Hello, world. Welcome to Discover Your Talent, Do What You Love, Number 261. I'm creator and host, Don Hutchison. Every day, I interview someone from around the world who has discovered her talents to do work she loves, to create a life of success, satisfaction, and freedom.

El Donna was working a dead-end job at a soon-to-be defunct discount store. Arriving home one day, she found an eviction notice on the door and no sign of her father. She had no idea what to do next. Today I'm delighted to bring you our featured guest, El Dana Lewis Fernandez. Welcome, El Dana. Hey, Don. Great to be here. Thank you so much. We're glad to be with you. Are you using your talents, El Dana, doing work that you love?

Yes, I am for sure. Okay. Well, we want to hear everything about that.

El Dana is a retired Air Force veteran with 23 years of honorable military service. She's a negotiation

and contract expert with over 30 years of leadership, contracts management, and negotiation experience,

and has negotiated contracts from 1 million to over 100 million, both statewide and internationally.

She has developed and taught courses on contract claims, negotiation, and other aspects of contracting.

She also has seven years of extensive experience working for defense contractors in the aerospace

industry and has been a trusted agent of the U.S. government for 30 years.

Now, Donna, that's a summary of your career, your long and illustrious career.

Tell our audience what you're up to now that has you engaged and excited, if you will.

Well, Don, I've taken my years of experience in contracts and negotiation and turned it

into speaking and training and showing people how to think like a negotiator, which is basically

teaching you how to get people to agree with you in an ethical way.

And I enjoy helping people master negotiation skills being better versions of

themselves in business and employment and life because we negotiate every day of our lives,

whether we realize it or not. And mastering those skills helps people be, like I said,

better versions of themselves. And I just love doing that. Yeah, it's amazing. When you say we

would negotiate every day of our life. I mean, when you think about it,

every exchange we have with somebody, most of them are negotiations, and what do you want

for breakfast or where do you want to go to lunch, you know?

It definitely is.

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