May 26, 2025 • 12 mins
What can we do to cultivate more resilience at work? Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business and host of The Unshakeables podcast, thinks about this question a lot. In today’s mini episode, Ben joins Maya to talk about the unique challenges faced by America’s small business owners—and the insights he shares can help anyone who wants to improve their well-being at work.
This episode was made in partnership with Chase for Business. Listen to Ben’s podcast, The Unshakeables, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hey, everyone. In honor of small business month, I sat down with Ben Walter, the host of The Unshakeables podcast and the CEO of Chase for Business. Ben came to us for advice on how small business owners can improve their mental health and build resilience over the long run. And I wanted to hear in return the stories he's gathered over the years of small business owners who've had their own slight change of plans. I hope the takeaways from this conversation are helpful for anyone who's looking to cultivate a bit more resilience when it comes to the changes we all face at work. Ben and I started by talking about some of the unique challenges that small business owners face.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
The most important thing to keep in mind is that
when you're a small business owner, you are the everything.
You are the custodian, you are the CEO, you are
the floor manager, you are the customer relations professional. If
there's a hat you can wear, you wear it. You know,
if you work for a big company and something comes
up in your personal life, you can say, can someone
(01:31):
cover that for me? And in this case, there's often
no one to cover that for me, So that's one
angle is just how broad your responsibilities are relative to
a bigger business. And then the second way is the
amount of accountability and responsibility you take for everything that
happens in that business because it's yours. If you make
a bad decision in a small business and it goes poorly,
(01:53):
it can put that business out of business, and that's
a worry that you carry all the time. I can't
tell you how many small business owners I meet who
who feel deeply personally responsible for their employees' livelihoods, and
how fundamental that obligation is to their personality and their character.
(02:15):
And that doesn't mean that people like me who work
for big companies don't take their job seriously and don't
feel any level of stress or accountability in life. Of
course they do. But if you think about the CEO
of a public company, that CEO is responsible for a lot,
but with a whole bunch of infrastructure to go along
with it, and shareholders and governance and a lot of
(02:36):
that just doesn't exist in a small business. It all ends,
starts and ends with you.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Sure. Ben, you host a podcast called the Unshakeables where
you actually talk to small business owners about how they
have navigated some of the most difficult moments they faced
when it came to building their businesses. Can you think
of an example of someone who found a way through
a difficult challenge, maybe related to one of the constraints
(03:03):
you just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
On our very first episode, we had a coffee company
who their entire warehouse burned down, most of their inventory
gone overnight, and they had to figure out what to do.
They had built a strong support system that was not
only the traditional centers of influence that a small business
would have, an accountant, a lawyer, and an insurance agent,
all those kinds of things. They had also built deep
(03:26):
connections into their coffee community, including with competitors. And it's
not the way you would normally think that this would go,
but because they had built such deep mutual respect, they
were actually storing some of their coffee supplies with a competitor.
and the competitor let them use their equipment at night
until they could get their factory rebuilt. That's an example
(03:46):
of something where a little bit of foresight and a
little bit of networking and a lot of goodwill was
able to pull them through.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Hm. I love that story, and what a beautiful example of
humanity shining through in a difficult time. What lessons do
you think we should learn from that example?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
We should learn a couple of things. One is we
build our networks that matter when things are fine, not
when things aren't fine. Invest in those things when you
are not asking for anything, because nobody likes to be
asked for the first time when they've never seen you
and they've never met you and you need help. So
that's one is build those networks then, and two is
(04:25):
really do some contingency planning. I talked about the many
responsibilities of a small business owner. One of them is
to think through what could go wrong, and think about
what could go wrong that you could survive, and what
could go wrong that you might not survive, and what
am I going to do to manage that risk.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
That's such an excellent point. It's what you're doing when
things are going right.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I tell my kids that all the time. I'm like,
you make friends when things are good, you don't make
friends when things are bad.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
There are so many stories of small business owners making
huge personal sacrifices in order to guarantee that their staff
and their company thrive. For example, CEOs shop owners going
an entire year or two without a proper salary to
ensure that their staff gets paid. Just chatting with you
(05:09):
now about the incredible demands that are placed on small
business owners. Should we revere this trade as much as
we do? And is there an alternative path to success
in which business owners are able to more effectively balance
caring about their staff and caring about themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, and I think the ones, maya who do it
really well sort of have a mental line drawn in
their mind and they try as much as they can
despite the fact that the business is you and you
are the business to separate them. I talked about Quanetta McNeal,
the woman we had on our show who she built
a business called Haus of Logistics, really interesting business distributing
(05:47):
goods for a large e-commerce retailer. She lost her marriage
during the business, and she did a great job, I think,
managing the two things in as separate a way as
you can, because she knew deep down that keeping her
employees happy, satisfied and productive was the key to her
business thriving, and that if her business was doing well,
she would be able to deal with the things she
(06:08):
needed to deal with in her personal life. And I
have a lot of respect for that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
You mentioned earlier that one reason small business owner's mental
health might be compromised is because they really do feel
a huge responsibility to care for their employees right that
it rests on their shoulders. And one scientist I spoke
with on the show a professor from Stanford named Jamil Zaki.
He actually studies the science of empathy, and there are
(06:31):
three kinds of empathy. The first type is called emotional empathy,
the kind of visceral experience we have when we literally
feel someone else's emotions right, our facial expressions change, we
might have a tear form in our eyes. The second
is cognitive empathy, which is simply recognizing what it is
that might make the other person feel better. And then
the third type of empathy is empathic concern, so the
(06:53):
ability to want to help the other person, to actually care.
What Jamil says is that emotional empathy is the kind
of empathy that's most associated with burnout, and so sometimes
people feel like, well, I don't want to do away
with my empathy altogether, because I want to be the
type of CEO that cares about my employees. And he
offers an alternative, which is maybe you just switch the
(07:14):
kind of empathy that you feel in that moment, so
rather than channeling it towards that visceral physical feeling in
your body, you channel it to words actually coming up
with constructive solutions. And so they found that with for example,
healthcare workers, when they focus more on empathic concern and
more on cognitive empathy, they're much less likely to experience burnout.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
And how actively can someone make that decision? Can can
someone make a conscious choice? I feel so awful, I
want to cry for this person. The tear is going
down my cheek, but I'm not going to cry. That
tear I'm going to focus on is that a real
thing people can do.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Different types of empathy are things that we can cultivate.
So in the person that can't resist the tears, we're
not saying stifle them. We're saying, then try to channel
your effort and focus and attention on the cognitive empathy
side of things. Right, So it's not necessarily one empathy
displacing another one, as much as grabbing the bulk of
(08:07):
your attention in that moment which we think can help
prevent burnout. Or for people who are accused by their
staff of not being empathetic enough. Right, they might say, like, look,
I can't force tears when they're not there, but you're
allowing people to understand there's actually a richer landscape of
possibility when it comes to empathy. And so yes, maybe
(08:28):
that kind of visceral empathy doesn't come to you naturally,
but that doesn't mean you're not an empathetic person or
that you're not capable of cultivating other kinds of empathy.
So I think it's like, in the same way that
people have different love languages, they have different empathic languages,
and that kind of diversity can help people thrive.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's really interesting. I've never heard that framework.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I want to know whether you have advice for people,
for listeners of this show who are just struggling with
their well being generally at work, whether they work for
a small business or not. They're just like Ben, work
is hard. Give me some techniques to help me get
through this challenging time.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I would say, for you know, having done a
lot of stressful jobs myself. If I'm honest, I think
there are two or three things that can really help.
The first one I would say is understanding the purpose
and being really clear in your own mind about why
you do what you do, because when you lose your why,
it gets exponentially harder to cope with whatever things throw you.
(09:23):
It's like for anybody who's listening who has kids, you know,
the minute you have that child, you're very clear on
why that child matters to you. And when you're up
late at night doing what you know, you cope because,
because you see the bigger picture. Maintaining that bigger picture
in that why, so that it's always there in the
front of your mind, I think is really helpful. The
second is, and I have had to learn this the
(09:44):
hard way, is that organization will set you free. There
is the rare bird who can flit from thing to
thing in a completely disorganized way and hold it all together.
Most people can't. So being incredibly intentional about how you
spend your time, what you spend your time on, and
critically what you won't spend your time on, and so
(10:05):
you're okay if it doesn't get done because you are
choosing not to spend your time time on it. You
own your calendar or it will own you no matter
what you do. And then the third is whether you
work for a company or you are a small business owner,
or you're a CEO or what, it doesn't matter. You
need trusted outlets. You need people who you can talk
to and tell anything to, and most importantly, you need
(10:27):
truth tellers. You need people who will be brutally honest
with you and who will tell you well. The reason
that you're not coping well is because you're focused on
the wrong things, or you're chasing something down a rabbit
hole that you shouldn't. You know, it's okay to go
people for comfort, but I think having a you know,
one or two people in your life who you go
to who you know will just let you have it
(10:48):
in all honesty, good or bad. In a completely trusting scenario,
I think is super helpful for people trying to cope
at work.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you're a fan
of A Slight Change of Plans, I'd so appreciate if
you could follow our show on Apple, Spotify or wherever
you listen into podcasts. It helps get the word out
about the show so we can keep making more episodes
for you and join me next time when world renowned
rock climber Beth Rodden tells her side of the story,
(11:21):
the one that put her name in headlines all over
the world. That's next time on A Slight Change of Plans.
See you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written
and executive produced by me Maya Shankar. The Slight Change
family includes our show runner Tyler Green, our senior editor
Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubin,
(11:43):
and our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our
delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shankar.
(12:04):
See you next week.
Hey, everyone. In honor of small business month, I sat down with Ben Walter, the host of The Unshakeables podcast and the CEO of Chase for Business. Ben came to us for advice on how small business owners can improve their mental health and build resilience over the long run. And I wanted to hear in return the stories he's gathered over the years of small business owners who've had their own slight change of plans. I hope the takeaways from this conversation are helpful for anyone who's looking to cultivate a bit more resilience when it comes to the changes we all face at work. Ben and I started by talking about some of the unique challenges that small business owners face.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
The most important thing to keep in mind is that
when you're a small business owner, you are the everything.
You are the custodian, you are the CEO, you are
the floor manager, you are the customer relations professional. If
there's a hat you can wear, you wear it. You know,
if you work for a big company and something comes
up in your personal life, you can say, can someone
(01:31):
cover that for me? And in this case, there's often
no one to cover that for me, So that's one
angle is just how broad your responsibilities are relative to
a bigger business. And then the second way is the
amount of accountability and responsibility you take for everything that
happens in that business because it's yours. If you make
a bad decision in a small business and it goes poorly,
(01:53):
it can put that business out of business, and that's
a worry that you carry all the time. I can't
tell you how many small business owners I meet who
who feel deeply personally responsible for their employees' livelihoods, and
how fundamental that obligation is to their personality and their character.
(02:15):
And that doesn't mean that people like me who work
for big companies don't take their job seriously and don't
feel any level of stress or accountability in life. Of
course they do. But if you think about the CEO
of a public company, that CEO is responsible for a lot,
but with a whole bunch of infrastructure to go along
with it, and shareholders and governance and a lot of
(02:36):
that just doesn't exist in a small business. It all ends,
starts and ends with you.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Sure. Ben, you host a podcast called the Unshakeables where
you actually talk to small business owners about how they
have navigated some of the most difficult moments they faced
when it came to building their businesses. Can you think
of an example of someone who found a way through
a difficult challenge, maybe related to one of the constraints
(03:03):
you just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
On our very first episode, we had a coffee company
who their entire warehouse burned down, most of their inventory
gone overnight, and they had to figure out what to do.
They had built a strong support system that was not
only the traditional centers of influence that a small business
would have, an accountant, a lawyer, and an insurance agent,
all those kinds of things. They had also built deep
(03:26):
connections into their coffee community, including with competitors. And it's
not the way you would normally think that this would go,
but because they had built such deep mutual respect, they
were actually storing some of their coffee supplies with a competitor.
and the competitor let them use their equipment at night
until they could get their factory rebuilt. That's an example
(03:46):
of something where a little bit of foresight and a
little bit of networking and a lot of goodwill was
able to pull them through.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Hm. I love that story, and what a beautiful example of
humanity shining through in a difficult time. What lessons do
you think we should learn from that example?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
We should learn a couple of things. One is we
build our networks that matter when things are fine, not
when things aren't fine. Invest in those things when you
are not asking for anything, because nobody likes to be
asked for the first time when they've never seen you
and they've never met you and you need help. So
that's one is build those networks then, and two is
(04:25):
really do some contingency planning. I talked about the many
responsibilities of a small business owner. One of them is
to think through what could go wrong, and think about
what could go wrong that you could survive, and what
could go wrong that you might not survive, and what
am I going to do to manage that risk.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
That's such an excellent point. It's what you're doing when
things are going right.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I tell my kids that all the time. I'm like,
you make friends when things are good, you don't make
friends when things are bad.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
There are so many stories of small business owners making
huge personal sacrifices in order to guarantee that their staff
and their company thrive. For example, CEOs shop owners going
an entire year or two without a proper salary to
ensure that their staff gets paid. Just chatting with you
(05:09):
now about the incredible demands that are placed on small
business owners. Should we revere this trade as much as
we do? And is there an alternative path to success
in which business owners are able to more effectively balance
caring about their staff and caring about themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah, and I think the ones, maya who do it
really well sort of have a mental line drawn in
their mind and they try as much as they can
despite the fact that the business is you and you
are the business to separate them. I talked about Quanetta McNeal,
the woman we had on our show who she built
a business called Haus of Logistics, really interesting business distributing
(05:47):
goods for a large e-commerce retailer. She lost her marriage
during the business, and she did a great job, I think,
managing the two things in as separate a way as
you can, because she knew deep down that keeping her
employees happy, satisfied and productive was the key to her
business thriving, and that if her business was doing well,
she would be able to deal with the things she
(06:08):
needed to deal with in her personal life. And I
have a lot of respect for that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
You mentioned earlier that one reason small business owner's mental
health might be compromised is because they really do feel
a huge responsibility to care for their employees right that
it rests on their shoulders. And one scientist I spoke
with on the show a professor from Stanford named Jamil Zaki.
He actually studies the science of empathy, and there are
(06:31):
three kinds of empathy. The first type is called emotional empathy,
the kind of visceral experience we have when we literally
feel someone else's emotions right, our facial expressions change, we
might have a tear form in our eyes. The second
is cognitive empathy, which is simply recognizing what it is
that might make the other person feel better. And then
the third type of empathy is empathic concern, so the
(06:53):
ability to want to help the other person, to actually care.
What Jamil says is that emotional empathy is the kind
of empathy that's most associated with burnout, and so sometimes
people feel like, well, I don't want to do away
with my empathy altogether, because I want to be the
type of CEO that cares about my employees. And he
offers an alternative, which is maybe you just switch the
(07:14):
kind of empathy that you feel in that moment, so
rather than channeling it towards that visceral physical feeling in
your body, you channel it to words actually coming up
with constructive solutions. And so they found that with for example,
healthcare workers, when they focus more on empathic concern and
more on cognitive empathy, they're much less likely to experience burnout.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
And how actively can someone make that decision? Can can
someone make a conscious choice? I feel so awful, I
want to cry for this person. The tear is going
down my cheek, but I'm not going to cry. That
tear I'm going to focus on is that a real
thing people can do.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Different types of empathy are things that we can cultivate.
So in the person that can't resist the tears, we're
not saying stifle them. We're saying, then try to channel
your effort and focus and attention on the cognitive empathy
side of things. Right, So it's not necessarily one empathy
displacing another one, as much as grabbing the bulk of
(08:07):
your attention in that moment which we think can help
prevent burnout. Or for people who are accused by their
staff of not being empathetic enough. Right, they might say, like, look,
I can't force tears when they're not there, but you're
allowing people to understand there's actually a richer landscape of
possibility when it comes to empathy. And so yes, maybe
(08:28):
that kind of visceral empathy doesn't come to you naturally,
but that doesn't mean you're not an empathetic person or
that you're not capable of cultivating other kinds of empathy.
So I think it's like, in the same way that
people have different love languages, they have different empathic languages,
and that kind of diversity can help people thrive.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's really interesting. I've never heard that framework.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I want to know whether you have advice for people,
for listeners of this show who are just struggling with
their well being generally at work, whether they work for
a small business or not. They're just like Ben, work
is hard. Give me some techniques to help me get
through this challenging time.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I would say, for you know, having done a
lot of stressful jobs myself. If I'm honest, I think
there are two or three things that can really help.
The first one I would say is understanding the purpose
and being really clear in your own mind about why
you do what you do, because when you lose your why,
it gets exponentially harder to cope with whatever things throw you.
(09:23):
It's like for anybody who's listening who has kids, you know,
the minute you have that child, you're very clear on
why that child matters to you. And when you're up
late at night doing what you know, you cope because,
because you see the bigger picture. Maintaining that bigger picture
in that why, so that it's always there in the
front of your mind, I think is really helpful. The
second is, and I have had to learn this the
(09:44):
hard way, is that organization will set you free. There
is the rare bird who can flit from thing to
thing in a completely disorganized way and hold it all together.
Most people can't. So being incredibly intentional about how you
spend your time, what you spend your time on, and
critically what you won't spend your time on, and so
(10:05):
you're okay if it doesn't get done because you are
choosing not to spend your time time on it. You
own your calendar or it will own you no matter
what you do. And then the third is whether you
work for a company or you are a small business owner,
or you're a CEO or what, it doesn't matter. You
need trusted outlets. You need people who you can talk
to and tell anything to, and most importantly, you need
(10:27):
truth tellers. You need people who will be brutally honest
with you and who will tell you well. The reason
that you're not coping well is because you're focused on
the wrong things, or you're chasing something down a rabbit
hole that you shouldn't. You know, it's okay to go
people for comfort, but I think having a you know,
one or two people in your life who you go
to who you know will just let you have it
(10:48):
in all honesty, good or bad. In a completely trusting scenario,
I think is super helpful for people trying to cope
at work.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you're a fan
of A Slight Change of Plans, I'd so appreciate if
you could follow our show on Apple, Spotify or wherever
you listen into podcasts. It helps get the word out
about the show so we can keep making more episodes
for you and join me next time when world renowned
rock climber Beth Rodden tells her side of the story,
(11:21):
the one that put her name in headlines all over
the world. That's next time on A Slight Change of Plans.
See you then. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written
and executive produced by me Maya Shankar. The Slight Change
family includes our show runner Tyler Green, our senior editor
Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producers Britney Cronin and Megan Lubin,
(11:43):
and our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis Scara wrote our
delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
so big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shankar.
(12:04):
See you next week.
Host
Dr. Maya Shankar
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