The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 425: Jon Gordon - How To Be A Great Teammate (Row The Boat)

Episode Date: June 27, 2021

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Jon Gordon is the author of 23 books including 10 best sellers. His books include the timeless classic The Energy Bus which has sold over 2 million copies, The Carpenter which was a top 5 business book of the year, Training Camp, The Power of Positive Leadership, The Power of a Positive Team, The Coffee Bean, Stay Positive, and The Garden. How to be a great teammate: Put the team first "We not me" Superstars make the people around them better Get tactical (be a great teammate): Look for opportunities for the betterment of the team Work hard, build a foundation of trust, communicate well, connect with each team member, CARE about them Encourage means to "put courage into them." "Leadership is a transfer of belief." Use 'positive discontent." "Love tough instead of tough love." "Trust is the currency of leadership." Change Management (learned from Dabo Sweeney) Know what the culture stands for Know what you value Set standards (non-negotiables) Create your vision and purpose -- WHY are you doing it? Get buy-in Optimism and belief are vital Must develop relationships "People follow the leader first and the vision second." Ask: "Are they connected and committed?" A great leader wants their team members to get promoted Culture is not static. It's dynamic. It must be built every day. "It's not one thing. It's everything." Jon wrote The Energy Bus in three weeks. And it changed the trajectory of his life. Don't be carrots or eggs... Be coffee beans. Be able to "transform the environment." 10 Life Rules of Row The Boat: #2: Trained behavior creates boring habits, boring habits create elite instincts. #3 You win with people, not just players--- people who make their life about others. #5 The hardest part about being the standard is that you are the standard all the time.

Horizontal accountability is more powerful than vertical accountability. When you're holding each other accountable at the team level, at the organizational level, where there's this incredible player-led locker room. Coaches are dictating ultimately the culture, the framework, the game plan, but the players are really leading each other, you really truly have a strong team. It's the same thing in the business environment. When you're doing it for each other, not for the boss,

because the boss said so, but you're doing it to make each other great because you have a common mission, a common vision, a common goal that you're all working towards. Everyone's driving the energy bus on the bus together, moving forward. When you have that, you have ownership. And when you have ownership, right, everyone owns the effort. Everyone owns the process. And they ultimately own the result of what they're creating. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global.

I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2-2. To become part of Mindful Monday, you along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world. We'll receive a carefully curated email from me with the latest ideas. Trends, topics, books, articles, podcast, videos

to help you start your week off right. you'll also receive details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 4422. Now on to tonight's featured leader, the great John Gordon is back, author of 23 books, 10 of which are best sellers. Some of them include the timeless classic, The Energy Bus, which has sold over two million. in copies, the carpenter, and the power of positive leadership. During this really cool conversation, John and I discuss how to be a great teammate, how to turn a bad culture into an elite, why you should learn in public.

And then we closed with some very useful life slash career advice. Ladies and gentlemen, I promise you will. We'll enjoy this one. It's the great John Gordon. John, man. It's so good to see, man. Good to have you back on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome.

Ryan, great to be back with you. Appreciate it. To start, man, there's so much. But I want to talk about being a great teammate. And the reason this is top of mind for me is because my daughter just finished her club volleyball season. So we have some intense tournaments that we've been to, you know, those weekend long tournaments where you're there from early morning to late at night, staying in hotels.

it's fun. And we have, you know, the good thing about it is there's a lot of one-on-one time to have these deep conversations. And she probably gets tired of hearing me talk to her. But one of the things we talk about a lot leading up to each match is, you know, be a great teammate. And I think this applies in sports where you've, you've been in a lot as well as in the business world. Can to start, can you share some of the themes and what it means to be an excellent teammate, both in the sporting world as well as translate that to the business world? Well, I appreciate you asking that because I wrote the hard hat, which is about 21 ways to be a great teammate. And then the power of a positive team, which is what makes great teams great, but also what can you do to be a great teammate? And I know that it's about putting the team first before yourself. It's about we, not me.

Now, me is important, but how can me contribute to the team? And what I have found is when you help the team improve, you improve. When you help the team grow, you grow. There's a great story about Schwinn-Nader. He was recruited by John Wooden to play at UCLA. He was 6'10. He played at Cyprus Community College. And John said, hey, if you come here, Schwain,

you're not going to play much because we have the best center in the world in Bill Walton. But we want you to make Bill Walton better. Will you do that? Will you come here and do that? And Schwentader agreed to go to UCLA. Every day in practice, he is challenging Bill Walton. He is pushing him. His job is to make Bill Walton better.

and that is what he's doing in practice every single day. He never starts a college game. He's the only person in NBA history, never to have started college game, but be drafted in the first round of the NBA. 12-year NBA career, rookie of the year. What happened? Every day he was helping Bill Walton improve.

He improved. Every day he was helping the team get better. He got better. And that's what happens. When you put the team first and you focus on being a great teammate, It raises the level of the team, but it also raises the level of you. Your team doesn't care if you're a superstar. They care if you're a super teammate.

And some days, you're the star of the team. And some days you help the star. And some days you're going to shine. And other days you help your team shine. And so it's about showing up every day using your gifts, using your talents, using your strengths to be the best performer you can be. We need you to be a great individual performer, whether it's in business or sports.

but we also need you as you're performing at a high level to make the people around you better. That's what a transformational teammate is all about. While you're performing at a higher level, you're making everyone around you better. A friend of mine was a Navy SEAL, and he said, you know, Navy SEALs had to try out to be members of SEAL Team 6. And when you were trying out, they were looking for certain characteristics. They didn't necessarily tell you what they were looking for. They just said, hey, you're not the right fit. well, we found out what they're looking for.

And what they're looking for is not just Navy SEALs who performed at a higher level, not just elite performers. But as they were performing at their highest level, they were making the other seals around them better. So think about that. Even the elite, to become the elite of the elite, you have to be a great teammate.

What are some of the tactical things? Let's say someone, John, who's listening is a VP at a giant company. So they're in a mid-level leadership role. They're not the CEO. They're not a frontline entry-level individual performer, but they're in the middle of that. They want to build great culture, and they really want to be an excellent teammate

to build an elite team. What are some tactical things they could try and work on implementing right now? You look for ways to serve your team members. You don't have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great. So what ways can you help the team and serve them and serve their growth.

And so it's always looking for opportunities to use your trends, your gifts, your talents, for the betterment of the team, to serve the members of your team. Great teammates are loyal. Great teammates are hardworking. You show up and you lead by example. Loyal in that you'll put your team first.

You will do anything for your team. You're someone that they can trust, someone who just won't walk away in the toughest of moments. you will make the time to communicate with your team. You have to be a great communicator to be a great teammate. So you're sharing, you're listening, you're talking, you're hearing, you're showing up every day communicating, you're connecting, you're making the time to connect with each team member, developing a bond of trust.

That relationship is really where the bond is developed. And that takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes effort. So communication is one level. connecting as a deeper level where we really get to know each other. And I make the time to learn about you, hear about you, care about you. I mean, it sounds basic, but a great teammate cares.

They care about their teammates. They care about who they are as people. They care about helping them get better. They care about, you know, helping them through their challenging times. Great teammates stay positive and optimistic through tough times. And their optimism and their positivity is contagious. You know, so their energy is contagious. So when someone's down and someone's having a tough day, or maybe they're lacking confidence,

you're giving them confidence. You're encouraging. If I was going to pick one thing that I would start doing, for me, that's encouraging. I would find ways to encourage my team members, to help them be the best they can be. The word encourage means to put courage into. And so when you're encouraging someone, you're put in courage into them. When you encourage yourself, you put encourage into yourself. So just by encouraging your team members,

you're giving them courage to pursue greatness, to accomplish more than they may not have thought possible initially. So I would say leadership is a transfer of belief. You believe, but does your team believe? Well, same thing with being a great teammate. You are transferring your belief to your team members. And as a great team member, you also will also have the difficult conversations at times. you'll talk about what needs to be talked about. You'll share some challenging thoughts to help them get better. Hey, constructive criticism, constructive feedback. Hey, we need to do this to get better.

The U.S. women's soccer team on their March of the World Cup a few years ago, Ali Long told me that after every game, they would debrief. And they would talk about who messed up, who needed to play better, how they could improve. And I said, Ali, no one took it personal? She said, no. We all wanted to be great together. our mission was greater. Think about that.

When you have a great mission and you have a bigger mission, a shared vision and purpose, you don't let egos get in the way. Carrie Walsh Jennings told me the same thing. Her and Misty May, the greatest beach volleyball team of all time, she said that they didn't let egos get in the way because they wanted championships together.

They wanted to be great together. So that bigger mission was greater than their individual egos and desire. So they work things out as a result of that. So a great teammate will have positive discontent. Positive discontent. Hey, we are doing great, but how can we get better? Hey, we're not doing well. How can we stay positive through this in order to grow?

Hey, we need to have a difficult conversation and address the elephant in the room, address the issue so we can improve. Great teammates practice love tough, instead of tough love. Hey, I love you. I earn your trust. I develop a relationship with you. So now because of that, I earn the right to challenge you and help you grow. So a lot of times what teammates do is they are tough instead of love at first.

They're too much tough at first. So they're challenging. They're pushing. But they don't earn that right. They don't develop that relationship. So what happens? You tune them out. If you really knew someone had your best interest at heart, would you be more open to their

feedback? Of course you would. So as a great teammate, your job is to develop that relationship, develop that trust trust is the currency of leadership trust is the currency of being a great teammate you develop that trust that relationship and now as a result of that you can challenge people to grow and get better because you've done the work to establish the foundation of that relationship wow okay and you're just shared a lot a bit amount of time you just killed it man in your recent book with p j fleck real quick and aside on pj so i want to get to him uh i i

I was a quarterback of the team at Ohio University, and we went up to Northern Illinois, where PJ played. They were ranked, I believe, in the top 15 of the country at the time. The running back was Michael the burner, Turner, a really good player. And the game was on ESPN National TV. We were beating them with less than two minutes to go to the game. They scored a touchdown, unfortunately, at the very end, to beat us and keep there. I think they were undefeated and ranked in the top top 15 at the time.

So I know PJ well, I saw him. He's a great, great player. And he turned into a, I guess, an even better coach, which he is now at the University of Minnesota. And your most recent book, you wrote it with him. And one of the things I wanted to point out about it, John, that relates to what you're talking about. And I feel this as being a part of both winning teams and losing teams, great teams and bad teams. P.J. said, and you and you and him wrote in your book, Bad teams, nobody leads. Average teams, coaches lead. Elite teams. players lead. And I think this relates to business as well. If you have an elite business, an elite team within your company, the members of the team lead and hold each other accountable. The teams that I've been on that have scored the most points and won the most games, it wasn't the coaches all over us. It was, we were, we did it for each other because we had a, like, as you mentioned, a greater mission. I'd love to hear you talk more about players or even coworkers and colleagues having a culture where they're the ones leading. They're holding each other accountable.

They're striving for a bigger mission than having it to be the corporate people at the top or the CEO or whoever may be. I'd love to hear what you think about that. Yeah. Horizontal accountability is more powerful than vertical accountability or horizontal is also peer accountability versus leadership to employee accountability. So when you're holding each other accountable at the team level, at the organizational level, where there's this incredible player-led locker rooms where players are leading on the field,

they're leading in the locker room. Coaches are dictating ultimately the culture, the framework, the game plan, but the players are really leading each other. You really truly have a strong team. And it's the same thing in the business environment. When you're doing it for each other, not for the. boss because the boss said so, but you're doing it to make each other great because you have a common mission, a common vision, a common goal that you're all working towards. Everyone's rowing the boat

together, or I would say driving the energy bus on the bus together moving forward. When you have that, you have ownership, and when you have ownership, right, everyone owns the effort. Everyone owns the process and they ultimately own the result of what they're creating. So there's more ownership. You feel engaged. You feel involved. and there's ownership. So it's not just doing it to make the boss happy. You're doing it for each other to be great together. And a team that loves each other doesn't need a lot of rules, what I have found.

You have great relationships, a lot of love. You don't need a lot of rules. Why? Because you want to be great together. You want to perform your best for each other. And those are the strongest teams. If you have a team where the coach is always driving the rules, but there's not a lot of relationships, as Andy Stanley says,

you will have rebellion, rules without relations. lead to rebellion. So writing that book with PJ was awesome. It was a great learning experience from me. I had heard of a story before. I had him on my podcast. But in writing the book, it was a really fun process to, you know, learn how he thinks, learn how he leads. And he's no different than the guy who is talking, you know, on TV, sharing the message he is sharing with his team. He is living that and breathing that 24-7. People often wonder if it's genuine. Yeah, that's the real him and he is intense. He's intense. He's fired up. And, you know, it was a really cool, cool thing to do together. I was sort of the offensive coordinator, giving him the game plan

of what we need to do, how we need to do it. I was asking, hey, write me this. Tell me about this. Tell me your stories on this. Write me a story on that. I want to understand your background here. Tell me this. And I sort of gave him the framework. And then he basically wrote in that framework with his voice sharing each thing. And people, People are loving the book. They're loving the story. So it was a lot of fun to be able to write with him and direct him in that way. One of the things, it's a great book, highly recommended.

And you could read it a day. You can read a few hours. Yeah, a few hours. I didn't want it. And I purposely told him like, hey, this stuff is for your next book. This stuff should be for your next book. It's great. But we don't really want to make it too long of a read.

This is about Roe the Boat. This is about your story, your backstory, which is really powerful and completely. I also wanted to know about the young PJ, which is fun. Like that initial few pages where he shares growing up, but you have a vision of this kid and you now understand why he is the way he is. I mean, he had a fight on his block and boxed his neighbors who were older and stronger. And they made him put the gloves because they only had one, one set of gloves, like just a pair, just a glove, two gloves.

They basically put the glove on his weakest hand while they had the stronger and he was younger. And here he is now having to fight that way. And so here he was smaller, younger, and always having to tough it out and grind it out. That's why he is the person he is. Well, that grit. One of the things PJs had to do when he went to Western Michigan or even in Minnesota is the teams he's taken over were terrible. They had won either none or very few games. And he was trying to change the culture.

And John, there are probably leaders listening who were taking, jobs either they're getting a leadership job at a place and maybe the culture is bad. And so they have to go through the series of change management where they have to dig out, dig out of where they're currently at. And it's in a really bad position and the people are negative and they're not about it. And they're like, you don't understand this place is terrible. It's just the way it's going to be, man, let it go. You know, people have experienced that.

I've heard that before. What are some of the first thing someone could do when trying to change a culture at a place, whether they got promoted and it was bad before them or they go to a new business and it was in bad shape. As people have said, there's a reason jobs are open. And a lot of times, I mean, sometimes it's because somebody got promoted and it's a good thing, but other times it's because, and probably more times, it's because the person struggled and the team's in a bad spot.

What are some change management ideas for the leaders to change the culture of where they're now at? Well, doing this book with PJ was a great experience, learned a lot. also work with Clemson football and Dabo Sweeney for the past nine years. So everyone knows what Clemson used to be like before Dabo and how he turned around the culture. I've worked with Dave Roberts when he took over the Dodgers. I saw him turn around the culture. Sean McVeigh turn around the culture. Eric Spolster, Miami Heat built an incredible culture with Pat Riley at the Miami Heat. You see their culture and how it stands out. Work with many Fortune 500 companies and businesses and

school districts and schools themselves to see our principal will come in and turn around the culture. And one thing I know, you put a great leader in a school, in a business, on a sports team, and they will turn around that team. They always do. You see it. So you're asking, how do they do it? Right. First and foremost, when they come in, they know what their culture stands for.

You have to know what your culture stands for, what it values, and what you want to be known for. We're going to be a culture that is this, this, and this. We are road the boat. We're going to be a road the boat culture. It's going to mean we're going to work hard. We're going to have accountability. We're going to make a difference in our community.

We're going to show up every day to class. These are the non-negotiables. These are the standards. You have to create the culture and identify what that culture stands for. And everyone has to understand that. It's about vision and purpose. Here is where we're going. And here's why we're going there.

And you are laying out a clear and compelling vision. for the road ahead with the people you lead. The team understands it. They see it. You obviously have to get buy-in, right? You have to get buy-in. Now there's going to be challenges along the way. At Western Michigan, right?

It took PJ a few years to get success going in several years. First year, I think only won one game. It could dismantle very quickly. It could crumble very quickly when you have failure like that, when you have a lack of success. People start to talk. Is this really the guy? But if you've gotten your team to believe and buy in,

and they know what you stand for, and they buy into the vision and purpose, it's essential, right, to keep moving forward. And that's what PJ did. And that's where the optimism and belief comes in. Now, Minnesota had a winning record when he took over. The culture was dysfunctional, though. There were a lot of issues.

There was a lot of infighting. There were some things that happened on campus. I don't remember what exactly, but when he took that over, it was a really tough situation. They had a winning, they actually were winning games, but they never took it to a higher level, where when he came in within a couple of years, they won 11 games for the first time since like early 1900s. So he did turn around that program. People said, well, this past year, he lost again.

Well, it was a COVID year. And I think 30 or 40 of his players were out because they opted out. So you can't really even count this year. But it was cool that we wrote about in the book. look how he kept rowing through adversity during this year and how even being short with a lot of players and players that injured, they even beat Nebraska this year. So they still displayed all the characteristics, even though they didn't have the wins, which is really cool because with PJ, he would always go in, turn around, next year he'll become a top 10 team. And after that,

then he moved to what, then he moved to Minnesota. With Minnesota, you didn't get to see the higher trajectory because of COVID. Now it's going to be interesting seeing going forward what he does with his team going forward. And we wrote the book sort of in the middle of that. But the belief in optimism is essential. You have to keep believing. You have to keep sharing that optimism. And the leadership, as I said earlier, is a transfer of belief. And so the key with these leaders is they keep sharing that belief with their team. And change management, you will not have successful change if you don't develop relationships with the people that. you lead. So if you are investing in those relationships, plus the optimism, plus the belief,

plus the purpose, plus what the culture stands for, those relationships are what really drive the success of that culture. People follow the leader first and the vision second. So here's where we're going. Great, but I'm not going with you unless I know you care about me, unless you're investing in me, unless we have a relationship. So if you are connecting with me, if you're caring about me, communicating, committing to me, and I know you're committed. Well, guess what? I'm going to be committed back. A lot of times we talk about the vision.

We talk about the purpose, but we don't develop the relationship. And so since there's no relationship, when things get hard, people do not continue to follow you through the tough times. I can always tell with a team whether they are connected or committed or not. Those are the two keys. Are they connected and committed? if you have connection and commitment, when adversity strikes, you will run towards each other instead of away from each other.

When adversity hits, you won't fight against each other. You'll fight for each other. So connection and commitment, when the game is on the line, when you have this fourth quarter numbers, you have to hit this year, when the sales team has to come together, when the team has to finish the project, because we have connection and commitment,

because we have the relationships, we're now going to work to realize the vision that we have. And we're going to do it because our culture has created an environment for us to do that. Do you see how it all comes together? Well, it shows that this is an everyday behavior, everyday action, and it has to be done leading up to these moments, just like leading into 2020. If you had not established that framework for caring about people and connecting with them

and building committed teams, you were going to follow it. part versus the companies that did focus on that. And that's why for the leader listening, I think it is all about this is an everyday behavior. Certainly you have current day actions where you have one-on-one's focus on the current day, but I was always a big believer in it, and still I'm a big believer of having developmental one-on-one meetings with the people that you lead, the people that you're serving, and that the meaning, this is not about our day job here. This is about you, your long-term development and how I can help facilitate that. And I think that is part of that connection and commitment. Yes, will they leave you someday maybe for another job

or promotion? Absolutely. Of course they will. If you do a good job as a leader, but that's part of the deal, I think. I mean, some of the best head coaches like Bill Walsh is a great example. He picks up the phone and calls all the other general managers, hey, so-and-so is ready. So-and-so is ready. So-and-so is now ready for the next step, right? He's helping his people. Because think about it from a leadership perspective, too, John. I know you're all about this. That's why I love talking to you is wouldn't you want to be known and don't you want to be known as a leader where when people go to work on your team they get promoted they or they get whatever they want they hit their career goals even if it means leaving you i think that's making an impact a great leader wants their

people as you said to get promoted they want to foster that because it means they're doing their job well and they care about their people so much they know they're ready they've outgrown their role there and if there's not a role for them to promote them into within the organization you're leading, you are glad that they have found something else. And they're only going to leave you for a better opportunity that is so great, so great that it makes sense for them to leave. Otherwise, they won't leave you because of the way that you are leading them, mentoring them, coaching them, and guiding them. Going back to culture, culture is not static.

It's dynamic. Every day we are creating our culture by what we think, say, and, do. And so a leader every day understands this, that they are building their culture. Their team is building their culture every day. It's not one thing. It's everything. It's not one person. It's everyone. So the leader understands that we are building our culture and it is ingrained in everything that we do and change is a part of that. Well, we saw this past year. I did over 300 virtual keynotes and Zooms during COVID during the past year. And what we saw was that a team or an organization that had gaps in communication or gaps in leadership, that gap turned into a canyon

during COVID. But if you were leading well and you had great relationships, those teams were able to grow stronger during this time, even virtually, they were able to still develop and build cohesiveness and strength as a team during this time. And I worked with a lot of those organizations during this time. And I saw who was leading well and who wasn't. You can't wait for a crisis to start communicating and connecting with your team. It's too late. You have to build your foundation now.

So when the storm comes, because the storm will come, you will have the foundation to withstand the storm. I live in Florida. We have hurricanes. So I understand this analogy really well. You've got to build your strong foundation now. Do not wait. In row the boat, there are page 111, there's 10 life rules.

I want to hit a couple of them and just talk about it with you, John. One of them is trained behavior creates boring habits. Boring habits create elite instincts. And this comes from the sporting world, but I think it applies in all aspects of life. Can you share more about habits and why boring habits create elite instincts? The more you do something over and over again, you become an expert in that specific field, in that job, in that endeavor. And so you start to see patterns and you start to see little nuances that other people do not see.

So I believe the more you actually are doing the ordinary things, an extraordinary way, consistency, commitment, focus. You start to develop an expertise and a mastery in your craft. And as a result of that, that leads to a greater instinct. It's sort of like when I'm on stage, because I've done it so many times, I have an instinct of whether the crowd is receiving it or not, and whether I should change direction or keep going or, all right,

that didn't get a laugh. That was a bad joke. All right, I'm going to follow up with a joke about the joke and then get another laugh. So you have your instincts that only happened from doing it over and over again. I do want to say, though, rode the boat is PJ's book.

I need to, like, this is, I recognize early on in writing it. I thought it was going to be like the book I wrote with Mike Smith, where it was back and forth. But as we got into it very quickly, and I had already agreed to do it,

I recognize that this is his message, his story, his book. So I changed my mindset very quickly and said, okay, it's not about he and I. I have to be a facilitator and a steward of this book. I have to be a great teammate to help him tell his story the best that he can, to share his lessons and share his message

and do in a way that involves me in the process, but it's really his voice coming through. And I've never really done that before. And I knew that in doing it, I had to do that way and selflessly do that way for him to share his message in his book. So it was an interesting dynamic for me because I've been writing all my other books. So in this book, I was more editor than writer because I was telling him what to write, telling him what to share, not share, but asking him stories, questioning him,

finding the gist, the gems. You supplied the prompts to help get it out of his head. Create the framework. And then his voice comes shining through his stories. And then from there, once he would share it with me, I would then work with the material to make sure it edit it, put in the right place, and weave it together so that it all fit together. I just want to share that was sort of the process behind it,

which, again, which is completely different for me. I don't think I'll do it again, to be honest. Yeah. I love writing. I'm not an editor. But I want people to understand. This is his book, his voice. Gotcha.

And his lessons. And it was really my story. stewarding it to share it with the world in that way. One of the other parts. So I'm going to pick just one other rule, one of his rules that I think we probably both really agree with. It's that the hardest part about being the standard is that you, as the leader,

you are the standard all the time. And I think I learned this from my mom and dad growing up. And still to this day, we talked to them about this when it comes to parenting and being the model for your children because they watch. what you do, probably more than they're listening, especially the ages of mine are right now, especially more than they listen to what I say. And this relates, again, to all areas of leadership. I think as husbands and wives and as parents, that's certainly our most important leadership role.

But then we go to work in order to take care of our families. So how about this aspect of us as leaders choosing to be the standard? And we always have to be the standard. So if we want them to be high, it starts with us. You know, what was so fun about writing this book is PJ's voice and his lessons. And they just come shining through, don't they? Like, you read this book and they're like, boom, they jump off the page. Really powerful. And we resonate so much, like so much of his principles are what I teach and have

written about for years. So we really are like minded in our approach. And the idea of leading by example, setting the standard. Same thing I wrote about in training camp years ago. really fits into that. Like when you set the standard, right? You become the bar and then raise the bar at the same time. You become the measuring stick for others.

And one person in pursuit of greatness raises the standards of everyone around them. So as you become the standard all the time, you're showing everyone what excellence looks like. You're showing everyone what it means to truly be great. And from that, you inspire others. you inspire others to aspire to that level to be great. And you have to understand that. You can't have a day off.

You've got to show up every single day. I feel that way when I'm doing a podcast. I can't have a bad podcast. I got to live up to the standard. When I'm giving a talk, I can't have a bad talk. I've got to live up to the standard. I think about Joe DiMaggio. He said, you know, I owe it.

You know, I owe it to that kid because it's probably the first time he's ever seen me play. And so every game, he's thinking about the kid in the stands to give his best because that one kid will be seeing him for the first time. And so I think it's important to always give your best in everything that you do. And I love the principles that he, you know, he shares. That's one of my favorite ones he shared in the book. John, one of the cool things I found from recording a podcast for the past six and a half years is this being someone who learns in public.

and when you're willing to, I didn't think about this at the beginning, but I definitely reflect and think about this now. When you're willing to have conversations with people who are far more accomplished and you, smarter than you, have a wealth of life experience that can help you and then publish those, you know, with the intention of hopefully helping other people as you're learning, for me, this is created to be my personal leadership PhD program. I'm just happy that it happens to be that of others. as well. But really neat relationships and cool moments and serendipitous things can happen for you.

And we even talked about it before we started recording about what could happen between you and I. Because we recorded it's been years now. We recorded years ago and people listen to that and great things have happened to both of us because of that. Share what happened? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I want to share. I want to share that I got booked for a speaking engagement because they heard me on your podcast. So they heard me talk about leadership. And this company brought me. to speak and they, you know, it was definitely impacted their culture, their leadership. We really had an impact. So it wasn't just me. It was you and I doing it together because they heard about me on your podcast and they were big fans of yours. So, so I was thankful for you in that

moment that something that we did a podcast on led to a great speaking engagement, led to a relationship with a client. And that's the thing. Like you just said, when when you were learning in public, everyone benefits. And I've done my podcast. now for a few years, positive university. And I've learned a lot through it. I've grown a lot. I didn't really know I was doing it initially. Like, I don't really want to be a professional podcaster.

I don't see it as my core thing. It's still not my core thing. I'm a writer first. But I've enjoyed learning through it. And I can see why you love it so much. You got a master's degree in teaching, right? Yeah. I'm a student first, but I'm a teacher second.

But I do have a master's in teaching from Emory University. which I did after college. And I taught for taught school for a year. And then, you know, I did after that, I owned the bar after. So I was curious about your career. What was your, what's your career path? Because I have a good friend of mine named Bobby Carpenter. He played in the NFL for a while and in Ohio State.

You, you do, you have you got to know, Bobby? Yeah. Well, yeah, love Bobby. We're Twitter friends and we've, we've connected. Okay. Because Bobby texts me all the time. He's just like, I love you and John Gordon. You know, I love you and John.

And I, you know, because you have, you're in the sports world a lot. In my backgrounds in sports, played sports in college and after college for a little bit. And so I, I connect a lot with, with different teams and in all the professional sports and in college. And, and he mentioned that. I was curious about your career path because I just see all these books and I see you on stages everywhere and you're helping people. What like though, what were the earlier years like you're, so you mentioned you're teaching, you own a bar? Like, how did you get into this? So here's the quick version.

I got a master's in teaching in Emory, moved down there after college from Cornell University in upstate New York, graduated from Cornell, drive down to Atlanta afterwards, trying to figure out my life, create my life, waiting tables. I start bartending. Then while on bartending, the place next to me was available, met the owner, and asked if he would sell it. He said, yes, everything's for sale, got some investors together, 24, didn't know what I was doing, bought this place because I thought, hey, people were coming to see me all the time as a

bartender, I should make money off of a place that I own and made it successful. It was a cool bar and buckhead called Park Bench. Did that. We were around for the Olympics, had a huge, you know, huge time during the Olympics. I was getting my master's in teaching in Emory while I was doing that, finished that, ran for city council for a year because I had this restaurant now bar. It was crushing it, doing great, had some partners. So they were more operational.

I was marketing. And then from there, I, you know, ran for City Council, lost the election. But I had started a nonprofit organization that raised money for youth-focused charities. We would do a lot for the Boys and Girls Club, the Paralympics, Advantage Holyfields charities, different things like that. So I got really connected into the Atlanta community and the political aspect. Devastated when I lost city council because I'd walk door to door to 7,000 houses. But really paved the way because that's when I bought John Gordon.com,

actually would help me as an author years later. So had that website for that election. Lost the election, almost won, saw the negative side of politics. I had no baggage and they still came after me with negativity and lies. I was 26 years old. I didn't have any negativity or baggage. And yet they still made it seem like I had something. It was crazy.

And so had just gotten married, you know, right before that, not a good idea to actually get married and run for political office right afterwards. Yeah. Two small children. I go work for a dot com. I think I'm going to make my gazillions during the dot com. Guess what happens during the dot com? It crashes, the bubble burst, lose my job.

We had just moved to Jacksonville, Pantamidra Beach, Florida. My wife wanted to move to the beach. We moved down there. I'm working for this.com. Lose my job. We ran out of money. Now I'm like, what am I going to do? Don't know what the future holds.

Terrified, negative. My wife threatens to leave me because I was so negative and miserable. I'm like, why am I here? What am I born to do? What is my purpose? Writing and speaking comes to me. I want to be more positive. So I start researching ways I could be more positive.

And that was during the emerging field of positive psychology. Start writing down some of the ideas. Start practicing those ideas. Start a newsletter, weekly positive tips. I start speaking and writing. But in the middle of that, I opened up a Moes Southwest Grill franchise to try to make enough money to support my family. We were the fifth Moes in the entire country,

the first Moes in Florida, second mortgage our home, $20,000 credit cards and put everything we had into this most. If it didn't make it, we were done. And it was not looking good initially, right? Eventually made it successful, turn it into a very successful restaurant, marketing everywhere, promoting door to door, selling catering, flying movie theaters. I was wiping down tables all the time. You know, just grit, hard work, did whatever it took. And then finally made it successful. And then after about, when we made our first profit, like after nine months,

hanging by a thread all the way, hanging by a thread, almost bankrupt several times, running out of money, got a consulting job out of the blue on wireless technology, which was the dot com I worked for, to teach them about how to sell it.

I didn't even know about technology, but I could tell them how to sell it. That money carried us for a little while. It was amazing how things showed up and people showed up and resources showed up. And that's when I became a believer in God, because I saw how God carried it. me in my life because I was desperate and I was on my hands and knees. It was my Jerry Maguire moment

quite often like, help me, God, help me, help me. Help me. It was show me the money. God, show me the money. It was a scary. I laugh now, but it was a scary time. Oh, yeah. So it's nice you can laugh at it now. I can't laugh at all those books behind you. Yeah. Now and then so what happens is and finally, finally 2005 sell the restaurants. I know I really want to write and speak. I wasn't doing a lot with writing and speaking. I just knew that I wanted to make this my focus. I wanted to build it.

It wasn't going great, but I felt like, okay, I could do this. I was doing like maybe one event a month. I had my website. I was doing a lot of local events and we sell the restaurants. Now the money's running out, not knowing what I'm going to do. I got about another year and a half left of income, you know, to carry us through. Going, am I going to have to get a job? What am I going to have to do?

I'm walking. I'm praying. I'm praying, and the energy bus came to me. And that book, I wrote in three and a half weeks. The story came to me, changed my life, rejected by over 30 publishers at first, finally get a publisher to publish it. And that book now, here we are 15 years later, hits the Wall Street Journal best sell list last week, right?

Awesome. 15 years later has sold over 2.5 million copies, I think. All my books have probably sold about 5 million copies now worldwide, probably. And I get to do this work. And, you know, I am honored, thankful, appreciative. You know, I don't take it for granted one bit because I think when you know where you came from and you know this journey, you appreciate what you get to do. But I know that I'm doing what I am meant to do.

And I live and breathe leadership, culture, teamwork, all the time as you do. Like, I think about it all the time. I live it. And I show up every day just thinking about how to get better, make organizations better, whenever I'm working with the leaders, spending time with the leaders, I'm learning from them. I'm getting new ideas. So it's, yeah, it's been a really cool journey to see where I was and what I get to do now. But when COVID hit, it was a scary time because we didn't know what the future held. Those first few weeks are like, are we going to be done? Like, is this going to be a year thing,

two years? Like, how do we like know how long it's going to be? We didn't know. So that was a very scary time. But I made a decision in that moment, took me back to the beginning of when I opened, the restaurants and the energy bus. John, live the mission, do the work. Just try to encourage people. I went back to my rookie mindset. Help as many people as you can. Whoever reaches out, you reach out to your clients.

You offer it help them. It wasn't about money. Whoever needed help I reached out to. And I would say, pay me whatever you want to pay me. And it was incredible what happened over this past year of doing that with my clients, of companies reaching out. And it was, I saw so many, amidst the pain. challenges. I saw so many miraculous, amazing things as a result of having that rookie mindset

and the mindset to help others and encourage them not focused on money. That was really a great, great experience this past year. You, and a quote from, uh, you went in the locker room first, the book you wrote with Mike Smith, another great, great guy. He used to coach the Falcons. Um, Mike. Yeah, the quote is the character you possessed during the drought is what your team will remember during the harvest man and i i i think of that as far as what we went through because i remember meeting with a lot of the clients i was working with my leadership circles or one-on-one anybody and i said how do you want to be remembered because we are going to remember this year we're going to tell stories about this year for the rest of our lives and right now we're in the middle of the

moment i was scared obviously absolutely scared because all of the in-person engagements gone done i mean postponed or canceled but they were gone for the foreseeable future all of that clean calendar but it's it's thinking well we probably will remember this hopefully this is a once in a lifetime event how do you want people to remember how you handled this moment because they are going to remember and i think that was a good question and prompt for us to have conversations about and then us as leaders had to deal with that fear and and show up for people and it sounds like it made all the difference in the world for you i love that you said that like how do we want to be remembered during this time. I think about that often. What kind of legacy do we want to lead?

As a leader, people will be telling stories about us, just as our kids will be telling stories about our parenting and, you know, and how do we want to be remembered, right? And you know what? As someone who has a 21 and a 23 year old, I made mistakes and I also did some things right. And you hear about both of them. All right, dad, you were great with this. And dad, you were, when we were young, you were really bad with this. I know. I wish I would with that, I wish I was that person then I am now, you know? Like you grow, you grow as a leader, you grow as a person. And so you learn those kind of, you learn, learn the mistake from the mistakes you made. But this year, that really guided me and my team. We really decided we needed to be

a team that lived our principles. And Amy Kelly, who is our lead consultant and worked with teams on building stronger, increase of teams, she said, why don't we do our own work? Why don't we eat our own dog food. Why don't we actually meet every week and start doing our own principles as a team and become stronger during this time? And she led the way. I got to give her all the credit in the world. And we grew so much stronger as a result of this. And now coming out of it, everyone is getting so busy and booked with so many different events and speaking and workshops and training because I really believe we lived our principles. We didn't we didn't crumble under the pressure. We weren't carrots where we were, we were, we were, we were. We were. We were. We were. We, we, we lived our principles. We, we,

weakened by the environment and the heat. We weren't eggs where we got hardened and bitter and angry. We weren't eggs. We lost a lot of money, but we weren't bitter. We were coffee beans. I wrote a book called The Coffee Bean with Damon West. The coffee bean when put into pressure and hot water, it transforms the water into coffee. It transforms the environment. It's not impacted by its environment. It transforms the environment that it's in and it impacts others in the process. And that's what we were trying to do. Let's transform every environment we're in. let's help others be positive. Let's encourage people.

Let's encourage each other and let's live this. And man, it was pretty cool to see how much strongly we became. I've got so many lessons to share. I can't share them now. It's too soon. But in a couple of years, I'm going to share a lot of lessons of what I learned as a leader, what we learned as a team and how we got better because of it. And all the blessings we saw, again, amidst the challenges, the suffering, the pain,

we still saw so many great things. And everyone I've talked to pretty much. Yes, some people had, you know, loss of life. And I lost my uncle, you know, I love more than anything. My parents had already passed away. So we saw a loss of life. Yet in spite of that, I still have talked to so many people who had so many blessings come out of this time.

And that's like anything. Your worst event and your best event are always somehow connected. Your greatest learning moments and your greatest challenges in suffering always seem to be connected. It's always two sides of the same coin because it's duality. We always experience duality, good and bad, light and dark. It's the human existence to have both of those experience simultaneously or connected to each other. As part of your company, John, what's the structure?

Are you trying to build up others to go out or you are building up others to go out and teach all of your lessons, your material and they all work for you? How does that work? I'm curious about it. Because in a way now, you're leading leaders to go lead other leaders. Do I have that right? Yeah, we have a power of positive leadership training program. When we certify trainers to go deliver our leadership model and leadership training program

to organizations. So we love someone who is a trainer in a company and they want to share our leadership principles and leadership model with their leaders to help develop better leaders. Our leadership model, our program, the power of positive leadership is a transformative leadership program. It's what makes great leaders great. So a trainer gets certified and then they are able to train all the leaders in their organization on that. If you become an independent trainer, you can go to multiple organizations and train various leaders in different organizations. So we're big on that. And my mission is to develop leaders around the world.

So we have a full day training where we do it ourselves. We do training with our own team or we certify people to develop and do the training themselves. But every year we have like eight events where we do leadership trainings, a full day program to develop leaders. But we also develop a train the trainer where we'll have a trainer go deliver those trainings on their own. So we're big on that. But we also have a John Gordon team.

And these are just independent people who deliver workshops and consultants. They have their own businesses. But we work together and they're able to go deliver their own stuff. or they deliver workshops and my materials for clients. We're really big on the power of a positive team, where we help teams become stronger and more cohesive. So our main thing is leadership workshops with the power of positive leadership or a power of a positive team workshop to help a team become stronger together

or a full-day consulting engagement where we'll work with you and your team to really grow stronger and work through your issues and conversations that need to be had. Nice. Wow. One more question, John, before we got to run. given that your story is awesome. And I didn't know all of those aspects of it. I love, I love where you come from and how you've built this thing. And it's also, again, having the guts to publish and have people judge and read or watch or listen to what you say can lead to changing your life as it has for you when the energy bus comes out or to ridicule in some cases, which happens. We're both. Yes, or both. And it probably has happened both to you, I'm sure, especially as you become more well. known, of course. I'm curious for some, for the, for the person who's earlier in their career, maybe they just graduated college and they're trying to figure things out, but they want to

be a positive impact to others. They want to leave a dent in the world in a positive way. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person? Three words from the carpenter. Love serving care. Find what you love to do because if you don't love it, you'll never work to be great at it. What can you do that you love, that you're passionate about? So love it, love others. When you love others, they'll feel your love and they'll love you back. So love your customers, love what you do, love drives grit.

Love is what casts out fear. It helps us overcome our fears because if you love it, you won't fear it. I tell this to performers all the time. And also, you know, again, the love of the people that you're serving and your team. So focus on love. Focus on serving. We talked about that early from the beginning. we talked about being a great teammate, look for ways to serve others. If you are leading a team,

how can you serve them? If you're starting out of a company and you're working, you're going to stand out and get noticed when you find ways to serve and you help the team. If you serve, they will start to see you as a leader because leaders serve, right? Not yourself, but others. Look for ways to add value and serve and then show you care. That's really the key. When you you care, you stand out in a world where most don't seem to care. And we can tell when someone cares or not. And so caring is what builds greatness. So are you just showing up to build something where you hear to create a masterpiece? And think about restaurants. When a restaurant has clean bathrooms, you feel more comfortable eating there. Because if they have a clean bathroom,

they probably have clean kitchens too. Because when you care about one thing, you usually care about everything, right? So organizations that care about the littlest things cares about everything. And so I think you can tell when an organization cares. You can tell when a server shows up and cares. You can tell when someone calls you a salesperson where they care about you or their sale. Are you their next car or house or boat or do they truly care about you and your needs? And we all want to do business who care with people who care about us. So love, serve care. Sounds simple, but focus on that. Don't focus on building your business. focus on loving, serving, and caring, and your business will exponentially grow.

I did this during COVID. I made an effort. I said, I'm just going to love. I'm going to serve and show I care. Man, I had an amazing year, you know, in so many ways, business-wise, that I did not expect. I didn't expect to do anything this year. But because I had that mindset and I saw, and my customers in my years and years of doing this and living this, I think my clients knew it.

I think outside companies reached out because they wanted someone. who was a trusted advisor. And during moments of a crisis, the trusted advisor is the one who grows and gets the business at that time. And I think people saw me as someone who loves, serves and cares. I built up so much trust in the industry that they went with someone that they knew they could trust during this time. And I don't think I'm great.

I think I just live these principles. And I think these principles wind up developing who you are and develop the business that you grow. The results take care of themselves after that. I love it, man. Thanks so much, John. I've got to run. I know, but it's great talking.

Let's make sure we do this again soon. I treasure my time with you, man. And I just want to acknowledge the fact that I love your work. I love what you're doing. And it's so cool to be able to call you for now, man. Thanks so much for being here. Ryan, I appreciate you. And I just know that so many leaders love your podcast.

So keep up the amazing word that you do. And I'm on it. I hear from a lot of people. Hey, I hear you on Ryan's podcast, Hawks podcast. They love you. So keep doing the amazing work you're doing. And I appreciate you. Thanks, man. It means a lot. Talk soon, man.

All right. Take care. Okay. Bye. I love talking with John Gordon, and I'm so grateful for his friendship and mentorship and love his story and what he's been through in order to build what he has. It's really cool to get into it. A few of notes from this conversation. Bad teams, nobody leads. average teams, coaches lead, elite teams, players lead. This works in sports, this works in the business

world. Think about building a culture where members of the team hold each other accountable, where you have that openness, that psychological safety, where you can speak truth to power and to each other for the betterment of the team and for one another. And then change management. people follow the leader first and the vision second. People won't care about your vision if you don't first care about them. And then the advice he just gave at the end, love, serve, and care. Love your team. Love your customers.

Love people in general. Love drives grit. Then always ask the question, how can I serve? others. And if you're regularly trying to answer that, you'll be in a better position. And then when you care, you stand out in the world. And I think back to the greatest leaders in my life. And it all started from a place of love and care. I knew they cared about me. And that inspired me to work as hard as I possibly could to help them achieve their goals, which were always tied to our team goals. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and

telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leaders Show with the great John Gordon. It will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to tell your friends, and because you continue to write reviews and Apple podcast and rate the show, hopefully five stars, you are continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.

Can't wait.