In this motivational Goalcast video, he went from cooking crack to serving up the finest culinary creations you can imagine. Former crack-dealer turned gourmet chef, Chef Jeff, shares his treacherous journey from the streets to the stovetop. This is his life-changing advice.
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00:00 In my world, we were called hustlers.
00:02 In the corporate world, they're called CEOs and businessmen.
00:06 I used to talk a lot.
00:08 I was slick.
00:09 In the corporate world, they call that a master communicator.
00:13 Okay?
00:14 So here were the parallels between the street hustler,
00:17 the multi-million dollar drug dealers,
00:19 who never used drugs, who never was a part of gangs,
00:22 who never carried guns, age 19, millionaire,
00:26 indicted by the federal government in 1988,
00:28 served 10 years in prison.
00:31 10 years in prison that I served.
00:33 10 years, walking on concrete every single day,
00:38 sitting on a stainless steel toilet
00:42 with toilet paper as hard as a brown paper bag.
00:46 So it was in 1984 that I embraced a criminal lifestyle.
00:51 My criminal lifestyle was shaped by my mentors.
00:56 I wanted more for my mother.
00:58 I wanted more for my sister.
01:00 And I decided that this was the way for me,
01:02 which was the meal ticket for tens of thousands
01:05 of young men of color in inner city communities
01:08 across America.
01:09 I was one of those guys.
01:11 And it's not something that I'm proud of,
01:13 but you always have to go back to the beginning
01:15 of how it began.
01:17 I made up to $35,000 a week in my heyday.
01:20 But one thing that I wasn't able to see,
01:23 because I had the blinders on.
01:25 I grew up in poverty.
01:27 The front lobe that many of these intellectuals
01:30 talk about that goes undeveloped.
01:31 It doesn't allow you to see the world
01:34 through the eyes of people who have been exposed,
01:36 who have had access to the American dream.
01:39 So we see one thing, that's how to hustle,
01:42 how to put food on the table.
01:43 And one of the biggest mistakes
01:45 that many of our mothers in our community
01:47 put on the burden of young boys,
01:49 is for a mother to say that you are the man of the house.
01:53 When a mother tells you that you are the man of the house
01:55 at seven to eight years old,
01:56 every boy wants to help his mother.
01:58 Every boy doesn't like to see his mother abused,
02:00 doesn't like to see his mother
02:01 going through various challenges in life.
02:04 So they called me a hustler back in the days.
02:07 When I was on the street, I understood marketing.
02:09 I understood branding.
02:11 I knew how to manage a diverse workforce.
02:13 I had gang members following me,
02:14 like any CEO, any leader, or great manager of a company.
02:17 When you're a great leader, you have vision.
02:20 And when you have vision, it becomes very addictive.
02:23 People want to be a part of that.
02:25 Like tens of thousands of young people on the street,
02:27 the one thing that no one ever saw in me,
02:30 they didn't know how to flip my gift to gab.
02:32 They didn't know how to flip the ability
02:34 that I was a number one newspaper boy when I was eight.
02:37 I had the number one candy seller route
02:39 when I was a little boy.
02:40 But no one saw that.
02:42 Because my mother was blind.
02:45 It's not that she was uneducated, she was miseducated.
02:48 So no one was able to say,
02:49 "Jeffrey, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
02:53 No one saw that in me.
02:54 So as a drug dealer, I became very successful.
02:58 I had the ability to tap in to the talent
03:01 and the strength of people on the streets.
03:03 That's how I was able to move the product.
03:06 Same scenario that I'm gonna take you to.
03:09 The hustler or the businessman?
03:11 And I'm not putting praise on the fact
03:13 that drug dealers are these great individuals.
03:16 Even though we victimized by selling drugs,
03:19 we were also victims of our community
03:21 and the people around us that shaped our thinking.
03:24 30% of people go to prison, have a mental health issue.
03:27 But what about the 70 that doesn't?
03:29 Where do we go wrong?
03:30 When do we make the wrong choices?
03:32 Wrong choices are inspired by something that we see,
03:35 something we hear, whether it's greed, whether it's poverty,
03:38 whether it's just trying to beat the system
03:40 or something like that.
03:41 But Jeff, Jeff, how did you change?
03:44 How did the blinders come on?
03:45 How did you begin to see the world
03:47 through a different set of eyes?
03:48 Well, it didn't happen overnight.
03:49 There was a collective of situations, circumstances,
03:52 intellectual stimulation.
03:54 I read my first book in prison.
03:55 I was told for the first time in my life
03:58 that I was smart in prison.
04:00 An older man in prison taught me how to shave
04:01 with a razor in prison.
04:03 But not only did that begin to get me
04:06 to see myself different, I became the same analyst
04:09 that I was on the streets.
04:11 See, I was in a federal system.
04:12 I was in prison with some of the brightest minds
04:15 on the universe, stockbrokers,
04:18 presidents and CEOs of corporations,
04:23 judges, lawyers, former DA agents.
04:28 (audience laughing)
04:30 I began to build a relationships with them.
04:32 I became an intellectual jacker.
04:34 I robbed them for knowledge.
04:36 That's right.
04:38 I learned to cook in prison.
04:39 I found my gift.
04:41 It was fueled by my dream.
04:43 The gift was cooking.
04:45 Never knew that in my life.
04:47 When I came home from prison in 1996,
04:49 they told me I couldn't get a job and I wouldn't get a job.
04:52 Well, I proved them wrong.
04:54 I went in as a dishwasher.
04:55 When I first got my job, there were things I had to change
04:57 about me when I got out of prison.
05:00 Everything.
05:01 I had to build a brand.
05:01 I had to rebuild my image.
05:03 Clean shave my face.
05:05 Took makeup to cover my earring hole up.
05:07 No tattoos.
05:07 Quit lifting weights so I wasn't big and bulky.
05:10 I got my teeth fixed.
05:11 $2,600 grill.
05:13 Look at that.
05:14 (audience laughing)
05:15 Because I understood the importance of a smile.
05:18 I haven't had to straighten up the way I walk
05:19 'cause you know, I still walk cool sometimes.
05:21 (audience laughing)
05:22 So this is how I used to walk.
05:24 So I had to get my corporate swag down, right?
05:28 (audience laughing)
05:32 Chef Jeff, how did I do it?
05:35 I built the right relationships.
05:37 I learned to smile.
05:38 I changed my swagger.
05:39 It took me three and a half years
05:41 to get a job at the Bellagio.
05:43 I changed my walk three and a half times.
05:45 (audience laughing)
05:47 And I finally got the job.
05:49 My mission is to get you to really understand
05:51 the power of potential in individuals
05:54 who may have grew up with circumstances and situations
05:58 that shaped the thinking process of them.
06:01 Well, I believe that everybody was born with a gift.
06:05 I believe that everybody was born with the abilities
06:07 and the strength and the genius to become someone.
06:11 The reason why we're successful in here
06:13 because we discovered that.
06:15 We unleashed that.
06:16 But there's so much talent in the hood.
06:19 There's so much individuals out there who are smart,
06:22 who are forward thinkers,
06:24 but they were using that intellect the wrong way.
06:27 So I was always a genius,
06:29 like so many young people who make poor choices.
06:32 But it took me years to realize that.
06:35 The transformation,
06:36 going from criminal to respected chef.
06:42 It was a process.
06:44 It was a journey.
06:45 And I knew in order to be the best chef in America,
06:48 I had to go amongst the best chefs to learn,
06:51 to study, to transformation.
06:53 We talk about leadership.
06:55 We talk about diversity.
06:57 We talk about geniuses just like us,
07:00 but they've been untapped.
07:01 No one looks at them.
07:03 No one takes the time to develop them,
07:05 develop that intellect.
07:06 So many of these young people have been impacted
07:09 and influenced by negativity.
07:11 Why shouldn't we live the American dream?
07:13 Doesn't matter where you come from,
07:15 what religion you are,
07:16 what your story is.
07:18 Everybody has a power of attention.
07:21 Everybody can change.
07:23 Each and every one of them
07:24 should have that opportunity to live a dream.
07:27 (soft music)
07:29 (soft music)
07:32 (soft music)
07:34 (soft music)
07:37 (soft music)
07:40 (soft music)
07:43 (gentle music)