John David Mann is an award-winning author whose books have sold more than 2 million copies, including the bestselling classic “The Go-Giver.” As a teenager, he started his own high school. His book Take the Lead was named by Tom Peters and the Washington Post “Best Leadership Book of 2011.”
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
None specific
When business started difficulties overcame:
“Of the 24 books I’ve written, most have not been successes in a business sense, now a book like the go giver has worked, in a business sense, a book like the red circle, my navy seal memoir, that’s been very successful, that hit the new York times list, that’s still going strong after 5 years so you hit a book every now and again that clicks and works and that is like a business that you start and 20 years later it’s still up and running and turning a profit, that’s beautiful, but for those 2 books to work, I’ve had to launch over a dozen books that I poured my heart into that never even earned back their advacnce”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Seth Godin Books
- Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action book by Simon Sinek
- Unleashing the Ideavirus book by Seth Godin
- Buckminster Fuller Books
- The New One Minute Manager Book by Ken Blanchard
- Neil Gaiman Books
- Kate Atkinson Books
- John Irving Books
Favourite Quote:
“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country, what I had was a coat, a hat and a gun, I put them on and went out of the room”
Recommended Online Resources:
Not asked
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“Trust yourself, trust your vision, your voice, your gut absolutely, trust the outcome is there, trust your own path, and at the same time don’t trust yourself, there are voices around you who know you better than you know yourself in some ways so learn to listen to them, lean on them, trust them, you have to do both, keep the door open keep the door closed”…[Listen for More]
More About John David Mann:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” Peter Drucker
Other Quotes From the Chat with John David Mann:
- “I need vast command of the English language, I need a vocabulary like John Bamvilles, I need to have read all of the great 17th, 18th and 19th century literature, I need a college education which by the way I never had, never went to college, I need this, I need that, I need an extensive online community, you know what I have is a coat a hat and a gun, I got the words I got, I got the skills I got”
- “There are all these clichés we have, do what you love and the money will follow, well that’s not necessarily true, you can do what you love and it turns out nobody on earth is interested in paying money for it, well then the money may not follow”
- “Steve Jobs love for calligraphy changed the world in terms of, we all know the word font, purely because he fell in love with calligraphy as a young man”
John David Mann
Many thanks, Neil — you are a true pro, and it was a pleasure bing on your podcast!
Neil Ball
Thank you John for your kind words. It was awesome chatting with you.