'Sometimes, You Have to Lose a Goal to Find Your Destiny'

He’d run a non-profit, dabbled in politics, worked in the service industry and had dropped out of law school.

Now, Jon Gordon was 31, a bit directionless, and growing more cynical by the day.

“I was crumbling on the inside, just so negative,” he said. “That was my wake-up call from my wife. She said, ‘If you don’t change, we’re over.’”

Gordon wasn’t certain what he wanted to do next, but he knew he didn’t want to lose his wife.

So, he began researching positivity on the internet and deeply contemplating what interested him the most.

“I didn’t know how, but I knew I was going to write and speak for the rest of my life, even if it took me 10 years to do it,” he said.

Nearly two decades later, Gordon is considered a top leadership consultant and has penned 28 books — helping countless teams and companies find their purpose and enhance their cultures.

The Daily Coach caught up with him recently to discuss why we often default to negativity, the distinction between positivity and delusional optimism, and what he hopes readers take from his latest book, “The One Truth.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Jon, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us about your childhood and some key lessons from it.

I grew up in Long Island, N.Y., a Jewish-Italian family. There was a lot of food, a lot of guilt, a lot of wine, a lot of whining. My dad was an undercover New York police officer who battled the drug cartels on the streets of New York. Obviously, he dealt with a lot of crime and challenges and adversity. He was a pretty negative guy, but a very loving guy. There was a lot of, “The world is out to get you, but we have to be stronger than this world.”

My mom was in sales and was a really ambitious saleswoman, even during the 70s. She was a strong and loving mom. I played a lot of sports in the yard, hockey, baseball and basketball. We battled. It was like the Lord of the Flies in my neighborhood. We were battling to win in sports every day. It was a fun childhood that gave lots of opportunities to grow because there wasn’t much parent supervision. You had to find a way.

You end up going to Cornell to play lacrosse. What did you think you’d want to do for a career at that point?

I was a blue-collar kid who didn’t even know what the Ivy League was growing up. I had a great experience at Cornell, but I had a lot of injuries and adversity. I always had to battle back, come back, earn the starting position back. There were a lot of lessons along the way about learning to grind and learning to overcome.

I was a government economics major, a lot of policy analysis. I wanted to go into politics and government. I even interned with a Congresswoman in D.C. when I was a junior. I spent the summer in Georgetown and had a great time.

I also learned that when people tell you that you can’t do something, you still have to believe you can. When I wrote my first book, “The Energy Bus,” it was rejected by over 30 publishers, but I’d been told “You can’t do it” before or “You’re not tall enough or big enough.” I always had to battle and earn my way to anything I accomplished. It’s been the same thing with writing.

You’ve touched on your dad and cynicism and general adversity. When did optimism become such an integral part of your life?

I moved to Atlanta right after college. I went down there with a hope and a dream and a suitcase and was waiting tables trying to provide for myself. I went to get my Master’s in teaching from Emory University. I eventually got a bartending tryout in Buckhead. A guy asked me if I’d ever bartended before and I said, “Oh yeah, yeah, I have.” I had no idea how to bartend, but I got this book with recipes and watched the movie “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise flipping bottles.

I asked a guy, Thad, I was working with (at my tryout), “What do I do?” He said, “Serve it red and serve it with a smile.” I’m just pouring stuff in drinks and giving it to people. At the end of the night, they said, “It’s clear you have no idea how to bartend, but we’re going to give you a job. We love your energy. Keep on making people happy and sharing your energy.” I got the job, eventually got the prime spot in the bar downstairs. Every weekend, I’d bartend. During the week, I was getting my Master’s.

I was also running for City Council at 26 years old and really involved in politics. I was walking door to door to 7,000 houses. I lost the race, but what a great experience. Sometimes, you have to lose a goal to find your destiny.

I went to law school at Georgia State, dropped out of law school, walked out of my second-year exams like I can’t do this. I went to work for a dot com thinking I was gonna make a fortune. Tech was booming at the time, but the dot com crashed.

(My wife and I) had moved to Jacksonville. I was 31 years old and struggling. We were down there with a mortgage and no savings because everything was put into our house, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay my bills. That was my wake-up call from my wife. She said, “If you don’t change, we’re over. I love you, but I’m not going to spend my life with someone who makes me so miserable.”

I wanted to stay married. I needed to change. I began research on ways to become more positive. I also asked myself what was I born to do? In that, writing and speaking came to me.

I realized that was what I truly loved. With the (non-profit), I was always writing and speaking at our membership meetings and getting people involved… Writing and speaking were how I could make a difference and help people. I wanted to write books the way I was inspired and encourage people the way certain books encouraged me.

I know it was the right voice that spoke to me because now I’ve written 28 books. I know I’m doing what I was truly meant to do.

That’s a pretty remarkable career path. You’re obviously known for positivity now, but there’s a difference between being positive and delusional optimism. How do you distinguish between the two? 

People think positivity is pollyanna. It’s 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. It’s O.K. to say, “This stinks. This is hard.” But how are we going to overcome it and find a way forward?

If you’re not a positive coach or positive leader, how can you rally your team to create a successful future? Pessimists do not change the world. It’s the optimists, it’s the believers, the dreamers, the ones who say, “We can win with what we have. We’re going to find a way to be our best, to out-scheme, out-coach, sometimes out-talent.”

Optimism causes you to be innovative and adapt to navigate the pitfalls and challenges.

Want to ask you about a key leadership belief of yours. You think that voids in communication within a team lead to negativity. Can you expound upon that?

A lot of ideas come to me when I’m walking or working with CEOs and organizations and you start to see the challenges they’re facing and the problems they have. Where there’s a void in communication, negativity will fill it. By default, negativity will come our way. If we’re just going about our every day life, it’s not usually optimism or positivity that’s our first thought.

We live in a world of duality with two main frequencies: One of positivity, one of negativity. When there’s that void, it leads to fear and uncertainty, doubt and distortions, which are lies that will tell you things about yourself and your future that aren’t true. There’s gossip, there’s rumors, there’s complaining. Negativity will rush in. We have to fill (that void) with positive communication so negativity can’t breed and grow.

Congratulations on the release of “The One Truth.” What do you most want readers to take from your new book?

First, I want people to know that grew out of my talks all these years with teams and organizations and a lot of athlete conversations, seeing what they were struggling with, how they were struggling and my own quest to get better.

I want people, when they read the book, to be more mentally tough, to know the keys to mental health and high performance as they understand how thoughts work and how state of mind works and how negative thoughts bring it down.

I want this to help people perform at the highest level, to take on the challenges of this world so they don’t have to go through life so fearful, anxious and stressed. This book explains how it all works. Once you understand negative thoughts are coming in that you’d never choose initially, you start to believe the lie and speak it out loud, and it becomes a part of you. You don’t have the power of the first thought, but you do have the power of the second thought.

For me, I’m really passionate about this because I’ve seen the lightbulb go off in all these athletes and coaches. I want them to understand they have the power. This is how to use it. You don’t have to allow negative thoughts to defeat you.

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