ELAINE LOU CARTAS
About Elaine Lou Cartas
Elaine Lou Cartas is an internationally renowned speaker, business & executive career coach, and is widely regarded as one of the nation's top speakers on communication and Conscious Conversations®. Her core belief is simple: people problems are profit problems, and Conscious Conversations® solves both.
Elaine has spent 21 years doing Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing), where she learned the skill most leaders are missing in tough conversations: how to de-escalate instead of escalate. The daughter of Filipino immigrant farmers and a former community organizer and fundraiser who raised $11 million, Elaine created Conscious Conversations®, a cognitive sciences framework that trains leaders to communicate under pressure the way fighters and athletes train: with pausing, planning and practicing. Her 20,000+ clients across 58 countries range from Fortune 500 executives to elected officials and city leaders.
Among her many accolades, LA Weekly named Elaine the #1 Thought Leader of 2023 for her Conscious Conversations® framework. She guides high-achieving leaders who have outgrown perfectionism, along with their teams, to simplify workloads, move through overwhelm, have conscious conversations, and achieve sustainable results by their own definition of success. The result? More than 300 reviews.
Elaine likes to joke that she's more than a personality hire. Sure, she's funny, but audiences also leave with practical strategies and an action plan. She has spoken for top companies such as Amazon, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, and Kroger, and to travel and hospitality brand leaders from Hilton, Marriott, American Airlines and Ritz-Carlton.
Elaine's approach is grounded in how the brain actually behaves under stress. She holds a Bachelor's in Cognitive Sciences and Sociology from the University of California, Irvine, a Master's in Leadership and Management from the University of La Verne, the ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential, and certification as an Executive Coach, and she is an IFS Foundations for Coaches™ graduate. Elaine is also a LinkedIn Learning Instructor and host of the podcast WOC & Allies: Business & Career Realtalk™.
Elaine lives in Los Angeles, and yes, she still trains.
Read the feature: She Spent 21 Years Learning Not to Panic in a Muay Thai Ring. Now She Teaches Leaders to Be the Calmest Person in the Room.
Watch Elaine Lou Cartas In Action
Speaking Topics
Real executive presence isn't about borrowing someone else's executive presence. It's about building a presence that makes you stand out, especially under pressure. Elaine draws on her cognitive science based framework, Conscious Conversations®, and 21 years of Muay Thai, where every fighter and athlete learns early how to be themselves while hitting their goals.
Key Takeaways
- The one word you can use to stop overbearing colleagues from taking over the conversation
- A communication dashboard for tracking how your conversations land with the people you work with
- How to keep improving the way athletes do
Your organization tracks every shipment, delivery window, and dollar of shrink. But almost nobody audits where a message breaks down between the C-suite and the front line. Conscious Conversations® treats communication like a supply chain, so leaders can find the bottlenecks and fix them. People problems are profit problems, and this talk shows how to solve both.
Key Takeaways
- How to understand your own operating system and everyone else's, so you can plan for every person in the room
- What to do when a conversation goes sideways, before it costs you time, trust, or talent
- How to close meetings and conversations so everyone leaves on the same page, with no misunderstandings later
In Muay Thai, the moment you panic is the moment you fall. Elaine learned that over 21 years in the ring, usually the hard way. The workplace isn't so different. AI can draft tough feedback in ten seconds, but it can't stay steady when the room gets tense, voices rise, and everyone's stress response kicks in at once. As machines take on more of the work, staying calm is the human skill that matters most. Elaine shows leaders how to be the calmest person in the room, even when nobody else is.
Key Takeaways
- How to stay calm when everyone else isn't, using the same breath and body cues fighters rely on in the ring
- Why stress shuts down emotional intelligence, and how to get it back within seconds
- How to de-escalate a tense conversation without backing down from what needs to be said
Before the session, attendees complete a short survey about their biggest communication challenges and goals. Elaine then coaches live on the top themes from the survey, so the room gets answers to the questions they actually have.
Key Takeaways
- Coaching built around your team's real challenges and goals, not guesses
- Practical tools attendees can use the same day
- A firsthand look at how coaching works, for organizations considering it for their teams
Paired with a keynote, Elaine leads morning wellness sessions that teach safe self-defense and de-escalation techniques. It's an especially popular add-on for groups whose members travel solo for work, and a fun way for attendees to connect and build confidence.
Key Takeaways
- Self-defense movement techniques
- De-escalation techniques
- A workbook to use in the real world
Testimonials
I loved the 6-prong framework, I've leveraged it and plan to do so, as it's easy to remember the 6-Ps organized around the visual of the heart. Passion at its core. I just had a real time conversation yesterday. I was part of a team that led a big networking event last week, and when I stepped in and around with the attendees, I owned the room!
Brenda Valley, Finance Officer, AlbertsonsThe way Elaine is able to capture the audience is next level skillset.
Lisa Roquemore, HR Manager, People & Culture, MuradMy favorite part was your ability to let others SHINE. You showed us our own power and knowledge by permitting us to help each other out. It sometimes takes people like you to bring it out of us.
Vicki Goizueta, PHR, SHRM-CP, Human Resources Business Partner, Acosta GroupElaine has a welcoming, confident spirit that's contagious. She brings practical strategies to a wide range of challenges and tailors them to each person. At our women's event, she led 1:1 sessions and a morning self-defense class. Many of our attendees travel solo for work, so the class was a fun way to connect and build confidence. I highly recommend Elaine for career guidance or self-defense training.
Event Organizer, Women's Leadership EventWhere Elaine Appears
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