When I think about increasing workplace wellbeing, being a human being and not a human doing, I think far too many of our offerings and the way that media and pop culture talks about sustainability at work, there's too much of an emphasis on self care, but I did speak some to the ways in which I think about microdosing wellness at the individual level, but there are also some really important ways that at the interpersonal and systemic level, we shift how work feels and is experienced by our employees and our colleagues. We're real clear at The Teaching Well, after talking to both nonprofit partners as well as educators, that folks are not leaving their mission, the vision of their organization, or the young people that they collaborate with. Sure, they're outliers, but by and large, they're quitting their bosses and toxic adult culture. It's always surprising to me, the lack of emphasis on developing relationship skills when truly communication is the lifeblood of collaboration within both the social sector and education work. But when you think about how much effort time and resources are allocated to professional development that centers social skills, collaboration skills, communication skills, what we'll find is really underwhelming. This is hugely relational work, and it's time to upgrade how we relate to one another. So a couple of the high level areas that I always think about when I'm stopping to reflect on the interpersonal state at the teaching well is starting by creating meetings you don't hate. Just as your budget reflects your values, so does how you structure your staff's time. Have you embedded bio breaks, somatics, authentic check ins, movement, engaging with different ways of learning and communicating. We love a good walk and talk, which is a structure we do, especially for virtual meetings, where the team and I will set a 10 minute timer, we'll shift out of zoom and onto our phones, and all of us will walk around the block of our home or pace in the backyard while doing a check in that's connective, but that allows us to move our body, get some vitamin D, feel the fresh air on our face and step away from the computer screen. Again, micro dosing wellness shouldn't feel like it always takes more time or a financial commitment. It should be an embedded way of engaging in more of a healthy manner. I co-work with Marisol, and it's a phenomenal structure for us. We've realized that procrastination lives next door to fatigue and long to do lists. So she and I as co-leaders have figured out a way to track our projects or tasks that have rolled over a week and scheduled some time to collaborate together. We call it co-working. It's often on a Friday afternoon when our clients and our team are more quiet. We hold one another accountable. We positively influence each other to take breaks and not just push through. We co-regulate through bracing behaviors, and we kind of unstick one another. It's often the most productive meeting of my week. We're getting things done like some bosses, and we're able to decelerate into our weekend with more ease and a lot less on our mental load. But that's an interpersonal structure that brings joy and efficiency, but it also brings accountability and support. Be careful with the pitfall of not realizing that if you're going to shift the way you do meetings and check out our blog, because we're going to be offering meeting template for you to try on with your staff. You won't get to the same amount of content. Know that right now, it takes practice, and while efficiency is a goal, you might be designing unrealistic agendas. So we're going to create an offering for you to try on with your team. And really, we want you to embrace the idea that by creating meetings that embed well being, eventually your productivity will erupt just expansive, incredible amounts of impact coming because we need to get to a place where our colleagues and we are not recovering from meetings, these marathon meetings that just take so much out of us. I want to tell you, it's possible to be with your colleagues to find greater alignment and calibration, to have role clarity and collaboration and leave the meeting feeling more resourced than when you came in. So how do we know if we've reached the systemic level of change, of transformation of workplace well being, of building an adult culture we don't need to heal from, I think a lot about the benefits that we put in place, the policies. At The Teaching Well we have monthly stipends and PD stipends, some folks use that towards bodywork or gym memberships. Some folks are using it for massage or therapy. But I also think about leadership practices that are needed to design the workflow, the schedule, the deliverables, the expectations for your team that are sustainable. We do an audit of fatigue windows annually. We have so many audits in the nonprofit sector financial, compliance based. But what about taking stock of the predictable burnout windows for our team and ourselves, looking at the months where multiple initiatives are launching, where a huge amount of grants or reports are due, where personal events like are kids starting school, or the close of the year, when there are so many graduations and events, those are the moments where we get to design the workflow differently. If we can predict a month that's overcrowded, that historically we've had a high amount of sick days or PTO requests from our staff, there are necessarily moments of agency inside of that. Design it different, change the timeline, stagger your grants or reports to the extent possible for those of you in schools, release a couple of your PDs, in October and March, those are the burnout months. And so how do we create strategic pressure valve releases that all of us get to enjoy, leaders included, I want to remind you that you don't have to earn wellness. Wellness is your birthright. But for many of us in these resource strapped environments, when truly our scarcity mindset originates from a reality that we don't have enough, that we are fighting for the same scraps, we have to remember that just like that clown, that real or perceived fear, our scarcity mindset and the associated behaviors can sometimes hinder our healing. We might be hoarding those massage gift cards, withholding the rest we know we need. We might be bracing and telling ourselves we can make it to the holidays. We need to do the work now, I like to take a look at my calendar for the next month and ask myself, What am I doing for me? Where are the moments of rest, of recharge? Where's the bodywork, a therapy appointment? Do I have those co working blocks scheduled with my co-leader where I know I'm going to get to the harder tasks that I've been procrastinating on? Where do I see me in my schedule? And if I can't identify areas, predictable, lunches, breaks, comp time, adequate protected work time, then I shouldn't be surprised at the end of the month when I'm exhausted and run down. Educators and social sector folks are some of the most innovative, brilliant people on the planet. What would happen if we took just an ounce of that creativity and allocated it towards designing a workflow, a schedule, a calendar, meetings and ways of relating to work differently. What would happen if we innovated around our own sustainability?