Roderick Jefferson—How to Integrate AI, Eliminate Leadership Bottlenecks, and Build a Business That Survives Even When You Don't

Roderick Jefferson  0:00  
Step away from and lose this out in your vocabulary. I think I feel nobody cares what you think or how you feel, even if you are the founder, even if you are the CXO, what they care about is allowing the insights and the data to speak on your behalf when you learn how to do that, your whole world will change.

David Bush  0:25  
Welcome to the Business Builders playbook, the show that breaks down the systems and strategies behind Predictable Revenue Growth to win in business. In each episode, we're diving into the proven strategies that separate the winners who scale from the losers who fail. This show is sponsored by bdr.ai the AI powered business development platform that automates your outbound prospecting so you can focus in on closing deals instead of chasing leads. Let's get started. All right. Welcome everybody. We are excited to have a special guest with us today. Roderick Jefferson is joining us with some great insights, and you could probably say that it's a shining light for some of you that maybe have kind of gone into some challenging times, darker times, where maybe there's just been an awakening moment for you, and you're now seeing a new light that you are sprinting to in terms of opportunity, In terms of life, in terms of business and so as the business builder playbook, we are always looking for innovative ideas, strategies and stories to inspire our followers and our viewers to be able to say, Man, that really helped me to improve my playbook. So Roderick, thanks for joining us today.

Roderick Jefferson  1:39  
David, thanks so much for having me. Man, I've been excited about this one.

David Bush  1:42  
Yeah, well, you know, the show notes is going to give us all of your details, of your bio, but I'd always like to ask the question, what are some of the most pivotal moments that has led you to where you are today as a successful speaker, coach, consultant, author. I mean, there's a whole long list of individual things. But if you could end up coming back to some pivotal things that have happened for you, to you or because of you, what are some of the things that you could share with those that are watching today?

Roderick Jefferson  2:11  
Yeah, let's start professionally. First. I would say my entree into sales, corporate sales. I started as a BDR, I was out there dialing for dollars. Man, right. That changed everything, because, oddly enough, it taught me how not to sell and how to really help people, how to not just listen, but hear them. And also, I had always been a high level athlete, growing up, high school, college, etc, and I was in team sports, but at the end of the day, the accolades are not given generally for entire teams, they're given for individuals, right? And so I had that mindset, that drive, that that tenacity, that desire to be successful, and I will honestly say it, I hated losing more than I loved winning, right? And then I jumped into sales, and I realized, whoa, this is not what I thought it was. Now, I always equated sales back then, kind of, you know, used car folks, hey, I've got a deal for you. And my manager said, If you sign today, you can do this. No, it wasn't that at all. It was a literally, a shining moment, as you said, it was an awakening. I was able to be really good at the BDR role, got promoted to sales leader, to excuse me to AE, did really well. Went to President's Club a couple of times, and you know what they do, you should be a sales manager. And I said, No, thank you. And they thought I was nuts, until I realized and I was able to articulate I loved the process more than I did taking down big deals. I didn't go crazy over ringing the bell and putting my name on the board and pulling in all the big logos. It was. How could I help those companies literally be transformational and be more successful and, of course, more profitable. So that was one. Another one was at that point when they promoted me to sales leader. And I said, No, what I did was I talked to my SVP of sales and I said, What if I could do two things? What one I could help people get ramped up faster, right by these basic, rudimentary templates that I'd created, and I do mean basic, right? I looked back at him the other day, and I was like, Oh, this forked. Okay, the world shifted. The other thing I said to him that really caught his attention was, what if I could have so many people in our region going to President's Club that you don't have enough budget? And he said, You got a new job. Well, I stepped into training at that time, but then as I moved along, the next thing that happened was I realized that training just didn't work. It wasn't enough. It was kind of a one time spot thing. It was like all the fun you have going to a sales kickoff, the sko and then you go back to your desk and go, huh? All right. I guess I go back to what I did before, right? Or is it just me? Right? Yes, that was a chain to the choir. Here I gave what you're saying. Oh, we all did that, right? And so the next pivotal change was I, almost 20 years ago now, I created this nomenclature that we call sales enablement. Yeah, I'm that guy. I'm not the guy that was smart enough to trademark it, though, but that's okay. I think my baby has grown up to be something I never expected it to be. And it all started from a conversation I was having with my sales leader at the time, and he's like, you know, we've got a problem with discovering qualification. Throw training at it. Sounds familiar, right? Our people are discounting too much. Throw training more training at it. We've got managers, but we don't have leaders. I said, Let me guess, throw training at it. I looked at him, and I said, I don't think that's what we need. I believe that you train animals, you enable people and a light bulb went off, and that is the Genesis that turned into now what has become an organization in every large enterprise, company. And I never expected it, and I'm honest, I never expected it to be what it is today, but it literally has transformed. And I think was was also kind of a foundational piece of what we call today is go to market organizations. So those were the changes, and then personally being promoted and moving up the ranks and becoming a VP, being becoming an SVP, was was a learning experience, to say the very least. But I also think I allowed it to overtake what I did. Became more important than who I was, and I kind of lost myself for a while there. I created this character that we call RJ. And RJ was the quintessential executive. He said the right things, he had the right walk, he drove the Mercedes. He had all the beautiful family and the white picket fence and the two dogs. But it wasn't really me. It was what I had created because I had locked on that corporate mask and I didn't know how to take it off. And as we were talking earlier, my why has always been provide and protect for my family, and I lost sight of that until and we'll talk about this later. Four years ago, I had a massive stroke where I literally couldn't see, couldn't talk. I was completely paralyzed on my left side, and then the worst of the worst happened. I flat lined and I died in the hospital. Thankfully, I was brought back, and during that, I had a near death experience where I talked to my mom. My late mom died in 99 this conversation was only four years ago, so that's been kind of the both the professional and the personal piece along the way. And I know it's kind of long winded, but that's how I got to be the guy that stands in front

David Bush  8:01  
of you. Yeah, there's lots of different opportunities to go deeper into each one of those particular areas. And I'd love to get into more of the personal story here in just a minute. But you know, just from your professional background and experience and just what you do on a day to day basis, if you were to go and share on one particular thing outside of the personal realm. And if you were just to focus in on the professional realm, and you were to say, the one thing that I would encourage every owner, Founder, CEO, to do to optimize their business builder playbook, what would be the one thing that you would focus on that would have the greatest impact in an organization,

Roderick Jefferson  8:45  
evolution and growth, because as you stagnate, you die, as it has been said, right? And we all know what's going on right now, and that is, we are in deep in the land of AI. And so if you are still using AI as a tool or a toy, or you're using it primarily as a research platform. You've already missed the boat. You've got to make be able to transition to where it becomes a business partner and literally speak to it and prompt to it that way, because two things happen. One, it gets to know your personality and your style, and secondly, it also gives you a different set of lenses, whereby it's not just about the information and the content that comes out of it. Because I look at AI honestly no different than Word Excel or PowerPoint, and here's holiday. What you put into it determines what will come out. It can either be garbled in garbage, whether it's those tools or it's aI with the right prompts, with the right depth, with the right content, you get it. But never forget the empathy piece of this of the human piece, right? And that is cut AI will give us content well beyond the time where any of us are breathing, believe me, I think we may already be there, but you still have to remember that people buy from people, and what brings to that content and that AI is the context of our lived experience, of our best practices, of our wins and losses. So continue on that journey, but look at it from two different sets of lenses.

David Bush  10:37  
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Roderick Jefferson  12:18  
Great question. Three things, communication, collaboration and orchestration. And what I mean by that is the communication piece, and that is, as I was just talking about, find two, maybe three tools and become really proficient with it, learn to speak the language of that tool and get that tool to speak your language right. And that way clarity comes out, but don't become a crutch with it, right? It's too easy to go, Hey, I'm gonna create this thing. And now here's my prompt. And boom, it pops out. Nah, read it and invite it, and then make it yours right on the communication piece, and it's really made me a better writer, not with the books and things, but literally. How can I say more with less words? So I'll have it right up, and I'll go, okay, great. Cut it in half. Make it more clear, make it more consistent. And here's the other piece, make it more actionable. Use those words in your prompts, and it will change all the outcomes. The collaboration is, as I said earlier, make it a business partner of yours, not just a tool or research platform, also outside of just the AI tool. The collaboration piece, for me, involves talking to people outside of your space in your industry, because what I realized when I was in corporate is when I was dealing with SaaS primarily, right? I realized that everybody kind of talked, walked and thought the same, and one day, the light bulb went on. I said, I don't have a network. I've got an echo chamber around me. Go to folks outside of your industry, because there's still going to be similarities, but what you're going to hear is a different slant on things, a different root cause of what the problem is, and sometimes a different solution that you would never come up with because you're thinking the same way and in the same vein, orchestration is all about. How do you now execute? What are you doing from the differentiation between marketing and biz dev, unfortunately, a lot of especially founders, think that those are synonymous. They're not. Marketing is all about getting your messaging and positioning out to the right ideal client profile and making sure that they understand what you do, how you do it, and what you help solve. Biz Dev is very different. That is about why some. One should work with you and your company only, and what you do different, because a lot of people out there, I'm realizing are sounding like blue and light blue with their competitors, and you're hurting yourself because there's no differentiation. The upside right now, and also could be the downside, if you haven't really got on the boat, is, I think we'd all agree that our prospects are not asking us to inform them anymore. There's tons of content out there. They're already 70 80% down the road before you even talk to them. They're not even asking us to differentiate between ourselves and our competitors. What they're asking for is why you why now, and what can you do to help me solve the pain that I had? And it's almost like we have to become doctors or dentists now, right when it comes to pain, and that is now that we understand the pain. Do you need an aspirin, a Vicodin, a Valium, or do you need an extraction? And that's where the human piece comes into play, and that's how you differentiate yourself from your own competitors. The next thing is asking a simple question that most executives and sales people don't ask. We learn everything about the company. We go and listen watch their 10 Q we go listen to their quarterly review calls, but we never asked this one question. So Mr. Mrs. Prospect, what can I do to help you personally? Get you a promotion, get you out of the dog house, get your name in light. If you don't ask that question, you're only learning 50% and by the way, that question is step one towards building trust. If I don't trust you, I won't engage with you. If I don't engage with you, I won't buy from you. It sounds simple, it's not. There's a lot of intricacies into that, but I hope that I've given folks some things that they can actually go put into productive application right now.

David Bush  17:00  
Yeah, so good communication, collaboration, orchestration. And I think that that extraction you're talking about is that a lot of us, owner founders, need to do a rectal cranial extraction and, Oh yes, yes, pull our head out of row sides and get a little bit more focused in on the big picture.

Roderick Jefferson  17:19  
Get out of your own way.

David Bush  17:22  
And you've obviously seen a lot of owner founder CEOs as being the bottleneck to change and absolutely action and doing some of the things, the collaboration side of things. So what are some of the things that maybe you could share just transparently with these owner founder leaders, CEOs that are watching this or listening to this podcast right now, to say here's some areas that you can identify that you're becoming a bottleneck in your innovation, collaboration, orchestration and communication.

Roderick Jefferson  17:56  
Great question. I'll start with this. One Size Fits none if we can't peanut butter anymore. Those days are gone, right? The second thing is trust the people you've hired and assume best intent on their part. They don't need you looking over their shoulder. They don't want to be micromanaged. I've never heard that word used in a positive light, right? And the last thing is something that I heard the other day that really stopped me in my tracks, and that is, we're all saying, Noah, I'm the only person that can do this. I do this. The comment came back to me, if you're the only person that can do fill in the blank activity, how important is that task really? All right, when you do that, what you're doing is not only creating a bottleneck, but you're also creating distrust with your employees, with your co founders, with your peers, with your network. Because what you're saying is I'm the only one that can do this right. And now I've changed words that I use. Instead of saying, Here's what I would recommend, or here's how I've done take you out of this and say, as someone who has seen this happen and work either positively or negatively, here's what I'd recommend you. See, it's just that change what it does for conversation and also for connecting. The third piece is, I know we all have to get our LinkedIn numbers up and we have to have connections, but I challenge you to do one thing for the next 60 days, two months, that's all focus more on connecting with your network, on social media, versus driving up the number of connections, it will change your your business completely. I sit on the board of six startups because I want to learn from each one of them something different, right? And what I have learned is, we're all dealing with similar problems, but if you don't stop for a moment and say, What did I learn? Session from this conversation, from this luncheon, from this networking event from this week, and that's the last piece I'll say on this carve out some time to do two things in your week. One, put breaks into your calendar, because sometimes you just have to recharge the batteries for your brain. And the second thing is something I do every Friday, and it's on my I remove a lot of things, but I never move this one, and that is at the end of the week, put on 30 minutes of reflection. What did I learn this week? What worked well this week, and what did I learn? How not to do again that will change you as an owner, founder, right away.

David Bush  20:50  
Yeah, was one of the early pioneers of sales enablement. You obviously have learned how to build out predictable, repeatable revenue engines. I don't know if anything changed when you had your stroke, I'm sure that there's a lot of things that change, but life changed. Did you? Did you change any of your views on what it would take to build a repeatable revenue engine? Did they?

Roderick Jefferson  21:14  
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely did. Because what I realized was perfection doesn't exist, and we all know that, but I see that now I was so focused on this has to be the perfect process, platform, program. Now, as hard as it is at my age, I am finally getting to the point where I go sometimes good enough is good enough. Sometimes your worst enemy is analysis paralysis. Sometimes your worst enemy is your strive for perfection. Get it out there and then, iterate, iterate, iterate. No one's expecting perfection, but you

David Bush  21:59  
well, there's been so many new things that are coming at people. I know that there's a lot of leaders in business that are becoming a bit overwhelmed with all of the innovation. You know, the first opportunity they get a chance to implement something, by the time that they actually feel like that, they've not only made the switch and they've done the communication, collaboration and orchestration. What they pulled together is outdated by this new fancy, you know, flashy, shiny object that is something new. And I'm sure being a guy on the forefront of AI, you're probably struggling with some of that yourself. There's just always something new to learn and research, and there's just not enough hours in a day to really understand it, to do it any justice. So people oftentimes get to the point where they're just overwhelmed and they just kind of shut down. What kind of advice or coaching would you give to that person?

Roderick Jefferson  22:54  
Top all things, let go of shiny syndrome, right? Just because something is cool and it's it sparkles and it twists, it may not be the right thing for you, right? And as you are learning these tools and building out your your new tool stack, remember what worked for someone else may not work for you, right? It comes down to where you and your company are in the maturation cycle of moving forward. Secondly, is new and improved. Ain't always better. It's sometimes. It's just new and improved, and not always improved. And what I mean by that is, AI is wonderful, but how you use it will determine whether or not you'll be successful or not, and thirdly, you're stop believing that you're behind, because I'm seeing everybody else jump on this bandwagon and do that. I work with a lot of companies that I talk to, a lot of practitioners. I have yet to be able to put my finger on one company that says they are the best act fill in the blank, because right now, I don't know who is, I think we're all learning and growing. We're at different points in the journey. And I, as an author, I always kind of equate things to where you are at chapter two is maybe actually further ahead than people that are at chapter five now, just because of the speed of innovation right now. So are you really behind no as long as you are learning and you're striving to move forward and you're trying to figure out how to fit new tools, new process and new platforms and new AI tools in you'll be okay now, what you have to do faster now than we used to is learn to break things faster or walk away from things, and that's hard for us. As owner, founder, I've invested so much time and resources and finance into this, I can't just leave it alone. What happens if it doesn't serve you? You've got to know. Know when to kind of cut the cord. And then if you're going to jump in, like I said, don't try and learn 10 AI tools, you're going to boggle your mind, and you're going to completely confuse yourself, I would say two, three at the most, and become really proficient with those. And give it enough time to where you can go from baseline to forward, and you've got enough metrics and data and insights, and that's the last thing step away from and lose this out in your vocabulary. I think I feel, nobody cares what you think or how you feel, even if you are the founder, even if you are the CXO, what they care about is allowing the insights and the data to speak on your behalf. When you learn how to do that, your whole world will change and you won't be as anxious about where we are in the evolution of technology and change, because you'll figure out that you're right where you're supposed to be right now,

David Bush  26:04  
I want to ask a follow up question about that particular topic, because I think that you're hitting on something that a lot of people are not necessarily talking about in the open, at least the ones that I've seen, I haven't seen a lot of open conversations about that, and that's, you know, there is a sort of some subconscious feeling that we are oftentimes an innate feeling. You could call it a, you know, inner beacon, or an inner compass that kind of tells us right from wrong. And some of the things with AI are challenging that beacon and saying, you know, if you give AI, you know, if you allow AI to get to know you better, and you have this relationship with it where it's now becoming more like you, that that could actually be a risk to you. So I'm just kind of curious of how you would coach a high level owner, Founder, CEO, on the areas of just challenging your current beliefs and validating with actual facts and data, you know, to help you to, you know, push yourself outside your comfort zone. Because a lot of us, you know, you know you and I know Gerhard geschwattner from selling Howard, and he has this concept where he talks about, you know, the three different types of belief. There's the implanted beliefs that were given to us at birth, and then there's the imprinted beliefs that we're given over time as we grow through our experiences. And then the inspired beliefs are the things that we learn from the experiences that we have or the experiences of others that challenge us to take more risk and to do other things, because if we just operated off and planted and imprinted beliefs, we would never end up growing and innovating and challenging our comfort zone. So I'm just kind of curious of what kind of you know boundaries to respect with ethics, I guess. And then what would you say that would be kind of like a methodology to help a C suite level leader to expand beyond their comfort zone, but to do so in a careful and thoughtful manner,

Roderick Jefferson  28:05  
well, and if you haven't, I am a basic, simple guy. I'm about threes, right? So the first is, first of all, Gerhard is far more brilliant than I will ever hope to be, and I'm always amazed that he's 80, and how spry and how on top of things, he is. I'll give you even more simplistic question that I ask founders and executives a lot lately. Do we still have horses? And it sounds simple, they go, course, we do, like, Yeah, let's go way back. We use them for transportation. We use them for agriculture. You use them to create a better, easier life. But then this automobile thing came, and people are like, Oh no, see it just the light just went on for you, didn't it? David, I can see it. Automobiles came and he said, Oh, well, we won't need horses to do these things. We still needed horses, just in a different capacity. The same thing happens with humanity and AI, like I said earlier, it's a productivity tool like Excel Word and PowerPoint, no one's ever said now we have AI. We don't need Excel Word or PowerPoint anymore, do we? No, we just find a different way to do it. I have a tool, an AI tool, called gamma. I don't make PowerPoint presentations that I realized that was my weakness, but I am very good at explaining and knowing how to prompt so that will create my decks. I was able to put in my company colors and all of that. And this is not an advertisement for gamma. It was an example of how I'm still using the same things, but differently, right? So that's one the second place. Piece is that evolution is always going to change, and everything, as I said earlier, not going to be a fit for you. So figure out what works for you, your company, your ideal client profile, and again, where you are in the maturation cycle of your company. And the third thing is that, and I said it earlier, one size fits none. Take your time, do your research, try a different coupled, three different ones, and then figure out how does that fit in? And it leads to this, start with what we've all been taught, what does success look like? What's the outcome that I'm moving towards that fits within my company, mission and goals and vision and all of those things, and then reverse engineer to how you're going to get to that point.

David Bush  30:58  
All right, I'm going to put you in the hot seat here. We got a lightning round of questions that I just want you to give kind of a brief answer to, just based on your expertise and experience in education. And then let's go into more specifics about your personal experience and the book that you've just recently read written. So five questions. First question is biggest myth about sales enablement that C suite level owner, founder, CEOs need to know then we are the

Roderick Jefferson  31:24  
fixers of broken things and broken people. We're not and that we're all about training. I think you train animals, you enable people.

David Bush  31:33  
That's good. Good takeaway, one habit that every C suite level owner, Founder, CEO, should build into their daily habits

Roderick Jefferson  31:41  
start every single one on one or group meeting with this same three part question, do you want me to listen? Do you want me to coach, or do you want me to fix? It changes the outcome, and it also shows you what ears to put on, and it tells the individuals that this time is all about them, not you

David Bush  32:02  
great one mistake that silently kills revenue culture,

Roderick Jefferson  32:08  
keeping bad people in your culture too long just because they're rock star. It hurts because culture is what happens when nobody is watching, but sometimes everybody's watching and it discredits you as a leader.

David Bush  32:26  
What separates elite revenue teams from average ones that haven't been something that you've said already?

Roderick Jefferson  32:32  
The ownership of accountability, ownership and modeling best practices by first and second line managers. What's important to my manager is imperative to me, because I want to be in that seat one day. If I don't see you do it, I have no reason to follow that.

David Bush  32:52  
That's great. Last one is going to be a hard one for you. I'm going to put you to the test. Are you ready? Yeah, this is going to put you in the real hot seat one book every revenue leader should read,

Roderick Jefferson  33:07  
every one should read, Think and Grow Rich, and here's why, because it is life learns lessons. It's not about how to be a better fill in the blank other than how to be a better human.

David Bush  33:25  
Well, I was setting you up and teeing you up to talk about your new but you went in a different direction. So now let's talk about your new book and what your passion is around it. And yeah, I'd get it up there so everybody can see it. I want everybody to get

Roderick Jefferson  33:39  
a chance Absolutely. Thank you for that. Let's start with this. And I want to make kind of a segue between what we were talking about and especially on the AI piece. I think what has changed me since my stroke is my favorite hashtag that I use, and that is iq plus eq plus AI. And what I mean is the IQ piece, that's your experience. That's what you've learned throughout your times. The EQ piece we know, the AI we know. But I look at it a little differently. AI will give us content well beyond our living days here on this planet. But at the same time, no matter what we've done through the innovative process of life, people still buy from people. Trust is still the foundation. And if empathy is not a part of who you are, go do some deep, introspective thinking on how can I be a better human, not just a better leader? Stroke of success. That is my new book right here, and it is based loosely on a massive stroke that I had four years ago. And again I died. I was brought back, and I talked to my late mom, and she gave me my new marching orders of what my life was supposed to be in the part of it. Was taking that corporate mask off and not allowing who you are to lose to what you do every day. Don't create some character, or don't be what you think you're supposed to be, or what you're told to be at whatever level you're at in life, right? The other piece is, how do you find balance? And I don't mean life worth balance for me, it was what I call my four F's. It was faith, family, friends and fun. Realize, the older we get, the less we focus on actual fun, right? Find something that's just for you. Every day I have a whiteboard in front of me. Every day I write up before I look at my email, because I don't want it to be firefighting. I want this to be fire prevention. I put up three things that I'm going to do today, but I have to get done before I turn off and notice I didn't say 10 things, three things that I'm going to do before I take and walk away from my computer. The fourth one is something just for me personally, and I'm going to be selfish in that. Some days it's, you know what? I'm going to go sit out in my backyard and listen to the birds and watch the hummingbird. Some days it's no one. I'm going to Baskin Robbins because I want a drumstick, right? Some days it's, I'm going to take the pups and we're going to take a long walk and just enjoy the sun on my face. But here's what I want you to do differently. Don't if you've ever been on on a diet, we have cheat days. Kill the concept of cheat days. That fourth thing has to be something for you, and it's not something that feels like, Oh, I've learned this, or I deserve this. No, it's literally self care. Self care can sometimes just being get a massage, go get a manicure. Yes, man, go get manicures, please, because we all have to shake hands with you. And so find ways for self care. And with this book, I wrote it in three segments, the rise meteorically, of an executive, the quintessential executive, as it would appear outwardly, the fall with the stroke, and then the Phoenix that rose. I have the ashes a completely different person. And I'm giving best practices. I'm giving good, bad and ugly, right? I realized that. And you go, Well, I've never had a stroke. Oh, you got to hear what I'm about to say. Though, American Stroke society says that one out of every four human on the planet over the age of 25 will encourage strokes. This was my second one. I didn't even realize I had a first one. It could have felt like, oh, I grant. It could have felt like I was a little dizzy, right? But now to get away from the stroke piece, life is life in right now, we're all going through something emotionally, psychologically, with friends, with family, with work, with finances. How do you escape that? And the last piece that I talk about heavily in the book is, how do you never forget or go back and find your why? I'll give you a quick story. As I said, my why has always been provide and protect for my two kids, my wife and now my grandbaby, but the more I became successful and moved up the ladder, and the more money that I made, the more unhappy I became, because I was pulled away from them more in one stretch, in 18 months, London, Paris, Geneva sapoli, Rio, Toronto, Beijing conquer Sydney. In 18 months, I would fly in, hit the dry cleaner, make sure that the direct deposit hit and I'm back out again. You know, the sad part was, I started getting comfortable being on the road by myself, until one day I flew in after two weeks on the road, and I said to my wife, babe, I have been in hotels for two weeks. I just want greasy tacos. My son looks at me and he said, Dad, it's Thursday. Today's shake and bake day. Now it may not mean much, but I'm gonna tell you why. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized they had a whole life, a whole routine that did not include me. It had become the antithesis of everything that I wanted to do, and everything I wanted to be, stay connected to the people that you're close to in your life. Stay close to the people that are good for you. And something else I had to learn was, again, as an author, it's a book is just a segment of chapters, right? Realize that everybody's not going to be in every chapter, and that's okay. Some people were brought in for a season or a reason. Other people were brought in to teach us how to let go. And all of those, if it does not serve you, let it go. Don't get comfortable living at that red line of stress, right? And you. The fight for success, which I'm still an A plus plus guy. I've got the Zen room around me now, as you see, but I'm still a plus plus. I still am about success, and I applaud anyone that's fighting and driving and pushing for success, but I want to leave you with this thing. At what cost do you want to be successful? It's going to cost you time, it's going to cost you money, it's going to cost you relationships, and in my case, it cost me my life. I never tell anyone here's what I think you should do, but what I will say is, as someone who has lived that and been down that road, if you don't slow down, your body will do it for you, and it's not going to be in a good way that you're going to ask for for Christmas or birthday. So take some time now and listen to your body. It gives us warning shots. It gives us opportunities, if we will just stop and listen. And the final thing I'll say is learn how to hear, not just listen to what your body, your friends, your family, your peers, your colleagues are saying to you, because that's why we have one mouth and two ears.

David Bush  41:13  
Great stuff. Roderick, you've given us some great strategies to upgrade our business builder playbook and to upgrade our life. And as Andy Duchesne and Shawshank Redemption said, Get busy living or get busy dying, one or the other. And Abby, you've got a new, fresh lease on life. And it's so good to hear from somebody who's gone through the transformation that you've gone through, and to share some of this stuff that you've had a chance to dwell on since your stroke and excited to get people to take a look at the book. So Roderick jefferson.com is the best place to find you that is correct

Roderick Jefferson  41:49  
for those that are here in the US, you can go in and get a personalized signed book at Roderick jefferson.com for those that are international, you can also go there, or you can go to Amazon and go under my name or under the book title, again, stroke of success. I'm not just here to try and sell books. I'm here to help other people have a more effective, impactful life and hopefully save some lives.

David Bush  42:16  
Yeah, well, you helped me today. So thanks so much. I appreciate your insights, and thanks everybody for watching us. If you found this episode to be enjoying joyful and something that's brought you joy in your life, please share it and yeah, give us some feedback. Leave us a comment. We'd love to see more feedback from all of you. So thanks everybody for joining us and have a great day. Thanks for tuning in to the Business Builders playbook. If this episode gave you some plays that you can start running in your business today, hit subscribe and share with another revenue leader who's tired of the pipeline grind. Building Predictable Revenue isn't something you figure out alone. Whether you're looking to automate your prospecting with bdr.ai, or you just want to talk through the growth challenges you're facing, reach out. We help business leaders, just like you, to build systems that actually scale. And if you're ready to stop being your company's Highest Paid Prospector, let's have a conversation. Reach out to us@bdr.ai until next time, let's keep building you.