7 Habits of People Who Make Other People Better (w/ Jon Gordon) | Chasing Excellence

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Okay, let's get into the show.

Hello and welcome back to Chasing Excellence.

Thank you so much for being here.

I'm Patrick.

I'm here as always with Ben.

We're joined, we're excited about this.

We're joined by John Gordon.

How you doing, John?

Doing great, guys.

How you doing?

Very good.

Really good.

Your name might be familiar to folks.

You are the author of somehow 32 different books, including 18 bestsellers, five kids books, titles that folks may have heard.

The Energy Bus, The Hard Hat, The Coffee Bean.

Your latest book is called The Power of Positive Habits Proven Strategies to exponentially grow you thank you so much for being here, john.

I appreciate it.

Also, the seven commitments of a great team is a newer book, and i say that because lately i've been thinking about commitments and habits, and not just principles but but also practices, you know, because principles inform and practices transform.

As you guys know, I know you're big on this.

It's about what are you doing to chase excellence?

What actions are you taking?

What habits?

And again, I've been big on principles for years, but lately I'm like all right, I want people to start taking action and getting things done.

I'm from New York, as we discussed.

You guys are from the Northeast, from Boston and Maine.

And I think when you think about the Northeast, you think about doing things and getting things done right.

There it is.

We worked it in.

We were looking for the accents.

I love it.

Well done.

That didn't take long at all.

No, not at all.

Before we get into some of the habits that I'm excited to talk to you about.

I did just think it was funny.

I happened to be down at the gym with Ben, I don't know, maybe a month ago, and I was in his office and I turned to my right and I saw a stack of copies of The Hard Hat, which is a book that I think.

Do you give it out to everybody on your team, Ben?

Is that why you had a stack of them?

It's multifaceted.

So it goes kind of deep.

So, John, it's really cool.

I have a now 26 year old daughter when she was in she played D1 lacrosse.

Before that, she was a three sport captain, which doesn't exist anymore.

Right.

No one's multi sport athletes.

But at her high school, she was a three sport captain.

And the thing that she brought to her teams was the 21 ways to be a great teammate, from the hard hat to the point where she actually one of the walls in her bedroom was a mural of with the 21 ways to be a great teammate.

It's like, really, this is embedded not only into our team, but our family.

Then to Patrick's point.

We have all of our team members.

Employees read a short handful of books during their onboarding process.

And one of them is the hard hat, because we believe that the thing we want more than anything else is to work with great team players.

And it exemplifies that so well with John Boyardi, who I believe is actually a local kid from around this area.

I think so.

And then on top of that the third kind of like leg of that stool is we run a youth strength and conditioning program and we have a kid of the month.

I mean, every month it rotates through the most deserving kid, essentially who was the captain, who was the ideal team player for the previous month.

And we give them a copy of the book and we give them a red hard hat.

So this is like.

I know we're talking about your most, latest and greatest, but that is deep in our DNA.

So your name pops up a lot more often than probably you recognize around here.

Man, that means a lot, Ben.

I really appreciate that.

That's a special book.

I don't make a dime off that book.

All the proceeds go to george boyardee, to his foundation, the mario saint george boyardee foundation, and also charities that support cornell lacrosse and just doing great work in the world.

I love that book because it's a true story.

It's about a real guy who was a great teammate, a great leader.

He died on the field.

He played at Cornell lacrosse 11 years after I did.

The locker is still there in the locker room.

His personal locker is still there.

They won a national championship 21 years after his death.

And he wore number 21.

How wild is that?

21 years.

They won it last year.

They did not win a championship when I was there.

But they won a championship this past year.

Unbelievable to see.

And I almost didn't write that book because his parents did not really want that book out there at first because they're so humble.

And they were like, who are we to have this book about our son and the impact he had?

I said well, that's why you want the book out there, because he made such a difference on his teammates.

And he's going to impact people around the world, if we can get this message out there.

On the kind of teammate he was,

I said, I'm not even making a dime, so this is not about selfishness. ambition at all.

I just feel this story is meant to be shared.

And they ultimately agreed after Jeff Tambroni, the coach now at Penn State, convinced them to have it out there.

And so now it came out.

And I get emails all the time from kids around the country who have read this book and been impacted by it.

And it just keeps on growing and growing every year and impact in the amount of readers who are reading it.

So anyway, very special to know that your daughter really resonated with that.

I love that.

Obviously she must've been an incredible athlete when she was playing.

And then also the kind of leader she was to resonate with that book just says everything about her as well.

Yeah.

That's amazing, man.

So I really appreciate it.

It's impacted a family, our team, our organization in a big, big way.

And, um, I didn't know that about the Boyardee family, but thank you from afar for them.

Yeah, it makes sense, right?

Like how humble they are with, you know.

Yeah, George's sister lives in Wellesley, Mass.

That's the relationship.

So we're the town over... I grew up in Wellesley.

Okay, so his sister lived... That's exactly why I thought... Yeah, she lives in Wellesley.

He played in Maryland at prep school there, Landon Prep School.

And so they had a place, the family had a place in the D.C. area.

And then also they do have a place in Cape Cod.

And...

He wore a hoodie every day.

He drove a beat-up Jeep.

No one knew he was the great-grandson of Chef Boyardee, by the way, and I did not put that in the book.

Yeah, I like that you didn't put that in the book.

It's better, yeah.

Yeah, the family didn't want that out there.

But I think it's even more special because the kid who had everything wanted to go work at the Sioux Falls Pine Ridge Reservation and help those who had nothing.

And he was that kind of selfless, amazing, loyal, blue collar teammate that we all aspire to be.

And that's what made him so special.

So yeah, really cool.

And I'm glad we're sharing this.

There's a reason why we're sharing it.

And it's because his legacy still needs to live on.

And this book was about him, not me.

And I had to really be selfless in writing it.

And when I wrote it, by the way, I intended on making a profit, just so you know.

And as I wrote the book, as I wrote the book and told the story and interviewed all his teammates and interviewed his parents and everyone as they wept and they told me stories about him, I said to myself I cannot make a profit off this kid's life and I never will.

And the goal one day is to do a movie about him and I will never make a dime off that movie either.

Phenomenal story.

They should do that.

Yep, I hope so.

Yeah.

This is great.

I didn't do this on purpose, but this actually, I think, is we're going to touch on some of these themes as we go, I think for the rest of this conversation.

So the book, again, it's called The Power of Positive Habits.

It is a series.

There's 93 different strategies, 93 different habits.

And so as I was reading it, I was just sort of flagging the ones I was like oh, this would be fun to talk to John about.

This would be fun to talk to John about.

And then I sort of looked over the 20-ish or so that I kind of flagged.

And I tried to find some clusters, some things that are sort of thematically linked.

And what I came to was I would love to talk to you about seven habits of people who make other people better.

And so I pulled out seven habits from the book that I think resonate with that theme.

And I thought it would be fun to just spend five or 10 minutes on each of the seven, see where the conversation goes, see what sort of connections we can make.

And again, I think we're already starting to have the conversation and make those connections with the hard hat.

So this will be kind of fun.

So if you're open to it, John, I think we just maybe jump into the first one.

Yeah, sure.

You had to call it seven habits though.

You know, we had to talk about seven habits.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

I'm teasing you, but I do want to say there's 93 here in the book.

So 93 greater than seven.

So I just want to share that.

So you beat him.

Good job.

15x the work that Stephen Covey did.

Seven Habits.

Come on.

You stopped at seven?

It was a classic, but seven, we could do better than that.

Seven?

You can't even break a sweat in seven minutes.

Yeah, seven's a good podcast.

It's not a book.

Come on.

This is just going to be in order of them.

So other than that, let's get into the first one.

This is number 51.

Increase your positive interaction ratio.

All about how understanding the ratio of positive to negative interactions reflects or creates good relationships versus weak relationships.

Can you just give us a sense of what this habit is all about?

Yeah, sure.

So, in terms of positive interactions versus negative interactions, teams that have more positive interactions versus negative interactions are are higher performing teams.

The ratio that you're looking for is three to one or greater positive to negative.

Here's something interesting though.

When you get to 13 to one, the team falls apart because no one's dealing with the real issues.

You're not dealing with the issues that could be sabotaging your team.

It's almost Pollyanna.

So you need more positive than negative, but not too many positive.

I didn't say 13 to zero or five to zero, seven to zero.

It's three to one, five to one, seven to one.

Those are the ratios where you actually improve interactions more positivity, more connection and then greater teamwork.

The theme here is connection.

How connected are we as a team? and positivity and relationships lead to greater connection.

Whereas when you have a lot of negativity and bitterness and anger and jealousy, that will lead to disconnection.

Disconnection leads to division and then separateness, weakness, and a feeling of powerlessness.

So everything comes down to, is this team connected or disconnected?

And interactions that are positive create more connection.

This also works in your marriages, by the way, and your relationships.

We want the ratio there to be five positive to one negative.

Marriages that have a ratio of five to one positive to negative are more likely to thrive.

When it's one to one or more negative to positive, the relationship will suffer.

And actually, if it's a marriage, might likely end in divorce.

So your interactions are really positive.

I mean, are really important and it's important to make sure that they are positive.

Don't get the two confused.

Team three to one or greater, marriage five to one or greater.

You're like, hey, I got three to one.

No, you need five to one in the marriage.

So make sure you have more positives than negative in that.

And again, this just goes to how do we build a higher performing team?

And it's all about interaction.

So practically, Ben, practically, Patrick, okay.

You're in a marriage, and you're noticing that you're arguing a lot.

Okay, that's a lot of negatives happening.

All right, I'm going to now ramp up the positive.

We're going to discuss positive things.

We're going to go do something positive.

We're going to make sure we don't fight today, and everything is going to be on the positive side.

It doesn't mean that you don't ever address what's wrong, but you have to make sure that you have more positive than negative interactions.

I think the negative is pretty obvious, right?

It's like when you don't get along, when something happens and you're in an argument, you have those bad vibes.

What classifies as a positive?

So I think about this from the team perspective.

And I think about like immediately.

What comes to mind is this is why Steph Curry gives over 400 high fives during a game.

Is it something as small as that?

Is that high five a positive interaction?

Because I don't think that that's probably what people are thinking about.

I think people are probably thinking about like it must be in some sort of back and forth conversation.

Or like you said, it needs to be in, we're going to go and do this thing.

Or how do we kind of frame this five to one, three to one up?

You know, even a pat on the back is a positive.

A high five, as you just said, is a positive interaction.

And research actually shows that the teams that had the most positive interactions were the teams that had the most success in sports.

They've done research on this.

The interesting thing about this though, is that you have now coaches who are fostering these interactions, these connections, by getting their teams to high five, to bump each other, and to do all these things because they know the research.

But now they're doing it for that purpose, not recognizing that those are just meant to be expressions of a team that actually is connected.

So you kind of can't fake the funk.

Right, there's no heart behind it, and it's not real.

And you're just high-fiving to high-five, but there's no heart and connection behind it.

You have to be careful about that.

It's meant to be an authentic, real expression.

And that's why the teams that win are actually the ones that high five.

It's because they have the connection that are leading to the high five.

So I think a lot of coaches get it backwards.

We always have to remember energy. must come first, and then the physical reality comes second.

That's a whole other concept and a whole other talk that we can have on that, but that is important.

And so, in terms of your question, it looks like an encouraging word.

It could look like listening and truly hearing someone and what they're going through.

It might actually even be a difficult conversation that you have that leads to positive resolution, healing and growth.

It could be that.

So when we say positive, it's anything that actually is leading to growth, and something that's nurturing, rather than something that feels draining and something that is actually tearing you apart.

So my 14-year-old son at the end of the soccer game going in the line and high-fiving their team and going Good game.

Good game.

Doesn't work.

Doesn't count.

You'll guess what?

If it's from the heart and his expression is just 14 year olds, that's not from the heart.

It's 50% of the team.

His team's pretty good.

I don't know.

I've heard 14-year-olds just talk that way, and that's just how they talk.

That's a good point.

Really good.

Good job, good job, good job.

And so, you know, they're rock heads at that age, as you know.

My son was a competitive tennis player, and he's 26, and he's still a rock head.

And so you know, even knowing, that's how they communicate.

Sometimes it's again is there a realness and a genuineness to the expression and the connections?

You also talk about building rituals to ensure that you are doing, you are finding ways to have these positive interactions on purpose and not just hoping they happen.

Can you just talk a little bit about the difference between maybe rituals and, again, the high five?

Well, I think it's more about hoping they happen accidentally versus a ritual and a tradition of talking to the team about the importance of connection.

A ritual might be before the game.

We all get into a circle and we share our why of why we're playing.

Or we share our battle cry and we really mean it, or we're excited about or after the game.

What was one thing we learned in terms of how to get better?

What's one thing that we actually are going to take with us to get better, and the actions we're going to take going forward.

So we're actually using those learning opportunities and connection points to talk about ways to improve and grow.

It's not necessarily like a ritual routine of patting on the back, but what are we doing to build the team and build the connections?

Just as a couple may go to therapy, You might say, well, that's forced.

Yeah, you go to therapy and during therapy you're sharing, you're talking, you're connecting, you're working out your problems.

And that's something that you do to build a connection and better ways of communication.

My wife and I, our thing would be to go on a walk together.

We're having a tough time.

We're fighting.

All right, let's go on a walk.

Let's talk it out.

Let's fight it out.

And then let's work it out because we walked it out.

That's how it works.

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The next one I pulled up is related.

So let's just keep going with that one.

It's number 57, shout praise and whisper criticism.

And this is, as it says, this is about praising publicly and correcting privately.

Do you give us a sense of what this habit is all about?

This is so key.

This comes from Chuck Daly, Brendan, sir.

They were the coaches of the Olympic dream team.

Also the Detroit Pistons.

And they were just incredible coaches.

And Brendan told me like the key to Chuck's leadership was.

He shouted praise and whispered criticism.

When someone was doing something great, he shouted the praise.

When they were doing something they shouldn't be doing or acting in a bad manner.

Hold them aside and criticize them privately, not in front of the team.

That builds the relationship.

It builds the trust.

You're calling them up instead of calling them out, which is essential to building trust and building a relationship and getting the most out of that person.

You want to be demanding as a leader.

You just don't want to be demeaning.

And great leaders will shout that praise, whisper the criticism, and that makes them a more positive communicator in their leadership.

Now, it doesn't mean you might say like, hey, Ben, what are you doing over there?

That's not how we do it, Ben.

There's a better way to do that play.

You might say that and need to say that in the moment to Ben during the practice, to make Ben better and make the team better.

So you may have to do that.

But if Ben went out the night before and made a big bad decision, bad judgment call, you pull Ben aside and you're talking to Ben about what he did and why he did it and helping him get better in the process.

How do you make that distinction in the moment between that sort of criticizing out loud and what I think you reference or what you distinguish as coaching in the book?

Like, how do you know, like, okay, this is a moment where I need to talk to Ben about that play.

Is this being critical or is this coaching?

Like, how do you know which is which?

So glad you asked that because you're not always going to get it right.

And this is why leadership is an art, not a science.

And there are times when, just in your experience as a leader, is this going to make Ben better or worse?

Is this going to make the team better? or worse.

And I think you're using your judgment call on that in that moment.

Is this going to uplift Ben or is this going to bring Ben down?

Is this going to deflate him or is this going to give him life?

And there are things that you should say and shouldn't say.

And Ben may be a guy that I can yell at and he responds to that yelling, but he also may be someone who responds better to encouragement and gets deflated when I yell.

So you also have to know each person you're leading.

How can you lead someone if you don't know them?

How can you motivate someone if you don't know what motivates them?

So a big part of it is actually knowing your team and knowing what needs to be said in those moments, and then evaluating that and then making those judgment calls.

But again, we all make mistakes in the heat of the moment.

I just want to double down because if you were just to read the headlines, which is praise in public, criticize in private I think most people in the coaching world have heard that.

But I love the extra nuance that you bring to it, John, which is...

Because I think if you hear that as a coaching principle and you just stuck to it, there's a high likelihood that you might erode standards because someone's falling short and you don't talk about it in front of other people.

It looks like complacency.

And I really love the idea of the nuance of it where if it's a personal thing that doesn't affect the team like if somebody misses a block in a football practice you don't wait till after practice to have that conversation.

You call it out.

But I love the idea of like, hey, this person just kind of like their lifestyle is off.

Their commitment to the team is off.

Like that's for the one-on-one.

That's so great.

A guy is late to practice.

He's late to practice.

You might say, hey, Joe is late to practice today.

And guys, you can't be late to practice.

Everybody has to be on time.

And because Joe's late, you're all going to run.

Because Joe's late, because we're a team and we have to be a team.

And you might do that as a coach because you have a standard.

Leadership is so much easier when you lead to the standard, but everyone has to know what the standard is.

So you set the standard and then you show what it looks like when they're meeting the standard.

And you also show what it looks like when they're not meeting the standard and you have to call it out.

And, like you said Ben, when there's a bad play happening and you see it by calling that out, how he did that wrong in that moment, That's going to make him better, but also it's a teachable and coachable moment for the rest of the team.

And that's my thought process that we're talking about here.

Is this a coachable moment for that person and everybody?

And that Patrick, is when you actually want to use your judgment to say I'm going to share this publicly.

Even though it may not be positive, I'm not whispering criticism in that moment.

I've got to actually shout what needs to be done right.

But again, this is not demeaning criticism.

It's going to be demanding.

And I think it should always be prefaced with you're better than that, or that's not how we do things here.

This is what it's supposed to look like, and this is what yours looked like.

And so you're calling them to a higher standard, but you're not going to say what the hell are you doing?

What's wrong with you?

Why are you thinking that way?

You're not going to do that.

You heard my New Yorkness just come out again when I said that.

You know.

What's interesting though, is when you say that, like it does seem like people will default to shouting criticism.

What do you think?

Because when everything you just laid out seems like, yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

And yet most people seem to do this completely backwards.

They seem to scream criticism and occasionally whisper praise.

Like, why do we get that backwards so easily and so often?

Because many of us are more naturally negative, and that's also how we grow up.

We hear more negativity.

I read an article where it said like 80 of the population vibrates to a negative frequency, only 20 to a positive frequency.

So our default mechanism is negative.

But there really are two main frequencies that we're tuning into a positive frequency and a negative frequency.

That's why everything in this world comes down to positive or negative.

And the idea behind all of this is how do we tune more into the positive and see the positive develop the positive, and then we'll see positive results versus the negative.

But there is a need for negativity at times.

There is a need for calling things out, addressing things.

We have to have conflict at times.

Not everything is going to be perfect or Pollyanna.

This is not about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses.

It's knowing that you have the power to overcome the thorns.

It's not about ignoring reality.

It's about maintaining optimism, belief, and faith in order to create a better reality.

And so every day, what am I doing to create a better person, a better team, and a better situation?

And most of the research, almost all the research shows it's feeding with positive energy and weeding the negative, but knowing at times we're going to have to have some conflict along the way in order to get better.

Great teams fight.

My family fights, but the fighting serves our growth as a family.

Next habit I pulled out is number 68, be a giver and a receiver.

What does that mean?

Generosity is an essential habit.

Be a giver.

Give to others.

Make the pie bigger, which is another habit, but just really see the opportunity, see the person, see the situation and say how can I give to this situation?

Go into relationships saying how can I give, instead of looking to see what can I take from this relationship.

And the more we give, we do make things better.

We make things bigger.

And I believe we live a bigger life when we become a giver.

Looking to always give.

My wife always gave me a hard time.

She's like, you're always giving this.

You're always giving this.

But then she sees now, 20 years later, how so much has come back to me from the life that I now live.

It's because I've given so much.

I had my training camp event recently, and we had Sean McVay come and speak.

We had Liam Cohen, the coach of the Jaguars, who, by the way, grew up in Rhode Island.

We had Kevin O'Connell, the coach of the Vikings, and Tim Tebow and Eddie George and Billy Donovan, who played at Providence.

And we had Tony Dungy and Corey Close, UCLA women's basketball coach.

We had all these coaches come to my event just a couple weeks ago called Training Camp.

And they all came because for years I have given to them.

For years I have helped them and coached them and poured into them and been there for them in so many ways.

And because I gave to them all these years, they came to training camp to support me.

Now I didn't give to them all these years, thinking one day I'm going to have an event called training camp and I'm going to have them come speak and they're going to do because I did that.

That was never my intention.

I was just giving and pouring out.

And because I gave, I received.

Here's the other part of this equation is being a receiver.

We do need to also receive.

A lot of people like to give, but they don't allow themselves to receive.

But you have to become a receiver in this world as well, because you're meant to be a conduit for the greater energy and power that wants to move through you.

And if you cut off receiving, you cut off the flow that is meant to move through you in a powerful way.

And so give to others, receive from others, receive what comes back to you, because when you do, you'll have more to give.

I tithe, for instance, my spiritual practices to tithe.

And I have found the more I tithe, like with the hard hat book and other books that I tithe with, the more I tithe.

It just comes back tenfold.

And it's not why you do it.

It's just what happens.

In the world of electronics, there are resistors and conductors.

Resistors actually only have so many electrons.

And it has the electrons that are contained within it.

So it only has a limited amount of power.

The conductor freely gives and receives of its electrons.

And so its power comes from the current that actually flows through it.

We have the same ability.

Are we going to be resistors and hold on to what we have?

Or do we become a conductor, give and receive and allow the greater power to move through us, And when we do, we live with more power.

Okay, so great analogy.

If we find ourselves as more of a resistor.

I think of this in terms of marriages where people are keeping a ledger.

They're keeping a scorecard.

I do all of the bills and pay the mortgage and have the financial stress.

And the other person is saying, I take care of the kids.

Where's the help?

I take care of all the chores.

The other one's saying, you know, it goes back and forth, back and forth.

It's like, I took out the garbage.

Why are you not doing this?

And they're looking for they're looking.

All they see is the giving that they're doing and they can't get out of that resistor mode.

How do we get from resistor to conductor?

You guys are asking some tough questions today, which is awesome though, because this is really what leads to a great conversation and great wisdom for other people.

When you keep score, you both lose.

It's that simple.

When you keep score, you both lose.

You cannot keep score in a marriage.

You give knowing that there's always going to be an ebb and flow.

My wife and I wrote a book called Relationship Grit.

And grit stands for God, resolve, invest together.

And in your marriage, you can't be just a consumer.

You got to be an investor where you both are investing.

And research is clear on this.

Couples who make small sacrifices for each other are 85% more likely to stay together.

So it's not even about the big things.

It's those small sacrifices.

I took out the trash.

I... helped you with that project that you needed help with.

I listened to you when you told me you wanted to share your Instagram post with me on what you wanted to say.

And I listened to you and I gave you- on that as my wife has asked me to do so many times.

She calls me John GPT.

And so I'll listen to her.

There's a give and take and you can't keep score.

You have to recognize you're on the same team.

And the idea is that there's going to be a give and take in relationships and it's never going to be equal.

And so you can't keep score because the score is going to change.

There's going to be times you are giving more and there are going to be times where your spouse gives more.

Here's my secret.

This is the secret to success right here in a marriage.

The more I love my wife, the more I love my life.

It's not happy wife, happy life.

The more I love my wife, the more I love my life, which means I'm going to just give to my wife.

I'm going to support her.

I'm going to love her.

I'm going to serve and sacrifice for her.

She may not give back, but that doesn't matter.

I'm going to sacrifice and commit and give and not look for anything back, because true love, unconditional love, is actually sacrificial, where you commit and you give and the minute you start to expect something, it's not real love.

So real love is i'm going to give, i'm not going to expect anything back.

And it's amazing when you truly do live that way and you're not looking for it, it does come back to you and your spouse may not at first, May not at first reciprocate.

And then you can't be like, see, I gave and she's not giving back.

The minute you do that, you score and it's not going to happen.

But the more selfish you are, there'll be an energy that's felt.

And there's a love that's felt that there'll be a natural desire for her to want to give back.

And she might even come to you after a few months and say, you know what?

I realized that I've been so selfish.

You've been given so much and I haven't even done this and this and all.

That's all you really want.

And my wife and I have been married 29 years.

We just celebrated our 29th anniversary.

And it wasn't always that way.

We were what you were talking about Ben, with the whole give and take and keeping score and fighting.

And I've learned this the hard way of a lot of fights. and a lot of angst and a lot of anger.

The other day, I came down from a podcast, and my wife's like, I made you your salmon.

Thank you, honey.

I appreciate that.

I didn't even ask for it and she made it, which doesn't always happen, but she felt like she wanted to do that.

I'm out running errands, and she's like, hey, I need some things.

I'm like, I'll get it.

She's like, wow, you're just going to go get it for me?

Yeah, you need it?

I'll go get it.

And I believe, the more you just give and you're not looking for it back, it becomes this ebb and flow.

And that's why you can't keep score because it's never going to be equal.

And the ledger is never going to be There's a lot of things there that land deeply.

I fundamentally believe that it's about the first thing is like there is no scoreboard, right?

This is the infinite game that we're playing.

Who's to say what actually counts as points?

And what is invisible is probably what matters the most.

And what you said I love so much, which is like it's about giving the love and looking for ways to sacrificially serve the other person.

That is the biggest underpinning of true love when you give looking for nothing in return.

And in order to have love, you must give it.

So I so fundamentally resonate with that.

You know, we have a saying, which is surround yourselves with people who want to see you win.

Well, that starts with you wanting the other, like, be your spouse's biggest fan.

Like, I'm here to make sure you win.

And then...

The second part of that which is just so great is because you do it.

It doesn't mean like, and now it's your turn.

I did this yesterday, remember?

And you're waiting for it to come back.

That's not love.

That is scoreboard keeping.

So I couldn't double down on that enough.

I think you said it phenomenally.

And two things there.

Everybody wants to feel wanted.

So guys, Women, in your marriages, make each other feel wanted.

That's what everyone wants.

Pursue and make your wife feel wanted.

She is loved.

She is valued.

You care for her.

She really wants to know that you value her, that you care about her and you want her, and vice versa.

You want to feel loved and valued and cared for.

That's what we're all getting at.

Like I can always tell when a couple's struggling, it's because they're not making each other feel wanted in those moments.

It sounds like sort of like hokey or cliche or horoscopy or what you'd read in the back of like one of those teen magazines.

But understanding the other person's love language, you can be trying really hard and missing the mark.

Like if you're the type of person that loves gifts and every day you come home with a bouquet of flowers for your wife, trying to show her how much you care, but she isn't a person that cares about that.

You're trying, but you're missing the mark.

So it's this idea of everyone wants to feel wanted.

How do you make them feel wanted?

Like on their level.

It's not treat others as you want to be treated.

There's a lot of good intention behind that, but it's treat others how they want to be treated.

And once you do that, then now you are truly loving that person in their language.

My wife's love language is like intimacy, connection.

And I love food.

I come from a Jewish Italian family, a lot of food, a lot of guilt.

And so most men would love to have their wives.

You know that intimacy connection, is their love language.

But sometimes I just want a pot roast.

Sometimes I just want...

The salmon.

That's why your first thing was, she made me a salmon.

Right.

Can I just get some food, honey?

I know you love me.

I know.

I mean, I'm thankful for that, but I just want some food.

The thing you reach for when you're tired might be exactly the thing that's keeping you tired.

I've been trimming back on caffeine, or at least trying not eliminating it, just trying to get a little bit more intentional when I get it.

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I stopped reaching for it in the afternoon and the 3 p.m. wall got a little bit shorter.

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If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that we take protein seriously between 07 and 1 gram per pound of body weight every single day.

That is the goal.

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You made a quick reference to the next habit I wanted to talk to you about, which is number 69 in the book make the pie bigger.

This one's all about scarcity versus abundance mindsets.

Can you talk a little bit about what it means to make the pie bigger?

Well, don't focus on trying to get what is yours.

We live in a world that says you got to get yours.

People tell you, I got to get mine.

No, the key is to make the pie bigger so there's more for everybody.

So everybody gets more.

And I'm always looking at opportunities.

Where can we create a win-win and where can we make the pie bigger and do something bigger together?

You might come to me with a partnership idea and I'll say, yeah, that's great.

But what happens if we did this?

So it's looking to make the pie bigger.

And I believe I tell the story about Damon West in the book where David and I wrote a book called The Coffee Bean.

And I made the pie bigger by giving him half of my royalties, half of my advance.

I didn't have to, but I just felt led to.

And as we did that and became partners in that book, That book has now reached hundreds of thousands of people and Damon speaks on it all the time, everywhere he goes.

So I'm benefiting from Damon going out there speaking on this topic.

This book is impacting so many people as well, this message.

And it's really added to my list of books that are making an impact.

And if I did alone, I don't think I would have had the same impact.

So we made the pie bigger together, doing it together.

Again, I could have just focused on getting mine.

And I'm always looking for win-win.

I always want to... make the person I'm working with better.

And I'm not here to just get my piece of the pie.

I think you got to go through life making the pie bigger.

It's a great habit because if you look for win-win and you look for great opportunities, you elevate you, You grow exponentially yourself and then everyone around you grows exponentially.

I have a certification program.

We train people to be certified speakers and trainers.

I'm watching all these people thrive and grow in their businesses.

To me, that's a win-win making the pie bigger.

And there's a relation between the last one being a giver and making the pie burger, which is just.

It's the abundance mindset, but it's also getting past the fear of well gosh, what if I give all of this and something bad happens or nothing happens at all?

Do you have any advice on just how to trust that being a giver and looking for the win-wins and looking to make the pie bigger is actually going to be good for us?

I mean it is selfish, but a lot of times we need at least some sort of the feeling of some sort of safety net that when I do give, when I do look for those win-wins, that I'm not going to be at least harmed by it.

This goes to everything we've been just talking about, Patrick.

You just nailed it.

Because in our marriages, for instance, talking about giving and just always not keeping score what happens if they don't reciprocate.

What happens if you don't get it back?

There has to be a level of faith and trust in all of this.

I trust that I'm going to put it out there.

And it's going to come back in due time.

And you just trust and you have faith.

And you might get burned by someone, but that doesn't mean you also don't use discernment.

Use discernment for those you're giving to and helping, but with your family, your spouse, your friends.

Again you're using discernment, but just say you give you trust it's going to come back in the right time.

It may not even come back from that person.

It might come back from someone else, which so often happened.

And there's trust, and there's faith, that also, that you believe that somehow, some way, things are going to turn in your favor.

Things are going to come your way.

And I'm gonna give, I'm gonna be a giver.

I have an abundance mindset.

Yeah, this relationship is gonna create greater opportunities for me and for everybody.

That requires faith.

It requires trust.

So to me, that requires optimism and belief that if we do X, it's going to lead to a greater Y as a result of us joining together.

So for me, you got to live with that optimism.

You got to live with that faith that leads to greater and bigger things in your life.

Pessimists do not change the world.

Throughout history, it's the optimists, the believers, the dreamers, the doers that made the greatest impact.

I would say the same thing.

You guys are doing this podcast together.

You joining together made the podcast bigger and better by doing this together.

And, as a result of that, you had belief and faith in each other and what you could accomplish together.

So there was a level there.

And for me, I'm a man of faith.

So I trust in God and I believe that God is the creator of the universe.

And I believe that the universe doesn't have intelligence without God.

So all the people that say the universe told me this, well, how did the universe tell you that?

The universe is like water.

Does water speak?

No, there's an energy and intelligence that moves through the universe, that has a power, that is intelligent and that you trust in this greater power.

And when you do, there's a greater connection for you in your life.

And there's a belief that somehow, some way, it's going to reward you or turn in your favor.

And I believe that one decision of faith do I believe that God is for me or against me will so often determine the kind of perspective someone has in their life and the life that they actually live.

And do they believe that people are for them or against them?

And that will determine the relationships that they have, the trust they have and ultimately, the connections they have and what they're able to create.

You do get burned sometimes when you have optimism and belief in faith.

But I think the greatest combination is discernment plus trust and faith.

So, if you have this trust, this faith, and it seems to make a lot of sense when we're talking about working, as you said, with Patrick and I teammates, and your marriage makes a ton of sense.

What about when stakes are high?

Resources are limited.

There's only going to be one person at the center of the podium.

Only one person's getting promoted.

How far does this extend?

How do we navigate that part of what I see as like a... a little bit of a conundrum, right?

It's like, we want it to be a bigger pie, but hey, there's only one.

You do your best and you let God do the rest.

And you know, if it's meant for you, it will happen.

The greatest example is watching these coaches who are assistant coaches or these quarterbacks vying for the same position.

And here they are supporting each other, helping each other, even though they want the starting job.

Or the coaches who are friends, but they want to beat each other.

You know Sean McVay, Kevin O'Connell, Liam Cohen.

They all coached together at one point and are great friends.

But when they play against each other, they are battling and they want to kick each other's butt.

And they talked about that.

So you have this like competition.

You have this friendship, but you just trust that I lost this one.

The next one's coming my way.

Or, hey, I might lose my job because I don't have a winning season.

And if it happens, it happens.

I can't control that, but I'm going to do what I can control.

So I think there's an idea that I control what I control and I let go of what I can't.

And that's the mindset I believe that we should all have in everything that we're doing.

So you give your best and you trust that somehow, someway it's going to work out.

And if it doesn't work out, if you don't get that job well, there's another job that's meant for you.

And you believe that.

So that too is also an optimistic mindset that there's something else for me.

There's something else meant for me.

There are a lot of things that didn't come my way that I wanted to come my way.

And then you realize, oh, there was a reason for that.

I ran for city council of Atlanta, walked door to door to 7,000 houses, lost the election.

At the time, I was devastated.

I thought my life was over.

At 26 years old, my life was over.

And then I realized sometimes you have to lose a goal to find your destiny.

And it led me to writing and speaking.

So if I would have won, I would have been in politics and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.

So there's a trust factor that comes along the way.

And I want people to know, we haven't even really talked about this.

I'm naturally negative.

And I naturally go towards the negative.

And I've had to learn to think this way because I've allowed so many negative things in my life to hold me back.

And it's why I was miserable at 31 years old and my wife almost left me because I was so negative and being negative to her.

And she said, if you don't change, we're over.

And that's when I began researching all the ways I could be more positive and, during the emerging field of positive psychology, I began practicing these ideas, writing about them,

I wrote a positive tip e-newsletter back in 2002.

There were not many e-newsletters back in 2002. sharing emails of what I was doing.

And people started sharing that.

And that led to my career as a writer and speaker doing what I'm now meant to do now and called to do now.

33 books later, six and a half million copies sold, all because I went from negative to positive.

And I've had to work at it, which I think is what makes me a good teacher, because I have that natural negative bent.

But what I do have is eternal hope and optimism.

No matter how bad things are, I still believe at times.

It's going to get better.

And I've had dark moments with my wife, with my son, with my daughter.

And that optimism and that love helped me persevere through that to now be on the other side of it.

But am I going to die one day or my wife going to die?

Yeah, I'm 55.

She's going to be 59. we look at each other and go, wow, in 20 years, I'll be 75 and you'll be 79.

This is crazy.

And we think about that and we go all right like at what point are we going to be on this earth without each other?

That's going to be hard and difficult.

And knowing that, Is a possibility a real possibility?

That's going to be tough.

So you live for the day.

You enjoy it.

But you know challenges are coming your way.

You expect it.

But you also know when they do come, how do you handle it?

Well, by being optimistic and positive, you're able to then move through it and create the best out of it.

All right, we've got three more habits for you.

So let's keep on rolling.

Number 70.

Okay, I went on a tangent there.

That's okay.

Focus on winning people instead of arguments.

All about the practice of aiming to be connected instead of aiming to be right all the time.

Can you talk a little bit about this habit?

Yeah, I love this.

The person who is always right is often alone.

And I have a friend... that always wants to be right.

And he always wants to argue with me and debate me.

Well, guess what?

I don't want to hang out with him because he always wants to be right, because he always has to be right.

And everything is an argument and a debate and it's really annoying.

So I'd rather win the person than the argument.

And this is just a simple one.

Stop arguing with people.

Try to win a debate.

Enjoy your life.

Win the relationship.

Love the person.

Disagree.

Say, I disagree.

You're obviously not going to change my mind.

I'm not going to change yours.

All right.

What do we agree on?

And how do we move forward from here?

To me, that's the right mindset to have.

During the pandemic.

My friends and I had very different opinions about what should be done during the pandemic and we were debating and we were on a thread.

These are all my Cornell lacrosse buddies and fraternity brothers and we're all arguing and debating, but we said to each other let's not let this time and this stuff ruin our relationship.

And we did it.

We stayed positive.

They realized now I was right, but at the time they...

At the time, they didn't think that.

There's no way I'm getting any.

Just let the record show.

Let the record show.

There's no petition, by the way.

They haven't even said anything.

No one's ever said anything.

And that's okay.

But we did have debates.

And I'd rather win the relationship than win the argument.

And I used to be the person in the past that had to win the argument.

And now even with my wife, like the key to marriage is my wife is always right.

And that's the key to my marriage right there.

It's interesting that you just told us you thought maybe one path for your life was going to be a politician, which is you know basically all about.

Can I argue you into my camp?

Can I be right enough that people continue to vote for me, right?

Yep.

This one, just thinking about what I was thinking about when I was reading this and thinking about the idea of, you know, seven habits of people who make other people better.

The reason why I kind of pulled this one out and I wanted to talk to you about this one is because of what you sort of just said, which is when you're constantly in conflict, when you're constantly arguing, you kind of can't help but push those people away, because at some point you just got to like

You just can't keep doing it.

You can't have the same fight 52 times.

And so it just like naturally begins to create distance.

And if there is distance, then you're no longer in a position to help them in whatever way you may have helped them, in whatever way you may have found a way to make a bigger pie.

Right.

And with that distance there's no way you're going to have that five to one or the three to one positive to negative interaction ratio.

And so that's kind of why I thought this one's interesting, because it feels like yeah, that's pretty obvious.

And yet, when you really think about it, you realize how often we are trying to be right versus how often we are trying to get closer to the person we are talking to.

Yeah, I love that.

Great insight on that.

And if Ben and I were talking right now and Ben said you know John, I disagree with you on that, I would say yeah, tell me why.

Tell me your thought process.

And I would want to learn what he was thinking and why he was thinking that way.

And I would actually be generally intrigued by his thought process.

I don't think I know it all.

When I speak to a lot of audiences, I know the audience, they're the genius, I'm not.

The genius is in the audience.

And my job is to unleash the genius.

I've learned to be a lifelong learner and to always be learning from everyone I meet, which is one of my favorite habits in the book as well.

And so I think that's just a great way to go through life.

Again, I was the guy who always had to be right and I pushed people away.

And now I really believe a great habit is, yeah, win the person.

And they're going to come back years later and they're going to be appreciative of you.

They're going to thank you.

They're going to respect you more.

They're going to admire you more because you live that way.

And they knew you cared about them.

You didn't have to be right with them.

They knew you cared about them.

I see an internal dichotomy with this where it's you care about the person.

So you're going to kind of like pull back to make sure that the relationship is the thing that actually wins.

You're not going to let it be destructive.

But there's moments where avoiding conflict for the sake and can feel like compassion, but it's actually abandonment, right.

It's a parent confronting a child that the child wants to go play in traffic.

It's like the parent knows better.

It's the coach stepping in before someone self-destructs.

How do you know when truth matters?

Those are extreme examples.

Those are easy.

But the power is in the nuance of this.

Like, how do you know when?

So I think about it in terms of, and people that listen here will deeply resonate with this.

Everyone that listens to this show, I shouldn't say everyone.

I think the majority of people that listen to the show are incredibly dedicated to living the best versions of themselves.

And that starts with their own health and fitness.

They don't struggle with that.

They struggle with their parents not doing it.

And their parents being like, well, Dr. Oz said, I read in People Magazine that.

And- the people listening to the show.

It's kind of easy to go.

Well, I'm not going to step in because I just don't want the battle.

It's easier to go that way.

I just want to like keep, maintain the good relationship.

But at some point too, it's like, do I have a responsibility to, to actually jump into here.

So how do we know when truth matters more than harmony?

Wow.

I love how Ben always brings the dichotomy situations into it and the counterproductive.

And he's definitely a challenge the status quo kind of guy.

And I know that the key is love tough.

And one of the habits in the book is connect before you correct.

So the more you're connecting with those people your parents, those who should be more fit the more you earn the right to challenge them.

And so it's about loving them, having a relationship with them, and then speaking truth to them.

You must always speak the truth.

But love must arrive first.

So let love arrive first.

They know you love them and then speak the truth to them.

I've got some friends in the Northeast that are overweight, that need to be working out, that need to be exercising.

And when I see them during the summer, I'm giving them a hard time.

I'm like, come on, guys.

Stop the drinking.

Stop eating so much.

Let's go.

Let's get fit.

Let's get in shape.

And guys, we're not even talking about all the health habits in the book.

Your audience is health people.

So I do want people to know there's a lot of cool health habits in this book, by the way.

And we're not even talking about them because we got great health guys here.

But yeah, health habits are essential and I'm driving them towards health habits.

One of the reasons why I put them in the book were for friends like that.

So I'm a challenger.

I'm a driver.

I really am.

Man, I sometimes will drive too much, but I've learned that encouragement must come first.

Love must come first and support must come first.

So the old adage of tough love, that style of leadership doesn't work anymore.

It's love tough. love them, then challenge them then.

So to me, that's the way we do it.

And truth must arrive and say what needs to be said.

My wife will say, you know what?

I didn't like what you did in that talk.

You should have done X, Y, and Z. I'm like, you're right.

That's a great point.

You know, I'm like, honey, I didn't think you should do this.

What are you thinking there?

You're right.

So we will challenge each other and we will push each other.

Yeah, it goes back to your first one, right?

As long as you have the right ratio.

So it's like you put the deposits in so you can have those really meaningful.

What might feel like at the moment a potential withdrawal?

But you built so much into it.

No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

That makes a lot of sense.

And it's good intention.

It's what's the intention and your intention is.

Behind it, they know I care about them and I want to make them better and vice versa.

People say how do you stay humble John, when you get home from a big event where there are thousands of people there?

I go, well, I stay humble by going home.

Because the minute I go home, man, my family will humble me like, Dad, that was a stupid idea.

What are you thinking, Dad?

Why'd you do that?

My wife will say, oh, that video is horrible.

Why'd you say that?

And it's amazing how my family will give me a hard time.

I got to go back on the road to get my confidence back when I leave.

My son was sort of giving a hard time.

My son's, as mentioned, he's 14.

He's in seventh grade and he's taking French for the first time.

And the French, they'd have to do a presentation on somebody.

So he's like, so dad, I did it on you.

I'm like, that's awesome.

So I have to describe the person.

So I was like, cool.

What'd you say?

He's like, that you're smart, that you're athletic.

I'm like, hell yeah.

That you have brown eyes.

I'm like, hell yeah.

And that you have gray hair.

I was like, I have gray hair.

And it's like, and now that I'm looking, I'm like, I have gray hair.

I've, and then similar as, like the same day, my 12 year old daughter goes dad, you look as at her lacrosse game.

And so dad, you look really good today.

And I was like, cool.

Why, what, why do you say that?

She's like, well, you look like I was wearing, first off, I was wearing a hat.

So I think it was going to be covering up my gray hair.

It's like, you just look like, look like a really athletic dad.

And I was like, what do I normally look?

She looked like, she's like, a grandpa.

It's like, it's like, yeah.

So nothing like the family to notch it back a little bit of truth.

Yeah.

Like doubling up on the same day this past weekend.

Ben, how old are you, Ben?

I'm 83.

You look great for 83.

Thank you.

I appreciate that, John.

I'm 49.

49.

Okay.

And is your daughter still playing lacrosse?

Yes.

Where's she playing at?

I have two daughters.

So I have the daughter that went, that played D1.

She's out.

She's 26.

And I have a younger daughter who's 12 and she's playing the travel middle school.

All that good stuff.

Where'd the 26 year old play college?

UMass.

Oh, nice.

All right.

Awesome.

Of course.

All right, two more habits.

You mentioned one of the habits being be a lifelong learner, another habit, be a lifelong teacher.

What does that look like for you?

And how do we make sure that we are that?

Be a lifelong learner.

You're just learning from everyone you meet and you're growing from just different situations, different teachers, different people.

But you also see everyone as a teacher, everyone you can learn from.

So I think one of the habits also is to learn from everyone you meet.

Not just be a lifelong learner, but also learn from everyone you meet.

And that's what I try to do.

I learn from everyone I meet.

And then being a lifelong teacher is where you're taking subjects that you really want to learn a lot about and you start teaching them.

The minute you start teaching, you actually become a better learner.

You learn the most when you're teaching.

And the more you're teaching, you grow the most.

I have grown the most doing this work.

I'm sure when you guys started your podcast, you actually started growing a lot more when you started doing this podcast.

Then when you started your business, you probably started growing a lot more, because your business was about helping others in fitness and training and growing others.

So the minute you start growing others, you're going to grow yourself.

Ironically, the greatest self-growth strategy is to care about and do the actions of growing others.

And when you do that, it's incredible what happens.

So I've just learned just being a teacher and being a trainer and speaker, I've grown the most.

My daughter, she's 27 now and she's a speaker.

And I've just watched her grow so much in the last few years as she's been going around now speaking to audiences just like me.

The level of growth is just exponential when you start teaching.

You just are seen in a different light.

You feel like you're in a different light.

You have to rise up to that person who's on the stage.

And there are moments where you're going through the refiner's fire because you're like who am I to be up here?

How am I sharing this?

I'm not worthy.

And you have to go through that fire.

And as you do, you grow exponentially in that process of teaching and growing up.

What does it look like to be a lifelong teacher in everyday life, right?

Because you just talked about up on stage, your daughter's up on stage.

Not a lot of people, I think, can see themselves in that for lots of different reasons.

What does it look like to be a lifelong teacher, as a father, as a friend, as a colleague or a coworker?

How do you bring that mindset in such a way that you don't become the guy who's always telling everybody else how to do things better, but in fact, that you're teaching and not dictating?

Well no, my thought process is a lifelong teacher becomes an expert in like one main thing where you teach people on that subject.

Like for me is leadership and building a stronger team and a great culture.

I can teach anybody on how to build a stronger team, a great culture.

And I would say their mindset as well.

I'm, I'm great with mindset.

So I would say those key things are what I'm great at.

And that's what I'm going to speak on.

I'm not going to speak on history.

I'm not going to try to teach you about AI.

I'm not going to try to teach you on how to cook certain foods.

I'm going to teach you about that.

So I would say, become an expert in one specific topic, that you then can benefit the world and others with your teaching.

So a lifelong teacher becomes a master and an expert in one topic and then teaches others.

Let's say that person is a craftsman.

A craftsman.

And a craftsman masters their craft and then is able to teach others about their craft.

I wrote a book called The Carpenter.

A lot of people say it's my best book.

And The Carpenter is about being a craftsman in life and in work and in all that you do.

But it's about that work that you do that you really can master in your work.

There's an opportunity as well, I think, Patrick, which is... John, I think that you do this anyway.

But so, in terms of the father thing, I don't need to be John Gordon to share John Gordon's teachings.

So... if I want to instill the power of positive habits into my kids, I teach them as I'm learning.

And I think that through that framework of as you're digesting material we've talked about this a lot recently, Patrick how do you keep and retain and restore information?

The best way is as you're digesting it, You're not doing it for entertainment purposes.

You're doing it because this is going to become part of the repertoire that you use to then pass on and teach to others.

So, as I'm reading John's latest book, it's set up very much in the way we like a lot of the books that we kind of talk about here really short chapters.

So think like Daily Stoic. arete, books like that.

I've been reading this in the morning.

I'll read two or three of the habits in the morning.

And then, whichever one of my favorite is, I go okay guys, time to And I Everyone knows, and they stop what they're doing and I read it to them of what they're actually doing.

I don't need to be an expert because I'm sharing... the experts thing through me.

So I'm still the teacher.

I'm the conduit, but it doesn't require the level of expertise.

Maybe that would take the craftsman, the carpenter, to get to.

I love that, Ben.

I'm going to use that going forward.

I really love what you just shared and how you shared it, because it makes a lot of sense, because a teacher in social studies, for instance, takes the lesson plan and the textbook.

They regurgitate the textbook.

Yeah, and they teach from it.

But as you teach from it, you grow and you learn and you become a better teacher as a result of that.

As you teach these habits to others and read these habits, you actually digest them even more yourself because you're teaching them and you get better with these habits.

Honestly, Ben, have you liked the book?

And I know I'm putting you on the spot on this podcast, but have you liked it so far of what you've read?

No, I haven't really liked it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I've restarted the conversation off with I'm a fan with a youth.

So twofold.

First, I came across some of your books early on in my own coaching career.

And the fact that they kind of read at a fairly elementary level helps me a lot, because I want to be able to do this.

You don't need the science, right?

You just need the, here's the things guys.

And in memorable terms, it's way like, Alex Hermosi is blown up recently.

He's one of the smartest entrepreneur and marketing guys there is.

He purposely has stick figures in his book and says it outright.

I'm going to talk to you at a third grade level.

That means it's digestible.

So I really, I'm not saying you're right at third grade level.

But I love the idea that it is so comprehensible and I can share it across any lesson.

So I've shared it with my 40 something year olds that I coach and my four year olds when they were four.

We one of our favorite books that we read when my kids were four or five and six was the energy bus for kids.

And it just so good.

It's just so phenomenal.

So am I that old?

I can't believe I'm that old that they, you know, you're reading that book and that they are now.

And I realized, no, I am that old. that's what's been happening.

You're right.

It's like simple.

As you just said, I love that simple books that people could read.

I think his name was George in that book as well.

There was two Georges.

George in the energy bus.

Yes.

And the, it was the adult version.

And then I made the young George in the, he's George as well in the kids version as well.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I think communicating is, is something that's important in a simple way.

People often say you know John, I the way you bring complex things and make it simple.

It's amazing how you do that.

I go, well, no, that's just how I think.

Like, I'm not that smart.

I actually think very simply.

And I think that's something I just saw Bill O'Brien the other day.

And at, at an event and he's now the football coach at BC.

And I didn't even know he was reading my books.

He's like, man, I've been reading your books to my team and I'll actually read it to them.

And that was my go with positive habits that they can literally you can read one book, One to your kids a day, one to yourself a day and get something out of it and go.

Okay, I can use that.

The next day, all right, yeah, I'm doing that.

All right, that one's not that great for me, but the next one.

Oh yeah, the next one.

Yeah, I'm going to do that.

And as you go through it, not every habit's going to appeal to you, but enough will that you'll say, all right, these are my top 10 I'm going to do, or my top seven habits.

And I'm going to put these into practice.

And then from there, I'm going to put my top three into practice.

And then I always think you should just start with one.

Make sure you do one and master one before you do the other ones.

So if we've been talking about habits and we talk about the power of where we start the conversation off with like from the Northeast, we got to do it.

Right.

It's about doing it.

Right.

So, you know, James Clear talks about that, the doing part.

Every time you do a positive habit, it's a vote for the person, the type of person you want to become.

But people struggle to maintain habits that they don't yet believe.

They are those types of people, right.

Identity.

Identity, right.

So what have you learned about all your work with these elite people, in your your exploration into all of these habits, with that relationship between identity and action?

That's why the mindset habits are so important in this book.

Thinking is a habit.

And as you read this book, it's gonna shift your identity.

It's gonna shift your perspective.

It's going to change your perspective to positive from negative or realistic to optimist.

And you're going to have a new identity about yourself.

So one of my purposes in writing this was I wanted you to think differently.

These are the mindset habits I've been sharing for years now with professional sports teams, professional athletes, high achievers, business leaders.

I've been sharing these habits and these are like my greatest hits.

And many of them are mental habits, because they will shift the way you think, your identity, the way you see the world and, most importantly, how you see yourself and how you see yourself in this world.

You're not just here by accident.

There's a purpose for your life.

And that's why one of the habits is to write down your purpose statement and read it each day.

You do this every day.

And you're going to live with so much more purpose in your life.

You write down your success of the day at the end of the day, which is one of the habits.

You're going to go to bed a success every night.

You're going to wake up a success.

Now you're going to be looking for the successes in your life instead of all the negative things and all the failures.

You'll look for the successes.

Now, you'll still learn from the failures, the mistakes, but you're going to focus on your successes.

And all the research shows what we focus on shows up more in our life.

And what we look for, we find.

If you don't believe me, look for blue cars on the road today.

You'll start seeing more blue cars.

You will tune into that.

You'll see it more.

It's the reticular activating system.

So you want to make sure that you're doing that.

So along the way, your identity will shift.

It's so funny because my marketing guy asked ChatGPT what's the difference between Atomic Habits from James Clear and this book, The Power of Positive Habits, from me?

And ChatGPT said, Atomic Habits helps you build better habits.

This book.

The Power of Positive Habits are the better habits that will help you build a better life.

So I think you need both.

You need the ability to build the habit.

Because I was thinking about this the other day, Ben.

You can have a great habit, but it's pointless and useless if you don't put it into practice.

So these are a bunch of great habits, but how would you put these into practice?

And the idea is just pick one and start with one and master it.

And then the next habit, okay, do that, master that.

And then add another one.

I'm now doing squatting like a child, which is one of my favorite habits in the book.

From a physical standpoint,

I couldn't even get past a chair when I started.

Now I'm going all the way to the ground.

I'm more flexible now at 55 than I was 20 years ago.

Just by doing that one practice.

I'm doing the dead hangs.

I never even heard of a dead hang until I researched for this book, and my buddy Justin Rothenshofer, who's Brandon Lake's health coach, gave me all this good insight on some of the positive habits I should put in the book from a health standpoint and a physical standpoint.

So I put that in there and now I'm doing these dead hangs.

Man, I feel more flexible.

My back feels better.

So these things that we put into practice, we master, and then they become a part of our life.

And a big part of it is distractions.

Distractions are the enemy of greatness.

And that's why you've got to remove the friction.

Use the first habit in the book, the habit before the habit, remove friction and then do that thing and keep doing that thing.

And I believe, the more you do it and the more you think differently and act differently, you will then become what you're thinking and doing.

And that's the whole goal here.

What you're doing will feel so good.

And the alternative of bad habits will feel so bad.

You'll just want to start doing more and more good habits.

Like, if you start walking after meals, which is one of the habits in the book, You start walking after meals.

You will get so addicted to doing that and how you feel from doing that, that you're going to want to keep on doing it.

So let's create a positive addiction instead of a negative addiction, just how you know when working out.

You start working out.

I started working out during the pandemic.

And I used to lift a lot.

And I stopped for years.

And now I'm lifting again twice. in a great way since 2020.

I feel so much stronger younger, healthier and better I'm sure, like you do than when I was younger, because I'm lifting all the time.

It's become a very positive habit.

That's habits 100 through 200.

It's just lift heavy, bros.

And dead hang.

That would be a good place to stop.

But I have one more habit and it was one of my favorites.

So I'm going to ask you for two more minutes of your time.

The last habit I wanted to highlight was 87, serve with a caring trademark.

Talk about what a caring trademark is, what it looks like and why we should think about getting one or refining one.

A caring trademark is how you show others you care.

Some people love to make cookies.

Some people are great listeners.

I'm an encourager.

So your caring trademark is how do you let people know you care about them?

Some people write handwritten notes.

I don't know what your caring trademark is, but I know that everyone has one.

And the idea is find yours.

What's the way you show you care?

And the way that you will continually do it.

Like, I'm not going to make cookies.

I might do it once, but I'm not going to do it over and over again, because that's not what I like to do.

I'm an encourager.

I love to encourage.

So guess what?

If Ben, Patrick, you guys ever needed help and encouragement, you reach out to me.

I'm going to encourage you.

I'll do it forever because I love to do it.

So what do you love to do that energizes you and others that show you care?

That's your care and trademark.

Don't try to do things because, oh, I should do this and I should want to do this.

And then you always feel bad that you're not doing it.

No, that's not your care and trademark.

It's not your care and trademark.

Do the thing that you love to do and will do.

And that's your care and trademark.

I'm thinking about myself personally, and I struggle with this.

How do you find it?

You're saying what you love to do.

You're saying encouraging and cookies.

Neither of those are mine.

How do I find it?

I have a feeling, Ben, you're a great listener.

That was a bad joke, John.

That was a bad joke.

I'm a dad.

Dad jokes.

You got me there for a second.

Are you a great listener?

I don't know.

That might be a thing.

Yeah.

It might be a thing.

Are you a good listener?

I think I'm a decent listener.

Yeah.

I don't think that's my thing.

Do you like to help people fix things?

Yeah.

As long as it's not like manual, like, like, like my dishwasher is not working.

Okay.

So you're not good there on the mechanical side.

Do you like to help people get fit?

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

You want to encourage people in their fitness and their health?

Okay.

So it can be as macro as that.

I think that's your current trademark, is what you're actually doing for your profession and your business, and your life is Got it.

So it can be macro.

It doesn't necessarily need to be the cookies or the right handwritten cards or remember people's birthdays or

That's where I went kind of like with this.

It could be something much more macro sense of like what energizes you when you are helping people.

How do you love helping people?

And I would say your care and trademark would be you care about people's fitness and their health.

And you probably care so much that...

You made a business out of it because you want to help people get fit and healthy.

Am I right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And even it extends, I mean, people that listen to this know it's even bigger.

It's really, I want to help people live the most best, most meaningful, fulfilled lives.

It's that health and fitness is a domino that comes before that, because without your health, It's really challenging to be able to do that.

So yes, it stems really deeply into me in terms of why that matters to me.

But yeah, absolutely.

That is the thing that completely energizes me.

If I spend every waking moment doing that, it would be a good life for me.

Yeah.

So I would say your care and trademark is you want to help people get better and you love helping people get better.

And that's a care and trademark.

If we meet, I'm going to try to find a way to help you get better.

And I'm going to look for those ways to do that.

Yeah.

So that's your care and trademark.

There you go.

Yeah.

All right.

I'll send you the bill in the mail session that we just did.

Patrick, let's discuss.

The bill goes to Patrick.

Patrick, let's discuss your care and trademark.

Love that.

What's that? you know, let's discuss Patrick's caring trademark.

What is yours?

Yes.

My caring trademark.

Well, let me first say, I think I love this so much because it did make me ask that question.

And I don't know if I came up with an answer, but I love the specificity of it.

I love the idea of navigating and then being able to find it and then being able to, once you find it, do it more on purpose than occasionally by accident, because it feels right and it feels kind of natural.

So that's just kind of why I think it's really important.

I think if I were to take a stab at it, I think maybe asking questions is how I do that.

I think...

Being curious and listening is probably what it looks like.

But again I think that that's something I do, but it's not something I do with a ton of intention, which again is kind of why I like this.

Because I think, once you identify it, just like so many things you talked about once you identify it, it's the blue car that you see everywhere.

You see opportunities to practice that caring trademark.

And when you do that kind of like the identity idea that we talked about, When you do that, you become the kind of person who does the kind of thing.

And then suddenly it's that upward cycle and you are that person because you've been practicing those habits.

Yeah, and everybody really does have a unique purpose I have found.

I have a circle where I mentor a bunch of leaders in it.

And just the other day I was challenging them on what's your purpose?

Like, why are you here?

What's your unique mission that you're here on that you want to do?

And it's always tied to something in your past some wounds you've experienced, some challenge you've had to overcome, some issue you had to face and you faced it, you dealt with it and it's something that you now want to help others through.

It always ties back to that.

When I meet with a coach you know like an NFL coach who brings me in to work with them I'll start with their essence of who they are and what do they truly want to do, and what are their core values that drive them and their work.

And it just starts there because your culture must be an expression of you.

So we always start with the essence of you.

And then we start to talk about the essence of your team and what are the characteristics that you want in your team.

And those core values within your team and those characteristics should be one in the same.

And so we'll get to that.

So always think like you know what drives me, what drives you and what's the essence, when you know that you're going to live so much more powerfully and intentionally.

Yeah.

Awesome.

John.

No, it's fun conversation guys.

I appreciate you.

Appreciate what you guys do.

It's awesome.

Thank you so much for being here.

Two quick things before you go.

First, the 531 listener guide for this episode is in the show notes.

Five big ideas, three reflection questions, and one key takeaway.

Check it out at the link. in the show notes.

And second, if you're ready to do the daily work, not just listen to the show, the Chase Club is where the crew does that together.

Daily lessons, monthly challenges, a Friday Chase Club, chat club all of it at the link in the show notes and chasing excellence dot email.

[The Power of Positive Habits: Strategies for Exponential Growth and Team Excellence]-[7 Habits of People Who Make Other People Better (w/ Jon Gordon)]

📋 Summary

Cultivating Excellence Through Intentional Habits

The Foundational Role of Connection

Leadership: Shouting Praise and Whispering Criticism

The Abundance Mindset: Making the Pie Bigger

Serving with a "Caring Trademark"

Overcoming the Natural Bent Toward Negativity

Conclusion: The Path Forward

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The Power of Positive Habits: Strategies for Exponential Growth and Team Excellence]-[7 Habits of People Who Make Other People Better (w/ Jon Gordon)]

📋 Summary

Cultivating Excellence Through Intentional Habits

The Foundational Role of Connection

Leadership: Shouting Praise and Whispering Criticism

The Abundance Mindset: Making the Pie Bigger

Serving with a "Caring Trademark"

Overcoming the Natural Bent Toward Negativity

Conclusion: The Path Forward

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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