The Carpenter, with Jon Gordon – Episode 40 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

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.

About Jon:

Jon Gordon’s best-selling books and talks have inspired readers and audiences around the world.

Jon Gordon is one of the most influential and sought after leadership authors and speakers today. He’s a consultant to numerous leaders, CEO’s, 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 28 books including 15 best sellers and 5 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 5 business book of the year, Training Camp, The Power of Positive Leadership, and The Power of a Positive Team.

Jon and his tips have been featured on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, The Golf Channel, Fox and Friends and in numerous magazines and newspapers.

His clients include The Los Angeles Dodgers, Campbell’s Soup, Dell, Publix, Southwest Airlines, Miami Heat, The Los Angeles Rams, Snapchat, Truist Bank, Clemson Football, Northwestern Mutual, West Point Academy and more.

Jon is a graduate of Cornell University and holds a Masters in Teaching from Emory University. He and his training/consulting company are passionate about developing positive leaders, organizations and teams.

Learn more at JonGordon.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host
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?

Jon Gordon
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.

Host
One concept that I just I love is a concept that you introduce called energy vampires.

Jon Gordon
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.

Host
So turning our attention to the book The Carpenter, where did the inspiration come from?

Jon Gordon
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.

Host
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?

Jon Gordon
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.

Host
How do you think this concept of grace ties into somebody’s ability to sell, lead or influence other people in general?

Jon Gordon
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.

Host
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?

Jon Gordon
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.

Host
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.

Jon Gordon
I appreciate it. Thanks so much.