- In my world we were called hustlers.
In the corporate world, they're called
CEOs and business men.
I used to talk a lot.
I was slick.
In a corporate world they call that a master communicator.
Okay?
So here were the parallels between the street hustler,
the multimillion dollar drug dealers,
who never used drugs, who never was a part of gangs,
who never carried guns.
Age 19.
Millionaire.
Indicted by the federal government, 1988.
Served 10 years in prison.
10 years in prison that I served.
10 years.
Walking on concrete.
Every single day.
Sitting on a stainless steel toilet
with toilet paper as hard as a brown paper bag.
So it was in 1984
that I embraced a criminal lifestyle.
My criminal lifestyle was shaped by my mentors.
I wanted more for my mother.
I wanted more for my sister.
And I decided that this was the way for me.
Which was the meal ticket
for tens of thousands
of young men and women of color
in inner city communities across America.
I was one of those guys.
And it's not something that I'm proud of.
But you always have to go back to the beginning
of how it began.
I made up to $35,000 a week in my hay day.
But one thing that I wasn't able to see,
because I had the blinders on,
when you grow up in poverty,
the front lobe that many of these intellectuals talk about,
that goes undeveloped.
It doesn't allow you to see the world
through the eyes of people who have been exposed.
Who have access to the American dream.
So we see one thing.
That's how to hustle.
How to put food on the table.
And one of the biggest mistakes
that many of our mothers in our community
put on the burden of young boys,
is for a mother to say that you are the man of the house.
When a mother tells you that you are the man of the house
at seven, eight years old,
every boy wants to help his mother.
Every boy doesn't like to see his mother abused.
Doesn't like to see his mother
going through various challenges in life.
So they called me a hustler back in the days.
When I was on the street, I understood marketing.
I understood branding.
I knew how to manage a diverse workforce.
I had gang members following me like any CEO,
any leader or great manager of a company.
When you're a great leader, you have vision.
And when you have vision, it becomes very addictive.
People wanna be a part of that.
Like tens of thousands of people on the streets.
The one thing that no one ever saw in me,
they didn't know how to flip my gift of gab.
They didn't know how to flip the ability that I was
the number one newspaper boy when I was eight.
I had the number one candy seller route
when I was a little boy.
But no one saw that.
Because my mother was blind.
It's not that she was uneducated, she was miseducated.
So no one was able to say, Jeffery,
what do you wanna be when you grow up?
No one saw that in me.
So as a drug dealer, I became very successful.
I had the ability to tap in to the talent and the strength
of people on the streets.
That's how I was able to move the product.
Same scenario that I'm gonna take you to.
The hustler, or the business man?
And I'm not putting praise on the fact
that drug dealers are these great individuals.
Even though we victimize by selling drugs,
we were also victims of our community
and the people around us that shaped our thinking.
30% of people go to prison have a mental health issue.
Well what about the 70 that doesn't?
Where do we go wrong?
When do we make the wrong choices?
Wrong choices are inspired by something that we see,
something we hear, whether it's greed,
whether it's poverty, whether it's just
trying to beat the system or something like that.
Well Chef Jeff, how did you change?
How did the blinders come off?
How did you begin to see the world
through a different set of eyes?
Well it didn't happen overnight.
There was a collective of situations, circumstances,
intellectual stimulation.
I read my first book in prison.
I was told for the first time in my life
that I was smart, in prison.
A older man in prison taught me how
to shave with a razor, in prison.
But not only did that begin to get me
to see myself different,
I became the same analyst that was on the streets.
See I was in a federal system.
I was in prison with some of the brightest minds
on the universe.
Stock brokers.
(audience laughs)
Presidents and CEOs of corporations.
(audience laughs)
Judges, lawyers.
Former DA agents.
(audience laughs)
I begin to build the relationships with them.
I became a intellectual jacker.
I robbed 'em for knowledge.
That's right.
I learned to cook in prison.
I found my gift.
It was fueled by my dream.
The gift was cooking.
Never knew that in my life.
When I came home from prison in 1996,
they told me I couldn't get a job and I wouldn't get a job.
Well I proved 'em wrong.
I went in as a dishwasher.
When I first got my job, there were things
I had to change about me when I got out of prison.
Everything.
I had to build a brand.
I had to rebuild my image.
Clean shaved my face.
Took makeup to cover my earring hole up.
No tattoos.
Quit lifting weights so I wasn't big and bulky.
I got my teeth fixed, $2600 grill.
Look at that.
(audience laughs)
Because I understood the importance of a smile.
I even had to straighten up the way I walk.
'Cause you know I still walk cool sometimes.
(audience laughs)
So this how I used to walk.
So I had to get my corporate swag down, right?
(audience laughs)
Chef Jeff.
How did I do it?
I built the right relationships.
I learned to smile.
I changed my swagger.
It took me three and a half years
to get a job at the Bellagio.
I changed my walk three and a half times.
(audience laughs)
And I finally got the job.
My mission is to get you to really understand
the power of potential in individuals who may have grew up
with circumstances in situations that shape
the thinking process of them.
Why I believe that everybody was born with a gift.
I believe that everybody was born with abilities
and the strength and the genius to become someone.
The reason why we're successful in here,
because we discovered that.
We unleashed that.
But there's so much talent in the hood.
There's so much individuals out there who are smart.
Who are forward thinkers.
But they were using that intellect the wrong way.
I was always a genius.
Like so many young people who make poor choices.
But it took me years to realize that.
Transformation.
Going from criminal to respected chef.
It was a process.
It was a journey.
And I knew in order to be the best chef in America,
I had to go amongst the best chefs to learn.
To study.
To transformation.
We talk about leadership.
We talk about diversity.
We talk about geniuses just like us.
But they've been untapped.
No one looks at them.
No one takes the time to develop them.
Develop that intellect.
So many of these young people have been
impacted and influenced by negativity.
Why shouldn't we live the American dream?
Doesn't matter where you come from.
What religion you are.
What your story is.
Everybody has a power of attention.
Everybody can change.
Each and every one of them should have that opportunity
to live the dream.