Sober Not Somber Hour

Happy, happy Tuesday, March 11th. Yeah, so last week actually had two sober, not somber happy hours, everyone. Yeah, I wasn't able to get connected to the app. So luckily the topic was International Women's Day. And, and this entire month is Women's History Month. So I've actually kind of ran through my whole thought on International Women's Day and celebrating women twice. Last week at 4 and last week at 5:30. So we are reconnecting today for sober not somber hour. And yeah, I'm just, I'm excited to be here.

So. So one of the celebratory things I've already done this month is gather women together to do a sauna session. And it took place around happy hour time last week at Superior Sauna. And if you check back a couple weeks ago, my whole share was about finding different activities to do around the kind of the, the happy hour time frame, end of day. And I don't know if y'all know, but I'm going to post this later. Vogue actually picked up what is happening in communities all across the country in that sauna is super hot right now for happy hour.

And I just love it. It's like I've known this for like seven years because I've had to find alternate ways and things to do around happy hour time. But the nation's catching on. And so this 4:30 sweet spot. Last week we had 15 women come in for International Women's Day and it was a celebration. So what I did is I guided everyone through the idea in these 12 to 15 minute sessions in the heat as we built resilience. And I chose like a theme of inspiration, like what women in our lives inspire us.

And you'd be surprised. Obviously, celebrities could have been at the top of the list, famous women in history, but for many of the women, it was their mothers, their daughters, other women in their lives that they're very close to. And the stories, like when you're sweating, the tears are also coming, which is actually a beautiful side benefit of being in the sauna. You can just openly cry and no one will know. So that was going on. We talked about women who inspire us. We talked about what it takes to move inspiration into action and for others to see us as women.

And then in the third and final session of the evening, we really moved that into this entrepreneurial or professional career, how we show up in our work and purpose. And so Andrea Jones, my co leader in SANA Social, we really talked about this entrepreneurial operating system, traction, which is our guide for kind of helping Women see that there's a model to, you know, win at life and work in all the hats that we have. And that's, you know, obviously a commonality that we all talked about. Hey Robert, welcome.

Just talking about International Women's Day and actually it was cool because one woman as we, a male boss of hers was a huge Advocate up to 20 years ago in her career. Hey Jules. And she recognized him in that she never had a work experience that felt othered. She felt very empowered. And so it was something that he just kind of did naturally in support of equality and women in the workplace. So we had all sorts of really deep and good conversations and walked away just feeling like we need time like this at least once a week to kind of decompress maybe after work and come together.

The other thing that I did for those of you that are just joining in addition to a sauna experience is that we had non alcoholic beverages. And I don't make that like a huge focus of any event, but it is the underlying way to say hey, we're coming together. Alcohol is not needed. We don't need that to kind of loosen up and connect with each other. We can do that through these other wellness experience and movement type things that really energize us and give us life. So that's what we did. We, we kind of moved through sauna and of course hydration is needed.

So we had some really great NA beverages and it was a whole experience that probably lasted just over two hours from like a 4:30 to 6:30 time frame. And I truly believe that that is a new model for happy hour. And the other cool thing was is that a lot of these women came not knowing anyone else. So you don't always have to do things like in Minnesota, as we tend to do with our college, high school friends and coworkers. We can come into some of these spaces knowing that there are like minded people that care about wellness, their health, maybe choosing not to drink and put ourselves out there and kind of come into a new type of happy hour experience.

So that's what we did. I'm going to post a little bit more about these events and the sauna and hopefully open up to some men who have also started to follow and say, hey, we want to create community with men as well. Because these intimate conversations that are happening in the sauna can happen for anyone. So just to put that out there and say, hey yeah, look for some events and engage with me if you have any questions about hanging out for happy hour. I have loads of different ways to experience this time of the day, decompress, unwind.

And now that it's nice out, a patio is sure calling us somewhere. So thanks for joining anyone that watches after. Yeah, let me know if you have any questions. And I always say, you know, it's, it's Happy hour, it's 5 o'clock somewhere and we're actually just enjoying non alcoholic beverages and options until next week. Have a fantastic week and make your happy hour really happy. Alcohol free and celebratory this next week. We will check in with you next week. Have a great evening.