The Sweeney Agency

About Steve Donahue - Entertaining Adventurer and Storyteller:

A highly entertaining speaker and storyteller, clients have described Steve Donahue’s presentations as spellbinding, magical and flawless. Steve is an adventurer who engages and captivates international audiences with his story of crossing the Saraha Desert. He recently addressed 8,000 financial planners from 85 countries at the Million Dollar Round Table. With the timing he honed as a stand up comedian Steve keeps audiences laughing. But his message is as serious as a sandstorm bearing down on your caravan: you must keep moving in the right direction even when the terrain is shifting. For twenty years Steve Donahue has inspired audiences to find and follow their compass in a changing world.

At the age of 22 Steve had his life all mapped out. He was living his dream as a professional disco dance teacher. Steve had it all; money, fame and plenty of dance partners. Then disco died. But Steve learned a valuable lesson; never bet your life on shiny shirts and tight pants. He also remembered not to trust maps.

Just two years previous Steve crossed the Sahara Desert. Battered by relentless sandstorms, tormented by searing heat and freezing nights, never knowing if the speck on the horizon would be a friend or foe, Steve found his way in the world’s largest desert. He discovered that only a compass could guide you across shifting sands.

Steve is also a professional coach, documentary filmmaker and an international bestselling author. His first book, Shifting Sands; A Guidebook for Crossing the Deserts of Change, has sold over 75,000 copies. It is available in English, Korean, Russian, Turkish and Greek. Steve Donahue is bilingual and presents in both English and French.

What Steve Donahue Talks About

Follow a Compass, Not a Map
The most important journeys cannot be mapped out because you have to cross uncharted territory. The challenge is to keep heading in the right direction under constantly changing conditions and ever increasing uncertainty. This electrifying keynote will help you find direction and seize opportunities by following your compass across the shifting sands of work and life.

Play to Your Strengths if You Want to Perform
The secret of success is to identify your inherent giftedness and turn that specific talent into performance. Based on a lifetime of leveraging his uniqueness, Steve Donahue shares his own 15 years of strength-based research and coaching to help you discover, develop and deliver your genius in the situations where you can have the greatest impact.

The More You Stop the Farther You Go
The only way to cross the Sahara Desert is to stop at every oasis. This is where you replenish your water supplies, refuel your vehicle and renew relationships with fellow travelers. Skipping an oasis means almost certain death. This presentation shows how to identify and protect your essential oases so that you always have gas in your tank, a clear direction and travel as a team.

OASIS - an Interactive Board Game
OASIS is a fun and interactive training that builds employee engagement, improves work/life balance and clarifies personal and corporate direction. Table groups compete in teams to outperform each other in the desert challenge. Lessons learned transfer immediately to work and life. This is a great follow-up training to a Steve Donahue keynote or as an interactive conference session.