Don't settle for an untrained mind, experience the benefits of optimal mental performance.
Dr. Elise Bialylew is a medical doctor trained in psychiatry who helps organisations combat the burnout crisis through evidence-based mental fitness and resilience training.
With 15 years in high-pressure medicine, managing 24-hour shifts and life-or-death decisions, Elise understands sustainable high performance. After witnessing epidemic burnout rates among high achievers, she developed a revolutionary mental fitness framework that transforms how organisations build resilience and prevent burnout before it starts.
As founder of Mindful in May, reaching 40+ countries and training 50,000+ professionals, Elise's research with Monash University proved that just 10 minutes of mental fitness training daily, enhanced wellbeing, focus and stress management.
Companies including Google, NAB, SEEK, Downer Group, and Arup engage Elise to build burnout-proof cultures. Teams learn neuroscience-backed techniques to activate flow states, optimise brain health, and develop the mental fitness required for sustainable high performance in our AI-enhanced workplace.
Her bestselling book The Happiness Plan, endorsed by Magda Szubanski, translates cutting-edge neuroscience into immediate burnout prevention strategies.
"A powerful reset - leaders walked away with tools to boost productivity, focus, and clarity" - Rowan Ezman, Downer Group
Recognised as an AFR Woman of Influence, Elise delivers keynotes combining medical credibility with practical resilience tools. Her message: In 2025's high-stress environment, mental fitness isn't optional - it's your competitive advantage.
Organisations leave with proven systems that transform work stress into sustainable performance, delivering measurable ROI within weeks.
Talking Points
Managing stress with science backed mindfulness tools
There is an epidemic of mental illness in the world right now. Stress is one of the dominant factors contributing to mental illness. In this keynote, Elise will explain the science of stress in a completely accessible way, how it impacts your brain and body, and inspire the audience to immediately implement simple, science-backed time time-efficient mindfulness practices to reduce stress and support flourishing.
Managing stress with science backed mindfulness tools
How to be a mindful leader
We are living through unprecedented technological change. Over the next decade alone, we are set to experience as many technological innovations as occurred over the past 100 years. Leaders require more capacity than ever to manage the uncertainty and changes that are coming. We need to hone our self-leadership skills, the ability to uplevel our inner capacities to manage the increasing challenges and opportunities of our time. How to be a mindful leader
In this keynote, Elise shares how mindful leadership leads to greater self-leadership, and describes her 5-step science-backed process to develop yourself as a mindful leader and experience powerful transformation in your organisation through improved communication, amplified emotional intelligence and greater resilience.
How mindfulness can unlock your full potential
Just like physical exercise, the brain can be trained to help you reach your fullest potential, experiencing improved performance with amplified states of focus, clarity and calm.How mindfulness can unlock your full potential
In this keynote, Elise draws on her decades of experience in the world of mental wellbeing, mindfulness and entrepreneurship to offer you 6 science-backed practices to help you reach your fullest potential and overcome both internal and external obstacles on the way to your most fulfilled life.
Mindfulness and entrepreneurship: An Inspirational personal story of re-invention and finding deeper purpose: psychiatrist turns social entrepreneur
Elise spent 15 years training in psychiatry and working with society's most unwell patients. However, along the way, she had a deeper calling and realised that she wasn't truly living her purpose. After a powerful experience on a 7-day silent meditation retreat (which she had dreaded going on), her life transformed. Mindfulness and entrepreneurship: An Inspirational personal story of re-invention and finding deeper purpose: psychiatrist turns social entrepreneur
She left her career in psychiatry to follow her passion to support people to thrive and flourish and she created what was to become the world's largest online mindfulness fundraising campaign Mindful in May, (before mindfulness apps existed), which attracted Google participants and celebrities including Magda Szubanski and raised over $1 million to bring clean water to thousands across Africa in urgent need.
In this keynote, Elise shares her personal story of reinvention. She will inspire the audience to tap into their passions and take the risks necessary to live a life of deep purpose and meaning. Whether that is taking more risks within the workplace to increase purpose and engagement or taking a leap and stepping into entrepreneurship, you will leave this talk with a new sense of possibility in your life and with tools to recognise some of the obstacles holding you back.
Mindful parenting
As a mother of two, a doctor specialised in psychiatry and founder of the world's largest online mindfulness fundraising campaign, Mindful in May, Elise understands the very real challenge of balancing parenting with work. Having collaborated with some of the world's leading parenting experts, in this keynote, she brings together the most essential science-backed practices to bring more emotional intelligence, presence, and resilience to your parenting.
Mindful parenting
Developing a high performance mind
There is one shared feature of high performers: their ability to access flow states more of the time. The flow state is a particular state of consciousness where absolute focus is attained, work feels more effortless, and there is greater pleasure in one's work. In this keynote, Elise draws on the cutting-edge neuroscience of Flow and Mindfulness to explain how you can tap into this high-performance mind state and see your productivity and sense of purpose soar.
Developing a high performance mind
Stress-resilient minds: thriving amidst exponential A.I change
We are living through a revolution greater than the Industrial Revolution. Every domain of work and life is being disrupted by the convergence of exponential change across multiple domains. The integration of artificial intelligence into our lives is bringing about significant societal shifts. The rate of change in our lives is rapidly accelerating, and our need to uplevel our capacity to manage uncertainty has never been more important. Developing inner resilience to manage the rapid changes of our time is key to future-proofing oneself in these exciting times. Stress-resilient minds: thriving amidst exponential A.I change
In this keynote, Elise will paint a picture of our emerging future and the potential challenges we will face, and then offer some practices to develop a stress resilient mind, including some science-backed mindfulness practices to help develop greater emotional balance, make better decisions under pressure and be able to stay more present and focused amidst the turbulence.
Video
Mindfulness At Work with Elise Bialylew
Happiness and its causes conference: How mindfulness can help you reach your potential
Audio
We invited Dr. Elise Bialylew to work with our senior leaders, and the response was fantastic. Elise has a unique ability to translate science into practical, relatable strategies that immed ... keep reading Downer Group
Elise brings her deep expertise in the field of the brain and mindfulness together with engaging storytelling about her own personal transformation from psychiatry to social entrepreneurship. She inspired our audience and left them wanting more. I'd highly recommend her as a guest speaker at your next event. You won't be disappointed!
Elise came and facilitated a session at AGL today outlining Mindfulness, what it is, the research supporting it in growing the brain and the numerous benefits. She also facilitated a guided meditation practice. Excellent session with easy tools to implement - lots of great feedback from participants.
We had the pleasure of inviting Dr Elise Bialylew to speak at our office during Wellness Festival Week. From the outset, Elise was a delight to work with - professional, approachable, and highly responsive. We shared the key themes we wanted her to cover, and she was incredibly adaptable, tailoring her talk to align seamlessly with our goals. Her session was engaging, insightful, and well-received by the team. Elise provided practical tools and strategies that our staff could immediately apply, making a meaningful impact on both individual well-being and team dynamics. Her ability to connect with the audience and deliver content that was both relevant and actionable made her a standout contributor to the week.
We are so grateful to have had Elise to deliver the Keynote presentation at our Celebrating Graduate Research event for our doctoral research students at the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne, and the Melbourne Business School. Her talk on 'Unlocking your full potential through mindfulness' was relevant, topical and resonated well. Throughout the talk, Elise was very engaging and pitched perfectly for our graduate students with her presentation being educational, practical and experiential - with really useful takeaways for everyone. We look forward to having her back!
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