We often talk about burnout, quiet quitting and disengagement at work, but underneath these trends is something deeper: loneliness. In this episode of Career Sessions, Tracy Brower joins JR to unpack the growing crisis of disconnection at work and why it’s affecting everything from performance to mental health.

They cover:

• Why loneliness is rising in the age of remote work and social media
• Why work is still the #1 place people build friendships
• How leaders can create belonging
• The need for both strong ties and weak ties
• How to build a network that actually leads to opportunities
• Simple ways to feel more connected starting today

This conversation breaks down the science of connection and how it shapes your career, relationships, and sense of purpose.

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Check out the full series of “Career Sessions, Career Lessons” podcasts here or visit pathwise.io/podcast/. A full written transcript of this episode is also available at https://pathwise.io/podcasts/tracy-brower

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Watch the episode here

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The Hidden Cost Of Loneliness At Work, With Tracy Brower

Widespread Loneliness And Work’s Historical Role In Connection

Over the past few years, we’ve heard a lot about burnout, quiet quitting and the changing relationship that people have with work. Underneath many of those conversations is something deeper and arguably more fundamental, which is loneliness and the lack of community that people are experiencing. Research suggests that roughly half of people feel lonely. They lack a sense of belonging in their lives. While that feels like it could be a personal issue, it definitely has real implications for our health and our well-being. That impacts our careers.

At the same time, work has historically been one of the primary places where we as adults form relationships. We form friendships and communities there. Many people meet their closest friends through their workplace. Some even meet their spouses or partners. Themes become support systems and, in some cases, work provides a structure and shared purpose that helps people feel connected.

Some people though are arguing that we’re expecting too much from our workplaces. It’s asking them not to provide income but meaning, belonging and friendship. Others argue that connection at work is exactly what drives engagement, satisfaction and innovation. What roles should work play in helping people build friendships and community? What does it mean for leaders and teams and the way that we think about networking and professional relationships?

My guest Dr. Tracy Brower is a Sociologist and Author of the new book Critical Connections. She explores the science and practice of friendship, belonging, community and inner work. She you look at why human connection matters so much and how the same principles that shape our friendships can also shape how we lead, collaborate and build meaningful professional networks. I’m J.R. Lowry and this is Career Sessions.

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Tracy, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

You are my first second time guests. It also coincide with being about 200 episodes in. It’s opportunity for me to get back and reconnect with people who I spoke with before.

I’m looking forward to our conversation. Thanks for having me back.

Let’s dive eight in. You’ve got a new book to talk about the growing crisis of loneliness and the lack of belonging that a lot of people are feeling. Why is this become such a widespread issue?

Causes Of The Growing Loneliness Crisis

Critical Connections: Build Relationships and Harness the Power of Community in Work and Life

This is a huge issue. I’m right about it in my new book called Critical Connections. The timing is exactly right. We are so lonely. Fifty percent of us say that we’re lonely. Issues around mental health have reached record highs. Those have everything to do with connection, community and belonging. The reason we’re facing a lot of that, first of all, we have elevated convenience over connection. We don’t talk to the barista. We ordered on the app. We don’t talk to the checkout person. We get the delivery at our door.

Those superficial relationships and superficial interactions are highly correlated with the sun’s of community. We’re losing that. That’s one. Another issue is just social media and all of our virtual connections, which is like empty calories. We might have 50,000 connections but to have someone we can count on is a different thing. Some of that has replaced our experiences in real life and the time that we’re investing in real life.

The third issue was about work. Seventy-five percent of people make their friends at work. We feel seen at work. We feel connected at work. Even if it’s not idyllic, work is still a source of that connection and community. As we’ve become more distant, as we’re working hybrid and working remote, we know there are terrific benefits to some of those. Also, that causes us to feel a greater sense of disconnecting and loneliness.

Where their particular demographic that stood out to you, whether it’s young professionals, men, or remote workers that were more effective by this than others?

For sure. The demographics are incredible. Twenty-seven percent of young men say they do not have a friend. That demographic of young man is striking. Older people a lot of times struggle more with loneliness. Adolescents can struggle more with loneliness. In fact, there’s some interesting data at the adolescent level about when people work too hard on having too many friends, versus the quality of friendship. That is true for all of us.

There can also be certain demographic moments where things can be isolating. If we’re starting a new job and we haven’t reached those levels of connection yet. It can be if we move into a leadership role from an individual or contributor role. That moment, that situation and circumstance can cause us to feel more disconnected. Sometimes young parents can feel more isolated. There are definitely both demographic and situational drivers. That all points to how are we intentional about creating some of these connections.

This is a social issue at its core. Why should a leader or an organization care about the idea of loneliness and connection? Especially as it relates to their workforce.

The Business Cost Of Lonely Employees

There is so much data on this topic. There’s brilliant data by an organization called Sunny Workplace. They do work on engagement and retention in the drivers of productivity. They found that for every lonely employee, it costs about $13,300 a year. That’s based on attrition, absenteeism, and loss performance. When we feel connected to other people, we work better. We contribute better. We feel a greater sense of obligation in a positive way.

There’s a business case toward belonging. The other thing is that when people have more friends at work, they tend to perform better. It’s because we have line of sight to who is seeing our deliverable, who is involved in, what we’re creating and how we’re connected. There’s higher level of retention when we feel connected to people. We’ve all seen the data that having a best friend at work is critical or staying with the organization. That is still true. It’s been validated. It’s been replicated.

We’re big part of the reason that we stay with an organization. It’s because we feel connected. Another big reason that people leave is leadership. They don’t feel aligned with leaders. They maybe don’t feel recognized or appreciated by leaders. When leaders are intentional and cognizant about creating those connections among their team members and with themselves. It drives a lot of great outcomes from productivity, retention and performance to things like engagement and commitment.

Why Work Is A Powerful Place For People To Make Connections

You are saying that work is a place where a lot of people tend to make their friends. You said 75% of people say that they make friends at work. Why is work such a powerful place for people to make those connections? How is it changing now relative to maybe what would have been the case in the past?

Work is indeed a critical place that we make connections. There’s a few different reasons for that. One, work is someplace that we have a longer-term relationship. An average people still change jobs and organizations very frequently. We’re up to about 12 to 18 months that people change jobs or change organizations. You still get a sense of continuity over time. You get to know somebody for that 12 months or 18 months. That is a driver of relationships, that continuity. That’s one of the reasons that work is a place we make friends and connections.

Another reason that we make friends and feel connected at work is because we see the outcomes of our work. There’s that line of sight. That makes a difference as well. Another reason that we make friends at work is that we connect but with at a task and a relationship level. Task-wise, I’m counting on you to get the thing done and you’re counting on me to show up. We have that task level relationship that keeps us interacting frequently. Frequency is an element that’s important in relationships.

There’s also a relationship part of the way that we interact at work. We see each other at the coffee machine and I say, “How did your move go?” You see me at the beginning of the meeting and you say, “How’s that new grandbaby?” We have both task and relationship going on. The other thing that makes work an important place where we create connections is because we see ebbs and flows. I see you on the day when you walk in and you’re on top of the world. Things are going well. I see you on the day when you’re struggling and I can reach out and be supportive. All of those elements drive those connections and start to solidify relationships.

Given what you said earlier about the fact that people aren’t talking to their barista. They’re just ordering and picking up as they run through the coffee shop. They’re ordering food online and meeting somebody at the door. All of those things that take away those opportunities for small talk, we’ve lost those. People aren’t going to church as much as you to 1 or 2 generations ago. You don’t have those other mechanisms for forming relationships. It makes work more important. I also had somebody say to me that we’re asking too much of our workplace now. It’s impossible for organizations and leaders to fill in all these gaps. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that debate as well.

The Employer’s Critical Role In Creating Conditions For Well-Being

That is a debate indeed. One of the things that employers are recognizing is how critical their role is, whether they want the rule or not. People are struggling so much with well-being. We talked about not only is loneliness at a record high but mental health issues are to record high. If people aren’t at their best, they can’t bring their best. They can’t perform as well. Workplaces end up having to serve a role in terms of supporting people. It’s being available for people, leading effectively, and being a source of information for people. Also, creating the additions for well-being through those connections, relationships and community.

The important thing too is to think about those outcomes. Maybe an organization wants to help connect people because they care deeply about people and they want to do the right thing. They may recognize, “We’re going to get better retention, better productivity and better performance when we help connect people.” Whether you’re doing this for altruistic reasons or an organization is doing connection and community for less altruistic reasons. It’s still the right thing to do. One other thing that is helpful as I think about the way that we frame this.

I always like to say, “Leaders aren’t responsible for people’s well-being. They are responsible to create the conditions for well-being.” We all have to be responsible for our own well-being, connection and health. All of that. Our organizations and our leaders can take the responsibility to create the conditions that make it better for us in order to do that.

Thinking about my own experience as a leader, it feels like it’s gotten harder. We went to the whole COVID period and we got more willing to talk about mental health, well-being and how everybody was doing. Probably back slit on that a bit since then as everybody’s come back into the office. It does feel like you need to be looking out for people’s well-being and mental health. The expectation is there more than it used to be.

Back to the beginning of my career. Nobody cared whether I was having a good day or bad day. It was a different environment and now we do. It does put a lot of pressure on the workplace and the people who are responsible for that workplace to at least make sure that they’re creating the right conditions. Hopefully, contributing positively, too, but at least not contributing negatively.

You think that’s an important point and a couple of accounts. There is data that 69% of people say their leader makes more of a difference to their mental health than their doctor or therapist and on par with their partner. As if leaders didn’t have enough demands and expectations. We can also say to ourselves, “As a leader, I have a great opportunity to contribute positively.” That’s one.

Another is, it is important that we validate that leader expectation, leader demand, and leader experience. Statistically, less people want to get into leadership. More people are saying, “I might want to leave leadership” If we take a minute and take that deep breath collectively and say, “Leadership is legitimately harder now. Here’s how we’re supporting leaders. Here’s how we’re providing resources for leaders. As well as the people that report to them.” That’s an important piece that leaders feel that level of support and validation.

You talked in the book about trends like quite quitting and job hugging built around an individual having a negative view of work. Whether maybe specific to their situation or a negative view to the idea of work in general. How does that affect their ability to form connections at work or outside of work?

That negative view on work makes a big difference because we tend to think that all work is bad or work is a grind. That will separate us from our opportunity to feel like we’re making a difference. We all have an instinct to matter. We want places to express our talents, capabilities and make a contribution. If we have that negative view, it gets in the way of us fully participating. It gets in the way of us fully feeling like we can provide deliverables and express our best with our teams.

Loneliness At Work: That negative view of work makes a big difference. When we see all work as a grind or something bad, we cut ourselves off from the opportunity to feel like we’re making a real impact.

On the other hand, if we have a more practical view of work, I’m going to have some days that are good and other days that are not so good because work is stressful sometimes. That’s normal. That contributes to our ability to be more realistic in the work environment. Feel more connected with others because we’re coming with our best in mind that day. I don’t think we want to take an idealistic view of work. As we said, they’ll be good days and bad days.

If we recognize that work is an avenue for us to contribute, to express our talents and our skills and to be with other people and meaningful ways. That contributes not only to connection but to our suns of a steam and to our suns of engagement. Feeling engaged at work is a good feeling. We feel like we’re making a difference. All of those contribute to each other, engagement, connection and the performance that were able to contribute.

Is this is a generational thing? It’s been a long time since I started in the workforce but I don’t remember feelings like I just did the idea of work in general. It feels like more people are having that relationship with work. What’s your sense from the research you’ve done?

This is situational because over time we’re thinking a lot harder about, “Do I like what I’m doing? What am I doing? How often am I working?” That is different than a more automatic view of, “I show up. I work from 8:00 to 5:00 every day.” Situationally that has changed. The other interesting thing is if we look at the generational differences. We, in different generations, have similar preferences for what we want from work.

The big difference is our priority order is different. The number one thing that youngest generations want from work is build social capital, get mentoring and build my career. We all care about that but that’s what youngest generations care about. Mid-generation, kids, elder care, partners, threatening the needle, connecting the dots, the number one thing that generation want from work is support for performance.

Get in, get out, do the daycare dash at 5:00, or do the elder care dash at 5:00. Get things done because there’s a lot to do. The number one thing older generations want is to leave a legacy. Be part of organizational memory and mentor others. Again, we all care about those things but it’s the priority order that makes a difference in terms of what we want most. The takeaway message is it’s different by generation. It’s different situationally. We can create the conditions in the work experience for connection that meets lots of these needs across generations and across life stages.

Let’s talk a little bit more about what leaders and organizations have to do to foster this. In the book, you outline five core attributes of a strong community such as purpose, shared values, information flow, belonging and leadership. How can somebody who is in a leadership position in an organization, help bring those ideas into their day-to-day?

This is important. As a leader, when you are imparting purpose, you’re reminding them of how they matter uniquely to the big picture. You’re reminding them how that big picture relates to human beings. Reinforcing a sense of purpose at a personal level is a big deal. It’s being clear about values. We talk about this all the time. When you demonstrate values and that strong commitment to values, that goes such a long way.

Five Core Attributes Of A Strong Community

People don’t believe what you say. They believe what you do. I worked with a leader years ago and he used to say to his team, “You’re              behaving so loudly I can hardly hear what you’re saying.” We know this intellectually, but the other thing is that leaders have a laser on them. People over index on, “What did they say? What did they do? How are they behaving?” When leaders are modeling the way toward that behavior, that makes a huge difference.

Information flow is another one like openness, sharing, and knowing appropriately what to share. One of the things we know and with so much going on in the world, people are increasingly looking to their organizations as a single source of truth. It’s like, “This thing just happened. What does this mean to our organization, to my job and to our roles around here?” When leaders cannot offer certainty but focus on clarity, that makes a huge difference.

When leaders offer belonging in terms of a relationship that they form with individuals and the relationships they foster among the team. The last one is, as a leader, sometimes, you think you have to have all the answers. When leaders demonstrate humility, when their open to other people stepping in, and stepping up when the time is right. That emergent leadership, that shared leadership is also characteristic of great communities and is the way that leaders can put that into practice.

You also talked about the importance of admitting mistakes as a leader and showing that you are open to learning as other attributes that people are looking for that contribute to this sense of community in the workplace.

This is huge. There’s this wonderful concept of intellectual humility. Data suggests that people will trust you more if you are super expert and have a strong point of view and when you have appropriate humility. If you are all super expert strong point of view with no humility, your credibility will decline. People will perceive you as arrogant. They won’t be as open to listening to you. If you can mix those two, it’s cool.

They have a strong point of view and a firm stands and clarity about your passion and your expertise. When you can ask questions, when you can admit mistakes, assume that you don’t have all the answers and that other people have critical information and bring those into the room and into the conversation. Ask for feedback. Those are real drivers of trust, credibility and a strong community. When we can not only feel great direction and feel confident in our leaders. Also know that our leaders are open to input and open to feedback that helps us drive forward as a community more effectively and build those relationships more effectively as well.

With respect to friendships, not necessarily your Leader relationship. You talk about the importance of a few things including humility, transparency and consistency. We’ve talked about a few of these already but maybe not consistency in terms of how that factors in what would also be relevant to a leader relationship, too.

One of the main things we want from leaders is presents and accessibility. Be in distractible. Be present with me. Be accessible. You don’t have to be 24/7. With presence and accessibility, we build trust. Predictability and consistency is critical in all relationships in building trust. That is one of the biggest variables that builds trust. We want legibility. We don’t value as much. The people who are great poker players, we might value them but it might be harder to develop a relationship. If they’re great poker players. We can never read them.

As humans, we prefer people we can read. We prefer people who are more understandable to us. Predictability and consistency is part of that legibility. Neurologically, we prefer certainly. We shy away from ambiguity. When we have a leader that we at least know what to expect, it may not be everything that we want, but at least we know what to expect in terms of predictability and consistency. That’s a big deal. It’s interesting ideas. Consistency, predictability, accessibility, and presence go a long way in all relationships including leader relationships.

Intellectually, when you work with somebody who’s all over the map, you have no idea what to expect. At least, when you’re working with somebody who’s consistently a jerk, you know that’s what you’re going to be dealing with and you’re ready for it. If you don’t know whether you’re going to get the jerk or the cheerleader on any given day. How do you even mentally prepare yourself for that? That made sense to me in that context.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the learnings that we can take away from your book in terms of networking. You talk about bonding relationships and bridging relationships. It would be great if you could define those for us. Also talk about for somebody who wants to build a professional network. How should they think about this idea of similarity and diversity? Which are inherent in those bridging and bonding terms.

The Importance Of Bridging And Bonding Social Capital

I love this concept of bridging and bonding. Bonding social capital is when we have social capital relationships. People we can get advice from and we can get support from within our team. That is bonding social capital. Bridging social capital is those same kinds of things outside of our team like in another department, another organization or another part of our lives. We need both bonding and bridging social capital.

I love the concept of super high ways and dirt roads. If you have a relationship with somebody in your organization in another department and you have coffee with them now and then. That’s cool. That’s awesome. It’s a dirt road. You’re carving a dirt path back and forth as you get together for coffee. If you have super high highway relationships in an organization, that means that lots of people in my department have relationships with lots of people in your department. We’re pulling each in. We’re getting together and getting advice. We’ve got all these relationships across the organization. That is more like a superhighway.

That gives you tons of social capital, both bridging social capital and bonding social capital. You have more people that you can rely on. That tends to create resilience in relationships and in the organization. You’ve got all those sources of support, advice, ideas, suggestions and performance. It’s cool to think about both bridging and bonding social capital. As we think about similarities and differences, our human instinct is to be attracted to people who are more similar to us. That’s called homophily. It’s just instinctual.

People who look like us, sound like us and think like us tends to be our first birds of a feather, stick together behavioral preference. There is research that went about 50% of our network is different than us. That tends to be the greatest mix for well-being and happiness. We need those people who are just like us and speak the same language literally and figuratively. We need people who challenge us, different from us, press us, help us to think differently and challenge our thinking. That both difference and similarity is a big driver of meaningful connections and meaningful communities.

As we’re building networks, we want people who are cheerleaders. We want people who are safe haven support that we can let down our here and lean on their shoulder. We also want challenging relationships. People who will tell us, “You can do better in. You have spinach in your teeth. I have an idea for you about how you can be better.”

We need people who are advocates for us. We need people who are different from us. That we can learn from and think differently about ourselves so that we can be even better at expanding our capabilities. Bridging and bonding social capital as well as both similarities and differences help us not only build strong communities, but also be more resilient ourselves and in our organizations.

The Concept Of Strong Ties And Weak Ties

You also brought up another concept about strong ties and weak ties that I thought was relevant as well to the idea of networking.

You can think about your connections in concentric circles closest in. You have your 2 or 3 closest people and your 5 closest and you’re 10. Out to about 150 is our maximum number of connections based on our neurology. Weak ties are those ties that are further out. They tend to be statistically the sources for new opportunities, new jobs, and promotions. Even opportunities in our personal life or are volunteer life.

The reason for that is, by definition, they have access to information that are closer ties don’t. Our closer ties tend to have access to the information that similar to the access we have. Weak ties are the people that we may not know as well. We know them well enough for them to call and say, “I saw this cool opportunity, or did you know about this?” Maybe to advocate for us like, “You should think about so and so. You should know someone so and so.” Those weak ties tend to connect us. That’s for new opportunities come from very significantly.

People talk about the importance of looking at your second order connections in LinkedIn because they will have visibility into a broader range of opportunities than your first order connections who are most likely to be in your function or industry. It makes sense. A lot of people need that prodding to think more broadly because they have this negative view of networking.

We can think about more positive view of networking if we’re thinking less about what we’re trying to get and more about what we’re trying to give. Sometimes it’s hard to ask for help or ask for something. When we’re more focused on, “How can I be curious about somebody? How can I be empathetic? How can I understand more about their situation and make a contribution to them?” That can help take some of the it out of networking because we know there’s definitely that feeling about networking.

When I think too, it’s less about being transactional and more about being long-term in our relationships. This isn’t just like, “I want to capture as many business cards in the conference.” That’s super transactional. That’s about quantitative networking. If we can think about, who can I meet? Who can I learn from? Who might I have something to contribute to? That helps with the networking outlook.

Simple Actions To Build Stronger Relationships At Work

For somebody who wants to build stronger relationships at work that they could start right away. What are two or three simple actions that you would recommend?

One, lean in and get to know people. Invite somebody for coffee. Start up a conversation with somebody when you’re in line in the café. Lean into creating those connections at work. Another thing we can do is take initiative and raise your hand to do the next project or the adjacent project in the organization. It’s a myth that we bond most through team building that is purely social. It’s great. Escape rooms or pasta making classes are all great. Keep doing those.

We bond more significantly when we’re doing tasks together. We’re rolling up sleeves, solving problems, and creating new ideas or new innovations. Take the initiative to raise your hand to get involved in that next project. It’s both taking the initiative socially like, “Let’s have coffee. Would you be my mentor?” From a task relationship as well.

Loneliness At Work: We bond more deeply when we do tasks together—rolling up our sleeves, solving problems, and creating new ideas or innovations.

For somebody who wants to just work more generally on building connections and building community, any last thoughts that you would have come from your book or otherwise?

We need to be empowered. Sometimes, we wait for the phone to ring or wait to get invited onto the project. When we realized the power of our personal agency, when we reach out or take action, not only is that correlated with mental health. It’s also correlated with more opportunity for connection. That other thing to remember is it’s a flywheel. If we feel super disconnected, it can be hard to take this first step over the threshold figuratively speaking.

When we take that first step, it gets easier and it will get easier. It will build our social skills. People are reporting statistically that social skills are declining. They feel less confident. They feel less ability to connect but the more you connect, the easier it is to connect and will build that muscle again. Both as individuals and teams and as a society.

I hope we build those muscles again because having a world where everybody just sits in their house or there’s everything they need or works remotely and doesn’t talk to anybody is clearly not good for humanity. Sometimes, it feels like that’s a direct work at it.

I know. It’s so true. It’s that old movie Wall-E, where Earth is destroyed and everybody leaves. They’re just sitting watching VR headsets in their athleisure suits. That’s not where we want to go. We need to be connected and that will make us our best.

It will. Thanks for being with me. It’s great to have you back as a guest, Tracy. Congratulations on your new book Critical Connections. I wish you well.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

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What are the practical takeaways for my discussion with Tracy? First, relationships are not a soft part of work. As she said in the conversation, there are linked to performance. One of the big themes from her work and her book is a connection isn’t a nice to have. When people feel a sense of belonging, when they trust their leaders, when they feel known by their colleagues creates engagement, collaboration, innovation and retention. That drives performance. Relationships ultimately are key part of how work gets done well.

Second, work is still one of the most powerful places to build communities. Seventy-five percent of people say that they build friendships through work. Even though people sometimes say that works shouldn’t be responsible for helping people create friendships. The reality is, shared goals, repeated interactions, mutual challenges, rolling up sleeves and the things that Tracey was talking about toward the end.

Those are important ways for these relationships to develop. Organizations can’t manufacture friendships. As she said, they can certainly create the environments or connection is more likely to happen. People are more likely to feel that good sense of healthy well-being. Doing that is ultimately to their advantage given the link to performance.

Third, strong careers depend on both close relationships and broad networks. What we are talking about toward the end there about the importance of having strong ties and weak ties, similar relationships and diverse relationships. People who are close to you can provide trust and supporting collaboration. People who are less close to you can provide new ideas, information and opportunities. The people who are most resilient and managing their career cultivate all of these kinds of relationships.

Finally, connection is built through small behaviors. Not big gestures. The traits that make somebody a good friend, being consistent, open, humble, and curious are the same things will make somebody a trusted colleague or a leader. Building meaningful professional relationships comes down to everyday behaviors such as listening well, showing appreciation, sharing credit, making people feel valued and heard. I invite you to subscribe to Career Sessions on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can all subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you found this discussion enlightening, please sign up for my membership community, which is called PathWise and our newsletter, which is called pathWisdom. Thanks.

Important Links

• Tracy Brower
• Tracy Brower on LinkedIn
• Tracy Brower on X
• Tracy Brower on TikTok
• Tracy Brower on Instagram
• Critical Connections
• Sunny Workplace
• PathWise on LinkedIn
• PathWise on Facebook
• PathWise on YouTube
• PathWise on Instagram
• PathWise on TikTok
• PathWise on Twitter

About Tracy Brower

Dr. Tracy Brower is a PhD sociologist studying happiness, work-life fulfillment and the future of work. She is a Global 50 Thinker and her new book, Critical Connections, is available for preorder now. She is also the award-winning author of The Secrets to Happiness at Work and Bring Work to Life. She is the vice president of workplace insights with Steelcase and a senior contributor to Forbes and Fast Company. Her work has been translated into 25 languages and her TEDx talk has been viewed 8.6 million times. You can find her on LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Instagram or at tracybrower.com.