Or I feel sad or worried for loved ones’ plight or for the ills of the world.

Inspiring music is always uplifting for me as is my love of nature and animals and I found this video that combines one of Bruce Mitchell’s beautiful songs from his recent CD (New Earth Goddess.net) with the most amazing nature scenes! Reduce your stress; enjoy true beauty!

• 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!

• The special gifts they bring to business
• And the pitfalls they have to avoid

One of those pitfalls is their vulnerability to burnout especially if they are in a helping profession such as healing or coaching. Here’s how they get setup:

They have grown up feeling unsafe from over-exposure and since they are usually caring, they have a need to make the world safer and better for some people.

A sensitive person is also usually highly conscientious, reliable and loyal and finds it hard to let other people down when her attempts to “save the world” fall short, as they inevitably must.

Couple that with a few of the sensitives’ less desirable traits such as perfectionism and wish to please, and you have a perfect storm for burnout.

The way out is to turn away from following idealism and instead turn in the direction of joy and creativity. The burnout candidate must ask himself what would please him and to find that, he must get out of his head and use his body as his spiritual guide and feeling barometer.

You can hear the rest of the conversation by going to this link ; a lot was packed in less than 40 minutes (I always try to keep my teleseminars as short as possible since we’re all so busy).

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?

“I just came back from a family reunion in Hodgeville Saskatchewan – population 150ish. One day my Uncle Felix and Aunt Hilda began telling stories about grandma and grandpa (that’s my great grandparents) who homesteaded there in the 1920s.

If you’re never been to southern Saskatchewan then picture bald prairie. The only trees were planted by hand and carefully watered with buckets carried from the wells. And the trees were needed to protect the houses (no R2000) from the winter winds.

It was the Depression and they were poor. Aunt Hilda spoke about grandma holding blankets over the windows during hail storms to protect them from the hail. She remembers the kids all crying because they knew what hail meant – no food. As a mother, my heart clenched at the thought of listening to the hail and knowing it meant not enough food for my kids.

And having no backup. No social services. No food banks. No credit cards. Just hungry kids.

Then Uncle Felix started telling a story about one Christmas when there was no money. So little money that they thought they might lose the farm. And would have if grandma’s parents hadn’t loaned them the money to keep going.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, grandpa wanted to make sure the kids (about seven at this point) all had gifts under the tree. With no money, he scrounged around town for scrap wood. He then stayed up late each night carving and building. The older girls got hope chests, the younger ones got toy kitchens (I still have my grandmother’s) and the boys got horse and wagons (Uncle Felix still has his).

The determination and love grandpa showed: not knowing if they were going to have a home and yet giving up sleep to give the children a good Christmas seems quietly heroic to me. No one is going to make a movie or write a book about grandpa. And I’m sure most prairie families have similar stories in their family history.

But it got me thinking about my life and my business. It’s easy to get scared about taking risks and trying new things. It’s easy to feel a sense of foreboding when I look at what’s happening with the economy.

And then I think about Aunt Hilda crying as grandma holds up a blanket to keep the hail out. I think of grandpa working late into the night with scrounged wood even as he wondered where they’d be living next summer.

Suddenly the things that seemed scary and overwhelming don’t look so bad. Suddenly I’m thinking if my family can go from wondering if they’ll have a home and food to hosting a family reunion with over 75 in attendance in less than a century, what can I do?

The next time I worry about taking a risk or wondering if I can succeed at something new, I’m going to think of grandma and grandpa out on the bald prairie. I come from hardy stock. I can succeed too.”

Andrea J. Stenberg
TheBabyBoomerEntrepreneur.com

Now, doesn’t that put things in perspective?

Now you and I know that we “should” be grateful, that it’s an evolved, spiritual thing to do. We also experienced how good it feels.

In my experience, lots of us haven’t kept up a conscious daily gratitude practice. We started a daily journal and it fizzled out, or we forget to consciously turn to gratitude when we are worried about the economy, angry at our spouses, or sad about the loss of a friend.

So here an exerpt from the Finer Minds newsletter that reminds us how we all benefit from gratitude:

Robert Emmons, a University of California (Davis) Psychology professor, has come out with a book that documents the gratitude-happiness effect: Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.

His research shows how:

• People who regularly practice grateful thinking can increase their “set-point” for happiness by as much as 25%.
• Such increases in happiness can be sustained over a period of months, challenging the previously held notion that our “set-point” is frozen at birth.
• Keeping a gratitude journal for as little as three weeks can result in better sleep and more energy.

And if that wasn’t motivating enough, maybe this video will do it. Take the time to watch it; it’s sheer joy.

Maybe it will beat the popularity of the chicken dance at weddings (yes, some people still do that!)

Putting on your suit and your panty hose felt like putting on armor. I remember a colleague actually describing it in those terms so it’s not just poetic license.

Both men and women felt they had to leave their true personalities and opinions at home in order to succeed.

The problem is they spent so much time and energy at work that many of them couldn’t find their true selves when they came home and ended up feeling disconnected. Life became flat outside of work where adrenaline ran high.

Why am I reminiscing about the bad old days?

Because once in a while, it’s important to observe what we do to make sure we don’t fall in the most common traps.

Most of us became entrepreneurs because we wanted to be ourselves and do our own thing. But are we really?

Entrepreneurs also feel the need to put up a good front, and we are often more isolated than we were when we could brainstorm with our peers or debrief with our staff.

So periodically ask yourself:

• Is my business allowing me to be myself?
• Can I turn to at least one trusted source of advice that’s competent and without bias?
• Do I like who I am at work?
• Am I in touch with who I am outside of work?
• Do I like my life?

Yes, challenging times can create a more demanding work life, but that doesn’t mean life has to be joyless.

When you think of it, those times make it more essential than ever that life be about more than just making money.

If you don’t know where to start, consider working with a coach that understands both business and personal issues.

I’m one of them if you like what you see here.

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.

• They are overwhelmed by the array of choices: strategies to implement, tasks to complete, technology to learn or outsource, etc.
• They are facing this alone and will fully bear the consequences of their choices.

Gone is the established set of procedures or best practices.

Gone is the ability to pick up the phone and consult in-house specialists.

Gone are the co-workers that could provide moral support as well as important feedback on proposed actions.

Gone is the guaranteed (or so it seemed) paycheck even if you were working on a long-term project.

Everything is shifting; economic predictions are meaningless, markets are uncertain, and there doesn’t seem to be a safe place to land or a reliable fallback position.

You’re feeling it aren’t you? Well so are your potential clients.

We all need to assemble our support system for emotional reasons, as a source of information, a pool of resources, and to prevent us from re-inventing the wheel all by ourselves:

• Like-minded entrepreneurial buddies
• Mastermind participants
• Mentors or coaches

Can you provide products or services that would help guide others?

For example, one of my mentors is Connie Ragen Green, and she simplifies what you must learn and do if you want to create an internet business (or an internet presence for your existing business). You might want to see what she offers whether you think you need an internet mentor or as an example of someone who is successful filling those two needs. (Click here for her main site).

Who comes to mind in your industy when you think of a helpful, knowledgeable guide that people feel safe with? Use them as a model for your business.

What happens is that the planning never gets finished, either because it’s too vague (and therefore more akin to day-dreaming) or lacking in a cohesive vision.

Or the entrepreneur gets stopped by her fears, and that’s a topic that deserves separate posts.

Even before you put together a business plan, you need to ask yourself a number of basic questions, such as:

• What is your purpose in starting the business. Besides money, what do you want it to do for you
• How do you want your business daily life to be like
• What has your history taught you about yourself: where are your weaknesses and strengths
• Can you explain your business concept clearly, namely:

1. What problems will you solve
2. For whom
3. And how

Now these questions are self evident but fact is, very few entrepreneurs take the time to thoroughly answer them. They think that they know the answers in their head, but they don’t, at least not with sufficient clarity.

As a consequence, they might start a business that:

• Never gets really profitable
• Feels like a burden and a trap
• Has a much longer startup phase than necessary

Now I realize that people are overwhelmed and find it hard to gather up the time and energy to do the necessary self-exploration. Somehow, it’s easier to do when someone else is taking us through it.

So I’m putting together a brief teleseminar series in June that would give you the framework and the assistance needed to prepare the ground for your business.

To find out when it starts, check in with this blog in a week or so. Even better, put your e-mail address in the box in the top right corner and I’ll let you know the scoop.