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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?
[00:00:43] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Welcome back to Business is Human. Today we’re digging into something deceptively simple, which is belief, trust, and data, and how each one of them shapes your leadership in ways that you may not even realize.
[00:01:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Because when we don’t understand these three things with enough depth, we risk leading from this place of counterfeit versus the truth. So what is a counterfeit? It looks real in some places. You may even be able to use it and spend it if they don’t catch it, but it’s not. And there’s many things in business that I am discovering that act as counterfeits. So as I uncover them and dig into them and study them, I’m bringing them here to you because when we get it right, when we can see the truth versus the counterfeit, we get so much better results. We get clarity, we get better relationships and connection, just better business results, and it just feels better at work. So I’m going to break this down. I’m going to share the details of each one, belief, trust and data. And then I’m going to give you some examples of scenarios that the compare and contrast of when we do it well and when we don’t.
[00:02:29] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So that you’ll walk away from this episode with a lot of knowledge, but even better application of what to do differently as a result of that knowledge. So not just discernment, not just some understanding. We’re also going to get some wisdom so we can do things differently. Let’s break it down, shall we? The first one we’re going to unlock is belief. Our beliefs are formed in the thinking part of our brain. So our brain has the prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking, organizing, executive functioning part of the brain, which is only about 20%, and then the experiencing subconscious is 80%. So belief is up here in the thinking part of the brain. This is where we recognize patterns. We play off of our prior experiences. It’s what you’ve been taught to expect. So you believe someone is, say capable based on what you’ve seen, heard, or assumed to be true.
[00:03:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So either you’ve experienced it or you’re assuming that it’s true. The challenge with belief is it can be skewed, it can be biased. It can start to be manipulated and shaped based on what you may have heard as confirmation bias. We believe it. So we look for it to be true. It could come from fear, faulty assumptions. Here’s an example. If you believe that the top salesperson is always the one that’s the most outgoing, usually the one that’s contributing the most loudest in the room kind of out there, you overlook the quiet high performer who really is fantastic at building long lasting relationships. So the belief is powerful but not always accurate. Okay, hang on to that. We’re going to go to break each one of these down and we’re going to do trust, and then we’re going to do data, and then I’m going to show you how they work and get skewed sometimes together.
[00:05:05] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The second one is trust the nervous systems signal. So trust isn’t a thought, trust is felt as an experience in the body. So I want you to think about a cat has whiskers and it’s sensing things through. Its whiskers. That’s really the way our nervous system works from our subconscious. It is sensing things. It feels things in our body. It’s based on what’s called neuroception, which is your subconscious detecting whether something is safety or a threat. It’s based on what’s called polyvagal theory, which is the science of how your subconsciously does that scans for safety or threat. So we don’t get to turn on and off this neuroception. It just is whether we like it or not. So the more that we can understand it and pay attention to it, the more that we can use it for our good and the good of others in our lives.
[00:06:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So trust only happens when your nervous system that is just out scanning like a cat’s whisker. A only happens when your nervous system feels safe, connected and regulated. Connection is connection to self, connection to others, connection to our environment. Our nervous system is just out there scanning what’s out there in am I? Okay? So an example, if you believe that a coworker is competent, but your body kind of tenses up and tightens every time you’re in a meeting with them, that’s not a logic problem. That’s not about your thinking. That’s your nervous system saying this doesn’t feel safe. So their resume may be great, their results may even be great, but there’s something in your spidey sense nervous system that goes, something’s not right here that is meant to tell you something. That’s important information that the more that we learn to trust that the better.
[00:07:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Okay, the third segment that I want to cover is data, which we have a love affair with in business, don’t we? Great. Useful but not complete, not the full story. So data is essential. As a longtime business consultant, I will tell you you need some data. It helps us measure patterns, it helps us spot trends, it helps us track performance. But here’s the problem, data isn’t the full story. It tells you what happened, but not why it happened. Write that one down, that’s good. It tells you what happened, but not why it happened, and it doesn’t tell you what’s going to happen next because people aren’t spreadsheets. We’re just not really that reliable. You know what I’m saying? We have a lot of nuance. There’s a lot of things that factor into the human experience that we would love to believe that it’s just a pattern.
[00:08:56] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And data’s going to tell us everything we need to know. No, it’s not. Okay. Example, let’s say a team’s quarterly sales results are down. The data shows that we’re not hitting the target. So leadership forms a belief that the team’s just not motivated. They’re just not doing it. And if there’s not trust, they don’t ask the team. They just push harder, increase the pressure, offer spiffs, bonuses, put new things in place that disrupt the team even more. Go in and try to fix it. But if somebody goes in and has a real conversation with the team, some key people on the team, they could learn that maybe the sales tool isn’t working properly or there’s confusion about the pricing or the comp plan. Or maybe one of the top performers had some sort of a health crisis and everybody on the team is just quietly trying to cover for them. The data was accurate but incomplete.
[00:10:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So without trust and a dialogue, it could lead you to the wrong belief and therefore the wrong response. So there’s where the counterfeit comes in. Using data isn’t proof, data is just information, and we need to be using the data and the information to have a conversation. So how do we lead and manage with data, belief and trust all together so we can avoid the counterfeit? It looks like it’s the right information, but it’s really not. We don’t just throw out the data. It’s good. We need it. It’s important. And you also don’t just throw out your instincts and you don’t ignore how you or your team feels or what they believe. You integrate all three so that they could work together. The order of how you do that matters. So the first thing that we want to do is build trust. And so we have to regulate our own nervous system so that we’re entering into what’s called co-regulation in a trusting conversation.
[00:11:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Then we have to challenge our—I’m going to break all these down in more detail, but I just want to give you where we’re going. Regulate your nervous system so you can build trust. Number two, we’re going to challenge our beliefs, ask where they came from and are they actually true? We’re going to do that. We’re going to challenge ourselves, and then we’re going to use the data to open a door to a deeper understanding, not as the final answer. So we need to combine all those things together. Trust, belief, data. The sequence keeps you from defaulting to “I’m just going to go control it and fix it and react to it” with my own often faulty bias and belief so that we can really get to the truth. So here’s how it goes. Regulate first. Regulate your nervous system first, then take action. So let’s walk through each step so we’ve got clarity and kind of a step-by-step what to do.
[00:12:42] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Step one, regulate your nervous system. Because remember, trust isn’t a thought that comes from your prefrontal cortex. It’s the spidey sense that comes from your subconscious. And so that neuroception that’s happening, whether we like it or not, from our subconscious system, is detecting safety or threat. And so we want to make sure that we have a regulated nervous system so that we can increase the probability of a trusting relationship and conversation when we go to engage with the people on the team. So it starts with us. So oftentimes here on the Business Is Human podcast, I give you the example of the snow globe. So our cellular structure is like a snow globe. Our life is stressful and our snow globe is constantly getting shook up. And when our snow globe gets shook up, it’s like our cells are all just spinning around like the glitter and snow inside a snow globe.
[00:13:53] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And when that happens, what’s inside the snow globe can’t see out and what’s outside can’t see in. So if I’m the leader inside my snow globe that is spinning with my cells just vibrating from stress, and I sit down to try to have a conversation with somebody on the sales team to talk about the results, I’m not hearing them and they’re not hearing me because the vibration of my cellular structure is getting in the way and they don’t feel safe because it’s like wrrrrrr, and you’re just like wrrrrrr, and so the spidey sense of somebody around somebody that’s dysregulated, the snow globe is spinning. All the stuff says, I don’t know what’s in there, but it looks really messy. And so our spidey sense is going to be like, I think you might need to calm down. I don’t feel safe. And so what we need to do is regulate our nervous system first.
[00:14:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So what do we do? We want a snow globe to settle down. We sit it down. So we need to sit down, settle down, let everything settle our cellular system so it’s not spinning and vibrating red alert signals so that we can enter the conversation, calm and grounded. Literally sit down for a minute, do some box breathing. Inhale for four, hold it for four, exhale for four, hold it for four. Just intentionally feeling your breath moving through your body. Take a walk just for four or five minutes. That’s a beautiful way to just settle. Say some affirmations. I’m not here to control everything. I’m here to learn. Set your intentions. And then only then once you’re grounded, Dr. Covey used to call it the space between stimulus and response. We’re just giving it a little more context of what to do in that space. In that space, we’re going to get regulated.
[00:16:07] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Then once you’re grounded, then you can actually have a real conversation. You can actually hear their responses. They can actually feel safe responding to you. And we’re not just reacting, protecting ourselves because we feel afraid that our boss is upset about the bad results. And that’s where we go to step two, which is our beliefs need to be checked. Because remember, they’re not always accurate. They’re powerful, but they’re not always accurate. So belief is in the thinking part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. It’s where we’re recognizing patterns. It’s our prior experiences, what you’ve been taught. Then you start to look for and expect. First, after we’re regulated, we’re going to ask ourselves: what story am I telling myself about this? Well, I’m telling myself that they must not be motivated. They’re not working hard enough, they’re not making enough phone calls—that may or may not be true.
[00:17:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So then you’re going to ask yourself, am I willing to be wrong? Am I willing to receive information that is different than what I currently or previously have believed? That’s big. That’s big. And then is my intent for this conversation that you’re about to have to validate that I’m right in my own view, or is it to open myself to consider that there’s maybe a truth that isn’t what I currently believe? Because great leadership isn’t about being right, it’s about being open and helpful so we can all move forward together. I like to see leadership not as a tower. Make sure a triangle org chart with the leader on top, command and control and hierarchy. In the age of humanity that I teach and lead from, we lay that triangle down so it’s pointing forward like an arrow. And so a leader isn’t above, they’re not on top.
[00:18:43] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: They’re out front leading and creating vision and strategy and communicating where you’re headed. So we’re not better than anyone. We are in a different role, but it’s not about hierarchy. It’s humility. And so when you lead from a place of humility, then you can open yourself up and say, I don’t need to confirm all my bias and beliefs. I need to listen and understand what’s really happening so that we can move forward together. And so when you’re regulated and your snow globe is all settled and you’ve got more clarity, then you can start to look at the actual data with curiosity instead of trying to confirm that you were right. I know this sounds simple when we’re just, I’m talking about it. You’re listening and you’re like, yeah, sure. But I want you to do some real reflection about your leadership style or what you’ve experienced from leaders. This isn’t as common as I think. We want to believe that it is based on my role as a consultant and coach. I’d say it’s rare, maybe medium rare.
[00:20:09] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So now that we’ve checked our beliefs, we can start to use the data to ask better questions. Because data isn’t the full story. Remember, it tells you what happened, but it doesn’t tell you why it happened. That’s what we need to know so we can do what we need to do to make it better and prevent it from happening next time. Data doesn’t always tell you what’s going to happen next because people aren’t spreadsheets. They’re not all that reliable, right? Okay. So you’re regulated, you’ve set your beliefs to the side, open, you’re curious, and you’re going to have a conversation. Hey, what’s the data telling us? What’s it not telling us? You’re going to ask yourself those. And then what conversations do I need to have to see the full picture? Who do I need to talk to? And when you go to sit down and talk to them, you’re going to say, hey, what’s getting in the way?
[00:21:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I know we didn’t hit the numbers. There must be something going on that I don’t see. I need your help to understand what’s getting in your way, the way of the team. And then just listen. Just listen. What do I need to understand that might be missing? Your intent is to be curious and really get to the truth. Now, if we regulate our own nervous system, great, but we’re also dealing with somebody else’s nervous system in this conversation because even when we show up grounded, we’ve done the work to breathe, take a walk, we’re ready. That doesn’t mean that they are. Why? Well, because you’re just walking into this conversation and you’re walking into their nervous system too. So now your regulated nervous system is encountering somebody else’s nervous system. Now, anytime your numbers are down and the boss says, can we talk? Does that create a calm nervous system?
[00:22:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Usually freaks people out and they go, oh, I’m probably in trouble. And so we need humility to create a safe environment so that that person can open themselves up to share the real story. Because in a dysregulated state, they’re going to move into, I feel attacked. I’m scared. I’m in trouble. I’ve got to protect myself. And when we’re protecting ourselves, we’re probably not being fully transparent. We might be scrambling around saying what they think the leader wants to hear, making excuses, falling on the sword. I don’t know how that person’s going to react, but I just want you to be aware that those conversations are dysregulating by nature. And if you haven’t traditionally been someone that understands nervous system regulation and the need to create a calm, high trust, engaging conversation, it’s going to take some time before they trust your new behavior. And so we’re starting a new pattern oftentimes when we learn something new this way.
[00:23:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so we can’t expect to get the exact results we want the first time. It’s like planting a garden. We don’t till it up, plant the seeds and then walk out the next day and go grab a tomato off the vine. It’s just not the way it works. So we do what we can to make them feel safe. And it starts by you coming into the room with a regulated nervous system because you’ve done your breathing, you went for a walk, you’ve settled your snow globe. So their neuroception, their spidey sense nervous system, even though their prefrontal cortex has said, the boss wants to meet with me and my numbers are down. When they enter the room with you, their spidey sense, it might be saying, why are they so calm? That’s weird. And then they may move it to their prefrontal cortex and start making up a story.
[00:24:47] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Maybe they’re calm because they’re getting ready to fire me. Maybe they’re calm because I don’t know. But they’re going to start to make up a story based on what their nervous system is telling them. And so it will help if you state your intent immediately. Hey, I don’t want you to be nervous. I don’t want this to be an upsetting conversation. I know the numbers are down. I know you might be a little freaked out that I said I wanted to meet with you. I come in peace. I come curious. I come calm. I come to understand. At least state your intention so that they can know that they can share with you. But again, it’s going to take some repetition and some patterns because past experiences with you are telling them what they are supposed to believe right then. So if your past experiences haven’t been this type of encounter, it’s going to be a little confusing to them.
[00:25:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You’re also dealing with the fact that people have a nervous system that is the collection of all the managers and leaders and bosses they’ve had in the past. So they may be acting off of a belief based on the boss they had before they worked for you. Our nervous systems collect all this data and information. And so it’s not just this conversation. We’re entering into a nervous system that has had all kinds of experiences even before they got to this moment. Even if you are calm, open, and curious in this moment, if you’ve historically not been like that, they may still be bracing for impact and wondering what’s going on. That’s normal. That’s okay. Their nervous system and their beliefs are doing what they’re supposed to be doing because we’re not just creating this moment. We’re starting a new pattern. Just a few pre-flight checklist, just like the pilots use before the plane takes off, before you go into the conversation, ask, am I regulated enough to handle whatever response that I get?
[00:27:03] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Am I going to be able to stay calm? Can I give them the space to be cautious without me taking it personally? I can put my own ego to the side and not take this personally. How am I going to respond? Am I humble enough? Am I emotionally mature enough to do that? Am I willing to show up differently even if they or I don’t trust it yet? This is a new behavior, this is a new pattern, maybe. Am I willing to go in and give it a go and show up wholeheartedly different than I have in the past? Because your calm presence isn’t just for them in this moment. It’s for the long haul. It’s for the long game to use this new pattern to create the kind of space where people know that you can have real conversations and get to the heart of the matter so that you can make better decisions as a team to get better results.
[00:28:08] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It’s not about getting it perfect, it’s about being consistent enough that safety starts to be what you’re planting. So again, before you go into the conversation, take two minutes. Two minutes. You’ve got two minutes. Two minutes to breathe. Go for a quick walk. Think about what they might be expecting from you based on past experiences, and then set an intention of how you want the conversation to go. And if it feels awkward and it doesn’t really land or go exceptionally the first time, that’s not failure. That’s just friction from this new pattern that you’re creating different than the old way that it used to be. Keep going. At this woods that I walk in beside my neighborhood every day—and it’s easy—I just walk out my back door, I get on the trail. There’s a path. It’s the same path I always take. But if I wanted to create a new path and a new pattern, it would start out being pretty uncomfortable.
[00:29:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I’d be stomping down weeds. I might get myself in some poison ivy. I might even have to cut down some limbs. It’s going to be uncomfortable taking a new path through my woods until it gets beaten down like the old. And you know what happens when I take the new path over and over and keep walking it and keep beating it down until it’s clear and smooth? Well, then the weeds and things grow in to the old path. And so then when I get to the edge of the woods, I no longer go to the old path. It’s grown over. I’ve created a new path. So when you are changing your approach and you’re changing your behaviors, it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable at first. But the only way to get it to be more comfortable is to keep going. And remember, trust isn’t built in a moment.
[00:30:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It’s built when you continue to show up on this new path, time after time until people can trust it. And then just keep going. So when you can align beliefs, truths, and data, and not just rush in to fix it based on the data, based on your old beliefs, but instead regulate yourself first, check your beliefs and then use data as the opening art of the conversation, not the ending. That’s what opens the data, just opens the door to a conversation. This is how we lead in the age of humanity—not with force, but with clarity, with curiosity. And it’s going to take courage and humility. It’s going to be uncomfortable at first, but this is how we lead people towards the truth and into something better together. Alright y’all, make it a great day. Love you mean it. 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.