Jon Cobb

JON COBB COACHING

Founder and CEO

Harvard Innovation Labs

• Led a tech startup team to win the Harvard Business School Pitch Day competition out of 56 teams

Innovation Team Lead

Deloitte Consulting

• Presented to executive leaders at a conference on the future of work and change management 
• Spearheaded a new machine learning tool that worked with LinkedIn to rank candidates
• Amplified veteran resource groups and veteran recruiting efforts across Deloitte

Transformation Leader

US Government

Operations Manager

United States Marine Corps

Scout Sniper Team Leader

I get six-figure professionals hired faster without the stress

Jon Cobb is a Marine Corps combat veteran, entrepreneur, LinkedIn Top Voice for Leadership, and 2x Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt Master World Champion. 

After returning from back-to-back deployments to Iraq, Jon found himself homeless and unemployed. By developing a clear vision for his life and building a team of experts around him, Jon worked his way through community colleges and dead-end jobs to ultimately graduate from Harvard and become a trusted advisor for some of the most-respected companies in the world.

Jon has coached 100s of leaders to unlock their full potential and trained more than 20,000 managers around the world to win in life and business.

Here are the Top 10 challenges Jon helps people overcome:
- Self-doubt
- Lack of a clear vision for their life and business
- Difficulty developing effective action plans
- Bad habits and lack of motivation
- Stress balancing work, fitness, family, and fun
- Difficult business challenges
- Difficult company cultures
- Time management challenges
- Team communication, motivation, and effectiveness challenges
- Slow company growth

Some people are the nicest bosses in the world - until something goes wrong. Then they do a 180 and transfer whatever pressure is on them to you, ghost you after you're laid off, or let you take the blame for their mistake.

People are watching what you do when things go wrong. Those are the moments that truly matter. 

If you do the hard thing in the hard moments, people will remember it forever. 

If you do the easy thing in the hard moments, people will remember that forever, too.

Founder and CEO of Apex Executive Search ▪️ 4x Top Voice for Leadership and Coaching ▪️ Top 1% TEDx Speaker ▪️ Harvard Center for Public Leadership Fellow

Most leaders first reaction when they're asked a question is to answer it.

Whatever you do, don't do that.

If you do, then you'll train people to come to you with every problem and for you to think for them.

Instead, you want to train people to think, decide, and act on their own.

You want to help people develop good judgment and self-confidence.

Here are better responses than answering their question:

1. What do you think we should do?
2. What are our options?
3. I trust you. Do whatever you think is best.
4. I hired you because you're smarter than me. You tell me.
5.  What are the factors at play here?

I get it. There are a lot of reasons why you might be tired of doing something or working long hours or hitting a dead end.

But when doing something makes you feel dead inside, you're way off course.

And, sure, you can push through for a while. Just know that the time it takes you to recover from burnout grows exponentially the farther you drive off the tracks. 

You're much better off facing your burnout head on and figuring out exactly what's wrong before it consumes you.

I used to focus on what I wanted to be. When that exact version of my life didn't happen, though, I had trouble letting go for years. My identity, my purpose, and my happiness were all wrapped up in this story I had scripted for my life.

In fact, I was so wrapped up in what I wanted to be that I forgot to be who I wanted to be.

As Viktor Frankl once wrote, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

I had to get back to becoming a person I would respect - the type of person that lived with the discipline, faith, and conviction that I cared about so much.

Changing who you are rarely happens overnight, but that feeling of getting back on the path to success - of becoming who you were meant to be more and more each day - is the best feeling in the world. 

So here's my advice: Figure out who you want to be - who you would be proud of being - and hammer away at that every single day. 

And, if you do, you might be surprised what opportunities come your way, too.

You could be a 20-year cop, but there will still be a steep learning curve if you move to a new department.

You could be a rockstar at your tech company, but what made you successful there might not work the same way everywhere else.

Moving to a new team can rock your world, but that doesn't mean you should stay where it's safe because, chances are, you stopped growing there a long time ago.

The most successful people are the ones who constantly test themselves, embrace change, and make sure they keep growing at all costs.

Every company should study the people who do the same work as everyone else in half the time. Some of them might be slackers who found ways to cut corners, but even they can teach you a lot about streamlining processes and eliminating red tape.

Then you have those people who found the skeleton key. They are experts at actually getting things done instead of just looking like they're getting things done. 

Protect those people at all costs.

I thought I was clever because I went to school when I didn't need to.

I figured that, if I was going to keep learning anyway, I might as well get formal credit for learning.

Pretty smart, right?

No.

Needing and wanting to learn more became my excuse to avoid building a business or getting a real job. 

I went to 9 universities and racked up 5 pieces of paper before I realized that trying to learn everything was a colossal waste of time. 

The only thing that matters is knowing how to do whatever you need to do right now.

You'll probably forget 90% of what you learn, so focus on executing and learn as needed.

Sure, it's good to read books, but trying to learn everything before you execute will lead to disappointing results.

I would rather hire a rockstar with related skills than someone good who's done the exact job. 

I get it, though. People are busy and no one has time to get the new person up to speed. That's why job postings say things like, "We need someone who can hit the ground running."

Translation: We're not interested in helping you succeed here. You better be able to figure it out on your own.

Is it good for someone to add value from day one? Sure.

Should that be the only consideration when you're filling a role? Of course not.

I'd say that even a modest willingness to train someone up would result in 90% of positions being filled twice as fast.

That means no critical roles left unfilled for months.
No hiring managers wasting their time with countless interviews looking for a unicorn.
No great candidates having their time wasted by companies that are too scared to make a decision and hire someone.

Increase your commitment to helping new hires succeed, hire for real potential rather than short-sighted value-add, and stop hesitating to hire people based solely on exact role matches.

I had something eating me alive, but I refused to talk to my coach about it.

It was just too messy, ridiculous, and seemingly unimportant.

It was all I could think about, though.

Finally, I put it out there one day.

I can't say it fixed everything right away, but something incredible did happen:

I stopped obsessing over it. 

I can't explain why or how talking about it helped me let go of the frustration I had building up, but talking about it did the trick.

If you have something eating you up inside, then you need to talk to someone about it. Don't let that stuff fester inside you.

You know what feels good?

Having great brand names, titles, and accomplishments on your resume.

But do you know what joy feels like?

Knowing you were there for the people in your life when they needed you.

Knowing deep down that you were brave enough to bet on yourself and take a big risk.

Watching your kids give each other a hug.

If your perfect resume came at the cost of those things, then it might be time to reconsider everything.

Leaders who want to be the center of decision-making teach people to depend on them for everything.

When you do that, people stop thinking for themselves. They become gophers who bring all of their problems to you.

Then you wonder why everything is on fire all the time and everyone on your team is so incompetent. It's because you trained them to be like that.

Cultivating people's natural abilities takes a little bit longer, but the result is 100x. 

Be in the business of bringing out the best in people. It's one of the most rewarding things you can do in life.

When I left the Marine Corps 15 years ago, my transition assistance class basically boiled down to an ultimatum:

"If you don’t want to become a commercial truck driver, then you should reenlist."

I had no roadmap, no network, and no real guidance. 

To be honest, I struggled through it alone for years.

It felt like doing land nav at night with no moon out.

And what made it worse was realizing later on that there were a lot of people and resources out there that could have helped me, but that I didn’t know about when I needed them.

Unfortunately, my experience isn’t unique. Every year, thousands of veterans transition without the guidance, tools, and support they deserve.
Military transition has come a long way since then, but there's still a tremendous amount of work left to do.

That’s why I’m joining VetSync AI as a Strategic Advisor.
VetSync is building the most user-friendly operating system for America’s veterans. It's a one-stop-shop that brings together all of the resources and opportunities scattered across the #DoD, the #VA, Veteran Service Organizations, universities, and employers.

And it's 100% free for veterans.

Big thank you to Alec E. and Taylor Carroll for bringing me onto the team. 

I can't wait to give veterans all of the tools and resources we didn't have.

VetSync AI

CEO VetSync AI | Building Tech That Fights for Veterans

Founder @ VetSync AI | Air Force Veteran | Columbia Political Science

25 years ago, I walked out class in the middle of my presentation because the pressure got to me.

If you told that kid that someday his TEDx Talk, "Why Great Leaders Fail" would be recognized as one of the best in TED history and be named an Editor's Pick, I wouldn't have believed you.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me so far on this journey!

I'll share the link in a few minutes.

Happy Thanksgiving from Biscuit and Alice!

Please rate my cherry pie. I made this from scratch all by myself.

The idea that you can ignore your health while you build your bank account isn't one that most people make consciously, but it might as well be.

The reality is that it's not an ultimatum, though. You don't have to choose one or the other.

Taking care of your health will give you the energy and mental clarity to crush your work.

And success at work will give you the money to take care of your health.

The choice between financial fitness and physical fitness isn't one you have to make. You need both, and they support each other.

How we see the world around us determines our opportunities. 

Some people view their environment with a fixed conclusion like, "This is the only job I could get" or, "I don't know how to do anything else.

Other people ask questions - and some questions are better than others.

I used to ask a question that I thought was pretty good, which was, "Why can't I seem to get ahead?"

While this questions tries to identify the barriers holding me back, it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy. It focused on the negative, which creates a barrier. 

Now I ask questions like, "What am I going to do RIGHT NOW that is going to take me to the next level?" or, "How can I leverage my strengths and the resources I have RIGHT NOW to unlock incredible opportunities?"

The words we use matter, and the way we frame our reality becomes our reality. 

Decide to create your environment and the future you want by first asking the right questions.

The most common response I get when I tell people to try something new is, "But what if it doesn't work out?"

And the answer to that is, of course, "Maybe it won't."


Two things happen when you try something and fail.

First, you learn from the experience.
Second, you learn that failure isn't fatal.

Two things happen when you try something and succeed, too.

First, you learn from the experience.
Second, you learn that there are hidden opportunities out there just waiting for you to find them.

You start to think of life as an island full of buried treasure waiting to be dug up instead of a small oasis surrounded by an uncrossable desert.

And, maybe it's just me, but I'd rather have a life full of rich experiences - some great, some not so great -  than sit safely on the shore afraid of setting sail.

Take risks.
Learn along the way.
Create some stories to tell your grandkids.

For years, I didn't care about sales. I thought of it as something that a small group of people did at some companies to push their products and services. It was just one approach some companies took instead of or in addition to marketing and advertising.

I don't know how I could be so naive, but I was. 

First, I've learned that sales isn't about tricking someone into buying what you have. It's about creating an opportunity to help them more. 

If you can change your perspective to see sales as helping people, then everything starts to fall into place. 

Second, I've learned that selling is a critical skillset for pretty much everyone. 

You won't get promoted if you don't know how to sell the value you provide to the company.

You won't get hired in the first place if you don't know how to sell the value you could provide.

You can't be a good leader if you don't know how to persuade (or sell) people.

And, of course, every single business needs to sell products or services to survive and grow.

Sales can take a lot of different forms, but EVERYONE needs to learn how to be an advocate for their ideas, their products, and/or their services.

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