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Control Your Mindset, Control Your Destiny With Jevon Wooden
“We don’t wanna be alone, but it’s necessary to really become the best version of yourself and feel like you’ve unlocked.”
In this episode, I have Jevon Wooden, who grew up in a different type of household from most Americans, and how his early life led him to prison, which is where everything changed.
What to listen for:
“Something interesting about me: I grew up in a polygamous household”
“I remember looking under my car at him, and all he could do was look away”
“But one of the guys that was there, who worked in another department, he was moonlighting, but he was actually an army recruiter. Right, so he’s like, man, you should come down to the recruiter station.”
About Jevon Wooden
Jevon Wooden is a dynamic business growth strategist and coach, speaker, author, podcast host, and Bronze Star Recipient passionate about leadership, business strategy, effective communication, marketing, technology, and helping motivated individuals and businesses achieve their goals. Wooden’s remarkable business growth and personal development ideas have been featured in top publications such as Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Foundr, Forbes, and Verizon.
Resources:
Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!
Thank you for listening!
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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”
Click To View The Episode Transcript
00:34
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, have Javon Wooden. Javon, how are you doing today, I’m doing fantastic, Nick. How are you, I’m good, man. I appreciate you being on. I know you were on uh my partner’s podcast quite some time ago. And uh you and I tried to do this before.
00:56
like, I don’t know, five, six months ago, something like that. And I’m excited that we’re on here now. And when you told me where you lived and I thought, man, maybe you root for the wrong sports team. But then you went ahead and told me that you’re an Eagles fan. And for those who listen to the show, they know that I basically bleed green and ah that I’m from Philly. It’s hard to not tell that at times. But, man, I appreciate you being on and I’m glad that we could kick things off with that. Should I told you before we hit record? Like, maybe we just talk about Super Bowl 52 for the end.
01:25
Yeah, man, I’m sure there are some people listen for it. Yeah, some people listen. They’re like, yeah, let’s do it other people are like fuck this Eagles fans Yes, yes Yes, fly Eagles fly, baby. Yes, exactly, but it’s a pleasure being here. I’m glad we finally got to connect man Say man, well, why don’t you kick us off? us what you do for a living and what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you That’s maybe a little odd or bizarre
01:49
Yeah, man. So what I do for a living is I am the CEO of an organization called Bright Mind Consulting Group. We do leadership coaching and we do business consulting. I’m also a speaker. I speak a lot on mindset. I speak a lot on, you know, empowerment, personal development. I’m also an author of the book, Own Your Kingdom. And something interesting about me, I grew up in a polygamous household.
02:14
Go on.
02:15
Yeah, see, see, I told you, yeah, it’s good. That was a good one. I was like, yeah, lot of interesting things on this show. So, you know, I had to the come with one. So throw a plague me in there. my mom was a wife number two. So raised in an Islamic household up in Rochester, New York. So her husband, not legally right. But her husband had, you know, another family on the on the west side of the city. We grew up on the east side. So he pretty much had to split time. Right. So he split.
02:45
his days every other day he’d be at one one of the other households. So as you can imagine that impacts the way you view the world. Right. So so I had to uh you know I’m currently married now so I had to kind of identify what my definition of love was and why I you know wanted to be married and what marriage meant was just for business right. Was it just to make sure the status of the family or for protection or whatever the case may be or was it that I was going to get married for love for longevity uh and to be
03:15
with that one person. So yeah, man, it’s very, very interesting for sure. Well, this is what the first handful of minutes at least are going to be about. uh That’s got to be interesting. I grew up in, I like to think of like sort of the rich dad, poor dad sort of scenario. uh I had like a rich dad and poor mom.
03:37
Sounds weird when I say that some ways, but my mom would worked a couple different jobs. My dad had his own business He and his wife just vastly different ah Lives and I would go back and forth between that and I remember seeing kids growing up We’re like their parents were always together or they’d been together since high school or whatever And for the most part most of them hated each other. You could just tell they like lived in separate rooms and all that shit uh But I remember being told about polygamy
04:07
when I was, I don’t know, somewhere in my teen years, high school or something like that, and thinking, that’s kind of cool. Like you can have all these different women and all that. And then as I started to date, I was like, this is nonsense. Like I couldn’t imagine that. uh I was married for eight years and couldn’t imagine like having any other family outside of that. And now with my partner, I don’t want anybody else. I wouldn’t want anybody else. And I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. And there are times where
04:35
it’s easy to like make jokes like, you don’t know somebody. They could have another family somewhere else or they could say they’re going on business trips and it just be something different. But it sounds like that was all 100 % open and clear. So thinking back on it now, how did that shape you and what did that shape kind of the way that you thought about and looked at love? Yeah, absolutely, man. mean, you know, the fact that it was clear, you know,
05:04
We thought it was normal. later on I did talk to my mother about it. I looked at it as like settling. like, here’s my mom. think she’s a fantastic woman, beautiful woman. But she told me, she’s like, yeah, I just got tired, man. I got tired. I needed help raising my kids. I was struggling all of my life. I got tired of getting beat. I got tired of men cheating on me. I’d rather know exactly what they were doing. So she’s like, I just couldn’t do that anymore. I got tired of having to get kicked.
05:34
out of homes because I couldn’t afford it. Moving y’all, know, it’s five of us. So, yeah, so I got it. I understood it later on in life. Of course, while I was going through it, I had no idea. I was pissed all the time. I’m like, here this man is, you know, getting a plate of food for my mother and then he got to go next day to this other house, you know, with these kids and he kind of separated us. You know, we knew of one another, but we didn’t really hang out. So, yeah, I was angry for a lot of the time and I was angry.
06:04
four multiple of the reasons. One, I was like, man, if he just had this one family and that was us, he’d be able to make sure we was in a better house, right? Our house wouldn’t be falling apart. Our lights wouldn’t be turning off, right? Because we were still in the hood, you know, still living a very, very uh poor existence, right? So I’m like, why are we still doing this? Because he’s had this other family has to take care of his more is expensive enough to take care of one. uh But as I as I grew up, I also understood that they didn’t necessarily get married for love.
06:34
As I said, they got married for the business side of things. Eventually maybe they started loving one another, it was more so, yes there was a physical attraction there, but it was more so um for the protection, for the care and all that other stuff. Kind like they did in the medieval times, back in the day or whatever. ah
06:55
Yeah, man, I just had to weave my own way. I had to figure it out. had to say, all right, you know, who do I want to be? Do I want to sit here? You know, because when you’re young, you don’t really understand it. Like you’re talking to this girl and that girl and doing doing whatever what teenage boys do. But as I had gotten older, I realized that it impacted me in a different way. I wasn’t just doing what teenage boys were doing. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. Could I be with one person? Right. So I had to
07:25
Do that with therapy and I had to go through all these different things later on to to be ready for what I’m in now married now But to get there, you know hurt a lot of people and I hurt myself a couple times, right? Because there’s also this trauma piece, right? You also bond from the traumas of growing up in an impoverished environment growing up in a Household where you’re struggling constantly so you kind of seek out people who who can relate to the struggle so to speak and you like oh, yeah, I feel like I can I
07:55
I can be with this person because they understand. Well, that’s a trauma tie. That’s a soul. You know, it’s not a good thing that they understand in that way. So I had to figure all of that stuff out, just going through life, man, and being intentional about the healing journey. Were you able to talk with your dad about any of it? Even as you got older, like man to man, like, yo, dude, what the fuck?
08:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, I never really considered him my dad. I never really called him that. We grew up in an uh Islamic environment. You mean like him, right? My mom’s husband? Or my biological father? Okay, yeah, my mother’s husband. Yeah, I never really called him my dad. We did call him Abu, which is kind of father in Islam, but I called him that because I was told to call him that. um But as I got older, I did realize I respected him more.
08:47
because I’m like, he didn’t have to, right? He didn’t have to step in and take care of us and look at us like his kids, no matter what the situation was. still, you know, made sure we were good in some sense, right? He still split bills with my mom or whatever they did. m somehow, some way. So he still would, you know, take us to get burgers every once in a while. So I started understanding all of that stuff in adulthood, but it took me a while. It took me a while. um
09:17
So, but I never really asked him because that was, I mean, he agreed to it, my mother agreed to it. So it wasn’t his fault, right? It was a mutually agreed upon thing. I understood it from a Muslim standpoint, right? from because I was raised in that. So I understood that the way they looked at it was it wasn’t anything wrong as long as you could care for that other woman, as long as you can care for the wife.
09:42
because that was the biggest thing. It wasn’t necessary for love, was for procreation and like I said, for the woman, for protection and for someone to provide and all that other stuff. So they live like that. The Christian way isn’t that. So I always got a lot of questions from my Christian friends and stuff, but that’s how I understood it. And I’m like, well, your father’s out here playing your mother and you’re not saying anything. At least my mom knew about it, right? Yeah, exactly. I saw him walking.
10:12
in the neighbor’s house. Yeah, your mom stayed with her for an hour long and she knew that he was doing all this stuff, you know. But yeah, all jokes aside, like yeah, that’s how looked at it. I was like, you know, this is something two adults agreed upon. My mom told me why she felt the way she did. And from his standpoint…
10:28
No, I just knew that that was a that was how they described it because that was what was in the Quran like hey You can take on multiple wives as long as you can provide and care for them and you have to split their time equally No one can be favored over the other. So that’s how I what was going on What an interesting thing man, because you you hit like where my questions are coming from Okay
10:51
I often think about the bullshit shoulds. Like you shouldn’t do things this way. You should do things that way. Like I tried to do things the way I should. I tried to like have the wife and go after the white picket fence and plan for two and a half children and.
11:09
The half is always fucking strange, but you know like having all of that like Yeah, well, I don’t know like I’ve heard that before it’s like two and a half kids like the little baby kid I guess or like maybe just a fucking torso and it’s like well. This is our torso child. This is strange uh But like doing the things that you should do because of how you’re raised and the system that you’re raised within I was raised. My mom went to Catholic school and when she told me I had to go to church She told me like I’m not going cuz I already did my time. I was like
11:39
Is that how this works? Okay. Then I have the Christian side of my family that we’re very almost legalistic in a sense. Like this is how the law is. This is what the gospel says. This is how God tells us to do things. And we as kids are just sponges and we just soak that shit up. Like, I should trust you and I should do this this way. And polygamy sounds like it’s a weird thing because it’s different from what I’m used to. And so…
12:07
being raised in that and having those questions from your Christian friends or other people that are outside of that, really trying to look at things from the, well, if we get rid of the should, it’s really interesting to think about how marriage had even come about. I don’t know a lot about this, but I’ve been told by someone who you and I mutually know and who I love to pieces. She’s told me that there’s a background with how the Catholic Church had instituted marriage because people couldn’t just stop fucking each other. And it’s like, well,
12:37
We really don’t want you to get married, you know, just stop. So get married. And then like, if you really need to get out of it, here’s an annulment and you shouldn’t get divorced. You’re going to go to hell if you get a divorce. And I remember thinking like, I got a divorce a few years ago. And like that thought came through my mind. Cause I spent 10 plus years being deeply in a church and playing music in church bands and like hearing and feeling all that. But then seeing people that I was in bands with like
13:05
once cheated on somebody else and now they’re married and they have a kid and I’m like, how the fuck does this shit make sense? But if we take ourselves out of the should equation and go, well, this is what it’s like, how did you get to that point where you realized like, right, this is what this was and I’m hearing from other people that are saying this is strange or it’s different or whatever, but you still needed to do you and go along your life path.
13:33
Talk to me about how you kind of managed your mindset through that and what you thought of as you went through and how you dealt with the trauma that you had of like, well, where the fuck was this guy? And what about your actual dad? And like how all of that tied into the relationships that you had? Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, you know, I, the whole should always say should from whose perspective, right? And that’s how I always look at things now.
13:58
So I look at myself as a lifelong learner someone who’s curious right? I don’t come from a judgmental per standpoint I come from a place where I want to understand right? So when people ask me those questions, I would say, uh know by whose law right who told us that we should do this and they would say yeah the Bible says this and I and I will also say the Bible also says that you can get divorced under certain circumstances in names of circumstance and the Bible also starts with talking about incest and all these other
14:28
So there’s a lot of things that we don’t forget about Yeah So always say like, you know a lot of things are by interpretation and then a lot of things are man-made so they can control the narrative on certain things, right? So I’m a person now I want to learn and I say, you know if that’s your standpoint who am I to judge you? Right. I’m a man and I make mistakes and I sin just like everyone else So, you know if if you’re you know, if it’s something that you’re not harming someone else on like my mother
14:58
She understood she knew he was very transparent with her right um and the other woman knew you know They were very transparent with that You know then who am I to say oh this is not right? Just because someone else asked me and I didn’t really quite know how to convey my my feelings or understand what was going on at that time You know so as a kid it was it was very tough only because my peers would say that this was different or or they would say hey don’t tell this person because you know your mom might get in trouble whatever uh
15:28
So those types of things really uh played uh a factor in my mindset where I said, okay, I should be upset right now because I’m not like everyone else. My upbringing is not like everyone else. But what I realized was, you know, they all had their issues too, whatever that may have been, you know? And as far as my biological father, whom…
15:55
Didn’t really matter if my mom was with him or not because he wasn’t the best man. He’s actually you know, whether he did it or not. He’s in prison for a triple murder now uh You know, so he’s serving three life sentences uh in New York Yeah, and in the crazy part about that story is uh You know for a while I couldn’t talk to him. I wouldn’t talk to him I didn’t even know if he was my father or not. I have so many stories man, but I’m not gonna get into that part We got time, bro. Yeah. Yeah, but uh, but yeah when I did
16:25
You know, I didn’t know he was my father and his name is not in the birth certificate He’s I don’t have his last name or any of that but
16:33
My sister who is my oldest sister also shares the same father she would talk to him from time to time and When I tried to give him that that chance to try to build this relationship He actually got arrested while he was with me. So I picked him up. Yeah, I picked him up and we go to the gas station like up the street from his house and SWAT team jumps out literally SWAT team jumps out and they’re like get on the ground get on the ground I’m at the gas pump like what the fuck are you talking about?
17:02
And at this point at this time, I think I had just got off a probation myself So I had got arrested for an assault and robbery charge, but they me off because I was 17 You know the case got dropped and it was like hey if you get messed up you have to do all your time, right? Yeah So but so I thought they jumped out on me and they was like we don’t want you we want him So I remember looking under my car At him and he looked at me and all he could do is look look
17:32
And I’m like, yeah, I remember that that’s that’s it and they were asking me questions in an interrogation room because they took me into They were like, so what do you know about him? Like, you know him better than I do you? So yeah, so as far as him, oh know now I talked to him occasionally uh And I asked him I said, you know, you know what happened right what happened and between you two
17:59
Now he used to beat my mother, he just wasn’t a good man to her, right? And apparently he didn’t drink that much, he would drink beer, but not like hard alcohol, but beer you can get drunk too, right? And he just had a temper, yeah, he just had a temper, so that’s what happened with them. And the only memories I had of him when I was younger were not good.
18:21
So it didn’t really matter that he wasn’t around because what he probably would have made it worse right for me sure so I was like, you know things happen for a reason and sometimes we just have to look for the silver lining or Understand that the reason may not have been for us Maybe it was for us to share our story so we can help someone else right get through some tough times and let them know like yeah I may not have a similar path or similar Adversity, but we all have it and I’m letting you know right now you can get through it. So that’s because
18:51
my mindset over time, right? Which is why I wrote the book, Own Your Kingdom, How to Control Your Mindset, so you control your destiny. Because I wanted to give people the tools that I use through this journey of all this adversity that I faced in life, military and all the like. And just make it quick, make it easy, none of that fluff stuff and all that stuff. Just get straight to it. And the first part that I had to do that I talk about in the book is forgiving yourself. Because a lot of that stuff, I asked myself, what was my role in it?
19:21
I have done differently and the answers for most things was nothing. You’re a kid, right? You don’t have that type of agency over your life at that point. So I had to just address it and forgive myself so I can move forward and not stay there. You had a couple things that really stand out to me. Doing something that isn’t always just for you, but it’s for other people to be able to learn.
19:48
And sometimes you can see that from other people. Like, I’m sure that memory is seared into your brain if you looking underneath and him looking at you and looking away. And the idea of the things that he had done had led for you to be able to do things differently. Now, granted, you could have been like, cool, role model right there. Let me go do this shit as well. And some people go down that path. uh But also being able to understand that you don’t need the fucking fluff.
20:15
Like there’s so much bullshit fluff that’s out there. And I’ve realized that a lot of it is like almost bypass-y.
20:25
but they don’t try to make it bypassy. It’s just for the masses. Like a lot of people as they start to like get into either mindfulness or just trying to find peace within themselves, they’re looking for the easy things that they can kind of unpack this a little bit and then do this thing today and maybe like these little journal prompts or whatever. And that’s great. If that’s how you got to start off, that’s wonderful.
20:48
But there’s a lot of that bullshit that’s out there. And I’m glad you bring this up because that’s part of the reason for the show is to be able to talk through the really tough times, but like, what the fuck did you do? How did you do it? And how does that make sense for other people? Like I think about journaling at times because the amount of people that were like, you should just journal, you should journal. Different therapists are like, you should journal. I was like, look, I don’t like the way that I write and I’d rather type things. In fact, the way that I actually get emotions out is through music. And now I have a…
21:16
a mental health coach that I work with that is that way, where he’s like, go play music, go write it that way, get it out that way, instead of just journaling. But a lot of people are like, this is the fluff piece of this. For you, going through the craziness that you went through, now looking back, are you able to look back and go, it was that moment or some other moment that was kind of a pivotal shift for you, where you were like, this is where I started to change. And even if you went through some of the fluff and tried different things, like,
21:45
When was it that you started to really figure out I need to fucking fix my own shit and I need to work on my own stuff? Sitting in the jail cell, Damn, touche. Yeah, sitting in the jail cell. You know, when I had got arrested at 17, I didn’t care. Quite frankly, I didn’t give a damn, you know. And it wasn’t until my mom and my older sister, Chandra, they came to visit me. So I go down to the visitation room.
22:13
And I’m walking through, and first of all, you’re getting, you know, you’re just getting denigrated, right? You have no dignity going through that, because they’re checking your butt cheeks, doing all this stuff, right? Making you cough and all that stuff, before you even get to see your family. uh
22:27
And you’re in a jumpsuit, right? That says property of wherever you are, right? So I get in there, you know, I didn’t care about any of that. was like, whatever. uh You know, I’m just a shell of myself anyway. So they open the door and I look around. I remember looking around and first of all, the light, the situation that you’re in just feels grim.
22:46
The light is an off yellow. It’s really nasty. The floor is puke yellow, right? And then when you look around, I just was walking. I’m like, damn, everyone in here looks like me, right? It’s a bunch of black guys, maybe some Hispanic guys, you know? And I was like, wow, this is not good. So I sit down and talk to my mom and my sister and they look just…
23:15
worn out, man, and I had never seen him like that.
23:18
and I thought about it, I was like, this is because of me. Because they’re visiting me in here. I literally had caught my mom when they arrested me. I called her like three in the morning and told her, like, mom, I’m in jail, you know. And I remember her waking up like, what? You know, oh she was half asleep, of course, because I had to call her a couple of times. And she’s like, what? And she’s like, what do need? What do you need? need a lawyer? And I’m like, you don’t have any money for a lawyer, mom. So fast forward, sit down in that visitation room, and she tells me,
23:48
put the house up for me to get a lawyer. Now you think about this, the house isn’t worth crap. Well, I don’t know how much that house is probably like, you know, but.
23:59
That’s where my whole family stays. So if anything goes wrong, that lawyer calls her on the loan, whatever the case may be, they would be homeless out on the streets. Right. And it would have been because of me. Right. So that really, you know, made me like when I went back up there after that visit, man, I just prayed. Right. I just prayed. was like, man, I don’t know.
24:23
what it looks like, but if you give me a second chance, man, I’ma figure it out. Like, I don’t have anything, not, I don’t have any money, don’t have nothing to give anybody, right? Because that’s how I looked at I looked at myself as valueless. I was poor, right? Because everything in the media, everything in the world said you were worthless unless you had money. uh So I was just like, yeah, God, just give me another chance, just so could be with my family. Because that showed me that I did have value, at least to them.
24:51
So fast forward, like, yeah, I prayed that day. And then a couple of weeks later, they finally dropped the case out there a couple of times, going to trial and no one showing up. And going to trial, no one showing up. They finally just put me on probation and let me go. And I graduated high school that same, like, couple months later. And I had no plan.
25:16
No plan, man. I was like, I don’t even know. I’m going to college or whatever. And people always be like, oh, you’re so smart, this and that. But I hated school. And so I applied to one school. I just did Buffalo State. So I go up there. And man, I’m like, yeah, this is where I need to be. I don’t need to be in the streets. I’m good. I need to be here. Until they said that bill was due.
25:39
They oh yeah, you need to uh pay the bill or else you’re going to get dropped from all your classes. uh
25:46
What the hell? What? thought I went for free, you know? I don’t know. I’m a kid from Rochester. I don’t know how that works. like this is public school, man. What are you talking about? Pay. And I was supposed to be in the Equal Opportunity Program, but my mom didn’t submit the paperwork in time. Right. Yeah. So that was like, yeah, you got to pay. I was like, well, here I go back to the streets. So I had a job there at a grocery store. Right. But.
26:14
I was like, yeah, I gotta make some easy money because I gotta pay this thing on bail. I did take out a loan, but it wasn’t enough.
26:20
So back to the streets I went, but then I just was like, you know, I’m dropping out. So I dropped out, man, because I just heard my mom and I seen her again, right behind that damn glass. I was like, yeah, I can’t do that. So I just figured it out until then went back to Rochester, worked two jobs, two full time jobs. And then one day, like I was working on a weekend at a hospital there as a janitor pretty much. It’s called environmental services, fancy name for janitor.
26:50
I see. Yeah, clean up mess, right? But one of the guys that was there who worked in another department, he was moonlighting, but he was actually an army recruiter. He’s like, man, you should come down to the the recruiter station.
27:04
Monday I was like I’m there so I went there and that’s really what opened me I was like man you mean to tell me Downtown or Rochester this was down here and like nobody all y’all just going to prison trying to make something you can come here You know cuz no one ever you know my one of my uncles was in was in the army before but he If I went by his example, I definitely want to join because he ended up dying He ended up dying of a DUI
27:30
And that accident was just terrible. Yeah, so I didn’t want to look at him. My aunt went. uh So she was a good example. But no one really talked about it. But I was like, hey, this is my last ditch effort, because I don’t want to go back to that. So that jail cell really changed me, not because of fear or anything else, but because I knew that I couldn’t do that to my mom and my sister again. uh
27:55
So that was my change and now I live life that way. Life isn’t just for me. Life is for the people I love and people who I don’t even know who may look at me to get them through those tough times. So I gotta make sure I’m watching what I’m saying. I gotta make sure I’m conscious of what I’m doing. Not in a way where it feels burdensome, but in a way where I feel blessed. I feel like I’m blessed to go from that to where I am today. So that drives me even when I
28:25
don’t feel like doing stuff, man. That’s an interesting thing to think about, not having the burden, but still having the responsibility and an opportunity to be able to do it. Absolutely.
28:38
We were talking the other day about how a lot of people look at stuff specifically social media wise. They’re like, everything needs to be content. It’s all content. It’s all for show. uh We’ve actually stepped off of social media. I’m mainly on Facebook just to sell music equipment and random shit around the house. But other than that, it’s like getting out of the noise has allowed us to be able look at how much noise there actually is that a lot of people are just creating noise to create noise. m
29:07
And no matter what religion or what you think of, everything that feels right to me feels like you shouldn’t boast about that shit. Like if you go and help somebody, you don’t go and boast about it. Like I helped some older woman at the gym the other day and I felt weird even saying it to Steph. Like, hey, did you see this situation that happened? Because there was like this funny thing. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to me because I had my earbuds in, noise canceling. And she’s like…
29:34
Like, what did you say to me? And then meanwhile, she was just asking, hey, can you grab this 25 pound of mold? And I can’t do it. But that wasn’t going to go on social media. wasn’t going to take a video of it and be like, yeah, let me show people that I’m helping. And I get if people really want to be able to have content that does good things to help people, there are certain people that do that. for the most part, a lot of that just feels.
29:56
fucking gross and like, it’s like fucking fake. Yeah. And such bullshit where realistically you do need to be that example. And I think it, starts with us being that example with the people that we’re closest to our friends, family, the people we work with. And then you can kind of step outside from that. So how do you balance that? How do you like work with that and understand that you can’t let the ego get in, but you still got to be, you just got to be you and be good. I just, I just be me man. I got him like, uh
30:26
What I realized man is that one vulnerability strength, right? I used to hate for people to know that I was feeling away But then I realized like when I when I put that out there It was something that you know, lot of people built a community, know, remember one time I was uh, you know, I suffered from depression and one time I was just feeling it man and I just put it on like I was in the bed and I was just like man You know what? I just want to let y’all know like y’all see the smile in me and all this other stuff, but I go through it man every day
30:56
decide to win and this is what it’s like. Like I’m sitting here struggling. Like y’all think this is easy. And somebody was like, man, I’m glad you posted that cause I didn’t feel like doing anything today either. And I said, good, like don’t, you know, because the, you know, the hustle culture have you thinking that you gotta just push through regardless? Yes. And I’m like, nah, man, because if I keep pushing and I’ve been there, if I, if I keep pushing to the point I can’t push anymore, right. At some point my body, my mind going to tell me like that.
31:26
That’s it, right? And I’m going to end up in a hospital or something’s going to happen. I’m going to make an egregious mistake, fall asleep behind a wheel, whatever the case may be, you know? So I got to think about that. Like I made it for the long term, man. I played that short game and it’s not for me. So I just realized like everything I do, hate it, love it. Like it’s not, it’s not for me to be on there and I don’t really care what trolls say. So I’m going to just say how I feel and I’m going to say it from my perspective, my standpoint.
31:55
And I’m gonna say, know, if you don’t like it, you can not follow me, whatever, because I look at it not as social media. I call it business media, right? I call it business media. So I’m on there to get something done. I’m not on there scrolling mindlessly. I’m on there to get something done. And that something is whether I’m trying, I’m looking to motivate somebody, whether I’m looking to get a product out there, right? Or I’m looking to let you know that, you know, it’s possible, right? In some way, shape, or form. I just got an event, you know, if you really want it,
32:25
Don’t just talk about it, be about it type of thing. oh Knowing why, knowing my goals for doing it, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. Hopefully someone says, man, this motivated me because that’s what I But if someone says, man, you suck, I’m going to say, so what? I don’t care who you are. Come say it. That’s how I look at it now, man. Be you regardless because being you is what’s going to open those other doors.
32:55
Wherever you’re looking to go, if you try to do it somebody else’s way, it’s not gonna work for you. It’s not gonna work for you because you’re not them and your journey is not theirs. So we gotta remember that. That’s why all these gurus out here, you mentioned them talking about it’s just mindset and all that stuff. That’s why most of their stuff never gets past that beginner stage because they’re talking to the masses. I’m talking to people who are like me. So I know exactly what you’re going through. I know exactly that you’re past that whole mindset thing.
33:25
and all that other stuff. I may mention it a little bit about journaling, but I’ll tell you, just like your coach said, journal your own way. I like to do voice notes and poetry. So find your way, and then once you find that, just keep it. The easiest thing is my phone, so I just always have it. I’ll just talk about whatever I’m feeling, and your music. Yeah, just do things your way. When you try something, you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep doing it.
33:55
keep figuring it out man. The truth is, you know, I don’t sit here and act like I know everything that I’m doing because I don’t. Right. And that’s where a lot of people mess up that is they think they have to have it all together. All right. And you do not. Right. No one does. I don’t care who you think you’re, you know, is amazing. They’re all figuring it out one day at a time. That’s, what you have to do as a human. That’s the human component. And my dog loves it.
34:25
Preach, preach. Preach that, Well, it is interesting how we.
34:37
Just technology, social media, the internet, all that has opened up doors to be able to look and see what other people are doing or what they aren’t doing. And we as people learn from other people. We can go, oh cool, I saw Javon did this thing and maybe I can try that. That’s cool. And I know there are people that listen to this show that will take different tidbits and be like, oh that’s cool, I’ll try that thing out. Because that kind of relates to me. Then there are others that it’s like, you shouldn’t, just don’t do those things.
35:04
And it’s not a matter of like being told by somebody else to not do them. You gotta figure it out on your own. Figure out what works and what doesn’t work. I do really, I wanna talk about this a little bit. You’d mentioned about how your body will show up. It’ll tell you when you need to stop. It’ll make you rest. I’ve gone through the hustle culture bullshit and almost committed suicide and had craziness happen to me. One time I had…
35:32
Basically 90 % maybe that’s a little much maybe it was like 80 85 % of my body was a giant rash
35:38
because my body was like, need to calm the fuck down. need to chill, yep. And I was like, but I’m not going to, I’m gonna keep going. And it was like, just like the whole, my whole fucking body, basically. um And I went and saw dermatologists, I don’t know, like three, four of them, something like that. And they were like, oh, well, what are your, whatever you ate, just don’t eat that again. I was like, that’s nonsense. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s literally what they said to you? Yeah, two of them. And then I had the last one, last appointment I went to, there were two people in the room.
36:08
And I was like, you know what? think this is actually a mental thing. I think it’s my body trying to tell me to do something. And both of these assholes just laughed. And they were like, oh no, no, no, that’s not it. And I was like, well, cool. Now you told me something about you. And I just started to like put my stuff on and get out of the room and leave. I was like, well, fuck this shit. Me and my crunchy body trying to get out of there. But how your body shows up to be able to tell you those things. I don’t think that we all need to go through that and get to that tough spot, but.
36:37
our body will show up and tell us that we’ve got to be able to do something different. So how do you work with people and get them to understand that without having to go through the crazy nonsense and stuff that you’d gone through? How do you help people get through that?
36:54
Yeah, you mentioned one of the words earlier that mindfulness a lot of people don’t realize what their triggers are or that they even have triggers or they don’t pay attention to the certain situations when these things happen. So I get people to think about that like cognitively because you know a lot of us operating our subconscious. So I’m like, you know, you get upset. You notice that you get upset. Is there a certain person around is a certain situation to send them saying a certain word right? And what happens when you get upset? Do your palms start sweating? Do you start itching? Do you start
37:24
You know I want them to pay attention to everything that’s going on And that and then you know just track it remember you could write it down you can say it you can do whatever but have some way where you’re Identifying your patterns all right because when you identify those patterns now you have power over it now You can say okay. I know that I need to remove myself If someone says a certain word or I can say hey I need time out man I’m about to walk away before I knock you out or something like that right so so you just have to identify
37:54
identify patterns, you gotta, and be real about it be honest about it. And then, you know, people talk about boundaries, but boundaries are only as good as the, you, how you convey them and if you’re conveying them to the person that you need to convey them to, right? And you gotta keep them for yourself, right? The hardest part to keep a boundary with is you. So, you know, so I always say like, when you say, like when you know that a certain person, for instance, gets on your nerves and you just don’t, you’re not feeling them, unless you work with that person,
38:24
continue to put yourself in a situation with that right and even if you work with them you know you can say yeah I’m gonna keep it cordial but you know we got to work in separate rooms and then maybe we come together we can get a mediator or something like that because I don’t rock with you you know like you you can put those things out there and in whatever way tactful way you think it is but you have to you have to communicate in your emotions and your feelings you can’t expect somebody to know what’s happening inside of you because it just doesn’t work that way
38:54
And that’s where a lot of us fell. We’re like, man, you know what? This person asked me to go to this event. I don’t feel like going to this event. Then you end up at that event. And now you’re upset because you’re at that event. You never told them you didn’t want to. So those types of things, you got to start being honest. And it starts with being honest with you first. Once you start being honest and you start using up boundaries, my favorite is no. You don’t have to make a reason for no. You could just say, nah, I’m
39:23
Yeah, no is enough. And if you feel uncomfortable with that, like get to the point where you say no, cause I don’t feel like it, right? Or no.
39:31
whatever it is, but those types of things, those types of boundaries and being mindful about certain things, that’s going to allow you to achieve a level of peace that nothing else can give you. know, and that’s what it’s all about for me. You know, I’m all for helping people. I’m all for, you know, doing whatever, but if it does not align with what I want to do at that moment, it’s not moving me forward to the person I want to be or getting some money in my pocket so I can live the life I want to live for myself.
40:01
my family, it’s not happening. Simple as that. And I will say, no, I’m good. That’s it.
40:10
So you’ve hit on not only the boundaries, but a few times we’ve talked about or around the idea of you’ve got to be good in yourself. You’ve got to be able to know yourself and know what’s right for you. So kind of along those lines, what’s that one piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery? Yeah, mean, self mastery, to master yourself, you got to know yourself, right? So I would say spend some time alone.
40:37
Really get to know you at and this is not a point in time thing continue to do that You know every once in a while and and be real be honest like what are some things that you you would want to change about yourself? You know what are the things you feel you can do better? ah You know what are some things that you haven’t addressed that you should address you know ask yourself some questions and just sitting with you ah Because you need that a lot of times people are afraid of that so we put ourselves in grooves or we put ourselves around people because
41:07
We don’t wanna be alone, but it’s necessary to be alone to really become the best version of yourself and to really feel like you’ve unlocked that piece that we’re talking about here. Great way to put that, And look, I appreciate you being on today. ah I hope this is the first of many conversations we’re gonna get to have. But before I let you go, where can people find you? Where can they connect with you? And where can they get that book?
41:32
Absolutely, man. So you can find me if you want to connect on a social platform, typically on LinkedIn, Javon Wooden, J-E-V-O-N-W-O-O-D-E-N. You’ll see a light bulb, NBA. And then to get the book, you can go to my website, Brightmindconsultinggroup.com. If you’re looking for coaching or consulting, you can also book a free consultation there as well. Good stuff, man. Again, I appreciate you being on today. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me, brother. Great discussion.
https://youtu.be/V6u88Hs2m2U
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By Nick McGowan“We don’t wanna be alone, but it’s necessary to really become the best version of yourself and feel like you’ve unlocked.”
In this episode, I have Jevon Wooden, who grew up in a different type of household from most Americans, and how his early life led him to prison, which is where everything changed.
What to listen for:
“Something interesting about me: I grew up in a polygamous household”
“I remember looking under my car at him, and all he could do was look away”
“But one of the guys that was there, who worked in another department, he was moonlighting, but he was actually an army recruiter. Right, so he’s like, man, you should come down to the recruiter station.”
About Jevon Wooden
Jevon Wooden is a dynamic business growth strategist and coach, speaker, author, podcast host, and Bronze Star Recipient passionate about leadership, business strategy, effective communication, marketing, technology, and helping motivated individuals and businesses achieve their goals. Wooden’s remarkable business growth and personal development ideas have been featured in top publications such as Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Foundr, Forbes, and Verizon.
Resources:
Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!
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Click To View The Episode Transcript
00:34
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show, have Javon Wooden. Javon, how are you doing today, I’m doing fantastic, Nick. How are you, I’m good, man. I appreciate you being on. I know you were on uh my partner’s podcast quite some time ago. And uh you and I tried to do this before.
00:56
like, I don’t know, five, six months ago, something like that. And I’m excited that we’re on here now. And when you told me where you lived and I thought, man, maybe you root for the wrong sports team. But then you went ahead and told me that you’re an Eagles fan. And for those who listen to the show, they know that I basically bleed green and ah that I’m from Philly. It’s hard to not tell that at times. But, man, I appreciate you being on and I’m glad that we could kick things off with that. Should I told you before we hit record? Like, maybe we just talk about Super Bowl 52 for the end.
01:25
Yeah, man, I’m sure there are some people listen for it. Yeah, some people listen. They’re like, yeah, let’s do it other people are like fuck this Eagles fans Yes, yes Yes, fly Eagles fly, baby. Yes, exactly, but it’s a pleasure being here. I’m glad we finally got to connect man Say man, well, why don’t you kick us off? us what you do for a living and what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you That’s maybe a little odd or bizarre
01:49
Yeah, man. So what I do for a living is I am the CEO of an organization called Bright Mind Consulting Group. We do leadership coaching and we do business consulting. I’m also a speaker. I speak a lot on mindset. I speak a lot on, you know, empowerment, personal development. I’m also an author of the book, Own Your Kingdom. And something interesting about me, I grew up in a polygamous household.
02:14
Go on.
02:15
Yeah, see, see, I told you, yeah, it’s good. That was a good one. I was like, yeah, lot of interesting things on this show. So, you know, I had to the come with one. So throw a plague me in there. my mom was a wife number two. So raised in an Islamic household up in Rochester, New York. So her husband, not legally right. But her husband had, you know, another family on the on the west side of the city. We grew up on the east side. So he pretty much had to split time. Right. So he split.
02:45
his days every other day he’d be at one one of the other households. So as you can imagine that impacts the way you view the world. Right. So so I had to uh you know I’m currently married now so I had to kind of identify what my definition of love was and why I you know wanted to be married and what marriage meant was just for business right. Was it just to make sure the status of the family or for protection or whatever the case may be or was it that I was going to get married for love for longevity uh and to be
03:15
with that one person. So yeah, man, it’s very, very interesting for sure. Well, this is what the first handful of minutes at least are going to be about. uh That’s got to be interesting. I grew up in, I like to think of like sort of the rich dad, poor dad sort of scenario. uh I had like a rich dad and poor mom.
03:37
Sounds weird when I say that some ways, but my mom would worked a couple different jobs. My dad had his own business He and his wife just vastly different ah Lives and I would go back and forth between that and I remember seeing kids growing up We’re like their parents were always together or they’d been together since high school or whatever And for the most part most of them hated each other. You could just tell they like lived in separate rooms and all that shit uh But I remember being told about polygamy
04:07
when I was, I don’t know, somewhere in my teen years, high school or something like that, and thinking, that’s kind of cool. Like you can have all these different women and all that. And then as I started to date, I was like, this is nonsense. Like I couldn’t imagine that. uh I was married for eight years and couldn’t imagine like having any other family outside of that. And now with my partner, I don’t want anybody else. I wouldn’t want anybody else. And I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. And there are times where
04:35
it’s easy to like make jokes like, you don’t know somebody. They could have another family somewhere else or they could say they’re going on business trips and it just be something different. But it sounds like that was all 100 % open and clear. So thinking back on it now, how did that shape you and what did that shape kind of the way that you thought about and looked at love? Yeah, absolutely, man. mean, you know, the fact that it was clear, you know,
05:04
We thought it was normal. later on I did talk to my mother about it. I looked at it as like settling. like, here’s my mom. think she’s a fantastic woman, beautiful woman. But she told me, she’s like, yeah, I just got tired, man. I got tired. I needed help raising my kids. I was struggling all of my life. I got tired of getting beat. I got tired of men cheating on me. I’d rather know exactly what they were doing. So she’s like, I just couldn’t do that anymore. I got tired of having to get kicked.
05:34
out of homes because I couldn’t afford it. Moving y’all, know, it’s five of us. So, yeah, so I got it. I understood it later on in life. Of course, while I was going through it, I had no idea. I was pissed all the time. I’m like, here this man is, you know, getting a plate of food for my mother and then he got to go next day to this other house, you know, with these kids and he kind of separated us. You know, we knew of one another, but we didn’t really hang out. So, yeah, I was angry for a lot of the time and I was angry.
06:04
four multiple of the reasons. One, I was like, man, if he just had this one family and that was us, he’d be able to make sure we was in a better house, right? Our house wouldn’t be falling apart. Our lights wouldn’t be turning off, right? Because we were still in the hood, you know, still living a very, very uh poor existence, right? So I’m like, why are we still doing this? Because he’s had this other family has to take care of his more is expensive enough to take care of one. uh But as I as I grew up, I also understood that they didn’t necessarily get married for love.
06:34
As I said, they got married for the business side of things. Eventually maybe they started loving one another, it was more so, yes there was a physical attraction there, but it was more so um for the protection, for the care and all that other stuff. Kind like they did in the medieval times, back in the day or whatever. ah
06:55
Yeah, man, I just had to weave my own way. I had to figure it out. had to say, all right, you know, who do I want to be? Do I want to sit here? You know, because when you’re young, you don’t really understand it. Like you’re talking to this girl and that girl and doing doing whatever what teenage boys do. But as I had gotten older, I realized that it impacted me in a different way. I wasn’t just doing what teenage boys were doing. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. Could I be with one person? Right. So I had to
07:25
Do that with therapy and I had to go through all these different things later on to to be ready for what I’m in now married now But to get there, you know hurt a lot of people and I hurt myself a couple times, right? Because there’s also this trauma piece, right? You also bond from the traumas of growing up in an impoverished environment growing up in a Household where you’re struggling constantly so you kind of seek out people who who can relate to the struggle so to speak and you like oh, yeah, I feel like I can I
07:55
I can be with this person because they understand. Well, that’s a trauma tie. That’s a soul. You know, it’s not a good thing that they understand in that way. So I had to figure all of that stuff out, just going through life, man, and being intentional about the healing journey. Were you able to talk with your dad about any of it? Even as you got older, like man to man, like, yo, dude, what the fuck?
08:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, I never really considered him my dad. I never really called him that. We grew up in an uh Islamic environment. You mean like him, right? My mom’s husband? Or my biological father? Okay, yeah, my mother’s husband. Yeah, I never really called him my dad. We did call him Abu, which is kind of father in Islam, but I called him that because I was told to call him that. um But as I got older, I did realize I respected him more.
08:47
because I’m like, he didn’t have to, right? He didn’t have to step in and take care of us and look at us like his kids, no matter what the situation was. still, you know, made sure we were good in some sense, right? He still split bills with my mom or whatever they did. m somehow, some way. So he still would, you know, take us to get burgers every once in a while. So I started understanding all of that stuff in adulthood, but it took me a while. It took me a while. um
09:17
So, but I never really asked him because that was, I mean, he agreed to it, my mother agreed to it. So it wasn’t his fault, right? It was a mutually agreed upon thing. I understood it from a Muslim standpoint, right? from because I was raised in that. So I understood that the way they looked at it was it wasn’t anything wrong as long as you could care for that other woman, as long as you can care for the wife.
09:42
because that was the biggest thing. It wasn’t necessary for love, was for procreation and like I said, for the woman, for protection and for someone to provide and all that other stuff. So they live like that. The Christian way isn’t that. So I always got a lot of questions from my Christian friends and stuff, but that’s how I understood it. And I’m like, well, your father’s out here playing your mother and you’re not saying anything. At least my mom knew about it, right? Yeah, exactly. I saw him walking.
10:12
in the neighbor’s house. Yeah, your mom stayed with her for an hour long and she knew that he was doing all this stuff, you know. But yeah, all jokes aside, like yeah, that’s how looked at it. I was like, you know, this is something two adults agreed upon. My mom told me why she felt the way she did. And from his standpoint…
10:28
No, I just knew that that was a that was how they described it because that was what was in the Quran like hey You can take on multiple wives as long as you can provide and care for them and you have to split their time equally No one can be favored over the other. So that’s how I what was going on What an interesting thing man, because you you hit like where my questions are coming from Okay
10:51
I often think about the bullshit shoulds. Like you shouldn’t do things this way. You should do things that way. Like I tried to do things the way I should. I tried to like have the wife and go after the white picket fence and plan for two and a half children and.
11:09
The half is always fucking strange, but you know like having all of that like Yeah, well, I don’t know like I’ve heard that before it’s like two and a half kids like the little baby kid I guess or like maybe just a fucking torso and it’s like well. This is our torso child. This is strange uh But like doing the things that you should do because of how you’re raised and the system that you’re raised within I was raised. My mom went to Catholic school and when she told me I had to go to church She told me like I’m not going cuz I already did my time. I was like
11:39
Is that how this works? Okay. Then I have the Christian side of my family that we’re very almost legalistic in a sense. Like this is how the law is. This is what the gospel says. This is how God tells us to do things. And we as kids are just sponges and we just soak that shit up. Like, I should trust you and I should do this this way. And polygamy sounds like it’s a weird thing because it’s different from what I’m used to. And so…
12:07
being raised in that and having those questions from your Christian friends or other people that are outside of that, really trying to look at things from the, well, if we get rid of the should, it’s really interesting to think about how marriage had even come about. I don’t know a lot about this, but I’ve been told by someone who you and I mutually know and who I love to pieces. She’s told me that there’s a background with how the Catholic Church had instituted marriage because people couldn’t just stop fucking each other. And it’s like, well,
12:37
We really don’t want you to get married, you know, just stop. So get married. And then like, if you really need to get out of it, here’s an annulment and you shouldn’t get divorced. You’re going to go to hell if you get a divorce. And I remember thinking like, I got a divorce a few years ago. And like that thought came through my mind. Cause I spent 10 plus years being deeply in a church and playing music in church bands and like hearing and feeling all that. But then seeing people that I was in bands with like
13:05
once cheated on somebody else and now they’re married and they have a kid and I’m like, how the fuck does this shit make sense? But if we take ourselves out of the should equation and go, well, this is what it’s like, how did you get to that point where you realized like, right, this is what this was and I’m hearing from other people that are saying this is strange or it’s different or whatever, but you still needed to do you and go along your life path.
13:33
Talk to me about how you kind of managed your mindset through that and what you thought of as you went through and how you dealt with the trauma that you had of like, well, where the fuck was this guy? And what about your actual dad? And like how all of that tied into the relationships that you had? Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, you know, I, the whole should always say should from whose perspective, right? And that’s how I always look at things now.
13:58
So I look at myself as a lifelong learner someone who’s curious right? I don’t come from a judgmental per standpoint I come from a place where I want to understand right? So when people ask me those questions, I would say, uh know by whose law right who told us that we should do this and they would say yeah the Bible says this and I and I will also say the Bible also says that you can get divorced under certain circumstances in names of circumstance and the Bible also starts with talking about incest and all these other
14:28
So there’s a lot of things that we don’t forget about Yeah So always say like, you know a lot of things are by interpretation and then a lot of things are man-made so they can control the narrative on certain things, right? So I’m a person now I want to learn and I say, you know if that’s your standpoint who am I to judge you? Right. I’m a man and I make mistakes and I sin just like everyone else So, you know if if you’re you know, if it’s something that you’re not harming someone else on like my mother
14:58
She understood she knew he was very transparent with her right um and the other woman knew you know They were very transparent with that You know then who am I to say oh this is not right? Just because someone else asked me and I didn’t really quite know how to convey my my feelings or understand what was going on at that time You know so as a kid it was it was very tough only because my peers would say that this was different or or they would say hey don’t tell this person because you know your mom might get in trouble whatever uh
15:28
So those types of things really uh played uh a factor in my mindset where I said, okay, I should be upset right now because I’m not like everyone else. My upbringing is not like everyone else. But what I realized was, you know, they all had their issues too, whatever that may have been, you know? And as far as my biological father, whom…
15:55
Didn’t really matter if my mom was with him or not because he wasn’t the best man. He’s actually you know, whether he did it or not. He’s in prison for a triple murder now uh You know, so he’s serving three life sentences uh in New York Yeah, and in the crazy part about that story is uh You know for a while I couldn’t talk to him. I wouldn’t talk to him I didn’t even know if he was my father or not. I have so many stories man, but I’m not gonna get into that part We got time, bro. Yeah. Yeah, but uh, but yeah when I did
16:25
You know, I didn’t know he was my father and his name is not in the birth certificate He’s I don’t have his last name or any of that but
16:33
My sister who is my oldest sister also shares the same father she would talk to him from time to time and When I tried to give him that that chance to try to build this relationship He actually got arrested while he was with me. So I picked him up. Yeah, I picked him up and we go to the gas station like up the street from his house and SWAT team jumps out literally SWAT team jumps out and they’re like get on the ground get on the ground I’m at the gas pump like what the fuck are you talking about?
17:02
And at this point at this time, I think I had just got off a probation myself So I had got arrested for an assault and robbery charge, but they me off because I was 17 You know the case got dropped and it was like hey if you get messed up you have to do all your time, right? Yeah So but so I thought they jumped out on me and they was like we don’t want you we want him So I remember looking under my car At him and he looked at me and all he could do is look look
17:32
And I’m like, yeah, I remember that that’s that’s it and they were asking me questions in an interrogation room because they took me into They were like, so what do you know about him? Like, you know him better than I do you? So yeah, so as far as him, oh know now I talked to him occasionally uh And I asked him I said, you know, you know what happened right what happened and between you two
17:59
Now he used to beat my mother, he just wasn’t a good man to her, right? And apparently he didn’t drink that much, he would drink beer, but not like hard alcohol, but beer you can get drunk too, right? And he just had a temper, yeah, he just had a temper, so that’s what happened with them. And the only memories I had of him when I was younger were not good.
18:21
So it didn’t really matter that he wasn’t around because what he probably would have made it worse right for me sure so I was like, you know things happen for a reason and sometimes we just have to look for the silver lining or Understand that the reason may not have been for us Maybe it was for us to share our story so we can help someone else right get through some tough times and let them know like yeah I may not have a similar path or similar Adversity, but we all have it and I’m letting you know right now you can get through it. So that’s because
18:51
my mindset over time, right? Which is why I wrote the book, Own Your Kingdom, How to Control Your Mindset, so you control your destiny. Because I wanted to give people the tools that I use through this journey of all this adversity that I faced in life, military and all the like. And just make it quick, make it easy, none of that fluff stuff and all that stuff. Just get straight to it. And the first part that I had to do that I talk about in the book is forgiving yourself. Because a lot of that stuff, I asked myself, what was my role in it?
19:21
I have done differently and the answers for most things was nothing. You’re a kid, right? You don’t have that type of agency over your life at that point. So I had to just address it and forgive myself so I can move forward and not stay there. You had a couple things that really stand out to me. Doing something that isn’t always just for you, but it’s for other people to be able to learn.
19:48
And sometimes you can see that from other people. Like, I’m sure that memory is seared into your brain if you looking underneath and him looking at you and looking away. And the idea of the things that he had done had led for you to be able to do things differently. Now, granted, you could have been like, cool, role model right there. Let me go do this shit as well. And some people go down that path. uh But also being able to understand that you don’t need the fucking fluff.
20:15
Like there’s so much bullshit fluff that’s out there. And I’ve realized that a lot of it is like almost bypass-y.
20:25
but they don’t try to make it bypassy. It’s just for the masses. Like a lot of people as they start to like get into either mindfulness or just trying to find peace within themselves, they’re looking for the easy things that they can kind of unpack this a little bit and then do this thing today and maybe like these little journal prompts or whatever. And that’s great. If that’s how you got to start off, that’s wonderful.
20:48
But there’s a lot of that bullshit that’s out there. And I’m glad you bring this up because that’s part of the reason for the show is to be able to talk through the really tough times, but like, what the fuck did you do? How did you do it? And how does that make sense for other people? Like I think about journaling at times because the amount of people that were like, you should just journal, you should journal. Different therapists are like, you should journal. I was like, look, I don’t like the way that I write and I’d rather type things. In fact, the way that I actually get emotions out is through music. And now I have a…
21:16
a mental health coach that I work with that is that way, where he’s like, go play music, go write it that way, get it out that way, instead of just journaling. But a lot of people are like, this is the fluff piece of this. For you, going through the craziness that you went through, now looking back, are you able to look back and go, it was that moment or some other moment that was kind of a pivotal shift for you, where you were like, this is where I started to change. And even if you went through some of the fluff and tried different things, like,
21:45
When was it that you started to really figure out I need to fucking fix my own shit and I need to work on my own stuff? Sitting in the jail cell, Damn, touche. Yeah, sitting in the jail cell. You know, when I had got arrested at 17, I didn’t care. Quite frankly, I didn’t give a damn, you know. And it wasn’t until my mom and my older sister, Chandra, they came to visit me. So I go down to the visitation room.
22:13
And I’m walking through, and first of all, you’re getting, you know, you’re just getting denigrated, right? You have no dignity going through that, because they’re checking your butt cheeks, doing all this stuff, right? Making you cough and all that stuff, before you even get to see your family. uh
22:27
And you’re in a jumpsuit, right? That says property of wherever you are, right? So I get in there, you know, I didn’t care about any of that. was like, whatever. uh You know, I’m just a shell of myself anyway. So they open the door and I look around. I remember looking around and first of all, the light, the situation that you’re in just feels grim.
22:46
The light is an off yellow. It’s really nasty. The floor is puke yellow, right? And then when you look around, I just was walking. I’m like, damn, everyone in here looks like me, right? It’s a bunch of black guys, maybe some Hispanic guys, you know? And I was like, wow, this is not good. So I sit down and talk to my mom and my sister and they look just…
23:15
worn out, man, and I had never seen him like that.
23:18
and I thought about it, I was like, this is because of me. Because they’re visiting me in here. I literally had caught my mom when they arrested me. I called her like three in the morning and told her, like, mom, I’m in jail, you know. And I remember her waking up like, what? You know, oh she was half asleep, of course, because I had to call her a couple of times. And she’s like, what? And she’s like, what do need? What do you need? need a lawyer? And I’m like, you don’t have any money for a lawyer, mom. So fast forward, sit down in that visitation room, and she tells me,
23:48
put the house up for me to get a lawyer. Now you think about this, the house isn’t worth crap. Well, I don’t know how much that house is probably like, you know, but.
23:59
That’s where my whole family stays. So if anything goes wrong, that lawyer calls her on the loan, whatever the case may be, they would be homeless out on the streets. Right. And it would have been because of me. Right. So that really, you know, made me like when I went back up there after that visit, man, I just prayed. Right. I just prayed. was like, man, I don’t know.
24:23
what it looks like, but if you give me a second chance, man, I’ma figure it out. Like, I don’t have anything, not, I don’t have any money, don’t have nothing to give anybody, right? Because that’s how I looked at I looked at myself as valueless. I was poor, right? Because everything in the media, everything in the world said you were worthless unless you had money. uh So I was just like, yeah, God, just give me another chance, just so could be with my family. Because that showed me that I did have value, at least to them.
24:51
So fast forward, like, yeah, I prayed that day. And then a couple of weeks later, they finally dropped the case out there a couple of times, going to trial and no one showing up. And going to trial, no one showing up. They finally just put me on probation and let me go. And I graduated high school that same, like, couple months later. And I had no plan.
25:16
No plan, man. I was like, I don’t even know. I’m going to college or whatever. And people always be like, oh, you’re so smart, this and that. But I hated school. And so I applied to one school. I just did Buffalo State. So I go up there. And man, I’m like, yeah, this is where I need to be. I don’t need to be in the streets. I’m good. I need to be here. Until they said that bill was due.
25:39
They oh yeah, you need to uh pay the bill or else you’re going to get dropped from all your classes. uh
25:46
What the hell? What? thought I went for free, you know? I don’t know. I’m a kid from Rochester. I don’t know how that works. like this is public school, man. What are you talking about? Pay. And I was supposed to be in the Equal Opportunity Program, but my mom didn’t submit the paperwork in time. Right. Yeah. So that was like, yeah, you got to pay. I was like, well, here I go back to the streets. So I had a job there at a grocery store. Right. But.
26:14
I was like, yeah, I gotta make some easy money because I gotta pay this thing on bail. I did take out a loan, but it wasn’t enough.
26:20
So back to the streets I went, but then I just was like, you know, I’m dropping out. So I dropped out, man, because I just heard my mom and I seen her again, right behind that damn glass. I was like, yeah, I can’t do that. So I just figured it out until then went back to Rochester, worked two jobs, two full time jobs. And then one day, like I was working on a weekend at a hospital there as a janitor pretty much. It’s called environmental services, fancy name for janitor.
26:50
I see. Yeah, clean up mess, right? But one of the guys that was there who worked in another department, he was moonlighting, but he was actually an army recruiter. He’s like, man, you should come down to the the recruiter station.
27:04
Monday I was like I’m there so I went there and that’s really what opened me I was like man you mean to tell me Downtown or Rochester this was down here and like nobody all y’all just going to prison trying to make something you can come here You know cuz no one ever you know my one of my uncles was in was in the army before but he If I went by his example, I definitely want to join because he ended up dying He ended up dying of a DUI
27:30
And that accident was just terrible. Yeah, so I didn’t want to look at him. My aunt went. uh So she was a good example. But no one really talked about it. But I was like, hey, this is my last ditch effort, because I don’t want to go back to that. So that jail cell really changed me, not because of fear or anything else, but because I knew that I couldn’t do that to my mom and my sister again. uh
27:55
So that was my change and now I live life that way. Life isn’t just for me. Life is for the people I love and people who I don’t even know who may look at me to get them through those tough times. So I gotta make sure I’m watching what I’m saying. I gotta make sure I’m conscious of what I’m doing. Not in a way where it feels burdensome, but in a way where I feel blessed. I feel like I’m blessed to go from that to where I am today. So that drives me even when I
28:25
don’t feel like doing stuff, man. That’s an interesting thing to think about, not having the burden, but still having the responsibility and an opportunity to be able to do it. Absolutely.
28:38
We were talking the other day about how a lot of people look at stuff specifically social media wise. They’re like, everything needs to be content. It’s all content. It’s all for show. uh We’ve actually stepped off of social media. I’m mainly on Facebook just to sell music equipment and random shit around the house. But other than that, it’s like getting out of the noise has allowed us to be able look at how much noise there actually is that a lot of people are just creating noise to create noise. m
29:07
And no matter what religion or what you think of, everything that feels right to me feels like you shouldn’t boast about that shit. Like if you go and help somebody, you don’t go and boast about it. Like I helped some older woman at the gym the other day and I felt weird even saying it to Steph. Like, hey, did you see this situation that happened? Because there was like this funny thing. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to me because I had my earbuds in, noise canceling. And she’s like…
29:34
Like, what did you say to me? And then meanwhile, she was just asking, hey, can you grab this 25 pound of mold? And I can’t do it. But that wasn’t going to go on social media. wasn’t going to take a video of it and be like, yeah, let me show people that I’m helping. And I get if people really want to be able to have content that does good things to help people, there are certain people that do that. for the most part, a lot of that just feels.
29:56
fucking gross and like, it’s like fucking fake. Yeah. And such bullshit where realistically you do need to be that example. And I think it, starts with us being that example with the people that we’re closest to our friends, family, the people we work with. And then you can kind of step outside from that. So how do you balance that? How do you like work with that and understand that you can’t let the ego get in, but you still got to be, you just got to be you and be good. I just, I just be me man. I got him like, uh
30:26
What I realized man is that one vulnerability strength, right? I used to hate for people to know that I was feeling away But then I realized like when I when I put that out there It was something that you know, lot of people built a community, know, remember one time I was uh, you know, I suffered from depression and one time I was just feeling it man and I just put it on like I was in the bed and I was just like man You know what? I just want to let y’all know like y’all see the smile in me and all this other stuff, but I go through it man every day
30:56
decide to win and this is what it’s like. Like I’m sitting here struggling. Like y’all think this is easy. And somebody was like, man, I’m glad you posted that cause I didn’t feel like doing anything today either. And I said, good, like don’t, you know, because the, you know, the hustle culture have you thinking that you gotta just push through regardless? Yes. And I’m like, nah, man, because if I keep pushing and I’ve been there, if I, if I keep pushing to the point I can’t push anymore, right. At some point my body, my mind going to tell me like that.
31:26
That’s it, right? And I’m going to end up in a hospital or something’s going to happen. I’m going to make an egregious mistake, fall asleep behind a wheel, whatever the case may be, you know? So I got to think about that. Like I made it for the long term, man. I played that short game and it’s not for me. So I just realized like everything I do, hate it, love it. Like it’s not, it’s not for me to be on there and I don’t really care what trolls say. So I’m going to just say how I feel and I’m going to say it from my perspective, my standpoint.
31:55
And I’m gonna say, know, if you don’t like it, you can not follow me, whatever, because I look at it not as social media. I call it business media, right? I call it business media. So I’m on there to get something done. I’m not on there scrolling mindlessly. I’m on there to get something done. And that something is whether I’m trying, I’m looking to motivate somebody, whether I’m looking to get a product out there, right? Or I’m looking to let you know that, you know, it’s possible, right? In some way, shape, or form. I just got an event, you know, if you really want it,
32:25
Don’t just talk about it, be about it type of thing. oh Knowing why, knowing my goals for doing it, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. Hopefully someone says, man, this motivated me because that’s what I But if someone says, man, you suck, I’m going to say, so what? I don’t care who you are. Come say it. That’s how I look at it now, man. Be you regardless because being you is what’s going to open those other doors.
32:55
Wherever you’re looking to go, if you try to do it somebody else’s way, it’s not gonna work for you. It’s not gonna work for you because you’re not them and your journey is not theirs. So we gotta remember that. That’s why all these gurus out here, you mentioned them talking about it’s just mindset and all that stuff. That’s why most of their stuff never gets past that beginner stage because they’re talking to the masses. I’m talking to people who are like me. So I know exactly what you’re going through. I know exactly that you’re past that whole mindset thing.
33:25
and all that other stuff. I may mention it a little bit about journaling, but I’ll tell you, just like your coach said, journal your own way. I like to do voice notes and poetry. So find your way, and then once you find that, just keep it. The easiest thing is my phone, so I just always have it. I’ll just talk about whatever I’m feeling, and your music. Yeah, just do things your way. When you try something, you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep doing it.
33:55
keep figuring it out man. The truth is, you know, I don’t sit here and act like I know everything that I’m doing because I don’t. Right. And that’s where a lot of people mess up that is they think they have to have it all together. All right. And you do not. Right. No one does. I don’t care who you think you’re, you know, is amazing. They’re all figuring it out one day at a time. That’s, what you have to do as a human. That’s the human component. And my dog loves it.
34:25
Preach, preach. Preach that, Well, it is interesting how we.
34:37
Just technology, social media, the internet, all that has opened up doors to be able to look and see what other people are doing or what they aren’t doing. And we as people learn from other people. We can go, oh cool, I saw Javon did this thing and maybe I can try that. That’s cool. And I know there are people that listen to this show that will take different tidbits and be like, oh that’s cool, I’ll try that thing out. Because that kind of relates to me. Then there are others that it’s like, you shouldn’t, just don’t do those things.
35:04
And it’s not a matter of like being told by somebody else to not do them. You gotta figure it out on your own. Figure out what works and what doesn’t work. I do really, I wanna talk about this a little bit. You’d mentioned about how your body will show up. It’ll tell you when you need to stop. It’ll make you rest. I’ve gone through the hustle culture bullshit and almost committed suicide and had craziness happen to me. One time I had…
35:32
Basically 90 % maybe that’s a little much maybe it was like 80 85 % of my body was a giant rash
35:38
because my body was like, need to calm the fuck down. need to chill, yep. And I was like, but I’m not going to, I’m gonna keep going. And it was like, just like the whole, my whole fucking body, basically. um And I went and saw dermatologists, I don’t know, like three, four of them, something like that. And they were like, oh, well, what are your, whatever you ate, just don’t eat that again. I was like, that’s nonsense. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s literally what they said to you? Yeah, two of them. And then I had the last one, last appointment I went to, there were two people in the room.
36:08
And I was like, you know what? think this is actually a mental thing. I think it’s my body trying to tell me to do something. And both of these assholes just laughed. And they were like, oh no, no, no, that’s not it. And I was like, well, cool. Now you told me something about you. And I just started to like put my stuff on and get out of the room and leave. I was like, well, fuck this shit. Me and my crunchy body trying to get out of there. But how your body shows up to be able to tell you those things. I don’t think that we all need to go through that and get to that tough spot, but.
36:37
our body will show up and tell us that we’ve got to be able to do something different. So how do you work with people and get them to understand that without having to go through the crazy nonsense and stuff that you’d gone through? How do you help people get through that?
36:54
Yeah, you mentioned one of the words earlier that mindfulness a lot of people don’t realize what their triggers are or that they even have triggers or they don’t pay attention to the certain situations when these things happen. So I get people to think about that like cognitively because you know a lot of us operating our subconscious. So I’m like, you know, you get upset. You notice that you get upset. Is there a certain person around is a certain situation to send them saying a certain word right? And what happens when you get upset? Do your palms start sweating? Do you start itching? Do you start
37:24
You know I want them to pay attention to everything that’s going on And that and then you know just track it remember you could write it down you can say it you can do whatever but have some way where you’re Identifying your patterns all right because when you identify those patterns now you have power over it now You can say okay. I know that I need to remove myself If someone says a certain word or I can say hey I need time out man I’m about to walk away before I knock you out or something like that right so so you just have to identify
37:54
identify patterns, you gotta, and be real about it be honest about it. And then, you know, people talk about boundaries, but boundaries are only as good as the, you, how you convey them and if you’re conveying them to the person that you need to convey them to, right? And you gotta keep them for yourself, right? The hardest part to keep a boundary with is you. So, you know, so I always say like, when you say, like when you know that a certain person, for instance, gets on your nerves and you just don’t, you’re not feeling them, unless you work with that person,
38:24
continue to put yourself in a situation with that right and even if you work with them you know you can say yeah I’m gonna keep it cordial but you know we got to work in separate rooms and then maybe we come together we can get a mediator or something like that because I don’t rock with you you know like you you can put those things out there and in whatever way tactful way you think it is but you have to you have to communicate in your emotions and your feelings you can’t expect somebody to know what’s happening inside of you because it just doesn’t work that way
38:54
And that’s where a lot of us fell. We’re like, man, you know what? This person asked me to go to this event. I don’t feel like going to this event. Then you end up at that event. And now you’re upset because you’re at that event. You never told them you didn’t want to. So those types of things, you got to start being honest. And it starts with being honest with you first. Once you start being honest and you start using up boundaries, my favorite is no. You don’t have to make a reason for no. You could just say, nah, I’m
39:23
Yeah, no is enough. And if you feel uncomfortable with that, like get to the point where you say no, cause I don’t feel like it, right? Or no.
39:31
whatever it is, but those types of things, those types of boundaries and being mindful about certain things, that’s going to allow you to achieve a level of peace that nothing else can give you. know, and that’s what it’s all about for me. You know, I’m all for helping people. I’m all for, you know, doing whatever, but if it does not align with what I want to do at that moment, it’s not moving me forward to the person I want to be or getting some money in my pocket so I can live the life I want to live for myself.
40:01
my family, it’s not happening. Simple as that. And I will say, no, I’m good. That’s it.
40:10
So you’ve hit on not only the boundaries, but a few times we’ve talked about or around the idea of you’ve got to be good in yourself. You’ve got to be able to know yourself and know what’s right for you. So kind of along those lines, what’s that one piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery? Yeah, mean, self mastery, to master yourself, you got to know yourself, right? So I would say spend some time alone.
40:37
Really get to know you at and this is not a point in time thing continue to do that You know every once in a while and and be real be honest like what are some things that you you would want to change about yourself? You know what are the things you feel you can do better? ah You know what are some things that you haven’t addressed that you should address you know ask yourself some questions and just sitting with you ah Because you need that a lot of times people are afraid of that so we put ourselves in grooves or we put ourselves around people because
41:07
We don’t wanna be alone, but it’s necessary to be alone to really become the best version of yourself and to really feel like you’ve unlocked that piece that we’re talking about here. Great way to put that, And look, I appreciate you being on today. ah I hope this is the first of many conversations we’re gonna get to have. But before I let you go, where can people find you? Where can they connect with you? And where can they get that book?
41:32
Absolutely, man. So you can find me if you want to connect on a social platform, typically on LinkedIn, Javon Wooden, J-E-V-O-N-W-O-O-D-E-N. You’ll see a light bulb, NBA. And then to get the book, you can go to my website, Brightmindconsultinggroup.com. If you’re looking for coaching or consulting, you can also book a free consultation there as well. Good stuff, man. Again, I appreciate you being on today. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me, brother. Great discussion.
https://youtu.be/V6u88Hs2m2U