Bonnie St. John | Paralympian Medalist on… | Gagen MacDonald

Insights & Events / Let Go & Lead / LG&L Podcast

Bonnie St. John | Paralympian Medalist on Harnessing the Power of Positivity

Aug 20, 2024

Resilience is something Bonnie St. John knows in her core. 

The Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar became a Paralympic medalist by getting up after she’d fallen down in a very literal way, and since then, she has helped leaders and businesses understand the power in that truth. Over a wide-ranging conversation, she and Maril discuss how there is no one right way to be a leader; why purpose is so important to resilience; and why positivity is such a potent reinforcement mechanism — for locking in learning, for persevering within challenges and ultimately, for accomplishing our goals.

About Bonnie St. John 

Despite having her right leg amputated at age five, Bonnie St. John became the first African-American ever to win medals in Winter Olympic competition, taking home a silver and two bronze medals in downhill skiing at the 1984 Winter Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria. In recognition of this historic achievement, Bonnie was quoted on millions of Starbucks coffee cups and was honored with her portrait in the Main Hall of Trinity College at Oxford as a distinguished alumna. 

Bonnie has achieved the highest levels of success in a variety of endeavors throughout her life.  In addition to her success as a Paralympic athlete, she is a bestselling author of seven books, a highly acclaimed keynote speaker and leadership expert for the Fortune 500, a television and radio personality, and an experienced conference facilitator. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University, and won the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, taking an M.Litt. in Economics. Upon her return to the United States, Bonnie served in the White House as a Director of the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration. In 2015, St. John was inducted into the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Hall of Fame.

Today, Bonnie travels the globe speaking, leading seminars, and researching her various writing projects. As CEO of the Blue Circle Leadership Institute, Bonnie leads several international virtual leadership programs including Transformational Leadership – designed to address the unique challenges of multicultural women in the workplace. Bonnie’s latest work, MICRO-RESILIENCE: Minor Shifts for Major Boosts in Focus, Drive, & Energy, outlines a quick, easy, and immediately effective program of tools and techniques for a competitive edge in today’s dynamic world of changes and challenges. 

Bonnie St. John has been featured extensively in both national and international media including: The Today Show, GMA, CNN, CBS Morning News, NBC News, PBS, NPR, and The New York Times, as well as People, “O”, Forbes, Success, and Essence magazines, to name just a few. 

NBC Nightly News called Bonnie, "One of the five most inspiring women in America."

About Let Go & Lead

Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. 

Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.  

Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale. 

Full episodes are also available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

About Gagen MacDonald

At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. 

We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.

LG&L Podcast / Jul 30, 2024

Julia Hobsbawm | Building Genuine Connection and Trust in a Hybrid World

Previous Post
LG&L Podcast / Sep 10, 2024

Umayma Abubakar | Harmonizing Cultures: The Art of Post-Merger Integration

Next Post