Hi. This is Paul Salazar, and welcome to another episode of the AWARE Pro nurse podcast. On this podcast, we explore the dynamics of social entrepreneurship and how change makers can thrive while making a difference. In today's episode, we're diving into a topic that's really overlooked. The significance of taking vacations and breaks for social entrepreneurs. Let's uncover why self care and rejuvenation are essential for the positive impact that you wanna have in a sustainable way. Before we do that, I wanna share with you a wonderful review we got on Apple Podcasts. And it is from a con wound on Apple Podcasts.

It reads finally a podcast for me. As a social impact entrepreneur, I have Been searching for a community who spoke directly to me. Look no further. Great lessons, actionable tips. I love it. Thank you so much for that wonderful review. And if you haven't yet done a review for the podcast, it helps tremendously. So if you could go to whatever you like listening to the show on, hit subscribe, do a rating, and review.

It really helps more people find the show and help us teach more people had had positive impact through a values based business. And lastly, I wanna let you know we're gonna practice what we're preaching here today. And that is we're gonna take a month off the AWAREPriners podcast. This episode's gonna go live on Tuesday, August 8th And then we're not gonna publish another episode until Tuesday, September 12th. That's right. A whole month off. It's never happened in 6 years. I've taken a week I think 2 weeks, but I've never taken a month off.

And I'm excited for a break. I'm excited to come back. gonna go visit family in Columbia. There's a lot happening here, but also it's just time. I've been publishing this for over 300 episodes. This will be episode 303. And, yeah, just wanted to take a vacation, take a break, and not worried about trying to keep the content coming while doing some connection with family and some personal rejuvenation. So let's get into today's episode.

So in today's episode, I'm gonna talk to you about 5 points and I'm gonna tell you what they are and then we're gonna dive deeply into all the various components of each one. Number 1, we're gonna talk about burnout and its impact, and I had a big burnout experience that I'm gonna tell you about. So this is not ethereal, though. Certainly, there's a lot of research. Number 2 is renewed creativity and innovation. There's research that tells us when we take a break, we come back, and we're just much more generative. Number 3, we're gonna talk about enhanced decision making and problem solving. Again, a lot of research when we, like, put things down and go do another activity, take a break, and then come back to that.

We just see things in a whole new light, and we come up with much more creative solutions and much more effective strategies for the things that we're working on. Number 4, we're gonna talk about improved physical and mental well-being. And number 5, we're gonna talk about leading by example and why this is really important, not just for your own well-being, but also for the results of the people that are looking at hiring you. Let's talk a little bit about burnout. Again, I had a very significant burnout experience. My 1st 15 years of my now, about 31. I'm dating myself. 31 years, I've been at this.

working with communities, working towards positive change. The 1st 15 years were in community mental health and community organizing was my role. I have a master's degree in community mental health. So that was the role I was in. And by the last half of that by the last seven and a half years or 7 years or so. I was the executive director of an innovative nonprofit. So suddenly I was trying to oversee the work and do some of the delivery of the work, fund the work, do all the reporting, keep donors happy, work with volunteers. You get a sense.