#85: Peak Performance for Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs with Heather Dominick, Founder of the Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur Movement
Did you know that 20% of the global population is born highly sensitive?
But what happens if you are highly sensitive AND an entrepreneur? How does that affect you?
Today, Heather Dominick, Founder of the Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur Movement, spoke with me about her journey being a highly sensitive entrepreneur.
Heather shares wisdom around:
Why highly sensitive people are attracted to entrepreneurship
Where highly sensitive entrepreneurs tend to get stuck in business
Sales strategies for a HSE
Think you may be a highly sensitive entrepreneur? Take Heather’s quiz here to find out:www.hsequiz.com.
Learn more about Heather here:https://www.businessmiracles.com or follow her on Instagram here:https://www.instagram.com/heatherdominick_.
Check out my new free training on www.yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:02):
So many entrepreneurs, dream of living a life of massive impact by creating a mega successful company, but only a tiny percentage of businesses actually scale to that point. And when they do it is so often lacking the very joy and freedom that got them into entrepreneurship in the first place. So on this podcast, we speak authentically on what it actually takes to scale your business in a way that creates freedom and joy that works for you, your team, and the incredible impact that you are meant to make in the world as a visionary entrepreneur. My name is Laura Meyer and I'm your host. I'm a serial entrepreneur wife, mom, to three. And I love talking all things business, especially digging into what it actually takes to scale joyfully to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond let's get started.
(01:00):
Hi everybody. Welcome back. I want to introduce you to Heather Dominick. She is the founder of the Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur Movement. Hi Heather, thank you being here today.
Heather (01:11):
Thank you. I am really, really looking forward to this conversation. I love what you do, and I think it's just going to be really juicy. Cool.
Laura (01:20):
Well, thank you so much. So I have to say when your application came through to apply to be on this podcast, it caught my attention, right? Cause you end up hearing a lot of the same things when you're a podcaster, a lot of different same pitches and yours was around this idea of entrepreneurs being highly sensitive, which caught my eye because I have been accused of being highly sensitive at different times in my life. And so actually, why do you think highly sensitive people are drawn to entrepreneurship?
Heather (01:49):
That is a great, great question. So I would say in a nutshell, my sense is that highly sensitives are drawn to being in business, primarily because as highly sensitives, we are naturally service oriented. So though, you know, in my work and the training programs I offer, we definitely have a wide array of businesses. However, what I would say is absolutely like at the core of each of the businesses that's represented is a service-based right? Like we tend to not have someone who joins the highly sensitive leadership training programs who like is selling widgets, right? Like that's not really the type of business that is that a highly sensitive will be attracted to. And then also once you can really learn how to, you know, design your business to really serve and support your uniqueness as a highly sensitive, that is also a real benefit because being that we're only 20% of the global population, we tend to not fit in right, to a lot of them, you know, more say structured standard corporate kind of setups of employment.
Laura (03:14):
Yeah, that's so interesting. And so we're drawn to entrepreneurship because we want to make a difference. I remember I worked in corporate for two years out of college and I was always like, Oh my gosh, the politics, Oh my gosh, the way people talk to each other, like it, it was not a fit. So I can definitely hear what you're saying on that, but why did then, or so many sensitives are drawn to entrepreneurship, but then they get stumped. Like what, what are those places where they tend to get stuck?
Heather (03:40):
Yeah, absolutely. So that was definitely my personal story is my personal story. When I first started off my self-employment career and I've been self-employed for almost 20 years now, I had no idea that I was highly sensitive. I had never even heard of that term before. And I did everything that's kind of traditional and starting off in a business. And I went to all of the conferences and I attended all of the trainings and I was really like, starting from ground zero. I came from public school education. I was a high school English and drama teacher and I followed everything and I use the formulas and I read the eBooks and I listened to the CDs because that's what we listened to at that time. And literally found myself like in absolutely like a dark night of the soul, just completely overwhelmed, feeling, really overworked and really questioning if self-employment was the right place for me. And that was actually what led me to understand it, to learn that I was highly sensitive all to say, what's not going to work for a highly sensitive when it comes to self-employment is what's not going to work for a highly sensitive anywhere. And that is to try to approach being self-employed as if you're not highly sensitive. And that's where most, uh, what I refer to as HSEs really, you know, hit a roadblock.
Laura (05:12):
Yeah. So you're making some progress because you're highly sensitive. So you're connecting with people, you're able to establish nice relationships. And then a lot of times I know that you've shared that when you get into a sales conversation, that can, that can be where things get a little hairy. So what sales strategies like work and don't work for people who are highly sensitive?
Heather (05:36):
Yeah. I so appreciate that question because it's really the crux, right. Of being able to be successful, you know, as a person who's self-employed, as you really need to be able to sell your service. And that is where most highly sensitives have the most difficulty. It's what I hear all the time, which that the highly sensitive is so good at what they do right. At what the actual business service is. But when it comes to having that selling conversation, when the highly sensitive is trying or attempting that conversation from, again, more of like that traditional sales training approach, it just is a mismatch. So what I've really done is I really reconfigure the entire selling process and really set it up so that it really plays to our strengths as highly sensitives.
(06:33):
And I've identified top 12 of those strengths and out of those strengths, what really can be so, so useful in a selling conversation are the strengths of empathy, the strengths of intuition, strengths of deep listening, deep thinking, deep feeling. And when you're able to engage in a selling conversation from that highly sensitive strengths perspective, then everything changes about the selling conversation. And so many that I mentored just, you know, share like, wow, this went from being like super stressful to, Oh, this is actually something that I enjoy. And just even that shift right there, it makes such a difference, right? Because you can tell when you're talking to someone who feels very comfortable and really confident and really in their zone versus when you're feeling totally stressed out and scared. And like, I hate everything about this. So you know, that right there is just such a major, major shift for how to approach that selling conversation as a person who's highly sensitive.
Laura (07:39):
And is it that highly sensitive people are making up stories about what the other person's experiencing? Like, are you kind of maybe sensing that they could be a little uncomfortable when really like, they might just have to go pee or something like that and you, and you are you're, you're sort of like, you know, kind of stressing out cause they're like, something's going on. I don't know what, cause you can sense it because you're sensitive?
Heather (08:01):
Right. I think that's such a good point. That's really when that strength of empathy is more in its shadow side. Right. And that shadow side of empathy is what I refer to as the shadow over responsibility. And that being, if you can send something is going on for someone or you can feel what another person is feeling, which is absolutely part of our highly sensitive nature. And then just because you can feel it, you feel or believe that you are responsible for it. And that really works against you, definitely in a selling conversation, but any situation. Right? So it's, it's really a retraining about how to utilize the aspect of that you can pick up on what's going on for someone else. But again, just because you can doesn't mean that you're responsible for it. And once you're able to shift that, then it doesn't throw you, you know, in the way that you had described.
Laura (08:57):
Oh my gosh, that's so good. What are some of the other ways I know you talked about owning too much. I know for myself, I've in the past, been a little bit of an over owner when it comes to other people's stuff. Like how do as a highly sensitive service provider, how do you keep from over owning other people's, you know, results or lack of results or whatever they bring to the conversation. That's really not ours to own.
Heather (09:23):
Yeah. It's such a great question. Well, I think again, that really is talking about that highly sensitive shadow of over-responsibility, but what I really love about that in connection to the work that you do is it's almost impossible to create success, but
definitely impossible to scale, right? If you're really, again, taking on the energy of other people or, or utilizing your word of ownership or again, feeling responsible, so it becomes a retraining, right? So the, the top 12 shadows that I've identified in the top 12 strengths that I've identified really is about when we're in our shadow behavior, it's just untrained. We haven't been trained yet about how to really use our nervous system so that it can work for us. So when you go through that training process, then you are able to make that shift from over-responsibility into empathy. And when you're in empathy, then you're really able to use that as a strength, to be able to have a deeper sense of what someone is experiencing without taking it on.
v(10:36):
Right. And then to be able to utilize that empathy, to support and communication, to the support in education, and then therefore be able to support and coaching or mentoring or guiding or leadership of any kind while also being very, very clear about what the boundaries are, what belongs to the other person and what belongs to you. I also like to bring it back to like, you know, that the classic of teach to fish versus give the fish right. And when you're able to start to identify that, then you recognize like, Oh, if I'm like trying to own this, then I'm really trying to like give the person that fish versus teach them to fish. And then it just becomes you know, again, a perception shift and then an approach change as well.
Laura (11:23):
Yeah. That's so, so interesting and so helpful. I think that's awesome. So when highly sensitive people are trying to assist those who are coming to them and they find that they're over owning, is there a chance at them kind of swinging the pendulum in the other direction and like completely shutting off if they're not careful?
Heather (11:43):
Yeah. It's another great one. So then that really speaks to what I refer to as the highly sensitive shadow of overprotection. So we tend to go there as highly sensitives again, when the nervous system is untrained that cutting off or really putting up a guard or get any kind of sense of overprotection really comes from what Dr. Elaine Aron refers to as you know, our number one shadow is overwhelmed. And in her work, she talks about not only being afraid as a highly sensitive of becoming overwhelmed, but being afraid of even the possibility of becoming overwhelmed. And that's going to swing you into that over protection. So afraid of that owning as you say, or again, taking on, and then therefore you completely cut off and that's obviously not helpful, you know, for you, for anybody that you're serving and definitely also really prevents you from having access to operating in your strengths.
Laura (12:52):
Yeah. Okay. That's so good. And so interesting. I never have looked at it from that perspective, but I can see how that's totally true. So just as we wrap up, like, what do you think the one secret is to actually scaling a business as a highly sensitive, if
somebody is listening and they think, Oh, I think that's me. What do you think the secret is?
Heather (13:10):
Is not doing it alone, right. I think that's probably across the board for anyone who is ready to scale, but definitely as a highly sensitive and what really comes into play. There is another one of the top 12 shadows for highly sensitive, which is perfectionism. So to really be able to work with that shadow and shifting away from any sense of everything has to be perfect, which tends to equal. Everything has to be controlled to. Then when you're in your, again, when you're in your strengths, then you're really able to be in a position of empowering others to be in support of you and to be in support of your mission and to be in supportive the service and the purpose that you're here to fulfill. And then it can become this really beautiful, collaborative, cohesive experience, and it is absolutely the number one key. It just cannot be done alone, especially as a highly sensitive.
Laura (14:15):
That's so interesting. So helpful. So thank you for sharing that if people want to learn more about you or they think they might be highly sensitive entrepreneur, what's the best way for them to touch base with you?
Heather (14:26):
Yeah, I would definitely recommend the HSE quiz. And you can just find that at hsequiz.com. And I always like to say, it's actually not a quiz because you don't pass or fail. It's really an assessment and it's going to help you to learn if you are somewhat of a highly sensitive entrepreneur, or if you're a super, highly sensitive entrepreneur, or if you're like me, and you're a super Uber, highly sensitive entrepreneur, and wherever you fall in that spectrum, you'll also receive a success guide to begin to work with your highly sensitive nature and how that is meant to really support you and become a superpower within your business grows rather than working against you. So hsequiz.com.
Laura (15:14):
That's awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing that so exciting and really, really nice to meet you as one, probably highly without taking the quiz. I'm going to self-assess that I'm on some level of a sensitive there, and I know that our listeners just really enjoyed hearing this perspective. I appreciate it.
Heather (15:31):
Thank you so much, Laura.
Laura (15:33):
Hey there: before you head out, I want to let you know about a free new training I have right on a brand new website called yournextmillion.me. It's yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next
year to scale their businesses, to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. And I have to tell you, it is not what you think. So check it out at yournextmillion.me. And if you loved this show, will you subscribe to it and share it with a friend or just say something nice about it to someone, you know? I’d really appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.