Quote

Negative thoughts are the nails that build a prison of failure.

Jon Gordon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Negative
Failure
Thoughts
Motivational
Nails
Prison
Build

More quotes by Jon Gordon

Image
You hear about the struggles with substances and all that, but [Phil Wood] was a really a great guy. This was a great man.
Jon Gordon
Image
Only through service and sacrifice can you become great.
Jon Gordon
Image
I think we're in a time and place, the last 20 plus years, and certainly now, it's only more so, where it's just about us creating a body of work. Creating hopefully our own scene.
Jon Gordon
Image
When I heard Charlie Parker the first time on a record, it had seemed like an old, scratchy kind of record and I didn't get it.
Jon Gordon
Image
I learned some classical music history, which I had done quite a bit at of Performing Arts. But I got some more with a great teacher named David Noon, who I've been in contact with quite a bit in recent years.
Jon Gordon
Image
If you go with that spirit, good things will come for you. If you go into it with an assumption that you're a genius and that you're entitled to something, it's a little tougher.
Jon Gordon
Image
Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I've stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser.
Jon Gordon
Image
There are a lot of people that impacted me. I remember hearing Oscar Peterson live at the Blue Note, which was very expensive, but... $50 in the '80s... hard to come up with. But it was amazing.
Jon Gordon
Image
When I was 13, 14, 15, I had played in a couple of jazz ensembles. I didn't know anything about harmony, about II-V-I, though I had learned my scales with Caesar [DiMauro].
Jon Gordon
Image
We had a great educator [in the school band], a man named Larry Laurenzano. He was tough, but we knew that he loved us. And that was the beginning of playing music with people and really being inspired and having fun and being in a community.
Jon Gordon
Image
Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow.
Jon Gordon
Image
I definitely had some moments, where, Wow, these were some hard chords on some gig.
Jon Gordon
Image
Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.
Jon Gordon
Image
If I could have picked two guys on the planet, to have some exposure to at that age, those were the two right guys [Phil Woods and Charles McPherson].
Jon Gordon
Image
Alan [Ferber] is a great trombonist and composer. I'm thankful that I got some associations like that through peers and former students. That's kind of what it is.
Jon Gordon
Image
I wasn't expecting [the Monk competition] would necessarily do that. So I just did what I did and some good things continued to happen and some doors continued to open and that kind of led me into the different associations that I developed in my 30s and some records that I've made on ArtistShare over the last 10 years or so.
Jon Gordon
Image
Bob [Gordon] died young tragically.
Jon Gordon
Image
I would sit in at a jazz brunch [at sweet Basil] with Eddie Chamblee, who was a great tenor player. Really a kind man. The whole band was great.
Jon Gordon
Image
A lot of musicians have said things to me like, Music saved my life. And I'm standing on the shoulders of dozens of people that you've never heard of that were like angels for me that came out of the woodwork. And that's really the case for me. I had so many people that did those kinds of things for me.
Jon Gordon
Image
I never got to play with Art [ Blakey], but he was kind and spoke to me a number of times. He said, You know, the people who are working 40 hours a week. Those are the ones who are really paying dues. Sitting at a desk doing the same thing every day. We're really blessed to do what we do.
Jon Gordon