Leap of Inspiration with Devin Hughes

Carlsbad, people, purpose, and impact, an essential podcast for those who live, work, visit, and play in Carlsbad.

Good morning and welcome everyone. My name is Brett Schonzenbach. I am the president and CEO at the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce. I'm your host today, and I'm pleased to have with me Devin Hughes, the chief inspiration officer at Devin Hughes Enterprises. Good morning, Devin.

Thank you for having me, Brent. Excited to be here. Yeah.

Great to have you. And I know we tried to do this couple months ago and then scheduling and things happened. So I'm I'm excited that we were able to bring it together.

Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts in the world if you hadn't noticed. So

Yeah. And your world's got a lot in which we're gonna get into today. But I wanted to kinda go back to your, beginning. It looks like you went to high school at Saint John's or I'm sorry. Yeah.

High school at Saint John's College High School?

Yeah. And how was prep?

College prep high school because of, you were you were a basketball guy.

I was, but I actually went there because I was a rebellious kid.

Okay.

I, well, if I even go farther back, I couldn't I could barely read and write until I was in 5th or 6th grade. Wow. So I acted out. Yeah. I spent more time in the principal's office than I spent in the classroom.

Uh-huh. And so St. John's College Prep was not only in college prep, it was also military. Uh-huh. So I was sent there for a little bit of discipline.

Okay.

Yeah. And it I don't know. And only knowing you at this stage in life, I'm gonna say it worked.

Yeah. It actually it, changed my life. Yeah. I hated it. It was all it was all men, but, discipline, structure, respect, all of that fundamentally changed on how I view my world and how I want my world view.

So yeah. Absolutely. Wow.

Very cool. And, and then you did play basketball there, but also collegiately. Yes. We had

a great basketball program. I was fortunate to to play. We won and I got a scholarship to Colgate University. That was the goal to play division 1 basketball and to match academics with athletics.

Very awesome. Very cool. So that was out in New York and then I saw later, you got a master's degree at South New Hampshire University in organizational leadership. And since then, you've gotten certificates at almost every reputable university like in the world, I think. You had certs from what?

USD, UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, UCSD. You're kind of addicted to education.

I am. I struggled so much, as I as I just alluded to when I was a child. And so after that, I education was more transactional for me when I was a kid, and then I I found a love of learning. Nice. And it lit me up, and it made me happy, and I could apply it.

So I just threw myself in, I mean, way in, surrounded myself with other people. And, that's how I ended up in places at, you know, UCLA or Cal or Stanford, wherever, just in rooms like this, just soaking up information and experiences.

Love it. Love it. So what brought you, what brought you out to the West Coast? Because now you're here based, I think, in Carlsbad, aren't

you? Correct.

Yeah. What what brought you to the West Coast in in your journeys? And and tell us a little bit about your career before you started your Devon Hughes Enterprises.

Yeah. So I had a real job. You know, we have a boss and performance reviews and all that type of stuff. I did that for first 18, 20 years of my career Mhmm. And, primarily in high-tech and biotech.

Manage teams and and a bunch of stuff. And so I did that, and it was great. And then my last company, we're getting acquired. And I was a little bit stale. I didn't feel the same energy, and, I was looking for what I was gonna do next.

I thought there was more juice in the berry. Yeah. And so someone had come up to me randomly and said, hey, you're so good in front of a room. Have you ever thought about being a speaker? And I'm like, well, who thinks about that?

I mean,

it's just not you know, I didn't have a SWOT analysis or some kind of, you know, grid. And so I was like, yeah. Whatever. No. And I said, no, really.

I mean, you could really make a career, all these experiences. So I heard it, but I didn't really process it. Making a long story short, I had given us, a talk at a rotary club. Someone invited me to a rotary club. So I spoke.

And, you know, I I don't mean to be overly spiritual or how the world works, but there happened to be a publisher in that room Nice. Who came up to me at the end and said, hey, have you ever thought about writing a book? Okay. So now I'm like, okay. Speed and then at first, I was like, no.

And then he kept calling and calling and calling. Fast forward, I ended up writing a book, which propelled me into the speaking career, and that was, you know, 16 years later.

Wow. Wow. Very interesting. Yeah. You never know.

Well, that's that's always a good lesson, in, mentoring young professionals, college students. And I talked to them about, you never know where your opportunities are. You know? Here, you you got invited to give a talk at Rotary. Now what what if you hadn't have put, you know, your all into that talk and kinda shirked it a bit and tanked it a bit.

Right? What what difference that would have made in your life? But, you know, I don't exactly know what to talk on, possibly on some of your life experiences. But, you obviously did a good job and look where it I mean, it's amazing.

Yeah. And so it's funny you say that because I look back now, and I think improv in life, you know, in improv, they say yes, end. And you just go where the energy goes. Like, if there's an opportunity, you walk through the door. You don't know serendipitously where it's gonna happen, but you know you're in a place that you end up in a better place.

And if I look at my career, that's kinda sort of how I ended up. I just said yes. Have you ever done it? No. Can you do it?

I don't know. I'll figure it out. And so to that point, I ended up, you know, writing a book and then kids books. And then I was a children's author, and I've never done that. But you have a great life story, and it's compelling.

And and it's next thing you know, you end up in places that you just never would have known just by saying yes and being open to the opportunity.

Oh, man. That's awesome. I love that. When you started speaking, like, how that's still, you know okay. So somebody says, let's write a book or have you thought about writing a book?

It's still a big step to go from a a regular paycheck

Mhmm.

To what you're doing now where you now it's established, but it's like you said, it's been 16 years to get it to this point. Taking that that actual step out of the comfort of a monthly or whatever biweekly paycheck to totally living off of, you know, inspiring others, I guess, is one way to put it. Yeah. I tell me how that was for you.

I tell people that the psychology, that's the hardest part because I have so many people now. I'd love to do what you do. Yeah. I have so much domain expertise. And I tell them, you may.

The hardest part is not doing the work. It's the psychology of being okay with not having a paycheck and getting the work. Yeah. Exactly. As much as you may complain about work, every 2 weeks an ACH shows up.

That's a

pretty good deal. Yeah.

And you you know, and and so and so you're right. But that was really hard. So 2 things, I think, helped me. Number 1 was my wife.

Mhmm.

I mean, absolutely. When I there were doubts that I was there was some self doubt. And then it creeped in like Freddy Krueger. Absolutely. And then you had other people in your inner circle poking holes in my cup.

Oh my god. What are you doing? Are you crazy? You right. All that.

That negative chatter. But my wife was the one who's like, look, haven't you always figured it out? Haven't you always found a way to get it done? So why would you think now any differently? And I was like, wow.

So when I knew that she you know what I mean? The strip. Yeah. Right? I was like, I'm not gonna be halfway.

So I just so I went for it. And then the other thing I did is, there's a National Speakers Association Mhmm. Which is a trade association for professional speakers. So I went, and I'm like, okay. I'm gonna start to gather some data and figure out who's who were around there.

And, and so I started interviewing and having conversations like this and speaking to people. And what I what occurred to me was everything that I was experiencing, they experienced too. Yeah. So I was like, okay. So this is not personal.

This is part of the journey. Yeah. I've gotta go through the struggle. I've gotta fight. No way around that.

No. So it's just part of it. Like, that hero's kinda Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. Yeah. Gotta go through it.

And then the other thing I realized is I made these presumptions that these people were maybe extra neurons or cognitive, you know, rock stars. Yeah. They were normal human beings, had life experiences, had a niche, and they had the courage to craft it. And but with all that said, then I was like, I'm all in. And lastly, and I don't wanna overtalk this, I didn't wanna cold call.

I didn't wanna be preachy. I didn't wanna run around and kinda just push myself on people. So the people that I really that, fascinated me were comedians. Okay. That's interesting.

So how does a comedian build his niche? Well, he doesn't start on SNL. Right. He starts in Carlsbad Village at the Coyote Bar with 4 people there. Right.

Or wherever. Right?

Yeah.

And 4 turns into 8. 8. So I was like, well, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna speak anywhere I can and I'm gonna own my craft. So rotary, anywhere,

school district. Chamber.

Yes. Yes. You did. Yes. Anywhere.

And I was just getting better and better and better. And I don't need everyone to say. I just need 1 or 2 people.

To then invite you to the next thing and eventually it's to paid things and that

And that's 17 years, 16 years of doing that.

Oh, wow. That's amazing. And I think that hopefully is, inspirational for those who are, you know, considering something like this because as you pointed out, the doubts are gonna be there. You know, you're not you're not gonna conquer those before you launch. Mhmm.

This is not gonna happen. This is not gonna happen. It's just gonna be part of what you have to go through to get established. Yeah. I mean, it's just what it is.

We're gonna take a brief pause. We're talking to Devin Hughes, the chief inspiration officer at Devin Hughes Enterprises. When we come back, we're gonna talk about the different things that he focuses on in his speaking engagements and all that, Devin Hughes Enterprises is. So stick with us. We'll be right back.

So, Devin, before the break, we were just talking about how the the kinda the the psychology that you had to go through to to leave the the security blanket, the 9 to 5, and go out on your own. But tell people what you focus on in your if they've never had a chance to hear you speak. What are some of the things that you talk about? I mean, I've I've had the benefit of hearing you speak here at the Chamber as we we mentioned just briefly ago. But, talk about some of the things that you focus on and that you bring to companies and that you like to keynote on.

Yeah. So I I usually get thrown in the motivational speaker, like, sandbox, which I don't hate, but it's I think I bring a little bit more than the rah rah. I can certainly do that, Chef Riley. But my niche is organizational culture. Mhmm.

Because I come from a, you know, a work background. So I've been on great teams, not so great teams. I mentioned I went to my high school was military. I played collegiate athletics. So the common denominator in the good teams was culture.

And if I got the culture right, people dialed in. They felt like they mattered. They belonged and outcomes improved. So that became my niche that if I could create or replicate that, some science based tools to create a culture where human beings could come to work and actually feel like they mattered and make an impact. And that's where most of my work I do now.

Yeah. That's fantastic. And you've worked for, in doing some research on on, you know, you You've worked with a pretty broad spectrum. It looks like everything from startups to Fortune 100 to schools and nonprofits.

Yeah. All of the above. I mean, I've done from the IRS to State Farm. I did some work with Carlsbad Unified School District a year ago to kick off at Lockheed Martin. You name and if it's culture nonprofit, if you got humans at work.

And I think this matters very because we spend more time at work than we do at home in the aggregate. True. Right? So if I'm gonna spend 40 to 50 hours in a space with this many humans, why would I settle for less than? And so that that's the and I think everyone leans into that.

Yeah. I agree with you a 100%. I mean, we talk about that here even with our own team. Right? We spend so much time with each other.

Right? I wanna make it the best possible experience for my team. You know, as a nonprofit chamber, we're a nonprofit. We're not a charity, not a 501c3, but we're we're still a nonprofit. We're a 501c6.

And so a lot of my team could get pay raises going somewhere else and doing the similar work that they do here. But, the culture I try to create here at the Chamber, I wanna make it very difficult to leave. I wanna make it painful to go just to get that, whatever it might be, $5,000 a year raise somewhere else because of the culture is so good. Because like you said, we spend so much time, you know, that experience at your work is huge to our quality of life.

Yeah. No. I mean, absolutely is. And I find that there's 3 things that every human being wants at work beyond compensation, which you'd alluded to. We wanna be fairly compensated obviously, but we wanna be seen, heard and valued.

Seen, heard and valued. And it's not perks, parties and pizza or it's the subtleties. It's the emotional connection that I see you in the hall, that you appreciate what I do, the human connection. And I think that's exacerbated right now because in the digital age, everything is text, Snapchat, tweet, email, and other things. And at the end of the day, we want more human connection.

I think it's even more exacerbated right now in the world we live in. Kinda wanna be tone deaf to where we are. Yeah. And so, you know, you talking about that kinda everyone talks about b2b and b2c. I talk about h to h.

Human to human. Human to human. Love it. And that's the magic part. Yeah.

Yeah. I I love that.

And I think, you know, to your point, people want to know that you care about them as a person before you're worried about their performance on the job. Right? What's their family like? What's what challenges are they are they experiencing in that side of their life? Or, you know, or what what joys are they experiencing in that side of their life?

Or, you know, both and. People and wanna know that you have their back when they're having a situation outside the office that it's not just about, you know, are they gonna meet numbers or something for the month? You know? And so those things matter a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I just did a talk yesterday actually and with the service team, financial services, and we were unpacking what great culture looks like. And one of the common denominators that I found was what we call psychological safety. And it's a really emotional safety that I can speak up, that I can take risk, and that I can be my authentic self, that we can be a meeting with all of us and that I can have an idea and I can create a safe place to just say it.

Yes. Yes. Or I can push back on Brett even though he's the president, and Brett's gonna take it because he knows assume positive intent because he's

Yeah. I love that. I love that because if if you don't have that, then then you just have people who are, swallowing their ideas. Or if they bring up their ideas and they get slammed or shut down or told that's stupid or whatever, then, like you said, it's not a safe place to bring your own creativity, and you feel stifled. And eventually, you're gonna you're gonna either leave or you're gonna so minimize yourself.

You're gonna go down to the, what's the bare minimum I can do just to kinda get through the week? And that doesn't help companies thrive either.

Yeah. We call those GoMos.

GoMos. GoMos. GoMos.

Go through the motions. Yeah. That's what happens. They just they show up at 8:0:1, start at 8:4:59. They're kind of looking around sneaking out into the parking lot just enough, but there's so much more potential, but they felt like they could, you know, can't contribute or when they did, they felt marginalized.

Yeah. I love what you said about intent too because, I found, and I'd love to hear kind of your take on this, that, in general, we judge ourselves on what our intentions were in some situation. Well, this is what I was thinking when I did that. But we can fall into the trap of just judging others by their actions and not taking the time to ask the question. And so then we make up the our own narrative as to what they must have meant when they did that.

And she's out to get my job, or, you know, she's trying to sabotage me, and it's like, well, let's just go ask her. And he was like, hey, Susie. Why did you why did you do that? That that came across kinda awkward because now it put me in this situation. Oh, I didn't think of that.

I was doing the but you make up your own narrative. You don't ask Susie. Right? And then you have all kinds of problems in the in the office.

No. I mean, it's so true. Our personal and professional relationships with in the absence of data in that space, I think, is where we we create up our own narrative. And sometimes that's based on prior experiences. Yeah.

So if we've had a prior experience where someone we thought malintent and then we'd go right there Yeah. And then that becomes the baseline. And that's not fair to the other person, to your point if we have a conversation. So one way that I found and, again, I don't again, for example, to create more psychological safety, Airbnb. We all know it.

We've used them. Right? Yeah. They wanted to embed it, institutionalize it because it's one thing to know it. Right?

Yeah. But sometimes it's hard to operationalize it, which is where I where my niche is is operationalizing this stuff. But they have a concept called elephants, dead fish, and vomit.

Oh, this sounds really interesting.

Okay. Fascinating. Right? So you give it a language. Yeah.

Now it's not personal. It's not about so elephants are kinda sort of what you would think. Elephants are the things that things that everyone kind of sort of knows are in the building, on the team, in the organization, but we just don't really talk about. Okay. We use language, oh, that's just the way we do things around here.

Okay? Yeah. So you'll you'll look on an agenda sometimes at Airbnb and it'll say, elephant 60 minutes. Oh. So people know when they walk in, you have permission and there's certain guardrails.

We don't talk about people. We don't Right. Tag character, But if there's stuff that so and so that's elephants. The other one's dead fish. Dead fish are the things that happened in the past years ago, months ago, a boss ago that we keep talking about.

And if we don't deal with the dead fish, they smell up the organization. Interesting. So I used to do something similar called uncover the stinky fish. And it would be, what is everyone thinking but no one is saying? Interesting.

And we would peel it out, and then we'd go out for sushi. I love it. And ritualize it because, again, all this stuff, like, why are we emboldened to the past? Yeah. I can't relitigate it.

If we're gonna keep talking about it, let's learn from it, but we've got to bear it. And then the lastly, which is a little bit coarse, is vomit. And vomit was the stuff that if you see a lot of side conversations that are happening, people are frustrated, don't get it, new software upgrade, new policy change, but no one's really saying it. They're sometimes we close the door and finally would be let's air it out.

Let's get it out.

Let's get it out.

Yeah. Wow. Very interesting. Very interesting. You talked about how, this kind of this journey kind of started with, a book.

You know? It's, somebody mentioning that, have you ever considered writing a book? And I believe you're now the author of 21 books. Is that right? Correct.

That's amazing. And your first one was very autobiographical, your own journey. And I saw, it looks like 2012, a biracial man's journey to desegregate his past. So tell me what that was like writing that because, you know, writing a biography from what I've heard, I haven't written one, but could be is it cathartic? Is it is it hard?

Is it I mean, it does it come natural?

Does it roll? How does how does that go? I mean, I think everyone's experience is probably a bit different. For me, it was it was, I don't wanna say traumatic, but it was hard because a lot of shame in

that, a

lot of pain. My mother had me when she was 18.

Okay.

Biracial. My father's African American. My mother's Caucasian. My grandfather was in the Ku Klux Klan. Oh, wow.

So I wasn't accepted necessarily on that side. So my mother literally is I say escape, but she she had to leave, Knoxville, Tennessee with her boyfriend at the time, my father, to to go to Washington DC to to literally start a life because they weren't accepted back in the sixties. So because of that, there's a lot of trauma and pain in that story. Yeah. Plus I was in special ed.

Yep. I don't know if we were poor. We didn't have a lot. Sure. So, and then growing up trying to fit in racially.

Yeah. If you I would show up in spaces, and I still do today, and people don't know my background. Sure. So I'd be in conversations even as a child and people making pejorative comments about people of color. And I'm always feeling like so I had a lot of that.

Yeah. But that full full forward, it was cathartic. I didn't realize how much of that I compressed to compartmentalize. And I use that as a story not so much about race, but other people who, at certain points, don't feel like they fit in.

Mhmm. For whatever for

whatever reason? Whatever reason. Yeah. And so that's what the book is about, how my journey of finding my place where I am what I am.

Well, you've leveraged all that because now, you are you are a huge optimist. You are a huge optimist. And it's very intentional. You're very intentional about kindness. I mean, your social media is littered with stuff about kindness, on a daily basis, which I love because I follow you, and I have for, many months, not a couple of years now.

You're on the board of directors at Kids For Peace, which is all about the great kindness challenge and kindness certified companies and everything, just for those who might not know Kids For Peace. Big fans of theirs. So talk about talk about that. Talk about your intentionality behind kindness and optimism and all that.

Yeah. So the optimism part was when I was trying to find myself, hope, belief was a big deal. And I I remember my mother was not college or formally educated, but I remember one time I came home, struggling. And, and I don't know where this comes from, but I I say she had some of this deep seated southern country front porch wisdom that you get on with a little bit of lemonade and a Yep. Yeah.

So I'm coming home and she looks at me and she says, son, there's no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing. And their message was stop trying to control the storm. The storm will be the storm. I need you to control how you show up in it. Mhmm.

And I my parents both again had these little nuggets or anecdotes, you know, telling me over and over again. And I still use this today. You can't pour from an empty cup, son. Yeah. Right?

Right? Very true. Right? And then another one was, like, are the people in your cup I mean, in your circle, are they pouring into your cup or poking holes in it? So these little anecdotes Yeah.

Like I had my parents and other people. And then you get to a certain point and you start to figure out the only thing I can control is my mindset, how I show up. I don't believe it doesn't matter. And so being at the right place at the right time didn't matter if I didn't have the right mindset. Yeah.

So that intentionality and the struggles early in my life have propelled me. And the one thing I could figure out is I gotta believe and I gotta put myself in situations. I gotta prepare, but I just believe that I have the capacity to do it. So to answer your question specifically, I wanna empower others to do that. Yeah.

There's a lot of other people, I think, at different points of their journey who may be struggling to figure out. Yep. So that's a big part of me sharing as much as I do.

No. That's awesome. It's very awesome. And, I know you have, 4 daughters of your own. I do.

And how what are their ages?

So I've got twins, that are will be 26. Nice. I have a 21 year old and

a 19 year old. They're all young adults now? Yes. Hopefully, doing well and

Yes. It's interesting. So I blog a lot. I write 3 articles a week. And now I've been writing a lot about one being in my fifties.

But, also, a big part of that is what does a dad look like for adult children? Yeah. I'm writing my own book right now. I don't know what that is. Yeah.

I can't come in like a superhero. They don't need that right now. Sure. So adulting, fathering a lot. But so, yeah, we are blessed.

All Carlsbad Unified School kids. Okay. One's in San Diego and PB, one's in Nashville, one's in Boston, and one's at Gonzaga. She's a junior.

Oh, wonderful. Very fun. Well, that is awesome. Now if somebody is listening in today and, well so couple of things. The beauty of and the interesting thing of podcast is they just go.

They have a life of their own. And once we record this and publish it, we could be talking to somebody on the East Coast or in the Bahamas. I mean, anywhere. Right? But you you service people all over the world, I think.

I do. Yeah. So that's

a beautiful thing. And if somebody is listening in today and they're meeting Devin Hughes for the very first time and they're like, I would love to talk to him. I would like to consider bringing him out to my company or whatever. Would your website be the best place for them to start? Yeah.

I'd say that. Devonchues.com. Devonchues.com. Okay. There you go, folks.

So, I I've had the pleasure of having Devin speak at some of our events. So I'm gonna just give out this 5 star ring endorsement right now to anybody listening. You'd be, very wise to consider bringing him into your company and and hiring him to come talk about culture with your team. So, hopefully, you'll get some get some love out of this.

Yeah, Brent. I I wanna give you a little love. We talk about culture in the chamber. I had lived here. I've been here 17 years.

I joined, you know, a little late in the chamber, but a big part of me I wasn't reluctant. I just didn't know what I didn't know because I travel so much. Sure. But we talk about culture, when I went to an event and I met your director of fun. Yes.

Kathy. Yes. Right. And I met others. And I'm I'm a culture whisperer and then that's when it snapped.

And then I was like, okay. I wanna be a part of this. Because Nice. Culture's like a Wi Fi feeling. Mhmm.

It's a vibe. It's a vibe. Right? It's a feeling. So just so just so you know, when I walked in and the interactions with I was like, okay.

This is real. This is authentic. This isn't transactional. They really want to and so for what that's worth, there's a little feedback for you, which is why I've jumped, you know, knee deep into being a part of the community.

Oh, I I appreciate that, especially from from you with your experience with so many different companies and working with places. And I know you wouldn't say it if it wasn't true, because that's you're all about authenticity. So I I appreciate that, and, I take it. And we feel blessed that you're here in our community and you become a part of our Chamber family. We do feel like our members are family to us.

So and, love having you as part of that. So thank you so much for taking the time, to come and share with us. I'm this your journey is amazing, and, I'm so excited that, you share it broadly.

No. Thanks for having me. It's been fantastic. My pleasure.

Thanks for joining us today on our Carlsbad People, Purpose, and Impact podcast. If you got value out of our episode today, please hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app, and please tell a friend. Can't wait to see you next time on Carlsbad People, Purpose, and Impact.