Emotionally Uncomfortable with Heather Chauvin

Why Emotional Regulation Trumps Strategy for Sustainable Success

Heather Chauvet joins Entrepreneurs on Fire to argue a counterintuitive but deeply practical point: success isn’t only about the perfect plan — it’s about how you manage the noise inside you. A former social worker turned leadership coach, Heather explains how emotional intelligence functions as a navigation system for decision-making, team leadership, parenting, and creative risk-taking. Her stories — from a stage four cancer diagnosis to daily micro-decisions — make the case that emotional regulation and small acts of courage create far more durable momentum than another productivity hack.

Emotions as Guideposts, Not Obstacles: Using Feelings to Navigate Business and Life

Heather reframes common emotional responses — fear, guilt, overwhelm — as signals, not stop signs. Rather than suppressing feelings to execute a strategy, she recommends naming a trigger, asking why it’s there, and using that awareness to inform the next move. This approach reframes leadership and parenting as relational arts that rely on internal clarity more than external tactics.

Practical Habits That Build Capacity and Courage

Several practical strategies emerge from the conversation: schedule soul-filling time deliberately; treat time as a scarce resource worthy of protection; and break intimidating actions into ten minute increments to remove resistance. Heather’s mantra — "do the damn thing" — underscores how tiny, consistent choices create new neural pathways that normalize higher levels of time, money, and emotional capacity.

• Put “soul time” on the calendar to increase patience and presence.
• Reframe money and resources as feelings to be managed, not problems to be solved.
• Practice ripping the bandage off with a small, immediate step to build momentum.

Surprising Mindset Shifts: Why More Can Feel Scary

Heather calls out a paradox many high-achieving women experience: the fear of being well resourced. More calendar space, energy, or money can trigger an old nervous system that expects loss or catastrophe when abundance arrives. Her work focuses on rewiring discomfort with “more” so leaders can hold greater resources without reverting to scarcity behaviors.

Concrete Examples That Make the Framework Real

Heather shares everyday examples, like choosing a five-minute treadmill walk when resistance is high, and client stories in which decisive, small actions produced immediate revenue. She also recounts a personal health crisis that accelerated her commitment to aligning life and work around meaning rather than permission. These anecdotes demonstrate that courage is a habit rather than a personality trait.

Valuing Time as You Value Money

One of Heather’s clearest heuristics is to treat time like a monetary asset: if every minute were worth a high value, where would you invest it? That mental model changes meeting schedules, delegation choices, and how leaders design their days. Prioritizing time and energy creates the space needed to scale without burning out.

In short, this conversation reframes emotional discomfort as a resource for growth, not a defect to hide. It connects daily micro-behaviors — scheduling replenishment, taking ten-minute actions, naming triggers — to larger outcomes like financial resilience, leadership presence, and sustained creativity. The end result is a practical framework for ambitious people who want to grow courage, capacity, and a life designed on their own terms.