A Day in the Life: Ashley Green, Founder of Green Heart Wellbeing

Seventeen years ago, Ashley Green moved from Glasgow to Dubai to become a primary school teacher. She had no idea she'd eventually build a company around a question most classrooms never ask out loud: what actually helps a person flourish?

For twelve years, she taught. Somewhere along the way, she became her school's mindfulness coordinator, which eventually became the center of everything that followed. She watched teachers around her carry enormous pressure while their own well-being went unnoticed. She lived through some of that pressure herself, including her own struggles with mental health.

So she went back to school to pursue a Master's in Applied Positive Psychology. Her research asked a simple question: what helps teachers in Dubai actually flourish? Along the process, one question kept circling around: “Why didn't schools have real, explicit wellbeing provision built into how they operated?”

That question became Green Heart Wellbeing, now the UAE's first Positive Psychology-based extracurricular provider for children.

Today, no two days look alike. Ashley might spend a morning running a children's wellbeing club, an afternoon coaching a client, writing a proposal, while working on a variety of tasks that include marketing, finances, and partnerships.

"Running a business involves much more behind-the-scenes work than people often realise," she says.

All of this leads to teaching, coaching, training, and consulting while working on her main goal, helping others flourish. She states this isn't just about individuals in isolation, but the systems and cultures around them.

"It is helpful to teach an individual strategy for managing stress," she says, "but we must also examine whether their workplace is creating unnecessary or unsustainable stress."

Looking back at her 17-year-old self, she today would give this message: "Choosing a degree does not mean choosing one identity for the rest of your life." Her own path proves it, from teaching leading to mindfulness, which led to a master's degree, which led to coaching, training, consulting, writing, and eventually, founding something of her own. "None of those experiences has been wasted."

What Ashley Enjoys Most

"I love seeing an idea from research become meaningful in someone's real life," whether that's a child discovering a strength they hadn't recognised in themselves, a teacher realising they aren't failing just because they feel overwhelmed, or a leader understanding how their organisation's culture shapes their team's wellbeing.

She hopes that children build psychological skills early, rather than waiting until adulthood to learn them. In addition, workplaces embed wellbeing into everyday decisions and leadership, rather than treating it as an occasional activity.

What It Takes to Work in This Field

Ashley points to curiosity as essential within her field. You always have to ask questions and have an eye out, analysing what is happening around you. Wellbeing is a fast-developing field, and staying engaged with research and people matters. Empathy and listening are just as important: you can't design meaningful programmes without understanding people's actual context, not just your own assumptions.

Communication, creativity, courage, and adaptability are all equally important and particularly valuable for anyone running their own business. And finally, integrity: "Wellbeing has become a popular industry, but popularity does not always equal evidence." Staying within your qualifications and avoiding promises the research can't support matters more as the field grows.

Advice to Her Younger Self

Looking back, Ashley says she'd tell her high-school self that choosing a degree doesn't mean choosing one identity for life. She once believed careers moved in a straight line. What you studied equals your whole profession. Instead, her path moved from teaching into wellbeing leadership, coaching, training, consulting, writing, and entrepreneurship. One degree led to many different experiences.

She'd also tell herself not to make decisions purely out of fear or from what looks like the safest option, but to take practical risks; it's just as important to notice what makes you curious and what kind of contribution feels meaningful.

"You do not need to have your entire life worked out at 17 or 18. Very few people truly do."

Her Message to Students

"Stay curious about people, but remain equally curious about yourself," Ashley says. These careers can be deeply meaningful, but they carry responsibility too, such as learning from credible sources, seeking proper qualifications, and recognising that caring about people is only the beginning. Knowledge, boundaries, and humility matter just as much.

She adds that a changing career path is nothing to worry about because subjects and experiences that seem unrelated now may eventually connect in ways you can't yet imagine. And you don't need to be a perfectly happy person to work in wellbeing; your own challenges, paired with continued learning and self-care, can deepen your compassion and understanding for others as well as yourself.

Wellbeing Today

Wellbeing is discussed far more openly today than when Ashley began teaching. Schools and workplaces increasingly recognise its impact on learning, relationships, engagement, retention, and performance.

But a gap remains between talking about wellbeing and creating the conditions that support it. An organisation might offer yoga or meditation sessions while people still face unmanageable workloads or unhealthy, toxic cultures. The next stage, Ashley says, has to move beyond isolated initiatives and examine leadership, systems, and everyday working practices. Wellbeing shouldn't be an extra activity; it should shape how an organisation operates from the foundation.

The One Life Skill Ashley Would Teach Every Student

"I would teach every student how to develop a kind, trustworthy inner voice."

How we speak to ourselves shapes how we respond to mistakes, setbacks, and uncertainty. A supportive inner voice isn't about avoiding responsibility or pretending everything's fine; it's about responding to yourself with honesty and compassion, not shame.

"If young people could leave school knowing that making a mistake does not make them a failure, that difficult feelings will pass, and that their worth is not determined entirely by achievement, they would carry an incredibly valuable resource into adulthood."

Her advice to any student considering a path like hers: "You do not need to have your entire life worked out at 17 or 18. Very few people truly do."

Ashley Green

Day in the Life is a Mint Minds series introducing students to the real people behind different careers helping them understand not just what professionals do, but what it actually feels like to work in their field.