Karen Wishart, Esq., MBA, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, Urban One Media

Good evening. Oh, you did better for them. Come on now, good evening. Oh, my job is done. See y'all. I know that I'm getting old because before I would be able to have stuff up here where I could just read, and then I started getting older and I'd have to put my glasses on and I'd have to glance down. Now they're staying on. So I had very long prepared words for you tonight, and then I've kind of looked at the time and I said I think I'm standing in between them and a party, so I'm gonna move this along. I just wanted to clarify something. Thank you for the great introduction, by the way. I only have one role now, and that is with Urban One. The other stuff was kind of in the past. Occurs on Executive Search is a company that my husband and I started, and that I kind of left him and he's now running it with the team. But I am delighted, absolutely delighted to be here. I'm delighted to see all of you. Evangeline, you always run such a remarkable event, and I'm just happy to be here to spend some time. Thanks to all the panelists, the attorneys who are here, the judges who are here, the volunteers, the experts, the people who are doing the exhibits. Everyone has given up their time so freely for such a worthy cause. But I think the real stars of tonight are the aspiring attorneys. The fact that you guys came out to this, gave up a weekend, and it is cold here, come to this cold, and that really shows some of the character of who you are and who you're going to become in the future. I'm excited. As we all know, right now we're living in some perilous times. I just have a question. Going back to 2016, how many of you know somebody who did not vote? Just raise your hand. Now with our midterms that just passed, how many of you still know somebody who did not vote? Okay, that is actually really scary. It's less, but it's really scary. We've done our best, people who are in my generation, I feel old saying that, we've done what we can do to pave the world for you, and now we're kind of giving you a mess that you guys are gonna have to clean up for us. So I need you to stay vigilant. But here's what I want to talk about tonight. I want to talk about decisions and the impact of decisions. So if I asked you, if you had to defend your life before a judge or jury in court designed to determine whether you're living your best life, what would be the verdict? Or how about this: if you had to get an attorney who had to examine how effectively you're using your talent and resources and abilities, what evidence could you give to him or her to argue your case? No matter the facts, the truth is that our lives are and will remain the sum total of our choices. We are who we are and will be, and it's ultimately a result of a string of choices that we make each and every day. Tony Robbins, how many people have heard of Tony Robbins? He is one of my absolute favorite motivational speakers, and I encourage all of you who haven't heard of him, Google him, or as my parents would say, go to the YouTube thing and pull him up. But he says it is in your moments of decision that destiny is shaped. So what does that mean? Well, I'll tell you a decision that has impacted my life and has shaped me to be who I am today. That was about 30-something years ago. I went to a party. A guy there couldn't remember my name, asked me for my phone number, didn't have a pen. I told him my phone number and said he's never gonna call. Well, he called the next day, and that was 30 years ago, and he's still with me today. And that's my husband Norm. Wait, wait, wait, before you give him all the kudos, just know this: as I found out on my wedding day, he didn't remember my number. His best friend did. He didn't. Oh, it gets better. He didn't know my name when he called. So I've always said that if my best friend who was living with me at the time, if she would have answered the phone, they would have been married today. Okay, so digging in a little deeper, each of you have made a decision to attend this conference. I encourage you to reflect back on your life because it's been a series of decisions that led you to coming to Boston to be in this decision. But imagine if in 2005, Evangeline, who saw that there were very few Black attorneys in our law schools and the students that she saw weren't as prepared as they should be, there were students who wanted to get in there but they really didn't know how. Imagine if she'd decided at that time, you know what, I'm just gonna keep it moving, I have my career, I have what's about me, I'm gonna do that. Imagine if she had done that, if she hadn't started the Pre-Black Law Conference, you wouldn't have that decision to make to come to this conference, and we wouldn't be sitting here at the 14th annual conference. Decisions shape our destiny. Now if decisions shape our destiny, then what drives our decisions? I would argue that it's our motives. Our motives are what allow us to make the decisions, what push us to make those decisions. So for instance, if I said that I wanted to lose weight, would I decide to consume a diet of about 6,000 calories a day? Well, if it was cheesecake and a few of my favorites, maybe. But no, that's a decision because I'm motivated to lose weight. Our actions and decisions must be consistent with our intent and congruent with our desired outcome. Don't underestimate the power of motive, or as I call it, the power of why. It's not enough to know what we want, but we've got to know why we want it. For example, I'll give you my example. For years I was saying, oh, you know what, I want to get in shape, and I would sign up for that gym, and they would collect my money each and every month, and I know there's some of you out there who are exactly like me. They would collect my money each month and I would never go. But I was always saying my goal is to get in shape. Why wasn't it working? I wasn't motivated. There wasn't anything that was that important to me that got to my core to make me work out. So fast forward to a little over a year ago, and I go to my doctor and I get my annual physical, and they say, you know what, you have the early signs of pre-osteoporosis, which as you know is a weakening of your bones. So all of a sudden I'm thinking, I want to be the cool grandma. I don't have grandchildren yet, so don't think I am that old, but I want to be the cool grandma who plays with her grandchildren. I want to be the cool grandma that can take her grandchildren and their friends and we can go camping. Well, do you think I was motivated? One of the treatments that they give is calcium, and then they say that strength training is something else that helps with osteoporosis. Where am I now? I'm at the gym at least three days a week. I'm working with my trainer. I'm probably 100% stronger than I am, and my osteoporosis level has gone down. Why? Because there was something that motivated me. So what's motivating you? You have to know why. Why do you want to be a lawyer? What is it that you want to do as a lawyer? Is it to protect our communities? Is it to uplift people? Is it to make a lot of money? Is it to build a life so that you get to play golf and travel? What's your motive? Or is it to please your mom and dad because that's what they want? Before everyone goes, let me just tell you my story. I have two ways that I've been: the good mom who is standing behind her kids so that they can make the choices that they want to make and be their best self, and then the other mom who was yeah, I want my kids to be lawyers just like me. In the first case, my daughter was a gymnast and started at six years old and had 40 other little five and six year old gymnasts with her. She was the only one out of those 40 that got a full scholarship to a Division One school. And they did an interview with her to ask her how was she successful when the other kids that started out with her weren't successful. And she said, my mom and my dad let it be my sport. They drove me to the gym, they gave me hugs when I fell, but they never pressured me. It was always my decision, and this is something I love. So I was a good mom there. But I decided that I wanted one of my children, because I'm the first in my family to go to college, first in my family to become a lawyer, and I wanted the second in my family. So I introduced them to all the lawyers that I know, I took them to conferences, I even brought them to this conference a few years back. Well, neither of them are lawyers. One is in marketing, and the other's decided she wants to go to medical school. We all must choose our paths, and only we can know what truly motivates us. Only you know what motivates you. Only you know what's in your court. So as you are going on your path to become an attorney, there are a few things that I want you to consider. First, know the truth and know your truth. We learn that facts can change based on a number of things, but please, and I know I have to say it, don't buy into those alternative facts. Know what the truth is. And then along with that, know what is your truth. What do you believe? What do you know to be true for yourself? Be open to be persuaded, but have a compass that always guides you back to your truth. You've probably heard this expression, it's one of my favorites: your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values or character, your character becomes your destiny. Your truth is your character. Honor your character. But don't confuse your character with perfection. Good character doesn't denote perfection and is not the absence of failure. Good character means you own up to your failures, you admit your mistakes, because your mistakes don't define you. We've all made mistakes, and I've made some doozies, and I will continue to make them. The thing is to learn from those mistakes. Second, seek your own path. Be an original. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I encourage you to emulate the positive traits of the people who you've met here this weekend, the people who you're going on your journey with, emulate them. But don't let their purpose become your purpose. You have your own. Remember William Shakespeare's advice: to thine own self be true. Think about what you want to accomplish and what brings you joy. These questions and many others will help you forge your own path. Third, change is constant. Embrace it. The people who I see being most successful in this world are those who embrace change. If you embrace change, it will set you free. You won't be anxious, you won't be fearful. You'll be open to receiving the blessings that change brings. Know that with change and whatever your goals are going to be, there's always going to be a divergence of paths. I got into this career because of a divergence of path. When I was in Canada, because I'm actually a Canadian lawyer before I moved here, we have this thing called articling, which is like a clerkship. So while I was a clerk, we would get to go to court and speak in front of the Masters. And there was a master who was a particular curmudgeon. And there was one day that I went in, I had something really bright on, and think about this, this was in the early 90s, and in Toronto where I was from, I think there were two and a half Black attorneys or law clerks. The half was the person who really did look like us, but he didn't know he looked like us. So going into court, I was the little pepper grain in that little bowl of white rice. And the master turned to me and said, Miss Wishart, you are very colorful today. And I said to him, Your Honor, I find that every time I walk into this room, I add a bit of color. Well, he didn't take too kindly to that, and I was sent back to the firm, which meant I was sent up to the library doing research. And I'm getting to my point really, this is all about diverging paths. So there I was schlepping down our inner staircase. Our firm had about 400 lawyers, which is considered a large firm in Canada. 400 lawyers, and it was me, there was an assistant in real estate, and the mailroom guy, and that was it. So I'm schlepping down with my books, and at the bottom of the stairs, there's a Black man who I learned is a Black businessman with two of his Black partners, and they were trying to start the first Black-owned radio station in Canada. They were with the entertainment partner there. I didn't know him, and I'm sure as heck that he didn't know me. But those Black businessmen looked up, Denham Jolly as his name, looked up, saw me schlepping with my books down there, and said to the partner, who is that? Partner didn't know, but said, I think she's one of our articling students. And he said, hey, I want her working on our application, and if she's not going to work on our application, we're gonna go find another law firm. So you can imagine as I schlepped down there and I got back to my little station and I was working, this partner came over and talked to me about this exciting new project that he wanted me to work on. My decision was to insult a master. Not a conscious decision. I didn't know that decision was going to lead me to working with this group. Denham Jolly's decision was to see me, and as a young Black, he figured I had to be at worst a paralegal, at best a law student. He saw me and decided to embrace me and give me that leg up. But had I not insulted that master, I never would have been in that spot, and I never would have had that opportunity. So change, embrace it. Go with it. Fourth, and I will speed through the rest. Fourth, create a plan. Can't do anything without a plan, right? Your plan, figure out where it is you want to be, work your way backwards, and then come up with the steps. Once you have your plan, oh, let me just do a little quick sidebar. Those who know me know I always have a lot of sidebars. When my sidebar is the excuse of I don't have time, it doesn't work. We have time for anything that's important for us. And if you don't believe me, do this little experiment. Do a time clock when you get to be an attorney, you'll get to know about all these dockets and keeping track of your time. But do that for a week, and once you do, then make a list of everything that's important for you and all the goals that you have. And guess what? You're gonna find that you really don't have to watch MSNBC and CNN for five hours. You really don't have to catch up with Game of Thrones or the new season of House of Cards, which it is out, and if you haven't seen it yet, I won't do the spoiler alert, but it's actually pretty good. But you don't have to watch a full day of House of Cards back to back. Capture some of that time and put it into the stuff that's really important to you, or the stuff that motivates you, the stuff that's going to drive your decisions, the stuff that's going to show you what your destiny is. So finally, execute your plan. I don't have to go into that, but I will tell you, take a baby step. So when my whole, yeah, I need to work out, I really do need to work out, and when I got motivated to do it, and I had a trainer who, God bless her, likes this 5 a.m. in the morning, and I'm not a morning person, you can ask my husband, I am very grumpy in the morning. But she was like, you better be here at 5 a.m. ready to work, or I'm coming to your house and I am going to break in. So motivated. First day, couldn't do it. But then what I did was I took that little step, and the little step was getting all of my stuff ready the night before, putting it right beside my bed, so that as I rolled over to try and turn that alarm off, I would say, oh, you know what, my sneakers are there, my t-shirts are there, my water bottle's there. And that got me up. That little step propelled me to taking the next step. So whatever your goals are, commit to yourself that tomorrow when you leave this place, you are going to take one little step. It could be looking something up on the internet, it could be making a phone call, it could be committing that on Monday when you go to class, you are gonna be your best. You just commit to Monday, and then commit to Tuesday. So in closing, I want to remind you that many greats have come before you and paved the way for you to do great things, and in turn for you to pave the way for those who look up to you. Because even though you're starting in your careers, there are people who look up to you. Please remember that. Remember, motivation fuels decisions, and decisions in turn fuel destiny. Remember the paths traveled by Macon Bolling Allen, the first African-American lawyer and judge, granted his license to practice in 1844. Charlotte E. Ray, the first female African-American lawyer, 1872, the first female admitted to the District of Columbia bar. She passed her bar in 1872. Thurgood Marshall, I don't have to say anything more about that. But which first will you be? Which landmark case will you argue? Which revolutionary technology merger will you be first chair for? Which court will you preside over? Which decision will you make that will inspire decision in someone else and lead him or her down a pathway of greatness? As Dr. Leroy Woods, co-founder and chairman of the P4 Medical Institute, said, don't underestimate the power of your vision to change the world. Whether that world is your office, your community, an industry, or a global movement, you need to have a core belief that what you contribute can fundamentally change the paradigm or way of thinking about problems. Thank you, and enjoy the parties tonight.