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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
Negative
Succeed
Positive
Guarantee
Guarantees

More quotes by Jon Gordon

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Ernie Hayes, Jimmy Lewis, and either Belton Evans or Khalil Mahdi on drums [were in Sweet Basil]. All those guys really took care of me.
Jon Gordon
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Earlier that year [1996], Ronnie Scott came to Visiones when I was playing with Maria and he hired me to come and play in his club in London, which I was gratified by. That allowed me to make some more connections.
Jon Gordon
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Many of the people I'm gratified to see have gotten acclaim like Mark Turner or Bill Charlap. Ed Simon or Maria Schneider or Jim McNeely or Scott Robinson. Ken Peplowski, who is a friend and somebody I admire a lot.
Jon Gordon
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Negative thoughts are the nails that build a prison of failure.
Jon Gordon
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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
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[Phil Wood] knew about wine. He knew about food. He knew about art. He knew about classical music. He was interested in things.
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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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
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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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When you believe, the impossible becomes possible. What you believe will become what is true. Your optimism today will determine your level of success tomorrow. Don’t look at your challenges look up and look out into the future. Don’t focus on your circumstances. Focus on the right beliefs that will help you build your success.
Jon Gordon
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I never really had a classical saxophone set-up. I just had a middle of the road set up.
Jon Gordon
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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
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All we can do is go about our work. But we can have a goal. We can have a dream.
Jon Gordon
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Phil [Wood] was very passionate. Very committed. He felt very blessed that the people that cared about him and took him aside... if he was out of line or drinking too much, being too surly.
Jon Gordon
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Larry [ Laurenzano] said to me one day near the end of junior high, Jon, are you Jewish? I said, No. And he said, Well neither am I. I'm not sure of Caesar DiMauro, but he teaches at the JCC and I got you a scholarship there.
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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The Monk competition did open some doors. And I was thankful for that.
Jon Gordon
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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
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I had made a couple of records in Europe. One as a leader, and one as a sideman before that. It was what it was. I started to work with Maria Schneider around that period and some other people, I started to get called to sub at the Vanguard in my mid-20s.
Jon Gordon
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A guy like Scott [Robinson] plays the whole history of music on every instrument you've ever heard of. He's just kind of an unparalleled genius.
Jon Gordon