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Florida-Times Union
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Moe's to motivation, Jon Gordon seemingly finds a way to do it all By Timothy J. Gibbons At 9:30 a.m., the smell of grilled meat fills the air. Chairs are still stacked on tables at the Tinseltown Moe's Southwest Grill, and a woman stands alone in front of the grill, the place otherwise empty. By noon, though, the restaurant will be filled with customers clamoring for burritos and pondering which of the iced teas they should try. The place has only been open for two years and has already spawned two more Jacksonville locations, with a fourth on the way, said local franchise owner Jon Gordon. And each of the existing locations are among the top 10 revenue-generators in the chain. "Jacksonville has embraced us, has embraced Moe's," said the 32-year-old Gordon. "Everyone says now that Southwest is the trend. I saw it back then. But I didn't know it would do this well." Now, with the success of his restaurants having cemented his place in the local business community, Gordon is shifting his attention to his fledging motivational business: By the end of the summer, he plans to be on a national tour, promoting his new book, Becoming an Energy Addict, scheduled to be be published Sept. 1 by Longstreet Press. Gordon, then the director of business development for an Atlanta wireless software company, moved to Jacksonville about two years ago, looking for a place to raise a family. "We were living in fast-paced Atlanta, which was really good when we were first married," recalled his wife, Kathryn. Once the couple started having kids, though, they discussed relocating to somewhere with a slightly slower way of life. "I grew up in Virginia Beach and know how wonderful it is to live by the beach," Kathryn said. The couple came to Jacksonville to look around and fell in love with the place, putting a deposit down on a house. When Gordon returned to the Atlanta office later that week and told his boss he was moving, the company agreed to let him telecommute. Having been involved with several restaurants in Atlanta, he also contemplated getting into the food business here but had decided against it. One night he and his wife went to a movie at Tinseltown, where he had considered opening a Moe's. When he walked out of the theater and saw the number of cars in the parking lot, he went home and called the franchising company. That location now has the chain's highest revenue per square foot. His restaurants in San Marco and at the Beaches are also in the top 10 in sales. Although Gordon's restaurants have proven successful, things looked much more bleak about 18 months ago. The company he had telecommuted for during his first six months here went through a series of downsizings, costing him his job, and with only a few months of savings in the bank and most of his money committed to a restaurant that wouldn't open for a week, Gordon was himself on the verge of collapse. "If Moe's didn't make it, we'd go bankrupt. When I lost my job, I went upstairs to my home office and basically just fell apart," he said. "I surrendered. I said, 'God, please guide me.'" It was then he realized, he said, that everything happens for a reason. Believing that, he said, "allows good things to happen." The entire experience also provided the basis for his Energy Addict seminars. "It's not the experiences, it's how you process experiences," Gordon said. "The Energy Addict is successful because I talk about my own past." The success is also because Gordon lives what he teaches, said those who know him. "Rarely do you come across someone who has the energy he does," said Bob Leonard, the president of Encore Technology. "You rarely hear anything negative from Jon. Even when there's something not necessarily positive happening, he always has a positive attitude. It's addictive, quite frankly." Ron Mosco, who will be taking over in June as director of operations for Gordon's restaurants, agreed. "He's very inspirational," Mosco said. "It's what he says and how he talks to you -- he talks in a way that makes a lot of sense. He talks at you and with you, not above you." As the Energy Addict name implies, Gordon's seminars, Web site -- jongordon.com -- and upcoming book focus on helping people gain more energy. Everything is about energy, Gordon stresses, leading him to exhort people to eat right, breathe properly, eschew negative thinking and smile more. "If you can change your thought patterns, you can change your energy," Gordon said. "You can change the world around you." Although the seminars are becoming Gordon's main focus, he's not abandoning the restaurant business. The city will be getting more Moe's in the years to come, but they'll be set up by Leonard, whom Gordon approached -- when he decided he didn't want to grow beyond four locations -- about taking over the rest of the North Florida market. The two Moe's groups will be separate companies, although they will cooperate in marketing. "In this market, everyone's heard of Moe's and heard of Jon Gordon," Leonard said. "It will help us tremendously." Leonard, Gordon and Brad Chasteen, a partner of Leonard's, will also join together in bringing Mama Fu's Noodle Houses -- a Pan Asian quick service eatery franchised by Moe's parent company -- to Jacksonville. "He's a great person to work for," said Mosco, who will help oversee the new venture. "You don't work for Jon, you work with Jon. Jon brings out the best in people." And that's what the energy addict himself is helping to do for more people as he takes his message to a national audience. "The restaurants are to provide for my family. The seminar business is for me," Gordon said. "I was born to energize people." Staff writer Timothy J. Gibbons can be reached at (904) 359-4103 or via e-mail at tgibbonsjacksonville.com.
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