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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jon Gordon
Read between
August 11 - August 11, 2024
When you replace have to with get to, you change a complaining voice to an appreciative heart. And when you appreciate, y...
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Remember, life and work is a gift, not an obligation. Stop being entitled. Start appreciating all the opportunities y...
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It's the same way with life. Anyone pursuing anything worthwhile will fail and fail often. I've been on many teams that have failed, but in looking back, I realize we weren't failing; we were growing. We weren't failing; we were becoming. I've learned that you can dwell on the past or look forward to making the next opportunity great.
L.O.S.S. stands for “Learning Opportunity Stay Strong.”
As a team, you must remember that events are going to happen. Challenges are going to come your way. Your job is to not get stuck in the mud. Don't sink to a lower level. Keep your head up. Look for the opportunity and the good that is coming your way. Ask, “How can we learn from this? How can we grow from this? What do we want to do now? What actions will we take?” Stay strong together and you will turn your challenges into even greater opportunities and results.
The research shows that people, companies, and teams that thrived during the great recession were the ones that embraced the change. Instead of being like goldfish and waiting to be fed like in the good ole days, they embraced the change and looked for opportunities to find more food. The key factor in their success was their perspective, how they saw the change they were experiencing. Those who saw it as a bad thing and resisted it got crushed by the wave. Those who saw it as a good thing and an opportunity rode the wave to a better future.
It hit me that many of the veterans, despite all their great experience, were so shaken up by the economy that they had become goldfish instead of sharks. They had allowed fear to paralyze them and circumstances to define them. They were complaining about the economy instead of creating it. They had the curse of experience, and the antidote was to get them to think like rookies again. Rookies aren't tainted by rejection, negative assumptions, or past experiences. They bring an idealism, optimism, and passion to their work. They don't focus on what everyone says is impossible. Instead, with
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Life is filled with challenging circumstances, but you can rise above them. Life is hard, but you are strong. The struggle is real, but so is your ability to overcome it. As my friend Erwin McManus said, “Greatness is never born from easy circumstances. We can become stronger when the world becomes harder.”
So when adversity hits, don't run from it. Don't be scared of it. Face it. Take it on and keep moving forward. Murphy is tough, but you are tougher.
A big part of the power of a positive team is knowing that you don't create the world outside in; you create it inside out. This means that your circumstances and the events that happen in the world are not meant to define you. You are meant to define your circumstances. The power is not in the circumstance, but rather in your state of mind and the love, passion, soul, purpose, and perspective that you create with.
Let's take traffic, for example. One day traffic really bothers you. Another day you are listening to a great song or podcast, you're in a great mood, and the traffic doesn't bother you. Is it the circumstance or your state of mind that produces how you feel? If it was the circumstance, your response to traffic would be the same, 100 percent of the time.
It's not the challenge, change, economy, adversity, or setback you and your team are facing. It's always your state of mind and your thinking that produces how you feel and respond.
Don't look at the problems in the world and allow them to get you down. Look inside yourself and look at your team and decide to change the world inside out. Decide to show the world what a positive team looks like and what can be accomplished when a team works inside out. The power is on the inside, and when you and your team know this and live by it, you will create amazing and positive changes on the outside.
Remind each other that fear and faith have one thing in common—they both believe in a future that hasn't happened yet. Fear believes in a negative future. Faith believes in a positive future. If neither has happened yet, why wouldn't we choose to believe in a positive future? Why wouldn't we choose to believe our best days are ahead of us instead of behind us? Tell your team that if you all believe your best days are behind you, that's the truth. If you all believe your best days are ahead of you, then that's the truth. Beliefs matter, so have faith in the future, work hard, and make it
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communicated a firm belief in their ability to execute. At the end of every single game, win or lose, they had a celebration circle where the players gave each other positive shout-outs. Instead of focusing on mistakes, the primary focus was always centered on the positive of each interaction, play, and effort.
the truth that you don't have to choose between positivity and winning. Positivity leads to winning. Positivity leads to action, and action leads to results.
You and your team will face a lot of adversity, resistance, and negativity, but always remember that your certainty and optimism, belief and faith must be greater than all the negativity, fear, and doubt. Share your belief together as a team. Talk about it openly. Discuss your challenges and why you can overcome them. Confront the daunting tasks before you. Don't ignore them. Face them not with fear, but with faith.
No Energy Vampires Allowed
we've allowed energy vampires to ruin this team but not this year. This year we won't allow it.”
at the culture level, where you set the expectation that people who drain the energy of others will not be tolerated. You talk about the detrimental impact of negativity. You explain that one person can't make a team, but one person can break a team. You talk about what a great culture looks like and how you want everyone to be a positive contributor to it. You make it clear what a great team looks like, and that it doesn't look like a bunch of complainers and blamers. You explain that it's unacceptable to be a source of negative energy that hurts the team. You build a culture so positive and
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When you feed the positive and create a culture where negative people are uncomfortable being negative, they will either change or walk off the bus themselves. Whether they stay and become positive, or leave and stay negative, you will have improved your culture and moved your team in the right direction.
If transforming the negativity doesn't work, you must remove it. It doesn't sound positive, but it must happen sometimes for the good of the team. This doesn't mean you don't care about the negative person. It means you care about everyone else. You can still help the person as a friend or mentor. You just won't let them sabotage the team any longer.
no matter what is going on with school or your personal life, when you walk into the locker room or onto the court or the team bus, you have to decide to impact your teammates in a positive way. To build a great team, you and your team members need to show up every day with a positive attitude. Focus on becoming the best version of yourself every day. Don't let negative circumstances and moods affect you and your team. Don't change depending on which way the wind is blowing; instead, be like a strong-rooted tree that does not waver, regardless of what is happening around it. Be the kind of
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One of the best ways to create a positive team environment and transform a toxic team culture is to implement the no complaining rule. The no complaining rule says that you are not allowed to complain unless you have a solution to your complaint. This eliminates a lot of mindless and toxic complaining, and empowers you and your team to create solutions instead of focusing on problems.
amazing what happens when each person on a team decides to be a problem solver instead of a problem creator.
This is what we have to do and if there is a negative comment, keep it to yourself. The more positivity we have as a team the better off we are going to be.
When you subtract negativity and add positivity to your talent, the sky is the limit. You must weed the negative and feed the positive. It's not a one-time thing you do at an annual meeting. You must consistently weed and feed and feed and weed to maximize the growth and potential of your team.
Well, all positivity and no conflict means that no one is asking the difficult questions. No one is discussing the important issues. No one is challenging the status quo. No one is challenging teammates to get better and no one is constructively criticizing others to improve. Having difficult conversations is key to being a great team as we will discuss later in the book.
Disagreeing with your team members doesn't make you an energy vampire. If your desire is to make the team better, sharing a complaint and offering a better way to do something doesn't make you a complainer. Constructively criticizing a team member doesn't make you a bad team member. You just need to make sure you do it in a positive way.
Google is home to many of the most brilliant minds in the world, and a recent study called Project Aristotle released by the company revealed the keys to their most productive and inventive teams. Surprisingly, it was not team members' scientific knowledge but rather a connection between team members (generated by interest in teammates' ideas, empathy, and emotional intelligence) and also a feeling of emotional safety.
The connection you have with your team members creates a trust and a bond that allows you to be yourself and speak openly without worrying about being ridiculed. When team members are connected, have trust, feel emotionally safe, and feel like their ideas are being heard, they are able to do their best and most creative work.
Google realized that great minds weren't the key to their success. It was great teams with a connection that freed their minds to create great inventions.
Communication starts the process of building a connected team. To connect with someone, you must communicate with them. Relationships are the foundation upon which great teams are built, and communication serves as the initial foundation in building a great relationship. Communication builds trust. Trust generates commitment. Commitment fosters teamwork, and teamwork delivers results. Without great communication, you don't have the connection and trust to build a strong relationship. And without strong relationships, you can't have a strong team.
distractions, but it's not the phone. It's us. It's you and me. It's where you and your team members place your attention and intention. The more distracted you are, the less dedicated you will be. If you don't have communication, you won't have connection. If you don't have communication, you won't have the trust and commitment you need to build a great team and create the future together.
Without great communication, negativity fills the void and it breeds and grows, resulting in contagious negative energy that quickly spreads. Rumors, gossip, complaining, and negative energy all thrive when communication suffers.
When there is a void in communication, we assume the worst and act accordingly. We operate out of fear and try to survive instead of acting out of trust and a desire to help our team thrive.
I'm convinced that besides the fact that we don't recognize the value of communication, the enemies are busyness and stress. The research shows that when we are busy and stressed, we activate the reptilian part of our brain, which is associated with fear and survival. If you know anything about reptiles, you know that they will never love you. Reptiles are incapable of love because they are all about survival.
When we are busy and stressed, we activate our reptile brains and are focused only on survival. We are not thinking about uniting our teams and connecting with others. We are only thinking of how we can get through the day. As a result, we focus on what is urgent rather than what matters. We focus on our to-do list and how to survive rather than on our team and ways to thrive. We don't make the time to communicate and connect.
The good news is that the research shows we have a quarter-second to override the reptile with our positive dog. We don't have to let the reptile win. We can understand that our enemies are busyness and stress, and we can learn to recognize when our reptile is coming alive (not unlike how Bruce Banner knows when the Hulk begins to emerge). We can take a deep breath when we realize we are getting stressed and find something to be thankful for in that moment. The research shows you can't be stressed and thankful at the same time.
People often think of communication as talking, but it's also listening and receiving feedback. The best communicator is not the person who is the most eloquent speaker, but the person who has the ability to listen, process the information, and use it to make decisions that are in the best interest of the team. The best listeners truly hear what their team is saying and trying to convey, and they strive to improve as a result. In You Win in the Locker Room First I shared how Mike Smith's greatest strength is the way he truly listens to his team and is open to their advice. It's no wonder that
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As a team you don't just want to communicate. You want to communicate to connect. When you communicate and connect, bonds are created, trust is developed, relationships are strengthened, and you become more committed.
Connection is what leads to commitment. This is why connection is so important. It strengthens trust and creates a bond that leads to commitment. Without connection, you will have a team that lacks commitment and underperforms. But with connection and commitment, your team will perform above its talent level.
You may not have the most talented people on your team, but if you are a connected team, you will outperform many talented teams that lack a close bond. When teammates connect with each other, commitment, teamwork, chemistry, and performance improve dramatically.
If you really know someone, shouldn't you know about what's important to them?
Positive, high-performing teams are built and developed through great communication, shared experiences, positive interactions, common challenges, and vulnerable storytelling that connect people at a deeper level.
Exercises that cause people to be vulnerable, transparent, and authentic cause the walls of pride and ego and selfishness to come crumbling down and lead to strong connections and meaningful relationships. You and your team must make time for these types of team-building exercises to foster communication, connection, and commitment.
If you really knew me. If you really knew me you would know this about me: _______________________.
Share a defining moment. Stand in a circle or sit at round tables and have each team member share the story of a defining moment in their life, one that helped them become who they are today.
The stool was called the Safe Seat because it was a safe place for each person to share his story and heart with his team. It was a safe place to be vulnerable, knowing that whatever was shared while sitting on the stool would not leave the room. It was a safe spot in a safe room.
Each person talks about one of their heroes and shares why they admire them. Then the players share a positive highlight as well as a hardship from their past.
