A Journey of Redemption and Global Impact | Cobe Williams | 580

There are moments of transformation where we see the world in a new way, and it causes us to take action. These moments are sometimes quiet and sometimes highly emotionally charged. Today I speak with Koby Williams, the director of US programming for Cure Violence Global. In this episode, you'll hear how a powerful moment in a courtroom with his young son changed the trajectory of Kobe's life. It also led him to create impact in communities around the world, and now as an author practicing thought leadership. If you want to explore impacting lives through ideas, especially in high-stakes environments, Kobe Williams reveals how he works with clarity, Purpose and humility. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Kobe.

Thank you for having me.

So I want to dive in, in a moment which for you was transformative, but really in my mind serves as sort of the crux of your work of thought leadership, right? It is the story that helped me understand why and what you do. And so tell me about the moment with your son. Where were you? And tell that story.

Right. So how I have a son named Latrell Williams, and, um, I remember Years ago, I was locked up. I was in custody. I was going to court. So as I'm coming out the court through the, you know, through like the back, shackled up and handcuffs on your legs, you shackled up. My son, my son's mother, my sister, and my mother, they all came to court for me. So my son had to be about 2 years old. So as I'm coming from the back, I ain't see my son in probably a year and a half or something. So when I'm coming from the back, get in the courtroom, I looked over there at my family because that's the first thing when you come in from going to court. Looked over there at my family and my son looked at me and I said, "Dada, dada." He's like, "Daddy, dada." And he ran to me. So as he ran to me, the judge must have realized, he could tell that we didn't see each other in so long. When I say 2, we could have been 3, you know what I'm saying? Somewhere real young.

Young.

Yeah, real young. And the judge must have sensed that. So he told the bailiff, and I couldn't believe that, judge told the bailiff, take the handcuffs off of him. "Take the handcuffs off of me." So as he took the handcuffs off me and all that, he gave me permission to embrace my son. So I was so happy, you know what I'm saying? Just embrace my son. So me and my son, we looking at each other, I'm hugging him for a minute. "I love you, I miss you." He hugged me, we embracing each other in the courtroom in front of everybody.

Right. But in that moment, it's probably just you and him.

Him, yes.

Together. Yeah. The whole world goes away. Yeah.

Yes. So I know they finna hear my case and I knew I wasn't finna go home. I did know that. So I know I'm finna go back to the back. I told my son, "Go see what your mama want. Your mama calling you." All the time she wasn't calling him because I know it's time to go there. So he went to see what his mama called. See, went over there with his mother, but he still looking my direction and he seeing me. Walking, you know, walking out 5-way, and he just broke down in front of the whole courtroom. Like, I want my daddy, I want my daddy, I want my daddy. So I'm looking at him and I just got so emotional right then, tears coming down my face. I'm getting so emotional, like, man, man, I want my son. I need to be my son, be my son. So I'm trying to hurry up and clear my face up, right? Because I know I'm finna go back to lockup. And you don't want to be emotional. You in jail, you feel like, man, my whole thing was I was hoping no one said anything to me. Crazy going back, like, "Oh, you a crybaby." A person could have said anything because I was going to lose my cool. But even from there, most people probably saw what happened because at this time, you could see people from jail on the screen. So they probably saw what took place. They could have saw, you know what I'm saying, what took place on the screen before you went to court. You know, in the back sometimes they have— certain courthouses had back then, have TV cameras and all that to see. So I broke down. So right there I was like, man, I got to really be there for my son. I got to get out. I got to do the right thing. It's a must. I can't do my son like that. Because I remember, and I still have pictures of my father, going to see my father in prison when I was young, just like my son. I remember them pictures right now. I still have these pictures and all that. I'm like, "Man, I got to do right." But I broke down and I was so emotional and just like, "Todam." Man, it hurt me, man.

I can't even imagine. I want to thank you for sharing what, when you shared it with me earlier in conversation, an incredibly powerful moment. And from what you said, that led you on a journey.

Yes.

To where you are today. So what I want to ask you is, let's flash forward. Tell me what you do today as well as introduce the book. Okay.

So what I do today, like I say, I'm the director of the U.S. program for Cure Violence Global. So right now what I do, I set up programs all over the world, CVI programs, community violence intervention programs, violence prevention programs all over the world to help people stop shooting and killing each other. I've been doing this work for close to 20 years. I started off doing it in my community first on the South Side of Chicago. Now they gave me a promotion. I'm the director of the US program, so I have set up programs all over Trinidad, Africa, Jamaica, Baltimore, New York, DC, St. Louis, you name it, I've probably been there in these cities. So I have set up them programs all over because when you got good programs out here, people doing great work, and it's Kobe's all around the world, right? When I say Kobe's around the world, I'm saying there's people who've been affected by violence now came home from prison and doing the right thing. So I'm just blessed and grateful to continue to do what I'm doing because I have took so much from my community. So I really just want to give back to my community. So I want my story to always inspire other people, right? I know it's— so I was in the documentary, right, called The Interrupters, and I remember so many people coming up to me, Kobe, you really inspire us, man. You gave me hope, man. Kobe, you let me know it's okay, man. Kobe, you teaching me not to give up on my life. So I want to write a book and all that, and my co-author named Josh, I call him Josh G, Josh, me and him been talking for this about 10 years, like, man, need to get a book out there, need to get a book out there, need to write that. So me and him took that journey on and start writing a book. And like, I'm so happy with it because I want to use my platform to let people know it's never too late to change. You not alone. You got to keep pushing.. But the most important thing I want people to know, redemption is real. It ain't how you start, it's how you finish.

There's so much there. I'm going to have to choose one question to keep diving in on some of this. Thank you, Kobe. So I want to stay on the concept of redemption, right? And it is a powerful idea. As an idea, but it also can be one that feels out of reach to a lot of people. And when I think about thought leadership, it's about showing someone a possibility or an opportunity that's around the corner that they might not see and showing them the first step of how they get there, right? So we talked a little bit about the Violence Interruption Program. Can you talk about the work that you do and have done in the community working with people who are, well, bent on violence, right? And how do you change someone's mind and make them open to the possibility of redemption when they may be focused on revenge.

Right. So the work I did in the community, like I said, when I first started doing this work, my job title was a violence interrupter. So an interrupter was more like a firefighter. So if a building burning down, it's blazing flame, who come and put out the fire? The fireman.

Firefighter.

Yeah. I didn't fight. So my job— violence is up, erupting in the community, shooting and killing is going on, people getting shot, people getting killed. My job was to get out there, to mediate conflicts, focus on stopping the shooting and killing on the front end before it happened. Once it happened, my job was to stop retaliations. But you got to have the relationships in the community. So you got to have the relationships, you got to be from the community, but it's important to meet people where they are without—

What does that look like? Yeah, what does that look like?

I'm saying, like I say, I come from that life, I walked that life. A lot of my best friends walked that life. A lot of my friends in prison right now. A lot of my friends got killed, their kids got killed. So how that look like? I'm being out there every day, walking in my area where I'm from, born and raised in the neighborhood I'm from. I'm walking the area every day, I'm riding in the area every day, and I'm just building relationships. I'm just getting to know people who I know, do know, and people who I don't know. And I'm just spreading the message like, man, it's okay, it's okay for us to have disagreements, right? But we do not got to shoot and kill each other because we had a disagreement. So I'm meeting them where they are. When things take place in the community where people want to hurt each other, I'm intervening right then, right? I'm internet intervening, and I'm providing them an opportunity to talk it through. Talk it through in a way where I'm just facilitating it, but I'm getting them a platform. Like, man, yeah, all right, I hear what you saying, I hear what you saying. You got to listen to both parties or multiple parties. You got to listen to them on a regular to be like, man, guess what, I understand what you're going through, I understand what you're going through, but where can we meet What's the common ground where we, we can meet to make all this go away? And the biggest thing you got to always remember when you bringing people together, you facilitate conflict resolution, all that, how much damage have been done. Because it get a little tricky when somebody just shot at you but they didn't shoot you.

Mhm.

You know, it's— it get a little tricky. So you got to be able to hear what they saying, hear where they coming from, and try to understand them but not judging them, not tell them he wrong, he right. Just meet them where they at and give them that. And one thing is most important when situations happen, or before they happen, We always provide them opportunity to save face. And when I say save face, right, sometimes people do what they friends expect them to do, or they just want to do this and do that so they could put it on us. Man, this Kobe ain't come over here, man, I was finna do this and do that. Okay, I'm glad I was here, you wouldn't do that. So you don't want to push nobody in no corner 'Cause you can't never underestimate anybody. You know, anybody, if they feel like they've been threatened or they feel like they been through this or been through that, they will act out in some type of way. So it's important just to meet these young people where they at without judging them.

I like that idea of meet where they are without judging, recognizing they may have, like you said, if someone's been shot at, they probably got a mix of emotions going through— anger, fear, you know, worry, you know, a whole bunch of things. And you got to find a way to talk with them and connect with them so that they hear you. So my question is, how do you get heard when someone's got so much noise going through their heads?

So it's all about your approach though.

Please. Yeah.

And your approach is this: you got to do a lot of listening, not a lot of talking. So when you are approaching them and you go in these situations— because I've been in thousands of these situations— you go in there, you listen to them, and like Okay, you validate, you hear them, you acknowledge, you hear them, you listening to me. I see what you saying. Uh-huh. But guess what? I, I hear what you saying. Matter of fact, let's go get something to eat. Let's go to a basketball game. Let's go hang out downtown for a minute. You removing them from the area from where they at. You removing them from a location that's like, man, They sit and talk, man. What's your plan? And this work is all about psychology too, Bill.

Oh yeah.

In this work, you got to be thinking on your feet at all times. So a lot of times it's like, okay, yeah, we don't go at a new location and all that, constantly spending time with them, getting to know them. All the time what you're doing is you changing their mindset. Right, you changing their bad mindset, right? And you get them to think a little more, right? But guess what? Why you getting them to think? You got your other coworkers still talking to the different groups in the community who they beefing with, or even with some of their friends. So it's like you working from every angle, and then people see like, man, he really care about me, he really rock with me. Man, he calling me, I'm checking in on him and all that. So it's all about relationships and not coming off like you trying to tell them what to do. You meet them where they are.

And you get them a couple things. One, away from whatever environment they're in, right? And almost away from— sometimes I think of it as social media courage or internet courage as well. People who aren't directly involved would say, "Did you see what they said?" And they're eager to fan the flames, but it's not them, right? They're almost like trying to push you to do something stupid. And so, getting people to slow down, to think, and eventually be able to listen, they can hear a different idea. Than the one that everybody else is sort of banging or the one they think other people expect them to do.

Yes, because most people, they want to be talked down a lot of times.

Mm-hmm.

But they still care how they friends see it, how they friends think. So it's like it's a lot of situations where I've been able to talk people down, but when they get around their friends, they get to smoking, to drinking or whatever, like, man, man, you don't take that, man. He telling everybody he did this, he treated you, he did this and that. So a lot of times you have to remember they dealing with that. And we talking about, we talking about people who, man, ain't all the way developed, all the way mature, you know what I'm saying?

Sometimes because they can be young. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, a lot of these people young, so I understand that. So when you be able to do that and take them from different environments, taking them other places and spend time with them, and like, man, Bro, guess what, man? You have to make sense out of— I'll be like, bro, man, you got a little sister and little brother, man. You already just told me, man, it's hard on your mama. Your father ain't around. You just told me your mama struggling to pay the bills. You just told me this and you told me that. I say, bro, if you leave, man, it's still going to be hard on your mama, harder than it is now. 'Cause she ain't got nobody. At least she got you. Your little brother and your little sister need you. They look up to you, bro. So let's think about that. I ain't trying to tell you what to do, but think about that. So when you make sense out of this and get them to think, it makes sense. And you know what? Guess what? We gonna have a big barbecue. We giving out toys, we giving out this, we giving out that. Man, bring your little sister and bring your little brother too. So you showing them you care, you changing this mindset, and you, you walking them through, you walk him through steps.

Taking them step by step into a different possibility and one where it becomes real. And I think one of the things that I also hear as well is you can look them in the eye and say, I've been where you've been, I've felt what you felt, and I did time, right? Right. Yeah.

And even with that, Bill, no, that's, that's definitely a good concept, but sometimes You got to watch their body language, see how they receiving that, because sometimes if they talking to the wrong person, say I'm saying that sometimes people could come off like they glorifying that, right? Like they bragging on that. So you got to watch their body language and the tone you use, you know what I'm saying? You have to think about—

you have to almost mirror where they're at in some ways, right?

Yeah, yeah, but you got to be thinking Like, because like, man, sometimes I watch the words I use and I see how far they let me go. But the number one thing is you got to be thinking on your feet at all times.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/podcast. /ltl and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. And I want to now jump from thinking on your feet at all times in that moment where you're talking with someone who's contemplating violence to the work that you're doing today across, you know, the North America, as well as then writing a book, you're thinking on your feet at a different level now.

Yes, because I want the world to know, I want everybody know violence affects everybody.

Mm-hmm.

Violence is making our country sick. So it's important. And it's people like me, it's a lot of people like me who made choices in their life that ended us up in prison. And it's people like me, the one who correcting a lot of this madness in the street because we have relationships. So I want people to know that what I'm doing on the global side is Look where I started though, and look where I'm at. It, it was no easy task to get where I'm at, and I'm still doing everything I can to really give back though. So it feel great when you have people all over the world who doing this type of work in their own city, in their own area where they grew up at, in their own state. It's just It's just a great feeling. So for me to do this on a big scale like that, it's just truly a blessing. I ain't gonna sit up and say I go to church all the time. I ain't gonna say I pray all the time, but man, I feel like God is using me, you know what I'm saying, to really give back to the people and let them know that you're not alone. Guess what? I walked in a lot of people's shoes. But guess what? Look what I'm doing now. So to really get the word out there on a large scale like that, man, it's great. It's great.

So when you're working in a new community, you mentioned like New York, St. Louis, you know, how do you find or what do you look for in someone where you look and you go, they're going to be good at this work? What do you see where you're like, they get it and they're going to be amazing?

So keep in mind, so like I say, I work for an organization, Cure Violence Global. We call this CVG. And you could check it out on the website, cvg.org. But people reach out to us because we got over 20-some evaluations Saying when you implement this model the right way, you could see reduction on shooting and killing. So the mayor always reach out to us, private funders reach out to us, the health department reach out to us, local county governments, just different people reach out. So when people reach out and say, "Man, y'all got a model," so what we'll do is we'll start having them to bring people in from the community.

Uh-huh.

It's people in the community who doing violence prevention already, but it's— we help educate people and show them a unique way of doing it and give them tools. We give them the tools to operate in a way like, whoa, like, man, I see, I get it now. Not saying people ain't doing good work out there, but we provide tools and all that that is working. It's been Evaluate over 20 times saying the Cure Violence model work.

But I want to come back to the question for the individual.

Oh yes, yes.

Is it—

yes.

What makes someone really good at this work? What characteristics are you looking for, for someone to be standout?

So first, the first step, what we do is Say when Prepa bring all type of people to the table to do this work, we called it a pre-screen at first before they go to a hand panel. Pre-screen. So some of the characteristics we look at people to do this work, guess what? This is what we look for, Bill, and I'm glad you asked that question. That's a great question. So Bill, if I'm in Englewood, I'm using example where I'm born and raised, So if I'm saying I'm credible, I'm suitable, and I know the community. So one of the biggest things I always look for when I go to other cities, and I did it here, oh, you from Inglewood? Okay, let's go out in the community. I want to see how the community respond to you. So if you going in the community with this right there, you going in the community and The community. Oh, what's up, Kobe? Come here, man. Hey, how you doing? It's people riding the cars, blowing them. Hey, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. If people responding to you and gravitating to you, they know you somebody though. Yep. You know what I'm saying? Like, man, hey, come here. Or every corner you go, you can't stop. They can't, man. They talking to you. They, they doing all right.

You can't walk a block without 5 conversations.

So that's a sign right there. People respect you, that the people know you. So now that's one piece of it. Say if I'm saying, yeah, man, I'm a good worker, man. I got relationships all in the community. You do? Bring— So we working, I'm using example, in Zone 725. That's a beat of all that. You know everybody. Guess what? Bring 15, 20, get 10 to 15 high-risk young people in the community here, there to the office. You could produce that, that show that you really got relationships with them. If you can't do that, then that's a red flag for me. You talking about you got the neighborhood on lock, you know everybody, but you can't produce these people, you know. So it's a lot of, um, get rid— and your name got to be credible. I mean, when I say you got to be really a credible messenger Why people rock with you though? Why would— why you could call people up and they hear you out and different things like that? Or you could walk in the neighborhood and you could do this and you could do that. You could put a barbecue or cookout together in this neighborhood. Say this one of the roughest neighborhoods, nobody want to be out. Man, I'm the guy.

But they're going to come out because you're putting it on.

And always remember this, everybody got these organizations and all this and that, that's great. But people buy into the individual, not the organization right away. But it's my job to help them buy into my coworkers and the organization on a big scale. But they buy into the individual.

Well, and I want to underline that, right? Because if you tell someone, hey, I've got an idea, here's 3 tools and 12 steps that you can use. You engage one part of their mind, right? But if you say, this is something that I care about, I'm here and I'm committed to, and you know me, that's an entirely different message. And people listen different between the head and the heart, right?

People. Listen to people who they know. Yeah, but it got to be the right person though. Guess what? It got to be the right messenger. Mhm. If you a messenger, you always trying to tear them down and talk down on them and look down on them, man, you ain't gonna be nothing. You do you this and that. If you judging them and talking down, they ain't gonna listen to you. But like I said, if you meet them where they at Man, I get it, man. Kobe walked that life and look what he giving back. You got to walk that walk. People don't do what you say. They look at what you do.

Uh-huh. Yo, so let's talk a little bit about what you are doing right now. You mentioned the book. I want to talk about the book. Tell me about your experience. One, did you ever think you were gonna write a book? And you talked about, I think it's Josh, your co-author.

Yes, Josh.

Were you pushing him? Did he push you? Tell me sort of the origin story of the book.

So I met with Josh 'cause he used to be the communication director for Cure Vitus Global.

Okay.

So when The Interrupters came out, he is the one help setting it up. We doing Screen this all over the world with The Interrupters. And Josh, we was talking about, man, writing a book. And I was going to write a book. He was like, man, that'd be a good idea. He was going to write the book. And when we first started talking about it, he was going to be like a ghostwriter for me. Uh-huh. And I saw how he was start pushing me more. So we was pushing each other. I say, man, you might as well be a part of all the way. Mhm. So we just start putting together. I never think I was going to write a book. Later on, once we start talking about it, I was like, uh, okay, and all that. But now it's here. Interrupting Violence, that's the name of the book. It's a must-see read. And I got two of the best people I wanted to do the foreword on it. Alice Kotlowitz, big-time bestseller who wrote the book There Are No Children Here. He has a part making the Interrupters documentary. And my good friend, my brother Joaquin Noah, you play with the Chicago Bulls, the Knicks, Memphis Clippers, and all them, they did the foreword. But I want the book to inspire everybody. I want y'all to spread the word about the book, but I really want y'all to listen, listen to the words that's in the book, because it's a lot of skills. I'm talking about mediation skills and all that. It talked about the One City Turners men Joe King doing right now in Chicago with 28, 28 violence prevention organizations. So it talked about a lot of different things, and it talked about my life story. You know, it talked about how I started, how I was growing up, I went down that way and now I'm end up this way.

Mhm.

I ain't gonna say I went down the wrong way because if I ain't go that way, it wouldn't have shaped me up who I am today, right? So I don't regret nothing, but it talk about a lot of trials and tribulation I had to face dealing with my father, my mother on drugs. It talk about a lot of things.

So what is it you hope to accomplish for the book? And there's two parts to this question: for the book out in the world and the people who read it, and then on a personal level. Writing a book is a big project. What do you hope for yourself?

So it's a few things. So I hope with the conference, I really, my biggest thing is I want to motivate people and inspire your people. But when I say motivate them, I want them to know, man, it ain't too late to get it together. I'm going to make you like, man, keep going, keep going. Don't let nobody tell you can't win. And when I say win, don't let nobody tell you can't do this, you can't do that. So I want to give them some motivation. I want to inspire people to talk about, to be able to talk about they story. Because guess what? Stories that we share, personal stories, not just writing a story, personal story we share, it can help somebody else in what they going through in they life. It help somebody else want to do this and do better for they self. So you provide tools to other people. So that piece— but on a larger scale, I want people to always know, man, stop judging people when you don't know what they've been through or what they going through. Try to be more understanding.

Mhm.

Try to understand, like, man, it's real out here. Try to understand violence really affect people. Try to understand, a lot of these brothers and sisters like myself, we've been exposed, exposed to violence at an early age. A lot of us traumatized with stuff. So just try to be more understanding and just know people just don't act out, just act up and act out for attention. They really be calling for help. They really be needing help.

I paused because I respect the power of what you just said, Koby, and it's one of the reasons why I'm so happy to have you as guest. You're doing incredible work on changing minds. You're doing the work of thought leadership. Writing a book is a huge step, but changing minds in the moment when someone is heated, when someone is considering violence and showing them another way, that takes courage, that takes passion, and is absolute belief in people to make choices different than impulse. And that's the heart of thought leadership work in my mind. And I want to thank you for an amazing conversation. You have really brought heart, fire, and soul to this table today, and I appreciate it.

Thank you, Bill. Like I say, thank you for having me, and, um, when the book come out or whatever, if anything I could do down the line to come back to the show, the show, or do anything, man. I just want to, uh, do what I can while I'm on this Earth. I want to help the people, and I understand what people are going through every day, and I know it ain't no easy task sometimes, and I know times get difficult. Do no different. Times get difficult, but guess what? Not to give up.

And I think we'll leave it there because I have nothing further to say. Kobe Williams, thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate you.

Okay, you've made it to the end of the episode, and that means you're probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are 3 recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game in thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you're looking for strategy, or maybe you wanna polish up your ideas or even create new products and offerings. I'd love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.