How to Stop Burnout in Its Tracks: Rediscover Your Passion & Purpose | with Jon Gordon

I'm not here to convince anyone of a certain religion, but I do want you to know, and people need to hear this, that there's a God who wants to give you power, and he actually wants you to go through life feeling peaceful and joyful and feeling love. He's not here to condemn you. He actually wants to give you life, and he wants you to take this confidence and courage and use it to change the world in a positive way. Mm-hmm. The reason why God wants us to have power is that we can actually use that power to to impact the world, to bring heaven to earth and make earth like heaven. And what is that? In every moment you love, in every moment you serve, in every moment you show that you care and try to really help others, you become a powerful force in this world and impact this world in a really amazing way. And that's our purpose here on earth is to actually do this. It's to make earth like heaven. It's to be kingdom men and kingdom women and change this world, impact this world, and make it a lot like heaven, which is what? Oneness, togetherness, and joy and peace. So what I'm saying here is like, Oh, God is not this evil God that actually wants to, to make you feel miserable and imprison you. No, God wants to give you freedom and life and power. And what I'm saying is there's a force that actually is trying to take all of that away from you, to make you feel weak, to make you feel like you can't take on this world, you can't make an impact, that you are nothing, that you should just give up, that you are not— you're not who God says you are. So your identity is all messed up, and as a result of that defeats you and discourages you and causes you to just quit. Yeah, that's our choice today. Am I going to quit, or do I recognize how the battle is being waged, good versus evil, choose good, gain power, and then change the world? To me, it's like so simple.

Hey everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome to the Growth Lab, where each and every week we talk about how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career and relationships to the next level. This week I have an honor of speaking with John Gordon. John is a new friend of mine, and we actually found out over lunch we have a lot of things in common, a lot of friends in common, everyone from Patrick Lencioni to Erwin McManus and a lot of others. And today we're gonna talk about how to find the truth. And this is so important today because there's so much information. I've had so many people ask me questions over the years about, hey, what's the truth about which diet is best? Or what's the best mindset to have? Or all kinds of things. This could extend to religion or politics or a number of things. So today we're going to talk about how to find the truth, also how to grow as a leader in your energy. We're going to talk a lot about a lot of things. But John, welcome to the show.

Good to be with you.

And I should start off saying that John is the best-selling author of a number of books, including The Energy Bus and a book called The One Truth that he just came out with. And he speaks across the country and specializes in leadership, and he's spoken to a load of professional teams, uh, NFL players, PGA golfers. Anyway, so I know you do a lot of speaking as well.

I do. I speak to a lot of sports teams, but also a lot of companies and organizations in terms of leadership, culture. Yeah, teamwork, and, and then mindset.

It's a big deal. You know, we talk a lot about mindset on the show because I found that it's actually probably the most critical thing, even for somebody to— for somebody's health. A lot of times I used to think that food was the most powerful form of medicine. But I started realizing that no, I actually think mindset as medicine is the most powerful form of medicine.

Big time. As a man thinks, he becomes.

There we go.

As a woman thinks, she becomes. What you think about, you create, you become. Your thoughts are so powerful. I was telling this story the other day about how my wife literally 8 months ago was complaining, I'm getting old, I'm getting tired, my body's breaking down, I'm sore all the time. I'm not gonna be like I was when I was younger. I'm like, honey, what's going on? I go away to a speaking engagement. I come back 2 days later. She's like a different person. She's light and free. She's bouncing around. I'm like, all right, what's going on here? Did you get a boyfriend or something? She's like, no, no. I talked to that health coaching company where they do that intensive testing where they look at your genes, your DNA, and your blood.

Yeah, that's right.

They told her, this is really rare. We don't see this often. They told her that she had those genes of an Olympic athlete. You know, those endurance athletes? Yeah.

Oh yeah.

They said, you have those kind of genes. She was like, what? I am an Olympic athlete. So now she's walking around the house going, I am an Olympic athlete. I am an Olympic athlete. She starts working out, she starts getting fit, she starts losing weight, she stops drinking, she's eating healthy. No more sauna soreness. The inflammation goes away. She starts feeling like amazing. She looks better now than she's looked in years. Like since we got married. What changed? Her mindset.

Wow.

She was saying, I am. I am, I am. Josh, I did this with the Texas football team this year during training camp. I told this exact story. I had them stand up and say, I am, and they added, I am a warrior. I am strong. I am an overcomer. I am here to make a difference. I am a conqueror. It was incredible.

Wow.

I go down to the weight room afterwards, like 2 hours later, I'm gonna work out. The strength coach was in the middle of the team. They're surrounding him and he yells, I am. And they yelled, my brother's keeper.

Wow. So cool.

Because I am my brother's keeper. I said to Sark after that, I said, it's gonna be a different Texas football team this year. You guys are gonna beat Alabama and you're gonna have a great season. I knew it.

Like, I— wow.

It was the thoughts. It was the mindset changed everything.

That's so powerful. And we're coming off just Texas just beating Alabama, one of their biggest school wins in the past 20 years. Absolutely amazing. And it's so true. I mean, and we've heard, uh, again, of course this is a proverb, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. We know that there have been so many people over the years who have, uh, you know, people that may be considered mystics who are sharing this idea. And I think sometimes— I know for me, I believe that this is, this is a truth, right, that I think people need to embrace. But one of the things I hear a lot is, you know, um, people kind of feel like this is— it's not, it's not reality. Like, it's not real. Like, okay, just because I believe something doesn't make it true, which, which is partly true. But I know neurologically and from all the studies that if you believe you're going to heal you will most likely heal. If you don't, you likely won't.

Yeah, there's the placebo effect. We know that, right? Believe it, it actually has a big impact on our healing. Your doctor's opinion and his belief actually has a big impact on what you believe about your healing. I'm sure you've seen the study on that. And so if we understand the nature of thoughts, like, this is really where I dive into the one truth in many ways, because you have to understand our reality. Like, we think we're physical, but we're actually energetic. Mm-hmm. Like, how do we perceive the world? Through frequencies and wavelengths and spectrums. And so you make sense of this world basically by signals being sent to your auditory nerve, your optic nerve, through sounds and sights. And those signals literally are electrical signals that the brain then interprets and creates a visual map or creates meaning by what you hear.

Yeah.

So you're actually living an energetic reality. Once you understand that and you realize that you're made up of energy, everything about you is energy, well, then it would make sense that we're actually more thought beings than physical beings. We're more energetic beings than we are physical. And so thoughts are how we create our reality by our thoughts and then our beliefs and then our actions. So thoughts are not just a nice way to think. It's not just a nice way to live. I always say positive thinking or being positive, it's not about ignoring reality. It's about maintaining optimism, belief, and faith to create a better reality. And it's not about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Right. It's knowing you have the power to overcome the thorns. And so you actually can overcome your challenges and your situations with the power of thought. And everything comes down to thought, literally positive thought or negative thought. Negative thoughts bring us down. Pessimism causes us to want to give up. Fear separates and divides us and makes us feel anxious. Positive thoughts uplift. They encourage, they make us feel powerful. Think about it. Love casts out fear. In every moment when you're focusing on love, fear dissipates. Yeah. So fear will divide you, fear will weaken you, but love strengthens you and love unites you. This is the nature, this is who we are. And once you understand how thoughts create your reality, you'll choose your thoughts more powerfully and effectively.

Yeah. And, and I think one other thing that is so important for people to realize is that we carry our own energy within us, but also the energy of others affects us. And so, you know, when I'm in an interview with someone like you who is really positive, really energetic, it starts, it affects my physiology. You know, if I'm doing an interview with somebody who's a little bit more melancholy and down, or maybe somebody who's depressed, like, like we, we all feel that, right? And so it's really interesting how, you know, you can create energy within yourself and your own mindset, but also it's so important that principle who we're spending time with and how that affects us as well.

Right? So true. Like, we are contagious every day. We've heard that in a negative way for the last few years, but we're also positively contagious. Yeah. I have to say, hope is contagious. Love is contagious. Kindness is contagious. You can feel apathetic and give off that indifference, or you can be passionate and give off that energy. And research from HeartMath shows that when you have a feeling in your heart, it goes to every cell in the body and then outward.

Mm-hmm.

And up to 5 to 10 feet away, people can sense feelings transmitted by your heart via electromagnetic signals. And that heart is 5,000 1,000 times more powerful than the brain. So you're broadcasting every day your energy. And as you said, people pick up on that and they feel that. Now here's the cool thing. When we have a conversation and there's a connection that happens, our hearts actually start to entrain. They actually start to synchronize together. Two hearts beat as one. I shared that in The One Truth. Why? Because we actually are connected. We are meant to actually be one. One, one people, one human race. There's a connection there.

Yeah.

And as we start to feel that connection and we feel that love, we feel that, that togetherness, it actually— you join together in a spiritual way. Like, your heart's energy and the spirit comes together, and then you actually have a greater feeling, you have greater hope, and you have greater healing. Relational psychology says you heal in a loving relationship. Yeah. I'm convinced it's because as you come together in oneness, there's healing and there's power.

Well, it's interesting, as you mentioned this oneness, and this really ties into, you know, And there are other religions who have their idea around this, but it's the, I love your neighbor as yourself. Because if you think about it, it's like, if you're one, well, I'm gonna treat you as well as I would treat myself. I'm gonna think about your needs, care for you in that similar way. And that's really important. And that's one of the biggest truths out there that if people really grasp that, that I need to treat you and care for you like I would myself or my own child or my own family member, that really starts to impact the world.

Totally. It's Namaste, which says the spirit in me recognizes the spirit in you. Yeah. And then also on the Christian faith standpoint, you see each other as yourself. Like, we are one body, one people. And guess what? I'm here to take care of my brother or my neighbor. When you feel separate from someone, you don't care about them.

Yeah.

When you feel like you're one with that person and connected to that person, you do care and you want to help them. I've been thinking about this a lot lately in today's society. Get on airplanes and what do you see? People have their earbuds in, their earphones, and no No one is literally talking to anyone anymore on an airplane. We've become very separated in our society. Go to a locker room with a lot of sports teams. You'll see guys with their headphones on, not connecting and talking to their teammates. And so you start to see more and more separation.

Yeah.

Which I believe is a big part of why we don't care about each other or why we can easily villainize each other and then fight with someone. 'Cause if I think you're separate from me, I'm not gonna care about you and I'm gonna demonize you 'cause now I can attack you and I can now win the fight. I wrote in the book the example of traffic. When you're in traffic, you see the other person as the cause of your traffic. They're seeing you as the cause of their traffic. But in LA, there was a sign that said, "You are the traffic." And so what you realize is we're all the traffic. We're all one. So we need to care about each other in this journey.

That's so good. You know, one of the things I find really interesting today, and I'd love to get your take on this, is that we've moved into a realm and a world that was more objective and saying, hey, there isn't a truth. And whether it be the ancient philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato who were committed to finding the truth, and maybe what the truth— there are certain truths they found. Or you could talk about those of the Judeo-Christian faith saying, hey, this is true. Well, today we're living in this kind of world where we hear a term like postmodernism and essentially where people would say, Well, find your own truth. That might be true for you. It's not for me. Or there's multiple truths. Now you have a book that you wrote and it's called The One Truth. The One Truth. So tell me about what's the difference between the one truth and find your own truth.

So I believe that each person needs to find their authentic self of, of who they are and the best version of themselves. Mm-hmm. And I wouldn't say that's your truth. I would say that's what you're meant to do.

That's your purpose.

Makes sense. That's your passion. But I also believe God created you on purpose for a purpose. And this world has intention in it. This universe has intention in it. And so God is an intentional creator. We are the creation of a creator. And so God created you for that purpose. So of course, if you don't feel connected to that purpose, or you don't feel connected to that God who created you for a purpose, you're actually going to flounder in many ways and look for that purpose. Just as that fish is meant to swim in water, and the tree is meant to be connected to the soil. We are meant to be connected to our Creator. And when we are connected, we feel joy, we feel peace, we feel love, we feel power, we feel confidence. When we feel separate and don't feel connected to God, to others, or ourselves, we feel very divided and anxious and worried. The root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide.

This is so interesting. I wanna stop here cuz we, we hear a lot today. I mean, right now when you look at mental health on the rise and how many people are, they would say, I'm confused about what gender I am, or I'm confused about a number of, I mean, there, there's a lot of identity confusion out there today. And so I think, but this idea of connection, cuz you said something here, disconnected from God, disconnected from others, but also disconnected from yourself. Break that down for me a little bit more about maybe something today, or you talk about in your book about how we're actually disconnected from ourselves.

Well, what is the one truth? The one truth is that everything comes down to oneness or separateness. And the more one I feel, the more connected I feel, I feel power. A team that is connected and united is a powerful team.

Yeah.

Team that is disconnected and divided is a very weak team. And so we can actually see how this plays out. It's the same thing with us. When we feel connected to ourselves, to others, and God, we feel powerful. When we feel disconnected from others, from God, from ourselves, we actually feel very weak. So what does being disconnected from yourself mean? Well, in the place of, like you said, identity— I think about identity, it's like so clear what's going on right now. You will always be attacked in the place of your identity because there are two opposing forces. There is a force trying to divide and separate you and weaken you, and there's a power that's always trying to unite you and bring you back to oneness, to connection. And I would say most spiritual traditions believe in the oneness concept, but some don't realize that there's an evil that's actually always trying to divide, or an opposing force, whatever that is. But you can see it play out in every aspect in society, in life. We have broken relationships, we have broken bones, there's a separation. We have broken families. What is a wound? We all have wounds. We have a hole in our soul, H-O-L-E. That is a separation, a wound, because of some trauma, some event that caused separation and disconnected you from yourself. Yeah. And from others. So you don't feel whole. So what does it mean to be disconnected? I have this hole in my soul and I'm filling it with all this stuff that I think is going to help me, but it actually is all about relief. I'm getting relief, but I'm not getting restoration. So I'm playing video games, or I'm drinking, or I'm doing drugs, or I'm scrolling on my phone, or Every other addiction, social media addiction, trying to fill the hole with something that is not meant to fill it. Mm-hmm. You can't fill a spiritual void with physical things.

Yeah.

And we all have this void. See, once you understand the one truth, it makes you like a Jedi in this world cuz you'll see how it plays out in your life. Like social media, social media is not the problem though. It's the fact that you feel separate. And so when you look at social media and you feel separate as a result or because of, or even leading into it, then it actually reinforces that. It makes you feel unqualified. It makes you recognize, I'm not living my purpose. I'm looking at someone else's life instead of living my own. Whereas, you know, you could be in a high state of mind, which I talk about in the book, High State versus Low State. High state, I feel very connected in that moment. I go to social media, it has no power over me. Mm-hmm. Doesn't even affect me. One day traffic bothers me, the next day it doesn't. Is the traffic? No, it's not the traffic. It's our state of mind. When your state of mind is low, the traffic bothers you. When your state of mind is high, The traffic doesn't, you move on. Same thing with circumstances in our life. Someone could say something mean to you, low state, it bothers you. You start to question yourself and lose confidence. High state, you're like, oh, that person doesn't know what they're talking about. I feel good. I'm going forward. Let's go. Sales, you're a low state, rejection happens. You start to question your sales ability, your future, this job, everything. High state, you're like, next call, let's go. I got this. So am I feeling connected, which brings me to a high state of mind, or disconnected to a low state? And going back to the identity. And the truth and everything we're talking about, we have a hole in our soul. And guess what? Those negative forces will fill it with negative things. But the key to healing and wholeness is to fill it with positive things, with love, with positivity, with joy, with purpose, with your spiritual connection and relationship with the Creator. And as you do, then you start to find healing and wholeness versus all this other stuff that actually leads to your, your, your destruction and eventually your demise. 5 Ds will affect you. There's doubt, distortion, which are negative thoughts and lies, tell you things about yourself and your future that just aren't true. Discouragement— we don't give up because it's hard, we give up because we get discouraged. And so many people are giving up today because of the discouragement that they feel. Distractions— distractions are the enemy of greatness, and they keep us from what matters most: our purpose and living our best life, and ultimately living up to our potential and what we're here to do. Distractions. And then there's that 50, which is divide, going back to the root word of anxious. And those thoughts, those negative thoughts and the negative words and everything else, they divide and separate you. And so once you see that, you realize, oh, okay, I have a hole in my soul. Is this dividing me or separating me, or is this healing me and uniting me? And then in a place of identity, If you don't know who you are or whose you are, and your identity is being attacked, and you don't have this root and this foundation of strength and love and understanding and purpose, well, guess what? You'll start to question yourself. You'll question your identity of who you are, and that divides you and separates you furthermore. And then you feel powerless and weak. And because you feel powerless and weak, you now try to fill that powerless void with stuff to give you power. That's how the ego arises, by the way. Yeah. Everyone's Everyone says like ego's the enemy. No, separation is the enemy because you feel separate. That gives rise to the ego, and ego stands for edging God out. And so when I feel separate from God and I separate myself from others, I'm now focused on self. And so I have to feel powerful because I actually feel powerless. And then what happens is now it's false power. It's this like ego power. So it seems like it's powerful, but it's actually very weak. It's connected to self, not something greater. Yeah. And that's why it runs out. Integrity. Going back to proving my point here, integrity comes from the word integer, which means whole and complete. Yeah. So a leader with integrity, wholeness, completeness. There is oneness there. And that's why leaders with integrity have power.

And then this is such a powerful message. And the thing is, it's powerful and it's also ultimately practical. And I wanna share a few big takeaways or some things that I think are interesting just to prove your point. You know, one, one, one of the things Aristotle always said is one of the goals of our life is eudaimonia, which essentially is a It's happiness, but it's happiness as a state of you're proud that you've done the right thing. You've done the right thing out of character. So for instance, if you ever done a really good hard workout and at the end of it you're just have this euphoric feeling like you feel good. Have you ever given a gift to somebody who just needed it and you see their face light up because you gave them that gift? It's this. So, so he says that's the sort of state, that's the sort of feeling you should be living in when you're living in one. And of course, we know that again, if we're going back to, you know, bringing in some spirituality here, or, you know, Jesus said, the Father and I are one. Yes. And we know Paul kept saying, well, I'm one with Christ, right? It's that, it's that unity that you're talking about. It's the oneness. So that oneness is so important. And I think the more that people can live in alignment with love your neighbor as yourself, love yourself, love God, love the planet. Like when you litter and do something harmful to the planet, you're creating separation, right? Yes. When you, when you talk negatively to yourself, to the image of God, you're creating separation. And I think about this even with spouse— this is such a key message for marriage because I think about my marriage with Chelsea. When Chelsea and I, like, our values line up, we feel connected. When we have a deep conversation about something, we feel connected. When we both do something and we're not living just separate lives but on purpose towards something together, like raising a virtuous daughter, you know, these are things that bring us together. And so I love this message because it's both incredibly powerful, but also it's incredibly practical in asking that question, how can I be more one with that person? And listen, there are— I think the idea here is, again, is that statement, love your neighbor as yourself. How can I ultimately love that person like I would myself is one of the great, you know, connectors.

Yeah. And as you're thinking about others and realize it's about we, Not me.

That's good. Yeah.

Me actually gets better when I focus on we. When I help others improve, I improve. When I help others get better, I get better. There's a, a great story about a guy named Shwen Nader, recruited by John Wooden to play at UCLA. Oh yeah. Years ago, 6'10", played at Cypress Community College, and he recruits him. He says, you're not gonna play a lot cuz we have the best center in the world in Bill Walton, but we want you to come here and make Bill Walton better. So Shwen agrees to go to UCLA and his job is to make Bill Walton better. So every day in practice he is pushing and challenging Bill Walton. Bill Walton never starts a college game, but he's the only person in NBA history to have never started a college game but be drafted in the first round. Wow. Of the NBA. 12-year NBA career, Rookie of the Year. What happened? Every day he was making Bill Walton better.

Wow.

He got better. And so you can see how this plays out with the we versus me. Are we together? Are we united? Are we helping each other get better? My wife and I wrote a book called Relationship Grit, which is about staying together and sticking together through tough times. Because we had our tough times. We almost didn't make it twice on our journey, much because of my negativity early in our marriage. People think, oh, I'm Mr. Positive Guy because of the books that I write, but I actually was really negative and struggled, struggled with my faith, struggled with a relationship with God, very disconnected, focused on self, very narcissistic in many ways, trying to create this success and miserable in the process. So she threatens to leave me. And I had to change. And it's about our journey of coming together and becoming one. Well, over the years, I had to learn to be a servant leader. I had to learn to serve and give. So we talk about communication and connection, which leads to commitment, and then that commitment is strengthened by caring. And if you have those 4 C's— communication, connection, commitment, caring— you become more one in your relationship. Now, when I wrote that, I didn't understand oneness and separateness. Like, that came to me about a year and a half ago when I saw how it all was connected, and I was like, whoa, once you understand oneness and separateness, everything plays out. And then I would test things against it and measure things against it. I was like, oh, everything actually corresponds to this. The pandemic— wasn't there a lot of division in the pandemic?

A lot. Yeah.

Wasn't there a lot of anxiety during the pandemic? I call it the great separator. During that time, people felt separate and divided, and all these teenagers were isolated. Mental health. Yeah, mental health became such a challenge for so many because they were isolated and disconnected, and some have recovering. That's right. Because they allowed themselves to be disconnected and feel that division. So how do we heal? We bring people back into oneness, into connection, into relationship, and we heal in that love and relationship.

You know what we're living in? We've heard this term cancel culture, you know, quite often. And, you know, we're living in this world today where, um, if you, if you think I'm going— because this is just such a powerful, a powerful idea, this oneness idea of it's like you make one mistake, you're canceled, you're gone, you're separated, you're banished, right? Yeah. Versus, you know, the message of the Bible is you're forgiven no matter what you've done, no matter what it is. Hey, come on, come back and be one, you know, come back here and be one. And so it's just, you know, it's a, it's a powerful message. And I think, you know, when I look at society today of like even, you know, some of culture today has made it so difficult for or, you know, physical contact. Now, obviously there have been some things that have happened, you know, sexual scandals and those sort of things in certain corporations over the years, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's like, I know, like when I, when I used to have my functional medicine clinic, I had my, one of my staff people there and her job, we called her the, the, you know, the, the chief hug officer, the CHO. And so she would just go up and hug every patient that came in, even the ones that first were kind of standoffish. She would hug him. And you know what I asked one time? We, we did patient, um, after a year of care. Yeah, people would come in and we'd say, hey, what are the— what is it that you love best about this clinic and office? And I'm not sure, I, you know, I thought I'd get a little bit more, hey, we love Dr. Axe and his expertise and his advice and all the things he's doing. Probably the number one thing we heard were they're like, we just love Ali, we just love her hugs, you know.

Good.

So healing.

It's what it comes down to. It's about relationship. It always is. We think it's about business and success, it comes down to relationships. Relationships are the foundation upon which winning teams are built. And I just came back from, you know, work with the Miami Heat coaching staff.

Yeah.

And Erik said, hey John, come here and work with my coaching staff so we can better serve our players.

Mm-hmm.

Because you have to be more connected at the top.

Yeah.

To help your team at every level. And a team that's disconnected from the top or at the top will crumble at the bottom. Mm-hmm. So it always comes down to relationships. And, and I used to be in the restaurant business and our job and our goal was to make everyone's day every day. So try to make people's day every single day, you know, and hugs and as you said, physical contact. And I always say when I speak to companies like, hey, if hugs are appropriate, give them. You, your culture is your culture. Yeah. You have to decide what works for you. But physical contact is essential for health, for healing. Yeah. For wellness. We're meant to be together and we're meant to be connected. But of course, what happens? People ruin it. And I would say evil ruins it. Evil creates a divide. Bad actors create the divide with, with bad intentions, creates divide. But there's so many good people who love others and want to help others and want to hug others, and they're very harmless. And that should always be promoted and allowed. Go to a school and go to see a bunch of little kids.

They all hug.

Oh yeah. And connect. And it, it's a beautiful, innocent thing in so many ways.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely agree. You know, one of the things I wanted to talk about too is, you know, you've really— one of the things I heard you talk about in the past was how to naturally increase your energy. You know, as I've taken care of patients in the past and work with people over the years, one of the biggest health problems people have, one of the biggest complaints or symptoms is, I just got low energy. You know, I just, I just, you know, I feel tired all the time. And sometimes it's diet, but a lot of times I've looked at people's diets and I've said, you know what, I don't, I don't, I don't think this is a food thing. You know, I think this might be a mindset thing. What, what are some of your thoughts on the root cause of that? But what are some ways we can naturally improve our energy levels?

Well, we often think it's a vitamin deficiency, but it's often a purpose deficiency.

Oh, that's right.

That's good. And purpose energizes us. We don't get burned out cuz of what we do. We get burned out cuz we forget why we do it. And when you know your why, you'll know the way. And you're not gonna let obstacles get in the way. So I know for me, when I wake up in the morning, I am purpose-driven. That excites me. That energizes me. 4 hours sleep last night. I did not sleep well, but I know that I'm talking to you and talking to others and your listeners, and that purpose is, can I make a difference in the people listening? And that's what keeps me going. That's what energizes me. And I have found in the course of my life when I didn't have that purpose, I was drained. I was burned out. Yeah. I was tired. Now, of course, based on your recommendations, and by the way, your, your website's my favorite on the planet, and I've used it a lot in my own health. Of course, you know, sleep is important.

Yeah.

Eating healthy foods is, is important. Yeah. Exercise is essential. My favorite tip for increased energy is to take a walk of gratitude every day.

That's so good.

You combine the walk with gratitude and while you're walking, you just say what you're thankful for. And the research shows when you're doing this, you're flooding your brain and body with positive emotions and neurochemicals and so forth that uplift you rather than the stress hormones that solely drain you.

Yeah.

And over time solely kill you.

Cuz you can't be stressed and thankful at the same time, at the same moment.

So if you're feeling blessed, you won't feel stressed. So I've been doing this now over 18 years, a daily walk of gratitude, and it rewired my brain from negative to positive. And I feel so much more energy now. Like, I'm 52 now. I have more energy than when I had when I was in my 30s, cuz I'm living with purpose. I'm taking those walks of gratitude. Yep. They also involve prayer as well. So I walk, I practice gratitude, I pray. What is prayer? The renewal of your mind. Don't keep— be conformed by the patterns of this world, but be transformed be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You're renewing your mind every day with spirit, with love, with higher level thoughts, not fear, worry, anxiety, and stress. And all of a sudden you create a fertile mind that is ready for great things to happen. So it's like a, a different feel. So for me, that's how I love to energize myself. And then at night before I go to bed, I write down like a success of the day. So like, what's the one success that you had that day? Not all the bad things that went wrong, but the one great thing that that, that went right, and that's helpful as well. And then you'll find relationships. You said it earlier, are those people energizing you or bringing you down? Spend time with an energy vampire.

Yeah.

And they will suck the life right out of you, and you will feel drained after being with them. Yep. Spend time with someone who energizes you, you know, you get charged up. We just had lunch together, we talked. I was more energized after our conversation than before.

Yeah.

Because you're with someone who brings great energy to you and you feel great. Now people always say, only surround yourself with people who have great energy. Yes, that's helpful. But then who's gonna spend time with the people who need help? Like, we're only surrounding ourselves with people who, who energize us. What about the people who may need our encouragement? So I believe lift yourself up, be around people that energize you, and then take that energy and go out there and try to lift others up in the process.

That's right. Be that vessel, you know, have, you know, you know, fill, get yourself full and then go and pour, pour it out and then fill yourself up again.

Keep on replenishing others and then you get replenished and go back and some more. The word encourage means to put courage into.

To.

So when you're encouraging someone, you're putting courage into them. That's how important encouragement is.

Yeah, you said something, and I think this is a really important tip for everybody to, to consider, and that is you replace worry with gratitude. You can't worry and be grateful at the same time. And I found this with my patients. In fact, the number one trick I found to help people eat healthier was not to remove everything from their diet, but instead to have, have them focus on swaps. And so I said, listen, rather than doing the vegetable oil, I want you to switch to coconut oil and olive oil. Hey, rather than using the white flour, I want you to start using the almond flour. Rather than start doing the conventional pasteurized skim milk, do the raw milk or the coconut milk, right? So just simply saying, you can still have chicken Parmesan, you can still have chocolate cake, you can still just make swaps. But I think it's a similar thing. A lot of times I hear people say, say, well, stop being stressed, right? Or stop worrying, or stop having anxiety. And the thing is, no, you've got to replace it with something like gratitude. And so if you're, if you're in a state of worry, as John's saying here, replace it. What is that replacement emotion? Gratitude's a good one. Hope is a good one. Love is a good one. So focus on filling yourself up with those.

I'm so glad you said that because I've been talking a lot about this, and I wrote about it in The One Truth. The brain is an antenna. Yeah. So you have a choice in every moment. What are you tuning into? That's good. Yeah. The negative or the positive. So if you're tuning into the negative, guess what? Your playlist is automatically on that negative station. Your dial is tuned to that negative station. You drive in your car, when you get in, guess what? It's automatically tuned to the negative. We gotta start tuning into the positive each day, as you said, and replace. So instead of doubt, we trust. I call it T-U-N-E, tune. Instead of doubt, we trust. Instead of fear, we unite with love. 'Cause fear divides. Love unites. Unite with love. N, neutralize the negativity. So instead of listening to the negative thoughts that come in, talk to yourself with words of encouragement, words of life. I am. Start saying those I am statements. Start saying words that speak truth to those lies. So someone could be struggling saying, I'm not enough. No, I am enough. I don't have what it takes. Yes, I do. I'm going to get better every day. The future is hopeless. No, it's not. There's a purpose and plan for my life. You start speaking truth. Truth to those lies. We have people actually write down— in our trainings we do this— write down your negative thoughts on the left side of a piece of paper. On the right side, write down the words of encouragement you will replace those negative thoughts with, and positive words that will speak life to yourself. And it energizes you, it changes everything. And that then elevates your thinking. Instead of the fear and all the negative thoughts that bring down your state of mind, lower it, and cause you to want to give up, elevate your thinking on a daily basis with what? Optimism, with hope, with belief, with joy, with confidence, with courage. All of those things on a daily basis allow you to replace the negative with the positive. If we would do this every single day and actually practice this and take action— the antenna, you actually nourish the antenna with positive thoughts. Where I'm convinced in the future we're going to believe in and actually find out that negative thoughts actually sabotage and damage your antenna. The frequency of your brain. Yeah, because that's why you get negative thoughts and then you tune into more and more negative thoughts. Negative thoughts exist at a lower frequency, positive thoughts at a higher frequency.

You know, I think that Dr. Daniel Amen, I mean, he gets into some of this in his research, does brain scans, and he actually sees a little bit of this in terms of thoughts. And so I, I think we're— I think we have some of it, but it's going to continue to develop. I texted him over time.

I texted him, I said, hey, the brain is an antenna. Antenna. He responds, the brain is an antenna, with like 10 exclamation points.

Yeah, that's good.

Once you hear it, yeah, it makes sense. 86 billion neurons in our brain. 86 billion neurons. Every neuron has a transmitter and receiver on it. It is an antenna. And there's two main frequencies, positive or negative. It's why everything comes down to positive or negative. There's a negative station, lie, lie, lie. And there's 11:11, the truth. That's right. Which station am I listening to? And by the way, go to the garden, Adam and Eve. It's a great story. And by the way, people say it's a religious story. No, it's not. It's actually an ancient Jewish story. It's not a Christian story. It's a Jewish story about the separation of man and women from God and relationally from each other. And how'd that happen? They believe the lie. They were listening to the wrong voice, the negative voice that said you will become more more, but it lied to them and they became less. And then there was the voice of God that said, I've made you for more. Live this abundant life. Eat from all the trees in the garden. Be one with me and connected with me. That's the difference between the two stations right there. But also we see it play out in the old ancient Cherokee story. Two wolves. We all have two wolves inside of us. What? A positive wolf and a negative wolf. And what happens? They fight all the time. Who wins the fight? The one you feed the most. So feed the positive wolf. That's an ancient Cherokee story. Wow. Truth will be found everywhere. And then we also see it in pop, pop, uh, culture. You know, we see it in like, um, everyday, like TV shows and movies where you have like the main character and they have two voices. Yeah. They have the evil or they have the devil and then they have the angel and they're talking to 'em. That's the two frequencies that are playing out in every moment of every day. And which one will you listen to? So, in your words, replace the negative with the positive, and then you win the battle of your mind.

Yeah, you know, I think when I think about society today, I think that in a way it's moved more away from God and it's moved more negative. And so now there's still plenty of incredible positive messages, people, things we can find out there, but there is a great degree of negative. Not that there was in the past, but there still is a larger amount than I would say probably 50 years ago. You know, I want to hit on a couple things I think are important as you were sharing. One is, is this idea of energy. I think it's important to be aware of your energy, the energy of others, the energy you're giving away. You know, there are different— there's masculine energy, there's feminine energy, there are— there, there's an impact. People will— you can see there are frequencies if you measure somebody who's acting with love or compassion versus anger versus— there's, there's, there's different, different frequencies here. So I'm, I'm in agreement with you that everything is energy in, in terms of just what's part of what's feeding us the spirit and what's being, what's happening. And all that being said, again, going back to this, I think it's so important that we realize what we're tuning into, what those frequencies are. You know, when I was a kid, we used to have this thing and it was called TGIF, thank God it's Friday. And then they eventually took God out and it was like, thank Goodness, it's anyway something else. So, but anyways, it was TGIF and it was Thank God It's Friday. And we watched shows like Step by Step and Full House and all this, whatever, you know, Steve Urkel, this is hilarious, you know, even Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yeah, they were fantastic. And they all had this moral of the story. It was that thing. It was like you had a devil and you had an angel and it's like, okay, good one out in the end. Here's the moral of the story. Do this thing. Today when you watch TV shows, I can't think of any outside of like we get, you know, my daughter, maybe there's certain shows we have her watch to learn to share. And, you know, but most of the adult shows, how many of them have a moral of the story? What I, what I see society doing a lot of times is saying, well, it's all the same. There is no good, there is no evil, right? Because sometimes, like, you want to root for the— like, it's all subjective. It's like there really is no good or evil, it's just your opinion. What are your thoughts on society becoming so— the idea they're subjective subjective versus objective. What happens when we're objective and know this is the truth versus, well, there really is no truth?

The greatest deception of the devil or of evil is to actually make you think it doesn't exist. Because then there is no good or evil. But look at every major epic movie. It's all a battle of good versus evil. Black Panther, good versus evil. Star Wars, good versus evil. Harry Potter, good versus evil.

That's right.

And you said today though, on these shows, in many ways it's just pure evil. A lot of the shows today, it's just pure evil. Again, you can just look at how things are playing out and you can see the battle of good versus evil. Most people see someone committing a murder and go, that's evil, right? As our friend Erwin McManus would say, we don't call a lion when it attacks someone or something evil No, you're just being a lion. But when a human being does it, we don't say that's evil, but we probably should say it's evil because you're not in your nature to do that. It's in the lion's nature, but not your nature. We know there's also goodness within you, but we also know that there's bad in you. Human beings are capable for both good and for bad. We all have that. There are two forces playing out in this world. That's truth. Yeah, that's not subjective. That is truth. There is good and evil in this world, and I would debate anybody. Prove me wrong. Because you could see it playing out in this world. Yeah. And I can also even give you examples of how evil's pervaded. And evil people don't even talk to each other about certain things that they do and certain acts, and yet they know to do it. There's like an evil, right, consciousness. Yeah. That gives them the ideas and the input on how to do things. Sexual abusers know how to groom. They say, well, there's articles on that, but they know what to do even without doing it. There's an evil that leads them into doing that. And so there's good versus evil. And I would say that truth is not subjective. Truth is objective. Yeah. And once you know the truth, guess what? It does set you free.

That's right.

You know the truth, you know the rules of the game and how the game is being played. And guess what? You can win the game. If I know it's a battle of good versus evil and that there's negative thoughts trying to bring me down and move me away from my purpose, and positive thoughts, and there's a God trying to move me towards my purpose, well, I can now choose that. But too many people are believing the lie that, one, there is no God, or there is no good, or there is no purpose for their life. And guess what? They're miserable. Yeah. And they're unhappy, and they're negative, and they want to give up. Most people deal with their identity or actually deal with their mental health challenges. So we need to call it what it is. It's a mental health challenge that they're dealing with because they actually feel separate and divided, and they're being act in the place of their identity.

Well, you said something earlier and I thought it was, it was, it was really great, and that is that purpose gives you energy, right? Right. And I think even before purpose though, something you started off earlier with was talking about identity with that. And so if you think about this, like the levels of identity— if I believe myself as like, uh, I'm inherently evil, or people are a virus to the planet, or life is meaningless, or Right. You know, like, and so, or like, hey, you know, like I just, I don't have much purpose. My, my identity is just like, I'm kind of like a, an animal. That's a pretty weak identity. Or, you know, I can get married or whatever. Like I could have a very weak identity as a father or a parent. But if your identity is, I'm made in the image of God, I'm gonna live for eternity. I'm, I'm called to know there's no one in the world like me. There's not a single person in this world that is like me, that has the gifts I have, the talents I have in order to to, you know, turn this earth into a heavenly place. And when you're coming from that place of this is who I am, boom, now that's tied to your purpose. Now you got energy, right? Right. These things are important.

This goes to the crux of the fact that so many people are struggling with their mental health today. So many are feeling worried, chronically stressed, fearful, and anxious all the time. There's so many people that are like that now, right?

Well, let me say is here's, here's what a lot of people have done. They, they've actually said mental health, it's a disease, right? So, so, so it's a disease and there's nothing. So if it's just a disease, maybe it's genetic, there's nothing you can do about it.

They're normalizing it is what I'm saying. Yeah, they're normalizing it. They're making it a disease. They're saying, look at all these people, why are all these people feeling this way? Let me tell you, you're not meant to feel this way. You're not meant to go through life worried. Fearful, chronically stressed, chronically anxious all the time. That is not normal. It's okay to feel that way, and we'll have moments of that, but you're not meant to go through life that way. How are you meant to go through life? With power, with peace, with joy, with love, with confidence, with courage. I had a reporter ask me the day about this and about, well, what about the people who say, you know, well, that's just, you know, Pollyanna positive. I go, how would you rather go through life? As a pessimist or an optimist, with power or feeling weak, with confidence or feeling worried, doubtful, and anxious all the time. Let me give you the two alternatives. Which one will you choose?

And you know what the science shows, and you've worked with some of the best athletes on the entire planet. If you have somebody with, you know, let's, let's use, uh, I'm trying to remember his name, Alex, who's the guy who broke his leg, was playing for the, uh, Red— Washington Reds. Oh yeah, yeah, Alex Anyways, so this guy almost lost his entire leg. Or Deion Sanders is another example. That's too— where it's like they might have been told by a doctor, you're never going to walk again. And if their mindset was, you're right, I probably never will, versus I'm going to walk again. Ryan Shazier is another one. Yeah. Told, hey, you may never walk again. And now he's walking, he's working out, he's doing all this stuff. It's like, you know, you get to choose. I mean, you get to choose. It does matter.

It does matter what you think. And but going back to what you said about spirituality and so forth. I'm not here to convince anyone of a certain religion, but I do want you to know, and people need to hear this, that there's a God who wants to give you power, and he actually wants you to go through life feeling peaceful and joyful and feeling love. He's not here to condemn you. He actually wants to give you life, and he wants you to take this confidence and courage and use it to change the world in a positive way. Mm-hmm. The reason why God wants us to have power is that we can actually use that power to impact the world, to bring heaven to earth and make earth like heaven. And what is that? In every moment you love, in every moment you serve, in every moment you show that you care and try to really help others, you become a powerful force in this world and impact this world in a really amazing way. And that's our purpose here on earth, is to actually do this. It's to make earth like heaven. It's to be kingdom men and kingdom women and change this world, impact this world, and make it a lot like heaven, which is what? Oneness, togetherness, and joy and peace. So what I'm saying here is like, oh, God is not this evil God that actually wants to, to make you feel miserable and imprison you. No, God wants to give you freedom and life and power. And what I'm saying is there's a force that actually is trying to take all of that away from you, to make you feel weak, to make you feel like you can't take on this world, you can't make an impact, that you are nothing, that you should just give up, that you are not— you're not who God says you are. So your identity is all messed up, and as a result of that, defeats you and discourages you and causes you to just quit. And that's our choice today. Am I going to quit, or do I recognize how the battle is being waged? Good versus evil. Choose good, gain power, and then change the world. To me, it's like so simple. To me, I think that's the truth. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. But I really believe when you look at the big picture and see how it's all playing out, That's our choice today. Because look at mental health, 50% increases— increase in mental health services. It's crazy since the pandemic. It's going haywire. Spending more money than ever, more counselors than ever, more medication than ever, and the problem is only getting worse. We need better tools, and we need a better understanding of how the mind, the spirit, the body, and the brain, how it all works together. And I've had these different podcasts where I've talked to Dr. Amen, Dr. Caroline Leaf. Yeah, we've had these great conversations. Chris Palmer, psychiatrist Harvard. Yeah. Brain energy. And I've brought my thesis to them. The brain's an antenna. They've all said, makes sense. It could be. Yeah. But you have to integrate thoughts, brain health, and spiritual understandings. And once you bring it all together, which I did in The One Truth. Yeah. Then it makes so much sense because why would I have more negative thoughts when something is wrong with my brain.

You won't. You, you, you—

but, but there's no— when I have a brain, I have— when I have an issue with my brain, I do get more negative thoughts. So when I have an issue with my brain, I— yeah, when I am— when I have an issue with my brain, I get more negative thoughts. When you have a traumatic brain injury, which my friend had, you actually start to have more negative thoughts. When you're taking certain chemicals or smoke pot or eat foods that affect you and your health— when my son eats gluten he goes to a dark place and gets very negative. I've seen it affect his antenna. So when we actually have poor brain health, we actually tune into more negative thoughts. When we have a healthy brain, higher frequency, everything's working together, right? Communication. I guarantee we would actually see the light lighting up in all the places, and there's a better connection. We then have more, uh, positive thoughts. When you move from oneness to separateness, You move from positive to negative. All mental health disorders report feelings of what? Isolation. That's right. Disconnection. Feeling alone and being what? Separate. Mental health disorders and separateness, they go hand in hand. And thoughts what? Separate you. Why is overthinking always associated with negative thoughts?

Yeah.

We never say, oh, he's overthinking. He has too many positive thoughts, too much goodness. Overthinking is associated with negative thoughts that create the clutter that lowers your state of mind and makes you discouraged and questioning everything. I was talking to a 16-year-old who was suicidal a couple years ago. This is what prompted me to write this book. And I was teaching him this lesson actually about a year and a half ago cuz all these ideas were coming to me and he, he was in the ER 2 nights before. And my first question to him was, are you an accident? Accident? Because he was struggling with his, his belief in God. He goes, no, I'm not an accident. I go, well, you believe that this is all by chance, this is all randomness. You don't believe in a God that created this, so you just believe in an accidental occurrence of us and this world. So you're an accident. Because, well, I'm not an accident. I go, well, do you have a purpose? Yeah, I have a purpose. I go, well, if this is all an accident, you wouldn't have a purpose. There'd be no meaning, there'd be no purpose. So that helped him start to understand. And then I said, do your negative thoughts come from And he said, yeah, they're in my head. Next question. If you believe your negative thoughts come from you, who would ever choose to have a negative thought? You would never choose a negative thought that sabotages you. The initial thought that first comes in is not coming from you. The thought that says you're not enough, you don't have what it takes, the future is hopeless. It comes in so fast, you think it's from you, and then you believe the lie, and then now you reinforce it, and now it becomes a part of you. And then you choose to now say going forward, word, oh, I'm this, I'm that, I'm this, because it was first introduced to you and now it becomes your identity.

And what happens when you embrace the lie? We were talking, you mentioned the Garden of Eden before, and you have the serpent saying to Eve a lie. She could have believed it or not believe it, right? She believed it. What happens? Well, it's a fall. I mean, there's something that happens.

It leads to the fall. So when you believe the lie, it leads to your fall because you're believing the lie. So now these negative thoughts are coming in. Once he understood his negative thoughts were not coming from him initially. Because you don't have the power of the first thought, but you have the power of the second thought. You can actually respond to the lie with truth.

Well, there's something Dostoevsky said, and it's really brilliant. Basically, he says that the greatest lie, the most harmful lies, are the lies we tell ourselves. Right, right. And so, you know, she heard a lie from someone else, but then she told it to herself, right?

And so he heard it first, and now he's telling himself those lies. So he has all these negative thoughts in his head. He's beating himself up. He's feeling shame and guilt, thinking something is wrong with him, something is broken. How many kids today think something is wrong with them, something is broken? I have all these negative thoughts. Parents go, let's go see the doctor, let's, let's get you on medication, let's go hear this, you got to do this. No, you're just having a bunch of negative thoughts that were not from you initially. Yep. So I taught him all this. His parents go, what did you do? He's fine. The next day, literally the next that had a shift. Stop beating himself up. Stop thinking those thoughts were from him. Stop feeling guilt and shame and realize he's the hero in an epic story. And in the hero in the epic story, you're gonna have the negative and the positive, and he's got to choose the positive to overcome the negative. Yeah, that kid reached out to him just recently. How you doing? Doing great, Mr. Gordon. High state of mind. Unbelievable. Like, okay, Hey, this kid, if he didn't understand the truth, would still be suffering, probably.

Yeah, that's right.

Right now, I've now done this with a number of kids, a number of teenagers, all— I don't look for coaching kids, but I know the parents and leaders and companies and CEOs. Can you talk to my son? Can you talk to my daughter? So many people are struggling. I teach them this one session, they get it. Takes about 45 minutes to an hour of sharing the one truth. That's why I wrote book.

You know, and often— and one of the things I love about this book, and if you guys haven't seen this book, it's fantastic. The One Truth here, John Gordon. Elevate your mind, unlock your power, heal your soul. You can find this in bookstores nationwide, amazon.com, Barnes Noble. You know, I think some people don't realize sometimes there's just one single belief that if you can shift that one belief, it's like a domino effect, right? Or butterfly effect. All these other dominoes fall in place. Like you said, if somebody believes I'm an accident, I'm unworthy, nothing's by design, like all of those things versus I was created by an all-loving God with a purpose to live for eternity. That, that in a way kind of single, I believe this or I believe this will absolutely change somebody's mindset and trajectory and their entire life.

Big time. And even if you don't believe in God, let me just ask you, where do the 86 billion neurons in your brain come from that have transmitters and receivers? On them. We know that we actually build transmitters and receivers. We have to design them to create them. Well, how do they come about in your brain?

Well, one answer is two rocks, you know, slammed— well, out of nothing, there's something up here. I mean, you know, and it's been—

it's all the other answers.

It's, it's been proven. Even the Big Bang Theory basically shows there, there— this world was designed. If everything was just off by a millimeter, nothing would exist, right? Like, life on Earth couldn't be sustainable. They're actually— these are scientific proofs.

And so I don't want people to believe in religion. I want them to understand that there's God who created this world and created you and has a plan and purpose for you.

It's by design.

It's by design. Yeah, you're meant to live intentionally with the purpose that you were created for. And when you're not living that purpose, you're not going to feel quite right.

That's right.

When you're not feeling connected, going back to the beginning, you're not going to feel quite right. When you're not living a whole life and eating right and exercising and sleeping, which has a huge part of your energetic body and your brain— see, sleep affects the antenna, food affects the antenna, exercise affects the antenna. When you're not doing things that nourish your antenna, you're going to start to have some problems. And slowly but surely, life— and I would say that force which I call the evil force— will slowly get you to not exercise, to eat poorly, to think those negative thoughts, and slowly but surely start to like actually weaken you and make you feel powerless, to the point where you're just sitting around all day and you're watching TV and you're miserable and you want to give up on life. And that's not how we're meant to And by the way, I was that guy, depressed, anxious, and wanted to give up. And I know what it's like to feel that way. And I know what it's like to feel connected.

Yeah.

And purposeful. Yeah. And joyful. And living with that connection and that relationship with yourself, with my wife, and then ultimately with the creator. Yeah. By the way, so good. You take time every day to spend, like, walk each day, like, just practice that gratitude walk. Yeah. And, you know, I used to be a Buddhist, so I would meditate and I would practice meditations and study the Dalai Buddhism and all of that. So that practice actually helped me in a way, because when I started to take these walks of gratitude and then I started praying on these walks, I actually started praying to the creator of the universe, to God. God started to speak to me and I started to get wisdom and ideas and it started to come to me. And I was like, oh, wow, now I'm really connecting to this greater power. I realized, oh, the goal is not to connect to nothingness. It's connected to the God who created everything.

Thing. Yeah, that's so good. Well, John, I know you've had an opportunity to speak some— to some incredible people. I mean, again, when we were talking and hanging out at lunch, you were just sharing with me working with the Miami Heat, working with the LA Rams, working with the Clemson football program. One of the questions I love to ask all my guests is, in being around some of these incredible people, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Such a great question. You know, I, I learned from Dr. James Gills. He's the only person on the planet to complete 6 double Ironman triathlons. And the last time he did it, he was 59 years old. Wow. And a double is you do an Ironman, a day later you do another one. And so he was asked how he did it and he said, I've learned to talk to myself instead of listen to myself. Like, I just think that's the best piece of advice ever. Like, don't listen to the negative thoughts. Don't listen to the negative voices. Speak speak truth in words of encouragement, words of life, going back to what we've been talking about. From Mike Smith, I learned you can have bad moments, but don't have bad days. Mm-hmm. Don't allow your bad moments turn into your bad days. And you know, I, I've learned that in my own journey as well, listening to that piece of advice. And Dabo Sweeney, I've learned from him just when things aren't going well, when it looks like you want to give up. That optimism and that positivity has to be real. 'Cause I went up there and they were 4-3 a few years ago. Mm-hmm. They never lost 3 games in like 3 seasons, and now they were 4-3. I thought he was gonna complain. I thought he was gonna be negative. I thought he was gonna be a leader that was like, ah man, like, come on, what's going on here? He's like, I love this, Jon. I love my team. I love my guys. They're learning so much right now. They're growing in so many ways. They're learning things that they would never learn if we had success this year, this is gonna help them for the rest of their life. And I'm like, oh my God, this is real. Real is real. Genuine. They won every game after that. Now I would like to think it was my talk that night. No, it was his leadership. It was his culture. It was his unwavering belief through the, through the adversity, through the setback. That's real optimism. That's real belief. So I've learned like, like, You can't give up on it. You can't just be positive when things are good. We're not positive cuz life is easy. We're positive cuz life is hard.

So what's your single best piece of advice for everyone listening, especially for those who maybe feel stuck and they want to experience a breakthrough, they want to grow?

Wow. You know, it's from Gandhi. I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet. And so often we allow those negative thoughts or negative people to come in and walk through our mind with their dirty feet. You've gotta be more positive than the negativity you face. I remember telling my dad, I wanna be a writer and speaker. Found my calling, Dad. His response, what the heck you wanna do that for? That's a load of junk. That won't amount to anything. My dad was a New York City police officer. Yeah. Undercover narcotics. And so he was shot a few times. He wasn't very positive. He was a loving dad, but just like the the most negative guy on the planet. Like, here's my dad. When I first started speaking, he said, I can't believe people pay you to speak. When you're a kid, we pay you to shut up. And so I remember telling him, like, I want to do this work, and he just didn't, didn't get it, didn't understand it. And I've learned after eventually, you know, finding success, getting on national television for the first time, he saw me on TV, he said, we always knew you could do it. Your positivity must be greater than their negativity. Yeah. Your certainty, your belief in your The faith must be greater than all the doubt. Not everyone will see what you see. Not everyone's gonna see your vision. They're not gonna see your optimism. They're not gonna see your belief. But guess what? You gotta keep on moving forward. Don't look backwards, look forwards. And it's the same advice that I, I gave to the Tampa Bay Lightning a few years ago when I showed up to their training camp. They had lost in the first round of the playoffs and they were distraught. And now here we are in the new season, but they're talking about last year. And I said, don't look backwards. Look forward. Yeah. Stop being bitter. Let's get better. And then I gave him research. This is key for everyone. Teams that feel like they're defending something don't do very well, but teams that are attacking a new opportunity do great. Mm-hmm. Let's not defend our status. Let's not defend our past success. Let's, let's not defend our, our reputation. Let's attack a new opportunity every single day and create something new, exciting, and innovating all the time. And I think it all goes hand in hand. Like if you're positive and optimistic, you're gonna look forward to creating the future and looking at every challenge as an opportunity to grow along the way. And I lived that. I created a Positive Cookie. The Positive Cookie had a card inside the wrapper that was like a modern fortune cookie with a positive quote. It failed miserably. The Positive Cookie became very negative very quickly as I lost a ton of money. But in that moment, in that time, I remember thinking, okay, I was able to do a cookie It failed. I knew it wasn't for me cuz I heard very clearly, I did not put you on earth to make cookies. Mm. Cuz I was actually gonna try to continue to make it work. And I realized, no, I have to walk away. I have to walk away. But from that came the energy and realizing I had the capability to go create something new, to put my energy into something. And I said, what am I here for? And that led to our leadership training and all the things we're doing now to develop leaders around the country and around the world to help people become better leaders and build stronger teams. Teams. That would have never happened if I didn't have the positive cookie go negative. So now I consider that positive cookie positive again because it led to the good things.

I love it. It's so good. Well, John, thanks so much for sharing today. It was powerful. Let everybody know where they can find you.

Oh, thanks so much. JohnGordon.com, J-O-N Gordon.com. Twitter, Instagram @JONGORDON11, and then the One Truth at GetOneTruth.com.

I love it. Well, everybody, uh, big thanks to John Gordon here. Uh, so impressed. And, uh, hey, I want to encourage you, if you're not subscribed here, make sure to subscribe. We got a lot more great content coming your way. And thank you for being part of the Growth Lab community, where we teach the science behind how to grow. And hey, if you've enjoyed this podcast and you're on YouTube, let me know your favorite part about the podcast. If you're on iTunes or if you're on Spotify, hey, also feel free to run over to YouTube and let us know, uh, some of the future topics you want to cover and some of the favorite things that you took away from what John shared today. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching. We'll be back next week with another show.