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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: 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 meaningful work with profitable success here to steward what I call the age of humanity. 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. Alright, let’s get into it, shall we? Welcome back to Business is Human, where we bridge the best of brain science and the Bible and business to bring clarity and courage and compassion to our lives and our leadership.
[00:01:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Today, I’m going to tell another story of a client that I work with and what she’s going through. And again, I’m going to do it anonymously because our coaching conversations are very much, and what happened here stays here. But there are lessons that we can all learn, and so we want to be able to share those with you here on the podcast. So this particular client has been making moves in a really beautiful way. She has moved to a couple different companies over the last several years, all for the right reasons. And she’s in an organization now that she really, really cares about the mission. She cares about the people, she cares about all of it. She’s found this real connection and passion for it. And as we’ve been working together, as she’s in this new role, there was an opportunity to go and propose a promotion, not just because she wanted the promotion, which it’s great, it’s more money, it’s more responsibility, because she knew that in order to impact the customers and to truly make a difference, that she needed more responsibility to make some changes.
[00:02:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And she was unable to get the work done from the position that she was in prior. And so we worked together and she went in and she proposed it and they said, absolutely, we’d love for you to take on this extended role, this elevated role. And yay, there was celebration, there was champagne. It was so good. Yay. And then she dug into it and it’s like you open it up and you look behind the curtain and you’re like, oh my. This is way more of a mess than I thought it was going to be. And that happens, I’m sure happened to many of us. And so now you’ve got this weight of decisions that need to be made, and this is where my client is right now, and it’s affecting not just her work, but her entire life because we are one person. And when there’s massive amounts of stress and frustration and big decisions, it has impact on our nervous system.
[00:03:35] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And our nervous system has impact on all of our relationships. And that’s just the truth. So if you’ve been in that situation where you’re like, oh, this is bigger and messier than I thought it was going to be, this is for you. So let’s break it down. I’ve pulled it apart into some things that I think will be helpful for most people in career situations. So the first one is the indecision that stress of should I or shouldn’t I? Should I let this person go? Should I reorganize this? Should I confront that leader? And oftentimes we give ourselves a lot of time to discern whether it’s the right decision to make. I need to make sure I do my due diligence. I need to make sure that I listen. Yes. But yes. And because the neuroscience says that the stress of uncertainty is worse for our nervous system than to make the hard decision and to move forward.
[00:04:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And it’s my experience over the last 30 some years in business as a leader and a coach that most of the time when you have an inclination that that person needs to be let go, you are right. But then we move around looking for reasons that we hope we’re wrong because nobody really wants to have that conversation and it’s hard. And so we look for reasons to make sure we’re right because we don’t want to make the wrong decision. This is somebody’s life. But I can promise you that the person that needs to be let go is going to be better off in a position where they can be successful. And so nobody’s really winning by taking too much time to make that decision. Your body perceives that time of limbo of should I or shouldn’t I as danger? It’s like standing in the middle of a busy street and cars are buzzing by and you’re not sure which way to go.
[00:05:50] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, you’re going to get hit by a car if you just stay there. You got to make a decision. And once you make decision, then your nervous system says, okay, let’s get to work. And then it has purpose. Then it knows what to do next. But the uncertainty, that’s not good for anybody. The Bible says a double-minded person is unstable, and that’s true. I don’t know what to do when we stay stuck in indecision. That’s instability for you and the team. So yes, do your due diligence, but at some point, the most loving thing that you can do for yourself, for your team, for that person, your customers, is to make the call and move forward. So couple of reflection questions for you. The first one is, where am I avoiding a decision? Because I’m afraid of the discomfort. Did an episode last week about love and fear.
[00:06:55] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so what would it look like to move forward with love and making the decision for everybody involved? Because once that decision is made would immediately lighten the emotional load. So what decision do you have on your plate right now that once you made it would immediately lighten the emotional load that you’re carrying? I’ll give you an example from my life. I just shut down the Badass Women’s Council online shop that I’ve had for years and years and years and years, and it just isn’t aligned with where I’m taking the business. It was taking a lot of time and money and it really wasn’t making me money, but I liked it. It was fun when I see people out wearing their Business is Human merch. And always that was fun, but ultimately I just kept going back and forth, should I close it? Should I not close it?
[00:07:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Should I close it? Should I not close it? And finally, once I just said I’m done with it, it just felt so much better. Yes, do I still love to see people wearing their merch? Yeah, absolutely. But it just feels good to having made the decision and moved on. All right, the next section today from this client’s example is when we do need to let people go, we can do that with honor and respect because not everybody is going to thrive in every role. And sometimes it looked like they were going to be a good fit. In this case, this client didn’t make the decision to promote this person. And in one of our coaching sessions, I said, based on what you’ve seen, would that have been your choice? And she said, absolutely not. And I said, okay, so let’s just dig into it. But not every person that you think is going to be good at a role is.
[00:08:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so that doesn’t make them bad. It doesn’t make you mean or cruel. It means it’s time to get some clarity on the situation to shine some light on the situation. We can let people go with honor, but when we delay these decisions out of fear or guilt, we’re often hurting everybody involved. You, the person that needs to be let go, the team. They need to be moving on into something that they can feel fulfilled. And to win and thrive. Actually, I put together a little bit of a script and listen, I use the term script lightly. It’s just a guideline. So if you need to terminate someone, you might say something like, this is a hard conversation. And I want to approach it with respect and honesty. After evaluating the needs of the team and where we’re headed, I’ve come to the decision that this role is no longer the right fit moving forward.
[00:09:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This isn’t about blame, it’s about clarity. You deserve to be in a job where your strengths shine. I want to support you in making that transition with dignity and care. So let’s talk about the transition. Own the decision. Don’t talk about how it’s hard for you because it’s not about you. You’re making this decision. Yes, it’s difficult, but you’re doing it with respect and honesty. So this is a great place to use AI, use ChatGPT or something to say, hey, here’s the situation. I need to terminate this person. Give me some language that allows me to do it with respect and honor. It’s a great tool to use for that. Highly recommend.
[00:10:50] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So here’s some reflection questions. When you need to lead with both courage, making the tough decision, and compassion, because this is a human and this is their lives, and we are respectful and loving questions. Am I confusing the guilt that I feel about making this decision with compassion? Am I delaying it, calling it compassion, when really I just don’t want to make it and I feel guilty that I have to make this decision? That’s a good reflection question. Another one is, how can I show honor and make the necessary decision? Business is going to have tough decisions, y’all. It just is. And if we can handle them with respect and passion and honor, we leave people whole and able to move forward better.
[00:12:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Now, the next thing that is coming up for this client is when we are under massive amounts of stress and activation in our nervous system, that is impacting our cellular structure. So our cellular structure goes home with us. We don’t leave it at the office, so the stress doesn’t stay at the office. And so because our nervous system activation blocks connection, we’re going to probably have some struggles at home with our relationships if we’re not really, really aware of this situation.
[00:13:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So sometimes this pressure of leadership and tough decisions spills over into our personal life, and then all of a sudden our personal relationships feel tense and we’re more irritable and less patient and less connected. It’s better to talk about it. It’s better to allow them into what’s happening, not to take your work home and dump about it and moan and groan about it, but to say, you know what? I’m feeling really dysregulated and I know that I’m not as patient and as kind, and I need to take some time and rest and reflect and go for a walk and get calmed down. And then I’ll come back and we can have a better discussion. Just talk about it. Be open about it, because it’s not that you’re being short and frustrated with that person because you don’t care. It’s because your nervous system is overloaded.
[00:14:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And when that happens, your body just naturally goes into this survival mode and it’s harder to connect. So just name it and then do what you need to do to regulate your nervous system in these times of high stress and big decisions. So one of the things that’s counterintuitive is when we’re under a lot of stress, we go into that work harder, just get through it mode. And we don’t take as many breaks. We do away with our regular morning routine. We do away with the things that we need even more in these times of high stress. And then it just crashes. And so when you know you’re under a big stressful situation, that’s when you need to double down on your regulation activities, morning stillness, going for a walk, taking breaks, breathing, moving your body, eating healthy, all the things. That’s when you need to double down on those, not dismiss them.
[00:15:27] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And if there’s one thing that I see that people make a mistake on, it’s this, oh, I’m so busy. There’s so much going on. I’m not taking my morning walk. Yep, that’s going to come back to bite you. Promise, promise, promise, promise. Because your nervous system doesn’t lie. It doesn’t deal with that. It’s going to break down. So rest is required. It’s a non-negotiable. So if you want your personal relationships to stay strong and intact and wonderful in the midst of elevated stress and pressure, you’re going to have to manage your regulation time.
[00:16:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Okay, reflection. Where is stress keeping you from being present in your relationships? And what kind of rhythms of regulation do you need to restore? It’s never a bad idea to restore the rhythms or restoration. Ever. Taking time for those things will always pay dividends, promise.
[00:16:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Now, the next area of conversation I had with this client was when she pulled back the curtain and realized it was messy back there, super messy, I said, okay, we’re going to treat this as a 90 day sprint. Because if you think about all that needs to be done as an ongoing forever and ever endeavor, that will overwhelm you in big ways. So we’re going to say, you know what? Over the next 90 days, what can you say no to? So you can go in and do some triage and some immediate relief and help in fixing some things. We looked at the date on the calendar, we’re like, okay, so on—I can’t remember what the date was—but on October the second, we’re going to then pause and say, how did it go? Where are we at after we’ve given ourself a chance to really dig in and make some changes?
[00:17:20] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That way you’re honoring your nervous system’s need for rest and digest. You’re saying, okay, yep, we’re going to go hard for the next 90 days. Now, I’m not talking against what I just said about you need to rest or reflect each day. Your nervous system needs regulated like always, forever and ever. Amen. And when you’re in these times of high stress situations, if you say to yourself, I’m going to stay in this, go, go, go for 90 days, it’s better on your nervous system to know there’s a finish line for this sprint. And then you pause and you go, okay, what went well? What still needs to be fixed? And then you craft your next plan for whatever you need to do for that particular team or that situation. Because when everything feels broken, we have to hone in and focus on a few things that we can win at and get some ripple effect from those decisions to start making things better overall.
[00:18:17] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Identify the one to three most broken parts of this. Work on those, and then pause and then say, okay, now what do we need? This sprint structure gives your nervous system a clear beginning and a defined focus and an end point where we’re going to reevaluate it. We just put it into this little 90 day timeframe. It’s like the difference between I got to go out there and just tread water and feel like I’m drowning forever, or I’m going to go out there and I’m going to fix this thing and then I’m going to come back in on the shore and I’m going to rest and then see what else to be done. So it’s movement to create momentum, not just a constant state of frustration.
[00:19:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So reflect on your business. What are some major one to three, no more, issues, problems that are screaming right now for your attention that are going to have huge impact? Could you put a 90 day sprint on those? Yeah. Do you have probably a lot of other things that people are expecting from you? Sure, fine. But it’s okay sometimes to do other things with less intensity. So you can really focus on those one to three big things that are going to give you a strong ripple effect of impact. And how will you mark the end of that sprint with some real reflection and celebration?
[00:19:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so that’s what my client and I are doing. I’m like, okay, after this 90 days, we’re going to celebrate with some wine and charcuterie and we’re going to reflect on how did it go, where are we at, what needs to happen next? And this works, y’all. I’ve used it enough personally and with my clients, I can promise you that that will help your nervous system get through these hard times.
[00:20:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Alright, I hope these stories are helpful for you. I will continue to bring them to you as they pop up. Alright, love you, mean it. Make it a great day. Thanks for being here. You can follow us on Instagram @businessishuman or TikTok @rebeccafleetwoodhession. It’s a great way to share some of the clips with your colleagues and friends. Alright, make it a great day. Love you, mean it.