• My love of animals
• The fact that we need to be who we are rather than try to mold ourselves into what we “should” be, and that’s for our own happiness and because we’ll be much more successful that way.

It’s not possible to put the video on my site but you’ll see it if you click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGODurRfVv4 .

You won’t regret taking the time! Actually you should do it especially if you feel overwhelmed right now.

You’ll take a breath, sink into yourself and reduce your overwhelm either by changing what you do or what you think.

Let me know what you think of it!

Most sensitives would tell you that it’s been difficult functioning in our mainly action-oriented, fast-paced and attention-seeking culture and business world. For example, sensitive persons would tend to:

• Find confrontations difficult since they feel their impact many more times than another person, and since business often involves negotiating, that places them at a disadvantage
• Take on a protective role as leaders which is a great quality unless the leader ends up sacrificing too much in the process. That happened when a manager allocated himself a 0% salary increase 5 years in a row because he felt his staff was underpaid and wanted to do what he could to remedy the injustice.
• Misread other people’s meanings since a sensitive spots small changes in facial expressions and voice intonations. The customer may not be as angry as you think…or angry at all!
• Undersell because they think they portray emotion or enthusiasm but the listener may not “get it” because the communication is too subtle for the average person.
• Be drained because their nervous system is on constant alert, and because they have to deal with not only their own emotions but also the ones they pick up from people around them.

As you can see, sensitive people need tools to handle these challenges and maximize the unique opportunities their nature provides.

And I mean something else besides being told to “get a thicker skin”, or “not care as much” or “get a less responsible job”.

Hum….as I said in my reply to a comment to September 3rd’s post, I feel a personal mission brewing and am considering creating something to support sensitive people in business. What do you think; do you see a need for it?

She marveled at how clutter-free my desk was and asked that I write a blog post on how I kept it that way.

Well…I don’t. I cleaned it up in order to give her a nicer experience.

In the process of doing so, I went through the piles of papers on my desk and looked at them enough to know whether to toss or file them. And it was amazing what I found: full outlines of proposed workshops, a phone number that I thought I’d lost, underlined reports, etc.

Now I’m happier sitting at my desk; I feel freer from time pressures and enjoy writing more.

The $64,000 question is; why don’t I keep my desk cleaner since I know how good it makes me feel? Even more so since I’m an energy person and know that clutter tends to block our progress; I even wrote a blog post about it a while ago!

Two answers:

• I have a creative mind
• I need to work with my nature rather than against it

My creative mind jumps between projects like a frog from one lily-pad to another at times. Knowing this, I do write down notes about what I’ve just done to allow me to pick up where I left off. Unfortunately, those notes can get buried. Sort of like writing a shopping list and forgetting it at home.

Having fully acknowledged the pleasure of an organized desk before, I thought that I’d learned my lesson; that I would file things away as I wrote them or at least at the end of each day.

Not!

So what works for me? Cleaning up in anticipation of a guest does. So here’s what I should do: I should pretend every week that a guest is about to sleep in my office and prepare for it. After all, having a creative mind means that my imagination is a powerful part of my day so I may as well use it to motivate me.

This is similar to what I do when I design a business structure; match it to a person’s preferences and natural patterns. It works!

That’s pretty obvious. What’s less obvious is what to do about it.

Most of us feel like there is little we can realistically do in our current circumstances.

We’ll get relief only when those change; when our sales reach a certain level; when we can hire another person; when the kids are older; when the economy gets better; when the economy slows down.

It’s true that things would be easier to manage if our lives were simpler, if the pace of change was slower and we had fewer choices to make all the time.

But there are things you can do to reduce your overwhelm. Here are a few suggestions:

• Reduce your expectations about how much you can do. Thinking you can/should/need to handle everything only puts more pressure on you, which backfires by reducing your effectiveness. Have you ever mentally worked yourself into a frenzy about a deadline and realized that you spent the last hour fretting but accomplishing nothing that you can use?

• Stop thinking that you can control things, or that you need to in order to be safe. It’s impossible to cover every eventuality. Some pre-vacation preparation and planning is wise, too much and you end up being more stressed than if you hadn’t gone at all.

• Keep your goals in mind and not because they will motivate you to work harder, but because they will help you decide what you really need to do and what can wait or be eliminated from your list.

• If you find yourself running short of time, take extra time to think about how to spend your time. Instead of running around trying to get all the items on your to-do list done, you’d be better off taking a mental break to assess what you really need to do next and focus just on that.

• This brings me to multi-tasking. It can really contribute both to overwhelm and to low effectiveness. If you multi-task make sure that all but one of the tasks can be done automatically without giving them your attention.

• Finally, the energy of overwhelm feeds on itself and can send you spinning. It’s essential to break the cycle, take a breath, and ground yourself. That alone will dramatically increase your level of energy, your presence of mind and the quality of your decisions.

Those are important; as we’ve learned many times over, the devil is in the details.

The most important “how”, however, is your intention.

If you are providing a service to a client and consciously intend to extend a positive energy with it (such as reassurance, respect or recognition), your client will be more pleased than if you’d done the same competent, thorough and honest service without thinking about your specific intention.

Skeptical? I have a challenge for you to try. It’s so simple it will wipe out all doubt.

Over the next few days, compare what happens at home when you prepare and serve some food or drink; something simple and uncomplicated: coffee, tea, a salad, cut up fruit, eggs and toast.

Prepare it once while projecting thoughts of love for your family when you prepare the items, and another time while keeping a neutral mind.

I bet your food will taste much better in the first instance. Try it several times if you think it’s a coincidence.

Your clients will feel the same way thanks to the power of intention.

Or is it?

Depends if you count only the ideas that:

• Are consistent with the entrepreneur’s purpose, mission and overall plan
• Are a good use of time and resources in view of their projected profitability
• And are coupled with a defined plan of action

There are lots of shiny new objects and not as many gold nuggets.

In addition to ideas about business opportunities, you need ideas on how to market and deliver your chosen service or products.

And that’s often where entrepreneurs can eventually run out of viable ideas. For example, many of us occasionally have a hard time thinking of blogging topics.

If that happens to you, where can you turn to for ideas?

• Observe what others in similar businesses are doing and do something similar
• Even easier, cooperate with them. For example, comment on their blog posts
• Observe your day with a fresh mind for experiences and knowledge that you can pass on to your clients
• Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and ask yourself what they need from you
• Stop trying harder; get quiet and give yourself space to go within for inspiration

If you are like most entrepreneurs, you might resist the last suggestion. After all, you know nothing happens without action.

True, but you want to take purposeful action, not reactionary frenetic ones. Try it next time you’re stuck.

I think it’s because we think there is little we can do about it; we either have it or we don’t. And if we aren’t confident now, we think that it will come once we start accumulating successes under our belt.

The problem is that it’s the other way around: our level of confidence is crucial to our ability to succeed. So it’s essential that we do what we can to improve it.

How do we do that?

Motivational books and talks help somewhat.

More powerful and effective is having the support of someone who believes in us. That’s why the people who succeed participate in Mastermind groups, hire coaches, and seek out mentors and like-minded peers.

Hypnosis works for some people (though it has an image of being for people who really lack confidence, not for you and me ).

I often teach people exercises based on the meridian energetic system. It might sound strange that such techniques would enhance confidence, but it makes sense when you remember that one common expression for feeling confident is that we are “all together”. And we can’t be that way unless our energetic systems work properly. If you’d like an introduction to my meridian techniques, check out the “Energy of Confidence” page on this site for a free audio download.

The three key elements in improving your level of confidence though, is:

• Acknowledging its importance to your success and happiness
• Seeing it as something that you can alter with the right tools
• And using those tools as part of a regular practice, just like you use exercise to improve your physical health.

That last point is what causes people the most trouble, which is why I make it a part of my regular client work. I guess I’m a “confidence trainer”.

Remember the last time you went to a store and deal with a sales person who had the “whatever!” method of dealing with the customer? It’s irritating; we want to tell the person to quit if they hate that job so much.

Just the other day I had to go into one of those big electronic stores full of those sales representatives that are more interested in talking with each other unless you look like you’re going to buy a $2,000 audio system. It was a delight to finally be helped by someone who seemed to like his day, who wanted to talk about product options, and didn’t make me feel like he wishes he was anywhere else.

As a customer, enthusiasm makes me feel like I’m welcome.

It also engages me with the product or service. If the sales person is too flat or laid back, the whole exchange has no life and the product or service seems unappealing.

Hate:

I remember going to a car dealership…and just wanting to get out of there as fast as I could. Why?

Because I felt assaulted by the invasive, fake enthusiasm of the sales person. He didn’t give space to look, think, breathe. He bubbled on and on about the great features of the car instead of being attentive to what I wanted.

Feeling invaded in one downside of “improper” enthusiasm. Being on guard is another; feeling like someone’s being one-sided in their presentation of the facts.

What makes the difference

First, genuineness, of course. Enthusiasm is a burst of energy tossed out at us, and we are able to assess whether it’s real or forced.

We humans have this antenna for picking up a person’s vibe beyond his or her words, body language or facial expressions.

Second, respect. I may love my product or feel my service is really needed, but I need to remember that others may be on a different wavelength.

Genuineness and respect. Those two themes keep popping up when I write about success factors.

That principle applies to anything that gave you a fright physically, or a blow to your pride and sense of security (like losing a client, not getting a promotion, getting fired, bombing a speech, etc.).

You can’t let the negative experience “gel” without counteracting it, or your mind will doubt that you’re capable of succeeding despite having done so before your recent “fall”. I guess it’s the same principle as “only being as good as your latest movie”.

Your subconscious will also want to protect you from further harm by stopping you from getting into similar situations.

There is even a chance that it might generalize your experience to other risk-taking circumstances. For example, you might have bombed a talk at the Chamber of Commerce, but your sub-conscious wants to prevent you from speaking in front of anyone, even in team meetings.

There is also another level at work here deeper than our conscious and subconscious thought: the experience has imprinted you on an energetic level.

The good news about that is that you can defuse the subconscious fear of repeating past failures by working directly at the energy level.

An increasing number of people have discovered the effectiveness of tools such as EFT (the emotional freedom technique) as one way to untangle old fear imprinting, and you can find lots of free information online. ( emofree.com is a great resource).

Lisa (not her real name) was finding it very stressful to give her workshops. To the point where she even doubted that she was cut out for that kind of work.

She worried about the quality of her teaching, whether she presented herself and her information well enough, etc.

Yet everything pointed to the fact that she was quite good at it. Not only that, teaching those workshops was completely aligned with her life purpose. And they made her good money.

I’m happy to report that in Lisa’s case, it wasn’t necessary to learn and practice stress reducing techniques. One quick conversation was all it took to turn her around.

The key for Lisa was to shift her thoughts away from herself (her performance), and towards her students (how could she serve them best in that moment).

You might think that those two points of view are the same, but they’re not. Yes in both of them Lisa is gauging her students’ reaction to what she’s presenting. But in the first one, the ego has a chance to get a lot more involved (how am I doing; do you like me; am I good enough, etc.).

By putting her attention on the students for their own sakes, she was able to free herself from the stress she was feeling, and reported back that she was having a ball.

I would also bet that her workshop was a great success!

The moral of the story: put your focus on how best to serve your clients rather than how you’re coming across and not only will your stress level go down, your clients will rave about you more than ever.