What if the advice we’ve been given about stress is exactly what’s hurting us?

In this deeply honest episode of BizBlend, host Sana sits down with Corey Jefferson, U.S. Navy submarine veteran, people executive, and founder of Esther Media Group, to explore why pushing emotions aside is not resilience, it’s delayed damage.

Corey shares the personal story behind the COPE Method, a practical framework built not from theory, but from military service, leadership under pressure, depression, grief, and the loss of his sister. Together, they unpack how founders, leaders, and everyday professionals can handle overwhelm without suppressing their humanity.

This conversation goes beyond productivity hacks. It explores anxiety, emotional ownership, decision-making under pressure, team alignment, and the importance of dealing with emotions in real time.

If you’re carrying stress quietly while trying to keep everything together, this episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why compartmentalizing emotions often creates bigger problems later
• How anxiety can show up physically in high-pressure environments
• The four steps of the COPE Method:
• C – Clarity
• O – Ownership
• P – Process / Planning
• E – Execute
• How Corey turned around failing departments by focusing on people, alignment, and execution
• Why measuring success backwards can reduce overwhelm
• The difference between grieving and learning to cope
• How leaders can build healthier emotional habits without sacrificing performance

Key Takeaways:

Clarity comes before action

Before solving a problem, Corey emphasizes asking difficult, honest questions about what is really happening beneath the surface.

Ownership is about control, not blame

You cannot control every outcome, but you can control your preparation, effort, leadership, and response.

Small wins matter

Tracking daily wins creates momentum and keeps you focused on progress rather than the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Emotions need acknowledgment

Ignoring fear, grief, or anxiety does not make them disappear. Naming them often reduces their power.

Community is essential

One of Corey’s most powerful messages is that no one should have to carry emotional burdens alone.

Notable Quotes:

“You have to be able to deal with your emotions as they happen.”

“Why are we letting things that happen today affect us six months from now?”

“Failure is a disease caused by fear and improper planning.”

“When you measure backwards, you’re always in the game.”

“I never learned how to grieve, but I learned how to cope.”

“Do not let pride or fear get in the way of your progress.”

Chapters:

00:00 Why “just push through” is dangerous advice

02:10 Corey’s submarine background and chronic stress

06:40 What it means to deal with emotions in real time

12:15 Public speaking anxiety and emotional acknowledgment

16:20 The COPE Method explained

17:05 C – Clarity

20:30 O – Ownership

24:10 P – Process / Planning

28:45 E – Execute

31:50 Turning around failing business departments

36:00 Measuring success backwards

41:20 Losing his sister and confronting grief

47:10 Writing a one-page letter to process emotions

52:00 Why leaders need emotional support systems

54:10 Final advice for founders and operators

Guest Information:

Corey Jefferson

• Founder, Esther Media Group
• U.S. Navy submarine veteran
• Chief People Officer
• Creator of the COPE Method

Website: https://estermediagroup.org

X (Twitter): https://x.com/EstherMediaGRP

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Sana: Listeners.

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Sana: What do you think about this phrase?

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Sana: Just push through.

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Sana: I mean, most of us, we have grew up hearing this.

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Sana: And we say to each other, to our friends, our colleagues, sometimes our siblings, It's like it's wisdom.

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Sana: Keep your head down. Stay strong. Deal with it later.

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Sana: Yeah, it sounds tough.

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Sana: It's almost admirable.

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Sana: But then… I believe here's what nobody tells you.

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Sana: Later always comes.

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Sana: And the bill for everything we pushed through?

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Sana: It tends to arrive all at once.

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Sana: Usually.

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Sana: You know, just how life it is at the worst possible time.

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Sana: So, listeners, you are listening to BizBlend, the show about doing meaningful work and staying human while you do it.

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Sana: I am Senna, your host as always, and today we are talking about stress.

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Sana: The Real Guide.

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Sana: The kind that shows up in your business, in your team, in your body, and in the quiet hours when no one's watching. And more importantly, what it actually takes to move through it without breaking.

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Sana: And to help me with this conversation, I'm joined by Corey Jefferson, a U.S. Navy submarine veteran, a people executive, and the founder of Esther Media Group. He's also the creator of something called the COPE Method.

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Sana: And let me tell you, listeners, what makes Corey's work different.

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Sana: what I believe, it is… Where it came from.

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Sana: It's not a classroom. It's not a boardroom.

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Sana: but real loss, and real life. So, let's get started, and Corey, thank you for being here, for being willing to have the honest version of this conversation. It's really an honor.

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Corey Jefferson: Thank you, Sana, for having me here. I'm really honored to be a guest on your show, and I'm looking forward to having a very great conversation with you today.

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Sana: Absolutely, absolutely. Korea…

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Sana: I'll definitely, you know, we'll get to your story, the journey, but before that, I want to start something with something I think that

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Sana: A lot of us, we get wrong, and I'll be honest, including, you know, guilty as charged.

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Sana: But when we talk about handling stress, especially the high-pressure kind.

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Sana: We usually picture, you know, that

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Sana: someone staying is calm, strong, not letting it, you know, get to them. Like, holding it all together. Like, there's a very perfect version of, whether it's a leader or is someone who is

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Sana: You know, holding the family together. They're all calm and all sorted. But from where you sit, Corey.

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Sana: What is the problem with that whole idea of coping?

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Corey Jefferson: So, the main issue with that idea of coping is it's pretty much non-existent.

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Corey Jefferson: So…

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Corey Jefferson: speaking from personal experience, I did that a lot. Coming from a submarine background, every day is a high-stress day. Every day is the most important day, and the next thing is the next big, the next big thing. So…

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Corey Jefferson: the military teaches you to kind of put everything into a box and just deal with it later, just so you can put one foot in four… I mean, one foot in front of the other foot.

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Corey Jefferson: A lot of people in today's society have that same mentality. The only problem with that is usually the box that we decide to put all of these feelings, emotions, and stressors in, it's small.

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Corey Jefferson: It's small, and it can't contain any of it. It's not meant to contain any of it.

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Corey Jefferson: And that is how, you know, most people end up with

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Corey Jefferson: high blood pressure and various other physical ailments because of the way that they're actually dealing with those daily stressors. In personal life.

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Corey Jefferson: and in business. Like, for me personally, just from coming from a high-stress background in the military, I dealt with anxiety for years, and I didn't even know what it was.

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Corey Jefferson: I just always had, like, this…

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Corey Jefferson: endless pit in my stomach whenever I would step foot on the boat, and I didn't know where it was coming from.

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Corey Jefferson: it wasn't until I left active duty and kind of did some soul searching.

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Corey Jefferson: that I was able to figure out that that's what that was. And anxiety is usually the body's automatic response to stress. For me, I would, my hands would get sweaty, my hands would shake.

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Corey Jefferson: any and everything that an anxious person would do, I did it. And I didn't know what was the root cause of it.

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Corey Jefferson: And it turns out that the root cause of it was a combination of stress and fear. I was afraid

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Corey Jefferson: to… to fail at my job. My job was to be a submariner, and submarines don't make mistakes, because mistakes cost lives.

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Sana: Yes.

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Corey Jefferson: I was afraid to fail.

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Corey Jefferson: And the stress of that…

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Corey Jefferson: just made my body do some very, very weird things. Lost my appetite, because I was just so stressed out all the time. I wasn't really spending a lot of time with my family, because I was just always in go mode. I was always in high alert.

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Corey Jefferson: It was never really a cool-down period for me. So, to sum everything up.

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Corey Jefferson: I think the way we deal with stress is very important, because we can't just push it to the side and deal with it later. No, you have to know those stressors, and you have to know how to deal with those stressors. You have to know how to effectively deal with your emotions in real time.

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Corey Jefferson: That's a… a term that you're probably gonna hear me use a lot.

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Corey Jefferson: Dealing with emotions in real time. What exactly does that mean?

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Corey Jefferson: Dealing with emotions in real time means you deal with the emotion as it comes to you.

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Corey Jefferson: In my own personal life, this is something that I figured out while I was going through my process of self-discovery and kind of building the foundational building blocks of the COPE method.

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Sana: I would.

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Corey Jefferson: I was depressed, and I was going through so many different things, and I still had that box from my military service. And that box was already full, and, you know, the top was ripping off, and I just kept piling stuff in it, until one day it just exploded.

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Corey Jefferson: And I had no choice but to kind of just deal with every…

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Corey Jefferson: piece that I put inside that box.

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Corey Jefferson: So I learned real quick that dealing with emotions as they come, whether that's anger, sadness, joy, you have to be able to deal with it as it happens. You have to. That is the only way it works. You can't put it in a box, you can't deal with it later.

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Corey Jefferson: Because if you put it in the box, and you say, oh, I'll just deal with this later, it's gonna affect you later.

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Corey Jefferson: Why are we letting things that happen today

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Corey Jefferson: affect us 6 weeks from now, 6 months from now, 6 years from now. A lot of people carry around this unneeded stress and trauma because they just aren't dealing with things as they happen.

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Sana: You know, Koi, that is so, so… True, and…

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Sana: I, I, you know, when you were saying all of that, in a couple of thoughts, they kind of came, onto my mind, and I think…

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Sana: Till now, or… you know, I don't know, because I cannot predict the future, but…

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Sana: Conversations around stress either have been,

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Sana: Either have been at these both extremes, of this huge spectrum.

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Sana: Or they have been towards, you know, portraying life, or portraying stress-dealing activities, or solutions or channels as, once you do this, life will be all easy. Or it is about either you have to, you know, stress will be there.

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Sana: fight it.

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Sana: Or, you know, just… Have fun, be in the present moment, don't even worry about it.

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Sana: And I also believe, Corey, that, yes, you know, when you put things into the right context.

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Sana: in the right situations, I do agree, I mean, in the military conditions, or in, you know, where the cost is actually huge, I do understand, you know, taking that stress

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Sana: And thinking about pivoting, understanding, assessing the situation, and then pivoting to a different approach, that is absolutely vital. But sometimes I also believe that

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Sana: We kind of have created, sometimes unnecessary stress.

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Sana: And, you know, especially give this example of box.

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Sana: So I do believe that, you know, dealing with those emotions.

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Sana: They kind of help in unburdening it. We don't realize it immediately, but when we look at the bigger picture, it helps in unburdening it.

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Sana: And, this also makes me recall one of, you know, one of the episodes which I did, it was in public speaking, and… and I have repeated in many of the episodes of this split. I had done it on another podcast of our network. So, she said that,

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Sana: You know that, you know, for you public speaking, you are stressed out, you are feeling that anxiety, because now probably 100 people, there are 200 eyes who, you know, which are looking at you, people are there, they're looking at you, your hands are sweaty, your shoulders are tightened up.

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Sana: You are feeling that, you know, bit feeling in the stomach.

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Sana: If you try to surpass those feelings, probably you'll end up you know.

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Sana: End up expecting the exact result which you were dreading about.

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Sana: But she told to me that

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Sana: Acknowledge those feelings. Talk to your inner self. Probably your inner critic comes at that time. Talk to that inner critic that, yes, I know I'm feeling this, I'm feeling anxious.

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Sana: But yeah, I'll… you know, I'll just over… not override, I'll just acknowledge.

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Sana: And probably I'll try to, you know, make it more like human, that yes, I am, you know, here on the stage for the first time, speaking to all of you, and I'm like, oh my goodness, what exactly I'm gonna say? I'm just speechless, you know, I'm just thinking I'm tensed, or I'm anxious, but yeah, let's see how it goes.

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Sana: So you're acknowledging those emotions.

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Corey Jefferson: Exactly. That's exactly right. It really just comes down to acknowledging those emotions. And that's really all dealing with your emotions in real time is. You just acknowledge what's actually going on instead of…

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Corey Jefferson: pushing it to the side and saying, okay, I'm gonna deal with this later. Like, the example you gave with public speaking.

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Corey Jefferson: I do quite a bit of public speaking, so I know exactly how that feels. If you don't acknowledge what's going on, then you're gonna forget everything that you came to talk about.

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Corey Jefferson: I have this one rule that I tell a lot of people. I'm like, I can talk in front of any group of people.

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Corey Jefferson: No matter the size, as long as I know what I'm talking about. If I do not deal with that nervousness, that anxiety that seems to just creep up right before you go on stage, or you go on the podium, or you take the microphone, then I'm not gonna know what I'm talking about.

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Corey Jefferson: And that's gonna be far worse than having, you know, a sweaty palm and a little bit of a stomachache, and just acknowledging that as it's happening, and being like, okay, this is normal.

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Corey Jefferson: You may be a little afraid here, but you shouldn't be, you're prepared for this. Those people out in the audience, if they were in your position, they would probably be just as nervous.

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Corey Jefferson: If not more. And then once you kind of break it down like that and realize that, hey, you're not Superman, you're not Batman, you're just a human being at its core, then it makes dealing with a lot of that just easier. Because no one handles stress or anxiety 100%, right, all the time.

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Corey Jefferson: Like, I have this method, this tool that I use on a daily basis to handle stress, and yesterday was probably one of my most stressful days I've had in a very long time. But…

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Corey Jefferson: I took the time to kind of apply those principles and kind of deal with everything that was happening to me as it happened. And it turned a bad day into an okay day. And I'll take an okay day over a bad day any day.

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Sana: Anytime. I know that.

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Corey Jefferson: day.

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Sana: Yes, yes.

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Sana: And, Corey, how does this Coke method fall into the context of

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Sana: Entrepreneurship or business, you know, because…

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Sana: I believe, yeah, I could be wrong, or maybe now, you know, we are, we are seeing more and more leaders coming forward, talking about, you know, empathy.

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Sana: EQ. I had… I've had conversations around, consciousness in founders, relational intelligence, love intelligence, yeah. So, now we are kind of integrating the human element, you know, and especially

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Sana: this time is actually, you know, it's pretty interesting. It's more interesting because now we have AI as well, where, you know, this fear is always there, AI replacing humans, and.

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Sana: To a huge extent, we are seeing… we're still seeing companies, you know.

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Sana: probably progressing towards that fear that, yes, it is more profitable, it's all about numbers, it's all about sustaining the business. But then, how do emotions fall into the context of business? How does scope method

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Sana: Could probably help any entrepreneur or founder.

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Corey Jefferson: So, the COPE method can be broken down into four simple steps. So, I'll start with the first one. The C in COPE method is clarity.

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Corey Jefferson: when you…

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Corey Jefferson: try to get clarity, you start by looking at directly what's in front of you. Have you ever heard of the term, I had to take a step back to look at the whole elephant? That's exactly what clarity within the coat method is, with one exception. You dig a little bit deeper below the surface.

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Corey Jefferson: and you start to really ask those thought-provoking questions. Let's say you have a… well, I'll use my own department, within my job as an example. So, I work for a small business.

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Corey Jefferson: Even though I am the chief people officer and I run the HR department, I also run the parts and our estimates division as well.

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Corey Jefferson: Both of those departments were failing.

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Corey Jefferson: That's just what it was. When I took them over, they were failing.

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Sana: And…

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Corey Jefferson: I had just come out of this… this depressive episode, and I had this clarity, and I had to sit down, and I'm like, okay, how can I fix this problem?

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Corey Jefferson: Like, like, what can I do to… to… to… to quickly turn this around?

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Corey Jefferson: And then I thought to myself, I'm like, why don't I just use the code method? So, starting at C, I looked at the elephant that was right in front of me, and that was the… that the department was failing. That was the object.

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Corey Jefferson: Everybody knew that.

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Corey Jefferson: I started to dig a little bit deeper under the surface and ask myself those tough questions that kind of got my mind turning a little bit. And with this part of the process, you have to be honest with yourself. You cannot lie to yourself.

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Corey Jefferson: I tell people all the time, you can lie to other people, but you should never lie to yourself. You owe yourself 100% honesty all the time.

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Corey Jefferson: So that's what I did. I started to ask myself those tough questions, like.

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Corey Jefferson: Is it a leadership problem? Is it a culture issue? Am I doing what I am supposed to do? Should I even be running this department, even though I don't have a background in parts and estimates and whatever it is? Do I have the right people in the seats? Should we just fire everybody and start over?

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Corey Jefferson: Those are the types of questions that I asked myself, and I had to be honest with myself. And then I eventually arrived

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Corey Jefferson: At the conclusion that we just didn't have the right people.

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Corey Jefferson: People in the right seats.

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Corey Jefferson: That's what it was. We did not have the right people doing the right job. No matter who was leading that department, it would ultimately still fail, because the people in the seats were not right for the role.

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Corey Jefferson: So, once I got that clarity.

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Corey Jefferson: Right? We're gonna move to the O in a coat method.

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Corey Jefferson: I took ownership for my outcomes.

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Corey Jefferson: The Owen Code method stands for ownership.

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Corey Jefferson: I took ownership for the things that I could affect.

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Corey Jefferson: I couldn't change the fact that we were failing

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Corey Jefferson: Previously. I could do nothing about that. I couldn't change the fact that we lost all this revenue because it's supposed to take us 48 hours to get an estimate out, and it takes us 3 weeks. I couldn't change any of that.

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Corey Jefferson: But what I could control in that situation was… Basically.

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Corey Jefferson: how I led my team through that.

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Corey Jefferson: the things that I did to make sure that we were getting estimates out correctly. I could control those types of things. I could control the amount of work that I was putting in.

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Corey Jefferson: Those are the things that I put all my energy into. A lot of the times where people fail.

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Corey Jefferson: It's because we always want to control things that we can't control.

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Corey Jefferson: Yeah. Let's say you have a pitch that you're doing to a client.

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Corey Jefferson: And you worked…

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Corey Jefferson: for many, many different weeks, and, you know, you got your timing down right, you have your slideshow, you know, the whole nine. And you go in there, and you kill your pitch, and the client still says no.

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Corey Jefferson: You can't control the fact that he said no. You cannot control that.

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Corey Jefferson: But what you can control.

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Corey Jefferson: It's what you… is… is the work that you put in, the time that you spent to develop that product.

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Corey Jefferson: That is how you control your outcome as much as possible.

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Corey Jefferson: So, with this situation here, I had to…

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Corey Jefferson: figure out a way to move people around. That is how I could control my outcome in this department, since we didn't have the right people in the seats. That is something I could directly control, which leads us to the P in a coat method, which stands for process, or planning.

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Corey Jefferson: Having a plan for how you are going to attack.

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Corey Jefferson: I had this clarity because I asked myself the tough questions, and I was honest with myself.

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Corey Jefferson: I took ownership

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Corey Jefferson: of the things that I could control, and I put no energy into the things that I couldn't control.

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Corey Jefferson: At that moment, I decided that I would weigh my successes and my failures equally. That is also very.

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Sana: award.

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Corey Jefferson: now I just needed a plan.

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Corey Jefferson: for how I was gonna pull all of this together.

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Corey Jefferson: That plan.

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Sana: consistent.

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Corey Jefferson: of me with my boss, And basically.

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Corey Jefferson: Writing every person that was in a department on the board, and kind of just mix and matching and moving them based on skill set, motivation.

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Corey Jefferson: And… care factor. I use…

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Corey Jefferson: It's a different word in my book, but for this podcast, I'll say care factor. I believe that you cannot teach people to care about things that they already do not.

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Corey Jefferson: Because if you do not care today, the chances are… the chances of you caring.

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Sana: In 6 months.

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Corey Jefferson: are very slim.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm not saying that it's impossible, but I have never seen it happen. I've never seen it happen.

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Corey Jefferson: So, we kind of went through our list, and we kind of looked at the people in the lens of that. And that is how we decided to move this person here, keep this person, you know, and our department went from a department of…

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Corey Jefferson: 20 people to a department of 5 people, including myself.

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Corey Jefferson: So, we did a lot of moving around, and I knew it was gonna be tough.

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Corey Jefferson: But, like, it's what we had to do. And then once we got the right people in the right seats.

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Corey Jefferson: It was all about matching skill set, motivation, and care factor to the task.

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Corey Jefferson: I… like, there should be no reason why someone who has a background in parts.

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Corey Jefferson: doing anything but parts.

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Corey Jefferson: It's ridiculous. We shouldn't have someone who has a background in marketing in the estimates department.

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Corey Jefferson: It doesn't make sense to me.

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Corey Jefferson: So, it was a lot of getting the people in the right seats, making sure that the role that they were doing was actually aligned with their skill set.

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Corey Jefferson: And then making sure that they were actually motivated

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Corey Jefferson: And they cared about their job.

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Corey Jefferson: That was it.

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Corey Jefferson: Which… and that leads us to the easiest part of the COPE method. You have this clarity, because you ask yourself those tough questions.

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Corey Jefferson: And you were honest with yourself.

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Corey Jefferson: You're owning your own outcomes. You're controlling the things that you can control, and the things that you know you cannot control, you're not putting any energy into it. You have a plan for how you're going to attack.

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Corey Jefferson: The easiest part is execute.

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Corey Jefferson: That's what the Ian Cope Method stands for. Execute. You go do it. You just do it. You don't think twice about it, you already did all the work, you do it. And this is where a lot of people fail.

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Sana: nail.

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Corey Jefferson: have this clarity and see what needs to be done. They take ownership

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Corey Jefferson: or what they think is ownership of their successes and failures, and they try to control the things that they think that they can control, but those things really aren't things that they can control. And then they somewhat try to put together a plan.

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Corey Jefferson: And then they never do it.

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Corey Jefferson: They never do it.

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Sana: Hmm.

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Corey Jefferson: I personally believe that failure Is a disease caused by fear and improper planning.

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Corey Jefferson: If you remove fear, Meaning?

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Corey Jefferson: You are not afraid to take the risk. You believe that you… Have put in the work.

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Corey Jefferson: And you remove improper planning by just planning, having a strategic approach to what you are doing.

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Corey Jefferson: Failure shouldn't be an option.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm not gonna get on here and lie and say if you are fearless and you have a plan, that you will have a 100% success rate, because that is not how it works.

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Sana: That's next, yeah.

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Corey Jefferson: But what I am saying is, if you are fearless in the fact that you believe in your abilities.

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Corey Jefferson: And you plan.

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Corey Jefferson: You have a very specific, detailed plan of attack for how you're going to get things done.

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Corey Jefferson: failure decrease every single day. That is a fact.

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Corey Jefferson: That is an absolute fact.

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Sana: Hmm.

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Sana: And, Corey, I really, really loved how you explained this, and…

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Sana: Believe it or not, I mean, whether it could be a coincidence or not, there was a quote I was reading in the, not newspaper, but online in an article, and it's, you know, by Rafael Nadal about

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Sana: endurance, and…

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Sana: accepting things as they are, and not to dwell in the past, and working towards things going ahead. And it's not about that you completely ignore and move on, but you accept

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Sana: the learnings from your past, and then you work it in the present, and then you plan for the future. Absolutely. So, that really, really made me remember that quote.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm glad I could get that mind churning.

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Sana: And you said very interesting thing about, you know, failure. I mean, of course, failures, you know, we have studied this, we have been taught. Failures are the stepping stones for success. However.

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Sana: When it kind of becomes a pattern.

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Sana: or it kind of gets repeated, that means something is definitely not working out properly. Something… there's a misalignment, or there is some kind of gap or lacuna. And also, also, you know, I would love to ask you, Corey, I mean, you recently had

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Sana: a very challenging… not recently, I mean, sorry, but you had a challenging phase. You, you went through depression, and then you actually were responsible, you were… you were handling these two departments, which were kind of failing.

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Sana: You must have felt overwhelmed, Corey. So how did you…

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Sana: acknowledge, and how did you come across those feelings? You know, because you had that responsibility. So you had to, you know, make sure that you are going in the right direction, and you are planning it, you know, because you had very less…

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Sana: chances of making an error in there, because, you know, the high stakes were there. How did you personally manage those feelings of overwhelm, if you felt?

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Corey Jefferson: So, a few of the things that I did was, A, I had to just take complete ownership of the situation.

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Corey Jefferson: Whether the department failed or succeeded, I had to weigh those equally.

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Corey Jefferson: Period. Like, there was no other option.

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Corey Jefferson: That, and I tried to stack as many small wins during the day as I could.

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Corey Jefferson: There's a.

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Sana: a good day.

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Corey Jefferson: book out called, The Gap in the Game that I reference a lot when I'm talking to my team. And basically, it… it tells you two things.

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Corey Jefferson: The first thing is to measure success by your own standards.

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Corey Jefferson: And… That basically means what success looks like to me.

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Corey Jefferson: Success may look different to you.

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Corey Jefferson: That's all that means.

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Corey Jefferson: The second thing it talks about is measuring your success backwards.

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Corey Jefferson: This is where a lot of people fall into this endless pit of misery, because instead of acknowledging how far they've come in their journey, or whatever it is they're doing, they're looking ahead and just looking at what they haven't accomplished. That part is called the gap.

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Sana: Hmm…

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Corey Jefferson: When you measure backwards, You're always in the game.

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Corey Jefferson: You're always in the game.

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Corey Jefferson: Because usually you're never exactly where you just started.

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Corey Jefferson: Even if you took one step forward that day.

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Corey Jefferson: That's one more step towards a goal, and that's one more thing that you have accomplished.

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Sana: Hmm.

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Corey Jefferson: So I had to get into that mindset.

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Corey Jefferson: To where, okay, Every day is a grind, but I'm just gonna own it.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm gonna own it. I have this clarity, I'm owning my outcomes, I have a process, I gotta execute. I'm just gonna go do it.

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Corey Jefferson: And with that, I'm also going to weigh my successes and failures the same.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm not gonna get too low on myself if we fail at something.

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Corey Jefferson: And I'm not gonna get too high when we start to succeed and turn the department around.

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Corey Jefferson: And then one thing I actually started to do every single day, And I still do this.

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Corey Jefferson: is measure my success backwards. Count my wins by the day.

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Corey Jefferson: by the day.

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Corey Jefferson: I'll have a small list of maybe 3 to 5 things that I accomplished that day. Those are my wins.

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Corey Jefferson: Those are my successes for the day.

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Corey Jefferson: That's the game.

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Corey Jefferson: And then, on the other side of the coin, I would flip the page.

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Corey Jefferson: And I would write the next day's date at the top.

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Corey Jefferson: And I would plan 3-5 things

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Corey Jefferson: that I will get accomplished the next day.

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Corey Jefferson: Those are my projected wins.

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Corey Jefferson: Those are the things that I'm expecting to win at tomorrow.

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Corey Jefferson: It made it so much easier to just deal.

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Corey Jefferson: Because I had a plan in place

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Corey Jefferson: For the things that I knew that I was going to attack the next day.

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Corey Jefferson: There was no second guessing.

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Corey Jefferson: Everything was right there when I needed it to be.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm not saying that, you know, an email or a phone call wouldn't come in and

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Corey Jefferson: I would get off task for a little bit.

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Corey Jefferson: And I'm not saying that every single day I've hit all 5 of my projected wins.

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Corey Jefferson: But what I am saying is.

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Corey Jefferson: Maybe I hit 1. Maybe I hit 2. Maybe it's a great day, and I hit all 5, and then I add 5 more.

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Corey Jefferson: What I am saying is, I'm still getting wins throughout the day. I'm never exactly where I started that morning by the end of the day.

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Corey Jefferson: No matter what I've accomplished. I'm constantly living in the game.

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Corey Jefferson: And when you constantly live in the game.

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Corey Jefferson: Failure doesn't seem like an option.

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Corey Jefferson: Because you're ju- because you are judging success

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Corey Jefferson: By your standards, and not by the standards of other people.

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Sana: It's progression, and it's counting the small wins, and

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Sana: calculating and, you know, going backwards, and then doing the calculation basis on that. That also reminds me one of the leadership principles of Amazon, which, you know, I loved, you know. Yeah, of course, all the 14 ones.

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Sana: But, in fact, one of the leadership principles of Amazon also includes ownership. And I swear by ownership because

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Sana: through some very hard lessons, I actually realized what exactly do we mean by ownership?

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Sana: So… I believe, you know, clarity, ownership, planning, execution.

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Sana: all of them, you know, they have their significance in the professional, in the business world, as well as in the personal world. And that brings me to the final question of this conversation, Corey, and

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Sana: Because your work didn't come from theory, it also came from grief.

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Sana: kind of circling back to where we started this conversation from, from losing your sister, from seeing up close what happens when people suppress pain instead of facing it. So, I don't want to rush past that.

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Sana: If only you are comfortable sharing. What did that experience teach you about why we avoid the hard stuff in the very first place?

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Corey Jefferson: So, that experience was something that I had never… been through before.

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Corey Jefferson: So I lost my grandmother when I was 18, but, you know, she was older, and she had a terminal illness, so you kinda had a little bit of time to prepare for that. With my sister, specifically, it was different because it just happened.

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Sana: We need.

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Corey Jefferson: I knew she had a substance abuse problem.

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Sana: Okay.

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Corey Jefferson: And we knew that she was battling a few personal demons, but…

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Corey Jefferson: No one really knew just how bad off it was.

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Sana: So…

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Corey Jefferson: So… I would say my sister's birthday is in February. It's actually on Valentine's Day.

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Corey Jefferson: And…

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Corey Jefferson: I went through that day kind of normal.

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Corey Jefferson: Doing what I used to do as far as, like, compartmentalizing my emotions, putting them in that box.

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Corey Jefferson: And I would say from February 15th all the way till the middle of March, I have pretty much no recollection of what actually happened. I was just going through the motions.

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Corey Jefferson: I was just existing.

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Corey Jefferson: It became a chore to even get out of bed. It became a chore to…

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Corey Jefferson: Walk the 10 feet to my home office and log into my computer, and stay at my computer for more than 30 or 45 minutes at a time.

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Corey Jefferson: everything in life became a chore. And I was sinking, and I was sinking really, really fast. And this continued for a few weeks, and…

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Corey Jefferson: All of a sudden, something changed.

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Corey Jefferson: I refer to it as, God shined a light down on me.

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Corey Jefferson: And I got this clarity.

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Corey Jefferson: And…

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Corey Jefferson: I just started to want to feel better. And that's kind of like the foundation of the COPE method. I started with clarity. I started to ask myself those tough questions, and I had to be honest with myself.

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Corey Jefferson: I knew the obvious thing was I was depressed because my sister wasn't here.

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Corey Jefferson: But I knew it was a little bit deeper than that.

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Corey Jefferson: So I had to do some digging.

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Corey Jefferson: Ask myself those tough questions, and be honest with myself.

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Corey Jefferson: I ask myself questions like, Why are you upset?

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Corey Jefferson: When you and her didn't have the best relationship towards the end of her life.

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Corey Jefferson: Why didn't you reach out and try to give her help?

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Corey Jefferson: Why didn't you do more?

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Corey Jefferson: You know she needed you.

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Corey Jefferson: Why were you not there?

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Sana: Hmm.

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Corey Jefferson: I ask myself a lot of questions like that.

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Corey Jefferson: to get the clarity that I needed, and I had to be honest with myself. A lot of those answers were not answers that I wanted to give myself, but I had to give myself those answers to get that clarity.

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Corey Jefferson: Once I got that clarity, I arrived at the… at the real root of the problem.

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Corey Jefferson: And the problem wasn't the fact that she wasn't here. Like I said, that's the obvious.

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Corey Jefferson: The problem was, She's not here And…

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Corey Jefferson: I'll never get to create another memory with her. I'll never be able to go back and patch up our relationship.

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Corey Jefferson: that's done. Like, I can't go back and fix that.

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Corey Jefferson: Which takes me to… The ownership piece of that.

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Corey Jefferson: When I talk about people trying to control things that they can't control, it's because I try to control a lot of things that I can never control.

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Corey Jefferson: I can't control the fact that

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Corey Jefferson: I didn't reach out for help.

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Corey Jefferson: when I… I knew my solicitors were struggling.

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Corey Jefferson: I can't control that. That's in the past. I can't control the fact.

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Sana: Hmm.

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Corey Jefferson: That she even had a substance abuse problem. Again, in the pl… in the past.

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Corey Jefferson: I can't control the fact that she's not here anymore.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm not God. Like, I can't… I don't have any hand in that at all.

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Corey Jefferson: But the thing that I could control every single day.

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Corey Jefferson: was how I dealt with those emotions as they came.

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Corey Jefferson: And that's where I get dealing with emotions in real time from, because I had to deal with all of these emotions in real time. I didn't have a box to… to put things in.

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Corey Jefferson: I had to own it.

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Corey Jefferson: I had to completely own it.

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Corey Jefferson: And I had to understand that this was the only way that I was gonna get better.

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Corey Jefferson: I… if I had to cry because I thought of something that, you know, saddened me because I was thinking about her, I cried, no matter where I was. I was on vacation in Jamaica.

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Corey Jefferson: out, like, and I had a balcony view of a pool, and I'm in my room crying because I'm thinking about my sister.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm dealing with my emotions as they come. I'm not putting them in a box, I'm dealing with it right then and there, no matter where I am.

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Corey Jefferson: If I had to scream, I screamed. If I thought about something that she did that made me laugh, and brought me joy, or some type of peace, I sat in that for as long as I could. But I owned whatever it was, and I dealt with it as it came.

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Corey Jefferson: And then… I, I needed a process a plan.

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Corey Jefferson: for how I was gonna continue to work on myself and get myself better.

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Sana: Hmm.

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Corey Jefferson: My plan consisted of getting plenty of sunlight.

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Corey Jefferson: Luckily, it started to warm up where I am around this time.

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Corey Jefferson: Changing my diet.

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Corey Jefferson: Making sure that I'm leaning on the people that actually care about me.

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Corey Jefferson: Because a lot of the times, we try to just…

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Corey Jefferson: Hold and shoulder this burden by ourselves.

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Corey Jefferson: When we actually have a community, a village of people, They're willing to… Help you carry the load.

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Corey Jefferson: A lot of the times, we let pride and fear get in the way of that, and that's exactly what I did. I let pride and fear get in the way of me leaning on the people that actually cared about me.

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Corey Jefferson: So I did that. I leaned heavily on the people that cared about me.

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Corey Jefferson: And… One of the other things I did was cut out alcohol. Completely, because…

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Corey Jefferson: I didn't want to go down a similar path that she did with substance.

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Corey Jefferson: I didn't want to use alcohol as a crutch.

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Corey Jefferson: I knew I had to stand on my own two feet. I could not lean on the bottle. So I completely gave it up.

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Corey Jefferson: And the last part of that was just doing it. Just doing it. Just executing. Sticking to my plan.

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Corey Jefferson: Continuing to deal with my emotions as they come, acknowledging how I feel.

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Corey Jefferson: Knowing the root behind why I feel the way that I feel, because I have this clarity.

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Corey Jefferson: And basically, every day, just trying to put one foot in front of the other foot.

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Corey Jefferson: like I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, yesterday was probably one of my most stressful days I've had in a while, because the one-year anniversary of my sister's death is next month, and my mind started to kind of think about that, and then I got this heaviness

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Corey Jefferson: And… I felt myself starting to… to backslide a little bit.

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Corey Jefferson: So quickly, what I did was, I called somebody that I could lean on.

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Corey Jefferson: And I immediately told them what was going on.

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Corey Jefferson: And they said to me, Corey.

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Corey Jefferson: You're a writer.

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Corey Jefferson: Why don't you write a letter?

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Corey Jefferson: So that's what I did. Everything that I was feeling at that time, I pinned it.

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Corey Jefferson: I sat at my desk, I took about 15-20 minutes, and I pinned it, I pinned it all.

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Corey Jefferson: I only had one rule. Well, actually, two rules.

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Corey Jefferson: I had to be honest.

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Corey Jefferson: and say whatever I was feeling.

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Corey Jefferson: I couldn't sugarcoat anything, I had to be honest.

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Corey Jefferson: And it had to fit on one page.

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Corey Jefferson: I was not gonna flip the page, I was not gonna do half a page.

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Corey Jefferson: One page.

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Corey Jefferson: And I did that.

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Corey Jefferson: And it kind of brought me back to my center.

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Corey Jefferson: And a lot of the times, that's just what you have to do. I'm not saying that the COPE method is a fix for everything. I created it, and I still…

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Corey Jefferson: have times to where, you know, I am uneasy about certain things, because they just hurt. I'm a human. Things hurt.

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Corey Jefferson: But what I am saying is, if you follow the principles of the Cope Method, it makes it easier to deal with these things as they happen to you.

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Corey Jefferson: I never learned how to grieve.

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Corey Jefferson: Because no one knows how to grieve.

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Corey Jefferson: But I learned how to cope.

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Sana: That's beautifully said. Beautifully said, Corey.

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Sana: It's… I believe it's poignant, and, and… You know…

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Sana: In this way, I believe this episode is a bit different and refreshing, because

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Sana: Especially in the context of workplaces, or business.

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Sana: Usually, they wouldn't talk about emotions, but… I mean…

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Sana: There are people, there are humans involved here, so how can…

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Sana: not it be addressed upon. And that's what I really, really appreciate, really, you know, it's really, really…

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Sana: inspiring to see, you know, how you put this story, because there is something painful in that, because so many people, so many of us are praised for exactly the thing that's slowly costing them, costing us. We call it resilience.

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Sana: When, really, it's just… Someone who hasn't been, you know, given permission to put the weight down.

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Corey Jefferson: Absolutely.

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Corey Jefferson: Absolutely.

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Sana: Korea, before we wrap up,

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Sana: Any message that you would like to send through the Bisplan platform for the listeners, especially for the founders, leaders, operators, who would, you know, who till now they have known

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Sana: That, you know, emotions, or coping up with emotions. I mean, as you perfectly put it down, that we haven't been taught to grieve, but we

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Sana: are learning how to… how to cope up with it. So, any message that you would like to send through?

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Corey Jefferson: The overarching message that I want to push is you do not have to do anything by yourself.

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Corey Jefferson: Everyone has a village. And the wonderful thing about being an adult

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Corey Jefferson: Is you get to pick who's in your village.

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Corey Jefferson: You get to pan-select everyone that's in your village.

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Corey Jefferson: And if, for some reason, you do not have a village.

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Corey Jefferson: There are resources out there to where we can get you a village.

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Corey Jefferson: You should never have to carry any of this by yourself.

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Corey Jefferson: I don't care if it's work stress.

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Corey Jefferson: I don't care if it's stress from your personal life. You should never have to compromise your emotional, physical, mental, or spiritual health for any reason at all.

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Corey Jefferson: There's always a resource out there.

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Corey Jefferson: You just have to care enough about yourself To seek those resources.

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Corey Jefferson: To not let pride and fear get in the way of your progress.

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Corey Jefferson: Do not let prod.

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Corey Jefferson: or fear, Get in the way of your progress.

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Sana: That's powerful, that's really powerful, Corey. And of course, for our listeners who would want to learn more about the COPE method and follow what you are building with Estra Media Group as well, where would you suggest them to go from here?

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Corey Jefferson: So, listeners can head to our website at estermediagroup.org, and you can also check out our X page. It's at Esther Media Group.

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Corey Jefferson: And that is… GRP for group, so that's at Esther Media Group4X, that's GRP.

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Corey Jefferson: and estermedia.org for our website. A lot of good resources on there.

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Corey Jefferson: also able to book a session with myself, if you want to talk through some things. A lot of good material on that website.

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Sana: Amazing. So, listeners, as I always promise on every one of our episodes, I'll have all the links and details mentioned in the show notes. So, explore more about the Coke Method, and connect with Corey, and check out more about Estra Media Group, and check out all the resources Corey is sharing.

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Sana: And thank you, thank you so much, Puri, because this was definitely, as I mentioned before, a very unique and refreshing conversation.

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Sana: and honest conversation that, you know, we usually don't always make room for. I'm really grateful that you did.

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Corey Jefferson: I'm grateful that you allowed me to Be on your platform, and…

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Corey Jefferson: be able to talk to your listeners, and maybe something that I said can just help one person. So I'm really grateful for the opportunity to speak on this, because it's really important to me.

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Sana: It's my honor, it's my honor, Korea, and thank you so much, listeners, for being here, and…

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Sana: Something that I will leave you with.

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Sana: The thing you have been pushing through, quietly, on your own.

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Sana: You don't have to carry it the way you have been carrying it.

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Sana: Strength was never silence. Sometimes the previous thing you will do this week is say the sentence out loud that you have been swallowing.

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Sana: So take care of yourself, take care of the people doing this alongside you. I am Sana, this has been BizBlend, I'll catch you in the next episode. Thank you so much.