(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today is a trusted advisor to top organizations worldwide.

His bestselling books inspired millions all over the world.

Today we'll meet John Gordon, author, coach, and a leading voice in transformational leadership.

- Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by - Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors locally from 13 facilities and 4,500 hardworking teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with the Bud Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.

(upbeat music) - John, it's so good to have you on Side by Side.

I remember reading your first book.

It was called The Energy Bus.

And it became a huge bestseller.

And you followed that with many books that became bestsellers.

I believe there were like 17 books that became bestselling books.

Just tell our viewers, what was The Energy Bus about?

And why did you call it The Energy Bus?

- Well, the interesting thing about that book, it was rejected by over 30 publishers when I first wrote it.

I wrote that book in three and a half weeks of divine inspiration.

So I felt like I had something that could make a difference, but then it was rejected.

So I kept believing, kept hoping, kept dreaming.

And then one day, John Wiley and Sons agreed to publish the book.

So I'll never forget getting that call.

I was so excited.

I prayed for it to be a bestseller.

It came out, it was a bestseller in Korea.

I learned you have to be specific.

- Bestseller in Korea.

- Yeah, yeah.

I learned you have to be specific with your prayers.

- Yes.

- So at first, it's like this huge hit in South Korea.

Not North Korea, but South Korea, it was a huge hit.

And then no bookstores would carry it in the United States.

So I went on a 28-city tour around the country talking about the book.

We had five people in one city, 10 people in another, 20 in another.

The most people we had were 100 people in Des Moines, Iowa.

They thought Jeff Gordon was coming, that's why they showed up.

And I remember-- - This guy.

- The race car driver.

And I remember I got home and I didn't know what the future held, but I knew that I just had to share that vision and mission and the message every day.

And so that's what I did.

And it's about a guy named George who's miserable and negative.

His team at work is in disarray.

He has problems at home.

And he wakes up Monday morning to a flat tire.

So he has to get to work.

He has to take the bus to work.

And he meets Joy, the bus driver.

And she and a cast of characters teach him the 10 rules for the ride of his life that help him become a more positive leader, a better father, a better husband.

And it's about getting his team on the bus and moving in the right direction with a shared vision, focus, and purpose.

And so that's the gist of the book.

People really resonated with it.

And it's about overcoming also the negativity that will sabotage you and your team.

I call them energy vampires.

And a lot of organizations, companies, and leaders and sports teams really gravitated towards that message and started to bring me in to deal with that negativity, to bring more positivity.

And that began my career.

- Yeah.

And you wrote all these books.

And then somehow, some way, you decided you're gonna write some children's books.

- Yes.

- How did you, you went from motivation and energy and happiness and all that to a children's book.

- People love the energy bus and people were asking for a children's book for the energy bus.

So one day I was walking and I had an idea for it.

And I began writing it down on a napkin.

And that began the children's book.

And then after that, people said, okay, you write good children's books.

And I love writing like powerful messages for kids as well.

And so I began writing children's books.

I wrote "Thank You and Good Night," which is about practicing gratitude before bedtime.

And it teaches kids the power of gratitude and how to have an attitude of gratitude.

And then just wrote a bunch of other children's books as well.

- Mm-hmm.

And I know you, John, as one of America's leading professional speakers, speaking on the platforms of conventions, conferences, et cetera.

But then you became very well known because you became an advisor to, a mentor to, an inspirational speaker to sports teams.

What got you into that sector?

- Yeah.

The coaches started reading my books.

And because they were reading my books on building a great culture, mindset, leadership, how to build a winning team.

They started to bring me in to speak to their teams.

And then when I was there, we began having these incredible conversations on leadership and culture.

I began mentoring them, helping them, giving them ideas, giving them thoughts on how to build their team.

Also, while I was there though, I learned a lot from them.

It was like this incredible exchange of information and knowledge and experience and story.

- 'Cause you were with the Miami Heat and the Dodgers.

- Miami Heat, LA Dodgers.

When Dave Roberts got the job with the Dodgers, he reached out.

He read my book, "You Win in the Locker Room First," that I wrote with Mike Smith.

So I went to go meet with him during spring training, spoke to his team, and we began a great friendship.

Worked with him several years, watched him win a World Series, very exciting.

And then Sean McVay got the job with the LA Rams.

So I began working with Sean McVay and mentoring him and coaching him.

We sat down for six hours, I'll never forget, on how to build his culture and what kind of culture he wanted to create, the foundational principles, the core values.

And then I watched him, this is the key.

I watched him ingrain those values into his program, into his team, and then I watched him win a Super Bowl with those values, right?

You can talk the talk, but you've gotta live it.

And I love helping leaders take the principles and the values they put on the walls and that they write down and bring them alive in the hearts and the minds of their people and their team.

And it's the same thing with companies, right?

We have to make sure we're living those values.

Every organization today has a mission statement, but only the great ones have people on a mission.

Are you on a mission?

And it's up to the leader to develop that.

So those relationships have been so powerful, but also so instrumental and so rewarding in my life.

'Cause when you work with sports teams, you can see right then and there, do those principles work?

The whole world is watching on the field or on the court.

You know this.

How are they performing?

Is the culture coming alive?

Do they have a great culture?

You can see whether they're divided or whether you're united and connected.

And a connected team will become a committed team.

So the more connected you are, the more committed you'll be.

And you'll never have commitment without connection.

So one of my favorite things to do is to work with teams to help them become more connected, more united, stronger together.

So they're fighting for each other, not against each other.

- But John, how do you do that in an environment now where we have portals in collegiate sports, we have NIL.

It seems like this commitment factor has become lessened and diluted to a great extent.

I remember when you came in as a freshman and you stayed till you graduated and you had a sense of belonging and investment.

And now it seems like every year, you see the player playing here this year, next year, next year, next year.

I don't know how coaches do it, honestly.

I don't know how, what would you say to a coach about how building a culture in such a mobile environment?

- It is more important than ever now to build a great culture.

The more you focus on your culture and build your relationships, the more you invest in the root, you're gonna get great fruit.

But you gotta make sure you're investing in that root and building your culture.

The old days of just one and dones, those one and dones, you had to build a team that year for that one and done.

And you might have more and more one and dones.

But the old days also of building a collective and committed team is harder than ever.

So that culture, those commitments, those relationships mean more than ever.

I think of Dabo Sweeney when I think of that because I've worked with Dabo now for 12 years.

Every year I speak there during training camp, we talk all the time.

He is so focused on his culture.

He knows who his guys are, who he's going after.

He brings them in.

He wants guys who are not just coming to make money, guys who are coming to the school, who wanna be there, who wanna be part of this program.

- How does he find those people and how do you determine upfront that that's the truth?

- He said in years past, in years past, they would go after guys who really weren't Clemson guys or were actually not focused on Clemson, were really about the money.

They didn't know it at the time.

Now they know who's going after the money 'cause they're taking the money.

The guys who wanna be at Clemson are coming to Clemson because they wanna be there.

Also, he says, we're not gonna pay them a lot of money when they first get there.

But once they come there and they do well, they will make money.

They will get paid, but you have to earn it.

So everyone who goes there knows they have to earn it.

And he's always been that way.

So actually everything happening in NIL actually fits a leader like that.

So if you're a leader today, you gotta focus on finding your guys that fit your culture, who represents your values, who's there to be part of this program and this team.

And there might be a guy who gets a lot more money and they start thinking about a million extra dollars.

I gotta go, I gotta take it.

That's going to happen.

But if you as a leader are focusing on building your culture and doing things the right way, you're gonna have long-term success even now.

And you're gonna have more guys stay as a result of that.

And you're gonna have more people who wanna become a part of this program 'cause they wanna be part of a family.

People still wanna be valued.

They wanna be loved.

They wanna be appreciated.

And yes, they wanna be coached and they wanna get better.

And if you could do that and you focus on that.

I spoke to a baseball team in spring training and I said, "Listen guys, I know you have paychecks.

"I know that you make a lot of money "and that your paychecks, your money "is determined by how you perform individually.

"But while you're here with each other "for this season right here, right now, "commit to each other.

"Commit to the person in front of you.

"Commit to the moment and commit to the team."

And if you do that this year, if you all do that, you're all gonna rise higher no matter what happens individually.

But collectively, you're gonna grow.

And then individually, you actually will grow as a result of that.

- You know, you cite a very orderly and sensible reasoned and reasonable approach to it all.

The reality is, that portal's like for 30 days.

That coach has gotta operate in a very speedy manner and everybody's trying to approach the best player here and there.

And so when you say, figure out the right guy for the culture, bring him in, put him, first of all, persuade him and so on, it's tougher than you make it sound, John.

- It is harder than ever.

I'm not denying that.

But new levels, new devils.

New challenges and change require new levels of skill.

You have to start looking at every single guy who's available.

You have to have a GM that actually knows all of the players.

Who's our player?

What guys do we wanna go after?

I know a lot of ADs.

They know what coaches that they wanna go after if they lose their coach.

They have a list.

- Have a plan, have a strategy.

- So a lot of teams now, I would advise, have a list of players, both higher and lower, that you want to go after.

And more and more teams will be doing this.

You'll start to see everyone hiring a GM now.

You have to be like a professional GM.

If you go to an NFL room, you will see that they have a board of all the players in the league.

So they know everyone and they're scouting people.

And I would actually do this in college.

I would do this for high school players.

But think about how hard it is for a high school player now to get noticed and to get found.

But think about if you're a coach and you're looking for those gems out there, you're finding those people.

Don't be like everyone else.

You know this.

Create your culture.

Create distinction.

Be the only one who does this and does that.

And if you do that with your culture and with your team, you're gonna attract the best players who want to be part of your program.

You won't have to go after as much.

You'll have people coming to you.

You know this in business and it still holds true today.

- Yes.

And speaking of business, you've worked with a lot of businesses, Southwest Airlines, many, many, many, many others.

And you also worked with people in West Point.

So I want to understand how your messaging and your approach is applicable to a professional team, collegiate team, an airline, a military group.

What are the common threads?

Are you saying to me that people are the same, the same, the same, the same, and therefore your approach can work for all?

Or are there some unique differences that you apply when you teach, when you mentor, when you instruct, and when you guide?

- When we teach, when we guide, and I teach all of our trainers, our speakers to do the same, we start with the principle.

Then we share the story.

And then it's the application.

- So give me an example of that.

- A principle is positive leaders lead with vision and mission.

And this is true in business.

It's true in sports.

Positive leaders build great relationships.

How do they do it?

The four Cs, great communication.

Communication builds trust.

Trust generates commitment.

Commitment fosters teamwork.

And where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it.

That's a principle right there.

So we have to fill the void with great communication to build that trust.

And then it's about connection, building those relationships.

That's true in business, true in sports.

It's about commitment.

I have a new book coming out called The Seven Commitments of a Great Team.

Everyone talks about goals.

It's your commitments that will lead you to your goals.

Don't tell me about your goals.

Tell me what you're committed to every single day.

And that commitment will drive you to achieve your goals.

So commitment is key.

And getting a team to be committed together is how you perform at a higher level.

And then there's care.

So those four Cs of like, do I care?

Do I show up and do I give more?

Am I willing to become more?

Am I gonna love, am I gonna serve, am I gonna care?

And so if you do that in sports, you do that in business, I have found the same principles apply.

I worked with Dell and EMC when they were merging together, becoming one company.

I was working with the leadership groups to become one united company.

Same principles as when I go work with the Miami Heat.

And Eric Spolstra said, "John, John, "help us become more connected "so we can better serve our players."

A team that's not connected at the top will crumble at the bottom.

You know this.

So we've gotta get leadership teams on board.

So I love working with executive leadership teams, getting them united and connected.

But I'll also go to the front line and help those teams become united and connected.

Same principles apply.

- So when you speak of commitment, what is the difference in a commitment and a decision?

- Oh, it's good.

Well, you make the decision, and then the commitment is the action that you're gonna take that represents the decision or brings the decision to life.

So I'm looking at a decision to buy a car, but when I pay the money, I now make the commitment.

When I sent my kids to college, it was a decision to pay for their college, but then when I actually paid, it was a commitment, yes.

- What about some of the characteristics of a person that preclude them from becoming all that they can become, whether it's in sports, in business, or in any environment?

- What holds them back?

Why are some people so successful and others try as they may don't seem to be successful?

What is that?

Is that DNA?

Is that the environments in which you live?

Is that the books you read or the seminars you attend?

What is it?

- I believe we all have the opportunity to be successful.

It's not something that you are born with.

We're all born with grit.

How do I know?

We learn to walk, we fell down a lot of times, and then we kept getting back up and kept going.

So we all have the grit.

It's just remembering that you have it inside of you and not allowing the outside forces to affect you.

The most successful people live from the inside out.

They recognize the truth that the outside has no power over them.

The inside is from where they create, their soul, their spirit, their passion, their joy.

And so people who believe they're a victim of this world and their circumstances, they don't become successful.

Those who know that they have the power to transform their circumstances, to define their environments, to impact others, those are the most successful people.

And it's something I've seen you do.

It's something I've seen the most successful people in the world do.

They are inside out.

They also have a ton of belief and optimism.

And I truly believe that being positive will guarantee you'll succeed, but being negative will guarantee you won't.

And so often people are pessimistic.

They're negative.

They have these negative thoughts.

And what happens is the negative thoughts come in and affect everyone.

Everyone gets negative thoughts.

We all have them.

But what happens is those who are not successful, they believe the lies.

And you're not the thoughts that you think.

You're the thoughts you believe.

So when a negative thought comes in, you need to say, I don't believe that.

And that's not who I am.

I am enough.

I'm here to do something amazing.

I'm here to create something great.

And now you have a mindset that believes you could accomplish it.

And as you know, what you believe so often is what you achieve.

And the research is clear on this, right?

Optimists outperform pessimists.

They work harder.

They get paid more.

And they're more likely to succeed in business and sports.

And they've had researchers study this.

And what they found was that these optimists, because they believed in a brighter and better future, they took the actions necessary to create it.

It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So how you see the world determines the world that you see.

Your perspective ultimately will determine your outcome.

We have a formula, E plus P equals L. You can't control the events in your life, but you can control the P, your positive response.

And that so often determines your outcome.

And then the most successful people, they love to impact others.

They wanna make a difference.

They wanna make their mark.

They wanna ultimately do something that matters and makes a difference.

And then one last thing, Nito, they're competitive.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Are you competitive?

- Very competitive.

- So am I. The most successful people are competitive.

I believe that God gives us a competitive spirit.

Why?

So we will learn how to fight.

So we will actually fight for the good eventually.

We learn to fight initially with sports and trying to be successful, but eventually it's about how can I compete?

How can I fight for the good, the good of others, the good in the world to make a difference?

You can use that competitive advantage for bad, but you can also use it for good and successful people use it for good.

- It seems to me that, it's just an observation.

I don't have any empirical data to prove this, but it seems to me that people who have some struggles in life, you had some in your personal journey, people who stutter as children, people who come from very, very poor backgrounds, people who come as immigrants to America, they wanna overcome that adversity and they wanna find a degree of abundance.

Do you think there's some truth to that, that you're upbringing, your background, your familial history has something to do with what it is you wanna do and how you wanna become?

And if that's true, is it also true that if you grow up with abundance, your parents are doing well, you've always had a nice car, you've always had air conditioning, you've always had money to go on vacations and so on, then maybe you're not as competitive, maybe you're not as committed.

Where am I wrong in this citation?

- Yeah, as you're saying that, I'm thinking, it's really never the environment.

We think it is, it looks like it's the environment, but two kids can grow up in the same household and one kid goes on to accomplish incredible things and they overcome a lot of adversity.

Another kid winds up getting into drugs, they become a victim and they have a different life.

So we see kids also grow up in very impoverished neighborhoods and those kids rise above, they overcome, they move forward, here's the key, it's your state of mind.

When you're in a low state of mind, you believe the circumstance has power over you.

- But how do I get a state of mind?

- When you're in a high state of mind, high state of mind, you know that you have the power over your circumstance.

I believe a lot of times, it's a state of mind that in many ways, like I just meet certain people, some are born with that higher state of mind.

My wife grew up in a very dysfunctional family.

- So state of mind is what, is it a mindset?

- State of mind is a level of consciousness, it's a perspective, it's an awareness.

It's also, I truly believe, the more connected you are to God, the higher state of mind that you have.

When you feel disconnected from God, you have a lower state of mind.

The root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide.

And so when you're anxious, you actually feel separate and divided and disconnected from God.

The more you're connected, the more you're praying, the more you trust.

Trust is a big part of this, the more I just trust that great things are gonna happen, when I'm trusting, I feel more connected and now I feel this power to overcome my circumstances.

When I feel disconnected, I feel divided and I feel weak.

A team that is united and connected is strong, a team that is separate and divided is weak.

Same thing with us, when we feel disconnected, we feel weak, when we feel connected, we feel powerful.

So so much of this actually is our state of mind.

Now, circumstances happen along the way.

We lose our jobs, we face adversity, we grow up in certain environments and everything in our life, everything in our life, actually is part of our growth.

Everything that we go through, those environments, those challenges, they actually are not meant to define us, they're meant to refine us.

But it's how you look at those things that will determine whether they define you or refine you and help you grow.

- It's not what happens to you, it's how you respond.

- It's how you respond.

- And what you do about it.

You've been, you've had your share plus some articles written about you in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post.

You've been on The Today Show, CNN and so on.

Tell me about a time that you gave it everything you have, but it just didn't work out.

- Well, I have failed so much.

And as I was just giving that advice, I was thinking about the fact that I've had to overcome a lot of adversity, a lot of challenges.

And there were moments of doubt.

There were moments of fear.

There were moments of trying to prove myself for the wrong reasons.

And there became a moment where I lost everything.

I lost my job during the dot-com crash.

Didn't know how I was gonna pay the bills.

I had two little kids.

I was so fearful.

And I was being really negative to my wife.

She had enough of my negativity.

She said, "If you don't change, we're over."

Like this was a huge wake-up call.

And I had become so negative.

So even though I speak on positivity, I'm actually naturally negative.

And so I have to work at being positive, but I become a good teacher 'cause I had to overcome my own negativity.

I've been on a quest my entire life.

- Negativity comes from what?

From fear?

- So often from fear.

It's from fear and there's a disconnection.

So in the gap between you and God, the negativity comes in.

Now when you're connected, can it come in?

No, the negativity cannot come in.

So those negative thoughts, the fear and the lies that we then believe, and the mindsets we have and the perspectives.

And at that point, I was a victim.

At that point, I was blaming everyone else for why I was not living my dreams and my potential.

- Which is easy to do.

- Which is easy to do.

But my wife gave me that wake-up call when she threatened to leave.

And I began researching ways I could be more positive.

And that one decision to be more positive during that time changed everything.

Second, I mortgaged my home.

$20,000 in credit cards and opened up a Moe's Southwest Grill franchise restaurant to try to provide for my family.

And I knew I wanted to write and speak at that moment.

And I knew I wanted to write and speak at that moment.

So the goal was to hopefully make the restaurant successful so I could write and speak.

And that is where my positivity was born, my faith was born.

I was taking walks every day.

I started saying positive things, started to have more positive belief and trust.

And I became so much more positive.

My wife saw a change in me.

But here's one habit I did that I recommend.

I began taking a walk of gratitude every day.

So while I was walking, I would say what I was thankful for.

In doing that, the research shows you can't be stressed and thankful at the same time.

So I started feeling blessed instead of stressed.

- Changed my life.

- Yeah.

Well, you make a lot of sense.

And it's intriguing that there's something called productive failures.

That's what you're talking about.

Thank you, John, for being with me today.

- Thank you.

♪ - Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by - Coca-Cola Consolidated makes and serves over 300 of the world's best brands and flavors locally from 13 facilities and 4,500 hardworking teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- The Budd Group has been serving the Southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction, comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

- Truist, we're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.