We have all seen the videos about how to lead a successful business—the right strategies, the perfect marketing plan, the promise that hustling will open the doors to success. But is business really only about strategy? Is it just about hustling more? Is it just about marketing, sales, and creating the perfect product? Or is it also about how we feel while doing business?

How does your business feel in your body? And from which inner state are you actually leading? This article explores what it means to lead from a nervous-system-informed place and why embodied business is becoming the future of leadership.

The illusion of productivity in hustle-based businesses

From a neurobiological perspective, hustle culture is not just exhausting; it is biologically unsafe. When the body continuously perceives pressure, lack of rest, or urgency, it automatically shifts into defensive states of fight, flight, or shutdown. Environments of constant stimulation (including emails and notifications), criticism (even self-criticism), and internal fatigue all signal danger to the nervous system. Over time, the body adapts to this as a baseline.

Burnout is not a failure of mindset or a lack of resilience. It is the inevitable outcome of a nervous system that has been asked to stay mobilised in defence for too long. Under chronic pressure, heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, metabolism, and energy regulation all change.

In other words, under chronic stress, our biology changes—and this directly impacts our performance. For the nervous system, insufficient rest and recovery, the absence of play, and the constant weight of excessive tasks are all interpreted as threats. Fatigue and endless work become danger signals, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. This process happens automatically, below the level of awareness (this is called neuroception; I share more about it in this article).

Hustle culture doesn’t just affect us day to day. When it persists over long periods, it reshapes our nervous system and our baseline stress response—but not in a strengthening way. Instead, it gradually reduces our resilience, making it harder to access creativity, clarity, and high-performance states when we need them most.

Building a business that holds you

As a business owner, a creative, a visionary leader, you are not here for a short sprint—you are here for the long ride. This means that leadership is not about running as fast as possible for a few months or years. It is about running a marathon. Yes, if this were a short race, doing as much as possible, as fast as possible, might be an efficient strategy. But is that truly the journey you want to be on? Do you want to spend your life running after your business—or do you want to lead in a way that also supports your health, your body, and your well-being?

Most women would choose the second. And yet, we are constantly surrounded by advice shaped by burnout culture. Hustle has become so deeply woven into work and business that it is often challenging to step back and question it (check my article about the dangers of the hustle culture). The truth is, building a business that can truly hold you is an entirely different experience. It means allowing your work to become an anchor of safety—an anchor for your capacity, not a constant source of pressure.

Why does this matter? First, it is far more sustainable and supportive for your body and nervous system. And second, because you are actually more impactful when you feel held, resourced, and safe. As a business owner, one of your core qualities is your leadership—and leadership is always transmitted through your nervous system. It may feel counterintuitive, but your most meaningful impact does not depend on the quantity of your work. It depends on balance, on rhythm, and on your ability to understand and work with your nervous system. That is why it is essential to discuss the neurobiology of optimal performance—because yes, such a state exists, and you can learn to access it intentionally.

The neurobiology of optimal performance

One of the most fascinating discoveries of modern neurobiology is that there is a specific state of the nervous system that supports our highest levels of performance, creativity, and decision-making. This state is often called the Play Zone. It is a blended state where the ventral vagal system—the branch of the nervous system responsible for safety, connection, and restoration—meets the sympathetic system, which brings activation, energy, and mobilisation.

In the ventral vagal state, we feel safe, grounded, socially connected, and open to co-creation. Our body functions optimally: digestion improves, immune function strengthens, and we can recover from stress more efficiently. In this sense, the ventral vagal system acts as a powerful regulator and protector against chronic stress and burnout.

The sympathetic system, on the other hand, provides the energy to act, focus, engage with challenges, solve problems, and move forward with clarity and drive (if you want to read more about the sympathetic and vagal states, read this article.)

When these two systems work together—when safety contains activation—we enter the Play Zone. From a neurobiological perspective, this is when we are at our best: protected from chronic stress and collapse, yet energised, focused, creative, and decisive.  This is the state where leadership becomes both sustainable and powerful, where performance no longer costs our health, and where business can be built from regulation rather than survival.

When leadership comes from the body

The future of leadership is not built on force, pressure, or self-sacrifice. It is built on regulation, inner safety, alignment, and true capacity that comes from listening to the body’s intelligence. When we lead from a nervous-system-informed place, leadership becomes less about survival and more about authentic, embodied capacity.

For women who feel a genuine pull to explore this work on a deeper level, I offer private Body-led Coaching for women entrepreneurs who are ready to lead from capacity rather than exhaustion. This is an intimate, body-led, nervous-system-informed space where leadership, neurobiology, and embodiment meet.

You can explore this work here: more about the 1:1 Body-led Coaching.