Jevon Wooden
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
That communication shift says the same exact message, but gets the point across differently and helps that person feel like they're supported versus feeling like they're a little kid when they're an adult. So you have to be willing to think that way and pause for a minute because a lot of people are not taking that pause to really hit the cognitive mind.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
They're letting their emotions get the best of them. And a lot of people will say, I'm not emotional. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I mean, that's what's driving the way you're reacting and responding. And the key to that is I mentioned react versus respond. A lot of people are reacting. They're just knee jerk. They're just not taking a break. They're not taking that moment.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So we have to get to the point where we're responding intelligently to things. And then the other component is relinquishing that control, realizing that you are better off as a team than as a solo unit. So a lot of the leaders, they feel like they have to have the right answers.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
But I always challenge them to create like feedback forums so they can get new ideas, innovation from their people, near real time feedback on how they can be a better leader. You know what people need. Those are some of the easiest wins, but they're hard. Because again, they're not what they're used to doing. They're used to coming into the little siloed environment with their leadership team.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Yep. Yep. I was in there for 12 years. And my last deployment was probably not probably is the hardest thing because, and this is one of the reasons why I knew like my body couldn't handle it, my mentally and emotionally, and I just couldn't do it. So I was in Afghanistan in 2016, 2017, and there was a suicide bombing that happened where I was stationed on Bagram Pearfield.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
They make a decision up here and then they trickle it down here and then they wonder why it fails. We have to get it where it's bottom up. We have an idea, but we want to co-create it with the people that's actually creating the impact that's really working to get the outcomes that we're getting. So there's a lot there and we can have a whole nother conversation on it.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
But that's really the real key is showing them the difference between empathy, not really caring, just focusing on the bottom line. Sympathy saying, oh, I'm sorry that you had to go that get it done anyway. You're looking on the outside in, whereas empathy is putting yourself in that person's perspective and saying, you know what? How can I support them better?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Because I understand that it may be something that I can do to help them out. And even if you have someone who's just performing at the level, you also have the opportunity to see if maybe that's not the fit for them first before you get rid of before you fire. Right. So a lot of times a job rotation could be a part of your solution.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So that's a part of empathy, giving people the opportunity to show that showcase their various skills, even though that's not what their resume said. Because I've seen it where I've come into an org for a cultural transformation consultation and people showcase the skills, but because the leader is not seeing it, they're not looking at it. They just see them as a role, a fitness role.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
They don't understand that they can actually be better over here. So we really have to open our eyes as leaders and slow down a bit to understand what's happening and get the diverse perspectives of our people. And that's how we're going to be firing our own cylinders.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
The first step is to master you. So I see a lot of leaders who really don't take time to just be with themselves, to get to discover who they are, what are their values, all these types of things. And a lot of people say it's fluff. It's really not. Because what happens is they're so busy. They have meetings back to back. They're always on. They're always thinking.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Once they're done with that, they have to do things with their family or be social. All these things they get to do, but they now feel like they have to do. because it's just a job. So I recommend for everyone to just take some time daily, even if it's 15 minutes, to just be, right?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Put some time on your calendar to just focus, to disconnect from tech, to disconnect from meetings, to just recenter yourself. That's the first step, to get to know who you are. What are your thoughts even saying? What are you saying to yourself? That's the first thing. That's the self-awareness component.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And the suicide bombing was on Veterans Day. So Veterans Day traditionally has been a very hard time since then. We lost, I think we lost six or seven people and then 18 others at least got injured, got injured physically. But of course, mentally and emotionally, those of us who survived or who wasn't hurt physically, that happened. That plays a toll on you.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
The second thing is understanding your behavioral patterns, because once we get the pattern recognition down, now we can make some changes. So if you understand your behavioral patterns, how do you typically operate in a given situation? What are your triggers? What's frustrating you?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
If you notice that there's always you can have the best day and then one person comes in and that just throws you off for some reason. What is it about that person? That's really the thing that's triggering you.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So we have to get into the perspective of looking at it from that lens, understanding who we are first, and then being able to pause and really filter our emotions before we respond or make a decision. Because if you make it from your emotions, chances are it's not really that rational. We may try to justify it and say it's rational, but it's probably not.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So you have to recognize and be able to name the emotion that you're feeling. Because the name allows you to say, am I in the space to be making these key decisions right now? Do I need a moment? Do I need some more information?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Whatever the case is, it's really about taking ownership of you, being accountability of you, and then identifying who can be your support system to make sure that you're in the best position to be your best self. And then you can move into talking about the social and relationship side of things.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So from that perspective, I want leaders to just identify one way that they feel like they can interact a little bit better, communicate a little bit better. Just in general. So for me, I had to focus more on listening to understand. And coaching really helped me with that. So I would be the person. I want to get my point out there because naturally, I'm a very assertive person.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
I'm a very direct person. But I realized I could still do that, but understand that I can respect the other person's point. And now I'm very curious about what other people think and why they think that way. So I recommend that leaders look at their behavioral patterns and then see how that kind of shows up when they're interacting with various people.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And then seeing if they can identify how they can just communicate with that person just a little bit better. Sometimes you can ask. Sometimes you can ask the person like, hey, what's the best way to communicate with you? If I wanted to get you, give you feedback, what would be the best way to do that? We can be proactive with our conversation.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So when we do get into that moment that's a little bit more heated, we've already trained as we fought, as the military says, because that's really what's going to make us better.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And then I was a part of the remains cleanup team where that's what mentally really hit me hard because I'm like, I'm treating the bomber with the same respect that my friends and my comrades and my colleagues that he killed. And that was another inflection point for me because when I got home from that deployment in 2017, I just was not the same. And it hit me like six months later. Here I am.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Absolutely. And when you think about that example of job loss, if you are empathetic and you ask for support from people, they are more inclined to help you find that next role because you've treated them well and they remember that.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Oh, no. I really appreciate you. I think you're a phenomenal host. You got it down to a science, bitch. So I appreciate you having me on. It was a great conversation. I really appreciate you.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
After that, I took some time to just travel and get back into the space of civilian life. And it just didn't work. Six months later, I struggled severely with depression and PTSD. Kept having the same nightmare over and over again. And at the end of that nightmare, it was a red flash. I just remember the red flash. It was the detonation from the bomb.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And I had to go to therapy and the therapist once asked me, she said, what happens at the end? I said, I don't know. It doesn't end. Once the flash happens, I wake up. And she was like, I want you to see that as something that's saying that there's something unfinished in your life. So she gave me this whole exercise to find what was unfinished.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And this ties back into my childhood because what was unfinished was my relationship with my father. And I hadn't been in touch with him. He actually got arrested while I was with him. So that was weird. Trying to establish a relationship. SWAT team jumps out while we're at the gas station. And they put me down on the ground. I thought it was something I did, but it wasn't. So it was him.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So fast forward, I had to reestablish that relationship with my father. And that nightmare stopped. since then. And what is another change? My daughter was born on Veterans Day. So it went from the worst day to the best day. And that's just how things happen, right?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
That's serendipitous moments that I really leaned into now with all the change and adversity that has gone through throughout my life.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
That's a component of it for sure. It is everything that I've seen and gone through and realizing that tech was just not, it wasn't my thing. I didn't feel like I was making an impact in that. So I wanted to really help people. And so that was one catalyst.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Human is going out the window for a lot of leaders, whether that's in the country level, whether it's in the corporate space, doesn't matter. It's like going away. I mean, yes, we can blame technology, but it's not. Technology can be actually a force multiplier, so to speak, because we can we can do this. Right. I can see no matter where you are, we can have these conversations.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
But that's just a scapegoat that I see people use. What it really is, people are not taking the time. They're not putting in the effort to make genuine connections. And so what have you done for me lately, society? And say, oh, I'm going to blame this thing and that thing instead of taking accountability and taking ownership for what I can do to improve the situation in my company.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Those types of things. So that's really what sparked me to really dig into this and research all of this stuff and start speaking on the topic and coaching and everything else. And the reason why I focus on like readers specifically is because that trickles down.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So if you have a leader that is not emotionally intelligent, that does not show empathy, that does not take care of those people, I've seen the cause of that. And the cause of that, a lot of people are like, oh, you just leave a job, you just do this, and then you go to your normal life. That's not what happens. That is impacting people's lives. That is causing people to take their lives.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Opioid addiction is at an all-time high. Substance abuse is crazy right now in a lot of industries. So that's really what has caused me to do this. Like, I've lost a lot of friends to suicide. And when I look back at it, a lot of them didn't show any signs. Because in the military, you're just taught to, you show this facade, like, I'm good.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
They say, if you're in a pain, you break your leg, you drink water. And that was the mentality. Even the military has had to change their culture because they realized that what they were doing just does not work because we are humans. We have emotions. And when you get weighed down and you go into that darkness, it's very hard to get out of it. I don't want people to get into that darkness.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Or when they start to feel like the light is leaving a little bit, I want them to realize that they can get support, that they don't have to walk that walk alone, that they are people who really care and support genuinely, that love is not just a business strategy, but it's a human thing. So
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
All these things really just drive me and keep me going and have caused me to want to double down on this emotional intelligence thing.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Absolutely. In the US, the construction space has been, that's one of the industries that is going through all these issues that I just mentioned. Now with corporations and leaders, typically they're focused on like the bottom line. So everything I do has to tie into that, right? Profitability, right? Employee engagement, retention, et cetera. So everything I do is under the guise of those, right?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And so I'll come in and I'll speak about emotional intelligence. I let them know that's, That's a byproduct of taking care of your people. So results over people is no longer the way. It's not going to work. People aren't going to stay in places that they don't feel valued, etc. But what I like to do is I like to take statistics.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
I like to show them statistics of how if they continue on this path, how it's going to impact their people, them and their companies. So that statistic I mentioned of suicide, right? Construction industry is second only to the mining and oil and gas industry here in the United States to suicides and opioid addiction. So that's one of the first things I want to show.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And then once I do that, it shows them like empathy and all these things that I'm talking about is relevant. All right. So that's the first thing. Second thing is I show them what it looks like because there's a misconception that being empathetic is weak. They're like, oh, if I'm empathetic, then I'm just going to get walked all over. So I have to dispel that myth.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So I have to show them my empathy is actually the opposite because empathy is holding yourself and that person accountable. It's the ability to see and understand their perspective and standpoint and get to the point where you can ask them questions that clarify what's going on. What do they need to feel supported? What do they need to succeed?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
To have foresight to say they're going to need these resources. Put yourself in their shoes to get these things done. They're going to need support from you. And a lot of leaders just don't have that type of vision. So I really help them to see how empathy taps into their daily operations, how it can improve, for instance, supply chain.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
If you're not if you don't have an inclusive space, you're skipping over people who may have better ideas than you do as the leadership committee. You're not giving people their voice. You're not able to see the diamonds that you have within your organization because they don't look like you. So all those things, right, all those things are part of emotional intelligence.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Like I mentioned earlier, realizing my biases, looking in the room and saying, OK, everyone looks like me. So how are we getting the best diverse perspectives? All those things tie into emotional intelligence.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
So if you're going to really create the spaces that organizations have been talking about, especially now with DEI initiatives being rolled back, we have to say, what exactly were those initiatives for? Because the work was not about hiring unqualified people into roles. It was about amplifying, giving people opportunities who deserve those opportunities.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And that's really what emotional intelligence is. But to see it, you have to listen. You have to take a step back and not feel like you have to have all the answers. You have to be willing to try different things and take calculated risks, right? You have to be willing to invest in your people and realize that whatever result you wanted will not happen if
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
If you don't take care of your people, because if your people are not at their best, you cannot get the best results. So these are a lot of things that I work on, but it's always tied to the bottom line initially until I come in with them. Same thing with coaching. Leaders are under the perception that they cannot be empathetic and that they need to make decisions fast and all these other things.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
I show them case studies on what that looks like. So if you think about Microsoft, for instance, when Satya Nadella became the CEO, he didn't just go in there and make sweeping changes. He actually listened to his people, saw what they thought. He went to different locations and all this other stuff. The CEO of Best Buy did the same thing.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
He went to different stores, got ideas from them, from the people who were doing the work, everything. That's empathetic leadership. That's transformational leadership. They're really synonymous. So that's how I do the work these days.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
And I'm glad you're bringing this up. So Again, empathy is really counterintuitive to our normal human condition, right? Because you really have to stop and pause and say, you know, I'm going to go out on a limb. I don't feel safe doing this action, but I know I need to do it. For instance, like giving someone delegation.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Delegation is a part of empathetic leadership and a lot of leaders struggle with letting go of that control. So that aspect is counterintuitive to what they're used to. So, for instance, I have a leader. He's a CMO for a company and I've been coaching him and he comes off just brash. Quite frankly, they say he's an asshole at work. And his leader came to me. She said, you know what?
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
This is his last shot, really. Or else I have to find someone else. I don't want to because he does great work. But he's really making it hard for everyone else. Like the culture is just suffering because of the way he comes at it. He's apathetic. He doesn't give a dang what his people care. He just wants the job done. All right. But when I coach him, he says, I actually really care about them.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
I want them to do well, but I don't know how to communicate that. I don't know how to say like when they make a mistake. Oh, man, how can I support you? How can I make sure that you have what you need so that in the future you have success? Instead, he comes out and he says, what did not just explain to you what needs to be done? So that's the thing.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
Placing that interrupt between how we normally react, filtering it and understanding we can get the same message across without being that way. with taking the other person's perspective into account. And sometimes that starts with a question. Sometimes as a leader, instead of saying, why the heck did you do this wrong? I gave you everything, Ania. I thought I told you exactly how to do it.
Chief Change Officer
#310 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part Two
You can say, okay, let me ask you this, right? Because this isn't what I expected to see. What I would like to see from you is this thing. What can I do to help you get there? Sometimes that's the best thing that you can do.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Yeah, so the interesting story about how I got to the military is I was working two full-time jobs at the time. And so I was working at a grocery store, doing like the cars, the cashier, all that stuff, cleaning the meat room, doing every job that they needed me to do, stocking shelves, you name it, I did it. And then I also worked at a hospital.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
It's actually the largest employer at the time of this recording, University of Rochester Strong Memorial Hospital. So I was working there. I was environmental services, a fancy name for gender at first. And then I worked my way to materials processing who cleans the tools and sets up the cases so the doctors have what they need. And then I would work my way into being an anesthesia technician.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So here I am, an anesthesia technician, and this guy who was there, who was moonlighting, he was actually a recruiter for the Army. So he noticed my transition because he saw me in the hall. He, oh, you got promoted. Congratulations. So you know what? You should come down to the recruiting station on Monday. Now, this was a Saturday because I worked weekends there. And I was like, you know what?
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
You may be on to something. You might be on to something. I'm tired of working these two jobs. So wouldn't you know, I go down there and every branch is in that recruiting station. So you have the Marines, you have the Air Force, you have the Coast Guard and you have the Army. So I go in there, I check out each office. So Marines was like, yeah, we don't give bonuses.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
We're all about serving honor. I said, nope, I need my bonus. So that's out. I go to the Air Force and they was like, we only have these certain jobs that's going to be available because they're a smaller subset. So they don't have as many roles. So I go into the army. I take what they call the ASVAB. It's your aptitude test to see what jobs you qualify for. I take it.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
They're like, oh, you qualify for anything. So the top two jobs for me were military intelligence and IT. And I said, military intelligence sounds great, but what the heck am I going to do with that in the civilian world? So my recruiter, he was like, I'm going to just be honest. You should do tech because tech, you never run out of it. Everyone needs tech. So I did tech.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And that was probably the best decision I could have made was to go into that recruiter station and listen to him and just do what I could. Now, I'd signed up for the reserves because I still wanted to do like my personal life. I don't know if I want to commit fully to this. But what they don't tell you about the reserves is you deploy a lot. So I deployed three times as a reservist and deployed.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Hey, good morning, Vince. I'm so honored to be on the Chief Change Officer podcast. Likewise, I'm so happy that Chris introduced us and yeah, he's just an awesome person and I'm looking forward to just meeting you and having this conversation and adding values for the audience.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
That was that was such a change for me from culturally. It's a culture shock in the Army. You're seeing people I had never been outside of like my little bubble or other predominantly black areas. Army, I'm seeing everyone from everywhere. You got people from Guam. You got people from Iowa, Nebraska, everywhere.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And that was awesome because I'm like, here I am talking to people I would have never met. I would have never had to look to my left and my right and depend on these people for to succeed. And then as I moved up into the ranks as a non-commissioned officer to lead other people, you get this this opportunity to really, they say, see what you're made of.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Because here it is, these soldiers who didn't believe in themselves. You know, I don't know if you've ever heard the saying, I don't know if it's a proverb or what, but it talks about how the butterfly can't see its own beautiful wings. So that's how I felt about these soldiers.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Here they are, they're coming from areas like me, and they just didn't know how amazing they were. And it really was because their prior leadership never poured into them. So my ability to just really say, hey, I know that You're feeling low, you've gone through this, you're doing this for your family, whatever the motivation is that has you here.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
But I'm going to let you know that I'm going to take ownership of your success because that's what I feel like a great leader should do. Take ownership of their success. So I had one-on-one conversations with them and I was able to understand why they were there. Whether it be they couldn't afford milk for their baby, so they signed up so they can have some money, whatever it was.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And we rode with them. And they gave me a little coin. One of my groups of soldiers, they gave me a little coin. And that's my favorite award to this day. And that coin just said, hey, thank you for being an awesome leader. That was all it said.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
But that really, when I look back into my story, my journey and all the changes that I've experienced, that coin was the biggest change I ever made because I didn't know what being a leader was myself. And I had to tap deep into and say, you know what? Somebody believed in me. The army believed that I could do this.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So I had to really step into that role and change the fact that that value that I talked about earlier, I was valuable because I can connect with people I can empower people. I can uplift people. I can motivate people. I can do all these things that are intangibles that we call soft skills that are really foundational. I did it very well.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And that was the biggest change that led me to where I am now.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Yep. I was in there for 12 years. And my last deployment was probably not probably is the hardest thing because, and this is one of the reasons why I knew like my body couldn't handle it, my mentally and emotionally, and I just couldn't do it. So I was in Afghanistan in 2016, 2017, and there was a suicide bombing that happened where I was stationed on Bagram Fairfield.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And the suicide bombing was on Veterans Day. So Veterans Day traditionally has been a very hard time since then. We lost, I think we lost six or seven people and then 18 others at least got injured, got injured physically. But of course, mentally and emotionally, those of us who survived or who wasn't hurt physically, that hurt. That plays a toll on you.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And then I was a part of the remains cleanup team where that's what mentally really hit me hard because I'm like, I'm treating the bomber with the same respect that my friends and my comrades and my colleagues that he killed. And that was another inflection point for me because when I got home from that deployment in 2017, I just was not the same. And it hit me like six months later.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Here I am, like after that, I took some time to just like travel and get back into the space of civilian life. And it just didn't work. Six months later, I had struggled severely with depression and PTSD. Kept having the same nightmare over and over again, Vince. And at the end of that nightmare, it was a red flash. I just remember the red flash. It was the detonation from the bomb.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And I had to go to therapy and the therapist once asked me, she said, what happens at the end? I said, I don't know. It doesn't end. Once the flash happens, I wake up. And she was like, I want you to see that as something that's saying that there's something unfinished in your life. So she gave me this whole exercise to find what was unfinished.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And this ties back into my childhood because what was unfinished was my relationship with my father. And then I hadn't been in touch with him. He actually got arrested while I was with him. So that was when I established a relationship. SWAT team jumps out while we're at the gas station and they put me down on the ground. I thought it was something I did, but it wasn't. So it was him.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So fast forward, I had to reestablish that relationship with my father and that nightmare stopped. since then. And what is another change? My daughter was born on Veterans Day. So it went from the worst day to the best day. And that's just how things happen, right? That's serendipitous moments that I really leaned into now with all the change and adversity that has gone through throughout my life.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Absolutely. I like to start that I was born and raised in Rochester, New York for the audience. At that time, we were in the United States, like the third most impoverished city per capita. So we didn't have a lot of money. I actually grew up in a household where my mom was white number two, right? So we had to deal with that with her husband bouncing back and forth between homes.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So I had to really understand value and love as I grew older because back then I didn't know it. I thought value was money. I thought it meant that you had to have something material or else people just didn't care about you because that's quite frankly what was shown to me. So I got into some trouble trying to become valuable, trying to get money.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
At 17, I got arrested, faced seven years in prison. Now, we'll talk about that a little bit more in depth, but that's important because it was one of the inflection points in my life where I sat in a jail cell awaiting trial, facing seven years in prison. They charged me as an adult and I just sat there and that was the first time I actually died. realized the power of empathy.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
My mother and my sister had visited me and my mom told me, like, hey, I'm going to put up the house for you so you can get a lawyer because I don't want you to get a public defender. Because a public defender meant that I was probably going to serve that time because they didn't have time to look at the case. They didn't know that I was a good kid, that I was just with the wrong crowd that night.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
They didn't know anything about me. So she wanted to make sure that I had a fair shake, that the court seen me for who I was. So that night I went up and I prayed to God that he gave me another shot. And he did. Two weeks later, I was out and I was able to graduate high school. attempted to go to college, couldn't pay for that. So I went to the military.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Military was another inflection point where I understood that I was so much more than I even knew. I had leadership capabilities. The fact that I actually was a genuine person and I was compassionate was my superpower.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
As I started leading other soldiers, I was able to see that and tap into that and unlock their potential by pouring into them the same way that some people poured into me to get to that point. And now I'm here in Houston, Texas. I was in the cybersecurity space, tech space for about 10 years, did 12 years in the Army and just realized like that wasn't for me.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
That wasn't the journey I had to take for the Army. I'm getting hurt. So my body, my mind, my emotions just couldn't handle any more of what comes with being in the Army, in the U.S. Army. Yeah, I'm here now.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
I have this company called Bright Mind Consulting Group, where we focus on leveraging the power of emotional intelligence, which we'll get into how I got there as well to just help other leaders and organizations improve performance.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Absolutely. The big mistake was just being with the wrong people. On that night, I got arrested for an assault and robbery charge. So on that night, I ended up, I was supposed to go to the movies with someone I worked with at a grocery store. That did not happen.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So we ended up meeting some of his friends and they wanted to joyride around and hop out on cars on people and just, I don't know what they were thinking. So I wake up, I was like, man, I'm taking me home. I'm going to sleep. I'm not even going to entertain this. So five minutes outside from my home, cops pull up behind us and they're like, hey, Y'all going in. We going in for questions.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
I'm like, all right, that's fine with me. So I'm like, I had nothing to do with it. But it turns out that it didn't matter that I had nothing to do with that moment because I was going down that path. And I realized that later on, you may not have been guilty on this one. But you were going down a path, right? You were starting to deal drugs and do all that other stuff.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So I felt like that was my wake-up call to say, okay, you're not guilty of this one, but you were guilty of doing something that you shouldn't have been doing. And this was the opportunity to catch me, my wake-up call, so to speak. So like I said, I faced seven years.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
The guy that I was with ended up, he was the only one that didn't sit in that jail cell because he said that we were the ones doing everything. So that's what happened. I ended up sitting in there for a few months and crazy enough, my friend, my best friend, he was telling everyone at high school, they were like, what happened to Javon? He was like, oh, he's just sick.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So when I come back to school, they're like, oh man, you're finally back. You all right? And I'm like, yeah, if you only knew what was really happening, right? So I look back at that and I say, I always try to find the jewels in what we go through. And that was my jewel was like, hey, that was just God catching me to say, hey, this is not the path you want to be on.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
If you want to make another mistake like this, I'm not going to save you this time. So get it right.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Yeah, for me, I think it gave me some intuition and unique intuition. So I can apply a lot of the situations and circumstances that I've gone through. One, it's provided me with resilience. Right. I'm able to no matter what's going on, I can calm myself and put myself in a space where I can look at things and figure things out with clarity because nothing is a surprise to me anymore.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
I'm like, OK, this is happening. Whatever. Let's figure it out. So that's one thing that has happened that has really been beneficial for me. The second thing is I don't judge people. Right. Yes, we all have our biases, but I'm able to catch it when I'm doing that because I understand like people were looking at me like, oh, man, you're nothing. You're worthless, whatever.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And at least I thought so. I don't make it a point to catch myself when I'm looking to do that. Whatever my bias is, when I see another person to say, you know what? Let me give them a fair shake. Let me ask them questions to get to know them a little better. Let me understand why they've made the decisions they've made or whatever the case is.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And that bodes well as a leader and as an entrepreneur. The other piece is I mentioned the aspect of love and looking to understand value. I truly realize that value has nothing to do with material assets or material gain. So I treat people with that, whether it's somebody that's the janitor or CEO, they all get that same respect from me. And I'm proud of that.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And then the other piece is my work ethic. So when I think about poverty, when I think about having to depend on someone else to feed me, to give me clothing, whatever the case is, I don't want that and I don't want that for anyone else. So that's why it's very important for me to pour back into my community in Rochester, but also any community that's impoverished and underserved.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
underrepresented today. So I do a lot of work, pro bono work in that space, coaching individuals, storing clothing drives, educational, go to prisons to do business pitch competitions so they understand the path of entrepreneurship that's open to them. My dissertation that I'm doing, my doctorate right now is on digital entrepreneurship and how it alleviates poverty in the urban United States.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So just about everything I do comes back to my experience to say, you know what? I know what it's like and I know we don't have to be there. We don't have to stay there. There are opportunities. And I also know that representation matters because I didn't see anyone succeed from my neighborhood.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And that impacted me because when I started getting that success, you get survivors remorse and you have to be able to understand that. So you have to go through the therapy and the coaching and all these other things to find what the root cause of that is and then find how you can turn that into a power and not something that can weigh you down.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
No, they gave me six months. I was on probation for six months, so if I had gotten into trouble, I would have had to do that. But it got expunged. So when I went to the military, they expunged it because it wasn't a charge.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Yeah, that's a great question, Vince. So how I felt initially was, I will say when I called my mother, it was probably like two in the morning. When they finally took me to the cell, they allowed me to call her. And I told her, and I remember that like it was yesterday, calling her and hearing her voice. She's asleep. And I'm like, hey, I'm in jail. I just hear her wake up like, what the hell?
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
What do I need to do? Do you need a lawyer? Blah, blah, blah. And I remember her kicking into action. And then I remember when she came to visit me. So in this time, it's probably like a few weeks, a couple of weeks, right? She came to the sentencing. I remember her being behind me. Not the sentencing, but when they take me in the courtroom.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And then they put it to recess or whatever so we could get the lawyer and all that other stuff. And I remember seeing her. She looked so worn down. I remember that visitation room, you get the browns in Monroe County, where I'm from in Rochester, you have a brown jumpsuit and then it says property of Monroe County.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And I remember coming into that visitation room and you got to go through the strip search and all that other stuff. And I was just like numb. I was numb until I walked into the visitation room and I looked around and everyone looked like me. And then they interact, there's glass between us. Right. So I'm like, I'm looking at my mom. She's worn looking at my older sister. She's worn down.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And I'm like, I caused that stress. I caused that stress by being here. And it just it broke me down to my core. That's that's how I felt initially before that. Yeah, I was upset at the guy that I went out with. Man, you got me into this, but you're not even in here. But then I realized, like, what part do I play? And that the part that I play was everything. It was on me.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So that's why after that visit and she told me she was going to pay for the lawyer and everything, I had to pray. And it was the first time I prayed to God on my own volition where because I grew up Muslim and we prayed five times a day, but I never really meant it. I just was forced to do it. And that was the first time I actually meant it. Because to be frank, I felt like we were left out.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
I'm like, how can we live like this? Why would God do that to anybody? And that was the moment he was like, hey, I'm here for you. I'm here for you. But you got to change, right? You have to look at what you can do, be accountable for your actions and be kind. So that's why now I've... went through this journey of focusing on mindset and all those things.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
But I realized that emotional intelligence is really the key because you have the self aspect of emotional intelligence, and then you have the social aspect of emotional intelligence. So I feel like that holistic perspective was really key for me in recovering. I didn't know what it was called back then for my mother and the judge later to be empathetic to me for the judge to say, hey,
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
I know this isn't you. I've looked at your record. I looked at the fact that you were a good student. You're one of the top students in your class and all these other things. So I know this isn't you. I'm going to give you this next chance. Right. That was empathy. That judge could have said, yeah, no. Next, you're going in. You're going to serve this time. But he didn't.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
So that's how it changed me. And then my father wasn't there either. My biological father. And now he's serving life for a triple murder in Rochester, in upstate New York. And all of that stuff, when I look back to it, as I said, sometimes it hits me, like the emotions, the wave of emotions comes to me. But I also realized that's why it's so important for me to tell my story.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
Because I tell my story and I'm vulnerable, it allows other people to open up and share theirs and then step into the power that it is to say, you know what? I'm not going to focus on what the negative people say, but I know that my story, only I can tell it the way I want people to know me for.
Chief Change Officer
#309 Jevon Wooden: From Cell Block to C-Suite — Part One
And then as I tell mine, that pours into someone else and then someone else feels their power in their story. And then they understand that it's not for you to be judged, but it's for you to be able to really step into being authentically you without having to worry about the recourse.