Listen to this episode from Unlocking Us with Brené Brown on Spotify. In this second-to-last episode of the Summer Sister Series on The Gifts of Imperfection, I have a couple of in-real-time revelations: namely that I suck at cultivating quality rest and play (a.k.a. Guidepost #7).

As constant travelers and parents of a 2-year-old, we sometimes fantasize about how much work we can do when one of us gets on a plane, undistracted by phones, friends, and Finding Nemo. We race to get all our ground work done: packing, going through TSA, doing a last-minute work call, calling each other, then boarding the plane.

Pandemic fatigue: it's plaguing organizations and employees right now. In 2020, we've endured a global pandemic, a massive economic crisis, and widespread social unrest. Layer on top of that forces that are fundamentally reshaping societies-technological innovation, business-model disruption, societal inequality, and workforce automation-and it's clear that an epidemic of stress has been building, with the COVID-19 crisis as the tipping point.

Despite evidence that time off can help workers avoid burnout and perform at their highest levels, most workers have not been taking enough of it. It may be time for organizations to fix a disconnect between their time-off policies and culture around using it.

Owner and Principal Consultant at Leadership Refinery , High Potential Leadership Coach. Deep and genuine personal connections are important in my work. It is a personal value that shows up as compassionate curiosity toward the people I meet. I hadn't realized until recently how much of a reputation I had built among my peers for authentic networking.

When is the last time you learned how to do something new? How did you approach it? Did it build on skills you already had or were you starting from scratch? Learning by doing is one of the most effective adult learning strategies.

Organizations focused on healthy workplace cultures consistently develop and implement programs and offer resources to support employee engagement. The current trend is to offer additional wellbeing and resilience resources to help employees process the stress and changes of the past year.