BOSTON–That isn’t a delinquent member or a troubled employee across the desk at the credit union—that is someone whose life can be turned in an entirely new direction, a former federal prisoner turned famous chef told credit unions here.
Every credit union as a whole and CU executive as an individual has the unique power to “add a notch to their legacy” by using the gift of credit unionism or their own professional accomplishments to help someone “enable the best version of themselves,” Jeff Henderson told America’s Credit Union Conference.
Better known as “Chef Jeff,” Henderson urged credit unions to understand how many people grow up without any kind of role model and encouraged CUs and their leaders to fill that void.
It was advice coming from a man who never imagined he’d one day be on a stage sharing his own story.
Cold Prison Cell, Cold Reality
It was just 30 years ago that Henderson was a 23-year-old young man who suddenly found himself sitting in a cold prison cell on a bunk on the 24th floor of the federal detention center in downtown San Diego.
Just a short while earlier he had returned home to see cars he didn’t recognize on his street, and a second later found himself surrounded by federal agents with guns pointed his way. For a brief moment he thought about hitting the gas on the car, before a federal agent said, “Don’t do it.”
“During that period of my arrest a lot of thoughts went through my mind as I went to analyze my life and how I got to that point,” Henderson told the credit union audience. “I was very scared. I was scared of the unknown, of the fate the federal judge would put upon me when he sent me to prison. That was a part of my life when I was a young man on the street selling drugs that I am not proud of.
“At that lowest point in my life, I knew it was over. I was cooked,” said Henderson. “Cooked” would eventually become the title of one of his books decades later.
‘No One is Born a Criminal’
Throughout his remarks Henderson sought to illustrate for credit union leaders how the smallest of gestures and efforts can redirect a person’s life, and how a credit union itself might help a member out of trouble and onto a better path.
Henderson said he wasn’t born a criminal, as no one is. He said he never saw criminal behavior in his home growing up, but he also never saw a single example of a positive lifestyle that could serve as an example. He grew up in poverty with a single, uneducated mother. He said he never grew up with middle class values, because he had never seen middle class values. Henderson said he had never seen a marriage work. He watched men come out of his mother’s bedroom because that’s what it took to put food on the table, with his mother telling him he was the “man of the house” even though he had never seen a male role model and didn’t understand what being the man of the house even meant.
“It’s known as the pipeline to prison,” said Henderson. “You are constantly told you will end up in prison one day. Nobody asks what you want to be when you grow up. You wake up in the morning with no choices for breakfast, lunch or dinner. What do you think that does to self-esteem? It puts you in a position that one day ends up in prison.”
Henderson recalled riding the school bus as a child through middle class America, where for the first time in his life he saw “mothers and fathers and children in beautiful houses with washers and dryers and double-door refrigerators. They lived on streets with trees, free of gunshots. As a young boy I knew something wasn’t right.”
What that all leads to, he said, are experiences that eventually “drive the criminal in us.”
A Growling Stomach
“When your stomach is growling and you’re hungry, it begins to drive your thinking. I began stealing,” said Henderson. “I was criminalized at a young age. Nobody ever told me why I had to go to school. Those are middle class values. Nobody ever told me having an education and job was like having money in the bank or the credit union. I wasn’t born a criminal. My criminal was born out of the circumstances in my neighborhood, by what I saw. People in this room have value systems. When you don’t’ value yourself, you are running amok.”
Henderson didn’t blame anyone else, saying the choice to become involved in the sale of drugs was completely his. Henderson said he personally has never used drugs or even alcohol. Instead, he was involved in drugs purely as a business, learning profit and loss, branding, managing a diverse workforce and more.
In 1988, Henderson was sent to federal prison, which he described as “the darkest place on earth.” He described the harshness of a prison life and recalled counting down the time until released, of seeing rifles pointed at him every day. “If that’s not enough to say ‘I’ve got to change,’ I don’t know what is,” said Henderson. “As a 50-year-old father and grandfather, no matter how successful you’ve been, everyone has hit a dark moment at some point in their lives. And when you get to that point that little voice says, ‘I’ve got to make a change.’”
First Words of Encouragement
Henderson said he went through a “process” in prison to transform himself through a series of “a-ha” moments, including the first time and older man put his hand on his shoulder and called him “son” and told him he had potential.
It was the first time he had ever heard such positive words of praise.
“The first time I ever sat down to a meal with a white guy was in prison,” said Henderson, sharing the “cultural lessons” he learned in prison.
“I realized the commonalities of the human race. It’s the person who loves humanity that can make a difference in life,” said Henderson. “I became culturally conscious. I said maybe I can be different.”
Henderson recalled being exposed to convicted Wall Street guys while in prison, many of whom taught business and marketing classes, as well as a Toastmasters course.
After sharing his own story in Toastmasters, Henderson one of the Wall Street guys told him he was “smart” and that even though it was the drug business, he understood many of the lessons in legitimate business.
‘Pow!’
“He said, ‘You have to change the product and build character and integrity,” said Henderson. “That was pow, an a-ha moment. He said I should put my skill sets toward a legitimate revenue stream. This is what separates the haves from the have-nots. Successful people have discovered their gift. Where successful people are weak, they put subject matter experts around themselves. For the first time in my life, I was exposed to the world. I turned federal prison into federal university.”
After coming out of solitary confinement, Henderson said he was assigned to clean pots and pans in the prison kitchen.
“That’s how I became Chef Jeff. I discovered another hidden talent. I discovered inmates who worked in the kitchen ate better than everyone else. I also had access to all these other ingredients.”
Eventually he became head chef at the prison and even ran what he called a “catering business” for the convicted Wall Street guys.
When he was released in 1996, Henderson went to work for Chef Robert Gadsby in Beverly Hills, where he said he learned there are other kinds of water than “sink water” and where he had his first bite of asparagus.
Eventually Henderson said he began to work around various other famous chefs and learning from them. He said Gadsby, along with Sterling Burpee, were both African-American chefs who served as subject matter experts for him.
A ‘Knowledge Jacker’
“I became a knowledge jacker. I took the skills I learned on the street, refined them, changed my value systems, and it put me on an even playing field with the most successful people out there,” he told the meeting. “I tell young people to discover your gift and become passionate about that.”
Henderson would eventually rise to fame as “Chef Jeff” by turning around several kitchen operations at high-end restaurants in Las Vegas. He was executive chef at the renowned Café Bellagio and Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and in 2001 became the first African-American named "Chef de Cuisine" at Caesars Palace.
In the process, he said he learned four key lessons.
The Four Keys
Education. “I am a student of life. I’ve never been to culinary school,” said Henderson. “I turned around several kitchens in Las Vegas by playing to the strengths of staff and managing weakness. By using street smart emotional intelligence, I understand the soundbites that help me to manage them and get this workforce to become better versions of themselves. When you tell a guy in prison his meatloaf is amazing, or you go to employees and compliment them, that opens the door for constructive criticism. They’ve been beat down, and I understood people follow those who make them better.”
Strategic Relationships. Henderson said no one is successful without relationships. “I knew I had to build a collaboration team with subject matter experts for me to become a better version of myself.”
Sacrifice. “We have to sacrifice to achieve the dream. Successful people are resilient in everything they do. We make sure to build an all-star team around us. That’s what builds an effective team at work.”
Cooked. Drawing upon the name of his book, “Cooked: From the Streets to the Stove” (the movie rights have been optioned by Will Smith), Henderson said “Not one day goes by in my life that I don’t think about how people have been impacted by drugs in their communities, by their choices and the consequences.”
“You have to dig deep and come to a deep knowledge of self,” he continued. “When you know yourself it allows you to discover that gift. Some people, unfortunately, never learn their gift. It’s a powerful thing to take an expertise you have, a gift you have, and share it with the have-nots. Talk to them, speak to them, and when you see potential in them, raise them up. Share the best practices of how you did it. We want our young people to achieve in the American dream. that they have the potential to be anything they can be in life. We want our coworkers and family members to share in the process.”
A Challenge
Henderson said that as an ex-offender who left a five-year-old son went he went to prison, he never imagined he would one day be speaking to audiences all around the world.
“I have been extremely blessed. I believe my calling isn’t being a chef. I believe being a chef was the vehicle to be in a position that Oprah gave me to share the how’s and the do’s of not going to prison and instead achieving the American dream. I challenge you when you go back home, to add a notch to your legacy and identify one other person and share what has enabled you to be the best version of yourself.”