About - Dr. Rebecca Heiss

Hi, I’m
Dr. Rebecca

Stress Physiologist, Author, Keynote Speaker

Def: To consciously sort through our fears and decide what’s worthy of our attention rather than let our subconscious drive our decisions. To choose our responses and show up ALL-IN, authentically making decisions for ourselves - both personally and professionally. [Note: not the same as fearless, which this particular author finds to be a very poor choice.]

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What does biology have to do with your everyday life?

It’s okay to be honest.

Most of us aren’t sitting at our desks or in meetings thinking about our high-school science classes [dog videos are way more interesting!].

And we’re certainly not thinking about science when we’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and afraid.

But the reality is that our biology affects our response to
everything.

As an evolutionary biologist, I’ve spent years researching and teaching others about our very natural responses to the perceived dangers in our lives.

Our brains are wired to protect us from danger [like a tiger chasing us]. The problem is that even though we don’t have tigers chasing us anymore, our beautiful, overly protective brains don’t know that.

To your brain, that looming project deadline is just as deadly as a tiger.

Which can make our reaction a little….overkill [reply all, anyone?].

But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong
with you…or me.

It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way, even though I literally studied the science behind fear and stress for years, including conducting research deemed “transformative” by the National Science Foundation.

And I still made so many life choices out of fear because they felt safe. Big goals, not so much…
[They were way too scary...failure and rejection loomed far too large].

It wasn’t until I discovered a way to work with my brain, not against it that I was able to step away from my fear to become Fear[less].

(Please note this isn’t the same as being fearless, but fearing less has been transformative.)

It’s been
awesome.

Stress has become a barometer for meaning and purpose in my life rather than something I seek to avoid.

I’ve gotten to do some amazing, fulfilling [scary] things as a result, like:

Fall madly in love [after failing in my first marriage]
Complete over 12 century rides [after having to drop out of a 1/2 marathon]
Traveled around the world doing and sharing my research and stories [after struggling to get a job for over a year]
Have a wildly successful ice cream company [after successfully
launching but failing miserably to recover my losses in a widget business]
Published a book with a publishing house without knowing anything
about the publishing industry! [and had dozens of rejections along the
way…in fact, just about everything I’ve written has been rejected at least once]
And took a group of high school students to China, Belize, and the
Galapagos [and I only left one behind on a plane! Don’t worry, they’re still alive today.]

This is some of my list, but...
what’s in your dare diary?

What are your biggest fears that you find yourself ruminating about and holding you back?

GET THEM OUT, onto the page! And then a day, a week, a month later go back and have a second look. Were any of them actually tigers? What was the cost of inaction?
What if instead you double dog dared yourself to T-3 your way to adventure? What's the smallest step forward you can take?

How could you show up differently? More powerfully? More authentically FEAR[less]?

Because you can.

I don’t know everything, but as a scientist, I do know this:

Even though you’ve inherited fear-driven biological wiring, you have everything you need to be your own wizard. You can rework your neural pathways, reshape and remold how you think about yourself and others, and change your habits and thinking so you show up in the world using your own unique superpower.

And you don’t need a PhD to do it.

If it worked for me, trust me, it can work for you.

I’d love to help.

Because we all deserve more―and MORE of the good stuff is what we get when we FEAR[less].

XOXO