I was driving to the Atlanta airport with my wife on Friday when my phone started blowing up.

Text after text from friends, coaches, and business leaders said that they were talking about me right now on the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN and posting images from my website.

What!? How!?

I didn’t watch the segment until later that night but it turns out they were talking about how I coach NFL and college coaches and wondering what it’s like to coach the coaches and who’s the guy that does that.

Here’s the segment if you want to see it (also on my Instagram / Facebook). 

It was cool that they were sharing what I’ve been doing for 20 years, mostly, behind the scenes, helping public sports and business leaders with meaningful and impactful private conversations.

Over the years I’ve really focused on living what I wrote about in The Carpenter including the 3 greatest success strategies of all. LOVE, SERVE and CARE.

I wrote that the secret to success is not focusing on building your business but focusing on loving, serving and caring and, when you do, your business will exponentially grow.

The best marketing is doing great work and if you approach your work like a craftsman who truly cares and you do great work, people will clamor to work with you.

I also wrote there is no such thing as an overnight success. The way to success is the way of the craftsman where you work really hard for years, with sweat determination and tears. You show up every day. You put your heart and soul into your work as you strive for excellence and to make a difference.

As I received hundreds of messages on social media from people who heard about me for the first time and from friends and colleagues who said, “Congrats on the well-deserved recognition” I realized I was experiencing what I wrote about and what I knew to be true.

I didn’t do this kind of work all these years because I wanted recognition. I did it because I love doing it and love the leaders I get to work with. I know the leader is the star and my job is to help the star.

The greatest joy is watching a leader develop and build a great culture and team that accomplishes amazing things. Whether it’s a sports team that wins a championship or company that goes from 60 to 100 million in sales or a company that goes from almost bankrupt to break through or a school that transforms from failing to thriving, there’s nothing better than knowing you had an impact on their life, leadership, mindset, culture and teamwork.

For those who have been getting this newsletter for a while know that my approach is the same way here. I’ve been writing this since 2002 and I love hearing when I’ve been helpful and impactful to you as well.

As I share this story and what happened I’m thinking about you and how this is relevant to you and just want to encourage you to stay the course in the work you are doing. You may not receive recognition for a while. That’s okay. Do what you love and love what you do. Keep getting better at it and keep growing. Keep loving, serving and caring. The best advertising will be the difference you make and the impact that you have on others.

And when you make it, you can say and live what I wrote in The Carpenter.

Then you make it and the world says where have you been and you say I’ve been here all along and hopefully getting better every day. To the world you are an overnight success. To you the journey continues!

I can’t share what I have said to my clients in our private conversations, but I can share the methodology and process behind them. If I can encourage you and your leadership let me know. My team and I would love to serve you.

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Lead Positive,

Jon