We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Diandra Renée Gordon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Diandra Renée, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I am an African American woman who dreams BIG! Along my journey I have been told that I didn’t deserve my dream or that I didn’t need to achieve my dream to do the work that I wanted to do (which is to advocate for people of color to have better outcomes). I did not understand why anyone would encourage someone not to go for the biggest dream that WLLOW allow them to be the change that they want to see in the world. So, each of these entities are coupled in the intersections of BIG DREAMS, BIG INFLUENCE, and Excellence! I believe our big dreams are God-given and are necessary tools to make this world a better place.

So, I founded organizations to support and empower people to do just that- DREAM BIG! I am the founder of a non-profit organization, MORE, Inc., and two companies that serve at the intersection of cultural equity, education, and excellence, Culture Ed (formerly Family Time Initiative, LLC), and Driven While Black™. My goal with each of these organizations was to fill the gap for people of color in particular spaces to reach their fullest potential and live a well life.

MORE, Inc.’s mission is to Motivate others to reach excellence (M.O.R.E.) by empowering people who are undervalued and under-resourced to shift the power dynamic by centering their voices and lived experiences through arts, culture, health, community, economics, and education. Our programs are inter-disciplinary and serve across the lifespan. We use art as a universal language. We believe that culture is the spirit of who we are; health is the alignment of mind, body, and soul; community is a collective connection; economics is a tool to create power; and that education is an instrument of infinite discovery! Our programs span from highlighting illnesses that plague the minority community in a way that centers creativity and community to empowering youth to use their voice for a more excellent tomorrow.

Driven While Black is a racial equity development brand with the mission to cultivate, sustain, and celebrate Black excellence, globally! Our purpose is to provide a platform that centers the lived experiences of Black people in the pursuit of excellence and one that honors the past, recognizes the present, and prepares for the future. We highlight the inequities in society such as the less than 5% of lawyers that are Black in the US and galvanize resources to change those outcomes. This was personal for me as a current licensed attorney– I didn’t know of these inequities until I experienced them myself in law school.

Culture Ed is a cultural education and equity solutions firm where our goal is to enhance the intersectional educational experience while centering the human experience. We do this by partnering with schools and organizations to implement programs, training, and other consultation services to create more equitable environments where diversity, inclusion, and belonging is the norm.

Dr. Diandra Renée, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am Dr. Diandra Renée Gordon, Esq. and I help leaders cultivate excellence in themselves, their environment, and within other people through equity-minded personal and professional development.

I use my proprietary H.E.A.R.T. Framework to help impactful leaders and organizations be the dream, so that they can see their dream, to achieve their dreams!

My goal in life is to break barriers across cultures, places, and systems that prevent people from living to their fullest potential and achieving their dreams.

I am a speaker, advocate, and educator. I facilitate DEIB trainings, conflict resolution, and SEL workshops.

People pay me to bring clarity to their BIG ideas, dreams, and visions and help bring them to reality.

What sets me apart from other is that I am a BIG DREAMER, a creative, and an advocate who likes to travel and experience the world through food and art! I love to learn about other cultures and use that inquisitive, creative perspective to solve any problem that I face. I truly believe that I have access to the answer to any problem that I am acquainted with. I am driven by purpose and fueled by passion. So, it may take more time or other resources….but we make it happen!

My proudest work is work that most people do not even know that I am connected to….it is the manifestations of other people’s BIG DREAMS that also bring space for others to achieve theirs. That has looked like supporting a law student that graduates and passes the Bar, or pioneering the foundations of an innovative arts community space that has launched the foundations for thousands of others’ dreams, or coaching an executive administrator to create an positive environment that fosters ultimate growth and learning. I “get” to serve will forever be my posture.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Sure! I have always found myself advocating for Black people, the under-resourced, and the under-valued. I am a Jesus-loving person who believes that we are all God’s creation and deserve to be treated with respect. So, sometimes I am in the position to use my voice to perpetuate change on behalf of other people who did not feel empowered enough to advocate for themselves. But what I realized along the journey is that people valued my advocacy for other people. The applause of others showed me that the part of how I showed up for others was acceptable. What also happened was that when I asked for something or advocated for myself it was not honorable. I did not receive applause for that. So, I grew up and internalized that I was not worth advocating. I learned that from responses of others around me, including family. But I also learned it as a Black woman in society who was told to be quiet, or only speak when spoken to. I have always been curious and asked questions. But I had to unlearn that I was not worth advocating for and that using my own voice!! I had to unlearn that my voice was only valuable when I was advocating for others or representing others’ hopes and dreams. So, I had to rebuild my voice to validate myself and how I fully and authentically showed up in the world. So, now I am learning to be more confident in advocating for myself, my desires, my dreams while still showing up and sharing light on that of others!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Whew. Resilience. I am a highly educated, Black woman, BIG DREAMER, Christian currently living in the United States. One of my proudest moments of resilience is the fact that I have a law degree, today. I started law school after going through my PhD program and just needing to complete my dissertation. Law school had been the plan for me since being an undergraduate at an HBCU. My goal in getting a PhD and JD was so that I could be in a position to better advocate for Black people to live well lives. In my PhD program, I had an advisor that knew that I wanted to go to law school to be a better advocate and to do that through impacting policy. In efforts to gain evidence that supported her thoughts that I did not need a law degree (or PhD but that is another story) to do what I wanted to do, she called colleagues she knew doing policy advocacy around the nation to get their opinion on if I needed a law degree. They all said that they do wish they would have gotten a law degree to be more effective in their role. This was before I even applied to law school. I still applied and was accepted to law school. In law school, there was a time when I realized that my brain was not working as it should in retaining the information I was expected to learn. I advocated for myself to the administration and I was told to proceed and take my final exams. I was academically dismissed because my GPA dropped .02 points from the threshold and my school did not have academic probation. I researched the policies of the school and my own brain and advocated for myself and got back in. I was used to advocating but not for myself in that capacity. I learned in that process that I had a learning difference and my brain really was not working as expected in that law school learning environment. Beyond the learning of advocating for myself, I learned my own strength and resilience because I had to start all over in law school and still graduated with my entering class. I gained a greater depth of myself and the willingness to pursue my dreams. I learned how resilient my mind was in being able to focus on my goals and not what other people would think of me walking the halls and taking the same classes while watching my colleagues progress– knowing I had failed no classes and probably got better grades in some classes than they did. I also still led the Black Law Students Association at my school, had a leadership position at the regional level, and still created a diverse council to change the trajectory of students of color who would come in after me. This illustration of resilience, which I deemed as an enormous challenge at the time, was what birthed my brand “Driven While Black.” In navigating that journey, I learned of others’ stories of resilience and that less than 5% of lawyers are Black in the US. I am grateful for my journey because it revealed an inequity that I did not know was happening and most others don’t know is happening as well. And I am, now, building a bridge to close that gap so that others can DREAM BIG and achieve their dreams.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.diandrarenee.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.diandrarenee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dr.diandrarenee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diandrargordon/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrivenWhileBlack