We’re looking forward to introducing you to Joseph Cordova. Check out our conversation below.
Joseph, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
Preparation and Organization. I wake up around 5:30am and hit the emails and all the work I can get done prior to any distractions coming through. Having a couple of hours in the morning without incoming emails or phone calls, without having to pause to head off to a meeting, means having the opportunity to get ahead of my day before it gets away from me. Around 8-10am, I can start to see the emails come through and I’m aware that the opportunity to be pulled away is ripe. This prevents stress for me as, by that time, I’ve got a handle on everything I need to do that day and have either completed or taken care of most of the independent tasks on my to do list.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Joseph Cordova and I am an attorney and the Fair Housing project manager at Florida Legal Services. Our Fair Housing project covers a 15-county region in north-central Florida where we engage in community education and awareness campaigns; fair housing testing; direct client representation; training and workshops for housing providers; and other preventative and enforcement endeavors. The Fair Housing Act protects us all from housing discrimination when a landlord, lending company, property manager, leasing agent, real estate agent, appraiser, and anyone else in a position to deny or make different the terms and conditions of our housing uses our race, color, sex, national origin, disability, religion, or familial status as the reason to deny or limit our housing. What makes our work unique is that, for several years, we continue to approach our work through what is referred to as the Community Lawyering method. This means that we put ourselves in as many events, activities, and collaborations as possible in order to serve vulnerable communities and families, after building rapport, trust, and familiarity with these communities.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I’m going to answer this question by first defining ‘child’ as anything before the age of 45, meaning, some of the biggest realizations and reconsiderations of my life came much later. And the biggest one is my understanding of the concept of permanency. As a kid and through most of my adult life, and I’m sure this is true for many of us, we spend so much time hoping for and anticipating things like graduation, landing the dream job, buying a new house, and other big events on the timeline of our lives. Similarly, we spend a lot of time fearing the worst, stressing over making wrong decisions that could lead to the end of our careers or educational paths. The reality is that, win or lose, succeed or fail, life is not like a movie where the ending occurs, the credits roll, and that’s it. The story continues. Whether you are experiencing your dream or your worst fears, you still have to wake up tomorrow and play a role in your own life. Whether that is in the name of continuing the good times or getting out of the bad, you remain a player and the game is not over. So, with age, I’ve come to learn that balancing hope and fear can really be a freeing approach to life. Easier said than done. I still worry and stress quite a bit, but at least I can now understand why every aspect of life is not the potential end, and recognizing that is a great first step towards practicing a better approach to careers and life in general.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
While this fear has definitely been a boost and something I can look back on be proud of what I’ve accomplished because of it, there is another side to the coin where it has definitely been limiting. The fear I’m speaking of is the fear of letting others down. Whether that be family, friends, supervisors, colleagues, professors, etc. I pride myself as being someone people can depend on to complete what is asked of me, to never be the person others are waiting on, and to never be the person that others have to fix mistakes or major errors for. This fear has positively made me the type of person that strives to live 3 steps ahead of what’s expected of me so that, when I do make mistakes, I have plenty of time to fix them before anything is really impacted. But, what’s been very limiting is that it leaves very little time to properly assess the ‘now’ and even less time to pursue other endeavors, many of which would be more joyful and self-fulfilling. The fear of letting people down means living and making decisions based on the assumptive reputation you hold in other people’s minds. The reality is that, most of the time, other people are busy doing their own thing, and really don’t care whether I’m ahead or behind. It’s limiting to assume that a simple mistake could crumble what you’ve been working on for so long, when really, few others really even care. And the ones that do care, actually care for you and are more than willing help and offer grace and compassion when needed.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
More and more it is, and it’s a really good feeling. With familiarity of colleagues and confidence in what you do and how you do it, the mask of ‘professionalism’ can be let down a little. But, mostly, I work with really amazing people everyday, whom I genuinely enjoy being around. And as they remain authentic, it is a lot easier to be authentic myself. This means getting to smile and laugh, make a few jokes, and allow the seriousness of work and tasks to be flavored with a more human touch. When you are confident in your work and your work outputs, you get to be more confident in who you are and how you present yourself, allowing your work to speak for itself.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What will you regret not doing?
Enjoying the journey. I can very easily get lost in tomorrow and forgetting to just enjoy today. The wisdom of this concept is everywhere and so easy to understand, but it is the hardest thing for me to do. In looking back, I have a lot of yesterdays I can be proud of, but I can’t say for certain whether or not I truly enjoyed them as they were happening.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.floridalegal.org
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/florida-legal-services
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/floridalegalservicesinc
