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Lolita Johnese is redefining what it means to grow a practice in the age of AI.
Watch Coach LJ in action as she brings her signature AUTHENTIC™ Framework to life - showing coaches, therapists, and counselors how to harness AI to attract clients, deepen trust, and grow their practice without ever losing the human connection.
Lolita Johnese has spent her career proving that data and humanity aren't opposites - they're partners. As Chief Experience Officer of Hustle & Geaux Productions, LJ built and executed the marketing strategy behind the Atlanta Adult Prom Experience, selling over 500 tickets in seven weeks. She's repeated that kind of growth on social media, too - taking accounts to more than 10,000 new followers in a single 30-day period, more than once.
Before helping build sold-out experiences, LJ spent nearly two decades inside the mechanics of human behavior, trust, and conflict. She holds a Juris Master in Employment Law & HR Risk Management from Florida State University College of Law (highest honors, 4.25 GPA) and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Florida. She is currently completing her PsyD, expected in September 2026, and will resume her Doctorate in Business Administration studies in October 2026 - a dual-doctorate path built deliberately to pair deep psychological expertise with advanced business strategy. That pairing is the exact combination behind her signature AUTHENTIC™ Framework, which she now teaches to coaches, therapists, and counselors to help them grow and market their overall practice through AI-driven strategy.
LJ also hosts a monthly podcast (Geaux Deep) on TikTok centered on grief, holding hard, honest conversations that reflect a belief driving everything she builds: connection, done right, doesn't get replaced by technology - it gets amplified by it. That same belief anchors her signature keynote, "Clocked In, Grieving™," which explores grief and workplace self-advocacy, drawing on her employment law and HR compliance background (JM, SHRM-CP) to help unions, employers, and employees navigate grief without losing ground professionally.
ABOUT COACH LJ
Coach lj's Talks
For Therapists, Counselors, & Coaches
45–60 MIN · WORKSHOP FORMAT AVAILABLE
From Artificial Intelligence to Authentic Influence:
How Coaches, Therapists, and Counselors Build Human Connection in the Age of AI
Every helping professional is being told to adopt AI - and almost no one is telling them how to do it without eroding the very trust their practice runs on. In this keynote, LJ introduces her signature AUTHENTIC™ Framework, nine strategic principles for using AI to attract clients, deepen relationships, and grow a practice ethically.
Audiences don't leave with more to figure out. They leave with a system.
For union members and employees
45–60 MIN · WORKSHOP FORMAT WITH SMALL GROUP COACHING BREAKOUTS
Clocked In, Grieving™: Employee Edition
Grief doesn't clock out
You already know what it's like to grieve on the clock: answering emails with a lump in your throat, or returning to work after a funeral because "bereavement leave" ran out. Most people never learn whether they can ask for more, because no one gave them the language. This session combines education, advocacy skills, and coaching, because knowing your rights, having the words to use them, and a place to practice is what changes how you show up at work while grieving.
Education: Drawing on her doctoral research, LJ reframes grief as an ongoing process, not something a three-day policy can cover. With her employment law and HR background, she explains in plain language what bereavement leave, FMLA, and (where applicable) union contracts entitle you to. She also shares coping tools for the days a policy can't cover: grounding techniques for hard meetings, honest ways to answer "how are you?", and ways to pace yourself when grief resurfaces.
Advocacy Skills: LJ turns that knowledge into language: the exact words to ask a manager for what you need, what to say when a request is denied, and when to involve a shop steward.
Coaching: Small-group breakouts let attendees practice the language and get real-time peer feedback. An ongoing group coaching program is available for those who want to keep building these skills. Attendees leave with a script for the conversation they've been avoiding, a clear picture of their rights, coping tools they can use the same day, and the confidence to advocate for themselves.
Clocked In, Grieving™:
When Loss Follows Us To Work
For unions, corporate teams, HR leaders, healthcare organizations, and professional associations
45–60 MIN · WORKSHOP FORMAT AVAILABLE
Grief doesn't stay home when we go to work – it walks in with us, sits through the meetings, and rarely clocks
out when the day does. It shows up in the pause before a hard email gets answered, and an extra coffee refill
instead of a real break, and in the smile that gets put on for a nine o'clock standup.
Drawing on her doctoral degree in grief counseling, LJ challenges audiences to rethink workplace grief as an
ongoing process, not a one-time event, and to build resilience as a skill, rather than expect it by default. LJ
unpacks why a three-day bereavement policy was never designed to match how long grief actually last, and
what happens to trust, performance, and retention when organizations act as if it should. Attendees leave with
language for recognizing grief on their own teams and a framework for responding to it with structure instead
of guesswork.
LJ brings a rare combination of perspectives to the stage, blending grief, counseling research with an
employment law and HR compliance lens that most workplace conversations about loss never touch.
The result is a talk that moves past well-meaning, platitudes and into policy, culture, and the every day habits
of leadership.
“If you look at my page, I post speaking events and flyers, and I rarely do any speaking or talking on my social media. But I want to. And this is really encouraging me to do so.”
Keith Stark
Keith Stark Therapy and Consulting
“LJ introduced me to trending marketing tools to bring creative design to life. I have leveled up my content and clients as a result.”
Andrea Andrews, Life Coach
Founder/CEO The Process Forum Media Group
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“Working with LJ transformed our event marketing, helping us sell out Hope Grows Here 2026, raise $5,000 for scholarships, and successfully launch my Amazon bestselling book, The Five Widows Club.”
CEO Widowhood Real Talk With Tina
Dr. Tina Fornwald
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“You know something works when you apply something and see instant results. The way she explained everything was so clear to all of us. I learned so much about how to market myself.”
James Gifford
Leadership Coach/Social Media Influencer
Testimonials
