who is “the stressFREEDOM guide”?

“stressFREEDOMguide”  is the  title  coined to express my calling  and my  favorite pastime with one word. As you might legitimately expect I have

  • a name:  Stefan Streitferdt
  • a year of birth (1952) and a year of death (as of today: unknown)
  • some education:  an MA in 20th century American literature, business administration studies, one year train-the-trainer studies with supervision, “goal coaching master”
  • over 30 years of professional experience as educator, project manager, export-, sales and general manager, business development consultant, communication trainer and coach for  global players  as well as small and medium businesses, refugee program coordinator for the UNHCR, negotiator, mediator, public speaker
  • a core family, an extended family, many friends
  • an adequate shelter in Wisconsin
  • lots of weaknesses that keep me and my environment alert
  • a few strengths that keep me bearable
  • some sense of humor

While supporting people and organizations in defining and achieving their goals, I had often been confronted with the disastrous effects of stress on professionals and their families: frustration, fears and worries, nervousness, inefficiency, depressions, loneliness, burnout, heart attacks.

In 2003 I discovered some ancient Greek philosophical exercises and practices designed to prevent  stress and ensure  stress-FREEDOM  successfully used by the  Epicureans for 800 years (between 300 BC and 500 AD) unchanged to reach their lives’ goal: happiness through stress-FREEDOM.

I decided to test some of the ancient exercises and practices on myself and I was surprised to find that they expanded spectacularly my stress-FREEDOM and brought about a deep and lasting transformation in my general attitudes, habitual disposition and behavior-patterns: I used to be known as pretty short-tempered and ironic but now my son’s basic perception of me was: “Dad is relaxed and humorous” – and you cannot fool kids and dogs about your disposition!

More and more people I interrelate with have noticed the changes in my habitual disposition and behavior-patterns and started turning to me for inspiration and guidance. So I developed my stress-FREEDOM guidance program, based on the ancient Greco-Roman exercises and modern communication training and coaching techniques. The stressed professionals and their families I worked with were absolutely enthusiastic about the results they achieved within weeks and urged me to make  it available on the net also for a larger number of stress-FREEDOM seekers.

So I wrote with my wife From Pain To Pleasure: The Proven Pathway To Happiness, to show  how we can learn from the Epicureans to live  in blissful contentment.  I also started blogging about their sustainable pathway to happiness through stress-FREEDOM.

At the moment I am spending most of my time with  helping people get stress-FREE and thus ready for and capable of true happiness - especially my family members and friends. Due to health issues I run no workshops at the time but I still give talks on Epicureanism and stress-FREEDOM.