Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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 a 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? Kennedy, welcome to the show.
[00:00:45] Kennedy Gallagher: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
[00:00:47] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Glad we’re going to get to talk about something that I know that you are passionate about. I’ve been able to glean that from our conversations prior to this, and that always makes for a good conversation, no matter the topic when you know that someone is passionate. And I’m just going to set our listeners up with the context that you and your team reached out to me to do a keynote for you and of course love me some keynotes. And I was fascinated with the setup of this keynote. So why don’t you just go ahead and share about why you reached out to me, what you’re doing with this keynote series, which is drastically different than ones that I’ve been invited to prior.
[00:01:33] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely. Yeah, clearly very different. Yeah, so I’m a Community and Marketing Manager here at Carmel Gateway. We’re an office park off of 96 and Meridian. What makes us different is we’re truly not just an office park, we’re just like a connected community here. We don’t even use the word office park. We actually use campus. And so what we’re teeing up for 2026 is we’re building out these two large lawns, east and West Lawn is what we’re calling them right outside of our office spaces. And my role in these beautiful builds is to activate the space and get people out of the office. And what a great way to do that by bringing people like you out to speak about work-life balance, speaking about integrating just anything into your life outside of the workplace, but bringing it to the workplace for you to better just learn about anything and everything. So I’m planning a speaker series, obviously have chatted with you about it, but also just reaching out to other local keynotes in the areas with a wide range of topics too, just for people to just learn more about our community, how to take care of themselves. Truly any topic is what we’re looking for really to activate our spaces and get people more excited about coming to work.
[00:02:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And the event, the speech, if you will, is going to be in this new amphitheater that you’re building on the lawn. So much like the popularity of outdoor concert series and people wanting to be out, you’re bringing this top to the green space.
[00:03:07] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely. So you’re not sitting in a boardroom, you’re not stuck somewhere where you’ve got the hospital lighting, you’re sitting outside, you’re touching grass, you are truly touching grass, literally, which just makes it all the more worthwhile. You’re not doing the same day to day. It shakes things up, you’re able to learn about different topics and you’re sitting looking at a beautiful pond. You’re sitting with beautiful landscaping sitting around you and it’s just a nice change of pace. So I’m looking forward to it.
[00:03:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And it really is a beautiful shift. Obviously the name of the show is Business is Human and I care a lot about how we handle our neuroscience and our spiritual needs in addition to just our paycheck. And when you integrate the needs of those two together in a beautiful way, everybody wins. And as I was looking into this after we met and talked and I got excited about it too, I love that you’re changing it from office park to campus because those words alone better illustrate what you’re building here, which you picture yourself a college campus with all this beautiful green space and you are investing, I saw in one report $40 million into this movement,
[00:04:26] Kennedy Gallagher: Correct? Yeah. So part of that $40 million investment is these two lawns that we’re working on. But we do invest a ton across our portfolio. We’ve updated around over 12 restrooms just within this year and we continue to invest in the property as a whole. One thing our property management team is also working on is updating our lobbies and a ton of our tenants regularly renovate their spaces as well. So our team is very much into investing in the whole environment that you’re in, the five senses, all the things. We have a scent program in our lobby. You walk into different lobbies, you’re smelling different smells depending on the lobby that you’re in, truly just to make sure you have the best experience possible at your workplace. So it’s really cool to be here.
[00:05:15] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Love that. And it’s interesting that we don’t always pay attention to work environment being a part of our societal evolution. And when I talk to some clients who have been really frustrated about being asked to come back into the office, not because they’re unwilling to come back into the office, but what’s happening is there’s this mandate to come back and then they’re all sitting in their individual cubes on Zoom calls anyway and not interacting. And so why come into the office if you’re going to be on Zoom? Anyway, I’m with you that there needs to be a very intentional reason and space to get together. And I’m often saying to clients, you need to think as much about the environment that you have the meeting in as the meeting itself. And so you are really getting at that from a bigger picture perspective that not just about the conference room, about everything you experience when you pull into work.
[00:06:19] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely, yeah. There’s a lot to offer here at Carmel Gateway. Outside of the conference centers, we’ve got pickleball courts, we’ve got a putting green, oh, just a walking trail that we’ve got. We even have the most unique thing I would say that we have is our auto spa. So you can actually come drive into your office, drop the car off five minutes away walking wise, get your oil changed and pick it up all in your office. Truly, it’s the best experience. I’ve personally done it myself and it’s things like that that truly differentiate from driving to wherever you’re going for an office space. It cuts so much stress out of your day and it’s truly all about the convenience. It really is. And having that whole idea of work-life balance, it truly is integrated into this campus with things like that.
[00:07:09] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That’s amazing because who wants to take the time to go sit in the gross oil change lobby, which I’ve done it a million times, sitting there with a laptop on a conference call and all the background noise and the smells are not all that great at the, and so you’ve taken all of that off the table. An auto spa. I love that so
[00:07:30] Kennedy Gallagher: Much. My personal favorite, I think only because I’m a big fitness girl, but we also have a gym on campus. So again, instead of having that 30 minute commute from your office to your gym, it’s a five minute walk. I can just walk, get my gym session, go home. I’ve seen myself at least an hour because I’ve cut the traffic commute out of the way because I’ve waited for traffic to die down and I’ve worked out during the busy rush and then I get home and I’ve got plenty of time to do all I need to do back at home. But I’ve also invested in my physical wellbeing as well. So I call it the hidden gem of our campus for that reason because it’s exclusive. It’s only for people in this office park, so you’re not getting what I like to say, like the random kids running around in the gym with their crocs on and all of the things like this is a professional workplace, so everybody respects each other in the gym. It’s a peaceful environment and it’s a comfortable environment where people really get to test out all the equipment if they’re newcomers too, which I love.
[00:08:30] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh my gosh. Because you think how many times you think, oh, I’m going to go to the gym tonight and then whatever happens, and by the time you get home and especially these winter months, then you’re like, I’m not going to go back out or whatever. So that does change the game, and you and I talked about this prepping for me to come and speak is when we regulate our nervous system with these kinds of green spaces and activities and just a sense of wellbeing. I know you even gave an example when we talked previously that it’s so beautiful and we have such a great cafe and all of those kinds of amenities that people actually have their loved ones and friends come to your campus for lunches and people are getting to see their friends and their family during the workday without going out to someplace else, like you said, with traffic and schedules and all the things. So what you’re able to do with that environmental is giving people a sense of a, not just sense of, but an actual regulated nervous system so that when they go into the office or go in to do the actual work, they’re able to access their prefrontal cortex because they’re not in a state of fight or flight from traffic. And when am I going to get all this done and there’s a more peaceful environment to do their work in.
[00:09:45] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely. I see families walking in all the time. It’s super sweet to see whenever you have somebody new bringing a new family member in and they’re like, this is at your office. You walk down from the office, we can spend a full hour together instead of you taking your 20 minute commute somewhere else and I only get 30 minutes with you instead, whatever it may be, it’s cool to see them truly have quality time with their family and be able to comfortably just walk right up the stairs to their office again. It’s super sweet. I actually do monthly lunches with my mom here, same thing. And it’s great. It’s truly, it does help me just calm down and be able to refresh and reset and go right back to the office feeling more rejuvenated than I did when I would have versus going and driving around somewhere and dealing with, oh, where are we going to go? What are we going to do? I have all of that figured out because it’s truly steps away.
[00:10:39] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Decision fatigue is real.
[00:10:41] Kennedy Gallagher: Correct.
[00:10:42] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The number of times that I’ll be in a group text with some friends, Hey, let’s try to get together for lunch. Okay, where do you want to go? And just the thought that I have to make one more decision sometimes is just the one that might send me over the edge. And it sounds so silly, but depending on what your capacity is in your nervous system, you might not have the capacity for one more decision. And so just to say, Hey, we’re going to meet monthly and we’re always going to meet at my office. We have this beautiful space really is a value to people. I can remember last, probably two years ago, my friends messaged me right before my birthday and they’re like, same as usual. I’m like, yeah, because the deal is I don’t want to have to make any of the plans. I don’t care where we go. I don’t care who you invite. If you love me, just send me a text that says, here’s where you’re going, here’s what to wear. Correct. I love you. I’ll see you there. And I’m like, raise the Lord.
[00:11:36] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely. Yep. And just kind of piggybacking off of that whole entire idea of decision fatigue, a lot of our tenants do their own internal events, but what’s great about my role and probably my favorite part about my role is the event planning that I get to do. So I program a lot of different options for people to get involved outside the workplace here on campus. My personal favorite is just as you were saying, that idea of fatigue and deciding what to do. I program monthly coffee chats, so a lot of corporate companies mix people up, all the things, do a little coffee chat internally, well, what day do we do it? Where do we go? What do we do? So just to remove all of that, I started planning monthly coffee at our amenity center. So I brought in a coffee vendor, specialty coffee specialty lattes for two hours every single month, say every Wednesday first of the month.
[00:12:37] Kennedy Gallagher: And that way everybody could just come do their coffee chats with some nice free coffee and just exist. They didn’t even have to think about making the coffee and they had a place where they knew they could come and just sit and exist. And it’s been really cool to see people scheduling. They’ll be like, yep, my regular coffee chat is going to be when you guys have your coffee. And it’s again, great to be able to support all of these companies here in such, it seems like such a small way, but it really does make a huge difference.
[00:13:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And I’m thinking, what a great opportunity to meet some of the other tenants and people that work in other businesses there and you’re helping a local business bring their exposure for their coffee into your space. That’s wonderful. And those are the kinds of things that I don’t think people realize the value of them until they’re experiencing them. It’s not something you’d think I should ask for this from my office people, but once it’s there you’re like, oh my gosh, where has this been in my whole life? And pickleball that cracks me up. How did pickleball become pickleball? Like everybody in the whole country in such a short period of time, don’t you feel like it’s just like all of a sudden everybody is playing pickleball?
[00:13:53] Kennedy Gallagher: Yes, and I did join that bandwagon as well. I can’t have to,
[00:13:56] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: My daughter has, but I’ve played tennis a little bit in my younger years when I was not good at it. So I think I’m intimidated by that thing.
[00:14:05] Kennedy Gallagher: No, see, here’s the thing. I am not a tennis gal. I admit it. I’m a very anti tennis gal. Can’t do tennis.
[00:14:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I’m feeling bad.
[00:14:12] Kennedy Gallagher: I don’t like courts. It just doesn’t feel correct to me and it’s just a personal opinion. But you know what I do love is pickleball and here’s why. And more so because I’ve seen the way the tenants interact. I’ve done events. I did free Yaay Bowl event and told everybody, Hey, come out, learn how to play pickleball. I know you think it’s a fad, but just come try it. And I was able to really just teach people how to play it. It’s super accessible, super easy. You don’t have to move a ton, especially when you’re in doubles and it’s just an easy, silly game to play that’s not too intense is the great thing. And to be able to see people take a 15 minute break walking down from their office and just hitting the ball back and forth, it was just truly so cool to see,
[00:14:55] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Okay, I’m inspired. Maybe I should try it. I pictured the old tennis days of my youth where it was not fun.
[00:15:04] Kennedy Gallagher: No tennis to this day, my opinion is tennis is not fun. People do associate the two. They think, oh, well, it’s basically just smaller tennis. And in a way I do see that, but at the same time, there’s a lot more fun that can be had, I think, in my opinion.
[00:15:18] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, I just think it’s fascinating that it went from nobody had ever heard of it to people being on leagues and they all these, right,
[00:15:24] Kennedy Gallagher: Very intense. Now I will say I can’t hang out with the super competitive people. I’m as long as we’re all having fun kind of gal, but it is what it is.
[00:15:33] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well, that’s like anything else. I’m a runner, but I’m not in it for the like, oh my gosh, I got to beat my best time from, I used to do races for time and I’m like, I do not need another stressor in my life. I run for fun. I don’t want to be like, I got to get my under two half done with those days. For sure. Okay, here’s another thing that was really fascinating when I was looking into this. So for your property, what I read was that you took three acres of parking space that became the green space. And I was like, that’s fascinating because of course as a society we are moving to more green. We don’t want to be asphalt parking lot life, and you’re not old enough to remember this, but I can remember 40 years ago where that was like you knew you had made it if you were working in one of the buildings that big tall building all the cars in the parking lot, that meant you were a part of something that was growing and city life even here in the Midwest.
[00:16:36] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And now we’ve shifted as a society we’re like, okay, that was interesting, but not what we thought it was going to be and now we want more green space. And so then I’ve dug into it a little bit more, and there are places all over the country that are starting to do these kinds of movements. Massachusetts, Detroit, Houston, there was several articles about these that that’s one of the big shifts is getting rid of the parking lot. I found it fascinating. This stat was one of the reasons there is this big movement to create more green space is because it’s so much better for the environment for a variety of ways. But the stat was that there are four parking spaces for every car in the United States. I found that fascinating and things I would not think of until having the conversation with you to create this curiosity in me, but by changing the structure from parking space to green space, it actually environmentally helps with storm runoff and heat management. Obviously that one makes more sense, but there were so many environmental benefits to this movement that I didn’t think about when we first talked. Fascinating.
[00:17:50] Kennedy Gallagher: No, absolutely. And you touched on the heat in particular. That is something I’ve noticed in the changing that we’ve had here on campus. We are taking a ton of parking spaces away to implement more of this natural feel, just more nature in general. I walk a lot on campus and you can truly feel the difference between walking to your car in the parking lot and walking through our green spaces. It truly is night and day. When we have those summer days, it can be 90 degrees outside, but I’m sitting underneath our really tall trees and it feels like it’s 75 and I can sit outside and have lunch and feel completely comfortable. And for me to be able to do that but also look across the way to see a parking lot is great. I do appreciate that I can never have to fight for a parking spot, but I also appreciate not having the heat constantly and not seeing a plant and not being able to get shaded by nature. I do love just truly how nature works in that way. You look at the stats on the Amazon rainforest and how the rain barely hits the bottom because of how much spoilage there are. It’s like clearly this is a very minimal level in Carmel, Indiana, but the same thought, you’re getting that shade. You’re not feeling that heat and you’re surrounded by truly nature and it’s just more soothing place to be.
[00:19:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And we are here in the Midwest, and I just had this visual of office buildings that have put tables and things outside, but it’s right beside the parking lot. And so we only have a small number of months or weeks that are this beautiful outdoor weather. If you’re sitting beside an asphalt parking lot, you’re not going to go sit at those outdoor tables in July or August. So what you’re doing is you’re creating the opportunity to get outside far more many months or weeks out of the year than you would in a traditional space.
[00:19:57] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely. And for people who need to avoid the sun or all the things, there’s just opportunities for you to truly enjoy being outside without feeling more hindered to stay inside during those beautiful months that we have that are so few and far in between. With the Indiana weather,
[00:20:15] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I just have another really harsh visual is that too often the outdoor tables in office spaces were the smoke break tables instead of beautiful green space. Now we’ve come a long way as a society that isn’t as prevalent anymore either, but it is transforming the way people experience outdoor space
[00:20:37] Kennedy Gallagher: At work. Truly, when I walk out in the summer, I’m seeing people sit out, they’ve got their little lunch, they’re either sitting in their little nook reading a book outside, or you’ve got two coworkers sharing a lunch together. Like chatting is great. Or you’ve got the person who’s brought their kid on site and they’re sitting outside and then they’re going to go play at our putting green afterwards and they’re teaching their kid how to golf. That truly is not a parking lot. It’s not. And you can actually enjoy being outside decompressing for your lunch hour that you should be able to actually enjoy.
[00:21:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, because inspired to go back to work after you sat outside next to the asphalt parking lot and you’re sweating like a crazy person. So you’re really on the front edge of what feels like a huge movement in the United States. Another stat that was interesting to me is a lot of this movement started in Paris where Paris took 70,000 parking spaces and turned them into green space, which was half of the parking space allotment in the city. How crazy is that? And so it got me thinking about so many people, if you’ve grown up here, yeah, Indiana is the last to get any kind of fashion or any big movement, but when I looked at the places that are doing this, Carmel, Indiana, what you and your company are doing is really cutting edge for the country. So congratulations on being the front end of something really special.
[00:22:06] Kennedy Gallagher: And it truly does feel like the first of its kind around here. You drive through our corridor and you see all the office spaces around you and it is just truly a sea of parking lot and then a large office building. And so to be able to drive up and know that I don’t have to leave and I can enjoy my time here, it is a relief. It truly is. And it makes me feel, just like you were saying, more of that European seal. I have my 15 minute walk to anywhere, right? 15 minute walk to my lunch, 15 minute walk to my gym, and then I can take my drive home. And it just does feel like a more relaxing and balanced experience for my workday, and it allows me to be fully present when I leave as well for when I go home.
[00:22:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Yeah, that’s nice. So let’s cast a vision someday all of these office campuses will have, you can buy your baguette and your bottle of wine and we can bring a little bit of Europe to the states. I would be totally down for
[00:23:09] Kennedy Gallagher: That. Yeah. I always felt like roundabouts were always like, they just truly are European as well. And that’s what I loved about Carmel adopting that very early on. There’s my favorite stat only because I’m in the swimming world, we’re in Swim City, Carmel, Indiana. We had more people qualify for the Olympics than there were stoplights in our town. In swimming specifically maybe. Yes. Fascinating. And so it’s cool to see how we’re so forward when it comes to not only Carmel Gateway as an office park, but the city as a whole. They do support us in a well-rounded way that it’s just a futuristic look. And Carmel built a roundabout right next to our property, which awesome. Loving it. And it’s great to see that kind of align with what we’re doing here is just like, again, I feel like that more of investment in the person rather than just everything else.
[00:24:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Well now, because I’m so used to roundabouts and I’ve been to Europe many times and I was like, oh, this is cool, this is special, is now, if I’m driving in a community that doesn’t have roundabouts, I’m so aggravated because it is so inefficient. Oh my gosh, you all need some roundabouts. I get when people come here from different places, it might be a little shocking and take ‘em a minute, but Carmel has done a good job with the downtown area. It does feel a little more European when you’re walking through and can pick up a little boutique here and a little stop in and have a drink and a snack, and they’re really good places where you want to go. And I can remember when all of this first started, the city planners took a lot of harassment because people didn’t see the vision that they did, and now it’s all working out in their favor. So sometimes it’s hard to be first. And I think about that with you as your role in marketing this wonderful facility. It’s hard to market something that people aren’t familiar with. And I know that as somebody who has an event every year now in my seventh year, that there was nothing like it when I first started it,
[00:25:16] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And it’s hard to describe to somebody something they haven’t experienced. How are you finding that part of your job to get people to understand? No, really it is that cool?
[00:25:26] Kennedy Gallagher: Yeah, absolutely. I do experience that with my events for sure. So when I came on here, we had had a preface of some really great events that we always promoted that just really created a great company culture around our campus. Our favorite and most longstanding event is our fall fest and Pipe Away. So we just had our seventh annual one, and that’s our biggest event. We have around 300 people come and we give away free pie saw the tenants says like a happy Thanksgiving. It’s always the week before Thanksgiving. And this past year we did a conjoined fundraiser with it for day spring Homeless Center. I dunno if you’ve heard of them, but they’re my favorite nonprofit in the area. And so we did basically a casino night fundraiser and free pie giveaway or Duv drinks, all the things, 300 people there. Awesome. But could I tell you that three years prior that many people showed up and we had raised all this money?
[00:26:21] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely not. And it really does take time for people to adopt this idea of, oh, I can take 20 minutes and just grab some food and exist. I’m allowed to do that. It’s okay to take a break and it’s truly, it’s five minutes from your office, you can just go take a walk. My whole role is creating these spaces and events for people to enjoy. And it’s great to see those tenants who for the first time are like, whoa, this is what you do. That’s what you created. Oh, I’m definitely coming back. And it’s cool to see them, those people who have come several times being like, oh, I’m so excited. This is here again, dah, dah, dah, dah. And just seeing those early adopters flip a switch and get into a different mindset is so, so cool. And it’s probably the most rewarding part of my job for sure.
[00:27:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I could feel that energy from you when we talked and it takes a special kind of person. We’re all different on purpose for a purpose, and there are certain people that can take something that somebody has already created and make it better, and that’s what they’re wonderful at and it’s fabulous. And then there are other folks like you who would rather come up with some ideas. You probably get weird ideas all the time when you’re out walking and working out, and now you’ve got the ability in your role to take that creative idea and implement it and know that, yeah, I may not have 300 people show up the first time, but watch where this is. And to have the confidence that I’m willing to do something, what some might call risky, because I think it’s cool and I’m excited about new ideas. So I could tell that you were the right person for that kind of role.
[00:28:03] Kennedy Gallagher: Yeah, I think one of the biggest needs or asks my whole role again is creating something for our tenants, right? I’m here to ask for what their needs are. And the biggest gap is especially, I think this just has more of a twinge in my heart because I’m a young professional, I’m moving to the suburbs, I’m trying to meet people, trying to create a community, and I’m coming to this massive office park where there’s established professionals and people already have their connections and all the things, well, I don’t know anybody. I just entered this field. Who do I connect with? What do I do? And so this past summer I started creating these networking launches specifically for young adults in the field. And so it was a great way. Now the first one, I had only 20 people showed up because it’s like as a young professional, do you want to show up to that? And it was the first one I promoted.
[00:28:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: 20 is a lot for the first one.
[00:28:53] Kennedy Gallagher: Well, yes, it was for me. Maybe it’s just I have high standards, but I was like,
[00:28:58] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You’re right. I think about my daughter is 24 and she would wait to see are other people going to go before she decided if she was going to go
[00:29:06] Kennedy Gallagher: Right. So that was a huge thing is especially as young adult, you’re always like, okay, well are people actually going to show up to this all the thing? And that’s the big battle as an event planner is making sure, no, I promise it will be good. And if it’s not, you at least get a free lunch out of it. It’s free. There’s no downside, truly. But that is something I think, again, I’m just trying to fill gaps where I see them as the community manager. I’m trying to build up positive community here around our campus, and that was a gap that I truly saw this past summer was we have all these new interns, we have all these new hires and all these 60 different companies we have, and it’s great to network within your specific company, but what about meeting people outside your network?
[00:29:51] Kennedy Gallagher: What about meeting people in your general community outside the workplace? A lot of people say, okay, the only place I can meet people, it’s at a bar. And sometimes I don’t want to go to a bar to meet people and I have only drinking is down by, I just saw this 20%. Exactly. Exactly. Nobody drinks anymore anyway, so it’s like, okay, how do I go meet people when nobody’s socializing at bars anymore and maybe I’m not a pickleball player and I don’t want to meet people at a pickleball event. Where can I find that community outside my workplace? Well, guess what? It’s actually at your workplace and you just didn’t know that and I’m creating it for you. So that has been probably my favorite new thing that I’ve been integrating, and I’m really excited for that. Summer of 2026 too, is just seeing how that formulates new connections for young adults in the field. Yeah,
[00:30:42] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And it’s really good for someone’s career to network outside of their business because what happens when you just stay talking within your company or even within your industry, is you really start to insulate and isolate yourself unintentionally. You aren’t open to new ideas from other industries that could be really applicable to the things that you’re trying to do in your company. I’m constantly encouraging people get outside of your own corporate speak because every industry ends up with their own little language and their own acronyms and shorthand, and you got to get outside of that to keep yourself fresh and keep yourself inspired in that space of young professionals. Again, I think about my kids and same, they are over the going to bars and now they’ll go and drink water just to have the social safety truly to find other places that they could have the opportunity to meet people. I mean, it could be fun to just watch how that part of your segment grows and evolve. Who knows? You may be hosting weddings of people that have met at your coffee chat and now all of a sudden you’re hosting wedding. By the way, I’m a wedding officiant. If that happens, I can come
[00:32:00] Kennedy Gallagher: Do the weddings. Okay, well, I’ll let you know when that happens. That truly is, that’s what we’re trying to program here too, is eventually it would be the buildings that we have in the space that we’re creating outside. You would want to host a wedding here. I could see a wedding being hosted here. I’m excited for when that happens. It’s not an if. It’s definitely a when. It’s just finding that moment. So it’s kind of cool and cool and exciting.
[00:32:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Okay. I have another crazy idea for you. I love people that are into fresh ideas because we could riff off this and have a whole series. You and I aren’t sure, but you know what I’m fascinated with on TikTok and Instagram reels is Stranger sessions for photographers where they have two people who don’t know each other, they don’t see each other, and they bring ‘em out to a park or somewhere outside. Then they couple ‘em up and they do a couple photo shoot with two strangers. Girl, you have got to get on Stranger Shoots on TikTok and Instagram. It’s my favorite show. I go looking for these. So the one I watched the other day, they actually went on a date that night after another one I saw. They had actually, this one’s wild. She had had a flat tire months before and he had stopped on the side of the road and changed her tire and they had met and then they met again at the Stranger session. I’m like, come on, if you know God’s trying to tell you something, I’m literally like, I’m invested in these people. It’s crazy. So that’s my idea that you get a photographer, you do stranger sessions if you need a recommendation, I have a
[00:33:35] Kennedy Gallagher: Great, oh, beautiful.
[00:33:36] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Marissa Wiley’s my favorite photographer. She’s been a part of my life since my business started. You can have people volunteer from the office campus to come in and do photo shoots, and then those pictures could be out on the photographer’s site and help you market, listen, riff off ideas all day.
[00:33:55] Kennedy Gallagher: I have never heard of this, and I am upset. Have to look into, I’ll say it. I think that is so fun. And you talk about icebreakers, what an ultimate icebreaker. Truly,
[00:34:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: When you look at these pictures, you’re like, oh my gosh, they’re in love. And then you realize they just met 40 minutes ago.
[00:34:11] Kennedy Gallagher: Oh my gosh, I want to do one.
[00:34:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Fascinating. Another idea that came to mind when you were talking about picturing people out on the lawn and reading a book is have you seen those little libraries that you can build that are super cute little containers that look like a little house and then people bring their books that they’re done with and you just come and take a book or give a book? I don’t know. It could be a cute place to have
[00:34:35] Kennedy Gallagher: In the library. Yes, I love those. You see ‘em everywhere. They’re planted all around Carmel, but that’s actually a great idea. And we are Carmel based. Carmel Gateway is our name. So I will definitely add that to the list of things we should be implementing in 2026. I’m a big book girl, so I’m inspired by
[00:34:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That. And if you ever just want to get together for coffee, just to rattle off ideas, that’s one of my favorite things. It’s like I love a good idea and then I want somebody else to go run and execute. Yes, I got more ideas than I got time to execute. So we be a
[00:35:02] Kennedy Gallagher: Good team. Correct, correct. I love that. Oh my goodness.
[00:35:07] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So if somebody wanted to come and check this place out, are there openings for people? If they are looking for their business to move in, how do they engage with you?
[00:35:19] Kennedy Gallagher: So we have our own leasing team. So Tracy Cap, she is with JLL, who leases our spaces. So if you are really interested in looking at our spaces, you can reach out to our JLL team. You can also always reach out to me and I’ll direct people to the right source. But if you ever want to see anything amenities wise, just get to know our spaces more. I would say I’m our on campus expert on everything to get you to not do your job, is what I like to say. Now, if you’re wanting to look more into the office spaces, you would want to contact our JLL team. But yeah, just a great place. It’s one of my favorites in the Rummel area. I grew up here, been working here since I became a young professional and in the Rummel area. And just the past couple of years I’ve been working at this specific office space and it’s truly a great place to work. So
[00:36:13] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Do you have a social media presence?
[00:36:16] Kennedy Gallagher: Yes, we do. So we do have an Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all Carmel Gateway, so I can get you that information as well. But yeah.
[00:36:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Oh my gosh, thank you for being on the show. I just knew that this was a creative and innovative and new idea that more people needed to be aware of because what’s happening in Paris is also happening in Carmel, Indiana.
[00:36:41] Kennedy Gallagher: Absolutely. Yeah. I think my big spiel I always tell people is time is truly your biggest form of currency, and I feel that here on campus is like I save so much time and it’s not even saving time. It’s quality time. It truly is. And love being here, love being able to chat about that quality time that I get to experience every single day and give to other people, which just truly makes the job worth it.
[00:37:05] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thank you so much.
[00:37:07] Kennedy Gallagher: Thank you.
[00:37:09] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: 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. All right, make it a great day. Love you mean it.