Special Edition Episodes of DEI Training

I wanted to tackle DEI — Diversity Equity and Inclusion — training from its roots. I decided to start with me and like any other normal person share it on a podcast.

I can’t show up effectively, the way I want to as a leader, mentor, coach, friend, Think Bigger Tribe member without also doing my work. So here we are.

In these 5 episodes, you will see ME, DaJuan Johnson, become the STUDENT as I learn about my roots and how they affect my experience as a person of color. I sat down with Dr. Maisha Beasley, a DEI expert, and dove in head first.

What you’re about to hear is me at my core…vulnerable, raw, and here for it all.

Through the podcast I want you to imagine a TREE. Roots, Trunk and the Leaves…this is how we will tell the beginning of my DEI story. I say beginning, because I am clear that there is more work to be done.

Episode 1 – We talk about my ROOTS. How growing up in a home where all I wanted to do was get away from the violence, but always had to be home before the streetlights came on, subconsciously shaped my earlier DEI experience. A time where I didn’t fully see color and thought of my friends — white, latinn, mixed — as my siblings. A time that changed quickly…

Episode 2A + 2B: We get into the “TRUNK” of my experience of DEI and talk about how I learned to “CODE SWITCH” to survive. To get ahead. To be successful. How being bused into a new high school that needed to fill a “black quota” changed my life. How my family made it clear, there were certain people — in my family — I was not supposed to be like.

Episode 3A + 3B: We finish it off with the “LEAVES” of the tree and how I gave myself the “golden ticket” when I stopped trying to be someone else and stepped into DaJuan.

Here is where we tie in all of the traditional DEI terms and apply them to my story as a whole.

My highest intention here was to learn. And through sharing MY STORY, I hope you see YOUR STORY in it too. I hope that you see that DEI is truly about relationships at its core. I’m sure I stepped in poop on this podcast a couple of times, but what I know for sure is sometimes you have to step in poop to become the leader you are meant to be. My hope is it becomes less and less poop because…I’m here to lead.