Finding a perfectionist that isn’t in some way proud to be one is like finding out you’ve won $100 Million on the lottery. It’s not unheard of, but it’s rare! Why? Because perfectionists believe their strong work ethic, superior attention to detail, and ability to achieve more than everyone else puts them in a class above the rest.

For the most part, they’re right! Numerous studies have shown that perfectionists out-perform non-perfectionists in sports, the workplace, and education, and there is an increasing belief that society’s largely negative portrayal of perfectionism now requires an update. But while these positive qualities of perfectionism continue to garner support, we mustn’t ignore the negative aspects. 

Perfectionism continues to cause a host of health problems for perfectionists, the endless pursuit of perfection causing many to experience chronic low self-esteem and fear of failure while being highly critical of their efforts. These symptoms can invariably lead to burnout and depression, and it often takes a major life event such as a health scare for perfectionists to realize the stress this approach brings to their lives. Even though the desire for perfection can often be a thankless task, perfectionists remain doggedly faithful to their cause. Why? Well, the answer lies in perfectionism itself.

A perfectionist’s beliefs are often rigid and unrealistic, largely driven by behaviors and beliefs developed in early life. Their ‘black-and-white’ or ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking prevents the perfectionist from considering wider alternatives or solutions to any given problem, and it’s this fixed mindset that leads them to believe that the thoughts and behaviors they display are permanent and impossible to change. This is far from the case, however. Research shows that adopting a growth mindset helps ensure a happier and healthier existence for perfectionists, and I can personally attest to its power.

In 2017, I was the music director of the Broadway musical Hamilton on tour in the U.S. when I experienced a mild heart attack on my walk home from conducting a performance. As it turned out, my right coronary artery was 90% blocked, and extensive work with a psychologist after the event would eventually identify my perfectionism as the underlying cause of the attack. It was a big wake-up call and thus began my connection with the growth mindset and the practice of many techniques that will (hopefully) ensure I’m still around for many years to come. 

Switching a mindset is relatively easy to do, but you’ll only succeed if you connect with why you’re doing it. Much like an alcoholic will only stop drinking once they’ve admitted they have a problem, the first step to making a sustained change to mindset as a perfectionist is to acknowledge that perfectionism is causing you pain. For some, that’s a bridge too far. Because most perfectionists are proud of their perfectionism’s beneficial aspects, any change in mindset is often perceived as a negative. Perfectionists are reluctant to consider change because they believe it will somehow make them lazy or unmotivated.

Change often seems like a threat to the very thing that makes them special (did I mention that the fixed mindset is part of perfectionism?!) Even though it causes them pain, perfectionists are often much happier regarding the unhealthy parts of their perfectionism as something they just have to live with in order to benefit from the healthy parts. It’s a never-ending circle of self-sacrifice — and it’s exhausting! 

But; imagine what it would be like to free yourself from the chains of unhealthy perfectionism while still benefiting from the healthy parts; understanding your perfectionism so well that you wake up one morning to find that you no longer feel the need to leave the bedroom looking like a show home or spend hours on your appearance before heading downstairs to the kitchen because you’ve realized that no-one other than you really cares. Imagine deciding that the fridge didn’t really have to be stocked in alphabetical order because your time was better spent elsewhere, or that you wouldn’t be overly bothered if you turned up for brunch with a friend a few minutes late because you decided to prioritize your perfectionism and only focus on perfecting the things that really matter to you. Imagine how much freer you would feel and how much more time you would have to perfect the things you care about the most by taking this approach. 

It’s all there for the taking — you just have to want it!

I believe that we all have a responsibility to be the best we can be in life, and that the switch to a growth mindset is one of the most powerful ways to achieve that goal. This isn’t about saying there’s something wrong with you; it’s about connecting with the realization that every perfectionist deserves to be happy and that meaningful change in your approach to perfectionism will mean a more balanced, peaceful, and calmer existence. It’s about recognizing that you are worth more than a life filled with fear and low self-esteem and that productive change within your perfectionism is not only possible but achievable without compromising standards. This change might scare you — I get it, I’ve been there — but if you can view this change as something that will offer untold rewards in your success and happiness in life, I promise you’ll be grateful for it.

Imagine what you could achieve by ‘perfecting’ your perfectionism! Be brave and embrace the growth mindset. You deserve it. You’re a perfectionist, and you’re awesome!

The goal for any leader should be to catch addictive behaviors early and then triage them on the spot. Delaying or reprimanding executives for their addiction rarely works and only leads to more problems down the line.    

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addiction and mental issues are up 30 percent everywhere, including the workplace. This means that the original one-fifth of people having addiction problems is now at one-third. Add the additional component of working from home during a pandemic, and you have the perfect storm. 

Having to deal with a boss or coworker who has an issue with drugs or is habitually drunk and hungover can impact new business, drop morale, and create a hostile work environment. Sending an executive to a treatment facility can wipe more than 30 days from their productive work time and cost upwards of $110,000. There’s no guarantee that they will remain sober, either. This puts a drain on the business, and employees have to pick up the slack while the executive is away. 

Businesses and CEOs have been challenged to find addiction solutions that work in real-time. Sending an executive to a 30-45-day in-patient treatment facility is no longer a viable and sustainable option. Having a treatment team come to the executive at his or her home and completing an intensive three- to five-day therapy session with a live-in, sober companion seems to be a more effective solution that is faster and more dependable.

Recently, Ben, a software engineer at a large company, completed an in-home, five-day session with a 24/7 live-in, sober companion for 60 days. Ben had not been able to stay sober from alcohol and failed at several in-patient addiction rehab attempts. He had already received two DUIs and had been reprimanded by his company for coming to work hungover and drunk on several occasions. The main issue regarding Ben’s job was that a replacement would take six months to source, hire, and train and that the cost to the company would be more than $100,000. It was financially better for the company to offer Ben addiction treatment and ensure his sobriety as a valued executive. 

It’s difficult for leaders to handle normal business and the added pressures we face today with a pandemic. They are exposed to regular business duties and the stress of employee’s personal lives. Morale is low, business is down, and everyone is at home. Many stress-relieving facilities have been closed, such as gyms, country clubs, and sailing clubs, adding to stress and loneliness, and causing increased drug and alcohol use.

Jeff, a Wall Street executive, recently relapsed on cocaine and alcohol when the stock market plummeted, and his clients started pulling their money out. He needed to work longer hours and deal with added stress at home — kids home-schooling, and his wife losing her job.

The pressure became too great, and he missed several trading days. His boss was ready to fire him. Yet, he was a fabulous trader when sober and had made his company a lot of money over the five years he had worked there. His boss took a gamble and sought help for his addiction. This quick thinking resulted in an onsite recovery coach and therapist arriving on the scene, triaging the situation, and offering real-time solutions. It would have been impossible for a day trader such as Jeff to go to a 30-day in-patient rehab without angry clients and severe revenue loss. Getting same-day professional help made the difference. 

By caring for your top leadership, the staff under them will be happier and produce more quality work. You will be leading by example, and staff won’t have to deal with the added stress of their bosses’ addiction. There’s nothing worse than having to cover for a boss who is late, sloppy in their work and appearance, and angry and hostile all the time. It creates a toxic work environment that causes revenue and productivity to plummet. The goal for any leader should be to catch addictive behaviors early and then triage them on the spot. Delaying or reprimanding executives for their addiction rarely works and only leads to more problems down the line.     

So, what can you do if you expect your boss is using drugs or alcohol? Get professional help and let them assess the situation and make the best recommendations. Out-the-box thinking is key to solving the problem at its root and creating productive environments from the top down.

Every single second of the day, the human brain receives and processes a staggering amount of information — a feat that makes it the world’s fastest supercomputer.

With most of that work taking place on a subconscious level, we tend to spend our lives running on autopilot and rarely consider the brain’s tremendous efficiency. From the morning’s first yawn to the moment our head hits the pillow at night, more than 95 percent of our daily activities are performed automatically, freeing up our minds to anxiously dissect yesterday’s conversation with the boss or eagerly ponder what we might eat for dinner. Caught up in the monkey mind, we sleepwalk through the present, oblivious to the beautiful hue of the dawn sky or the unmistakable hurt in the eyes of a co-worker.

But it’s possible to tame these endlessly chattering minds of ours. Just as taking up a fitness routine can get our bodies into shape, we can adopt positive mental habits that retrain the brain. Indeed, learning to flex our mental muscles can ultimately help us tune into an entirely different brain frequency.

Research shows that the brain contains over 86 billion nerve cells (called “neurons”), which communicate with one another via potent electrical signals. Neurons fire off these signals at an incredibly high rate and the resulting electrical activity creates brain waves. But despite their shared origins, not all brain waves are the same.

The most common form of brain waves, beta waves, occurs when our monkey minds operate at full capacity, generating about sixty thoughts per minute. In this state, the brain is busy taking in information: processing, analyzing, comparing, rationalizing. While this may seem like the ideal moment for a flash of inspiration—one that suddenly unlocks the problem we’ve been grappling with — the reality is that the beta-wave state seldom allows for such revelations. In truth, our minds are typically so cluttered in beta-wave phases; they leave little to no room for imaginative solutions.

Alpha waves are another type of frequency we experience each day. As we drift in or out of sleep, our brain waves slow to around thirty thoughts per minute and, like the deepest currents of the ocean, subtly propel the subconscious mind. Half the speed of beta waves, alpha waves enable us to think laterally. If we need to tap into this wealth of creativity during the day, deep breathing can quickly lull us into the alpha state and provide a much-needed break from the bustling monkey mind.

Aristotle once said: “Give me a boy until he is seven, and I shall show you the man.” To his point, scientific studies have shown that the minds of children function quite differently from those of adults. Since their brains generate only about fifteen thoughts per minute (by way of a type of frequency known as theta waves), everything a child experiences up until the age of eight goes directly to the subconscious. Understanding this phenomenon is vital to the release of pent-up traumas.

For adults and children alike, sleep is a time to regenerate, both mentally and physically. Our brains slow down, eventually bringing about deep sleep and its attendant delta waves. One of the most mysterious forms of brain waves, delta waves, creates space for healing, allowing us to wake refreshed and rejuvenated the next morning.

Still, some of the most exciting neuroscientific research centers on the subject of gamma waves, which are associated with intense concentration. For most of us, this type of brain wave occurs solely as a split-second flash of inspiration or enlightenment. However, a recent study by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin suggests that the gamma state may endure much longer for specific individuals. In his research, Davidson discovered that the world’s great meditation masters might access the gamma state not only during their meditation practice but throughout their daily activities. At this powerful frequency, the brain can heighten perception, empowering us to make great strides in our inner development and experience profound compassion. 

Thanks to the many studies carried out since Norman Vincent Peale published his groundbreaking 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking, we have gained a much firmer grasp of how the amazingly complex organ known as the human brain functions and thrives. We know that — like any of the muscles that make up the body — it benefits from a good workout. By learning something new, for instance, we can stimulate our brain cells to communicate differently and, in turn, form new pathways that enable us to tackle everyday problems in more creative ways. Even something as easy as changing up our usual route to work can get our neurons firing! By rewiring our brains to circumvent old thought patterns and forge new mental circuits, we can unleash the power of positive thinking: one of our greatest allies in the fight against depression, disease, and poor mental health.

The good news is you don’t need to be a great meditation master to access the extraordinary benefits of gamma waves. Even just a few minutes of meditative breathing or a simple visualization technique can have a significant impact on your mood. Better yet, these methods are as free as the air we breathe, available to anyone ready to embark on the journey toward inner harmony and total wellbeing. 

More information on the intricate workings of the human brain and their role in our health can be found in Lola Till’s recent book, Be Your Own Harmonist (Waterside Productions, 2020), in which the author provides simple meditation techniques along with balanced recipes for enhancing wellness on every level. 

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has changed life as we know it, as well as how we manage our households.

While being shut mostly in our homes or observing infection prevention guidelines when leaving our house, it can be pretty hard to grapple with the reality of the world in which we now live. And yet, this is what you as a leader must do to survive and thrive in this new abnormal.

Same Home, Different House Rules?

Susan, an entrepreneur and former coaching client of mine, reached out for help because her household was having difficulty adjusting to the long-term impact of our new pandemic reality. As the founder of a quickly-growing startup in the medical devices industry, she was used to a routine and thrived by keeping her work life separate from her personal life.

However, as the months of staying at home went by, her relationship with her husband, who was the primary caretaker of their nine-year-old child pre-pandemic, started to erode. She found it difficult to concentrate on her startup due to frequent interruptions from her husband and child, and she found herself becoming more and more curt with them.

It was hard enough when school was canceled in the early months of the pandemic, as well as summer camp. And it became increasingly impossible when her son’s school transitioned to online only for the Fall. When I met with Susan over Zoom, I told her that there were some essential steps that she needed to take to adjust to the new COVID-19 reality.

How Your Household Can Survive and Thrive in the Pandemic

First and foremost, we won’t get anywhere if we don’t face the facts. We need to acknowledge that COVID-19 fundamentally disrupted our world, turning it upside down in a few short weeks in February and March 2020. We have to move past the normalcy bias‘s discomfort and our intuitive feeling that the world should go back to normal.

The normalcy bias is one of over a hundred dangerous judgment errors that scholars in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics like myself call cognitive biases. They result from a combination of our evolutionary background and specific structural features in how our brains are wired.

So how can your household effectively overcome the normalcy bias to adapt to the uncertainty and dislocation that accompanies this new abnormal?

While you’re in a new abnormal, your underlying needs and wants remain the same. You just need to figure out different ways toward satisfying them.

You might have heard of Abraham Maslow’s theory of human motivation and the pyramid of needs based on his work. More recent research, summarized in Scott Barry Kaufman’s excellent book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, revises this model. Kaufman shows that our fundamental needs consist of safety, connection, and self-esteem, and we will feel deprived without them. We also have needs that help us achieve our full potential through personal growth. This is what Maslow called “self actualization” and what Kaufman more clearly defined as exploration, love, and purpose. A good approach to adapting to the new abnormal is evaluating your life through the lens of these needs and ensuring that you can still satisfy them.

Connection to Others

The most challenging element for Susan stemmed from the fundamental need for connection to others. It’s a topic I describe in more depth in my best-seller, The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships.

First, consider your immediate connections with members of the household.

If you have a romantic partner in your household, you’ll have to figure out how to interact healthily, given that you’re together 24/7. You’ll likely get into each other’s spaces and on each other’s nerves. It’s much wiser to anticipate and work out these problems in advance than have them blow up down the road. The same principle applies to other members of your family. If you have older children who moved home after university closed, or younger children who aren’t going to school after it closed, you’ll need to figure out how to deal with them cooped up inside. This includes staying in touch with their schools to get updates on online school work.

You’ll have to put more thought into dealing with older adults over 60 or anyone with underlying health conditions in your household (including yourself if you fit either category). Given their much greater vulnerability to COVID-19, you and other members of your household need to take serious measures to prevent them from getting ill. That means being more careful yourself than you might otherwise be since over half of all those with COVID-19 have no or light symptoms.

Second, what about your connection to those you care about who aren’t part of your household? Your romantic partner might not be part of your household. Depending on how vulnerable to COVID-19 you and other members of your household might be, you might choose to take the risk of physical intimacy with your romantic partner. But you have to make this decision consciously rather than casually. Or you might decide to have a social-distance relationship, meeting at a distance of 10 feet or by videoconference.

During one of our coaching sessions, Susan said she hadn’t realized how strained her relationship with her husband was until I had pointed out the need for healthy interaction while being together 24/7. After our talk, she sat down with her husband to have a serious conversation about the situation. Together, they decided to stick to their separate routines, have their own spaces apart. Susan would spend time at her home office and her husband and child would spend days accomplishing school work in the living area. They would come together as a family after the workday was done — as they would have before the pandemic — so that they wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves.

Soon after, they also sat down and conversed with their young child regarding COVID-19, remaining calm and simply discussing what they, as a family, needed to do to stay healthy. Due to their reassuring manner, their child expressed more willingness to open up to them about any worries he might have regarding the pandemic.

Conclusion

Towards the end of our coaching sessions, Susan informed me that she had finally established a balanced work-life routine that suits her and protects her relationships with her loved ones.

While the new abnormal ushered in by COVID-19 has brought unprecedented changes to our lives, there’s no reason you can’t survive and thrive in the new abnormal while we wait a few more months for a vaccine. You need to identify, anticipate, and take care of your fundamental needs.

With the remaining season at New York’s iconic opera house canceled for the foreseeable future, the management of The Met hopes to brighten the lives of audiences and members even while their stage is dark.

Each day a different presentation from the company’s Live in HD series is released for free through an on-demand streaming service, beginning at 7:30 p.m. EDT. Opera offers a reflection of who we are through dramatic storytelling and music and explores what it means to be human.

The ancient craft deals with big life themes such as love, death, loss, joy, anger, and passion — all the natural emotions we’ll experience as we ride out the pandemic and rebuild a broken world.

MetOpera.org

Scotland has made sanitary products free to all women, becoming the first nation in the world to take such a step against “period poverty.”

The measure makes tampons and sanitary pads available at designated public places such as community centres, youth clubs and pharmacies, at an estimated annual cost to taxpayers of 24 million pounds ($32 million U.S.).

The Period Products (Free Provision) Scotland Bill passed unanimously, and First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon called it “an important policy for women and girls.”

“Proud to vote for this groundbreaking legislation, making Scotland the first country in the world to provide free period products for all who need them,” Sturgeon posted on Twitter.

During the debate, the bill’s proposer, Scottish Labour MP Monica Lennon, said: “No one should have to worry about where their next tampon, pad or reusable is coming from.

“Scotland will not be the last country to consign period poverty to history, but we have the chance to be the first,” she said.

In 2018, Scotland became the first country to provide free sanitary products in schools, colleges and universities. Some 10% of girls in Britain have been unable to afford sanitary products, according to a survey by the children’s charity Plan International in 2017, with campaigners warning many skip classes as a consequence.

Sanitary products in the United Kingdom are taxed at 5%, a levy that officials have blamed on European Union (EU) rules that set tax rates on certain products.

Now that Britain has left the EU, British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has said he would abolish the “tampon tax” in January 2021.

By Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst.

Bereavement is defined as a period of intense grief, especially following the death of a loved one. Unfortunately, society has no respect for those grieving. Society views grief as something to get over, like the flu. 

After a few days, and the griever is expected to function as if life hadn’t shattered into a million little pieces. 

Corporate America is no better. Statistics show that 89% of employers offer three days of paid bereavement leave. Corporate America continues to set unrealistic expectations regarding how quickly employees must return to an operational level as before their loss. 

You may wonder why I became involved in advocating to change society’s perception of how long a griever is permitted to grieve.  

In January 2015, I was employed at one of the largest hospital systems in my state of Delaware. My employment as a registered nurse stretched over 36 years. I was never late. I never missed a shift. I foolishly believed I was a valued employee. I never imagined grieving my son might be a cause for termination. What I learned from this experience set me on a new trajectory of advocacy work.

January 3rd, 2015, was the day my world spun off its axis. Matt, my youngest son, died suddenly and unexpectedly. 

Ironically, I was working a 12-hour shift when the news hit me with a force I still cannot put into words. His death shattered me to my core.  

I could no longer function. My brain, along with my heart, was irreparably broken. The three-day bereavement leave allowed by the hospital was spent sitting in a shocked state. Numb and barely surviving. Three days flew by as I tried to pull myself together enough to plan his funeral. 

Three days of pure hell pretending to be aware of what I was expected to do when all I wanted to do was disappear.

Although I had plenty of Family and Medical Leave (FMLA), my employer never informed me that it doesn’t cover bereavement, nor does it protect your job. There is no legislation in place to protect your livelihood after losing a child, parent, or spouse.

Imagine being a newborn intensive care unit nurse, responsible for the sickest newborns and expecting to return to that role when you can barely put one foot in front of the other. Imagine staring at your microwave, not remembering how to get it to work. Yet, my employer was demanding my return to my role as if I could function as I did before my son’s death.

What society fails to recognize is the death of a child results in a tsunami of unresolved grief. Society is reluctant to talk about grief. 

Bereavement continues to be that elephant in the room, especially in the corporate world. Many parents suffer from cardiac issues, physical disabilities, alcoholism, depression, and death after child loss, but these issues are not addressed.  

Gloria Vanderbilt. once said: “I’ve heard it said that the greatest loss a human being can experience is the loss of a child. This is true. It doesn’t just change you, it demolishes you.”

Needless to say, I was terminated from my job weeks after my son’s death. I was still out on FMLA when I was terminated. 

I received no letter of termination nor a phone call from my manager. To my shock, this was legal, and the hospital was in their rights. As mentioned, FMLA doesn’t protect bereaved employees.  

Years passed, and the coronavirus hit. Our country is now full of grieving people. Unfortunately, not much has changed in how bereaved employees are treated. I continued to get calls from grieving parents, and sadly our stories continue to mimic each other’s. First came the loss of a child, then came job loss.  

Imagine my surprise when I was contacted by a group known as Evermore. 

They asked if I would use my personal experience to assist in their advocacy initiative. Joyal Mulheron founded this organization after the death of her infant daughter, and is no stranger to this life-shattering grief.

She, too, was asked to leave a job of advising high-ranking politicians when she struggled to make sense of her life. 

She watched her surviving children struggle, too, as her family turned upside down.  

Joyal witnessed the broken system firsthand as she tried to navigate her daughter’s illness, subsequent death, and dealing with the insurance industry. “Every facet of life, every interaction you have is so hurtful,” she says.

They say that when God closes one door, He opens another. Both Joyal and I have experienced exactly that. Coronavirus restrictions and a cancer diagnosis put a stop to my advocacy work. The loss of Eleanora changed the path of Joyal’s career. 

Two mothers, once strangers, were now bonded by the loss of their child, both fighting to change how the world saw their grief. 

Evermore, founded in 2014 by Joyal, is a nonprofit dedicated to making the world a more livable place for bereaved families. They are committed to making America a place where all families have access to care, programs, policies, and resources that provide support after life-altering loss.  

In March, Evermore advanced a bereavement care provision in the U.S. House of Representatives, and today this provision is being considered in the U.S. Senate.  

On November 19th, Evermore held a public summit that addressed grief, and the changes needed to become legislation. Many experienced grief attended, including Cindy McCain and Casey Affleck. The summit reached hundreds of people, who have now joined a movement for change. 

“As founder and director, I’m building a social movement to change the way America views, responds and respects bereavement care for families, providers, and our nation’s communities,” said Joyal, at the summit.

Bereavement is a public health epidemic that has a significant impact on our jobs and health — affecting both the physical and psychological aspects of our lives. Evermore is working toward implementing a national standard regarding the treatment of the bereaved and working toward establishing the first-ever White House Office of Bereavement Care.  

In our country, we have many rights. Taking time to grieve is not one of them. Together we will start the change.

To learn how you can become involved, go to www.Live-Evermore.org. To sign our petition https://live-evermore.org/bereavement-care-petition/.  

An international study by the Centre for Creative Leadership discovered that 42% of leaders get six or fewer hours of sleep a night. That’s a high number of performance-driven professionals getting less than their fair share of shut-eye.

So, how important is sleep?

Experts will tell you that it is the backbone of health and that sleeping for at least 7 to 9 hours each night enables you to think and lead better. Many successful professionals across the globe agree. Several famous entrepreneurs have revealed that they get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Facebook COO and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg says she makes an effort to sleep 7 to 8 a night while Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos has been logging in 8 hours for the past 18 years.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Studies show that to perform optimally, think critically, and have emotional balance, we should be getting at least 7 hours of sleep for the body to perform its restorative functions.

Without enough sleep, your brain and body cannot function properly. This is because during sleep, your body cycles through 5 different sleep stages, in which your body performs essential restorative functions to recharge your systems, rebuild tissue, mend muscles, and boost your immune system. If you don’t get enough sleep or sleep poorly, you are more than likely not cycling through all five sleep stages. This can affect your concentration, memory retention, problem-solving abilities, and physical performance.

Let’s take a look at why getting more sleep should be top of your agenda.

1. Sleep and critical thinking

There’s a direct link between sleeping and critical thinking. When you don’t get enough quality sleep, your attention span shortens, and your reflexes become slower. You don’t respond well to cues in your environment, potentially misreading situations, miscommunication, or missing out on opportunities.

Arianna Huffington said it best: “The science is clear. And what it tells us is that there’s simply no way you can make good decisions and achieve your world-changing ambitions while running on empty.”

2. Sleep and creativity

Science shows that sleep is necessary for producing creative ideas and problem-solving. To fuel your innovative thinking abilities, sleep can activate your memories, create powerful links between brain cells, and transfer information.

The phase of rapid eye movement (REM) in the sleep cycle is where creativity is supported through dreams. This happens as delta waves are slowly released in the brain. These waves produce a state of healing and restoration so your brain cells can restore themselves, enhancing creativity.

The more you dream, the more you’re able to connect with your creativity. So if you’re looking to find a unique, creative idea, sleep is where you’ll tap into an unlimited well of ideas. 

3. Sleep and good relationships

When you don’t get enough sleep, your relationships can start to suffer. This is because sleeping well and positive moods go hand in hand. Sleep deprivation can heighten feelings of anger and frustration. You’re more likely to snap at your family or colleagues, straining relationships. It can also lead to you feeling tired and unmotivated.

When you sleep well, you lead well. By leveraging the benefits of good sleep, you can foster a team spirit of positivity, friendliness, and kindness in your team, contributing to overall growth.

4. Sleep and physical performance

To perform at your best, you need good quality sleep. When you sleep, your body and brain undergo a host of restorative functions, including repairing muscles and cells. After a night of uninterrupted sleep, you’ll wake up feeling re-fuelled, energetic, and motivated to tackle the day’s challenges.

5. Sleep and general health

Working late nights, early mornings, and clocking in overtime on the weekend can lead to fatigue and eventually culminate in sleep deprivation. Becoming sleep deprived is a slow process, similar to burnout. The effects are the same: excessive sleepiness, lack of focus, a weak immune system, and mood swings.

Leaders know that to leave a lasting legacy, you need to put your health first. One of the easiest ways to do so is by simply spending more time getting high-quality sleep. Always remember: to be the best, get some rest.

The daily focus of many business owners has gone from business as usual to doing everything to keep their heads above water. It’s not an easy task to run a business during times of covid, especially when you happen to be in an industry where you rely on offline customers.

Mike Jordan, CEO of Summit Defence, has put together ten tips to ensure your retail business is COVID-proof.

1. Sticker roadmap

Covid prevention often starts with social distancing. This isn’t always as easily achieved in an indoor space. One of the methods you can ensure customers will keep their distance from both your staff and each other is setting out a route with a one-way system to guide customers safely through your business. Use stickers, tape, and barricades to prevent people from crossing paths.

2. After hours

Covid-proofing your business doesn’t stop at closing time. Once all customers have left the premises, you are given the time and space to properly sanitize your building, furniture, and products to start fresh the next day. Once it’s time to head home, also have your staff thoroughly clean their hands and attire if applicable.

3. Follow the rules

Clear and open communication is always important, but even more so when it comes to our health and safety. Ensure your staff is fully informed about the rules in place and ensure visitors are aware of them even before entering your premises by keeping them informed on social media and notices at the entrance. If someone doesn’t follow the rules, don’t be afraid to call them out and correct them. Keep in mind that they probably aren’t offending on purpose as the rules can be confusing with government advice changing daily. Be nice about it and help each other!

4. Limit group sizes

No matter how many rules or measures you put in place, they won’t have the same effect if too many people are present. Therefore, it is essential to limit the number of people you allow into your business according to the amount of space you have. For restaurants, this is easy to enforce by not allowing more guests than seats available and have guests book a time slot beforehand. You could hand out shopping baskets or other tokens for the available “shopping spots” in a retail environment. If there are no more baskets, there’s no more space.

5. No more cash

Communicate with your customers that you prefer them to pay by card where possible. This is a lot faster and removes extra steps involved, which means less physical contact. Cash is also known to be one of the biggest carriers of germs and other woes. A bonus tip for restaurants is to set up an app for customers to put their orders through. This allows your staff to keep their distance even more.

6. Through a window

Another way of keeping customers apart and making it less likely for them to infect each other in case they burst out sneezing is to install perspex shields. They’re often lightweight, flexible, and thanks to their see-through characteristics, you won’t lose that personal touch with your customers while at the same time keeping yourself and your staff protected.

7. Sparkly clean

Pandemic or not, people like touching things. While you can ask your customers to only touch those things they need or intend on buying, this isn’t easy to enforce. To limit the number of germs that potentially get spread, you could install a cleaning station at the entrance where visitors can sanitize their hands and shopping cart or basket if available. For a maximum effect, place multiple sanitizer dispensers throughout your business.

8. Stay up to date

Setting up measures and rules begins with staying up to date with the current situation and government regulations. Research what industry-specific restrictions apply to your business and what advice is applicable. Keep in mind that as the situation is unpredictable and things can change overnight, it’s important to stay in the loop and adapt.

9. Keep your staff safe

It’s not all about keeping your customers safe, but also you and your staff. An excellent way to ensure they stay healthy is to appoint everyone their own workspace. This way, they don’t have to cross paths too much with other employees and customers. Everyone has their task with the fitting work area. Mark their spots with tape on the floor and other surfaces to remind them.

10. Rethink delivery

The best way of avoiding contamination is to prevent people from coming into your business in the first place. Think about ways to deliver your products and services to your customers at home by setting up an online store or partnering with food delivery services.o This protects your customers and staff and makes your business more sustainable in the event of another lockdown.

The U.S. is seven months into the coronavirus crisis and yet a critical shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) remains.

As fall and the cold and flu season approach, which will increase demand on health systems, many doctors and nurses continue to reuse single use N-95s. A recent survey of 20,000 nurses conducted by the ANA cited that  “1 in 3 nurses say they are ‘out’ or ‘short’ of N95 masks” and “68% of nurses say the practice of reusing single-use PPE, like N95 masks, is required.” An FDA report of medical device shortages on August 20, corroborated these shortages.  Politico has reported that the problem is exacerbated at “smaller and poorer hospitals” and that “a clear disparity has emerged and persisted” as “larger and richer hospitals and practices outbid their smaller peers.”

Schools are also scrambling to secure sufficient supplies of masks and hand sanitizer to enable safe reopening. With FEMA’s recent decision to not fund school safety measures, schools and families are assuming the cost of protecting students and teachers. A shortage of PPE presents a significant risk to older teachers and staff and to multigenerational families if children bring the virus home with them. It has been widely reported that risks for both children and adults are more pronounced in Black and Latinx households. 

Business steps up

How will we know when the PPE crisis has passed? According to research by Stop the Spread (STS), a coalition of 1,300+ CEOs and executives working to catalyze the private sector response to COVID-19, we can be confident that the PPE crisis has passed once key areas are addressed: stable and transparent pricing for PPE; robust and resilient supply chains; ability to track fraudulent PPE; widely available, accurate data on PPE availability to help forecast shortages.

To help attain success in the PPE market, STS has collaborated with partners such as C19 Coalition, Project N95, and the World Supply Chain Federation to push critical PPE to the most essential areas at fair prices, helping stabilize the market. The organization also worked with non-medical mask suppliers and manufacturers who pivoted operations to provide PPE, including Brooks Brothers, Rent the Runway, Eagle Fabrics , Lucky Brand and VIDA. All told, STS spurred the manufacturing of more than 20 million units of personal protective equipment, including N95 face masks, face shields, and more.

Impact to fight COVID-19

Impact investors are also jumping into the fray. Through a partnership with STS and several other funding initiatives, ImpactAssets clients have invested and granted $213 million in three COVID-related critical needs areas, including supporting “front line heroes”; preserving the progress made towards climate change and social justice; and supporting individuals and small businesses who have been hit hardest by the economic crisis, particularly the unbanked, low-income communities and communities of color. The Global Impact Investing Network has also organized around the R3 Coalition to accelerate impact investments in response to COVID-19.

Here are three examples of impact investments in PPE:

Roots Studio

Roots Studio digitizes last-generation art from rural communities into an online library for licensing. The Heritage PPE Collections features art from tribal communities in India, Jordan, Ethiopia, China, and Panama, amongst others. Tribal communities have been severely affected during COVID-19. Roots Studio aims to provide these communities with steady income and protective wear. Thirty percent of the profits from each purchase are returned to the community and every artist receives protective wear featuring their artwork.

To the Market

Startup TO THE MARKET helps corporations source and purchase from ethical suppliers around the world. The company promotes transparent supply chains and provides overlooked suppliers, such as women-owned and operated factories and artisan groups, with access to the global supply chain. Through an investment from ImpactAssets Stop the Spread Fund, TO THE MARKET will expand services to hospital systems that have immediate procurement needs but are challenged to work with many suppliers’ pandemic-driven payment terms. TO THE MARKET has already vetted and approved more that 200 suppliers to see whether they could help meet unfulfilled demand for PPE and shipped more than 10 million units to hospitals throughout the U.S. 

The Community Purchasing Alliance 

The Community Purchasing Alliance (CPA) leverages the buying power of community institutions to accelerate progress towards sustainability, equity, and justice. Its 121 member-owners and 160 total participating organizations include schools, faith-based organizations, unions, child-care and senior-care centers, and other local non-profits. CPA is organizing up to $1M of PPE purchases each month, directing at least 40% to businesses owned by people of color across all geographies and helping members save 10-40% on purchases. An investment through the ImpactAssets Stop the Spread Fund will enable CPA to expand, helping roughly 250 additional organizations purchase PPE.

“It is precisely in times like this that impact investors and philanthropists can make their greatest impact,” said ImpactAssets CEO Margret Trilli. “We all have more work to do to overcome the coronavirus pandemic, but investments in innovative social enterprises and partnerships with STS and business leaders are helping to fill the gap and drive innovation.”

Amy Bennett is the Chief Marketing Officer at ImpactAssets; Sharon Knight is Executive Director, Stop the Spread.