The Wellness Paradox #author Amy Green

The Wellness Paradox
Why the more we succeed, the further we drift from real wellbeing

Grounded in real stories, research, and reflection, discover how to rethink what living and working well actually means and how to create a life that feels good, not just looks good.

A new way of living and working for a generation raised to do more.

The wellness movement encourages us to work smarter, rest more, find balance. But, we are so busy doing these things that many of us are feeling more exhausted and disconnected than ever.

The Wellness Paradox exposes the uncomfortable truth about modern life that the very systems meant to support us are the ones wearing us down. It’s not a lack of resilience, time, or self-care that are the problem. It’s the culture we’ve built around doing, achieving, and appearing “well.”

This book is for leaders, educators, any young professional navigating modern work. It’s for anyone who’s followed all the rules worked hard, tried to find balance, ticked every box — and still feels like something’s missing.

Author Amy Green is a leading voice in leadership and the future of work. She is a speaker, author and consultant who helps people and workplaces rethink the way they live and work, and unplug from the systems, expectations and ways of working that are no longer serving them. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Yes, good morning, Amy Green. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our chat today.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Oh, my pleasure. Congratulations. Your book is out now, available. Tell us all about it. It's called the Wellness Paradox.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

It is. Gosh, it it's a it sounds like a simple title, but obviously there's too much in that. And where do I start? I think my one line at the moment is we know more than ever around what it means to be well, to function well, to work well, to look after ourselves. You kind of can't go into any store or jump on any social media platform without some type of wellness hack or tip being put in front of you, or a gadget to buy, or a product to get. And even though we have all of this information and the resources at our fingertips, we are seeing burnout rise, we're seeing anxiety increase. We are actually not well. And so that is essentially the paradox. How is it that we have so much information around us to a well, thrive, flourishing life personally and professionally? Yet the data is actually showing us the complete opposite.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

And and Amy, I mean, you know, I in the corporate world, you know, I work in the HR function, so I'm working with people, I'm having these conversations, I'm having conversations on the sporting sideline with people who are overwhelmed, or other people who give advice. Do you know? And so even though I'm really mindful of, you know, uh a plethora of information, it can be really overwhelming. Like people will talk to me about how burnt out they are, and on the flip side, they're gonna someone else is gonna tell me that I must be doing X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, it's so complicated, it's so noisy the space. And I think we've tried to optimize something that actually just doesn't need to be optimised, it just needs to be made so much more simplified so that it's accessible. And one of the things that I you do talk about in the wellness paradox is just adopting the idea of being average and the power of average and what that can actually do because we live in a world and a society and workplaces where we're always told to chase the next thing. Like you get 10,000 steps a day, aim for 11. You get the promotion, aim for the next one. You buy a house, save for the next one. You go on a holiday, make sure you go on a fancy one next time, and then share it all on social media and celebrate all of the wins along the way, no matter what's actually happening internally. And so we've created this world, this way of living, this way of working that is overwhelming through a wellness and a success and a productivity lens because we're constantly told that what you do isn't enough, and so keep striving for more. And I think we need to strip that back. We need to pull back and slow down and go, you know what? Being well and being healthy shouldn't actually cost us money. We shouldn't have to be investing so much in it. It shouldn't cost workplaces the extreme amount it does. The wellness industry at the moment is one of the largest or the largest industry. It's bigger than healthcare, it's bigger than tourism, it's bigger than the green economy, so the one that actually looks after the planet. It's like mind-boggling how much is invested into this. And I think what we're seeing too is almost a social divide. You know, if you can't afford your massages and your mani pennies and your holidays, then how on earth are you going to be well? And so we've really created something quite extreme out of something that should be accessible and simple.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, even you just sharing, you know, the reality of what it looks like is incredibly overwhelming. Even for me, who, you know, I kind of understand this space and understand triggers. And yeah, I just I I feel I feel sorry for the younger generation, those are leaders, those employees coming into the workplace, those emerging leaders who, like you said, they just feel like they need to like keep going at all costs. Is that what's lean out there? I mean, you're seeing that too.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I'm seeing it too. I'm seeing it's I am seeing a shift though with younger people. And I and I think you know, the tagline of my book is why the fersion the further we keep chasing this version of success we're attached to, the more unwell we are, the more it pushes us away from well-being. Because the way we perceive well, wellness or being well, the way we perceive success, our professional careers, our personal lives, that checklist we're all told to follow, it impacts who we are. And so so many, so many of us were raised with this idea that we have to go to school, go to university, get a job, get a degree, make this much money, make more, buy the house, go on the holidays, do all of those things, and then we have being well on top of it through this self-care type version. And younger people are like, but how do we do it? How do we keep up? There have been a multitude of dynamics that have changed at a systemic level that have made this even more complex with both parents working, with you know, economic uh impacts around cost of living, all those types of things. And then we add on, by the way, guys, don't forget to do your 10,000 steps and drink your matches and make sure you're meditating and do your breath work and go to your yoga classes. It's like, whoa, when does this stop? And then in the workplace, we have an element of productivity and KPIs and be high performing, and then also now you know what, you're responsible for the well-being of your employees too. And so we keep adding, adding, adding without actually going, what does it mean to do this to sustainably? And so we're holding on to these old versions and old ways of working, like out of industrial revolution and old systems, trying to add new things on top. And I think everyone's just feeling like they're suffocating because the answer isn't to add more, the answer is actually to pause and go, what do we need to unplug from that no longer serves us at work, at home, the stories, the beliefs, the rules we're following that are actually just made up? And what do we need to plug back into intentionally so that we don't have this repeat of overwhelm and burnout and it becoming the narrative that everyone attaches to because it's so real for so many people.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah. And Amy, do you want to tell us a bit about why write the book? And tell us a bit about you as an author and anything we need to know.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, sure. So this is actually my third book. I've written two other books, and they were in the education space. So I was a teacher and a school leader. That was my path to success. You know, do a meaningful job, have a career that's fulfilling. And I loved being an educator and a teacher. And there are days where I wake up and I think, oh, it'd be so nice to go to school now. My son's a teacher, it's the last day of term for him. My brother and sister are studying teaching, they're on prax. And so I still really enjoy that aspect of what I used to do in a, I guess, a corporate world sense. But when I wrote my first two books, people really, really connected with them. They were about how do we support educators to be well and work well, and what does it mean if we lead well-being in a school through the lens of staff and helping people, not just students. And we know our education settings are very much about students, but there's also a massive teacher crisis. There's also things happening in the education space. So that is my background and kind of how I started to do this work because I noticed that we give so much as educators, and yet no one's looking after us, and we're not actually adjusting how we work to support us, to be productive, engaged, efficient, to have high levels of performance and accountability, but also autonomy and flexibility. And when I started talking about this, people kept saying to me, this is happening in other workplaces, this is happening across the globe in different industries. And so over time it's just evolved and morphed. And the more research and reading and studying that I've done, I've realized it's not secular to any industry. It's actually connected to how we've designed the world through working and living. And at the moment, we're kind of at a at a point where we have to be brave enough to redesign what that looks like and have conversations that allow people to understand we shouldn't have to choose between work and life anymore. There's just no reason that we have to live in a way that says work is nine to five and this is what it looks like, and family happens after, and you go on your holidays when you retire. And so part of writing this book came out of the work I did in education and schools, but also because I'm watching my nieces and nephews grow up. And I don't want them to go in a world where they get to a point and they feel like they have to choose, do I work or do I live? And you know, my youngest nephew, one of my younger nephews, he actually had an interview this week for um uh entry into high school, so he's going into secondary school, and they asked that question, and we ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up? And a couple of years ago, he was dead set on being a lawyer and he knew where he was going to go. And my sister rang me, she's like, You wouldn't believe what he said. And I was like, Well, what did he say? They well they said, What do you want to be when you grow up? And he said, Oh, I want to be work from home. And I thought that was such a good answer. I said to my sister, no, this is actually great because what he's saying is, I want to choose something that supports the life I live, not the job I go to every day. And so we're starting to see that shift. And I there's a there's a real need, I think, for workplaces to catch up to some of that.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

So true, so true. I know that. Um, Amy, if we're watching and we're curious about the book, we're curious and curious to learn more about you. Do you want to tell us how the best way to connect with you? I know you're on uh YouTube, uh, you've got some great content there, but point is in the social direction, and I'll put that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Yeah, of course. So LinkedIn, find me Amy Green. I'm on there probably too much, but I share lots of ideas and thoughts. And to be to be honest, I use that as my testing platform. Like I think this or that. And so it's a really fun way to have conversations that are a little bit out of the box because that's what I do. I I push and I think differently around how things are and how they could be. And so my LinkedIn's really active and I give a lot of way on there. So if you're up for a conversation about these types of things, come and follow there. I have Instagram as well, um, that's Amy underscore dot underscore green, and that's a bit more of my personal life and a bit more of an insight into who I am as not just a speaker, but also a person that lives this life. And so people often say Instagram's so great because it's an insight to the real you. So come along for that as well. And then my website's amygreen.com.au, all of the bits and pieces are there. But I'm always up for a chat, you know, message me anywhere, send me an email. Podcast is rethinking success as well. So you can find lots of places.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, I'll I'll put links into all those.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

To make it easy for anyone to uh connect. Amy, do you reckon you'll write again? I mean, you you're on this journey as an author. Is there I'm sure like the only reason I ask is I would love to have you back. I think your work is incredible. So no pressure. But if there is work in the future, I'd love to, I'd love to support future books.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah, thanks. I mean, I don't know if it's ambitious of me to say potentially there are three more books in the pipeline right now. So I would really like to rewrite my two well-being books in education for a wider audience. So I don't feel like that's a whole new book. It shouldn't take too long. And then, yes, there is another book coming after the wellness paradox that I think as a writer, when you start, you've got so many ideas, and it's how do I condense it? So there's always a second or a third one coming out of the one you're writing. So there'll definitely be, I'll say at least three more. You know, I reckon I have to make that happen.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Maybe a novel to lock in a list. You can lock in a yellow shelf interview for those. Yeah, that's a good thing. That's wonderful to chat. Thanks for sharing. All the best.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, thanks so much.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Cheers.