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Exploring The Role Of DEI In Healing And Growth With Corey Williams
“I grew up thinking that a lot of things were tied to education and poverty. I could get a great education, and if I wasn’t poor, none of the other problems, including racism, for example, would exist.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Corey Williams about her experiences growing up in Alabama and the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She shares how her upbringing and family shaped her perspective on race and class and how she has evolved in her understanding of privilege and marginalized identities. She challenges the notion of a meritocracy and highlights the value of every individual’s worth. Overall, the conversation explores the complexities of DEI and the importance of education in fostering understanding and empathy.
What to listen for:
“I am here because I have ancestors that survived. They survived the Middle Passage. They survived wars. They survived. And they survived so that I am in this point right here, and they did that, and so I can do this.”
“What DEI is really supposed to be about is helping people understand how teams, groups of people can work best together, most productively for the individuals and most effectively for the team.”
“DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion is really about all kinds of identity. So we’re not just talking about race or gender or sexuality. We’re talking about neurodiversity, we’re talking about disability status, we’re talking about veteran status. Most people have some marginalized identity, and we all benefit when we can see one another more fully and connect across our differences.”
About Corey Williams
Corey was born in Alabama and went off to Harvard with less than zero self-awareness. For a long time, she believed that identities didn’t matter. And then, through challenging experiences like having babies and being sexually assaulted, she found that her identity was very much at issue. It has taken her on a long journey that’s led to DEI consulting with nonprofits, schools, Silicon Valley startups, and Fortune 500 companies.
Resources:
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Click To View The Episode Transcript
Nick McGowan (00:01.824)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self -Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan and today on the show I have Corey Williams. Corey, how are doing today?
Corey Williams (00:12.573)
I’m great.
Nick McGowan (00:14.39)
I’m really excited for us to get into all the things that we’re going to talk about. There’s some deep stuff that I think really relates to a lot of people. Like we were talking a little bit about sexual assaults and COVID and diseases and just different things that come from different situations. So this is going to be kind of a tearjerker in certain ways, but I think there are some beautiful things that you’re going to be able to bring to the table of what you’ve done and how you’ve worked through that stuff. So why don’t you tell us who are you?
What do do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?
Corey Williams (00:49.373)
It’s hard to narrow it down to one odd thing, but I am a honorary colonel in the Alabama National Guard. I got that distinction because I was junior Miss Alabama growing up. I grew up in Alabama and ended up leaving, going to Harvard.
Nick McGowan (00:51.661)
Give me a few if you want.
Nick McGowan (01:04.981)
Nice.
Corey Williams (01:18.897)
Having kids, now I’m in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I spend my professional time as an HR consultant, primarily doing DEI work. And I live in Chapel Hill where DEI has just been like completely wiped off the surface of the campus. So you’re talking to a woman with a little more time on her hands than normal.
Nick McGowan (01:27.263)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (01:38.785)
Well, I think the DEI thing is a thing that we need to talk about too. I mean, here we are right now at the end of August, prepping for what is potentially another kind of shit show for four years. There are a few different things to go through, but I see how DEI is a big topic and it bewilders me how people want it removed. I can understand where people want things to be equal.
Corey Williams (01:38.898)
You
Nick McGowan (02:05.6)
but how they’re removing things and saying you’re pushing on one side or the other where that, from my understanding, isn’t really what it’s supposed to be. It’s just a privileged perspective looking at it saying, you’re forgetting us, the people who are privileged. I understand that coming from a white pan. There’s a lot in that. So why don’t you talk to us a little bit about what that means and what you’re seeing, why that’s disappearing where you’re at.
Corey Williams (02:30.363)
Yeah. Well, I think it’s an issue that’s a wedge issue. So it’s an easy one to get people to rally against or for because they don’t really understand what it entails. DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion is really about all kinds of identity. So we’re not just talking about race or gender or sexuality. We’re talking about neurodiversity. We’re talking about disability status. We’re talking about veteran status.
So all sorts of things that actually relate to all different kinds of people. Most people have some marginalized identity and we’re all benefited when we can see one another more fully and connect across our differences. I I grew up in Alabama, 1976. So here we are, we’re what? A little more than 10 years past the loving decision that made interracial marriage legal. My parents, my mom is black, my dad is white.
And growing up in Alabama was a challenge. Our town was largely segregated still. And I didn’t know anyone who was biracial other than in my family until I went away to college. But it really has shaped who I am. I had one grandfather who was the editor of a major newspaper in Kansas and then in Everett, Washington. And I had another grandfather who couldn’t read.
Nick McGowan (03:39.006)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (03:53.493)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (03:53.789)
I had one grandma who made lamb with mint jelly and she had this silver water service and it was all very fancy and happy hours at 5 .30 and dinner was at six. And my other grandma made ceramic Jesuses with 14 karat gold plating on them at the senior center and had a revolver on her coffee table. It was a very bifurcated way to grow up and they were both still very much involved in my life.
And they both taught me a lot of the same lessons. And so for me, it’s always been more natural, I think, and easy to communicate with people from all different walks of life. I mean, I think I was code switching before I knew what code switching was. If you talk to me when I’m around my family, I sound completely different. If you talk to me around folks from Alabama, I’ve got an accent again, you know? And I mean, people from people who are really from the North right now probably like, you got an accent now, honey.
Nick McGowan (04:51.278)
Yeah
Corey Williams (04:52.027)
But that’s all right. That’s all right. She should heard it before.
Nick McGowan (04:55.379)
Yeah, there’s a bit of it. I’m originally from Philadelphia, so people can hear when I sound really Philly and I talk about water and things of that sort, but I’ve lived in Florida and there were a lot of people when I lived in Florida that were like, well, honey, you need to calm down a little bit. I was like, I’m just excited about this thing. Like, what the hell’s your problem? They’re like, bless your heart. I’m like, that really means fuck off. So hold up there.
Corey Williams (05:04.434)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (05:13.575)
You
Corey Williams (05:21.337)
It can. It can. If you say something like, know, bless your heart. She can’t cook worth a damn bless her heart. That, yeah, that’s me.
Nick McGowan (05:29.097)
Yeah. I always enjoyed the, I love so and so to death, but like the but afterwards is always brutal. Like you want them to get hit by a truck or something. You’re like, but what about the, love that person thing. Like, what is that? Everywhere has their own little spots. That’s gotta be an interesting situation growing up in either side of that. And I’m really glad that you pointed out that everybody is a bit marginalized in some sort of way, no matter what is going on.
Corey Williams (05:40.082)
yes.
Corey Williams (05:45.674)
I do.
Nick McGowan (05:58.569)
And that’s, that can be to kind of level the playing field in a sense, but also to be able to understand we’re all a bit different, be it neurodivergency or even just being different from some of the people in your family. Like, I’m a creative, I’ve always been a creative. I’ve got a couple of engineers in my family that do not understand the creative thing at all. And that is in some ways marginalized, but not the exact same as somebody who is the only black person in their entire area.
Corey Williams (06:11.087)
yeah.
Nick McGowan (06:27.762)
And for you to be able to experience being in the South, even in the seventies and going into the eighties, like things were, were not where they are now. And we’re still not where we should be. And even if you think back to the fifties and sixties where things are really starting to change, but they were still turmoil and all that stuff. Like here we are now. So what you learned from your grandparents, was there still like a, a tinge of hate to it or things that you can look at and say,
I want to omit some of that because that was still of the old mindset or were they progressive in that sense where they were like more loving and understanding.
Corey Williams (07:06.641)
You know, in the spirit of being very vulnerable, there were some things, think, especially with my family that was my black family in Alabama, the family I was closest to. My grandma grew up what I call like Alabama poor, like no running water, poor, no electricity, poor, special poor. And she really saw, even though she had a sixth grade education,
Nick McGowan (07:23.721)
Hmm
Corey Williams (07:35.213)
until I was in high school when I taught her algebra one summer and she went back to school and got her GED and ended up working as a teaching assistant. But she always saw education as the way out and she saw lack of education as the problems that she was facing. So I grew up thinking that a lot of things were tied to education and poverty. And if I could overcome
Nick McGowan (07:49.481)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (07:54.248)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (08:03.165)
If I could get a great education and if I wasn’t poor, none of the other problems, including racism, for example, would exist. So if you knew 25 year old Cory, 25 year old Cory would have told you, I didn’t experience racism. 25 year old Cory had a really tough time conceptualizing things related to race as opposed to class. And so I think
Nick McGowan (08:19.516)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (08:29.607)
Okay.
Corey Williams (08:31.809)
like many of us, you know, grew up with sort of this like bootstrap mentality, that we can just, we can all make it and we all have, the same, obstacles and privileges when in fact I had a ton of privileges. Other people didn’t have, I mean, I did have, you know, one grandmother who was quite poor. My dad went to Stanford, right? Like my mom was college educated. Alabama’s junior mess paid for two years at Harvard. had.
Nick McGowan (08:47.497)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (09:00.477)
I did work, but I didn’t have to work like a lot of people have to work. and recognizing that I have those privileges doesn’t take anything away from the hard work that I did. But I grew up with this sort of mentality, a kind of respectability politics that sometimes black families have. And I remember vividly, I was talking about this with my mother the other day, my grandma capped us in the summer so my mom could go to college. My mom was 19 when she had me.
Nick McGowan (09:03.868)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (09:18.994)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (09:29.883)
She won a hot pants contest. She was something. Anyway, my grandma would keep us in the summer and there was a little girl next door and she’s a little older than me and she had a bunch of brothers and sisters that were all running around. They didn’t have shoes on and they didn’t have a parent home most of the time and she was taking care of a baby and I wanted to play with her so bad. I I remember like holding her hand through the chain link fence.
Nick McGowan (09:59.506)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (09:59.611)
while we were talking. cause I just wanted to play with her. We couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old, but my grandma was like, you don’t hang out with girls like that. You come back on in here. You know, there was a real sense of like my grandma had of people who were going somewhere and people who weren’t going somewhere and she didn’t want me involved with that. I understand that. And right. That’s not the way, that’s not the way I want to approach my life now. but it’s certainly something I grew up with.
Nick McGowan (10:19.972)
Mm
Nick McGowan (10:26.76)
Wow, I think the biggest thing that you pointed out just right then was the and. It’s not a but, it’s an and, which I’m sure couples with why you’re in DEI and doing what you’re doing, because there is an and to it. It can be really difficult to not just ingest all the things that we’re told as little kids and just go, this is how it is, and this is the way it is. I think there’s racism that…
different people have that they don’t know that they have because they just thought this is how this is, or you don’t hang out with those kids. And it’s a weird thing to think like, yeah, I can understand where they’re like, I don’t want you to get in trouble. I love you and I want you to be all right. At the same time, a human needs to kind of go along their own path and experience things. And they also need to see that other people are just in different walks at different times doing slightly different things, but still trying to live a good life.
and trying to do things that are right for them with the information that they have. So knowing what you know now and where you’re at and the job and the work that you do, how does that impact when you look at what you had grown up with and all the things that you’re doing now for people?
Corey Williams (11:43.505)
Yeah, I mean, in so many ways, I credit my parents and my grandparents for the work that I do now because they were all ahead of their time. And they were all willing and still are willing to slow down and have really deep and complicated and difficult conversations with me about race or gender or sexuality. I mean, I’m bisexual and I didn’t tell my parents that until I was in my 30s, post being sexually assaulted. So, you know, they’ve had
And they came right along on the journey. They had a lot of questions. My dad had too many questions. Like, dad, do you really want to know? Do you?
Nick McGowan (12:21.99)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (12:25.787)
He didn’t.
Nick McGowan (12:26.827)
yeah, yeah. I’m glad he didn’t.
Corey Williams (12:30.333)
My kids will ask questions. I kind of have the reputation in the neighborhood of being the mom that will answer any question. And so sometimes I have to call the parent and say, your child has just asked me, you know, what’s a vibrator? And so I have to say, may I explain? I, you know, here, remember the two reasons I told you, one is people use it to have sex and people use it to feel good.
Nick McGowan (12:46.885)
Ha ha.
Corey Williams (12:59.239)
to make babies or feel good. And we’ll go into all of that. But I always tell the kids, I will answer any question you have honestly. And do you really wanna know the answer to that question yet? And sometimes they’ll look at me and be like, no, I’m eight. I’m eight, I’m cool, nah.
Nick McGowan (13:17.486)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (13:21.124)
I’m gonna go play on the tire swing now. See ya.
Corey Williams (13:24.347)
Yeah, probably don’t want to know.
Nick McGowan (13:26.747)
Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s been brought to my attention, I think within the past year, maybe year and a half, that children are the most oppressed people in the entire globe. And when I first heard that, was like, well, that, shit, that makes a lot of sense actually. Like when you think about children are supposed to be seen, not heard, which is a bunch of horse shit. And again, like being able to go, well, I’ve been on this planet a little longer.
Corey Williams (13:45.799)
Yeah
Nick McGowan (13:54.872)
I’ve thought through things, I’ve made mistakes. Look kid, I don’t want you to do that, but here’s what you can do, et cetera, et For you to be able to be in that spot, to be able to be a resource for them, that’s huge. But also being able to speak to kids like they are adults without pushing things onto them. And that seems like it’s a balance act where like there were some things that I remember some of my mom’s friends would say,
or say around me or say directly to me as a little kid where I was like, I don’t really know if that makes any sense. And then when I got older, I was like, what the fuck was wrong with that adult? Why would they say those things? Why would they do that? What was that? Then there are others that are like, all right, kid, you may not be old enough, but here’s the level that I can give you. Here’s how I can help you understand and help them actually learn how to grow. So back to the education piece, you were talking about how your grandma or even both of them were like education, education, education.
Corey Williams (14:34.64)
Right, right.
Nick McGowan (14:55.11)
There’s system issues, there’s system errors with things, especially when it comes to education, let alone all the people that are poor or rich or whatever, they’re all systems. But when we look at the education system, we’ve all been told you need to go to school, then you need to pay to go to another school where they give you a piece of paper, it says you’re allowed to get a job, and then you can work there for however long and then retire off of 40 % of what you couldn’t really live off of anyway. Good luck kid, go have at it. That’s part of the system.
Corey Williams (15:22.753)
Sounds like fun.
Nick McGowan (15:23.84)
Yeah, like fucking sign me up. And you’ve gone through those things and there’s no shade tossed at anybody that has gone to school or college or hasn’t gone to college, but overlooking the whole system and how education, I agree that education is a major piece. It’s how we learn and how we grow. But the system itself can still be a deterrent to certain people, even people getting into college. Like the fact that you had
privilege to be able to get into school and be able to not have to pay for the first few years. It still was a lot for you to be able to get into the school that you got into. I’m an art kid. I was an art kid growing up and I’m a creative. So I remember being in 11th grade when they’re talking to you about, right, we need to get you ready for college. One of the counselors told me like, well, we can get you into art school or we can get you in music school, but you won’t make any money. So what do you want to do? And was like, well, fuck this. I don’t want to be here.
And I remember just walking out and be like, well, this is stupid. I think I took two real classes senior year and the rest of it was basically art and early dismissal because that didn’t seem like that would be a path that I could climb. But I also didn’t have the help with those people to be able to do that. And there’s privilege and there’s all the different pieces that go with it. But let’s talk about education. Let’s talk about how that ties into DEI and how people aren’t fully educated on what that is. And you touched on that a little bit before. So.
Corey Williams (16:22.428)
You
Nick McGowan (16:51.001)
with the people that are listening that are trying to figure out where do I fit in within either an organization or my own organization, or even just within the world, understanding from the perspective of education and DEI.
Corey Williams (17:05.787)
Yeah, gosh, that’s a big one. So I think a lot of people think that diversity, equity, inclusion, they equate it with affirmative action. They equate it with giving someone something that they did not earn. Now I’m going to blow a few people’s minds here and say that we do not live in a meritocracy. In fact, and I don’t personally think that we should live in a meritocracy.
There are lots of people who aren’t born with certain gifts. And I personally can’t play basketball, but if we only valued basketball players in this culture, I would be someone who was not afforded opportunities. I don’t think that merit is the only thing that matters. I actually think that every human has worth simply because they are another living, breathing thing on this planet with us. and.
The very notion, for example, that say a black or Latina woman is promoted because she is black or Latina or because she’s a woman is in and of itself a racist or sexist assumption. Now, I don’t believe that people are racist or sexist. People are just people. They may have a racist thought, may have a sexist action, but we’re all more than our
we’re all more than our actions and our thoughts. Those are changeable, right? We can absolutely change those things and we can intervene in them. And so I would say to the folks who see it just as affirmative action is that’s really small. What DEI is really supposed to be about, and there’s some good reasons why people don’t understand what it’s about, and a lot of them have to do with the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death, but
Nick McGowan (18:41.348)
Mm
Corey Williams (19:02.149)
What DEI is really supposed to be about is helping people understand how teams, groups of people can work best together, most productively for the individuals and most effectively for the team. So for an organization, it’s really about how to overcome those things that would otherwise become the things that make people quit, that would otherwise become the things that turn into sexual harassment, right? Like how do we navigate differences
Nick McGowan (19:23.212)
Mm -hmm.
Corey Williams (19:31.205)
so that we are all working together and doing it in a way that allows everybody to use their full talents and thrive. an accommodation isn’t unfair because someone’s neurodiverse or neurodivergent and they need a hard wall office. In fact, that’s just what that person needs, right? It’s easy to look at this as sort of like a zero sum fairness issue, but if that person can do their work and I don’t have two more extra hours of work,
Yay, hard wall office, right? So diversity, equity, inclusion is really about getting to the bottom of those things. And the way we get to the bottom of those things is data. It’s actually by looking across organizations at the different verticals and saying, OK, where do we have inefficiencies? Where are we losing people? Why do we have people that look like this here? Why do we have people who have this educational background here? Why have we never hired a veteran? Right.
Nick McGowan (19:59.497)
Yeah
Nick McGowan (20:08.845)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (20:24.727)
and to really thoughtfully engage on all of these questions. So I hope that that demystifies DEI just a little bit and makes it seem a little bit less like the devil. But I certainly can understand that it feels like the world has changed very fast to some people. I think that the acronym soup of DEI and the language can be really intimidating for some people. And so really just
Nick McGowan (20:35.873)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (20:54.171)
like using common language and reaching people where they are and not being attached to, for example, just the word being right. If someone’s really trying to connect with me and the intent is right and the word is like kind of an old fashioned, here’s a great example. Colored, the word colored, right? I was talking to an older woman who was using colored people because she thought it sounded like people of color and that’s what she grew up with, colored people.
Nick McGowan (21:04.739)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (21:22.198)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (21:24.303)
And so, you know, we navigated that. And I also explained, I don’t really like African -American because I’ve never actually been to Africa. I don’t have any relationship with the continent that I that wasn’t that wasn’t severed by transatlantic slavery. so for me, African -American feels like something I’m doing for other people. Black is what I am. So we worked through all of that. And by the end, she was like, OK, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to call you black, but I’m going to try.
Nick McGowan (21:52.546)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (21:53.737)
and so I definitely think there is a kind of education that needs to go on about, about DEI and, we’re not going to get anywhere by not talking about these things. post post civil rights movement, we got super scared to talk about race, especially, all those whites only colored, suddenly signed came down, right. And we.
went talking about all of it. We had fixed it. It was solved. We were cool. We could move on. But what we did is we lost our facility to talk about anything related to differences. And there are differences, right? Like there are things that are uniquely white culture and black culture. There are things that are Latin American culture. Now we all don’t have to fit neatly in categories, but we do have cultural features and that’s okay to talk about and okay to think about. We can actually, as you were talking earlier about
Nick McGowan (22:28.45)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (22:48.409)
about what we’re expected to do, we were really talking about the white middle -class American norms of what’s expected to do. Because that’s not true in Brazil where your education would be funded, or it’s not true in a more collectivist culture. So just breaking out of some of those constructs I think can be really helpful as we think about how we connect with others.
Nick McGowan (23:15.242)
Yeah, it’s, it’s really an interesting thing that words are really potent to people and they’re important, but some people can get really attached to just the word and forget. It’s almost like looking at the tree without looking at the forest. You can forget that there are other pieces behind it. So if we take a step away from it and just look at differences, like I think about being in different offices with different people. There are people that need to have an office with walls because they need to be able to work.
even in the sense with the people that are the talkers. That’ll just make their rounds with their cup of coffee and like, hey, did you see blah, blah, blah last night? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s like those people should be put away somewhere that they can do their work and away from the other people. But that’s a difference in how those people are. But also understanding that some of those people, that’s their social time. They don’t really have that social time outside of work and that might just be a thing of it. Then we look at even neurodiversity where somebody may just be distracted or overwhelmed.
Corey Williams (23:52.338)
Hahaha
Nick McGowan (24:14.197)
by all the sounds, sights, smells, all the different things. So if we just look at people and say, well, what are the differences and what do you need? That’s a loving thing to be able to actually help somebody with what they need. It’s completely screwed up for us to go, what you really need is this. Cause that doesn’t make any sense. I worked for a company years ago where they were like, I’m a salesperson for this company at the time.
Corey Williams (24:28.241)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (24:42.345)
And they were like, you’re really loud when you’re on the phone. I’m like, yeah, I know, but I’m closing deals and like, next question, keeping the lights on. What’s the deal? And they were like, we need you to move so that you’re no longer loud around all the other people that are in production. I was like, cool. Give me an office. I’m like, great. We’ll give you an office. We’ll kick a production person out and give you that office. And I was like, well, you just disrupted that person’s flow and we’re disrupting other people’s flows. Like I appreciate the office, but I remember thinking at that point, like I need to go talk to that person. Are you okay?
Corey Williams (24:47.013)
You
Nick McGowan (25:12.446)
Are you okay with me getting out of the space that I’m in to take over your space to be in that? And I remember him saying to me, like, I really work really well in quiet. So now I have headphones and like noise canceling and I’m totally good and where they position him was fine. But I remember thinking like, there’s a disruption, but then you’re disrupting somebody else and trying to just fix symptoms instead of understanding how does everybody best work. And we as people need to understand how we also best work.
I joked with you a bit, even before we hit record, there are people that get up at dumb o ‘clock in the morning and they’re unsure if it’s the morning or just they’re waking up in the middle of the night and calling it daytime. then there are other people that get up later and I’m actively in this spot where I’m like, well, I’m trying to go to bed when I’m tired. Sometimes it’s two, three o ‘clock in the morning and I’m still trying to get seven, eight hours of work, run a business, run podcasts, do all these things, but we have to understand how we work best.
And then look at other people to ask, how do you work with other people? So even with DEI or just anybody, if you think of the different people, it sounds to me like the core concept is, all right, we’ve got this team of people. Everybody’s good at whatever they’re good at. How do we all best to work within that? But then when you work with people, how do you also manage the traumas they’ve been through the system problems, the
jadedness that they have of things don’t ever change and how do you help them see yes there are differences with other people and be able to help them get through that stuff that’s potentially holding them back.
Corey Williams (26:47.717)
Yeah, think oftentimes it’s when people have one narrative that they’ve been telling themselves, like the things are never going to change thing. And one thing I find really helpful, I do it with my kids, I do it with my clients, like that is a possibility. One possibility on the table is things are never going to change. But just for a minute, let’s take that and we’re going to put it over here and we’re going to look at some other things that could happen. And there’s something about like those words that help us say, okay, that’s just a thought.
and I can put that thought over here and I can have other thoughts. So in a feelings or the same way, like I’m having a feeling right now and this feeling’s not gonna last forever. And I can also have another feeling. Like I can put it over here and manage my body, manage my thoughts and create other feelings for myself. One of my kids just gave a speech and she had to talk in front of a big part of her university.
Corey Williams (27:45.957)
And she said, Mom, when you talk to people in front of a whole bunch of people, how do you not be nervous? And I said, you know what I really say to myself is I am here because I have ancestors that survived. They survived the Middle Passage. They survived, you know, the they survived wars. They survived and they survived so that I am in this point right here. And they did that. And so I can do this.
I take a deep breath and I’m like, this is no middle passage. And then I go talk. And I mean, that’s sort of making light of the middle passage, which I don’t intend to do. But it really I try to put in context whatever’s happening with like actual hard stuff over here, because so often I can get inside my own head about, you know, whatever little bump I’m facing.
Nick McGowan (28:17.639)
the
Nick McGowan (28:37.277)
Yeah. What an, I know that you’re not trying to make light of, and I appreciate you saying that. I don’t think it’s like that. And for the most part, I don’t think the audience will think that way either. It’s, it’s being real and looking at something and saying like, well, we’re not going through this. and I’m in this spot and I can do something a little different, also being able to look back and say, because of the work that those people have done, because of all that they suffered through and they work through here I am.
That also brings along with it generational trauma. So even being in that spot where you can talk about things and you can think back through what those situations were, you can’t directly feel what they felt, but it’s still within our DNA unless it’s processed out and worked through. And sometimes some of that just like deep within inside of us that we don’t know until we become aware of it and start to do some work with it. I really appreciate that we’ve been able to talk about that. It’s not just this acronym.
that people are like, I have a hex against, I’m completely pro for, because that’s a very political way to look at it, like you’re picking a side in that sort of way. But looking at what are the differences with people and then how the trauma works within all of that. You’d mentioned something to me before we hit record and you’d even mentioned it a few times here on the recording about an assault that you’d gone through. I would like to get into that because that is a thing where if we look at any sort of trauma that happens to somebody,
If it happens with a group of people or if it happens with a certain type of person, that can then shift the way that we think or we operate being around those people or anything that happens with that. And that can bleed into everything else that we do and even make us feel hatred or despise other things and people, all of that. So do you care to share a little bit of what that background was and how that entails and what you do?
Corey Williams (30:29.309)
Yeah, sure, sure. Well, so I told you a little bit about 25 year old Cory. So I’ll paint the picture for you. 25 year old Cory was living in a gated neighborhood with, her first baby and was on her way to having several more, was married. My kids went to kind of a prestigious private school. We had lots of resources and
I spent most of my time caring for the kids and volunteering. And I was volunteering for a local children’s museum and we had started a campaign to build a larger facility. And I was chairing this big event committee and on the night of the big event, it stormed like crazy. And we were outside on a parking deck where the, where the museum was going to be built. so water is just streaming in. The police officers are trying to get it off the tent. And we run into a nearby bar.
And I say that because it sort of changed the dynamics, I think, around the fundraiser. And I ended up sitting and talking to one of our largest underwriters for the event. He and I are talking. At some point, the bar is closing. He said, hey, can why don’t we run to this other bar down the like six doors down? We’ll have another drink and then go home. And I said, sure. So we go down the way. One of my friends comes. She gets key. She leaves. I think I’m there with
this human and a bartender. What I don’t know is that he and the bartender have done this before and I’m really alone with two people who are going to assault me. I don’t have full memory of the event, but at some point they locked me in the bar and I remember a drink being handed to me and then things just get really soupy. I have bits and pieces, memory of my face being pressed on the bar stool.
a memory of one of them walking towards me and taking off his pants. And that’s one of those moments where you’re like, wait, this other person behind me is going to be like, what are you doing? And the other person behind me was not like, what are you doing? So that’s the first time I think that I really recognized something was off. I went through the entire process. I woke up the next morning, put kind of put things back together in my mind, contacted my therapist who was wonderful.
Corey Williams (32:55.685)
went to the hospital and had a rape kit done. If you haven’t ever had a rape kit done, it is quite an experience. Many hospitals have sexual assault nurse examiners, SANE nurses is what they’re called. they, at my hospital, they volunteer and they do the work after their shift. So unfortunately, by the time they took samples from me, including my blood sample, were,
No drugs in my system that could be found. They did take lots of samples. And when I say lots of samples, we’re talking about ripping. You have to have the root of the hair. So ripping out like five strands of your hair, your pubic hair, taking tissue samples, dyeing your vagina and anus and photographing it. And one of the weirdest parts of it is that they have to wear.
the samples because there’s a chain of evidence and the sexual assault nurse has to be in control of the evidence for legal reasons. as she’s doing this, she’s literally wearing vials and boxes and things all over her body. it was its own trauma, having already experienced that happening to my body. I remember during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings really feeling activated.
by some of the things I was hearing people say about accusations of sexual assault. I shared online, if someone, if a human goes through the rape kit process, I’m pretty sure something bad happened to them because it’s the kind of thing you would get up and walk out of. it is not, it’s not something one would willingly do. But I ended up pursuing it. The DA in your,
town is ultimately who chooses whether someone is criminally prosecuted. So I couldn’t choose to criminally prosecute him. They had them on video. They had bruises all over my body. I had them photographed. Anyhow, he was never charged criminally. Neither of them were. That moment in my life was so…
Corey Williams (35:18.275)
overwhelming. Everything that I had sort of moored myself to no longer made much sense. Things that I thought were important didn’t feel important anymore. Like glittery gowns and centerpieces suddenly weren’t what I was thinking about. And then a lot of the people who had been there that night, who I thought were friends, said things to me like, this is just too much drama. I don’t want to get in the middle of things like this.
the, the person who assaulted me, one of them was a parent at the school and, and it caused some, some stress in the community. and so I really, I ended up taking my kids out of the school. I moved, my marriage didn’t survive. the, the, process of the sexual assault and all the legal pieces of the pie. and so.
two, three years later, I looked in the mirror and I saw a really different person. A person with far fewer friends, but the friends I had were friends I could count on. And a person who knew, let shame go. One of the things I think that keeps us silent in situations like that is shame. We think we’ve done something wrong. We think that if we hadn’t,
done this or done that, or I shouldn’t have gone to that bar. Why was I alone with him? Like we tell ourselves all of those stories and we do it because we’re shamed that we’re in this spot. It wasn’t my shame and I refused to take it on. And it really was life altering for me, to not to to refuse shame. So now, even now, when I think about it, when people say, you know, if if I have a problem.
Or if I have something and I’m reflecting on it, I’m like, did I do the right thing? Like, do you feel guilty, Corey, or do you feel shame? Because we’re not feeling shame over here. Shame is not productive. Shame just shuts you down. Shame is about your perception of other people’s perception of you. Guilt is like, am I in line with my conscience and my beliefs? Do I feel guilty? Like, that’s useful, that’s productive. But shame, shame is gone. And I will say, I have learned something from Trump, right? Like, because that is a man who doesn’t feel a lot of shame.
Nick McGowan (37:24.379)
Mm -hmm.
Nick McGowan (37:36.104)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (37:47.55)
Silver lining.
Corey Williams (37:47.643)
Right? He just keeps on going. Right. I’m like, yeah, you know, you really when you don’t feel shame, when you can say this isn’t mine to take on, you’re really free. Now you can use that freeness for good or you can use that freeness for evil. But but really just letting go of that that feeling refusing to like hang my head and act like I had done something wrong.
Nick McGowan (38:03.282)
evil.
Corey Williams (38:17.053)
I was like, no, I’m throwing elbows. I’m going to go into, if I’m in the auditorium, he needs to leave. I’m not leaving. You know, and really, I don’t know, I think I really fully started to come into myself and really sort of recognize that there was so much more important stuff than private schools and, and, and, you know, dinner parties and children’s trunk shows and this world that I had been.
involved in. And I’m so grateful for that moment in my life because it was transformative and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You know, it’s both.
Nick McGowan (38:57.562)
Yeah. yeah. It’s tough. Like if we could all just learn those big lessons and have that feeling of this is more of a purpose work for me to do without going through the traumatic and really difficult and challenging chapters in life, then great. That’s not the reality. That’s not the world we live in. That’s not how this material plane works. That’s just not what this is like.
And we do have to go through those challenging chapters. Some people will crumble. Some people will start to crack and then they’ll heal and they’ll get better. Just like how our bones, when our bones break and they heal back, they’re stronger. But it’s a matter of actually working through that stuff. I love that you understand that shame doesn’t have a place. That can be a really hard thing for people to get to because shame is the root of addiction. It’s the root of so many bad things and there’s so much that’s tied to it.
And we feel like our personalities are also tied to the shame that we have. Typically from something that happened when we were younger or even childhood experience wise when we’re in developmental stages. For you to look at that and say, this isn’t a part of it. And to understand that you are shaped because of that, that’s huge. That’s probably not a thing that happened the Tuesday after it all happened. It was years later to be able to get to that point. And what a tough thing.
Corey Williams (40:22.597)
No, and I did years and years and years of psychotherapy. So I get to credit a lot of my understanding of myself and the narratives that I have told myself and I’m learning some of the patterns of my behavior, psychotherapy. Therapy is a blessing. And if you ask my parents now, they would say that therapy for me has been one of the best things to happen to our family because I’ve been able to show up differently.
Nick McGowan (40:34.946)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (40:41.189)
yeah.
Corey Williams (40:52.529)
when something is like, I don’t think that’s fair. Like don’t think that’s a fair comment and we’re going to step back and zoom out. And I just approach things so much differently now that I think, you know, both my mom and my dad have told me that therapy has been good for all of us. My therapy.
Nick McGowan (41:08.886)
Hmm. Sure. Yeah. What a beautiful thing. And you’re able to make that ripple effect from where you’re at and be able to have that change. It happens within you that then shows other people, hey, you can change as well. Even if it’s not a matter of just changing drastically, but looking at things a little differently. I’m sorry that you went through that. I really do appreciate that you look at it the way that you do and that you’ve been open to sharing it.
Corey Williams (41:28.817)
Absolutely. Thank you.
Nick McGowan (41:34.858)
Along the lines of all of that, what’s the piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self -mastery?
Corey Williams (41:41.025)
you’re in charge of your narrative, the stories that you tell yourself. And that is, I think, the most control we have, the meaning that we make out of our choices and what happens to us. So focusing on those stories that you’re telling yourself and whether they’re serving you or not serving you, I think is so much more important than a rigid routine or getting up on time or, you know,
Nick McGowan (42:08.288)
the
Corey Williams (42:10.435)
or only eating this. We humans have such a hard time with moderation, don’t we? We like extremes. They don’t have, there’s no TV in this house or I’m only going to run marathons tomorrow, you know? But if we can, if we can sit still and say, okay, what have I been telling myself today? Is it serving me? What is it connected to? How do I change it? Or am I comfortable with it?
So much can change when we stop telling ourselves these stories, these narratives that make up, especially those of us who like to make ourselves the bad guy. You know, that when we can alter those, it makes a big difference.
Nick McGowan (42:54.391)
Absolutely. Corey, it’s been great to have you on today. I appreciate you getting into everything you’ve gotten into. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Corey Williams (43:04.335)
Yeah, so you can connect with me at sarcollective .com or I’m on Facebook. I’m Cori Williams, so you can find me there.
Nick McGowan (43:13.463)
Awesome. Corey, again, thank you so much for being with us today.
Corey Williams (43:17.565)
Thank you.
https://youtu.be/0DITDV3TXQg
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By Nick McGowan“I grew up thinking that a lot of things were tied to education and poverty. I could get a great education, and if I wasn’t poor, none of the other problems, including racism, for example, would exist.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Corey Williams about her experiences growing up in Alabama and the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). She shares how her upbringing and family shaped her perspective on race and class and how she has evolved in her understanding of privilege and marginalized identities. She challenges the notion of a meritocracy and highlights the value of every individual’s worth. Overall, the conversation explores the complexities of DEI and the importance of education in fostering understanding and empathy.
What to listen for:
“I am here because I have ancestors that survived. They survived the Middle Passage. They survived wars. They survived. And they survived so that I am in this point right here, and they did that, and so I can do this.”
“What DEI is really supposed to be about is helping people understand how teams, groups of people can work best together, most productively for the individuals and most effectively for the team.”
“DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion is really about all kinds of identity. So we’re not just talking about race or gender or sexuality. We’re talking about neurodiversity, we’re talking about disability status, we’re talking about veteran status. Most people have some marginalized identity, and we all benefit when we can see one another more fully and connect across our differences.”
About Corey Williams
Corey was born in Alabama and went off to Harvard with less than zero self-awareness. For a long time, she believed that identities didn’t matter. And then, through challenging experiences like having babies and being sexually assaulted, she found that her identity was very much at issue. It has taken her on a long journey that’s led to DEI consulting with nonprofits, schools, Silicon Valley startups, and Fortune 500 companies.
Resources:
Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!
Thank you for listening!
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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”
Click To View The Episode Transcript
Nick McGowan (00:01.824)
Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self -Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan and today on the show I have Corey Williams. Corey, how are doing today?
Corey Williams (00:12.573)
I’m great.
Nick McGowan (00:14.39)
I’m really excited for us to get into all the things that we’re going to talk about. There’s some deep stuff that I think really relates to a lot of people. Like we were talking a little bit about sexual assaults and COVID and diseases and just different things that come from different situations. So this is going to be kind of a tearjerker in certain ways, but I think there are some beautiful things that you’re going to be able to bring to the table of what you’ve done and how you’ve worked through that stuff. So why don’t you tell us who are you?
What do do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?
Corey Williams (00:49.373)
It’s hard to narrow it down to one odd thing, but I am a honorary colonel in the Alabama National Guard. I got that distinction because I was junior Miss Alabama growing up. I grew up in Alabama and ended up leaving, going to Harvard.
Nick McGowan (00:51.661)
Give me a few if you want.
Nick McGowan (01:04.981)
Nice.
Corey Williams (01:18.897)
Having kids, now I’m in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I spend my professional time as an HR consultant, primarily doing DEI work. And I live in Chapel Hill where DEI has just been like completely wiped off the surface of the campus. So you’re talking to a woman with a little more time on her hands than normal.
Nick McGowan (01:27.263)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (01:38.785)
Well, I think the DEI thing is a thing that we need to talk about too. I mean, here we are right now at the end of August, prepping for what is potentially another kind of shit show for four years. There are a few different things to go through, but I see how DEI is a big topic and it bewilders me how people want it removed. I can understand where people want things to be equal.
Corey Williams (01:38.898)
You
Nick McGowan (02:05.6)
but how they’re removing things and saying you’re pushing on one side or the other where that, from my understanding, isn’t really what it’s supposed to be. It’s just a privileged perspective looking at it saying, you’re forgetting us, the people who are privileged. I understand that coming from a white pan. There’s a lot in that. So why don’t you talk to us a little bit about what that means and what you’re seeing, why that’s disappearing where you’re at.
Corey Williams (02:30.363)
Yeah. Well, I think it’s an issue that’s a wedge issue. So it’s an easy one to get people to rally against or for because they don’t really understand what it entails. DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion is really about all kinds of identity. So we’re not just talking about race or gender or sexuality. We’re talking about neurodiversity. We’re talking about disability status. We’re talking about veteran status.
So all sorts of things that actually relate to all different kinds of people. Most people have some marginalized identity and we’re all benefited when we can see one another more fully and connect across our differences. I I grew up in Alabama, 1976. So here we are, we’re what? A little more than 10 years past the loving decision that made interracial marriage legal. My parents, my mom is black, my dad is white.
And growing up in Alabama was a challenge. Our town was largely segregated still. And I didn’t know anyone who was biracial other than in my family until I went away to college. But it really has shaped who I am. I had one grandfather who was the editor of a major newspaper in Kansas and then in Everett, Washington. And I had another grandfather who couldn’t read.
Nick McGowan (03:39.006)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (03:53.493)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (03:53.789)
I had one grandma who made lamb with mint jelly and she had this silver water service and it was all very fancy and happy hours at 5 .30 and dinner was at six. And my other grandma made ceramic Jesuses with 14 karat gold plating on them at the senior center and had a revolver on her coffee table. It was a very bifurcated way to grow up and they were both still very much involved in my life.
And they both taught me a lot of the same lessons. And so for me, it’s always been more natural, I think, and easy to communicate with people from all different walks of life. I mean, I think I was code switching before I knew what code switching was. If you talk to me when I’m around my family, I sound completely different. If you talk to me around folks from Alabama, I’ve got an accent again, you know? And I mean, people from people who are really from the North right now probably like, you got an accent now, honey.
Nick McGowan (04:51.278)
Yeah
Corey Williams (04:52.027)
But that’s all right. That’s all right. She should heard it before.
Nick McGowan (04:55.379)
Yeah, there’s a bit of it. I’m originally from Philadelphia, so people can hear when I sound really Philly and I talk about water and things of that sort, but I’ve lived in Florida and there were a lot of people when I lived in Florida that were like, well, honey, you need to calm down a little bit. I was like, I’m just excited about this thing. Like, what the hell’s your problem? They’re like, bless your heart. I’m like, that really means fuck off. So hold up there.
Corey Williams (05:04.434)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (05:13.575)
You
Corey Williams (05:21.337)
It can. It can. If you say something like, know, bless your heart. She can’t cook worth a damn bless her heart. That, yeah, that’s me.
Nick McGowan (05:29.097)
Yeah. I always enjoyed the, I love so and so to death, but like the but afterwards is always brutal. Like you want them to get hit by a truck or something. You’re like, but what about the, love that person thing. Like, what is that? Everywhere has their own little spots. That’s gotta be an interesting situation growing up in either side of that. And I’m really glad that you pointed out that everybody is a bit marginalized in some sort of way, no matter what is going on.
Corey Williams (05:40.082)
yes.
Corey Williams (05:45.674)
I do.
Nick McGowan (05:58.569)
And that’s, that can be to kind of level the playing field in a sense, but also to be able to understand we’re all a bit different, be it neurodivergency or even just being different from some of the people in your family. Like, I’m a creative, I’ve always been a creative. I’ve got a couple of engineers in my family that do not understand the creative thing at all. And that is in some ways marginalized, but not the exact same as somebody who is the only black person in their entire area.
Corey Williams (06:11.087)
yeah.
Nick McGowan (06:27.762)
And for you to be able to experience being in the South, even in the seventies and going into the eighties, like things were, were not where they are now. And we’re still not where we should be. And even if you think back to the fifties and sixties where things are really starting to change, but they were still turmoil and all that stuff. Like here we are now. So what you learned from your grandparents, was there still like a, a tinge of hate to it or things that you can look at and say,
I want to omit some of that because that was still of the old mindset or were they progressive in that sense where they were like more loving and understanding.
Corey Williams (07:06.641)
You know, in the spirit of being very vulnerable, there were some things, think, especially with my family that was my black family in Alabama, the family I was closest to. My grandma grew up what I call like Alabama poor, like no running water, poor, no electricity, poor, special poor. And she really saw, even though she had a sixth grade education,
Nick McGowan (07:23.721)
Hmm
Corey Williams (07:35.213)
until I was in high school when I taught her algebra one summer and she went back to school and got her GED and ended up working as a teaching assistant. But she always saw education as the way out and she saw lack of education as the problems that she was facing. So I grew up thinking that a lot of things were tied to education and poverty. And if I could overcome
Nick McGowan (07:49.481)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (07:54.248)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (08:03.165)
If I could get a great education and if I wasn’t poor, none of the other problems, including racism, for example, would exist. So if you knew 25 year old Cory, 25 year old Cory would have told you, I didn’t experience racism. 25 year old Cory had a really tough time conceptualizing things related to race as opposed to class. And so I think
Nick McGowan (08:19.516)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (08:29.607)
Okay.
Corey Williams (08:31.809)
like many of us, you know, grew up with sort of this like bootstrap mentality, that we can just, we can all make it and we all have, the same, obstacles and privileges when in fact I had a ton of privileges. Other people didn’t have, I mean, I did have, you know, one grandmother who was quite poor. My dad went to Stanford, right? Like my mom was college educated. Alabama’s junior mess paid for two years at Harvard. had.
Nick McGowan (08:47.497)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (09:00.477)
I did work, but I didn’t have to work like a lot of people have to work. and recognizing that I have those privileges doesn’t take anything away from the hard work that I did. But I grew up with this sort of mentality, a kind of respectability politics that sometimes black families have. And I remember vividly, I was talking about this with my mother the other day, my grandma capped us in the summer so my mom could go to college. My mom was 19 when she had me.
Nick McGowan (09:03.868)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (09:18.994)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (09:29.883)
She won a hot pants contest. She was something. Anyway, my grandma would keep us in the summer and there was a little girl next door and she’s a little older than me and she had a bunch of brothers and sisters that were all running around. They didn’t have shoes on and they didn’t have a parent home most of the time and she was taking care of a baby and I wanted to play with her so bad. I I remember like holding her hand through the chain link fence.
Nick McGowan (09:59.506)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (09:59.611)
while we were talking. cause I just wanted to play with her. We couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old, but my grandma was like, you don’t hang out with girls like that. You come back on in here. You know, there was a real sense of like my grandma had of people who were going somewhere and people who weren’t going somewhere and she didn’t want me involved with that. I understand that. And right. That’s not the way, that’s not the way I want to approach my life now. but it’s certainly something I grew up with.
Nick McGowan (10:19.972)
Mm
Nick McGowan (10:26.76)
Wow, I think the biggest thing that you pointed out just right then was the and. It’s not a but, it’s an and, which I’m sure couples with why you’re in DEI and doing what you’re doing, because there is an and to it. It can be really difficult to not just ingest all the things that we’re told as little kids and just go, this is how it is, and this is the way it is. I think there’s racism that…
different people have that they don’t know that they have because they just thought this is how this is, or you don’t hang out with those kids. And it’s a weird thing to think like, yeah, I can understand where they’re like, I don’t want you to get in trouble. I love you and I want you to be all right. At the same time, a human needs to kind of go along their own path and experience things. And they also need to see that other people are just in different walks at different times doing slightly different things, but still trying to live a good life.
and trying to do things that are right for them with the information that they have. So knowing what you know now and where you’re at and the job and the work that you do, how does that impact when you look at what you had grown up with and all the things that you’re doing now for people?
Corey Williams (11:43.505)
Yeah, I mean, in so many ways, I credit my parents and my grandparents for the work that I do now because they were all ahead of their time. And they were all willing and still are willing to slow down and have really deep and complicated and difficult conversations with me about race or gender or sexuality. I mean, I’m bisexual and I didn’t tell my parents that until I was in my 30s, post being sexually assaulted. So, you know, they’ve had
And they came right along on the journey. They had a lot of questions. My dad had too many questions. Like, dad, do you really want to know? Do you?
Nick McGowan (12:21.99)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (12:25.787)
He didn’t.
Nick McGowan (12:26.827)
yeah, yeah. I’m glad he didn’t.
Corey Williams (12:30.333)
My kids will ask questions. I kind of have the reputation in the neighborhood of being the mom that will answer any question. And so sometimes I have to call the parent and say, your child has just asked me, you know, what’s a vibrator? And so I have to say, may I explain? I, you know, here, remember the two reasons I told you, one is people use it to have sex and people use it to feel good.
Nick McGowan (12:46.885)
Ha ha.
Corey Williams (12:59.239)
to make babies or feel good. And we’ll go into all of that. But I always tell the kids, I will answer any question you have honestly. And do you really wanna know the answer to that question yet? And sometimes they’ll look at me and be like, no, I’m eight. I’m eight, I’m cool, nah.
Nick McGowan (13:17.486)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (13:21.124)
I’m gonna go play on the tire swing now. See ya.
Corey Williams (13:24.347)
Yeah, probably don’t want to know.
Nick McGowan (13:26.747)
Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s been brought to my attention, I think within the past year, maybe year and a half, that children are the most oppressed people in the entire globe. And when I first heard that, was like, well, that, shit, that makes a lot of sense actually. Like when you think about children are supposed to be seen, not heard, which is a bunch of horse shit. And again, like being able to go, well, I’ve been on this planet a little longer.
Corey Williams (13:45.799)
Yeah
Nick McGowan (13:54.872)
I’ve thought through things, I’ve made mistakes. Look kid, I don’t want you to do that, but here’s what you can do, et cetera, et For you to be able to be in that spot, to be able to be a resource for them, that’s huge. But also being able to speak to kids like they are adults without pushing things onto them. And that seems like it’s a balance act where like there were some things that I remember some of my mom’s friends would say,
or say around me or say directly to me as a little kid where I was like, I don’t really know if that makes any sense. And then when I got older, I was like, what the fuck was wrong with that adult? Why would they say those things? Why would they do that? What was that? Then there are others that are like, all right, kid, you may not be old enough, but here’s the level that I can give you. Here’s how I can help you understand and help them actually learn how to grow. So back to the education piece, you were talking about how your grandma or even both of them were like education, education, education.
Corey Williams (14:34.64)
Right, right.
Nick McGowan (14:55.11)
There’s system issues, there’s system errors with things, especially when it comes to education, let alone all the people that are poor or rich or whatever, they’re all systems. But when we look at the education system, we’ve all been told you need to go to school, then you need to pay to go to another school where they give you a piece of paper, it says you’re allowed to get a job, and then you can work there for however long and then retire off of 40 % of what you couldn’t really live off of anyway. Good luck kid, go have at it. That’s part of the system.
Corey Williams (15:22.753)
Sounds like fun.
Nick McGowan (15:23.84)
Yeah, like fucking sign me up. And you’ve gone through those things and there’s no shade tossed at anybody that has gone to school or college or hasn’t gone to college, but overlooking the whole system and how education, I agree that education is a major piece. It’s how we learn and how we grow. But the system itself can still be a deterrent to certain people, even people getting into college. Like the fact that you had
privilege to be able to get into school and be able to not have to pay for the first few years. It still was a lot for you to be able to get into the school that you got into. I’m an art kid. I was an art kid growing up and I’m a creative. So I remember being in 11th grade when they’re talking to you about, right, we need to get you ready for college. One of the counselors told me like, well, we can get you into art school or we can get you in music school, but you won’t make any money. So what do you want to do? And was like, well, fuck this. I don’t want to be here.
And I remember just walking out and be like, well, this is stupid. I think I took two real classes senior year and the rest of it was basically art and early dismissal because that didn’t seem like that would be a path that I could climb. But I also didn’t have the help with those people to be able to do that. And there’s privilege and there’s all the different pieces that go with it. But let’s talk about education. Let’s talk about how that ties into DEI and how people aren’t fully educated on what that is. And you touched on that a little bit before. So.
Corey Williams (16:22.428)
You
Nick McGowan (16:51.001)
with the people that are listening that are trying to figure out where do I fit in within either an organization or my own organization, or even just within the world, understanding from the perspective of education and DEI.
Corey Williams (17:05.787)
Yeah, gosh, that’s a big one. So I think a lot of people think that diversity, equity, inclusion, they equate it with affirmative action. They equate it with giving someone something that they did not earn. Now I’m going to blow a few people’s minds here and say that we do not live in a meritocracy. In fact, and I don’t personally think that we should live in a meritocracy.
There are lots of people who aren’t born with certain gifts. And I personally can’t play basketball, but if we only valued basketball players in this culture, I would be someone who was not afforded opportunities. I don’t think that merit is the only thing that matters. I actually think that every human has worth simply because they are another living, breathing thing on this planet with us. and.
The very notion, for example, that say a black or Latina woman is promoted because she is black or Latina or because she’s a woman is in and of itself a racist or sexist assumption. Now, I don’t believe that people are racist or sexist. People are just people. They may have a racist thought, may have a sexist action, but we’re all more than our
we’re all more than our actions and our thoughts. Those are changeable, right? We can absolutely change those things and we can intervene in them. And so I would say to the folks who see it just as affirmative action is that’s really small. What DEI is really supposed to be about, and there’s some good reasons why people don’t understand what it’s about, and a lot of them have to do with the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death, but
Nick McGowan (18:41.348)
Mm
Corey Williams (19:02.149)
What DEI is really supposed to be about is helping people understand how teams, groups of people can work best together, most productively for the individuals and most effectively for the team. So for an organization, it’s really about how to overcome those things that would otherwise become the things that make people quit, that would otherwise become the things that turn into sexual harassment, right? Like how do we navigate differences
Nick McGowan (19:23.212)
Mm -hmm.
Corey Williams (19:31.205)
so that we are all working together and doing it in a way that allows everybody to use their full talents and thrive. an accommodation isn’t unfair because someone’s neurodiverse or neurodivergent and they need a hard wall office. In fact, that’s just what that person needs, right? It’s easy to look at this as sort of like a zero sum fairness issue, but if that person can do their work and I don’t have two more extra hours of work,
Yay, hard wall office, right? So diversity, equity, inclusion is really about getting to the bottom of those things. And the way we get to the bottom of those things is data. It’s actually by looking across organizations at the different verticals and saying, OK, where do we have inefficiencies? Where are we losing people? Why do we have people that look like this here? Why do we have people who have this educational background here? Why have we never hired a veteran? Right.
Nick McGowan (19:59.497)
Yeah
Nick McGowan (20:08.845)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (20:24.727)
and to really thoughtfully engage on all of these questions. So I hope that that demystifies DEI just a little bit and makes it seem a little bit less like the devil. But I certainly can understand that it feels like the world has changed very fast to some people. I think that the acronym soup of DEI and the language can be really intimidating for some people. And so really just
Nick McGowan (20:35.873)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (20:54.171)
like using common language and reaching people where they are and not being attached to, for example, just the word being right. If someone’s really trying to connect with me and the intent is right and the word is like kind of an old fashioned, here’s a great example. Colored, the word colored, right? I was talking to an older woman who was using colored people because she thought it sounded like people of color and that’s what she grew up with, colored people.
Nick McGowan (21:04.739)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (21:22.198)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (21:24.303)
And so, you know, we navigated that. And I also explained, I don’t really like African -American because I’ve never actually been to Africa. I don’t have any relationship with the continent that I that wasn’t that wasn’t severed by transatlantic slavery. so for me, African -American feels like something I’m doing for other people. Black is what I am. So we worked through all of that. And by the end, she was like, OK, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to call you black, but I’m going to try.
Nick McGowan (21:52.546)
Yeah.
Corey Williams (21:53.737)
and so I definitely think there is a kind of education that needs to go on about, about DEI and, we’re not going to get anywhere by not talking about these things. post post civil rights movement, we got super scared to talk about race, especially, all those whites only colored, suddenly signed came down, right. And we.
went talking about all of it. We had fixed it. It was solved. We were cool. We could move on. But what we did is we lost our facility to talk about anything related to differences. And there are differences, right? Like there are things that are uniquely white culture and black culture. There are things that are Latin American culture. Now we all don’t have to fit neatly in categories, but we do have cultural features and that’s okay to talk about and okay to think about. We can actually, as you were talking earlier about
Nick McGowan (22:28.45)
Hmm.
Corey Williams (22:48.409)
about what we’re expected to do, we were really talking about the white middle -class American norms of what’s expected to do. Because that’s not true in Brazil where your education would be funded, or it’s not true in a more collectivist culture. So just breaking out of some of those constructs I think can be really helpful as we think about how we connect with others.
Nick McGowan (23:15.242)
Yeah, it’s, it’s really an interesting thing that words are really potent to people and they’re important, but some people can get really attached to just the word and forget. It’s almost like looking at the tree without looking at the forest. You can forget that there are other pieces behind it. So if we take a step away from it and just look at differences, like I think about being in different offices with different people. There are people that need to have an office with walls because they need to be able to work.
even in the sense with the people that are the talkers. That’ll just make their rounds with their cup of coffee and like, hey, did you see blah, blah, blah last night? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s like those people should be put away somewhere that they can do their work and away from the other people. But that’s a difference in how those people are. But also understanding that some of those people, that’s their social time. They don’t really have that social time outside of work and that might just be a thing of it. Then we look at even neurodiversity where somebody may just be distracted or overwhelmed.
Corey Williams (23:52.338)
Hahaha
Nick McGowan (24:14.197)
by all the sounds, sights, smells, all the different things. So if we just look at people and say, well, what are the differences and what do you need? That’s a loving thing to be able to actually help somebody with what they need. It’s completely screwed up for us to go, what you really need is this. Cause that doesn’t make any sense. I worked for a company years ago where they were like, I’m a salesperson for this company at the time.
Corey Williams (24:28.241)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (24:42.345)
And they were like, you’re really loud when you’re on the phone. I’m like, yeah, I know, but I’m closing deals and like, next question, keeping the lights on. What’s the deal? And they were like, we need you to move so that you’re no longer loud around all the other people that are in production. I was like, cool. Give me an office. I’m like, great. We’ll give you an office. We’ll kick a production person out and give you that office. And I was like, well, you just disrupted that person’s flow and we’re disrupting other people’s flows. Like I appreciate the office, but I remember thinking at that point, like I need to go talk to that person. Are you okay?
Corey Williams (24:47.013)
You
Nick McGowan (25:12.446)
Are you okay with me getting out of the space that I’m in to take over your space to be in that? And I remember him saying to me, like, I really work really well in quiet. So now I have headphones and like noise canceling and I’m totally good and where they position him was fine. But I remember thinking like, there’s a disruption, but then you’re disrupting somebody else and trying to just fix symptoms instead of understanding how does everybody best work. And we as people need to understand how we also best work.
I joked with you a bit, even before we hit record, there are people that get up at dumb o ‘clock in the morning and they’re unsure if it’s the morning or just they’re waking up in the middle of the night and calling it daytime. then there are other people that get up later and I’m actively in this spot where I’m like, well, I’m trying to go to bed when I’m tired. Sometimes it’s two, three o ‘clock in the morning and I’m still trying to get seven, eight hours of work, run a business, run podcasts, do all these things, but we have to understand how we work best.
And then look at other people to ask, how do you work with other people? So even with DEI or just anybody, if you think of the different people, it sounds to me like the core concept is, all right, we’ve got this team of people. Everybody’s good at whatever they’re good at. How do we all best to work within that? But then when you work with people, how do you also manage the traumas they’ve been through the system problems, the
jadedness that they have of things don’t ever change and how do you help them see yes there are differences with other people and be able to help them get through that stuff that’s potentially holding them back.
Corey Williams (26:47.717)
Yeah, think oftentimes it’s when people have one narrative that they’ve been telling themselves, like the things are never going to change thing. And one thing I find really helpful, I do it with my kids, I do it with my clients, like that is a possibility. One possibility on the table is things are never going to change. But just for a minute, let’s take that and we’re going to put it over here and we’re going to look at some other things that could happen. And there’s something about like those words that help us say, okay, that’s just a thought.
and I can put that thought over here and I can have other thoughts. So in a feelings or the same way, like I’m having a feeling right now and this feeling’s not gonna last forever. And I can also have another feeling. Like I can put it over here and manage my body, manage my thoughts and create other feelings for myself. One of my kids just gave a speech and she had to talk in front of a big part of her university.
Corey Williams (27:45.957)
And she said, Mom, when you talk to people in front of a whole bunch of people, how do you not be nervous? And I said, you know what I really say to myself is I am here because I have ancestors that survived. They survived the Middle Passage. They survived, you know, the they survived wars. They survived and they survived so that I am in this point right here. And they did that. And so I can do this.
I take a deep breath and I’m like, this is no middle passage. And then I go talk. And I mean, that’s sort of making light of the middle passage, which I don’t intend to do. But it really I try to put in context whatever’s happening with like actual hard stuff over here, because so often I can get inside my own head about, you know, whatever little bump I’m facing.
Nick McGowan (28:17.639)
the
Nick McGowan (28:37.277)
Yeah. What an, I know that you’re not trying to make light of, and I appreciate you saying that. I don’t think it’s like that. And for the most part, I don’t think the audience will think that way either. It’s, it’s being real and looking at something and saying like, well, we’re not going through this. and I’m in this spot and I can do something a little different, also being able to look back and say, because of the work that those people have done, because of all that they suffered through and they work through here I am.
That also brings along with it generational trauma. So even being in that spot where you can talk about things and you can think back through what those situations were, you can’t directly feel what they felt, but it’s still within our DNA unless it’s processed out and worked through. And sometimes some of that just like deep within inside of us that we don’t know until we become aware of it and start to do some work with it. I really appreciate that we’ve been able to talk about that. It’s not just this acronym.
that people are like, I have a hex against, I’m completely pro for, because that’s a very political way to look at it, like you’re picking a side in that sort of way. But looking at what are the differences with people and then how the trauma works within all of that. You’d mentioned something to me before we hit record and you’d even mentioned it a few times here on the recording about an assault that you’d gone through. I would like to get into that because that is a thing where if we look at any sort of trauma that happens to somebody,
If it happens with a group of people or if it happens with a certain type of person, that can then shift the way that we think or we operate being around those people or anything that happens with that. And that can bleed into everything else that we do and even make us feel hatred or despise other things and people, all of that. So do you care to share a little bit of what that background was and how that entails and what you do?
Corey Williams (30:29.309)
Yeah, sure, sure. Well, so I told you a little bit about 25 year old Cory. So I’ll paint the picture for you. 25 year old Cory was living in a gated neighborhood with, her first baby and was on her way to having several more, was married. My kids went to kind of a prestigious private school. We had lots of resources and
I spent most of my time caring for the kids and volunteering. And I was volunteering for a local children’s museum and we had started a campaign to build a larger facility. And I was chairing this big event committee and on the night of the big event, it stormed like crazy. And we were outside on a parking deck where the, where the museum was going to be built. so water is just streaming in. The police officers are trying to get it off the tent. And we run into a nearby bar.
And I say that because it sort of changed the dynamics, I think, around the fundraiser. And I ended up sitting and talking to one of our largest underwriters for the event. He and I are talking. At some point, the bar is closing. He said, hey, can why don’t we run to this other bar down the like six doors down? We’ll have another drink and then go home. And I said, sure. So we go down the way. One of my friends comes. She gets key. She leaves. I think I’m there with
this human and a bartender. What I don’t know is that he and the bartender have done this before and I’m really alone with two people who are going to assault me. I don’t have full memory of the event, but at some point they locked me in the bar and I remember a drink being handed to me and then things just get really soupy. I have bits and pieces, memory of my face being pressed on the bar stool.
a memory of one of them walking towards me and taking off his pants. And that’s one of those moments where you’re like, wait, this other person behind me is going to be like, what are you doing? And the other person behind me was not like, what are you doing? So that’s the first time I think that I really recognized something was off. I went through the entire process. I woke up the next morning, put kind of put things back together in my mind, contacted my therapist who was wonderful.
Corey Williams (32:55.685)
went to the hospital and had a rape kit done. If you haven’t ever had a rape kit done, it is quite an experience. Many hospitals have sexual assault nurse examiners, SANE nurses is what they’re called. they, at my hospital, they volunteer and they do the work after their shift. So unfortunately, by the time they took samples from me, including my blood sample, were,
No drugs in my system that could be found. They did take lots of samples. And when I say lots of samples, we’re talking about ripping. You have to have the root of the hair. So ripping out like five strands of your hair, your pubic hair, taking tissue samples, dyeing your vagina and anus and photographing it. And one of the weirdest parts of it is that they have to wear.
the samples because there’s a chain of evidence and the sexual assault nurse has to be in control of the evidence for legal reasons. as she’s doing this, she’s literally wearing vials and boxes and things all over her body. it was its own trauma, having already experienced that happening to my body. I remember during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings really feeling activated.
by some of the things I was hearing people say about accusations of sexual assault. I shared online, if someone, if a human goes through the rape kit process, I’m pretty sure something bad happened to them because it’s the kind of thing you would get up and walk out of. it is not, it’s not something one would willingly do. But I ended up pursuing it. The DA in your,
town is ultimately who chooses whether someone is criminally prosecuted. So I couldn’t choose to criminally prosecute him. They had them on video. They had bruises all over my body. I had them photographed. Anyhow, he was never charged criminally. Neither of them were. That moment in my life was so…
Corey Williams (35:18.275)
overwhelming. Everything that I had sort of moored myself to no longer made much sense. Things that I thought were important didn’t feel important anymore. Like glittery gowns and centerpieces suddenly weren’t what I was thinking about. And then a lot of the people who had been there that night, who I thought were friends, said things to me like, this is just too much drama. I don’t want to get in the middle of things like this.
the, the person who assaulted me, one of them was a parent at the school and, and it caused some, some stress in the community. and so I really, I ended up taking my kids out of the school. I moved, my marriage didn’t survive. the, the, process of the sexual assault and all the legal pieces of the pie. and so.
two, three years later, I looked in the mirror and I saw a really different person. A person with far fewer friends, but the friends I had were friends I could count on. And a person who knew, let shame go. One of the things I think that keeps us silent in situations like that is shame. We think we’ve done something wrong. We think that if we hadn’t,
done this or done that, or I shouldn’t have gone to that bar. Why was I alone with him? Like we tell ourselves all of those stories and we do it because we’re shamed that we’re in this spot. It wasn’t my shame and I refused to take it on. And it really was life altering for me, to not to to refuse shame. So now, even now, when I think about it, when people say, you know, if if I have a problem.
Or if I have something and I’m reflecting on it, I’m like, did I do the right thing? Like, do you feel guilty, Corey, or do you feel shame? Because we’re not feeling shame over here. Shame is not productive. Shame just shuts you down. Shame is about your perception of other people’s perception of you. Guilt is like, am I in line with my conscience and my beliefs? Do I feel guilty? Like, that’s useful, that’s productive. But shame, shame is gone. And I will say, I have learned something from Trump, right? Like, because that is a man who doesn’t feel a lot of shame.
Nick McGowan (37:24.379)
Mm -hmm.
Nick McGowan (37:36.104)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (37:47.55)
Silver lining.
Corey Williams (37:47.643)
Right? He just keeps on going. Right. I’m like, yeah, you know, you really when you don’t feel shame, when you can say this isn’t mine to take on, you’re really free. Now you can use that freeness for good or you can use that freeness for evil. But but really just letting go of that that feeling refusing to like hang my head and act like I had done something wrong.
Nick McGowan (38:03.282)
evil.
Corey Williams (38:17.053)
I was like, no, I’m throwing elbows. I’m going to go into, if I’m in the auditorium, he needs to leave. I’m not leaving. You know, and really, I don’t know, I think I really fully started to come into myself and really sort of recognize that there was so much more important stuff than private schools and, and, and, you know, dinner parties and children’s trunk shows and this world that I had been.
involved in. And I’m so grateful for that moment in my life because it was transformative and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You know, it’s both.
Nick McGowan (38:57.562)
Yeah. yeah. It’s tough. Like if we could all just learn those big lessons and have that feeling of this is more of a purpose work for me to do without going through the traumatic and really difficult and challenging chapters in life, then great. That’s not the reality. That’s not the world we live in. That’s not how this material plane works. That’s just not what this is like.
And we do have to go through those challenging chapters. Some people will crumble. Some people will start to crack and then they’ll heal and they’ll get better. Just like how our bones, when our bones break and they heal back, they’re stronger. But it’s a matter of actually working through that stuff. I love that you understand that shame doesn’t have a place. That can be a really hard thing for people to get to because shame is the root of addiction. It’s the root of so many bad things and there’s so much that’s tied to it.
And we feel like our personalities are also tied to the shame that we have. Typically from something that happened when we were younger or even childhood experience wise when we’re in developmental stages. For you to look at that and say, this isn’t a part of it. And to understand that you are shaped because of that, that’s huge. That’s probably not a thing that happened the Tuesday after it all happened. It was years later to be able to get to that point. And what a tough thing.
Corey Williams (40:22.597)
No, and I did years and years and years of psychotherapy. So I get to credit a lot of my understanding of myself and the narratives that I have told myself and I’m learning some of the patterns of my behavior, psychotherapy. Therapy is a blessing. And if you ask my parents now, they would say that therapy for me has been one of the best things to happen to our family because I’ve been able to show up differently.
Nick McGowan (40:34.946)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (40:41.189)
yeah.
Corey Williams (40:52.529)
when something is like, I don’t think that’s fair. Like don’t think that’s a fair comment and we’re going to step back and zoom out. And I just approach things so much differently now that I think, you know, both my mom and my dad have told me that therapy has been good for all of us. My therapy.
Nick McGowan (41:08.886)
Hmm. Sure. Yeah. What a beautiful thing. And you’re able to make that ripple effect from where you’re at and be able to have that change. It happens within you that then shows other people, hey, you can change as well. Even if it’s not a matter of just changing drastically, but looking at things a little differently. I’m sorry that you went through that. I really do appreciate that you look at it the way that you do and that you’ve been open to sharing it.
Corey Williams (41:28.817)
Absolutely. Thank you.
Nick McGowan (41:34.858)
Along the lines of all of that, what’s the piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self -mastery?
Corey Williams (41:41.025)
you’re in charge of your narrative, the stories that you tell yourself. And that is, I think, the most control we have, the meaning that we make out of our choices and what happens to us. So focusing on those stories that you’re telling yourself and whether they’re serving you or not serving you, I think is so much more important than a rigid routine or getting up on time or, you know,
Nick McGowan (42:08.288)
the
Corey Williams (42:10.435)
or only eating this. We humans have such a hard time with moderation, don’t we? We like extremes. They don’t have, there’s no TV in this house or I’m only going to run marathons tomorrow, you know? But if we can, if we can sit still and say, okay, what have I been telling myself today? Is it serving me? What is it connected to? How do I change it? Or am I comfortable with it?
So much can change when we stop telling ourselves these stories, these narratives that make up, especially those of us who like to make ourselves the bad guy. You know, that when we can alter those, it makes a big difference.
Nick McGowan (42:54.391)
Absolutely. Corey, it’s been great to have you on today. I appreciate you getting into everything you’ve gotten into. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Corey Williams (43:04.335)
Yeah, so you can connect with me at sarcollective .com or I’m on Facebook. I’m Cori Williams, so you can find me there.
Nick McGowan (43:13.463)
Awesome. Corey, again, thank you so much for being with us today.
Corey Williams (43:17.565)
Thank you.
https://youtu.be/0DITDV3TXQg