Elizabeth Greenfield — Everything Is Feedback
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Elizabeth Greenfield spent more than 25 years as a nurse, 15 of them as a nurse anesthetist, and loved the work. But while she was running marathons and triathlons, working 24-hour shifts and raising two small kids, her own health was falling apart and every lab came back normal. Functional medicine gave her answers, and a chiropractor told her she already had the credentials to do the work herself. She started seeing clients on the side, then left the hospital to go all in — and discovered that great outcomes and referrals don’t add up to knowing how to run a business. Mash and Liz talk about the people who helped her learn, selling without feeling like a salesperson, the business of speaking, whether her practice is default alive yet, and the idea she’d build a book around.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
“I loved everything about that job”
Tell me a little about yourself, and how you got here from where you were before.
I started as a nurse well over 25 years ago, and I did some pretty intense ICU nursing. I did anesthesia for 15 years of my career, and that was an incredible journey all by itself: putting people to sleep, waking them up, intubating people, dealing with emergencies. I did a lot of labor and delivery — spinals and epidurals for moms having babies. I loved everything about that job, and I got pretty good at it by the end.
But things were shifting in healthcare, getting focused on making it feel almost like factory work sometimes. And I had my own health journey. I was a rigorous endurance athlete — triathlons and marathons — and I was working 24-hour shifts and raising two little kids.
That sounds totally rewarding, and aligned with your personality. How in the world do you get from that life to where you are now?
I ended up having my own health issues because of being such a thriving individual all the time. There was a point when I asked myself, what is it that I need to do to really feel that I have value? Running a marathon, finishing a triathlon, a gluten-free vegan diet — I was constantly striving, and it had its effects on my nervous system and my body.
Western medicine was telling me, we don’t know what’s wrong, all of your labs look normal. And I had access to just about anybody who could help me, because of what I did for work. Ultimately it was through an alternative approach, functional medicine, that I did advanced lab testing and was able to understand what was happening to me as a whole person.
Teach me. How is functional medicine different from me going to Kaiser?
A lot of people don’t know what functional medicine is. It’s really about using advanced lab testing — on the gut microbiome, on hormones, on stress levels through salivary cortisol testing — so we can look at the body as a system instead of individual organs, and understand what’s causing the imbalances.
But if it’s labs, can’t I get that at Kaiser?
When you do a blood lab, you’re capturing one point in time: exactly what was happening at the moment you sat down in the chair and someone put a tourniquet on your arm and poked you with a needle. Those labs are valuable for certain things, but a lot of them won’t change until you’ve got a real physiologic derangement that’s affecting your ability to live.
Things like sodium and potassium can give us some insights, but they’re downstream effects. We want to understand what’s happening upstream that causes those things to change, so we can apply dietary and lifestyle interventions to resolve it. In functional medicine, we call it the root cause.
You had access to the best medicine, and it never helped you. How did you stumble into functional medicine?
I saw a chiropractor. She was the first person I saw, and she took a functional medicine approach to what I had going on. In the course of that work, she let me know: you have the credentials to do this work yourself, if you ever wanted to be a functional medicine practitioner.
That lit something up inside of me — the idea of helping people resolve root causes, because it was so helpful to me. I’m a totally different person now. It’s allowed me to share more of my gifts, versus just surviving day to day.
“I didn’t actually know how to run a business”
Founders usually have an aha moment, decide to start a business, try really hard — and then often fail for various reasons. What happened with you? Did you stay a nurse and practice on the side? Did you quit?
In the beginning I couldn’t imagine leaving my anesthesia job. It was a W-2, it had great benefits, and I loved giving anesthesia. So I started seeing clients and running the business on the side.
But I was working those 24-hour shifts, responding to emergencies, carrying two phones and three pagers. Anyone in the hospital could get hold of me at any point in time, and I had to respond to the overhead emergencies. I would hear all of that going off in my head even when I wasn’t at work, because of the stress level.
Meanwhile, as a functional medicine practitioner, I was sitting across from people telling them: look at what’s happening to your health as a result of your stress levels. I realized I was completely out of alignment. There was almost nothing I could do at home to counter what I was experiencing at work. That was the aha moment: I can’t stay in a job this stressful and be the practitioner I really want to be.
So did you just pull the plug, put a sign on the door and say, “Come, let me help you”?
I was already seeing clients, which was really helpful. I’m so honored and humbled by how much people love the services, and even to this day I’m a 100% referral-based practice. But I didn’t actually know how to run a business. I was having great outcomes, people were willing to share the word about their experience with me, and I thought that’s enough, I’m going to be fine. Of course it wasn’t. I remember those first few months, rolling out of bed in the morning ready to go to work, and realizing I’m not getting a paycheck anymore.
That’s a common place for people to get to. How did you get past it? Who helped you?
That’s where I have the deepest level of gratitude, because I kept meeting people along the way who said, “I want to help you. Will you be my test person? I’m creating something new.” You were one of those people. When I said, “I’m doing this, I believe in it, I want to keep going, and I’m struggling,” there were kind people who would donate their time to help me understand the basics.
A lot of people listening are exactly where you were. Who gave you that first help?
I’ve been doing this for five years, and I quit my hospital job about two and a half years ago. I sell supplements as part of the work I do, and I had an account manager through my supplement store who was so generous with his time. He helped me understand how to do a sales funnel, for example. How do you make everything align, so you’re not doing random posts — your social media matches your emails, your services, the supplements you want to sell that month? That was a big “okay, now I understand how to do a campaign.”
“A mindset of service”
Some people don’t feel like anyone wants to help them. What advice would you give someone leaving their job to go out on their own?
Get really clear on the message and what it is that you offer. For a long time — and I still struggle with this a little — I was shy to say, “Hey, I have something that could help you.” Be willing to say what you’re doing and how you can help, and switch from a sales mindset into a mindset of service.
What do you mean by that?
What felt really uncomfortable for me was trying to sell what I was doing. I would do a hard sale over the phone and tell people, you’ve got to decide within 24 hours or your price is this. I struggled with it. It just wasn’t me. Over time, especially as I’ve had more good outcomes, it’s been easier to present the service I offer and how it can benefit people’s health and wellness.
I think that’s a common problem for coaches, consultants and practitioners bringing their expertise to market. They devalue themselves — maybe they feel bad asking for money. Did that happen for you?
It did, and I still have days where I have to sit down and get honest with myself. A couple of things help. Number one is gathering evidence on paper of all the people who’ve had good outcomes — testimonials, asking people to write Google reviews. Then I can say, I’m going to go to my Google review page today and look at what people have said about working with me. It re-centers me: look at all the people who went out of their way to write the review and give the five stars.
Then, when I’m talking with someone who’s considering working with me, I do some storytelling: I’ve helped someone with a very similar journey to yours — only with that person’s permission — here’s where they started, and here’s where they landed. That helps people see that this can come to resolution.
We have a friend in common, Ann, from the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center. She’s helped me, and hundreds of other people. I don’t think a lot of people know the SBDCs even exist. What’s your experience been?
I was looking for grant funding, and everything kept pointing me back to the SBDC. I kept looking at their web page thinking, is it possible you could actually get one-on-one business advising in California? But it is. The way the state looks at it, as Ann described it to me, small businesses are the backbone of the California economy, so they really want small business owners to be successful.
She’s been a huge advocate, she’s incredibly knowledgeable, and she’s helped me connect with a lot of other people, like you. The SBDC offers tons of programming. Next week I’m starting a four-month in-person series on financial readiness for lending, for example.
“Everything internally and externally is giving us feedback on where we truly want to go.”
— Elizabeth Greenfield · Inspiring Founders Podcast, S2, Ep. 03
“That’s a business by itself”
You’ve made it through the early stages. What does the next phase look like? And of all the problems you could solve, why this niche within functional medicine?
It’s ever evolving, because I’m committed to providing the highest level of service I can for my clients, and as I learn more, sometimes that changes. One thing that’s shifted for me recently: just like I needed someone to hold my hand as a founder and walk me through — then you do this, then you do this — that’s what I want to do for women who are struggling with health issues. Really partner with them on the outcomes they’re looking for.
I specifically serve women with hormonal imbalances, especially in perimenopause and menopause, with or without hormone replacement therapy. I don’t fault Western doctors — I worked with the OBs really closely for decades — but they’re limited in what they can offer. That single-point-in-time blood draw is especially limited when it comes to hormones. Advanced testing, through tests like DUTCH, can reveal what’s happening day to day with a woman’s hormones.
Women quietly struggle through things that are debilitating — mood swings, insomnia, feeling like they have to call in sick to work. It takes a bit of commitment to discover the root causes, and that’s a huge aha moment. My favorite part of the work is helping a woman understand what’s going on. I share my screen and show them: you collected your tests, here’s what’s going on. Women say things like, “I knew it. I’m not crazy.” Or, “This is so validating.” But understanding what’s going on is not the end of the story.
What vision do you have for yourself as you keep growing as a business person?
I would love to become an international speaker on functional medicine and women’s hormones specifically, so more women understand they actually can get to the root cause of what’s going on. A lot of women get kind of cut off at the doctor’s office, and they go internal: there’s something wrong with me, maybe I am making it up, maybe I am crazy. I want women to understand that none of that is true. There is a way to understand what’s going on, there is a resolution for it, and I want to empower as many women as possible to get their health in alignment so they can also share their gift.
If someone watching thought, “I have to get Liz to give a keynote at our conference,” who would that be?
I love working with women who are already health-conscious and high-performing, like I was. It’s not a lack of motivation. They just don’t know what it is they’re supposed to do.
So an organization of high-achieving women who are already working out, calling to say, “Liz, will you come speak to our members?”
That’s a perfect fit. Companies, too. And even nurses, because a lot of them are pretty health-conscious, and I know that world inside and out. How do you navigate a work environment where you have a 15-minute break to scarf down lunch? How do you eat a healthy lunch, and how do you prepare your digestive system to receive the nutrients from that food?
But they’re nurses. Shouldn’t they know that stuff?
It’s just not the way the system is set up. In anesthesia, someone comes in to give you a break in the middle of a really hard case, and you’re off to get it in as fast as you can. I’d bring a salad, and it was like, curses, I can’t chew this fast enough.
How do you find the nurse organizations and medical conferences that might say, “Liz, we want you to come”?
I actually don’t know. I’ve tried to get into some speaking bureaus, and speaking is hard to get into, to be honest, because it is a business all by itself. People are not that likely to just call me and say, “We found out about you and we want you to share.” You need a speaker reel and a one-pager, and I’ve been learning all of this little by little.
Per your recommendation, I met with someone who runs a speaking business, and she told me point blank: you’re not ready for this. I thought, how can she say that? What does she mean? She said, join the National Speakers Association and you’ll see what people are doing to create the business side of speaking. That’s where I realized some people dedicate every ounce of their entrepreneurial journey to speaking. That’s a business by itself. So I’ve been working on developing that side of the business.
It’s easy to follow everything you’re interested in and dilute the value of everything. How do you stay focused?
Coming back to the value I really want to provide for people, and truly my heart is in serving a woman on a one-to-one basis. When I start to feel scattered — do I do a social media post, or work on something the National Speakers Association recommended? — I try to get centered and ask myself, what step today is actually going to help me serve more women one-on-one? Sometimes that’s working on the next speaking engagement. Or it might be the messages in my inbox from women I’m already working with.
“I’m not at default alive yet”
Of everything you’ve done for the business — not for your clients, for the business — what’s the most valuable decision you made?
To really go all in. When I was working in the hospital, I was not all in. And now that I have gone all in — you mentioned how other founders fail, and that’s still a possibility for my business. So I’ve got to double down and invest the time that’s needed, and my heart. Get clear on my message, who I want to be in service to and how I’m going to help them understand that — and not compromise on my values.
People can spend upwards of 10 years in their business before it feels default alive — when you’re not trying to save its life every single day. Maybe less for solopreneurs and coaches; you don’t need a million clients. It’s like having a baby: you save its life every day, sometimes five times a day, until pretty soon it’s default alive. Where do you think your business is?
I’m not at default alive yet, for sure. It requires 100% of my energy and focus, which is fine. It’s a pleasure and a joy. But it comes with fear and trepidation: is it ever going to become default alive? Is it always going to be this hard? Is it worth it? Am I doing something wrong? It’s like the comparison you made, raising a kid: are they going to make it? It’s got its peaks and its valleys, moments of real reward and deep fear.
“Nothing that happens is bad”
A lot of coaches develop a platform — an insight that serves their client work, their marketing, their speaking. Most often that’s a book. Have you thought about writing one?
I would love to write a book.
What would it be about?
That everything internally and externally is giving us feedback on where we truly want to go. Symptoms — what we can show with functional medicine lab testing — are all feedback on paper that the body is giving us about our stress levels, what we’re putting in our bodies, whether or not we’re sleeping.
But it also applies to the external world. Once I started my business and knew deep down that I wanted to do only the business and stop giving anesthesia, I wasn’t just going to make that decision. Something had to happen. I had to start getting feedback from the job that it wasn’t working for me anymore. So I was subconsciously creating difficulty at work, until finally I was like, I can’t work here anymore.
So it’s like the universe is talking to you, and you’re not listening?
I do believe symptoms will show up, or the external experience is going to feel hard, until we start getting in alignment with what we really want. Once that happens, things start to move forward.
What I notice with clients — and this happens over and over again — is they’ve got to make a commitment that they’re going to put their health first. Once they realize, I’m actually not going to make progress until I commit to myself, everything in their external world starts to ease up. “I can’t believe it, I just got a new job.” Or, “My boss just gave me an assistant.” It gives me goosebumps every time, because it’s repeatable over and over again.
Just for fun, give me the outline. What are the three main sections?
The first section would be about my journey as a nurse. I started my clinical experience when I was 20, and I didn’t know the first thing about what it meant to be a nurse. My first assignment was to sit with a dying woman whose daughter could not make it to the bedside. Coincidentally, the woman’s daughter was named Elizabeth. She was totally delirious, and just would not cross that threshold into death.
When I sat down next to her, I was 20 and scared to death. But I took her hand in mine and said, “I’m Elizabeth. I’m going to sit with you.” She thought I was her daughter, and that gave her the peace of mind of having a family member at her bedside. She passed away within probably an hour of when I sat down with her. I’ve got tons of stories like that, that showed me: you’re in alignment. I made a commitment to myself — I’m going to take care of people. That would be the beginning of the story.
The middle would be when things start shaking up — with my health, and in the work environment. At that time I didn’t understand the philosophy I stand by today. It was only through working through all of that that I discovered those symptoms were just my body’s way of talking to me, and I was actually creating all of that garbage that was happening at work. And the third part would be what I see happening with clients that validates this platform today.
So the middle is when you weren’t listening, and things compounded until you had to pay attention?
Maybe the middle is more about developing the skill, and learning that nothing that happens is bad. Symptoms are not bad. A difficult situation out there is not bad. It’s feedback: my body is giving me a lot of feedback right now. What do I really want? What do I really need to do here? So the middle is the experience that gave me the ability to say, I can see how to work with this.
Thanks for being on the podcast, and for sharing so transparently with everybody out there.
I appreciate it so much, and your support has meant so much to me over this past year. I’ve learned so much from you, and I’ve had so much fun working with you and hopping on our calls. I’ve loved using the Radi8 platform. That’s been a huge game changer for me. In terms of social media posting, it took me out of fear and into excitement and creativity.
That’s so cool. I have so much to show you with Radi8 — you’re not going to believe what’s coming out next.
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