NY Times Best-Selling Author Jon Gordon on The Power of a Positive Team

Audio Transcription

On today’s show, we’re interviewing the New York Times bestselling author, corporate trainer and Speaker, who specializes in the topics of leadership, culture, sales, and team. John Gordon is most widely known for his best selling books, although it’s not actually very a wide at all, I just want to get that clarity out there for the thrive nation. Visually speaking, it’s a very thin back, back, back to you. Thank you for that clarification, and so as I was saying, he’s best known for his bestselling books, the energy bus, 10 rules to fuel your life, work and team with positive energy, and he’s the best selling author of the power of a positive team. Proven principles and practices that make great teams. Great. Just quick time out here. I just want to tell you I’m not feeling. I’m not picking up the energy. This guy wrote the book called the energy bus.

Come on man. Bring the sizzle shirt. Okay, fine. I’ll step it up a little bit here. Throughout John’s career, he has worked with so many top tier athletic organizations. It’s mindblowing. He’s worked with the Los Angeles dodgers, the Pittsburgh pirates. Okay. All right. I hate to do this to you, but I didn’t throw you under the bus, but uh, so far I’m not very impressed. Um, you could have thrown in like a pirate joke there as an example. Can I. what’s a pirates favorite question I’d, I, I, I have no idea. I don’t know. Are You Reggie for John Gordon? I did height that he works on the Pittsburgh pirates and I made it into the pirate joke. I said art was know. It took me like three hours to come up with that. Come on. Listen, if you, if you interrupt me one more time, I’m going to come behind that glass and I’m going to gouge out your eyeballs.

What it sounds like you’re motivated now. Tyga, where did the energy come from? I want to throw you under the energy bus, but, uh, I’m glad you could join us. I’m glad you finally woke up and brought some energy to the track. The San Diego Padres, the Miami Heat, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Atlanta Falcons, the Clemson Tigers, the Philadelphia Eagles, and many, many fortune 500 companies including wells fargo, publix campbell soup, southwest airlines, bear West Point Academy, northwestern mutual at all. Alright. We got changed with the music here where I could. I listened. Here we are introducing John Frequent this disguise the brick deal. I want you to bring your best rap flow ever. Let’s do it. Come on. I’ll do it on the microphone. Will record here doing the show with the main chunk. He helps keep to win. Like no exaggeration. I’m just just report in fact on CNBC. He’s been on the today show now. He’s on the show with years of building a team full of truck. Anybody the charge a fee, high mind exploded. Clem

shows don’t need a celebrity and a writer to introduce the show. This show to math. Eight kids, Koch created by two different women. Thirteen multimillion dollar businesses and gentleman. Welcome to the thrive time.

Sure it is ecstasy every time. Dr Z is next to me, sir. How are you doing today?

I am fantastic. Do you know what just made my day better what I got on our guests that we’re going to have on the show. I got on his website. Karen Gordon. Yeah, and even though you may not buy something off of here at one of his books or whatnot. Yeah, just a picture of him. It’s ICANDY, ICANDY candy. Get all the thrive nation. You should get on his website and check it out and you know what? You’re welcome up front. In addition to the ICU. Let me tell you about this guy. Okay. He’s going to teach us today about how to create a sustainably positive atmosphere in our workplace, which is, which is good, which is good. And he’s, you know, he’s worked with. He’s been a consultant of choice to speaker of choice for the Los Angeles Rams. If you’ve ever heard of the La Rams. Yeah, they were southwest airlines. Campbell’s soup. Ever heard of that company? I eat it. Los Angeles dodgers, Brooklyn. You’ll break it down. I’m glad you have because I’ve never heard of any of these companies or this thing called the fortune 500, which apparently there’s so many companies are up and comers. So John Gordon, whoever you are, welcome onto the show. How are you?

Hey guys, great to be with you. You’re cracking me up.

Well, hey, we are super excited to have you on the show. And for the listeners out there that are not familiar with your background previous to becoming the best selling author, Speaker Guru that you are today, could you walk us through your, your background to becoming the quote Unquote John Gordon?

Sure. Well, I was um, I was really negative actually years ago, even though it’s, I speak about positivity. It’s ironic that I do this because I grew up in long island, New York and a Jewish Italian family, a lot of food, a lot of guilt,

a lot of negativity growing up. And then, um, you know, but a lot of love, but a lot of negativity. They might. Late twenties, early thirties. I really struggled and so much so. My wife threatened to leave me, said, if you don’t change, I’m, I’m leaving, like I’m not going to spend my life with someone who makes me so miserable and so you have to change. So I begged her to stay. I agreed to change and that began this journey of researching all these ways that I could be more positive and it. At first it was just me wanting to be more positive and then I started sharing these tips on a newsletter, a weekly positive tip every week, and I had five subscribers in the beginning of my mother, my brother, my best friend from college, really getting the newsletter whether they liked it or not, I would just put that out there, but then people started to share it and that led me to get my first book deal and I started writing and started speaking from there. I didn’t want to speak. At first I was terrified to speak and I wasn’t a very good speaker, so it was this long journey of again, feeding myself, running out of feed others in a positive way. And now here we are years later. I’m 47 years old and I get to do the work that I love and I realized that I was meant to do this to inspire and encourage others and it’s not, again, cheesy positivity. It’s really about the real positive stuff that, that makes great leaders and great teams. Great.

Because I see your sister, Maryanne is the producer of the today show up there in New York lead and I’ve been to New York many times. I spent a lot of time, John with New Yorkers and there’s sort of a hardened callused, sort of an aggressive, sarcastic undertone to many conversations, you know, so a guy like John might say, you know, mom and dad, at some point I want to become an author. And they go, well that’s good. Are they going to put it on toilet paper? You know what I mean? And it’s like there’s like, this isn’t not this aggressive, sarcastic. I mean, can you explain that, that attitude that’s prevalent because you had to. I mean obviously not everyone’s like that, but there is a kind of an intense intensity there. Sarcasm. Can you explain that background?

Totally. Well, first I was on the today show this summer on Kathy Lee and Hoda.

Oh, special moments of my life. Just meeting Kathy. We put the first time. Do you remember the producer? Whoever produced you don’t have what it was. It was it a blonde by the name of Marion by any chance as my sister I was dealing with and they will stay with the ones who booked it, but back to that yet new yorkers, but get beaten up in New York and being from New York, they do want positivity. They just are so stressed and busy that during the week, you know, they’re all just trying to survive and yet that same person when they’re at home perhaps with their family or friends, they tend to be a little bit more positive, but there is a little bit of a sarcastic nature, a little bit of a cynicism there as well. You’re right. And so I told my dad I want to be a writer and speaker and again, he’s a former New York City police officer, undercover narcotics. So my dad was. He was shot a few times. He wasn’t too big on positivity, my dad, and he was fighting the drug cartels and the street of New York City, and so years later I said that I want to be a writer and speaker, so what the heck you want to do that for? That’s a load of junk that won’t amount to anything.

Focus on your restaurant. At the time I had a burrito shop, a moe’s southwest grill burrito place. I was the first Moe’s southwest grill in Florida. Well, fast forward a few years later. I get on the today show for the first time Carrie Burns was, you know, was able to get me on years ago. She was a producer and I got on for the first time and my dad saw me on TV and I remember getting the call from your mother. I just saw you on TV. You really made a difference. We’re so proud of you. We always knew you could do it. I didn’t even remember be a negative.

We had a question earlier. I just want to touch on this, but a clay brought this up said for Christmas. A lot of people get soap on a rope, but nobody gets a burrito on a rope and since you’ve owned it, I mean, why is that? Can you answer that age old question? Answer the question. I mean, Gosh, we just did. We want to know

because soap is solid and the burrito would fall apart.

Clay, I knew there was a reason. This just okay with John? No, Jon Gordon. What inspired you to first write the book, the power of a positive team? Proven principles and practices that make great teams. Great.

Well, I wrote the energy bus. It came out in 2007 and that’s been my biggest best selling book and that book has been used by a lot of sports teams, a lot of fortune 500 companies. Again, la dodgers, Clemson, clemson football. I’ve worked with Clemson for the past seven years, you name it. Most of the coaches have used it with their team, so over the years I’ve had the opportunity to speak to all these different teams and get to learn from them, get to learn from these coaches, from these great leaders, both in corporate America, educators in schools, nonprofits, hospitals, you name it. And so I wrote the power of positive leadership a couple of years ago wanting to share what I learned over the years about great leadership. So power of positive leadership is everything I’ve learned since the energy bus came out. Well then I also want to share what made great teams great since I’ve worked with so many teams and that came out just recently about the power of a positive team and, and these are the proven principles that, that I know work with teams and the great news is you can also use this at home too with your team at home.

So you have some strategies in this book that you lay out and I’d like to go through four of the. I want to go through the four strategies here. So strategy number one, the no complaining rule. What does that mean? That no complaining rule,

you’re not allowed to complain and unless you come with a solution, so if you had a justified complaint, bring it, but also bring a solution that that’s gonna. Make everything better because every complaint represents an opportunity to turn something negative into a positive, but we want to get rid of the mindless complaining. I say that complaining is like throwing up afterwards. You feel better, but then everyone around you feel sick and so we want to get rid of that mindless complaining. I know that’s gross, but we’ll never forget that analogy.

So let’s talk about the kind of complaint that I deal with and so my company’s similar. We’ll say if we can, don’t like my schedule, you know, that kind of thing. I freaking freaking don’t like z w, wherever the break room could be renamed the complaint room or the room. So we try to stagger it so there’s never two or more gathered, but some people go the break room and immediately they go. How’s your freaking day is pretty good? Well, I freaking, I hate my schedule. Do you hate your schedule? What do you get paid per hour, and if so, how would you, if you’re managing a company with let’s say about 90 employees in this particular scenario, you covered one of our companies. Let’s just say someone’s complaining the break room. I know how we handle it and I think you and I are very much aligned in our strategies, but how would you handle it if you encountered somebody complaining in the break room?

Did the rule. I wrote a book called the no complaining rule and it outlines what to do, how to do it in a table format. It’s a story. So ppr basically implemented this girl at a cultural level. They said it’s not okay to complain. It’s is that okay? We’re not going to do it. When they looked at hiring people, when they look to hire people, they tell them in the employee interview process, if you’re a complainer, this is not the right place for you, so do not come here. So they weed out the negative doing that. They share it at company meetings, they talk about it. It’s reinforcing their culture. So that wouldn’t even happen in the company that I joined or that I was, that I was leading or managing because you would know that it’s not okay to just come in and complain, but if you don’t make the schedule, okay, what can we do about it? Is there a solution where we can give you a better schedule? Is there a more flexible schedule? And we would talk about if it’s possible and it’s now possible, then you would just have to do what you have to do in this moment. You either leave or you stay and be positive at this time while we go through the process. And then perhaps we can find a solution later on.

Strategy number two, replace half to get to Jon Gordon What do you mean by this?

Right? So often we say have to go to work. I have to go to this meeting, I have to do this job, I have to do pickup the kids here and there that we don’t. We don’t have to. We to get to. And when you change, happy to get to you, can you change this? Complaining Voice, going appreciative heart, and I’m convinced that abundance flows into your life when gratitude flows out of your heart. My mom passed away 12 years ago so she doesn’t get to do anything anymore, but I do so every day is a gift, not an obligation, and it’s really about focusing on appreciation and gratitude and when you appreciate you elevate, you elevate your mood, you elevate how you feel and you elevate the people around you.

I want to marinate on it. Marinate burritos or does that not a move?

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, did you ever marinate the meat?

No. The one that I own, I always worked the tables and would wipe the tables down. Nobody even knew I was the owner. I think I was like 29 at the time and so I would just wipe the table down, but I never actually made a burrito. It’s my claim to fame, but I. I was the host, the greeter and the table paper

in this politically correct time. I respect that sort of non answer about marinating breeders. As we move on positivity with positive, we’re going to positively kit to move on. We can. We don’t have to. We don’t have to. We get to, we get to me or we before me, we before me, before me. What? What does that strategy mean there, Jon Gordon?

Well, it means that from a leadership standpoint, you have to put the team first, right? It has to be about we, not me. Great leaders see greatness in others. They don’t focus on themselves. So if you focused on yourself and you’re not a servant leader, you can’t be a great leader and so great leaders are all about commitment. Everybody wants a committed team, but you have to be committed to the people that you lead. If you want them to be committed, bad leaders go first, leaders to mix first, and when you commit, you’ll get committed back. As a team member, it means I’m going to put the team first, I’m going to focus on we not me, the team, our growth, our success matters. And when I selflessly served the team, when I helped the team get better, I get better, we get better and we live in a world that says you have to get yours, you have to fight for yours. But we see over and over that and I see it too that a team that comes together that serves each other, commit to each other, winds up becoming a great team, and then it elevates everyone around them. I know the ram the last, it’s the last few games and they’re having a tough time the last two, but throughout the season and all last season, their motto has been we before me, it’s one of the key cultural changes that they did to establish themselves as a great team.

Strategy number four, John, talk to yourself, which is good. Z because their day when I got arrested are running around nude by the river. I was talking to her. I thought she had socks on. I did and I was trying to point out to the officer, look, look, I have socks on. What’s the big deal? Yeah, if you will by. I tend to. I think the moment you talk about talking to yourself, people immediately go to kind of a woo woo place Jon Gordon, and they start to say, that’s so weird, but yet when you’re around super successful people, you hear them all. Say as a tip, talk to yourself a John. Talk to ourselves about talking to yourself.

Well, it’s the best advice I ever heard from Dr James Gills. He’s the only person on the planet to complete six double iron man triathlons. That’s a double Ironman, which means you do an iron man and then after that you do another one. And the last time he did, he was 59 years old. So was asked how he, how he did it at 59. He said, I’ve learned to talk to myself instead of listening to myself. If I listened to myself, I wrote the negative, the fear, the doubt, and the complaints. But if I talk to myself, I couldn’t feed myself with the words and the encouragement that I need to keep on moving forward. And so the mindset here is that negative thoughts are always going to come in. And I asked this of professional athletes all the time. I said, okay, when your negative thoughts come to you, are they, are they coming from you?

And they’ll go, yeah, and I go, really? Who would ever choose to have a negative thought? You would never choose one. So those negative thoughts and not coming from you, they always come in. It’s a consciousness thing. Just come in, but here’s the key. Do not believe those negative thoughts, negative thoughts or ally. And then what you do is you speak true to those lies. You speak encouragement to those labs because we don’t give up because it’s hard. We give up because we get discouraged. So if we can help people stay encouraged. If we could speak truth to ourselves on a daily basis and encouragement to ourselves, we’re able to move forward. And I think a lot of people lose the battle in their mind first. And one of my key goals in life and mission and in missions in life is to share this message because I know it’s helped thousands and thousands of people and some of the, some of the top performers you see in sports and it works. So talk to yourself, don’t listen to yourself.

I’ve had on my mind for the last two years has been answered on this show, which is really pretty cool. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The question is, I’m a big Oklahoma sooner fan by the way. And I thought to myself, where in the heck did the Clemson tigers come from? Why is this bright orange, purple team been relevant over the last seven years? Which I mean, what, what happened with. Let’s think about this. You think about the rams. Yes. You think about Clemson. Yes. You think about the game of football, you think about two winters and you say, what is the common denominator? It’s not orange or purple. You know what it is? It’s Jon Gordon and a tiger about as far apart as you can get it on the animal spectrum. It’s Jon Gordon. Gordon. Okay. So here, here’s the movie, here’s just between us. Nobody’s listening. Just a couple of. I’ve got a little under the. I’ve got a little something to make it right. Here we go. Can you, can you get down to norman here in the next little bit and get my boys will pep talk. We’re kind of in a big game here on the 29th, you know, against.

I believe. I believe they’re going to win.

Wow. Prophesies, Gordon.

I spoke to the sooners basketball team, women’s basketball number of years ago. Sherri Cole brought me and Greg, Greg,

and it had a great run that

great young man,

because matter of fact got cut by Jacksonville, had some time so we wouldn’t hunting your Unicorn. Seriously. Great Guy. Anyway, go ahead. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt.

No, but I want you to the listeners, I do not take credit for any success because here’s the deal. I spoke to the Cleveland browns two years ago and

did not help them at all,

but you get a Guy Baker Mayfield comes in and what he does is he shares his belief. He has a tremendous amount of conviction and belief, so I took. I’m brought in by these coaches who are great leaders. Dabora Sweeney is the real deal, incredibly, or Sean McVey, incredible leader, Dave Roberts with the dodgers, incredible leader, Eric sculpture with the Mayan heat rather incredible year, so it’s these great leaders who reach out and then I worked with them and I’m basically just sharing principles and tools, but they’re the leader that are reinforcing it and it doesn’t work unless you. You have a leader unless you have a great leader to begin with and I think that’s the case.

Well, here’s the deal. Okay. I’m a huge patriots fan and I was thinking this kind of offers you, but if we were to pay Jon Gordonand you’d go give a talk to the saints and we would call this. So here are the strategies you would teach one guys, I want everyone to complain. If you did not catch the last past, you can play strategy too. I want you to replace half to with half to strategy. Number three. We’re going to go from we to me about your contract next year, right? Strategy number four. No one talked to yourself. Shut up by yourself. Shut up. There we go. Would you be willing to do that? Just go in there and kill that culture.

I don’t think I could do it.

Well, we bill check said, could you film? We said we’ve already tried that coach, so could you deflate a ball? We’ve already tried that. Coach, could you hire a reverse motivational speaker? We. Okay. We move on now. All right, so no,

he is such a great coach. He coaches many coaches, all the coaches in such a way that they know what it most of the time except for the Miami game, but most of the time really what to do in every situation, how to anticipate and the is they have a game plan for every game and everybody knows the game plan. Everybody in the team knows exactly what they have to do and this is how we’re going to win the game. This is we’re going to do an asset. This is what we’re going to do in defect. This is how we’re going to approach the game, this is everything we’re going to do to win, and then everyone knows what they need to do and a lot of times a coach may have an idea, but it’s not conveyed and communicated with. Everyone truly understands that this is how they win the game and it’s just by doing that and coaching up his coaches, a lot of leaders do not coach up their coaches and again, he’s got a new defensive coach so maybe they’re having some issues when you lose Patricia, it’s going to take them or maybe a year or two to get that close to a certain level.

So anyway, I’m not a huge patriots fan. I have to be honest with that.

Well, if you do happen to get a call from him and Mr Bellow, check wants you to come up and give a few kind words and do all that. Could you put a good word in for for Clay Clark and the thrive time show because that’s one of clay’s Unicorns that he would love to have on the show. I mean for now that we bonded and we’re like best for like bff, you know, so I mean our house was covered and bill belichick fat, weird Tom Brady above your bed, which is really weird. That was weird. The first five or six years of my marriage we announced. Now we move on. So I want to ask you this. You will become a huge author now. Major success. Somebody out there, listings going, I would like to do that, but it feels overwhelming. It’s like the success and I would like to do that. Can I ask you, what was your process for landing a literary agent? Who’s your agent? How did you get into the world of speaking and world of being an author?

I just went out there and just started doing it and I created a website and I basically said I’m Jon Gordon. I’m nobody, but this is who I am. I put up new sections, speaking section events, section consulting. I didn’t have any of it’s time, but I literally created my weapon.

Whoa. So News, News, News, see what? I can see where that would work. He’s a handsome man.

We don’t want to scare people away, so I started to do that for the aging section. I basically, we looked at who I thought would be perfect to represent me and would be great and I literally reached out to them and just said, hey, I’m going to be in town, would love to meet. And they were open to meeting. I get it doesn’t always happen like that, but, but it happened and so I had an agent on my first book and then after that I don’t have an agent anymore, so I don’t really know anybody in the, in the ancient world, but now I pretty much just represent myself to my publisher is again, it’s been 18 books, so I just have a direct relationship with them. But find that first agent was. I just reached out and we’ve actually been friends ever since. So that was a definitely a fortuitous meeting.

Uh, I would say a God divine appointment. So that’s how I did it. But for someone else, you want to build your platform, you want to put stuff out there. You want us to start sharing your ideas on a blog, on twitter, on Instagram, social media. You want to start putting your information out there. You have to start growing your platform or else no one’s going to even look at you in today’s world, so you have to put it out there to actually do the work. You may have an idea, a great idea. You may have a great book and make a message, but you have to build the platform

in addition to your book, your new book, the power of a positive team. What’s one book that you’d recommend for all the listeners out there? What’s the book where you say that book really helped you to turn on the jets to figure out how business works?

I only talk about my books guys. No, I’m just kidding.

Seems like a positive.

There we go. Uh, so yeah, a lot of books of impact. So I, um, John Ortberg, his book, soul keeping was just incredible. I love that book. Donald Miller wrote a book, a million miles and a thousand years, but I just love Erwin Mcmanus wrote a book recently called the last Arrow. I just loved that book, so there’s been so many books on the journey. It’s hard to say

on the show notes real quick. Could you repeat those three one more time? I just want to make sure I put these on the show notes. Our listeners are voracious readers.

John Ortberg wrote a book called soul keeping, just an amazing book and then Donald Miller, a million miles and a thousand years, which is just an incredible book. I love. Erwin Mcmanus was a pastor in La. He wrote a book called the last Arrow, which is a great book. He has a new one coming out, but I just can’t wait to read. It’s called the way of the warrior. Amazing book on that.

Now my final question for you, you my final question, the power of a positive team. Uh, this is a book you’ve been working on for awhile. People can pick it up, talk to us about the next 12 months are going to be out promoting the book a speaking, what is your vision look like for the next 12 months of your life?

Well, it’s mostly just continually to do the work I’m doing. So I already have a lot of events lined up so it’s not like I go on a tour, but I speak at all these various events that I’ve been brought in to speak to and I’m hired to speak with. And then from there I’ll work with the teams for training camp. Next year I worked with University of Washington football team. They play in the rose bowl, so they’re coming to La,

uh, you know, some time before the game and if the, if the clumps it comes and goes to the national championship, I’m going to go to that game. And then I just really, I’m continually write and speak and I’m working on a bunch of um, you know, I have a new book coming out in the spring in April. So that’s coming out. And my vision really is to inspire and empower as many people as possible one person at a time. So it’s not like I have a five year plan or you don’t have any external goals. That’s just what I want to do in everyday. Just show up and try to continue to do that.

Oh, you playing the national championship game. Can I? Can I get a little man hanging out having to breathe or think about it? Pray about it. Because I mean I wouldn’t wear like bright red. I’d maybe we’re like, uh, you know, like, is that orange? I’ve never heard that, but I don’t know what the real question, the real question. The real question is, if you could go back, you said, how old are you now?

40 seven.

40 seven. You can go back 20 years. You’re 27 years old. What advice would you give that young man?

I would say don’t worry so much and don’t stress so much and don’t share it. I would say what I wrote about in the carpenter, the love it and love cast out fear. So if you focus on the love that you have of the work you’re doing and the love you have for others and the love of even getting sports or Raymond competing, you love it, you won’t fear it. So just get to love it will dissipate. And I think that’s the key because I worried a lot when I was younger, I had a lot of fear and once I overcame that fear battle that changed everything.

That’s awesome. That’s a great word. Around here. Stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum. And so Z, are you ready? Are you ready to read the Jon Gordon, are you prepared to bring the boom?

I thought we were doing that, but I’m ready.

Psychological require minimal. That was perfect. That was great. Boom. It was borderline grade.

You laughed and you learned something today. I would encourage you to share today’s show with a person in your life who is maybe a leader of a team. Uh, somebody you know who’s in business. Anybody that you can think of that leads a team of people needs to hear today show. In fact, anybody who you know who does it lead a team of people, but who aspires to some day lead. A group of people needs to hear today show, so share it with them on spotify or itunes or up there on facebook or twitter or instagram. Send them a link and I would greatly appreciate it and I’ll see you tomorrow.