How to Lead Confidently as You Scale—Without Doing Everything Yourself with Jevon Wooden, Founder of BrightMind Consulting Group | Ep 258

Please note: This transcript was generated using automated transcription tools and may contain typographical errors or inaccurately captured words or phrases.

Dr Steve Day: I believe that phenomenal leaders of great companies inspire those around us to take action. And today\'s episode with Jevon Wooden was all about that. It was like, how do we as small business owners become those fantastic leaders that we need to be in order to motivate our staff to work for us and also the right clients to come towards us?

How do we keep ourselves motivated, avoid burnout, and to create a business that serves us, but also serves generations to come? Jevon is an army Veteran. He\'s also the recipient of a Bronze Star. He\'s the author of two great business books and is an inspirational leader with some great stories to tell.

Today\'s episode was fun to record and inspirational in so many ways. I felt truly aligned with him on his values, his purpose, and his mission, and I believe you will genuinely enjoy listening today\'s interview as much as I did recording it. Enjoy.

Jevon, so nice to have you on the show. I\'ve been looking forward to this conversation, after you applied, been checking out what you do, who you are, where you\'ve come from, and I love speaking to people with an interesting story. And I believe that you have one, and I\'d love for you to share a little bit about.

Where you\'ve come from, your, wherever appropriate. I know you\'re in the military. Like how\'d you go from being that to doing this amazing, inspirational stuff you\'re doing today and what was the, driver behind all that?

Jevon Wooden: Yeah, great question and thanks for having me, on your platform, Steve.

The winding road, as most of us probably have when we, End up somewhere. So I\'m a, guy from Rochester, New York. If you don\'t know about Rochester, at the time I was growing up, it was the third most impoverished city by capita, by per capita. And I grew up in that poverty and was just trying to find my way as a young man.

Got into some trouble. At the age of 17, I sat in a jail cell facing seven years in prison. And that was really one of the first turning points in my life. Well, I realized that value was not, material. It was more intrinsic. And I realized that my mind and my heart were my two greatest assets, because my mother said that she was gonna put up our house so she can get me a lawyer.

So I didn\'t have to do that time that I was facing. And that just gave me, a, new lease on life and a new viewpoint and perspective on what life meant. And by the grace of God, I got in front of a judge who was very empathetic and said, Hey. You don\'t have to do the time, but if I see you back here again, I\'m gonna let you do that time and some, and I said, Hey, you don\'t have to worry about that, sir.

I promise you I will not be back. This is not for me. And that really was what sparked my desire to, do more and be more. And what I decided to do was. I decided to join the Army, but that was only after I worked two full-time jobs for a couple of years. I just said, this cannot be life. There has to be more.

I wanna leave a mark. I do not want to live a unmemorable life. Because at the end of the day, I don\'t know anyone who does. So ended up joining the army because one of the recruiters for the army actually was moonlighting in one of my jobs, and he was like, you should come to the recruiting station.

That was on Saturday. Monday. I was there taking the Asfab, that\'s the aptitude test, to see what jobs you qualify for. And he was like, Hey, you can get any job you want. The top two that I recommend are IT and military intelligence. I said, which one transfers better into the civilian side? He said it none without a question.

So that\'s what I did and when I was shipped off the basic. Excuse me. When I shipped off the basic, I was so excited. You know, they\'re yelling and screaming, all the drill sergeants, jumping on the bus, bringing glass, and doing everything. They\'re making us exercise and I\'m smiling. And they was like, what is wrong with you?

Why are you smiling? What are you smiling? There\'s nothing to smile about. And I was like, man, this is easy for me. Like physical challenges are easy for me because of everything I had gone through that point. And fast forward, the, army was the second pivot point for me. That was the point where I like realized what leadership was.

John Maxwell says Leadership is influenced. And I saw that and that was my first foray into leading troops and leading teams and understanding the power of collaboration with people that you never probably would\'ve met if I didn\'t join the army. People from all walks of life. So, that\'s really what.

Challenged me to become the person I am today. Of course, there\'s a lot that we\'ll get into in between that military time. But that\'s how I became this person known as Jevon Wooden, the empathetic leadership, you know, kind of focused person. So there, that\'s in a nutshell.

Dr Steve Day: Fantastic. Thank you very much.

And yeah, you didn\'t, fail to, to provide the, the, the story. I thought you might. So yeah. Thank you for that. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. Amazing. And like, I think this leads really nicely into one of the questions I wanted to get into, and that is about leadership. But also like coming from.

Like you did from corporate and then pre that. So not having a career and then going into the army and then coming back out and then now leading company or leading companies and helping other leaders lead that. Companies like one of the things that I struggle with, and I know I literally was off a coaching call on my clients this morning talking about.

This exact problem is about shifting from being the do it in the company. Like when you start out, you\'re the founder. You\'re wearing every your hat. You know, there\'s, we can get into the stress and all of living that, in a moment if you like, but the, one of the hardest shifts, I think is actually transitioning from person that\'s making it all happen.

The person that\'s doing it all to actually being the leader. Of the business and how do you help people shift from that sort of operator to, to lead it in order to then be able to, grow the company?

Jevon Wooden: Yeah. I call it going from functional to phenomenal. That\'s a part of the system. That\'s a part of my latest book is doing exactly that, you know, systems and processes.

Outsourcing is a big component of that. And what I look at is, of course we know we have things we have to do. But for the person leading the organization, I, those are revenue generating activities. We don\'t need to be doing everything. So what I always recommend is like track what you\'re doing on a daily basis for a while, and then when you track what you\'re doing on a daily basis, see how many of those things you actually need to be doing.

Once you identify those, now we have a bucket, I call it the three DA success formula. So you\'re gonna look at what you can delegate, what you can delete, what you can delay, and what you can automate. The delegation are things that will move the needle forward, but you don\'t have to be the one doing them.

I have my executive assistant doing most of those things. Or maybe it\'s something dealing with marketing. So you get to build your brand and your awareness, and consideration. Maybe it\'s a sales person that you don\'t need to be doing all the sales. You know, there\'s so many components to that piece. And then you have the delay.

What is a good idea? You know, what may need to get done, but maybe you either don\'t have the resources to do it. Resources could be people, money or, systems. Maybe it\'s something that doesn\'t align with the goals you have set for this period that you\'re in. Maybe instead of Q1, you need to push it to Q4, for example, or it\'s something that just does not align with the, organization as a whole at that time.

Then I\'ll look at delete. What is something that sounds great, but as Warren Buffet said, we write down, you know, all of our ideas, and you only choose three. Throw the rest of \'em away. So sometimes you gotta get rid of some of those great ideas. Because it\'s like, all right, yeah, that\'s not possible for us, or it\'s not, who the company is, it doesn\'t fit our makeup.

Whatever the case is, get rid of them. Get rid of those, ideas that don\'t serve you. And then of course, automation is something that, you know, is mundane. That needs to get done, but it doesn\'t either need human input or it need, doesn\'t need input from the higher level or strategic minded folks, within your organization.

So you get someone either more technical to knock it out, and then you can just check it, get a report from them, or you get some machine, like AI or some type of technology to perform those tasks. So that\'s how I recommend folks to kind of break out and say, all right, how do I take some of this off my plate without.

Everything\'s stopping and coming to a grinding halt.

Dr Steve Day: Cool. I mean, I, love that. And it\'s exactly, I mean, we\'re on the same page with this. This is exactly the kind of things that I, love to help people do. Because sometimes it\'s that simple understanding of, yeah, this stuff may need to happen, but may not.

But even if it does, it\'s like, it doesn\'t need to be me. It doesn\'t need to all you as the leader. And I think one of the things that. Is still challenging. It\'s like when you get that moment, you\'re like, okay, cool, I\'m gonna delegate this stuff. It\'s like you\'re left thinking like sometimes like, but I should be doing more.

Like I should be the one still doing this. And I think that one of the things that, and I\'ve definitely not got there yet, but I\'m on this journey with the help from my coaches is, about understanding that if you don\'t let go of that. That mindset shift of our, like if I want this company to become something greater than it is today.

Like that sort of like repositioning what it means to be a leader. I think that is a fundamental piece. I dunno what your, take on that is.

Jevon Wooden: I agree. And what I do is I look back, I have my virtual mentors, those, great minds that we kind of revere today. What did they do? They didn\'t work around the clock.

They took some time to just be, because as the leader, you\'re the visionary. You\'re the one creating that strategy, you\'re the one that\'s forward thinking. You don\'t need to be the doer anymore. On, things, most things. So it\'s like I take that time and I say the doing more for me is using my cognitive power.

Being able to think about how to best serve my clients. We\'re. Is there a gap in the value ladder? The value proposition we\'re offering our, target audience, and then there is where we can kind of put some more information and power and there is where we should be spending our cycles to say, all right, we have this great product, but maybe we\'re not catching them, early on, or maybe we\'re missing them along the journey that we need to take them on.

So those are the things that I\'m thinking about the customer experience, the customer journey, and just really focusing on just optimizing what we have before I move on to something else. A lot of leaders, you know, when, especially because we are mostly technically inclined at doing a specific thing, we want to go back into that world because it feels comfortable.

But what we need to do is realize that we only grow in discomfort, and that discomfort for most of us is to delegate and relinquish control. And you\'ll see how great you, you are and if you really have a business or if it\'s just a hobby. Because if you can\'t relinquish control and let things run for a little bit on its own, if it all falls apart, then now you know that\'s where you need to put your cycles, is making sure that it\'s optimized and there\'s redundancy without you being in there.

Dr Steve Day: Very cool. Alright, so let\'s, say we\'ve done some delegating and we are growing the business and we are, we\'ve got a proof of concept. We know it\'s working, but then as we\'re growing, I think again, one of the. The fears I hear from when I speak to business owners and interviews that I\'ve done is how do we do that in a way where we don\'t compromise?

Like what we, the authenticity behind the business, like how we actually started the business, or why we actually started the business in the first place. And often that\'s because like, like it\'s the is the way we do the unique proposition that we believe we personally bring to the world.

And now suddenly we\'re letting that go. Like, how do you help people to grow but still retain and maintain and hopefully expand on that that uniqueness that got themselves in the first place.

Jevon Wooden: Yeah, absolutely. And, you\'re not relinquishing any of that. Like that should be at the core of everything.

That\'s why we got mission and values and purpose and all that stuff for a company. But Jim Collins said it best and good to great. You have to hire the right people before you take the right actions. Those people need to really be invested in, believe in the message that you\'re providing to them.

They need to kind of be laser focused on growing it based on whatever you told them you were trying to accomplish. If they have that buy-in. You are actually not losing anything you\'re gaining. You\'re gaining some people who are laser focused who will run through walls for you because they\'re like, I believe in want what Steve is building.

I believe in what Jovan is building and that\'s what we have to make really take time to, to ensure we\'re doing. When we bring someone on, Hey, why do you want to do this? You know, what makes you interested in this work? What, are some opportunities you see for this organization? Because I like to know that someone that I\'m bringing on has done their research and done their due diligence, to understand what we are looking to build.

What is our vision and purpose? Why, did we set out to do this thing? What are some of the challenges we may face, and how can you help us alleviate those? so those are some of the questions I\'m asking on from the outset. And sometimes if I\'m Outsourcing, I may give them like a, project and just see what they think of.

I don\'t have to give everything to that person. As soon as they come in, I\'m going to sprinkle in little challenges. So I ensure, and I\'m gonna ask them, what\'s the best way I can support you in this? Give them space to fail forward. And then we can kind of talk about it and iterate. So, I know from a jump, like a lot of leaders are like, it\'s gotta be perfect from the outset.

It\'s not going to be, and we really have to understand that. So we have to give space to just. Challenge and try and iterate. My favorite saying is that whatever we\'re doing is always in beta, so we just have to make sure we\'re taking little, times to do a after action review to ensure like what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, what can we approve, what can be sustained, and then what else do we need to get there?

And that\'s it.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah. Very cool. I, It reminds me of a book by Seth Godin called Poke the Box. And and it\'s a very little book, but it\'s when I worked with a lot of people from the Philippines and, sometimes that taking the initiative and failing forward is the expression you use then it\'s like sometimes that\'s really hard for them to do.

Like they, Don\'t want to fail. They always want to, like, this is a cultural, this, I shouldn\'t say always a gen generally, a general like sweeping generalization, sorry. But often these people, they have this, reservation about making mistakes. And so I always get \'em to read this book and to give them that authority that actually making those mistakes is how we\'re gonna get there.

And the more of those mistakes you make, the quicker we\'re gonna get there. But we\'ve just gotta do it in a, you know, a, a meaningful way. And so, yeah, I love it. Cool.

Jevon Wooden: You just really have to, you know what, is failure, right? Put the confines on what that means. Because you know, is, failure a grammatical error?

I\'m like, eh, you know, but you gotta put that confines as the leader. You have to say like, here\'s acceptable failure, here\'s acceptable risk. And here\'s when we\'re getting into the red zone where we don\'t want to be. Once you put that in there, you\'re going to keep having to challenge them where it becomes their type of thought process as well.

Like, oh, I, have free reign in this box in this area. And that\'s how I do it with my, VAs and my, the folks I outsource to. And once I do that, after a while, it may take a couple months, but once I, once they get it. The, reigns get off and then I, don\'t have to micromanage. And it gives them like the ability to be creative and that\'s when they start feeling this really meaningful work and they start to understand that they are a part of a team.

They aren\'t just a contractor or a consultant, but they\'re a part of their team. They\'re a partner in this, and that\'s how you\'re gonna get that ownership and wanting them to kind of help see that vision forward.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah. Cool. So do you work a lot with, remote work as well from different parts of the world?

Jevon Wooden: Absolutely. This business, as you know, we have to find smart ways, to deploy capital. Yeah. And for me, that\'s one of the smartest ways is to, you know, bring people, like you mentioned, the Philippines, India, all these places that have excellent talent. And you know, but it\'s a reasonable price point, for us to help us grow.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah. Amazing. The challenges around. Like I was saying before, like the challenges that I\'ve experienced with people not wanting to make mistakes, like they\'re not, there\'s a seem to be a more of a cultural fear of doing that. Have you noticed anything like that and how do you actually help people to like staff coming in?

Like you said, one of the things I really loved about what you just said then was like framing what failure actually means and putting it into like that is brilliant. I love it. It\'s actually redefining in your world, in your business world, like. What, when it, when is it actually failure? Right? Like, and, shifting it from what they, or you perceive failure may be something that\'s actually we in the realms, like you said, the red zone if you like.

I love that. That\'s brilliant.

Jevon Wooden: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You ha you have to, and you know, we, have to really. Remember that their experiences, they, we don\'t really know what those experiences are, and we can kind of ask them to have those conversations and then let them know like, Hey, I understand that your prior experience was you couldn\'t do certain things.

Here. We\'re gonna operate a little differently. I want to let you be creative. I want you to operate as your best self. And they can\'t do that if they\'re always fearful of making a mistake. So I learned that early on in the military. I learned that like, Hey, you know, if we want people to really be at their best and optimize, we have to give them, the ability to believe in themselves.

And it sometimes it starts with you now, Rivera. Said that a butterfly can\'t see its wings. It really can\'t see how beautiful it is. So as a leader, it\'s our job to help those butterflies to see how high they can fly and see their beauty and their power. To do that, we have to test them and make sure they\'re, that they\'re challenged incrementally, right?

You don\'t want to just go, Hey, here you go and dump everything, but incrementally challenging people so they can kind of start flapping their wings a little stronger.

Dr Steve Day: I love that, that, the butterfly can\'t see his own wings. I\'ve not heard that before. That\'s cool.

Having a really strong vision, mission, and values, like I completely agree with you, that is fundamental to every part of the business. Whether you\'re attracting clients or you are coming up with new products, or you\'re attracting new staff members. Like it\'s fundamentally, like if things don\'t, aren\'t all focused on that or like related to your values and your vision, then it\'s gonna fall apart.

But how do you. How do you help people to really understand what their true vision is, rather than just being something that, you know, they come up with in a, business 1 0 1 class in an hour? Like, what\'s your vision for the world? Oh, I want to help everybody do X, Y, Z. It\'s like. I know a lot of the work that I\'ve done with, my coaches over the past couple of years has been about really exploring, what it means to me.

Like, deep down the work I do, like what the change I want to be putting into the world is like, I\'d love to hear your take on how you help people come up with a vision that a, they actually truly believe in, and it\'s not just something they\'re just doing it for lip service, but B, that actually then inspires the people coming in and inspires the clients to work with them as well.

Jevon Wooden: Yeah, absolutely. And you said it, Steve, you want, I start with the end in mind. I wanna reverse engineer that end. Like, what\'s the impact I want to make on this world? Why did I start this thing? what am I looking to do? How do I know that it\'s successful? But I want that to be a process goal. I want it to never end.

I want it to be something that we aspire to. So that\'s how I kind of work back from that. And then we can kind of create the mission statement and all that stuff from that. Once we get that, big process goal, that\'s never going to, you know, stop. That\'s our vision. That\'s when we\'re gonna say, all right, we have it, we hit it.

And it\'s not lip service. It is something that really means something. It\'s not just word salad. And it\'s something that we can get people to be galvanized behind to, to really be like, oh, I work for this cool company and here\'s what we are setting out to do. Right? So, that\'s how I know that we, hit something and when it, you feel it in your heart, you\'re like, that\'s it.

When that person feels it and they\'re like, yeah, then we know we\'re good. We know we\'re working with something and we may have to refine it a little bit. But chances are, you know, once you get that vision statement, you you\'re gonna stick with that. Alright? You\'re gonna stick with it.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, I mean, I, will do the first admit that the first version of my vision statement was, definitely came from a place of my business coach told me I needed one, so then it went away, you know, and then, so you try and be, you try and sort of fit all the parts of your story into this thing you create.

And, and that lasted, or, that survived a couple of years, a few years, but before it started not inspiring me anymore. And I was like, hold a minute. There\'s something more to this. I didn\'t start this business actually for those that, like, they weren\'t untrue, but they weren\'t deep enough to drive me and therefore, why should they drive anybody else?

Jevon Wooden: So, yeah. And that\'s the exercise you have to go through. Yeah. Like, is this, am I failing this? You know? And, it\'s also something you don\'t want to just set and forget. Like you said, you came back a couple years like, nah, I gotta change this. You know, a lot of folks do that exercise, but if we look at like the top companies, their vision has probably stayed the same for the most part.

They may change little pieces, but it\'s probably stayed the same. If you check like the Nike\'s and the Patagonia\'s and all these organizations, you know, their vision is there. Now the mission may change a little bit. The mission may change, but that vision is just there. Yeah, it\'s just like in perpetuity.

Dr Steve Day: But, like you say, once you, get it, once you\'ve nailed it, then it feels good. Yes. And that\'s the moment where you\'re thinking, okay, I\'m onto something now. And interestingly, I found like, like for me, it was actually being more selfish about it and coming from the point of what do I, how do I want to be in the future?

And how do I build a business that allows me to become that? And then it\'s like, okay, well how does that translate into something that\'s meaningful for other people and has ripples of impact for generations to come. But doing that sort of that selfish work first to figure out why do I wanna get up in the morning?

Yeah. That was the way for me personally, that allowed me to actually explore into a different way of looking at it, rather than starting with the how do I help the world? It\'s actually, how do I start, how do I help me? And then that\'s.

Jevon Wooden: That\'s why I like the Iki guy exercise, right? Because it has tell all of those components.

Tell me. So if you find your Iki guy\'s, the Japanese principle, for a reason for being, so you\'re gonna ask yourself like, what do I want? What am I good at? What are my strengths? you know, what is something the world needs? What is something that they would be willing to pay for? and that\'s how you\'re going to kind of identify these things.

Once you have these four boxes, four questions answered, that\'s your Iki guy in the middle. So you have to start with what you want. First, you know, because why else You\'re gonna not wanna do it after a while if you don\'t really want it. So, that\'s what I like to start with my clients, like, find your Iki guy.

Let\'s answer these four questions in these boxes and get real deep, not just a surface level answer. You know, that five why\'s is just how I. Created my framework is like five Ys. They usually say between three to five is how we get past that surface level stuff. I want you to do introspection. I want you to get real deep, get to know yourself, and really challenge you, when you\'re answering these questions.

And that\'s usually what can provide that, clarity, that we all seek when we\'re looking to create a vision and, you know, company and kind of, you know, have something that we can codify.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, I mean it is so good to hear you say that because. You know, I know like sell me the clients I work with.

And this isn\'t really in the realm of the stuff that I, I work a lot with clients on, arguably maybe I should, going forward. But what I work is more of the operational side of stuff. That\'s my what, my, my for and what I love to do. And and it\'s so interesting when you speak to people and, I just think, look, God, you really need to have this.

Just conversations with yourself. You need to go and speak to Jevon Wooden and, have a chat with him and let him help you do this deep work because I think so many people don\'t do it. And they, and it just means that like they\'re not motivated in the same way they could be. Right. They\'re not inspired.

And then why are, why should their staff like, follow them? Like what, so before, like why, how are you gonna track the type of clients that are gonna make you feel good, they\'re gonna like, benefit the most from doing just what you do? The easiest. Like, you\'re not gonna be able to do that unless. You\'ve done the work you\'ve just described.

The Iki guy. Yeah. Iki guy, isn\'t it? Yeah.

Jevon Wooden: Iki guy. Yeah. And you know what\'s interesting about that, Steve, is a lot of folks, think they\'re being burned out because they\'re doing too much. It\'s, it is really stemming from the fact that they don\'t know what they\'re doing. There\'s no focus, right? So, so people confuse being busy with being purposeful, and when you get busy, that\'s how you burn out.

If you\'re purposeful, you can continue to go. You can continue to go. You don\'t know why you\'re energized. It\'s because you believe in what you\'re doing. So you\'ll wake up, you can do a 16 hour day and be ready to go. So that\'s what one of the things that I really, really like to kind of spend some time on with my clients is, you know, how are you feeling as you\'re doing this work, as you\'re building this business?

Because there are just challenging. But if you really have that vision, you have that clarity. You found your iki guy, it\'s like, I\'m willing to do whatever it takes. Because I know I believe in this thing and I know it\'s going to do something. I\'ve done the answers. I\'ve found that people will be willing to pay for this.

I just need to find my right people. I just need to do this thing. Whereas those who burn out are like, man, I\'m just doing a checklist. I have one of these little things right here, this pad with a million things on it. But none of them are moving the needle forward. So, so I\'m glad that you said that, Steve.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah. Cool. Thinking about that actually. So thinking about you create a vision and you are inspired yourself, but then how do we share that? How do you help people to craft their story, the, in a way that. Leads, leads with authenticity, leads with, building trust and isn\'t seen as, oh, it\'s just another corporate story.

Another way to tell the same things like do you have a method or any, advice on how you convert whatever it is you come up with into something that actually convinces people? Yeah. You are who you always say you are and you mean what you say you mean, or you say you\'re saying.

Jevon Wooden: Yeah. Absolutely.

So I, I. Have people create story banks. So, and what a story bank is you think about all the stories you have, either you experienced or maybe you have someone, it doesn\'t have to be your story. It can be another leader, it could be a person in your life. And once you have that story bank, you figure out what point you\'re looking to make and select the story that kind of can bring that point home.

And then you can apply, it\'s the spa method, story point application. So I\'m going to. Have my story ready to roll. If I want to make my team hyped and motivate \'em, I\'m gonna tell a story about how we came through the fire and we were approached and all these other things, and we got through it. We didn\'t lose any people in a mission, so on and so forth, so they can feel hyped up.

So you just gotta find what story can really help you to bring that point home and bring it to life so people can put themselves in that story. And they don\'t necessarily have to have that experience, but they are able to associate some type of situation within their lives and their experiences to say, yeah.

That\'s it. That\'s hype me up. So that\'s how I like to use storytelling. Storytelling is literally everything to me because people remember, they don\'t remember facts, right? Facts tell, but stories sell. And we always have to remember that as visionaries. Just like, what story can I tell my employees? What story can I tell my clients to make them understand that this is it, this is the solution.

This is, where they want to work. This is that. Business that they want to partner with to, to get their solutions. And so that spot method is how, is what guides me. I just remember Storypoint application and that\'s it.

Dr Steve Day: Cool. And what\'s your favorite story to, to tell your team? Why?

Jevon Wooden: Yeah. So, so it\'s, it really depends.

For me, Steve course, it\'s like course if I feel like they\'re, they\'re lacking motivation, right? or disruption be, we\'re going through change right now. So I have a turning, uncertainty into opportunity. So one of my favorite stories is, how I was deployed, well, not even deployed. I was stationed, in the Middle East and we were supporting what they call a combat aviation brigade.

And the Combat Aviation Brigade is responsible for aerial assaults on our adversaries, performing reconnaissance in medical evacuations as necessary. And my team, which was the communications and technology, we were responsible for 24 7 operations, and a satellite went down that we were responsible for.

And the reason why it went down is because one of my soldiers didn\'t refill the generator. Craziest story, right? But I look at that as a point in disruption. That time, if everything would\'ve went well, we would\'ve never understood that there was a gap in our processes. So what we learned from that, after doing an after action report that we talked about sooner was, Hey, we need to make sure that there the critical.

Failure points. We have more personnel. We do more often, more checks, more often, and everyone\'s trained. And then we want to do like failover tests to make sure it doesn\'t take us as long as it took us to figure out what was going on. So that just made us better and operate at a higher level.

And thankfully no lies were lost because of that downtime. We became a 2.0 version of ourselves because we didn\'t look at pointing the fingers at the person that should have revealed it. We just said, okay, that means that there\'s a gap, and that gap is this, and here\'s how we\'re gonna fix it. So that\'s one of my favorites.

Talking about failing forward. That\'s one of my favorite stories to let my team know, like, Hey, it\'s, all right. We\'ve been, I\'ve been in like catastrophic situations where failure was seemingly not an option, but that failure made us better, in, in some capacity.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, I love that. Great story. And I mean, I used to work as a doctor and and one of the commit committees that I chaired at one point was the lessons learned committee, which was all about reexamining a patient safety incidents and saying what needs to change in the system to make sure that failure can never happen again.

And exactly what you\'re talking about, it\'s just about being, Being mindful to be able to go back to look at what the instinct was, and don\'t look at it as in who\'s to blame is how do we make sure it never happens again? And that\'s like such a brilliant philosophy for any part of business. And I\'m going back to our conversations earlier about failure.

It\'s like redefining failure. It\'s like an opportunity for, improvement and.

I love it. Okay, Jevon, before we wrap things up, I do have a couple of questions I wanna ask you, and one of them I\'m really interested to hear, I ask everybody this question, but this podcast is called Systemize Your Success. What does success mean to you and why?

Jevon Wooden: Success is tied to my impact. So, success for me means that whatever I\'ve done, whatever I put out into this world, permeates through and hopefully helps millions of people to see their beauty.

Like that butterfly I talked about earlier. So, I, I believe in empathy and the power of that and just touching people and allowing them space to grow. So that\'s my impact. I want to help millions of people kind of look and be willing to fail forward like we\'re talking about today.

Dr Steve Day: Love it. Fantastic. And finally, if people wanna find out more about you, get help from you or just get in touch, how would they best do that?

Jevon Wooden: Yeah, they can go to brightmindcg.com, Nice and easy.

Dr Steve Day: Amazing. Jevon, thank you so much for coming the show. I\'ve thoroughly enjoyed this. Really good talking to you.

Jevon Wooden: Thanks for having me, Steve. It\'s been fun. Been an honor and a pleasure man, and I love what you\'re doing, so thank you for sharing this platform with me.

Dr Steve Day: Cool. Thank you.

How to Lead Confidently as You Scale—Without Doing Everything Yourself with Jevon Wooden, Founder of BrightMind Consulting Group | Ep 258

What Jevon shared in this episode put words to something most of us feel but rarely name.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Empathetic Leadership Shifts That Free You From Doing It All

BEST MOMENTS: Real Conversations on Empathetic Leadership and Burnout

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW: Empathetic Leadership Through Delegation

Episode Transcript

VALUABLE RESOURCES

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

ABOUT THE GUEST

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST

ABOUT THE HOST

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SYS 007: The Disruptive Entrepreneur – Interview with Rob Moore

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How Small Business Owners
Leverage The SixR System
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In Under 90 Days

Free On-Demand Masterclass

How to Lead Confidently as You Scale—Without Doing Everything Yourself with Jevon Wooden, Founder of BrightMind Consulting Group | Ep 258

What Jevon shared in this episode put words to something most of us feel but rarely name.

​KEY TAKEAWAYS: Empathetic Leadership Shifts That Free You From Doing It All

BEST MOMENTS: Real Conversations on Empathetic Leadership and Burnout

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW: Empathetic Leadership Through Delegation

Episode Transcript

VALUABLE RESOURCES

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

ABOUT THE GUEST

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST

ABOUT THE HOST

For more articles related to empathetic leadership and delegation, you may also like:

SYS 007: The Disruptive Entrepreneur – Interview with Rob Moore

SYS 160: Productivity Lessons: Making the Most of Limited Time Through Effective Time Management

SYS 040: F Work, Let’s Play! – Interview with Author John Williams

How Small Business Owners Leverage The SixR System To Achieve Time Freedom In Under 90 Days

Free On-Demand Masterclass

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Empathetic Leadership Shifts That Free You From Doing It All

How Small Business Owners
Leverage The SixR System
To Achieve Time Freedom
In Under 90 Days