Dallas Media Company was on-site at the Lewisville Area Chamber of Commerce on August 27, 2025, for the Chamber’s 2025 Next Level Series. The morning reminded a room full of DFW entrepreneurs why they got into business in the first place. Jeff Street took the stage to share it. He’s Senior Vice President with direct-selling company ACN. He’s also a 20-year business leader, a former BNI chapter president, and a Cross Timbers Rotary Club member. His talk traced a path from a 26-year-old with $50,000 in credit card debt and a failing business to a two-decade career building teams, culture, and community.
Before he got into the leadership content, Jeff shared the story that shaped everything. He was born with spina bifida occulta. Doctors gave him two days to live. They later told his mother he’d never walk. Her response was relentless affirmation: “you’re gonna walk, you’re gonna be amazing.” That same resolve carried him through a childhood back brace and Tourette syndrome. It became the foundation for a leadership philosophy built on one idea: your adversity is your advantage.
What followed was a presentation of 13 principles. Some were familiar reminders. Others were hard-won lessons. All of them are things any business owner, entrepreneur, or networker in the DFW area can put to work immediately. Here’s the full breakdown.
1. Attitude
Everything starts here. Jeff’s core belief: your attitude determines your altitude. It’s one of the only things you have the power to change at any moment. Whether you walk into a room believing you can or believing you can’t, you’re right. That’s a nod to Henry Ford’s famous line. The challenge to the room was simple. Whatever’s going on in your life before you walk into a meeting, a client call, or a networking event, decide how you’re going to show up. The vibe you bring is the vibe you attract.
2. Mentorship
Find a mentor for everything. Business, faith, fitness, life — it all applies. Jeff’s point was simple. Someone has already walked the path you’re trying to walk. A good mentor helps you navigate the landmines every entrepreneur eventually hits. Mentorship today is more accessible than ever. It can be a formal relationship, a podcast, or a book. But the biggest shift happens the moment you actually decide you’re a leader. As Jeff put it, leaders are like a rubber band. There’s no power until you’re willing to stretch.
3. Goal Setting
Most people never hit their goals because they never actually set them. Jeff described writing 55 goals on New Year’s Eve 2005. He thumbtacked the list next to his bedroom light switch. It was the last thing he saw at night and the first thing he saw every morning. One goal was becoming debt-free. He tracked it by replacing his credit card statement on the wall every month until the balance hit zero. Two decades later, every one of those original goals has come true. The takeaway for business owners: a goal without an action plan is just a daydream. Performance increases the moment a target is actually set.
4. Know Your Why
Borrowing from Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, Jeff’s message was direct. When your why is big enough, the how becomes easy. He illustrated it with the story of Buster Douglas. Douglas knocked out an undefeated Mike Tyson days after losing his mother, because his why was bigger than the moment. For Jeff, his why was rooted in a promise to his grandfather to “win his own Super Bowl.” Every entrepreneur needs a why strong enough to carry them through the inevitable hard days.
5. The Extra 5%
It’s the extra 5% that most people won’t give. That’s what produces the 95% most people never get. Jeff shared a story about nearly skipping a business presentation. It was the day after he moved into his dream home in Newport Beach. He went anyway, and met his future wife, Melissa, at that exact event. The lesson for local business owners: the extra call, the extra follow-up, the extra effort you don’t feel like making is often the one that changes everything.
6. Make God Your Business Partner
Jeff was candid that this principle reflects his personal faith. He acknowledged not everyone in the room may share it. For him, shifting from “tipping to tithing” was a turning point. So was honoring the Sabbath as a business owner. He had set the same career goal for 17 straight years without hitting it. The promotion to Senior Vice President finally came the same year he and his wife made this shift a priority.
7. Persistence and Perseverance (CPP: Commitment, Persistence, Perseverance)
Perseverance, Jeff explained, is persisting through adversity. Sometimes that means massive adversity. He shared a story about sleeping in his car outside an airport. It was 26 degrees outside, and he couldn’t afford a hotel. He was six months into building his business at the time. Sixty days later, he earned more money in two months than he had in the previous year combined. The bigger the test, the greater the testimony. Sometimes the breakdown happens right before the breakthrough.
8. Start and End Your Day Right
Jeff walked through his personal morning routine. Phones charge outside the bedroom. The alarm goes off at 5 a.m. Then comes worship music, scripture, leadership devotionals, at least 10 pages of a book, and a podcast. He finishes with a workout, all before the first phone call of the day. His reasoning is straightforward. You can’t control what happens in the middle of your day, but you can control how you start and end it. At night, he and his wife each share three things they’re grateful for before bed. It’s a small habit with an outsized impact on both marriage and mindset.
9. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reality
Same glass of water. Half-empty or half-full, depending entirely on perspective. Jeff referenced Jim Rohn’s line that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. He encouraged the room to keep a “proof paper.” It’s a running list of the hardest things you’ve already overcome, ready to pull out the next time adversity hits. Life isn’t about what happens to you. It’s about the meaning you assign to it.
10. Detach Your Emotions From the Yeses and the Nos
For years, rejection held Jeff back. His mentor offered a fix. Turn networking into a numbers game rather than a personal referendum. The tool was a 100-square grid, one square per person you share your business with, regardless of the outcome. Every conversation becomes a win, because the goal isn’t the yes. It’s the exposure. One “square 51” conversation at a local bank eventually led to a business relationship worth $2.4 million in annual revenue.
11. Add Value to Other People
When COVID shut down in-person networking overnight, Jeff’s mentor gave him one piece of advice. Adapt. Give so much value away that people want to know you and do business with you. That led to 365 consecutive days of live video content on leadership, positivity, and mindset. It also led to reconnecting with an old friend who now accounts for more than 15% of his company’s revenue. The bigger principle: listen more than you talk. Think about who you can introduce, not just what you can get.
12. Invest in Yourself
Jim Rohn’s line landed hard with the room. Formal education makes you a living. Self-education makes you a fortune. Jeff credited his mentor with introducing him to a steady diet of books, including How to Win Friends and Influence People and Think and Grow Rich. The idea stuck with him. You’ll be the same person five years from now except for the books you read, the events you attend, and the people you surround yourself with. Investment in yourself isn’t limited to business. It includes marriage retreats, travel, and time spent growing alongside the people closest to you.
13. Take Action
The final principle is the one Jeff said makes all the others matter. Nothing changes without action. He closed with the story of Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine at Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. One man’s decision to charge, rather than retreat, changed the outcome of a battle. It changed a war. It changed a country. The room stood together and read a personal declaration built around a single idea: I cannot do everything, but I can do something — and I can do it right now.
The Bigger Picture for DFW Entrepreneurs
Jeff closed his talk the way he opened it. He gave the room something to act on, not just something to think about. His challenge was direct: schedule one one-on-one conversation with someone in the room this week, and build the relationship from there.
That’s the same philosophy behind the Lewisville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Next Level Series. It’s also the philosophy behind Dallas Media Company’s work across the Metroplex. Local businesses grow when they invest in relationships, show up consistently, and are willing to document and share the story along the way.
If your organization is hosting a speaker, panel, or leadership event in the DFW area, Dallas Media Company is here to help you capture it. From same-day recap content to full case-study coverage, we make sure the value in the room reaches far beyond the people who were there to hear it.
