Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor.

I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders rethink how the work gets done,

like in ways that are hyperproductive, but that also keep people well and engaged.

We deliver the tools and skills so that leaders learn to build human goodness into the work

rather than relying on programs outside of the

work to fix overwhelm and burnout. Do you have an upcoming event or offsite that could use a dose of

inspiration and direction? Reach out today at leadabovenoise.com slash connect. Okay, on to today.

So one of my daughters has recently started creeping down the friend's rabbit hole. She has a lot of curiosity around how they all seem to have so much

time to spend in that coffee shop. She is not wrong to wonder this. Central Perk, after all,

played such a role in that show. It was their place,

where they gathered and caffeinated and made us laugh every Thursday night at 8. Because, yes,

I watched those shows back in the days of prime time. There was a magic there, kind of similar to

what Howard Shultz built Starbucks around. And he called it the third place.

Like home is our first place. Work is our second. But we needed a third, somewhere to just be and

belong. And now it feels like we're having a crisis of second place. As in work, it is feeling pretty broken.

Our sense of place there is it's feeling off. The second place used to build itself.

Proximity did most of the work. We showed up together in the same space and by the nature of our

just being physically together,

we built community, kind of by accident. And now, we've got remote work and global teams and

hybrid schedules, or sometimes commuting to offices just to sit on Zoom calls all day. We are not thriving.

We're burning out and quiet quitting and our results are

showing it. As I'm running Work Better by Design Workshops with leaders these days, I'm hearing the

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