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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 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: It's time for some true confessions. I'll start when my kids were little. Every once in a while I'd have this thought, well, if I had another baby, I could get six weeks off. That's crazy. And then I realized as I became a coach and started having these conversations with people that so many top performers have had a similar thought.
[00:01:09] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: The guys will say, well, maybe if I just tear an Achilles at go play basketball, I'll get some time off. Women have said, maybe if I could just get the flu or break breaking arm, like I found out that I'm not the only one with these crazy thoughts. So. I'm wondering if you have one too.
[00:01:30] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Our next speaker, Angie Woods, is gonna share with us her similar vibe and challenge us about why top performers don't feel like they can rest until something breaks.
[00:01:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: All right. Here we go.
[00:01:50] Angie Woods: Grateful for cancer. Have you ever heard anyone say those words? It sounds like such an odd thing to say. The big C word usually brings about feelings of fear, sadness, grief, anger. A combination of all of those. And to be clear, I would never call cancer a gift, but for me it was exactly the wake up call.
[00:02:24] Angie Woods: I needed to stop hitting this news button on my life, but just for a moment, let's travel back in time and meet 15-year-old Angie.
[00:02:36] Angie Woods: That was when I had my first job in high school, taking on every hour I could possibly get. Ha, the sweet freedom of money as a teenager, and then my senior year, two part-time jobs in college, a full-time job, a part-time job, and a full load of classes.
[00:02:58] Angie Woods: And I wore that crazy pace, like a cape and a badge of honor. I would say things like, who needs sleep? No rest for the weary. I'll sleep when I'm dead. I remember one final exams week in college. I came down with the worst kidney infection of my life. I can still picture myself sitting in that urgent care room with the doctor trying to convince me to be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics.
[00:03:28] Angie Woods: I looked at him dead serious and said, no way. I don't have time for this. You don't understand. I have final exams. Just call me in some antibiotics. And I'll be just fine. Spoiler alert, I was not just fine. I kept going and going, hitting the snooze button over and over and over, thinking that my unhealthy habits couldn't catch up with me if I just rein fast enough and boy did I try to run fast.
[00:04:03] Angie Woods: Fast forward to 2023, a routine mammogram. And something deep inside told me, Anang, we're not gonna be getting that postcard in the mail that says, all clear. See you next year. And I was right. One abnormal result turned into biopsies, follow ups, decisions to make, and ultimately five surgeries, the bright spot that year.
[00:04:31] Angie Woods: I weigh more than met my deductible, so much so that I threw in a free colonoscopy just for fun. But the truth is, I was already on the Indy 500 fast track to burnout and self-destruction. My family and closest friends, some in the audience this evening, still today, have no idea just how dark that season was for me.
[00:05:00] Angie Woods: I was in a fog, so lost, working nonstop, barely sleeping. I had tied my worth completely to my productivity and people pleasing, trying to prove my value, prove my worth, prove that I was enough. Enough at work, enough at home, and not even coming close to measuring up at either. A boat load of caffeine to get me through the day, too much alcohol at night, to numb out from the day, avoiding anything that required true emotional energy and avoiding time to pause and reflect on how I was contributing to the life I was experiencing.
[00:05:47] Angie Woods: It was a vicious cycle, and I could not see my way out. And as I reflect now, there were plenty of wake up calls along the way. God was calling me, he was trying to get my attention, and I was not picking up. Sorry, God can't talk now. Got a lot going on. You know, I've gotta get those TPS reports out. And then my doctor's office called.
[00:06:12] Angie Woods: And it was time, like that was a call. I could not, I could not ignore. It was time to sit up, splash some water on my face, and take a hard look at the reality I had created and make some decisions about the future that I wanted. And I realize now, looking back, cancer wasn't the fire, it was the alarm, and it got really loud because I had not listened when it was quiet.
[00:06:38] Angie Woods: The body really does keep the score.
[00:06:41] Angie Woods: I remember laying in bed after my first surgery feeling such relief, thinking, ah, I finally have a real excuse to rest because someone in a white lab coat told me I had to. It sounds just as crazy now. Saying those words is what it did. Thinking it back then, and as I reflect my unhealthy habits, that pattern ran deep, and I'm talking generations deep.
[00:07:09] Angie Woods: Somewhere along the way, I picked up a belief that my worth was tied to my productivity. That if I wasn't feeling every minute being busy, I was being lazy and asking for help, receiving help. Nope. Those that know me best and I won't look at them because I will cry. They know I do not do this well around the same time.
[00:07:38] Angie Woods: A member of my HR team faced her own terrifying health journey, a freak accident and emergency brain surgery. Very scary. But our team turned this into our team mantra. When we'd face something stressful at work, we would say, well, if it's not cancer or brain surgery, I think we've got this perspective is a powerful thing.
[00:08:04] Angie Woods: God blessed me with exactly the right team I needed at that time, and I'm forever grateful for them.
[00:08:14] Angie Woods: When I met with Rebecca to talk about Rise and Thrive this year, I was so excited and I said, Rebecca, I'm gonna be the first to sign up for season eight next year. Next year will finally be my year. And she calmly said, Angie, what if there was an eighth spot this season? Instant panic. Um, this season, no, I'm not ready.
[00:08:38] Angie Woods: This season I just started a new job. I've got a lot going on. I'm not ready. I need more time, but somewhere deep inside I found the courage to answer the call, to stop hitting this s News button on my growth, and I said yes to this amazing experience and it has forever changed me. Right place, right time, and most definitely the right people.
[00:09:13] Angie Woods: I wrestled with whether or not my cancer story was worthy of being told on this stage tonight, and as I reflected and with some help from my friends and family, I decided, yes, it absolutely is worthy. Of being told because that was the moment, one of one of the moments when I stopped hitting this S News button on my life and I'm still a work in progress.
[00:09:40] Angie Woods: Those that know me best can absolutely validate that I am continuing to level up, make healthier decisions so that I can be fully present today and still be here tomorrow and my three amazing kids. They deserve a mom who knows she's enough enough to rest when she needs to enough to make her health a priority enough to say yes to her growth and say no to things that don't matter.
[00:10:14] Angie Woods: And I want them, and I want all of you to know and to answer the my call to action.
[00:10:21] Angie Woods: Let's rest when we need to, not because we've earned it. Not because someone in a white lab coat told us we had to, but because we're humans and humans are worthy of rest, let's normalize asking for and receiving help.
[00:10:40] Angie Woods: Vulnerability is a gift. It's a gift to ourselves and it's a gift to those who love us. And I would be remiss if I did not say, please prioritize your health, your self care. Your annual wellness visits for early detection, please, and let's say yes, hell yes to something this sheer that scares us a little bit, pushes us outside of our comfort zone and fuels our growth even before we're ready.
[00:11:15] Angie Woods: Ready is a decision. It's not a feeling. And let's tell our stories. Every story matters and every story. Is worthy of being told I would not have chosen cancer as my wake up call. But I can tell you as I stand here tonight, I am grateful, thankful for the lessons, the blessings, and the people it has brought into my life.
[00:11:42] Angie Woods: No more running, no more snooze button. When God calls me today, I do my best to answer that call on the first ring. Thank you.
[00:11:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I'm guessing that the majority of you resonated with Angie's talk in the not feeling like you can rest, and burnout costs us employers estimated 125 billion with a B dollars a year, but burnout. Isn't a productivity problem. it's a productivity problem because what it costs, the organizations, it's the, the root of it is not in workless because so many of us, when we're told, Hey, take some time off for us, we don't because our worth is so tied to our work.
[00:12:49] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: the root cause of burnout is to always believe that you need to prove yourself work harder, and that if you take care of the business, it will take care of you. And that comes from, Herbert Frieden Berger's research back in the seventies. And we've just perpetuated that as a belief system because when I heard those three things I said, that's what I was told.
[00:13:14] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Success is. We have this paradox that what we were led to believe were the keys to success are actually the root cause of burnout. And so that is the root of my work, is to bring that to light because burnout is a belief and an identity issue. And until we can individually. Surface that, and then choose to change our beliefs and our, therefore, our patterns won't matter what the organization does or doesn't do, but we don't have time to cover all that today.
[00:13:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Luckily for you and me and anybody who reads it, I just finished writing a book called The Counterfeit Life. 'cause that's what happens is we get into this counterfeit life because the keys to success and the root cause of burnout are the same. And I unpack a lot of that from neuroscience and scripture,
[00:14:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So, back to Angie. I also wanna bring up the point that Angie is a senior Vice President of hr. She has worked in HR her entire career. And so if your HR folks are in this state, what's that say? it's not, it's not about the business or the structure as much as is, is the belief system does, do those things, contribute, sure.
[00:14:44] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Angie realizes now and understands is that the nervous system can't run on chronic activation. It has to have shut down or it will shut you down, which is why she ended up in a state of illness. That's real. It's very real. In fact, I was on LinkedIn earlier today posting, one of our,clips from one of the talks.
[00:15:13] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: If we're not following each other on LinkedIn, we could do that too. but I was posting it and so after I posted it, I saw a story that ran after that, which it was a picture of a gentleman in the hospital hooked up with tubes on LinkedIn. I have been seeing more and more of this kind of content and it's troubling that it's so prevalent that so many people are experiencing cancer and sickness and illness, that it's become a normal part of the business conversation in some way that literally makes me wanna cry.
[00:15:51] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It is so not the way that God intended this to go. so what Angie experienced was the chronic activation and the sustained levels of cortisol then suppressed her immune system and her body was forced to shut down to recover. And this can happen on small scale, large scale,
[00:16:16] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so once your immune system is suppressed, then not only like I did, you pick up the flu, but you don't have enough immune system to fight it. So then it turned into pneumonia. So what should have been a couple of days recovery turned into two months. Angie's turned into cancer.
[00:16:34] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: There is a physical, ramification to this sustained cortisol levels. And you know, she said it in her talk that during, you know, her post-surgery, oh good, I finally have time, or I finally have an excuse to rest. Also just makes me so, so sad, and it's happening more and more and more. she can now name the pattern that runs far before her.
[00:17:04] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's a generational pattern that we're passing down that has been passed down to us and now we're passing down and it's compounding. I see it in kids stressed out about sports and grades the anxiety that. That teenagers experience today around those things. We've passed down some of that and also makes me terribly sad.
[00:17:27] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: if we understood our nervous system more, we wouldn't have chose it. We didn't do it maliciously. We love our kids. we didn't mean to. We have to now be aware so that we can shift these things. We can teach these things because once our body learns that stillness isn't safe, we're not gonna rest.
[00:17:48] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so we have to change the belief structure to get to where we can rest in a sense of. This is strategy. This is proactive. This is good for me. This is what my body was designed to do. We're going to continue to pass those things down because she, she says it in her story that she picked up the belief that her worth was tied to her productivity, and she can trace it all the way back to being a teenager and.
[00:18:18] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's just the nervous system doing its job. Once we tell it something with our beliefs, then it's gonna run the pattern that it thinks is gonna keep us safe. It's just running the wrong one. So we have to tell it the truth. We have to believe the truth,
[00:18:34] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: If we understand that our nervous system state, which Angie's was being chronically activated even from a teenager, then our beliefs tied to worth equals productivity. So that means by nature, rest equals laziness. And asking for help equals weakness. And we don't know. Those are beliefs.
[00:18:54] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That just is, and what I'm helping to do is make what was. Previously subconscious below the level of awareness, making you aware so that you can make different choices. Because the pattern that flows, if that's your belief system, is you're gonna override every single signal from your body because your belief is so powerful that you are not supposed to rest.
[00:19:20] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So when she was getting sick. She was even in the hospital, she was still overriding all of the alarm bells that were going off physically. She'd already overridden exhaustion, and then she was in the hospital still overriding the alarm bells that were going off saying, you don't understand. I gotta get back to work.
[00:19:43] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And that's how powerful our beliefs are. But also it's your nervous system doing exactly what it's designed to do is build a pattern to keep you safe and when your belief is that I'm only safe when I'm busy.
[00:20:01] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It'll run that play until it runs you into the ground, literally, and it's happening to too many people. And so
[00:20:10] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I want to bring you these tools and these frameworks so you can learn how your nervous system really works and. Use the practices to get your nervous system regulated enough that you can start to look at the underlying beliefs that are running your life, running the patterns of your life.
[00:20:32] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Now, Let's look at it from a business perspective. Because this costs our business too. It's not just a cost to us When leaders, you or whoever you report to operate from chronic activation, and in most organizations, chronic activation is the culture.
[00:20:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I know that from doing coaching and consulting work, but that sets the pace. For everyone around them. So our nervous systems are designed to wire together, read each other's energy and. When, the team reads the leader's nervous system, listen, they're reading your nervous system. They're not even reading your emails.
[00:21:16] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Nervous systems just automatically read one another, okay? That's the most powerful communication tool that you have is your nervous system regulation. But when your teams read your regulation. They're seeing the timestamp that you're responding to emails at 2:00 AM or even 10:00 PM Then that says to them, this is what's required for us to be successful here, and then they will feel like they're not safe to rest.
[00:21:45] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So even if you say, no, no, no, no, you don't, you need to respond to tomorrow. But if you are responding late night, they think that's the way that this thing works. The other problem that we have in organizations about HR is leaders that make decisions.
[00:22:02] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That cause problems in the organization and then batted over to HR to fix it, or to believe that HR is in charge of culture. Everybody is in charge of culture. It is the collective nervous systems that are trying to work together every day. That's not an HR issue. That's, that's individuals showing up with chronically, dysregulated nervous systems that are causing the issue.
[00:22:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: But we, we, we basically taught an entire generation that exhaustion is a badge of honor. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Yep. You will. But then business leaders signal to the team, and I believe unintentionally there's some really wonderful leaders that would never in a million years do anything to, purposefully hurt the people that report to them.
[00:22:52] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And so I don't wanna make it sound like everybody's some malicious mean leader that's showing up dysregulated because they're, wanting to control the world. It is happening below the level of consciousness. I'm just trying to bring what used to be subconscious into consciousness so we can do things differently.
[00:23:12] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So, there's phrase in the Bible. Scripture in the Bible says, be still and know that I am God, which means we're not really in control of everything that's going on in this world anyway. We just think we are. The more that we can release the belief that we're in charge of controlling everything and truly rest.
[00:23:33] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: That's the way our nervous system is designed. God designed us to work, then rest, work, then rest. Work is a good thing. we're designed to work, but we also have to rest. Or we break it. We break this beautiful design that God gave us, because we believe that we're in control of everything instead of him.
[00:23:53] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: I hope you'll read this book when it comes out still in the editing phase. but I'm already seeing it make a positive. Difference in my clients that have been using these frameworks that, I write about. So I'm really hopeful that it's going to make a major difference in the business community because we're a tough crowd for faith.
[00:24:16] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: ' cause we're paid really well. To solve problems and to fix stuff. And so we then start to believe that we're in charge of controlling everything and fixing everything, which doesn't leave a lot of room for the creator of the universe to do his work because we're so busy jumping in and. Fixing it all, controlling it all.
[00:24:38] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And he says, you know, I got this. Why don't you just connect with me and let me run the show? But it's hard for us to do that because our belief system says that we're supposed to control everything. And it's very clear, in scripture that we don't earn our rest. It's a part of the design. It's a part of the requirement.
[00:25:00] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: It's a part of believing that things aren't gonna fall apart because we're taking the time that we need.
[00:25:06] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: So, let that be your call to action for this episode. You don't earn rest. Lemme say it again. You don't earn rest and your work is not tied to your worth. Please own that with everything that you have.
[00:25:26] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: pay attention to the state of your nervous system. Are you in chronic activation? Do you need to build in daily stillness Practices, breaks in between meetings, some breath work, some go stand in the grass.
[00:25:39] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Give you some practical ways to regulate your nervous system. So go back if you're new here and grab some additional episodes that have already been published of the podcast. It is rich with nervous system regulation tips, and then if you are in a state of activation, chronically activated. Look at the belief underneath.
[00:26:01] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: Whose voice do you hear? Was there a well-meaning parent or coach or someone that, led you to believe that, um, rest was. Not a part of the strategy. Where did that voice and belief come from in your life? And then ask yourself, is this what you want for yourself moving forward?
[00:26:19] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: If you're a parent, is this what you wanna pass on to your children and grandchildren? Where's the motivation for you to want to do things differently? And if you need permission, I'm here to give it to you. Consider this your official permission slip. You need to take the breaks and the rest required so that you can have access to the greater decision making, the greater capacity to do the great work that you were brought into this world to do.
[00:26:47] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: And again, everything about Angie's Talk I address in this book, and so I'm excited for you to get to read it someday in the future.
[00:26:57] Rebecca Fleetwood Hession: All right, y'all, until next time, we've got Three more stories to bring to you. Love you mean it?
[00:27:03] 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. Alright, make it a great day. Love you, mean it!