A Black Executive Perspective now presents Need to Know with the award winning hyphenated Dr. Nsenga Burton. Dr. Burton. What do we need to know?

Good morning and welcome to Need to Know with Dr. Nsenga Burton. I am Dr. Nsenga Burton. Today I want to talk to you a little bit about, uh, rest as a radical thing for Black people, particularly when we're talking about Black executives, people who are working, um, in the higher echelons of corporate America, uh, people who are, you know, Leaders administrators, part of the C suite. Um, and especially, um, in addition to people, we already think of need rest, right? Those, uh, uh, frontline workers, people who we engage with all all the time, whether it's at the gas station or your grocery store would have you. But I'm here to say that everybody needs rest, whether your job is a physical 1 or a job that requires a lot of mental energy and a lot of intellectual fortitude. If you will rest is a radical thing. And there's a, there are a lot of people in general, black women scholars, specifically, you're doing work in this area and talking about it. Um, there's a, um, on social media, there's something called the NAP ministry. If you are not. Following that on social media, you absolutely should. But 1 of the things that they are talking about ministry is the need for people to recharge to rest and recharge. So, even today, when we're taking this episode, it's the day before Thanksgiving. Even though a lot of us, including myself, don't buy the dominant narrative right of Thanksgiving. We're like, okay, we'll just go along with this made up holiday again. So we can get a couple of days off because we know that it's, it's made up and it's not really based in anything real historically factual or anything. So, um, but, hey, if I can get a couple of days off to spend with my family, then I'll take it. You know, we do a lot of that in the black community. So, I wanted to say that, even if you don't believe in the idea, or, you know, the dominant narrative of Thanksgiving, which is real and valid, you should at least take the time that you have to rest. Um, and to recharge and so I know a lot of us spend a lot of time running around cooking all day and all night and serving people and having scores of folks come over and yet, you know, dish duty and, you know, you got to clean up and all the things. Um, so I'd encourage you to think about how to do holidays a little bit differently. Um, you can do, um, you know, you have, if you can afford it, you can have things catered. You can use a black owned business, a black owned caterer. Um, that's another that's a way that you can not only feed yourself, but also feed your soul and help people while you're doing it. Um, and then, you know, it doesn't have to be so big. We have a couple of my friends and I were talking about that. Um. A few days ago about, you know, it doesn't have to, you don't have to have the turkey, and the beef, and meat, and ham, and the beef, and the ham, and the turkey, and the, you know, it doesn't have to be 25 options. Um, you know, a lot of folks are vegetarian and vegan now, so you definitely want to have one of those options. Um, and you know, for the people who aren't, we're very clear on, we're not vegan or vegetarian, you want to have a meat option. And, you know, based on religion, some people don't eat pork or what have you, but, you know, your family, you know, your people, but you don't have to have 20B items. It doesn't have to be a throw down, especially because Christmas is right around the corner. And even if you don't celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa is right around the corner. All these things are right around the corner. We have the opportunity to do that. And you have more time to do it because many of us are working, including myself. Tony and I are working today, right? We're traveling and working. I work in the up until the day before Thanksgiving, right? And so, you know, this idea that you got to work up until the day before Thanksgiving, and then, you know, provide the spread in honor of this fake holiday. It just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. So, my needs to know what I need you to know is that it's okay to rest. It's okay to tell relatives. Listen, I have been working really hard. 2024 has been really tough. So, we're not going to do Thanksgiving this year, but I got you on Christmas, you know, it's okay to be like, listen, I got 4 hours to cook something. You know, everybody brings something that we do a lot of that anyway, in our community, people we trust because, you know, we don't eat everybody's everything, but, you know, it's okay to allow a little bit of the responsibilities to other folks and to use the people who are in your household to help make things easier. Um. So, I need, you know, it's okay to say, I need rest. I need time to recharge and to use this Thanksgiving vacation uses Thanksgiving celebration as a vacation or time to kind of just recharge and to get that 4 day weekend that you need so that you can be your whole self and you can actually make it to the end of 2024 as the holiday season starts. Theme roll! Um, we barrel towards New Year's Eve. Following the Thanksgiving tradition. So give yourself a break. You don't have to have a ton of Christmas decorations or holiday decorations. You don't have to have 25 options on your menu. You don't have to invite people over. You don't, you don't have to go nowhere. Like you don't. So if you need time to rest and relax, uh, take it. And that's what I need. Need you to know I'm Dr. Nsenga Burton. Enjoy this time off, uh, spend it how you like, but please think about giving yourself a little bit of rest so you can be your whole self and your best version of yourself, uh, for the remainder of the year. Okay.

A black executive perspective.