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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.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:10]:
That welcome back to the Business is Human podcast, where we discuss strategies to increase our VRI value, relevance, and impact. We're here to blend meaningful work with profitable success. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, here to steward what we call the age of humanity, to transform the way we work so 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 episodes, and then leave a review to tell the other humans that they might like it too. Always looking to help you and connect with others. Let's get into it, shall we?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:51]:
I want to read you the back cover of this book, and we're going to speak to the author in the next two episodes. So I want to give you the backdrop of my conversation with Sarah Gormley, author of The Order of Things: A Memoir About Chasing Joy by Sarah Gormley. Here's the back cover, which does a beautiful job of illustrating what this book is about. Sometimes nothing is more unexpected than joy. What happens when a marketing executive leaves San Francisco to care for her dying mother? On their family farm in Ohio, a Hallmark heroine would fall in love with her high school sweetheart during a snowstorm. But this is no Hallmark movie. Sarah Gormley spent most of her life trying to outrun the persistent self loathing that plagued her from childhood, convinced that self worth was something she had to earn by doing rather than being. When she returned to Salt Creek Farm at age 45, Gormley had no idea that detaching from the success she believed to find her untangling the complicated relationship with her mother and continuing the hard work of therapy would lead to a wildly transformed life.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:05]:
Told with exceptional candor and humor, The Order of Things is a story about how one woman learned to let go of the patterns of her past to create a future she never imagined. Ultimately, Gormley's book is about hope with a powerful message that will inspire you to think about the possibility of change in your own life. I feel like these next two episodes need a little disclaimer from me and my excitement about this interview and these episodes, because the title of this podcast is Business is Human. And just to review the business needs to control, measure, optimize. It's about time. It's about money, goals, systems, processes, all important parts of business. But our human needs are personal, emotional, and social, and the way that we connect and interact with one another is largely through the way we share our stories, the way that we connect with one another. And I believe that the more that we honor our human needs and our storytelling and our vulnerability and empathy and humility with one another, the better business results that we'll get, the better society that we'll build.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:03:25]:
I just know that it's better. So the guests that I asked to come on are largely talking about their I human stories. If you've been following me for a while, I run an experience in Indianapolis where I live called rise and thrive, and it's a seven month experience for just seven women leaders in the area. But it culminates into this big event that I throw and invite hundreds of people in, and those seven women get on stage and tell a seven minute ted light talk about their human story. And I help them craft the story. I help them prepare to stand on stage and tell it, but I don't script it. It's not about their achievements. It's not about their resume.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:04:13]:
It's their story. Whatever they want to stand on stage and tell what has bubbled up that they think is important for them to share. And the reason that I put that event as the capstone of this experience is, I believe wholeheartedly that when we courageously stand tall in our stories and share them with the world or each other in some way, that we give others permission, courage, whatever they need for them to then stand tall in their own stories. And I've seen it take place year over, year over year, that the audience members of this event glean more about their own self reflection and their own story than even what they learn or what they experience from the person's story on stage. It's how they're able to listen to that person's story, watch that person's story, and then have it just steep into their heart emotionally to cause some reflection and cause them to think about how that connects to their story. And I tell you all of that because I was introduced to this next guest by a woman here in Indianapolis who we've just barely met and known each other. We've had one zoom call. But again, we had some things in common.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:05:49]:
We shared a great experience together. And when her friend, our guest today, Sarah Gormley, wrote this book, she reached out to me and she said, I think you're really going to like Sarah, and you're really going to like this book. And I'd love to send you an advance copy of this book. And I said, absolutely. Anytime somebody says, I think this is for you, you're like, okay, let's do it. And so Sarah and I connected, and she sent me this book, and it's called The Order of Things: A Memoir About Chasing Joy. This interview now is going to be two episodes because I basically logged on to our interview and just geeked out and started just talking, not interviewing. I just start talking because this book had such a personal, emotional connection for me that I just couldn't wait to share how it impacted me and why I think it's important.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:06:54]:
And so it really is less of an interview in the first episode and more of me just emotionally responding to this book. And so in the next episode, I actually get into the interview and let her talk a whole lot more. And in this episode, it's mostly me just bubbling over with emotion and excitement about this book. So I didn't want to just cut it out. I think it's an important part of the learning about Business is Human that when we connect with one another in this way, we create that kind of excitement. And I believe that that is a lesson for leaders, a lesson for what we bring energetically into our work every day. And so I wanted you to hear just how excited I am about this book. And then next week, we'll do a.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:07:51]:
More of a real podcast interview.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:07:53]:
But I also. I think this would be really cool if you get just as excited about this book just from your thanks to and you go to Amazon and you order it again. It's called The Order of Things, a memoir about chasing Joy by Sarah Gormley. And then you'll have the context of the excitement when we get to the real interview next week. So without any more explanation, let's get into it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:08:20]:
I read it in one sitting.
Sarah Gormley [00:08:22]:
You are not the first person to say that. That makes me really happy.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:08:25]:
Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:08:26]:
And as an authorization, what that says to me and others that have had that experience with books is relatability. You're in the story when you're reading this book because there's so much familiarity and relatability about your story, primarily, but also the way that you write about it so comfortably. It allowed us as readers to settle in and just feel, which, especially for us high achievers who, for God's sakes, just read mostly fucking self help stuff, and we're always just trying to fucking learn something. It was just like me and my friends who've been over it for a minute, just sat down and had some coffee or wine or tequila and just told the real story about what is and what isn't and what should be.
Sarah Gormley [00:09:26]:
Well, thank you.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:09:27]:
It sat with me for a long time because I think when we read stories like this, when we just have coffee with a friend, that our stories are so weirdly aligned and similar that it does cause that reflection time that we are all privy to, and especially high achievers, we tend to put steroids on it and think, well, if I could go back, here's what I would have done differently, and here's what I wish, and that's just the devil, because he's the only one that wants us to live in the past, because we have no power over the past. So then I had to kind of have a talk with myself and say, no, we don't live in the past. There's so many things about our stories that I just. I knew then would. I know nothing, damn it.
Sarah Gormley [00:10:17]:
But if we hadn't done that, we probably wouldn't be here in the same way.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:10:21]:
Yeah.
Sarah Gormley [00:10:21]:
And I think that's just life. Somebody asked me a question, a journalist who asked me really insightful questions, and one of the questions was about the writing process and reflecting and kind of me admitting and getting a little emotional, like, well, yeah, you know, like, I wonder if I had gotten the help I needed to sooner what my life might have looked like. But bottom line, I got the help finally and sort of changed the trajectory of my life. I guess I'm crying because it is a hard lot to look back, and it's not even regret. It's just sort of a. It's very normal to be like, well, I wonder if it's not very useful unless we learn something.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:11:10]:
And we wouldn't have this, and we wouldn't have how much I know this is going to help others not feel alone, and help others be inspired to know that all of us, we're in a similar age.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:11:25]:
I love you.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:11:26]:
All of us were taught and told and scripted to prove yourself and work harder. And if we take care of the business, it will take care of you. And those are literally the root cause of burnout from the very first study in 1974. And when I saw that, I was like. I was told that's what success is. And so all of us were told this thing that made sense to us at the time, but because of that, now we're waking up into this new way of living and thinking, oh, God, thank God that's not all there is. Cause that was just kind of awful. There's so many of us that are supposed to be art gallery owners and authors and bakery owners, whatever else is on your heart that while you were sitting in that meeting with that asshole again that you've got to meet with to get your paycheck, and you leave the meeting and you go, I really want to run a bakery in New Jersey and that my mom's going to be mad if I wasted all of my college degree and all, like, am I crazy? No.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:12:35]:
No, love, you're not crazy.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:12:38]:
Go run the bakery.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:12:39]:
Go do whatever's in here.
Sarah Gormley [00:12:42]:
It's super difficult for so many people, especially women, and it's like we're afraid to even admit that we're unhappy or dissatisfied or our jobs are not fulfilling. You know, that's a slippery slope. But it's like, just to admit that there's anything amiss for certain type of overachieving women is so uncomfortable. And I've said to you and others, this is not a self help book because it's just my story. But if it hits people or it's a message that, like, yeah, it's messy, and it's okay to say, wait, maybe I shouldn't be doing that thing or this thing, or I should try something else and maybe I'll fail. I don't know. If it helps one person reevaluate, I will feel terrific.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:13:32]:
Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:13:33]:
Yeah, that's. That's what I had to get to when I wrote mine, too, because it was. It felt like too much pressure to be more than that to people. But there were two paths I want to go down based on what you said. The first one is, do you think that we feel that sense of loyalty and responsibility to these careers that we've built? Because the message has been that we've had to overcome and earn this place in business, in society, to be respected for that. And so once we get there and it doesn't feel great, we feel like we got to stay there for that reason.
Sarah Gormley [00:14:13]:
Well, there. There are two things. One I think is universal. The second one is very personal that I try to explore in the book. The first one is freaking money.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:23]:
Right?
Sarah Gormley [00:14:24]:
I mean, it's really hard to let go of some salaries. And I looked around at peers and friends at Adobe, and I saw what was happening, and it's as excruciating as it was at times. They're like, I can put up with this for three more years because then I can retire and my kids can go to college.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:43]:
The golden handcuffs is a real thing.
Sarah Gormley [00:14:48]:
And there are times that I'm like, I wish I had stayed in for four or five more years. So there's that. Okay. And then the personal perspective, which was why I kept chasing for so long is that I thought if I got the right high powered, high title, high salaried, successful job, I would feel better about myself. There was no job that could do that. There was no boyfriend who could do that. Right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:19]:
Mm hmm.
Sarah Gormley [00:15:20]:
So that was my issue. You know, it was scary to walk away from the earning potential. So I think it's two things, you know, and I think it's probably a little bit different, but I think especially for overachieving women, I think it's probably some sort of a combination of both of those.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:43]:
Yeah.
Sarah Gormley [00:15:44]:
It's upsetting, you know, it's unnecessary.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:48]:
Yeah. The identity crisis that we have in career has now become a big part of the book I'm writing now. So I started writing this book about redefining success, especially after 2020, because many of us have had kind of awakenings. Mine came actually just before it. And as I dug into it from a nervous system perspective, from a spiritual Bible perspective, from interviewing now thousands of people, identity is at the root of, really, the battle of good and evil. Devil wants to steal your identity. God wants it to be in him. And whether you believe in that stuff or not, from a nervous system perspective, identity is at the root of all of these things.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:16:36]:
And when we tie it so closely to our role in our career and our paycheck and granite countertops in the right neighborhood and all of those other things outside of our spirit and our soul, man, we can get thrown around hard.
Sarah Gormley [00:16:54]:
And it's self perpetuating because you think it's just the next thing. It's right around the corner, right then it's going to settle into it. And I was so terrified to nothing have a big job. I honestly was like, I don't know that I will talk about. And my friends, who are the best, were like, hey, gorms, that's our least favorite thing about you.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:17:20]:
I love that part of the book. You're annoying because you're so work related is kind of what their message was.
Sarah Gormley [00:17:26]:
Obsessively on your phone on a meeting and late for things. And I was like, oh, okay.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:17:34]:
But that was one of the connections I made so tightly with your story is I remember the first day of my freedom from my corporate job that I chose to leave and gave a six month notice because I wanted to do it. But I was also scared to death to do it. So I gave myself a long Runway. But that first night, and I'm home alone. I'm single, my kids are adults, and I'm sitting in this big house by myself, and now I don't have my title or my sexy company name, Franklin Covey. People thought that was a cool place to work. Just like Adobe, right? It's like it was a calling card. And I sat at my counter with my big glass of wine and just had a pity party and said to myself, how will I introduce myself tomorrow? That was a real question on my mind, and it was haunting for, like, a minute and a half until I had a talk with myself and said, oh, no, we're not.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:29]:
This path is going to kill. You can't. You can't go down this path. You got to stay focused on what we're building here, or this will destroy you, because it's hard to make that shift.
Sarah Gormley [00:18:39]:
It really is. And it took. I don't know about you. It took almost a year or 18 months, I used to say, to kind of get it off of me, to get the corporate mindset, dreaming about work and meetings and waking up and thinking I had to check in with my assistant. I mean, the whole thing. And it's like, wow, it was a job.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:19:03]:
I wake up in the middle of the night with those kind of PTSD. Am I late? Do I have a proposal that's due? Am I in the wrong city? Did I prepare the right PowerPoint? Wake up in the middle of the night? Like, I. Yes. And it took me even longer to learn how to have conversations with real words instead of corporate speech.
Sarah Gormley [00:19:26]:
Oh, my God. That's hilarious. Yeah. I mean, it's. It's a very real thing and cycle and a detriment to so many amazing people. And I feel really lucky. I hate to say escape, because here's the thing. I don't know what it would be like to have a corporate job and not have my identity inappropriately linked to it.
Sarah Gormley [00:19:52]:
I don't know what I'd be like if I weren't back into corporate life.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:19:55]:
Today and did it differently.
Sarah Gormley [00:19:57]:
Yeah. My guess is I'd be much more grounded, set more boundaries, call bullshit more often, but I'm not willing to go back just to test it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:07]:
So my goal is I'm unemployable at this point. Yeah.
Sarah Gormley [00:20:11]:
I don't think I can have a boss at this point.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:13]:
Yeah, same. But I don't think that everybody is meant to. I know I started with a lot of hyperbole about everybody should go start a bakery in New Jersey, but I don't think that everybody is. I don't think God designed everybody to go do something entrepreneurially. I think there are people that are gifted and their place in the world is to run businesses and be in vice president roles. And my hope is, through these conversations in your book, they'll do it with a stronger sense of boundaries and self and not let it skew their soul.
Sarah Gormley [00:20:50]:
Yes. And again, I think that it's certainly especially like I'll use big tech. You know, it's the excitement, the thrill, the pursuit, you know, all the big sporting analogies and winning. And, you know, there are plenty of people that love that and do find it very fulfilling. So I'm just not one of them. And again, also with the emotional work I was doing and needed to do, so it's very unique. I've just had too many conversations with too many women, especially that relate 100%. I wish there was some paradigm or realm in which it was more expected that you would ask yourself the hard questions, try to find some options, but I don't have all the answers.
Sarah Gormley [00:21:38]:
So I just wrote my story.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:21:41]:
And that's the thing that I believe we all need is each other's stories. Because stories are what were created for us to connect and communicate from walls of caves to your book today. And when we are able to vulnerably share our story, it allows us to do the self reflection without feeling like we need to copy your story or learn from the self help manual, but just to reflect. And I believe the more people that courageously put their stories into the world through podcasts and writing books and doing presentations, the more healing that brings to us in a way that is personal to us.
Sarah Gormley [00:22:27]:
Yes, I agree with that. And I've said on a previous conversation, for me, what helped me immensely, and I would not have been able to change my life in the way I did without therapy. For some people, I think it's a life coach or a career coach. It might even be the friend you have that you trust who tells you point blank, look, girl, you're a little screwed up. You gotta do something right. So whatever the source is, that becomes the catalyst. You'll find it when you're ready.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:23:05]:
Thanks for listening to this episode. I would love it if you would go to Apple podcast and leave a rating and a review, and then you can go to RebeccaFleetwoodHession.com and join the Badass Women's Council. And if you really want to take a deeper dive, join the movement of a thousand thriving women. There's amazing thrive tools there for you today.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:23:24]:
Love you. Mean it.