Faculty Profile: Paula Davis-Laack JD, MAPP

A lawyer goes Army Strong… On June 24, 2009, I left my law practice to go back to school and start a new business. I had burned out over the course of a year, and that experience sparked a desire to develop strategies for busy professionals to build their resilience to stress. That interest led me to the University of Pennsylvania’s master of applied positive psychology program where I researched the science of resilience and studied under the leading experts in the field. I received my post-graduate training working for the University of Pennsylvania teaching and training resilience skills to soldiers in the U.S. Army and their spouses as part of the Army’s Comprehensive Solider and Family Fitness program. Our training team trained more than 25,000 soldiers in five years. It was life changing to be part of such a meaningful program and to work with my real-life heroes.

Entrepreneur, speaker, trainer, writer… Once the Army project ended, I was able to re-devote my time and efforts to my business full-time, teaching and translating the science of stress, resilience and well-being into workshops, e-books and blog posts, speaking programs, and train-the-trainer programs for busy professionals in healthcare, the legal profession and many other helping professions. My work is regularly featured on my blogs in The Huffington Post, Forbes, Psychology Today and Fast Company. I am the author of three e-books, 10 Things Happy People Do Differently, Addicted to Busy: Your Blueprint for Burnout Prevention, and STRONG: Stress Relief Strategies When You Have 10 Minutes or Less. I will be co-authoring a chapter about the efficacy of teaching burnout prevention and resilience skills to medical students in the forthcoming book, Relational and Appreciative Practices in Healthcare. I am also authoring a chapter about resilience in a forthcoming book on well-being in the legal profession to be published by the American Bar Association. My expertise has been featured in and on O, The Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Time.com, Today.com, Women’s Health magazine, The Steve Harvey TV show, Huffington Post Live and a variety of media outlets. Professionally, I am the Founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, a training and consulting firm that partners with law firms, healthcare and other organizations to identify and address burnout and increase the well-being and stress resilience of their workplaces (www.stressandresilience.com). I regularly publish e-books, blog posts, and e-courses for busy professionals to disseminate my STRONG strategies – STress Resilience ON the Go.

Motherhood and more… In my favorite role of all, I am mom to a happy, silly and beautiful toddler named Lucy Tess. My love of sports, regular exercise (particularly kickboxing), and my faithful companions, golden retrievers Sadie and Zoey, help me manage the chaos. I remain devoted to my sports teams, the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Cubs, even when they test my resilience.