The Power of Positivity: 3.5 Ideas from Jon Gordon
4 min readOct 1, 2024
“Pessimists Don’t Change the World, Optimists Do.” — Jon Gordon
Jon Gordon is one of the most influential and sought after leadership speakers in the world.
Jon is the author of 30 books including 17 best sellers and 5 children’s books. His books include the timeless classic The Energy Bus which has sold over 3 million copies, The Carpenter which was a top 5 business book of the year, Training Camp, The Power of Positive Leadership, and The Power of a Positive Team.
Jon is a consultant to numerous CEO’s, NFL, NBA, and MLB coaches, championship teams and high performers.
3.5 Ideas from Jon Gordon:
1) Were You Always So Positive?
- “Not at all. I actually struggled with negativity. People are surprised to hear that. My dad was a New York City police officer, undercover narcotics. He was shot a few times. He wasn’t very positive. My dad was a loving man, but just one of the most negative guys ever. You’d get up in the morning and say, ‘Hey, good morning, dad!. He’d say, ‘What’s so good about it?’
- “He was my stepfather and raised me since I was five years old. I called him dad. He passed away about eight years ago, but I think about him all the time. When I started speaking, he said, ‘I can’t believe people actually pay you to speak. When you’re a kid, we paid you to shut up.’ So, I grew up with a lot of negativity. He taught me the world was out to get me. So that’s how I saw the world. And so over time, that negativity caught up with me. I was so miserable and negative at one point in my life, my wife threatened to leave me.”
- “That was a defining moment in my life. Why am I so miserable? Why am I here? What am I born to do? I realized I was meant to write and speak. That’s what came to me. I literally said, ‘What am I gonna write and speak about?’ Positivity! I wanted to be more positive. So I began researching ways I could be more positive. And this and my wife led me to my life’s work. So now 30 books later and 17 bestsellers, I don’t think it was an accident. It was all part of my plan and what I am here to do.”
2) Why is a Positive Mindset So Important?
- “I write about this in my book “The One Truth”. “The One Truth” explains everything about positivity and why it matters so much and how negativity sabotages us in many ways. There’s a battle going on every day between positive and negative. That’s the ultimate battle in the universe. Every epic movie is a battle between positive and negative, good and evil, the main character, the hero, must overcome all the negativity, the adversity and the villain. Well, guess what? So must we.”
- “This is the challenge. Negative is always coming in. Have you noticed that overthinking is always associated with negative thoughts? We never say I have too many positive thoughts. No one lays in bed at night with their thoughts racing, thinking about how awesome their life is. No, it’s always around negativity. Negativity creates clutter, lowers our state of mind and causes us to operate at that lower state of mind, lower energy, lower frequency. Positivity, uplifts, encourages, & unites. So there’s this battle going on between negative and positive, and so often we lose the battle because we’re being bombarded by negativity in the world.”
- “The thoughts in our head influences us. So we get down. This is why positivity is a competitive advantage. You stay positive. You overcome. You perform at a higher level. You’re a better leader. You’re a better team. You don’t give up. Pessimists don’t change the world, but the optimists do.”
3) You Teach, “Don’t Listen to Yourself, Talk to Yourself.” Why is that is So Powerful?
- “It’s key. ‘Talk to yourself. Don’t listen yourself.’ The negative thoughts are coming in, but keep speaking words of encouragement, words of life and truth. Because that battle is going on in your head and the more you cultivate the positive, the negativity will breed and grow.”
- “It’s like turning on a light in the darkness. The darkness dissolves and now you’ve got this bright light. That’s what you’re doing in your mind, in your soul every day. And that gives you life.”
3.5) If You Could Have Everyone Take ONE LESSON Away, What Would that Lesson Be?
- “Being positive won’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but being negative will guarantee that you won’t. It really is that important.
- “The talk to yourself, don’t listen to yourself message is key. As a man thinks, he becomes. As a woman thinks she becomes.”
- “The words and thoughts that you think and say become the life and the reality you create. It really is important to create your life with your words, your thoughts, your beliefs, and of course your actions.”
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