This Award-winning Work-life Balance Expert is also a 2x Bestselling author and Multi-Award-Winning Entrepreneur transforming the minds of individuals with the way of their thinking about success in the workplace.
Susanne Grant, a multifaceted classy woman being a corporate speaker and an international bestselling author is on her mission to end the stigma on mental health, to eliminate the harmful hustle culture and work hard mentality. Being a mental health advocate, Susanne voices out “I am on a mission to end the stigma. Having first-hand experience managing mental – now fully recovered – and physical wellbeing as a mother of two, I want to lift the veil to help others by making them understand the importance of wellbeing for the workplace better. So we can redefine success, and challenge the status quo by putting people before profit and the astonishing effects this has on productivity and the bottom line.”
During the age of 17, Susanne was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a poor prognosis condition that was reported by the psychologist. The “incurable” PTSD turned out to be a miracle that was curable someday. She quoted “But that said, it’s taken a long time to find my way and uncover what it means to create a life (and business) that’s worth living when dealing with your mental well-being. Questions like: What does it mean to be successful in all areas of my life? Or what does success look like to me? are vital to ask oneself. Life is designed to support us and make our wildest dreams come true, but that’s not what most of us get taught”. During her spare time, she loves to spend time gardening, making delicious soups and smoothies from the food from her vegetable garden.
With an academic background in history, Susanne specialized in human technology throughout the centuries, which has given her a unique insight into why we believe the way work “has to be” the way it is. In the past, she worked for research institutes such as the Royal Dutch Weather Institute (KNMI) researching, analyzing historical data and developing important insights for the current status quo. Her incredible venture as a data analyst continued for several global companies until she started her own company in 2015.
After the birth of her daughter in 2015, Susanne realized the collective lie “hard work equals success” wasn’t working out and she did not want the next generation to grow up and think this was “normal”. Her outrageous decision in breaking free of the old way of doing business ended up in creating a brand-new business model – where holistic health and wealth were an integral part of the business. She states “A business that would support my vision, my dreams, my wellbeing and my young family! A business that would set my soul on fire and make my wildest dreams come true and create extraordinary transformation for my clients. Thousands of people have benefited from my training and teaching and are implementing my business strategies in working smarter rather than harder.”
Of course, challenges paralleled her booming business with taking care of two small children and a busy field service engineer husband. She, like most of the people in the town, shared her tough routine during the COVID times, and the importance of mental health and wellbeing from both the parents and the children’s perspectives. When Joeli Brearly from Pregnant then Screwed sued the UK government and the court of appeal agreed that the government discriminated against new mothers in one of their Covid schemes. She added, “We still have a long way to go, but at least we are seeing a shift happening now where employers are forced to start providing support around wellbeing as well as other (mental) health initiatives that are taking place.”
After being grandly nominated for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards in 2020, Susanne received the Corporate Livewire Prestige Awards for Best Business Coach 21/22. Her latest book, Drop The MF Struggle, is a self-help book for female business owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs who want to improve their success rate drastically but don’t want to work harder and put in more hours doing so. She has several business magazines and online platforms and has been featured on the front cover of Brainz Magazine and FEM (Feminist Entrepreneurs Magazine) as well as in Thrive Global, Authority Magazine, Global Millionaire Magazine, Billion Success and many more.
She added, “I would like to change the way we view women, especially mothers in our societies. We may only make up about 51% of the population, but we do give birth to the whole of the population. To nurture healthy and strong relationships, whether it’s with their partners or as a single mother, or whatever way, shape or form this comes in. If she would have the resources to support her children with mental health or have help with raising these children through childcare or similar support. This would massively change how relationships are formed, opportunities are shaped and this will have a ripple effect starting now and the next generations”.
Susanne believes in the Dalai Lama’s quote “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito”. Towards the end, she added that “I really would love to inspire a movement where we get rid of the idea that success can only come through struggle, being busy is seen as a badge of honor and working yourself into burnout is promoted as a good thing. You don’t need to work yourself into a burnout to prove that you are worthy!”.
