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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 [00:00:03]:
Welcome back to the Business is Human podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, and we're here to bring you episodes that blend meaningful work with profitable success. Here to steward what I call the age of humanity. I believe if we transform the way we work, we can transform the way that we live. As always, my friendly request. If you like what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss any episode and leave a review to tell the other humans that they might like it too. Always looking to help you and connect with others.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:41]:
All right, let's get into it, shall we? I can't tell you how much I love podcasting for the interesting people that I get to meet and get to know that I just never would have an opportunity to otherwise, which is the case with Dima Gowy, who we have on the show today. And you'll quickly recognize that Dima was built for the role that she's in now as a keynote speaker and leading leadership programs. But the thing that is just fascinating for me, I'm going to say it's fascinating for me, but now it's become so much of a common theme with our guests that I have to remind myself to be fascinated by it, and that is that we've all seen the Instagram posts that say, you know, turn your pain into purpose and other Instagrammable type quotes, and we can read that and be like, yeah, sure, whatever. But if you were to take the transcripts of the 200 and, I don't know, 60 episodes that I recorded and did a, what's the common theme? I promise you that one is at the top that the number of people that come on this show that have written books or doing big things in any way, there's always this story of pain. There's always this story of struggle. It's the hero's journey of our lives. And boy, does Dima have some rich wisdom to share with us today that comes from her pain and struggle.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:28]:
All right, here we go. Dima, welcome to the show.
Dima Ghawi [00:02:31]:
Hi, Rebecca. I'm so excited for our discussion today.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:34]:
Me too. I. Even though we've just met, we both said, oh, my gosh, we have such similar energy. So I. I'm excited to see where this goes. I will just tell our listeners that when I first was introduced to your work, your videos, and your information, before I even finished watching it, I responded and said, please book her on the Show. I was so compelled by you and your story, but just I could feel your energy even in the videos and the information that you put together. So tell our listeners a little bit about your body of work.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:03:09]:
You're a keynote speaker. You do leadership workshops. But just to give folks some context for the conversation we're going to have today, give us a little bit about you.
Dima Ghawi [00:03:19]:
Yeah. I usually introduce myself by saying I am Middle Eastern in my genes, American in my heart, and a global citizen in my spirit. So my story started in the Middle East. I was born in Turkey and raised in Jordan. And that's where everything started. I was a little girl playing with my grandmother in her kitchen, five years old, and my grandmother got a glass vase. And she said, do you see this perfect glass vase? A girl is just like it. If it gets cracked for any reason, you can never fix it.
Dima Ghawi [00:03:53]:
You can never glue it back. And then she said, and that's the one we throw in the trash, because nobody would want a broken glass vase. That is a message that I learned early on in my life that I have to be perfect, I have to follow, I have to obey. I cannot have an identity in order to be accepted and not to be thrown in the trash. So that's where the whole thing started. But now when I think about where I am today, here in the US Inspiring people all around the world, speaking to big audiences, coaching executives. So there's like a major shatter that had to happen in between in order to get to this point. And my goal is to help people, through my vase, discover their vase and continue to shatter it and grow and be better and be happy.
Dima Ghawi [00:04:42]:
So that's the journey.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:04:44]:
What a beautiful way that you present that and have the symbols and the metaphors that we can all relate to. I think that's a beautiful gift that you have that I love. I want to point out that in many situations, everyday situations, our story, our experiences, our pain, and the overcoming of that ends up being what we use to serve others. And this illustrates that absolutely perfectly. Pardon the pun about the vase, perfectly. But.
Dima Ghawi [00:05:17]:
Oh, here we go.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:05:18]:
Yes, your vase got shattered in some big ways. That brought you to where you can help others do that. Let's go ahead and introduce our listeners to some of that part of your story.
Dima Ghawi [00:05:31]:
Yeah. So a big part of the story is I got married early on in my life through a traditional marriage introduction, and we moved together to San Diego, California. We got engaged when I was 19 and he's 10 years older. Then when we moved, I was 20 and I come From a place where I was observing people around me and they acted a certain way. But then I'm here in the US and people were different, and the women had a voice and they were speaking up. And I would watch the movies or observe people in the grocery store and how they interacted, especially the ones that were couples. And I would question. I'm like, wow, that's what I want.
Dima Ghawi [00:06:12]:
I want that. So that's when I started to question the norm, started to question the stories that I was taught. The challenge for me was that as I was growing up, I heard something that was repeated a lot, that our destiny is written on our forehead, that we cannot change it. We're born with it. So the story of your life is already predetermined before you're even born. And you cannot change it, you cannot challenge it. You just need to live with it. And that's what I believed initially.
Dima Ghawi [00:06:45]:
So I continued to live with the life that I had. Even though the marriage was abusive. I was so unhappy. I was lonely. I was away from everybody that I love and was familiar with. But I just continued to live with all of that. The best thing that happened to me was that I got into depression. That was the best thing ever, because at that time, I didn't understand why I was feeling so low and unhappy.
Dima Ghawi [00:07:13]:
But it turned out truly to be the best thing, because that's when, for the first time ever, I realized that this is not the life that I want or deserve. And that I started to question the stories, such as the vase, or question the story related to our destiny and other stories. And the more I questioned, the more I started realizing, wow, maybe, just maybe I have a choice. Maybe I don't have to live this life. Maybe I have a choice to do something different. But it's scary. So even though we may say, believe in yourself, take action, it's really not that easy because I knew that there would be consequences. My grandmother warned me about that the consequences would be I would be thrown in the trash.
Dima Ghawi [00:07:57]:
So I ignored the inner positive voice that kept telling me, you have a choice, you have a choice. I just kept ignoring it, but it became louder and louder. And it's just interesting how when we're meant to take action, how things start happening in our lives to truly put us in the corner where we just cannot take it anymore and we are forced to take the action. And I believe a big part of that was the depression. So what I ended up doing was I packed and I escaped. At that time, I was just 24 I did have my bachelor's degree because that was my only requirement for that marriage. But I barely was able to survive. I was in a very bad place.
Dima Ghawi [00:08:42]:
And yes, my entire community disowned me. My father decided that I don't deserve to live and he has been threatening my life for the last 23 years. So imagine being 24, dealing with death threats, barely surviving financially, dealing with all of these emotions and the depression and the anxiety. That was a major phase in my life. But the best thing about it is that I challenged the norm and I took action. I gave myself a chance because I cannot imagine moving on with my life without giving myself that chance. I always imagined myself two things, like the world just shattered around me. It just kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse.
Dima Ghawi [00:09:30]:
But also I always envision myself being below average. So here's the average. This is where everybody is. And I'm just so below, low in confidence, lower than everybody else, financially lower than everybody, with a lot of things. And I had to start building myself up to just get to the average. But the best thing about all of that was a momentum was created. So then I wanted more. I wanted more.
Dima Ghawi [00:09:56]:
I wanted to educate myself more, be more self aware. And what I didn't realize then, that my story has a purpose at that time, I just needed to survive. That's it. Just one day at a time. But then the more I was doing these things, I started observing how much I wanted to help everybody around me with their story, with their challenges. I started hearing people telling me about their fears of making mistakes, their worries of being judged and aspiration for perfection. What does this mean? As if they're living with an invisible base. And we all have it, regardless where we are around the world.
Dima Ghawi [00:10:34]:
And not just women, every single person has it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:10:39]:
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I coach men and women and teach classes with both. And everyone has a story. And everyone has that feeling of inadequacy at times. I guess there's probably some, a handful of folks that don't, but those aren't usually the ones that we're hanging out with. And. And this pain is your purpose. I want to just draw a circle around that for a moment because we've all seen the post on Instagram about that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:11:07]:
We've seen that as this quip or this quote. I tell you, Dima, I have too many personal relationships and stories like this on a podcast where that is absolutely true. Just a gloss over it like it doesn't matter. And so if there's anyone out There, that. That is hearing this again. Maybe you've heard it a couple of times, but you're hearing it differently today. We too often want to shove our pain under a rug or shove it somewhere where we don't want someone to see it because we think that's the ugly part of our lives. And you're illustrating so many people that I know have illustrated pay attention to that, because that very well could be the purpose for your life, that you just haven't given it enough light.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:11:54]:
Put it out into the world and see how many people it can help because you're having extraordinary impact with your story and your purpose.
Dima Ghawi [00:12:02]:
Thank you. I totally agree with you. And if you told me what you just said at that time, I would be like, don't tell me about a purpose. I'm just trying to buy bread. I'm just trying to pay for the gas for my car. So at that time, it didn't make any sense. And this is a message for the listener as well. So right now, if you're going through a difficult time, just say, care of yourself.
Dima Ghawi [00:12:26]:
Live one day at a time. Wake up. Be grateful that you are alive, that you have the energy. Do your best with what you got without judging yourself. And at the end of the day, just be grateful that you survived the day and do it again. And the person who taught me that is my uncle. I have an amazing uncle who the reason I'm still alive and I continue to do what I'm doing is because of him. And that's what he told me.
Dima Ghawi [00:12:53]:
He said, don't worry about what's going to happen a week from now or a month from now or ten years from now. Just live one day at a time. For our listeners, what we need to do once we are in a better place, in a safer place, to go back and reflect, reflect about what did we learn about it? How are we better as a person? Because I truly believe everybody that comes in our life is a teacher. Some are fun, others are total pain. But reflect about it and reflect about. Is that something you want to share with others? Is there somebody that's going to show up in your life that maybe would need to hear your story so they would be inspired to do things differently?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:13:37]:
Agree. And I want to go back to what you said about depression was a gift, and you really were in a state of isolation and incubation is what I think of when I hear your story. Everything else was shut out. There was nothing else out there. It was survival mode. But in survival mode, you were listening to that inner voice. And the more we can shut everything else out. You said the voice got louder and it got louder and it got louder.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:06]:
And I often talk about our inner thrive guide and we have that inner voice. But too often there's so many other voices and so many other distractions and so many other shoulds and coulds and didn'ts that we stopped listening to that voice. And when you were at your. What felt like your lowest point is when everything else got quiet and you could hear yours, I think that's beautiful. And that you honored her, that inner voice that was saying, hold on, challenge that. Maybe that's not actually true. I think that is an important thing. That when we're not feeling our best, that just to sit in it and just see what that inner voice has to say in that moment could be the greatest gift that we give ourselves.
Dima Ghawi [00:14:49]:
Which is our intuition, our inner voice. Because our spirit knows, it knows what's right for us. But there's a balance between our spirit, what it believes we need to do in our lives where it tells us who we should surround ourselves with the toxic people we need to be away from. But at the same time there's a human element, so there's the spiritual element which is our spirit, but then the human element which is our need, the need for safety, the need to be loved, the need to not to be killed. So it's a matter of a balance because many times like in my situation, I stayed in that marriage because I needed the safety. I wanted the acceptance of my family. So what do we need to do to start balancing both where the need is not much louder than the true voice of our spirit that is telling us what is right for us.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:46]:
Oh, that's so beautiful. I hope you build a keynote around that. That's really, really good.
Dima Ghawi [00:15:52]:
It came yesterday out of another challenging situation in my life right now. So it's interesting how all of.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:15:59]:
Aren't they those challenges? Yeah.
Dima Ghawi [00:16:02]:
Let's just say I learned the lesson. Yes.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:16:05]:
I tie that to this idea of purpose because I believe we have a real problem today that we are forcing purpose. We are saying to 15 year old kids filling out an application for a school they have never attended that's going to happen three years from then maybe. And filling out this. What do you think your purpose is? You're 15. What do you mean what is your purpose? Your purpose is to find a date for the prom and to make sure that your hair looks good on Saturday night. Purpose at 15 I just think is cheapening it. It's making it sound like this thing that you manufacture. And we have this like manufacturing mindset in business.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:16:59]:
And because business is a group of humans, I think we sell ourselves short. And then we do start to believe that our need for status or promotion or something is more important than that voice, that spirit, that thing that is getting louder and louder. I have too many people that those two things are in opposition of one another. But I have this degree. I need to use it. I need to get a promotion. I need to do more. When their inner voice is saying, change industries, change industries.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:17:32]:
And they're like, but I can't. But I can't. And so I love what you said about those two and how they interact with one another. That's beautiful.
Dima Ghawi [00:17:41]:
And our purpose doesn't have to be that we're changing the world. Our purpose could be as simple as being a good human being, taking care of our neighbors, being a good as like a parent, being a good sibling. Maybe that is it which is bringing light to people that we are around. It's just society and what society is teaching us that who do we see successful are usually the people that have a big purpose. So we want to be successful. So we need to have this big thing. But what is happening on the other side too? More depression, more anxiety, more people feeling lonely, more people feeling they're not good enough. All of these things.
Dima Ghawi [00:18:25]:
So it's a matter of. It's the pendulum. We just need. We need to learn from that. And we cannot make it less. If a person doesn't know their purpose or if their purpose is not fixing the global warming.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:43]:
It's something. Yes.
Dima Ghawi [00:18:45]:
Yeah. And maybe our purpose is going to show up when we are 80 or 90 or maybe a week before we die. Maybe all the accumulation of the lessons and what our work and our experiences is going to come to. So that's why it's so important to be aware of these things, talk about them, and not to make anything less just because it is. It doesn't sound Instagrammable. Yes. Yes.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:19:12]:
And so this connection, point of purpose and paycheck, I think you hit on that is really interesting to me too, that if you don't feel like you know your purpose, it may have nothing to do with your job. Let's draw a big circle around that for this episode as well. What if your purpose is to look out your window or walk down the hall in your apartment and realize your neighbor needs something from you today? I walked into a hair appointment last week at a salon that I've gone to for years. And the office manager, the salon manager there is just a beautiful human being. And we were just chatting and catching up and she said, oh, I got to go. Your stylist will be with you in a minute. I got to go take so and so to the doctor. And I said, oh, I'm thinking it's a family member or something like that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:19:56]:
And I said, oh, who's that? And she said, well, it's this lady that lives upstairs above the salon. And she comes in and she mentioned to me that she just doesn't have any family that's helping her and there's just lots of strife in her family and she wants to go see it. She's 90 some years old. She wanted to go see a therapist, but she needed help like making the appointment and getting there. And this salon manager takes off the afternoon to go upstairs and take this woman to her therapy appointment. I just, I sobbed because that's purpose. Yeah, that's purpose. Like that is finding a need and not being so distracted or so busy that you weren't willing to take the afternoon off to fill it.
Dima Ghawi [00:20:47]:
I'm not coming down.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:49]:
I never locked it on the ground. It's a quick reminder if any of the topics from the businesses team and podcast really resonate with you when you think you know what, I'd like to dig deeper on that, well, let's have a discussion. We can do that through coaching, keynote speaking, or a variety of video based solutions that I have available. We can talk about authentic leadership, thriving women, or even nervous systems foundations. There's lots of options. So if it needs to be more than a podcast, let's make it more than a podcast. Hit the show. Notes.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:21:21]:
There's lots of ways to contact with me and I can't wait to hear about you.
Dima Ghawi [00:21:25]:
Maybe the highlight of our discussion is to simplify your purpose. Simplify, just simplify it. And that's what the world needs right now, is what's going on politically, economically, socially. Let's just simplify it and go back to the basics. Be kind, take care of people. Because if purpose is linked to ego, which many times it is, then it's really not a purpose. It is just your purpose to shine. But if it's linked to serving and helping, maybe it is as simple as taking somebody to the therapist that needs help.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:22:03]:
Absolutely. There's so many ways that we can help right now, somebody that's right next to us, but we're so distracted sometimes by everything else that we miss it. We miss the opportunity to do that. So, yes, let's make a challenge for our listeners today just to get quiet, listen to that inner voice, and look around and just see who needs a little bit of kindness and help today.
Dima Ghawi [00:22:26]:
Even when I think about my story, it's not that I started with the day my grandmother told me about the bays. And it is right now where I am right now. Can you imagine how many people similar to the person you mentioned, the salon owner, how they shaped my path? So, for example, one time I got a lot of phone calls from my ex, and he was threatening and trying to hurt me and his family. And my manager, she saw that I was freaking out, just sitting on the phone, totally terrified. Guess what she did? She's like, you're not going to your apartment. I'm going to take you to my home. So my manager took me to my home. She put a tiara on my head, cooked dinner, colored my nails, and dyed my hair.
Dima Ghawi [00:23:14]:
We, like, did hair color that night. She was not my manager. Her mom was there, her sister was there. They made sure that I felt safe, that I'm surrounded with people that cared. But that is purpose. Another one is my manager. First manager ever. Nobody would give me a job and imagine, like, I needed to be financially independent.
Dima Ghawi [00:23:38]:
I left that marriage with nothing, not even a penny. And I wanted a job, and nobody would give me a job because my confidence wasn't great, my English wasn't great. But then one time, I applied for a job with bank of America as a teller. And as I was going through the interview, I kept telling myself this negative voice in our head, oh, they're not going to select me. I'm not going to be good enough. Here we go. One more person, but the hiring manager, his name is Matt. He said something that stayed with me.
Dima Ghawi [00:24:09]:
I even want to frame it and put it on the wall. And it said, everybody starts someplace. Everybody deserves a chance. And then he said, I'm going to give you that chance. So he gave me 10 hours a week to be a teller, minimum wage. But because of that job, that was.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:24:30]:
That little door that opened.
Dima Ghawi [00:24:33]:
Yes, I was able to build more confidence. He invested in me, invested in my development. And then later, a few years later, I got a better job. I started making a little more money. So that is purpose. So when we're talking about leadership, that is leadership. Leadership is purpose. Parenthood is purpose.
Dima Ghawi [00:24:53]:
Friendship is purpose. All of that is purpose. Just another example. Now they're all coming to me. I was working on my masters, and one of my professors, he kept encouraging me to run to be the president of the student organization. And I was so shocked because I never saw myself as a leader. I was always programmed to believe that I'm a follower. But now I have this person encouraging me because he saw something in me that I didn't realize.
Dima Ghawi [00:25:20]:
I kept ignoring and saying, no, I don't know how to be a leader, I just cannot do it. And he kept trying and trying and trying. And then finally I accepted and I got elected, which was so shocking for me. But that is purpose too, because he saw something in me that I did not realize. And because of these people and more, I'm able to be here in front of you. Let's just simplify purpose.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:25:44]:
Purpose has to serve another human in some way. And that's also why I name the show business as human. Because if you're only seeing your job as emails and meetings and texts and appointments and not understanding how your work serves another human, you're missing out on the feeling of helping. And so we don't need it to be a job title for purpose. It really is just helping someone in, in a situation. It reminds me, I think I've told this story on the show before, but it's so profound. For my life is when I was in my greatest sales success era in, in corporate America and working for the Franklin Covey organization and I was going through a divorce. And when your life is in chaos, your nervous system just is so dysregulated, you can't think straight, you just, you can't function.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:26:38]:
Yeah. And for the first time in 10 years, I wasn't going to hit my sales goal. And not only was I feeling inadequate and a loser because I couldn't overcome this life event and my brain wouldn't work, I was going to disappoint my company and my leader. And these people, and still are today, I consider them just friends. Like family, like friends. Like we loved each other, we were in it together to succeed and I was so afraid of disappointing them. But I call, I got up the gumption to call my leader and I said, this is the hardest conversation I think I've had to make to you, but I need you to go and prepare that I'm not going to be hitting my goal this year. I didn't want to wait till the last part of the year or last part of the quarter and have you scrambling around.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:27:30]:
I just want you to know that if we can go tap into some of the other team or something so that people can, if they would over deliver, then you won't as a leader, hurt from my hurt. And it was the most beautiful response because you got to remember, I'm a commissioned salesperson. I'm going through a divorce, so money is all messed up, and I'm saying, I'm not going to hit my goal. His first thought was, that means you're going to have less money coming in your pocket. So, yes, he thanked me for thinking about the leader perspective and the business perspective. But then he said to me, how are you going to do that and be able to pay your bills? Wow. And I said, I haven't figured that part out yet. And he said, do you know what you need every month to make sure you cover everything and you don't have to worry? And of course, I knew that number.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:28:24]:
I'd been studying that number. I had pages of analyzing that number, and I said, yeah. And I told him the number, and he said, I'm going to call and put you on a guarantee for that number for the rest of the year. Oh, wow. And I'm sure HR lost their minds, because that was not the way that the business was supposed to work. But the amount of love that I felt in that conversation, I will never, ever forget. Every time I tell that story, I can't tell it without reliving that emotion. That was purpose.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:28:56]:
In that moment, his whole purpose was to make sure I was safe. I was whole, and I had one less thing to worry about as I was trying to rebuild and figure out my life. You've said the word safe several times in your story, too. Is our nervous system can't do anything until we feel safe.
Dima Ghawi [00:29:14]:
Yes.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:15]:
So sometimes purpose is just to sit with someone and make sure they feel safe.
Dima Ghawi [00:29:19]:
Yeah. Wow. I love your manager.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:22]:
No, I did.
Dima Ghawi [00:29:23]:
Oh, my goodness.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:29:23]:
I was gonna cry three times in this episode, but, oh, my gosh. It's just really. And you're right. And for such a time as this in the world, just to shut off your phones and shut off social media, and let's just eyeball to eyeball, heartbeat to heartbeat, just be kind and love one another.
Dima Ghawi [00:29:41]:
Yeah. Even though we're talking about our experiences, we're talking about the bays and all of this, can you imagine how many leadership lessons we just talked about? Leadership is kindness. Leadership is opening doors and opportunities. Leadership is seeing the potential in your team members before they even realize it. Leadership is making sure your team feels safe. And they are being seen, they are being heard, their needs are being met. Everything we talked about this is leadership.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:30:13]:
It absolutely is. We talk too much about the business side and not enough about the human side, because that's where real results and real growth comes from, is tapping into that human energy and human potential. I want to tap into another part of your story and the message that you have that relates to the individual, the being more in control of their sense of power and their sense of ability. You use the vase metaphor to represent what holds us back and what maybe what needs to be shattered in order for us to be a better version of ourselves. And you do that in a really beautiful way about business. Tell us a little bit about how you use that metaphor in a business context.
Dima Ghawi [00:30:58]:
There is no separation between our personal life and business. In the past, we used to hear something like, leave your personal things at home. Leave work at work. They're so integrated. If we have our own insecurities, feeling that we're not good enough, worried about how we're being perceived, we're going to bring all of that to work. We're going to be quiet in meetings. We're going to just do whatever the manager says. We're not going to challenge the norm.
Dima Ghawi [00:31:31]:
We're not going to be creative. And that's why doing the work at a personal level is going to help so much on the business side. I never linked them before until something happened in my life where I ended up being so sick. After my personal experiences, I shut down. All the anger, the misery, the frustration, I just shut it down. And I wanted to move on. But then years later, I got very, very sick. There's something called buried emotions never die.
Dima Ghawi [00:32:02]:
So when I look at myself at that time, I was working so hard day, night, weekends, because I was running away from my emotions. And I thought that by becoming a workaholic, that's a good thing. I linked it to being so ambitious, but it wasn't. It was just escaping and hiding from everything that was happening. So I got very sick and I was forced to just stay home for a month and a half because my body just couldn't work. And at that time, there was no Netflix, or maybe it was still new, so I didn't know about it. So there's so many movies your friends can give you to watch. But it was the best thing ever because it forced me to reflect about my life.
Dima Ghawi [00:32:46]:
And I realized where I was at that time. I was working hard, but I wasn't getting promoted. I wasn't happy with my job. I felt that I wasn't being seen and I wasn't being hurt. If we take a snapshot, that was what was going on. So by being sick for a month and a half, I ended up deciding I need to heal, I need to forgive, I need to let go of all the pain of the past as much as possible. So I started seeking different therapists and healing and oh my goodness, I explored everything. It was.
Dima Ghawi [00:33:20]:
I was like a kid in a.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:33:21]:
Candidate working overachiever, business, self. And into the healing.
Dima Ghawi [00:33:25]:
Yes, and I laugh about it. While my friends at that time where investing in properties and stocks, my income was going to healers, everything was going to therapists because apparently the ones that were covered by insurance, which would have been amazing, were not the ones that I connected with. What can I say? The more I healed the pain, the insecurities, the frustration, I started feeling lighter, I started feeling happier. I started not attaching my self worth to work and to promotion. I started doing things because they're the right thing to do. I started treating my team better because I was able to see their pains and their insecurities as I was cleaning my own issues. So guess what happened? Within like less than a year, I got promoted to a leadership role that is global. I was so happy with who I am for the first time.
Dima Ghawi [00:34:30]:
It's continuous work. So I'm still going through therapy and healing. But even though I'm telling you the story and I'm associating success with the promotion, but there's just something. When we shift our energy, when we address the personal things that are stopping us from truly being ourselves, it is going to have a positive impact on other parts of our lives, whether it is business, relationships, friendships, all of these things. And I saw it. And the thing is, it's not just a one time phase in our life. We need to go through healing. Many healers, they compare it to the layers of the onion and you have to cry with every layer of the onion.
Dima Ghawi [00:35:10]:
So that cleared. Then I had other experiences. To me, it just feels every time. I am in the middle of a decade, so middle of my 30s now, I'm going through the same exact thing, but different aspects of my life where we need to dig deep, we need to address these things to be able to be happy and to feel light and to be playful and to create the life that we truly deserve.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:35:36]:
Dima, you're. Oh, this is so wild and wonderful. We've just met and we have literally so many commonalities. So at the height of my success, I told you about the divorce story. Before that, I was always healthy, doing all. I was running half marathons, I was traveling, I was raising kids, and I Found myself so sick with pneumonia, I couldn't leave my house for two months.
Dima Ghawi [00:36:04]:
Oh, my goodness. So as soon as you said that.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:36:06]:
I was like, okay, here we go. I have chills because we are telling the same story. So it is so powerfully true. And I say that was my spiritual awakening of was I really living my life, or was I living the life that everybody expected me to live? Because I was funding everybody's life. And we were. We lived in a big house. We had all of the external markers of success. If you would have driven by our house and seen, they must be so happy.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:36:35]:
Oh, Lord have mercy. And it was in that two months of pneumonia that it was a gift of reflection. And once I got well enough that I thought, okay, I. I would. I was so sick that I would tell my son to wake me up in between movies he was watching because I was afraid if I slept too long, I wouldn't wake up. Like, I was sick. But I didn't want to scare him, scare the kids. And so once I got well enough, I started journaling and I started.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:37:01]:
I went back and I read all of my journals back to back. Wow. And I realized in that reflection time, I was living the same life over and over, but it was getting stuck, because then I would get to a certain point and I wouldn't honor my own authenticity. I just would take care of somebody else or something else. And I thought, I'm not living the life I was really put here to do. I wanted to be more creative. I wanted to write books. I wanted to just feel my life again.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:37:32]:
Exactly what you said. Joy and play and fun. And it was that experience that I then, over the next three years, unraveled and rewoven my life together the way it's supposed to be. In this season, I don't know who I'm going to be ten years from now. Maybe it'll be something different. But to your point, we always need to be asking ourselves, okay, who am I now? What do I want?
Dima Ghawi [00:37:59]:
Yeah, what feel?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:38:00]:
What? Where. Where am I? Where do I want to be? That is so wild that we've had that. Such a wildly similar but weird experience.
Dima Ghawi [00:38:08]:
With people like us. We are very ambitious. And whether it is truly ambitious or what I said earlier, we are trying. We may be trying to hide. This is where we're getting the worth through working and doing more. And as if. As if our body. Our body knows and our body says, okay, we're shutting down.
Dima Ghawi [00:38:31]:
You're not gonna die, but you're gonna shut down. Yeah. And you would need to think and reflect and is this the life that you truly want? And if you didn't get sick, most likely you would have kept going on the path. If I didn't get sick, I would continue the same path.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:38:46]:
My, your life before pneumonia and after, she said this is a defining moment in your life. And yeah, wish that through.
Dima Ghawi [00:38:57]:
Wow. I love that because it is, it's so visual for us to see the before and after. I know my before. So when I joined the really good job after my masters and over doubled my salary, I was talking to one of my co workers and she was telling me about how she owns her house and she drives a BMW and every year she takes a nice international vacation. And I told myself I want that because that became my quick measure of success. So a few years later I bought my house, I bought my BMW, I went to France, I went to Italy. But around that time was when I got very, very sick. So I was laying on the couch looking around me with all of these beautiful things that I bought from all around the world that meant something for me.
Dima Ghawi [00:39:56]:
My beautiful car that was in the garage, my beautiful home that represented success. But I had no energy to walk, to get water. And that's when I just kept looking around me and I said, is that truly success? So what I did, I hired a friend and I said, I want you to sell my stuff. Not everything, anything that really meant something for me, like pictures or something that is so valuable I wouldn't let it go. But everything else that is just stuff, I didn't want that anymore. It was just, it just felt heavy. It made my life feel so heavy, I didn't want it. And she was going through a difficult time financially so I said sell and get 50%.
Dima Ghawi [00:40:45]:
So that was my contribution, serving her.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:40:47]:
With kindness to give her that opportunity.
Dima Ghawi [00:40:51]:
Yes. So she started selling my stuff and then the more she was helping me sell, I had less stuff and I was feeling lighter. I was spending time on healing. I started spending my money instead of stuff on experiences, spending time with friends and that's made all the difference. So right now anytime I buy something, I'm like, do I really need this? Not to be stingy or anything. It is like, am I adding something more to my life? Can I use the money to some to. To an experience that's going to make my life so much better?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:41:28]:
Oh, I love that. So much. So, so much. And coming up on the holiday season, it's a good reminder too that we probably don't need another sweater from Abercrombie. As much as we need a weekend away with our family or our cousins.
Dima Ghawi [00:41:42]:
Yes.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:41:42]:
That's what we've been doing is we're a concert family or a music family. So I've been buying the kids concert experiences, like where we go. The kids and I, they're adults, so it's, you know, we go away for a long weekend and go see a show that we all like. And that's Christmas. Yeah. It's so much more fun. So much more. Yeah.
Dima Ghawi [00:42:01]:
Wow. I love it, Dima.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:42:03]:
We can do this for days.
Dima Ghawi [00:42:06]:
We have so much to share, so much to talk about.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:42:10]:
Oh, my gosh. This has been a great joy for me to even just spend this time for you. So I know it's going to be a blessing for our listeners, and I just want to continue to stay in touch. And if there's new stuff or new ideas that you have that you think, hey, Rebecca, might want to talk about that on the podcast, let me know, because we clearly have a shared view that business really is human. And the more that we pay attention to our human needs in all kinds of ways, the better the business is. More impact, more growth. It's just better. Yay.
Dima Ghawi [00:42:45]:
More joy, more happiness.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:42:47]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I want our listeners to know if you need a keynote speaker, if you want to talk to you about leadership workshops, you take all these beautiful stories and metaphors and turn them into experiences that really can help businesses grow. So I want everybody to know that they can reach out to you as well. And your website is your name, right? Yeah. So I'm going to spell it so we can make sure that we get people there. And I'll put it in the show notes as well. It's D I M a G H a W I dot com.
Dima Ghawi [00:43:18]:
Yeah. Thank you. And if anyone is interested in learning about the full story, my memoir, obviously, is called Breaking Vases.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:43:28]:
Absolutely. And you have such great content on your website. Just go peruse around there for a while and see what you find. Thank you for being you. And I'm glad that we've met. Yeah.
Dima Ghawi [00:43:38]:
Thank you, Rebecca. I had such a great time, and it's wonderful to get to meet you.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:43:44]:
Thank you.