The Highly-Sensitive Leader Podcast

As highly sensitive leaders and contributors, we sometimes develop habits or a pace which is not sustainable for us – which can hold us back from feeling and performing at our best.

Join me this week as I explore the topic of sustainability and why it is important for every HSP to pay attention to it in our life, our work and our leadership.

I explore what sustainability, or the lack thereof, can look like for us, in order to create more of it in 2023 and beyond, in the form of a balanced ecosystem which layers mental, emotional, physical and energetic elements.

I show you the pitfalls we can easily fall into if we are not careful, and which can create overwhelm, worry and anxiety for us, and negatively impact our wellbeing and experience. 

I teach you the key elements to pay attention to, as well as four simple strategies to use both as intentions and practical tips to manage your day in order to create sustainability in the long term.

I also redefine consistency and show you how to use it as an asset for HSPs and add more of it in your life.

To join our growing community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors, simply head to:

https://www.meetup.com/sheffield-highly-sensitive-people-meetup-group/

I look forward to seeing you there.

Join us on the podcast this week as confidence expert and HopStairs founder Nadine Pfeifer and myself explore the topic of confidence and provide simple and accessible to tips and ways of growing your confidence when you are highly sensitive and an empth, possibly prone to low confidence through seeking external validation.

Nadine shares her journey of being a “confidence survivor”, her mental health journey and going from doubting herself to calmly handling situations which in the past would have deeply affected her: body image, receiving feedback, wondering what others think of her, living according to other people’s expectations, struggling to set boundaries – many of the challenges highly sensitive people and leaders face on a daily basis.

We discuss the difference between confidence and self-confidence, and show that self-confidence is often more of a challenge than doing activities confidently. Nadine provides tips and strategies to start working on our self-confidence and improve that core area – which will have a knock-on effect on how we are able to live our purpose.

We show how being part of a community can enhance our confidence and how surrounding ourselves with the right people, in an intentional way, will be a complete game-changer.

We discuss social media and the deep negative impact it can have on our confidence, as well as tips and strategies to navigate and take control over this immense and often draining space.

Nadine Pfeifer is the founder and CEO of HopStairs, a community platform here to help its users grow their confidence through information as well as short-term and long-term intervention.

Join the waitlist and become a tester at Hopstairs.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hopstair/

Newsletter - http://eepurl.com/h8eKqD

Join me on this final podcast week for 2022 to dive into your very own highly sensitive inventory.

I will teach you how to process your highly sensitive experience and extract the most relevant things you can learn from, always keeping in mind your HSP trait and how it impacts the way you approach situations.

I will share with you some key questions I have asked myself to make this inventory as relevant as possible, including how we treat ourselves when the going gets tough.

I discuss the 3 elements which have stood out for me this year, along with their many positive ramifications on my life, my business and my leadership. I invite you to join this highly sensitive inventory journey, which I think is one of the best ways to end the year, and is something valuable you will take into the next.

Book your free ticket to my next Community Gathering dedicated to highly sensitive leaders on January 31st 2023 here:

https://calendly.com/highly-sensitive-leaders/community-gathering-highly-sensitive-leaders21-jan-23

 Thank you for being here x

Book your FREE ticket to our community gathering 6th December 2022:

https://calendly.com/highly-sensitive-leaders/community-gathering-highly-sensitive-leaders-6th-dec-22

Join me this week as I discuss the “Saviour Complex”, as it is known in modern psychology, and which in my experience can be a real challenge for highly sensitive leaders and contributors.

I explore why and how many of us HSPs position ourselves as saviours and use our gifts of empathy and service to an extreme which is detrimental to us.

I discuss the neuroscience behind this behaviour and how being a saviour is a treat for the brain, which sought in excess can also become a threat to wellbeing, delegation and collaboration.

We dive into the consequences of being in saviour mode all the time, and how this affects, amongst other things, our ability to ask for help.

I share 3 strategies to start restoring this balance and make sure you are positioning yourself in a way which is healthy and constructive, even whilst being in service.

Join me this week as I give you tips and inspiration to talk about your HSP trait and communicate the ways you work best to non-HSP colleagues and friends.

I dive into the importance of communicating about your trait for you, for our HSP community, for others so they can support us, but also for the upcoming generation of HSPs for whom we want to pave the way.

This can be a tricky task for us and I show you how to do it in a calm and thoughtful way, exploring elements of mindset, content and how to build relationships to nurture a good foundation to have these conversations.

I teach that communicating about your HSP trait is actually easier than we think and mostly requires a light touch approach, some strategic thinking as well as consistency, all of which is within our grasp.

I show you how to deal with the frustration which comes up for us when we feel unheard and misunderstood. I give you tips on how to manage this frustration in order to spread more of the key messages we want to spread about the HSP trait.

Access my Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week for a case study and deep exploration of self-confidence as it manifests for highly sensitive leaders, especially when remaining confident in leadership situations becomes a challenge.

We explore the relevance of self-confidence particularly for HSPs, as exemplified with my client case study. I show you the importance of getting to the bottom of things when it comes to self-confidence, which can be difficult for us to do on our own. 

I teach you my 3-step process to make sure you are able to get to the core issues and avoid these challenges coming back over and over again in your leadership, and in your life.

We explore the contexts and symptoms around lack of self-confidence using the HSP lens and how to go deeper to really understand where these symptoms are coming from for us.

Finally, I show you how to add tangible elements of progress to developing skills which feel very intangible, like self-confidence. I give you some tools to get started and track your progress just like you would do with any other skill.

!Awareness is key!

Access my FREE Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week as I discussed how HSPs often experience irrational fears and how these fears influence and impact our life and performance on a daily basis.

I teach you how irrational fears are different than phobias in the context of being HSP, as well as give you strategies and tools to help you identify where you might have irrational fears – which, most of the time, go unnoticed purely because they seem very real to us. 

I show you all the reasons why a highly sensitive person might be prone to irrational fears and will need to learn to deal with them in order to get un-stuck. 

I teach you why it is important for you, for your future and your career to pay attention to them and what could be the consequences of letting them run your life in the background. 

I discuss some of the tell-tale signs of having irrational fears running our life as well as three key strategies for you to start working on these fears, process them and perhaps give them less importance than you think they have, in order to focus on what’s truly important to move your life and career forward as a highly sensitive leader.

Access my Sensitivity questionnaire and free trainings at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join us this week as I explore what it really means to get out of our comfort zone, why we do it and what the best strategies are to do it in a way that works with our high sensitivity.

I share my vision of the out of comfort zone experience and how we experience it as highly sensitive leaders and contributors, so you can identify your own pockets of comfort/discomfort and when you get in and out of them, either intentionally or un-intentionally.

I teach you the two main benefits of creating out of comfort zone experiences for ourselves, particularly as highly sensitive leaders, and show you that sometimes the courage lies in slowing down and backing out of it.

I explore the Why behind this guidance we constantly received of getting out of our comfort zone and show you how to find your own Why.

I teach out my top strategies to create an out of comfort zone experience that will not only allow you to access more of your potential, but will also keep you wanting to get out there in your own terms.

Access your FREE Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Link to Yerkes and Dodson’s Law – Optimal anxiety and performance

https://positivepsychology.com/comfort-zone/

Join me this week as I explore what under-performance means and how it shows up for highly sensitive leaders.

I show you how it is possible to do our best and to be under-performing at the same time, due to us being held back by our old coping mechanisms, our sensitivity, our emotions and the messages we have heard repeatedly that “tough” is the way forward.

I teach you the importance and relevance of this concept for highly sensitive leaders and contributors and how it can affect a range of areas in our life and work.

I help you shed light on this concept of under-performance and how to work on it in order to access and use your full capabilities and HSP gifts consistently and successfully, if this is what you desire.

I show you exactly how under-performance shows up but also the underlying reasons for this happening, which often go undetected even when we are experiencing it.

I share with you proven strategies and tips to start breaking the cycle of under-performance and put yourself on your desired path to performing to the best of your capabilities as a highly sensitive leader.

Access your Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com 

Join me this week as we explore how your emotions change the way you show up and make decisions as a leader, especially when you are feeling stressed or under pressure.

This episode explores the contribution of Catherine Sandler and her Emotional profile Triangle (EPT). I am showing you why and how this framework is so relevant to highly sensitive leaders and how to use it in order to gain control on the emotions which might steer your leadership in directions which are not helpful.

I teach you a simple exercise, as well as top tips for you to notice how your behaviour changes under pressure and observe where the triggers are. You can start applying the strategies I suggest today to understand more about your fears and, in the moment, regain focus and composure.

Access your Sensitivity questionnaire at https://www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/sensitivity-questionnaire