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We need a new definition of success—one that harmonizes meaning and money.
Imagine diving into your workday with renewed energy, leaving behind the exhaustion or dread of a monotonous grind.
Traditional beliefs about success and the root cause of burnout are the same:
Prove yourself.
Work harder.
Take care of the business, and it will take care of you.
We’re recycling the mindset and practices that keep us stuck. Our souls need a jumpstart into The Age of Humanity.
Tune in for a new way of working that honors our nervous system and the bottom line, using knowledge of the brain, the Bible, and business. We’ll discuss timeless truths that amplify growth, ignite change, and reshape the world of work. No corporate speak or business BS. Let’s get to the heart of a rewarding career and profitable growth.
We speak human about business.
What’s in it for You?
Value, Relevance, and Impact (VRI): No, it's not a new tech gadget—it's your ticket to making your work genuinely matter to you and your company.
Human-Centric Insights: We prioritize people over profits without sacrificing the bottom line. Think less "cog in the machine" and more "humans helping humans."
I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hesson, your thrive guide leading you into the new Age of Humanity. I’ve navigated the highs and lows of business and life, from achieving over $40 million in sales, teaching thousands of people around the world about leadership, trust, execution, and productivity to facing burnout, divorce, raising a couple of great humans (one with ADHD), and navigating the uncertainty of starting a business.
I’m committed to igniting change in the world by jumpstarting business into profitable growth with the timeless truths of our humanity.
Sound crazy? It’s only crazy until it works.
Hit subscribe to never miss an episode, and leave a review to help other listeners discover our show.
Want insight and advice on your real career and business challenges? Connect with me on social media or email me at rebecca@wethrive.live. Your story could spark our next conversation.
[00:00:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Welcome back to the Business is Human podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, and we're here to bring you episodes that blend 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.
[00:00:28] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: 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. All right, let's get into it, shall we?
[00:00:43] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Welcome back to the show.
[00:00:46] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Merry Christmas. I don't know when you're listening to this, but I'm sure it is going to be somewhere around the holiday and there's nothing like the holidays to spark some memories, and I wanted to talk about how to do that and to do it with great intention. I had a couple of experiences this week that got this topic on my mind.
[00:01:13] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: One was I was asked to be a surprise guest, for a meeting, that the women's group at the Franklin Covey Organization hosted by my previous colleague and friend, Jennifer Huey. She said, Hey, will you come and be a special guest? where we're gonna honor, their president, Jennifer Cosmo and I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Jen.
[00:01:41] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: For all the years that I was at Franklin Covey, nearly 20 years, and she was and continues to be one of my favorites, and she's one of those people that we just have so many similarities that people said, oh my gosh, you guys have to meet. You remind me of each other. And we just clicked and instantly became friends and
[00:02:03] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I was like, oh, I was thrilled to be asked. It was such an honor and I wasn't prepared that when I logged on and saw all the faces of these, many of the faces of people I used to work with, this blood of emotions. Came over me and I got teary eyed and I'm, one that's usually cracking a joke or, or something.
[00:02:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You know, tearing up isn't my normal go-to.
[00:02:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so it was interesting and I realized that that emotion was gratitude. That that emotion was this feeling of. I wouldn't have any of the wonderful things that I have in my life, the kind of. Business that I have, the kind of, work environment that I have, the kind of clients that I get to work, not so much of my life wouldn't be what it is today.
[00:02:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Had I not had those experiences with the Franklin Covey organization, and with Jen and others that were on the call, both Jens, Jen and Jennifer. And so. That experience happened this week that got me thinking about this.
[00:03:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: my son is very much an old soul and, the most empathic person I've ever met in my life. And so he feels things deeply and openly, shares, talks about his feelings, and so as he was sharing how he was feeling about it, I said, let's go back and visit a previous version of you.
[00:03:33] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: This happened before I went on the, the call with Franklin Covey. So it's interesting, God has this theme running this week in my life and I was like, you know, that'd make a good podcast. And he said, what do you, what do you mean?
[00:03:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: and I picked a time in his life when he was working in this fast food.
[00:03:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Restaurant and he had been promoted to a supervisor and everybody there was in some sort of chaos in their lives. And he now was responsible for a lot of the chaos. And he was, I don't know, 19 years old. And it was just wild times. Wild times. And I said, I want you to go back to that moment. You're standing in the kitchen area, probably doing some of the dishes because the dishwasher didn't show up.
[00:04:22] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And you just go back to that experience of overwhelm, like, oh my gosh, this is chaos. And visit it for just a second and then think about how far God has brought you to what you're doing now. In a job that you are perfectly fit for and living in a city that was your dream. And all of that has happened in less than 10 years, so we did it a few more times.
[00:04:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: There was a job he had that he loved. He was actually a music teacher at a Montessori school. Again, super young. I think he was probably 20 or 21 at the time. And had a lot of responsibility and it was hard, and he had to learn how to do lesson plans. And, the principal, she wasn't great and she made it really hard on my son and through some changes that she made, he and a couple of other people that didn't have the credentials that she preferred were let go.
[00:05:23] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: He was fired. And he was devastated because he loved that job and the kids loved him. And as a result of his termination and, and a couple of others, the kids and the parents picketed the school, made signs about my son and these others that were so good at their jobs who loved it so much and was like, bring back Mr.
[00:05:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Cameron and Ed. About how much they wanted him back in that role. And I said, here's what I want you to remember about that experience. You loved that job and you probably would've stayed there a lot longer than God wanted you to because he needed you where you are now doing the things that you're doing now.
[00:06:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And had he not. Allow that situation to happen. You would've gotten stuck too long in a job that didn't get you where he needs you to be. And when we can trust that things are happening for us, not against us, we start to look back on those previous versions of ourselves with honor and with gratitude for how far we've come.
[00:06:38] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so then I took him to, you know. A few months ago, I said, who? Who would've thought that that fast food supervisor, you or that Montessori school teacher, you would be standing in the world's largest guitar center having a conversation with one of the greatest artists of all times, Chris Stapleton, which happened just a few months ago.
[00:07:05] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Can you imagine standing over that sink of dirty dishes in that fast food place thinking it's gonna be okay? 'cause Chris Stapleton and I are gonna bond over guitars in a few years. But if we can start looking to the future with the same emotion and gratitude and expectation of something good is coming, it changes.
[00:07:30] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Everything.
[00:07:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so I wanted to break this down a little bit for you in terms of the science behind it and a little bit of the scripture behind it, and give you some reflection questions. So sometime over this holiday season, maybe you can spend a little time with previous you, like my son and I have been able to do so.
[00:07:55] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The first thing I wanna bring up is I just alluded to it is. Because our nervous system, its first job is to keep you safe. It's scanning for danger. And so there's a bit of a negativity bias that comes with that as a practice, which is what your nervous system is designed to do, it's designed to make sure that you survive first and then.
[00:08:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Connect and grow and evolve. And so that survival scanning first can put us into a negative spot. And so what we're doing is we are intentionally reflecting with celebration. We're intentionally looking back with an awe and a reverence and a gratitude for our journey. And when we do that, then. gratitude says, we're safe, we're good.
[00:08:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so your amygdala calms down like you, it's, it's just a stress reliever because you're looking at it through that lens of gratitude, and then your prefrontal cortex goes, Ooh, this is good. And that's the part of your brain that's gonna make meaning out of things. And so when it feels good and we're emotionally regulated, you can start to create expectations.
[00:09:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: From this experience. So when we shift our body into that calm state with grounded confidence, we can use it really to our advantage. if you partner that with what God says about you, what he's promised for you, then you can really ramp up your expectations because he, his plans are always better than ours and it's always bigger and something maybe we didn't even think of.
[00:09:38] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so, When we remember the wonders that he's already done for us with all respect and gratitude, and then know that more of that is coming, it's so, so, so good. So I. A specific younger version of yourself, just like I did with Franklin Covey. I worked there for 20 years, 10 years ago. So that's a prior version of myself, which I can't believe it's been 10 years.
[00:10:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That was the other thing. When I hung up from that call, I was like, wow, I have been running this business for almost 10 years. How cool is that? So look at that younger version of you, and I want you to think about. How you navigated that situation, knowing that you didn't know everything that you know now.
[00:10:24] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You didn't have all the tools that you maybe use and have now. You didn't understand what was coming next for you, but you lived in that moment and you either learned from the challenges of it or you gleaned some beautiful memories that you carry with you today. Just sit with that version of you with loving, kind eyes.
[00:10:50] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Never with critical eyes. It's already happened. Bring the good stuff with you and leave some of the other stuff behind. Every part of our story is on purpose for a purpose, and the Bible says he will use it all for our good. And so when you revisit an old memory like this through the lens of compassion, not criticism.
[00:11:11] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Your brain rewrites a bit of that emotional tone of the memory. It's called memory reconsolidation, and so it updates the file. It says, oh, now that she's looked back on this, or he's looked back on this, we can attach this positive gratitude memory to it. And sometimes we turn pain into wisdom. Here's what I learned from that experience.
[00:11:39] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Trauma, survivors will use this as a therapeutic moment. I just watched a video the other day where a gentleman was talking about he had done this exercise and
[00:11:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: had been through significant childhood trauma abuse, icky bad stuff. when he did this exercise from this, retreat that he went to. He said he had forgotten how resilient he had become because of these experiences.
[00:12:03] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: He had moved multiple times as a child to all these different schools and all these situations, but in every single situation he had risen to a level in his school that got him. Recognition said, I just always showed up. And sure you could go back and say that's, you know, a trauma response, but it served him well and it taught him resilience and it taught him things that he's using now today.
[00:12:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But he hadn't upgraded the file of those traumatic childhood experiences until he'd gone through this retreat and he said it was so. Beautiful to be able to look back with that kind of feeling, of gratitude for the experience, even though it was traumatic. So take that same younger version of you like I did with my son, like there's probably two or three versions of you.
[00:12:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You can go all the way back to childhood view. You can pick a few different jobs or careers that you had. Wherever your spirit takes you and spend some time looking at that version of yourself through the lens of your faith in the Lord, bringing you the experiences that you need, and think of like my son doors that had to close because you needed to be upgraded or protected, or moved or shifted.
[00:13:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The number of times that I've had clients or friends that have contacted me and said. I can't believe this. I just got fired or I just got relocated. Or I just like a major shift that they didn't see coming that now we can look at that and say, oh, that's why that had to happen. Because sometimes our loyalty will keep us stuck in places when God needs us to move.
[00:13:47] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so we've gotta move us, push us out, push us into the pool. So what are those situations where maybe God was. Closing doors that you didn't know at the time, but now you can look back on with gratitude. Another great reflection is to think of the people he brought into your life, either at that exact moment or afterwards that you wouldn't have met otherwise.
[00:14:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: if people aren't in your life anymore, not everybody's meant to be in your life forever. That's just the facts. don't move people in and out and not 'cause they're good or bad, just because it's time to open doors for something else. But to be able to look back on those people with gratitude is beautiful.
[00:14:27] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And maybe over this holiday season, you send them a little text or a message and just say, Hey, I was thinking about you today and this situation just like I got to do with the gins today, with Franklin Covey. And it just felt good to think about how wonderful those relationships have been in my life.
[00:14:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Then think about the strength that you have built through those experiences, whether they were challenges or great moments. Just think of the strength that you have built over time. Maybe even in times that you thought in the moment that it was breaking you. Now you realize it was building you and what a good God we serve that will give us the experiences we need, not always the experiences that we want.
[00:15:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So here's a little guided practice. If helpful to you. 'cause I know many people love a good checklist. Alright, here we go. Number one, picture your younger self.
[00:15:25] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Like picture them. Maybe if you have, photo albums or things that you can go back and show your kids or your, even your grandkids over the holidays, bring them into the experience and show them a picture of you at that age and tell them some stories about what was going on in your life at that time.
[00:15:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I know even my adult children love when we tell stories about things about who we were and what was happening, and they love to hear from their grandparents about things like that. But picture your younger self, see them clearly. And then number two, offer gratitude, not judgment. Don't look at the picture and think, oh, look at my hair.
[00:16:07] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I can't believe I wore that.
[00:16:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Look at the picture through kind and loving eyes and say to that version of yourself, wow, you really were doing the best you could do at that time, and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. This puts you in a more regulated state to be calm and connected to the experience. And number three, ask God to highlight where he was in that season.
[00:16:33] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Now that you are able to look back on it, that could be an interesting prayer time opportunity over the holidays too. Number four, notice your breath start to slow. So when you are in gratitude and when you are using your kind and loving eyes, it does start to calm all aspects of, of your life. And so that, again, I think this would be a, a great experience with your family over this holiday season.
[00:17:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And then number five, ask your younger self one question. What do you want me to remember today? And just see what bubbles up. You never know what'll, what'll come from these experiences and might be something simple. Keep going. You're not alone. God is faithful. You're stronger than you think. I don't know what it's gonna be for you, but it'll be interesting for you to discover that.
[00:17:28] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And then maybe you could do this with your team. When you get back from the holidays, 'cause people are in a really reflective state in the new year.
[00:17:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so here are a few reflection questions you might wanna jot down that you could use either as journal questions over the holidays or to just talk with your team as you come back from the holiday.
[00:17:50] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The first one is what age or version of your younger self stands out right now? Just write that down as a journal prompt or maybe a team meeting. Prompt number two. What was that version of you carrying that you now see differently?
[00:18:07] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Number three, where can you see God's fingerprints in that season?
[00:18:13] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Number four, what have you overcome that your younger self prayed for? Number five, how does your body feel when you remember progress with gratitude, checking into your nervous system and how it works. And number six, what wisdom does that younger you want you to carry today? I hope that you will.
[00:18:37] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Do a little reflection time this holiday. Maybe write a note to your younger self. All right.
[00:18:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this journey with me, which absolutely is an answered prayer for my younger self. I've said it many times on the show that you know, younger me wanted my own talk show.
[00:19:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: You know, back in the Barbara Walters days even, that's how old I am, Oprah, you know, and to be able to hit record on this each week and bring something to you, even though we're not sitting face to face. Maybe that's, maybe God has that coming sometime in the future for me. I've certainly journaled about it, and if it's his will, then it'll happen.
[00:19:27] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But I just want to be content and happy and grateful for you listening and for me to have the ability to do this show with and for you each week. It is a great joy. All right, y'all. I love you. Merry Christmas. Enjoy your holiday season.
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. Alright, make it a great day. Love you, mean it!