Meet Eliz Greene | Stress Researcher, Consultant & Speaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Eliz Greene and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Eliz, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Work-life balance as a concept has done an enormous disservice to our society, especially to women. The thought that work and life happen separately and can somehow balance each other out is laughable if you think about it. Promoting work-life balance puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the individual and indicates that if you could figure out your life, balance would be achieved. All of the guilt created by not achieving balance makes stress worse.

Work and life swirl together, as they always have, but any separation has evaporated in the wake of the pandemic. In my research on job stress, only 7% of the more than 4000 participants in the original data set said something related to work-life balance was the primary source of their stress. That means work-life balance strategies are useless for 93% of people’s stress.

Overwhelm and uncertainty are the primary causes of stress in my original study and among the nearly 10,000 people using my assessment tool. Whether the source is the pace at work, change, or the economy, stress caused by overwhelm and uncertainty is usually unavoidable. My work revolves around strategies to protect people from the stress they can’t avoid.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Professional speaking is a weird career and has been a strange journey. In 2000, I was a dance teacher and choreographer running my own business – pregnant with twins. That would have been enough to change the course of my career. However, I survived a massive heart attack when I was seven months pregnant. Luckily, I was in the hospital and received excellent care. In the space of a few hours, my heart was restarted, our daughters were delivered by emergency C-section, and I had open-heart surgery to repair the damage. Many things changed that day, including my mission.

I knew I’d been given this wacky story for a reason and dedicated the last two decades to encouraging other busy people to pay attention to their health. Stress is a major risk factor for heart disease and has become my focus. To provide scientifically relevant data on job stress, I worked with an emeritus Ph.D. level researcher from the University of Wisconsin – Madison to develop a research study on job stress. That research is the basis for my book, Stress-Proof Your Life. That work has led to consulting with NASA and other high-tech organizations and speaking in front of a wide range of groups, including higher education, IT, sales, HR, construction, and small businesses.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My favorite place to bring people is out on our sailboat! We have a 39-foot boat on Lake Michigan, and there is no better way to see Milwaukee than from the water. We’d start with snacks and drinks at the dock and then head out to the bay. Depending on our guest’s sense of adventure, we could motor up the river and call for the bridges to open to explore the city and stop at one of the restaurants with docks. Or, we could head out to open water and look back on the buildings and bluffs. Perhaps we will stay out long enough for the sun to sink behind the city and watch the lights come on.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Every time I sit down to write, I hear the voice of one of my mentors, Chris Clarke-Epstein. “Only writing is writing,” she’d say. My book, Stress-Proof Your Life, took five years to research and two years to write. Through it all, Chris encouraged me to write – on a piece of paper with a pen when I was stuck, even if what I wrote was terrible. I owe her a great deal in teaching me to write freely and then edit – and to trust that the words will come.

Website: https://elizgreene.com/

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