I just naturally have always gone towards the negative.

And I've had to work really hard at being positive, but it's actually led me to do this work because I want to be more positive. My wife threatened to leave me, you know, years ago, I was 31 years old, life was falling apart. And she said, if you don't change, like, we're over, I am sick of this. I'm not gonna deal with your negativity anymore.

You're ruining our marriage, you're ruining our life. Like that's it. And so she gave me that ultimatum. She brought the hamburger down. And that really began the journey of saying, okay, I got to work at a changing this. That's bizarre. It's amazing to me because it's really what you're known for kind of I am too. I think it gives people hope because you know, I go to events, you know, even personal developments, everyone is jumping up and down, you know, and I'm like, this is just not me, you know, and over time I've built, I think a lot of people that listen to personal are like, I don't know if I'm like all these people. Maybe they're just different than me.

We're not different than you. We've built some skills up. We've had some breakthroughs in our thinking for both you and I, our faith is central in that. Is there something specific you started to do? Like, could you, like, I've read about the, there's these five Ds you teach is sort of interconnected to this. Give us some, some tactical, some granular stuff maybe on this topic. Well, what happened to me years ago was I actually started to take a walk of gratitude.

So every day I would take a thank you walk. I read that, yeah, I read that you can't be stressed and thankful at the same time. So right after my wife almost left me, I started taking these walks every day. It was like a 10 minute walk, that a 20 minute walk, and ultimately an hour walk. And so I would just say what I'm thankful for. And when you're doing that, you're flooding your brain

with these emotions and this positive energy that lifts you, rather than the stress hormones that slowly drain you. So it's your brain and your body that you're doing this with. And over time, right, you create a fertile mind that's ready for great things to happen. Do it one day. It's not going to do a whole lot, but do it for a week, right? Think about your mind like a garden. And so, you do it for a week. You weed the negative, you feed the positive. A month. The garden starts to look pretty good.

Do it for a year. Wow. it starts to look amazing. And now for me, it's been over 15 years that I've been doing in this. And so gratitude has been the number one thing. Now those walks turned into walks of prayer. They turned the walks of faith where I started to just pray, surrender, trust. It's on those walks, the ideas for these books came to me and threw me, I started writing these books, right? So it really changed my life, just taking that time every day for those walks. Now, I also believe you got to feed the positive

on a daily basis, and the best advice I've ever heard is from Dr. James Gills, the only person on the planet to complete six double Iron Man triathlons. That's a double Iron Man, which means you do an Iron Man, a day later to another one. And the last time he did, he was 59 years old. So he was asked how he did it. He said this. I've learned to talk to myself instead of listen to myself.

Ooh, he said if I listen, you know, I hear the fear, all the negativity, all the doubt, all the reasons why I can't finish this race. But if I talk to myself, I could feed myself with the words and the encouragement that I need to keep on moving forward. Now, he would memorize and recite scripture. That's what fueled him. But I tell people all the time, like, you're not a believer, you can still share encouraging words for yourself and to yourself that allows you to move forward. Instead of listening to all the negative thoughts, and you know, and I know those negative thoughts are lies, right? They would, they're not something we would choose for ourselves. Negative thoughts do not come from you. When I work with professional athletes,

I ask them all the time, hey, do negative thoughts come from you? And they say, yeah, yeah, I said really? Who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Do you ever choose a negative thought? And they go, no, I wouldn't. And so if you wouldn't choose it, where's it coming from?

And so then you could teach them that's coming from consciousness. It comes from a spiritual place. It's a spiritual battle. And those thoughts, just like when we're dreaming or having a nightmare, we're not choosing those thoughts. When you're driving your car

and a thought pops in your head, you didn't choose that thought. But when those negative thoughts come in, you do not have to listen to them. Don't believe the lies. What you want to do is speak truth to the lies. And that's what I've done over the years. That literally, that truth changed my life.

Speaking truth, not listening to the negative thoughts, not allowing those thoughts to condemn me, to hold me back, not allowing those thoughts to keep me from being who God has called me to be. And in doing that, you walk in that truth. You walk in that power and that changes everything. Well, that's so, I wanna unpack that. That was, that's one of those things.

Sometimes on the show, I've had this tendency to be okay, go rewind, like go listen to that again. That's a double listener. One, a couple of things you said there, I just wanna kind of confirm and tell you that, one, I've always said, you know, you don't have to believe everything you think. You know, everything you're saying, I just want to kind of confirm and tell you that one, I've always said, you know, you don't have to believe everything you think. Everything you're saying, thinking is true. The second thing is when you're on these walks and you're beginning to

take control of what you're looking for, it's part of your brain is, I know you know this, I'm just sharing this with the audience called the reticular activating system, which is, it's the filter of your life, it's what you see things through. So if you were growing up in a pessimistic environment, the negatives are you've been programmed to see here feel think things that are negative. When you begin to take control of these thoughts, these words you say, you're literally reprogramming the filter for your life.

It's a very real thing. It's changing the matrix of your life. And God gave you that reticular activating system so it's connected to your spirituality. The third thing I just wanna tell you about it, so awesome, is talk. One thing I've never shared on the show, but I talk to myself. I mean, like out loud, like a crazy person.

When you were a little boy or a little girl, most of you, you talk to yourself a lot. Like if I walked in your bedroom and you were alone, you know this, you're all naughty. You were talking to yourself. There's power in that. Children understand that. There's a spiritual connection to the spoken word.

It's a prayer. To this day, I still do it. I got to take it this really quick and I'll go to my next question, but just happen. And I do this a lot. I mean, like like a little boy, I talk to myself still, like a crazy person. I'll even interview myself. I know it sounds nuts, but it's I take control of my words. I'm I'm at a gas station about three weeks ago. I'm pumping gas and I went into my little thing where I'm talking to me. There's this guy that pulls up in a car and he's staring at me. I'm not paying any attention. I'm still talking to myself.

And they kind of walks by me, looks at me, goes, Ed, I'm in the middle of talking to myself. Like literally, like a delusional person he's thinking. And it's, it was a good friend of mine from college we had seen each other in 25 years. He's like, I'm so proud of what you're doing. How you doing brother? I'm like, this dude just literally caught me with the proverbial

pants down of talking to myself, but I don't give a crap. It works. And so I want to acknowledge what John said there. What? You've written so many books on so many things, but I guess I want to ask you in that the thinking realm, but as it connects to leadership, you mentioned a minute ago, John speaks to all kinds. You know, Davos Sweeney, Clemson football, who I think's, you know, he and Sabin arguably are the two greatest, you know, Urban Meyer, my good friend, if he's listening to this, you're there to Urban, but you're not active. So Davos Sweeney is arguably the greatest college football coach in the world, one of the two. You work with the Niners, you've worked with all kinds of different professional sports teams. What is something about a guy like Davos Sweeney

or these elite coaches? What do they do in their environment that's different that you see as a leader? It's the way they build their culture and it's the way that they lead. I mean, you cannot separate the leader from the culture. It's the leader that drives the culture. So who stirs the pot determines what is in the pot?

And it's the love that he puts into it. It's the energy, it's the passion, it's the drive, it's the quest for excellence that leads that program that creates success. Like, Davo is incredible. One of the greatest leaders, I've ever been around, not just a football coach, but a leader. And he leads with such optimism and belief and faith.

When he got that job, he literally brought in two signs to his meeting. One was belief and the other one was, I can't with the tea crossed out. He knew that Clemson always had talent, but they didn't have belief. And so he was able to instill that belief in his program. And after every practice, he gives a speech to his team. It's like a brainwashing session where every day he's like, we're the best. We're going to do this. And he's always instilling belief in his team. So leadership is a transfer of belief. And so every day he's transferring his belief to his team. And then you can see how they start to believe over time. It's incredible. Now, he also leads with love and accountability. Like that's essential. The greatest leaders

lead with both love and accountability, the combination of the two. Too much accountability, not enough love. You're always driving, you're always pushing, and a lot of leaders do that. And eventually you will burn your team out and they will tune you out. And so you have to make sure that you are leading with love first.

They happen to care about them. You're encouraging them, you believe in them, you're supporting them. But then you hold them accountable to the standards, to the culture, to the quality of what you expect, this program to be in this culture to be about. And so it's the combination of the two. Again, too much love, you're a wonderful family,

everyone gets along, but you're not allowing them or causing them to be great. You're actually holding them back, if you have too much love, not enough accountability, because if you really love someone, you won't let them settle for anything, but they're best. So great coaches are always relentlessly focusing on the culture with their principles, their standards, and they're constantly loving their players, investing in them, and also holding them accountable to what they expect and the standards of the program. Do you think in his case

that, and in other leaders' cases. Do you think in his case that, and in other leaders' cases, he's bold about his faith with, I assume his team too, because he does this publicly. And I wonder if you just speak to that from him. I'm a real believer that people want to know what you stand for. And they don't even have to necessarily agree

with what you stand for, but they want you to be a definable person because I think it creates trust that they at least know who you are. Am I right? Outside looking at it looks to me like he's bold about his faith with his team and they know what he stands for. He's very bold and they do know what he stands for and he does lead with his faith. And a lot of guys on the team aren't believers and that's okay with him. He's not here to

convince anyone. He just lives his faith and they feel his faith. And so a lot of guys actually come to faith by being part of that program, but he's not driving that in any inappropriate way, but he does lead with faith and it is contagious and they know what he stands for. I mean, he is very clear what he stands for. And everyone thinks, okay, he's this positive guy and he's as fun all the time.

You know, no, there is a drive towards excellence with him. And if you are not giving your best, he will call you out. I've been in meetings, I've been in practices where man, you wouldn't think that was very positive based on that practice, but he is driving that person and that player and that team to be great. So he's got the combination.

Oh, and also he's really big on relationships. Like he says, hey, we have a process. Like Sabin, Nick Sabin, he has a process. Alabama is all about the combination. Oh, and also he's really big on relationships. Like he says, hey, we have a process like Sabin, Nick Sabin, he has a process. Alabama's all about the process. That was like, we have relationships that drive the process. We are relationships first. And then that drives our process to be successful. So good.

So, so good. I love the insight about special leaders. And I know, you know, everyone he's being humble, but he's worked with that program for quite a long time. John has. So obviously coach Sweeney has a level of trust and belief in you that he's transferred as well. You got to tell him this because it's one of the best things I've ever heard in my life. I know it's not yours, but in terms of being a leader developing leaders, the carrot egg coffee bean. You got it, Thomas, guys, get ready. Man, I just love this story. Damon West and I met through dabble, sweetie. Damon had just spoken to the team and I show up

and dabble, sweetie said to me, hey, we just had this guy Damon West speak and he talked about the carrot, the egg, and the coffee bean. And dabble literally starts to reenact. Damon's talked for me like in his office until he areas. And he starts going through it. And as he starts teaching me the character, the egg in the coffee bean, I'm like, man,

that is an incredible story. And so we decided to write a book based on that. I called up Damon, I said, hey, this needs to be a book. I had a vision for it immediately. As dabbo was telling me about it, and it's really simple. When you put a carrot in the boiling hot water, what happens to the carrot? It gets softened, it gets weakened by its environment.

You put an egg into boiling hot water, what happens to the carrot? It gets softened, it gets weakened by its environment. You put an egg into boiling hot water, what happens to the egg? It gets hardened, right? And so we can be like the carrot when we are dealing with hot water, difficult situations, tough circumstances, like we're dealing with right now, we can crumble from the inside out. We can about the fear, the anxiety, distrust to get the best of us, or we can become hardened, bitter, angry, frustrated, where we just don't care anymore. A lot of people right now are just saying, I don't care whether they're just angry. So we can be like both. We don't want to be like either though. We want to be like, is the coffee bean? You put that coffee bean into boiling hot

water. What happens? It transforms the water into coffee. It transforms the environment. It's not impacted by its environment. Instead, it transforms its environment. And that is our opportunity, that is our power, that is our charge every day, as positive leaders, as positive teammates, we can impact the environments we're in. We don't have to be the victim of our circumstance. I know you teach a lot about this,

and I love the way you teach it. We can actually transform our situation, transform our environment. And in doing so, that's how we're gonna impact the world. Pestimists don't change the world. They say or say you can't do it. Complain about problems, but don't solve them. We know that throughout history,

it's the positive leaders, the believers, the dreamers, the doers who have the greatest impact. And it's all about being a coffee bean. Be like the coffee bean. I wish I knew that story when my kids were younger because I'd have told them it over and over and over again and said, be like the coffee bean. I'd have said that a thousand times to my kids. It's so good. When I heard it, man, it wasn't for me. I got to give Damian all the credit. He heard it from a guy named Mr. Jackson in prison. That's a

whole other story of Mr. Jackson who told him this story. That's how he survived prison. Gets out in seven years was a 65-year sentence. He had got addicted to math and was burglarizing homes. Then he gets out in seven years and I just want to be useful. God calls him to go to speak to these teams. Davo Gismashat is the only coach who gave him a shot when he asked like hundreds of coaches. Davo gave him a shot and now he's impacting Alabama, Georgia, all these teams. It's been pretty cool. And then I've been able to share this story and this message with a lot of teams. It's been pretty cool. And then I've been able to share this story and this message with a lot of teams.

I was with Jay Glazer last night. We were talking about his impact with veterans coming back from the war and the depression they deal with them. Think about that. When you deal with all this adversity, all these challenges, this simple analogy can help you overcome. And like you said, with kids,

man, kids need this message now more than ever. It because it's all about the action, right? Words without action lead to nothing, right? So we make it. I don't think it was very profound, but I think it's true, right? And so if you don't have action, you can't get things done. So yeah, this one word, again, good friends of mine, Dan and Jimmy, they've been doing it for over 20 years now. They told me about how every year they pick a word for the year. So we wrote a book called One

Word that will change your life. And we've been working with all these teams. Every year, dabble picks his word, shot like they picks his word. I worked with the Dodgers. They picked their word. It's really cool when a team does it. And that word is meant to fuel you for the year. It gives you meaning and mission, passion and purpose. So in January, great time to do it, you pick your word for the year that you're gonna focus on. And that word becomes like a rally and cry. It becomes something that you could focus on and zoom focus on to win each day.

So words for me have been like serve and rise and surrender. I'll never forget the word surrender. It was a tough year, but that word came up for me and God always gives me a word. I always say pray on your word, say I'm open. And that word will come. I've had atheist friends say they were just open. It said, okay, I'm open.

And the word just came. And the more you're open, the word will come for you. That is meant for you. And then that word will shape you and mold you to be who you're meant to be that year. My word was heart this year. And I gotta tell you with everything happening, I meant to be that year. My word was heart this year. And I've got to tell you with everything happening, I went back to that word in terms of I want to lead with

heart, want to love with all my heart. I want to speak from the heart, right? And I feel like I've been more powerful than ever than in just focusing on that and really coming from the heart. Instead of just, you know, going through the motions instead of being tired and allowing the circumstances to drain you, right? Just come with that heart. And it's been an incredible year in terms of all the adversity we're facing, but but the heart has taken me through it. How have you done with that? I'm just curious. I mean, everybody just so you know, I mean, John has businesses, but he's a speaker. Right? And so, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, this has been a difficult time. I mean, this is not like, you know, Mamm Z Pam Z fluffy stuff we're talking about here. John said to apply these things.

I'm just curious. If you had a bunch of down days, what do you do when you have them? And what's it been like for you? Man, Ed, that's such a great question. Because when it first hit, I have to admit, I had a down couple of days. I was like, what is going on? My world was shook. Because, you know, I don't have a financial company like you have in terms of that background. I really have put everything into my writing and speaking. I sold my businesses to focus 100% on this. So we were doing a lot of consulting and training and speaking and everything just sort of dried up. And so I was talking to a Navy seal name Chad Wright for a Navy seal. I don't know if you know Chad, we were talking and and and he said you know a lot of guys don't make it through Hell Week and they

don't make it through Hell Week to do to be a Navy Seal because they're long effort to be over they're dreaming for it to end. He said the ones who make it just want to make it the breakfast and when he told me that I knew I had the recipe for winning during this time it was to win today to not worry about tomorrow but just win today. So I woke up every day. He's just saying, okay, I'm going to stay positive. I'm going to try to encourage other people. And I'm going to get better every day. And I'm going to reach out to clients. And whoever reaches out to me, I'm going to help. And I had so many people reach out. I reached out

to various clients. I spoke to the timber wolves and various teams and coaches and Fortune 500 companies and had these incredible conversations with the leaders. It's amazing how many things came my way as a result of that attitude. I had an incredible year financially. I have to admit I don't want to I don't want to because I know a lot of people haven't so I don't want to worry about I want to break on God because I really believe that my faith grew so much during that time because I was humbled because I had nowhere to go but to pray. And I really said, God, I trust in you. Whatever your plan is, I trust. I'm going to serve.

And I went back to my rookie mindset when I first started doing this years ago when I went on a book tour to 28 cities where five people showed up and 10 people showed up and 20 people showed up. The most we have were 100 people in Des Moines, Iowa. They thought Jeff Gordon was coming. That's why they showed up. And that's not a joke. That is a true story. They think they're getting a NASCAR driver and you show up. I love it. Yeah. And I came home and it wasn't a great tour. And it was my beginning right. Energy bus had just come out. Took five years for the energy bus to be a best seller.

Did it really? Yeah, now it's sold over two million copies, but five years back then. And I remember that time. So I went back to that time and I just said, show up, be a coffee, make a difference. And it was amazing. All the events that happened, all the virtual keynotes, all the clients that I helped, all the free stuff I did, I did a ton of free stuff to serve and then to see that come back tenfold.

See people always think, right? You have to go out there with the idea of, okay, how much money can I make? And yes, we're here to make money because you have to make profit to be able to have an existing business, to have a growing business to help others, right? But I have found that if you love serving care, if you truly love serve and care, your business will exponentially grow.

And I was returned to that rookie mindset, where that was my focus, a lot of trust, a lot of prayer. And my faith grew so deep during that time where I truly relied on God for what was going on. And it's amazing what happened. So I'm going to write about more about it because there's so much more to share. faith grew so deep during that time where I truly relied on God for what was going on. And it's amazing what happened. So I'm going to write about more about it because there's so much more to share. I don't want to share it because people are going through, but there's so many more things that happen where I just saw it wasn't me.

I just saw that it was an incredible miracle of all the things that happened. Yeah, we both have that. Thank you for sharing that. We both have that in common where we're both very aware of how average or and we are and how great God has been to both. We're going to we're going to get to your faith in a minute. But before that nurse, David nurse,

been on my show, our mutual friend. We want to go back to that beginning because you touched on the topic. He's like, you got to ask him about being an international speaker in the beginning. Because this is awesome for people that are start up entrepreneurs or that want to change their identity or change their life.

This is just awesome. Right? I remember context guys, spoken in front of millions of people sought after by professional sports teams in all different sports, 23 some odd books, millions of books sold, you know, made tons of money doing this, impacted all these people. But he was an international speaker. I was cracking

up when I read this. Yeah, so we went from all these cities, 28 cities. And so Daniel Decker, who I'm sure you know, Daniel, Daniel basically was calling all these different cities and radio stations. Hey, John Gordon's coming. Yeah, he's internationally known. He's internationally known. I had one friend in London and the energy was I'd become a U-Chin in South Korea. Not North Korea, but South Korea was like this big hit, not in the US. But for some reason in South Korea became a hit. So we were saying internationally, no. And my publisher was calling me the David Hasselhoff of Korea.

Because no one was reading my book in the US, but I was huge in South Korea. Oh, hadn't you only been out of the country like on a one week vacation or something like that? Yeah, I didn't even went to, I never even went to South Korea. They can't explain what, why it took off. But so we were saying internationally known and everywhere we went, they're like, they would interview me. John Gourens here, he's internationally known. And so, uh, that was the beginning tour that we went on. And, uh, you know, you look back on that, you're right.

And it's like, hey, you gotta believe it. I'm not a big believer in fake it to you. Make it, I'm a big believer in believe it because you belong. Believe it because what you believe determines what you create. And so I was believing it. Yeah, I think I just, I'm not kidding you. I may have torn ab right there.

At least I pulled it for sure. You know, I don't believe in fake it to you make it either, but what I do believe in is creating a frame for yourself that's new, a new frame that you live in, a new character that you're going to be, and as long as you're authentic and have those standards and there's congruency, guess what? He's become an international speaker.

He's become an internationally well-known author, so it's very, very true. Well, we've been kind of building up to this and it's one of the things I've been fascinated to ask you personally, too. So as I understand the story, you've said openly, hey, I was in a great of a husband for many, many years, and or at least for a few years, I guess. And you were your wife gives you this ultimatum. But we wouldn't be doing a John Gordon interview if we weren't talking about faith and how that's impacted your life and changed your life

so how did you come to your faith and? In general to begin with what does it mean to you? Yeah, it's everything to me and while I work with all these companies and sports teams And I'm not always actively right talking about my faith at events and things like that It is what drives me and it's the cornerstone of my life, it's my foundation. Because for years, I didn't have faith. And for years, I struggled with fear and anxiety and stress and I tried all these things.

And I practiced Buddhism and I did meditation. And I was really big into Buddhism and new age philosophy and de-Pactopra and did all of that years ago. My wife and I were really into that. And it helped me along the way. It was part of my spiritual journey. So I never pooped poo it.

I believe everyone is on a journey. And it was a big part of who I was and helped me become who I was meant to be. But there came a point where I couldn't deal with the pain and the burden and the wounds that I had felt of the past and the anxiety. And all the things that were holding me back the past and the anxiety and all the things that were holding me back from being who I was meant to be.

And then Daniel Decker gave me a sermon from Erwin McMannis that really spoke to me. I know you had Erwin on your podcast and Erwin didn't even know him, but his message, the way he spoke about Jesus really spoke to me. And for the first time, I heard the voice of Jesus for the first time it spoke to my heart. Now I had always grown up, you know, again, Jewish, mom is Jewish and Jesus was Jewish, but he was a prophet. He was a great teacher. He was in a savior. But when I heard Erwin's message, I remember saying to God, God, if there is something to this Jesus I'm open. I'm open. Just show me the signs and then everywhere I went I started seeing signs I would meditate and see a glowing cross and it was unbelievable. I can't explain it

I would see a glowing cross and I'm driving down to Orlando and as I'm driving looking to the left. I heard this Audible said look and I turned to the right and there's as I'm driving, looking to the left, I heard this audible, said, look, and I turned to the right, and there's a huge sign that said, Jesus is the answer. Crazy. So I come back, I go to see this Buddhist energy healer. I was having problems with my stomach, and this guy was great, Don Van Vley.

And I go see Don, and I tell Don about these signs. He's like, oh, yeah. He goes, well, I'm a Buddhist. I'm trying to attain enlightenment on my own. I want to see if I can do it by myself. He said, but with Jesus, all you do is believe and receive. You see, he takes your heavy vibrational energy. He takes your soul pain. He goes, Christians call it sin. He goes, you can't connect to a perfect harmonious energetic God. If you have heavy vibrational energy, I wrote the energy bus. I always saw the world in

terms of energy. That's what spoke to me. I think I take someone else's soul pain. He said, can you handle your own? I walked out of their believing in a God that would want to take my burden, my pain. And he said, Christianity is like spiritual cheating, which is funny. Spiritual cheating. He said, all you do is believe and receive. So I walked out of there saying, okay, I'm going to believe. And it's so crazy. I started to believe. And then I started to receive. And I didn't have all the answers. But I just said, God, strengthen my faith and God brought one teacher, one person, one book after another in my life. And I got to tell you, it changed my heart, it changed my soul, changed me as a husband, changed me as a man. I started writing books after that. The energy bus came after that. And I've written all these books literally in a less than four weeks, about three and a half weeks, each book takes to

write. And I got to give all credit to God. I'm not the author, just a pen. And these ideas come to me like literally downloads. And then I just start writing them. And the fact that they've sold four and a half million copies, you know, I got to give all glory to him in doing that. And I know that I am nothing without my faith, without my relationship. And it's in that surrender and that trust in that prayer of use me for your purpose. Guide me towards my purpose. That's when God started to use me to do this work. So to try to stem doing on my own, I just can't go in that direction because I know it's not me. And when I wrote the garden, God revealed the five Ds to me of what everyone's going through right now with fear and anxiety. I wrote this during December 25th, January 8th. I finished it January 8th,

not knowing a pandemic was coming. And yet this book talks about, it's a spiritual fable about overcoming fear, stress, and anxiety of what everyone's going through. Doubt, discouragement, distortion, lies, fear is a liar, negative thoughts, distractions, and division, more division than ever. Write about these five these, and that's what's playing out right now, and then he gave me the blueprint and how to overcome.

So it just shows you that it's like one example of just the ideas and how they come, I write these books and then they come out. And I know that's what I'm here to do. And I'm so honored again to be on your show and be able to share that because I think the world of you. So I think the world of you, so many beautiful things you said there, so much. It's interesting that we're so, we're very similar that I also, I think sometimes people think, well, if you're a Christian, you don't really believe in energy transfer or there can't be an energy field. I actually happen to believe there is a field. I just happen to believe that it was

created by a power bigger than that, my Lord and Savior, right? So I plug into energy all the time. I believe in vibrational frequency. I know about that. I'm one, I'm around high energy people. I feel it when I'm around low energy people. I don't. So I believe all of that just in my own life, I'm aware of my own limitations. And there's just no way a guy as average and ordinary as me would have had the abundance that I've had in my life. It was just left up to me. And the more I find that I surrender all the pressure, the greatest thing about faith oftentimes is it takes the pressure off me. It's not all me. It's not all up to me.

My great partner is my Lord. That's my partner. That's who's got my back, but more than any human being and I've got human beings that do as well. So there's so many things you said in there. Amazing that you write these books in three or four weeks and triple quadruple amazing

that you write these books in three or four weeks and triple quadruple amazing that you write the garden right before this pandemic's coming with the five Ds. You said there was a blueprint, I'm just curious if you'd share with us another element of the blueprint overcome the five Ds. Yeah, I'd love to. And first I just wanna share that when I called Irwin, like Manus, when I did come to,

when I was coming to faith and I started to ask him questions because I heard a sermon, I reached out to him, he actually shared my letter on his podcast, sermon, which he was doing way back when, we're talking over 15 years now, probably. And we had this great conversation. I said, but what about all the hypocrites?

What about all the Christians and the church and all that they do? And the Catholic church, and he said, John, don't let Christians keep you from Christ. Wow. And he said, just start learning about Jesus. And the more I learned about Jesus and just went right to his message and who he was,

I saw a guy who talked about love and forgiveness and oneness. And I realized how it all actually connects with energy. Like everything is connected. You talked about the energy field. Oh, it's a field. We are living in a big giant energetic magnetic field. And yet there's the soul which is eternal. We're living in a temporary space-time reality.

So I can combine science. I've done all the research. I've studied all the physics and the quantum physics. I'm into all of that. And I see how it all connects. One day, I'm gonna write a book called Einstein, Jesus, and the energy of everything. Oh, I would love it. Yeah, because it's real, I see how it all connects.

I'll write the forward. That's my jam right there, brother. The five Ds for what we're going through right now is instead of doubt, the answer is trust. And it's just radical trust, surrender and trust to the creator. I think a lot of times people try to be perfect like God, because they don't trust in God. And there's so much fear because they don't have trust. And right now, the enemy is lying to us with so much fear.

Why? Because if we don't trust in God, we will believe in the fear and the lies. So the goal is to actually get us to doubt and not trust. Because once you doubt, you're now off balance. You lose your foundation. You don't have the trust and you start to believe the lies of the enemy. You could see how people are believing the lies that the worst is ahead that our future is hopeless. That they're not going to make it through this. And we have so many people that are literally giving up. And so it's the doubt that leads to the distortion and the distortion leads to the doubt. So they play into each other. And the distortion are the lies and the fear that creates the doubt. And it also creates

the discouragement. So negative thoughts create discouragement. Why? Because spiritually, right? Spiritual, what we're dealing with these negative forces, the enemy knows that he can't beat you himself. So what does he do? He gets you to be yourself. We don't give up because it's hard to be give up because we get discouraged. So the answer there is what you do every day. It's what I'm all about. It's encouragement, right? The word encourage means to put courage into. So we need to put courage into others. We need to put courage into. So we need to put courage into others. We need to put courage into ourselves. We need to speak to ourselves like Dr. James Gilles did with words of encouragement to keep going, to keep moving forward. And I know

that's what you do with and for so many people. So encouragement is everything. True it, Kathy said, how do you know if a man or a woman needs encouragement if they're breathing, right? And then and then Zig Ziglar, right? One of the guys who was the pioneer in our field, Zig was told, hey, motivation doesn't last. And he would say, neither does bathing. It's why you have to do it every day. That's right. So encouragement is everything. And then the real key here is is distractions. That's the fourth day distractions. So we have doubt as the first day. We have distortion as the second day. We have discouragement as the third, the fourth, these distractions, distractions, the enemy of greatness. And so you have to understand that all the distractions with the social media,

with the negative news, it's all the political fighting, it's all distractions, keeping us from being who we're meant to be and being who we're meant to be for each other. And so what did Jesus talk about? Love, love your neighbor, love one another. It's not, let's just love, let's focus on that. Everything else is a distraction. We are meant to love and invest and focus on relationships. And if we did that, that's how we build greatness. Working with great teams like I do, that's what I do. I help them communicate, connect, commit, and care. Four C's, communicate, connect, commit, and care. Four Cs. Communicate,

connect, commit, and care. So we overcome the five Ds with the four Cs. Communicate, connect, commit, and care to build greater commitment. You have to have great connection. And if you invest in the relationship, you will build great commitment to build a great team. And we need to be one team as a society right now, and clearly we're not. And that's why we're having so many problems. And that 50 of division that's what happens when you distract you distort you create doubt what happens is you now have division or there's divide and so the enemy wants to divide you keep you keep you separate and right now there's a lot of division amongst ourselves but there's there's personal division where we actually feel separate from ourselves

And I believe from our creator the word anxious literally means divided at its Greek root word think about that It means divided when you're anxious. So think about you feel anxious. You actually will you really feel divided you feel separate from others You feel separate personally from yourself and you feel separate spiritually from God. And so the answer there is unity. And that's why I came to believe again in Jesus because I saw what he came to do was to unite man, right, back to the father, to the creator, to create oneness, the oneness. So there is separation in the garden. And what happened in the garden gets reconciled on the cross. We're now there's a oneness that happens. And so that's where my faith was, again, I write, I come to faith.

This book comes to me. And then I see how the five of yous are playing out. But then I also see the answer on what we need to do to keep moving forward. And again, if you're not a believer, okay, then just focus on unity with yourself. If it's through meditation, through yoga, through your relationships and love for others, then just focus on the unity and the division and the anxiousness will go away. Wow, wow. This is why I do the show. You know, I just hope everybody's sharing this, you know, what a shame it would be

to just keep the show to yourself today. Always say to people that aren't believers too, is like, well, worst case, what if you just lived a little bit more like Jesus, right? Like, it's just start there. It's not going to hurt, right? And you might be surprised if the Holy Spirit starts showing up. But one of the things, we're talking of Buddhism earlier. I just love this man. I love you brother. And so I was preparing it. I'm yelling at the screen last night, and I'm talking about Buddhism earlier. I just love this man. I love you brother. And so I was preparing. It's like, I'm yelling at the screen last night. I'm doing my last minute preparation like an excitement because one of the things that, you know, I do meditate.

And for me, there's a distinction between prayer and meditation. Those are somewhat different for me. And I do both. Meditation for me is more just completely emptying my mind. Whereas my prayer is more of a personal connection with God. But I do both. And one of the things that Buddhism does teach,

that I know that you're a big believer in it, I just would like you to share this because the way you articulate the power of being still is huge for people. And I think it's something, right, frankly, in Christian faith that isn't talked of enough about is stillness. And so this is huge right here, everybody.

Yeah, I love that. I actually years ago created an audio program called Silent Energy. So, yeah, before I was a believer, when I was really into meditation and Buddhism, Silent Energy. And the idea was that when we are still, we connect to the energy field, we connect are still, we connect to the energy field,

we connect to consciousness, we connect to everythingness. Now where Buddhism believes that you connect to nothingness, I actually believe you're connected to everythingness. And that's where all the wisdom and the ideas and the spirit just starts moving through you when you are meditating.

And actually, Scott and Peck, who wrote the roadless traveled, was actually a Buddhist. And it is meditation is where Jesus started to come in. And you know, again, people might think it's crazy, but I'm just telling you to happen. I can't believe I believe what I believe trust. I know exactly what you mean. Trust me. I'm not like I am really grounded. So I'm not and I am a person of love and faith and I don't judge anybody for their faith. So but for me, it's during my meditations when God showed up like, okay, you're going to be silent.

Good, I got you silent. And now I can come in and start speaking to you. And I think we're so busy. We're so stressed that we're not taking the time for stillness. So we're not able to connect to any source of energy that will give us power, wisdom, and strength. And the more we're connected. Now people talk about the universe a lot.

And I love when people say, the other universe gave me this, the universe told me this. The universe means one song. Songs don't happen by accident. There's a creator of the one song. And so think when you're connected to the universe, you're connected to the medium in which the, which the creator is now able to speak to connected to the universe, you're connected to the medium in which the creator is now able to speak to you through the universe. The universe is like the ocean,

and you're swimming in the ocean, but there's a way to get you the information and the power and the energy you need. And so it's the creator of the universe, that's for you, that loves you, that has a plan for you and your life. And once you understand that and you connect to that, wow, you will receive all the power, the wisdom, and the guidance you need to go on your life. And once you understand that and you connect to that, wow, you will receive

all the power, the wisdom and the guidance you need to go on your journey. I really believe that God will move heaven and earth when you are on the right path. So your job is to take those steps, to listen, look for the signs, trust, surrender as I have many times with tears on my knees, as my life's falling apart. And from that moment, you recognize that there's a greater force than you. There's a greater power that is here to help you and carry you. And for me, that's what I think people need to seek more of. To realize, as you said, they can't do it alone. And once you come to the end of yourself, you come to the strength and the power that wants to take you and carry you even further

than you would on your own. It's amazing that you use the word carry. Brother, I love you. I often have said that there's, you know, hey, how did you become successful? I'm like, well, I worked on my articulation. I worked on my mindset. I worked on my tick-to-tour-activating system, my identity, my ability to communicate thoughts, my insights, my intensity, transferring energy, work ethic, all of these things.

So I'm not suggesting I haven't done anything, but I said there's entire moments of my life that I can't explain. And it's almost like those are the moments where the Lord just picked me up and I use the word. I say carried me for a while. And then I wake up, boom, and I'm in just a much better place. And so it's amazing that you share that. I love you.

Last topic. Last, last topic. This is so good. And again, we're not preaching. We're, it's two men speaking, right? We're, we're both respectful of everyone my nose and on my show. I've had people that are agnostics. I've had eight. The east. I've had many, many Jewish people on my show. I've had Muslims on my show that people of every faith Hindus, of course, I was bar mitz I was bar mitz and so so I have, you know, I again, like with the Jewish mom, I was bar mitz fit and like I said, yeah, I love everybody. It's so funny. I know more about the Jewish faith now as a believer than I did is when I grew it up because we didn't know we didn't know much, But everyone's on a journey and we're all here

to learn and grow. And I think that's that's the. And by the way, if you're listening to this, today's part of that journey. Yeah, this is your journey. Last thing is relationships. So you got a new book I've called Relationship Grit. Grit's an interesting word is applying to relationships.

I hadn't thought of it that way before. And I got to say, you know, one of the things that's come through this time, this last, whatever it is eight, nine months as this is being recorded, obviously more and more depression, more and more suicide, but a lot, a lot of relationship stress, divorce, breakups, separations, more than I've ever seen in my life. And so what is relationship grit and give us just a little bit because you've shared that you needed to do this and your relationship as well.

So give us some insight into what that means. That's another key is that we wrote this book before the pandemic as well. And yet it came out now during this time. And so my wife and I wanted to write a book to help a couple of state together. I was talking to Angela Duckworth, who was basically the foremost researcher on grit. And we were talking about individual grit. And I said, what makes a team gritty? Because doing a lot of work with teams,

I saw that some teams hadn't worked grit than others. And so she said, hadn't done that research. That's really intriguing. And so I really thought about my work with teams, thought about my marriage and how we just stuck together. Now my wife didn't leave me. And through the ups and downs, through all the times we probably should have gone divorced, we just stuck together. Now my wife didn't leave me. And through the ups and downs, through all the times we probably should have gone divorced,

we just didn't. Even when it was hard, right? We didn't. And by staying together, we now have more intimacy, more love, more joy. We have the best relationship now that we've ever had. 23 years later. And so my wife's a character,

but we, she's awesome. She's Iris Catholic, you know, she doubles up on the fighting when she doesn't drink. And so we just, we just have this great, like she, she goes from zero to 60 in like two seconds, right? And yet she's real authentic and she's able to share, you know, her story. And so we wrote this book to help couples stick together,

sharing a lot of tips and grit stands for. Again, we got, it goes back to share, you know, her story. And so we wrote this book to help couples stick together, sharing a lot of tips and grit stands for. Again, we got to, it goes back to God because when we first met, we were both very spiritual people and we were just talking about God all the time, not from a religion standpoint, but just we felt like God brought us together. There was a destiny and we were meant to be together. And I just opened up a bar and bucket. I was 24 years old. I had bought this bar, found some investors and she's walking down the street and I saw it. I was love years old and bought this bar, found some investors, and she's walking down the street. And I saw, I was love it for her for her, took a few years, but for me, like, I just love her. And literally a week later, because she didn't come to this party

and invited her, I never thought I'd see her again. A week later, the best of Atlanta charity event, there she was. Like, there she is across the room, ran over to her, started talking to her. Anyway, so she finally agreed to go out with me and then we've been together set. And so we talked about how God brought us together. So God is the first part of the framework. The second part is resolve.

You have to resolve to stay together. No, it's gonna be hard. You can't leave when it gets hard. Too many couples just give up, right? Because of the discouragement, because of the division, the d's actually affect your relationship, too. We already talked about those. So you have to resolve. Then there's an invest part. Can't be a consumer in your relationship. Now you have to make sure you're investing

in each other during this time. And that's what I had to learn. You know, I was not a great husband because I was honestly focused too much on myself. And over the years, I really learned to serve my wife, to serve my family. And the more my motto became the more I love my wife, the more I love my life, not happy, white happy life, but the more I love her, the more here I'm here to serve her. And it's about making her happy, investing in her, investing in our relationship, not focusing on me. It's amazing how that comes back to you. Now people always say,

you happen to be doing that, I'm not getting anything back. You're not doing it for anything in return. You're doing it because your job is to love your wife, to love your spouse. And over time you watch, it will come back. Commitment recognizes commitment. And over time you'll get that commitment back. So it's about investing. And then that part is you got to do it together if one person in the relationship is committed.

It's not going to work. You both have to make the agreement that you're going to do it together and you have to invest together now. My wife says, you know, at some point, you know, you're going to have more investment than your spouse. Like you're going to invest more than the other. And it's going to flip flop over time, right? But the idea is that over time, you're both making sure that you're doing it together, investing, and making sure that you have to work on this marriage. During this time, there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of stress.

And a lot of times, that fear and stress is actually what causes us to divide, because it brings up our inadequacies. It brings up our insecurities. We have a fear that we can't provide, that we're not going to be found attractive by our spouse. As a man, when I lost my job, then the calm crash and everything was falling apart, I was worried my wife was going to leave me, cheat on me, I was very insecure. And as a result, what did I do?

I acted out. I was negative. I actually then became a jerk because I was actually insecure. And so it's really about being vulnerable, talking to each other about your challenges, talking to each other about your fears. And in that vulnerability, you will then find an authentic strength and grow together. I just want to acknowledge you. You're making a huge difference in the world. And I knew that through our friends. I've known that through your books,

but now that I'm in your presence, you're a remarkable man. God is using you in amazing ways. I mean, I'm taking a back by how profound your information is. I said in the beginning to everybody that he has a unique and amazing ability to articulate his thoughts and you guys just experienced it. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

I feel like we could go to almost any topic. We could go three more hours and you would have something valuable to say, which makes me want to have you back on the show. So. And to hear you say that, I mean, I just brings me almost a tears of goosebumps. Because again, I think the world of you, your faith, wow, just like, I know that we're meant to have this conversation.

And it's always in God's time, right? Like, I've watched you from afar. And I'm like, why aren't we friends? Like, we really be friends. Like, I saw you know, I'm like, and I think we'd be friends if we really got to know each other. And we weren't friends. I'm like, I really would love to be friends with this guy.

Well, we definitely are now. And it's amazing also that God's connected us through so many mutual friends as well that we other men that we both love very much. And so this is the beginning of a great chapter and a great friendship. And I want to thank you for today. And everybody, I want you to go follow John will put it up on the screen on Instagram. Is that probably the first place they should go or where do you want them to go get you? Instagram or Twitter at John Gordon 11. Yeah, and that's JL.

And guys, JL. Make sure you do that. And then in my case, to everybody, share the show, share this. Let's keep growing. It's fastest growing show in the world. And also, remember this every day on Instagram, I run the max out two-minute drill. I want to engage with you. So I post every day, same time, 730 Pacific time.

If you make a comment on that post within a first couple of minutes. So I have your notifications on. I pick a winner every day, same time, 730 Pacific time. If you make a comment on that post within the first couple of minutes. So I have your notifications on. I pick a winner every day. I'll tell you what the winners get in a minute. If you miss that, just make a comment on every post. I make it any time of day. And the more you reply to people's comments, increases your chance to coaching calls. You meet my guests. You fly on the plane with me.

You go to my speaking engagements, max out gear, my book, all kinds of cool stuff. So connect with me there and God bless you. I can ask you a question. I want people to you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you.

I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you.

I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can't help you. I can what you do. I love that you asked that. I would say that it's my, this is my home like it is for you. I really, later in life, John, I found how much I love even more than I knew serving people. So I find that it's not work. It's not a grind. It does not deplete my energy to do this.

There are other things I do that take my energy from me because there's things that I must do. This is something that I'm called to do. And so I think when you're in the midst of your calling, it's, you know, I watch different people even right now and different, even in politics. They just can go because it's part of their calling. And so I think it's that.

And I also have been so blessed with so many mentors. God's been so good to me. I've really deeply committed myself to spending the second half of my life serving and helping other people because I didn't get here alone. I got here with God number one and great people like yourself surrounding me and believing in me and teaching me.

And so that's why I do it. To answer your question. Man, that's awesome. All right, all right guys. God bless you, Max out. [♪ Music playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, you