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Dawnna St. Louis, Professional Public Speaker and Speaking Coach

COLUMN = PUBLIC SPEAKING

Professional Speaker and Coach Dawnna St. Louis began her career in 1990 as a technologist.

Hungry to learn, she dove into mastering computer hardware, enterprise networks, and software programming languages such as C++, Java, and C#.

Her knack for converting techno-babble into concepts that business leaders could understand caught the attention of executives, who soon asked her to help solve their communications problems. Her ability to speak confidently in public also landed Dawnna her first professional speaking engagement, at 25, before a Congressional Committee of the US District Court.

“One of my strongest skills is to help fellow professionals who are struggling to overcome challenging projects. I have a record of pulling projects from the brink of disaster. Although speaking is my first area of expertise, project acceleration is my second,” she explains, noting she identifies the common causes of project issues such as vision and project goal mismatch, resource misalignment, poor communications, complicated methodology implementation, indecisive leadership, and a lack of process implementation.

Armed with technical knowledge, excellent communications skills, and project foundation solutions, she moved from programming to project management to business leadership. As a consultant charged with the toughest clients and the most critical enterprise initiatives, she had the opportunity to learn business strategies from C-Level executives across organizations in various industries, including banking, technology, finance, insurance, and the government sector.

Her success propelled her to C-level positions in several US corporations, but her passion was coaching, speaking, and project acceleration strategy.

Leadership. Success. Motivation.

Dawnna’s desire to share her expert knowledge and professional skills with other entrepreneurs and business leaders led her to branch out on her own and form what has become a highly successful Miami-based firm, Dawnna St. Louis.

Dawnna connects the dots from concept to project/product to sales through communication and business strategy. She now focuses on pulling critical projects from the brink of termination, finding the missing ROI, and educating professionals to become Certified Project Leaders, strategists, and managers. Recognizing that failure is imminent if communications is poor, she also helps her clients improve their communication skills. Her speaking clients include various professional athletes, public figures, and C-Level executives seeking to improve their speaking skills. Dawnna coaches executives to create memorable and powerful messages and public figures to answer those embarrassing impromptu questions fearlessly and flawlessly. Her project clients include Fortune 500 and 50 corporations seeking project acceleration and ROI recovery. As a speaker she motivates and inspires audiences to find personal and professional success.

Last, but not least, she coaches companies to create leaders out of managers by teaching employees to reach their potential in their professional and personal lives.

Says her client, Tina Gay-Pearson of the software and consulting firm Zensar Technologies: “Dawnna is one of the most dynamic leaders I have ever worked with. She is a prime example of what a leader should be; she truly walks the walk. There is no problem too small Dawnna won’t listen to, and she offers real solutions, not just promises. If there is an obstacle in the way of your success, Dawnna will get it moved. I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with such an amazing motivator and speaker. She has an eye for talent and recruiting good employees that she can turn into great employees. Her team members admire and respect her. I would gladly work with Dawnna anywhere.”

For more information, and to book Dawnna to speak or help you improve your public speaking skills, visit www.dawnna.com.

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth. Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.”

– Noela Evans

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

– Anna Quindlen

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court justice

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

– Thomas Carlyle

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

– Charles R. Swindoll

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”

– E.B. White

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

Whosoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whosoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them.”

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

– Arthur Rubinstein

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

‎That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

– John Lennon

Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.”

– Lord Chesterfield

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

He who wants to tear down a house must be prepared to rebuild it.”

– African Proverb

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki