48. (S2E12) The 2% Mentality with Roderick Jefferson

[00:00:00] Lori Saitz: Hello, and welcome to Fine is a 4-Letter Word. My guest today is Roderick Jefferson, and I am so happy to have you

[00:00:09] Roderick Jefferson: absolutely honored. Can't wait to jump in with you.

[00:00:16] Lori Saitz: All right. Well, let's get right into it then. And start with the first question. I always like to ask my guests, which is what were the values and beliefs that you were raised with? That contributed to you becoming

[00:00:30] Roderick Jefferson: There are four.

[00:00:31] Lori Saitz: in adulthood.

[00:00:32] Roderick Jefferson: They are faith, family, friends, and fun. And those have not shifted since I was a little kid.

[00:00:42] Lori Saitz: Okay. And like, tell me more about how those were instilled in you.

[00:00:47] Roderick Jefferson: They were instilled by my mom and you'll probably hear me quote her quite a few times throughout this. So buckle in and prepare. This is a woman that, and I always believed in and said that if my mom didn't like someone they're just not liked, you must have to do some really crazy stuff.

My mom was one of those people that can find the best in anyone and her faith was always foundational of everything. And then it, I was always taught that no matter what happens inside of your family, You're stuck with them. You may not like them, but you still are stuck with having them. So you've got to work through things and figure out how to work things out.

And then the friendship thing, I've always been a people person. So it's always been about having a very small, tight network of folk, but these are people that I trust intrinsically and we'll share everything under the sun, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. And I expect the same thing back from them. And just as I've grown throughout life, if I can't have fun with, on it with something with it, then as you.

say, your, your forward four letter word, forget it.

[00:01:57] Lori Saitz: Okay. All right. I feel like you have, you have that same ability of making people feel comfortable wherever you

[00:02:08] Roderick Jefferson: my goal has always been as a person and then secondarily as an executive and a leader. I've always believed that I'm successful. One by making more people successful. The second piece is I've never believed that I'm important because I wrapped my arms around things.

I think we're all extremely important because we open up and allow to share and be your authentic self. Right. And know the last piece is if I can help someone's journey be just a little bit better, maybe not easier, but a little better. And I can give one person a smile, even if it's the person that is serving me at a restaurant and the people that are invisible, the mail carriers, the folks that are doing the garbage cans.

If I can give those folks a smile that may be the only smile that someone gives them all day or shows them that they're not in this.

[00:03:05] Lori Saitz: Yes, that's so important. And you know, we talk about that a lot in my first business and the business, I run now about that whole, uh, showing people that they have value.

[00:03:16] Roderick Jefferson: not just important it's imperative these days. There has never been a time, I think, in the history of the world where empathy and humanity, and truly connecting with people. And I'm not talking about getting connections on social media, because one, I think social media has made all of us less sociable, but I believe that making true connections, I can put my fingers on probably 15 people from high school. That I'm still connected with, and that was a long time ago. And so to still be connected with those folks and have them in your inner circle and to have been through the ups downs, the ins, the outs, the divorces, the whens, the babies, the depths, all those things speak volumes to how important.

[00:04:09] Lori Saitz: You and I are on the same page there, and I have the same, the connections with, uh, some of my friends since we were babies in a crib and through school and through university and everything. Yeah. And that's not everybody has the ability to maintain those connections. I think a lot of people want to, but they, they need somebody like you or me

[00:04:32] Roderick Jefferson: Oh, I agree. There, there has to be one. Yeah. You're right. There has to be one person that constantly kind of herds the fleas. If you will, to get everybody back together on the same page. And I've always believed that, um, we should get together at times other than funerals, because after every funeral, what do we all say?

You know what? Let's not be the next time we get together the next funeral. And then, well, you know, we're at another funeral together. So I try and reach out and go, it's not a funeral, but we should probably get together before. There's another. So that we can talk about not getting together only at a funeral.

[00:05:10] Lori Saitz: Yeah. Yeah. Let's bring the conversation back since the show is called Fine is a 4-Letter Word to the first experience you had. So you said in the, in the intro part that one of your key beliefs and values is fun. So I have to ask you, no, I want you to tell the story first, and then I'm going to ask you the question.

Um, the first time everything was fine in your life, but it really wasn't fine. That, that story of, um, in, in

[00:05:47] Roderick Jefferson: and in 2000.

where I thought everything was good and then I suddenly one day. So in a quick story, we all check our laptops on Sunday nights, getting ready for the preview the next week. Well, I was checking my laptop, checking my email and I woke up face down. On my laptop and I thought, oh, something's wrong here.

And I just didn't feel right. And it felt like vertigo. I was a bit off and might've been balanced. Well, I asked my wife to take me to, um, the emergency to go get checked. Well, as I was bending over to tie my shoes, the lights went out, literally my brain shut off because of an enormous amount of stress and being overloaded and just the amount of things that were going on professionally and. And fast forward, I'm taking it to the hospital and, um, I wake up and it's literally, so this was November, 2000. I woke up in February. I had been in a coma and a medically induced coma for this long. They had me on Vicodin, Valium, Percocet, Demerol, and elbow, all concurrently because my brain began to swell.

And we were just about a week away from going in to do. A cut into my brain to relieve the swelling of my brain. And even to this day on my right-hand side of my head, right behind my ear, I've got a lump because my brain had began to squeeze and it was pushing against the inside of my cranium. And what I learned was, um, there is no job that's worth your life.

And I thought, everything's fine because you know what? We all walked around with a badge of courage. Oh, I worked 60 hours or 70 hours, or I just do whatever it takes. Quote, unquote, to get. Well, this is one of those times where I look back on it and go, I saw the warning signs, but I didn't listen. My body told me you need to slow down.

So I have come to the conclusion. If you do not slow down, your body will find a way to shut it down. And you don't want your mind to turn off.

[00:07:49] Lori Saitz: every, every time. Yeah. So now that brings me to the question of where you having fun back then?

[00:07:57] Roderick Jefferson: Oh. Oh, I was in a great deal of fun I was loving, I was flying around the world. Uh, you know, we had done a tour and we'd done London, Paris, Geneva, Sao Paulo, Toronto, Beijing, Hong Kong, and, and Sydney all in 18 months. And at that time that was my idea of fun. I was going to see the world and I was doing it on corporate jets and we were on corporate helicopters and, and, you know, it was amazing, but what I didn't realize. subconsciously I was loving the travel, but I was missing out on the life of my family. And one day it just suddenly hit me. And I literally broke down into tears and I was like, I'm sitting in this beautiful palace here in Kahn, Monte Carlo, and I have nothing but pictures to show my family. My kids are growing up.

I come home. Sparingly to, you know, get my dry cleaning changed and catch up with my family and try and help my kids with their homework. And before I knew it, I was gone again. So one, my wife said I didn't, she didn't sign up to be a single mom. And secondly, there was an enormous amount of resentment in both of my kids, because that's not there for all of the things, the activities at school, he's not there to, to coach them in sports.

He's not there to help with them. And then I just thought, you know what? This is just not worth it. And so I changed companies later and I had settled down. And then what do you know? I stepped right back into that same routine because of my position. I stepped right back in the same thing. And it just started that same problem all over.

[00:09:41] Lori Saitz: Where you, so you were seeing the

[00:09:43] Roderick Jefferson: Oh, I w I, I was

[00:09:45] Lori Saitz: or you just.

[00:09:46] Roderick Jefferson: warning signs that I was also seeing that I was overstretched my brain and my self physically, but this time I actually stopped it and slowed it down and started meditation and made sure that I was doing. Um, yeah, date nights with my wife and I had specific time with each of the kids that I was spinning and I was coaching them in athletics again and going to their activities, but I wasn't always present as a problem.

I was there physically, but Hey dad, can you get off your phone? Hey dad, I know you've got to take these calls. Hey dad, can you stay in for the entire basketball game instead of leaving at half times, and you have to go and do work stuff and you know, it's something. I don't wish that on anyone. So for those that have those small kids, my kids are older now they're 32 and 24. I wish I could go back to that time, but you don't get a do over in life. You don't get the restart button and looking at this in hindsight. And I heard them both say these exact words, dad, we would have wished that we had less money and a different life. And we've given that up to have you here. We wanted you, it wasn't the lifestyle we wanted you present.

[00:11:08] Lori Saitz: I was just saw something earlier today about it was an article about gratitude and how having a gratitude journal became just another thing on this person's checklist. And it sounds like, so you were doing the things, the

[00:11:26] Roderick Jefferson: I had a journal as well.

[00:11:28] Lori Saitz: um, you know, going to the games,

[00:11:30] Roderick Jefferson: was just, it became a checkbox.

[00:11:32] Lori Saitz: All right. But it was all just a checklist.

Yeah. Like another thing on the to-do list and it wasn't really a feeling of it so much

[00:11:41] Roderick Jefferson: Oh, it was definitely a

[00:11:42] Lori Saitz: a task.

[00:11:43] Roderick Jefferson: Even with the journal. It was, oh man, I've got to make sure it's eight o'clock. I have to go write in my journal and I have to come up with my three to four. And that's not really living, that's just existing. And the more you exist, the more you start to lose who you are.

And I realized that I had allowed what I do in my job to overcome and, and overtake who I was, which was friend, husband, father, brother, et cetera. Instead I'd become that title or that ambassador of that logo or something. That I was tied to at the time.

[00:12:25] Lori Saitz: How do you advise people now who are in those, in that, that career? You know, ladder on that career ladder. I mean, would you have listened if you had, if you from now came back to you 20 years ago, would you have listened?

[00:12:46] Roderick Jefferson: if I would have been given examples of what was going to happen, if I didn't listen. Right. So here here's an example. We always talk about ROI, right? The return on investment, but I've realized in. Was them from agent stage. That's only half the equation. There's another piece.

There's something called COI now, which is the cost of inaction. And that is what happens if you do nothing to change what you're doing right now, what is that going to turn into? And I didn't realize that what I was doing was essentially, I was like a wave on a rock. I was chipping away with every wave.

It was destabilizing my stability of life. Right. And, and so they could have shown me that experience. Yeah. I would have listened. And how would I, what do I would tell folks now, first and foremost, never allow what you do to overtake who you are, because it's very easy to do. And it happens before you realize it, especially as you're fighting to ladder climb in your career, and you're trying to advance financial aid, et cetera.

The other piece is, um, and this was a hard one to learn corporate America. Entrepreneurship also is here to make a profit. It's not here to make friends. We are all interchangeable parts. I have been released three times in my career, not for performance, but because of reorg and you know what, even as I was talking about earlier, the company I was in, where I was flying around the world with the CEO and we're on the corporate jet and I got riffed, I got re really. And he didn't even realize it was, I was gone right until it was time for the next time. And it was time for us to fly and unbeknownst to him, all of my passwords at the time were something that only meant something to me. So he didn't even know how to get into his own laptop for presenters. Cause I, I ran what the, his presenter. And he called me on a Friday. Fortunately I was back on, um, payroll by Monday and we were on a plane by Tuesday again, but you know, my mom used to say something and she'd asked me all the time, you know, when your CEO was on vacation. And I said, no, I have no idea. He just kind of comes and goes. She said, yeah, but think about this.

If the garbage man or the plumber doesn't come for one to two weeks, you'd notice that wouldn't you. And I said, yeah, she goes, nothing. Who, and what is really important in life. Don't let that job become who you are and override who you are. Just allow it to be what you do. It is something that provides from a very lifestyle, lovely lifestyle for my family, but it's no longer what I do or who I am.

[00:15:35] Lori Saitz: When did you come to this philosophy?

[00:15:38] Roderick Jefferson: this was early two thousands, and then I, as we, as we all do, Lori, I forgot about how tough that was. And then it happened all over again.

[00:15:54] Lori Saitz: Before we get to that, I want to ask you, were you, how were you incorporating this philosophy into your leadership? Of teams, like where you encouraging your, your people to take vacations, to do these, do you know, practice gratitude, do these

[00:16:18] Roderick Jefferson: Uh, are you saying today or throughout my career?

[00:16:23] Lori Saitz: No. Between 2000 and yeah. Throughout your

[00:16:28] Roderick Jefferson: And there were times where I would go to my leaders or folks on my team and say, you know what? I can see that you're running red line. It's real hot right now for you. And I can see that you need. Take a couple of days off, take a long weekend, whatever it may be. And I also instituted something in that time period with my team that I called off the grid.

And that was, if you need to go take care of a dentist or your child has something going, I'll play in the middle of the day, or you need to go in. And, you know, one guy had to, he was selling his home and he needed to go sign paperwork. I said, don't take time off. Allow the rest of the team, communicate with us and let us know that you're going to be out that way I can always cover.

The other thing I had to do was you can't just say it. You have to model it. So I started doing those things myself, as I needed to go take care of things, because what's important to your manager or your leader is imperative to you. And they're not going to listen to what I say. They're going to do what I modeled for them.

[00:17:35] Lori Saitz: Exactly just right. I mean, I don't want to necessarily compare team members to children, but it's the, it is this, it is similar. You can say all you want and if you're not actually doing it, then they don't really think, you

[00:17:50] Roderick Jefferson: and they're going to follow what you do and to your point, it's, it's, it's a lot like children because, and I I'm always believed that I'm not building a team. I'm not building an org. I'm building a family. When I start building out my, even my professional teams and I treat them as such. And so showing them this thing. it means something because it's actionable, even with the folks that are now part of my leadership tree that have gone from individual contributor all the way up to VP and executive, they now take that off the grid with them too, as a part of their leadership team and other things that, you know, we shared and they've seen me do. So it's amazing. And it's more like children than you realize. And that is, there's an old adage and goes this way. Little, um, little pictures have big eyes. And what that means is everything that they see is watching you all the time, even when you don't even realize you're being watched.

[00:18:51] Lori Saitz: Um, were you supported by your, uh, superiors in this

[00:18:57] Roderick Jefferson: never share. It was something that I use with my team. I didn't go and say, Hey, I've got this off the grid thing. No, but what I did do is let them know that when my people have too much on their plate is when I step in to kind of intervene. And I'll say, X, Y, Z person is kid just can not take on another task.

And if we're going to give him or her something, then we've got to agree as leaders. What are we going to take off of their plate? Because we can't just keep piling them.

[00:19:29] Lori Saitz: Hmm. That's not

[00:19:33] Roderick Jefferson: Thank you.

[00:19:34] Lori Saitz: in court.

[00:19:34] Roderick Jefferson: I try my damnedest not to be typical.

[00:19:39] Lori Saitz: I mean, I've heard so many, not to be common. I've heard so many stories from, from people and from connections on LinkedIn, from clients, wherever about how that's not the environment in a lot of companies, it's pushed them as hard as you can to get the most out of them in terms of productivity and. Um, yeah, accountability and all of that.

And it's astounding to me how managers don't realize how counterproductive that

[00:20:14] Roderick Jefferson: know, it goes back to my adage of corporate America is.

here to make a profit, not. The I'll say they look out for people. Do they care about people that's debatable? And we all talk about culture, culture, culture. To me, my definition of culture is what happens when no one is watching. That's really cold culture.

It's not what you put on your website. It's not what you put on your marketing slicks and fluff. It's what people really say. On things like glass door when they leave, because they're going to tell you really what that culture was. They may not say it there because obviously they would like to maintain their employment.

Um, but when you go and look at people that have left and they go and they give feedback on social media, oh, they're going to tell you the truth, whether it was amazing, or if it's just a lot of.

[00:21:14] Lori Saitz: yeah. The part that you said about corporate America only caring about profit, though. If you really dig into it, doing the things that you talked about and that I talk about in my program that I take to corporate the fuck being fine program. That's what enables people to be more profitable because they are in a better.

I was going to say mindset, but it's not just about mindset. It's physical, mental, psychological wellness, all the way through. And that's what you know. So when they can be more focused and more productive, more effective, then they can be more productive and ultimately more profitable.

[00:21:57] Roderick Jefferson: is, it's almost oxymoronic. If we really thought about things, if we gave people more time to do things, you'd probably get more out of them just because. They're happier in their work, but that doesn't seem to be the same today as it's been, as it was your years ago. And so what I firmly believe is if you aren't an advocate on your own behalf, no one else is going to be because no one has the best interest in you, your health or your performance, or your upward mobility as you.

So you have to advocate for yourself when you get to a point where you're just completely burnt, like toast. Don't be afraid to say that when you say, Hey, I need a mental health day, or I need to do something different or you need to go at lunch and go outside and take a walk and change the, the scenery or go and meditate for 10, 15. Put that as a part of your calendar, because if it's not on your calendar, like most of us, it doesn't exist. So if you say I'm going to go walk at noon every day or every other day, then you know what, block that out. Because two reasons, one it's important and you won't do it for yourself. And second, because we work in a global world, 12, o'clock your time? it could be three o'clock somewhere else or any other time. So folks we'll drop a meeting in, in that time. That's not blocked out block time out for yourself. And then I always do something on Fridays. I do a, um, I call my introspective moment every Friday, four 30 on my calendar, like clockwork. I sit down and what I do is I literally write up.

[00:23:45] Lori Saitz: Yeah.

[00:23:46] Roderick Jefferson: What did I do this week? That made a difference. And I don't mean just a laundry list and it always has to have one to two personal things on it. It's not just about what did I do for the company now I'm at a point where I'm saying, okay, where did, how did I impact someone that I make someone smile that I reach out to an old friend that I hadn't talked to in years.

Right. Um, was I able to listen to my kids and a problem that. Did I go and grab flowers for my wife, whatever the case may be. But if we don't do that every week, it just becomes part of the background of what you're doing. It's just kind of, this is what I do, right. Instead, stop for a moment. Appreciate and thank yourself for what you were able to accomplish this particular...

[00:24:45] Lori Saitz: Recognizing your wins is becoming one of the themes of this season of Fine is a 4-Letter Word. And that's exactly what you're talking

[00:24:55] Roderick Jefferson: We don't do it enough.

[00:24:57] Lori Saitz: Yeah, no matter what size it, right. They don't have to be monumental with. They can be any size and it's so important to recognize them. And one of the things that that I've learned is that when you celebrate your wins again, regardless of size, the more wins you get to celebrate.

It's like when you are looking at the world with gratitude, you see more

[00:25:27] Roderick Jefferson: And it starts to build an attitude of gratitude. Right. And what I mean by that is. It's like mathematics. It all compounds on top of each other. You first you learn the basic arithmetic, then it's algebra, then it's geometry, then trigonometry, then it's statistics. Well, you can't just go straight to stats.

Stats are the, the, and I would say to align that to life, those are the big rocks that you actually move this week to get to a big rock. You've got boulders. Then you've got small ones. And each of those, even the pebble creates the largest of ripple. So stop for a moment. And don't always think that it has to be this big rock that I did sometime it can just be the pebble that I dropped in water and that ripple reverberated, and it created an attitude of gratitude for me. And for someone around me.

[00:26:27] Lori Saitz: Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing about gratitude too, is that it affects you. It affects the person you're delivering gratitude for, and it affects the person who's now hearing this story about

[00:26:42] Roderick Jefferson: I have a friend Tamar Schmidt, and that is her statement, attitude of gratitude. And I learned from her that it's not just kind of a cool thing to say. it. literally is contagious, just like negativity. So as positive. And it propagates in both cases, it propagates just as fast. So why not add some there's enough negativity in the world?

Why not add something positive to start that ripple reverberating?

[00:27:15] Lori Saitz: Now you have an exclamation point to put on this whole attitude of gratitude and feeling of, of, um, taking, taking some time. Some personal time. How did you end up in this situation you ended up in, in this past October.

[00:27:33] Roderick Jefferson: Um, last October, I was again, going through. Overburdening of stress as well as go, go, go mentality. And October 28th of last year, I had a massive stroke and I didn't even realize anything was wrong. I was feeling and I do mean fine. Quote, unquote, normal. Um, I was doing my job on the 27th. I'm a normal everyday guy. On October 28th my brain shut down again. And this time it shut down in a different way. It was a massive stroke, but a blood clot floated up to my brain and it literally shut me down. I had a stroke while I was asleep and 98% of people never wake up from a sleep stroke. I am part of the 2% club and proud to be there.

[00:28:27] Lori Saitz: Yeah, that's so scary.

[00:28:29] Roderick Jefferson: I went through speech therapy. I had a terrible, terrible. That became stuttered. That became stammer. And now once again, thank God. My, Um, speech pattern and articulation is back and it was all due to, and I had no idea, but it was actually due to congestive heart failure. I didn't even know that I had a bad heart.

I mean, I knew I had a bad heart, but not as bad as it was. My heart was only pumping at 23%. At 20% you get cardiac arrest and you die. And I didn't know, I was that close to death. Talking about something that'll change your mindset and your outlook.

[00:29:09] Lori Saitz: Yeah. Yeah. But then when the doctor told you what he said, he was because I thought this was so funny when you told me this story of, um, after you went through that and he told you how long it was going to take to recover because

[00:29:23] Roderick Jefferson: I have the recording.

[00:29:24] Lori Saitz: don't know if you have it with you now.

[00:29:26] Roderick Jefferson: Doctor said that it would take me six weeks to get back. And my response was just out of gut reaction because that's who I am. I said no more like four weeks. And, and you know, it's funny Lori, because I, I listened to that thing over and over. Just again, that attitude of gratitude on my Fridays.

And since I had that statement on the, um, on the recording. I don't have that mindset. If it takes six months, if it takes two years, they explained to me it would be 18 months to two years to get back to my full mental capacity. I'd say I'm probably about 85%. Now. I am incredibly blessed to be where I am, but if it takes that long now I'm about the journey.

I'm not about just the outcome in the end anymore. Life has shifted immensely since the. No, you lose parts of your body. You lose the ability to speak. You become dependent on everyone, around you, even for the smallest of things, like making it to the bathroom, it will change you and astronomically. And personally, I'll say this, if I didn't have faith going into this, I would certainly have a different level of it right now because to know that I'm part of only 2% of people in the world that are still alive after a sleep. Man, I've got to believe. There's a reason I'm still here and the greater power has something in mind for me.

[00:30:58] Lori Saitz: Yes. Yes. Have you seen any instance of what that might be? Are you still waiting

[00:31:04] Roderick Jefferson: No, I think I'm starting to see bits and pieces of it. It's starting to come together. Um, and I'm going to hold off on it, but the answer to you. Absolutely. And I have shifted some things that I used to do before I don't do anymore. And I'm also looking at life differently and I'm on the verge of putting together, um, a, a keynote speech and TEDx talk as well as a workshop to help others.

And I call it the 2%. Going back to my 2% club and how that 2% mentality will either make you, if you own it or will break you. If you allow everything and everything, and everyone around you to own the direction you're going.

[00:31:56] Lori Saitz: I love it. Well, you have dropped so many wisdom nuggets of wisdom here. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to have you on the show and to talk about these important concepts and topics that you've covered. Before we go, what is the song that you listened to when you need that extra boost of energy?

Something that hypes you

[00:32:24] Roderick Jefferson: so funny, you ask that because as a keynote speaker, we all have our Walk-on Song. Right. And, and I certainly have mine and it is brush your shoulders off by Jay Z. It's just something that reminds me that I've got to get this off my shoulders so that I can share everything that I've got the best of the best for my audience.

And if I don't feel like I'm at peak performance, when I touch that stage, there's no way that I can motivate them to get to the.

[00:32:58] Lori Saitz: Awesome. So speaking of which, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you to have you come and present or to continue the conversation we've had today, what's the best way to do that?

[00:33:08] Roderick Jefferson: I always say, if you can't find me on social media, you're not trying to And here's why, um, you can find me, hit me

[00:33:15] Lori Saitz: Okay.

[00:33:15] Roderick Jefferson: info@roderickjefferson.com. You could find me on Instagram at Roderick underscore J underscore associates. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter at the voice of rod where you can find me on LinkedIn Roderick Jefferson. Absolutely.

[00:33:35] Lori Saitz: which is where I found you on LinkedIn. Well, thank you again so much for joining me today on Fine is a 4-Letter Word.