Too Much with Denise Love Hewett

What if we could reimagine our economy to prioritize wellbeing over endless growth? In this episode, Jess Rimington, author of "Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work," joins us to explore how businesses can break free from extractive capitalism and create workplaces that actually support human flourishing.
After both experiencing severe burnout from traditional workplace structures, Jess and her co-author spent eight years following 60 enterprises that were sharing power in unique ways. What they discovered challenges everything we've been taught about business success. In this conversation, we explore:
The 7 practices of beloved economies, including shared decision-making, prioritizing relationships, and reckoning with history
Why capitalism requires constant extraction and how that affects our collective wellbeing
Alternative funding models like reparative capital and patient capital
How venture capital keeps founders trapped in scarcity mindset
Why only 2% of VC funding goes to women and 1% to people of color
The connection between economic democracy and political democracy
Practical ways to organize collectively during uncertain times
How to build businesses that align with your values without burning out
Jess offers a refreshing perspective: we don't need to figure out the perfect economic system before we start making changes. The beloved economy we want is already being created by businesses and entrepreneurs who are choosing to operate differently right now.
Whether you're a startup founder questioning the traditional VC path, an employee wondering if work has to feel extractive, or simply someone seeking hope for a more humane economic future, this conversation offers both inspiration and actionable pathways forward.
Key Takeaways:
Business can exist outside of capitalism - we just aren't taught that our MBA programs teach ideology, not universal truth
Values aren't aspirational statements; they're reflected in what you actually prioritize
Sharing power isn't zero-sum - it actually replicates and creates more for everyone
The companies pioneering new economic models already exist; we just need to amplify them
Resources Mentioned:
Ernst Gotsch, Farmer in South America
"Beloved Economies" by Jess Rimington and Joanna Levitt Gutin
"Believe in You Money" by Jess Norwood (Runway/reparative capital)
Acumen Fund and patient capital models
Working Families Party, Indivisible, Movement Voter Project
Join us for this vital conversation about building an economy that can actually love us back.
Jess Rimington is a next-economy strategist, practitioner, and scholar focused on supporting businesses and organizations to step out of extractive economic practices. She is co-author of Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work –winner of the Porchlight’s Business Book Award in Management & Workplace Culture. She was co-director of the Beloved Economies research initiative from 2015-2022. 
You can follow her at @jessrimington or at belovedeconomies.com
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
Email hello@deniselovehewett.com for any suggestions or advice.
 

Somewhere in the last few years, skipping the work became a growth strategy — and almost nobody is willing to say it out loud. In this episode, Denise Love Hewett breaks her own silence on why she's slowed down after a year of nonstop production, what a guest quietly confessed to her about the podcast circuit, and why she thinks we're living through a full-blown moral crisis of shortcuts.
This one goes deep into hustle culture, the grifting culture running through Silicon Valley and the creator economy, and what authenticity in the age of AI actually requires of the people making things. Denise unpacks a jaw-dropping stat from a guest who did 60+ podcast interviews to promote her book — and found out almost none of the hosts had read it — and connects it to a much bigger question about personal branding, false urgency marketing, and why we keep rewarding mediocrity dressed up as ambition. She also reflects on Dolly Parton's legacy of quiet, decades-long integrity as the counter-example to everything she's frustrated by, and shares where she's at in writing her own memoir — slower, messier, and more honest than she expected.
You'll walk away with a clearer read on why slow living and craft are quietly becoming the real competitive advantage, why chasing output at all costs is starting to backfire, and how to trust your own timing instead of everyone else's pace.
If this resonated, hit subscribe — new episodes of Too Much with Denise Love Hewett drop every week, and this is exactly the kind of conversation you don't want to miss.

In this re-airing of a raw conversation, Tiffany shares how she broke generational cycles, transformed her parenting approach, and discovered that her liberation was bound up with these children's healing. Learn practical strategies for conscious parenting, nervous system regulation for kids, and how to parent from presence rather than survival mode. Plus: the mindset shifts that completely changed her financial reality as a single mother. Topics covered:
How to shift from reactive punishment to conscious connection with teenagers
The difference between parenting in your twenties vs. forties and what wisdom brings
Why teaching emotional regulation matters more than traditional success metrics
Specific strategies for parenting children who've experienced trauma
How to create genuine relationships with teenagers instead of hierarchical control
Why focusing on children's inner development transforms external behavior
Practical tools for single parents feeling overwhelmed by multiple children's needs
 
Tiffany Persons is a prolific and award-winning creative through her three founder roles as a feature film and television producer, commercial casting director, and social impact leader. As the founder of Persons Pictures, she most recently produced the psychological thriller Blink Twice directed by Zoe Kravitz. Tiffany’s producing work began in the music video genre at the height of its art form where she worked with iconic artists ranging from Missy Elliot to Mick Jagger. Tiffany’s ultimate intention with all mediums is to deliver stories that spark honest and transformative cultural conversations. In addition to Person Pictures, Tiffany is the founder of Tiffany Company Casting, one of the leading commercial casting companies with clients including Apple, BMW, and Nike has been awarded three Cannes Grand Prix Lions awards for the Microsoft ad campaign We All Win which celebrated gaming youth with disabilities thriving at their passion, Mastercard’s True Name ad campaign honoring trans and nonbinary customers rights and identity as the first credit card company to have their chosen name on bank cards , and the March for Our Lives ad campaign Generation Lockdown highlighting the unflinching truth of the trauma of gun violence on school children .for her third founder role, Tiffany created the nonprofit organization Shine on Sierra Leone that for the past 19 years has brought innovative and highly respected educational, health, financial, agricultural, and sustainable building for the Kono region.Her work is also celebrated with several awards including the recipient of the United Nations Woman of the World award and the International Eckart Witzingmann Award for Creative Responsibility. Based in Los Angeles with her five children, Tiffany is a proud native of Detroit and a descendant of the Fula, Mende, and Temne people in Sierra Leone.
 
You can follow her @Tiffanypersons
 
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
Email hello@deniselovehewett.com for any suggestions or advice.

Independent artist VÉRITÉ joins host Denise Love Hewett in this re-airing to share the raw truth about building a sustainable music career outside traditional industry structures. With over 350 million streams and complete creative autonomy, VÉRITÉ reveals how she went from working at Applebee's in Times Square to becoming a successful independent artist. In this conversation, discover:
Why VÉRITÉ believes digital music has no monetary value and how artists can adapt
The real story behind getting dropped by Atlantic Records the day before signing
How to build creative stamina for the long game as an independent artist
The psychology of functioning regardless of how you feel
Practical strategies for creating multiple revenue streams beyond streaming
How to embrace being a "guinea pig" for new industry innovations
The importance of saying less in an oversaturated market
VÉRITÉ discusses her journey from playing upstate open mics with her dad to navigating blockchain experiments, the rise and fall of blog culture, and why she believes most artists signed to major labels never actually release albums. She shares her philosophy on "dispassion," the art of creative discipline, and how depression taught her to push through discomfort.
This episode is essential listening for independent artists, creative entrepreneurs, and anyone questioning traditional career paths. Learn how to build a career foundation that can withstand industry changes while maintaining creative integrity.
As an independent artist, VÉRITÉ has always created outside of traditional structures. A prolific and spellbinding (NPR) artist, songwriter, producer, and performer, her independently released albums, EPs, and singles have garnered over 350M+ streams. After releasing Love You Forever in 2023—a cinematic and raw album—she has been sharing singles, playing shows, and connecting with fans while drawing inspiration for her next record. She is an all-around creative and innovator, effortlessly bending norms and shaping new worlds, making her next era truly exciting.
You can follow her at  @verite
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
Email hello@deniselovehewett.com for any suggestions or submit questions for  advice.

What if rage isn’t something to suppress but something sacred trying to guide you home? In this reairing of a powerful episode, Denise sits down with writer, poet, and cultural thinker Joy Donnell to explore sacred rage, devotion over discipline, and how discomfort can become the blueprint for a more honest, liberated life.
This conversation explores how anger can be informational rather than destructive, how grief and rage signal what we are devoted to, and why many of us feel an unshakable knowing that “we deserve better than this.” Together, Denise and Joy unpack how transformation happens when we stop numbing discomfort and start listening to it. In this episode, we explore:
Why sacred rage is a signal for change, not something to repress
How devotion is more sustainable than discipline
The difference between healing and bypassing discomfort
How creative work becomes a vessel for transmuting rage into vision
Why remembering who you are is a political, personal, and spiritual act
How to stop shaping your life around survival and start shaping it around meaning
This episode is for anyone who feels unsettled by the status quo, exhausted by self-abandonment, or quietly aware that a truer life is calling.
Joy Donnell is a wordsmith of well-being. Her short fiction has appeared in Grist and Short Edition, and her poetry has been honored by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Her first book, Beyond Brand, explores personal branding through the lens of personal development. Joy’s short documentary, Inseparable from the Sunlight, illuminates how our health is connected to plants, the Earth, and the cosmos. Her poetry collection, Show Us Your Fire, celebrates disruption as a path to ease and our birthright to inner peace.
You can follow her @doitinpublic
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
Email hello@deniselovehewett.com for any suggestions or advice.

 Millennials are having a midlife crisis  but it doesn't look like your parents' version. No sports car. Just quiet exhaustion and a nagging feeling that the plan didn't work. Denise coins a new term for it this week: Millennial Malaise: the collective exhaustion of a generation that followed every rule, hit every milestone, and still ended up financially precarious and quietly grieving a future that was promised but never delivered.
This episode traces the phenomenon back to its roots: millennials as the last analog-to-digital hybrid generation, the Flynn Effect and why millennial IQ may have peaked, why friction (not ease) is what makes learning and memory stick, and why 49% of millennials now hold lower socioeconomic status jobs than their parents despite doing everything the American Dream told them to do.
Denise breaks down the cognitive science of why reading rewires the brain differently than scrolling, why Gen Z's relationship to hope is fundamentally different from millennials', and most importantly what comes after the grief: how to build a life defined by your actual values instead of inherited expectations.
Explore these exact questions in the Too Much workbook: https://toomuchwithdlh.myshopify.com/products/too-much-workbook
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett

Why do good people cheat — and why do some never see it coming?
Denise sits down with Dr. Glenn Hutchinson, psychologist and author of Unfaithful Minds: The Science and Psychology of Infidelity, to unpack what's really happening in the brain before, during, and after an affair. They go deep on motivated reasoning (the unconscious mechanism that lets people lie to themselves), "enduring obliviousness," and why some people can be matter-of-fact about infidelity while others are blindsided by their own behavior. They also cover:
Why values don't predict behavior as much as we think they do
How childhood attachment styles show up in adult relationships — and why "chemistry" can be a red flag
The real link between self-worth and infidelity (and why it's not what you'd expect)
Why growing up with an unfaithful parent doubles the odds of infidelity
How executive function and environment — not willpower — determine who avoids temptation
The three competing brain systems behind sex drive, romantic love, and long-term attachment
What actually signals someone has changed after cheating
Whether you're trying to understand your own patterns, a partner's, or you're just fascinated by why humans do what we swear we'd never do — this conversation reframes infidelity as less about morality and more about the unconscious systems running the show.
You can find Glenn at https://glennhutchinson.net/
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
Get the Too Much workbook: https://toomuchwithdlh.myshopify.com/products/too-much-workbook

Women already pay a tax for existing. For women of color, that tax compounds — and Harvard economist and bestselling author Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman has the receipts.
In this episode, Denise sits down with the author of The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid (and The Black Agenda) to break down exactly how sexism, racism, and classism stack into real financial cost. They cover:
The "cost of presentability" — what women spend annually just to look employable, and why the hair tax alone can run into thousands of dollars a year
Why the motherhood penalty is real, documented, and getting worse — plus the true cost of raising a child from birth to 18
The corporate pipeline myth, and the research showing what actually changes when Black leaders are in the room
Why reparations aren't just a moral argument — they're an economic one, backed by real numbers
How companies like Target are learning that abandoning DEI has a real cost, not just a PR one
If you've ever felt like you're working twice as hard for half the credit, this episode gives you the data — and the language — to name what's actually happening.
You can follow her @itsafronomics
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is an award-winning Ghanaian-American researcher and writer. She is a postgraduate student at Harvard Kennedy School studying public policy and economics. She is the youngest recipient for a CEDAW Women's Rights Award by the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Her first book, The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for a Broken System  received widespread coverage from outlets like NPR, ESSENCE, TELEMUNDO, and The New York Times.

Are you burnt out but don't know why?
In this reairing, licensed therapist Layne Baker reveals the 3 hidden types of burnout that people face: burnout from neglect, overburdening, and being under-challenged. Learn the difference between your "zone of excellence" (what you're good at) and your "zone of genius" (what energizes you), plus discover what "eustress" means and why it's the good kind of stress you actually want.
In this episode, Denise Love Hewett and therapist Layne Baker break down:
The 3 types of burnout most people don't recognize
Why being excellent at something can actually burn you out
How to identify if you're stuck in your zone of excellence
What eustress vs distress means for your mental health
Practical tools for managing burnout when you can't change your job
Why burnout is actually a signal for personal growth
Layne Baker is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California specializing in high-functioning anxiety and burnout recovery. With over a decade of experience, she helps ambitious high-achievers break cycles of overperformance and burnout. Her work has been featured in Women's Health, Self, Parents, BuzzFeed, Newsweek, Success, and Thrillist. Layne's approach to burnout goes beyond prevention - she views burnout as a powerful message that fundamental life changes are needed for personal evolution. Her mission is helping high achievers transition to a more centered way of living that taps into inner wisdom rather than external validation. 
You can find Layne at @laynebakertherapy and laynebaker.com
You can follow Denise and this podcast at @deniselovehewett and @toomuchwithdlh

Too Much goes into the mailbag for the very first time. In this listener Q&A, Denise answers five questions that hit close to home — on overachieving young and not stopping to savor it, the fear that slowing down will make everything fall apart, waiting for a relationship before letting your life begin, finding purpose in your 20s by learning what you don't want, and whether 31 is too late to pivot careers. (It's not. Most women start businesses at 40.) Real talk, no filler — and please keep the questions coming.
Topics covered: early career boldness · workaholic recovery · hustle culture · life on hold · dating intentionally · finding purpose · career pivots in your 30s · starting over
You can follow this podcast @toomuchwithdlh and Denise @deniselovehewett
You can find the Magus Deck at  www.worldofthemagus.org