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Natalie Connor is a former commercial barrister who made the somewhat radical pivot into disruptive tech leadership back in 2019. After one too many dances with burnout as well as struggling for years with a crisis of identity and - despite her objective success - a lack of complete fulfilment in her legal career, Natalie founded Elevate., a holistic wellbeing brand that helps busy legal professionals to find and nurture their purpose (both within and outside of the law). Now based in Ibiza, alongside her legal and tech consultancy practice, Natalie and her expert team run retreats focused on three core 'pillars' of wellness: movement mechanics, functional medicine and mindfulness, incorporating immersive neuro-linguistic programming workshops centred around values work and tackling limiting beliefs which help to facilitate massive physical mental and emotional shifts in her clients.
For me, health is my top value, so it's something I refuse to compromise on. Even at the peak of my career at the Bar (unavoidable mid-trial all-nighters aside), clients knew they couldn't reach me at certain times when I'd be in a meditation class, and I was regularly mocked by colleagues for turning up to Chambers on my bike and sitting at my desk in a muddy high-vis for a lot of the time that I wasn't in court. I think more than half the battle is simply learning to advocate for yourself and your wellbeing priorities (and not just advocating for others, as lawyers are generally taught), but the other half is tapping into accessible wellness practices which you personally enjoy and which are sustainable even alongside a busy workload. For example, my biggest hack is doing a 5 minute ice bath every morning. Nothing is more effective at quietening my mind, and even the busiest lawyer can find 5 minutes in the day for a similar practice, whether it's cold water immersion, breathwork or just a brisk walk round the block. Find something that works and build the habit.
I think the profession as a whole faces myriad mental health challenges, but speaking from my experience as a barrister, I'd say the biggest challenges derive from the stresses of self-employment, the constant pressure of the 'buck' stopping with you and frankly the fact that it's our job to fight for a living day in and day out and the destructive effect this has on our soft skills and our ability to show up in a healthy way outside of work.
Elevate. is in the business of bringing busy people back to their centre and helping them to uncover their purpose outside of the noise of societal, hierarchical and familial pressures. We run holistic retreats in the UK and Ibiza providing safe spaces for like-minded legal professionals to share experiences, dive deeply into their values systems and explore science-backed wellbeing practices to help elevate their health over the long-term. We also focus massively on 'lifestyle-centric career planning' - essentially providing a set of tools and processes to help people to redefine what success and 'abundance' means to them in order to build a life which feels meaningful, where their work serves and fulfils that broader purpose yet isn't necessarily the starting point.
My biggest piece of advice here is to recognise your own agency in the work-life balancing act. Learn to say no (when appropriate), open up a dialogue with your boss or within your company more widely about non-work priorities and how to honour them, explore flexible working options, and ultimately know your worth and be prepared to walk away from a culture that doesn't value your wellbeing.
In my experience, the only way to ensure your employees are well is to lead by example. If your boss is working until midnight every night, never takes holiday and never finds time to go to the gym, chances are, their reports won't either. And this stuff matters, because in the UK, 33.7 million working days were lost in the past year due to work-related ill health and injury, with stress being a significant contributor. The latest wellbeing science supports the concept of getting back to our natural human state to help us complete our stress response cycles more effectively - getting outdoors, grounding, breathing deeply, hugging someone you love for 20 seconds or more to help your body exit 'fight or flight'. Yet I see too many organisations ignoring these basics and instead paying lip-service to wellbeing with flashy healthtech gadgets, gym subsidies and subscriptions to online coaching or wellbeing platforms, which are provided against a backdrop of hustle culture and the glamourisation of burnout. I find that the best organisations which have the happiest and most productive employees are the ones who provide a psychologically safe workplace, prioritise meaningful connection and value rest and downtime.
If you are interested in booking a retreat, email info@howweelevate.com, mentioning InnLegal to claim £75 off your next wellbeing retreat.
