Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help

organizations activate leadership and performance without sacrificing wellness or humanity.

These days, I'm hearing from so many teams who feel like they're doing all the right things,

but they are struggling to move with speed and

confidence and clarity. Leaders are communicating, priorities are kind of being set, and we all feel

like we're trying to run through molasses, like sludge is sludging us down. And I've started thinking

about this fun little summer ritual that my husband and I began by accident.

We've started doing this post-work evening walk together. There's no agenda, no pressure.

We're just moving and talking. And it's a chance to decompress. And we chat about everything,

about news, about health stuff, pop culture, whatever information we

consumed during the day. And what's interesting is that he and I have very different

consumption habits. We follow different voices on different platforms. So my take on the day

often looks really different than his. But what makes these walks really interesting is the mix of

trust and curiosity and respect that we bring. We disagree often, but it's never about winning.

It really is about pushing each other's understanding and expanding our shared sense of context

and what's really happening.

We ask questions, we challenge each other's views, and we walk away each time with sharper

thinking than we had before. And I think a version of this is what a lot of teams are needing

right now. At work, we say we want clarity, and we chase alignment, and we retry the same patterns like

memos and decks and meetings. But without that spiral of perspectives meeting in real time,

what we end up with is misfires, delays, and exhaustion. The lesson from our walks is simple.

Clarity doesn't come from a broadcast. It comes from real conversation.

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