Mid-coaching session, my client mentioned to me that he really struggles with the idea of connecting with colleagues as he would with family or friends. “After all, what’s the point. These are not my friends. My friends are outside of the workplace.”

I get it. It is hard to bring our full selves to the workplace. After all, work is serious and where “stuff” needs to get done. However, that premise ignores the importance of human relationships and trust. In Conversational Intelligence, @Judith Glaser writes about the importance of creating trust for co-creation, creativity, and conversation to begin. Brene Brown famously researches vulnerability and the bravery it takes to share our fallibility with others.

When we are willing to expose our soft underbelly to others, we allow others to really see who we are and what we stand for. With this risk, trust, relationships have a chance to bloom. Unfortunately, in our COVID landscape, there is a tremendous amount of isolation, anxiety, and loss. It all existed before the pandemic, and it will be there in our post-COVID life as well. Right now, it’s easier to hide, to push down our humanity at the moment we most need to be with others.

Imagine a world in which we felt comfortable sharing with colleagues, “I need help” or “I’m struggling.” Such a world is impossible without feeling connected, without trust. In the Sunday Business section of the New York Times, @Sapna Maheshwari and @Vanessa Friedman confirmed for me what many of my clients and I have been feeling: “We have all hit the wall.” The prolonged pandemic landscape has left us disconnected, anxious, and keenly aware of the myriad of losses that have collected over the course of the last 12 months. As an executive coach, I’m interested in the feelings, and the path forward. Right now that path is human connectivity.

Yes. work is where “stuff” gets done. However, at work is also a community and a team that needs to function in sync. Take a risk. Bring your whole self to work.