TCC Podcast #57: How to know if you’re a highly sensitive entrepreneur with Heather Dominick

In the 57th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with Heather Dominick who coined the term, highly sensitive entrepreneur—a name for business owners who are more sensitive to the demands of start-up and freelance work. During our conversation, we asked her: •  what a “highly sensitive entrepreneur is” and whether it’s a weakness we need to overcome •  how to know if you were born highly sensitive—20% of us are •  whether there’s something wrong with Rob who is highly insensitive •  what being highly sensitive means (and the superpowers HSEs have) •  a few questions you can ask yourself to find out if you’re an HSE •  how to work (or live) with someone who is highly sensitive •  how to approach work (and life) as a highly sensitive entrepreneur •  the importance of processes and systems to support your work as a HSE, and •  how to network as an HSE. We also asked Heather about the similarities between HSEs and introverts (they’re not the same thing) and how her business has changed since she started approaching things as an HSE. This discussion is a little different from our typical episode but shines a light on a personality type that many copywriters deal with regularly. To listen, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory Ali Brown’s Glambition Radio Quiet by Susan Cane HSE Quiz Heather’s Website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Rob: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Kira and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 57, as we chat with business coach and founder of the highly sensitive entrepreneur movement, Heather Dominick, about how personality traits affect business success, what it means to be highly sensitive, how to deal with the sensitive people in our lives, and what this all means for copywriters. Kira: Heather, welcome! Rob: Welcome Heather. Heather: Thank you so much. So happy to be here. So happy to be here with both of you! Kira: Well, when I first heard of you, it was on Ali Brown’s Glambition Radio interview with you. I was on vacation and somehow randomly stumbled upon that particular interview and I remember being like, oh my goodness! This is me! I had no idea that this was a thing and it was kind of like finding out from Susan Cane that I was an introvert a couple of years back when I was like, oh this makes sense! This all makes sense! And then I forced my husband to listen to the interview again so that he would understand why I am the way I am and so ever since then, I knew that we needed you on this show to really help communicate what this is all about to highly sensitive copywriters and copywriters that maybe aren’t as highly sensitive as well. Heather: Fantastic! I love that so much. Did your husband listen to the interview that I did with Ali Brown? Did that help? Kira: It did help. I feel like this is already a couple of months ago, I feel like it’s something that maybe we need to revisit every once in awhile just to be like okay, remember why - this is why I’m doing this this way? So it doesn’t fade away. And I think a great place to start is with your story - just, how you discovered that you’re a highly sensitive person and entrepreneur? Heather: Sure! Absolutely. I’m so happy to share. Well, I would say first that I’m in my 14th year of being self-employed and in the first half of my self-employment career, I had no idea that I was highly sensitive at all. I didn’t even really know what that term was or what it meant and so, the first half - the first seven or so years of being self-employed - I was able to create some significant success in my business. I had brought my business across the million dollar mark at that point and it came at a very high cost. I found myself absolutely, completely overwhelmed, overworked, and over-exhausted. And at that time, I was working with a mentor who I’ve come to understand was mismatched for my highly sensitive nature, and you know, she really pushed her clients to create more and the amount of income that her clients were generating was very important to her and what I’ve come to understand since is that that plugged right into what I now have coined and referred to as one of the HSE coping mechanisms, the coping mechanism of pushing, which was definitely my coping mechanism of choice. What that means is that a person who’s highly sensitive will choose a coping mechanism unconsciously to deal with their highly sensitive nature. And someone who tends towards the coping mechanism of pushing—like myself—versus hiding, which is the other coping mechanism, or what I like to say is combo-plattering, which is swaying back and forth between the two, was someone who will tend towards the coping mechanism of pushing, they will get done what a person who is not highly sensitive can get done but again, it will come at a massive cost because it takes a different level of energy. So, at that point in my business, when again, I had crossed the million dollar mark but it had come at that high cost, I really was thrown into you know, what many spiritual teachers refer to as a dark night of the soul. I really just withdrew from everything at that point except for just continuing to pour the love that I had for my clients you know, into my work with them. But I withdrew from that mentorship, I withdrew from anything and everything on the internet, and I really went deep inside of myself because my question for myself at that time was, what am I doing?! And you know, is this worth it? If this is what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, then I’m not sure I’m up for it. It was in that period of self-discovery that I was brought to Dr. Elaine Aron. And Dr. Elaine Aron is the founding researcher in regards to the aspect of what it is to be a highly sensitive person. And she developed or started that research in the early 90’s and when I discovered Dr Elaine Aron and I took one of her high level assessments and I came to understand what being highly sensitive meant, I wasn’t so surprised that I was highly sensitive, but I was surprised at how highly sensitive I was. And then what I did was I took another one of Dr. Aron’s assessments and I brought it into a high level group of 25 women entrepreneurs that I was working with at the time and lo and behold, every single woman in that room was also highly sensitive. What was really surprising about that was not so much that they were highly sensitive, because I’m a real believer - and one of the foundational principles that I teach - in your ideal client being a version of you. But what was interesting is that not one woman wanted to be highly sensitive. They really saw it as a weakness. That was really my first indication that something was up here. That’s really what dove me into my own extensive research about not only what it means to be highly sensitive, but what does it mean to be highly sensitive as a person who’s called to be self-employed? That is really what began my journey and all of the teachings and trainings and tools that I’ve developed since then to support those of us who are highly sensitive who are called to be self-employed so that we can do what it takes to be self-employed but in a way that really matches who we are so that we don’t have to go into those coping mechanisms of pushing or hiding or combo-plattering, but can actually really be at peace within our business while also creating prosperity. And that’s the scoop! Rob: There’s a lot to unpack there. My first question is, of course, going to be how do we know if we’re highly sensitive? But I’m almost wondering if this is a man/woman thing? Does this skew one way heavily to another? How do we know if we are? Heather: That’s an awesome, awesome question. So first of all, it’s not gender-defined and I also always like to say that if you are highly sensitive, you were born into the world this way. And the basic description or definition of what it means to be highly sensitive is that your nervous system is wired differently than someone who is not highly sensitive. And according to Dr. Elaine Aron there is 20% of us in the population globally who are born into the world highly sensitive. What it means that your nervous system is wired differently is that, for example, something that might not even be stimulating to someone who isn’t highly sensitive like say, maybe loud noises. Right? Like, going to a rock concert. But someone who is highly sensitive is going to take that barely stimulating sensation for an 80%’er and their system is going to register it as extremely stimulating, if not absolutely bowl you over stimulating. So it’s not male or female. However, because of the way that our culture has been created and is understood, it takes a lot more for a man to admit or come to an understanding that he’s highly sensitive. How can you tell if you’re highly sensitive? Well, one of the first ways is to take an assessment that was developed by Dr. Elaine Aron or, if you’re a person who is self-employed, to take the assessment that I developed with Dr. Elaine Aron that helps you understand if you are a highly sensitive entrepreneur. Rob: Is this something that manifests in different parts of our lives? For example, you know, I might go to a movie and get a little teary eyed at the end,