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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 [00:00:00]:
I'm not coming down. I never knocked it on the ground. I'm not coming down. I want to go higher, higher.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:09]:
Higher than that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:10]:
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? In celebration of Veterans Day, we have another veteran on the show today, and I am excited for you to hear from Urs Koenig because his background is extraordinary.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:01:07]:
Military background alone.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:01:08]:
UN military peacekeeper, NATO military peacekeeping commander. In addition to being an ultra endurance champion athlete, a professor, experienced executive coach, his credentials are extraordinary. And so what's really interesting is the topic that we're going to cover today is humility. And I love the juxtaposition of the command and control Ultra endurance athlete coming in to talk to us about humility, and it's something that he's so passionate about. He has released a book called Radical Humility. And of course, the tagline, you know, just got me, because the tagline is be a badass leader and a good human, the two things that just speak to my heart.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:03]:
So here we go.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:04]:
I can't wait for you to hear this interview.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:06]:
Urs, welcome to the show.
Urs Koenig [00:02:08]:
Thanks, Rebecca, for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:11]:
I was going to introduce you as the Bear King because that's what your name means, but I figured you should probably give a little context about that. That might be awkward.
Urs Koenig [00:02:21]:
Well, you know, my first name is Urs, which is very hard to pronounce in America. Urs. And the root of that name is the bear. Ursus means the bear. And then my last name in German is Koenig, which means king. So my parents really did name me the Bear King. So, you know, I wrote the book on humble leadership. But there you have it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:40]:
That is ironic. Was it intentional that they named you based on those things?
Urs Koenig [00:02:45]:
No, it wasn't. And in fact, I give my parents a hard time because it's such a hard name, my first name to pronounce in English speaking countries and they traveled a lot. In fact, when I was 2. We moved to New Zealand. Nobody could pronounce my name as a child, so it was intentional.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:03:00]:
Well, maybe that does tie into humility more than we think it will. But I love etymology and just studying language and words. So I was like, oh, I hope that it was like super intentional. But that's ok. We're going to give them a pass on that. Okay. So I am so excited about this because when I saw the COVID of your book, Radical Humility, Be a badass leader and a good human. Those who have been following this show or know me for five minutes know that this whole framework around business as human is so near and dear to my heart.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:03:33]:
And because I have the badass Women's council as part of my brand, I'm like, I got to talk to this guy. So this is an exciting time for me because I love when many of us out in the world get ideas for similar things because to me, I live a lot in the world of Holy Spirit. I believe that that means we've all been given this idea because it's so important. So, you know, immature me would have thought it was competition, right? Oh, similar to what I do. And now I see it as we're all part of the community that are taking messages out into the world that are really needed today. So tell us a little bit about how this book came to be a book. I know you've been an executive coach for many, many years and you noticed some of these things with your clients, right?
Urs Koenig [00:04:25]:
That's exactly right. Well, first of all, thank you, Rebecca, for all the great work you're doing in the world. It's so much needed. So, yes, I've been an executive coach for many years and then I was always drawn to humility as a personal trait. So I have a background as ultra endurance competitor. So in the world of ultra cycling, I loved the people who let the legs do the talking versus the big mouth. But I never studied it, to be quite honest, in any seriousness, for leadership. But then as we came out of the financial crisis and social media started to explode and the pace of change just accelerated, my clients, my executive coaching clients were still leading a lot of them top down, command control, what I call heroic leadership.
Urs Koenig [00:05:10]:
The leader sits on top of the org chart, has all the answers everything needs to flow through him or her and they were always a step or two behind. So I started to then dig more seriously into, okay, we need a different kind of leadership. And of course there's plenty of leadership models, servant leadership and, you know, transformational leadership. But I found humility and I started to study humble leadership in more seriousness. And then, you know, shine and shine. Edgar Schein, one of the legends of organizational development, wrote the groundbreaking book on humble leadership. Of course, I was digging that. But then on a personal level, Rebecca, two things happened.
Urs Koenig [00:05:47]:
I went and deployed after having been out of the military for 22 years, on my first peacekeeping mission in the Balkans in 2017. And then two years ago for the UN to the middle east. And ironically, going back into what we think of as a top down command control environment, the military showed me that the best commanders, the best bosses I had in these missions were deeply humble. They had great self awareness, they built meaningful relationships with their soldiers, with their team members, and they really embodied this notion of producing badass results, of being a badass leader and a good human. So then when I came back from the second peacekeeping mission, I said, okay, there's a book here, there's a book about how we can do both. And I know that's very dear to your heart. We can achieve amazing results and do it in a human way. So that's how the book came about over.
Urs Koenig [00:06:48]:
Yeah. And then I published it six months ago. Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:06:50]:
Well, you know what's really fascinating is, you know, I always know that it's going to improve results when you have this type of leadership. But what you have just called out that I've not done enough of, that, I don't think is calling out the opposite, which is the heroic leadership they were actually behind. So they thought they were getting ahead of things by being top down, by being heroic, and that actually had the opposite effect.
Urs Koenig [00:07:18]:
Yeah, that's exactly right. So leading in today's FUCA world, volatile, uncertain, complex, because it's by definition humbling. So if you're the command control leader, everything has to flow through you. You're going to be always a step or two behind. And by the way, we're facing an inversion of expertise. McChrystal, who I quote extensively, General McChrystal in the book, he was actually one of the first truly humble leaders, he talks about the inversion of expertise, meaning our people will always know so much more than we ever can and should about the level of expertise. So for them to come to us with the data and information we need as leaders to make good decisions, they need to trust us. And the only way they'll trust us is if we've built meaningful and collaborative relationships with them.
Urs Koenig [00:08:05]:
So I talked about McCristle. He has a nice metaphor. He shifted his leadership when he was commanding the task force in the Middle east fighting terror. From what he called leading like a chess master, like controlling his pawns on the chessboard, to leading like a gardener. You know, as a gardener, you can't make plants grow much like in leadership. We can't make our people develop and grow. But what we can and what we must do is we provide the right environment or, you know, we call it the right culture. So people, the right people are in the right spot.
Urs Koenig [00:08:37]:
We nurture. Sometimes we need to weed as well. That's part of it. That's part of that. And sometimes the most loving thing we can do is we can actually let somebody go. So humility and leadership does not mean being weak or having no spine.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:08:53]:
You know, it's funny you say that. Not too long ago, I said to a client who was struggling with some things with their team and their people, I said, we really haven't evolved past being just houseplants that talk. Like, if you provide the right environment and you water it and you feed it and you talk nice to it, let's not overcomplicate things.
Urs Koenig [00:09:13]:
Right. Well, you know, you and I have been in leadership development for a long time. It's very simple, but it's not always easy, right? Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:09:21]:
Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, and I love that your background is the opposite of what many people might traditionally look at as humble. A wildly successful career, military, traditionally a trap, top down culture. You're an elite ultra athlete. And I just saw recently, I think on LinkedIn, where you did some sort of crazy athletic thing, not even for competition, just for like fun on a Saturday. What was that about?
Urs Koenig [00:09:51]:
It's called Everesting. So people who are in the ultra endurance world know this. So it's the equivalent of climbing the altitude of Mount Everest nonstop. So 29,000ft. And so I did a thing in the Swiss Alps, I'm originally Swiss, where I took 23 hours. I parked four mountain bikes at the top of the mountain. I climbed up during the day, the gondola was running during the day. I climbed up 3,600ft, took the gondola down.
Urs Koenig [00:10:20]:
And then at night, there's no gondola, right? So I had the mountain bikes parked. So I rode the mountain bikes down during the night. So, yeah, it's an Everesting thing. And I mean, I dig. I know this is not a podcast about ultra endurance stuff, but I think I love these adventures and that actually there is a tie to humble leadership. You live, I live, everybody who does it. We live in the moment, right? Here, right now, everything else falls away. I'm not thinking about my speaking clients.
Urs Koenig [00:10:50]:
I'm not thinking about the next podcast. I'm being in the here and now. You know, do I eat enough? You know, what. What needs to happen next? Am I going the right way? So I love the focus. And that's actually one aspect of humility, which I think a lot of us can benefit from. Humility also means knowing that we can't achieve everything, but we can achieve almost anything if we put our hearts and minds to it. And so this notion of saying, no, stop doing lists, focusing. So elite athletes are great examples at the ability to compartmentalize focus on what truly matters, you know, and as many have said, if you have more than three priorities, you have none.
Urs Koenig [00:11:31]:
One thing I try to do every morning is like, what are the three things I want to focus on today? And not more. Three things.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:11:37]:
I was on the team that launched the book the Four Disciplines of Execution for the Franklin Covey Organization, and that's one of the main tenets. So I do the same thing. But I want to tie into that elite athlete aspect of things, because you're doing this ultra, most people would call crazy thing for fun or just, you know, to train or just to remind yourself what you can do. And it's not for a trophy. It's not for an award. To me, that is humility. It's saying, I love pushing myself. I love the focus.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:12:11]:
I love this aspect of it. But the other thing I want to take away from what you said is that requires being in the moment to be focused on what's happening. And when I think about humble leaders, they have this ability when they're talking to you, to be in the moment. And you can tell they're not distracted by this other meeting. And, you know, they have so many other things spinning in their head, but when they're with you, they're with you.
Urs Koenig [00:12:40]:
That is so well said, Rebecca. And so that is exactly right. I mean, a core element of humble leadership is relationship building. And by the way, I always say we don't have to have our best friends at work. But the research shows if you have a best friend at work, you know, you're seven more times more likely to hang around, and you're seven times more productive. And how do we build that? Those relationships are exactly that. As leaders, our most important currency is our attention, our time and our attention. So, you know, the undivided listening to what really is going on for you, seeking to understand versus pushing my own agenda.
Urs Koenig [00:13:20]:
So that is an absolute crucial aspect of unbelievable. But again, and I know that's close to your heart as well, it doesn't mean that I'm just going to do everything you tell me. I am so keenly listening. I want to understand where you're coming from. But I still have my agenda as a boss of what we need to get done together. No question.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:13:36]:
Yeah. Well, you said in your book I love, you said I love people. And one of the things that you would do when you had a new team is you would make sure you went to lunch with them, you got to know them and you also respected their boundaries. Talk about that a little bit. I thought that was really important and insightful that you saw that as a two way opportunity.
Urs Koenig [00:13:59]:
I think that's a really important point because when I challenge people to deepen relationships, to take them for lunch, get to know them on a human level, I sometimes get pushback because I don't want to either ask or reveal my darker secrets and all my fears. And that's a really important thing. So when we start to build and deepen relationships at work, we will have different levels of depth of relationships with different people. And that's totally fine. Some people will open up about, you know, end of life decisions and their faith or whatever. And with others we just talk about our kids soccer game on Sunday. It doesn't matter. There's a human connection.
Urs Koenig [00:14:39]:
And so it's, you know, this is why I call leadership a thinking person sport. Because you know, don't push the boundaries. If you feel and sense somebody is uncomfortable opening up, then you don't push. So absolutely say more about that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:54]:
A thinking person sport leadership, say more about that. I love that.
Urs Koenig [00:14:59]:
I'm actually come back to one thing you said I put forward. If you want to be a leader, you fundamentally have to love people. I actually believe that to be true by the way. It doesn't mean that you have to be an extrovert at all. Doesn't mean that at all. But you fundamentally have to enjoy and love people. And so when I talk about the things sports and sports, it's exactly that. It's reading the other person.
Urs Koenig [00:15:25]:
So getting better. And we all can always improve on that. I'm working progress on that. Reading, body language, reading, you know, Hughes, can I deepen this relationship or do I push back, pull back a little bit? So yeah, things, person, sport and feelings person sport by the way, again, the yin yang, right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:44]:
Thinking and feeling a hundred percent. Which brings me to really the heart of your book. As I was Going through it is. None of this means that we aren't going after business results. I mean, you and I are both business people, like, for decades. It's who we. It's who we are, and we care about getting results. And so the way you framed it in the book is tough on results.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:16:14]:
Like, we're gonna. We're gonna get this done. We're gonna achieve the goal, but tender on people, right? Okay, so give us. Give us some tips. And how do we do that?
Urs Koenig [00:16:24]:
Let me actually tell you a quick little anecdote. So when I was in Kosovo, my first peacekeeping mission, I had a wonderful commander, probably the best commander I've ever had, who I deeply respected. And, you know, he really got to know me. So he asked me to his office, I sat down, and he opened the meeting with these words. He said, urs, I love you. You know I do. And your work is not even close to being good enough. His words made me shrink in my chair.
Urs Koenig [00:16:54]:
And of course, I then, because I actually, you know, he showed me, not just told me, showed me that he really cared for me. I then really was able to take his feedback in and turn it around big time. The point here is, if he would have yelled at me, if he would have belittled me, I would have tuned him out like an other idiot high officer. Like, who cares, right? But being tender on people gives us actually license to be tough on results. So another wonderful example. I don't know if you're a soccer or the real football fan, but the former US Women's soccer captain Karla Overbeck only scored seven goals in her entire international career. She would always humbly look for ways to pass the bull, but she had an incredible work ethic. She also schlepped her teammates back to their hotel room as the captain if the flight was particularly grueling.
Urs Koenig [00:17:44]:
So she was really tender on people. Because she was so tender on people, she amassed huge credit that she could then spend with her teammates when she needed to hold them accountable. So the tendrum people gives us license to be tough on results. And, you know, I often get pushback against this. And we all have too much to do. We just talked about priorities, you know, no more than three. I don't have time for this, like, relationship building. Like, my to do list is endless.
Urs Koenig [00:18:10]:
And I agree it's never efficient in the short term to be tantrum people, but it always pays in the long run. We never know who we have to rely on when the famous stuff hits the fan, right? And so it's about proactively building these relationships. It's a proactive move.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:28]:
I agree wholeheartedly. And as we're seeing employee engagement numbers drop and drop and drop since 2020, I've said it so many times, you're going to have to invest in people as an individual, not as a. Don't call them by the acronym of the group. Don't treat them like a machine there to produce. They are a beautiful, unique human. We're all unique down to our fingerprints and to your earlier point. And if you don't love the dynamic of that human to human, you're going to struggle as a leader even more now than we ever have in the past, I believe. Yeah.
Urs Koenig [00:19:01]:
And, you know, if I may just. On the tendron, people.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:19:04]:
Yeah.
Urs Koenig [00:19:04]:
You know, one of the most powerful ways, which makes a lot of people uncomfortable, to start building and deepening those relationships is actually to show up with a bit of vulnerability, to reveal something about myself. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about, you know, opening every meeting crying, and my parents never really loved me. Like, no, that's not what I'm talking about. It's about getting eye to eye, maybe share a goal you have for yourself. Maybe something where you're not quite sure about. You know, talk about vulnerability in three acts. The first act is me. The second act is my share.
Urs Koenig [00:19:39]:
Maybe I have a little insecurity, something I'm working on. And the third act is what am I going to do about it? So three acts. And so I have a, you know, in. In the Middle east, my commanding officer opened an after action review with these words in front of everybody. She said, I screwed that up, and here is what I'm going to do about it. So her ability to go first with a bit of vulnerability, build huge trust. All of us then felt comfortable to share what, you know, whatever we did well and also what we messed up. All because she went first with a.
Urs Koenig [00:20:12]:
With a bit of vulnerability. Like, it's that there is so much research out there that vulnerability is one of the quickest and most effective ways to build trusting relationships. And again, thinking sports and sport, I don't need to tell you my. My family of origin stuff, but, you know, lots of other ways to do that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:30]:
Right. Well, and it ties back to a couple of things that we talk about a lot here on the show, which is the very root cause of burnout, is to prove yourself. And what you're talking about is to know yourself in a really deep way, to really have a sense of security and confidence in who you are allows you to be vulnerable. I know we've talked about similarities there. And the other thing that you're tapping into is our nervous system has to feel safe in order to be our best self and take steps forward. And so when someone shares that you're safe to make a mistake and that they've made a mistake, you actually are more confident and bold in your decision making because you feel like this is a safe place to be yourself.
Urs Koenig [00:21:18]:
Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:21:18]:
So.
Urs Koenig [00:21:19]:
Well, so, I mean, there's so many good studies on psychological safety, which you're sort of pointing to, but you bring up a really important point which I, you know, elaborate in the book as well. Confidence and humility are not opposites. In fact, they require each other. So I need to be, as you just said, I need to be fundamentally confident in myself and have a strong sense of self to actually share with humility, with a bit of vulnerability what I'm working on. And then, you know, or even just ask for feedback and then actually hear that feedback and act on it. So the former CEO of Intuit, I love this story. Brad Smith. So he did his 360, volunteered at 360.
Urs Koenig [00:22:01]:
And as many viewers know as we see 60 anonymously service everybody around you, around your strengths and weaknesses. And for those of us who have never done it, it's a very scary exercise, actually. But, but Smith did not stop there. He then shared his 360report with the entire company. He emailed that 360report to every single person in the company, even taped the copy to his office door. Right. For everybody to see. Including, by the way, because I fit the third act, including his action steps as well.
Urs Koenig [00:22:31]:
And so what did that do? The top dog, the CEO, publicly traded company, shares his strengths, weaknesses, his action plan with everybody in the company, build humongous trust across the whole organization. And importantly, it made it safe for everybody to start working on their own. Stuff like that is how you lead by example with vulnerability and build trust.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:22:56]:
Amen. And every time we talk about, oh my gosh, I just literally want to just be like, everybody just take a note now, just like write that down.
Urs Koenig [00:23:03]:
Just.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:23:03]:
Let's just all absorb that for a minute because when we talk about these things from a business context, as a mom of young adults, I always think about our parenting too. I always think about my best parenting moments were when I opened up and shared about things that I had messed up or just gave so much grace when my kids were messing up. They're supposed to mess up while they're here. Under our roof. That's our job, is to kind of nurture them along. And I think in our society we've become so achievement focused at such a young age. I think it's hurting us even in business, because many haven't been raised with this kind of vulnerability that you're talking about. In fact, it's quite the opposite that they're afraid to share that they're afraid or not performing because there's nobody around to be a safe place for that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:24:04]:
And that makes my heart hurt.
Urs Koenig [00:24:05]:
I agree. By the way, a lot of the concepts we talk about in leadership so apply to parenting. I have a teenager, so my kids are a bit younger. It sounds like I've got two boys, 17 and 19, and I am such a work in progress as a dad. Like, are you kidding me? It's the most humbling experience of my life. And by the way, it's the hardest job I ever loved. And sometimes I'm not even sure I love it, to be quite honest.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:24:30]:
Sometimes I get it. Yeah.
Urs Koenig [00:24:33]:
But I do do this. I ask my boys regularly for feedback, like, what, what can I do better? And by. I mean, I got challenged by another podcast host recently. Well, but I need to put them in bed by 10. He has younger kids. And I said, okay, that's a non negotiable. Like you go bed at 10. Like, I don't get feedback on is it okay to go back to bed at 10? But I helped my boy with schoolwork.
Urs Koenig [00:24:55]:
I might be a bit impatient because I actually have emails I need to respond to. Now I'm getting pulled away. And everybody who has kids and works knows that feeling. Right. So. And then I ask for feedback. Hey, how did I show up while we did homework together? Especially if I'm, you know, maybe I think I was a bit impatient. What do you think? And so absolutely, we can apply these lessons to parenting as well.
Urs Koenig [00:25:15]:
No question.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:25:16]:
Yeah. I think we'll get a lot of ripple effect out of that as a society if we can practice. Maybe. Maybe you're. You're listening to this and you're like, maybe I'm not ready to do this at work. Maybe I'll just start and try this.
Urs Koenig [00:25:27]:
Exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:25:29]:
Well, it makes me think of my most vulnerable, but said not really nicely with my son, who was my first, and he was probably, I don't know, 11, 12 years old, and we're in the car together and he's just angry with me. I had promised something and then I couldn't fulfill that promise. Probably a commitment about time or something. And he was just angry at me. And we were driving out in the country, and I literally stopped the truck in the middle of the road and I put it in park. Middle of the country, nobody around. And I looked at him and I said, you know you're my first child, right? And he said, what's that got to do with it? I said, I have no idea what I'm doing. You literally are the guinea pig that's going to make your sister's life better.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:26:17]:
Like, I don't know what to tell you. I. I messed up. I'm going to need a pass on this. He got so quiet and so reflective. You could just see his wheels turning. And I was angry because we were in this fight, and I just was like, I got to sit here for a minute. And finally he just looked at me.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:26:32]:
He goes, oh, my God, you're right. You don't know what you're doing. I'm like, most days, no, I really don't. But if you could give me some grace, I think we could probably figure this out together. Does that sound okay? And it changed the trajectory of our relationship. He's now 26. We have an amazing relationship, But I think that moment was a big part of that.
Urs Koenig [00:26:53]:
I love that. And you know what? He's going to remember that when he. Does he have children on his own yet?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:26:59]:
No, not yet.
Urs Koenig [00:27:00]:
He's going to remember that. That scene when he has. Or he does now, I'm sure. But when he has children on his.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:27:05]:
Own, we laugh about it, talk about it.
Urs Koenig [00:27:07]:
Totally. So good. So good. I love it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:27:10]:
Oh, my gosh. It just popped into my head. Well, and it. And it makes me think about another way that you said something in the book that I really loved. You said growth lies behind the door called discomfort. A lot of what we're talking about requires some level of discomfort for us to have build these skills and this mindset. Talk a little bit about how that you came to that. I love that line.
Urs Koenig [00:27:41]:
Well, I think that's true across everything we do, not just leadership. Right. So if we want to grow, we need to put ourselves in a position where we will potentially fail. And that is really uncomfortable because if we. I mean, this maybe just sounds like cliches, but they're still true. If we're not putting ourselves into a position to fail, we're not actually chartering into new territory, you know, if we're not failing, you know, we're not learning new stuff. And so that's uncomfortable. One other Aspect I didn't write about in the book, but it sort of came to me over the last few months is that that's very true.
Urs Koenig [00:28:16]:
Like the. We need to push ourselves into a level of discomfort. At the same time, we need to all be also thoughtful and be kind to ourselves. Because if we put ourselves into uncomfortable situations in like three areas of our lives, right at work we really push ourselves and at home, and then we have some crazy hobby or we volunteer at our kids school, whatever, then we overstretch ourselves and then we don't actually learn. So why I strongly believe, yes, we have to push ourselves to be uncomfortable and you know, to come back to the relationship building piece, maybe open up a little bit more than we normally would, maybe go a little bit deeper with our relationship building. And I speak for myself here, frankly, coming out of the book launch, busy is full of speaking ahead. I need to also take care of myself and then it's totally fine if I make myself uncomfortable during the week. On the weekend, I can be in my comfort zone and recharge.
Urs Koenig [00:29:13]:
So again, it's a yin yang there as well.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:15]:
Yeah, agree wholeheartedly. In fact, just a few days ago I was leading a session and humility was a topic there as well. And I said, what's what? Words come to mind when you hear the word humility. And one woman said, selflessness. And I said, it's not going to get you humility. And we had this really great conversation about that's not what we're talking about. In fact, humility requires you to have really good self care and really good confidence because you got to be able to show up and be really confident in who you are. And I think there's too much misconception about what we really mean by humility.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:51]:
It takes a lot of intention and effort and taking care of ourselves to do that, to do that work. Yeah, yeah, I'll share this with you as a little nugget. We use this metaphor, my clients and I, most people that work with me know this is when you're going to do something hard that you could possibly fail. The first voice that shows up in your inner voice is your inner critic. And we fondly call her the little bitch in our head because she's not very nice. She says, why did you try this? This was dumb. I knew this wasn't gonna work. And we're always gonna have that inner critic voice, right? And so we gotta have a relationship with her that we know how to handle her.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:30:29]:
And so I put her in the passenger Seat with a seatbelt and a snack. I metaphorically am like, thanks for participating, but you need to sit over here. You don't get to drive. Like, I'm going to take some action. And then I replace that with the first responder voice. So emt, firefighter, a first responder who shows up when things look like they're not going well. They don't beat you up. They don't say, what are you, stupid? They may think it, but they don't say it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:30:56]:
They say, are you okay? How can I help you? And so that's the way when I'm in that place of I might fail. I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now. And that inner voice starts to be negative. I go, okay. Am I okay? Yeah, I'm okay. What do I really need? It might be, I need a break. I might ask for help. But to be kind to yourself when you're challenging yourself in tough times I think is also something that we haven't done enough in business.
Urs Koenig [00:31:26]:
I love your first responder metaphor. Never thought about it that way. Like, no, they don't come and, you know, how stupid must you be to do X? No, how can I save your life? Or, you know, how can I help? That's really great now.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:31:38]:
Thanks. Yeah, it's been really helpful for me and my clients and I literally use it. I'll be like, hold on, what do I really need? I probably just need to just get some fresh air and a new perspective. It'll take five seconds. Just take a break. Yeah, it's really good. Oh, my gosh. We could talk about this for days and days and days.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:31:53]:
But I know our listeners have other things that they need to move on with their day. So I want people to buy your book. The way it's structured is very easy to read and there's takeaways and action plans in chapters and sections. So I want people to grab the book. I think it's a kind of a field guide for this, not just a book that they would read. Where can they find your book? I'm assuming everywhere.
Urs Koenig [00:32:17]:
That's right, everywhere. You know, in the States, it's primarily Amazon, of course. Radical Humility on Amazon or on my website as well. Urskoenig.com and if I may, I'm LinkedIn. Pretty active on LinkedIn.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:32:30]:
Yes, you are.
Urs Koenig [00:32:31]:
I love to connect with people and readers and your listeners on LinkedIn as well and see and hear what resonates.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:32:38]:
Yeah, you put out great posts. I strongly recommend. And you're also a keynote speaker, so if somebody's looking for a speaker or are you still doing executive coaching as well?
Urs Koenig [00:32:48]:
Very little, to be quite honest. So I primarily speak Tuesday, so. Yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:32:52]:
So I hope that people reach out to you. I love your message. I love getting to know you. Thank you. You absolutely have showed up as the humble leader and person that I knew you'd be.
Urs Koenig [00:33:03]:
Thank you so much, Rebecca, for having me. I had a lot of fun. I'm not coming down. I never locked it on the ground.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:33:11]:
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 rebeccafleetwoodhesion.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 [00:33:37]:
Hey, y'all, fun fact. If you like the music for the podcast, that is actually my son, Cameron Hession, and I would love it if you would go to Spotify and itunes and follow him and download some of his other music. My personal favorite is TV Land.