S3 E07 | Cordell Carter

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Cordell Carter:

Remember who these people were, they were people were living in segregated neighborhoods. Okay? If I was 10 and they’re 50, that mean they lived under Jim Crow as adults. My grandmothers couldn’t vote till 1966. They were already in their 40s. Okay? That wasn’t my reality. I was born in the ’70s. So I missed all of that. And so with the way they would sing their songs and how they would compose these groaning hymns that no one ever heard, but would instantly understand because we were all in the same frequency. That’s the feeling that I’m trying to create now, bringing revival.

Luke W Russell:

Welcome to Lawful Good. A show about lawyers and the trials they face inside and outside the courtroom. I’m your host, Luke W Russell. I’m not a journalist. I’m not an attorney. I’m trained as a coach. I love human connection. And that’s what you are about to hear. Our guest today is Cordell Carter, II. A self-proclaimed dreamer and vivacious entrepreneur. Growing up, Cordell couldn’t wait to leave his hometown in Virginia. It wasn’t because he didn’t love where he grew up. He simply had an innate hunger for adventure and exploration. His passion for travel was first ignited in 1985 when his uncle gave him a globe. He’d spin the globe and stop it with one finger, vowing to visit the place his finger landed on. Cordell found his voice his freshman year of high school after joining a Mormon musical enclave. Since then Cordell has been using his voice to bring people together.

Luke W Russell:

He’s been the fuel behind the Festival of the Diaspora, a diverse and inclusive group focused on identifying and solving the most pressing issues that impact our global society. In this interview, we discuss how Cordell found his voice through music, why the Western world needs a revival. And the time he talked himself out of a presidential appointment at 24 years old.

Luke W Russell:

Cordell, you have held leadership roles with TechTown Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Business Roundtable, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the IBM Corporation. You speak at conferences, lead workshops and moderate panels and seminars all around the world. You have a bachelors, masters and jurist doctorate, and I’ve not touched on the numerous organizations for which you advise. You’ve been designated various fellowships, 40 under 40. Oh, and you were appointed as a member to President Biden’s commission on White House Fellowships. Oh, my goodness, Cordell is this the life that seven or eight year old Cordell was dreaming of?

Cordell Carter:

In a word, not really. I was a dreamer as a kid, an odd fellow to say the least. My father is pastor of a church. And so I’ve been a part of faith community all through my childhood. It was all I really knew. These are the adults that I watched and I was quiet, but I would be really observant. And I knew as wonderful as what I was seeing was, that it wasn’t for me. And I couldn’t wait to get out of Virginia. When I was five years old, my great Uncle James, who was about 85 at that time gave me a globe because my mother and her sister would go to his house once a week to help him around. He was 85 and the year was 1985, by the way.

Cordell Carter:

And so I just remember the floor always being sticky, because he would always spill coffee or something with sugar in it. So you always, your shoes would get stuck and it would sound like Velcro. And then he had a collection of globes. And I was fascinated by it. And I would just spin them and look at them. And he says, “You can have one.” He gave me a cold work globe and I took that bad boy home and I would spin the globe and close my eyes and put my finger down, so to stop. And wherever it stopped, I would go get the Encyclopædia Britannica. This is well before the internet. And I would write down my note card, everything I could find about that country and I would say, “One day,” and it would go in my one day file. One day I was going to go there.

Cordell Carter:

So fast forward, 40 plus years, 40 years, almost 40. I am in Vienna. This is February, 2019. I had lectured in Lviv, Ukraine, gone to Kiev, done something in the Rada and I went to Bucharest. And then I was in Vienna on my way to Salsburg. I had a seminar in Salsburg I was doing and it dawned on me, I was looking, waiting in line to go at the search tour and I saw a LCD screen, and there was a picture of a globe, a bunch of globes.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh.

Cordell Carter:

And in a flash, that little boy in the den at Uncle James’ house, it came back to me and every place I had visited on that particular trip was in my one day file.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, wow. Wow.

Cordell Carter:

And I mean, it’s February and I instantly just, the tears were coming. I had this beautiful vyshyvanka I had bought in Kiev. It was this black mink thing. I lost it, unfortunately. And people were like, “Are you okay?” And I said, “Oh, I have allergies.” Which I do, but not in February. They looked around like, “There’s nothing to be allergic to.” But it was a universe way of saying, “I heard your little boy. I heard you.”

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

Cordell Carter:

And so the life I get to live, I mean, I’m broadcasting live from Berlin today. I pinch myself often because I’m not sure that this isn’t some matrix like sequence. That I’m imagining these things. I keep touching the back of my head and looking around to see if there’s a red pill or blue pill, but there are no pills, just my allergy pills. And this is what I get to do.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh.

Cordell Carter:

And it feels very organic and I feel very, very fortunate.

Luke W Russell:

Wow. So you mentioned your young self as quiet and soaking in the world. Would you say that that was, quiet was how you would describe all of your youth? Because I don’t know that your friends would describe you as quiet this day.

Cordell Carter:

No, I was quiet around adults because I found that the quieter was the more I would learn. And I literally was my father’s shadow. Literally hanging onto his pants leg. I could never have enough of him. And so if I was quiet, they would let me go in the back room with the deacons. And that’s why I learned all of these amazing. I would pretend to be asleep on the couch while they were counting offerings, talking about church business. And I would hear all the gossip and I would hear how men talked and I’ll never forget learning the word, we had a pastor to leave because of an ethical issue. He had a few relationships and one of the older deacons was saying, “I can’t believe the pastor gave up the whole church for a little piece of vagina.”

Cordell Carter:

And he said it so quickly and everybody laughed. And I’m like, “What did he say?” And I’m like, in my mind, “But if I ask what is a vagina they’ll know I heard it. So I can’t say it.” So I’m trying to phonetically spell it out so I can look it up in Encyclopædia Britannica, and then I finally broke down and asked my big sister, “What is a vagina?” And she’s like, “Oh, you’re in trouble.” I’m like, “Please don’t tell. Please, please, please.” But things like that I would hear just by being quiet. Now, amongst my peers, very different. I was musical, loved practical jokes, loved sports, definitely love the performing arts. That was my thing as a younger person. And so that was very, very different, but it took me a while to find my voice.

Cordell Carter:

And I can tell you where I found my voice. It was March 14th, 1990. My father had taken a job transfer from Possum, Virginia to Bremerton, Washington. He was leaving the Atlantic Fleet to work on a Pacific Fleet for the US Navy as a Naval architect technician. My sisters and I said we weren’t going to go. He said, “That’s really nice. Here’s a flight tickets. You’re going.” And my first time ever on a flight. And I remember it was the beginning of my freshman year in high school, and I knew that I was operating beneath my potential. I wasn’t working that hard. I was still doing the choirs and everything. I enjoyed that. But basically if I didn’t enjoy it, I wasn’t really putting forth a good effort.

Cordell Carter:

And I had a conversation with myself in the back of that TWA flight with 10 empty rows all around me. It was amazing. And we’re leaving Atlanta to go to Seattle. So it’s a long haul flight. And I said, “I’m going to a place where no one knows me. I get to start over. You don’t get opportunities like this. I’m going to be my full self.” And we land in Seattle and we moved to a place called University Place, Washington. And it was a little enclave that broke off from Tacoma. And it was a Mormon enclave. The Mormons happened to be very musical. And so there was award-winning choirs and I found my niche. I really felt like I belonged. I was the only spot in the milk. Okay? But they brought me in, they welcomed me and I really thrived. And I’m still living off the fumes of that experience 30 years later.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I know you mentioned your father was a minister. You also said something earlier about how, I don’t remember precisely your words, but how something about your home life and experience, that wasn’t for you. Can you go back to that and elaborate?

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Yeah. So this particular faith community is very conservative, not very welcoming of people that were different. Because I was gifted and talented, I was seeing different every day. Mostly I was the difference. So literally imagine going to the same bus stop as neighborhood kids. This is when forcible busing was happening in America, but my bus was a different bus. So all my friends are getting on their local bus, but for one day a week, I had to get it to a different bus to go to a school across town for the G&T program. And some bumps and bruises, but eventually, you’re accepted.

Cordell Carter:

And I knew there were just more to life. Moreover, I had the one day file. So I knew there’s a great big world there. I just didn’t know how to grasp it. I didn’t know how to… How do you go from, “I want to visit and see these different places and meet people and learn languages,” to actually doing it? There was no one around me that had had that experience, even though these are a lot of military veterans, my father included, but their experience was just very different than the one I wanted to have. And so I literally had to create mentors, people who to this day don’t know they were my mentor. Jet Magazine. You ever heard of Jet Magazine?

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. So Jet Magazine used to come every week before it went digital. And for the Black community, I mean, this was 411. You have some celebrity stuff, but right in the middle, they had two main features. One was people on the move and the other was beauty of the week. And so my cousins would cut out the beauty of the week and have them paste on their walls, and I would cut out the people on the move and have that pasted on my wall because I admired these people. There were people that were moving up in their career. They were becoming board members. I remember the feature on, on Colin Powell back in the ’80s when he was a White House Fellow, irony of ironies. Now I sit on the commission. I got to know him before he passed away because I was an Eisenhower Fellow and he was the board chair. And I regret not telling him the story of how he inspired me from afar, from the Jet Magazines.

Cordell Carter:

At any rate, they became my community. They were an epistemic community. And so I knew some type of separation was needed from my environment. And if I ever wanted to achieve this ambition that was in me, I can’t explain why I’m so different. I can’t explain a lot of things about me, but it just, it’s in me. It’s who I am. It’s just pulsing. I got to make something happen. Got to have impact, almost like you think, a sense of urgency all the time.

Cordell Carter:

And so in order for that not to become anxiety, you actually have to do something. You got to put some pen to paper, you got to make some things happen. And so getting an opportunity to first start leaving the area through music competitions, was eye opening. First time hitting the road with 80 other acapella singers for competitions, incredible. And then of course being recruited by universities in the early ’90s and contemplating what it would be like to leave home and then actually doing it. And finding new way. I mean, it has been incredible. And now, different place in your life, parents are retired. You want to see them far more than you did the previous 20 years. Because you feel like this could be a very important meeting. So I want to make sure we’re connecting, but I get they’re bringing them on the road with me.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, really? Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

So, oh, I mean, I tell you, I had dreamt up this festival, the diaspora, this idea of actually recapturing some of the elements, at least the spiritual, mental, emotional elements of those old time revivals I would experience as a kid, the temp revivals out in the woods, but bring that to a country that is in need of civic revival. I would say, that’s what we need in the Western world. Democracy isn’t in retreat, we are in retreat. Okay? And so we have to be better versions of ourselves. We need be recharged. That was the purpose of revival.

Cordell Carter:

Remember who these people were, they were living in segregated neighborhoods. Okay? If I was 10 and they’re 50, that mean they lived under Jim Crow as adults. My grandmothers couldn’t vote till 1966. They were already in their 40s. Okay? That wasn’t my reality. I was born in the ’70s. So I missed all of that. And so with the way they would sing their songs and how they would compose these groaning hymns that no one ever heard, but would instantly understand because we were all in the same frequency, that’s the feeling that I’m trying to create now, bringing revival. It looks different. It’s a secular revival, but it’s a revival nonetheless. It has a same outcome. And then seeing my parents in the front row and knowing that my dad got it and me not being able to finish, because I see his eyes tearing up, which is going to make me cry. And so I stopped my opening statement, put on the show. It’s one of those full circle moments that I wish I could have once a month.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. You mentioned some family. Did you have a grandma figure in your life growing up?

Cordell Carter:

Mm-hmm.

Luke W Russell:

Tell me. Because I feel like I hear from a lot of our guests that there’s there was this grandma-

Cordell Carter:

Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

… that played this…

Cordell Carter:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Can you tell me about that?

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. My maternal grandmother, her name’s Clarine. In fact, my daughter is named after her. Amazing lady. I so admire her perseverance. She was a domestic servant, as most women in her age and Black women in age in the South were. Both of my grandmothers were for a while, but she became very, very close to her family, Ms. Kachu. I don’t even know her last name. I just know Ms. Kachu. Ms. Kachu died young and my grandmother took care of those four kids well after was necessary. And I’ll never forget as a little boy seeing these strange white people on grandma’s porch and they’re literally calling her mama. And me being so jealous. I’m like, “Who the heck are they? You are my grandmother. I know they’re not your… Who are these people?”

Cordell Carter:

And grandma explaining to me pretty much every time because I was impatient who they were and why they were and seeing how she had literally transformed what could have been a very challenging, and probably was at some point, situation to one that was very positive, very nurturing. That plus raising her six kids, dealing with a very, very abusive alcoholic grandfather and doing it with such grace and resilience is… I really admire that woman. But for me slipping her champagne, I would never get these stories. And her stories were the best. And she was so comical, the way she would describe something that was pretty horrific. I’ll give you one example.

Cordell Carter:

So she told me my grandfather had bruised her face and she used to go to this women’s meeting called the Order of the Tents. It’d be really hard to see if they even exist anymore, but it was a order of Black women and one of their biggest deliverables was helping people cope with domestic violence. Because it was pretty common, probably much more common than we care to admit out loud. And so they would teach you effective ways of covering up bruises. They would also teach you some basic defense. And this is where I learned equilibrium. So granddad would be super drunk, come home, raging want to fight. And they had told my grandmother to run under the kitchen table. So when he’s stoops and comes on the other side and you hit him on the head with a frying pan, he’ll fall asleep and not know how they got there in the morning.

Cordell Carter:

So literally my mom tells stories, because my mom didn’t get that part. That’s drunk grandma telling me that part, about the frying pan and the head. And my mom was saying, “Yeah, my dad would sometimes just be sleeping while we’re having breakfast. And then we’d just leave him to Christ.” Grandma knocked his ass out. She would just knock him out with a skillet. I’m like, “That’s why he died young. He probably died of these multiple hematomas.”

Cordell Carter:

But one thing she did do that was really effective was convince him to stop going to the bar. So she basically became a mixologist and learned how to make his drinks the way he liked them, but have them at the house. So I have no memory. He died when I was seven, no memory of him going out. My memory is him sitting in the couch with his drink. And grandma bringing in his drinks. And that was a fairly new innovation that she got from this order. And she had to go out and learn how to make drinks. She talked to some men like, “How do you make this…” He loved the French connection. How do you make that right? Boom. And once he learned that he saved all types of money and certainly it lessened the violence, I would presume.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned acapella and performing arts earlier, music.

Cordell Carter:

Mm-hmm.

Luke W Russell:

When did you realize you loved music?

Cordell Carter:

Oh, my gosh. Well, I’m from a great musical tradition, just the Black American Church. Some of just the best music you’ve ever heard. I was at a particularly gifted ministry in Southern Virginia with great organists, great singers. So I’m just surrounded by it. My grandmother there, was part of the James Cleveland Music Workshop of America, which was a traveling convention of singers. It’s one of my last memories of her before she took ill the last decade of her life. I was in Chicago for work and she was in Chicago for Gospel Music Workshop of America. And she says, “Oh, come to the hotel room and meet myself and some of the people from the tenor section.” And I’m thinking, “Why is grandma with a bunch of dudes?”

Cordell Carter:

So I go there and there’s literally eight women in various states of undress, all waiting to see me. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh, what’s going on?” There was all these deep voices. And I wasn’t able to stay for the concert. I’m sure it was good and terrible because they were all old and probably couldn’t see the notes anymore, but they were having fun. And that was her joy.

Luke W Russell:

I love that.

Cordell Carter:

And it was my joy to send her and my aunt, once a year to these different conventions and be a big man and buy her flight tickets and everything. But I started singing when I was about three. And I’ll never forget the song they would have me sing. It was from a Pepsi Cola commercial. I like to teach to world to sing about something, something. But we changed the word and made them Christian. I like to teach the world of song about the man I love, Jesus Christ, the son of God, blah, blah, blah.

Cordell Carter:

But there was a part there that says, he gave this life to set me free to him I now belong. But remember I’m three. So I didn’t capture all the words. So I would say to heal my shebino. And this song became to heal my shebino, and everybody would laugh and they would have me up. I mean, I wasn’t even taller than the communion table and I can see them anticipating, “He’s going to do it. He’s going to do it.” And the whole church would go crazy laughing at it. And then my godmother would put $5 in my hand. It was great. So I was like, “Call me up. I want to do it. I want some more hot fries and pickles.”

Luke W Russell:

Yes, yes.

Cordell Carter:

But it also, I just, I wasn’t shy in front of people. Maybe one on one I could be a little reticent, but in front of people, a stage. No problem. That was just something I was used to. And I had no idea how much that would help me later in life, just not being afraid of performing in front of people.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Now, some people talk about this early sense that they were born to do stuff with their life. They’re meant to do big things, whatever that exactly means for each person. Did you grow up with this sense of… Because I know you talked about now this there’s this pulsing urgency in you. In your youth, did you feel this driving force moving you toward, “I need to make this impact in the world.”?

Cordell Carter:

Yes. I grew up idolizing civil rights heroes who did not have long lives. Malcolm X, Martin King, the gentleman, I just lost his name. Because I’m sleep deprived, oh, gosh. Medgar Evers. These men all died before the age of 40. And so I was convinced in my mind that my life wouldn’t be long and that I had to make something happen. I saw the law as the fastest course, I read Charles Hamilton Houston’s book about being a servant leader. And I was really inspired by that. So when I was eight years old, I told everyone I was going to be a lawyer and I stuck to it.

Cordell Carter:

And I’ll never forget the feeling of just being crushed all those years later when I’m spending that first summer at a law firm and realizing, “We’re not saving anybody, this is transactional work. It’s two businesses fighting over a couple of shares of equity.” Or it’s a labor employment issue. I realized that it was more than me just getting a degree and stepping out. You actually have to go to the work. You have to walk towards danger. And I was just being far too safe and there’s… Look, there’s plenty of stuff out there to do, but going the traditional route wasn’t for me. So when I had an opportunity to do the Bosch alumni, I’m sorry, not Bosch. Well, I did Bosch to Germany, fresh out of law school and did environmental law at Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau in Frankfurt for a year. And then I came to the US and did the Broad Residency in Urban Education. And I was basically doing labor and employment law for a reformist school district. That’s where the pedal hits the road, because you’re actively engaged and incremental change.

Cordell Carter:

I got labor contract with the teachers union, the plumbers union. That’s how reform happens. It’s ugly. It’s tough. You’re definitely going to lose something, a sense, an ear, you’re going to lose something. There’s no such thing as on a table and walking away clean. No, no, no. You’re going to lose something. But what you gain is I think an appreciation for what the real work is of reform. And I’m very appreciative for those experiences. And I’m glad they’re in my past too. We want to do that again now.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. You mentioned one, I like that. Pepsi parody, how it just has the words to whom I belong. Because then later in your career, where we are now in your life, belonging is a big part of the work you do. In your youth, did you think much about belonging? I mean, I know you did. I think every human does, but what was the youth Cordell thinking about in terms of belonging, whether in your familial communities or your geographic or the world?

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Well, I felt like a misfit in Virginia growing up, just an odd fellow in a variety of ways. Also I was a slow grower. And so I shortened everybody else. Then it gives you anxious about things all the time. And the G&T experience was probably the worst for me, because for four days a week, I’m like everyone else going to our regular school. And for one day a week, I’m pulled off of my bus in front of everybody. And I had this amazing intellectual experience I come back literally floating. And you get your ass kicked. I used to call it Thursday night butt kicking and you learn to fight back. People were jealous. You think you’re better than I? And being me being super honest, I’m like, “Well, I am better than you. I mean, I tested to G&T and you didn’t. They tested us all. I am empirically better than you.” And so you better learn to Bob and weave and do some one, two combos if you’re going to speak that way.

Cordell Carter:

So this idea of being my whole self everywhere was a real challenge. But when I moved to Washington state as a freshman in high school, I found that I can get along very well with people, better than I thought I could. Remember, on a plane, I’m telling myself, “I’m going to be the best version of myself now going forward. They don’t know me. I’m not going to hold back.” And just being your full self really helped. And then throughout my career, I can belong very quickly wherever I am. I can adjust and I adapt. And then you thrive. That’s literally words that I live by.

Cordell Carter:

And I came to belonging professionally in a very different way. But it’s not different when you think about, when you zoom out, like we’re doing now, I’m always asking what is the outcome? That’s what I ask about everything. For humans, we’re here on earth for a very short amount of time. We’re essentially paying rent and those rent payments are in the form of impact. That’s the only currency that’s accepted. That’s the only thing they’re going to remember about you. Okay? I was just in a cemetery in Sarajevo 24 hours ago. The only thing on those graves were your name, your dates and your relationships, that’s it. All epitaphs are the same, your resume’s not there. Your network’s not there. The brink truck isn’t there. None of that is.

Cordell Carter:

And so knowing that, I thought about, we’re in this loathe jam culturally in America. And I have great empathy for all sides involved, but it’s not their fault. We tend to see life in this very binary way. It’s up or it’s down. It’s right, it’s left. It’s blue, it’s yellow. And that is a holdover from our puritanical upbringing. I mean, we are products of puritans who saw the world in very stark terms. That’s why they were kicked out of Europe, because they was ruining everyone’s fun during enlightenment. It’s like, “You guys go to that new land and be really stern with whatever you want be and wear odd clothes. Maybe you’ll be closer to God there.” So were that’s part of our intellectual DNA.

Cordell Carter:

And so when you start talking about diversity equity inclusion, you can understand why white men over the age of 50 would feel like this is a personal attack on them, because we’ve treated it as a compliance exercise and not as the strategy that it is to get us to some place. We’ve never defined the place. We started doing… This started off as a census. After the Civil Rights Act of ’64, the federal government was leading it. They said, “You don’t have to do business with us. We’re indifferent to that. But if you do do business with us, we need to know who’s doing what? What’s your racial composition? How many women do you have?” Blah, blah, blah. And that became a national practice for the country. Well, the government buys one fifth of goods and services. So that makes sense.

Cordell Carter:

But very few people are talking about where this is going. It’s not compliance. It’s a strategy, it’s a national strategy. And where we’re going is to a place where organizations and a country, where everyone belongs and everyone has equitable opportunities to thrive. So think about DE&I as a car, on a road of discovery and as traversing the hills of race, of class, of history, of our social constructs, of our politics, of religion, all the things that create our isms in the society. But there’s a blinking light in this desert of wolf and that blinking light is saying belonging. So we’re heading to belong. Everyone belongs and belonging. Okay? Everyone belongs.

Cordell Carter:

There’s a speakeasy in the town, it’s called thriving and the door to that speakeasy has multiple keyholes and you got to go in the glove box of the car called DE&I to unlock the door. And everyone’s key is going to be different. The problem is, we’re focused on the upholstery. We’re looking at the instrument panel. We’re like, “I would prefer the windows that roll rather than the ones that go automatically.” We’re fighting about the car and forgetting that we’re on a journey. That was my big aha after January 6th, 2021, is when you’re fed a diet of negativity, what do you expect the product to be? Okay? We need a more hopeful vision for the country or this thing is not going to work longterm. We keep forgetting that we’re 245 years old. That’s very, very young. Very young. Berlin is probably four, what? 1400 years old in its current state. The former kingdom of Berlin.

Cordell Carter:

And so we are just a wee bitty thing, giant kid, keep touching a hot stove, maybe, if you will, in terms of nationhood. And so there’s a lot of growth that we go. So knowing one thing that you will expire, Your human life will expire, it’s important what you do while you’re here. Okay, in fact, you should have a sense of urgency, that on one hand.

Cordell Carter:

On the second hand, I am not going to see the beloved community in my lifetime, but I’m committed to working towards it. Just like Martin king said on April the fourth, 1968, the night before he was killed at Mason Temple, “I’ve been to the mountaintop. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” He says, “I won’t get there with you. But as a people, we will.” And we got to adopt that speech. That was a speech of liberation. He was liberating himself. Okay? Now we know about the constant threats and the wire tap, the constant harassment he was under. Either he was going to be killed or he was going to kill himself. Just have a mental breakdown and just end it. So he knew his end was near, we’re acting like we don’t. And I’m saying, “My friend, it’s coming. It’s coming.” Well, what are you doing today that’s going to matter when you’re not here? And so like my dad is called to preach in a sanctuary, my gospel isn’t religious. It’s a social gospel. It’s a civic gospel. And the sanctuary is everywhere I’m at.

Luke W Russell:

I love it. You mentioned, eight years old, you said, “I want to become a lawyer.” When you were finishing up high school and looking toward your undergraduate, you mentioned people, universities were seeking to recruit you. Were you still in this mindset of, “I’m going to go study political science for the purpose of one day becoming an attorney.”?

Cordell Carter:

Yes. In fact, the plan was to go to Hampton University early. So me and my heroes had gone through Hampton. And it was near my hometown, and I knew my parents were going to move back at some point. And so I rushed my requirements finishing up early. And so I was supposed to leave at the second semester of senior year in high school to start at Hampton. But I got a role in the Spring Musical, Bye Bye Birdie. I wanted to do it. It was good music. The dance moves are real easy. And so literally one decision that one thing kept me in school for a second semester, but I had very little classes.

Cordell Carter:

And so I would visit schools. During day I would sign myself out and I would visit schools. And I visited the University of Washington one day with my then girlfriend. And it was a day, I’m going to say a term here that’s not make sense unless you’re from Seattle, but the sun was out. Okay? Meaning there was no clouds and there’s this fountain called Drumheller Fountain, you walk across Red Square and there’s Drumheller Fountain that’s going. You see the Mount Rainier and purple sky majesty and kids were playing hacky sack in this giant circle in Red Square, and I was like, “Oh, no, I’m going here. I’m going here.”

Luke W Russell:

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

And ended up at University of Washington. I studied political science and econ, had a great intellectual experience there. Discovered some things about myself. My inadequacies showed up pretty quickly.

Luke W Russell:

Tell me more about that.

Cordell Carter:

Well, I was hearing literary references that I had no idea what they were talking about. And people were like, “Well, that feels like something that Jack Merridew would say.” And people were like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Who is Jack Merridew?” I’m looking, is that in our reading? Who is Jack Merridew? And it’s not like you could google it. You literally had to go find a reference, a physical reference to Jack Merridew in text. And I finally figured out that was Lord of the Flies. And it’s like, wow. And then I started hearing these references, the classics, the Melitian dialogue. I’m like, “I have no idea what they’re talking about.”

Cordell Carter:

And so I met a gentleman, I had a mentor on campus named Ed Taylor, who said, “Hey, I got a guy for you. You’ll love him. He’s a little grouchy, but you’ll like him and he’ll like you. His name is Roger Soder.” And I said, “Mr. Soder, I feel really inadequate.” And I explained what was going on. “I feel like part of my education is missing.” He says, “Come with me.” We go to Suzzallo Library. This is the main Gothic building on campus it’s beautiful. And in the attics are PhD Carols, doctoral student Carols. And every doctoral student is assigned. Well, most doctoral students hardly ever use them. So there’s a lot of empty Carols.

Cordell Carter:

And he got me a key and gave me a Carol and gave me a reading list and would lay the books out and said, “When you’re done with your classes, come back here, read them and then let’s meet up once a week over coffee and we’ll talk through what you read.” And I did that with Roger for a solid year. And literally doing interrogation of characters, stream plays, the classics.

Cordell Carter:

And I can tell you to this day, I mean, I’m bringing my Aspen Institute program to Athens in October. I referenced Jack Merridew and piggy yesterday in Sarajevo. Again, these things become part of your life and part of your vocabulary and you didn’t even know it. But for these people taking time out to invest in this little Black kid from Virginia, I don’t know if we’re having this conversation now. And for that reason, I don’t say no a lot. Because have people said no to me, I don’t know. I mean, I have just amazing people have contributed to my life. And it’s my job. It’s my duty to pay it forward.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Now, I’m curious, I want to go back real quick to that 22, 23 year old Cordell where you’re in that fellowship and you’re having someone else tell you that you could be getting presidential appointments. Did you think like, “Yeah. You know what? That could be me.” Or was it maybe like, “Eh, I’m going to take these steps, but I’m not too sure about that.”?

Cordell Carter:

I did think it was possible.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. I love that.

Cordell Carter:

I mean, at this point in the game, even though I was first in my family to go to college, I really hadn’t received a no in my life. The only nos were me doing self editing or not working hard on. But the things I always said to myself that it was so weird. It’s like, we’re always trying to find a success mechanism. Or an algorithm for success, “I do this plus this. I would get this desired outcome.” And once I figured the preparation and hard work and being open minded puts you in really, really good positions most of the time, I mean, I went hog while on that.

Cordell Carter:

And it was very gratifying to hear him say that. But for me talking out of turn and being immature eight, well, two years later, I would’ve received an appointment. That was another regret that I have, and I lesson learned is to never get political at work, unless your job is politics. That’s different. But I didn’t understand how DC worked at the time, how small a community it is. And I said some things about a sitting president out loud that certainly got some laughs, but it got back to that person that was actually looking to appoint me to a role in the Bush administration.

Luke W Russell:

Wow. Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

And I’ll never forget. It’s like, you can’t really come back from that and I’ll never forget what he said. He says, “Well, I guess you wouldn’t be interested in this role then.” And literally went to the guy next to me and said, “Well, do you want it, John?” “Yep.”

Luke W Russell:

Wow.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. It was one of the best lessons I ever received. And I have a book that’s not done that’s called Run Your Own Race. And it’s like a graphic novel. And one of the sections is STFU. So if you’re between the ages of say 25 and 35, STFU at work. Dah, dah, dah at work. And then I tell the story about me talking myself out of a presidential appointment.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, God.

Cordell Carter:

At the age of 24. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Oh.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Lesson learned.

Luke W Russell:

Year. So 2004 is around the time when you decided to go to law school, right?

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. I was going to go in 2003 and got a really great opportunity to… Well, a promotion at IBM and decided to stay for another year. And then I got recently married around that time and we decided we’ve read… I think it’s called Digital Nomad, maybe.

Luke W Russell:

Uh-huh.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Because Lonely Planet had done this book years ago. And I said, “Man, this is something we can do.” And so we saved up for two years and then resigned 2004 and bought a house in Indiana where Notre Dame was. And literally just took off for six months and traveled. It was amazing. Just backpacked every day for six months. So we were in Italy and France and Croatia and-

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh.

Cordell Carter:

… Greece.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was incredible. And again, this is just something you never… Things like that typically don’t happen to people from where I’m from. And so it was just amazing. I was pinching myself the whole time. I’m like, “Are we really doing this? Am I really at the Acropolis?”

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh. And you said, we. Who’s the part of it was with?

Cordell Carter:

I was with my wife.

Luke W Russell:

Yes. Okay.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Now, how did you two meet? And where did that take place?

Cordell Carter:

We met at Carnegie Mellon.

Luke W Russell:

Okay.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. She was an exchange student from France, met her at the international student orientation. I had just come back from France. My first time abroad. I was supposed to be studying Arabic and Morocco, but it’s 1998 and the World Cup is going on. And a group of Australian teachers said, “Hey, we’re fun to hang out with. Why don’t you travel with us? Because we need a man to travel with for protection.” I was like, “Okay.” I literally quit classes that second and traveled with them until my money ran out. And I had to call my parents. And so I was feeling very international. I had seen a World Cup game. I was feeling pretty good about myself. So I said, “I’ll just go to international student orientation because I’ll just pretend like I’m African.” And met her there and then it turns out we’re in the same program. And we started dating probably two months later. Been together ever since.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I love this, you said earlier, you don’t say no to things and here’s this moment where it’s like, “Hey, do you want to go with us to France?” “Okay. Okay.”

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. Yeah. It was great. It was great. Ought to be young again, I tell you. And now, I mean, I have a 15 year that I’m actively encouraging to travel and do things by herself. And I was like, “You need a Europass.” She was like, “A what? Is that a flight?” I mean, it’s like, “You don’t know what a Euro…” And I’m like, “I’m not sure Europass exists anymore. I’m not sure.” But you used to be able to buy a pass for like $1000, unlimited travel. All over Europe. And it was the best time, you would meet people every day on the trains, every single day you’re traveling with different people. It was the most amazing two months of my life in terms of just sheer volume of humanity that you engage with every day. It was incredible. Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. When we come back, Cordell tells us about the possible paths he wanted to take after graduating from law school. Stay with us. I’m Luke W Russell and you are listening to Lawful Good.

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Luke W Russell:

When we left off Cordell was telling us about his backpacking trips across Europe and how he met his wife. As we continue the conversation, Cordell tells us how he looked at a law degree as a leadership degree and why he chose Notre Dame over all the other schools. Okay. So you go into law school and you’ve got your policy degree. And now what doors were you looking to unlock with this law degree that your policy degree hadn’t?

Cordell Carter:

Well, law school was the master plan, but I had received some great mentoring from a mentor named Jim Anton that on your way to achieving your goals be sure to look around and smell the flowers because some of those flowers are great little detours. And so the master’s program for me was a great detour. It cost me nothing to do. And frankly it improved my appeal to law firms, because I had this work experience. I was a little older. I was 28 when I started. And I looked at the law degree as a leadership degree. These amazing people that I attract from Black enterprise and Jet, people on the move, many of them had law degrees. And so I figured this would be my finishing school.

Cordell Carter:

And the reason Notre Dame was chosen was because it was so civically engaged. And the slogan was, we educate a different type of lawyer. And I was like, “I am different. I’m not like the others. I want to be different.” And so this idea that it’s our job to be engaged in society is upfront. It’s Jesuit school. So it’s upfront, I’m sorry, Brothers of Holy Cross. And so I appreciated the education was a lot of service, basically the way I want to live, that’s what it was. And so it was a good fit for me.

Cordell Carter:

And I thought I would work at a firm for a few years and then go off and go in house or go work for a government or a university. And in fact, I had a whole plan for it. I remember, as part of my law school application, now I think about it, that must have appeared to be so presumptuous. You had your life planned out to 65, just incredible. But when you’re first generation, you got to do things. These are devices that you have to use to stay focused. You don’t have an uncle that can say, “Let me just make a call for you.” No, I got to do that. Okay. There is no uncle.

Cordell Carter:

And so I got to a law firm that very first summer, big firm. Right, right, Indianapolis and discovered that I really disliked their practice of law and a law firm. I just didn’t enjoy it. And I remember the managing partner telling me that if I worked really hard in five years I’ll get to talk directly to clients. I’m like, “I’ve been selling million dollar projects at IBM, already fresh out of graduate. What are you talking about talk to clients, in five years?” And that’s just not my… It wasn’t my personality. Had I gone fresh out of undergrad, different story. But I was already 28, 29 years old. I was a formed person. And I said, “Nah, this isn’t going to work.”

Cordell Carter:

And so then I had, it was a despairing moment for me because the assumptions that we were making that we made before going to law school is that I would work and she would stay home and we would have a family. And if you’re not at a law firm earning that big law salary, that assumption’s gone. But she gave me the greatest gift, besides my daughter. And she says, “Listen, I’ve never cared about money. I don’t care about where you work. I just want you to be happy. And I want our home to be one of love and affection and happiness. So do what makes you happy.”

Cordell Carter:

And it was like a weight being lifted. And literally a week later I get a phone call from Bosch Foundation and from the Broad Foundation, both offering me fellowship. And I said, “Well, I would like to do both.” They said, “Okay.” So I deferred Bosch for a year. I mean, Broad for a year, did Bosch, started learning German. And the first three years post law school were already booked for me. Okay? It was already structured for me. Basically a massive training time. I think it was a much better result than I would’ve had at one firm for three years. It was very different environments. I’m in front of different people, dealing sometimes with different languages, different laws, complex cases, you’re basically carving up the sky and then selling that right to pollute to Chinese oil refineries. I mean, how do you write that contract?

Luke W Russell:

Wow.

Cordell Carter:

Right?

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

This product, we just said that it exists, but it doesn’t really exist. So that’s not the stuff you typically see first year out of law school. I got to see it. And because it was so new here, I mean, my voice was as relevant as everyone else, no one else knew what it was. And so we would create that together, just these very unique experiences. And that’s talking about a huge fan of fellowships. Huge, huge, huge. I call them career propelling events. An opportunity to be pulled out from your peer group and get to view the world differently because you’re just being exposed to different things. It makes you better when you go back in to your industry. So I say, we should do fellowships every five years. Easily, every five years.

Luke W Russell:

I love that. Now, as you’re working on these complex arrangements in Germany, then when you come back later in your working in the Seattle public schools, is there some point in this, in which you’re facing imposter syndrome?

Cordell Carter:

Every day. More so in Germany than in Seattle. And that’s because the lawyers here in Germany, I mean, they have a different approach to human development. And so you’re typically, whereas I was an old law student at Notre Dame at 28, starting, they all had their PhDs in law and a masters in law, an LLM from an American or British law school. Plus they had passed the bar in the US. And so they were just starting out as Dr. So and so in their career at 34 years old, on average. And so I’m three years younger than them with much less experience. Okay? And even in my own law. Okay? And it was quite intimidating, but again, they welcomed me in with open arms. They wanted to learn about what’s it like to spend three years in an American law school because LLM programs are one year.

Cordell Carter:

And so I found that there were ways, there were niches that I could fill in that was blindside for them, vice versa for me. And the beauty of dealing with multiple European partners is that default language is English. So there was not a language barrier, at all. For my particular work, not at all. And so it was a very heady experience. And German organizations, typically CEO’s office sits right in the legal office. And so that’s what I’m seeing every day. I’m seeing the CEO. And as I’m walking around this bank, it’s like 3000 people. Nobody looked like me. Okay? But I’m walking with the CEO every other day. Because we’re in the same office. It’s very, very different. And they had a gospel choir. They had a gospel choir.

Luke W Russell:

What?

Cordell Carter:

And I joined. Of course, of course I joined the gospel-

Luke W Russell:

I love it. Yes.

Cordell Carter:

The lawyers had their own choir. It was me and the legal secretaries. Yep.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh. That’s so great. And at this point, if we’re around 2007, 2008, this means you have a newborn, right?

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. So she was born third year law school and my trust and estates professor’s wife delivered her. And she came on the day that I had an exam.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh.

Cordell Carter:

And I asked a dispensation. I was like, “Well, your wife’s about to deliver my daughter.” He says, “I’ll give you a couple of days.” I was like, “A couple of days?” He says, “I have six children. You’ll be all right.” So I got a couple of days and funny story, and you’ll see why it’s relevant once I tell it. Around about maybe two weeks before I learned that I was eligible to sit for the Indiana Bar and we were doing gravity walks, she wanted the baby to fall. So we walk up the low hills in our neighborhood and you run out of things to say. And so I start talking shop. I was like, “Oh, I learned from legal aid professor today that I’m eligible to take the Indiana Bar early.” I was like, “It’d be cool if I could take it pass it, and we can spend the summer in France.” She grabs my arm at such ferocity and says, “Do it so we can spend the summer in France with the baby.” I’m like, “Okay, okay.”

Cordell Carter:

I had two days to go before the deadline. I had to get letters of recommendation a whole nine. So got it done and sat for the bar in that February. And so, I mean, our daughter was a real vampire, she was nursing literally every two and a half hours. And so it didn’t make sense for me to even be in the bed anyway. So I was in the basement, get up at 4:00 in the morning and we were using videotapes to prepare for the bar. And it’s all the law partners of the firm that I clerked for, for the two summers, they’re the ones that are… So it’s very familiar voices for me. I take the bar that February, it’s a pretty awful experience. The first day was a multi. You had multi-state. And after filling in bubbles for six hours, literally my hand was like this. I mean, I couldn’t get it to move. So I had to go get a manicure just to flatten my hand and then come back the next day, six hours of essays. So discombobulated.

Cordell Carter:

I’m leaving. I can’t figure out how to get from Indianapolis to South Bend. And so I’m driving in circles and I see a fuel station, I go in and there’s a police officer. And I was like, “Sir,” and I hadn’t really spoken in two days. So I mean, it sounded like slurred speech. I said, “Sir, I’m lost. I just took the bar and I’m trying to get home.” And he’s like, “You’re driving from the bar?” I was like, “Yeah, I’m driving from the bar.” “Well, let’s go do a field sobriety test.” I’m like, “Why? I’ve been sitting down for two.” And I was like, “No, no, the bar for Indiana. The bar to be a lawyer.” He was like, “Are you going to be a prosecutor or a defense counsel?” I said, “A prosecutor so I make deposits.” He says, “Come on, I’ll show you.” So literally the police officer, let me follow. He showed me the way to the freeway and got off. It was fantastic.

Cordell Carter:

So you don’t learn you passed a bar until May. And so two days before graduation, I’m in the law library studying for the bar like everyone else, and I started getting text messages saying, congratulations, congratulations. I didn’t know what it was. I leave the library. People high fiving me. I said, “What”? They showed me the Indianapolis Star and there was my name, passed the bar. So I run in, back to the library, I stand on the table and said, “You all may have my law review materials. I am now Cordell Carter, esquire. I have passed a bar.” They started throwing paper at me. It was fantastic.

Luke W Russell:

I love it.

Cordell Carter:

All that mattered because the fellowship I didn’t know about beforehand, I get the fellowship and I’m able to practice law in Germany as a lawyer. Not as an intern, an actual lawyer with an office and the whole, secretary, the whole nine. And so we are thankful for gravity walks.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, my gosh. I love that. So you come back to the US and what exactly were you doing in the Seattle Public Schools?

Cordell Carter:

I was a special assistant to the chief financial. He was CFOO. So he had both CFO and COO role. He was also a reformist guy, came in with a superintendent from South Carolina. So we were all new. And so you wouldn’t build your team when you’re new, you’re trying to reform. And most of us were partially funded by external organizations, be it Gates Foundation or Broad. And so there’s an era of suspicion about us and he wanted someone to just run his shoes for him. He says, “I have 35 direct reports. There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot to fix, just grab a shovel and start filling holes.”

Cordell Carter:

And the big hole that I discovered is that no one knew what was in the contract. We kept talking about the contract, “Oh, you can’t do it because of the contract.” Now, in Washington state, if you negotiated an agreement with a labor party, I mean a labor organization, and you started doing something called accepted practice, meaning something that’s not in a contract, but you agree that it’s okay, that becomes contractual over some point of time. And so just stopping the accepted practice or implied contract was saving millions of dollars. Of course, you would get grieve by the union if it’s not in a contract, but you’ve been doing it for a while. So you’d give a notice that you’re not going to do it.

Cordell Carter:

And so the new HR leader said, “Do me a favor, could you actually go through and price it for me?” So I went through and priced it. I remember presenting it at executive council. It literally was a $400 million document. Because you could take the clauses and price that, just do a multiplier by the number of futures.

Cordell Carter:

And so we walked into that negotiations in 2010, much better informed than in previous years. And because of the career ladder in districts, people are leaving the classroom and going to the central office and going up a different ladder. And so these folks typically have started together. They know each other. And so it’s really hard to negotiate. And sometimes adversarially with people you started, that you knew from teachers college 30 years ago. And so me as a person, a complete stranger in all this, I was the perfect villain. Coming with data, hitting you over your head with this and saying, “Well, what are you going to give up?” Because we had to take some stuff off the table to add new things to it. We got an amazing contractor. I was the operations SME and toe to toe every day for four months.

Cordell Carter:

And then at some point it was just the two lead negotiators and the rest of the team went away and we hammered out a historic deal in 2010 and started advising other school districts for it. And I thought for a while, “This could be something I could do as an occupation.” Because they don’t want to do it. It’s uncomfortable. That’s why the contract is so bad. They’re uncomfortable. These are their friends. They’ve known each other for years. Their kids play together. And I get it. You don’t want… So you need a villain, to come in there and say, “Listen, I’m representing taxpayers.”

Cordell Carter:

So I dutifully played that role and the union ran a new slate of board of directors and took out the former majority. And first thing they did was to fire the superintendent. So her entire senior team of 30 people, including myself, we were all gone within six weeks.

Luke W Russell:

Wow.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Wow.

Cordell Carter:

But that’s a glorious death. It was, it was a glorious death. I went to DC to be a lobbyist for the first time then. It was tremendous. It gave me great stories and I learned the real inside game of not just K12, but the public sector. It was a houses, negotiating against itself. And at some point you have to ask a question, “Can we afford our public sector?” Uncomfortable, but you got to have.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Tell me more about that.

Cordell Carter:

Well, I mean, you have a, I should say the former axiom of public service that you were doing for the service, you’ll be highly benefited, low salary. Whereas in private sector, higher risk, higher salary. Well, over the last 50 years, these things have equaled out. And so now you have very similar salaries in the private sector as you do in the public sector. But the accountability environment is very different. It’s really hard to fire people in public sector. And so taxpayers are like, “Yo, this isn’t going to work for us. Tell me exactly what we are paying you $175,000 a year to do? Because I don’t see a whole lot of product out of you. I don’t care, you’ve been here for 35 years. We don’t care. We were looking at the numbers.”

Cordell Carter:

And so if you look at any school district, you’re going to see about 75 names are earning more than $150,000 a year. They’re called principals. Okay? Now, you’re not going to get that level of detail when it’s reported. You’re basically going to see district leaders are making a lot of money. Here’s the average salary for Tacoma, Washington. Here’s what your school district are making. There’s something wrong with this number. You’re not going to get that context. But I’ve learned that they deserve that and more, principals too. Principals too.

Cordell Carter:

But when you look at the contract, when you’re talking about 4,000 people in a bargaining unit being paid by public dollars, that we all know is transparent. We know what the budget is. 85% of the budget of any public sector entity is already spoken for, is salaries and benefits. Okay? And then you layer on top of that, physical plan costs. So maybe one to 2% is free capital, that you could be strategic with. This is why external organizations are involved in K12. Not because they’re trying to take it over, but they’re providing the risk capital, for these leaders to actually be innovative.

Cordell Carter:

But that’s not the story that you’re being told. What you’re seeing is, “Oh, Bill Gates is trying to take over schools.” No, he’s not. Okay? It’s impossible to do. Anyhow. So yeah. So the public sector, I think, has a real issue. And it’s frankly, these labor costs are rivaling that of private sector. And so we have to expect more for the public sector or we’re going to cut back. You can’t keep going. Can’t keep allowing these things to rise and rise and rise. Cut back the benefits of something. Or make it easier to fire people. But something has to give, is my point.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. So once you left there, you end up going into public policy, over the next few years, you’re working in public policy, different schools, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, before working with TechTown Foundation. Over these years, when you look at those several years as you were growing, what really big lessons were you taking away that maybe was shifting your perspective on either the world or even your own place in the world or your trajectory?

Cordell Carter:

I learned a lot about myself by feeling over a course of time. I would say from 2011 to 2014 were just really, really challenging for me, ego deflating. I learned humility, that’s for sure. Just had my ass handed to me a few times. And sometimes it was my fault, sometimes it wasn’t. But the common denominator was me. So I’m just going to blame me. But for that, I wouldn’t have found my voice in June of 2014 to preach that sermon as I was leaving Gates. My farewell message.

Cordell Carter:

And so I don’t regret it at all, but I’m sure I would have more money in the bank from therapy had something not happened. Because therapy’s very expensive. It certainly was then. I just stopped feeling the pain when I recall it. For a while I didn’t really feel the tension and anxiety and the pain from it. Now I can speak about it, it was a good time for me, for learning. And appreciating the journey and that’s new. Okay? I mean, I would say as like three years ago I still felt a tinge of pain when I talked about those series of years where I felt like I was just failing over and over again, four different companies in five years. I still have to explain it to people, which it’s like reliving trauma, but it’s a story of victory because we all learn. Some in different ways and I believe it’s necessary. I’ll be very suspicious of a person that’s never failed. Be very suspicious if a person hasn’t failed a lot.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

That means you’re not trying or someone’s making it too easy for you.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Do you have a favorite failure?

Cordell Carter:

That’s a good question. It has to be the IBM being MC talk a lot. And literally the guide next to me being offered an appointment.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

Right next to me.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. Oh.

Cordell Carter:

Oh, my gosh. That was just fantastic. Yeah. That’s definitely the favorite because it was so immediate. I mean, like that.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

Yes. Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, geez.

Cordell Carter:

That’s a good one.

Luke W Russell:

So today you’re involved in a few organizations. Can you list off or should you even remember all the different organizations you’re presently actively engaged with?

Cordell Carter:

Sure. Sure. There’s three entities that I rock with right now. One is my W-2 SC Aspen Institute, lead the Socrates program and the project I’m belonging. Number two is the Festival Diaspora. It’s a nonprofit created to essentially bring revival to different parts of the world and amazing leaders. And then thirdly, Expecting Advisory, which is a firm I started doing COVID to really dig deeper in this thing called belonging. And what does that mean for companies? And I’m transitioning from consulting to just building content. And so literally recording the digital versions of a book. One is called Becoming an Inclusive Republic. I finished a class before I finish a book, go figure, but I’m literally putting on an LMS and having people pay licenses to view it. And it’s a part of getting people on the learning journey for diversity equity inclusion. It’s like, I don’t do DE&I. I do belonging, but we have to get a good grasp on belonging and where we are and where we could go before we can really get into the strategy that is known as DE&I. And so that’s at the top level.

Cordell Carter:

Then you go step below I’m on the board advisors for Skill Storm, which is an upskill organization. We have a initiative called upskilling together and we’re taking this idea of belonging or creating equitable opportunities for people to thrive on the road. And so that’s really exciting working with them. They’re out of Jacksonville. I’m on the board of directors for EV Passport, which is an electronic vehicle battery producer, pushing them to really focus part of their efforts on underserved communities to rebuild the innovation grid. There’s a shortage of electronic battery stations. And so would be great not just to help out hotels and their bottom line because they own buildings, but for some neighborhoods that could use some visitors. People to spend some time there as their car is charged. So excited about that. I’m on the board of directors for Concordia, which is a convener. They do large convenings all over the world. Imagine like a baby Davos. So they’re fantastic. And I think that’s it.

Luke W Russell:

Is there a Federal Executive Institute?

Cordell Carter:

Oh, yeah. I lecture there.

Luke W Russell:

Got it.

Cordell Carter:

Becoming inclusive republic. I do maybe once a month.

Luke W Russell:

Got it.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. This is for the SESs. There’s 6,000 SESs that are between GS-15s and your appointees. And they pretty much run the agencies.

Luke W Russell:

Got it.

Cordell Carter:

You can pick them up and they put them anywhere. Anywhere in the world, a federal agency and they can run it. And they have a month long residency program called leading democratic societies. And I’m one of the lecturers for it and I lecture on becoming an inclusive republic.

Luke W Russell:

And also what exactly is your role as a presidential appointee?

Cordell Carter:

Yes. On the commission, this is the president’s commission for White House Fellows. Certainly, we engaged a director and the staff of the commission. There’s four staff all appointed and then we select the fellows. And so we have regional review teams. I was on a regional review team for four years before being appointed by President Biden. And those review teams are interviewing candidates from all over the country. There’s 12 different review teams around the country. And then they set up about 30 names for us to do the final rooms. And then we spend three days interviewing them and deliberating and picking the class. And so it’s a very intense experience. But I tell you, if you ever wanted to find a reason to smile about the future of this country, interview people who want to be White House Fellows. Just some of the most inspiring people you’ve ever met.

Luke W Russell:

Wow. Yeah. I want to go back to the speakeasy, cold thriving and I want to go get in that glove box, get the DEI key so that we can move toward that future. I’m told for you that one of Cordell’s superpowers is connecting people. And when I hear that, I think about, that seems like a part of this beautiful belonging ecosystem that Cordell is looking to move us to. Talk to me about that. When you think about belonging, when you think about connecting people, what’s this look like and mean between whether it’s between the festival, the Diaspora, the Socrates program, you have all these different things that are all moving in this belonging. For you, what’s the master plan?

Cordell Carter:

The master plan is to make the world broader and smaller. I’ll give you a case in point. Two nights ago, I organized a dinner in Sarajevo, and I’m flying in from Bucharest and I invite eight people. Three of the people were from Mosa, one from Serbia and the rest from Sarajevo. The three from Mosa, have been trying to connect for coffee for five months. They said, “It took an American flying here and inviting us to dinner and we live literally 30 minutes away from each other in this same city. What is it?” And then as they were saying that, we’re laughing about it. I’m like, “That’s a very normal thing for me. Being the connection or the bridge builder between people who don’t normally see each other or make time to see each other.”

Cordell Carter:

And so I can’t tell you when that whole dot connecting started. But when I think about problems, I literally see colors and shapes. That’s the first image that comes to mind. And then typically I’ll hear some music that I’ll associate with it. And when I sense that something connects to it in a different context, it’s like, you know who you should meet. I mean, literally it’s… I have no control over it. It just comes out, you know who you should be connected to?

Luke W Russell:

I love it. Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

And then we’ll make a connection. Because I’m convinced you put great people in the same space and great things are going to happen. And so what I’m looking for are people that are curious, people that are worldly or at least know that there is… The American narrative is just a narrative, not the narrative.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

Okay?

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

So the article you use is very important. A versus the, and people who are just fun and open-minded. And I found that magic happens when you put them in the room. It really does. And I’m at the point now where I can tell you who’s going to connect fast. I can tell you who are going to be brunch buddies from now on. I’m telling you, I can look at a sheet of people and like, “Okay, these three are going to be amazing.” And no, I don’t even have to put them in the same table. They’re going to find each other.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah.

Luke W Russell:

So tell us a little bit more about the Socrates program and then I want to get to the Festival of the Diaspora.

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. So the Socrates program was transformational for me. I first participated in 2011, winter 2011. And I was lobbying at the time. I was having a pretty awful experience with it, doing a lot of stuff in corporate tax reform, which I just, frankly, don’t care. I’m sure it’s important, I just don’t care. And looking for intellectual tribe, if you will. People that I could connect with. And met a gentleman from the Aspen Institute, and as he was describing the Socrates program, I said, “Whoa, I have to be a part of that.” And my mind was going back to those PhD Carols, the Suzzallo Library and reading about the acidities and Herodotus Histories. I’m like, “Yeah, I want to do that.”

Cordell Carter:

And I had an amazing experience in the snow that winter, and I got called out on the last day and a gentleman says, “Aren’t you… I mean, you said, a lot of great things about our obligation to the greater good, but aren’t you a lobbyist who’s gumming up the systems on behalf of your clients?” And I’m like, “Oh,” and I’m sure I said something clever.

Luke W Russell:

Sure. Yes.

Cordell Carter:

But I was convicted. I was really convicted. I was so focused on that LinkedIn narrative. What is the narrative that I’m putting out there? What is it I want my buddies to see? I’m not a, at that point a fourth year associate at a big law firm. So I want them to see that I’m doing some big stuff in spite of that. But I was really… My heart was pricked and I couldn’t shake it. And I had to get out of there. In a few months I was out of there and then started getting back to education.

Cordell Carter:

And so when I tell that story, every Socrates session we do in Aspen, I want folks to know what my expectation is. When we’re designing these seminars, these are values and ethics based seminars on contemporary topics, leadership topics. It’s an intellectual workout.

Cordell Carter:

But I also, part of the seminar is the people in the room. And I want folks to know that everything was thought out carefully, even their break time. That this is your moment. This is put the phone down, put the cards away. No one cares who you are. You’re just a learner today. So give yourself the freedom of just being open and digging into the text. And really, just take your mind back to graduate school and how you were just so hungry to learn and all that good stuff. And people love it. I mean, we have 9,000 alums. We’ve got 26 years old now. We just did a seminar in Romania last week with a lot more planned in Aspen and beyond this year. And so it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had because I get to meet amazing people every day. And I mean, I love people and literally I’m shepherding people towards Aspen programs everyday, values based leadership. So that work is just tremendous.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. So what type of people are coming through these programs at the Aspen Institute and under the Socrates program?

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. I would say curious professionals between the ages of, let’s say 30 and 55, 30, 60, something like that. And they love to read. They tend to be well traveled and they’re just very interesting in their own respects. That’s, I would say 50% of the people that come through. The other group, vary between folks that are climbing, social climbers, always going to have a few of those. You have some inherited wealth, people that are just accustomed to being in the Aspen environment. You also have those that are just, come out of the… I think blue bud is not the term I want to use, but this idea that there are certain ways of learning, proctored learning, if you will. And so they’re looking for these moderated experiences with others in a room, because it has structure and it involves Socratic dialogue. And so those, I just call my hyper intellectuals, that are just really, really engaged in the format. And we get a fair mix of those. It’s an incredibly diverse group, from all over the country.

Cordell Carter:

I’ve made a concerted effort to ensure we had political ideological diversity. Because that adds a lot to the group as well. And so we go at it in those rooms. These are chime house rules. You can’t identify who said what. And so those rooms are robust.

Luke W Russell:

Oh, wow.

Cordell Carter:

But we come out and hug it out. And the vestibule as we’re having nutrition tables, and we have six hours of break, either in the afternoon or in the evening. And so there’s plenty of time to actually connect and people have a great time. They really do.

Luke W Russell:

Wow. I’d love to read a quote for you from Brené Brown on belonging and just curious where your brain would take us from there. So in Braving the Willingness, she wrote, “Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self forth are not goods. We don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”

Cordell Carter:

Yeah. What I got from that is what is the story you’re telling yourself? And if life is 50-50, which I believe it to be, this chance of things going well, you should bet on the good 50. Okay? That’s a better use of your mental energy. Moreover, please consider the following. Most of us are betting 50-50 at a minimum. But hall of fame numbers is 3-12. So think about that. People that the very best in their sport, hitting a ball that’s coming at you with a lot of movement, 100 miles an hour, 31.2% of the time they’re getting a hit and they get to be in the hall of fame. And most of us are banning the balls in our life 50% are greater. So yeah, we belong and yeah, we’re far better than we think we are.

Luke W Russell:

How do you judge your success in your goal to create, spread, evangelize belonging in the world?

Cordell Carter:

Well, it’s just starting and I’m seeing a lot of glimmers of hope. There’s this first festival we did in Puerto Rico in February, I was expecting 75 people and 150 people showed. And it creates all types of logistical issues, but I knew that there was a there, there. I just had a really robust discussion with funders and stakeholders in Sarajevo, and we’re going to have an Eastern European version of the festival, the Diaspora in 2023 as well. But they went right to the revival concept. That’s where they are. They want us to use that word, revival. And so I’m seeing, this vision of you have eight festivals happening around the world every year, run by a local team in those places. To me, that’s success, that I’ve created something that will outlive me. And I’ve convinced other folks to light the same fire that’s lit under me. So that’s what I want to build, that ecosystem out, that’s just going to make the world smaller and broader.

Luke W Russell:

Yeah. So who do you envision in the coming years to be… Who should be coming to this? What kind of leaders are like, yeah, you know what? How do you find these people across the Americas? And people know, “This is a place I should be.”?

Cordell Carter:

I would say anyone who wants to connect across our isms, be it the borders, be it age, be it race, whatever it is. If you want to see through that stuff and just being a place where that is not on the table, this is a come. Anyone who wants to celebrate the other AI and that is ancestral intelligence, this is a spot for you because there’s going to be music. We’re going to honor the people whose place is, whose shoes we stand in. And thirdly, if you’re ready to do something. There’s a lot of talk, but let’s actually do something.

Cordell Carter:

I mean, we have some tangible results from the first festival. Two companies merged together. One was bought, and now this woman of color is now the CEO of a much larger organization. People finally found a great match for roles that were open, business deals create… I mean, and we weren’t even trying. So imagine, actually formalizing the matchmaking. People clearly articulating the need before they get there. And you’re matching another end with someone that’s coming. It’s amazing.

Cordell Carter:

So the reason it’s called Festival Diaspora in the Americas is because every American is a result of a diaspora unless you’re indigenous. And even then, there’s a fair amount of diaspora. Because they’ve moved around quite a bit. And so we are all welcome. We had people who reflected the range of personalities and interests across this great continent. And so that title fits for the Americas. It wouldn’t fit for say Eastern Europe. I doubt it would fit in Africa. We’ll name it something else. But this idea of belonging and creating events where belonging and thriving is the intent, that’s the big mission of the convening side of the belonging ecosystem.

Luke W Russell:

When you think about the future, what are you excited about?

Cordell Carter:

I am very excited about the millennials and the xennials. I reflect upon the Black Lives Matter marches that I saw in DC two years ago, they were multiethnic. They were intergenerational. They were very thoughtful, not in DC, but in other cities they had something called white shield. That’s when white women would run to the front, when the cops were close and be a human shield, like freedom fighters. Freedom fighters from ’60, ’61. Making their bodies a human shield to protect the other protestors. That level of cooperation and self sacrifice warms my heart.

Cordell Carter:

And I’m convinced that these folks, these same folks who, they don’t care about 401ks. They’re like, “It’s not right what’s happening in this country. And I’m not going to allow this continue without me doing something about it.” I got hit in private school. Yeah, I have 401ks. I got to think about those things. I can’t get arrested. I can help bail you out. But nah, you hit me in the face with a baton and all this is going to swell up. And no, no, I can’t have that. Okay? I am too old for that,” but I am so encouraged by their demand that we live up to our values and our national creed. So I’m hopeful. I want to see these folks ascend to leadership. Because the institutions are going to change dramatically.

Luke W Russell:

To learn more about Cordell, visit aspeninstitute.org. A few notes before we wrap up. Please check out our season three sponsors. Be sure to check out Jason Hennessey’s book titled Law Firm SEO. If you want the best knowledge available in the industry to any plaintiff’s attorneys who have clients in need of simple interest loans, check out the milestonefoundation.org. If you’d like to join a growing group of attorneys that are actively working to improve their trial skills, head over to trialschool.org. For personal injury lawyers, looking to acquire big cases through social media, visit 7figurecases.com. And if you want to experience rich human connection, join our LinkedIn group, by going to joinbettertogether.com. Thanks so much for listening this week. This podcast is produced by Kirsten Stock, edited by John Keur and mastered by Guido Bertolini. I’m your host, Luke W Russell. And you’ve been listening to Lawful Good.