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We need a new definition of success—one that harmonizes meaning and money.
Imagine diving into your workday with renewed energy, leaving behind the exhaustion or dread of a monotonous grind.
Traditional beliefs about success and the root cause of burnout are the same:
Prove yourself.
Work harder.
Take care of the business, and it will take care of you.
We’re recycling the mindset and practices that keep us stuck. Our souls need a jumpstart into The Age of Humanity.
Tune in for a new way of working that honors our nervous system and the bottom line, using knowledge of the brain, the Bible, and business. We’ll discuss timeless truths that amplify growth, ignite change, and reshape the world of work. No corporate speak or business BS. Let’s get to the heart of a rewarding career and profitable growth.
We speak human about business.
What’s in it for You?
Value, Relevance, and Impact (VRI): No, it's not a new tech gadget—it's your ticket to making your work genuinely matter to you and your company.
Human-Centric Insights: We prioritize people over profits without sacrificing the bottom line. Think less "cog in the machine" and more "humans helping humans."
I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hesson, your thrive guide leading you into the new Age of Humanity. I’ve navigated the highs and lows of business and life, from achieving over $40 million in sales, teaching thousands of people around the world about leadership, trust, execution, and productivity to facing burnout, divorce, raising a couple of great humans (one with ADHD), and navigating the uncertainty of starting a business.
I’m committed to igniting change in the world by jumpstarting business into profitable growth with the timeless truths of our humanity.
Sound crazy? It’s only crazy until it works.
Hit subscribe to never miss an episode, and leave a review to help other listeners discover our show.
Want insight and advice on your real career and business challenges? Connect with me on social media or email me at rebecca@wethrive.live. Your story could spark our next conversation.
[00:00:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm not coming down. I never left it on the ground. I'm not coming down. I wanna go higher, higher. Welcome back to the Business is Human Podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession and we're here to bring you episodes that blend a meaningful work with profitable success here to steward what I call The Age of Humanity.
[00:00:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I believe if we transform the way we work, we can transform the way that we live. As always, my friendly request. If you like what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss any episode. And leave a review to tell the other humans that they might like it too. Always looking to help you and connect with others.
[00:00:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: All right, let's get into it, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the year again. The seventh annual Stand Tall in Your Story event is March 12th at the Indiana Ballroom. It's an evening event and you can check out all the information at rebeccafleetwoodhession.com and go to the Stand Tall tab In a world that is increasingly more artificial.
[00:01:02] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This event continues to grow and expand because it's so, so human. This year, eight leaders from the Indianapolis community will take the stage for their TEDx like talk, uh, about their real life. And, and this event has grown 600% in the last seven years. Year one, I was just hoping somebody'd show up.
[00:01:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And now here we are setting tables and believing that 500 people are gonna be there. So get your ticket. Get it now before they're sold out. Welcome back to the show. I wanna talk about something that I've been seeing for years and something that I personally have struggled with, lived with, uh, worked diligently to understand, and that is when our outer life and our inner life aren't necessarily aligned.
[00:01:59] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So when our outer confidence, our ability to walk into a meeting, deliver our message, answer questions from our our team on the outside, it looks like we are together. We got it. We got it all together. But on the inside. It's not that we aren't confident on the inside, it's what I'm calling an inner vigilance.
[00:02:36] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's wanting to just make sure everything continues to be okay. And so I've been thinking all day about how to describe this. It's not panic, it's not chaos. It is like a steady. Alertness. It's watching, anticipating, making sure nothing's gonna go wrong, reading people's cues, their faces, their feelings, and not just in the empath kind of way.
[00:03:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I am not saying that's not a thing, it's just, but it's um, you know. Has anybody ever said to you, oh, you handle pressure so well? But if you knew what was happening on the inside, you might not think that. A lot of times people will use the analogy of a duck or a goose that's swimming on a pond. It just looks like they're floating, right?
[00:03:38] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But under the water, they're paddling like crazy to make it look like they're floating. From what you can see, what's interesting. About this is at some point it becomes your pattern. It just becomes the way things are, the way you are, and you don't notice it. In fact, it just is the reason you feel safe.
[00:04:08] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Is because you're paddling like a crazy duck underneath the water, and that's how you appear to be calm and confident because you have made sure that everything is together. So how you speak, how you lead, how you respond, all of that is super composed, but you're also at the same time showing this outer life that is is full of composure.
[00:04:37] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You are running lists in your head and pick up drop off for kids and lunches and next week and in the next hour, and there's just this constant hum of activity that is running nonstop. And ladies and gentlemen, there's a cautionary tale that goes with this, and here's why. Your cellular structure is responding to the paddling, not the gliding.
[00:05:13] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so while it looks from the outside, like you are calm, cool, and collected, your cellular structure is exhausted, and oftentimes when this is the case. You don't sleep very well. You don't recover well After really stressful, hard things, you find yourself picking up every little thing that comes along sickness wise.
[00:05:43] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You may even have struggled with immune disorder or other physical manifestation of the fact that your cellular structure is working overtime for you to look calm. I actually get kind of choked up when I talk about this because I lived it and I'm actually living it a bit right now because I'm getting ready for the seventh Stand Tall in Your Story event on March 12th, there's a ton of details that need to be managed and thought of between now and then. So I'm revisiting some of those old feelings of not being able to rest and just feeling really taxed. And it's the kind of tired that a nap or more sleep doesn't really get because it's cellular, it's deep.
[00:06:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I messaged a friend yesterday who went through a pretty rough experience yesterday. Would've easily been considered a traumatic experience. Um. Her dad passed away when she was very young as a teenager, and she needed to go to a family funeral yesterday that to a family member that she's really close with.
[00:07:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so it triggered all of that old trauma response. And I checked on her today and I said, Hey, how are you feeling today? And she said, exhausted in all caps. I said, I know, that's why I'm checking because basically your cells ran a marathon yesterday. You may have thought, you just sat all day, most of the day, either in church or at the family gathering, but your cells were, were working, working hard.
[00:07:38] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And she said, that's exactly what I feel like. Like I ran a marathon yesterday. And so when we have these big events. We don't give ourselves the grace of recovery time and understanding. That's what's happening and when we live that life of always needing to be on ourselves are just tired all the time.
[00:08:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And we were taught. To show up as the calm, cool, confident person, leader, never let 'em see a sweat, I think was the name of a book, or at least a mantra, right? And so outer confidence isn't the problem. Keep being confident. I don't want you to show up at the next meeting and go, y'all, my insides are just churning.
[00:08:30] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I don't, I, I want you to be calm and confident. I want you to show up. Well, I want you to have all of those things, but when that confidence becomes this protective nature, instead of being grounded. Because it's built on constant self mon mon monitoring and constant emotional restraint. Not feeling like you're able to share real feelings in any other parts of your life.
[00:09:01] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You need, you know, your friends and your family and the people that you can lean on and say, Hey, can we go out and have some coffee? I just need a break. I know you're, if you're always feeling like you need to stay ahead and you never can just pause or rest or be caught off guard, that's not grounded.
[00:09:17] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Confidence, that's vigilance and vigilance has a cellular cost. It keeps you effective, but it also so keeps you super tense. And so when we do this for long enough, like I said, it, it has physical ramifications. And here's the other piece of it. I am one of the most faith-filled person, people, persons, people that you'll ever meet.
[00:09:44] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Like I trust God and I love Jesus, like it's my job. And sometimes that belief that God is in control and I trust him with my entire life. It's always beautiful. That is always a beautiful part of my life, but it doesn't negate the times that I'm feeling this vigilance, and so I have to do both. I have to be faith filled.
[00:10:20] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I need to pray. I need to trust that God is in control of my life and I also need to manage my cellular structure. With nervous system regulation and awareness. When I'm duck on the pond, paddling like crazy on the inside because I know I don't want to get back stuck in that becoming my pattern. Because somewhere along the way it can start to feel like, well, if you have faith, you're just not worrying about anything.
[00:10:55] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, that's a bunch of crap. I mean, I don't worry. A 10th of what I used to, but there are times when my life is just supercharged like it is right now, and I'm feeling it. Y'all and my clients are like this a lot when we start working together and when I dig into it and realize that inner vigilance is at play, that's when we have to really focus in on.
[00:11:27] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The nervous system regulation because the invitation to carry faith through your life doesn't mean you're not sometimes just going through it. So, so don't pretend like you don't need the things that regulate your nervous system from a cellular perspective because you know that God is in control of your life.
[00:11:47] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Both are true. And so there's this, the gap between the belief and. The embodiment of what it means to regulate your nervous system and live through these times is important. So the real question is, can you pause enough to check it? Like, is my innerness vigilant? Am I constantly feeling like I need to be on?
[00:12:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And if the answer is yes. Then it's time to treat your inner life with as much intention as you treat your physical, your workouts, your skincare routine, your highlights every six weeks, your picking out a new glasses, prescription, whatever it is that you do on a regular basis to care for your physical body.
[00:12:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: We need to shift our beliefs and our understanding that your inner life is just as important, in fact, more important than your skincare routine or than your CrossFit workouts with the buddies, and do the things that are going to start to shift that inner vigilance, because even shifting in a a little bit.
[00:13:20] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Will make a huge difference in your cellular health and you'll get smarter, you'll get more creative, you'll get better at your life, your job, you'll be able to handle more. And I know it sounds counterintuitive 'cause I'm asking your inner life to get calmer and less vigilant. The ability to respond to questions, think on your feet at a presentation, all of that gets way better.
[00:13:58] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So almost every episode of this podcast and every conversation, if you've had one with me in coaching in real life, we probably have talked about some aspect of nervous system regulation. I think people are starting to tune it out because it's become such a hot topic and people have just kind of shoved it under the rug because they either don't know how, don't have the intention focused on it to get their pattern shifted to actually do what they need to to regulate.
[00:14:34] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: There's a million reasons. There's something in your belief system that's keeping you from doing it as a pattern, but we gotta find something for you that is going to make this a better priority. Because I don't want you to, all of a sudden, like I did, find yourself so sick that you, your immune system just finally says.
[00:14:59] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I can't do this anymore. I can't. I can't keep my outside looking calm while my inside is paddling us across the pond. And so you know what you need to do. I don't need to record another podcast about nervous system regulation. It's breath work, it's movement, it's stillness, it's calm, it's whatever it is for you.
[00:15:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Whatever your flavor of regulation is. That gets your cellular system to settle. So it's the snow globe analogy. You are constantly shook up even on the, when you look like you got it all together. And so when a snow globe is constantly shook up, you need to sit it down so it can settle. And then once the snow globe settles what's on the inside can see out and what's on the outside can see in.
[00:15:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So your shook up state of paddling like crazy, so you look like you're gliding across The pond is in nervous system activation, cellular activation, and we need to have some safely still activities that get your cells to settle so that you have greater access to how freaking smart you really are. You think you're smart now?
[00:16:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Holy crap. Do you know how on point smart you're gonna be when you get regulated? No. It's gonna feel weird at first because when you're used to being vigilant all the time, calmness feels scary because it's not the pattern that you're used to, and that's when you're self-talk to say no. Oh my gosh, this is actually what peace feels like.
[00:16:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This is new. Then you start to become more accustomed to the new way of life. That's how I knew that I was moving back into a vigilant state recently, is I was having a harder time finding peace, even in my stillness. And I was like, oh, I remember this feeling. Ugh, I don't wanna live back here. I can hang here for a little bit to get through this event, but my gosh, I don't wanna live here anymore.
[00:17:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so. I don't know what those activities are for you. Some of it might be letting go of some perfection expectations, um, parts of your life. That was a big one for me. Some of it may be taking more time to do some breath work in between meetings. Just taking a little pause, taking a walk after lunch. I don't know what it is for you, but you do.
[00:17:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: If you're struggling to figure that out and you want some help, I would be honored to work with you in a coaching capacity to help you do it, or somebody. There's a lot of great coaches out there. It doesn't have to be me, but I ca I love you enough to tell you the truth. You can't keep paddling across that pond looking like you're gliding forever without eventually some event, some circumstance.
[00:18:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's going to give you the wake up call that you don't want. So let's just invoke a little change on our own, shall we? So go into some reflection time, maybe spend some time over the weekend, grab a coffee and a journal and just ask yourself, is my inner life in my outer life aligned or are they very, very different?
[00:18:40] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Not judging it. Not trying to immediately fixing it. Just notice, go in and look at your life with kind and loving eyes. You are not a project to be fixed. You are not a goal to be achieved. You are a beautiful human who's gonna have the rhythm of the ups and the downs, and the difficulty and the joy. It's all part of it.
[00:19:08] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So just spend some time reflecting on your inner and outer life, because confidence doesn't have to come from vigilance. You can achieve amazing leadership things without a complete wreck to your nervous system, without a cost in general to your nervous system. Sometimes it's not even that you need to do things differently.
[00:19:34] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Sometimes the shift is. Letting your inner life rest. 'cause you're still doing the same things. So maybe you just start thinking about all of the things all the time. You're still gonna get the stuff done, I promise. But maybe not thinking about it with a protective, fear-based diligence and vigilance that it is now.
[00:20:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So. I hope this is helpful, and if you have questions about it or you wanna dive deeper into some aspect of it, once you do some reflection, message me. It might make for a great episode, come on the show. Let's talk about it. All right, love you. Be next. I'm not coming down. I never locked it on the ground.
[00:20:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm not coming down. Thanks for being here. You can follow us on Instagram. Business Is Human or TikTok. Rebecca Fleetwood Hession. It's a great way to share some of the clips with your colleagues and friends. All right, make it a great day. Love you mean it.