Courage to Leap & Lead with Joia Nuri, part 1 - Episode 150

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello everybody. It's Tuesday. And so it is with CB. And today, On Courage to Leap and Lead, we have the amazing Joya Nourie on the phone. On the phone and on camera and on the podcast. I was going to say radio, which shows my age, right? Joya is a fascinating woman. You know, I am so happy because You know, I, I don't have enough women of color on my show. I don't have enough women on my show. I have a lot of men on my show.

Mm-hmm.

It's got to be a problem there. And if you know somebody that's fabulous for this show, please tell them to reach out to me at cb@telridge-consulting.com. Now for the fabulous Joya, who started her career as a journalist. Is that correct?

I started my career as a network news technician.

Well, that's even higher.

Yes.

And we're going to find out about the different levels in journalism and how she started her career. And most importantly, as you know, for this show, we're going to talk about her failures and how she was able to courageously flip them into success, which is the part that I love hearing about. So without further ado, Joya, welcome.

CB, I am honored to be here. Thank you.

Okay, now don't make me blush, you know. You know, I was on your show, your new show. Give us the name of your new show.

Unshackled Leadership: A Lantern for Black Women.

Okay, that's a mouthful. But I had a blast on the show. So please look for my episode. I'm not promoting other people. Just me. Okay.

Yeah, just her. She's episode 4 on Spotify.

There you go. Hey, Toya, tell us about you as a child. Tell us about your parents, and that can give us a little peek into what makes you what you are today.

Oh, very much so. My parents were 2 people who loved each other passionately. My father saw my mother on the bus one day and went back to that bus stop for a week hoping to see her again. And then friends set him up on a blind date, and it was my mother.

I love it.

And they did death do us part. They would French kiss each other in front of us. It was just love and passion and My sister and I benefited from that at every turn. There wasn't anything I couldn't do. There wasn't any dream I had my parents didn't try to facilitate. If I wanted to play the trumpet, I had a trumpet. If I wanted to play a piano, they bought a piano. If I wanted to go to dance class, I went to dance class. And anything that would come toward me that would limit me, like I wanted to be in the Mickey Mouse Club— that tells my age. The original Mickey Mouse Club. And my parents told me we couldn't do it because we didn't live in California. And then my aunt told me I couldn't do it because I was colored. And my father took off at her like with a vengeance, like, don't limit her! Don't you dare limit her! So that is definitely where I come from. A family, huge family on both sides. We all love each other. We still think— Closely in touch with each other. We've spread out, but we stay closely in touch. So the people I grew up with were primarily my cousins, and I'm still very good friends with them.

What a beautiful story. Oh my gosh. You know, a lot of us blame our parents for things we didn't have. Few of us recognize our parents for the things that we So I love hearing that. And by the way, that's called spoiled, just in case you didn't know.

Oh, no, I was definitely spoiled. Oh, definitely spoiled. And my sister and I are nearly 10 years apart. So I had 10 years, nearly 10 years with no one there but me.

Were you the youngest?

I was the oldest.

Actually, you'd have to be the oldest.

Yeah, yeah, I was the oldest of my father's second marriage. I have 2 siblings from his first marriage. Who we, until their deaths, remained close. My father made sure his children knew each other.

Wonderful story! I love it. So spoiled as a child, then what next?

When I was 10, my father sat me down in front of the television to explain to me the assassination of John Kennedy, and he told me, told me who all those dignitaries were, and he showed When they showed the White House, he explained to me the White House, what the Capitol Building was, Supreme Court. He explained to me the US government. Mm-hmm. Because he was an avid American history reader, follower. And, you know, my father, if there was anything about the Civil War, trust me, my father knew it. And he explained that to me. And I saw this man on TV And I said, who is that? And my father said, that's the president's brother, Robert Kennedy. And I was fascinated. I was 10 years old.

Mm.

I was totally fascinated with Robert Kennedy. And I read about him, and I wanted to know. And he always looked so sad. And, you know, and like, you know, his brother died. And like, I didn't know it in a big macro president of the United States, attorney general sort of way. But I knew that he looked so sad that I wanted to know who he was. And my parents got me as much as possible about him. And then when I was 13, they gave me a subscription to the Sunday New York Times.

13?

13. My 13th birthday. And my parents were so happy that I was interested in things that weren't boys, weren't running the street. You know, I didn't want to have my fingernails red. You know, I didn't need miniskirts. I was really prettier corny, solid kid. And I loved my New York Times. And throughout the years, I got a chance to meet Ethel Kennedy and the children at events at Hickory Hill. And it was things my parents would just force me into. But I have to back up the story a little bit.

Yes.

Up until the age of 10, I wanted to— I learned at the age of 10, I wanted to be a U.S. senator, but I also wanted to be a ballet dancer.

Okay.

And when one day I came out of the ballet practice at a place called Caramu House, which is the first Black-owned theater in the United States, in Cleveland, Ohio. It went up in 1927. And so I was in Cleveland, lived in Cleveland. I studied at Caramu House and Caramu Playhouse. And I came out of the lock— out of— off the rehearsal room Into the locker room, and there were girls who were older than me. They probably were 12 or 13. I was 10, who were talking about me, saying awful things about me. And I was stunned because nobody had ever said anything complaining about me. I was too tall. I was too skinny. You know, I talked like a white girl, and all of these things. And it crushed my spirit. I didn't want to take dancing anymore. I became this person totally self-conscious about my height. I'm very tall. I'm, I'm a half inch off 6 feet. And I probably—

Were these young girls of color?

Yes, everybody at Caramel House is of color. And I— it crushed my soul. So when I became interested in Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy, my parents wanted to encourage that. It took them a few years to realize I no longer wanted to go speak. I no longer wanted to be in the choir at church. I no longer wanted to be seen.

Did you tell them what happened?

No. I told them what happened when we were adults. But my father and mother were intuitive enough to know, we're going to force her into things. By the time I got to middle school, They forced me to run for the city council. They forced me— they would just do everything. They forced me in high school to be a part of the theater company. Even if I wasn't on stage, I had to be immersed with people because they thought I was withdrawing. I also had a lot of responsibility at home. My mother had polio. Wait a minute.

You started to say they forced you, and then you were cut off.

They forced me to do things to get me out because they recognized I was withdrawing.

Ah.

I was withdrawing, and the outside world probably wouldn't have noticed. But my parents were magnificent parents, and there was also a lot of responsibility. My mother had polio, and I had to take over a lot of responsibilities around 13, because she, you know, got to a point where she couldn't drive that well anymore. And so I had to do all the— I learned to drive at 13.

So she contracted polio as an adult?

No, at age 12. My father, when he met her and fell in love with her, when he saw her on the bus, she had polio.

Wow!

She had polio, and she walked like she had polio, you know. But her beauty is just stunning. She's just stunning, not just in my opinion, but in everybody's opinion. She was just stunning.

And have photographs of your mom?

I do.

Let's see.

You want me to hold up a picture of my mother?

I do. Audience, this is real TV. We do things like this because we want you to feel part of our show.

So, see, so the taller woman— see if I can get the glare off— oh, the taller woman is my mother when my father met her.

Gorgeous.

And all dressed like me, always with the— always had to be dressed when she left the house. Okay, no matter where she went, she pulled herself together. And this is my mother, father, and me.

What a great picture! What a handsome couple!

Thank you.

You were so cute.

I was 4.

Oh my.

So that's what my father fell in love with.

I don't blame him. I get it.

Yes, yes. So, um, so I had a lot of responsibilities, and they shaped my life. I didn't feel put upon by my parents in doing that. But it did make me grow up really fast.

And what kind of responsibilities did you have?

I went to the grocery store. I managed medication. I was— I had my younger sister, homework with her. My mother only went to the 6th grade. My father was always working. I I knew how to organize things. I knew how to keep papers straight. I knew, I knew how to manage the bills. I knew my father did too. And so I was kind of like his little assistant in doing things, and my mother was good at budgeting. So I was home a lot lifting things and carrying things my mother couldn't do. And my sister was precocious, so I did a lot of chasing around the neighborhood to make her come home. But I wasn't expected to earn money. It wasn't that kind of responsibility. I was expected to take on— when my friends were out bopping around, I probably needed to be home to take care of something that was happening in the house, which at the time I didn't really Bother me. I look back on it now, and I went, wow, that's a lot for a 13-year-old. You know, I wasn't in my room often listening to music. I was cooking and helping in the kitchen and things like that, which was probably where I should have been. Yeah.

I understand.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so then what happened after that?

High school. Loved it. I'm probably the only person, CB will say, on earth, high school was the best 3 consecutive years of my life.

Okay, you're crazy, officially.

I loved high school. I loved high school. I loved it. It was a place of exploration. And I hung with a bunch of people who had great ambitions. We were all going to go to college. We were all going to do these big things to save the world. I was going to be a United States senator. This one over here was going to be a corporation. This another one was going to go be on Vogue magazine cover. We just had this thing that we were all going to do. And You know, we convinced the principal that we could use the public address system to make announcements, and then he shut all of that down when the teachers went on strike. And I'm on the microphone to the whole school going, we should support our teachers and leave school right now and go outside and be on the picket line. Well, we were kind of cut off after that. When you saw, you know, 400 kids get up and go outside. It was just a great time. It was just a great time. But I really wanted to be a United States senator.

Okay.

And I wanted to be what Bobby Kennedy was. And I chose American University because it's in Washington, D.C., so that I could be close to the Capitol Building.

Yeah.

And so I went to American University. I studied political science and international stuff as much as you do as your freshman year of high school— college. A lot of it was rock and roll and drugs. There's a lot of marijuana involved, you know, nothing heavy, but there was a lot of marijuana involved. There was a lot of getting to class late. There was a lot of staying up late. There was a lot of all-nighters to get the papers done. And I had a group of friends at college, and all of us lived on the same dorm floor. And so we were in trouble altogether.

I can imagine. And I got—

I didn't register for a political science class. I missed it. And I couldn't take it, but I was on a scholarship, so I couldn't decide to take fewer credits that semester. And so the only class that had the same level of credits that didn't happen at 8 o'clock in the morning, because that was not when I wanted to go to school, like everybody— who wants an 8 o'clock in the morning class— was television production.

Hmm.

So I took television production, and I learned how to operate cameras and edit videotape and produce television. And I, I had, I had to help one of my classmates do an interview segment. So I interviewed one of the leading television anchors in Washington, D.C. His name was Jim Vance, and he— great award winner. trailblazer, broke color lines, was quite the community man, kept his heart throughout his entire career. He just passed a couple of years ago. And I interviewed him and he asked me, he invited me to come to the station to take a tour. So we arranged the time and I walked in there and he gave me a tour and eventually he had to hand me over to somebody else because he had to go like anchor the news. And I got to understand how it all worked. And I had— CB, I never turned back. Nearly 30 years later, I left television.

What an incredible story.

I left television.

Because you wanted to party all night.

Yes, but I guess working full-time— and what happened was they had a training program called Vacation Relief, and they would train you to take over the technical job. So if this cameraman is going on vacation, you were trained to take that While that 2 weeks he's on vacation, and you were also trained to go over here and do this. So when that editor went on vacation, you took that space. And so I got to learn all these different positions while I'm making union wage.

Wow.

And I didn't want to go back to school. I had a great counselor who said, look, we're gonna figure out how you're going to go to school and work at NBC. And we did. And so I took some classes, and then I went to work, and I had to write essays and take pictures and come up with all this stuff to prove I was at work. And so it was a really nice gig. It was a really nice time, and I got to learn everything. I was— I worked on Meet the Press, and I worked on local news. I worked on David Brinkley, with David Brinkley. I worked the Watergate hearings. I worked the impeachment trials. I just, you know, it was just fascinating. I worked with the major stars. I met Barbara Walters and worked alongside her.

Wow.

And it was, you know, she was quite gritty to get what she wanted, but she recognized women. She was supportive of women, and it was fascinating that I was a woman who wanted to be a technician, because there were maybe 200 men in the building who were technicians, and only 5 of us were women. 2 of us were Black. And so there was, there was tension. There was racial tension. There was sexism. There were— I would tell you the vast majority of them didn't want us there, but the ones who did were magnificent in making sure you got trained and making sure the doors were open for you. So, you know, I have— white men and white women have done tremendous amount of support and love for me in my career.

How did you— you know, this is going to sound like a weird question, but how did you justify that?

Justify what?

The fact that you had So many white men and white women supportive of you and your career?

I don't understand the word justify. In other words, how do I explain it?

No, justify.

Um, are you, or were you not chastised for this by the other Black people? Yes, there were no other Black people.

Oh, that's true. That's true.

There were a few Black people, but we were nowhere near the majority in the room. I wasn't working for the National Negro College Fund.

It was—

I'm at NBC in the '80s— in the '70s, rather. I'm at NBC in the '70s. There weren't a whole lot of Black people around to be mentors.

Okay.

And I don't think that the people— the few— and they were in the group of few who went out of their way. It was a few. I don't think I think those same few helped the other Black people, too. And it wasn't like they formed a club and said, let's help the Black people. They just didn't stand in your way. And if they had information and you were working alongside them, they would give you the information. If they knew you had an ambition, they would invite you into the control room to learn that. Well, let me tell you that when most of the people were friendly but would ignore you, you know, knowing that you needed this leg up. And even the Black women didn't get the leg up the white women did. But there was like no sponsorships for the Black women, or there would be men who would like attach themselves. I'm gonna help you, you know, and train you and make you a director or make you something this. I didn't have any of that, but I had the support of people like the director of Meet the Press. Always made sure I was on that crew. Always made sure I was on that crew. And so what did I learn? Who did I meet? What did I do? I was always on the crew to record David Brinkley reports, and that because there were people who saw that I had ambition and had the power to manipulate schedules or manipulate this, and did it, and did it. And, and sometimes I did get preference over other Black people. I know that because there was something in my personality, or I'm the angry Black woman that you don't have to see it on the outside of me. You know, I don't have to— like, I have to have a sign on all the time. But, but it doesn't mean that those feelings aren't there.

But I asked that question. I know it sounds like a weird question.

Mm-hmm.

Because I had a very similar experience that you had, except it was in corporate America.

Mm-hmm.

And I found— and of course, I'm a little older than you are— I found that there was a resentment from other Black people. You didn't sound like you were Black. You didn't live where other Blacks were. You got special treatment. Why can't you be one of us?

Crabs in the barrel. You know, I got that my whole life. I got that my whole life, CB.

That's why the word justified.

Okay, that's why the word— I get it now. Totally get it. I got that my whole life. I got beaten up in junior high school. We moved from Cleveland to Baltimore. Then a piece I didn't tell you is my father is an operatic baritone.

Wow.

And so he made money by being a janitor and security guard. But whenever he could sing— so I grew up, I was, we were taken to opera houses, and there would be a carload of my friends going to opera houses or going to rehearsals. He did what he could to sing, you know, but there was already a Paul Robeson. And I don't know if my father would have the marketing skills to Really make it past being the janitor who sang on the side. Okay. But we were taught to speak. We were taught to use our mouths. We were taught, as my father would call it at the time, the King's English.

Yes, I remember that.

You remember that? You remember that phrase? And that I swear. CB, if the house was on fire, and I'd run to my father and say, Daddy, we have to get out. The house is on fire. If there was one syllable in there, one punctuation that wasn't right, my father would say, stop. Say that again. The house could be burning down all around. Say it again. And I would have to say it properly, and then we could leave. He was correcting everything, and I tortured my daughter growing up the same way. Like, no, no, no, no. What? Tell me to say that.

You mean there's no thems and those?

No, there's no thems or those or aints. There are no nicknames. Your name is this, you know. We don't have any Pookie, you know. We don't have a name. We—

this is your name.

And other than things like sweetheart, darling, you know. Yes, there's no nickname that follows you around. And I got that my whole life. I physically was beaten up. You sound like a white girl.

You—

and my daughter got it sounding like, you sound like a white girl. And the sad part about all of this was the rejection could come more hard from Black people than it was coming from me.

Absolutely. That's exactly why I said that.

Yeah.

Now, now white people have systematic things that are already in place that keep you— they didn't have to come after you on a day-to-day basis. like Black people do. And it was sad because in the '60s, early '70s, we were equating the way we spoke and the way we lived as a racial identity.

Mm-hmm.

When it wasn't true. We didn't know enough about our history to know Du Bois. We didn't know enough about our history to read Frederick Douglass. We didn't know enough about our history to know Sojourner Truth. or Nzinga, or, you know, any of the people who were crushed because of the transatlantic slave movement, but their spirits weren't crushed.

Mm-hmm.

The way they write, well, you know what I mean? It's just, we don't read Walter Mosley. We don't read, you know, Paul Robeson. We don't, we don't read James Baldwin. And if we knew our history, We would understand that it was snatched from us. And so what we're going to do is connect ourselves to the outgrowth of enslavement when that's only this much of our history. It is not our history.

Mm-hmm.

It is a portion of our history. And we cannot be identified by that portion, because before and after it, look at what we do. And so that was something that was instilled in me from my parents and my other family, my grandmother, that we're not going to identify ourselves and limit ourselves by that section of our history.

Mm-hmm.

We're gonna rise to the best and the brightest. And that's the goal. Do it to perfection. I taught my daughter discipline for the sake of itself, not because you want that goal out there, because you said you're gonna do this at 9 o'clock. At 9 o'clock you have to do that whether you feel like it or not. I have this thing I even tell my clients. We have to stop worshipping at the feet of the great god of I don't feel like it.

I'm gonna borrow that one.

Okay. We can't do it. And, you know, and, and, and you talk about something like that in your book— courage, bravery.

Well, that's—

you can't worship at the feet of the great god of I don't feel like it, because courage You never feel like doing any of that. You never feel like doing any of that. Nothing, you know. So—

I love, I love it. So