DreamNation Episode 150 – Jon Gordon: How To Feed The Positive

Casanova Brooks:

What’s up DreamNation?. We are back again with an episode that I am sure will inspire you if nothing else to think positive. And in this time that we’re in right now in this world that we’re in right now, depending on when you’re listening to this. Still strong in the pandemic. And we have one of the most, in my opinion, in my opinion, inspirational teachers, when it comes to staying positive and overcoming any type of adversity without further ado, please help me in welcoming my brother, mr. John Gordon, to the show. John, you want to go ahead and say what’s up to DreamNation.

Jon Gordon:

What’s up DreamNation Casanova. Great to be with you. I’m honored. And I’m excited about sharing with your DreamNation today.

Casanova Brooks:

Oh, absolutely. I always love to make sure that we can give the proper introduction. And so if someone does not know who you are, they probably been sleeping under a rock, and the way that I like to do that is I like to make sure that I compare us as entrepreneurs thought leaders change-makers to superheroes, and you’re going to be true, the true epitome of this, because they’re constantly flying around the world, putting on that Cape and trying to solve the world’s biggest problems.

So behind every Superman, we know that there’s a Clark Kent. Behind the Superman that we know as John Gordon tell us on the inside, who is that? Clark Kent.

Jon Gordon:

I do believe that when you look at Superman and you ask him, whereas power came from, or you ask, when Clark Kent, was, was, was Clark Kent, who was he?

He was still Superman because he was Superman on the inside. So who you are in the inside should not change. So I believe that, Clark, Kent and Superman combined, I am the same person, no matter where, whether I wear a Cape, a uniform. Or pajamas to bed, right? I am still that person because your identity is truly who you are on the inside.

And so for me, who am I am, I’m someone who loves to do this work. I love to make a difference. I’m not naturally positive. I have to work really hard at being positive. I grew up in long Island, New York in a Jewish Italian family, a lot of food, a lot of guilt, a lot of wine, a lot of whining. And I really struggled with positivity.

Around 31 years old, my wife came to me. She said, if you don’t change, like I’m leaving, you were over because I was so negative. And so that began this journey of working to become a more positive person. And it led me to do this work that I do now. So I think it’s really ironic. That I do this work, that my calling is about positivity and I speak on positive leadership in building great teams and positive teams, because I’m not naturally that way.

And so I think I become a good teacher because I’m always working at being a better person, myself, be a more positive myself. So I know the struggle that people have. It’s a real struggle. It’s real, it’s raw. And so then people can really connect with it and they resonate with it because I’m not some guy.

Standing on the, on the, at the white castle telling them how to do this and you need to be like me, right? You need to be positive like me. I think they joined me in the struggle of having to overcome adversity and challenges and setbacks throughout life. We’re not positive because life is easy.

We’re positive. Cause life can be hard. And this is not about seeing the world through Rose colored glasses. This is knowing that you have the power to overcome the thorns. So I’m a father. I’m a husband. I’m someone who writes books. I speak, I never thought I would have the success that I have. I’m thankful every day that I get to do this work.

But I also know that that the creator of the universe, that God is the power force and the power source that works through me, that allows me to do this work and everything. I have. Everything I do is because of that power, not me.

Casanova Brooks:

There’s so much to unpack there. And the first thing that I know someone’s thinking about is they’re saying you’re not naturally positive right now at 31.

Your wife comes to you. Talk to me about how you were able to make that change. And the reason why I say that is because here’s something that I learned and I learned this actually from. a mentor of mine and he had said, if you have any type of negativity, your thoughts, your stories that you tell yourself, most likely it comes from some type of a trauma that you had from the ages of maybe three to 12 years old.

So for you at 31, and you found yourself being negative and potentially losing your partner in life. Was, did you have to become aware of a trauma or what do you think was the things that was causing you to always have that negative energy in yourself?

Jon Gordon:

I knew that my father left when I was a year old, so I had that abandonment issue in my life.

So that was, that was one thing. But I was raised by my stepfather, who was in New York city police officer and a really good man. He loved us and he. Took me and my brother on as his own and said, I’m going to love you, like my own call me dad. And we did. And so he was a huge figure in my life, but I always had that abandonment issue from my biological father leaving.

Can’t explain it. Don’t know why it existed, but it did. We all have wounds of the past. You might call it a trauma. I call it a wound. We all have that wound that gets infected throughout our life. And that wound can bring us down. It can hold us back. It could cause us to. Falter and fail and not realize our potential and not grow to the Heights that we were meant to grow.

So you have to understand what that wound is and you do have to heal that wound, but let me ask you something. Do your negative thoughts come from you, Casanova. Do your negative thoughts come about because of your thoughts or where do they come from?

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, I would say your negative thoughts come from a lack of confidence and it’s because we may be having experienced something.

It’s it’s anxiety. I think that’s where my negative thoughts would come from instantly. I think about something that I may be having attempted before and then instantly it’s you can’t do that.

Jon Gordon:

Where does that come from? Let’s go a little deeper. So I ask people all the time, do your negative thoughts come from you?

And everyone says, Oh yeah, of course they do. I said, really, who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Would you ever choose a negative thought? I would never choose one. When you’re sleeping and dreaming. Are your negative thoughts coming from you? Are your dreams coming from you? Are those nightmares coming from you?

Other positive thoughts sometimes coming from me when they just pop in your head or the negative thoughts as you can’t do that, or you’re going to fail or the future is hopeless or you’re not enough. you don’t deserve that. You’re going to have all these thoughts that come about and you have to understand they do not come from you.

Thoughts exist in consciousness. I’m not sure quite how it works spiritually, but I know spiritually there, their consciousness exists. And it’s like the internet cloud and the brain is the hardware. We’re always downloading these thoughts to our brain, to our hardware. The activation happens in the brain.

No one has ever found a thought inside of a brain. So the key is when those negative thoughts come in, it is to understand they’re not coming from you. Those negative thoughts are often lies and the key is don’t believe the lies instead. What you want to do is speak truth. To those lies. And the truth is you are here to do great things.

The truth is you would never meant to be average. The truth is we want to be great and we have a desire to be great because deep down we know there is greatness within us. That’s why we want to be great because we know it’s within us. But here’s the thing. We have these voices saying, we’re not great.

We’re not enough. We’re not going to make it happen. And that is the battle of the mind. It is a spiritual battle and the anxiety happens when we are believing the lies. And we feel separate from our source, from the oneness that we are, The word anxious, literally means divided at its Greek root word. It means divided.

And so we actually feel divided. We feel separate when you understand who you are. And you are United in that, that is where the power comes and moves through you. That’s why when we surrender and we trust and we surrender to a greater power, that’s when we actually start to feel more positive, more loving, more kind.

That’s the greater power that moves through us. yeah. I shared this with you, because we have to understand the origins of negative thoughts. This is deep. And when you understand this is really deep, but this is where the power is, right? Cause I’m sick and tired of people talking about, Oh, the negative thoughts in your brain and the neuroscience and blah, blah, blah.

I know about all the neuroscience. I’ve done all the research. I know the studies on meditation and it’s all great. And I believe in meditation, I believe in, in mindfulness, I believe in all that, but you have to understand. The origins of the negative thoughts and be able to overcome them because no one could explain where they’re coming from.

And they often say, it’s been a trauma. And the negative thought comes from what you’ve heard before. No. Sometimes you never even heard those things before and they still come in. And once you understand this, now you can win the battle. So I wrote a book called The Garden recently, just came out and it’s about the five DS that we have to overcome to win the battle of our mind.

And it’s doubt. It’s distortion. Those lies we just talked about. So distortion takes truth and distorts it with lies. It’s discouragement. We don’t give up. Cause it’s hard. We give up. Cause we get discouraged. I know so many entrepreneurs and I’m so glad you reached so many entrepreneurs, right? They just give up because it starts to get hard and in the hard work they get discouraged, right?

So the, the, the discouragement, not the hard, but the discouragement and the hard combined caused them to just stop working, stop moving forward. And so that discouragement sets in and they just say, you know what? I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it, or I’m not gonna be able to make it happen, whatever it may be, they just get discouraged.

And that is when they give up. And then the distraction sets in and distractions are the enemy of greatness. And we have so many distractions right now in the media. Social media, all the distractions causing us to be less than our best. And then finally that division, the fifth D is divided, which we just talked about and that anxiousness and that division really separates us individually.

It separates us from other people and we seem more division right now than ever. In this country, but the antidote to these five, these are we, we got to trust. Instead of doubt, we trust instead of distortion, we speak truth to those lies. And the best advice I ever heard is from dr. James gills, the only person on the planet to complete six double Ironman triathlons.

That’s a double Ironman, which means you do an iron man. And then a day later do another one. And the last time he did it, he was 59 years old and he was asked how he did. And he said, this I’ve learned to talk to myself instead of listen to myself. Now, again, we can say that, listen to yourself, listen to those thoughts that come in your head.

But instead of listen to the negative voices in the fear and the doubt and all the reasons why he can’t finish this race, he would talk to himself with words of encouragement. And instead of discouragement, we encourage and the word encourage means to put courage into. So we’re encouraging ourselves.

We’re putting courage into ourselves by speaking to life, to ourselves, words of affirmation and encouragement. We walk in that power. We walk in that truth and we encourage others, right? We’re giving them life. We’re giving them courage to move forward. That’s why encouragement is so important and entrepreneurs, sometimes we just need.

A little bit encouraged, all of encouragement, Zig Ziglar, right? The old famous motivational speaker was told Zig motivation doesn’t last. And he would say, neither does bathing. It’s why you have to do it every day. We have to encourage every day. And instead of distractions, what do we do? The antidote to that is we focus on what matters most.

And what matters most your relationships, right? The people that you love with your family, the relationships with your team, the relationships with your clients or future clients. With your customers, your relationships. And if you focus on your relationships and investing in those, that is how you build real success.

All the other stuff doesn’t matter. It’s about people. It’s about relationships. That’s how we create real success. You love you serve and you care. I wrote a book called The Carpenter, which is the book that I wrote for entrepreneurs having been an entrepreneur myself and being one now. And I wrote this book for entrepreneurs and I always say, don’t focus.

On growing your business. I know that doesn’t sound like good advice. Actually. Don’t focus on growing your business, focus on loving and serving and caring with your customers with your team. And if you do that, your business will grow exponentially. That’s how we build a real success. So focusing on what matters most, and then instead of that division, we unite.

We come together. When you net, we need more unity in this country. We need people of, of different, Obviously racial, backgrounds that come together. We need people of different political backgrounds to come together. We need just to come together. There’s so much division. It’s getting ridiculous, come together and unite, but what can you do individually?

You can’t focus on what other people are doing. You can’t control everyone else. You can control yourself. You can unite with the people around you. You can connect with your team. You can commit to them and to other people. And connection is what always breeds commitment. The more connected you are, the more committed you will be.

And that connection and commitment is what really creates unity. With a team with an organization. And for me spiritually, I believe you got to unite to yourself. Some people will do meditation, yoga. I do prayer, right? We prayer to unite, to self, and we unite to the creator of the universe. As I said earlier, that’s where I draw my power, my strength, and that keeps me moving forward.

Casanova Brooks:

No, I love it. There’s so much to unpack there. I feel like for the average person that’s listening to this, they’re going to have to rewind it two or three times because you gave so much wisdom. The first part though, you said you got to know who you are. Talk to me about how does someone, how did you really, because you’re going through negative mind state.

Now, all of a sudden you’re potentially about to lose your family. And you’re trying to find yourself who you are. Spiritually. Were you always someone who had strong faith in a higher power or was that even new to you? And you had to start from square one, basically bare bones and figure out who you were.

Jon Gordon:

That was new to me. So I had to find that and discover that because when I, I lost my job during the.com crash, fearful, stressed anxiety, I’m all nervous. How can I provide for my family? What’s the future going to hold? I felt like a failure. So my identity was tied to my performance. It was tied to my success and it was during that time that everything was stripped away.

And I had to look within and I had to ask myself, who are you a crisis? Like right now that we’re dealing with, right? We’ll reveal who you are, what you value and what you believe, who you are, what you value and what you believe. And at that time I asked, who am I, why am I here? I actually said, why am I here?

I know I’m here for a reason. Why am I so miserable? my wife was almost like I said, leaving. And I had to ask that question, like, why am I so miserable? Why am I so negative? And it became loud and clear. I wasn’t living my purpose. I wasn’t doing something I love to do. And what I was meant to do came to me writing and speaking, it literally came to me.

Why am I here writing? And speaking came and the way I know that is wasn’t an accident, right? It wasn’t just some, coincidence. come on, John. No, it wasn’t some coincidence. I know it happened because after that, I literally started to write and I started to write, like I never wrote before and I started to share this message.

And then I worked on myself, worked on my faith, and then I wrote The Energy Bus. And now I’ve written 22 books, That have sold over four and a half million copies. And I’m not telling you that to be impressed with me, I’m telling you that because. To let you know, it’s not a coincidence that I would have that revelation to say, okay, I’m here to write and speak and then start doing it and then have the success to be able to make a difference and reach all these people.

Because to me success, the definition of success is the fulfillment of God’s plan for your life. And that is from dr. David, Jeremiah. I got this from him and I heard it the other day and a new book that he just wrote called Forward. And it’s so powerful. And I realized I was now fulfilling the plan that God had for my life.

Now, to understand that plan, you have to surrender, you have to ask, you have to say, why, what is my, why? What is my purpose? We don’t get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it. So once you know your why you’ll know the way. And you will let obstacles get in the way.

So as an entrepreneur, why am I doing this? Why am I running this business? Why am I creating this product? Do I love it? Or do I just want to make money? Because the money won’t be enough to drive you. There’ll be enough to make you want to survive, right? Because you need to pay the bills, but to be great, to be the best in the world to really go after your dream, It has to be something that you truly love to do. So when you’re an entrepreneur, make sure you love the product. You love the business. You love what you do you’re doing, because if you don’t love it, you’ll never be great at it. Love is the number one driver of grit. And we know that grit is the number one predictor.

And factor of success. And so love drives grit. So you gotta decide what you want to do. And I remember thinking, okay, I’m going to do this. I’m going to write and speak, and I’m going to start sharing this message. And if it takes me 10 years to get out there, 15 years, 20 years, it doesn’t matter. I’m doing what I’m called to do.

And I’m going to start doing this work and I get 80 free talks. And then after that was like $500 a talk in thousand dollars a talk. And I went everywhere to anywhere doing this. Cause this was my why, this was my purpose.

Casanova Brooks:

And did you start off? I want to ask because a lot of people right now they’re hearing this and they’re going to look because they see that you’re.

One of the top motivational speakers in the world. Definitely one of the cause it’s like, Oh, it’s easy for him to say that now because he’s one of the highest paid speakers. But when he started out, was it, you said you gave 80 talks. Did you know your direction when you first started out or did that lane change for you?

Were you always in this personal development, you gotta have faith. You gotta be able to overcome positive. Or adversity?

Jon Gordon:

For me, the talk was initially about positivity. I knew that I liked. Talking about positivity. I want it to be more positive. I was researching ways I can be more positive and I was doing the research in the positive psychology world.

So it was, it was actually during the emerging field of positive psychology. So in the beginning, I knew I wanted to talk about that, but for me initially, it was get addicted to positive energy. So it was all about positive energy. I w I was a little bit of a rah rah guy, come on, get fired up. it’s, I’m early thirties and I’m doing that.

I was known as the energy addict. I started the hair and then, and then I evolved. Then I started speaking to organizations and chamber of commerce is, and all these different events and some health conferences. But again, I was doing. All these free talks. And then I was going to everywhere and anywhere.

And then I spoke to the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2007. Right when The Energy Bus came out, I went on a 28 city book tour paid for by myself. No one knew me and there were five people, one city, they were 10 people at another. 20 in another, the most people, we have were a hundred people in Des Moines, Iowa.

They thought Jeff Gordon was coming. That’s why they showed up

Casanova Brooks:

NASCAR.

Jon Gordon:

And I remember I got home. Yeah. If you don’t know, Jeff Gordon is the NASCAR driver. And I remember I got home and it wasn’t a successful tour and I didn’t know what my future held, but I gave everything I had. And my mission was this Casanova.

It was. To encourage and inspire millions of people, one person at a time. So even though there was five people at the event, I made time for every one of those people, there were five that was easy. 10 people didn’t matter if there was 110, I was giving them my time, my energy. And I went on this tour and that’s where I was shaped.

That’s where I was molded. That’s why I learned the art of hard work and living the mission and humbly right. Humbly because no one’s coming to these events. To just share the message, even if a big crowd isn’t there. And that’s why I learned that you just gotta do the work and make a difference and inspire, encourage others, one person at a time.

And that book tour is what led to a lot of success later on just. Meeting one person in Austin led to an event in a school district. Another event led to, to speak at a business and another city led to working with a sports team. And next thing I’m doing these different talks and one led to another, that led to another led to another.

So my journey has not been easy. A lot of my book sales have, have really taken off over the last five, 10, like five years, I would say five, seven years. I’ve grown a Lot in the last five, seven years. That’s really what it’s really taken off. My last nine or 10 books that hit the wall street journal bestseller list.

So I have 10 wall street journal bestsellers right now. I’ve worked with the Rams and the Dodgers and the Miami heat and Tampa Bay lightning just won the Stanley cup. I worked with them before the season. I work with Clemson football for the past eight years. The Atlanta Falcons years ago. Not anymore.

Don’t work with the Falcons now, but I’m work with the Falcons. For for years, seven years when Mike Smith was the head coach. So I had the opportunity now to work with all these different teams, all these different companies, all these different school districts, and I would go where others wouldn’t go.

And yes, I’m a high price speaker now, but I’ll still do some pro bono events to, I do a certain amount per year, every year to stay true to that mission and message because it’s, can’t always be about the money, Oh, you can’t afford to pay me. So I’ll, I can’t do that. So I try to make sure that I do a certain amount every year.

Pro bono for nonprofits and organizations like that did Make-A-Wish not too long ago. The boys and girls club, which I love so much, then did that event. And here’s what I’ve learned. I do those events, right? Not even thinking about anything, but the message and the mission and reaching those people there.

And. But how amazing they are about what they’re doing. I always get events that come from that. Cause there’s always like sponsors there that it seems like sponsors are there and they wind up booking me for their big events. But I never go into an event thinking, Oh, I’ll do this. So I get that. I never think that way.

It’s always been, how can I love, how can I serve? How can I care? How can I do this work? How can I make a difference? And it’s been a long journey. It has been a long I’m 49 now. I started when I was doing this again around 30. Two 33, probably 2002. I wrote my first newsletter. I know that. And then the energy bus came out in 2007.

And so that’s sort of like, if you, if you picture, this, this long struggle, it takes five years for it to be a best seller. Then finally it becomes a bestseller and now it has sold over 2 million copies of that book alone. That book changed my life. so I do want people to understand it’s been a long journey and I think.

Every journey is. For an entrepreneur. It’s not about an overnight success. We know that Google wasn’t an overnight success, right? Twitter wasn’t overnight success. I heard from Evan Spiegel a few years ago with Snapchat, and he told me about his journey ahead of him on my podcast. And I also went to speak to his company, to his leadership when they were struggling a few years ago, he brought me in to speak.

He read my book, the power of positive leadership. And I helped them through a difficult time to really bring positive leadership to their organization and to their team. He talked about it in fast company, how, how our work together, made a difference. And so we know that even when you think from the outside world, it looks like you have everything, figure it out.

You’re always dealing with adversity and challenges, and there is no such thing as an overnight success.

Casanova Brooks:

I’m so glad you shared that later. Yeah. that’s powerful for a lot of people to know, because people might be on year two, year, three, year five year seven. And they’re saying, when is my break in a com, but to hear someone who’s now been doing this for 17 years, 18 years, and then saying, Hey, it was 10 years into those 18 years.

What was that five years into those 18 years that I wrote my book. The understanding that you’re on your journey and you’re right where you should be. And also a lot of the times, like for us to look at someone like you, if you’re trying to be a speaker and me to try to compare where I am right now to your path, it’s, that’s, that’s what someone I had a mentor on.

And they had said, comparison is the thief of all joy and success. So it’s a compare your 17th step to my ninth step. It’s just not fair to me. Right.

Jon Gordon:

Also we, and we can’t compare steps because our journeys are different. Our stories are different. Would you have gone through is so much more challenging in many ways than what I’ve been through.

I’ve been through challenges, but I can’t compare my challenges to yours. Inky Johnson is a good friend of mine. I don’t know if inky, but we have very different journeys. how he hurt his arm and the. And can’t use his arm anymore as a result of playing football and was going to go pro it’s a different story.

So we have to know our purpose. We have to know our mission and there’s only one you, and there’s only one me and the people listening. There’s only one you and your job is to be the best of you. And not to compare yourself to others, you’re here to run your race, your hit, or share your message and your mission.

You’re here to start your company, your product. You can learn from others. We learned from people all the time. We can learn from their journey and from their struggle, we can learn how they speak. We can learn how they, how they, How they do presentations, how they write. But I had people try to write fables like me and they can’t because it’s my style.

And I can’t write like someone else, I love max Lucado I can’t write like max Lucado. I just can’t. I would love to speak like inky Johnson, but I can’t, because I’m not that’s icky style. Amazing. Like it’s unique. It’s different. I can’t speak like that. I’d like to, but I can’t. And I think he’s one of the most gifted speakers.

And so for me, you have to find your path, your journey and live it. Stop trying to be someone else.

Casanova Brooks:

Oh, I’d love that. If you look back at your journey over these last 18 years, And you could think about one thing that you would change or you would implement it sooner to be able to speed up your dream, the path that your dream has been on, what would that one thing be?

Jon Gordon:

I believe that if I look back and if anyone looks back, we would know that fear is the number one thing that can sabotage us and our destiny. I think there were times I allowed fear. To keep me from being my best and to go for it. So the more time that’s gone on, I’ve gotten more bold, more courageous.

And I believe the answer to fear is love. If you love it, you can’t fear it. And so love casts out fear. So anytime you’re feeling fear, you focus on the love that you have of the work that you’re doing, the love of your product, the love of your service, the love of your mission, the love of your customer and client, and you focus on that love.

And if you focus on that, that will drive you to overcome your fear. I wish I would’ve known that earlier. We learned it later, move it into the story of the carpenter because I had writer’s block, never had writer’s block before. And I realized I was so fearful of people thinking that my best work was behind me.

And so I couldn’t write and I woke up one morning with the truth that love casts out fear. And I was like, Oh, All I’m going to do is love. The reader, love the process of writing. Here’s the deal. If you love the process, you will love with the process produces. So love the process. And I started focusing on that and anytime I get nervous or fearful, I’m like, Nope, Nope.

Think about loving. Who’s listening, loving who’s reading. We’re going to be on the today’s show. This Thursday coming up, my wife and I first time on TV together. A little nervous.

Casanova Brooks:

Is it about relationship, grit,

Jon Gordon:

relationship grit, About our ups and downs, our journey. But I’m thinking about, okay, how can I make a difference in all the couples that are listening to help them stay together?

It’s not about you, John, focusing on the love that you have for others in your purpose, you have an obligation to share this. Don’t be scared. Don’t be fearful. Don’t worry about messing up. Make sure you go out there and you help those people who are listening so that they stay together. So they don’t give up because it’s hard again in the relationship.

We get discouraged. It gets hard. The grass seems greener. On the other side, we walk away. No stick together, work on your marriage, invest in your relationship and weather the storm together. And if you do that on the other side of it, there’s so much more joy and meaning and connection and love and intimacy.

If you work on it together, it does take work. It’s not easy, but that’s what I think about. So entrepreneurs, you think about the love that you have for your craft, for your business, for the opportunity and we’ll cast out fear. So I wish I would’ve known that earlier, and that’s why I tell people about that now.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, no, that’s super powerful. When we say one of the same things. I remember I told someone, I said, you don’t necessarily even have to love the journey, but you have, have to be married to the destination. And that’s what I heard you say, right? If you’re thinking long-term and I believe I was even watching a YouTube video and you had had Matthew McConaughey on your show.

back, some months back. And he talked about, if you think about snipers, their nest, they’re not looking at the target, they’re looking at behind the target, right? So you have to be focused on the longterm, which is what I hear when we, whenever we get married. Which is right to your point, Whenever thinking about these next one to two to three years, we’re thinking about that we’re going to be with our partner for the rest of our life. So remember that commitment that you made in the beginning and it continue to think long-term, and it’s goes back to your point of what you were saying is, the money alone, right?

Won’t keep you going. It’ll get you there. We’ll get you hype in the beginning, but it will always fade away. But it’s that love that you have, that keeps you going in, that you knowing what your, why is, why did you get this started? So again, I appreciate you sharing that. And for anybody who is not read or at least listened to any bow to any bit of relationship grit, there’s so much wisdom in that book as well.

Jon Gordon:

I appreciate that. we, we start a cookie company a couple of years ago called positive cookie, and it was a lot of work and it was hard and we got into some stores and then it didn’t sell well, and it was going to take more money to revamp and do new designs. And. Buy more cookies and everything else.

And I had to ask myself the question, do I really love this work? Do I want to be known as the cookie guy years from now that I’ve built a successful cookie company and cookie business. And it became so clear to me that I was not put on earth to do that. So even though I lost some money with it, a good amount, it was one of the greatest lessons that really got me even more focused on doing this work.

Cause I came back with more energy, enthusiasm, excitement for this work, and I realized the cookie business was actually a distraction for me. So I learned a valuable lesson as an entrepreneur. You need to learn is that you got to ask yourself when the love wears off or. When the money is running out, do you still want to keep going, do you still want to push through, do you still want to be committed to this and the love for what I was doing?

Wasn’t great enough. The mission wasn’t great enough. I knew that this was not my core purpose. It wasn’t my mission. So I let it go. Then I come back. And now I focus on my business even more take that energy. I was putting towards the cookie. And then we started doing training. We started doing consulting we’ll we’re, we’re expanding energy bus for schools to reach more schools.

And we are growing and weeps about even during COVID. We did three online leadership, virtual events, and they’re aal sold out, and that’s a result of being more committed to the core purpose and the mission. So I’m not saying, Hey, You want to do what I do. Many people probably don’t. But in your business, in your, your entrepreneur journey, right?

Always ask yourself, is this what I really want to create? pull out the telescope and the microscope telescope, big picture vision. This is where we’re going. Microscope, zoom, focus actions. This is what I need to do today. This is the action today to realize the big picture and the telescope and every day, if you have that mindset of telescope microscope, big picture of where you’re moving towards zoom focus actions.

That’s how you create success.

Casanova Brooks:

Wow for you. Where do you go for inspiration? Because now you’ve, you’ve wrote 17 books, as you say, or 22 books,

Jon Gordon:

22 now,

Casanova Brooks:

22 books. So for you, where do you turn now for your inspiration and wisdom in particular, either

Jon Gordon:

I read all sorts of different books. I just, like I said, I just read this book forward by dr.

David Jeremiah. And I read a lot of, I read a lot of pastors. I read devotionals, there’s a guy named Erwin McManus. Who’s a pastor of mosaic church. It’s actually the most diverse church in America and that’s the church that I belong to. And guy’s amazing. So I listened to his sermons, his inspiration. I listen to podcast two different podcasts, get inspired that way and always looking for, They’re just something that will inspire me.

And so if someone, if something, someone shares something to me, I’ll I’ll listen to it. I’ll I’ll see, if it’s something I’m meant to listen, but it’s really cool how things do find you when they’re supposed to,

Casanova Brooks:

right? No, I love it. The last question that I have for you is there’s somebody out there just like you said, that has all the intangibles, but they have that little voice in their head and that little voice says that they’re not strong enough.

They’re not smart enough. Or maybe they just don’t have enough resources. What’s the one thing that you would say to that person to get them to just take action.

Jon Gordon:

I would say that it’s not about the resources it’s always about what’s inside you. It’s never about outside Casanova. You’re a great example that you don’t create the world outside it and you create it inside out.

You’re a coffee bean. And when you’re in a big pot of boiling hot water, you can be the carrot, the egg, or the coffee bean carrot gets weakened in the hot water and its environment. The egg gets hardened in its environment. We can get bitter and angry. Like an egg, right? In that hot water, we can be like that carrot that gets weakened.

That gets soft at crumbles from the inside out. Or we can be like the coffee bean, that coffee bean, when put into hot water, it transforms the water and the coffee. We don’t even call it water anymore. We give it a new name. From the inside. It transforms the environment that it’s in and that’s our job, right?

You have the power to do that. Who you are on the inside, your joy, your love, your passion, your purpose, your work ethic, your optimism, your belief. That’s how you create success. So that which is in you is so much more powerful than all the forces against you. And so it doesn’t matter about the circumstances where there’s a will.

There’s a way. And if you have a vision, you also have the power to make it happen. Hmm, that vision was given to you for a reason. If you have the belief, your belief ultimately will determine what you create. You will find the investors, you will find the support. You will find the people that you need to be successful when you’re on the right path.

I truly believe that God will move heaven and earth to support you when you’re on the right path. And yes you got to learn the lessons along the way you got to face adversity, you got to face obstacles and people often say, when I’m facing this obstacle, how do I know to keep moving forward or to give up?

And that’s when you ask those questions, like I did with the cookie, it was called the positive cookie that was giving me a negative experience. And it was, it was the lessons I had to learn. All right. It’s negative right now, but I want to make this work right. I want to be the best in the world at this.

I learned from Seth Godin’s book, the dip. Great advice on this. Like when you truly want to be the best in the world at it, when you know what your passion, when you love it, when there’s a, a purpose, a calling. And you’re not going to give up. And so that’s how you know, So for entrepreneurs, yeah, we want to make money.

We want the fruit of the tree and it’s okay to want rate fruit, but to get that fruit, you got to know that you got to invest in the root and you invest in that root. You will get great fruit focus on the fruit, ignore the root, which is what we do often. And the tree dies. So you want a healthy supply of fruit, create a healthy root, and that all goes to your purpose, your love, your passion, and the why, the right reasons for why you’re doing this and what you truly want to build.

Casanova Brooks:

Yeah, no, that’s powerful. And anybody wondering what is the root? I would go back to saying the root is what you said in the beginning, the relationships, right? If you focus on having healthy relationships and the people that are in your corner, those cheerleaders that are already want to see you when not focusing on the outside of the people that you’re trying to win over, that’s how you’ll be successful in life, your team, your family, even your business partners and acquaintances.

That, yeah. You given so much wisdom for anybody who wants to stay connected with you, where can they find you at.

Jon Gordon:

They can go to Jongordon.com. . We also have dailypositive.com. So you can get a quote every day of encouragement [email protected]. Also Instagram Twitter @JonGordon11.

So at Jon Gordon 11, I’m always sharing encouragement tips and just. Things I’ve learned along the way that I love sharing. So we’d love to connect with people there. If you have any questions, feel free to just hit me up on, on Instagram or Twitter. And, I’m pretty good about responding.

Casanova Brooks:

Cool. Yeah.

we’re going to make sure we put all of those links in the show notes and for anybody who is, wanting to really change their life when it comes to positivity, pick up one of those books. there’s 22 of them, so you have a lot of options and you can binge on the information as well. So remember DreamNation in the dream we trust, but just as he said, it’s already in you and you must take action.

Otherwise that dream that you have will only merely be a fantasy. That’s all we got for this one. We’ll catch you on the next one.