Jon Gordon is an author and speaker on leadership, culture, sales, and teamwork. He has worked with numerous athletic organizations, academic institutions, and corporations. His latest book is “The Power of Positive Leadership.” He teaches people how to focus on weeding out the negative and not letting that energy poison the team.
Jon describes himself as a once fearful, negative and stressed out 31-year old. What changed all of that? His wife gave him the ultimatum: Change your life or I am leaving you. He had an “Aha” moment that gave him the revelation he was meant to write and speak. However, Jon knew he needed to work on himself first, so he started taking steps to better himself. He began by going on walks of gratitude and created a “positive tip of the week” newsletter. This lead to him creating a website, doing about 80 free talks to get started, and ultimately just going for it as an entrepreneur. Jon describes impacting others as being the greatest feeling in the world.
“The Power of Positive Leadership” and Jon’s overall message is about how to root out the negative and focus on the positive. One negative person can bring an entire team down. He calls these people “negative vampires” and says they must be addressed, called out, and kicked off the bus. Building positive leaders fosters building a positive team. You get people on your bus by the way you lead. It can’t be an ultimatum—“Be positive or your are out of here!”
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman are authors of “Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar” and their newest book is “A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age.” Jimmy and Rob highlight aspects of their new book by detailing who Claude Shannon is and why he is so fundamental for our everyday lives.
Claude Shannon made the entire digital age possible. As Jimmy and Rob said, “He didn’t just think about things, he thought through things.” What made Shannon so unique? He was extremely curious about information and wanted to know about all aspects of it. He brought a lot of insights into a subject that seemingly would come from left field. Shannon was also brilliant at transmitting information and breaking the complex into the simplistic. He allowed himself to move into different fields and go wherever his mind wanted to take him but never wasting his time on an unworthy subject. He could expertly sort through what was worth working on and what was a waste of time.
How do we talk about information? How are we going to quantify information? Where did Shannon live and how did he live? Jimmy and Rob not only dug through scholarly journals to find out how Shannon thought, they also talked to the Shannon family and got to learn who he was as a father, husband and friend. When people think of Shannon’s level of genius, most think he must have short comings in his social life. Shannon did not. His colleagues, family and friends new him as a guy that barbecued, went running, and did his unreal math projects.
Another fascinating trait Shannon had was his ability to not let critics get to him. He was smart enough to know that when he did projects and knew he was right, he didn’t need to pay any attention to the critics. He had confidence that came from his kind of intellectualism. He worked on the information theory over the course of 10 years while working on other projects. By the time he had published it, he already new he was right and had moved onto his next endeavor before the critics could get to him. Jimmy, Rob and Michael end the podcast discussing how Jimmy and Rob came to write this book together and what their collaboration process was.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Anthony Tjan is author of “Good People: The Only Leadership Decision That Really Matters.” He is CEO and managing partner of Cue Ball and has a successful track record as an entrepreneur, principal investor and strategic advisor. He leads his firms overall direction and is involved in activities across the board with Cue Ball.
What was the progression in Anthony’s life that brought him to where he is now? Anthony is an immigrant and experienced a great amount of generosity throughout the years aimed at him and his family. He shares a story of being 15, selling picture frames in Canada. At the end of a long hot day of lugging around picture frames an elderly women invited him in for some tea. She finished their conversation saying, “As you go forward just make sure, as much as you love the product you are selling, you love the people more.” She ended telling him, “Just so you know, I believe in you.” This woman and that conversation resonated with him and set the stage for his leadership philosophy.
Anthony moves on to discuss the building blocks of a great company. Most have trouble looking at life or a business as a marathon. Biases give us a sprint based mentality and more often than not it can be detrimental. When choosing a hire, hire someone with character over competency. Skills can quickly be taught, character cannot. Of course, there needs to be a level of competency but a person needs compassion, empathy, and overall great character. Competition and compassion can be enforced together and we don’t need to lose one to gain the other.
Shedding drama from your life and company is also mission critical and goes back to hiring based on character. Drama is a disease. When hiring someone, always ask yourself, “Is this person going to act or react?” After every interview Anthony says to ask yourself a few things: 1. Would you want to hangout with this person outside of work? 2. Do you respect the persons work? 3. Would this be a person you would be proud of? 4. Throw out reference checks. Ask them to give two or three examples of lower level people who they have influenced.
If you are in the being hired phase of your life rather than the hiring phase, you may be asking, “How do I get started?” Anthony’s #1 piece of advice is to find a good mentor to model after. Mentorship is a tricky thing though, so how should young people today navigate gaining a mentorship? All mentorships begin with a baseline of chemistry. If that isn’t there, it can turn into a negative experience rather than positive. Great mentorship is also about breaking down titles and speaking to each other on a human to human level. Also, the best mentors don’t just try and help you in the confines of your work. Mentors should not only be helping you out in business but also helping to find your calling or higher purpose.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
John Force is an American NHRA drag racer. He is a 16 time champion and his team has 18 championships under them. John is one of the most dominant drag racers in the sport with over 144 career victories and he is still pushing limits at 68 years old. John is considered the best. He is a premier example of making it happen with no excuses.
What drives John? He says, “At the end of the day everyone has to eat.” But beyond that, he simply loves what he does. He loves driving the cars and explains it as magic to him. It is that passion that has gotten him through crashes, burns and even fatalities among fellow racers and friends.
Passion may be what keeps him going, but it is a system that keeps him alive. There is an aspect of a cowboy attitude, however John has a checklist that he lives by. He has been driving for 4 decades and at this point he pokes fun at himself saying he is a trained monkey. It’s about sticking to what you have been taught and not veering too far from those teachings.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Daniel DiPiazza is founder of the blog and podcast Rich20Something, which is also the title of his first book, “Rich20Something: Ditch Your Average Job, Start an Epic Business, and Score the Life You Want.” How did Daniel understand in his 20’s that he needed to make a big move to set himself up for life? He knew he needed something else. He wanted more than others were able to give him so he decided to start off on his own. His brand sprung up out of frustration.
Michael and Daniel spend time talking about the disadvantages of college. College can be one of the quickest ways to set yourself back a few years and get into massive debt. They seem more like zoo’s these days than places of education. Most kids think at the end of their school career, from kindergarden through college, there is going to be some big prize at the end. Usually there is massive debt and an entry level job waiting for you. Time spent in school should be about actual life skills, like how to manage money, rather than long hand algebra that most will never use. School has turned into a huge business that is more predatory rather than innocent.
Michael and Daniel finish the podcast breaking apart social media. When you compare technology and distractions in terms of pre and post internet, social media can be seen as a huge distraction. If you embrace social media as a different way to talk, engage, and communicate then it is easier to see it as a tool rather than a hindrance.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Andy Molinsky author of “Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone” is on the podcast. Everyone can learn better ways to push themselves and step outside of their comfort zone. Andy and Mike help show listeners how to get there.
If we can’t find ways to sacrifice comfort, how do we obtain future success? There is some truth to living on the edge of your comfort zone. However, sometimes it is perfectly OK to stay in your comfort zone, like trading in the stock market. There are times to play it safe and there are times to take the leap. Often there is a lot of work that goes into taking a leap that is commonly overlooked. Having a person to hold you accountable, push you, or just let you know when an idea is good or not can be a critical building block to your success.
How you execute an idea is also monumental to creating success. Taking uncomfortable steps is often necessary to get projects off the ground. Andy uses the story of Neil Kennedy as an example. Neil had a comparable website to Facebook before Facebook was around. He was shy and uncomfortable talking to venture capitalists and wasn’t able to move forward in getting his project off the ground. Because of this, Facebook succeeded and Neil failed.
Five core challenges to stepping out of your comfort zone that Andy points out are: 1. Authenticity challenge 2. Likeability challenge 3. Competence challenge 4. Resentment challenge and 5. Morality challenge. You may not experience all of these challenges but they are a nice road map to help single out your weak points. Mike and Andy finish up their conversation talking about presentations and how to engage an audience.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
Today on Trend Following Radio Michael Covel has a conversation with Joey Yap, Feng Shui expert, founder of the Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics and self-made entrepreneurial millionaire. Feng Shui, as Joey explains it, is “about how your environment supports you”. Further digging into the subject, Joey and Michael examine the world as a network of positive and negative energies.
After explaining some of the core principles of Feng Shui, Joey discuss how the practice has been “bastardized” by the West. Westerners believe it’s the items themselves that project energy – resulting in an entire trinket industry that has developed – when nothing could be further from the truth. The items exist merely for the energy to flow around because, as Joey explains, flow is everything.
Joey then goes on to discuss the myriad ways in which the tenets of Feng Shui apply to the business world. Think of a bustling office as a closed environment of continually crossing positive and negative energies. Collectively, this energy is called the “corporate culture.” But each individual environment is governed by a dominant energy, and that energy is determined by the company leaders. And, as you’d expect, an overall positive energy flowing throughout an environment will always produce better results. Many of the core principles seen in behavioral economics, trend following and Zen shine through in this episode, but from another perspective.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio:
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The popular life scripts that were a surefire path to success in the 20th century no longer work today. “Go to college and get a steady job until you retire” is no longer the optimal choice. Yet many people still believe that if they push harder or work more within these old scripts, they will succeed. But much like in trend following, continuing to be mentally attached to a trend that is on the decline will only result in further losses.
In today’s world, the opportunities and rewards associated with entrepreneurship are many. As college tuition rises, the value of a degree decreases, and with many jobs going dinosaur, entrepreneurship is becoming a smarter choice for many – and a less risky choice than standard issue job thinking.
Today’s podcast guest Taylor Pearson is the 26-year old author of the #1 Amazon best selling book The End of Jobs. Pearson has spent the last several years researching and traveling the world and talking to successful entrepreneurs, which inspired him to write the book.
In this episode, Pearson and Covel talk about automation taking away jobs, how globalization and travel are making entrepreneurship more accessible, the difference in mindset between entrepreneurs and employees, and the search for meaning in life and work.
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