The show’s guest in this episode is Heather Dominick. She’s the creator of businessmiracles.com. She trains Entrepreneurs and Leaders to create more impact (and more income!) with less effort – by doing things differently – since 2010.

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Highly Sensitive Leading with Heather Dominick

Hello, it is so nice to be here with you live today. It’s the last podcast before the holidays. And I’ve been thinking about leadership and my own leadership. And I had a conversation with a client. That was really interesting about the idea of radical acceptance of uncertainty, radical acceptance of uncertainty. And I’m fascinated by this thought. And I love the radical part. Because I always feel like that is like amplification of the doing of the phrase, whatever that is. And then I love this acceptance like that you accept that there is uncertainty. And I think a lot about reactive behaviors and how they get in the way of people’s leadership. And that acceptance is so powerful, that we can just accept that there’s uncertainty, and then not knowing is part of the work that we do as leaders. So I’ve been really playing with this in my own mind, I think that it’s an amazing sentiment. And so I really want to challenge you, as you’re going into 2022 to ponder the idea of radical acceptance of uncertainty. And  my question for you is, what would radical acceptance of uncertainty bring to you, your team and your organization?

Well, I want to move on because I’m super excited about my guest today. Her name is Heather Dominick and she’s the creator of businessmiracles.com and she trains entrepreneurs and leaders to create more impact, and maybe more income, with less effort by doing things differently. She also talks, we’re gonna do some talking about highly sensitive, and being a highly sensitive leader, and what that might mean. And I am so thrilled to have Heather here today.

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Welcome to the show, Heather.

Thank you so much. I’m really so looking forward to our conversation.

Yeah, well, I would love to know just out of the gate, you’re a leader you lead in your own organization? What is What are you up to in your leadership in your life right now? How are you experimenting?

Well, I think we’re all experimenting, right? I really appreciated just listening to you like talking about getting ready for your holidays. And also, you know, your conversation with your client about the radical acceptance of uncertainty. And I was just thinking, like, yes, that is the focus, right, as we head into 2022. And at the end of 2020, we are constantly hearing in the media about like, Oh, Thank gosh, 2020 is over. And now here we are going into 2022. And things, you know, are a little different than when we were leaving 2020. But they aren’t what we all expected them to be. So I think there’s the the absolute need for being willing to be experimental as a leader, which is why I so love the focus of this show and the work that you do.

Well, let’s dive into this idea of being a highly sensitive, leader or highly sensitive leading. And I would love to know, I know a little bit about this, because I have clients who identify in this way. But there might be people who are listening who don’t know what this means. So can you tell us how you know if you’re a highly sensitive leader, or how you know if someone else is?

 

 

So I think first, it’s probably really valuable just to talk about the phrase highly sensitive. And first of all, that’s not a phrase coined by me, but it’s a phrase that comes out of research primarily from the mid 1990s. There’s various researchers who have done work around what it means to be a highly sensitive person. One of the most well known is Dr. Elaine Aaron, because she wrote the book, highly sensitive person. And in very short what it means is that if you are highly sensitive, your nervous system is wired to take in stimulation at a much higher degree than someone who is not highly sensitive. So that can be stimulation, anything from sight, sound, smell, to touch to information to energy, and also what’s valuable to highlight is that if you You are highly sensitive. This is how you were born into the world. So I always like to say, it’s not what your parents did to you, and you didn’t pick it up on the playground in kindergarten. And it’s not because of that weird purple drink that you had in college is literally how you were born into the world, the work that I do is I come into support those people who are highly sensitive, who feel called to either lead through being self employed, or to use their highly sensitive traits, to be a leader in their career or in any aspect of their life. So it’s a path of empowerment. And it really does require learning how to work with your nervous system in a very specific way.

And how would someone know if they are a highly sensitive person?

So Dr. Elaine Aaron, designed an assessment, and you can absolutely find her work easily online. And I have created an assessment working off of Dr. Elaine Aaron’s assessment for those highly sensitives, who feel called to be self employed.

That’s great. And I’m guessing we can can we put a link to information about that in the show notes? For sure. Yeah, that’d be great. Let’s do that. And, and so, you know, people have, you know, they have this, they are this, and then they become leaders. So what do they need to think about as leaders that’s different than what everybody thinks about.

 

 

So I think most importantly for those of us who are highly sensitive, and who feel called to really be contributing to the world, there’s a phase where you have to learn to I’m going to go back to the phrase actually, that your client share, there has to be a sense of radical acceptance, and a radical acceptance that you process the world differently. Because your nervous system is wired to take in stimulation at a much higher degree, you are going to have a different experience. And those who are not highly sensitive, this is probably a valuable place to also mention that the research states that there’s 20% of us who are born into the world highly sensitive. So one of the things that I also like to highlight is that the majority of the world is designed for the other 80%. When you’re untrained, you can start to feel like because you process the world differently, that there’s something wrong with you. So if you are to step forward into a position of leadership, whether that be within your family, or within your local community, or in a business or in a career, in any regard, it’s really, really so important to first again, have that radical acceptance that I process things differently. And that does not mean that there is something wrong with me, it actually means that I have a unique contribution to bring to the conversation.

So um, if you so  I’m just wondering if there’s like some things that are common, like what would be some common circumstances that someone who’s highly sensitive might be challenged by?

If you are accessing your intuition as part of leadership, then most likely you are going to probably be showing up differently as a leader. Click To Tweet

Absolutely. So I’ve identified in my work, what I refer to as the top 12, highly sensitive shadows, and then also the top 12 highly sensitive strengths. So I’ll speak to the primary highly sensitive shadow, which absolutely is overwhelm. And what’s really important to emphasize about that shadow of overwhelm is that we’re not really talking about overwhelm the way that you you know, see it in the media or magazines, we’re not talking about the never ending to do list, for those of us who are highly sensitive overwhelm truly is a physiological and physical experience. So it is becomes imperative to learn how to work with your nervous system so that you don’t go into that space of overstimulation and then therefore, that space of overwhelm which physically can tend to cause things like your mind goes a little bit fuzzy, or you find it hard to be able to access words or, you know, really being able to keep up with a conversation. And when you begin to learn how to work with your nervous system, then you can begin to shift from that shadow of overwhelm into those 12 highly sensitive strengths. And I’ll speak to one of the top strengths which is intuition. So when we’re really able to come to a space where we’re able to effectively navigate that overwhelm It gives us access to a deep degree of intuition. And that is a very, very valuable leadership quality when you when you learn how to really use it. And again, use it in that space of radical acceptance, meaning that if you are accessing your intuition as part of leadership, then most likely you are going to probably be showing up differently as a leader than someone who’s not highly sensitive and you have to be a okay with that.

I think that’s really interesting. And if you were to give people, you know, somebody is listening to this, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, this is me. Because I imagine there’s people that are like, wow, this is me, I never knew it was me. How do they start? What’s the first step for somebody who’s thinking my mum might be me that highly sensitive things sort of resonates? Like, I want to do the assessment. And then any tips you have for them on just, you know, radical acceptance is the one thing.

The willingness to actually go about things differently actually position you to be that much more effective as a leader. Click To Tweet

Definitely that first step, right. And it sounds pretty easy. But it’s actually get back to that word radical, right. Because if you just think about 20%, versus 80%, it does mean that you are going to go about things differently. And for many of us, we were trained to believe that that is not okay. But that willingness to actually go about things differently actually position to you to be that much more effective as a leader. From there, the next step is really learning how to work with your nervous system proactively. So the untrained, highly sensitive tends to feel as if the world is happening to them, right. And if they can just keep up with, you know, protecting themselves from even the possibility of overwhelmed, and that’s seen as success. For those of us who are called into a greater space of leadership as highly sensitive, we want to go beyond coping. And we want to go into that space of creating which creativity is one of the other top 12 highly sensitive strengths. In order to be able to do that you need to learn how to work with and manage your nervous system. So there’s various tools and when we share that, that assessment that link to the HSE quiz, in the show notes, then you’ll be able to receive a free success Guide, which will teach you some of those first tangible tools and steps that you can use to learn how to manage your energy. So you don’t have to feel like you’re constantly needing to react, but you can instead be proactive with at with and as you enter into potentially overstimulating situations.

That’s amazing. Thank you so much. That’s a great start. And where can people find you Heather?

You can definitely find me at businessmiracles.com

Great, thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure to have you on my show today. Such an interesting topic. Thank you. And it’s been great.

Thank you.

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So I love talking with Heather today. It was such an interesting conversation. And what I notice is that all of the things that Heather’s suggesting this sort of acceptance, and all of this is a part of improving feedback loops. We don’t want people to be overwhelmed because we want them to be able to take in information. We want them to be able to share information. So if we look at the experimental leader, sort of that’s the principle it’s improving this feedback loops if people aren’t reactive, and they’re able to respond in those ways. I love this idea that radical acceptance of so many things can change the way that we do our work as leaders, and I have a challenge for you. And that is for the next couple of weeks. I want you to look at where you can use radical acceptance of uncertainty in the way you lead. Go experiment.

 

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Heather Dominick

Heather Dominick is a woman who is impressively successful, and highly sensitive. A former high school drama teacher who collaborated with none other than Bette Midler. A graduate of NYU where she received her first coach training. Heather is the winner of the 2015 Best of Manhattan Coaching Award and creator of the 2014 Stevie Award winning virtual event A Course In Business Miracles : 21-Day Discovery Series that attracted close to 6,000 official registrants from all around the world including: Iceland, Nigeria, Russia, Asia, South America, Australia, Europe and the U.S.

She has appeared on Lifetime Television and has been published in numerous books including Stepping Stones to Success alongside Deepak Chopra.

An exceptional facilitator and teacher Heather is known for creating a safe, sacred environment for true transformation whether delivering training online or in-person. Since 2010, Heather has taught thousands of Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs and Leaders from around the globe how to release life-long limiting beliefs , overcome fears and develop new leadership skills in order to make more impact and more income – with less effort – by doing things differently.

 

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