Interview with Roderick Jefferson

In this heartfelt episode of Just Call Jenna, Jenna sits down with author and keynote speaker Roderick Jefferson for an honest and deeply personal conversation about surviving and recovering from life-altering strokes. Drawing from their remarkably similar experiences, they explore the physical, emotional, and mental challenges that follow a traumatic brain injury, sharing stories of lost abilities, relearning everyday tasks, accepting help, and finding strength in the smallest victories. Together, they reflect on how recovery is rarely about dramatic breakthroughs and more often about patience, resilience, and celebrating incremental progress. 

Beyond their stroke journeys, Jenna and Rod discuss the lessons that emerged from facing mortality: protecting peace, setting boundaries, redefining success, and appreciating the simple moments that often go unnoticed. The conversation touches on gratitude, self-care, relationships, purpose, and the importance of giving grace—to others and to ourselves. Through stories of survival, recovery, and personal transformation, they offer listeners a powerful reminder that while life’s challenges may change us, they can also become the beginning of a more meaningful chapter.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Jess Call Jenna.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome back. Thanks for joining Jess Call Jenna again. Today I have a friend of mine, Rod Jefferson, who wrote a book, A Stroke of Success. We met through an acquaintance and have so much in common. Not just the stroke journey, but life journeys are very similar. So I'm really excited for all of you to join us today and hear what we have to say. This is going to be very much like a fireside chat, unscripted, just the two of us talking, and hope you all take away as much joy as we're going to take away from the day. Hi, Rod. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Thanks, Jen. Appreciate it. Looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

So I guess we'll kind of start with the book. Fabulous book, by the way. Our journey was the same. It hit me in some emotional places that I wasn't even sure I still had. But one of my favorite things you said was you cannot strategize yourself out of a stroke. That I think it still hits me. Because I think I that's what I was groomed to do through corporate, right? So that's how I thought I had to do it, but you can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

I think, you know, corporate actually teaches us that. I'll take it a step further. They indoctrinate us into that. Right. And the further you move up the ladder, the more. Everything is about strategy. Until something like that stroke happens and you realize there's no practice for this and there's no blueprint for it. Because as you know, going through this as well, every stroke is individual. And so you've got to figure out how to get through the next day. It's not about long-term, it's not about healing. It's not the physical therapist. It's let me just get through today. Because each new day can bring a whole new challenge, as you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah. And even still, it's been years, but there are still days where like a whole new challenge pops up that I wasn't ready for. What you were talking about there reminded me of a quote by Mike Tyson, right? Everybody has a strategy until they get punched in the face.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Absolutely. And then I believe, yeah, 90% of what happens in life is how you approach it. Yeah. Right. Because I've realized the older I get, the less control we have over anything. Right. And mine, like most people, I didn't have any warning. Yeah. It just suddenly suddenly hit. And strokes are an interesting thing. And I realized that God has a sense of humor because as a keynote speaker, as a voiceover artist, as a professional, it was all about my mind and my voice. And that's what he took away. Yeah. Because my stroke was directly in the middle of my speech center. So I couldn't talk. So I just had to listen. And I realized there is a huge difference. And I'll say this to you and to your listeners. There is a huge difference between listening and hearing. Well said.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Thanks. I think for me, one of the big ones when you say what you know happens in the stroke, mine was in my balance center and it affected speech, but I almost lost my left side. So my brain had to make all these alternate connections and just do everything different. Like having to listen and like having to accept help when you're a control freak is one of the hardest things to do.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Well, Dad, and plus, as parents, we're the fixers, right? And when you can't fix your own self, that's when mortality lits you in the face. You said you almost lost your left. I lost my entire left side. It was completely paralyzed. I went snowblind. And for those that are skiboarders or skiers, it's not dark. It's literally like looking into a bright light all the time. And when you can't talk, you realize that the space between your brain and your mouth is a lot wider than any of us realize. We were talking free taping, and we're talking about how we both realize how far our couch was to the bathroom. Yeah, I remember that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah. My daughter, the other night, I was falling asleep in my chair. And this is after, you know, I've so-called recovered. Um, I think it's still always happening. But it's like I'm falling asleep in my chair. My daughter goes, Are you gonna go to bed? And I'm like, But my bed is so far away. Going back to the beginning, that I just couldn't even imagine how I was gonna get down the hallway. My brain couldn't process it. But I think that's part of that surrender that goes in. The stroke is hard, right? But it's the recovery that I feel like is harder. Sometimes I think people assume that just because they can't see things, that I am recovered, but there are still things I have to do differently. There are still struggles I have daily. There can be just a day where randomly my whole body and brain is like, nah, not today, girl.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

No, not today. Yeah. It's not gonna happen, right? And that's something else people assume that there is a definition of normal. I've walked away and completely abandoned that because what's normal for one is nowhere close to normal to someone else, right? As we're talking about again, of getting the handicap placard and then getting out of the car and people looking at you going, Why are you parking here? Like you have no idea the tsunami that's going right below the surface where we are. And so I I firmly believe the old adage of be nice to everybody because everybody's going through something. Yeah. At different levels and degrees.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah, gives new meaning to the don't judge a book by its cover, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 5:07

As an author, it gives me a whole new definition of that piece, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah. I feel like all the old adages my grandparents taught me as a kid are all coming back now.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

It's funny. Uh every day I hear my mom's, my late mom's voice saying, little pictures have big eyes. I didn't understand what that meant. And as I got older, all the things that we saw that were ingrained in us, we're kind of living now. Yeah. It's that one that they used to say, the older you get, the faster life goes. Yeah. I could live without that one.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

That's fair. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

My grandma used to say with when having kids, and I didn't get it until now that they're older, but she would tell me the days are long, but the weeks are gonna be short. Yeah. And I think I get that now, and I didn't get it when they were babies. There is certainly a lot of learning that comes through experience, right? Absolutely. I ended up after healing from the stroke, I went very big into how the brain works, neuroscience, neuroplasticity. I ended up getting a neuroscience coach certification because I nerded it out. But learning how the brain works is kind of how all this podcast and all this came into. But it is, it's learning. You can learn from books, you can learn from experience. I think experience is a much bigger teacher.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Yeah, that's why I think that there are a lot of intelligent people. Not a lot of people are smart. Okay, that's right. There are a lot of intelligently stupid people. Okay, that's fair. I don't mean that derogatorily. I mean that book smart is one thing, but experience is an amazing teacher. I've learned through the American Stroke Society that one out of every four adults over the age of 25 will incur a stroke. It may not even be noticeable. I've had two. The first one I didn't even know happened. And it could have been something as simple as your balance is off.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Or it feels like a migraine, or you're really super tired, or your eyes are blurry, or maybe there's a little slurring. Or it could be completely unnoticeable.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Well, I think that's what mine was. They told me I had three or more, what they would call a mini stroke, sometimes called a TIA before the stroke. You could have had it like they told me it probably could have happened even in your sleep that you wouldn't even know it. Or like they said, you could have just been a headache. And they're quick and over. But I think for me, what I learned in the stroke is the one that I had that again, mine had a 95% chance I wouldn't survive. So I'm lucky to be here. But I think the harder part for me was the recovery. But everything I've learned since, I kind of feel like, how did I not know this before? But I didn't have the awareness that it existed.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

It's an interesting thing when it comes to strokes. I had my stroke, my massive stroke, actually, while I was asleep. And 98% of sleep stroke victims never wake up. So I am blessed enough to be in that 2% club. But when I woke up, I didn't feel different. And as we were saying earlier, every stroke is individual. Yeah. I didn't have any facial droop. I didn't have any problems using my limbs. My speech started to slur over time, but when I first woke up, I sounded fine. But the more I was awake that day, the worse things got. And I mean it got bad, bad to where I could barely talk and articulate any words. I get anything out. And thankfully, I was actually in LA getting ready to do a keynote as a speaker. And whenever I'm on the road, my wife and I always jump on the phone and hey, what's going on with the kids? What's happening at home? What's your day look like? And when she talked to me, it was different because I felt like it was kind of echoing in my ear. And I thought that's a little weird. And so as I started to slur more, thankfully, she knew the fast protocol, which is the stroke protocol to walk you. And she first we jumped on FaceTime. She wanted to see if my face was true, right? Lift your arms up, she wanted to see if I could speak, and she wanted to see if I I was okay with balance. No, I wasn't. She said, Count to 10. Great. I've done this once or twice. One, two, seven, twenty-three, ninety-two, fifty-five, four. And she said, say your ABCs. I was like, You've got to be kidding me.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

And it was A B L Q T X W Y J I G. She knew something was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:04

So thankfully I had some folks on my team that were traveling with me. They called him Tim Carlson. Big shout out. And thank you, thank you, thank you for being there and for saving my life. Because without Tim Carlson, I would not be here. He was a guy that was on my team at the time, and we've become lifelong friends. He's the person that called the 911, went into the ambulance with me to emergency. Now here's the interesting thing. I was in LA. They only kept me in the emergency room for 90 minutes. When's that ever happened? Yeah. Right. They checked my heart because I have a heart condition, hypotrophic cardiomyopathy. I was a high-level athlete, so I've got an excess layer of my layer of muscle around my heart, and I've got a really big heart, Jenna.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, I know that about you.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Literally, I have a large heart now. And so they checked my heart. But although I had every symptom of having a stroke, they released me. And that was the day that I was flying home. Miracle number one. I'm still alive after having the stroke. Miracle number two, as I'm walking through the airport, I dropped. I mean, just passed out. They put me in a wheelchair and rolled me onto the plane. So I land in Oakland and my son takes my car. She he goes home. My wife rushes me to John Muirover in Walnut Creek. We get there, they go through protocol. First thing they say to my wife is, Your husband's miracle, because he should not be alive. Cabin pressure, altitude, mid-stroke. Not something you ever want for Christmas or birthday.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, no, I agree. So mine was um, I was supposed to get on a flight, and I woke up feeling like I was drunk, you know, like slurring speech, and I was functioning, but much like like I would describe it as being drunk with no alcohol. Right. And so when they took me to the ER, they thought I just had vertigo. And so they were like, Yeah, you're not gonna get on your plane flight tomorrow. Let's give you an fMRI and look at the crystals in your ear. And they were like, Yeah, it's a little more than vertigo. But if I had gotten on the plane, the blood clot in my brain would have burst aneurysm, bleed out. Very not good. Yeah, so I'm shocked that they put you on a plane.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Yeah, and I make it there and they go through protocol, they admit me into the hospital. I'm there for 10 days, and things have gotten progressively worse. Now my entire left side is paralyzed. I'm slurring, I can barely talk, and as I said, I can't see. Now bear in mind, this was only four years ago, and what was going on then? COVID. Wow. So ICU is not exactly where you wanted to be at that time.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, I bet that was a very lonely place.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

It was terrifying because I didn't want my wife coming in there. Yeah, sure. The kids couldn't come in because you could only have one visitor. And I kept telling her, you don't have to come up, just FaceTime me. Hard-headed, she wasn't gonna listen. So she came up one time and things were just off. I was having a really hard time breathing, and I was beyond exhausted. I said I'd played basketball, I'd played football, double days. It didn't feel like that kind of tire. It wasn't like, oh, this has been a long week and I just want to go sleep for a week. This was literally, I could barely keep my eyes open.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Uh-huh. I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

And I would in the middle of a sentence.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

I had to have oxygen for the six days I was in the hospital. I couldn't breathe on my own. Yeah, yeah. Breathing took everything out.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Everything. It was tiring. They had me on level eight oxygen.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

I can't remember what level I was on, but I know that like I couldn't function without it. I remember I had a great doctor that told me, I know this is hard for you. Um, my legal name is Jennifer, so he said Jennifer. He's like, I know this is hard for you, Jennifer, but the body will heal itself. You just have to give it time, and it's gonna take a lot longer than you want it to.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

He didn't know about the control thing, did he?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

No. Clearly, yeah, clearly.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

And that's the one thing you learn after having a stroke is patience. Because the things that just instinctively you could do get up, walk, go, move around, sort out, you know, your to-do lists doesn't work that I felt like my life before I was probably like the little Tasmanian devil, yeah, in and out of places, run, run, run, go, go, go.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

And when you have to actually slow down because your body can't do it, it's patience, but it's also very humbling. You become very understanding and giving everybody the space to be who they are, even if it doesn't agree with you. Except yourself.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Yeah, that's very hardest thing is to give yourself that grace, right? And for me, it took away what was literally my brand, if you will, which was my intelligence and my articulation, and I couldn't talk. And so you you're really, really humbled by the fact that the smallest things that you took for granted are now gone. Yeah, my stroke was right in the middle of my speech center, which happens to be right next to the emotional center. So as my brain kept swelling, it was pressing on the emotion center. There was not a day that I didn't cry three, four days. I would burst into tears for no legitimate reason at all. And I thought, okay, maybe this was just some cleansing that I needed to get a lot of bundled up things, right? And as it started to get what I felt like was better, then there was a dip. And my wife had come up to the hospital and she was getting ready to go, and she was holding my hand like she didn't want to let go.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

And tears were welling up in her eyes. And I'm like, Are you okay? Are the kids going? Yeah, everything's all right. What's happening? Because again, I'm completely disconnected. I'm out on like Gilligan's Island by myself. And she leaves, and so she tells me later. So she said she cried all the way home because she knew in her heart that she was never gonna see me alive again. And I went, Okay, and she's telling me this later after it happens. Now, here's why she was crying. So suddenly that night, I hear code blue, lights are flashing, machines are beeping, and I hear code blue, code blue, and it's my room number. Now, in rushed all of the doctors and the nurses, they're starting chest compression and they're sucking fluids out of me. And suddenly I go from beep, beep, beep, beep to beep, and I'm flatlined. I am dead legally. Now, for those that want to know about NDEs or near-death experience, I did not leave the room. And no, I did not see a white light. But what I did see was the most vibrant, and I didn't have my glasses on. Normally I can't see anything. I saw the most vibrant greens and blues and purples and whites that I've ever seen in my life. It was like, remember when you were little and you had those kaleidoscopes that you turn? It was like that, but on a thousand. And then suddenly I float out of my body and I'm up in the corner of the room. I'm looking down on them and they're working on my body, but I'm still flatlined. Now here's miracle number three. As I'm watching down, I look to my left, and it's my mom. My mom died in 1999. This was only four years ago. So I look her and I'm okay. Good and faithful servant, Mama. I've done everything that I can. I'm ready to go home. Let's go. And she says, No, son. Baby, I was sent. And I know it's her. She had that purple Moo Moo on, the same look. She looked younger, but it was my mom.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

And she said, I was sent to tell you two things. One, that you're gonna be okay and they're going to figure this out, but you have to change everything about your life. You've got to slow down. Because if you have another one of these, there won't be a conversation. I'm just gonna grab you, we're gonna go. And the second thing, you gotta get the book to know the second thing. Give that one away. That's fair. But she did give me my new mission for life and what I was supposed to do. Then I'm like, good. Okay, I've got questions. She's gone. Mom, mama.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Where'd she go? Now I'm sucked back into my body, and my chest is killing me.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Because of all the chest compression. The most uncomfortable space on the planet is a hospital bed. There is no position. Am I wrong? No, you're not going to be able to do that. You can actually get comfortable.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

And mine was worse because I had a neurologist that said that where my injury was, that I couldn't stare at TVs and blue lights and all. So I had to lay there just listen. I couldn't be on my phone when you talk about like snowboys. I couldn't read anything. I couldn't, I couldn't focus long. So I just had to lay there in this room where there's like a little window up in the corner, a beep, beep all the time. And every hour somebody's like, hey, we're here for your blood. Hey, can you read this flashcard?

SPEAKER_03 17:06

We're gonna need vitals. Can you can you you lift your hands? Can you turn it over? I'm like, I just started doing it out of routine now because they do it so much.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Oh yeah. Can you follow my finger?

SPEAKER_03 17:16

That was I didn't even do it with me because I couldn't see anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Yeah, that one was the hardest one for me because I couldn't focus.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Yeah. So now here's why it got really interesting. I'm sucked back into my body. And remember, my left side is completely paralyzed. And then I hear the one word that no one wants to hear. Clear. Oh. He's coming down to hit me with the paddles, and thank God he's on my right side because my left side is completely paralyzed. So as he's about to hit me, and I'm still beep, beep, beep, and all of a sudden, beep, beep, and it came back. Right before he hit me, I grabbed his hand. Thankfully, I didn't grab the paddle because I couldn't see anything. I just reached out for something for his arm. And then they start going, they call in the emergency response team. Everything changes, but that's where the hard work starts, as you know. Yeah. Now you've got physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy. Learn how to tie your shoe, how to use a regular spoon.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Seriously, be a control freak and give all that up. My experience was not like a flat line near death, if you will. The night that I had it, I thought I had food poisoning. And so I just went, fell, fell out on the bathroom floor. And when I got up, I couldn't do anything, right? That's where I woke up like I was drunk. But it felt like years to me. I did not get the white light, the complete out-of-body experience. I experienced with all I can call it is like a life review, right? Like wow. So that was my experience where it it's really, it was me.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Literally, your life flashing before your eyes.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

The best I can explain it is like imagine there's 5,000 thumbnails and you can just dive into anyone you want at any time. And it's all different times of your life, all different experiences. But when you dive into it, it the best I can explain it is that imagine we experience this moment and I would be experiencing it as you and not me. And that's the karma of the situation. And that was when I woke up, and all I can remember is like something inside of me telling me it's not your time. What I learned from that sort of life review is how quick this life really is beyond what we've been through. And that if I know I'm here for some purpose, which I still don't clearly know yet, that's what the podcast is kind of for. But that my job is to enjoy my life and make sure that regardless of what anybody else thinks, that I'm good with what I'm doing. And as long as that's it, I know whatever happens next, as long as I'm good with it.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

My job is to give one smile to somebody that would not have gotten that if I wasn't brought back. And I take it very seriously because there's a lot going on. And if I can give somebody just that smile, that feeling of appreciation and just being seen, then you know what? Mission accomplished. And now I'm at a point where I'm like, you know what? Things aren't that serious. All that cut me off on the freeway, go ahead. You may have an emergency. I don't know. Go.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

I think that's a good way to put it. It's not that serious. Like to me, I just turned the temperature down, right? That's not gonna boil over anymore. I think one of the ones that helped me a lot in my recovery, which was of course one of the hardest pieces, was my Angelou has a quote that's every storm runs out of rain.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And I remember telling myself that many times.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

It's hard to believe that when you're in the middle of that storm, though.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

It sure is. I loved in your book how you talked about in your version, it was walking a different house every day. Mine was walking a different driveway. But you know, they they give you this idea like get to the end of the block, and that's so overwhelming and so frustrating.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

But I can't even see to the end of my fair enough, my street. More or less think about walking that far. If you could go one house, then two houses, then three houses, et cetera. What's the old adage about you know eating an elephant, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

One bite at a time. And that's how I felt learning to walk, and the same with you.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah, I think that's a big one. And so I think when you get to that level and you start living your life a little bit different, that little one percent. I had a friend that always told me, girl, just take baby steps.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

That's all you gotta crawl before you can walk.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Right. So I think a lot about what uh Martin Luther King had a quote that was if you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl, but never stop moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

That's all right. See, what people don't understand is what you were just saying is a perfect example. In your mind, it was perfect. Yeah, but getting from here to here, it completely changes. And that I don't know about you, but that was the hardest thing for me is you know what you're trying to say, but but between your brain and your mouth, it gets lost somewhere. And that's hard.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

That part is so frustrating. There are things I used to be amazing at. And I look at them and I'm like, I don't even know how to do that. And then all of a sudden I start not naturally beating myself up. Girl, you should know how to do this. Uh, but I forgot.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

My explanation for everything when I'm out doing keynotes and I'm talking to people or people I haven't seen in ages, I go, I kind of had a stroke. And I leave it there. It's like people come up and go, Do you remember me? And I'm like, and I at first I tried to front. I was like, You look familiar. Now I go, uh-uh, I had a stroke. I've lost a lot. Can you tell me your name again? And that was humbling. Yeah. Because I put a lot of credence on being able to remember and connect with people. And then I couldn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah, like you recognize the face, but you couldn't place it.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Sometimes I wouldn't even recognize the face. Okay. Sometimes I'm like, you could pass me an airport and I wouldn't know you. But you have to go, wait a minute. Give yourself some grace and treat yourself the way you would anybody else that's had a major brain injury. And that's what we had.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

And it's really hard to do that to ourselves. Like I find that it's so much easier to give grace to other people, but to allow myself some grace, that part is really hard. I've learned how to do it now. I mean, I've learned now after rebuilding, because it wasn't just, hey, by the way, can you recover and get physically better? It's can you live a whole new lifestyle? They told me mine was stress poisoning, like the overall cortisol spikes over the amount of stress. Yeah. And so stress is no joke. Right? And then they're like, yeah, you if you don't want to have another stroke, the best way you can avoid it is to learn how to not have stress. Um, I'm an adult.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Hello? Do you live in the world right now? Have you looked around it?

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah, life's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

There's a little stress going on right now.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

But I've learned to protect my boundaries and sort of make it there's a space for me where I get treated with the same respect as everybody else.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

I love what you just said, your boundaries. What now have you put a wall up to as a boundary that wasn't there before your stroke?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Protecting my time and peace. Oh my peace is my currency. So if you're gonna take my peace, it's too expensive. That price, I'm not willing to pay. I am not willing to go through that recovery again. Like if it happens again, just take me because I don't have that in me. I don't have that strength. Right now, one and done, my man. One and done. But I think that like realizing that stress and the loss of my peace, it's not one moment. It is the overall consistency of it, like walk in the driveways or the houses. If I keep going down the road of stress, I'm headed back there. So protecting my peace is everything. I love that. And I it has changed how I show up in the world.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

How so?

SPEAKER_01 24:11

I don't feel like I have conflicts with people.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

There's no reason to.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

I feel like I did before. I used to feel like I needed to explain my position or tell everybody anything. I think part of being in sales is that you know, you're trying to control the conversation and control the outcomes. And so now I'm just like, okay, if our narratives don't align, that's okay. I'm not gonna fight with you. I just my favorite is a quote by Tupac that is just because we're not friends doesn't make a sense of me. I'm bigger than that. I hope you eat, but I'm not letting you eat at my table.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

And you're not sitting at my table.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

And that's a big one for me.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

I love that because a lot of people think that taking care of yourself and doing self-care is selfish. And that's a bad thing. Where after the stroke, I realize self-care and selfishness is necessary because there are a lot of people that will take and take until you put that wall up and that boundary and go, that's it. I don't have any more to give. And and you have to take time to recharge your batteries. I realized that a lot of people I thought were friends or really acquaintances. Yeah. Or they were co-workers, not really friends. And I don't mean that negatively because the thing that it did teach me is that everybody on your team ain't on your squad.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

That's fair. I think that like when you're talking about different reasons, seasons are letting people go or they come. I think it goes back to that idea of don't judge a book by its cover. Yeah. You can't judge someone on level two when you're on level 10.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

It's hard to be humble enough to remember what you like it to.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

And sometimes they were actually better than you were at that level.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

But I think that goes back to that. It's like, you know, you just appreciate everybody for why they're there. Yeah. Again, I I really think about things from I when I get to where I'm going, which is the next stage, I know it's gonna be me judging myself, and I better be damn sure that I'm okay with everything I did. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I tell you what, one thing that I am not willing to do is let other people control what I think. My authentic self needs to come out. If I'm okay with it, then I don't have to care if anybody else was.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Everything's not meant for them. And as an author, I look at my life now in chapters, and everybody is not going to be in every chapter. And that's okay. But they do add, it's like a gumbo, right? They add a little seasoning to that particular chapter, and then they move on. I'm like, all right, well, I got a chance to experience a new taste, a new flavor, and I move forward. I thank them for what they brought, whether it was positive or negative. My mom used to say, you learn how to or how not to. Either way, you learn. One hurts more than the other. Yeah. But you still learn. That's it. And that stuck with me my entire life. And then I just kind of go, that chapter is over. Move forward, open the book. Are you still in it? If not, okay. Oh, there's somebody new in the chapter that I didn't know before.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Well, I think again, some of it could be the stroke, and some of it could be as you get older, but you start to appreciate things differently. I can still remember the first day I read a page in a book. And this was probably three or four months after the stroke that I could finally read. I go running down the hall with my hands up. I was off the walk with the I can read. And everybody in my family is like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Good, good, good, good, good for you.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Right. But like to me. They don't understand that's a huge milestone. And I did not stop.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yeah, I remember going from the walker to a cane to crutches because I still had the balance issue. And when I finally walked all the way across just my living room, yeah, I literally burst into tears.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah. It's like winning a marathon or something.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yeah, I just went 26.2 miles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

You're like, can I get my gold medal now? Yeah, it's it's a it's an achievement for sure.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

It's quite an achievement. And I wish more people could have the appreciation of having a stroke without having the stroke. What I mean is that we're always looking for these big things to celebrate.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

I think I am grateful. Like some days I just get up and I'm like, I'm just grateful to be Braven. I can't tell you how grateful I am that both of us are sitting here right now after what we've been through. And not just what we've been through, but the recovery that comes with it. That is the peace that nobody sees. And I saw somebody this week that I've known for a while, and he knew I had a stroke, but we were talking about it. And he was like, I didn't realize it was that bad. And I was like, Well, what did you want me to do? Tell you I almost died.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Yeah. Like we're supposed to wear this chest plate on going, I had a stroke.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

No, there's a handful of friends that checked on me every single day, and and a couple of family members. And I remember that I couldn't even talk. I just grunted. I'm like, you're still talking to me. And it's like 30 minutes later. Yeah. Because they were a part of that recovery. I realized that true recovery. I don't mean going out to your physical therapist and your speech therapist, but the dark work that you do at home, recovery happens. That's it. It's not the big strides when you can go in and you can, you know, move the hand on the clock and they say put it at 10 o'clock and you can move it. Those things that we had to go through. Oh, yeah. It's the sum of all those small wins. So if I can say anything, I think look for more small wins in life every day instead of these big, huge trophies and huge wins.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Not everything is a soap opera. Most of life is the mundane.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

It is really mundane, and it's a lot of dark work that is to get to become who you are and who you want to be. And I think that's where a lot of people come just short of actually hitting life's goals.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

And some days just breathing and taking a step is like the equivalent of, like you said, getting across the room. Like that is worth celebrating to the level of the guy who got the gold medal. For you, that's a gold medal. Absolutely. I think it took me, it was, it was like a week of trying to just get past the first sentence.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

You should celebrate.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

And it's not because you deserve it, but you've earned it. You've put in the work to get through that page. You put in the work of walking to the next driveway in the next driveway in the next driveway.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah. Like when I first heard reading, they make these rulers that have like that little highlighted section in the middle. My eyes couldn't process the overcrowding on the page. So I had to start with a ruler moving it down lane by line just to be able to read. But yeah, I think, I think it was. I I can remember that when I got through the full page. And I mean, it wasn't one of those like super small brim, but I mean, I think most people could probably do it with their, you know, eyes closed, if you will. And for me, it was just, I was so excited that I read that page because I had been trying. I remember every day trying to get through the first sentence of that paragraph and like reading it and then going, I don't know what I just read. Like it just didn't compute. The brain had to make a new connection.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

What I had to learn with the stroke is that actually hurts you. Yeah. It gets to a point of diminishing return because you get brain tired and then you start to lose cognitive function.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

It's like, okay, I can only do this for 20 minutes. I want to read for an hour, or those crazy things you say, you know, you have to match the colors, yeah. I could do it for about 15, 20 minutes. After that, my body would just give out. And then I would do 15, 20 minutes of brain work and I'd go pass out and I'd have to have a nap.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah. And your body two hours. Yeah, and the body doesn't want to cooperate after that.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

And you're thinking it was only 15 minutes, but your brain has no concept of that kind of time. It just knows that you're putting on a high level of burden and stress that it may not even be ready for yet.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

I learned that your brain uses about 20% of your total physical energy.

unknown 31:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

So when you're using your mind, it's it's taking up 20% of the energy that your entire body has. All your internal organs, all of it. But yeah, so I think about brain breaks are important.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

It takes a lot out of you. What I'm doing is I color code my calendar now. Because changing hats for different meetings doesn't work as easily or as smooth as it used to. And I can only do two, no more than two meetings. And so what I've doing then is I will actually, because we've got the calendar link and all those things, right? I will block out times to just go outside, get some fresh air, sit in the backyard, get away from the computer. Because otherwise, it'll be like seven, eight meetings in a day, and my brain can't take more. Yeah, then I'm the one that's hurting later that night, mentally and physically.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I I agree with that. Again, that's those boundaries things. So I do the same thing. I schedule a section for myself where there's my in-between is something's really busy. Here's 15 minutes. And the other day I just had to go walk around the block. I literally left my phone at home. I was like, I can't.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

I just I just took my dog around the corner. These things take a lot away from your brain. So I always say, seven o'clock, turn it off. But you're going out to eat, turn it over. If you're sitting with the family, be present. And that was hard for me because I was always on my phone. That is my one addiction is being on that phone.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I think that's most of us actually.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

That's the dopamine here. Right. And that's the way it's set up. But now I have to remember there was a time when I didn't have this opportunity to sit down and do these things, to hang out with the family, to spend time with my wife or with my kids or with my granddaughter. And so when they're around, and I'll find myself slipping sometime, I'll go back to my phone and my daughter will go, Dad, is that necessary or was it just automatic? And I'm like, you know what? I didn't even realize I was looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

I'm about to call out my mom. Hopefully she doesn't hear this too much. But we had a rule when we would go out to dinner with the kids that you couldn't be on your phone. I remember we went out to dinner once and it was my daughters, me and my mom, and everybody had their phone away. My mom's the one on them. The kids are like, uh, Grammy.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Oh, they'll remind you.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

They will definitely call it.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

And we tease her to this day, like, you were the only one on your you're the one breaking the rules. But it is amazing. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to even business meeting lunches or something, and everybody's on their phone. Nobody's even telling you. It's like, why did you even bother to go to the restaurant? I think it's those boundaries. You have to put them in there. I absolutely agree. Yeah. One of my favorite parts in thinking about your book was how you said this could be the end, but it's just the start. That's how you end it. That's how I feel. It's it wasn't the end of my journey, but it was the start of the new life. So hence Jenna 2.0. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

You know, sometimes you have to go through something to really appreciate what you have and where you are. And what my stroke has done is given me a new appreciation for life every day. Right. And so that's why I say find one way to find and learn something new every day. And two things I want to leave people with. One is the world is a really small neighborhood. Be nice to everybody. And secondly, if you'll help me to give other people that one smile every day, at some point you may be that one that needs it.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

I like that. I always think of things as like karma. And it's not just what goes around, comes around, but it's like what you put out is what you get back. That's a big piece of it. So 100%.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

So give to give. Yeah. Just give to give. It'll all come back. It may not come back looking exactly like what you think, but sometimes usually it doesn't. It usually is. Sometimes you've got a roof over your head. You've got food. You're say in a safe environment. Your family is healthy. Sometimes you stop and think. For all those things you've done for other people, this may be the give back to you.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Well, you don't know where it's gonna go, but just make sure the seeds you plant are worth it, I guess. Life is a ripple. Well, we'll have to do this again. Thanks for joining. Remember what I always say: karma's real energy is contagious. Check your vibes.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

So I know we've talked a lot about the book here, Stroke of Success. So for those of you out there that actually want to grab a copy of this, you can go on to RoderickJefferson.com. You can follow me on social media, Roderick Jefferson, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on X, on Threads. I always say if you can't find me in my books, you're not trying. So thanks again for the opportunity and say finally. I didn't write this book for me. I wrote it for people that are going through difficulties. And while we talked a lot about the stroke, the book is really about when problems arise and things happen in life and life is life everywhere. How are you going to approach it? Right. And for those that are out there that are growing and moving up that ladder in life, whether it's personally, professionally, whatever it is, I'm all about success. But always stop for a moment and ask one question. At what cost? What are you willing to give up? And I hope that it's not the same thing that happened to myself and it cost me my life temporarily. We talked a lot about boundaries. Think a little bit about that one. What can you remove? We're always trying to add more on our plates. Take a moment and say, what can I take off my plate to make life maybe not easier, but just a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

And if you have trouble finding Roderick Jefferson's information, you can go to justcallgenna.online. There's a sponsor page that has a link to Rod's website and the book and all that. So if you get stuck not finding him on socials, which I agree with him, if you can't find him, you're not trying. But if you need to, you can go to mine justcallgenna.online and you'll find links to all of it there.