Harris County woman overcame teen pregnancy, homelessness, abuse. Now she inspires others

Poverty. Teenage pregnancy. Homelessness. Domestic abuse and violence. Dependency on alcohol and other drugs. Yvonne Harvey Williams persevered to overcome those challenges in New Jersey and become a nationally renowned motivational speaker while residing in Harris County.

Williams will deliver her message this month of empowering parents to effectively engage with their children and help them handle stressors such as peer pressure, social media influence and mental health concerns in the post-COVID pandemic era.

The free public presentation will start at 6:30 p.m., Sept. 19, in the Harris County High School auditorium.

“It’s a message of hope, of support, of how we can take whatever we’ve been through, our pain, and turn it into our passion, turn it into whatever we need,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer. “Turn it into power, … and make sure we are present emotionally for our children, … bridging the gap in communication.”

Williams preaches her motto — “It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish” — because it describes her life.

‘Trying to figure out life’

Born to a 13-year-old single mother, Williams grew up impoverished in Paterson, New Jersey. They were homeless when she was 13.

“I was really trying to figure out life,” she said. “… I had a lot of things that I faced, and I’m just grateful and honored and humbled to not be in that same position, but I know it takes work. It takes diligence. It takes sacrifice.”

Although she was a straight-A student, Williams dropped out of Eastside High School, where famous principal Joe Clark of the “Lean on Me” movie presided, because she didn’t have support at home to prioritize education. She also felt like an outsider among her peers, not wearing fashionable clothes.

“I was embarrassed,” she said.

Williams had a boyfriend with a “warped and perverted” sense of love, she said.

After he went to jail and she gave birth to her first son, Williams realized she couldn’t provide the life she wanted on $248 per month from welfare.

“It wasn’t going to feed my baby and get us out of these crack houses and trap houses,” she said.

Williams also realized, “The only way to make it out of poverty is through education and developing a skill set because no one can take that away from you.

“I knew I didn’t want to drink, didn’t want to smoke anymore, didn’t want to go to clubs anymore. I saw what it was doing to my opportunity to climb the corporate ladder and just be present for my son.”

She earned a GED and graduated with an associate’s degree in business management from Passaic County Community College — jogging five or six blocks to classes from the homeless shelter where she stayed.

From telemarketer to speaker

Williams got a job as a telemarketer, selling New York Times subscriptions.

“There were a lot of rejections,” she said with a laugh, “but that built character.”

Nonetheless, she was successful enough to work her way up that corporate ladder, ending her stint 11 years later as a senior level manager.

That’s when someone asked her to speak to teenage mothers about transitioning from welfare to work. Then someone else asked her to speak to students back at Eastside High School about the struggles of life as a dropout.

“I spilled my guts,” she said. “I talked about my abuse, the level of pain, depression and trying to commit suicide. The dudes that were in there, they were crying. The students kept asking (their teachers), ‘Can you bring her back? She’s real.’”

Williams started working on a local TV show highlighting youth achievement in the community. After her uncle introduced her to her future husband, an HCHS graduate and now a retired marine, they moved to Harris County in 2002.

“I realized I had to reinvent myself,” she said, “because nobody knew me in Georgia.”

Williams registered for a Monster.com public speaking program, “Making it Count,” and became its top-rated speaker for nine straight years. Now, she is CEO of her own company, Speak2Inspire LLC.

She has two sons: One is a police officer in West Point, and the other is studying neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh.

Williams encourages parents to push their children to make the right choices to achieve their greatest potential instead of fearfully pulling them away from the world and trying to protect them from the wrong choices.

“Let’s reboot parenting in a way that’s so powerful, we can take our power back, not in a way that we’re raising our children scared,” she said. “… Have expectations, but also teach them how to be resilient in the process.”

That’s why she told her two sons while raising them, “You can go out in this world and do whatever you want to, but you’re not going to learn it in my house. There’s going to be standards and boundaries here.

“You’ll be mad at me probably for not being one of those moms that’s just nilly-willy and doing all this stuff, but you’ll know what I didn’t have the chance to learn when I was younger. You have options. You can choose right, or you can choose wrong.”