Roderick Jefferson | Stroke of Success

Well, hello everybody and happy Juneteenth. Today we've got Roderick Jefferson, just the most fascinating story. I'm super excited about this. And Fuel is the producer here. So if you haven't checked out myfuel.io, urge you and invite you to do that. It's the fastest growing, growing e-learning platform on the planet, uh, and we are just delighted to share with you, um, all of our experience and, uh, and now our AIs where you can reach us 24/7 anywhere in the world in multiple languages, uh, to get our coaching and get our help. And, uh, as you know, if you've been watching Fearless, Had some phenomenal instructors, keynote speakers, TEDx talks, number 1 bestsellers, things like that. Today, we are going to give you Roderick Jefferson. Roderick is, I was, 2 weeks ago, I had Lynn or Brynn Tillman on the show and she is just fantastic. She is a Fuel instructor, in fact, with an AI twin. Brynn said, you got to have Roderick on this show. Absolutely fantastic. She described him as deeply spiritual with just the biggest heart she's ever seen and just truly, truly loves him. I'm so grateful and thank you, Brynn Tillman, for that. Roderick is— our paths have been so similar because we're both in the leadership development, the strategic planning and development business. And team building and things like that. Roderick is especially valuable in sales enablement. He'll talk a little bit about that. But this show is called Fearless for a reason, because I am trying to get guests to come on who are— have dealt with adversity or significant setbacks in their life. And just how did they get through that? Because there are a lot of people around the world right now who are pretty nervous or stressed or anxious or We're afraid of what's going on. How do we approach each day without that fear? I liken it to a quarterback walking up to the line of scrimmage, which is how I learned this a long time ago. When you walk up and you snap the— the ball is snapped and the play is in play, how do you walk up to the line of scrimmage? It's like, how do you get up in the morning and approach the day? There's uncertainty everywhere. No matter how much you've prepared and planned ahead in the game of football or in anything in life, there are variables. And so do you approach the line of scrimmage afraid and nervous and anxious? Because that is really no way to play well. Or do you approach it with an inner grace and confidence and inner power? And we will talk a little bit about in spirit, inspiration. And when you are inspired, you are not afraid. The 2 can't go together at the same time. So when you have true faith and inspiration, fear just dissolves. We're going to talk a lot about that. Roderick is a keynote speaker. If you haven't seen him speak, do. If you haven't hired him for an event, do. You won't be disappointed. He's the founder and CEO of Roderick Jefferson and Associates. Check that out. Check out his website. We'll share all of that with you. With that long introduction, Roderick, welcome to the, to the show Fearless, and, uh, we'll get started. You have a couple of opening words?

Thanks, John. First of all, my absolute honor to be here with you. And between you and Brynn, I'm thinking I'm gonna have to take you both on the road with me to do my intro. That, that's it. You're stuck with me now. No, in all seriousness, Brynn has to be one of the most amazing, warm people that I've ever met. We were saying in, in the pre-conference, Brynn's one of those people where she's never met a stranger. Just friends she hasn't gotten to yet. And I am honored to be a part of her tribe. I really and truly am.

Yeah, well, that goes for the two of us. So, Roderick, we titled this Stroke of Success, which of course is the title of one of your books. And if the audience has not seen that yet, I highly recommend they do. So Stroke of Success. Tell me a little bit about this word stroke.

It is the literal sense. So I was, I live in San Francisco, near San Francisco. I was down in LA. I'm getting ready for a keynote the next day. And, you know, walking around, getting myself immersed in the culture and the climate there at the location. And I took my team out to dinner, like we always do the night before. But it was different. I was really, Really tired. Like you, I played football as well, so I know what double days are like. I know what that feels like. I've been through the starting of basketball season where you're like, "Oh God, I can't even lift my legs." But it wasn't that kind of tired. It was a level that I had never felt before. Having dinner, and I looked up at the folks at the table, and everyone's looking at. What happened here? Well, what had happened is I'd actually fallen asleep head down in the middle of a sentence. That's not like me. You know, I wouldn't say that I'm the Energizer Bunny, but, you know, even at 60, I've still got a few miles on me. And so I look up and I'm like, what's going on? Boss, you went to sleep. Like, come on, seriously? So I start joking. Maybe I got narcolepsy. Maybe I'm getting old. But it didn't feel right inside of me. So after dinner, I decided to head back to the room. I was gonna go prep for my keynote the next day like I always do. But again, this didn't feel right. It felt like I was walking in quicksand. And I had to remind myself, lift your left leg, lift your right leg, lift your left leg. And I got back to the room and I sat down and I was out of breath. And The restaurant was really close to my room, which now started to scare me a little bit. I had done my prep. I go to sleep. I wake up the next morning. Every time I'm on every day that I'm on the road, my wife and I jump on the phone. Hey, what's going on? What's happening with the kids? The grand with all these things of what's life like? And I sounded like what you hear. What she heard was blah blah blah blah blah blah. John, I'd had a stroke, a massive stroke while I was asleep. Now fast forward, I find out from American Stroke Society who I— if you are not supporting the American Heart and the American Stroke Society after we have this conversation to your listeners, something's wrong. Please, I implore you, please support them because I found out that 98% of sleep stroke victims Never wake up. So that's miracle number one. Now my wife starts walking me through protocol for stroke. What's your name? Count to ten. Come on, babe. One, twelve, seventy-four, fifty-two, fourteen, five. Say your ABCs. A, B, L, X, Q, P, Q, Y, T, A. And she said, I need you to jump on FaceTime with me because I want to make sure your face isn't drooping. Now, it still hadn't registered to me what's going on yet. She jumps on, and thankfully there was no drooping, but she had a look of fear that I have never seen. We've been together for 35 years. I have never seen that look in her face. So I knew something was really wrong. And progressively it was becoming more difficult for me to say words. And so thankfully, she called the director on my team. He came over, grabbed me up, called 911. They threw me in the ambulance, took me off to the emergency room. And I have to stop because every time I tell this story— thank you to Tim Carlson for saving my life. And I mean sincerely, for— thank you for saving my life. So they take me to the emergency room— to ICU, excuse me, the emergency room. I'm there for all of 90 minutes. Now I'm stuttering so bad I can't even say my own name. I don't know where I am, but they decided to check my heart. So it turns out that I have, according— not just according to Bren, but medically— I have a really big heart, right? And it's something called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Because of being a high-level athlete, I have an excess layer of muscle around my heart. So the normal heart squeezes at about 55-65% on average. When it gets down to 20%, cardiac arrest hits. You're dead. Remember that number. So they checked my heart, everything's fine. They released me 90 minutes later. From ICU, sounding like this. Now, unfortunately, I was supposed to fly back from LA to San Francisco that day. Now, the the flight's only an hour and ten, hour and fifteen minutes. Midstroke altitude cabin pressure bad combination. I fly to Oakland. My wife picks me up. My son takes my car home. She rushes me to the emergency room at John Muir, about 45 minutes away from our house. I don't remember the first 3 days of being in the hospital because everything was just a blur and things were going really, really fast and my brain was going really slow. But my wife told me that the first thing that the neurologist and cardiologist says is Miracle number two. Your husband's miracle. There's no reason he should be alive medically. Cabin pressure, altitude, mid-stroke. That's the first we've ever seen someone go through that and actually live. So this was, and I should probably mention, this was only five years ago that all this happened. And what was going on five years ago?

COVID.

So now I'm stuck in the hospital. They've pushed me up to ICU now. My kids can't come to see me. Only one person, my wife. And do I really want her coming to see me in ICU with the sickest of the sick during COVID I said, you're gonna have to see me over FaceTime. Because of course, because of who she is, she's like, you don't get to tell me who you are. You can't even talk. How are you going to tell me what to do now? So I've been there for a couple of weeks now. At the— in the ICU, I've gone through 4 different roommates. And I only know this because I'm hearing different voices of people. They're coming and going. That means 4 of my roommates never went home from COVID All 4 of them passed away. So now I'm feeling like the Lone Ranger, right? I'm like, uh-huh, I hope I'm not number 5. Well, it gets worse and worse. Now I'm snow blind. So for anyone that skis or snowboards, it's not dark, it's bright all the time. It's like having a sharp, sharp bright light in my eyes. And so I have no concept of day and night.

Okay.

So now my sleep pattern's thrown off on top of the fact that my entire left side is paralyzed. And I can't move my arm or my leg at all. Now it continues to get worse, and I thought, okay, what's going on here? Um, and now the muscles in my throat start to atrophy, and I'm having a hard time swallowing. So now they've got me on fluids and Ensure to keep me going. Fast forward another week or so. And my wife had been coming back and forth to see me, and that day it just didn't— again, it didn't feel right. Um, because she had a look on her face that scared me, and she doesn't scare easily, not at all. Little Irish-Italian spitfire, that woman's been through fire, believe me. And she said, Baby, I'm worried about you. I'm really worried about you. So I said, I'm okay, I'm a little tired, but you go ahead and go home and I'll see you sometime tomorrow. She squeezed my hand as though she was saying goodbye. She left and she drove home, and she tells me later she cried for 40 minutes, 45 minutes, all the way home from the hospital because she knew in her heart— Oh my goodness. She was never going to see her husband alive again. Now go back a second earlier. Remember when I said at 20% cardiac arrest hits and you're dead? When they rolled me into the emergency room, I was at 22% heart function. They gave me a 2% chance to live. And I know God has a sense of humor because my stroke As a keynote speaker and a man that gets paid to talk, my stroke was in the middle of my speech center.

A speech center.

So now I don't get to talk, I just get to listen. And I learned the difference between listening and hearing, and there's a major difference. One is you're just taking in and interpreting. The other is you just shut up and take it because there's a lesson to be learned. And I didn't know if the lesson was for me Or for someone around me, around being fearless and showing what true resilience meant. And I also learned what faith really meant, right? And that's— faith is when that's all you've got. I prayed every single night, never to get better, never asked why. I prayed the same thing every night for 6 months. God, just let me wake up tomorrow. That's all. Just allow me to see one more day. Because I was getting worse and worse and worse and worse, and I could feel it. I know my body, and as an athlete, we get fine-tuned and we get to know our bodies. So the night she goes home, about 3 hours— I guess it was 2, 3 hours later, the nurses would tell me Suddenly I hear code blue. Lights are flashing, machines are going crazy. Because when you're in the hospital, first of all, don't go there if you're going there for rest because it's not going to happen. I got poked 58 times because of course, hey, we need blood, we need to check your vitals, and that the other, right? The other thing is you get to know the machines really well, all right? You know when shift change happens, you know when the doctors are on rounds. You don't need a watch. Or a clock. Your body and your mind interpretively understands what's happening, or intuitively, should I say. That night, machines are flashing, lights are going on and off. I hear code blue and it's my room. Uh-oh, that's very not good, I think. And then everyone rushes in. I could hear the doctors and the nurses. They're doing chest compression. They're sucking fluids out of me. And I hear beep. I'm medically dead. Now, for those that are interested in NDEs or near-death experiences, I did not see a white light. I did not see the pearly gates. I didn't see fire either, so that's a good sign, right? What happened is I floated up to the corner of the room and I'm looking down on the doctors and the nurses working on my body. Now It feels like if you've ever been to the dentist and you get twilight and you can hear things, but you can't really tell what they're saying. It was kind of like Charlie Brown's teacher. It was a womp womp womp womp womp sound as they're talking, right? But I could tell by that sense of urgency that something's wrong. Oh, here's the other big change. I can actually see now, which I hadn't been able to see before with the snow blindness. And I didn't have my glasses on, but I saw the most vibrant blues and greens and oranges and reds that I'd ever seen in my life. But again, I'm looking down on them and I can tell they're fighting desperately to try and get me back. And as I'm watching, I feel— feel literally—

Feel.

Someone standing next to me. I look over to my left, it's my mom. My mama died in 1999. This was only five years ago, and so I said, "Okay, Mama, good and faithful servant. I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Let's go home." And she looks at me and she says, as only my mama could in that southern accent, "Baby, you're gonna be okay. I was sent to tell you they're gonna figure out what's wrong, but you can't live the way you've been living. You've got to make some." Big changes, and she gave me my new marching orders of what my new life's mission was supposed to be. And the other thing she said was, "You've become a little too high and mighty." At this time, I was a corporate executive. I was flying around on corporate jets and helicopters, having lunch with President Obama, off to see the Queen of England. And I thought, "Oh, okay." I'm on top of the world. I have made it. I'm successful. My mom said, God had to take you down a notch to remind you that there is something and someone bigger than you, and you have forgotten what I taught you, which is your why— to always provide and protect. Because to add some, some backstory, in 18 months, John, I was in London, Paris, Geneva, São Paulo, Rio, Toronto, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney. In 18 months, I was never home. Oh, but the direct deposits were still coming every 2 weeks, right? So I thought, I'm providing, but I wasn't protecting. I had lost sight of my family, and I had allowed what I do to overtake who I am. I was successful, but at what cost? And I want to stop for a moment and speak directly to your audience. I'm all about success. I'm all about pushing and driving and striving. But at what cost? It's going to cost you something— relationships, marriages, friends. In my case, my life. So I ask you to reevaluate the things that you're doing and the way that you're doing things, to see, am I doing this because ego is driving me? Or am I doing this to provide and protect? So back to this.

Yeah, that's so that's so powerful, Roderick. And yeah, when I when you talk about your brother passing in 1999 and then giving you this just very powerful advice, it just it gives me like the tingles. You know, I lost my father in the year 2000. He was 68 years old. I'll be 68 in two years myself. And yeah. He went down in 11 months and worked his tail off his whole life. And, but I, that's why I'm such a believer in balance and just find, you know, to me, success isn't just about, you know, your title and your position and your money and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Of course, people want to pursue their careers, but in my mind, it's about joy. It's about inner peace. It's about doing whatever you do with a sense of confidence and poise and the desire to help people. I think, you know, we've all been given a gift to give away. That's how I see it.

Absolutely.

So you've got amazing gifts that you've developed into great skills, but the whole idea of feeling joy day to day is giving that away. And you mentioned ego. Ego is more about taking.

Absolutely.

Ego is more about, you know, look at me and look how much I got versus look how much I give. So your message is so powerful. And if I'm not mistaken, one of the things that your mother said to you too is let go of fear. So find balance. You know, don't kill yourself trying to make it to the next notch, but let go of fear. Is that— did I get that right?

Yeah, you nailed it. As a matter of fact, I, I— and I'll go back to my younger years— I grew up in the projects, really, really poor. So my fear was, was always running from that young kid in the projects and the things that we missed out on, the things we didn't have. And so the accumulation of Titles and accolades and, you know, logos and those things overtook the fear of fighting to get out of that. So now I was fearful about going back to be that, being that, which was never going to happen. And so things just became skewed at one point. And so, like you, I had to look my fear in the face and literally Through therapy, talk to that 6, 8-year-old kid. And I was also adopted, so now I've got all kinds of things that has paid for college for my therapist's kids and all of those things, right? But in all actuality, my biggest fear was failure, and I was fighting to run away from it and, and stay away from it. as much as possible. And one of the things that I learned while I was laying there and I was unable to talk was fear equates to a lack of faith. Because if I've got enough faith to say— whether it's God, whoever you believe in, your higher power— you have to believe 100%. You can't straddle the fence. Either yes, I believe that you are here, God, to help me and move forward, or conveniently you're here when I need you, right? And I'm in a bind, and I've tried everything that I know how to do, so I'm going to turn it all over to you. And I realized that faith was spiritual. It wasn't religion. I got— my dad was a minister, so I grew up as a preacher's kid. But I realized it wasn't about— excuse me— religion. It wasn't about the, the sacredness of things that we did on Wednesdays and Sundays throughout the year. It was literally about being fearless enough to surrender and realize that you are not the strongest thing in the universe by any stretch. And once I did that Everything started to change. So to finish the story of the night that I went down and died, I say, "Great, Mom. I'm glad you're here. I've got all kinds of questions." She's gone. Mom, Mom, Mama. Now I'm sucked back into my body, and my chest is killing me because I can feel the chest compression. I can feel the needles where they're sucking the fluids out of me, and I'm still flatlined. Then I hear the one word that nobody ever wants to hear: clear. I went, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we can't do that. That's not gonna happen. Don't, please don't. He's coming down to hit me with the paddles. I go from beep beep beep beep beep, and thank God he's on my right side because remember my entire left side is paralyzed. He's coming down to hit me. I grab his hand right before he hits me with the paddles. He pulls back. Now they called for ERT emergency response team. Those are the people that actually see you when you're really really bad or the people where you've died and you've come back. Either way, they're not the people that you want to ever ask for Christmas or birthday to meet, believe me. But I'm so happy that they do what they do. So now I'm back, they go through protocol and they get me going. Fast forward 2 more weeks and I've gone through physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy. I've learned how to walk, talk, I've learned how to tie my shoes, do a button, use a regular spoon again. And now I'm released. And now is where the hard, really hard work begins. Because I had to realize that there was another fear I had to face.

Another fear I had to face.

I was never going to be the person that I was before that stroke. So I had to define what the next new me was going to look like. Yep, my leg was still dragging, my arms were still working when they wanted to. I had to go through so much speech therapy. I never realized how boring the alphabet is until you have to practice it 10 to 12 times a day to get back. But I had a secret weapon that most people don't have. Because I was a keynote speaker, I had all kinds of YouTube channel videos out there. Would you believe I actually used to watch and mimic my own YouTube reels? And that's how I got back to my flow, my pace, and my voice again. Now people are like, that's a wonderful story, I'm so glad he's back, but I've never had a stroke, so how— what does this mean to me? First of all, back to the American Stroke Society, 1 out of every 4 humans over the age of 25 will incur a stroke in their lifetime. It may feel like you were really tired, may have felt like it was a migraine, it may have just felt like you're a little off balance. By the way, that massive one was my second one. I didn't even realize I had my first one. And that is why it's called—

Yeah.

The silent killer. Now, you may or may not have, but I also want to talk to the caregivers. My mom died from kidney failure. We've had other folks come and go from cancer. The one thing that I believe they don't hear enough is thank you. So on behalf of all of us that have been through something And to those that have been caregivers, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for all the things that you do when you do it from your heart. And even those days where you don't feel like doing it, but you do it anyways. We may never actually verbally articulate, or maybe some don't know how to, but now I will speak on behalf of all of us. Thank you so much. And to your audience, please listen to your body. Most of the time it gives you warning shots. The problem is most of us are so busy trying to build a life that we're not living it. When you were talking about joy earlier, about joy, I equate joy to being present. And what I mean is— excuse me— 7 o'clock, turn off the phones. Don't bring your cell phone to the table with you. Listen and hear and be engaged. Be engaged in conversations— friends, colleagues, neighbors, children, siblings, significant others. Be interested, not just interesting. Ask more questions than you're giving. My favorite hashtag, and, and you hit it earlier, is #Give2Give. It's not about what you can get. It's not about give to get at all. It's not about quid pro quo. As a matter of fact, I don't even keep score anymore like I used to. For me, it's— I've been blessed to be back here, and I don't know if the lesson is for me, as I said earlier, or for others. And so I share this story as often as I can because I'm now asking everyone that's watching and listening To this, to do two things. One, every single morning after I do my morning prayer meditation, I go into my office because I'm still A plus plus. I'm not going to pretend it, and I'm definitely a D D D D D H D. There's no question about that, right? Go into my office. I've got a whiteboard right here in front of me. I write three things: not seven, not twelve, not ten. 3 things professionally that I'm going to do today before I walk away from my laptop. Here's the special one: add one thing just for you every day. You personally. I know it may feel selfish. That's okay. It's self-care. You'll get used to it. It'll get easier. Sometimes walking my dogs, some days sitting in my backyard and watching the hummingbirds, other days Barbecue and Baskin-Robbins, right? But here's the key: it can't feel like it's a cheat day on a diet. It needs to be something that's ingrained in every single day that just you get to enjoy, not with anyone else, not for anyone else, not about anyone else, just something for you. The second thing When I was talking to my mom, she said, son, excuse me, you have become a respecter of titles. That's got to end. I need you to become a respecter of people, just like I taught you. What that means is, and as she said, I need you to pay more attention to what she called the invisible people. The people that valet your car, check you in at hotels, the waiters and waitresses. It could just be someone in the supermarket that looks like it's been a rough day. And she said, I want you to walk away and walk around with an extra smile in your pocket every day, and it's your job to give it away, because that may be the only time that that person Feel seen and important. So I ask you, keep an extra smile in your pocket, all of you. Find one person to give it away, because that may be the only time that that person feels acknowledged or seen that particular day, and it makes more of a difference than you will ever know. I can't hear you, sir.

Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay, I was just gonna say that, uh, what's really important in life, uh, when you give it away, you have more of it. So those are things like love, the smile, the joy. When you give something that's invisible, to use your word, not just, you know, you're not just giving money, so to speak, or a present to somebody, because when you give that, you no longer have it. But when you give love and you give spirit and you give joy, you give a smile, you recognize someone's name, you're giving something that's deeply spiritual. And the more you give of that, the more you, you receive of the same. So it's, you know, one takeaway for everybody is give love. You know, give hope, give joy. But if you give fear, you're just drawing more fear into your own life.

Absolutely.

You know, there's no, no room for bullies here, so to speak. I believe, Roderick, and your story is absolutely fantastic. I actually believe that's a gift to the world that you— what you had to go through is, is, is now something you have to give away, which is hope. And I have— my older brother had a stroke last year. I have a friend here that's had a, a terrible stroke and is still struggling. You— just to close, we've only got a minute or so left, but you, you look fantastic now. And so you've obviously been through who knows how many therapies. I don't know if you even know how many.

Oh, I couldn't even count them.

But, uh, from what I can tell, you're back, and you're back on stage, you're back giving what you have to give. And, uh, I mean, real quickly, how did you How'd that happen besides God tapping you on the shoulder?

Um, you know what, it was time to make a change. And, and a part of that change was, as you say, getting out and, and telling this story, because fear and love and compassion cannot coexist. And my job is, is to have so much love, joy, empathy into a room, into a relationship into friendships that there's no room for fearless— for fear, excuse me. And so if I can do those things, then mission accomplished. Plus, Mama's proud of her little boy, and that still matters even at 60.

Yeah, I, I think she's still looking out for you, Roderick. Well, thank you so much. You've been an absolutely fantastic guest, and I hope our audience just takes this and not only likes it, but shares it. Please share this with the world and give what you can to give. And it doesn't have to be something material, but it doesn't cost you anything to give a smile, okay? To give some support. And by the way, giving some money to the American Stroke Society or the American Heart Association certainly doesn't hurt either. So God bless you, Roderick. You are a hero. truly a blessing to this world. Next week we've got Tom Paben, um, and we'll be talking about, uh, Squeezed, Getting Squeezed. Uh, he's— it's the title of one of his books, and Tom is just going to be another very insightful guest for all of us to, to, to learn from. Again, this, this show Fearless exists to help people deal with something that gets in the way of what Roderick and I were just talking about, gets in the way of joy and And flow in life. And the spiritual reason we're here is to expand and grow and give and help one another out and make things better. Fear gets in the way, and then we end up living with regret. You know, we should have, we could have. So we are here for the world to get through that with these various stories. We've all had setbacks and adversity, and you got to step up and step through it. With that, come back next week and join me with Tom Paben. We will— again, please share this, if you will, with the world. We're here to help. That's it for today. Happy Juneteenth as well. I know, Roderick, you got plans for an awesome barbecue tonight. You were showing me pictures earlier. That's just so cool. What a remarkable, uh, day to celebrate. Um, absolutely bringing everyone together. All right, that's it for today. Thank you so much, everybody. Pass this along.

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.