Building An Inspired Team w Jon Gordon| Mike Up In Your Business Podcast

Oh, before we really kick things off, I got to show you something. I have something that harkens to the past. Did your helmet look— when you played lacrosse, did it look anything like this? You've won one of these bottles.

It did look a lot like that, although that looks even older because I think you're a lot older than I am.

Am I? I may be. I'm 50.

No, I'm 52. I'm just teasing you.

Oh, you bastard, you bastard. Yeah, Baccarock. So anyone's just listening and not watching, this is my old Virginia Tech lacrosse helmet. Um, John was a face-off man. Where did you play again?

I played at Cornell University.

Oh, that's legit lacrosse. Yeah, and you were, you were a face-off and a mid—

I was a face-off, D, middie, and, uh, played all 4 years and had a great, great experience at Cornell.

So, uh, as a side note, you and I have a pending, uh, face-off competition, but we have to dress up in our old gear and we have to do it in some public square so people are like, who are these clowns? So let's go into— so you, you started and you played in sports, but you then started a career in working with teams and you learned so much about elevating people's ability, getting team play. Tell us a little bit about what you've learned in your career of working with teams.

Yeah, I believe that being an athlete and a former athlete has really helped me working with teams and organizations of all types. When I wrote The Energy Bus, it was first read by Jack Del Rio. Literally, one of the first coaches that read my books was Jack Del Rio, who invited me to speak to the Jaguars after reading The Energy Bus. So I write this book. Gets rejected by 30 publishers, have no idea that—

oh, keep going. Can you hear me? I said no way.

I have no idea that anyone is gonna read this book because again, rejection, rejection, rejection. And then finally gets published, John Wally and Sons. Jack Del Rio is one of the first people to read it early on, invites me to speak to the Jacksonville Jaguars. I speak to the team. Mike Smith is the assistant coach at the time. He's the defensive coordinator. He gets hired by the Atlanta Falcons the next year. He brings the energy bus and me to speak to that team. Matt Ryan is a rookie quarterback. That's how long ago this was. And from that moment on, I start working with all these different teams. Texas calls. I work with Mack Brown and his Texas team the year they go to the national championship. Colt McCoy is a senior That's how long ago it is. So I start working with all these different teams and organizations over the years. The Dodgers call, the Rams call, the 49ers call, Chip Kelly calls. I speak to his teams, Philadelphia, the Niners. He obviously loses his jobs there. I didn't do a good job. And then he gets hired at UCLA. I spoke to his teams there, all these different teams. Pete Carroll called this year. I spoke to the Seahawks this year as a team. So I've learned from all these different teams as well as working with all the Fortune 500 company teams and nonprofit teams and small business teams, you name it, right? We've worked with all these teams. And so, what I've learned is everything I've written about in The Power of a Positive Team. These are the principles and practices that make great teams great. It's not based on theory. It's not based on what I think. It's based on what I know, what I have seen, and what I have experienced working with all these teams, how they turn things around, how they build their culture, how they come together and develop relationships. So, Great teams are not born, they are made. Great teams must create great cultures. Every day, you must focus on your culture. You must invest in your culture. If you want the fruit, you must invest in the root. You got to have a shared vision and mission. Where are we going? And why are we going there? I know it sounds basic, but it's essential to be very clear on the vision and mission. Same thing with marriage. As a marriage, you are a team. My wife and I wrote a book called Relationship Grit. And we took the principles from my work with teams and we actually incorporate a lot of those principles into marriage to be a strong team as a marriage. So, where are you going? Why are you going there? And then, of course, optimism and positivity. That is essential. You have to have a collective optimism and belief that we can accomplish great things. Together, not individually, but together. Because pessimism is going to set in. Energy vampires are going to try to destroy the team. One person can't make a team, but one person could break a team. So you got to make sure you take on the negativity. You got to have difficult conversations. Great teams have difficult conversations. The Seattle Seahawks have Tell the Truth Mondays. So every month they get together and they talk about who messed up. What needs to be improved? They call guys out, but no one takes it personal because they all know it's part of the culture. It's ingrained in what they do, and everyone realizes this is about getting better. Like, we are here to get better, so no one takes it personal. There's no egos involved. It's getting better each day and each time as a team. So Tell the Truth Mondays are something that I, I just love. And then also, not to just ramble on, but relationships are essential. You gotta build great relationships to be a strong team. And in The Power of a Positive Team, we share 4 C's: communication, connection, commitment, and caring. That's what builds a strong team.

Yeah. So, uh, I love you rambling on because I'm— I already have a half page of notes, but I gotta jump back to the beginning of your story. So I'm— I like sports. I'm not a sports fan, so I do recognize Matt Ryan. Um, He became pro 20, over 20 years ago, 25 years ago, maybe.

No, not that long ago. He became a pro for the Falcons in 2008.

Okay. All right. So that's only 12 years ago. Cause my thought was when you wrote Energy Bus, you were in your maybe late thirties or early forties.

I was in my early thirties, around 35, 36 years old. And that was 2007. The book came out. I am now 50. I'm your age.

So not knowing Matt Ryan's start, because I'm really not into pros, it goes back 15 years or 20 years. You were in your early 30s when you wrote Energy Buzz. What was it like? What was it like, like walking in where the coaches are almost twice your age?

It was really strange because back then I was the young guy coming in to speak to these teams. The young buck. I was a young buck. All the coaches were older than me. Now I'm hanging out with Sean McVay the other day, the coach of the Rams. He's 34 and I'm 50. Now I'm hanging out with these younger coaches who are younger than me. It's wild that I'm now the older guy where I was the young guy. But early on, I just was writing about what I knew to be true or thought to be true. I really honestly didn't have a lot of conviction around it because it was just what I believe. So I'm going to the Jaguars to speak, and Jack Del Rio got the book for every single person in the organization, the custodians, the food service workers, coaching staffs, everyone. He wanted everyone to get on the bus. How many books is that, by the way? Over 110 books.

Wow.

Okay. Okay. That's a big positive energy. He just wanted to share it everywhere with the team, the organization. And so I went to speak. I remember going there. I'm like all nervous, like, wow, these are professional athletes. What am I going to say that they haven't heard before? But my athleticism or my— not my athleticism, my athlete mindset kicked in. I'm like, all right, let's go. Just share it. And I talked about staying positive, energy vampires. One person can't make a team, but one person could break a team and talked about negativity and staying positive and a shared vision and purpose and all the principles from the Energy Bus and just shared it. I guess it went really well because that team, which normally doesn't do very well, made a huge playoff run, beat the Steelers in the first round, a miraculous win, go to play the Patriots, almost beat the Patriots that year. And there were these articles that said, "Energy bust fuels Jaguars wins," and so forth. And that really spread it around. But I got to admit, I was nervous going in and wasn't really sure, you know, that I could make a difference. And I did have doubts and fears. But I was just naive. I was thinking like a rookie and just willing to just go do it and share it and go for it. And then now years later, I know these principles to be true. Now there's a deeper conviction. I'm not just sharing ideas. I'm sharing practices. And this is what happened with this team. And this is what works here. And this is what the challenge was with this team. And this is how they overcame, or this is how they didn't overcame. And this is why it sabotaged them. So you learn so much along the way. So So I was this 35, 36-year-old guy then. Now I'm this 50-year-old guy with all this experience and lessons I've learned from so many different coaches and teams. I wanna give the credit to all these guys 'cause I've learned from so many of them. And a lot of female coaches as well, like Kori Close and, you know, Candice Parker as a player and Tamika Catchings and all these amazing coaches I get to work with as well. Rhonda Revelle from Nebraska, softball, women's softball coach. Incredible leaders that you just see how they build their teams along the way.

So, but, but you are far, far more is not the right choice of words, but I'm going to use it anyway. You're far more than just applying this to athletics. It applies to businesses and so forth. Why do these transcend all types of organizations?

Well, that's what I love. You know, I get to work with these sports teams and then you see firsthand how these principles work because, you know, within a season, that's true, right? Embracing them or not, you see it on the field, you see in the coaches. Attitude. You see it in the players. Are they talking the same way? So I love that you can see it so clearly in sports. But then I also love working with businesses and healthcare organizations and Fortune 500 companies. And you get to see how it works with them as well. Just not always right away. It's not on display. It's not like it's on TV a lot of times. But you do hear the stories. And they work because the same principles apply. It doesn't matter the organization. These are universal principles for building great teams, for performing at a higher level, for overcoming negativity. So, same principles apply. You just have to make sure you're applying these principles. And then, how it applies to your business and to your people is key. You might use different language, right? In a sports team, like when I'm giving an NFL talk or a college football talk, it's going to be very different than if I'm speaking to a company, right?

Right, right.

I mean, I can get fired up. I can get passionate. But with a company, you start to speak their language and how it applies to them. Tomorrow, I'm speaking to an incredible facial product company that makes products for peels and healthy skin. And I'll be speaking to them. And I'm going to take some of these principles and apply it in terms of face. Like you have to weed the negative, feed the positive. Well, you have to exfoliate the skin and then build it back up. So, you got to get rid of the dead skin, the bad stuff, and then you want to feed it get good nutrients to have healthy skin. Same way with our mind. So I'm going to apply it to them.

Yeah, because an athlete, you'd say just rub some dirt on it, right? So, so let's talk about, uh, probably the most common question I hear from entrepreneurs is, how do I make my employees act like owners? I'm sure you hear that. How do we elevate our colleagues and ourselves?

Well, you have to get their buy-in when you want your team to buy in, you have to believe in them and you have to allow them to weigh in. So, you have to make sure you're giving them an opportunity to share, to feel like they're part of the process, and also to enhance and increase their engagement. So, what I love to do is talk about the vision of where we're going. And then, each person shares what their vision is. Like, what is your personal vision for you, your career, your role here? And how can your vision contribute to the bigger vision of this organization and of this team and where we're going? When each person understands how they contribute and what their vision is and how their vision contributes to the bigger vision, now you're going to have engagement. Now you wake up each day knowing where you're going and why you're going there. And that is really key for engagement. Also, talking about the team vision or the collective organizational vision Have them be a part of that process. Hey, what is our vision and what should our— or what should it be? Let's create it together. And so, you get that buy-in by involving them and making them part of the process. Also, you have to make sure that you're not just talking but you're listening and you're asking for feedback and you're asking for suggestions. And the more you do that, you have people that feel like they are not just part of the team but they are also driving the team forward.

So I made a speech to my colleagues many years ago, and I want you to tear this apart. I'll give you a speech because it takes less than 30 seconds. I came out my office, I had 30 employees at the time. I'd run the numbers. We could do $10 million that year. And I said, this is the year we do $10 million in revenue. And it was crickets. What should I do if I have a vision for my business? How do I get people engaged around that?

Well, numbers don't drive people. People drive numbers. Okay, we focus on the fruit of the tree. We can't focus on the outcome and the numbers. We should measure them, right? We do have to measure them because what you measure, you can influence and grow. So, we have to measure them. But we measure the fruit knowing it's just a byproduct of how well we're investing in the root. And if you invest in your culture and your people and your purpose and your passion and your process, as you know, that will drive your numbers. So, what I would do is talk about purpose-driven goals. Like, what is our purpose versus number goals? What do we want to accomplish together? What difference do we want to make? We know that millennials want to be part of something that is bigger than themselves. And the research shows that all people are most energized when they're using their strengths, for a bigger purpose beyond themselves. So, just saying, "Hey, let's go after $10 million." Well, what happens if we don't hit $10 million? What about next year? Are we now a failure because we didn't hit that number? And so, I think about Organic Valley, the milk company. I went to visit them in the middle of Wisconsin. I mean, we're talking nowhere, like in the middle of nowhere. The hotel I stayed at when I showed up, the same person who took my payment also was doing the laundry right behind her and had a washing machine right behind. There were only like a few no rooms. They didn't have any food. It was just like in the middle of nowhere. So, then I go to the headquarters in Organic Valley in the middle of Wisconsin and I meet this company. And I hear a company that talks about their purpose. They don't talk about numbers. They have the forecast, you know, for buying purposes and so forth. But, they basically have no numbered goals, all purpose. They want to provide sustainability, right, to the land. They want to provide farmers with income. They want to make dairy products that are free of of hormones and pesticides. This was years ago. Right now, everyone's doing it, but this was years ago. And they told me how every year their numbers continue to soar as a result of focusing on the purpose, not the numbers. So, we're going to measure the numbers, but that's going to be an indicator of how well we're investing and living our purpose and our mission. Every organization today has a mission statement, but only the great ones have people who are on a mission. That's the key. Let's be on a mission together to realize the mission statement.

So I love that, feels good. But my employees, you know, they need a job. Isn't mission number one to put food on their table? How do I correlate the business impact but also in their personal life, impacting that?

Well, I think that's great too, to talk about, hey, I do want to provide for my family. Giving my family a better life is part of my personal vision and mission. And there is nothing wrong with that. Salespeople love to see success. They love to see their numbers grow. So a lot of people are motivated by that. I'm not saying that's, that's a bad thing. Numbers will motivate you in the short term, but I am telling you this, salespeople who are driven by a bigger purpose beyond the numbers, do really well. I love to see my team and organization have a great year. But I never have numbered goals. I've never had it. I never will. I don't want to hit a certain number. I never focus on that. I really don't. I'm always focused on the purpose. I never even know what I'm going to do each year until the end, until I go— have to go through the numbers with my accountant for accounting purposes. And so, for me, it's not about the numbers. It's about making a difference, making an impact, like reaching more people, impacting more people. So that's a numbers basically. But my mission is one person at a time. So I want to impact millions of people one person at a time. That keeps me focused on the present, on the here and now, and that mission of making a difference one person at a time. So for salespeople, yeah, get those sales, hit those numbers, make money. But what I know is is this. I wrote about this in The Carpenter. Don't focus on building your business. I know I shouldn't say that to you, but I say it all the time. Don't focus on you building your business. Focus on loving, serving, and caring. You love, you serve, you care, and what happens is your business will exponentially grow. Let's talk about the best salespeople. What do they do? They love their customers. They love their clients. They care about them. They invest in relationships. Yeah. Good salespeople could see their numbers grow by doing great sales, by outreaching and so forth. You have to do that. But the best salespeople, the ones who do the best numbers, they do all of that and they have a deep caring relationship with their customers that drives their success. Would you agree with that, Mike? You think I'm off base?

Oh, no. I believe in it 100% because ultimately the people I will buy from, particularly when it's not a convenience buy, you know, convenience buy, I'll hop on Amazon. But when I'm buying something high ticket, someone I trust and someone that I trust cares about me to give me this, the straight and narrow on what's best for me. And of course, I'll buy from them.

Right. You can race to the bottom on price or you can care. Caring really is a success strategy. Those who care more, people feel their care and they want to do business with those who care about them and also those they trust. So at the psychological level, at the primal level, We're often saying, do you care about me and can I trust you? That's what we're thinking. Do you care about me and do I trust you? And if you build that trust, if you're that trusted advisor, especially now, what COVID has, has highlighted is that people will do business during tough times, during challenging times, during scarce times with those who are trusted advisors, those who they could trust. And during these times, they will seek those people out. Seek people that they can trust. I had so many people say to me that they found me during this time or that they really took to my words during this time because over the years I've built up that trust of not hitting them with, you know, buy from me, buy from me, buy from me. I built up a relationship by constantly serving and loving and caring. And people who have reached out in amazing ways this year as a result of that. So, I truly believe that when you invest in those relationships, when you care about others, it comes back to you and it is a success strategy. I was talking to a marketing executive on a plane, right? I'll never forget this. He said, "Hey, I got this client and it's a furniture bedding store. He's doing $12 million a year, right? $12 million a year in a smaller town. He should only be doing a couple million, but he's like doing 12. And he's got the secret to success. You want to know what it is?" I said, "Yeah." He said, every purchase, right, within— with every purchase, within a month, the owner will call that customer and thank them for their business and to see if they're satisfied. A simple call like that. They see the owner in the grocery store, at a restaurant, and they say, hey, thanks for calling, doing great, love it. They appreciate the call. That one little thing shows that they care more. It's always about the little things. And when we care more, other people will care about us.

Oh my God. That's unbelievable how simple it is. Let's tie this back to sports though. So with sports, you're saying it's not about numbers and business sports. I think it's only about numbers or, or maybe it's not. How does this translate into sports and winning the championship?

Well, we are there to win in business. We're there to succeed. We're there to sell, right? We do have to make money. We do have to make profit, right? So I'm not saying don't make money. I'm not saying don't have a smart business strategy. I'm not saying show up and just have fun. We're there to have fun and also to win. I was with Ed Mylett the other day and I just love— he was telling a story about an incredible story where he was talking to his son and he was always telling his son, "Hey, you know, just have fun. Just have fun. Just have fun." And his son was being a doormat for the other players. Finally, he had enough and he told his son, "You know what's more fun than having fun? Winning. That's having fun. Winning is fun." And so funny. So we do want to win because winning is fun. But here's the thing. When we show up with our culture, when we build relationships, when we work on bringing out the best in our team. As a coach, when your team knows you care about them, when you develop authentic meaningful relationships, when you develop your talent because you have to have talent to win. When you develop that talent, when you do all those things, you will be more likely to win. And so, we do want to win but it's the focus on all the things that we need to do to get to win. Too often we focus on the wins and the numbers and we don't do anything else that really leads to winning. And so we want to win, but we want to do what gives us the best chance to win. And I speak to a lot of coaches and GMs, and what they'll tell you is, we know we're not going to win a championship every year. Only one team can win every year, right? But we need to do everything we can to ensure that we have the best chance possible to win. And so is the season a failure if you don't win the Super Bowl? See, I hear a lot of teams say that it's Super Bowl or bust, but that is a recipe for misery and despair and a bad culture if that's the case. If you don't win, everyone feels like a failure, and then you come back next year and you're actually, you know, disheartened. I believe it's about, hey, did we give ourselves the best chance? What did we learn from the mistakes we made? How did we get better along the way? What can we take forward, right, with us? What lessons can we take with us that we learned along the way? How can we get better from last year? And then if you're focused on that as a team and as a culture, more likely than not, you will have more years of winning. But again, how many teams win it every year in a row? Not many.

Oh, every year in a row? Yeah, that's a rarity.

How many teams win in a row? Not— yeah, right. So, so that's the case. Like, I work with the Rams, right? And so You know, first year they make the playoffs, second year they go to the Super Bowl, they lose the Super Bowl. Okay, they wanted to win a Super Bowl. Is it a failure? Come on, he took a team that didn't have a great culture, didn't have a lot of success, boom, took him to the Super Bowl. Then they make the playoffs like every year that Sean has been there. I think they have the third best record. He has the third best record as a coach in the years that he has been coaching out of any coach in the league. To me That's a successful culture. That's success as you're building a resume, as you're building a program. And I think it's the same way with business, right? We, we want to learn, we want to hit our numbers, we all want to grow, but some years you can have some down years. Some years the numbers aren't going to go up. And does that mean that you are a failure? See, if we're always just focused on the numbers and the numbers alone, then when the numbers go down for reasons that we can't control, you'll lose morale. That's what happened during the Great Recession when all the mortgage companies were were getting destroyed and killed. I was getting brought to all these mortgage companies because for years everyone was doing great, everyone was making a fortune in the mortgage industry. All of a sudden now no one was making money, right? The companies were like, what are we gonna do? Oh my God, our people are falling apart, morale is like at an all-time low. And so they were going into the tank and they were bringing me in. I was talking to them about the fact that you can't have this as your focus. The numbers can't be your focus. You got to focus on your culture. So when the years are down, you're building people up, you're lifting people up. And so it's the combination of the two. It's, it's a, it's a number of Factors together.

Hmm. I'm curious about, um, if I don't have the natural talent myself, so say I'm a business owner, I am a business owner, and, uh, I understand what you're saying about culture and engagement and values, mission, but that, that's just not who I am. I, I just wanna make money. It's all about the money. Is there a salvation for me or how do I navigate around that if it's not naturally me?

Well, you really can't delegate culture. I do believe it must come from you if you're the leader. If you're the owner. But you can build people around you who are really good at investing in people and investing in culture. So, I would do my best to build a team that does believe in culture, that can create culture and invest in people. Have a great HR person, have a great sales manager, have someone who loves on the people. And when I say love on, hey, Alan Mulally, who turned around Ford, I wrote about him in The Power of Positive Leadership. They were in big trouble. Many said bankruptcy for them. Yeah, right, right. He comes in in 2006 and he turns them around. He defined his leadership style as positive leadership. He told me, John, you gotta love 'em up. You gotta love 'em up, but then you gotta hold 'em accountable to the culture, the values, the standards, and the principles. And that was his recipe for success. Love and accountability. That's the key with leadership. Dabo Sweeney. Worked with Clemson for the past 9 years, right? Dabo Swinney building a championship program. Watched it firsthand. Contributed in a lot of ways in terms of values and culture and sharing a lot of these lessons. Carpenter was a foundation of his program. So was Energy Bus and training camp, power of positive leadership. All these things, you know, over the years working with that team, right? But Dabo is all about love and accountability. They feel his love and he does love them. But he's going to hold you accountable to being great. So as a leader, you lead that way. You develop leaders under you that could also lead that way. And if you're not great at that culture component, then you have other leaders to make sure that they're actually building the culture. But if you don't do it and you leave it to chance, then you will be at the whim of whatever culture is produced and you will then have no idea what happens. And we have research that shows that, that organizations that build intentional cultures have so much more success than those who Allow it to just happen naturally.

Yeah, it's going to form anyway, right?

Right. Your culture— I love that— your culture is going to form, but you won't know what kind of culture you're going to get. So you want to make sure you're intentional. Like, what do you value? What do you—

I guess you could pour Jell-O in a mold, or you can just pour Jell-O all over your refrigerator. Either way, it's going to form. I think you probably want your shape.

I love that analogy. I have to use that going forward. There you go.

Yeah, your new book, The Jell-O Mold by John Gordon.

The Jell-O Molder. I love that.

So tell me about, uh, the people themselves. You know, do I need the absolute best people in the world to work for me, or can I take people who are good and coach them to perform like they're the absolute best?

Well, both. I mean, when I'm working with a, a team like the Miami Heat, right, they have an incredible culture, but there were years their culture was better than their talent and they didn't have a phenomenal season, but they made the playoffs when they really shouldn't have, or they were one game game away from making the playoffs, and this team should have had maybe 10 wins. So their culture drove their talent towards greatness. Your culture is a talent multiplier. Your culture will take your talent and it will multiply it and it will grow it and it will improve it. So culture is essential there, but you do have to hire talent. You have to hire people that are skilled at what they do. They got some talent, they found some guys that fit their culture this past year, and they make it to the NBA championship, right? They don't win, but they make it against the Lakers. Great example of you got to have talent. But what I have found over the years is team beats talent when talent is in a team. So, you got to take that talent, you got this great culture, and then you got to mold that talent into a team that works well together. Because a team with maybe lesser talent but a strong bond and strong connection and strong commitment will outperform a team where you have a lot of individual people working alone and isolated with their own talent. So, it's both. You need talent, but we have to develop that talent. We have to invest in it. And we have to build a team around that talent. That's the key.

What about, you know, with this COVID situation, we're all separated. We can't physically connect. Does that compromise culture?

It does. I mean, it can really hurt your culture. But I've talked to a lot of leaders and business owners during this time that have said they've had some really amazing conversations with their team. Some teams have really formed a stronger bond through this time because they're having more personal conversations than they've ever had. Think about it. You're seeing each other's family on the Zoom calls. You're seeing the dogs and the cats and you're hearing the baby cry. The old adage that it's not personal, it's just business, I believe that adage is history.

Mm-hmm.

Now, everything is personal. So in many ways, we're having more personal conversations than ever. We're talking about fears and concerns more than ever. So we're having these deeper conversations. So we don't want that to go away. And we're using this video technology in order to do it, in order to connect people and create these meaningful connections that are important. But nothing replaces the in-person meeting or the in-person gathering where people are really face-to-face. That's really important. But It's how we use technology. And I know a lot of organizations have. And what we have seen, especially during COVID is that if you had a gap in your communication, if you weren't very connected, what happened during COVID if you didn't do anything to address that, it became a canyon. But if you were a close team and you had a strong culture and you still invested in it and you found ways to communicate in deeper ways, even online, then you saw a team really come together. And so, who won the weight was a term that a lot of organizations used during the NBA bubble. Like, we have this weight. Who's going to win the weight? Who's going to grow together and become more connected during this time? And so, I spoke to UCLA football. I spoke to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Also got a chance, as I said, to speak to the Seahawks. Spoke to the Miami Heat coaching staff before they went in. All these different things you saw, like who was, who was focused on getting better during this time. And I love doing connection exercises. Like, I'm a big believer that if you can't gather personally, you're still using Zoom and other video conferencing to connect in a meaningful way. And you're doing some team-building exercises. All right, guys, let's all get together and let's talk about who's our hero. Let's talk about a hardship we faced that made us who we are today. And let's talk about a highlight in our life that we're really proud of. When you hear someone's hardship and what made them who they are today, you're gonna get to know about your teammates a whole lot better. And when that happens— and I've done this numerous times with businesses, business teams, and sports teams. I've also had my consultants do this. We do it a lot with our teams. It's incredible what happens when teams do this. Vulnerability, authenticity, paved the way for meaningful relationships, strong connections, and a stronger bond. And now you have psychological safety. Now, you have a greater commitment in your team and organization, and now you have a stronger team. So, I've seen this a lot. And yeah, I would much rather have in-person connection. And I know a lot of people are lonely and feeling isolated. And I'm hoping we're moving out of that because it is important to have really in-person connections and relationships. But we can use this time to still form connections.

Let me ask you this before we wrap things up, just about the ebb and flow of culture. You know, what I heard is, uh, you go into these teams or these companies and they bring a strong culture, but it also sounds like it fades away. How do I build a culture and then sustain it?

It will fade away if you don't invest in it. Culture is not static, it's dynamic. Culture is dynamic. Every day you're creating your culture. By what you value, by what you believe, by what you think, by what you say, and by what you do. And so, culture is a living, breathing essence of an organization and team. It's a living, breathing essence. And if you're not investing in it, if you're not shaping it, it will shape you. If you're not focusing on it, it will actually move towards negativity. That's the way things work. You have to make sure you're working for it, reinforcing it, also fighting for it. A lot of times, you have to protect your culture and fight for your culture because there will always be these forces coming at you and conspiring to sabotage you, your organization, and your team. You know, you're married. When you're married, you always have these forces that seem to somehow try to split you up, take you apart, and come in. Where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it. There's outside forces that could sabotage your marriage and your relationship. So you always have to make sure that you're building the love you have for each other, you're investing in the relationship, you're taking the time to communicate, you're making time to connect one-on-one and collectively, you're making time to show that you are committed to each other, you serve, you sacrifice, and then that last C, you show you care. That's why these 4 C's are so essential. You put these into practice and you will have a stronger relationship and team. I wrote a relationship grid with my wife. I mean, we talked about this. I asked her a few months ago, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much you like to be married to me? She said, pre-COVID or now? And she wasn't joking because, you know, we're always on the road and now we're home, as she would say, all the time. Like, I'm not used to seeing you so much. So we had to actually work on our relationship during this time. If I don't work on it and she doesn't work on it, what's going to happen? We're not going to be strong.

It's going to fade away just like any other culture.

Our culture is going to have a breakdown of our family and our relationship. The culture of your team, I think the biggest mistake that leaders and I have found coaches make is they think their culture is all good. So they stop focusing on it. We're good. They stop investing. Hey, we had a great culture last year. No, what are you doing this year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Create your culture. We talked about lacrosse to wrap this up, to bring it full circle.

Yeah, back to the helmet.

Back to the helmet. Sophomore year, 9th in the country at Cornell University. I'm the starting face-off guy as a sophomore. We are a dominant team. By my senior year, we lost our culture. We had our first losing season in Richie Moran's legendary career. The Hall of Fame is named after him, and I was the senior the year of my senior, we had his first losing season ever because we lost our culture. We were divided. He was, you know, he was getting older, wasn't, I would say, necessarily that maybe the same coach that he was when he was younger. And we just had different dynamics on the team and did not continue to build the culture that was established beforehand. So I saw what happened, and I now tell teams all the time As a precautionary tale, keep building your culture. Don't stop or else your culture will fall apart. It will fade away. It's called mission drift, right? We have this mission and day after day, if you don't invest in it, you will lose it. Here's what Dabo Sweeney does. Dabo Sweeney every year brings an 18-inch huge bound book, right? Filled with all these papers and information. He slaps it down on the table. He meets with his coaching staff for 4 full days, 4 full days, and goes through page by page all the things that happened over time that helped them build their culture to where they are today to remind everyone how they got here, what's important, and what they're going to carry forward. Now, I would think there would be maybe be a more streamlined process than that. 4 full days. Some of the coaches say it's excruciating, but But it, it, it makes sure, it ensures, I should say, that they don't drift away from what got them there. And so, they really go through page by page for 4 full days talking about everything because you have new coaches, you have assistant coaches every year. You're always a new team in an organization. You're always hiring new people. You got to make sure you're ingraining the new people as they come in. As you grow, I think this is the biggest mistake that companies make as well, Mike. Companies that grow, they have a great culture early on. But all of a sudden, they're growing new locations, new people coming on. They don't make sure. They don't make sure that the culture is now part of every organization, every meeting, every place, every location, every person. You have to make sure that your culture pervades and is ingrained in every organization, every aspect of, of what you're building. And so if you have a West Coast and an East Coast, they should be the same culture, they should have the same principles. You go to a Chick-fil-A, it should be the same culture wherever you go. You fly on Southwest, and if you meet a flight attendant that's not very nice, you're like, are you really a Southwest, right, attendant? Because everyone else I've met has been awesome. And that's happened to me where I've had some, some, some negative ones, and I'm like, wow, this doesn't seem like Southwest. And so, we had that experience wherever we go. The culture should be a part of every person, every meeting, every event, and every department, I should say, in the organization.

Jon Gordon, author of Energy Bus, the host of the Daily Positivity or Daily Positive. You got to go to that website, check it out, dailypositive.com. And Jon, I shared that link with you. You didn't even realize the top, one of the top 5 bestselling authors for 2020 of all books. John, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Mike, thanks for having me. Love talking to you.