[00:00:00] Kristy: Hello boss. And welcome back to the run your business like a boss podcast. I'm so excited to bring you today's special guest. I recently sat down with one of my favorite authors of all time, Jon Gordon, who has written 28 books, no less, including my favorite book, which is The Power of Positive Leadership, which I read back in 2017 and have spent many years implementing and actioning what I learned in that book.

[00:00:30] I definitely credit Jon's work for the success that I have achieved in both business and also as a parent. In this conversation, we talk about the principles in that book, as well as his new book, the one truth, elevate your mind, unlock your power and heal your soul. Jon is a husband, a father, a keynote speaker, and an author. His books have inspired millions worldwide, and I know that you are going to absolutely love this conversation as much as I did. Are you ready? Let's go!

[00:01:06] Hello, Jon, welcome to the run your business like a boss podcast. I'm so excited to have you here with me today.

[00:01:46] Jon: Kristy, great to be with you. I love the title of your podcast. That's pretty awesome.

[00:01:50] Kristy: you probably don't know this, but I actually discovered you back in 2017 and I was listening to a podcast on trail leadership on my walk at the time, and you were promoting your book, the power of positive leadership. And everything that you said made so much sense to me, both from a leadership perspective, but also from a self leadership, perspective, as well as a parent.

[00:02:19] And my big takeaways from that book had really flowed through to how I wanted to show up as a leader, but also more so as a parent. And I actually reached out to you at the time and sent you an email and let you know how much that book impacted me. And I think this is what is so powerful about putting your work out into the world in the way that you do.

[00:02:44] So I wanted to thank you first and foremost, we're not going to talk about the power positive leadership so much today, but I just wanted to thank you for that book in particular. it was a huge impact on me personally.

[00:02:54] Jon: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, what's interesting is that when I wrote that book and then lately I had in mind positive leadership at work and home because who you are determines how you lead and when you feed yourself, you're able to feed others. And it's amazing. All these events that I do now with the leaders, they want me to talk about ideas and principles for home as well. I think today's leader is interested in the whole leadership. W H O L E, where they're leading at work at home, they're the same. They're not just a great leader at home, but they're also a great leader at work. And also they're a great leader at work, but when they come home, they give their best to their family because a lot of times people don't. Like we're great at work, but we're horrible at home.

[00:03:40] Or we're great at home and we get to work and we treat our employees much worse than we treat our kids. And so you can see how, you know, it often plays out. So I think this is about living with integrity, leading with integrity, and the word integrity comes from the word integer, which means whole and complete.

[00:03:58] So when you are a whole and complete leader, you're a powerful leader and there's no gaps between what you say and what you do. There's a lot of alignment between your words and your actions and positive leadership is also, as you know, a state of mind, and it's a state of how you interact and connect with others and develop relationships.

[00:04:18] So in many ways, it's really about how to live life like I've had a lot of people who aren't top leaders still read the power of positive leadership and get a lot out of it, as you said, in terms of how they lead themselves, how they live their lives and the attitude that they have and the mindset they have as they move forward. If you don't have a positive mindset, you can't be a positive leader. If you don't have a positive mindset, you can't be a great leader. So we need positivity I truly believe to be our best. i've been saying a lot lately Positivity is the competitive advantage. It's not just a nice way to lead but it really is the way to lead if you want to get greater results, if you want to overcome adversity and challenges and negativity that every team will have to overcome to ultimately Define your success and, and create your future with your team.

[00:05:06] Kristy: Yeah, I love that so much. And I think you're absolutely right. You can have success and be that successful leader at work, but at the end of the day, what's really important is yes, how you show up for others, but also how you show up for yourself and for your family. I think that's the true legacy. If we're really honest with ourselves, that's the true legacy.

[00:05:27] Jon: It will be the people that will cry, that are crying at your funeral. That is your legacy. The people crying at your funeral. Those are the ones that you'll have the greatest impact on and that's your legacy. And also, I mean, even doing this, you know, I may not meet the people listening, but my legacy is also if I could help someone with their life by me overcoming my adversity, my negativity, all my challenges, which I've had to overcome. I don't have a perfect past and I'm not this perfect, positive leader. I've been very negative in my past and that led me to positivity. So much so, my wife almost left me when I was 31 years old. I'm now 52, but when I was 31, I was not the man I am today.

[00:06:09] And so I struggled and I had a lot of negativity and had a lot of issues I had to work on. But in doing so, then I became someone who can now impact others on this journey and if I can impact someone from my story, help them create a better story, that's what life's all about.

[00:06:28] Kristy: Yeah, I love that so much. cause you work with a lot of sports teams, a lot of high performing entrepreneurs, individuals, and so forth. And so much of achieving the goals that you set out to achieve comes down to overcoming your demons, overcoming your negative thoughts. And you've written what, 24 books?

[00:06:54] Jon: 28 now.

[00:06:55] Kristy: 28 books, right. So you've written 28 books and one would think that what's Jon Gordon got to be negative about? Surely things fall into place for him. that's not actually the case. This is something that you've had to build and to work on and to cultivate and to be intentional about, I think is the key here. So What I love about the power of positive leadership, it really is the perfect prelude to the one truth, because this is where you start to, you know, delve deeper into yourself, I guess, the inner workings of yourself in order to apply positivity as a leader, so can you speak to where do you begin to overcome that negative mindset or the doubt that creeps in as an entrepreneur, as someone who's trying to achieve big goals.

[00:07:45] Jon: Yeah, I get to work with a lot of different companies, a lot of very successful companies, fortune 500 companies, but also entrepreneurs who are, who are building their businesses and starting out. And I love speaking to entrepreneurs cause that's my background as an entrepreneur. And we do have a lot of doubts. We have a lot of concerns. We, uh, we have a lot of negative thoughts. Is it going to make it? Is this worth it? Am I going to make payroll? Are we going to overcome this challenge? Are we going to get new customers? Will we be able to pay the bills? There will be all sorts of negative thoughts that come our way as we're trying to build our business and grow our business.

[00:08:25] And so often those negative thoughts will, will hold us back and keep us from becoming who we're meant to be. So it really is a battle for our mind as an entrepreneur and the negative thoughts coming in, I often ask people, are they coming from you? And people so often say yes, but here's the next question.

[00:08:44] If you believe your negative thoughts come from you, who would ever choose to have a negative thought? And you would never choose one. You would never choose a thought that says, I don't have it today. The future is hopeless. I should just give up. How many times have the thoughts come in that say, give up and then you don't, you press forward and then you have a great accomplishment?

[00:09:05] So those thoughts are always trying to sabotage us. It's like when you have a bad dream. Are you choosing that thought? Are you choosing that nightmare? No. So the thoughts are always coming in. So it's recognizing those thoughts are not coming from you. And you have to find ways to conquer those negative thoughts and beat those negative thoughts.

[00:09:24] And that's what I share as you know in The One Truth. I give a blueprint, a framework for how thoughts work, and then how to win the battle for our minds, like fear divides. Most entrepreneurs, the reason why we're negative is because fear comes in and we have fear of not measuring up, fear of not reaching our goal, fear of going bankrupt, fear of what it looks like if we do fail.

[00:09:48] There's so many ways that we're fearful and that fear keeps us from being our best. But my best advice to entrepreneurs is to love the moment, to love the battle, love the competition, love the opportunity you get to build your business. And the more you focus on love, love unites, fear divides, love unites, love creates connection, creates oneness and in that oneness and connection, you feel more power. That connection creates clarity. You see things so much more clear. That clarity creates confidence and that confidence leads to greater courage because you're loving it and battling. You go in for it. You're not fearful. So many times you're at your best and we can all go back to the entrepreneurial journey or the moments where we were really enjoying it and, And being courageous, we were really just loving it, believing anything was possible. We were optimistic. We were going for it. We were loving our customers, loving our clients, loving what we're building. But then comes that moment where fear sets in, where fear reminds you, well, this may not work. You may not make it.

[00:10:57] And so it's this constant battle of looking at fear or choosing love and choose, choosing to love the battle. Now I share this with athletes as well, professional athletes. And it's amazing how many athletes have benefited from this advice because they're fearing of making a mistake. They're fearing of, of not performing well. They're fearing letting their team down, what the crowd thinks, the opinion of others and the minute I can get them to focus on just loving competing, everything changes for them. And it's the same way for entrepreneurs.

[00:11:26] Kristy: It's so true that if you are enjoying and loving the process, then you're going to focus on the execution, doing the work, putting your best foot forward, working with your clients to give them the best possible results, and you're less focused on what could go wrong. What could impact you. I have this card deck from Gabby Bernstein and over and over and over again, I just kept getting these cards for, I think it must have been six weeks in a row, every single day, choose love, choose love, and it just kept coming up and, and choose love, choose oneness.

[00:12:06] And it was really interesting because it was around the time when. The One Truth came out and I was listening to your podcast and you, you were talking about this in such a simple way. And that's what I really love about your books is that you take these concepts that everybody seems to make so complicated and you simplify them into very easy reading.

[00:12:29] And I don't say easy lightly. But at the end of the day, this is how people are going to really be able to apply the framework is when you can take this concept of how do you apply love to business and how do you apply oneness to business and why don't you want separateness? that you're like the conduit between that concept and, us being able to do that.

[00:12:49] Jon: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. That was my goal to really simplify. Cause I knew it was the most powerful concept of all, like ever. It's oneness and separateness. Everything comes down to oneness and separateness and it influences everything in your life. So once you see it, you can't unsee it. A team that is connected and united is a powerful team.

[00:13:13] A team that is separate and divided is a weak team. With your relationships, when you're connected and you're one, there's power. You feel strong. You feel great together. When there's this connection, division, disagreement, that relationship doesn't feel so great and you feel very weak. And so you can see how this plays out at the relationship level.

[00:13:35] It also plays out in the psychological level because the root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide. So when you're anxious, you feel separate and divided. And then you can see people who feel anxious a lot. And they feel separate and divided and fear divides. Negative thoughts separate and divide.

[00:13:54] They weaken you. Positive thoughts uplift you, encourage you. So as I wrote this book, I realized how everything was playing out for oneness and separateness that every single level of our being, because it's the universal truth. You're either one because there's a power always trying to unite and connect you.

[00:14:13] And there's a force always trying to divide and separate and weaken you. Let me give one more example. All mental health disorders report feelings of isolation, being alone, disconnected, and feeling separate. Narcissists feel separate. And narcissists who feel separate, believe it or not, they have parts of the brain that cuts off other parts of the brain.

[00:14:35] There's a neurological separation that exists. So yes, I try to take these complex things and simplify them. But the readers who have read it said it's simple but profound. Simple doesn't mean stupid. Simple and profound. So I've had people say, I feel like I'm a Jedi reading this book in a simple way. In one read, I could sit here and read this book.

[00:14:57] And now I'm a Jedi approaching the world in a different way, seeing the world in a different way. Cause once you understand this, you want to move towards connection in your relationships. You want to see how you can bring about oneness on your team and in your organization. Versus the separateness that happens. As you're running a business, for instance, and you have to make some changes.

[00:15:17] Say you have to fire some people, the people left behind who are still there now may not trust as much. So there's a disconnection when there's no trust. So, you know, I've got to build trust to bring back oneness to my team. What so often happens is there's fear and uncertainty in companies that are dealing with a lot of change.

[00:15:37] If you're not communicating to your team during those times, that team will suffer and people will go into what self preservation mode. Cause now they're focused on self, not others. Cause I feel separate. I don't feel one. I certainly don't feel like I'm part of the team. I don't even know what's going on.

[00:15:55] People are losing jobs. I don't know if I'm going to lose mine. The company leadership is focusing on themselves, not me. So now I'm going to focus on me and be self preserving because I feel separate. And as a result of that, That's being led by fear, and then you lose oneness, and you lose trust, and you lose a great company, and you lose great relationships.

[00:16:15] The key is communication. So as I'm communicating, and the word communication shares the same etymology as communion, Or commune or community. It's about joining with. So now I'm communicating with people. I'm communicating where we're going. The vision, what we had to do, why we had to do it. The difficult choices we had to make.

[00:16:37] Here's where we're going now. Here's what we're dealing with. You let people know. Uncertainty goes away and through my communication, I now am bringing about oneness, communing where you now feel like you're one with us in one team and now we're doing it together. So you can see how. These play out at the level of teamwork, organizational work, and also individual work. And then even with your significant other. If you start to feel disconnected from your significant other, go take a walk together, go talk, go talk about your day, share how each other's doing. And then from there, you'll develop more connection, which will bring about oneness.

[00:17:15] Kristy: And I'm thinking about this even from a client perspective, if, things are, you know, challenging with a client is that it's very easy to disconnect or separate from them and their experience. Whereas if you approach this as togetherness and oneness and from a place of love, then you're going to look at this from their perspective and open up your eyes to what might be going on for them and how you can potentially repair the situation as opposed to making it worse by pulling further away.

[00:17:51] Jon: Yeah. When you feel one and you feel connected and you recognize that you are one with your client, You want to go after the one. You want to help the one. You want to be there for the one. If you feel like your client is separate from you and the client feels like they're separate from you, they don't care about you and you don't care about them because they don't think you have an interested heart.

[00:18:12] But the minute you feel one and you see that client and see their concerns and see it from their point of view, you now want to have empathy and you want to help and you want to be there for them because you're now helping the one because they are you and you are them. Again, the more separate we feel, the less we care about each other.

[00:18:30] The more one we feel, the more we care about each other. So the key is for my clients, how do I let that client know that I'm connected with them and develop that connection, that bond. And from that connection leads to commitment. That's why we have greater commitment when there's connection. You'll never have commitment without connection.

[00:18:49] So I've got to develop a connection with my clients. I've got to develop a bond of trust. I've got to develop a relationship. And as we do, I care more about them, and they'll be more committed to me, and they won't leave me for another business. So that's what it's all about. Even generosity and helping others.

[00:19:05] The more we feel one with others, the more we want to help others. And that's why those people who have so often been hurt themselves in their own lives, hurt others because they've been hurt. So they only care about self. They don't want to be that way. They just are that way. And then as a result of that, because they see themselves as separate from others, they don't help others and sometimes they even hurt others.

[00:19:27] Kristy: The people who listen to this show, they're in the messy middle stage of business. They're about five years or so deep into their business. And so often at this stage of business, they're very time poor and they're trying to get all the things done and their, their mental load is massive, but I do think it's that slowing down and being more intentional about care for either the contractors that they're outsourcing to or their clients and showing them that they are important, rather than just executing the work and delivering the work is my big takeaway from what you're saying there. I think that that's, you know, something that we can all be just more intentional about as as founders and business owners.

[00:20:11] Jon: Yeah. Kristy, it's about. Loving, serving, caring. Because we're all time poor. Everyone feels busy. Everyone goes through life often feeling stress. Busyness and stress are the enemies of great leadership, great teamwork, great customer service. I wrote about this again, the carpenter loves serve care. It's the greatest success principles of all.

[00:20:33] You want to build your business. Don't focus on building your business. Focus on loving, serving, and caring, and your business will exponentially grow. Yes, it will. You take care of your customers. You love them. You invest in them. You commit to them. You show them you care about them. And guess what? Your business will exponentially improve and grow because they will feel your connection. They will feel your commitment. They will feel your love. They know you care about them.

[00:20:58] And we all want to do business with people that care about us. There are businesses out there more and more with technology and so forth. You may not get a caring feeling from technology, but in a commoditized market, the differentiator is you as the leader, your team, the energy you give, and how much you care about your clients and customers that makes a difference.

[00:21:19] So love, serve, care, slow down and do that. And I'm not saying slow down and be less productive. When you slow down that way, you'll be more productive. You'll be more successful. You will accomplish more. So you're actually slowing down a little to focus on what matters most. And then you actually speed up results.

[00:21:39] Kristy: Oh, I agree. A hundred percent. I think it's really that high touch low touch aspect of running any business is that it's automate systemize, optimize all the things that you can, and then that's going to free up your time to pour into those special moments, because as someone who engages other people, I can tell you, I can tell when the business owner cares deeply about you as the client and that's the way you want to leave any client.

[00:22:09] I just want to shift gears now to social media, you talk a little bit about this in, in the one truth, and I think the one thing that so many business owners can get tripped up on is comparison, diving deep into social media or feeling a fear of showing up. I mean, social media can really present a lot of problems, but you have a different perspective on that. So I'd love to hear that from you.

[00:22:31] Jon: You know, the perspective is, it's not social media. We often blame social media. It's the fact that we feel separate. And when you feel separate from others, and disconnected from others, you actually Allow social media to affect you because it reinforces the inadequacy that you feel it. It reinforces how separate you feel.

[00:22:53] And what do I mean by that? Well, if you truly felt connected to someone, because here we are connecting via social media, but we're really not connected. But if you really felt connected, you would want the best for them. You wouldn't be jealous of them. And so often we see someone on social media and we get jealous of them.

[00:23:12] So that lets you know that you're separate. Or because they have something you don't, you now try to fill the gap that you feel the inadequacy and the separateness with stuff to make yourself feel better. So now you have all these people trying to fill this gap and it's really a hole in our soul, H O L E, in our soul.

[00:23:32] We're trying to fill it with all these feelings of accomplishments and success and fame and cheap substitutes that will make us feel better, but it never makes us feel better. It's... A temporary feeling. The only thing that makes us feel better is love, and, and purpose, and connection, and oneness, and pursuing your passion and purpose.

[00:23:51] So I'm all for creating success. I love creating success. I'm all for going after dreams and goals. But you do it by loving the process and loving people. And if you love the process, and you love people, you'll love what the process and the people produce. And so it's going back to those simple, again, framework of principles.

[00:24:09] Social media cause us to look outside instead of inside. The more we look outside at circumstances at events, other people's opinions, other people's lives, we get less and less happier ourselves and we feel more and more separate ourselves. The key is to look inside to your passion, to your purpose, to your joy, to the plan for your business, the plan for your work, what you're building, what you're creating, and you focus on that, that raises your state of mind, that elevates it.

[00:24:40] It causes you to feel more passion, more purpose, more joy. as a result of that, you perform at a higher level by having that kind of mindset. So social media causes us to look outside and it constantly reinforces it. The goal is to look inside. But again, it's not social media because in the past we looked outside when our neighbor got a new car or a new home or a new anything and we were jealous. Now we just have a thousand cool neighbors, a thousand neighbors to be jealous of. And we're seeing that every single day, but it's the same thing. It's just a reinforcement and it's magnified and we'd see it consistently.

[00:25:15] So then it takes its toll on people. So like kids are in social media all the time. And without this understanding of the truth, they're going to believe the lies and it's going to affect them. That's why the one truth is so important. We got to constantly be speaking the truth in a world of lies and the world says, this is what will make you happy when it doesn't build in a great business, makes you happy.

[00:25:38] If you're passionate about it, if you know this is something you love and you're passionate about doing, and you love showing up every day and creating and building your team. You're going to feel energized, you're going to feel connected. You're going to feel one. And in that connection and oneness, you're going to bring that greater energy and spirit to others.

[00:25:55] If you hate what you do, you hate your job. You hate your business, you're going to feel weaker and weaker as you try to do it day in and day out. So it's not the business, it's how you feel about the business. And also we do need to say, you're not going to love everything about your job. You're not going to love everything about the work you do or your career or your new product that you've created. So what do you love? Focus on that love and recognize that even the things you don't love is part of the whole that has to be something you must do to ultimately do what you love. I have to fly to go speak a lot. I don't like flying, especially when I have to do it commercially.

[00:26:32] But I know it's part of what I love to do. So we're not going to love everything about it. But we focus more on the things we do love we allow that love to be greater than all the stuff that we don't like.

[00:26:45] Kristy: I think it links back to one of the things that you talk about in the power of positive leadership is being really clear on the vision that you're creating. I work with a lot of business owners to help them to reset their vision, mission and values. And so often we think that vision is for something that is for CEOs of larger organizations and not for us as business owners.

[00:27:09] But I think that it's so important for us to have a clear vision for firstly our business, because social media will become a detractor and you will see what other people are creating and become jealous or envious or, or what have you through that, and then the second part of vision is the vision for ourselves and the vision that we want to have for our life.

[00:27:32] So when we have that North Star, as you call it, that is such a great thing to connect to that helps you to just cut out the noise of social media that can really pull you further away from what it is that you want to create. Because no one shares that same vision. I, and I've worked with so many entrepreneurs and no one has the same vision, like every single business owner, even similar industries, they're all different.

[00:27:58] Jon: I love that you work with small business owners and, and, and growing business owners and entrepreneurs on this, vision mission values, because they're everything. You got to start with the values. When you know your values, you will show your values. What do we stand for? And then what is our North star?

[00:28:16] What are we building? What are we creating and why are we creating it? We don't get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it. So when you know your why, you'll know the way. So every day you get up as an entrepreneur, when you remember your vision, you remember your mission, you know, your values, you claim the foundation, you claim the rock that you're going to be able to build this incredible, incredible business on, but you got to have the foundation.

[00:28:41] Weak foundation will be a weak business, strong foundation, vision, mission, purpose. Now you're creating something amazing. You create that foundation and that allows you to grow. We build skyscrapers, we don't start at the ground level. We go below the ground, sometimes 20 stories deep because you've got to build the foundation and the essence of what you're ultimately creating.

[00:29:03] And that allows you to then go really high. It allows you to soar. And you will soar in your business when you have your vision, your mission and your values, and you live that way. So I tell it all the time to entrepreneurs, like, what is it you want to create? What do you want to build? Wake up every day, talking about it, sharing it with your team, remembering it.

[00:29:25] Living it and yes, fighting for it, because everything in the world will try to keep you from living those values and achieving that vision and mission. So you got to make sure that you're protecting it and you're fighting for it. And then when everyone else feels the same way about the values and they feel the same way about the mission, then success really happens.

[00:29:45] Every organization today has a mission statement, but only the great ones have people who are on a mission.

[00:29:52] Kristy: I love that. That's such a cool way of saying it. I just love everything that you share, Jon. I think it's so powerful and it's so achievable. And like I said, at the beginning, it's really breaking down these concepts and simplifying them so that you can take action because if you don't understand what it is and if it's not applicable, then you will not be able to make any real change in your life or in your business. What would you say to any founder? it's a hard time, let's be honest. What would you say to a founder to help them to Stay connected to what they're doing, to achieve What they are destined to achieve because they really can get there but so often we're self sabotaging. What would you say to that person?

[00:30:38] Jon: I would say what I wrote in the power of positive leadership. So what I would say, read that book and I'm not trying to be self promotional. That book as you said, Kristy is key for leaders. I mean, Evan Spiegel, founder of Snapchat read the power of positive leadership when it first came out and had me come speak to his leadership team.

[00:30:58] Pessimism was seeping into the pores of his company. There were many times they wanted to give up. Instagram was coming after their business and they read the power of positive leadership and they led with positivity that changed everything. They transformed their company by leading that way. So I would say that we must stay positive.

[00:31:17] It's not about seeing the world through rose colored glasses. It's knowing that you have the power to overcome the thorns. And it's not about ignoring reality. It's okay to say this stinks. This is difficult. This is hard. But it's about maintaining optimism, belief, and faith in order to create a better reality.

[00:31:35] And so you have the ability through your mindset, through your belief, to create a better reality. What we believe determines what we create. So you got your great culture, you got your vision and mission, you're working towards it. Negativity sets in, adversity sets in. Now I got to bring forth the optimism and the belief to overcome.

[00:31:53] And I got to believe in my team more than they believe in themselves, because leadership is a transfer of belief. They're not gonna build the relationships along the way. So we become one team, one united team that is connected and committed moving forward towards that vision and mission as we accomplish it together.

[00:32:09] And then we're pursuing excellence because we're not doing it to be average. We're here to be great. You don't have to choose between positivity and winning. Positivity leads to winning and success. So as we stay positive, we overcome the adversity and that allows us to create the future. Otherwise, the pessimism, the negativity and all the obstacles eventually cause us to give up. The discouragement sets in. You don't give up because it's hard you give up because we get discouraged and then you get defeated. So this is all about not being defeated And this is all about winning the battle of our mind, winning the hearts and the minds of our team And then together we win the hearts and the minds of our customers.

[00:32:46] That's how I would summarize it But read the power of positive leadership, Read the one truth and both those books will give you the tools you need to get through the challenges to Maintain a higher state of mind to better lead your team and others.

[00:32:58] Kristy: I love that. Thank you so much. My big thing that I take away from all of that is that optimism leads to results. If you are positive, and this isn't about toxic positivity, which I think is what you're alluding to, if you are positive and optimistic about a challenge that you're undertaking, and let's face it, there's a lot of challenges right now, but if you can approach that from a place of self belief, then you're more likely to dig deeper to take the action that's going to lead to the result and the outcome So if you take away anything from this episode, apart from reading the two books, which I can personally attest to being excellent reads is if you approach everything from that place of positivity and optimism and self belief, then you're going to do your best work and that's the best that you can do.

[00:33:56] Jon: is the competitive advantage, right? It's not a nice way to lead. It really is the way to lead. And again, this is not toxic positivity. I don't even like that term toxic positivity because if it's toxic, it's not positive. What it really is is fake positivity, a lack of empathy and support for others who are facing challenges.

[00:34:16] It's not meeting people where they are and glossing over things. So this is about how do we move forward? Positive leaders, positive teams, positive entrepreneurs always find a way forward. And that's what we're talking about here. And pessimism is not going to do it. Pessimists don't change the world. Every successful business, every great leader who changed the world was an optimist. Optimists change the world. So that's why this is so important. Thanks for sharing this

[00:34:43] Kristy: is a perfect place to end this conversation. Jon, I appreciate you so much for being here, for sharing your wisdom with small business owners and spreading your impact. Where can we find you?

[00:34:55] Jon: jongordon. Com or Instagram, Twitter @jongordon11. And also I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn. You can find me on there as well. Jon Gordon, J O N Gordon.

[00:35:09] Kristy: Lots of great soundbites as well as Jon's podcast. Definitely go and check that out. Lots of great conversations to dive deeper into on your walk. Thank you so much for joining us, Jon. I really appreciate your time today.

[00:35:22] Jon: Thanks Kristy.

[00:35:23] Kristy: And to you boss, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. If the concepts that Jon shared with you today spoke to you, please do head out and grab a copy of those two books, the one truth and the power of positive leadership.

[00:35:40] I know you two will get so much value from diving deeper into Jon's work. Thank you so much for joining us as always. I look forward to chatting with you next week.

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