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The goal is not to be better than anyone else but rather be better than you were yesterday.

Jon Gordon

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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Yesterday
Anyone
Goal
Rather
Else
Better

More quotes by Jon Gordon

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When [Charlie Parker] saw the young guys, especially the ones that were scuffling... Did you eat today? And if you hadn't eaten, he'd take you and buy you some lunch.
Jon Gordon
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[Manhattan School Of Music] didn't' have a jazz undergraduate program at the time so I played a semester in the big band. There was a graduate program. But I wasn't really that involved in jazz yet.
Jon Gordon
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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
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Walk down Forest Ave to Joey's Pizza like we used to do after performances, which doesn't exist anymore. We had a sense of community [in the school band].
Jon Gordon
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I think what frustrated me more than anything else in my formative years was that I just had to work. I had to have a job. Like twenty to thirty hours a week, a lot of times in high school and college. And that was hard.
Jon Gordon
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Only through service and sacrifice can you become great.
Jon Gordon
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Bob [Gordon] died young tragically.
Jon Gordon
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The Monk competition did open some doors. And I was thankful for that.
Jon Gordon
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Sometimes you think Okay, well I'm going to play my horn, and I'm going to study Charlie Bird Parker solos or [John Coltrain] or whatever. But as [Phil Wood] said to me, Man, Bird listened to everything.
Jon Gordon
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I feel very similarly. I didn't have necessarily the same exact kind of dynamic, but that means a lot when people are like that with you. Especially people like that. And I think [Phil Wood] felt a certain responsibility .
Jon Gordon
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Life and success are about what you choose to believe.
Jon Gordon
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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
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Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow.
Jon Gordon
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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
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Every person and every team will be tested on their journey. It is part of the curriculum of life. It's just like riding a bicycle. In the beginning you're going to fall off and get knocked down but the important thing is to get back on, stay strong, and after a while once you master it you'll ride with the confidence of a champion.
Jon Gordon
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I had pestered [Phil Wood] for a long time. He finally agreed to do it. And I was excited and nervous and he couldn't have been nicer or more supportive from the minute I got to his house.
Jon Gordon
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[Manhattan School Of Music] were kind of just getting the jazz program up and going when I first started there. I was 17 in September of 1984 when I started there.
Jon Gordon
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No challenge can stop you if you have the courage to keep moving forward in the face of your greatest fears and biggest challenges. Be courageous.
Jon Gordon
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There's a lot of good people out here that want to help you grow and to help the music to continue to grow and evolve and go find those folks and be around them and carry it on... carrying the tradition on in the way with what it is that you have to offer. Find some good people in the music that will believe in you and they'll help you do that.
Jon Gordon
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Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others.
Jon Gordon