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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):
I'm not coming down. I never locked it on the ground. I'm not coming down. I want to go higher, higher. 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 welcome back to Business is Human where we talk about the truth of our humanity that drives the metrics of our business. Today's episode is called Learner Not Loser because letting shame or guilt, or any of the emotions of past mistakes or perceived failures steals our future.
(01:11):
Listen, y'all, that's not just Instagram, Lou, it's facts, it's Bible, it's science. And too often with clients and friends and even myself, I've found that if we don't understand this deeply, it prevents us from moving forward and doing the great work that we were designed to do and having the life of satisfaction that we really want. So as is often the case in the topics here on the Business is Human podcast, business often rewards control. It rewards predictability. It really rewards perfection. I can remember in my corporate sales roles, one of the things I was so proud of was that my sales forecast would be accurate almost to the sense and the amount of time, energy, and effort that I put into making sure that was true. Man, I want some of those hours back and I think about what would've happened if I would've put more of that time into spending more time with clients and making a bigger difference.
(02:32):
But any who we're here to move forward. But it's just an example of how that happens. We become known for something, it's our brand, and it's becomes the expectation of I'm always the person that's going to get it right. I'm the person that they go to. I'm the one that figures it out, and then we are afraid to deviate or take any chances that might actually elevate us because we've created a brand around predictability and perfection. But here's the thing, life leadership work is full of uncertainty. It's a fact of life. And if we're always trying to eliminate failure or reduce any mistakes, we eliminate the very conditions where growth happens, we play it safe, we perform instead of going for it and learning. And eventually that leads to burnout or breakdown. That was my story. At some point, my cellular structure was so busy trying not to mess up that it broke down.
(03:43):
So what if, go with me here for a second. Well, yeah, what if failure isn't a flaw but actually a feature of our human learning system? What if, and I just say, what if? Because I want you to consider this. I already know it as a fact because I have considered it and lived with it and sat with it. God never asked us to be perfect. He asks us to be present to come to him, but thanks. Okay, so what if neuroscience and scripture about presence agree that the greatest breakthroughs come after the biggest breakdowns.
(04:29):
I wouldn't be doing the work I am doing today that I love so much. Had I not had my breakdown, my spiritual awakening, my two months of pneumonia so sick, I couldn't leave my house. And guess what happened In that two months of breakdown, I got really close to the Lord. There was a lot of presence in that two months of him healing me and allowing me to search and ask and wonder. So let's get into it, shall we? We're going to break this down. Now as you're listening to this, I want you to just let it seep into your soul and then I'll have a few things at the end of the episode that you can take with you. Okay? Shame, guilt, any of those negative feelings about yourself distorts your future. So when we do things in business to try to hide our failures, think about resumes.
(05:32):
The number of times somebody has said, I don't really want to do this, but it'll look good on my resume, or maybe I should have my kids do this because it'll look good on their resume. Oh, for the love of everything, holy. Make sure that your kids signs up for that volunteer project so they can put it on their resume. So they look like they care. That kid doesn't want to do that project. They're doing it because the parents said they had to put it on resume. And we do it as adults too. The highlight reels that we show on social media, performance reviews in general where you sit down and somebody else tells you if you're good or not. I mean, if you actually just pause and think about it, it's really crazy. That's so much of our sense of self comes out of this.
(06:22):
It's not going well in a lot of situations. So that's why we're talking about it here today. Shame keeps us in hiding afraid to take risks, afraid to really lead from our heart when in fact all of our thoughts come from love or fear. So if you're leading from fear instead of love, we've got a problem there. I feel like 20 years ago there was more grace for failure and mistakes than there is today. I feel like there's less allowance for it. So this quote from a class that I was actually in, only class that I was taking from a coach, Taylor Welch, he said, as long as you carry shame about your past, you will wrestle with anxiety about your future. That just got me thinking about myself, my clients and all the people I know that truly want to be great, that want to do great work, that want to have a great life, and how many times I've helped clients work through something that happened in their past so that they could be curious about themselves again, be bold about themselves again.
(07:38):
And that one quote just got me spinning and thinking about so many things that have led to this episode. So I always connect bible and neuroscience. That's what we do around here. And so I started thinking about what I was thinking about during my two months of burnout and the things that helped me. And so a lot of what shows up in this episode today comes from that. One of the verses that is so reassuring for me and others in this is, and it's in the book of Romans, that there's no condemnation in Christ Jesus. God's not walking around looking for you to feel guilt and shame. That's not it at all. He says he's going to convict you to correct it or fix it if you make a mistake, but not to condemn you. What condemns us is the story that we tell ourselves about what happened from a neuroscience perspective, shame traps the brain in a defense mode.
(08:46):
So instead of being on offense, we're on defense, which is largely because we feel unsafe. We've got to defend this. Our prefrontal cortex has to shut down because it thinks we're surviving, which then limits our creativity and decision making. And we start to ruminate in the emotions of our guilt or our shame and our frustration with ourselves. And we get stuck in this negative belief loop about ourselves because too often business reinforces those wrong things. Systems reward results, but not usually the reflection about things that didn't go well. You don't fill out the forum and say, tell me what you learned from your mistake this week. Now some leaders do, there are a few, God bless 'em, we need more. So we strive then to control the outcomes and the results instead of really appreciating the learning of what it takes to live in the midst of uncertainty and how many things don't go well to get to the one that does.
(09:58):
The industrial age trained us really to fear mistakes, but that's not what we do here. We are in the age of humanity. We are part of this movement of the Business is Human way of living and leading. This is where curiosity and reflection takes over from control. Because when your security comes from a relationship with the one who made you, then it's not as much about your own work. You can be more curious. It allows you to have more freedom. So if as a leader, if you really reflect, sit down and say, okay, how am I doing? If some of that is rooted in overreacting, looking for perfection, micromanaging, checking in relentlessly on numbers and asking people to stop what they're doing and send you reports because you need to see more of the numbers. All of that is based in fear and that creates more fear on the team.
(11:09):
And now you have a toxic culture where growth can't happen because we have to feel safe before we can grow and evolve. And so the quicker that you deal with whatever's causing that fear, then everybody else is left to grow and evolve and do better work. But when we build really strict performance-based identities, we lose ourselves in the process and that's not going to help grow us or the business. So failure mistakes are the training. That's the curriculum. That's what you want to learn from. I think about, there's so many examples in Bible of this. Joseph's brother sold him, literally sold him into slavery. It was like, nah, we're done with him. How much can we get for him? And he went through it, y'all, he went through it, ended up in prison. And through all of that, God didn't do that to him, but he used it for his good.
(12:19):
He was with him through the whole thing. And then he blessed him. He rose to power ultimately saving an entire nation from famine. I mean, what others mean for harm, God will use for good. So some of the mistakes and some of the failures that you are owning as a part of your story maybe weren't even your fault. You were a part of something that you didn't ever intend for it to be that way. It's okay, I'll use it all for your good, but don't take that on as your identity. If you've been around the Bible at all, maybe not. That's cool. I'm glad you're here. This dude named Peter, who was one of Jesus's closest friends and disciples after Jesus was taken away and crucified and people were like, didn't you know that dude? Peter was like, no, I didn't know him. He lied three times.
(13:15):
He'd just been with him for months or something. I dunno how long. And then they just flat out lied the next day, like, Nope, dunno him. And yet after Jesus came back, he restored Peter in the relationship and called him back to lead in the early church. So his greatest failure, straight up lied, became the foundation for his greatest calling. So God knows you're going to mess up. He knows, he knows and he's still like, you know what? I just want your presence. I don't want your perfection. So when you mess up, not if you mess up, I'm here. It's cool. I got you. I literally, it's so much better when you know this. So if you look for the pattern, which is neuroscience, our brains are always working off of patterns and the Bible is full of patterns, suffering, failure, mistakes, bad things happen, produces perseverance, character and hope.
(14:33):
Because when we turn to the Lord, he's like, yeah, I know I saw that, but we're good. We're good. Thanks for coming back to me. Don't go s spiral off in shame and hide from me. Just step to the front and be like, dude, I'm sorry, I got to be like, I got you. It's fine. In fact, there's a verse that says glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character and character Hope. It literally just says that in the Bible. And neuroscience follows it as it always does. That reflection after failure build stronger neural pathways than if you just were succeeding all the time. If you're just succeeding all the time, you're not getting the kind of growth that you need to really advance as you learn and things don't go well, then you're like, oh, well I won't do that again.
(15:36):
So you take it off the list, oh, when I did this, this happened. So I probably shouldn't try that again. And the more that you remove those things that didn't work, through the reflection, you narrow your focus into what does work, which catapults greater growth and learning facts, neuroscience, physics, it's all in there. And if you were to erase all of your failures, all of your mistakes, you'd erase the learning and the wisdom. Wisdom that makes you you to erase your grit, you to erase empathy, you to erase resilience, you to erase the calling on your life. So instead, let's use those mistakes and failures through reflection so that it can catapult growth. Ask yourselves, what did that hard thing teach you? Who did you become because of that hard thing? How did it make you more human? The Bible says consider it pure joy when you face trials because now you level it up, okay, we made a mistake, we failed.
(16:57):
We learned from it, boom level up. When we stopped striving to be perfect, then we learn to be present. We learn from stillness. So when he needs to do a little review and see how many times I recommend stillness on the show, renewing your mind means that we're reflecting on the mistakes so that we can heal and level up. So there's a practice in neuroscience called effect labeling and editing your story because we are not what happens to us, we're what we learned from it. So let's do a couple business scenarios, shall we? Let's say that you didn't get a promotion and you'd worked hard for it and you're so disappointed. Well, the emotion of disappointment, honor that. Yep, you're disappointed. Yep, this sucks. We're not ignoring the facts. That sucks. But what we don't want to do is then start to tell ourselves, oh, well I'm just not leadership material.
(18:20):
I'll never move forward from here. That's it. I'm stuck. So effect labeling says yes, label the effect. I feel disappointed, I feel overlooked. And I'm a little embarrassed that everybody knows that I went after this promotion and I didn't get it. But we have the power to write our own story so we can script this story still with the truth. The truth is this hurts, but it doesn't define me. I can use this as a lesson as learning as feedback, not failure. And you can start to ask yourself, well maybe, I dunno, maybe I wasn't visible enough to the decision makers. Maybe I didn't advocate clearly for my goals. But through that reflection, now you have clarity on what you might want to work on and always saying to yourself, but I'm still valuable, relevant and impactful. You can pray, Lord, what do you want to reveal to me in this situation?
(19:36):
Maybe the Lord was protecting you from being promoted into a place where you didn't belong because he's got way better plans for you. And if he gave you that promotion, then you wouldn't get the thing that's coming because your hands would be full of promotion. Maybe this company is full of a bunch of crooks and you don't know it yet and he's redirecting you somewhere else. I don't know what the situation is, but he does. And so I always just ask, what do you need me to see and know about the situation? Reveal it to me. Ask. They'll show you this. Reframing moves you from internalizing the rejection to taking it on as who you are as your brand. And instead, you see it as strategic input for your own growth. It's not an identity, it's a data point. Let's use another one about projects.
(20:36):
Let's say a high stakes project that you're working on, something that had a lot of visibility. There was a lot of people's eyes on this one, and it doesn't go. And the feedback brutal. You could think that's it. I've not only ruined our company reputation, our brand reputation, but I'm not cut out for this. So you start to internalize, take it on as your identity that you are bad. No, it's not what we're going to do. We're going to say, I feel. What do you feel? I feel anxious. I feel ashamed. I feel afraid that I've lost and I've lost the trust of my colleagues, my company, my customers, whatever. It's let's rescript it. Yeah, this sucked. This did not go as planned, but this is part of innovation. Every great business leader, project manager, has faced failure. And now I know exactly what to clarify On the next project, I know how to build better expectations.
(21:46):
I'm a problem solver. I know how to do this and I know what it's going to look like next time. And the way that we can do that is by making sure that we regulate our nervous system through stillness so that we've got greater insight into what we're feeling and the story that is real, that we're telling ourselves and others. Because this regulated nervous system state allows you to recover, trust, rebuild, make better decisions. We can't stay in that spiral, shame spiral. And again, to pray, Lord, what do you want to reveal to me in this situation? Lord, who do you say I am? Let me get out of my own way. Let me get out of my own head for a minute. Who do you say I am? What story about me do I need to really embrace about who you see I am?
(22:45):
And conversely, what do I need to leave behind that I'm believing about my identity that isn't true? Those are really good powerful prayers. God calls you to be faithful, not flawless. All right, so a little bit on dopamine about this. We don't want to be addicted to achievement even though dopamine wires this for reward. So when something doesn't go according to plan, you're not a loser, you're a learner, and that's part of growth. So dopamine is this feel good chemical, but it's not really about the reward, it's the pursuit of the reward. So we don't just want dopamine when we have a success, it's the pursuit that gives us the dopamine. It's a motivation molecule. It fires. When you anticipate progress or movement towards a goal, dopamine gets excited about the pursuit. The problem is when we've misaligned our dopamine and we've trained it to chase just the next win, the next promotion, the next deal, the next metric, and we get addicted to that hit of achievement and that when we fail, dopamine crashes and then shame sneaks around the corner and says you.
(24:18):
That's a lie. And we have to choose not to believe the lie. So the beautiful thing is that dopamine doesn't only spike for those outcomes. It spikes when you engage in meaningful learning. So every time you reflect on what didn't go well, that's meaningful learning and you can grow from that. When you reframe failure, that's meaningful learning. You are training your brain to seek the wisdom, the discernment, the learning, not just the wins, not just the trophy or the award. Fun fact, I just threw away all my glass awards the other day. If you've read my book, I talk about the box of glass awards under my stairs. Well, it's still under my stairs. And I could use that room to put other things like all the journals of my reflection and learning. I'm actually just real time realizing that's exactly what I put in that space where the box of awards used to be.
(25:27):
Oh, y'all, that's good. Yeah. But there's a bookshelf in that closet that has all my journals because I keep 'em. Because sometimes like I did when I had pneumonia and I was going through my own breakdown, I went into my journals to learn about me. So I just am in this moment realizing that I replaced the box of awards under my stairs with all the reflection of my learning. That might make me cry. See how good the Lord is. I didn't plan that. That's not in my podcast notes. You just drops in what you need when you need it. So good. So that's the neuroplasticity that he gave us. Your brain literally rewires from the challenges, not despite it. So delight yourself in the Lord. He'll give you what you need. So the next time you fall short things don't go so well. I want you to say to yourself, I'm not a loser.
(26:29):
I'm a learner. My brain is working with me, not against me. I'm safe. This moment is building character and a future hope. Say it, say it all loud. So go back and think about a moment that you have in your past that you may still be calling a failure, but now you want to see it as a dopamine fueled learning opportunity. How can you align your desire for that learning to God's design for your life? How can you sit with that and say, what does that really, what did that teach me? How did that make me better? What does that mean for me now? And in the future, if you're walking around with shame or guilt from your past, hear this, God's not holding it against you. So why are you? Shame is not a teacher. Love is conviction corrects, but shame condemns. And Jesus came to set you free of all that.
(27:42):
So don't waste it. It's right there available to you. It's not. Was it conviction corrects? Let's break that down. That sounds like one of those just bibley phrases that people don't really think about what it means. Conviction is that inner knowing, that little gentle nudge, the Holy Spirit says, Hey, that's not, and if we were listening, it's speaking to you all the time. So you get this conviction, you get this thought in your spirit and it'll say, it'll correct. So it'll convict you. It'll be like, Hey, hey. And then it corrects you by saying, listen, that's not who you are. You're made for greater. Let's not get hung up on it. Let's just keep moving forward. The more we can attune ourselves to hear that guidance and inner voice, the shame, condemns, shame says, oh, you're a loser. You're unworthy, you're broken, you're stuck. It wants to pull you backward.
(28:58):
And in the battle of good and evil, guess whose team that shame is on? It ain't God's team. And who do you want? What team do you want to be on? We are not letting the evil team win. Don't be ridiculous. We're set free from all that. We're not going to get trapped in guilt. Shame is just a prison of the past. We're moving forward. So today, today in this moment, you get to decide are you going to keep seeing yourself as a loser because of what didn't work? Or will you recognize that you're a learner, you're wiser. Now you're stronger. Now you're more compassionate because of it. Because we can stop performing and being afraid of the next performance evaluation.
(29:51):
What does God say? You are not the third shift supervisor or the VP of whatever. Let's start growing because failure isn't the end. It's the invitation. God will not ask you to turn in a resume or a performance evaluation at the end. He's searching your heart, not your HR file. So thanks for listening. I hope this resonated. I hope it allowed you to free some burdens. So that's all for today. Love you mean it. I'm not coming down. I never locked it on the ground down. 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.