About Glynn Hodges

Glynn is an Executive Director with the John Maxwell Team and specializes in Coaching, speaking and Teaching leadership. He is the host of Chattanooga Self Improvement Meetup, a mastermind group that he founded in January of 2016 where he encourages members to experience the benefits of learning, sharing and being authentic. Glynn often says , " Authenticity is the great connector." He believes with all his heart that all individuals, with the ability to communicate, can live a fulfilling and successful life if they have a strong desire to make God smile, help others, set time sensitive goals they can visualize achieving and take massive action. Glynn enjoys inspiring others to achieve success, while making others greater, regardless of their current education, skill level or socioeconomic status. His passion and mission statement say it all - "Helping You to be the best you".

Glynn Hodges on the stage

Glynn Was A Country Boy, But Wanted More

I grew up in an agrarian community in Middle Georgia. Entertainment consisted of riding my horse, fishing in our lake and occasionally going to a movie about half an hour from home. Although I loved the freedom of this simple life, I knew that farming would not be my chosen profession.

Parents Inspired Me

Mom inspired me to read and learn about many professions. She also encouraged me to meet with doctors, attorneys, engineers and professional salesmen at an early age. I credit this for me not being intimidated to talk with anyone.

My parents handled adversity reasonably well. They were both survivors. Dad enlisted in the Navy when he was only seventeen years old. He was shipped to the South Pacific before he finished boot camp because of the demand for sailors during World War Two. The second year after enlisting he was reported missing in action in the South Pacific. He and several other sailors were in life rafts rescuing survivors from a ship that was sinking when their ship came under attack. The captain of Dad’s ship chose to leave the area to protect his ship and the hundreds of sailors on board.

A single parent raised mom. Mom’s Dad divorced her Mom when she was very young. Mom told me about her mom leading her by the hand through an opening where a fireplace once was after their home was destroyed by a tornado.

Dad Was a Survivor

My Dad was a third generation farmer. Farming is a tough industry. I remember Dad loosing his crops because of droughts or because of too much rain. Excessive rain after planting seeds will result in the seeds rotting in the furrows. One-year dad’s swine got infected with hog cholera. He lost a couple of hundred heads of swine. The initial loss was bad, but it meant the loss of this revenue stream for 5 years. Swine could not be raised on the land for at least five years after the stock had been infected. Dad always had a plan. He would focus on the future rather than wasting time morning his losses.

No matter how bad the losses or disappointments on the farm were, Mom would always say, “If there is a will there is a way.” She would pray and play the piano. This was the way she kept her mind positive. She read to me when I was small. She taught me to believe that I could accomplish anything in life I wanted to do if it was for a worthy cause. She and Dad taught me to strive for excellence in everything I did.

Glynn Hodges and his wife

Law of Attraction

My first experience with the Law of Attraction was my junior year at the University of Georgia, although at the time, I had never heard of such a law. I took a part time job at the Athens Country Club after giving much thought to where I should work and the benefits of meeting influential people. The golf pro asked me help him run the golf shop after I had worked for about three months waiting on tables. One of the first regular golfers that I met was Mr. Ray. He was always courteous, but spoke with a very commanding voice. When he talked, people listened. He called me junior and most every week would ask me when I was going to work for him. I would just smile and say that I had to finish college first.

Glynn Accepts Position With Westinghouse

I surprised him one day about three months before I was graduating from UGA when I said, “ “What do you have in mind, Mr. Ray?” He gave me his card and asked me to call him on Monday morning. He said that we would have lunch at the plant and he would take me on a tour. I learned that he was the Marketing Manager for the Westinghouse Electric Corp. facility in Athens, Georgia. It was the largest facility dedicated to making overhead distribution transformers under one roof in the world.

He made me an offer of employment that Monday. It was in the top ten percent of my graduating class. I accepted it on the spot. My peers were either mechanical or electrical engineers. I had a degree in journalism with minors in marketing and advertising. This didn’t bother me although I didn’t know what a watt or amp was.

I began to get the itch to move from marketing into field sales after about 6 years. Mr. Ray arranged an interview with a District Manager, Bob Greame, in the field sales organization. Fortunately I knew Bob. He had a position open in Richmond, Virginia. I flew up to Richmond and was offered the position and accepted it after talking with my wife, Barbara, my college sweetheart.

Glynn Achieves Goal of Selling Home and Business

Barbara remained in Athens with our three-month-old daughter. She also had to look after our restaurant in a one hundred year old colonial home that we had purchased a few years earlier. I told my manager that I was confident that I could sell my home, the restaurant and the colonial house within three months if I could commute for that period of time. He agreed and I accomplished this goal in precisely three months.

Climbing Corporate Ladder

The position in Richmond allowed me to really stretch and learn. Three years into this position and I was offered a sales management position with Westinghouse in Chattanooga, TN. This was an awesome opportunity with a more compact higher volume territory with distributor sales people that I was responsible for training to sell our products. I sold the higher ticket items, usually a million dollars and up, direct to the electric utilities.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

In 1984 I sensed that another move was on the horizon if I wanted to continue to climb the corporate ladder. Barbara and I had two children by then. We decided that we did not want to continue moving every three to four years.

I really wanted to become an entrepreneur, so resigned from Westinghouse, rented an office and purchased a used desk, file cabinets and a two-line Radio Shack phone. This was the humble beginning of my executive search business. I had no experience and built it from ground zero by myself. I hired a consultant and coach for the first year. It was six months before I made a dime.

Collect My First Fee

A check for $26,500, the fee for my first completed search arrived the day my family and I were leaving for a vacation week in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The pump was primed for my business now and I began to make placements almost every month.

Was Life About To Be Over?

I was traveling north on Highway 58 about 9:00 am on September 15 of 1985. I was going to pick up a real-estate contract for a rental house that I had sold. My search business was great and I was selling a house. Life was good! I felt as though I was on top of the world. I admired Chickamauga Lake as I drove past it. The water was as smooth as glass. I remember saying, “God what a great day to be alive” as I looked at the reflection of the sun and cloudless blue sky on the water.

A few minutes after this, I was traveling up a hill on this two-lane road in my little Ford truck when suddenly I saw a large Buick in my lane. It was passing an eighteen-wheeler.

My euphoric feeling instantly dissipated and I remember saying, “ My God, this is it.” I was certain that my life was about to end. I instinctively grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and swerved toward the shoulder of the road. The driver of the huge Buick made the same move, resulting in a head on collision. The large Buick was so heavy that it forced my vehicle to turn over 360 degrees and around 360 degrees. My truck finally came to a stop. I was alive, but badly hurt.

My left leg was broken in two places; the worst break was a longitudinal break to the femur running all the way to my hip. Two hours passed by the time emergency crews freed me from the vehicle. I can hear the terrible noise as the Jaws of Life made an opening for me to be removed from the vehicle. I was hospitalized for nine days after the surgery because of severe internal bruising.

Since Barbara stayed home with our children, I was the only source of income. I had to work, but I was far too weak to go to the office plus I was taking lots of narcotics.

Found The Seed Of Hope

I prayed and thought. A quote from Napoleon Hill’s book, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, surfaced.

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it a seed of hope with the equivalent or greater value.”  I began searching for the seed of hope in my situation. I was alive, my brain worked and I had use of my voice and hands. I knew I could work from home after a couple of weeks.

Barbara purchased me a large lounge chair, and had it delivered. She went to my office and gathered files and placed them in boxes and positioned them around my chair on stools. I ordered another phone line and I was in business again.

My lack of stamina forced me to learn how to work smart. I couldn’t work ten and twelve hour days. I learned to do what I call "operating in the zone". I thought, planned and allowed nothing to distract me when I began working.

My strategy worked. I billed my clients almost $100,000 in the last quarter of 1985.

Reading the Bible and motivational books was part of my daily schedule. I learned that personal development was as necessary to my success as oxygen was for living. I listened to Zig Ziglar cassette tapes. I was doing what Zig advised in my work. I was helping people to get what they wanted. I can hear Zig’s voice now just as clearly as I could at the many live events I hard him speak, “ You can get everything you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

From the first time I heard Zig Ziglar speak, I knew that I wanted to learn to coach, motivate and inspire large numbers of people. That dream is now a reality.

I began helping more people when I added another division to my international executive search business. In July of 1990, I opened a temporary staffing company. The business grew rapidly. Within three years I had two additional offices. I was now helping more people; I helped a variety of people including my staff and new clients that I educated on how to properly use a staffing service. There were many companies in those days that did not know how to properly use a staffing service.

My Challenge With Adversity

If you are knowledgeable of the economy, you know that every few years there are economic downturns. For many businesses this means a loss of revenue and tightening of the belt. I learned how to navigate these downturns and found positive benefits. One benefit was that usually one or more competitors would close their doors and we would grow faster during the upturn.

This was not my experience in the down turn of 2008-2010. I was not focused with a plan to guide my company through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Over 100,000 businesses in the United States closed. Mine was one of the statistics. The economy was not the real reason for the failure of my business. I was the cause of my business failing. I was not focused with a plan that I shared with my employees. My company was like a ship in the middle of the ocean without a rudder.

Found the Seed of Hope Again

The closure of my business was one of the most painful experiences that I have ever endured. This experience allowed me to find another seed of hope that Napoleon Hill wrote about. The seed of hope is allowing me to do what I have wanted to do all my life. My experiences give me the confidence and credibility to help even more people.

My parents were survivors. They passed along to me the will to not only survive but to succeed. They encouraged me to push myself and to be the best I could be at what ever I did. I learned hat extraordinary success for me is only possible with a strong faith in God and continuous learning while helping others and giving unselfishly. I revised Mom’s quote. I say, “If there is the will to excel, there is a way.”

Love What You Do and You Will Be Successful

Every morning I wake up excited knowing that I will help someone to make his or her dreams a reality through, coaching, speaking or teaching. I thank the John Maxwell Team for helping me to realize my goal.

How much do I love what I do? I love it so much I would do it for free if I could because the more people I help the greater the rewards. I like what Greg S. Reid, motivational speaker and filmmaker and author of Three Feet From Gold said when I interviewed him, “ If you do what you love and love what you do, you will have success your whole life through.”

Below is my mantra, the mission statement of my company:

Helping you to be the best you.

I’m excited about the possibilities we can make realities together.

How may I serve you?

Get the latest news and updates from Glynn

Would like to keep your finger on the pulse for the latest news and updates from Glynn Hodges? Feel free to drop your name and email below. We will not bother you with multiple emails. We promise ;)

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form