This week Victoria Stoyanova joins Within partners Laurie Bennett and Anique Coffee in a gentle exploration of meaningful rest, what it takes for leaders to press pause and prioritise rejuvenation and how to use that time and space in a way that is restorative to you.

This episode also features insights from other amazing leaders in our network: Alice Katter, Faheem Bhimani, Bronwen Foster-Butler, Tim Pham and Melanie Khal.

Learn more about Within People and the work we do here 

Learn more about Victoria and The Institute of Belonging here.

All right.

Should we do it?

Let's do it.

All right.

Let's do it.

Hi everybody.

Welcome to this episode of Reimagining Work from Within.

I'm Laurie and I'm coming at you from Vancouver in Canada where

we're about to have Thanksgiving weekend, but summer just won't quit,

and I'm pretty happy about that.

You're probably sitting here thinking the same thing that I am.

This hasn't just been a week or a month, or even a year.

For so many people the last couple of years have been bonkers.

The way we work has done a back flip and we're hearing the words "I'm burnt

out" even more than "you are on mute".

So it's fitting that today we're talking about the rise of

sabbaticals and meaningful rest.

We'll be exploring gently, of course, how individuals and even companies

are taking a step back, breathing deep and letting their racing

world slow down for just a moment.

And having this conversation with me today are two amazing

ladies, Victoria and, and Anique.

Victoria Stoyanova is on sabbatical as we speak.

But when she isn't, she's the founder of the Institute of Belonging, a

consultancy celebrating the systemic and generative power of networks,

communities, and ecosystems.

There she researches, advises, and speaks on the relationship

between community and belonging.

Victoria's particularly interested in the radical transformation of our

connection to work, and previously hosted an award-winning podcast on

the topic called The Work We Do.

So go check that out.

Victoria is a visiting lecturer at the University of Arts London and the

Parson School of Design in New York.

She's a ZINC and on being fellow.

Victoria, welcome.

What is a ZINC?

. Victoria Stoyanova: Thank you

ZINC is an amazing vc that is solving very important missions like climate change,

loneliness, and aging here in London.

Beautiful . And you're on sabbatical right now,

and you let me know before this, you're about to go on holiday.

Yes.

During your sabbatical, but yet you're

here doing a podcast with us.

So we're gonna talk about how all of that gels together, maybe as we go on today.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Our other lady in the room is our very own Anique Coffee Within

partner extraordinaire, who recently took a radical rest and is

usually the host of this podcast.

And Anique.

As I said, I feel like . I'm in your seat today.

So show me the way when I get lost, please.

I think you're doing great.

. Laurie Bennett: Good.

As we go through this episode, we're also gonna be hearing about

folks in other companies who have taken meaningful rest and we'll

share what that's meant for them.

It feels like, I wish it could be more like a radio show, Anique,

where we take the call and it's like "It's bob from Calgary, who's calling

us to tell us about his timeout", but it's not gonna be like that.

But a bit like that, I think.

Longtime listeners, first time callers.

Exactly.

Exactly.

How are you today, Anique?

I'm doing great.

It's really fun to be in the interviewee seat this time around.

Yeah, you're under the spotlight now.

You know what we usually feel like.

Exactly.

All right.

We're gonna talk today about rest, meaningful rest, and more than just

sort of sitting back in our seats at some point in the day and gazing

out the window, but really taking a chunk of time out from work to refuel

ourselves, to revitalize ourselves, to give us something that we need.

I wanna start right at the beginning of that, which is, which is why, and

I know that both of you have recently been on sabbatical, taken some time out,

the radical rest Anique, the sabbatical that you're currently on, Victoria.

Victoria, start off by telling me what, why did you decide that this was something

that you needed to do or wanted to?

Of course, Well, I've been a freelance consultant

for most of my career, so the idea of a prolonged rest always seemed

quite exciting, but also impossible.

It felt something that I can never quite do because it's never the right time and.

How would you pause your client projects and what if there's no work after and

you can very quickly escalate into worst case scenarios and optimizing.

So I had never done it and now seemed like a particularly bad time to do

it because there is a recession and everything is changing and it felt like

a very perhaps not the best time moment, but it also felt really necessary.

Because the world is changing so much, and I felt like I needed to take a step back

to assess where I'm at, What does work mean for me, especially when I spend my

days helping people feel more connected to work and have a better sense of belonging.

I thought it would be a little bit untrue for me to do that without myself

taking a little bit of a step back.

And I haven't had a break since leaving my job at Meta in

October, which is almost a year.

So it felt a gift I wanted to give to myself.

However, impractical it might be.

Nice.

I love that.

A gift to give yourself.

And I'm interested that you speak about kind of wanting to connect back into

your work and it, there's something slightly paradoxical about taking a

step away in order to connect back in.

How does, how does that work for you?

Yeah.

I feel so many people I've spoken to in the last say, year and a half,

feel I call this the depleted dreamer.

Something about you're a little bit uninspired, but you want to connect and

you want to be inspired, and you want to feel fulfilled and connected to work

in a way that feels really meaningful.

And I thought, if this is happening all around me, it can't just be me.

I think that's one of the really grounding feelings of community.

Every time you think I'm on my own experiencing something big, chances are

people around you experiencing that too.

So calling it out and saying out loud, I'm.

Taking a step back because I need to reassess what work

means for me and for others.

I was so surprised to see so many other people around me also raising their

hand and saying, I'm also doing that.

And I thought, This is cool.

There's a micro sabbatical movement going on.

. Laurie Bennett: Yeah, probably

that, and some other people going, I wish I could do that as well.

Yeah.

Well, talking about a micro sabbatical movement going on, Anique, the month of

August for you was about radical rest.

Tell us a bit more about what the intention behind that was from your side.

Yeah.

Mine was very much started as the ending of something like it was sort of

a, I need to pull the emergency break moment on something that I was feeling

and experiencing within my own life.

Very much experiencing burnout.

And not just from work, but from personal things.

I mean, everyone that's here with us right now on this podcast knows

we've been having some infertility challenges for the last two years now.

And all of that kind of came to a head and it was sort of a mix of work

and life and the post COVID world and everything that was going on.

And to your point, Victoria, I could really feel the disconnection

from a lot of things in my life.

I wasn't doing anything at a hundred percent.

I wasn't showing up to our partnership, Laurie, at a hundred percent.

I wasn't showing up in my marriage at a hundred percent any of it.

So it was very much a like, wow, something big needs to happen, and as the ending

to something, which is why I kind of set that context of radical rest.

And it was funny to grapple with that.

I hate that it needed even to be called radical.

And I think that's something that's very much in our field right now

of talking to people about this and connecting to your point of people

who, "Ooh, I really want to do that".

It feels radical to rest right now.

And we've been talking a lot about the, the change in levels

of ambition amongst people.

Right, Victoria?

And there's a lot of that going on right now.

It's quite interesting.

But yeah, that was my why.

It was very much a like pull the emergency break ahead of the real burnout.

And if I'm honest, it's not the first time I found myself here.

And so I think that's part of what the rest was for me too, was a real

evaluation of what happens if you just strip everything out and you just sit.

And it really gave me the opportunity to reflect on, yeah, I've been here before,

I've, I've had a couple of cycles of burnout and now that time started as

something, as an ending of something and the spaciousness gave me a real

chance to say, Oh wow, I feel like this is the beginning of something new, A

new way of showing up at work, at home.

And yeah, an opportunity to reconnect to who I am, to our work

to really build up energy again.

And just like a season and a cycle that everything is, it became something else.

It started as something and became something else by the time it

was over, and yeah, gave me a lot of spaciousness and energy.

Yeah, there's so much to to unpack in there Anique, but I think

one thing that stands out from what you've both said is how do you know it's time?

It's one thing to, to do this, and second, almost, how do you give

yourself permission to take that time?

Victoria, you mentioned that it seems like the worst time to be doing something

like this, which maybe is a hint that it's the right time or the best time to

be doing it, but I'm curious what, what for you, what, what needed to happen

for you to be able to allow yourself to take that time, that extended break?

For sure.

The broader story is that I had long COVID this year, and so I really needed to quite

radically take care of myself and my body.

And for someone who brings a lot of energy into rooms and spaces and work,

it felt really destabilizing to all of a sudden not have as much energy.

And so I was thinking a lot about, you know, what are my core values?

And I really believe in joy.

So if there's no energy and joy, then who am I at work?

So I really thought about it as a real investment in myself as a

professional, as a human being and how I want to sustain myself over time.

And there was something real about if I don't give myself permission to do this,

no one else is going to do that for me.

No one else will say, Victoria, we think you really deserve to take

some time off and invest in yourself.

And I think especially as we're in careers that are more

malleable and shaped as we go.

There's something that is around the responsibility to take care of

how we do this and why we do this.

And I was listening to Brene Brown, beautiful podcast.

And she had activist Karen Walrond on her show, and she says, I will never apologize

for embracing joy and beauty, even when the world is falling apart because joy

in beauty are my fuel for activism.

And it really, it really resonated with me.

I thought, hold on.

The world of work and the world's in its own requires us to do things differently.

We are not going to solve climate change.

We're not going to solve future work if we're not doing things differently.

And I thought.

This is my way of doing things differently too, and I need to step

back and assess how is that going to be.

And yeah, it, it felt, it felt like that permission slip was

something I wrote for myself.

Even if some people didn't like it, my dad really didn't like

it . But I felt like, you know what?

Well, this is me doing work the way I understand it.

Yeah.

And I, you know, I hear in there that same sense of that idea of

disconnecting in order to connect.

There's something that you are seeing in there that this isn't about you stepping

away from what's important to you.

It's actually stepping closer to that so that it fuels what

you're here to do in your work.

It's not something that's taking you away from it.

It's something that's actually giving you the opportunity to bring

more of yourself to it in some way.

Yes.

And in my work I talk a lot about, it's all about the quality of the connection.

How do we connect to each other?

How do we connect to the project at hand?

What is that quality of the connection?

And there was something really big here about if I'm coming to my work

feeling exhausted and depleted, I'm not going to do anything really meaningful.

So that mattered to me a lot.

I wanted to be aligned with what I preach and for that to feel, to feel real.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anique, was that the same kind of idea for you or something different?

Yeah, that resonates a lot.

The, the analogy of like if your cup isn't overfilling, you're pouring from an empty

cup, is a lot of what I thought about.

, our job is to support leaders right now.

And if I don't feel like I'm supporting myself, how can I pour out for other

people and support other people?

So that resonates a lot.

And yeah, it's a really vulnerable place to be, to say, I'm not showing up at a

hundred percent and I really want to be.

So it is definitely like a quality of connection to work and very much

about the energy levels of what you can bring and what you can't bring.

So yeah, what Victoria said resonates a lot.

And, and it is hard to step away.

Like it's hard to make the decision and requires a lot of

looking at bigger picture, not just knee-jerk reaction, right?

Like you have to think about the world around you and in our context, how

it affects our partnership and our clients and all that's true for anyone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's hard?

The, the implication it has for other people is what I hear in there.

What else makes it hard for you?

I think that's the biggest one for me.

Like we're in a system that is very interconnected, like our community at

Within People is very interconnected and we have our hubs in geographic

regions and pods around our passions.

But there's a huge overlapping Venn diagram that's very

interconnected with what we do.

And if you don't show up to do what you say you're gonna do in

a self-managed system, it can be really detrimental to relationships,

but also the impact and the output.

So I think that parts hard.

I also found it quite hard to to step away and really

acknowledge the privilege of it.

Like I am in a situation where I am able to take a couple months off

and there are other people who are not even within our own partnership.

And it means that there's other people who are perhaps also experiencing

what I'm experiencing, who are kind of forced to stay in the system in

order to give me the space to step out.

That was hard to carry that with me and yeah, to carry that with me,

but the privilege thing, I think is something that was really difficult

to acknowledge as well, actually.

Yeah.

That's so interesting.

It, it makes me think what, There's definitely some relationship between

how a group ritualizes or normalizes or enables this kind of behavior for each

other as opposed to stigmatizing it and making it feel like you are doing

something for you at the expense of us.

What did, what do you see, Victoria, I think in the work you must

do around Belonging Connection.

What's the role of the, of the group, of the organization, of the leadership to

support people to be able to take this kind of rest when they feel they need it?

I think it's so important not to have shame around it

because we are in a society that's always on, we have to always be doing more

and being evaluated to perform more.

And it, it's all about growth for the growth's sake and a lot of the

ways that we do work at the moment.

And I spent three years at Meta where there was a real sense of bring your

whole self to work as long as it's the very high performing, very focused

one, and also don't burnt out, but we need you to excel and really you

know, you're measured based on how much you redefine and exceed expectations.

And so there's a real paradox.

So on one hand there is a message of care, but on the other one there

is a message of and also do it all.

Which is not sustainable.

And we know it's not.

And it's been really beautiful to see that we talk a lot more about burnouts,

that it's something that leaders are coming out and, and speaking up about.

And I think it is changing how gen Z and younger generations are

perceiving what work is about and what it means to them and why they do it.

So that's been really interesting to see in terms of the narrative.

But the narrative is always collective.

It exists because we make it together.

So to have people who are also doing a sabbatical at the same time was really

meaningful to me because it was this little community of people I could

check in with on a Monday, have a mini standup just to say, Are you okay?

? What are you doing this week?

Because from the outside it might seem like you're doing this

very selfish, luxurious thing.

But actually, that time is not necessarily restful.

It's because it's not something we're used to doing we need a support

system as much as doing anything else.

So, either that a support circle or is it a celebration circle?

Whatever we need, we need to do it in community.

Otherwise, it's not very meaningful.

There's amazing research done on when are people the happiest?

In this particular research was in Sweden, so they looked at people reporting their

level of happiness and antidepressant themselves in pharmacies, and they

saw that whenever the lar a larger group of the population was on holiday

together, the synchronicity of it meant that they're actually doing better.

And so there's something real about what, what we do has more meaning when we do

it in that certain group in a certain context, because we are contextual beings,

nothing we do is separated from others.

Can I interject for a second?

Are you familiar, Victoria, my trilingual friend, about the French reentry?

Of how the culture of France is taking the summer.

Oh A la rentree.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And this collective energy that gets built while they're on summer

holidays, but also the intentionality of the community coming back together.

And I learned about this from one of the motherhood coaches I've been working

with, and from her context it was very much like parents and school age kids.

But there was this community that gets built every summer of parents

who are sad and happy that their kids are going back to school.

But it's this collective community building that happens with the

parents who are reentering the workforce again, every summer.

It's very much this, there's a lot of energy around it and excitement

around the summer, but the community that gets built just to reenter.

Yeah.

And, and then actually that brings us also to sabbaticals being something that

does happen in specific communities.

Like historically, sabbatical is in an academic setting, somebody

is taking a break after seven, like every seven years, you take a break.

And so that was embedded.

And in some companies it is.

And there was something about, when you think about language, for me it was really

important to call this something else.

Then I'm taking a, a break from work or I'm taking the summer off, or I'm

just taking a gap between projects and all these things are true.

But what is more true is that I wanted to call this something

different so that it feels different because the intention is different.

What did you call yours, Victoria?

For me, it was a summer sabbatical.

A summer sabbatical.

Because there was something about the energy of summer.

It's playful, it's joyful, it's about energy and doing all the

fun things on my to-do list.

You know, the, the life todo list, the bucket list.

And also it felt different to call it yeah, a sabbatical.

. Laurie Bennett: Yeah.

Yeah.

And again, it seems to tie back into that intentionality of there's a

lot you let go of potentially as you step back into a space of rest, but

holding onto some intention around that must shape it in some way.

So I'm curious what, what happens during Radical Rest Anique?

What is the, what does a day look like?

What does a time look like?

How do you do that?

Because I sometimes find the moments that I find myself having the space

to rest become some of the most anxiety filled moments for me,

because I'm under such pressure to maximize the rest that I must have.

Why am I not resting so much and I am completely inside out by the end of it.

So I'm curious kind of how do you step into radical rest?

What does it look like for you to do that?

It's funny because every day looked different, but it was

very much a battle like you're saying.

Of course, like as I was edging towards the time I was making lists on my

phone of all the things I was gonna do.

And I was like, What am I doing?

I'm literally in the same patterns I'm always in.

I'm creating to-do lists with the dopamine hit of checking things off a

list, which is what gets me into this burnouts moment in the first place.

So there was lots of things I didn't do, and that was the entire point.

I think one thing that's been really one of the big intentions was really

looking after my nervous system.

Because that's some of the like fertility advice.

So it's very much connected to the medical side of the why.

But a lot of what I did was look after my nervous system.

So that meant getting off of social media.

Actually still am not back on Instagram.

It's been like three or four months.

I wanna get back, but I'm just not yet.

In the paying really close attention to when I felt anxious,

even in like little tiny ways.

So I was actually telling Victoria, one of the things I was doing

when I was traveling around on a day is reading this book about

nature and it was about a jungle.

And while I was on the tube reading this book on my Kindle,

I would listen to Nature Song.

And by accident many times I got off the tube, closed down my Kindle, got

off the tube, walked up to street level to meet whoever I was gonna meet,

and the nature sounds were still on.

And I would be like, Oh, that's weird I'm still listening to a jungle.

Then I'd turn them off and let the noise of the London City streets in

and feel the anxiety immediately again.

And I'm like, Wow.

So now some of the things I still do is listen to nature sounds on the tube.

Because it really helps my nervous system.

But it was essentially just making choices and really noticing what was

happening in my body the whole time.

And just a lot of nothing.

And that was really hard.

I bet.

The idea of listening to Nature Sounds on the Tube is so genius,

and I can just imagine that sort of, it's a jungle of its own, isn't it?

It is.

It would probably be quite fitting to watch the,

the creatures that are down there behaving in the ways they do.

Victoria, what about a summer sabbatical?

What does that, what does it look like?

Or how do you bring yourself into that and make it work

for you in the way you intend?

For me, there was there was a lot of yoga,

a lot of coffees with friends.

Everything felt like a Friday, which was interesting.

But, you know, there was this anticipation of a Friday and, but

every day it was a bit the same.

Of Woo, just like yesterday, . But it's fun.

But there, there are a lot of things I had been wanting to make time for.

Like I do a lot of yoga.

I'm a trained yoga teacher.

I wanted to do handstands and practice some more difficult poses.

So I actually did a handstand course.

I got back into photography.

I really tackled that fear that you get in the beginning of new

projects where you're just feeling like maybe you're not good enough.

Maybe you dunno how this works.

Maybe you'll never get it.

And I thought, you know what?

I have time.

I can face that feeling and I can work with it.

So I did a lot of learning just fun, fun projects and skills.

And I did a bunch of writing, traveling.

It felt like a long, a long summer.

But it was so surprising.

You know, there was something about, I really, this whole thing of like

the uninterrupted creative time where, you know, I still have these like big

white pieces of paper and whiteboards and I thought I would be scheming very

secret plans for community gatherings and there was a real seriousness to the

work that I was going to do, I still had some expectations around this is

going to be a productively creative time, although it's a sabbatical

and it's supposed to be just rest.

So there was something about I was waiting for this big stretch

of empty time and space to come to me, and that never happened.

And would it have been restful?

Cuz I think that's maybe the thing is that we, we imagine that rest looks like

stopping doing things, but rest maybe takes different forms for different

people and some rest can be quite active.

Presumably.

Like we just had, we just had without week.

Didn't we, Anique?

Which was a, a kind of flip turn on Within week, which we usually have

where we gather all our partners together somewhere in the world, very

much in in community in that sense.

But last week we shut the offices of the company altogether and

everybody took a week out to rejuvenate themselves in some way.

And it was really interesting just noticing the different kinds of

things that people step towards when they're invited to do that and

how for some it's, it is more of the stepping back and doing less.

And for others it's finally getting to things that they've wanted to do for

a long time that allows them to sort of move those things from, I wish I

had done these things, or was getting to these things to, I actually finally

did manage to get that thing done.

Anique, what was, what was your sense of without week having coming on

the back of your radical rest, what was different about that process?

And it might be interesting kind of, especially in that

sense of the doing something together rather than on your own.

What felt different when we did that as a group?

It felt very indulgent.

Cuz I had just had the summer off, so that's one thing.

But no, it's, it was again, a huge privilege to be invited to take that time.

And to Victoria's point earlier, it was in community with

everyone in our partnership.

So it was really cool to have shared, but extremely different experiences.

And had I not just had the rest, I don't think I would've had such

an active, restful without week.

So we traveled like tons of it and it was very much like going to do

things we've been meaning to do.

And it felt lovely to not have to think about work and be focused on

anything except exactly where we were.

So again, it was very much a practice of like cultivating presence again.

So there's the similarity, but the difference was very much about

movement and experience and bringing new energy in with new experiences.

So, yeah.

But it, it was also interesting, you're right to see like some people just

went to a spa and were was literally in like a jacuzzi for a week, , right?

And some of us were like, You did a lot of mountain biking, didn't you?

How did you spend your week and birthdays?

Right?

Exactly.

Mine was a kind of a bit split energy between mountain biking in the beautiful

Whistler, which is for me the ultimate zen experience that I can achieve, with

four birthdays for children under the age of five, which is probably quite

near the other end of that spectrum.

So it was good.

It really made me appreciate the moments in the mountains a little more.

For sure.

You say active rest, Laurie, right?

Exactly.

Not quite what I had in mind.

. Yeah,

I think one thing else.

Levels.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Anique.

Weren't taking care of your nervous system from

a noise perspective, . Exactly.

It's not enough time is it?

Like, well Laurie, were you able to like properly disconnect

and really feel the comedown?

No, I think you have to learn how to do that again.

Yeah.

It's a funny process I find whenever, even when I go on holiday, you know,

it takes a while to get the hang of being in that routine and , enabling

yourself to slow down to the point that you can be at in that space.

And I find often after a week, you're just starting to get the hang of that.

When you're done.

Yeah.

That was echoed across our partnership too.

A lot of people felt that way.

Hmm.

Yeah.

So I'm curious then, with the time that you have both taken and the way that you

have spent that what's, what have you learned that's been surprising for you

from that time maybe, and something that you would wanna share with other people?

What's been something that you've really been surprised to notice?

From the time that you've taken in this way?

Victoria, maybe I'll start with you.

Yeah, Well, as I was saying just now, this whole idea

of the uninterrupted space, just that did not happen, and so it really got

me thinking about how we connect to things and how we connect to work.

And actually time in itself, is quite empty, like in a very, you

know, Buddhist way, but also it is, it doesn't mean anything.

It's how you connect to it and how you spend it.

That creates the relationship and the meaning.

And so I caught myself really craving deep work because I was still on Instagram

Anique, I wasn't off, so I felt my brain was just as distracted as in normal days.

And so I really experimented with, okay, what is the weekend like if

I don't have my phone with me when I'm actually completely offline?

And there was that real just dreaming of sitting down having

a real big project where you get focused and you do deep work.

So I reread Cal Newport's book Deep Work.

I got in a rabbit hole of books similar to this one and it really got me thinking

about attention and how we spend our time.

And you know, sometimes you are on Zoom calls with 50 people and no one's

actually there, no one's paying attention, people are doing something else.

And it just got me thinking about how do we ensure that the time we do spend

doing something, whatever it is, that we are fully present and fully engaged.

And so that really surprised me because I dunno, I wasn't looking for, for

an answer there, but now I'm coming out with a real appreciation for, for

yep, quality, quality of attention, how we show up, what, when we're in

conversation, how like, are we really here, are we here and distracted?

And it's something I care a lot about.

I see older generations who are kind of victim of, victims

of kind of our technology.

And, you know, having been on like on, on that side of technology, working in big

tech, I really feel there is a sense of collective responsibility of what are we

also passing on to future generations.

The quality of attention is actually how we spend our time, how we spend our life.

That's all about what is the quality of interaction that we cultivate?

So I got really, really deep into that rabbit hole.

Ooh.

I think we're starting to get nice and philosophical there.

I think that point about, it's not about the time, it's about how you use it is

so key and I, it's something that feels like it's more about the energy and

the attention that we bring than the amount of time that we have in some way.

And I think so often we take time as being the thing that we need more of.

When in fact if we were to bring our attention energy differently, that

time wouldn't look quite the same.

Yeah.

Anique, what's been your key learning?

As we would say from your time out?

There's really two.

One is that creativity, innovation, intuition, being able to tap

into those things takes space.

And the other one is a bigger, deeper one, which perhaps is my

entire self worth or self like life's work, which is about my value not

being only connected to my output.

Because when I wasn't creating or doing.

It made me feel really uncomfortable and it made me have to acknowledge

that just cuz you're not producing doesn't mean you don't have value.

So there was a lot of, of recognition of that.

I was actually supposed to go and volunteer at The Do lectures this

year, part as part of my radical rest.

And I ended up getting essentially because of some of the fertility stuff.

It was sort of a, a question of should I go?

Because actually they're asking us to jokingly bring our back braces

so that we can lift heavy benches and be really ready to work.

But that's not what my doctors were advising me at the time.

So I, I had to send this email that was, am I still allowed to come and be

a volunteer if I can't lift the benches?

And she was like, Of course, we will have tons of other gentle jobs you can do.

And, but I, it was a breakthrough moment where I was like, Wow, if I

can't lift benches, should I even go?

Is it even worth for me to be there for them?

I can't be of service in this really productive way.

So that was like a huge breakthrough.

And then I think the first one around creativity, innovation, intuition.

I find that really difficult to tap into when there's not space

to think and just space to be.

And in our work we're, you know, we're trying to be cutting edge.

We're trying to bring modern, incredible human solutions.

And if we're doing that at the pace that we sometimes are,

it's hard to be so innovative.

It's hard to be creative, and it's definitely hard as a coach to tap into

your intuition if you can't hear yourself and feel the connection to yourself.

You can't tap into your intuition and share that with the leaders

around you or the team around you.

Anique I was listening to a really beautiful

podcast on intuition the other day.

And the lady speaking was saying that she brought together a group of

people to cultivate their intuition and one of the exercises was to

journal, but in order to pay attention, what to you pay attention to?

So something really beautiful about, it's not just about going

on and doing things and being busy.

It's actually being able to notice what is it that matters to me right now?

What is it that I care for?

What is it that I pay attention to?

And those things do take space and time for sure.

Yeah.

It's changed the way that I've, like, come back and thought about

mapping out client projects too.

Like it's, it's a different mentality of like, let's get

this done as fast as possible.

No.

The quality of my work means if I'm gonna bring my best, I need some space

to be creative and innovative and think, and that's benefiting everyone

involved, including our clients.

That's radical.

Yeah.

And I, I think that's kind of where I wanted to go next

with you as well, which is some of those things that you just spoke to,

Anique are so deeply ingrained into the understanding we have of work.

Right.

That time is kind of, Thing that we all march to and that we're

valued based on the output that we create and how much doing we can do.

And so, and that's what you've just said there is there's an example of what do

you do differently now that you come back?

Cause I think at the very beginning here, you mentioned you've been here

a few times before, in the situation of feeling burnt out and that sort of

allowing yourself back into that space, what changes off the back of taking this

time, in your every day, in your work, that helps you bring your energy and

attention, if those are things that are important that we are saying here in

the right ways, in that context as well?

I'll start.

But I would love to hear you from you too, Victoria.

On my first Monday back after radical, the radical rest I was having a,

a call with another friend who's a coach, a freelancer, and she

said " Alright, You're back to work.

Are you back at full time at your full capacity?"

And my first answer out of my mouth was, "No, I've got more capacity.

I, I'm only working with three clients right now.

I could work with six".

And then I said, "Nope, just kidding.

This is my new full time".

This is my new full time because having space and having energy

around means the quality of my work is gonna be so much higher and my

sustainability will be so much higher.

And I've been asking myself this question in everything that I do.

What does sustainable growth look like from here?

Because growth is still important.

I'm not gonna just stop.

I don't have the intention of necessarily plateauing, but what does

sustainable growth look like from here?

So that's one thing.

I think we're in a fully remote global business, and I know that means I'm

gonna have to work into the evenings.

We're recording this, you know, at almost 5:00 PM on a Friday in London.

But that means I have to, in order to remain sustainable, I need to carve

out certain time for myself during the other parts of the day that

don't take away from my connection in being part of a international system.

So I'm trying not to have any meetings before 10am.

And I'm getting up and I'm reading and I'm working out and I'm doing things

in my spacious morning, which means I have more energy later in the afternoon

so that I can talk to you in Vancouver, Laurie, in the evenings, cuz I know that's

just, yeah, we're gonna have to do that.

So those are like quite practical, but definitely reframing like what

my full-time looks like and then some other kind of practical tips

on how I organize my day so that I'm paying attention to my energy levels.

Love it.

Thanks Anique and Victoria, is that what, what are you carrying out of, I know

you're not done yet with your time, but so far if If I were to ask you if this

isn't kind of somehow against the rules of being on sabbatical, if I could ask you

to think back to when you might be back,

mm-hmm.

At work, will that look different in some way, do you think,

based on what you've experienced now?

I think there's two main things.

One is that, if I'm not honoring my truth, no one else is going to do that.

So if I feel uninspired and tired and I need something different, if I

don't reclaim that space for myself as a freelancer, as a leader, as

someone who believes in a new way of doing work, if I don't do that,

nobody's going to do that for me.

And so if I don't set that example for people around me,

then I'm not doing my best work.

So that's big.

And then the other thing is around reclaiming my attention, having better

boundaries, really seeing what am I paying attention to and is that what

I want to be paying attention to?

And seeing that there is a lot of agency in that space.

So that's, been really meaningful and important, and actually a relief

in the sense that now I don't feel like I need to take three months

off every year to feel relaxed.

Actually, I can just have a weekend without my phone.

And having a very qualitative experience of being in nature and connecting with

friends and having deep conversation, and that brings me to a place where I feel

very connected and spacious, and that is available on a daily basis, especially

if you have a meditation practice.

So that's been also something I've doubly committed to again,

because it really matters.

Yeah.

Anique and Victoria, thank you both for sharing your perspectives.

Let's hear from some other leaders in our community who are sharing what

they learned from their experience of taking a break from work that was

meaningful or surprising to them.

Here they are now.

My name is Alice.

I'm a workplace culture and community strategist and founder

of Out of Office Network.

Where I'm exploring how we might bring more play into

a working lives and culture.

What I learned during my sabbatical is, and rather than putting the expectation

on trying to figure everything out during that time, instead we might

actually take the time to listen and to better understand the moments and

activities that of our lives that, that make us feel most alive and happiest.

And then think about how we might operationalize and bring more

of that into our day to day.

Made me feel most connected to myself was the time where I was really listening

and being very present and being awake.

And it reminded me of Annie Dillard's quote that says "How we spend our

days is how we live our lives"

. And what I found is that on top of

to how we spend our days rather than just being passive passengers

in how we actually spend our days.

Hi, I'm Faheem and I work for a tech company in corporate

strategy and the thing I learned during my time out was how dispensable

I was and how valuable I was.

Dispensable because I had convinced myself that running on an empty fuel

tank and making sure I didn't stop and didn't drop anything was more

important than looking after myself.

And when I ultimately, through some really good coaching, was convinced

to take the time out I realized things didn't fall apart and I was

able to be replaceable in the short.

But the coaching also allowed me to see that taking time out to refuel, to

recharge and reset, and to reorient myself in what I really wanted to do and what I

really wanted to deliver, allowed me to come back with a better sense of purpose

and ultimately deliver much greater value.

And this coach actually told me that the company was better off with me at

my best than with me at my earliest.

And so I really highly valued and recommend taking some time

out to recharge and reset.

Hi, my name is Bronwen and I am the CMO at Finisterre

a Cornish cold water surf brand.

What I learned when I took some time off before starting this role was

that i, I actually really like work.

I, as much as I enjoyed having the break, I missed the stimulation, the conversation

and the connection that I get when working with amazing, like-minded people.

So it was a wonderful break and a reset and a pause, which was needed.

But I think perhaps the best thing about it was that it made me really

excited to start a new job again.

Hey my name is Tim Pham.

I am the former head of expansion and special projects at Gorillas, the

grocery delivery that send groceries to your door within 10 minutes.

I spent the last seven years helping startups and co-founders expand their

business efficiently and sustainably.

This is my second month on a career break.

I would say it has been one of the best things I have done in the

last few years for me personally.

And two things that I have learned during this time and it surprised me.

That is there's a lot of us, one, to reimagine the way that we work and

how we can actually make ourself, you know, successful so you are not alone.

When you get out of your normal day to scenery.

You will meet these people and you will have great conversation with them.

And the second thing is that with out foundation of connection with

friends and family, it's very likely that you won't go far.

Well, thanks so much for having me and speak to you soon.

Hi, my name's Melanie and I run a design strategy and facilitation

practice out of Brooklyn, New York.

I've used pauses throughout my career, and most recently I took a sabbatical

in fall of 2020, after about seven years of running pretty hard in consulting in

tech with a lot of international travel.

And though it seemed like a risk to take a break in the early pandemic, it

felt like a bigger risk to just have the inertia of not taking the break,

running fast and being in response mode.

In my break, I really had a moment to recenter myself and tap into a

deep, deeper understanding of my own energy, of what was bringing me

energy and taking it away as well as my creativity in the work and energy

around my own creative practice.

And so when I started consulting, again, this tapping into what was actually

energizing, what I was actually drawn to, what was creatively nourishing.

It helped me build a practice that was more spacious and less

reactive, and with a better mix of work that really brought me alive.

And I don't think I would've had that insight unless I would've had enough

space to really listen to myself and listen to how I was showing up.

And now I'm able to have a practice that feels like it helps me flourish

in addition to doing good work.

Thank you all those leaders for sharing your stories with us.

Before we go, we've got a little bit more to do with you, Anique and Victoria.

Let's come back to our discussion.

Great.

We could keep talking about this for a really long time.

I would like to, but you have a, a plane to Bali to catch soon Victoria

and Anique, it's getting towards that time of day for you in London where you

need a, probably a cocktail more than you need more conversation with me about

this, but I, I really appreciate what you've both shared in that space and I

hope that we can carry on having this conversation that you'll keep having

this conversation in, in your world.

And by the sounds of it, this is something that's, that's bubbling up all around

us right now, this sense of rest.

And I think there's so many different angles to, to look at that through.

I'm so interested in how to make this work as a parent of young children.

Where time out from work is often the most challenging time to have in that space.

And I think there's, there's a lot more angles that we we can look at this

through too, but thanks so much for, for today's conversation to you both.

Anique, you're kind of off the hook from here, but Victoria, you get to participate

in our Reimagining Work From Within rapid fire round which as you said before,

was I supposed to prepare for this?

No, you weren't because this is the part of the show where we hurl

questions at you and you give us whatever comes into your mind.

Alright!

Do you feel ready for this?

Let's Go Laurie!

Have you, Have you rested sufficiently over the last few months?

This is what you've really been preparing for, but you didn't know it.

. All right, Here you go.

Victoria.

What three words would you use to describe the workplace culture you'd like to lead?

Joy, creativity, intention.

Nice.

What three words would you use to define the future of work?

Joy, creativity, intention.

You can't do that for this next one.

Okay.

But I like where you're going with that.

Which one Quality is your superpower or strength?

I mean, I was gonna say joy, but now you said I can't say it.

It's a real sense of, of love, like really showing up with, with love.

Yeah.

Maybe that sounds very cheesy, but it's really true.

You have to care for your people.

Nothing cheesy about love, . And which one

quality is your stretch space?

The place where you've got some work to do

Deep work.

The deep work area.

Yeah.

What is your most treasured spot outside of work?

Ooh, so many.

Hampstead Heath in London, going to be among trees.

Lady Ponds.

Adventures.

I probably should stop talking.

Right?

This is a rapid fire.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

. Laurie Bennett: Is there a person or brand

Ooh, yes.

I would like to shine a light on my friend Bethany Koby who was with us at

the Stack World Conference this weekend.

She runs a new think tank on rethinking what family life in the future will

be and what's our children and future children's connection to the natural

world and currently working with the sense of awe which is really amazing.

So that's Fam Studio and it's, it's amazing check it out!

Shout out Bethany.

And finally, the question that terrifies me more than any other personally.

If you had to pick one song that represented who you are

as a leader, what would it be?

Clearly, I mean, Beyonce, guys, Come on the new Beyonce.

Don't even Pause for breath.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Thanks for listening everyone.

We hope you enjoyed learning about the rise of sabbaticals and meaningful rest.

You can find more information about Victoria.

Where can we find more information about you, Victoria?

You can go on victoria.works or the

instituteofbelonging.com where you can subscribe to my newsletter.

Tune into our podcast every other week for more

episodes of what's happening in culture and leadership space.

What's on the minds of leaders committed to change and other

future of work content you crave.

Re-imagining Work From Within is available wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Awesome.

Victoria, thank you so much for your time with us today.

Have a wonderful break in Bali.

We're envious.

And excited to hear how that extension to your radical rest,

your own radical rest goes.

Anique, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today too.

It's been a real pleasure chatting to you both.

Have a wonderful evening.

Well done everyone, including you, Laurie, our host.

Well done.

Woohoo.

Yay.