Leadership speaker, best-selling author, and global influencer Jon Gordon shares the 3 winning strategies of love, service, and caring, the importance of slowing down to produce MORE, the power of grace, being a resistor vs a conductor, tips for dealing with energy vampires, and how to become a love magnet.

If you're not familiar with Jon, I mean literally his

stories, his principles or strategies are used by NFL

teams, NBA teams, fortune 500 companies, hospitals, school

districts, nonprofits. He is the author of The Wall Street

Journal bestseller The Energy Bus. And so Jon agreed to share

with us a little bit about his new book The Carpenter. So Jon

Gordon. John, thank you for being here. So one of the things

I love about your your is your style, like your stories, why do

you write in sort of the story format? Or parables? Where did

that come from? How did that develop?

I believe I was inspired by stories as well.

When my mom was before she passed away, she gave me a book

called The greatest salesman. And so that was, you know,

saying book, impact on Who Moved My Cheese and fables like that.

And the One Minute Manager, those are books that was stories

and fables entire lessons through the story. So I really

wrote two How To books before I started adding tables. You

haven't heard those books because they didn't. And I was,

I was at a book fair. And I had like five people in line. And

the guy next to me wrote a book called Marley and may remember

that movie. Yeah, John Grogan? Well, John, actually, he has a

line out the door down the block hundreds of people. And I

remember thinking, You know what, I should read his story.

And from that moment on, I felt compelled to write stories. I

never wrote a story before the energy bus was the first story I

wrote, it was really well received. And I realized that

was my voice. And that was the kind of book that I meant to

write. And those are the Booker's fire me. And I was

meant to write those kinds of books that inspired others.

One concept that I just I love is a concept that you

introduce called energy vampires.

Well, the first talk I ever gave, I talked about

energy vampires, people who suck the life and energy right out of

it, it was so well received. When I talk about energy

vampires. Now everyone gets an image of someone who's an energy

vampire in their life. It's iconic. I don't even have to

explain what an energy vampires people just look over it. Right,

right. And so it's such a compelling kind of image. And

when I was reading the energy bus, I believe that it's what

most people have resonated with that, that message that there

are negative people will hold us back here and negative people

that will sabotage our team. And I've had NFL coaches tell me

CEOs, CEOs tell me that I learned I had to deal with the

negativity, I would see it, I recognize it, but I wouldn't

deal with it. The energy bus has allowed people to have a

framework and a dialogue, to call people out that you will be

energy vampires sabotaging us, and to the entire organization

to say we're not going to allow negativity to sabotage us and

the work that we're here to do. And so as a, as a person who

strives striving for success as well, you can't allow those

energy vampires if you're in sales, if you're coaching

salespeople, if you're facing rejection, and people who are

negative, you have to overcome that negativity yourself. So it

relates to people who are trying to do their career. It relates

to people trying to build teams, and also people who try to build

organizations. I mean, I had energy vampires in my life,

people said you can't do it, you're not going to make it. And

I've learned that our positive energy, our belief, and our

faith must be greater than all the certainty and doubt not

everyone is gonna get on your class. Don't let the energy

vampires sabotage your blog posts, as Simon says, no energy

vampires allowed those remember what Gandhi said? He said, I

will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet,

and neither should you.

So turning our attention to the book The Carpenter, where

did the inspiration come from?

Well I had a carpenter come to do some work

in my home and he was slammed. And it was even during the

recession, and I had, how are you so busy, go to recession,

etc. Well, my current one that I deeply work. This is a guy who

really cared about his work. He cared about his clients. He put

everything he had to every project. So he was always busy.

The average carpenter wasn't busy during this time. But he

was. And the premise was when you care, you stand out in a

world where most don't care. Now the book evolved from that as I

started writing the story, different ideas started coming

to me, principles started coming to me. And really, the greatest

success strategies evolve. I believe, the best book I've

written. Everyone has read it says it's the best book. People

have loved it so far, had about 500. People just read it. The

feedback has been incredible. I've had some NFL coaches read

it and see you read it. If it fails, people read it. And it

seems to resonate with everyone because these three strategies

are love, serve and care. And if you love what you do, you love

others. You serve people you care about the work you do, you

will stand out. So I obviously go deeper into all of that in

the book, but it's a great message and the story is

compelling about a guy and his wife was trying to build their

business and they use these principles to build it.

Can you kind of speak to the importance of slowing down,

taking rest, creating margin, meanwhile, sort of balancing

that with the drive to produce results in your life?

The reason why we're so busy and stressed is because

of fear. Fear is causing us to work at this rapid pace to feel

like we're not going to be successful. Unless we go go go

with the carpet if you can, if you do everything with love,

you'll be so much more powerful. So it's about slowing down,

realizing the fear that is driving you love what you do

love your customers take time to recharge and rest don't operate

out of the sphere. And then you'll actually slow down to

produce more, you'll actually be more productive visually working

smarter, you'll be delegating better, you'll be spending more

time with your clients, improving your relationships,

loving, serving, caring, and from doing that your customers

will work for you, you'll have to be you'll be able to work

less, but accomplish more. When you're operating out of this

love. Instead of fear, busyness and stress. I see where I today

as the biggest enemy of great leadership, great teamwork,

great customer service and great sale. When you're busy and

stressed, you're operating out of fear, and you're activating

the reptilian part of your brain, give me my reptiles,

they'll never make a good pet. They're all about survival. So

the reptile wants to eat you. Well, when we are when we're

busy and stressed. We're all about survival. We're not trying

to thrive when I help others thrive. We're thinking how can I

get through the day without blowing a gasket. So I'm trying

to get people from moving from this fear based, limited mindset

stress, weak energy, because it's more powerful energy of

love, of gratitude, of serving of caring and power. When you do

that, you will be so much more powerful, the greatest salesman,

that book really inspiring as I wrote this book, I was thinking

actually, of that book. And I want this to be like a modern

day version of that, that helps people to live and work in such

a way that will make a difference. And I speak to a lot

of salespeople. And I know that a lot of the top salespeople

have this kind of mindset. I mean, the ones who have

sustained success, you can be great for a year. But these are

the principles that are cause you to have sustained success.

And that's what this is all about. So it's not about me,

because it's a one year yeah, that being successful over time.

And so people have a hard I have to work on it know how hard I go

out, I have to work to accomplish what I need to

accomplish. But I also have learned that I actually

accomplished more when I lived.

How do you think this concept of grace ties into

somebody's ability to sell, lead or influence other people in

general?

It usually applies to the law of generosity. I

mean, the more you give, the more you actually receive, to

have to give away. And so when you're giving you become a

conduit for all the developments to happen in the world, you

become a conductor, I wrote about this this week in my

newsletter, there are resistors. And there are conductors in the

electrical world resistors, they hold on to their electrons. And

so they only have a limited power, that conductors actually

freely give away their electrons. So their power comes

from the current that moves to forget it. So the more we're

open to just be a given person. And given the way, the more the

greater power moves through us, and allows us to become a

greater power source in the world, the more you give it just

come back. I don't know how it works. But I know it does.

Either way, it's amazing how many times it just comes back.

And the more we give, I get so much cheering in my life. And I

do. And it's just amazing how we just have more to give. And so

that we give even more away or how you think it would work the

other way. But it doesn't, the more you give, and you would

expect anything in return. That's when things come back to

you tenfold. But then you just keep on getting up to like my

goal, honestly, I want to be so I was able to do so already so

successful, that I can give away so much to the world so much

that people need so much to the poor, so much of the homeless

school in Africa, I want to help homeless people build homes in

Mexico, I would have all these different organizations to do

what they're doing to make an impact. And honestly, that's,

that's my hope is to give, I will give my life away because

you know what? True power doesn't come from accumulating

cheap power comes from giving a man Eric glory, quote, my

pastor, they said you can't outgive God. So you look at the

university, look at how much energy exists in the universe.

There's so much energy, right? And so why do we think that

there's too little for us to have and to give with so much

energy in the universe. There's abundance, that when we believe

in abundance, there's there's plenty for us and even more to

share with everyone else.

Now here's an interesting sort of dichotomy. So you know,

there's this power in giving, and yet there's sort of this

seeming contradiction of About don't give out of obligation. So

can you just kind of expand on that lesson and kind of clarify

the distinction for us?

Well it's about giving with a cheerful heart,

it's giving with a loving heart, you're giving together, none of

that obligation, you don't give him because you feel you have to

You're giving because you because you want to, because you

want to help others. So it's a very selfless kind of give very

generous, very giving. And that's the kind of giving you

get so in your life, and you live in such a way it comes back

to you. And the energy bus, I call it being a love magnet. If

you put out there share the love, the love comes back. And

the best salespeople I've ever met, they're love magnets, they

just, they love their clients, they just cheerful people, they

get a great heart, they give out of that heart. It's amazing how

they just as successful as a result of that. And so to me,

that's the thing, you're not given out of obligation given

because you weren't good enough because you have to, and you're

giving a cheap heart. When I get when I would, April 15 came I

had to pay my taxes. I had to admit I was not very cheerful. I

felt like I wasn't giving it an obligation. I felt like it would

be in taken for me. I don't think the government is will be

very wise with a lot of my money. I feel like they can be

much more efficient. But when I give to the charities that gave

and I have my kids, for instance, right now check the

other day, we wrote out to single homeless shelters and

other things that we're getting rid of, it just felt so good to

do that with them and have them write the checks and give it

away. That felt great. But I did enjoy giving application of the

taxes and a funny story, that idea IRA, the IRS called me and

they said Will they call my assistant and they said was a

huge on board on my account when they want to talk to me for I'm

always honest, whatever I've done, or I'll forget anything.

And so they said, well, they want to talk to you, but I was

away. So I called him back on Monday. And they said oh Jon

Gordon, I said yes. How can I help you? They said, you're

probably wondering why we're calling? I said yes. They said

we want you to speak to our managers. We want them to have

more positive. I said the IRS, you want them to have more? They

said yes. They said how much would you charge for something

like that? So I had to take for a sec. I said, Well, whatever I

normally charge up to add 30 in taxes, and then she said that's

okay, we'll just take 30% of that you'll never win. That is

so yeah, generosity is also generosity of spirit. And it's

love and it's compliments. And it's because and it's also time

and energy and volunteering. So there's so many ways that we can

be generous. So you may not give money, but you might get some of

your service, you might get some of your time. Now newsletter

this week was about a guy who actually started giving away

some photography services and helping others in need. Next

year, he gets a he gets a huge job from Disney to do a big

photo shoot to them that takes them all over the world that

maybe you started giving. He gets this opportunity. It was incredible.

Jon, thank you for giving us your time and your insight

and just keep doing what you're doing. Man. You're a blessing to

the world. And it's an honor to have you here and I appreciate

you pouring into us.

I appreciate it. Thanks so much.