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Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.

Jon Gordon

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Jon Gordon
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: January 20
Businessperson
Consultant
Writer
Guarantee
Guarantees
Negative
Succeed
Positive

More quotes by 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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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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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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We [with my mother] listened to music when I was a kid. We listened to a little bit of Bob's [Gordon] music, but just a little, I think it was too painful for her.
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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Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others.
Jon Gordon
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[Phil wood] put on some [Igor] Stravinsky and say to follow the score, tell me to play me the opening to the Rite of Spring. Or, I'm going to play you some 20th century obscure classical composer you don't know. Or, Let's listen to some Charles Ives, let's sight read some Bartok violin duets, etc.
Jon Gordon
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Instead of being disappointed about where you are, be optimistic about where you are going.
Jon Gordon
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One time, I think it was my third lesson third or fourth lesson. Kim Parker and he picked me up at the bus station. And she just said, Phil [Wood] has been up all night. He's heartbroken. Bud Johnson died last night. And Bud Johnson, like Zoot [Sims] and Al [Cohn] had been mentors to him.
Jon Gordon
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Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow.
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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I definitely had some moments, where, Wow, these were some hard chords on some gig.
Jon Gordon
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I saw a nice interview with Dave Binney recently. He was saying, Man it was never easy. It's not like 'Oh wow, the good old days.' What, when certain people couldn't vote? There was more work for musicians in the '40s, '50s, '60s. But I don't think it was ever easy.
Jon Gordon
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Another classical music teacher from Performing Arts that I've stayed in contact with is Jonathan Strasser.
Jon Gordon
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I was also sitting in from the middle of senior year of high school at Sweet Basil, it was a great club in New York.
Jon Gordon
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You do [jazz] because you love it and hope many some others may as well. You do this because you need it.
Jon Gordon
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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
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Bob [Gordon] died young tragically.
Jon Gordon
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I was studying with Joe Allard, which was great, as a saxophone student. Being able to study with Joe Allard was an incredible experience.
Jon Gordon
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I took some comp for non-comp major classes with Giacomo Bracali and Ludmila Ulela, who was a really famous composition teacher.
Jon Gordon