Meet Elena Pulido Presa

We recently connected with Elena Pulido Presa and have shared our conversation below.

Elena, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

How I became a naturopath working for myself and being able to do so wherever I want? By leaving my comfort zone.

From 18 to 26, I started a career in cinema, in my home town, Madrid. Living at my parents flat, not taking many risks nor having travelled a lot in my life.
I had been living in the same city, in the same neighbourhood and even the same flat my entire life.

When I was 26, I broke up with my boyfriend, left my job in a cinema school and moved to London with the only purposes of learning English and be independent.
I lived there for 3 years and a half. In that time, I worked in properties, met my current partner and the father of my daughter, Sebastian, lived in Bali, Honduras, Thailand and Ibiza, becoming a diving instructor, and learnt much more about myself and what I wanted to become than I had in my whole life. It is incredible how many things you can achieve when you are not in your comfort zone.

But the story does not end there. That was just the starting point that made me realize that I wanted to come back to Madrid and start a new career. I left London, having to go back to my parents’ flat for a while and breaking up with Sebastian to end up having a daughter together six years later. Our best project, no doubt.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I want to tell a story about being persistent about what you want to do in life.

The first important thing about myself is that, as a kid, I was very outgoing, I loved doing new things and as a teenager I was a person who improvised and did not need to plan. I have never been afraid of changes.

When I was 18 I did not know what I wanted to be as a professional. I liked a lot of things so I decided to study Drama to be able to do a lot of different jobs. But I discovered that I did not have the vocation, so I decided to study Photography instead. But again, I found that this was not for me.
By then, I was 26, living and working in Madrid, having a comfortable life but not really feeling whole. I was still living with my parents and in a relationship that was not working.
My brother was living in London and I took advantage of it and decided to leave everything (this has been something quite easy for me during my twenties) and go to London for a while. I broke up with my boyfriend, left my job and bought a one way ticket.
In London, I started working in an estate agency thanks to a very good friend and met Sebastian who now is the father of my daughter.
There, I started to feel what it was to be independent, earn enough money to have a good life and be able to travel, go out and not have to think about every penny I had.

While I was in London, my job allowed me to have big breaks due to the seasonality of the business, so I took long trips to other countries spending 2, 3 and even 5 months away. On these trips I started to dive and became a diving instructor (the next profession I had). I was going back and forth to London to work in the estate agency. Even though the money was good, the job involved a lot of stress that I did not want to endure.
Diving was fun, beautiful and I really loved it. Maybe this was my thing?
The problem was that I was still going out with Sebastian and he was staying in London while I was on my trips. So I found that it was quite difficult to maintain this job the way I wanted with a partner not following my path.
In the end I chose a more stable life and remained in London after two years of traveling. However, shortly after, although Sebastian and I broke up, I did not feel like going back to be a diving instructor again. Therefore, one more time I started to search for what I wanted to do. I felt frustrated and lost once again. I was about to turn 30 years old and still had not found my professional path. At this point, a friend of mine recommended me to start studying Gestalt Therapy claiming that it might help me to look deeper inside me and help me to find what I really wanted. After 6 months or so of therapy, I realized that I had always loved selfcare: nutrition, natural supplements, exercise, breathing techniques…, basically in my life I liked to have healthy habits and found out that I was constantly seeking knowledge about it. I loved to investigate ways of being healthier.
I felt a “click”, a connection with this thought that guided me to start looking for naturopathy schools in London. But I was not convinced about what I found there, so for the first time in 3 years I had the idea of going back to Spain and that was what happened.

I found a school I really liked in Madrid and started to study Naturopathy. From the first moment I loved it. Studying it was not an effort. I loved everything about it: studying the different plants and its medical properties, natural supplements, nutrition, ayurvedic medicine, Bach flowers, biology, etcetera. For the first time I liked spending time investigating and learning more and more everyday. I also decided I was not going to work in anything else that was not related to this profession. This allowed me to see how my professional life was going to be from then on. So I began to work, for a very little salary, in herbal shops while studying for my naturopathy degree.
For 6 years, I worked in herbal shops until I decided to start my private consultation practice.

By now, I have been giving private consultations for the last 4 years while I keep studying and a further developing my skills.
Thanks to the pandemia, I started to work from home, and that has given me so much independence in the way that I can help with people from any place I want.
My partner also has this magical advantage so we sometimes do “semi-holidays” going somewhere and work while at the same time we enjoy visiting new cities.
At the moment I have clients in Spain, UK, US and Norway. I also collaborate with other professionals helping others to have a better health and lifestyle.

It has been a long journey until I really felt that what I was choosing was what I really wanted and was convinced to fight for, because being self employed and building your own business is a very hard work that I am still fighting for everyday.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

First and most important self knowledge. Take the time and help to get to know yourself, your pains, the things you do not like about yourself and the ones you love. And embrace all of them. I do not regret having started doing therapy and learning deeper about myself at 30 years old, but it would have been very helpful to have started before.

Second, take risks and allow yourself to make mistakes and changes in your life. And do not regret either or, because that will take you where you are. And for sure that is the best place you can be for the journey you have ahead. I had a really deep crisis that guided me to meet with Sebastian six years after we broke up. And when we met again it was our timing, we were more mature and our wants were more in tune than the first time. He was the one to encourage me and help me to focus on the consultations and build a business that allows me to be wherever I want and still doing what I like the most as a professional.

Third, learn to ask for help if you struggle or feel the need to, so as to take the best path for you or your business. It is much better and enriching to grow in a community than to do it alone.
Humans are sociable by nature, you do not have to go through the path just by yourself.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

More and more I have been in contact with other professionals in the Wellness field. Doing this I have been inspired and found that I can help even more people.

I focus a lot on an holistic approach. I mostly help people to create healthy food habits by learning which foods are best for them to keep good energy, rest and in health. In the consultations I also recommend natural supplements and healthy habits that will take the person to be balanced.
However, I believe it is very important to practice regular exercise and take physical care of oneself, so I collaborate with personal trainers and osteopaths that can cover that part if it is needed.
They can always contact me by email or call me directly. All the info is in my Instagram profile @dun_naturopatia

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.d-u-n.com
• Instagram: @dun_naturopatia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-pulido-presa-89440b168
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@elenapulidopresa5430

Image Credits

For the main picture Carlota López de Santa María