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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.
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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. I’m Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, and today I want to continue on the theme that we’ve been on the last several episodes around what it takes to create a safe working environment or safe within ourselves.
[00:01:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: We did a reflection episode last week to do that because from a nervous system perspective, safety is the precursor to growth in great decisions. And so we’ve been talking a lot about what it takes for ourselves. Like I said, the reflection episode last week was all about that and many of those before. But today I want to talk about what does the business do that unknowingly, unnecessarily, usually not in a malicious intent kind of way, but still does things that make us feel unsafe. And so if you’re a leader, these are great to take a real hard look at yourself and your business and what changes that you might be able to make. And if you’re listening and you don’t feel like you have influence over these, I want you to think about what it requires to influence change and go back maybe to last week’s reflection episode and what can you do in the midst of some of these that are making you feel unsafe?
[00:02:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Because we never want to allow ourselves to be the victim because if you allow yourself to be a victim, then you’re always looking for a villain and you’re always looking for somebody to blame. That’s not what we do around here. But there are always things that you can do. It might be that you need to find a new job, I hope not, or maybe that’s the best thing for you. But please don’t let these, if you’re not a leader, allow you to feel like a victim because that’s not the stance that we create our lives from. And if you want to talk about any of these and how you could handle it, message me. I’m happy to respond. Rebecca, at We Thrive Live, it’s my email, so I’m going to walk through 10 business norms, things that have become, that’s just the way it is that are actually undermining our ability to feel nervous system safe.
[00:03:23] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And the only way that we can change this is to bring it to light and recognize it for what it is. So you may not like it, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. So all of this is grounded in the science behind human nervous system safety. Alright, let’s dig into it a bit and again, a little bit more context. When you understand how the nervous system works, it’s that context that then you can see these for what they really are and how they lead to burnout, disconnection from people to people to your customers to why the business really matters. And really they are designed for more performance, but they have the exact opposite effect and actually cause underperformance. So with each one of these, I’ll share with you the science behind it, a little bit of the biblical truth behind it, and then we’ll look at some practical ways to restore safety and create greater sustainability in your work life.
[00:04:39] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I don’t want to just leave you hanging with the problems. Okay? Alright. Number one, back to back meetings with no recovery time, y’all. The science is the science is the science is the science, so don’t shoot the messenger. The nervous system needs space between stressors, which meetings typically are to let our snow globes settle. That metaphor we’ve been using for a while around here, which is to regulate our nervous system and back-to-back meetings, keep you in sympathetic activation, fight or flight, which then leads to decision fatigue and emotional depletion. So decision fatigue by about your second or third meeting, your decisions are crap and your emotional depletion means you don’t even care that your decisions are crap. And then you start to look at your colleagues and your customers like their idiots because your emotions are depleted. So disconnection, I don’t make the rules, I just share them. So this is just a fact. So if this is what’s happening in your organization, we have to figure out a way to right the ship, if you will.
[00:06:03] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I want to give real examples. I think this one doesn’t need much example. Most of us are like, oh my gosh, I’ve been there. But if you’ve booked a team, this happens all the time when you get groups together, especially those that are geographically dispersed. And so because you have paid for the flights and the food and the hotels, you want to maximize every single second that you have that team together. So you book ‘em for back to back meetings from 7:00 AM until dinner that night, it’s not really working for you. There’s a TikTok going around right now, which probably is also an Instagram reel of a professional. I’ve seen ‘em with men and women where they’re opening their hotel room door and it says the 20 minute break between meetings and dinner is a real deal and it shows the person just collapsing face down on the hotel bed.
[00:07:01] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I’ve been there so many times where you’re like, I have to freshen up for dinner in 18 minutes and be back in another ballroom for chicken and crappy wine if you’re lucky. I worked in an organization for a while that didn’t even have that, so then I had to use my 18 minutes instead of resting to run to the bar back in the day. I’m just saying this isn’t working. So we’ll get to a little bit more later about what to do about it. Number two, always on culture where instant replies are expected. Here’s the science. This creates hyper vigilance, the feeling that you need to monitor everything all the time. That is a hallmark of a dysregulated nervous system where you’ve gotten to the point usually from number one that now you can’t relax, you just can’t find calm because you believe that you always need to be available.
[00:08:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Examples, slack messages at 11:00 PM weekend, emails, comments that say, just circle back real quick tonight if you could. You’re never off. You’re never taken a break because you’re afraid to. And over time and then not much time, it crushes creativity and innovation. Problem solving crushes it, and I don’t say that with hyperbole or metaphorically, I say that with science. So the longer you spend stuck in activation, your nervous system, your brain has to shut off creativity and problem solving because it needs to survive because your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between being chased by a tiger and having a demanding boss. Full stop. Love you mean it. Love you enough to tell you the truth is what I do.
[00:09:21] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Number three, ambiguous expectations or vague metrics or no metrics. I’ve had a couple clients recently that took new positions and they’re like, you’re not going to believe this. They don’t even have goals. Hello? What? Yikes. The science is that the brain perceives uncertainty as a threat. So if you’re not sure what the goal is, you’re always wondering if you’re in trouble or not in trouble. If you are doing what you’re supposed to be or not doing what you’re supposed to be, but we don’t know how we’re being measured or what success looks like, the stress response kicks in. There’s a bible verse that says, where there is no vision, the people perish. Clarity brings safety. Proverbs 29 18, in case you wondered, we need clarity, we need it. If a manager is told, Hey, I need you and your team to go drive innovation and they don’t have any direction or metrics or context, the story around who’s the innovation for and why does it matter to the person you’re serving as a customer and to us, then that manager is going to constantly doubt.
[00:10:28] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: They’re going to be seeking more meetings to get reassurance. And then you’re going to be frustrated that they keep asking for meetings and the leader may even think, what’s wrong with them? Are they not capable? Why can’t they do what I told them? Well, you didn’t really tell them, you just gave them. It’s like Facebook when people put their vague messages on there, oh, it’s just wrong. It ends up causing a ton of overwork because people are overworking to try to feel safe. They’re trying to guess accurately, which means I have to do a lot more because I’m not sure, not good. Number four, I don’t see these a lot anymore, but they still lingering around public performance reviews or stack rankings. The science shame is a powerful nervous system disruptor. Public comparison activates the threat response, moving us out of connection, connection to each other that we need to do our jobs well, connection to the clients that we need to serve well, connection to even ourselves, and it puts us into a defense mode.
[00:11:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It’s not good y’all. I’m just here to share the science. You can argue if you want, but the science is clear. If employees are ranked, what typically happens if you’ve not been a part of a stack ranking or these kind of reviews, employees get ranked on a scale like a one to five each quarter, and it’s humiliating. It’s not motivating. Motivation comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose, autonomy. I have choice. And when you’re being ranked and evaluated against your peers instead of based on your uniqueness, it shuts you down. It does not build you up. It creates resentment and fear versus performance. Now, you may get some quick hits on performance, people rallying around trying to beat out their peers, but over time you’ve created a culture that really lands on the first three that we’ve already said aren’t good. People will just overwork to make sure that they’re not scored poorly and then everybody loses.
[00:12:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It’s not good. God didn’t rank us. It’s not the way we’re designed. Number five, rewarding overwork as a badge of honor. The science, chronic overwork, floods the body with cortisol. Those are the facts long-term. This leads to burnout, memory loss, and even physical illness. So oftentimes when I hear people talk about their memory not being great anymore, and it’s usually kind of in a joking way and people getting older, I can’t really remember. Usually it’s not about your age. If you’re in a business capacity like this, it’s often about your overwork, which then floods your body with cortisol, which then wrecks your hormones, which then absolutely leads to memory loss, especially when it’s rewarded. So if there’s a team that they all worked 60 hours a week to solve this big problem or to hit this goal, and now they’re being led up in front of the company and getting these big awards or even just applause, you’re rewarding the wrong thing.
[00:14:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: We need to reward those that get their work done with excellence and go home at a decent hour and spend their time with their family. And if you haven’t created an environment that allows anybody to be able to do that, it’s a problem because behind the scenes, those employees that work those 60 hours a week that are getting the applause are thinking, dear God, I hope I don’t have to do this again to be great here. Because they’re exhausted, they’re not making great decisions, and their families and their lives are suffering. And that is not really worthy of applause y’all. Number six, leadership. That withholds context or transparency. When we don’t know the context, we don’t know who it’s for, why it matters, how the decision was made, it triggers fear. Our brain start to fill in the blanks of the uncertainty with worst case scenarios, negativity bias is real, especially in the business community.
[00:15:02] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Trust is at an all time low in the business community. And so our brain is just wired to survive. And so if it doesn’t know the whole story, it can’t just leave it alone. It has to go consider what the real story might be, which is usually it must be bad or they would’ve told me and it just creates this story in our heads. That’s not great. So let’s say that all of a sudden you come into work and you log in and there’s an complete organizational restructure. I know companies that do this every quarter and especially when there’s no explanation, employees are just like, why? What’s going on? And then the rumors get cooking. Everybody’s slacking each other and messaging each other. What do you think it is? I don’t know. What do you think it is? And nobody’s working when they’re doing that and they don’t even want to go back to work because you’ve triggered their fight or flight response, and so they feel like they’re surviving.
[00:16:08] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So it’s really hard to go in and make good decisions and connect well with your customers if you’re surviving. So it’s not good. Number seven, when we have those, we got to just fix the people training sessions without really fixing the systems in the organization. And this is a broad example, but as somebody who lived and worked in the training and development world for 20 plus years, this is real. A training is booked on how to be more resilient, but yet the systems in the company are so broken that you’re training them to survive the systems that they work in. Or there’s a really toxic leader that is causing a lot of chaos and we’re going to send people to a resilience training instead of dealing with the toxic leader. That’s not good. I’ve actually said to clients back when I worked in the training and development world, when I sold training for the Franklin Covey organization, and they would say, Hey, I need you to come in and train on blah, blah, blah, whatever it was.
[00:17:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I would say, okay, great. Give me some context. Where’s this showing up? Why is it showing up? And they would tell me the story about Bob because Bob did this and Bob’s doing that. Or maybe it’s Barb, it doesn’t have to be Bob. And I’d say, oh, okay, we’re bringing 50 people in for this training from all over the country. Yeah, well, why don’t we just go work with Bob or Barb with some one-on-one coaching instead of flying everybody into a training room and taking them away from their jobs and spending a ton of money when everybody knows that they’re there because of Bob or Barb and they’re going to just be sitting in the training instead of listening to me and taking any of it to heart, they’re going to be like, yep, hope Bob gets it because I’d like to get back to work.
[00:18:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I wish this wasn’t true, but it is. Number eight, ignoring emotional signals in the workplace. Science emotions aren’t fluffy extras. They are neuro biological data. We’re supposed to have them and not just to go home and love on our kids or our dog, then they’re a part of the system. We don’t get to unplug them to go into work and then plug them back in when we get to the garage to go into our house. And when we ignore emotions, we immediately sever connection and then that increases internal stress. Here’s an example. If a leader avoids discussing layoffs and just wants people to stay positive while the team is grieving the colleagues that they’ve lost and bemoaning that they now have extra work to do, that emotional disconnect fosters mistrust. Two more. Number nine, when we over-index on control and micromanagement and surveillance, that’s become a real thing.
[00:19:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Don’t even get me started, like tracking how many emails, what time you’re online, when you log off your system, like we’re just supposed to be tethered to our emails as a measure of productivity and success. I just can’t, with how crazy that is. The science agency, freedom, autonomy, the feeling that you can actually have effect on your environment is core to the nervous system. When you’re micromanaged, your nervous system knows you’re not safe because you’re not trusted. It’s a threat. And so it shuts down because it’s surviving. And again, when it shuts down, it cuts off. Creativity, innovation, decision-making connection. It cuts off the ability to do good work with your clients or answer the phone with any amount of care and concern for people. It just does. I’m just here to tell you the science, the time tracking software that I’m seeing more and more of, some of them take screenshots every five minutes to see what you’re working on.
[00:20:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Employees feel like children, they’re looking for jobs. Y’all, if you’ve put tracking software on most of the employees in your organization would leave in a minute if they got the opportunity that worked for them. I’m just saying it’s true. Number 10, when we celebrate rapid without giving people any time to process the change, we need time to process change. Change is disruptive. Is it necessary in business? Yes. But let’s understand the science behind it. Change even good change triggers a stress response. It triggers activation in our nervous system. So when we don’t have time to really process the change and integrate it and adjust to it, the nervous system just feels activated. So especially after mergers, acquisitions, when leadership just like, okay, ready, go boom. And the next day you’ve got a new logo and new colors and a new shirt got delivered to you, and employees are just like, wait, what?
[00:21:38] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I can’t log into that system anymore. I don’t panic. Even if it’s a good thing, even if it’s going to make their lives better, even if the leadership is great, even if change is still disruptive and they need time to catch their breath and really respond to it. But I want you to know these things so you know how to go and change these things. So here’s some things to reflect on. Which one of these do you see most in your workplace? Just get clear on that, maybe even a story on how it’s impacted you. Because if you’re the one who’s going to have a meeting with somebody to say, Hey, we really need to look at this in our organization. It’s not aligned with human needs. If you can go in and talk about your own personal experience or the experience of somebody on your team with actual stories of real people, that’s helpful.
[00:22:36] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So what’s a way that these one or all of these 10 have affected your own wellbeing or the wellbeing of your team is number two. Number three, examples of where these things have disrupted trust and created disconnection. So instead of just walking in and saying, Hey, I listened to this podcast and number nine was, and so we need to stop doing that, probably not your best spot better to say, Hey, I’ve been looking into this back-to-back meetings that we have and really looking at it from the neuroscience. Do a little of your own chat GP teeing about it and get a little bit more context for whoever you’re going to talk to. And then give an example of how you are seeing it impact teams and productivity in your own organization. So here’s the problem. Here’s the science, and here’s the impact that I’m seeing.
[00:23:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And come with a recommendation. Hey, could we just make sure that we always have 15 minutes in between each meeting, which isn’t enough? Hey, could we not do this one meeting anymore because it’s not really having the impact that we thought it was? Whatever it is for you, if you want to talk about that, book a coaching call with me, I’ll help you decide what’s the best approach and really ask yourself as you listen to each one of these back, maybe go back through ‘em again. Which one of these are really pushing on your own beliefs? Because a lot of times our beliefs have been created based on these norms that we’ve been working in for so long that even though it violates the nervous system, it still aligns with your belief that this is what it takes to be successful. And if your beliefs aren’t aligned with the science, you’re always going to suffer because your beliefs are violating your cells, your cellular structure always wins.
[00:24:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Your nervous system always wins to keep you safe. And so sometimes we have to change our beliefs in order to advocate for the change that’s necessary. For example, do you believe that you need breaks between meetings? Do you believe that rest is productive? And we shouldn’t always be available all the time? If that’s not a belief that you hold, then it’s you’re in friction with your cellular structure. And so we got to start there said with love, look at how your team currently addresses change. Are they just glossing over it and going because they know that there’s no other option and their cells are suffering? Or do you see them suffering? Like be reflective and pay attention to what you’re seeing in people based on some of these things. What system or practice out of those ones that I covered, could you tackle? Probably don’t want to go in on all 10.
[00:25:30] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Let’s just pick one. You could add space between meetings, just a little bit of breathing room. That could really create more capacity for people. You could model turning off your notifications after hours and then that would encourage your team to know that it’s safe for them to do it too. And then you could experience that it’s not really all that detrimental. It’s just uncomfortable because it’s change. You could take a look at your expectations and the metrics of you and your team and ask yourself, are they clear? Are they measurable? And no matter where, if you’re the leader or if you’re on the team, you still could go to the leader and say, Hey, I was looking at our expectations and the metrics that we have. And I dunno, I just think maybe we could use a little more clarity. What do you think? And spark a conversation about it.
[00:26:29] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Celebrate rest, not just productivity and output. So look around at the people on your team and see who’s honoring turning off notifications at night or on the weekends or who’s really celebrating that. Rest is a key part of our human experience and those are the people that we want to applaud. Just saying over communicate the context. Who’s this for? Why does it matter to them and to us? Those are your key questions. Who’s this for? Why does it matter to them? And why does it matter to us? Really over communicate the context. Always, always, always, always. Whether we’re talking about our kids or our clients or our colleagues or whoever, always over communicate the context. When you’re looking at training recommendations, ask yourself, is it really training we need or is it one-on-one coaching or even team coaching, or is the system just broken and we’re trying to train people to deal with a broken system?
[00:27:36] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Do we need to really look at leadership? I’m just promising you that it’s rarely training that you need. Validate people’s emotions, acknowledge them, and empower your team with choice whenever possible. And finally, build processing time with major changes which are going to have changes. That’s what business is constantly changing and evolving. That’s okay, but understand that our nervous systems need time to process that. That’s all I’m saying. Alright. I love good positivity and I love affirmation, but sometimes we need to look at these things because they are true. They are science, they are hurting us. And again, I love you enough to tell you the truth. And if there’s any of these that you are really thinking, oh my goodness, we have got to pay attention to this and you want help with it, I’m your girl. Message me. Book some time with me. I’ll come work with your team. Whatever it takes. All right, let me meet it. Make it a great day. 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. Alright, make it a great day. Love you mean it.