Bonus: Join me at the Rest To Rise Summit

We invite you to join the free Rest To Rise Summit and rethink the belief that rest must be earned after the next milestone. I share why sustainable high performance depends on building recovery into your routines now, plus what I’ll teach about mental rest and closing the open tabs in your brain. Register here: https://rest2rise.clarityprint.co/url/speaker-stedman. 

Find out more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilystedman/.

Transcript

Welcome To The Grace Period

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Grace Period, where we get real about attorney mental health and well-being and pull back the veil on the high-stakes world of big law. I'm your host, Emily Logan Steadman, a commercial litigator, partner, and someone who believes there's always room for a little more grace, even in high-stakes professions. Here I share real stories from my own journey in big law and invite you behind the scenes, beyond the billable hour, and to talk about what it means to stay human even in a demanding field. Whether you're a lawyer, a legal professional, or someone trying to find your footing, this space is for you. Let's pull back the curtain, start the conversation, and find our grace period together. Hi everyone, it's Emily. Today I'm here with another bonus episode of the Grace Period. I want to take a minute to invite you to something that I am genuinely excited about, the Rest to Rise summit. This summit is happening May 19th through 20 May 19th through the 22nd, 2026. It's a free virtual event for lawyers and any high-performing professionals who want a more sustainable way to work, lead, and live. If you're anything like me, you've probably been taught that rest is something you earn. You earn rest when you've proven yourself. You earn rest when you've gathered all those gold stars. You earn rest after you have achieved your goal or goals. After the big case, after the promotion, after the next milestone. Then I can rest. But the truth is, sustainable high performance isn't about waiting for rest. It's about building rest into your routines and systems right now. That's why I'm so drawn to this rest to Rise Summit. It's not an escape or indulgence. It's about learning how to recover, reflect, and reset within and inside the reality of our responsibilities, our ambitions, and our expectations for ourselves. I will be speaking at the Rest to Rise Summit. In my session, I'll be talking about mental rest and specifically how you can use routines and systems to close the loop on all those pending tasks and open tabs in your brain. When you create space in your mind by closing those tabs, you bring more focus and presence to whatever comes next, whether it's work or personal life. I'll share practical ways to use time management, daily rituals, and intentional boundaries to support your mental clarity and well-being, even in the busiest seasons. As any longtime listener knows, for most of my life I've been an anxious achiever. I worry, I carry more than I let on, and then most people see. For ages, I didn't have language for what I was feeling. And I often thought I was the only one struggling to keep up. Looking back, I wish someone had helped me name it sooner. Just knowing that anxiety, worry, and the need for rest, mental rest, and other types of rest is common would have made a world of difference for me, particularly in my early days of private practice. That is why I talk about these things so openly now, and why I hope and even know that this summit will offer all of us, including me, a sense of community, insight, and encouragement. For me and for all of you who might be carrying a lot and carrying it quietly. Let me be an example. I remain in the trenches of daily, intense legal practice. Rest, even in small amounts, is possible, I promise. This summit will teach you and me more ways to find and how to implement rest. Rest to Rise brings together experts across disciplines, mental health, law, leadership, and more. The experts will talk about burnout, decision fatigue, cognitive load, and what real recovery looks like. Every session is prerecorded and is full of practical advice with micro practices that you can use immediately and in very short spurts of time. The summit is about supporting your mind and nervous system. It's about preventing depletion from becoming the default. If you're feeling stretched thin or just want to learn what sustainable success can actually look like, I'd love for you to join us at the Rest to Rise Summit. You can register for this free summit at the link in the show notes or reach out to me on LinkedIn or Instagram for the link and how to register. When you sign up, you'll get access to the full summit and a special rest to rise guide. The guide will teach you about the six forms of rest, which you'll learn more about in detail at the summit from each of the experts. I'm truly honored to be part of the Rest to Rise conversation, and I hope you'll join me there. Let's figure out together what it means to rest so that we can rise. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grace Period. Remember, you don't have to choose between your well-being and your ambition. By setting boundaries, building supportive habits, and giving yourself permission to pause, you can thrive in law and in life. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. That is the path to our grace period. Disclaimer The views expressed here are solely my own and do not represent the official policy or position of my firm or any organization. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only, not professional or legal advice. Listening does not create an attorney client relationship.