[REPOST] The Energy Bus: A Book That Changed My Life | Jon Gordon | EP 60

What is up, Entrepreneur DNA family? I have an incredible guest, someone who I'm super honored to have on this show, 16-time best-selling author, John Gordon is with us. What's up, brother? Justin, what's up? Man, it has been a long time.
You did a keynote speech at the Boardroom Mastermind down in Nashville that rocked the house. You had people in tears, you had people fired up, You had people, I'm giving shivers right now, even thinking about that speech.
And it was all because you had a new book coming out that I want to get to here shortly because it's out. So I want to make sure everyone knows how to go get that book.
But I think you are most well known, in my opinion, at least for the energy bus. And it is a book that changed my life.
And I know it has changed a lot of my circle's life. So I also want to make sure everyone who hasn't read The Energy Bus to go get The Energy Bus.
But let's start there. What started this journey for you to write 16 books with so much energy and passion that you bring into each and every one of them? Why don't we go there first? Yeah, Justin, it's actually 16 bestsellers, 30 books.
My 30th just comes out. And I've got to be honest, I never even knew that I could write.
I never thought I would be a writer. I wanted to be in politics and government.
I wanted to run for Congress and one day perhaps president, but life took me in this direction. I ran for city council when I was 26 years old, walked door to door to 7,000 homes, winning the election.
And then they really came after me in a really negative way. I saw the dark side of politics all the way back then.
We're talking 1997, that long ago. And people were even negative back then then and so after losing the election very closely with some dirty politics that I experienced I said okay what am I you know what am I born to do why am I here and the answer didn't come quite then but later on when I got into the restaurant business and and um had some success with the restaurants and then made my way into the dot-com world and then was going to get very rich in the dot-com world until it crashed.
Obviously. And I basically lost everything.
How am I going to pay the bills? How am I going to support my family? I'm crumbling from the inside out. I'm being really negative to my wife.
And she said, if you don't change, you know, we're over. She had enough of my negativity.
And I was really blaming her for why my life did not turn out the way I wanted to. I mean, I had all this promise, right? Doing all these things, going after it.
And then my whole world comes crumbling down with the dot-com crash. And I was taking it out of her in terms of just being real negative, real miserable.
And I honestly was scared and I was very anxious and I was very fearful. And it was a wake-up call when she gave me that ultimatum, change or it's over.
And I said, what am I born to do? The question came again. What am I born to do? And writing and speaking came to me in that moment.
I'm going to write and speak. I'm going to encourage others.
I don't know why,

but clearly it's been my calling because I've written 30 books since that moment and began writing a weekly positive tip. I wanted to be more positive.
So I started to research all the ways that I could be more positive. I began sharing those ideas with others.
Again, 2002, and I have one of the first e-newsletters out there

and I'm sending this e-newsletter, this tip out to people. You're like one of the first internet marketers.
Yes, we had five subscribers. My mother, my brother, my best friend from college.
Justin, I wasn't even trying to market using the internet. I honestly was trying to add value.
I just wanted to make a difference. I found this medium of how I could add value.
I wasn't that smart to think of marketing, but now I look back, so many speaking engagements came from that. A book deal came from that newsletter.
All these different benefits came from that. And I can look back and now my newsletter list is probably 500,000.
again we we could be in a million right but it's 500 000 very engaged active organic followers right right people that have followed me over the years we haven't bought lists or anything like that it's just people that have followed me organically so it's a very engaged list and i think about that like starting that newsletter really paved the way for the message I continue to share now. Now when a book comes out, it automatically becomes a bestseller because I have, you know, X amount of people who go and buy the book and have read my books and then they want to read the next one.
So fast, you know, fast forward backwards. I go to this, I don't even know what that terminology is.
If you say I'm going backwards. But anyway, to go backwards, I basically then, from this newsletter, started to get out there and share this message.
And that led me to eventually write a book called The Energy Bus. It was one of the newsletters where I wrote, Life is like an energy bus.
Rules for the ride of your life. And even before I thought of a book, i wrote some of these rules down just a few rules shared it out with people well fast forward several years later the writing and speaking is not going that great actually i'm not having huge success i'm not doing a ton of talks i wind up selling my restaurants three of them to focus on writing and speaking.
So now I have no money coming in and now I'm thinking, should I get a job? Should I go, you know, uh, start a new business? What should I do? And were you able to stay positive at this point? Or were you going back to your wife and still in that negative Nancy? I was much more positive at this point. I began practicing gratitude every day.
I'd been doing a lot of work on myself to be more positive, but I wasn't, I wasn't, um, confident I would say in my future. I was hopeful, but this is where my faith came in.
It was during that time I'm walking and I'm praying. And I mean like a desperate faith, not a confident faith.
Like God, please god god please help me what am i supposed to do like this is not working out and it was on one of those walks where the energy bus came to me the story the idea and next thing you know i write this book in three and a half weeks and whoa yeah three and a half weeks yeah three and a half weeks of just divine inspiration. The story, the rules started flowing, everything.
And after that, I found an agent and we sent it out to a bunch of publishers rejected by over 30 publishers, 30 publishers all rejecting, saying you're in dreams, that can happen. We don't believe in it.
And we don't believe in you. my own agent said I think you should give up it's not going to happen.
We don't believe in it and we don't believe in you. My own agent said, I think you should give up.
It's not going to work. But I couldn't give up because I had my vision and mission.
It was to encourage and inspire as many people as possible, one person at a time. So keep going out there.
Keep doing the work. Keep making a difference.
I'll never forget John Wally and Sons agreed to publish the book. Came out.
You know what? Bookstores wouldn't even carry the book. I went on a 28-city tour.
Paid for myself. Again, no social media.
Not much internet marketing. Just my little newsletter list that I'm sending out stuff to.
And I go around the country from city to city sharing the message in the book five people in one city 10 people in another 20 in another and the most people we had were 100 people in des moines iowa they thought jeff gordon was coming that's why they showed up and that's not a true story i got home i didn't know what the future held but i knew that i had my vision and mission and from that day going forward i said i'm going to do the work every day i'm going to share this message and i'm going to make a difference i'm going to make an impact it really was mission driven that taught me humility that tour going out there doing the work and having five people six people seven people when i was at the boardroom and met you the same energy, the same passion, the same drive. I bring that everywhere I go because I remember what it was like.
It really caused me to be hungry. And I think you see this in actors who struggle to make it.
You see this in artists and musicians. They work the small nightclubs and they become big.
A lot of them and most of them have this humility. It's about the work.
It's about the craft. And so now every book I write, I want this book to be my best book.
I want it to make an impact. I want it to make a difference.
And that's what keeps me going to this day. There's a lot to unpack here.
And I got to be honest, John, again, you're such a powerful human and have such a presence. First, where's that newsletter? Where can we drive people to go get that newsletter or the tip of the day? Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
It's johngordon.com, J-O-N, gordon.com. You go there and then guess what? You put your email right at the top and we will start sending you that weekly positive tip.
I still write it all these years later, 2002, first newsletter. I write and you know what i love doing it this week was focusing on the trail focusing on the trail because when you're on the trail and you're hiking your only focus is the trail and the guy who took us hiking the other day said that's his focus it's why he loves hiking because you're not thinking about tomorrow you're yesterday.
You just focus on the trip. I thought, what a great analogy for life.
That's right. When you're in the meeting, focus on the meeting.
When you're at work, focus on work. When you're at home, if you have a family and kids, focus on your kids.
Don't be on your phone. Focus where you are.
You want to create success? Focus today, one day at a time. That's how we create success.
So that experience caused me to write this new idea that I wrote today. I think there's another thing I want to impact here.
God, you're so good. I could just keep going.
So there's so many of these things I want to unpack, but the first one or the second one that I really want to do is I think people look at John Gordon, those in your position, your status, the success you've seen.

They don't realize what you just said, which is I would go to cities financed by myself and have five people in the room. They're used to seeing John Gordon with 5000 people in the room speaking from stage.
Now, that is a version of you today. what they didn't get to see was the man hustling going from city to city five people ten people

who from stage now. That is a version of you today.
What they didn't get to see was the man hustling, going from city to city, five people, 10 people who, again, I say this a lot of times, most people would have quit, right? Wouldn't you say like, how many times did that even go through your head? Or were you in such strong belief of your mission? It never once crossed your head. Hey guys, Justin Colby here.
If you're liking the entrepreneur DNA and you have an interest in real estate, I'd encourage you to go over to the Science of Flipping podcast and start checking some of those episodes out. I've been doing it now for over 11 years and we have over 400 episodes.
So if you have any interest at all in real estate investing, whether a single family flips or apartment rentals, go over to the Science of flipping and check out some episodes on that podcast on Apple and Spotify as well. See you over there.
I think most people would admit that there are those moments where you think about quitting, where you do want to give up, but you don't because you have grit. And what is grit driven by? Grit is driven by love.
If you love it, you won't quit. If you love your team, you won't quit on them.
You love what you do, you'll keep on working at it. So you love your craft and that drives you.
Love drives grit and that drives you to greatness. Fear, you quit.
Anxiety, you quit. Despair, hopelessness, you quit.
But that grit, that love keeps love keeps you going and so for me it was about one I couldn't quit because I had my vision and mission also I really did want to make a difference and I'll be honest I'm also stubborn I don't like to lose and so there's a competitive spirit that keeps you going like there's a there's a self-worth issue. Like if I quit, then I'm nothing.
So yes, did I want to be somebody to be a successful author? You have to admit, yes, that's true. I wanted to be successful.
But at the same time, I knew the way to make a difference would be to make someone else successful. It would be to help focus on others.
Not to be somebody, but to go help somebody. And when you help somebody, you become somebody.
So for me, it was like not giving up because of so many different factors. But yes, were there moments I thought about it? You bet.
Early in my speaking career, even after that tour, things weren't going great. And there are moments that I thought, man, am I cut out for this? There were speeches I gave early on that were not like the boardroom speech and that were not received that way.
And I came home going, man, like, I think I just sucked or they didn't like me or whatever it was. And there's so many moments.
And I have all these speakers now. I have a certification program.
It's John Gordon certified. So now you get certified to teach the power of positive leadership.
You teach the leadership course. You're able to teach the team building course, power of a positive team.
What makes great teams great. You get to teach that.
And also the energy bus, my flagship book, you get to teach the principles and practices from that book. So we have a certification program where people come in, they get certified to do workshops and keynotes based on that.
So now I'm pouring into all these different people who want to do this work. Many people want to speak and they come in and they work with my stuff first and then they'll go out and do their own probably later on in the future, which is great.
It's a great training ground to develop them. But I always tell them, you'd have to go through the fire.
If you want to do this work, it's not going to be easy. You have to go through the fire.
It's like anything. You want to be in real estate.
You've got to go through the fire of the real estate market, the ups and downs, and only the great ones survive and ultimately thrive, right? Different recessions, different economies. We, the ones who don't want it out, but the ones who truly want it, you stay in it and you keep going.
And that's with anything. My daughter is now 25 years old and she's a speaker.
She's been doing this now for two years now and she's doing great. But man, every event she's being tested, travel issues, mic issues, technology issues.
Sometimes the crowd is rough. There's only been a couple where it's like smooth sailing and just easy.
And I told her, you're being put through the fire because to be someone who could be on stage, who can make a difference, who can impact others, you will have to go through the fire to extinguish all of the impurities, the wrong motivations. This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax.
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The wrong drives, it actually purifies you to really get to the core of, okay, I'm doing this work to truly make a difference. This is a, so I have something and I would actually ask for your input while you think about it.
So I basically have a four pillars of success that I talk about and I'm focused more on the real estate entrepreneur, but entrepreneur as a whole. So first, right, you, well, just based around how you hit it is the belief, right? So the first is you need to have the belief you can do it, right? Same way, and I referenced, you know, religion, not to get religious, but when you can blindly believe in that leader, you have to believe you can do this.
And there's the John Gordons, the Justin Colbys who are actually doing the thing you want. So the belief part should be a little bit more simple.
Then there's the hard work, the showing up to five people in a room and saying, oh, this is not it, but I'm going to keep going. Then there's the failure to your point, all these different things of like mics going out, things you and I were experiencing, the failure over and over again.
But the last point is the perseverance, is you keep going in spite of those failures. And that creates the greatness that creates the John Gordon of 30 30 books 16 bestsellers that creates you me and all the others that are out there do you agree do you not agree would you add can i give you this one i would add one more to it after you fail and you persevere you keep going what do you do you adapt you innovate you come up with something new a.
You grow. So there's the growth factor there where you actually become a better person.
You become a stronger version of you. You become a more creative version.
You actually see what doesn't work, and then you find out what does, and that is what leads to success. So I think we need to add one more pillar, that fifth pillar of innovation, adaption, and growth.
You give me advice, I'm all in. I'm all in.
We have five pillars, people. And I love where you go with that.
I love the pillars, though, because, again, just seeing in our certification of people that we've been developing and training and teaching, it's not just people who want to go do this work in terms of workshops. It's also leaders.
We have entrepreneurs that come in that, that actually get certified because now they have all these tools to help them be a better leader, or they give it to their team members on their team and say, Hey, let's implement this as a team because too many entrepreneurs, they don't focus on the culture. They don't focus on the teamwork.
They don't focus on the leadership. They're just focused on the business and the money revenue and they're focused on the fruit of the tree, not the root.
And if you focus on the fruit and you ignore the root, the tree dies. But if you invest in that root, you get a great supply of fruit.
So any entrepreneur has to have the framework and the teamwork and the mindset and the leadership to be successful. So we have a lot of entrepreneurs that get certified, but when they do, what happens? That allows them, as you just said, they go through the fire, they go through the failure, and then they have the tools to now move forward and persevere.
Because if you don't have the tools, you're not going to persevere. So I think you capture the essence of it really strongly.
Well, I've been reading a lot of your books, John. So I just took it into my own hands.
Now let's talk about your books. I mean, again, guys, I want this to be very clear.
I am honored to have John because of what his books have meant to me. And then being able to meet the man personally, spend a few moments there at the boardroom with you.
But a lot of people will say you don't want to meet your idols. You don't want to meet the people you look up to.
I will say, frankly, from experience, that is not the case with you, my friend. You are every bit the human that you write as an author.
And if anyone gets the chance to go shake John Gordon's hand, everyone has to. But first, by all of his books, whether you read them or listen to them, let's go to the, you know, I want to jump.
I think the energy bus is a have to get no matter what, who you are in life, the energy bus, listen to it, read it, get it. But let's go to your more recent, the one truth.
Let's dive into that one a little bit. Why don't we talk about the one truth? Sure.
For those who haven't read the energy bus, I just want people to know this is a book that is an easy read. It's a fable.
It's been around since 2007. It's entertaining.
Yeah. Sold over 3 million copies.
I don't take credit. Trust me.
It's been a journey. It didn't become a bestseller for five years.
It took five years for it to be a bestseller. And now it's a perennial bestseller where every year it's still on the bestseller list every year.
So it's still impacting people. It impacts sports teams.
I've worked with Clemson football, Sean McVay with the Rams, Dave Roberts with the Dodgers, the Miami Heat, Eric Spolstry gave it to his entire team when he had, you know, LeBron and all the different guys on the team. And I still work with the Heat to this day, work with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
So I get to work with a lot of sports teams. So you could see these principles play out in terms of how it helps teams stay positive, weed the negative, get rid of those energy vampires that sabotage your team.
And then you move forward with a shared vision and focus and purpose and mission. And you love your passengers and you have a joyful ride.
And this is how you create real success. So I just want people to have a little background about what the energy bus is all about.
And thanks for saying that, that I am who I am, you know, in terms of the books, I pride myself in just being real. And by the way, being real means 90% of the time you're going to get the positive me and 10% there'll be times that I'm not so positive.
So you need to know that. So I want people to know like, Hey, the real me is sometimes not positive, but I'm real.
Like the other day, someone was being rude to my wife and I stood up for her. And then I was standing up for my wife and then someone came along and said, Hey, are you John Gordon? My wife said, you can't be like that.
I said, honey, I was protecting you. And guess what? If that person saw the worst of me, that's okay.
Because that's who I in that moment and if someone would try to feel and if someone filmed it i wouldn't care because that's who i was in that moment i'm not going to be anything but real and sometimes that means there'll be moments where you don't see the best of me but most of the time you will see the best of me so i don't want to put that out there because authenticity is key yeah you're still a human right like i'm i'm telling you you are every bit the person in person as you are as an author but listen we're all human we all have those moments whether it's 10 5 15 like yeah a great point i'm glad people hear that because i don't think people give themselves the the ability to do that they think they have to always be perfect right and i think it's up to an image that people have of them and so they they never will take a stand for anything they don't want to be seen as like like the worst is when people say to me i you know like when i take a stand like when they're trying to do harm to me or being rude or or i would say even um in business for instance when they try to take advantage of you and then you take a stand. I thought, I thought you were about positivity.
I am, but being positive doesn't mean you let people walk over you. That's right.
You know, and I'm not going to, you know, be walked over. I'm also always want to make sure I respond, you know, in, in the best way.
Sometimes I don't. And when I don't, I learn from it.
I grow from it. And I'm always trying to get better.
For me, it's always trying to live up to that person who wrote those books. Because when I'm writing a book, I'm at the, I'm like in the best of me.
Like that's, the energy's flowing. The ideas are flowing.
I'm connected to God in those moments. The best of me is coming through.
So how can I live that person and be that person who's writing those books and be the characters in those books? And I always feel like my life is about measuring up to that and trying to be that. Knowing that I fall short of times, but how could I continue to improve and grow? And this takes us to the one truth.
You know, the one truth is my most recent book and it's wild because I feel like my two cornerstone books are the energy bus and then the one truth that just came out like I feel my work and my life is just beginning again with this one truth because as you saw in the boardroom it's a really unique message it's revolutionary and it is so powerful when you understand that everything comes down to oneness and separateness. And the more separate I

feel, the weaker I feel, the more divided I feel. And the root for the Greek word of anxious means

to separate and divide. So when you feel anxious, you actually feel separate and divided.
Negative

thoughts and fear, they separate you, they make you feel weak, and they actually divide you.

Think about it, fear divides. But then there's this oneness.
There's this connection. Love unites.
Love connects. There's a word called shalom, and it means wholeness.
It means peace. It actually means integrity.
What is integrity? It comes from the word integer, which means whole and complete. So shalom is about integrity.
It's about oneness. It's about wholeness.
Think about it. Connection leads to healing.
Disconnection leads to dysfunction and isolation. And so you can see how this plays out in terms of your life.
A team that is united and connected, powerful team. A team that is separate and divided is a weak team.
So the more you can feel connected, the more you feel one and whole, the more powerful you'll be, the more I feel separate and weak and divided, then your life is not going to go so well. And I literally could talk to people and in one conversation, I can help them move from separation to oneness.
I can help them move from anxiety to confidence and courage. And I can help you understand that your thoughts, your thoughts and the way you're thinking will either separate you and divide you or unite and connect you.
Everything comes down in terms of oneness and separateness to your thoughts and your thoughts create your reality. Right.
No, a hundred percent. So what are the two or three tips that we can give on this episode, since we don't have all the time in the world that you can help someone? So it starts with your thought.
Where does it go from there? It begins at the psychological level. There's a force always trying to divide you and separate you it starts with doubt seeds of doubt have you noticed that overthinking is always associated with negative thoughts we never say I have too many positive thoughts we never say I have too much encouragement we never say I have too much joy man I have too much gratitude today no it's always always overthinking and negative thinking go hand in hand.
Why? The negative thoughts create clutter. That clutter in your mind lowers your state of mind.
When you have clarity, you have a higher state of mind. So it starts with doubt that creates clutter.
Seconding, distortion. Negative thoughts are distortions.
They're lies of the truth. They're lies that tell you things about yourself and your future that just aren't true.
So we got the doubt. We had the distortions coming in.
And by the way, those distortions, those negative thoughts are not coming from you. This is a game changer right here.
When you understand your negative thoughts are not coming from you, everything changes because who would ever choose to have a negative thought? Nobody. Who would ever choose a negative thought? You wouldn't.
See, once you understand that, you're like, I wouldn't choose that negative thought. Exactly.
It comes in so fast, you believe it. Then you reinforce it.
Then you speak it out loud. And then you actually make it now a part of you.
Where do they come from? You don't have the power of the first thought, but you have the power of the second thought. You can respond to those negative thoughts with truth instead of lies.
But you got to understand those distortions and stop beating yourself up for the negative thoughts in your head. And this is key for kids because so many kids have these negative thoughts today.
They think they're from them. So they beat themselves up.
They feel guilt and shame. Next thing you know, they're depressed.
They're in the hospital. They're seeing a psychiatrist because they have no idea that the battle that they're in is actually waged against them and they have to learn how to win the battle of their mind because we got doubt.
We got distortions. That leads to discouragement.
Third D, discouragement. And we don't give up because it's hard.
We give up because

we get discouraged. Fourth D, distraction.
Fifth D, division. And as I said earlier, the root for the Greek word of anxious means to separate and divide.
Everything I just said helps explain that all these thoughts, the fear, the negative thinking, they separate and divide you. And this makes even more sense when you understand all mental health disorders report feelings of isolation, separation, and disconnection.
And we use terms like bipolar, two poles, separation. Schizophrenia means split mind.
And narcissism happens as a result of neurological separation trauma causes neurological separation see what we say earlier separation everything's about separation i'm convinced when people mess with their brain with certain stimulants and drugs and so forth it creates a neurological separation that starts to cause a lot of negative thinking Because when we move from oneness to separateness, we move from positive to negative. The more we move towards separation, we get more and more negative thoughts.
When we move towards connection, wholeness and healing, we have so many more positive thoughts. It makes so much sense.
And this makes even more sense when you understand that the brain is an antenna. So the antenna of your brain, 86 billion neurons, every neuron has a transmitter and receiver, and you are tuning into every day a positive frequency or a negative frequency.
And it's why everything in life comes out to positive and negative. It's why every movie is about overcoming negativity and a villain with positivity and faith.
It's about good and evil, positive and negative. Everything in the universe comes down to those two main frequencies.
One separates and divides, one unites and connects. So what's the answer to these five Ds? It's trust.
It's elevating our state of mind every day with gratitude. You can't be stressed and thankful at the same time.
It literally is positive thinking, talking to yourself instead of listening to those negative thoughts. You talk to yourself with words of life.
That's how I changed my life. Taking a walk of gratitude every day.
Self-talk, a success journal. What are you doing when you're doing those things? See, for years we've talked about them, but no one ever explained why it matters.
This is why. You're tuning into a positive frequency every time you do this instead of a negative frequency.
The more you tune into the positive, it uplifts, it encourages, it nourishes your brain, your mind, your soul, leading to more health, wholeness, and happiness. This is why it matters.
It's not just a nice way to lead. It's the essential way to live and lead in your life when you're fueling yourself with positivity.
So we get the trust. We got these exercises that you do every day to tune.
And a big part of this, I'm convinced is prayer. Prayer connects you to your creator because you were created for connection.
You were never meant to be separate. You were actually meant to be connected.
And when you feel separate from your creator, that's when you feel hopelessness and despair and depression. And I can even point this out with addiction programs.
People feel separate and they try trying to fill the hole in their soul with drugs. When they move into an addiction program, they now move into a community and connection and they tap into a higher power, which leads to more healing.
They're moving towards wholeness and healing instead of feeling separate and divided. And so tuning into is the key, T-U-N-E.
Read the one truth to learn about tune. Trust, unite with love, because love casts out fear.
N, neutralize the negativity. E, elevate your thinking every day.
Trust, unite with love, neutralize the negativity, elevate your thinking. The more you TurboTax live full service.
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Man, I can't tell you how many professional athletes that I've worked with, that I've shared this with, that literally are going to new heights in their performance because of doing this kind of work. Yeah, and guys, I don't know if you have, John, do you have your own journal or anything like that? And I just looked around as you were saying that.
I just want to emphasize one thing, and I probably need to be doing everything you have that you just said. And I think everyone does, but something as simple as journaling this right here.
I don't know if you've seen this one, but literally has, what am I grateful for? What can make today great? What are my daily affirmations? And then what are the highlights of my day? What did I learn today? It goes back to everything you're saying. What journal is that? It's called the five minute journal.
Oh, that's wonderful. Cause you know what? We just created the success journal and the success journal comes out in June where every day you're going to write down your success of the day.
What went great today? Cause the more you focus on that success, you will wake up the next morning, a success. You will look forward to creating more successes.
And more importantly, you actually look for the success. And what we look for, we find, what we focus on shows up more in our lives.
So the more you do this, you're actually going to create more success by creating a success journal. And Justin, I'm so glad you said that because journaling is a great way to tune into the positive.
So I'm so thrilled that you've been doing that. Absolutely.
And if you're watching or soliciting this and it's after June, make sure you get John's success journal. It is one of the things that, you know, listen, I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life and you're always trying to reiterate or reconfigure or adapt or change and you find success and you lose success and you find it again, you get bigger, right? And so this just journaling is something I've always been into fitness.
I've always worked out. I've always kind of kept that side of it, but I'll tell you, uh, what a massive impact.
And again, there's so much that is good in this book. And by the way, guys, rewind this last 10 minutes.
I mean, this was heat. He literally gave you five to 10 things that you could be doing today, like end the episode and do these five or 10 things immediately because of what John has been able to deliver.
And I know we're running a little short on time, but everyone can buy all your books, I'm assuming on Amazon, I would guess, right? Amazon, Barnes and Noble, any of the bookstores, the one truth in the back is the TUNE acronym and action plan and the prayer acronym and action plan on how to put this into practice every day. And there's a whole one as well, W-H-O-L-E.
And as you do this, like as you do this every day, you'll start to see a difference in your life. I'm getting emails now from people that's changing their life and even more importantly, saving some lives.
A kid who was suicidal reached out, started doing the book and reading the book. Man, changed the kid's mindset completely.
It's like nothing's more rewarding than that. Oh my God.
One session. Justin, I talk to kids all the time because I have a lot of friends that have teenage kids, and they're struggling with their mental health and their mindset.
And I've been sharing the one true teachings with them. I'm telling you, it's turning around every single kid after the conversation.
So that's why I wrote the book. I'm like, I need to share this truth everywhere.
And I hope everyone reads this book. I mean, we're in the tens of thousands of copies sold, so make an impact.
But I'm like, man, this book needs to be read by millions because as only the people read this book, it's going to elevate their state of mind. And we're going to solve mental health together because actually this is the answer to the mental health crisis that we're facing.
Yeah. And that's why I'm so honored to have you here is I want people to have these books, this book specifically.
And I just, you know, as a father with younger children, I'm a little worried to your point. Like you're dealing with a lot of children right now.
Social media has changed the world. Like I'm 42.
I, you know, I played all day literally until the sun came down. Like I wasn't on computers or social media.
And I just, I look forward to reading this book when my children are a little older to make sure I'm raising them right, you know? And so, uh, I'm glad that we talked about it because it is, it's a plague right now in society. And I think you hit it on the, I don't think anything you hit it on the head with, these thoughts start with comparison a lot of times, in my opinion.

Yes. society and I think you hit it on that I don't think anything you hit it on the head with these thoughts start with comparison a lot of times in my opinion yes comparison to others and I'm not good enough because look at so-and-so on social media they have the thing I don't have the thing I'm not good I'm going to stay at home and I'm going to be depressed right what do you agree your inner world has to be more powerful than the outer world your strength as a family and your relationships needs to be stronger than all of the outside influences.
So they know I'm connected to my family and I'm a part of this family and I feel the love of my parents, the unconditional love. The more they feel that love and connection as a family, the outside world will have less allure, right? And they will still look outside at times.
They're still going to have issues, but they'll return to that strength and that inner fortitude and that family fortitude that will allow them to survive and also thrive through this. But you got to keep reminding them to keep looking inward, not outward, to live from the inside out, your spirit, your soul, your joy, your love, your passion, your work ethic, saying you create this world from the inside out, not the outside in.
So when I compare myself, if I actually feel good about myself in that moment, then the comparison doesn't affect me. It's only when I actually feel less than and unqualified that it affects me.
And so it's really not the comparison.

It's actually how you feel internally.

So the key is your identity and the inner strength and the inner identity of knowing

who you are and having a purpose, having a mission, and also understanding what makes

you unique and special and knowing your strengths. So-and-so has their strengths.
You're not meant to have their strengths. You have your strengths.
I'll never be that NBA player. I won't even be that major league baseball player who, you know, Kawhi was a pretty good baseball player.
But that guy has an exceptional talent and gift that causes him to excel. But I could write and and I could speak and I was a pretty good college lacrosse player I was a division one athlete not a professional athlete not but there's a difference I played pickleball with professional athletes and you literally can tell the athleticism is a little different between me and them and you can tell the difference between me and a guy who never played sports or a guy who was just a mediocre athlete.
You could just tell, you could see it, right? So there's different skillsets. So it's teaching them that you have strengths.
And I love educating kids and letting them know you create from the inside out. Because once they understand the powers within them, they realize that they have the ability, the impact, the power to change the world, to make an impact.
That's the coffee bean message, carrot, egg, and coffee bean, right? The carrot gets soft in the hot and the heat environment. The egg gets hardened, gets bitter, angry, frustrated.
You could be like that egg. You could be like that carrot.
But the coffee bean, when that coffee bean is in that warm, hot environment where there's a lot of pressure, a lot of negativity, that coffee bean actually transforms the environment that it's in. The others get affected, the carrot and the egg, but the coffee bean transforms the environment.
So it's teaching kids that you could be the coffee bean and you can transform any environment that you're in in so let's not blame social media because what happens is when we do that we're actually giving away our power let's let's remind everyone and kids that we have the power to transform our situation and our circumstance and if everyone knew that and we owned our power that's how we would actually impact the. The reason why we don't is because too many people believe that the circumstance has power over them.
You can see I'm smiling from ear to ear, brother. Your message is so damn powerful.
Everyone, everyone right now go download all of his books, buy all of his books. The One Truth, this is something you guys got to go get immediately.
It's his newest book. All of them are incredible.
But even that analogy, that one hit home for me back in Nashville. It hits home just the same right now about the Coffee Bean Brother.
Thank you so much. I know you're an incredibly busy man.
I really greatly appreciate you. You are the leader of the pack when it comes to this.
And I couldn't be more honored to have you on today. Thanks, Justin.
Appreciate the work that you're doing and the great, great messages and energy you're sharing to the world. Right on, brother.
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