They handed her a statistic. She wrote a story instead.
Teen mom. First-generation professional. Adult learner. File clerk turned global IT program leader. At every turn, someone tried to tell Deondriea Cantrice who she would be and how far she could go. She refused to believe them. Now she teaches you to ask the question that set her free: Who told you that?
Some of it was said out loud. Most of it was said through actions: the meeting she wasn’t invited to, the promotion that went to someone else, the title that never matched the work. You may have heard a few of these yourself.
“Teen moms don’t make it.”
Says which statistic?
“You don’t really belong in this room.”
Then why am I the one leading it?
“Your degree, your courses, your certifications. Still not enough.”
Enough for whom?
“You’re not ready for the promotion. But could you train the person who got it?”
If I can train them, what am I not ready for?
“Take on the responsibility. The title and the pay will come later.”
Later according to whom?
“Be grateful you got this far.”
Who told you that?
She heard every one of them. She could have believed them. Plenty of people expected her to. She refused, and that refusal became her life’s work.
Who is Deondriea Cantrice?
Deondriea Cantrice is an author, keynote speaker, certified confidence and executive coach, and anti-human trafficking activist who challenges the beliefs people have mistaken for truth. A former teen mom and first-generation professional, she rose from file clerk to global IT program leader, leading enterprise technology implementations and organizational change. She is the creator of Belief Interrogation™ and its signature question, Who Told You That?™, and the founder of Unmute the Silence.
Her story, in five chapters.
I
Chapter I
The statistic they handed her.
She became a mother as a teenager, and the world was quick to write her ending. The stereotypes came first, then the statistics: what girls like her don’t finish, don’t earn, don’t become. People tried to confine her to a narrative of defeat before her life had properly begun. She held her child, looked at the numbers, and decided they were describing someone else.
Chapter II
The first, and often the only.
A first-generation professional, she had no roadmap, no family playbook, and no one to call who had walked the path before her. She was often the first, and often the only, Black woman in the room. Sometimes she was told she didn’t belong. More often, she was shown: in the conversations that stopped when she walked in, the decisions made without her, the doors that opened for others and stayed politely closed for her. She kept walking in anyway.
Chapter III
From file clerk to global IT leader.
Her first job was filing other people’s paperwork. She went to college as an adult learner, working and raising a family while she studied. She completed leadership course after leadership course, certification after certification, and was still sometimes told it wasn’t enough. She kept climbing. She became a global IT program leader, leading enterprise technology implementations and designing the organizational change strategies that made them stick. She became a Prosci-certified change practitioner, and she learned the truth most leaders miss: people don’t change their behavior until they question the belief underneath it.
File clerkGlobal IT program leader
Chapter IV
The wounds no one sees.
Success didn’t stop the wounding. It just made it quieter. She was overlooked for a promotion, then asked to train the person they promoted. She was handed the responsibility without the pay, the title, or the authority to match. She delivered anyway, every time. But she started noticing the rules nobody had written down, the ones that decided who got rewarded and who got relied on. And she started asking who had made them.
Chapter V
She refused to believe them.
For years she built winning teams, mentored the people coming up behind her, and advocated for others in rooms they weren’t in yet. So she made it official and became a certified confidence coach. She wrote to make sense of her own thoughts and feelings, and when others read her words, they saw themselves on the page. That is how she became an author. And that is how her brand was born: from a woman who refused to believe what she’d been told, and who now teaches others to ask the same question. Who told you that?
Her biography isn’t the backstory. It’s the evidence.
Lived it+Led through it+Studied it+Questioned it+Developed a method=Earned Authority™
A note from Deondriea
I trained the person they promoted over me.
I smiled through it. I did it well. And I went home that night asking a question I’d been avoiding for years: why did I keep accepting other people’s verdicts about what I deserved?
I had been handed verdicts my whole life. Teen mom. First generation. Not the right background. Not enough credentials, no matter how many I earned. Somewhere along the way, I started carrying those verdicts as if they were mine.
They weren’t. They never were. The moment I started asking who told me those things, and whether they had any right to, my life started belonging to me again.
If you’re carrying someone else’s verdict about who you are, I know that weight. I won’t tell you what to believe. I’ll help you find out which beliefs were ever really yours.
You are not the statistic. You are the story.
Deondriea
Mission, vision, and promise
Mission
To challenge inherited beliefs, interrogate accepted truths, and equip people to make conscious choices about what deserves their belief.
Vision
A world where people question what they were told, decide what still deserves their belief, and claim the authority to author what comes next.
Promise
You’ll make the decision you’ve been putting off, ask for what you’ve already earned, and stop living by rules you never chose.
One question. Four ways she asks it.
Some people meet her on a stage. Some meet her on a page. Some meet her in the quiet of a coaching call, and some in the middle of the hardest week of their lives. Every doorway leads to the same work: deciding what deserves your belief.
Creator of Belief Interrogation™ and the I.D.E.A.L. Interrogation™
Certified Confidence and Executive Coach
Prosci-certified change management practitioner
Global IT program leader, rising from file clerk to leading enterprise technology implementations and organizational change management strategies
Completed extensive leadership development and soft skills certifications
Founder, Unmute the Silence
Board of Directors, New Friends New Life
Life member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., and former Regional Training and Development Chair, Southwestern Region
Recognized by Regis University as an influential leader and learner
Author of Overqualified, Overworked, Overlooked, Access Granted, The Confidence Catalyst, and the forthcoming Who Told You That?
Questions people ask about Deondriea
Who is Deondriea Cantrice?
Deondriea Cantrice is an author, keynote speaker, certified confidence and executive coach, and anti-human trafficking activist. A former teen mom and first-generation professional, she rose from file clerk to global IT program leader before creating Belief Interrogation™ and its signature question, Who Told You That?™
What is Deondriea Cantrice's story?
Deondriea became a mother as a teenager and was surrounded by stereotypes and statistics that predicted defeat. As a first-generation professional, she was often the first or only Black woman in the room. She earned her degree as an adult learner, rose from file clerk to global IT program leader, and endured workplace wounding, including training the person promoted over her. She refused to believe what she had been told, and that refusal became her life's work.
Is Deondriea Cantrice a certified coach?
Yes. Deondriea is a certified confidence and executive coach and a Prosci-certified change management practitioner. After years of building teams, mentoring, and advocating for others, she now works with leaders and high achievers privately through RIVET™, her Belief Interrogation advisory.
What is Belief Interrogation™?
Belief Interrogation™ is Deondriea's method for examining the beliefs that quietly drive your decisions. Instead of telling you what to believe, it asks where a belief came from, what it costs you, and whether it still deserves your trust. Its signature question is Who told you that?
What results can I expect from working with Deondriea?
Clients make the decision they have been putting off, ask for what they have already earned, such as the raise, the rate, or the role, and stop living by rules they never chose. Just as important, they trust themselves again and feel at home in their own lives.
How can I work with or book Deondriea?
You can book Deondriea for keynotes, workshops, panels, and media at deondriea.com/book-deondriea, explore private coaching through RIVET™ at deondriea.com/coach, or begin on your own with the free Belief Audit at deondriea.com/belief-audit.
They told her who she would be. Who told you?
Start with one belief you’ve never questioned, and find out who really wrote it.
