Episode 577: Jon Gordon: The Psychology of Optimism, Better Habits, and Stronger Leadership

Are your thoughts helping you move forward, or are they quietly running your life? We talk a lot about positivity, discipline, leadership, and good habits, but very few people understand how those things actually work together. Negative thoughts can feel true simply because they show up fast. Bad habits can undo years of progress. Leaders can have a great vision and still lose their team because they do not communicate, connect, or create trust. And being hardworking is not always enough if people do not want to follow you. This matters because success is shaped by what you believe, what you repeat, and how you show up around other people. Real confidence comes from learning how to challenge your own thinking, remove friction before a habit begins, communicate with clarity, and become the kind of person who strengthens the environment instead of being controlled by it. Positivity is a skill. Likability is a skill. Leadership is a skill. And all of them can be practiced. Jon Gordon is one of the most influential leadership authors and speakers in the world. He has worked with CEOs, professional athletes, championship teams, coaches, and major organizations across business, sports, and education. He is the author of 32 books, including The Energy Bus, The Power of Positive Leadership, The Coffee Bean, and his latest book, The Power of Positive Habits. His work focuses on helping people build stronger mindsets, better habits, healthier cultures, and teams that perform at a higher level. What's Discussed: (03:05) How The Energy Bus went from 30 publisher rejections to selling more than three million copies. (09:05) Why positivity is a skill you develop, especially when negativity comes naturally. (14:43) How connection and disconnection affect anxiety, clarity, focus, and performance. (18:39) Why physical habits like lifting weights can build discipline, confidence, and mental strength. (24:40) How choosing one word for the year can create more focus than setting another resolution. (33:16) Why becoming a better leader starts with addressing your own wounds, habits, and mindset. (36:21) How communication gaps create negativity and confusion inside teams. (37:46) The culture-building question every leader should ask before hiring someone. (43:16) How the "habit before the habit" removes friction and makes consistency easier. (45:43) Why one destructive habit can undermine all the positive habits you are trying to build. (01:03:37) Why you should talk to yourself instead of automatically listening to every negative thought. (01:05:15) Why optimism may matter even more than discipline. (01:06:39) How likability helps leaders challenge people, build trust, and demand more from their teams. Thank You to Our Sponsors! Magic Mind: Head over to magicmind.com/jen http://www.magicmind.com/jen and use code JEN at checkout. Momentous: Ready to try supplements that actually do what they claim? Head to livemomentous.com http://livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. Therasage: Visit therasage.com http://therasage.com and use code JEN to get 15% off your order. Your skin Prolon: Prolon is offering listeners 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Kion: Visit getkion.com/habits http://getkion.com/habits for 20% off. TruNiagen: For supplements that are rigorously tested, third-party verified, and actually deliver what's on the label, head to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com Find more from Jen Cohen: Website: jennifercohen.com https://jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen http://instagram.com/therealjencohen Books: jennifercohen.com/books https://jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more from Jon Gordon: Website: jongordon.com https://jongordon.com Instagram: @jongordon11 https://www.instagram.com/jongordon11/?hl=en Books: https://jongordon.com/books/jongordon.com/books http://jongordon.com/books Facebook: Jon gordon https://www.facebook.com/jongordonpage/ YouTube: @jongordon11 https://www.youtube.com/@JonGordon11 LinkedIn: Jon Gordon https://www.linkedin.com/in/jongordonenergy/

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs, athletes, and experts to uncover the habits and strategies that actually move the needle in your health, happiness, and success. And today, I'm sitting down with John Gordon, one of the most influential leadership authors and speakers in the world. He has worked with everyone, CEOs, professional athletes, championship teams, and some of the biggest organizations in business and sports. He is the author of 32 books, including The Energy Bus, which was rejected by 30 publishers before selling more than 3 million copies. And his latest book now is called The Power of Positive Habits. In this episode, we get into what positivity actually

• 0:51Speaker 01

  means, why negative thoughts do not deserve your automatic trust, and how leaders create strong cultures, the habit you need to build before you build any other habit, and why one destructive pattern can cancel out all the good habits you're trying to create. We also talk about why optimism may matter more than discipline, and how likability gives you the ability to challenge people without losing them. This conversation will make you rethink positivity, leadership, confidence, discipline, and the way you speak to yourself when things get hard. What John shares in this episode will give you practical tools to stop letting

• 1:32Speaker 01

  your thoughts run your life, lead people more effectively, and build habits that actually stick. So let's dive in.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  All right, you guys, welcome to Habits and Hustle. Do we have a treat for you? We have John Gordon on the podcast. Let me just quickly read his bio here, okay? John Gordon is one of the most influential and sought-after leadership authors and speakers today. He's a consultant to numerous leaders, CEOs, NFL, NBA, and MLB coaches, championship teams, and high performers, and an inspirational teacher who has helped millions of people have a more positive mindset. He is the author of 32 books, including 19 bestsellers and five children's books. His books include the timeless classic, The Energy Bus, which has sold over 3 million copies, The Carpenter, which was a top-five business book of the year, Training Camp, The Power

• 2:31Speaker 01

  of Positive Leadership, The Power of a Positive Team, The One Truth, and his latest release, The Power of Positive Habits. This is gonna be a podcast you definitely wanna listen to if you wanna basically uptick your life in any way possible. And these are proven strategies that will help you grow exponentially. So stay tuned for this one. And thank you, John. Because I'm telling you, I've never seen anyone write this many books and be that busy. I don't know how you do it. Like, is ChatGPT like writing your books at this point?

• 3:08Speaker 00

  No, no, I was writing before ChatGPT was even around. My wife will often ask me advice for her posts, and she calls me John GPT.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Really?

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I've been writing for a long time. When I started writing in 2006, this book, The Energy Bus, came to me on a walk. And I didn't even know I could write a story, but I got a vision for this story. And I sat down, and I just started writing this book. And in three and a half weeks, I was done. And again, I didn't know I could write a story, but I did. It was rejected by 30 publishers.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  But eventually, a publisher took it on John Wally and Sons. It came out, and after five years, it became a bestseller. And

• 3:45Speaker 01

  After five years?

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Took five years.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  To become a bestseller?

• 3:48Speaker 00

  A lot of habits and hustle.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I love that. Okay, wait, before we even go into the, because I want to talk about the Energy Bus, because that's like a massive hit. We gotta do these shots for Magic Mind, okay? This will keep you, John, super focused and very alert. Okay, these are

• 4:02Speaker 00

  No, it says Magic Mind. Is this something I should be concerned about?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Like magic mushrooms?

• 4:07Speaker 01

  No, it's not magic. It's basically Ashwagandha, lion's mane. It's just gonna be keeping you, it basically helps people like stay focused, and it's basically performance-based. And this is why I want to do it with you, because you are like the king of all high performance. So how do I not do this shot with you?

• 4:26Speaker 00

  All right.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Okay, let's do it. Ready? Cheers.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  This one's also caffeine-free. It's good, right?

• 4:34Speaker 00

  It's very good.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Love it.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  That's good, right? So now you're gonna be super locked in. And I want to hear all about this Energy Bus, because that was your, is that kind of what put you on the map?

• 4:45Speaker 00

  It did.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  When that book came out, people started reading it, and not a lot initially.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  But those that did, started to bring me in to speak. And then after that, I got more and more speaking engagements from that. Sports teams, corporations.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  All from that one book. What were you doing before that? Because let's go back to the beginning, because, because to become now, like, you are like a very, you're like the, one of the OGs in speaking, like

• 5:12Speaker 00

  In leadership.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  In leadership. Like, you know, people know Tony Robbins, obviously.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  And you have other ones that kind of, kind of sprout up here and there. But I'd like to know how you're like, what your background is to even become, to get to that place.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  I only think one guy, probably John Maxwell, has worked with more organizations, more teams.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  That was the guy I was thinking of.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  More companies.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  More school districts. But I don't even think John has worked with as many school districts and sports teams as I have. So

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 5:38Speaker 00

  I've reached a lot of leaders over the years, in terms of just going to work with their leaders, their organizations, their teams. And so it started with, with me actually struggling and figuring out what, what I needed to do with my life, because I lost my job during the dot-com crash. In my twenties, I was an entrepreneur. And I opened up a Mo's Southwest Grill franchise in my early thirties, because I literally lost my job during the dot-com crash. I put these investors together.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Had 100,000 shares, thought I was gonna make my fortune, and the company went south, went bankrupt.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  So then you just thought, so one day, you're like, I'm just gonna write this book, Energy Bus?

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Well, what happened was, I lost, lost the job, and I'm like, what am I gonna do with my life? How am I gonna support my family?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  And I was, I was really struggling. And I was being really negative to my wife. And she had enough of my negativity. She said, if you don't change, we're over. Because she was gonna leave. I had to change. I wanted to stay married. And so I began researching ways I could be more positive during that time, because I was naturally negative, miserable, negative, mad, sad. I'm 100% Askinazijiu. So I was born with anxiety.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you said that earlier.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  And like, exactly. And like, basically, you're probably like nervous a lot.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, anxious and stressed.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  And so I lose my job.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Pessimistic, critical.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Oh, now I call myself a pessimistic optimist.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Right. So I don't know how to pay the bills. And I don't know what I'm gonna do next, but I know I want to be more positive. So I began researching ways I could be more positive. I began writing about what I was doing. I began a weekly positive tip. And I had five subscribers at the time, my mother, my brother. And this was before there was social media.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  I had one of the first e-newsletters out there, using Constant Contact to send my newsletter out. And again, people were reading it and then started to share it. And that's what got me doing this work. Next thing you know, I started writing books, and I wrote The Energy Bus in 2006. But I gotta say, you know, in my twenties, I was a mover and shaker. I opened up a bar, 24 in Buckhead, Atlanta, when I was, when I was young, 24. I was very involved in the community and nonprofit organization I started called The Phoenix Organization. We raised money for youth-focused charities. So I always had the mind of an entrepreneur. So when I became a writer and speaker, for me, it was like, okay, I had this mind of an entrepreneur, a former athlete. So I naturally fit in terms

• 8:03Speaker 00

  of speaking and writing to business people.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  But how do you become a speaker like that? Because again, like, if you haven't done it before, you write a book, okay, a lot of people can write a, like, a lot of people write books, doesn't make them a naturally gifted speaker.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Did you practice it? Like, because your big thing, like, when I was doing a lot of research on you, is like, they're actually comparing you with me a little bit in terms of like, our, well, yeah, because, well, not, not to the, not because I'm like you, but what I, it was more about messaging. Like, I talk a lot about action and grit.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  And they're like, they're like, you talk, and then they're like, John talks a lot about the power of positivity, positivity, and like, what it takes in a, in a, in a, you know, how culture is so important. It trumps talent. It trump, so like, you know how that happens when you start like going down the AI tracks? And I always, I found it interesting, and I wanted to ask you, because where did this mess, is it because you were a naturally more negative or pessimistic person that you kind of, you know, kind of really kind of doubled down on the positivity train in a way, you know, you know, kind of to, to be one of the success skills that made you who you are? Like, how did you kind of go from

• 9:19Speaker 00

  I think it's so ironic that this is my life's work.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Because I am naturally negative.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  So I had to work at being positive. And as I began doing it myself, that quest to get better myself led to a mission to help others get better.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  And as I began writing about it and then speaking on it, I began seeing the impact it was having. Like, I was born to share this message on positivity, but not polyana posit.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Tell me what your message is.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  It's not polyana positive. It's not about seeing the world through rose colored glasses.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  It's knowing that you have the power to overcome the thorns. And it's not about ignoring reality. It's about maintaining optimism, belief and faith in order to create a better reality. It's knowing that there's gonna be a lot of adversity. There will be challenges. There'll be obstacles, but you have the resilience, the belief, the mindset to overcome. So for me, when I talk about positivity, it's a positive mindset that we have to have. And then that positive mindset helps you become a more positive leader. A more positive leader is better able to lead their team. And what happened was I initially was speaking a lot on positivity initially. And as I began working with all these different companies and organizations, I began to see leadership needed this more than anyone.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  And a leader needed to be able to transfer their belief, their optimism. A leader needed to develop the relationships of their, of their team to be able to be strong and united and connected. They needed to commit more to their team. So I began to see how these leaders needed to become a positive leader to make a greater impact. And I often say positive leadership is the competitive advantage. Like Alan Mulally, when he, when he turned around Ford, they were losing thirteen, fourteen billion dollars. He defined his leadership style as positive leadership. He was able to turn around the company because of his optimism, his resilience, his mindset. But also the way he led his team and built a great team. A negative leader will not build a great team.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  A pessimist will not change the world. It's the optimist that changes the world. When you're investing in companies and leaders, you want someone who believes they can actually change the world, but also will take the action in order to do it.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  So, so for me out there, it's this positivity mindset, leadership, then teamwork, a positive team, a positive culture, and of course, positive habits and action. It, it all goes hand in hand. And I've become an expert in culture, worked with so many organizations and teams. Actually have a whole culture building process. I sit down with a leader and I help them create their culture literally from scratch. If they don't have a culture, I'll help them create it from scratch. If they have one, I'll help them make sure that it's actually strong and the core values are what they really should be. Cause a lot of times they have these core values that are buzzwords.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  And a bunch of jargon, but they don't mean anything to anyone. So I could literally help someone create their core values, their culture from scratch. I'll do that. On the mindset side, I can help every leader, every team, every athlete perform at a higher level because I've been a, become an expert in, in the mindset. Cause it, there's a lot of books on mindset, but a lot of people don't understand how thoughts really work. So I also go into that from a mindset perspective.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  So how do, how do you know? So this is what I wanted to know. So like.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  How do I know these things?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  How do you know these things? You're not like a psychologist, right? You're, you're not, right? What, what's your degree in?

• 12:36Speaker 00

  My degree is in government and economics.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  And human ecology. And I have a master's in teaching. And the funny thing is, you know, it's so funny.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  You do have a master's in teaching?

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Okay, from Cornell?

• 12:46Speaker 00

  No, I have a, I have a degree from Cornell and a master's from Emory.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  In teaching.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  So you do, okay.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I taught for, I taught school for a year. I often joke when I speak to educators.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Really?

• 12:57Speaker 00

  And then I opened up a bar after that. So teaching drove me to open up a bar.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  But I could still, I still consider myself a teacher. Cause at heart, that's who I am. People say that I take complex subjects and topics and then make them simple and practical. They can act on. And that's what I, what I love to do. But no, I'm not a psychologist. And people say to me all the time, are you a psychologist? No, but it's amazing how many psychologists actually read my books.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Well, right.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  So many do and use them in their practice.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, you know, like sometimes it's also people just have a knack, a talent. And then you've honed it and crafted, you've obviously honed it over all these years. When you first started doing this thirty years ago.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  What, and what, were you speaking about different things than you're speaking about now? How has it evolved over the last?

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's such a great question. Well, talk about knack. My biological father is a psychotherapist and social worker. And he didn't raise me, but he's my biological father. And I coach and help a lot of people.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  And it's not therapy, but I take them from wound to healing. I really help them move from wound to healing. My brother is a chief marketing officer of a company and he also.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Which one? Do I know the company?

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Gallagher Basset.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  I don't know what that is.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  It's a subsidiary of Gallagher, the very large insurance company.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  You would know Gallagher, massive company. But he's a chief marketing officer for Gallagher Basset and they do a lot of great work. But he also is a coach, like he coaches leaders all the time in his work that he does. So it's funny, we both have that knack to, to do that. And so in many ways, um, I think life prepares you for the work that you're meant to do. But also spending time with leaders, also I have done a lot of research. And as I'm working and writing books, I'll get new ideas and I'll get new thoughts. And then sometimes I'll be walking and an idea will come to me. I was walking in Santa Monica a few years ago when the idea for the one truth came to me. And that book is revolutionary in terms of mindset.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  It, it teaches that everything comes down to connection and disconnection, connection and disconnection. And when you're connected, you'll be in a high state of mind. When you're disconnected, you're gonna be in a lower state of mind. The root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide. So when you're anxious, you actually feel separate and divided. All mental health disorders report feelings of isolation, disconnection and separation. When someone has trauma in their life, a neurological separation happens in their brain. There's a disconnection. Schizophrenia means split mind, bipolar, two poles. Everything comes down to disconnection. Now, connection, there's a, a feeling of oneness, of, of wholeness.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  And when you're connected, joy and peace and love. And what we saw during the pandemic, we saw people feeling very disconnected and isolated. And it's why they struggle with their mental health. Those who are able to feel connected spiritually, whatever your faith tradition is. But when you feel connected to the creator spiritually, connected to other people, connected to yourself, that's when you feel more whole, that's when you're happier, that's when you feel more joy and more powerful. So everything comes down to connection and disconnection. So it's a framework and I've had people to try to refute it. You can't. It came to me on a walk. I had the ideas, I was getting literally downloads, two circles. One circle has a thousand dots. The other circle has three dots. Which mind will perform at a higher level? The three dots, we know this, right?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Not the thousand, the thousand is a cluttered mind. Well, when you're disconnected, anxiety, it's a lot of clutter in your mind. When you have the three dots, that's a lot of clarity, a lot of focus, a lot of positivity. So anyway, that's, that's how it comes about. Like I'll get ideas, I'll get thoughts, I start to write them down, I start to test them. I get a call, talking to Sean McVay, the coach of the Rams. Sean, I got this idea that just came to me, want to talk to you about it. And I share it with him, he said, I love that. Met with Doc Rivers, the former coach of the Clippers. Sat down with Doc over there at Shutter's. We're sitting there, told him about the whole one truth and explained it to him. He goes, I see to my players, as you're talking about, I literally can see who has a high state of mind, who has a low state of mind. Yep, shared it with him. So I'll start sharing with the different coaches and leaders I know. And that's how things evolve. And again, I'll, I'll write a leadership book.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  It's based on my work over the years with all these leaders. And I see a pattern of how great leaders lead. And that becomes the book.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  That becomes a book. So basically, how did you get into all the sports? Not just teams, but like organizations. You do.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Multiple teams with the NFL, multiple teams with the MLB, multiple teams. Like, so like, what was your first? Like, and like, and I want to know what you talked about then and what your big thing. When people call you now to talk versus what they call you then about to talk.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Oh, you asked me earlier how things evolved for me.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you kind of like, and you didn't answer the question.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm gonna answer it right now.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm going back to it.

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Okay, I'm gonna answer it right now. How did things evolve? When I first started, you would love this, I started speaking about health and wellness and energy. Mental energy, physical energy, emotional energy and spiritual energy.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Okay, I like it so far.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  I was beginning on that. And every time I talked about like health tips, I felt like I was someone's mother telling them what to do.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  And I felt drained when I did it. But every time I talked about positivity and positive energy, I felt alive. When I talked about a positive mindset, like it just lit me up.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  And that's when I knew I'm gonna spend more time on the mental side of positivity and less time on physical tips, health and wellness. Even in the new book, The Power of Positive Habits, many of the tips and most of the tips are actual mental habits because thinking is a habit.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  But yeah, and by the way, I will say this, that the physical is just like, kind of like the byproduct. It's all mental.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Like I just did a, a TED talk, it's not even out yet, but it will be, about how I learned more in the gym than I did in my, in my, in my MBA program.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Love that.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Because it teaches you like fundamentals about mental strength and discipline and patience and all these things. So to me, the physical is just a manifestation of what's going on in the mental. And you have to do the mental first before kind of, you know, until it trickles down physically or vice. They both interplay.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  The reason why people do physical is to get to the mental strength. And the mental strength feeds into the ability to believe in yourself to do the physical.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Like if you walk every day and you exercise, that exercise is gonna make you feel so much better mentally.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. It helps you not only with focus cognitively, but it also, like you said, it just, it makes you, your mood enhancement. It's funny because in your new book, I'm reading through it and it's all these mental habits. And then it's like lift weights. And I'm like, huh? I'm like, whose book is this anyway? Because you see, it makes it, that is a habit. That is a, it helps in all these other areas.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Well, writing this book, it was great because I, I did a lot of research on physical habits. That we should be doing, that we're not doing, like squatting like a child.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  When I first started this, after writing the book, it's coming out like, oh, I better do some of these habits. I start squatting and I couldn't get past the chair.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  Like I couldn't go lower than the chair. Now I can go almost all the way to the ground. It's an amazing habit, doing that every day.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Everything you do.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Or the, or the dead hang. The dead hang is unbelievable for, for your back, for decompression, for your health. What a great habit. So a lot of the physical habits I put in there, I had to research, but I've been doing those habits now. Game changer in your life and they make you feel better. I feel younger now at fifty five than when I was at, in my forties.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Right, because you take your, now you're like taking.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  Physical.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  But the.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  You feel strong.

• 20:34Speaker 00

  And it goes hand in hand, lifting weights. I started lifting weights during the pandemic. Again, because I used to lift weights and I stopped for a while. I'm at a party, Ed Mylett's there.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I used, I heard, I saw this in the book. Yeah, yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  And I read, I wrote about it in the book, that's right. And, and I saw Ed and he was jacked and I'm like, I'm not jacked. I used to look like that. I'm like, I need to get back to that.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  He's probably on something.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  I, I'm not gonna say one way or if, because I really don't know. But I don't know, Ed, Ed works out a lot, so he, he really does take care of his body. But just seeing him jacked, I'm like, you know what? I need to get back to that. And I started lifting and I've been lifting ever since.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Ever since.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel so much better, so much stronger. So my initial start in this world was on physical health, wellness, mental health and wellness, emotional energy, spiritual energy. So this is almost like full circle, writing The Power of Positive Habits. It brought me back to my beginning and what I've been doing over the last twenty five, thirty years. And then putting them in one book that people could then use. So that's how I started and that's where I am now. Now, I'm gonna do other books going back towards.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I can't even imagine.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  I have fables I wanna write, but, but I knew I needed to write this book to share the collection of those habits. But that's how I got started. And then when I was working with all these different companies going there to speak on positivity, positive energy initially, I'm looking around and I'm like, wow, they're all jacked and excited. Like they're cheer, they're fired up, but leadership is not. Leadership is not looking very positive at all. They look lame. And one of the employees at one of the companies, I'm not gonna say who, came up to me and said, you know what, John? This is great, but our leaders are not here and they're not doing this and they need to. And right then and there, I made a decision, I'm gonna impact the leaders. Because leaders impact people, companies, organizations, families, communities, countries. I'm gonna impact leaders.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  And that was a decision I made intentionally. I said, I'm gonna start writing about that. And that's what led me to write The Power of Positive Leadership.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  I like that book.

• 22:35Speaker 00

  Carpenter, Carpenter's a great leadership book and all these different books on leadership. The Carpenter, you gotta read that. You'll love The Carpenters.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Tell me the main theme of that one.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  It's the greatest success principles of all and the greatest success strategies of all. There's three.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Okay, tell me.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  Love, serve and care. You love people. You love what you do. You serve to make a difference. You serve others. It's not about you. It's about serving to make an impact and it's about caring more. And I always tell people, don't focus on building your business. Focus on loving, serving and caring. And if you do that, your business will exponentially grow. And that's how I've grown my business. I love my clients. I love people. I go and serve them. It's not about me. It's about them and it's about caring more. When you care more, you stand out in a world that doesn't seem to care. But when you care, that is a success strategy.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  That's true. Caring is, I mean, you know, a lot of this is so, it resonates so much. Because especially in the world we live in now, when everything is based on, you know, we, AI can re, write an email, a, a PowerPoint, it can do a marketing plan, but there's zero connectivity and connection, right? And AI is not gonna make you laugh until you, until you cry, right? Like AI is not gonna make you feel something. I think now more than ever, it's more about connection and connectivity than ever before. And so when you talk so much and like your message is similar about, about, about that, right? Like people are craving connection versus disconnection.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  The, you know, you were saying, which you said something a couple of times about words and serving and all these things. And you gave a really good in, like way to kind of do it. And I think it's, I think it's one of your habits actually, is that pick a word.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Right? And focus on that word for the year. Can you talk a little bit about that?

• 24:27Speaker 00

  This is one of the best exercises that, that we teach and share. You pick a word for the year. One word that gives you meaning and mission, passion and purpose. One word that will drive you to be your best. And everyone usually has a different word. And I tell people, just ask for your word, word is, be open to it. Your word will come to you. There's a word that is meant for you. And when you find that word, or it finds you, you then decide to live that word for the year. Like my word is build this year. We're building a house. We're building our business. Building this whole focus on leadership development that we're doing. So it's build and every day I wake up, okay, we gotta build this. In years past, it's been purpose.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Another year, it was whole. I want to become more whole. Another year was still, just to spend more time in, in stillness and be still. Each year it's been a different word, but you do this with your team. You do this with your family where each person picks a word and then they share it with each other. And why they chose the word, here's the power. Why? Because the why behind it is what gives it meaning and power. So what is your word for the year and tell us why? And now we know you better. We know what's driving you. We know what your word is and now we can help you live your word for the year. There's a company I work with, Hendrick Auto, and their headquarters, they had a one word car with all of the words of all the employees on the car. As a reminder, every day they're walking into work to live their word for that day.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  And so like, like you said, you said that when you pick your word, you should just look up and it will come to you.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  What if it doesn't?

• 26:03Speaker 00

  It does.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  I, I, yesterday I was trying to figure out my word and I.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  You need a couple more days.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Having more, how, like how long should it take? I wanna know how long it takes to get the word. Because I mean, my, I, I, there were a few different words that came to mind. And then I kind of was like, I don't know about that word. Maybe that word, I don't know.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  So as a word comes to you, write it down. And then if the word comes to you, maybe it's this word, write it down.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Another word, okay, I'll write this down. And then you go, okay, what word is more important than the other words? Which word trumps the other word?

• 26:36Speaker 01

  And like your message is that by picking a word, not a fill in the blank, it does what? Like if you have just one word, not a.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, the one word is sticky. The one word allows you to focus. Every New Year's, people pick resolutions. The resolutions do not last.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Nine out of ten people fail with their resolutions and most people fail by the end of the first month. They don't even make it to February.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  But one word sticks and you'll live your word. You'll focus on your word. You can do your word. And it's like a word that is something that, I don't know, it comes to life as you live it. Like the year I picked serve, I had serve as my word. I said, okay, how can I put this into practice? And this is good for people listening. You pick your word, then decide how you're actually gonna put it into practice in your life.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  For me, serve more at home. So I began doing laundry at home. That was one way I knew I could serve.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Did that. And then on planes, when I was traveling, I would help people with their luggage. And so I would take their carry on and put it up in the overhead bin for them. I did that all the time. I still do it to this day when I'm, when I'm flying. Commercial. I will help people with their luggage.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Commercial?

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  How often do you fly private versus commercial?

• 27:46Speaker 00

  Mix your both, depends on the client.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  Depends on the client. So my, you know, if I'm doing a school district, you can't expect a school district to pay for, for private travel. Or would you want them to? But if it's a big old company, yeah, they'll, they'll fly your private. So it just depends.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  So, okay, so what do you, when you get hired by a sports team, what's typically the topic that they're hiring you for? Versus a corporation, like what are the top three things that people hire you to talk about?

• 28:11Speaker 00

  It's either power pots, the leadership, talking about leadership to be a better leader. Lately, it's been the seven commitments of a great team, which is one of my more recent books. I love that book, the seven commitments of a great team, because every team must make these commitments if they want to be great. So everyone on the team makes the commitment. And when they make the commitment to the vision and mission, the commitment to giving their best, the commitment to getting better, the commitment to each other, the commitment to connecting. When they, when they really live those commitments, man, you see this team come alive. We did it with UCLA women's basketball and Corey Close. I, I did the seven commitments with them before the season. And it was so cool to watch them and win a national championship.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  And Corey said, our team decided what our vision and mission was, and we committed to it as a team. So I love commitments because they're so tangible. So a lot of times I've been speaking on that more recently in the last couple of years. Before that, it was the power of positive team. What are the principles and practices that makes a great team great? So I'll talk about that. I'll talk about a culture of greatness, how to build a culture of greatness. I'll talk about the one truth, how to play with a high state of mind instead of a low state of mind. As I go to speak to more teams for this training camp coming up, I'm going to talk on the power of positive habits. I'm going to talk about habits that will elevate you, your career and your performance. So I'll talk about that. So over the years, it's been different topics,

• 29:40Speaker 00

  but I love doing it. And I, I love speaking to sports teams because when you go in there, you're talking to the best of the best, and they still want to get better. And if you can say one thing that will help you, help them get better, they're going to listen. They're going to follow. If you can't help them get better, you're wasting their time. So you gotta go in there knowing, okay, I'm here to help them get better. And I'm going to say something that's going to help them get better. It's not about you, it's about making them better. And when you do that and you watch them like tune in and listen, and you know you made a difference, you said something that truly is going to impact them, no better feeling. And then you see it on the field, and you see that team rise to a higher level. I worked with the Jaguars last year to watch that team come alive, to, to, to make it to the playoffs, to transform this city.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  They were like a different team, a different organization, a different culture. That coach, William Cohen, did such an amazing job. That organization did an incredible job. So working with them and then seeing the fruit of that is an incredible feeling.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Do you do one offs or are you kind of like a huge, like are you like a high performance coach?

• 30:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's, it's more, it's more coaching and one offs.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Do you go in multiple times? Like when they hire you?

• 30:51Speaker 00

  It all depends. So sometimes it's, it's one talk to a team during training camp.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Other times it's a series of talks and coming back and working with the team. Other times it's I'm coaching the actual coach and I'm working with the coach. And I can't say who I've coached, but I've coached a number of, of championship winning coaches, which has been, which has been awesome. When Dave Roberts got the job with the Dodgers, I met with Dave and worked with Dave to help him build his culture and his leadership. Again, I'm not working with him now, but early on, those first three, four years, we worked a lot and to watch him do what he's done has been incredible. I love Dave Roberts. So that was multiple visits. Other times it's speaking engagement, other times it's coming, working with the team,

• 31:38Speaker 00

  working with the coaching staff, working with the leaders of the organization. I can have the greatest impact when I work with everyone in the organization from the top down.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  And sometimes I'll work with a president, a GM and the coach to make sure they're aligned.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  So just the three people? So then it's not really, so it's not really a speaking gig?

• 31:57Speaker 00

  No, that's more consulting, coaching and helping them become more united. Again, what happened was I started as a speaker. I really started out just speaking. Then you're in, you're seeing what the issues are. And I have a consultant mind, right? I'm here to solve problems. So then I start to see what the challenges are. I start to come up with solutions. I wrote the no complaining rule. I wrote difficult conversations don't have to be difficult. How do we deal with negativity on our teams and our organizations? How do we build a great culture?

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  How do we deal with a toxic employee? How do, how do we deal with people who are focused on their own agendas instead of the agenda of the team? So you start to see all the issues.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Questions I have for you today.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Okay. And like you just basically just did the podcast. I want to know all of those because I think it's very important in terms of people who are, how does a leader become a better leader? What is the number one skill set that they need to improve?

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Such a great question. The number one skill set on how to be a better leader. I believe it starts with, with you becoming more whole for yourself and within yourself. Because when you're more whole, when you've dealt with your issues, when you've healed your wound, you become a leader who can heal others and help others. And you have greater moral authority when you are someone who's actually dealt with your issues and your challenges in your past, and you've healed your past. That's why forgive fast.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Is one of my favorite habits because you can't lead someone if you haven't forgiven them.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Right. But if someone, I, I agree with you, but let me say this. So like if I'm a leader and I need a lot of help because I'm just not connecting to my, you know, I, in my, in my opinion, everything comes from the, from the top down, right? So if you have a shitty leader, you're going to have a shitty culture and all the things, right?

• 33:41Speaker 00

  It all starts with your leadership.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  With your leadership, right? So if someone is having, like what if they just don't have, uh, if they are not good at connecting, what's the first thing that you do when you go in? Like what do you try to get that leader to be better at?

• 33:56Speaker 00

  Okay. So the power of positive leadership really explains what you're asking in terms of how do you become a better leader? First and foremost, you focus on your own positive mindset.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  So are you negative or positive? And how can you start feeding yourself every day?

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  In order to feed others. So you're doing that. You're working on your positive mindset. And we have practical strategies for that. One of the habits in the book is become your own greatest encourager. Encourage yourself through the challenges. Don't beat yourself up. Don't get down. Don't get negative. You stay positive. It sounds, it sounds cliche and Pollyanna. No, you stay positive, you stay resilient. So that's one thing you need to do as a leader. Then you have to have a vision and mission. Where are you going and why are you going there? And you really have to be walking.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  And living that vision and mission. Then you can rally your team towards it. But if you don't have one, they will not follow you. And if you're not someone they want to follow, they won't follow you. So that goes to being a person of integrity as well. You have to make sure you are living with integrity and being a person of integrity, which means what? What you say and what you do are in alignment. There's no gap in your character and there's no gap between what you say and then what you do. Okay. The next step in this leadership framework is I gotta build great relationships, which you just asked. How do you build great relationships? How do you get your team to want to follow you? Four Cs, four Cs, communication, connection, commitment and caring.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  So first, it starts with great communication. Are you communicating with your team? And this is where a lot of leaders struggle. Because they don't, and sometimes I don't, I gotta take the blame here as well. We don't communicate well. Why? We're so busy.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  And we're so stressed. We're so focused on just trying to get through the day that we don't take the time to communicate the things that matter most with the people that matter most. Where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it. So we have to make sure we are filling the void with great and clear communication, with clarity. Clarity leads to focused action. So are you providing clarity? Are you communicating? And by the way, communication, the word shares the same etymology as commune, community, or communion, which means to join with. So leadership is about joining with, becoming one. So we should communicate to connect.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  You know, I, I keep on going back to this whole culture beats strategy.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  Love it.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Idea, because it's such an important thing. And if you look at companies that are really thriving, they all have a very specific corporate culture, right? And so if you have someone who joins the company and they don't fit that culture, chances are they're not going to stay very long, right? Is there a strategy to build culture?

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Yes, there is. And that's what I've been doing actually. And create a culture building process.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  That's hard. How do you build culture?

• 36:53Speaker 00

  You have to first identify what your core values are.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you first develop what the core values are.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  And your vision and mission. So where are we going? Why are we going there? And what are our core values? What do we stand for? Now here's a really cool culture hack that I haven't shared with a lot of people. I'm going to share with you and this would be great for your listeners to hear. This is how you actually create a great culture with great core values. You ask yourself, what are the characteristics that we're looking for? And the people that we want to hire to bring onto and into our company and our organization? What are their characteristics? As you think about those characteristics, those are actually your core values. Because you want people who represent your core values and live and believe and breathe your core values.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Well, when you bring on people who have those core values, that's your core value. So you might as well create those as your core values. So I'll ask a leader, tell me what your core values are. And they'll tell me them. And then I ask them the question, tell me about the characteristics you want and the people you're bringing into your organization. And I'll see if they're aligned. If they're not aligned, I'll show them and explain this to them. And then they go, ah, I got it. And then they realize, okay, I gotta, I gotta actually probably recreate and relook at my core values. And then also. This is the big one. What's your core values? What's the essence of you? When I work with a leader, it's like, what's the essence of you? What do you stand for? What matters most to you?

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Because when you can live your authentic self and your core values every day, that culture is gonna come alive.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  If you're picking words that actually have nothing to do with you, that you don't care about, that you're not gonna live as the leader, that culture will not be created well. Cause it's actually not authentic and it's not a part of you. It doesn't represent your essence. Culture is the living, breathing essence of what an organization values, believes, thinks, says and does. So it starts with what you value, what you believe, what you think, what you say, what you do, you're the leader. Then leadership team. Do we value this? Do we believe this? Do we think this? Do we say this? Do we do this? And then your organization, you bring people on who value that, believe that, think that, say that and do that. That's how you create a culture. You want diversity of people, but you don't want diversity of values. Remember that.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Hmm. That's a really good point. I like that. Also, you said that leaders need a microscope and a telescope.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Yes, that goes to the vision and mission. So, once you create your vision and mission, pull your telescope. What's the big picture vision and mission of where we're going? And then zoom focus. What do we need you to do each day to bring that vision and mission to life? Cause a lot of times we have the big picture vision and mission, but we're not executing on a daily basis. And there's a lot of leaders with great visions and great missions, but they're not great in operations.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  And they don't have a team to actually execute in the zoom focused way. You gotta do both. And I gotta tell you to be honest, that's my biggest struggle. I'm a visionary. I got a big vision. I have a team and I find myself going, okay, guys, we gotta make sure we're zoom focusing. And what I realized is I need people around me who are great on the zoom focus side, cause that's not my greatest struggle. It is for myself.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  But, you know, we're visionaries and then we're moving on. So we need strong operation teams to do great work.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  That's a hundred percent true. So that's hard, right? Because a CE, like if you're a founder of a company, typically they are visionaries and they're not necessarily operators. So what is someone supposed to do? They're supposed to hire an operator?

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, the visionary must hire an integrator who is going to be able to run and operate the company. You need a second in command that can run things for you.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Is there a difference in the talk you would give to a sports team versus a leadership team?

• 40:35Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  A C-level team at a business?

• 40:37Speaker 00

  They might include some of the same principles.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  They might include the same commitments. Like I've done seven commitments for corporate, very successful companies. And I've done seven commitments to a professional football team. Same seven commitments talk. But principle, story, application. This is how people should give talks, by the way. This is a great way to give a talk. Principle, story, application. You share the principle. Then you tell a story that brings the principle to life and makes them feel. So my sports story is gonna be different than my business story.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  And then.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  That's the hardest part.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  And then how does it apply to you? And how do you apply it? PSA, I'll call it, by the way. PSA, principle, story, application. I have a framework. We actually give this framework away to people who want it.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  I love that. Cause that's like, it's hard. Like I always find it difficult, the story part, right? Cause are you pulling stories from yourself? Or are you pulling stories for something else? Like.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  It's a mixture. And I, you know, you're a great speaker. And by the way, yeah, when I, when my name comes up, your name comes up a lot as well. Isn't that cool?

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 41:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, you, yeah, it, it, it comes up. You collect stories. I think it's one of the most important things you can do as a speaker and as a leader is to collect stories and have different stories that bring different principles to life. And I'm always looking for different stories. And a lot of times life will give you new stories to tell. Like a lot of those are in this book. Like as I wrote this book, I was thinking of the habits. And I'm like, all right, what story is gonna make this habit compelling and bring it to life? And people have told me like, this book is really engaging and very compelling. And it's a quick read.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Cause it's easily, for that reason, it's easy. Cause it's that you can follow it fast, like squat like a child or.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  It's a quick habit, but it's also a quick story that like tells you why this is important and also makes you wanna read more of it.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  The what, there's a, cause there's a bunch of habits in it that I was like, I, I talk about this all the time. Like have a hat, like you talk about this about having a habit before the habit.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Right? Cause this is where people get so stuck. Like, and you, and I love, of course, I resonated with me because you're talking about a fitness kind of situation story, right? Like if you wanna work out, you gotta have your clothes out the night before and all these things, you know?

• 42:46Speaker 00

  Right. So you, so you would, if you were teaching this habit.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  To go back to what we were talking about.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  You're teaching this habit, you would then tell the habit. And then you'd say, oh, there was one time where I didn't put my stuff out. And here's what happened.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  And it's a funny story about searching for the thing and it's dark and you hit your head on the counter or whatever.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  That would be a funny story at that event to tell about that habit. And then to apply to them. If I'm talking to a football team, so make sure when you're in your locker, you put your stuff out ready before you go out to the game and you have all your stuff aligned. Or you put your cleats on and make sure they're tied well, just like John Wooden would say, to make sure that you're tying your shoes cause you don't wanna get blisters. And then.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Did you ever talk, did you ever speak with him?

• 43:26Speaker 00

  Never got a chance to talk to, to John Wooden. But, uh, but Corey Close was very close with him. I know people that were, heard amazing stories. But yeah, I've learned a lot from John Wooden. But I would tell that story. Or you would tell the story to a, a business audience. You would say, hey, the habit before the habit. If you wanna send a video to your clients, like three clients a day, just to encourage them, to say hello to them, to connect to them, write down the name of the three people that you're gonna do the next day. And when you wake up, you already have the list of the three. It's gonna be easier to do those videos.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  So I just shared an application for that audience.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. But I, I think, well, I, I think it's a very important thing because otherwise people get very, that's when people fail.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  The start is always in like, the failing is always before the, the actual thing, right? Because you, you, things will happen. You'll get like sidetracked. Like I always say, like, I don't, I'm, I would do not allow myself to do anything before I do this particular thing. Like before I do anything, I have to drink my water with lemon. Before I do anything else, like my, everything has to have like a non-negotiable.

• 44:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Before to get the other thing done.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  It removes friction.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  It removes friction.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Remove the friction. And you're more likely to do the habit. That's why it's actually, is it the first habit in the book? Yes, the first habit in the book is to, the habit before the habit.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  That's why I liked it.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Cause it's like, it's a great way to start. What habit did you forget? Or you wish you would have put in the book that you didn't?

• 44:52Speaker 00

  You know, I've been thinking about this a lot lately cause there's a habit, I keep kicking myself, like, why did you not put this in the book? And it's the habit to actually get rid of your worst habit. Cause that worst habit is what will ruin your life. These are habits that will elevate your life, but that worst habit will ruin your life. And if you have this worst habit and you're still doing it, it's really hard to replace it with positive habits if you still have the worst habit. So I should've said, get rid of your worst habit. Whatever it is, we all have one. Do you have yours?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yes, we all have.

• 45:22Speaker 00

  I have one, we gotta get rid of our worst habit. I knew you were gonna ask me that. I've been trying to think about my worst habit, cause I don't like.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  And don't lie, don't give me your like, you know, you know, the, the, the kind of like PC one. Oh, you know, I work too hard, baloney. I wanna know your worst habit.

• 45:37Speaker 00

  I just, I'm just, my worst habit is I'm, I care about people too much.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Oh, but don't.

• 45:41Speaker 00

  No, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  I'm totally kidding.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  What's your, what's your worst habit?

• 45:45Speaker 00

  You know, I was thinking about it, cause I don't gamble. I'm not a big drinker at all.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  I don't eat like poorly. I don't watch porn. I'm not a porn guy. I don't watch TV a lot.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  I mean, I would say one of my worst habits is I probably watch too much sports and, and.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Oh, this is such nonsense.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  No, because no, if you watch too much sports, it can keep you from being your best.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  And I probably, probably eat too much, too many potato chips. Cause I love potato chips, but I haven't.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Those are your, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Those are your worst habits. You eat too many potato chips.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  My daughter, my daughter gives me a hard time. My daughter says like, my dad is so disciplined. Greek yogurt is his dessert right now.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, so I'm thinking about my worst, like, if I had to pick a worst, worst habit, it would be more on the spiritual side. Like my worst habit, I think at times, you know, there's too much pride. If I have a worst habit, I, you know, will.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Focus sometimes more on, you know, numbers than than impact. You know, even though I'm really big on impact, I'll sometimes let the numbers get the best of me. Like, my worst habit is probably scrolling on social media and looking at social media and going, you know, like, you know, like, like, like, oh, I need to be doing this. I should be doing this. I should be doing that.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  I was gonna ask that.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  That might be like one of my worst habits and and lately what I've been saying with that, though, is, you know, I know it's a bad habit because I'm scrolling and getting frustrated because the algorithm, like trying to figure out the algorithm is just driving me nuts.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  What's on your algorithm?

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Like, no, like, the algorithm in terms of like.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  And what's on it, though? Like, when you're on your social?

• 47:19Speaker 00

  What keeps on showing up for me?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  A lot of pizza.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, pizza and chocolate chip cookies because I do love chocolate. Although I can't eat them because I'm allergic to eggs. So I can't eat chocolate chip cookies. So, so, but I've been seeing a lot of, and a lot, a lot of leadership stuff, I guess, will come up. A lot of spiritual stuff will come up for me. I'm a faith driven guy, so a lot of sermons will come up. So I'll see a lot of those.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Who are the other people in your field that you look up to or think that do a really good job?

• 47:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's, um, you know, I have, I have colleagues that I really, really have befriended in this space. And there's others that, you know, I, I'm not a fan of, and there's others that I think are doing a great job. Like, Ed Mylett is a good friend of mine. I think Ed is, is really a powerful speaker and Ed just, just shares his heart. I've been with him and just watching.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  He's a good speaker.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Watching him move the audience, you know, really inspires me. I think Dan Martell is doing a great job on social media, especially just sharing the concepts he's sharing and teaching what he's teaching. I said I'm a person of faith. Josh Howerton is doing a great job on social media, sharing a lot of faith messages, watching him do that and sharing that. One of my mentors was Ken Blanchard, and that's not a social media guy, but he, he wrote The One Minute Manager. And he made me want to do this work. So he's, he's definitely one of my heroes.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  What's his main, main thesis?

• 48:41Speaker 00

  The One Minute Manager was to catch people doing things right. It's one of the habits in the book. If you catch people doing things right, they will do more things right. So The One Minute Manager is to recognize and praise someone in that minute. And it sold like 20 million copies.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was written in the seventies and he's now eighty, he's now eighty seven.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Right. So instead of catching someone do something poorly and, and be like, aha, catch someone doing right because they, there is like a lot of research backing that, right? If you, if you, if you praise people there and validate them, they'll do more.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  More good work versus the opposite. The carrot stick analogy, right?

• 49:26Speaker 00

  You know, the whole idea is if you want people to do more things right, then praise them for what they're doing right. And the more you praise them, they'll actually do it more and more. We think we have to correct, but actually the praise and the recognition causes them to do it more and more. And I gotta say, like, as a, as a parent of two kids, when my kids were younger, I did not do that early on. And I, I really almost messed my daughter up in terms of her athletic career. I had to step back and then come back to be an encourager and a recognizer and appraiser. It made all the difference in our relationship and she's speaking now. She's now twenty eight years old and she speaks all over. There's no way she would have wanted to do this work if I had stayed that way.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  So what would be your advice if someone is not doing a good job? And they are, like, you can't praise somebody if they're lazy or, like, quite honestly, like, bad at their job. Right? Like, like, there's a whole, like, let's be honest, like, this generation is lazier. They're coddled more. They don't want to work. I can go on and on. Like, do you know how many people I know, how many friends I have? We, it's like, it's so hard to find somebody who's really, really hardworking these days.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  Okay, so there's three reasons why they're not doing a good job. One, leadership is not training and developing them.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Two, they don't have the capacity. They don't have the skill and they need it. And three, they just don't want to. And if they don't want to, you gotta let that person go. You gotta let them off the bus. You give them a chance to get on, but if they don't get on, you have to let them off. I want people who are committed. I got five Cs that people should use when hiring people. And you said it earlier, culture fit is one of them. They have to have culture fit. They have to have the right character. Do they have character? Are they gonna be honest? Do they have integrity? Do they have competence? Do they have the skill? Are they committed? We talked about this earlier. You gotta be committed and I want people who are committed and willing to do the work.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  And they gotta be a coffee bean. And if you're a coffee bean, guess what? You're gonna be a great employee and you're gonna be someone who's gonna make a difference.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  What do you mean coffee bean?

• 51:37Speaker 00

  I knew you were gonna ask that. What is a coffee bean? Take a carrot and you put that carrot into boiling hot water. What happens to the carrot? It gets softened. It gets weakened in the environment. You take an egg and you put that into boiling hot water. What happens to the egg?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Softened.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  No, actually gets hardened. Hard boiled eggs.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Oh, I guess, well, I think if you, okay, fine, you're right. Yes, yes. Okay, fine.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  It gets hardened.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  All right, all right.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  So you have, you have hard boiled eggs and you have the carrot getting weakened and mushy, both being affected by the environment. Life is like a big pot of boiling hot water. We don't want to be the egg. We don't want to be the carrot. We want to be the coffee bean. You take that coffee bean and you put that into boiling hot water. Even if it's not ground up, within an hour, it will actually make coffee. It will transform the water. So you want people who will transform their environment but not be impacted by their environment. They will be people who transform environments. They transform companies and organizations. You're a coffee bean. Wherever you go, you make a difference. You impact that organization. You impact those people.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  So you want to hire coffee beans, people who believe that they could actually impact the people around them and transform them. This is a transformative concept. I just shared it the other day with a bunch of educators, school leaders in Florida. And I shared this one concept at the end with them and they were like, their eyes open. You have the power to transform your school district, to transform your school, your community. Every day, go out and do it. You want people then who believe they can and who will go and do it.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Did you think of this whole coffee bean analogy?

• 53:12Speaker 00

  So what happened, this is really cool. I wrote a book called The Coffee Bean with Damon West. Damon West was in prison and he learned the lesson from another prisoner who said, Wes, be a coffee bean, after teaching him how this all works. Transform the prison. Don't let it transform you. Don't get all those tattoos. Don't get into any hate groups. Don't become a person that your mother doesn't recognize. Damon West was sentenced to sixty five years in prison for getting addicted to meth and then burglarizing homes and created a whole crime ring in Dallas, Texas.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  So Damon West gets out after seven years and then is on parole for life. But gets out in seven years. Why? Because he transformed the prison he was in. He became a coffee bean. So what does Damon do? He's a former college football player. He starts speaking to college teams. Dabo Sweeney at Clemson Football had Damon come and speak and Damon did a coffee bean talk. I'm there speaking in Clemson and Dabo says to me, we just had this guy, Damon West, talk about the coffee bean. He's like, man, incredible story, incredible message. And the minute he said that to me, I had a visual of a cover of a book called The Coffee Bean. And as he's telling me about it, I'm like, this is what I teach. We create from the inside out.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Because for years I was teaching the powers within you to create the world outside of you. And the coffee bean was the perfect analogy for that. So I reached out to Damon. I said, Damon, hey, we should do this book called The Coffee Bean. And he goes, you're John Gordon. You didn't do the book with me. You can do it on your own. I'm a nobody. I said, Damon, we're supposed to do this book together. I see your name on it and we should do this book together. And I'm gonna give you half of my royalties and half of my advance. I don't know why, but I was just led to it.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  It's so great.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  I did it. I did it. And Damon tells the story all the time now. Damon has spoken to millions of people now. He does this every day, like, he speaks almost every day to a different group. He goes into prisons. He goes into companies. He goes into sports teams, goes into organizations. So now both of us are out there speaking all over, sharing that coffee bean message. And he's had such a transformative impact on so many groups. One group, which is really cool. It's a school district in Bravard County. They gave the coffee bean to five thousand sixth graders. Five thousand sixth graders, they gave the book to me because it's a very short read. It has illustrations, it's pictures in the book. It's a short book. You can read it in twenty minutes.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  So they gave it to all their kids. Suicidal ideation went down. Visits to counselors went down. Problems at the school went down. They actually got funding and they actually presented to the governor of Florida what they did at their school district with this foundation. And they had incredible transformation and impact with that. So if Damon and I don't get together, this doesn't happen. And it was a meant to be situation. When you really think about how cool that is. So Coffee Bean, Damon West, big shout out to him. But again, I gave him, I gave him half my advance. And the cool part of that, I know is a God thing. Why? Because when Damon got that money and gave it to his parents, he owed his parents fifty thousand dollars for their

• 56:32Speaker 00

  legal fees. That's what I had given him actually is my, the other half of the advance. The advance was a hundred thousand. And I gave him fifty thousand and he went and did that. And now the book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Oh yeah, hundreds of thousands.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  How many, how many books do you typically sell per book? Like I know that Energy Bus was three million, but like what was the other one?

• 56:51Speaker 00

  For all the books, it's been about six and a half million right now and growing, you know? For me, it's not about selling books. As an author, you know, you don't make a lot of money on books. It's about impact. It's about people reading those books and making a difference. But each book depends, I mean, Power Positive Leadership is several hundred thousand. The Carpenter is several hundred thousand. The No Complaining Rule is seven hundred thousand, but The One Truth might be at seventy thousand right now. And I'm hoping that reaches more people because it's such an impactful book. So, so you know, each book I would say definitely gets over a hundred thousand.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so could you say something about like you're, you're writing, you have another five books in you to write or? How do you spend the majority of your time? Is it speaking?

• 57:28Speaker 00

  It's mostly speaking and now it's been running our company, our leadership development company. We have a certified positive leader program. We're actually developing leaders. So we've been doing that a lot now. How do we do that? Through our, through our program. So we have master classes. We have coaching. We have our portal where they come in. They have all these tools and resources to be a better leader. And every month there's a master class on different topics. I do a quarterly mentorship with the group. It's almost like a university in a sense. I've created actually John Gordon's Positive Leadership Institute. And our whole goal is to develop positive leaders who make a positive impact in every business, school, team, organization and community to create a more positive world. And that's what we're focused on now. So, so I have this team.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  I have this group of trainers. I have a group of certified trainers. We have our marketing team. We have our operations team. So I find myself a lot now running, running the company, but I really have to do find a second in command. I really do. I have a great marketing guy now. He's, he's awesome. I love him. But I need to find probably someone who's going to be a second in command for our future to really take this to the next level.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Next level. How much more levels could you have? I mean?

• 58:36Speaker 00

  This level, well, you know, for the past twenty years, it's been me writing and speaking, doing what I do. So that level's at the highest it could be. But I always believe I can grow. I always believe I can get better. So I, I say highest it can be. I mean, I'm at that level, but I want to go even higher to get, you know, get even better, grow even more. But for this, this is a new venture. So this has a lot of room to grow because it's something I'm growing with my daughter. My son's involved. My wife's involved. Like we're all involved.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  It's a family affair, basically.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  It's really a family thing that we're focused on. My daughter runs a certified positive leader program. Now my son is in sales on the sales side. And together, like it's about living this mission every day. Cause the idea is that, you know, there are a lot of leaders out there who don't know how to lead. And they don't have the tools and they don't have the training and they're put into these positions by companies and yet they don't know how to lead. And a lot of companies will not spend money on training programs. So we made ours very affordable for these people to actually come through our program to develop. Harvard is like forty to fifty thousand dollars to go through our program. Ours ranges from nine ninety seven, five thousand to our highest is ten thousand dollars. Forty to fifty thousand dollars for a leadership program to join Harvard to learn how to be a leader, like an executive leadership program.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  No, just the university is, is like eighty to a hundred.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Seventy five thousand a year. Yeah. But you're right. That executive program is about fifty, fifty, sixty.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, forty, fifty, sixty thousand. Ours maximum ten thousand. And I know our program, literally it will be more effective and has been more effective in terms of developing leaders to give them practical tools to go lead their teams. Cause we're all about principles which inform and practices that transform.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  I love that. Okay, ready? I'm going to give you some rapid fire questions. You ready? Rapid fire, meaning like one or two sentences. You ready?

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  Are you saying I'm long winded?

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Maybe. No, I'm joking. I'm just joking.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  We met and she, we just met and she said, we, we, it's like we've known each other.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like I've known you for a hundred years already. Okay. Okay. First question. If you could put one sentence on a billboard, what would it say?

• 1:00:38Speaker 00

  Stay positive.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Stay positive. Okay. What's one conversation that changed your life?

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Wow. The conversation I had with my wife when she threatened to leave and if I did not change, I would not be who I am today. You know you're with the right person when they give you strength.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Who believed in you before you believed in yourself?

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  Tony Chiase in ninth grade. He encouraged me to go out for the lacrosse team. I tried to quit. I couldn't catch and throw. He said, you're not quitting. One day you're going to play in college. One day you're going to play in the Ivy League. I would go out to play lacrosse at Cornell University. Neither of my parents actually graduated from college. And so I never knew even what Cornell was or what the Ivy League was. But he believed in me and he changed my life.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Because he believed in you?

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, because he, he said, I'm in ninth grade. One day you're going to play in college. One day you're going to play in the Ivy League. And I go to play at Cornell University and that experience truly changed my life going there. Man, Tony Chiase.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Can positivity be learned?

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  Yes. I believe it can be learned and it can be developed. We could all become a better version of ourselves, a more positive version of ourselves. And I'm living proof. Proof, because I'm naturally negative. So you can actually rewire your brain from negative to positive. And you can develop. It's like a muscle that you can develop and you can learn it by doing strategies and techniques to help you with more resilience and optimism and belief.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  So, because in my, it's in, in, in my brain, I think everything could be a skill. Likability could be a skill. Boldness is a skill. This is what I talk about.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  I agree with you.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  I think positivity could be a skill too.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  It is a skill.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  You practice, like anything else. You want to be better at lacrosse, you practice lacrosse. If you want to be better at being bold, you practice being bold. If you want to be a better karate, you know, you get the gist. You can also practice being more positive.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Our leadership training, we have people write down their negative thoughts. And then we have them write down their positive thoughts. And we say, when the negative thought comes in, you replace it with that positive thought. Talk to yourself. Don't listen to yourself. That is a habit and a skill you can do on a daily basis. And the more you do that, you will actually develop a stronger mindset, more mental toughness and more resilience. Talk to yourself. Don't listen. It's a skill.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  First of all, you put that in the book, right? That's a habit. That's a positive habit.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  One of my favorite habits. It changed my life through that habit.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  I have that highlighted. Don't, like, basically it says you can talk to yourself, but don't listen to yourself.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Right. Don't listen to all those negative thoughts coming in.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  But talk to yourself. A hundred percent. I love that. That's so true.

• 1:03:08Speaker 00

  Well, here's the deal, Jen. Negative, negative thoughts are going to come in. But when they come in, do you agree with them or do you discount them? Negative thoughts are lies that will tell you things about yourself and your future that just aren't true. And I ask people all the time, this question, do your negative thoughts come from you? And people say, yeah, they're in my head. But here's the next question. If you believe that, who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Would you ever choose a negative thought? If it's coming from you, why would you choose that negative thought? You wouldn't. It comes in. It comes in so fast. We believe it. You're not the thoughts you think. You're the thoughts you believe. So only believe the positive thoughts. And if the negative thought comes in, talk to yourself with a word that you do believe, an encouragement that you believe, and then move forward. And if you don't believe it, keep encouraging yourself until you do.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  What's more important, optimism or discipline?

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  I'm going to say, of course optimism. Of course I'm going to say that because you have to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. You have to believe in the future to have the discipline in order to create it.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Ooh, I like that. That's a good one. I like that. Okay. I like that a lot, actually.

• 1:04:13Speaker 00

  I was almost stumped there for a second, but.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  I know you were. I've got a lot here to stump you, but okay, I just can't see without my glasses. That's like really unbelievable. What's one question every leader should ask their team?

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  What's it like to be led by me? What's it like to be led by me? So they can give you feedback. And then what can I do better would be the next question.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  I have one more. I have to ask it. On a scale of one to ten, how connected are we? On a scale of one to ten, they're going to tell you and then you ask, what would make it a ten? Cause you're going to get great ideas on how to become a more connected team.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  That's a really good question.

• 1:04:52Speaker 00

  Great question. This is my, this is what I do with leaders. I, I will sit down and help them create their plan to lead their team.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  I ask this to everybody. How important is being likable?

• 1:05:02Speaker 00

  Very important. So if you're likable, you can actually be more tough with your team. I call it love and accountability. You gotta love your team and when you love them, you earn the right to challenge them. But when you challenge them, you have to be someone that they like and someone that they know loves them. And so the more likable you are, you can then challenge them, but they're still gonna be okay with that. But if you're a jerk and you're not likable and you're tough with your team, they will tune you out. And you will burn them out. So you gotta be likable because they have to want to play for you. They have to wanna work for you. Likable helps you go a long way in terms of how you can lead your team.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  I think it's the most underrated, undervalued skill there is in business.

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Okay, really good. So you and I are in sync.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally agree. I've been thinking a lot about this because let me give you an example. Bill O'Brien, I was just with Bill O'Brien, coach of the Boston College Eagles football team. He was the coach of the Houston Texans. He coached Tom Brady for the New England Patriots.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  And there's a scene where he is just going off on Tom Brady on the sidelines and it's still iconic to this day. Well, Bill is a tough guy. Bill will drive you, but Bill is very likable. And I knew it, I'm like, I bet that guy's really likable. I just spent time with him, loved him. He's so likable, just such a great dude, but he's a hard ass.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  He's hard, but he's so likable. And so we're walking by his.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  What's his name?

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  Bill O'Brien.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Okay, Bill O'Brien.

• 1:06:24Speaker 00

  We're walking, we're walking by his players as we're walking by in the lounge. We're hanging out, they're like watching TV, goes, can I get you a drink or something? Can I get you some water? As he's walking by to mess with them, like, can I get you some water? Would you like, would you like some food? Can I get you a sandwich? Like, just as he's walking by.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  That's a great.

• 1:06:39Speaker 00

  To mess with them, but, but funny. And I just thought, this guy is hilarious. So he'll drive them, but he's likable and they know he loves them, so they play harder for him.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  I totally agree with that. I do, I do a whole thing on this. Likability is kind of one of my pillars. That's why I'm asking you. So I'm gonna keep on going. What do you think makes somebody likable? What's the number one quality that you think makes someone likable?

• 1:07:02Speaker 00

  Wow, such a great question. Never been asked that before. What makes someone likable?

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  You should come to my speaking.

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would love to see that. Do you, do you give a whole talk?

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it went viral. Yeah, I did a whole viral talk on this.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  This is key.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  So don't steal it from me because I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come after you.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  No, I'm not going to. I'm a positive guy, you know?

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  You can be positive and also be a thief.

• 1:07:21Speaker 00

  No, I'm not a thief.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  Uh, but I love that, actually. I love that you do that. I would say what makes someone likable is one, their personality. Like, you have to have a personality that is likable. You also are likable when you smile. I think that makes you likable. I think you're likable when you have a great sense of humor. And you're likable when you actually care about people and they know you care about them. And they can feel your genuine authenticity. And when you are, you're more likable. Tell me what I'm missing.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so I'll tell you.

• 1:07:52Speaker 00

  I always wanna learn.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  I've deep dived on all of this.

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  And there's a lot of things that go into the soup of likability, right? But you've touched on a lot of them. The three top are three top skills for people to be likable is authenticity.

• 1:08:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know that.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  Empathy.

• 1:08:06Speaker 00

  Empathy.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  And enthusiasm.

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  So they're all variations of what you said. Enthusiasm is kind of like a positivity.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  Be careful on that because enthusiasm can be too much enthusiasm. And people get turned off if it's too much.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  But enthusiasm, when I, the way I talk about it is more about being kind of like, kind of being like a positive person.

• 1:08:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  And being, don't, being a positive force, not a negative force.

• 1:08:32Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Because that negative Nelly that comes in will, will ruin everything. You know, it's like when you have a, when you get a batch of blueberries and you have one bad blueberry in there, everything else will become rotten because of that one bad blueberry, right?

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  So it's that. And then authenticity, I think that you can get away with murder if people think that you are a real person that's genuine and that you care about them. So the empathetic piece. And you can get away with anything.

• 1:08:57Speaker 00

  But you can't fake it, though.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  But you can't, but this is, this is, this is the whole thing. When you're authentic, you can't be, that's why like your friend, when you said that, it kind of reminded me of me a little bit. Because like, I'm a hard ass.

• 1:09:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  You don't know me very well.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  I can see that, though.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  I am. But I'm like kind.

• 1:09:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:09:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  So I can get away with it because I'm actually a, I'm a good person and I care.

• 1:09:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  So I can, my, my, people's threshold is much better.

• 1:09:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  Versus me just being a total bitch. You know what I mean?

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  I'm just being honest.

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I've seen that play out a lot. In a lot of businesses, a lot of scenarios like that.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  And people could say, oh, women are always considered bitchy and men are considered this. No, you could be a bitch and you can be like an asshole. You know, that, those are things that are real, right? But I think that if you have like those three type, those things, there's like, obviously there's like, people love people who are funny and self-deprecating and all these things.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, self-deprecation, I think, is important.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  It's very important.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  I share a lot of self-deprecation on stage when I speak.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  And people really do connect to that when, when I'm honest about that.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  I think a turnoff, so to me, just how there's all these things that make someone likable.

• 1:10:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  There's a lot of things that make people unlikable, right? And one of them is when people take themselves way too seriously. I hate those people. You know what I mean? Like, if you came in here and thought that you were like all that, yeah.

• 1:10:14Speaker 00

  How you doing?

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, or, or like, just like, couldn't, you couldn't laugh at yourself.

• 1:10:18Speaker 00

  Right, oh yeah.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  You, you know, like, you, you became very endearing when you thought that you're like shirt, you're looking in your shirt, right? But like, it's, it's human.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  People like to connect to human people, right?

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  You're gonna be mad at me that I said that.

• 1:10:32Speaker 00

  In all, in all truth, I, I came in and my wife flew, and I flew here from Florida last night and I'm all bloated from the flight. I always get bloated. So it's like, lately, I've been like, I'm like, I'm working out, I'm walking and yet I'll travel, I'll get inflamed. So I was feeling very inflamed today.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  No, but I think it's very cute and, and endearing, right? Because it's like, it's, it's like, of course, we all can relate.

• 1:10:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  So when someone takes themselves too seriously and shows up too polished. Right, like, it's a turnoff.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Right? Insufferable people.

• 1:11:00Speaker 00

  Yes. So let me ask you, have you written about this? Are you gonna write a book on this?

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, I talk about it, I, I've been talking about it a lot.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  You need to do a book on it. There's, there's a book called The Likability Factor.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  An older one, but you need to do a book about. I think you should do a book about likability and unlikability. And I think the two together, and I see something with the cover with both somehow.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Maybe I should.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  But it's the, it's the idea of that because I think that's so important because, again, positivity and likability go hand in hand. I'll never talk about likability, it's just not my thing. But when you talked about it, you lit up. Never, you lit up. The one thing I can honestly say, thirty-three books, I've never stole anything, I don't steal.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  I'm teasing you.

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  But I just know, I, I know what I'm meant to write, but I always see when someone else is meant to write something. My wife has Gordon Publishing now, we're helping people publish their books. And we can always tell when someone's meant to tell that story. It just, it just oozes out of them. You lit up the minute you started talking about likability.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  You know why?

• 1:11:54Speaker 00

  You love it, you're passionate about it.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  I am super passionate about it. You know why I'm passionate about it? Because I wrote a book called Bigger, Better, Bolder.

• 1:12:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I know that book.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Okay, but I did a TED Talk on the idea of being bold before I did the book. And it went, it went viral, like a really crazy viral. So I wrote the book.

• 1:12:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  And I would get questions all the time, like, about being bold, like, how to be bold, how to be bold. And my whole thing is being boldness is a skill, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  And then when I started to really think about it, I realized that it's really, you can't be bold, there's a precursor.

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  Right, the habit before the habit.

• 1:12:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  The precursor to being bold is you have to be likable first. Because it's much easier to get away with being bold if you are likable.

• 1:12:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  So that's when this whole likability thing ticked in my head. And then I, I got asked to do a different TED Talk and long story short, it didn't come out as a TED Talk. I think it might come out as a TED Talk still, I don't know if it's gonna happen. But I did it as a TED Talk.

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  But then it never, there was like a tech, like a technical issue.

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  So then I started doing it as clips and it kept, one after another became like a viral clip, a viral clip, a viral clip. But I do believe that, like, I am passionate about it because I think the reason why I've had any success in my life isn't because of my college or this or that, is because of the fact that, like, I was, I was likable to somebody. And I connected with somebody and that led me to the one thing and then that led me to another. Because I believe everything is about the relationship. It doesn't matter how much schooling you have, how much talent you have, how much anything you have. If you don't have that, you're never gonna get as far in life. There's a ceiling to, to everything.

• 1:13:32Speaker 00

  I love it. A title just came to me, but I'm gonna share it after we're, we're off camera.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Don't forget it.

• 1:13:38Speaker 00

  I don't wanna, I don't wanna say it now, but I'm gonna say it to you. I think it could be pretty cool. You may not like it, but I'm gonna share it with you.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Okay, good, tell me, I would like, wanna know.

• 1:13:44Speaker 00

  I think it's cool, but I think you should definitely do a book on it. I always see when someone should do a book on, on something.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I see it all the time.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  The process is so hard. Like, it's a long process. I mean, with the publishers, like, oh my god, it's gonna be out in three years.

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  No, we, we do it, you could do it with Gordon Publishing and you could do it in six months and have it out.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  Is it the kind of publishing company that like you charged me for like to do the book?

• 1:14:06Speaker 00

  We would charge you, but here's the deal. You own a hundred percent of the rights and the royalties when it's done.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  And but it's a real book. It comes out as a real book.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  So why didn't you do your book with them?

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  I am going forward.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  What do you mean? Why didn't you do this book?

• 1:14:17Speaker 00

  Because I had a three book contract with Wiley.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  With who? Riley?

• 1:14:21Speaker 00

  Wiley.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  Wiley, okay.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I was, um, I signed a three book contract during the pandemic. So now that I'm done with my three book contract, I'm going to be doing books with Gordon Publishing. Because that's a model that I should have been doing all along because you make so much more of your books when you own the rights. As an author of a publisher.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  Well, you definitely make money off of it.

• 1:14:41Speaker 00

  You make about, yeah, two dollars a book or something like that. But when you own the rights to your book, you make ten to twelve, fifteen dollars.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Most people don't make money off of the, even those books. The only person I know has ever made money off of a book that was self-published, honestly, is Dave Goggins, David Goggins. He did a self-publishing book, Can Hurt Me, that was self-published.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  He sold five, ten, twenty million books. I mean, he's, he made a fortune off of it. Most people don't make money off of that, though, that I've seen, that I know.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I'm not, like you said, are you one of those publishers? Yeah, we charge, but we're doing Michael Chandler's book, The UFC Fighter. We're doing his book. We do a lot of CEO leader books because they want control of their book. They want it out sooner. And our books look like a real book, not a published book. That's our advantage. And Gordon Publishing, since I've written so many books, I'm known in the publishing world.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you've written a hundred thousand books.

• 1:15:27Speaker 00

  And I love that our model is helping people like, we help you, we help you write your book, create your book, put it out in the world. Great title, great everything. And then when it's out there, you now have a book that represents you and you're making all the money off of it. We're not getting a dime. So it's like you're paying us just to help you create a great product for yourself. And we love doing that.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  I love that. You just pitched your new company. So my next, one of my next rapid fire questions is.

• 1:15:49Speaker 00

  And we want your book. I would love to, I would love to do that book because that book is, is like, everyone needs to read that book, especially the title I have.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, really?

• 1:15:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Okay, maybe we could do it together. Okay. Because that was my next question to you. What's your challenge you're taking on now? Is it the publishing company?

• 1:16:05Speaker 00

  No, because my wife's, that's her passion. And I need to tell you, I didn't want to do it. I was not interested at all because I have so much going on. She would come with me to events. And every time she was with me at an event, someone would ask her about writing a book, working on a book, and asking help with it. And she goes, I think I'm going to start a publishing company. I'm like, honey, I have no interest in that. I don't want to do it. It's not for me.

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  And she said, well, I want to do it. And so she's been doing it all herself. Got to give her all the credit. I talk about it because I've seen the impact of all the authors and how it's worked.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Who have you done so far? How many, how many people?

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  About twenty books. And we've got another twenty in the queue.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  Get out.

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Kathy Rogers' book, Doug Dentler, like all these, yeah, really cool, cool people who are building their, some are building their brands with their book and coming out doing it. Some already have established brands. One book is, Chris Malayo's book, The Cheerleader. Chris hired a guy as a coach, as a high school coach. He hired a, a young man who had cerebral palsy, non-verbal, couldn't speak, and became a coach during that season and transformed the team. It's going to be a movie.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 1:17:08Speaker 00

  It's going to be a movie. It's a beautiful story. He actually just got contacted by Hollywood, someone who just read the book and said, this needs to be a movie. And we've talked about it being a movie. We did his book.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:17:17Speaker 00

  So, yeah, we're only doing books that make impact. So we will, we will not do just anyone's book. They have to have a book that we believe will make an impact to do it. So, but my biggest challenge, you asked, my biggest challenge right now is no doubt develop, building this training company where we help people learn positive leadership, lead with positive leadership, and then teach positive leadership. So we have a certified trainer program. We have the certified positive leader program. And we have the, we have how to learn to be a positive leader. Now that we have this institute, that's the biggest challenge because it's building something for the future from scratch, you know, from scratch. I had, I had my life of writing and speaking and that was wonderful. Now I'm dealing with this every single day. And as you know, when you're building a company, so many challenges.

• 1:18:02Speaker 00

  But you know what's been cool? I wrote The Power of Positive Leadership. When I wrote that, I didn't have a team. I was working with all the great leaders, teaching them.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:09Speaker 00

  But I didn't have a team. And now I have a, you know, fifteen people on my team.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Isn't that interesting?

• 1:18:14Speaker 00

  So I'm reading my own book now going, oh, what did I say on page ninety-five? That's right. I have to stay positive right now.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Oh, my, it's so hard, yeah.

• 1:18:21Speaker 00

  Literally, you know, but I'm reminding myself of the principles going, John, you wrote this. You got to live it. Because it is hard. So I have so much more respect and admiration for leaders even more now than ever. And I'm able to relate to them on a level that's just different now because I'm leading my team and dealing with all the challenges. I know their problems so much better. It's easy when you're a consultant and you're like, well, do this, do this, and do this.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Totally agree, yeah.

• 1:18:44Speaker 00

  When you're living it, it's so much harder, but you learn more and I'm able to help them grow because of that.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Was there one thing, is there, has there been anything that you've changed your mind? Like one piece of information or advice that you've changed your mind on?

• 1:18:58Speaker 00

  When I initially wrote The Energy Bus, I wrote about George having his vision and mission, the main character.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Speaker 00

  And bring it to his team. And saying, okay, here's my vision and mission. I want you on my bus. Now I would write it as George met with his team and said, what should our vision and mission be? Let's create it together. And then let's get on the bus. Like, let's get more buy-in at first.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Hmm. That's important.

• 1:19:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  In a, in a court for, for.

• 1:19:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  In a corporate company.

• 1:19:29Speaker 00

  I was thinking of the entrepreneur mind where you know where you're going, you know your vision, and you're taking it to the team and let's get on. But there's a lot of situations where you already have the team and you probably should take it to them first and go, all right, guys, what's our vision? What's our mission? Where do we want to go? What do we want to create? So I would say that was, uh, that's one of the things I've changed my mind on. I've changed my mind on a lot of things, but I would say that was one. Another one is maybe like, you know, this might be funny, but maybe not be like, like, maybe we didn't go to the moon, you know? Like, my daughter's trying to convince me that we did not actually land on the moon. And I sort of go, maybe we didn't because when you really look at it, in the nineteen sixty-something, seventy, did we really have the technology for the president to talk to the astronauts, like, like in outer space during that time? Did we really have that technology?

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Oh, so you think that didn't happen?

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know. I question it. I question it.

• 1:20:17Speaker 01

  Is that interesting?

• 1:20:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, I question it. I, I, I don't think that's so crazy to think that either. I, I question it. And I'm just not sure we had that technology to go to the moon at that time, at that time.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  So you think it's a.

• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  Now we could, I believe. But, but then, I don't think we had that technology. I think it was, it was all done for, for the arms race, to, to develop, you know, to get support behind it. I think there's been a lot of things that have been done along the way that were communicated to us to get the people to buy in that may not have been true.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  Who was the most impressive leader?

• 1:20:53Speaker 00

  By the way, I've never said that before publicly, so.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Don't worry. I think that, um, I think that's interesting. I, I didn't, I wasn't expecting you to say that.

• 1:21:01Speaker 00

  And I'm not saying, again, and if I could be proven.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  That's a conspiracy theory.

• 1:21:04Speaker 00

  That we call that. But I, if I could be proven wrong, you know, I'd be fine to be proven.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  I know, you're just, no, you're just saying that.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  I'm saying, I, I question that.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  By the way, you.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  Look at this, nineteen sixty-eight, nineteen seventy. What kind of technology did we have to go to the actual moon?

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  What did we have? I don't know.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  When you, when you think about it, I, it's just hard to put all the pieces together. And again, did we really have the technology for the president to be on the phone with the astronaut in outer space at that time? I can't even get a signal now in a lot of places.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:21:36Speaker 00

  How did that happen in nineteen sixty-eight, seventy years old?

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  That's true, actually. Okay.

• 1:21:42Speaker 00

  So I don't know.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  Fair.

• 1:21:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  I like that. That's fair.

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Okay, I have one more question for you. Who is the most impressive person you've ever met in your life?

• 1:21:51Speaker 00

  Wow. I mean, I can't say there's been a lot.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Okay, but name one.

• 1:21:55Speaker 00

  Dave Roberts is the best. Sean McVay is amazing. Dabo Sweeney is unbelievable as a leader, like one of the best.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Did you ever meet any world leaders?

• 1:22:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  Okay, name one.

• 1:22:04Speaker 00

  I met Bill Clinton. Was not, I was not impressed.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was going to say, like, a lot, I, I find in life, quite honestly, and John, tell me if this is you too.

• 1:22:12Speaker 00

  I took a hike with RFK. RFK and I went for a hike.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  He takes a hike with everybody.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Oh, really? I thought, I thought I was special.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  No, unfortunately. Um, um, and I'm not impressed, to be honest, but maybe other people would be.

• 1:22:23Speaker 00

  Did you go on a hike with him?

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  I didn't, but I probably could if I asked. I mean, I think he's fine. I think he's.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think he was one of the most impressive people I've ever met.

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  I mean, do you, I, do you, I mean, no, no shade at him. He's fine. I'm just not really like, he's not like someone I'm like, oh wow, I gotta meet that guy.

• 1:22:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:22:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed our hike. We had a nice conversation.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Where was it? In Florida?

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  No, Santa Monica.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  Oh, Santa Monica.

• 1:22:46Speaker 00

  In the hills there. I mean, really sweet guy, nice conversation.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  How did that even happen?

• 1:22:52Speaker 00

  That's a long story.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Okay, well, we have time.

• 1:22:55Speaker 00

  I was, uh,

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Can you make it into a-

• 1:22:57Speaker 00

  When he was initially running for president, we had a place out here in Santa Monica. And we were invited to come just hear what he had to say.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Oh, I was invited to that too.

• 1:23:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, over there in Palisades.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  I went to this thing where he was talking before he was even running for the thing. Was I there?

• 1:23:13Speaker 00

  No, this was when he was actually officially running.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  Oh, this one? No, he was officially running here too, but he was, it was like, he was running for president. He wasn't running for the other thing.

• 1:23:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was running for president. Right, so we went to that and I asked him a question on culture.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Of course you did.

• 1:23:28Speaker 00

  What his core values were. And then someone came up to me afterwards and said, hey, will you talk to him about culture? Because that's really a great question and something we really need to talk about. And someone, I think, knew who I was. And they said, would you do that? I said, yeah, sure. And so we went for a hike a couple of days later and talked about culture and talked about his core values. And I gave him my opinion on what I thought he represented, what his essence were. And he asked me some questions. We had a nice conversation with his dogs as we're walking up the, you know, the hill there. And, um, yeah, just a sweet guy.

• 1:24:02Speaker 01

  Okay, so, yeah.

• 1:24:04Speaker 00

  Something I never expected and all of a sudden, next thing you know, I'm hiking with RFK.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  No, he's, he's, he's, he's actually my, my friend's uncle.

• 1:24:12Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, another Kennedy. Yeah. Um, so listen.

• 1:24:14Speaker 00

  Does she, does she get along with him?

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  I think she, yeah, she does.

• 1:24:17Speaker 00

  There's just part of the family that they don't.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I know. There's a whole part that hate him, the other part like him. It's like a whole thing. They get along very nicely.

• 1:24:23Speaker 00

  The things he has shared make a lot of sense in terms of his, his positions on health and so forth have been pretty accurate of what he's been sharing.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have no problem with him at all. I, I mean, I have really no problem with him, but when I think of the most impressive people in the world, he's not one of them. You know, no offense to him. I'm sure he's very ni-, I'm sure he's very smart. He's very fine. He's great. I mean, fine. I'm just saying, of all the people in the world.

• 1:24:49Speaker 00

  I like Condoleezza Rice a lot.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so now we're talking.

• 1:24:52Speaker 00

  I always thought like,

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's more impressive to me.

• 1:24:54Speaker 00

  I met her, I met her at, um, at the San Francisco 49ers training camp.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24:59Speaker 00

  When I spoke to them.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:00Speaker 00

  And she was there and we had a nice conversation and I thought she's really impressive. I would vote for her for president.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  I liked her too. I remember, she was very impressive.

• 1:25:10Speaker 00

  And I even say like, I even put her on the ballot as my choice of president when I was voting.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  She was good. Okay, what?

• 1:25:17Speaker 00

  She's someone I would, I would vote for. I like her a lot.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Did you meet Bill Clinton or work with Bill Clinton?

• 1:25:22Speaker 00

  No, I was speaking at an event and he was there speaking as well. And it was, I was in Atlanta, but it wasn't great because he hit on my wife. And so,

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  He did?

• 1:25:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's a whole other conversation.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Oh my god, tell me what happened.

• 1:25:33Speaker 00

  No, I'm not even going there, but yeah.

• 1:25:35Speaker 01

  What do you mean? That's the best thing you've said all day. Finally, I'm getting some kind of good juice. I want to know the tea.

• 1:25:40Speaker 00

  We're talking about the secrets of life and that was the best thing.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  I don't want to talk about leadership anymore. I want to know how Bill Clinton hit on your wife. That's much more exciting. And I'm sure people are much more interested in that. What happened?

• 1:25:51Speaker 00

  We just were at the event and she was there and he just was giving her the googly eyes and like, wouldn't, like, like, like, say, like shaking hands, greeting people. I was backstage with them. But he was there and as he was doing it, he like, he just stopped and like, wouldn't go, continue on, kept going to her. And, um, there's more to the story than that.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  Wait, I'm listening with you. I'm listening.

• 1:26:13Speaker 00

  I just can't, I just can't.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  How many years ago was this?

• 1:26:15Speaker 00

  Oh, this was many, many years ago.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Like, how many?

• 1:26:17Speaker 00

  This is when he was, I think, I think he was president. This is when he was, he was still president.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Oh my god, like 30 years? Was he stripping Monica Lewinsky this time?

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  This was in, um, in Atlanta. And so I was in my twenties. So, yeah, this, yeah, this would have been in the nineties.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Oh my god, we're talking 35 years ago. Oh geez, okay.

• 1:26:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, but, but, but no.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  I was hoping it was more recent than that. Okay.

• 1:26:41Speaker 00

  But I, you know, I met George, you know, George W. as well.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  But did you work with any of these people?

• 1:26:47Speaker 00

  Work with?

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  Like, did anybody, who was the most impressive person that hired you?

• 1:26:52Speaker 00

  There's a lot of CEOs that are just like unbelievable. Like Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbell's Soup is very impressive, amazing individual, Doug Conant. He turned around Campbell's Soup. I mean, I would say he's pretty amazing.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:27:06Speaker 00

  Evan Spiegel hired me, you know, with Snapchat.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:27:10Speaker 00

  And, you know,

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  To do what? A speaking gig?

• 1:27:13Speaker 00

  So Evan was really struggling with, with Snapchat.

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember years ago.

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  Around 2017. And he read The Power of Positive Leadership, like, right when it came out. And I get a call out of the blue from his team. And I didn't even know who he was really and, and didn't know he was married to, you know, a famous model and so forth.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  Was it, um, who was he married to?

• 1:27:35Speaker 00

  Really great, great, really great guy. And so, so he reached out and then I went up to, um, Napa where they were having just his leadership retreat. And I went and worked with his leaders, his top leaders. And we talked about positive leadership and how to turn around the company. It's really cool. I had him on my podcast and he shared how that meeting, how that time, what I taught them was a game changer. They turned around the company during that time. And it was, it was, it was positive leadership that helped them turn around. So,

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:28:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was billion, I mean, that's billions of dollars in profit. So when leaders say, well, what kind of return can you provide? Well, I worked with Snapchat and helped them turn around their company. I took another company from 60 million to 100 million, this company billions. I mean, I've helped these collective leaders probably make billions and billions of dollars.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:25Speaker 00

  And all these sports franchises make billions of dollars and work in growth and championships and what those are worth. So, yeah, so I would say, you know, a lot of CEOs that I've worked with, some I can't say because, uh, you know, confidentiality, but some of the largest companies in our country will call me up and ask for my advice and I'll give them advice on leadership, which is, again, so ironic because I was a horrible leader and not the most positive person on earth, so.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Life is full of ironies, by the way.

• 1:28:52Speaker 00

  It's amazing what God could do. Yeah, I always say I'm proof that miracles are possible.

• 1:28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, right?

• 1:28:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  I mean, I find life to be super ironic.

• 1:28:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's wild. It's, it's, it's an amazing journey. I could have never imagined what I'm doing now. My parents never made more than $30,000 a year combined. You know, now I'm $80,000 for a keynote. So it took my parents almost three years to make what I make in one speech. And I think about that all the time. Like, I really am very grateful that I get to do this. And my wife give, and I give a lot back. Like, we are just so grateful. And we don't think we're better than anyone. We just know that we've been blessed and very lucky because my life could have turned out many different ways, many times, many times, but by the hand of God.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  I love that. Oh my gosh, John, I'm so happy to have you on the show.

• 1:29:37Speaker 00

  I loved being on it. You were, you were awesome.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Thank you. You're so awesome.

• 1:29:40Speaker 00

  I met a sister from, from, from a hundred years ago.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, doesn't it feel like we've known each other a hundred years?

• 1:29:45Speaker 00

  We're both Jewish, so there you go.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  I know, but you-

• 1:29:48Speaker 00

  I, I am 98%, I said 100 earlier. I'm a 98% Ashkenazi Jew, which we probably have ancestors who are from the same place, Austria. I'm all part Austrian, Russian, some Polish, Lithuanian. I don't know what your background is.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  Polish, Russian, well, a lot of Israeli, a lot of Israeli.

• 1:30:07Speaker 00

  You, your family from Israel?

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, my mom's Israeli.

• 1:30:09Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, uh,

• 1:30:11Speaker 00

  Okay, then you're more Sephardic then?

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  I am more, no, I'm actually more Ashkenazi. Well, my other, I'm half, well, my grandmother is from Poland. My, my grandfather was Israeli. My mom was born in Israel, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:30:26Speaker 00

  Probably related, you know, down-

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're probably like second cousins.

• 1:30:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, we probably are in some capacity because I, my daughter just went on genealogy.com.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:36Speaker 00

  And started doing research on that. And we, we found my biological father's side of the family and where they came from. And then my grandmother's side of the family. Like, my grandmother, I found out on my grandmother's side, she's Austrian. But my grandmother's father and mother came from Romania and Ukraine. So Romania, Ukraine, but they met in Austria. So I'm actually part Ukrainian, part Romanian, but that met in Austria. So I always thought I was just Austrian, but oh, I have Romanian and Ukrainian. Wow. And Sean McVay's wife is from Ukraine.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I texted him, I said, hey, I found out I'm part Ukrainian. He goes, I knew you had some toughness in you.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, right, right, right.

• 1:31:15Speaker 00

  Because Ukrainians are really tough.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  Very tough. I mean, unbelievably tough. Yeah.

• 1:31:20Speaker 00

  So, so again, I guarantee we have some ancestry, no doubt. There's no doubt, uh, down that path. I just, I just, I chose to become a follower of Jesus on this journey.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  I, I didn't, I was gonna bring it up and I'm like, I'm not even gonna go there, but I, I don't, why did you do that?

• 1:31:34Speaker 00

  I had an encounter with Jesus that changed my life. I really had a spiritual encounter. I never thought I would believe what I believe. It's, it's been a miraculous like encounter.

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  What do you mean you had an encounter?

• 1:31:45Speaker 00

  So I was, I was a Buddhist and I was a New Ager, like a lot of Jews, and I was a meditator. And I was seeking, like, seeking. And always struggling with this anxiety and fear that doesn't go away.

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  So you really, you really have anxiety to a certain, like, to a severe level?

• 1:32:02Speaker 00

  Not anymore, I don't. Not anymore. My faith changed me, transformed my heart and soul. And so what happened was I-

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  What year were we talking?

• 1:32:08Speaker 00

  We're talking in, uh, nine, no, we're talking I became a follower of Jesus at 35, when I was 2000 and,

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  Wow, a long time ago.

• 1:32:18Speaker 00

  2006, 2007. Yeah, but I'm 55 now, so 20 years ago, but 35 is pretty old when, you know, to, to have that transformation. And what happened was I was struggling with all of that. And I remember I was meditating. I started seeing a glowing cross in my meditations. And then a friend of mine during that time gave me a sermon and the sermon was called Why I Followed Jesus. So I listened to it and it was about, it was about Jesus as the Jewish Rabbi. And it talked about how he was Jewish. And it talked about

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  how he walked and why the disciples would follow because they were Jews. They were Jews and they followed him because he was a rabbi and said, come and follow me. Like someone actually believed in them. And it was called Covered in Dust. And it was about why Jesus would go from town to town. And when someone like did not get on the bus, did not follow them, just, you know, covering dust. Just keep walking, take the dust off your feet and just dust off and go. And I'm listening to the sermon about Jesus, the Jewish rabbi. And it just really spoke to me. And, and then I said to this, I said this prayer, I said, all right, God, if he is who he said he was, you know, show me the signs. So I'm driving out to Orlando and I'm looking to the left and I hear, look. And I turned to the right and there's a sign on the billboard that says, Jesus is the answer.

• 1:33:33Speaker 00

  So I got these encounters with glowing crosses. And that sign, I go see a Buddhist energy healer, a Buddhist energy healer. So I go see him. Hey, hey, Don, I'm having all these problems with my stomach. He's working on my stomach. He's doing Thai organ massage.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:48Speaker 00

  He's like a Rolf if you know any of that stuff.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, right, like, yeah.

• 1:33:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's doing all that. I'm really into that. Always saw the world in terms of energy. So I believe in energy medicine, all that good stuff, and I still do. And I said, Don, I'm seeing all these signs that said, Jesus is the answer. What do you make of that? He goes, oh, that's simple. I'm a Buddhist. I'm trying to attain enlightenment on my own. He goes, with, with Jesus, all you do is believe and receive. I said, what do you mean? He goes, Jesus takes your soul pain. He takes your heavy vibrational energy. Christians call it sin. He goes, you can't connect to a perfect, harmonious, energetic God if you have heavy vibrational energy. He said, Jesus just takes that so you can connect to God. I said, I said, can I take someone's soul pain? He goes, can you handle your own? And I walked out of there believing that there would, that Jesus, literally, the purpose was to take my, my burden, my pain,

• 1:34:35Speaker 00

  allow me to connect to the Father, God, Yahweh, the Jewish God that we believe in, and would connect me to him. And in that connection, I would find peace and joy, love and power. And that is what's happened in my life. It has transformed my life. No anxiety, heart, soul, power, transformation, peace has changed me. So that's, that's my faith journey. I never thought I would share that with a fellow Jew like that.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:01Speaker 00

  But, but that, but it changed me. And so it's why I believe. And I'm not saying everybody, you know, should believe what I believe. That's just my story and that's what's happened to me. But then I meet all these other Jews that are now followers of Jesus too. I was in a Passover seder with a bunch of Jews who became followers of Jesus. One guy died, a Jew, and came back to life. And Jesus came to him when he was dead, in his, like dead and literally like brought him out of it. And he was alive and has now followed Jesus. Like these incredible stories. Rabbi Jason Sobel, just go read Rabbi Jason Sobel's books. They're amazing. He, he gives the context of Judaism and Hebrew.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  Look them up.

• 1:35:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, in Hebrew and how it all connects, how the New Testament and the Old Testament are connected. And you can see that one connects to the other and that it can't be explained by human hands. And you can see how God orchestrated all. And that's why I say we're one team. We're not on separate teams. We're on one team. Cause my relatives, when I became a believer, from, from Long Island, my Jewish relatives, they were, they were like, can't believe you, there's so few of us and, and you left the team. I go, no, we're still the same team. We're on the same team. We're all one team. We're not meant to be separate teams. And my goal is to unite people. And I meet so many Jews who have so much amazing faith. And, and there's so much power in the Jewish tradition that people need to understand and live. I have many Jewish friends who don't even know about their Jewish tradition. They don't know about their heritage.

• 1:36:24Speaker 00

  They don't know about, they don't know about the old stories of David and Solomon.

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Also not, that's also pretty sad. I would, I wish.

• 1:36:31Speaker 00

  It's very sad, they need to.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  I wish people.

• 1:36:32Speaker 00

  I want them to.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  I wish people were more knowledgeable and more educated.

• 1:36:35Speaker 00

  Oh, they need to.

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  And, and, and took, and like took that initiative for themselves.

• 1:36:40Speaker 00

  There's so much power in it.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  There's so much power.

• 1:36:41Speaker 00

  I tell my Jewish friends, like, just get back to your faith. There's so much power.

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  So what's, so what does that mean if you're like a Jew for Jesus versus a Jew for what?

• 1:36:50Speaker 00

  So the only difference is that I believe that Jesus is the Messiah and

• 1:36:53Speaker 01

  And I believe that.

• 1:36:54Speaker 00

  You believe that he's still coming. You believe that he's still coming.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  I do.

• 1:36:57Speaker 00

  Because the Jews believe that he's still coming. And I believe that all those signs and my own experience shows me and tells me.

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  That he's here.

• 1:37:05Speaker 00

  He already came, because he's already living in me. And I, and I, because the

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  Does that mean you don't celebrate?

• 1:37:10Speaker 00

  The spirit lives in you. But you could still sell, celebrate all the Jewish traditions. It doesn't change. I am never going to change. I am still of Jewish heritage.

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  Like, would you celebrate Passover?

• 1:37:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  Would you celebrate? Yom Kippur?

• 1:37:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Do you fast on Yom Kippur?

• 1:37:25Speaker 00

  I did, I, I didn't this year, but I have in the past.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  But do a lot of Jews for Jesus celebrate that?

• 1:37:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, people still honor their, their, their past traditions. You can still be Jewish and still believe, and then you just believe in Jesus. Some, yes, some do, yeah. There, there is that, that do, yep. The, the thing is you're

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  Then why is there such a negative connotation when Jewish people become?

• 1:37:47Speaker 00

  Christians?

• 1:37:48Speaker 01

  Christians. Is it because we're such a small community?

• 1:37:51Speaker 00

  And people feel like you're just

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  And people feel

• 1:37:52Speaker 00

  You're going to a different team.

• 1:37:54Speaker 01

  Right, like you're, like, you're like kind of giving up on

• 1:37:56Speaker 00

  On, on your Jewishness.

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  On our Jewish heritage.

• 1:37:59Speaker 00

  On your Jewishness.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  Because there's so few of us.

• 1:38:00Speaker 00

  And here's what I often think, if, if they come after the Jews, if people do, I've got to take a stand for the Jews because like, like that, that's something that I would never ignore the Jewish people because that's part of who I am. So it's like you don't give up your heritage and who you are and what makes you who you are. But at the same time, I would say my faith in God, like overall, my faith comes first. But my faith also says, stand up for people. But I'm best inclined not to go after people, but to unite people and connect people and be someone who could be a bridge rather than divider. But if someone's attacking someone and they're going to try to kill them or come after my family,

• 1:38:41Speaker 00

  well, then you would have to fight back in, in that regard and take a stand for those who are getting hurt. And so for those who are being attacked. And like I have really good friends who are Jewish. Michael Levine is the head of C A Sports. And he's often post, you know, about, you know, about just, you know, and I'll reach out to Mike, hey, Mike, I stand with you. Like I will always stand with my, you know, with

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  So when October 11th happened?

• 1:39:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  What happened? Did you stand with the Jewish people?

• 1:39:06Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I mean, no, it was, it was, you know, when you see that happen, it was just, it was, it's just pure heartbreak. I mean, just heartbreak. But I have to be honest, I would, I would take a stand with anybody who's attacked that way. Like I would, I would feel that, I have empathy, a lot of empathy. So I would feel that for any group that was attacked that way. But like, my wife and I had dinner with a bunch of Israelis. And great conversation, just on hearing their standpoint, how they see the world. And it was so interesting. And they talked about October 11th and just hearing from their perspective. Good friend of mine, Mark Lawrence, you know, Lawrence Foods, just a great human being, very strong in his faith and, and, you know, supporting Israel. And I'll, I'll listen to Mark and hear, hear his standpoint.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  So do you support Israel?

• 1:39:49Speaker 00

  Of course. I mean, but, but, you know, there's a difference, like, it's like saying, like, do you support, you know, everything the US government does? Like, I don't have to support everything the Israeli government does.

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:40:01Speaker 00

  To support Israel and the Israeli people, right?

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  I, I support America. I'm a huge, I'm a huge believer in America. Like I'm a big fan of America. I love our country, but I also know that our government is very corrupt at times. Our government can be very corrupt. I think most governments have corruption to it. So when you say support Israel, it's like, it's not this blanket thing.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  It's right.

• 1:40:20Speaker 00

  They're like, I'm going to support everything about Israel and everything they do. Just like, I'm, I'm going to, I'm America, I'm, I'm, I believe in America. But I'm not blind to the fact that there's a lot of corruptions in our, in our government over the years from Republican, Democrat and all different political persuasions.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:40:38Speaker 00

  You know? So at times I think, you know, I did run for city council when I was 26 years old in Atlanta. So there were times I thought, maybe I'll run one day. And, but I also know that it's so divisive. And there are power structures put in place that can destroy your life. And that's the scary part. If you're not of that power, you, you go in with your beliefs, ideals, but if you're not part of that power structure, they could destroy your life and they could destroy you. So it's, there's a lot of thought around that, like, maybe I'm just supposed to stay and do what I'm like. If I was ever, but if I, if I felt God calling me, because again, I know God calls me because every book I've written, I get an idea and I write it in three, three and a half weeks.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:41:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I know that. So when an idea comes, I know I'm just meant to write it. If I get called and go, all right, I want you to go run for office, I will follow and I will do that. Like I'm pretty obedient. Like I literally have, as I'm walking, I get ideas. I get inclinations of what I'm supposed to do.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  And you're a good human being.

• 1:41:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, and I have good intentions.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  And you're good intent, and that's the most important thing.

• 1:41:39Speaker 00

  And, and good human being. You have to have good intentions, good actions. And you have to care about people and do the right thing.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  That's a great point.

• 1:41:46Speaker 00

  And live with integrity. And I know like me, you know, I always live with the end in mind, like 25 years from now, they're going to be telling stories about you. What kind of stories do you want them?

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:54Speaker 00

  To tell?

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  Well, I think also they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

• 1:41:58Speaker 00

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:41:59Speaker 00

  So it's got to be good actions.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  It's good, that's why the good action piece is the most important part.

• 1:42:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, the good action says who you are.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, good, everyone, everyone has, I don't think any, most people are not malice or have bad intentions. It's what happens after that, right? It's like, that's the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But then something happens and it turns to not so good.

• 1:42:19Speaker 00

  We could do a show where we just talk about different topics.

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:42:21Speaker 00

  We could literally go back and forth with different topics. Because, because as you're saying that, I think, you know, one thing I do want to say to people listening, because we talked about Jewish and Christian. I know you probably have Jewish listeners. I saw this pastor the other day give a great lesson where he said, you know, he goes, if, if someone of my faith tried to tell you how to live and what you should believe, he said, I'm sorry, because we should not be doing that. If you read the Bible and what Jesus said to do, you're literally not supposed to do that. You're supposed to just live that way.

• 1:42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:48Speaker 00

  And then I share

• 1:42:48Speaker 01

  That's a good point.

• 1:42:49Speaker 00

  And I share with my son, and my son has a really strong faith. And he goes, no, Dad, the Great Commission. The Great Commission means you go make disciples. And the idea is that, I said, Cole, yeah, there's the Great Commission. But that means telling people about Jesus and how we changed your life is actually the Great Commission.

• 1:43:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:07Speaker 00

  But you're not supposed to tell people how you should live and the values they should have. You're supposed to live those values and tell people how God changed your life. And that's what you need to do. So I, I, I wrote this today. It came to me. I said, don't tell people how to live, but share how God and the Holy Spirit lives in you and transforms you.

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:28Speaker 00

  That's the key.

• 1:43:29Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 1:43:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Okay, my leg's falling asleep. I need to like wrap this thing. I swear, these chairs are like

• 1:43:34Speaker 00

  How long have we been talking?

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  I don't

• 1:43:35Speaker 00

  Seems like forever.

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  So many hours, I don't even know. But the only reason why this, my, my new chairs haven't come into my studio. So these are like, I have like sciatica on this leg and it is killing me.

• 1:43:46Speaker 00

  You remind me of my Jewish cousin, by the way. You remind me of my cousins.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:43:49Speaker 00

  You're like, my sciatica in my back. It's like, what am I going to do about that? Like, like, I'm like, how are we going to deal with this? I mean, the minute I walked in, I'm like, oh, there's, there's my sister. There's my cousin.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  That's so funny.

• 1:44:00Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, it's hilarious.

• 1:44:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:44:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. You're going to have a guest in your Jupiter, wherever you live.

• 1:44:05Speaker 00

  Well, we're, we're, yeah, you can come visit us anytime.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  Oh, you're so nice. I'm going to. At five o'clock, we've been talking for, you don't want to know how many hours. Okay.

• 1:44:14Speaker 00

  An hour and a half?

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  No, way more, two and a half.

• 1:44:16Speaker 00

  What? I was supposed to meet our friend David Nurse for, for Hamburgers, well, sorry, David.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Are you serious?

• 1:44:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Well, you're literally

• 1:44:25Speaker 00

  Sorry, David, I saw you a couple of weeks ago. This is fine.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  Exactly, you're not meeting David Nurse right now. Okay, so guys, pick up the book, The Power of Positive Habits. John Gordon, follow him on Instagram. And please, this is where I say to you guys, if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, please, I always forgot to say something. It makes such a difference in the algorithm and all the things that are important on the backend to make this podcast go, go, you know, continue to, to, to move and go. So please subscribe and thank you so much for being my guest.

• 1:44:57Speaker 00

  It's a great one. Definitely subscribe.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you, guys. Bye.