Danna Lewis.
The Florida native’s career arc is teeming with 25 years of business experiences, from Wall Street, financial services, healthcare and high-growth startups to jolting the Bar Method workout franchise to 75 locations, that have led her to the present, in which she juggles an array of roles as an author, host of the “Luscious Leadership” radio show and podcast, brand advisor, personal and professional development coach who also works in the quantum physics and consciousness field.
Her new book, The Indisputable Gift of Men (DreamSculpt Books), spawned from finding herself in the midst of the most joyful, heartbreaking, and empowering romantic encounters of her life after years of hearing women, including herself, complain about men. Lewis calls the book “a collection of intimate stories that invites you to unlock caustic, emasculating, judgmental conversations around dating and relationships.”
She says she hopes that women who read it will release resentment, increase gratitude, and multiply enjoyment of and with men.
In reaching a bountiful moment in her career, Lewis acknowledges plenty of bumps along the way and says she’s thriving because of and not in spite of those challenges.
“The most valuable thing I have ever done and continue to do is seeing a life coach,” she says. “To thrive, people need that support and accountability and the tools – it’s intensely, deeply personal development work.”
Born in New Jersey and raised in Florida with stops in Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, Lewis spent summers and spring breaks in Marin during her middle and high school years, living with her brother, who is 10 years her senior. He worked for Bill Graham Productions and took his sister to Grateful Dead shows and more.
So when Lewis turned 18, her return to the Bay Area wasn’t much of a surprise.
“I absolutely loved being here,” she says. “I was very rebellious.”
Work brought her back to the East Coast, primarily in Florida and New York City, until she moved to the Bay Area long-term in 2007. It was on the heels of her most recent role, as chief operating officer at a Bay Area startup, that Lewis found herself both professionally burnt out and at the end of a four-year relationship.
Then she heard from a publisher and literary agent: “Hey, do you have a book in you?” Little did the agent know that Lewis had been working on such a book in her spare time for ages.
“The book was written in 2008 and I just wasn’t ready to finish it,” she says. “I’m so glad. It’s so much better now. It’s a personal leadership book for women and it’s about empowering yourself but also embracing men. Personal leadership and drawing on all of those experiences is the the foundation of everything I do.”
The 411: Danna Lewis is an author, host of the “Luscious Leadership” radio show and podcast, brand advisor, personal and professional development coach who also works in the quantum physics and consciousness field. She is set to appear at Anthropologie in Corte Madera on Feb. 16 (12-3pm) and at Barnes & Noble on Feb. 22 (2-4pm) in Corte Madera. MORE INFO.