Category: Being A Great Leader

Sensitive and Successful: Episode 5. What's the story you are telling yourself?

14/8/2017

I absolutely love today’s new episode of sensitive and successful! My today’s guest Kazakh-British Lola Askarova has built a highly successful marketing career in multinational companies, while developing her “side hustle” as a writer.
Lola, my former colleague, has always been seen as a peacemaker, and her presence and voice would calm the most demanding clients. In this new episode of Sensitive and Successful, she shares, how her sensitivity helps her deal with the most difficult people, talks about the importance of finding the right organizational culture for a highly sensitive person to thrive at work, the strength of sensitive people as managers and leaders, and the importance of understanding and reframing the story you tell yourself about yourself. And I absolutely love the sound of her voice :)
What story do you tell yourself about yourself and your sensitivity? Reply in comments to this post!

Now this podcast is also available on iTunes.

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Highly Sensitive and Successful: Episode 3. A business with the light heart - a highly sensitive entrepreneur

20/6/2017

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In the new episode of Highly Sensitive and Successful, I talk to Iren Merdinyan, founder of organic chocolate brand Raw Bon Bon, on how a business run by a highly sensitive person is different from normal business, why intuition matters and the importance of organic relationships, not just products.
Here are some inspirational quotes from the interview:

"It was a conscious choice not to keep it as a mass production, keep it artisan, feminine, intimate"
“Every little thing is making an effort. This little tomato, this sunshine, there was water, nature nurturing it, and there was so much effort and love put into it, and you have to respect this”.
"We need to run business with the light heart".

How important for you are ethical values and "organic relationships" in business? What do you do in order to maintain them? Please, post your answer in the comments below this video!

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How much do coaches make?

8/1/2016

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Coaching might be an incredibly fulfilling job, but not necessarily the most rewarding one. A staggering 84% of coaches make less than £2000/$3000 per month, and 40% of them earn less than £500/$750, according to Anastasia’s survey conducted in early January 2016*. Only 8.6% coaches take home more than £3000/$4500 per month from coaching.

Interestingly, £2000/$3000 in monthly earnings seems to be the most difficult barrier to overcome for coaches after the initial barrier of £500/$750.

Notably, most of the respondents (87%) came from the developed English-speaking markets, so these rather disappointing earnings figures do not reflect the level of economic development, but rather the competitiveness of the coaching market, as well as the fact that aspiring coaches might be spending their precious time on things that are less important, than they think.

Having only a few clients is one of the reasons coaches earn so little – 44% of coaches serve 5 or fewer clients, and nearly 4/5 – less than 10. At the same time, coaches who serve more than 10 clients start earning considerably more. It feels like some of us find ways to serve most clients.

Another reason for low earnings might be that coaches spend too much time trying to formulate a niche or getting locked in one (21% claim they haven’t defined a niche, but are trying to do so, and 15% that they only have one niche), whereas the highest earners claim they either have no niche at all and can’t bother to define one, or that they cover several niches. Both of these approaches seem to work.

(The lack of) experience seems to be relevant only for the first two years of your coaching practice. Two years seems to be the time when we are figuring out what and how to do. The two top earners have 8-10 years of experience, but two mid-range ones only have 2-4 years, and one claims to have 5-7 years of experience. So if you have been in the profession for more than 2 years, in theory there’s nothing limiting you – apart from yourself.

The moral is, if you’ve been in coaching for less than 2 years, don’t waste your time on defining your coaching niche or coming up with complicated marketing strategies – try to get as many clients as you can, and things will work out. Also, don’t leave your full-time job just yet (or make sure you’ve got someone to support you through the first 2 years).

If you’ve been playing with coaching for 2 or more years, and are still earning less than £2000/$3000 per month (and come from a major English-speaking country), maybe it’s time to face the truth that things aren’t going to change unless you make an effort, and you might as well continue to earn the same for the next ten years. Get over this psychological barrier of £2000/$3000 per month – somehow only a few people are capable of doing that, and once they’re on the other side, there isn’t much competition there. So do everything to cross this line – and maybe you’ll make it to my next year’s report as a top-5 earner.

*About the survey
This anonymous survey was conducted by Anastasia from between the 4th-8th January 2016. It was published in 5 online professional coaching groups and communities (two on Linkedin, two on Facebook and a forum of CTI graduates) and collected a total of 58 answers. Participants from USA, the UK and Canada gave 87% of responses. Other respondents came from Australia, Germany, India, Israel, Peru, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. Because this study was conducted online only and participants were self-selected, one should not assume that this survey is fully representative of the situation with the coaching industry as a whole. However, we believe that the trends outlined in this research are representative enough to generate a discussion of skills coaches need to get to grow their businesses.
USD/GBP exchange rates are not entirely representative, as USD rate has been rounded to the nearest hundred.
For press enquiries, please use the contact form. Any republishing only with the link to www.anastasia.tips website, please.

Do you want to make a breakthrough in your coaching practice?

Anastasia worked for 10+ years in senior positions in digital marketing before founding her two coaching businesses. One works with highly sensitive people and the other is a digital detox business.

I work with highly sensitive people, many of whom choose to be in helping professions. In spring 2016, I will be running Career Booster workshop for highly sensitive people, teaching them to use their sensitivity and intuition to build their successful business or career.

Whereas many of you have invested a lot of time in learning skills how to be a great coach, and thanks to your sensitivity you are very capable of delivering great results for the client, you might be lacking business skills, or feeling overwhelmed at the idea of having to expose yourself online, market to the unknown people etc.

However, digital marketing doesn't have to be inauthentic or overwhelming. If you want to have a breakthrough in your business based on who you are, you are looking for authentic ways to express yourself online and get new clients, the spring edition of Career Booster is for you. Read more, or ask me any questions!

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Happy birthday to me

2/11/2015

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One year ago, my life was very different. My well-paid and stressful job contract has come to an end, leaving me with no desire to work for anyone else, enough savings for a few months of non-luxurious life and no clear idea of where any money will be coming from once it's gone. My landlord suddenly decided to kick me out of the apartment, where I’ve spent the last two years. My mum was undergoing the third major surgery in two months and preparing herself for the chemo, as I was stuck between two countries looking for alternative surgeons and treatments all around the world. And on top of that, a few weeks before I split up with a guy I really fancied. I was eating uncertainty for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Looking back at that period, I’m not surprised I was procrastinating about doing something for my own business, although I had a clear idea that I didn't want to work for anyone else anymore. I was playing with coaching here and there, but it has never been a serious source of income. Recognizing myself being stuck, I felt I needed a coach myself and got in touch with someone I’ve previously known from my training program. Her lectures have always been a huge inspiration for me. We had a really nice conversation about how we could work together, I felt a great synergy and willingness to work with her, and asked her to give me a few days to think about her fees (quite high). I ended up sending her this exact email one year ago:

“I did think about your offer and although I would love to work with you, I am a bit cautious about my budget. I would be grateful if you could think of other coaches similar to you who might charge less”.

She said she’ll be happy to recommend some coaches from her network, and then I haven’t heard back from her for a couple of weeks. As I sat down to write a follow up email, something happened – I realized I didn’t want to work with anyone else, and writing something else would be a lie. I wasn't sure in which country I'd be living in the following few months and what I'd be doing with my life, but I knew I wanted to work with her. So instead of reminding her to recommend me a cheaper coach, I wrote to her saying that my situation changed and I would love to work with her.

Did the situation really change? It did, but only in my head (how cool is that?). I made calculations and figured out what I could cut on if I were to work with her. I mentally got rid of everything inessential and discovered that I won’t suffer much if I had to give it up. Maybe my security wouldn’t last for 6, but rather for 4 months. I can handle that. I've handled much worse stuff.

Needless to say, it was one of the best decisions in my life. Over the last 10 months, I’ve launched two coaching businesses, performed at multiple conferences, hired my first employees, started writing for Huffington Post and got in talks with TV channel about a film, sold my first online course to someone I never met and who never met me, got 80+ people signing up for my webinars, got emails from all over the world supporting my work, and did hundreds of other things I would have never got into had I not followed my gut feeling and had I not been honest with myself for what I wish for.

It has by no means been easy, but what a luck to have lived this year in such a fulfilling way! And here comes my coaching tip:

Be honest with yourself. You know deep inside what you truly wish for, so don’t settle down for less and don’t let your concerns stop you. There’s a difference between being reasonable and playing small – and you will know it by the little tingling of joy in your chest and fingers when you are aspiring and reaching for the stars.

Birthday is only once a year – make sure you've got something to write in your blog about next year.

PS If you want to step into your real power and go for what you truly desire, join our next Career Booster program for powerful sensitive women. Details here.

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Are You Sensitive? This Can Be Your Biggest Career Advantage

4/6/2015

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George, a 48-year old partner in a reputable consulting firm, has always praised himself for his analytical abilities. He’s great at structuring the most complicated projects, and selling his solution to the most demanding client. It has happened on a several occasions that George saved a big project by understanding what the client really wanted (and not what he was saying he wanted) and suggesting that before anyone else.

In fact, this ability has allowed George to build some wonderful client relationships and become a partner in his firm, in spite of being generally seen as a reserved and even shy person.

When his colleagues ask him how he does that, George doesn’t know what to answer, since it seems so natural to him just to know what people want. Because he needs to say something, he starts pointing out various analytical tools he uses, but it doesn’t help his colleagues much, because all employees in his firm are aware of these tools – and yet somehow George is always the one who knows more about the client. The company finds him so valuable that it’s happy to overlook his constant need to withdraw and stay at home during busy days, and even recently allowed him to work part-time.

What George is not aware of is that his main strength is not his analytical abilities, but a laser-sharp intuition, which often comes together with difficulties to manage stress.

George is a classic example of a Highly Sensitive Person, or HSP (you can take this quick test to check if you are one of them, too). Although he doesn’t know anything about HSPs, he has probably noticed the good and bad sides of this trait all the time.

What's High Sensitivity?
High sensitivity is not an illness, but rather a genetic modification that occurs in about 20% of humans (and some higher animals), who process information deeper and notice more subtleties in their environment. HSPs have a larger number of mirror neurons – brain cells responsible for fast learning and imitation. These people are highly intuitive and empathetic, and can easily guess what the other feels or needs, often without asking specific questions. This quality makes them great at any job that requires helping other people or client relationship, or trend watching, and HSPs can build a great career if they get into these fields.

Unfortunately, the gift of sensitivity can also become the biggest burden, since Highly Sensitive People get overwhelmed more than other people when things get busy. Their nervous system gets easily overloaded with excessive noise, bright light or other sensory stimuli. When they do, they become quite unsociable or can even fall sick. Because they process more information and do it deeper than most people, they need more time to recover – quite a luxury in the modern corporate environment.

In his company George has earned a reputation of a hardworking introvert, because in busy days he closes down in his office and doesn’t talk to anyone. The truth is although George likes people, he just needs to take time off during and after busy projects. George’s best way of having the rest is being in the nature, and he spends weekends walking in the English countryside with his phone off.

Being Sensitive in a Corporate World
There are quite a few Georges out there in the corporate world, but it’s difficult to recognize them at first. Statistically, the same proportion of men and women are born with a high sensitivity trait. Yet, because in our society mostly women are allowed to be intuitive and empathetic, a highly sensitive George needs to mask to be just like any other guy.

A George can choose quite an analytical and brainy profession that require a lot of research and data processing, but also some interaction with other people – like project manager, consultant, or scientist. He is also very drawn to “helping” professions like therapists, coaches, or HR/recruitment, or can make a very talented artist. Many successful leaders are HSPs because they are quite capable to understand other people and inspire them - Abraham Lincoln is believe to be one. But most often, male HSPs who want to have a career in the corporate environment prefer to shut down and hide their “craziness” from others, blaming themselves for not being able to be up to the competition all the time.

It has taken George many years to recognize his intuitive ability, and it only happened because a woman he adored told him he had a great intuition, which he found pleasurable. When he started reading more about it and discovered he was an HSP, a lot of things started falling into place for him. George was able to accept his sensitivity and understand how it has helped him to build a successful career, also sometimes intervening with it and keeping him away from people.

HSP's success factors
When we talk, George admits that had he known about his trait earlier, he might have been as successful, but would have paid a lower price for that. He wouldn’t force himself to work or be in the meetings when he really felt he needed time to rest and think. He might have chosen to structure his day in a different way, so that he has more time for reflection and having more meaningful conversations with fewer people.

He also understands now why he has always avoided large social gatherings and how somehow he never got the clients from these events, although it’s a common belief that you need to socialize to build your network. The truth is that HSPs hate chit-chat, and are far better in building deep and long-lasting relationships than doing small talks.

If you are a Highly Sensitive Person, it’s not uncommon to worry about being overwhelmed at work or feeling that you react to certain things stronger than most people. Yet, this is not an obstacle for a successful career (and again, not an illness or something that needs to be cured). Simply being aware of this trait and knowing how to structure your life around it and “sell” its advantages to your employer will help.

Also quite a lot of Highly Sensitive People end up working as independent contractors or building their own business because they can’t adapt to the corporate environment (Steve Jobs is a perfect example of an extremely successful visionary HSP). The good news is that you can learn to manage your trait very efficiently, and make it your competitive advantage. If you want to learn how to have a successful career or business being an HSP – sign up for my newsletters below. In these newsletters, I am discussing suitable career and business strategies for HSPs and how they can become successful while remaining who they really are – intuitive and sensitive human beings.

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Anastasia Dedyukhina, professional coach, start-up mentor and a highly sensitive person

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The Gift and Challenge of Being Highly Sensitive

25/4/2015

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Have you ever been told that you are too sensitive or overreacting, especially as a kid? If so, chances are that you belong to approximately 20% of the population, who researchers call Highly Sensitive People (HSPs). They aren't by any mean neurotics or introverts - HSPs are perfectly normal mentally and enjoy being around others, but are much more sensitive to various stimuli in their environment - whether it’s noise, smell, or the mood of people around them.

Some people are born with blue eyes, and some are with brown. HSPs are born with high sensitivity. They always know how you are feeling, or sense that something has happened without asking, and pay a lot of attention to the smallest details. For this reason they often end up working as helping professionals, such as psychologists, social or charity workers. They are deeply moved by arts and music, and so many of them can be found in artistic circles, too.

Their brain is believe to react differently to various stimuli, trying to process more information at once than "normal" people". HSPs are believed to have a very important evolutionary role in the society - using their intuition, they can sense any upcoming changes or danger in the environment much faster than others, and alert them, helping the human species to survive.

It's interesting to note that other animals, including monkeys, also have Highly Sensitive species among them, and so they clearly serve some great evolutionary purpose.

Drawbacks of being highly sensitive

High Sensitivity, though, comes with a big price. HSPs get easily overwhelmed by excessive stimulation - for instance, when the music is too loud, or when they have too many things going on at the same time. Highly sensitive children can fall sick if they have been communicating for too long with their counterparts just because they got too many impressions. These people are most often exposed to psychosomatic illnesses and need considerable amount of time to withdraw from social life to recharge their batteries. HSPs are not necessarily introverts though - it has been calculated that about 30% of highly sensitive people are in fact extraverted, and many introverts are not highly sensitive, either.

No wonder that to those who aren’t highly senstivie, HSPs might seem too demanding, difficult or fragile, and might be tricky to understand, especially in an office space. If put in the right environment, HSPs would thrive, but in a wrong environment they completely shut down, or become antisocial and difficult to deal with.

Although high sensitivity is equally distributed between men and women, it is largely believed in most societies that it's more natural for a woman, and not for a man, to be sensitive, and so it takes enormous courage to a highly sensitive man to stick to his true nature and not shut down.

Often because people who are born highly sensitive aren’t encouraged enough to cultivate that in their early childhood (Oh, sweetheart, you are too sensitive - you shouldn’t be that way! is a common way to shut your sensitivity down), they develop layers and layers of protection. To an outsider, a well-adapted HSP can appear hypermasculine or extremely practical and cynical. But behind that shell, there’s a very delicate nature that can be a big advantage - if properly used.

Another survival strategy an HSP can adopt is to avoid difficult or challenging situations that might potentially overwhelm him. They are likely to try to avoid a conflict or drama at all costs, often at the expense of their own boundaries.

How to live as a highly sensitive person?

So how do you thrive if you are a highly sensitive person? Chances are, you have already developed some strategy throughout your childhood and it has been more or less successful since you are alive and reading this post. However, instead of survival mechanism, you may want to look at other strategies to adapt that will allow yourself to thrive and use your gift and not just bear it.

First of all, please, know that there’s nothing wrong with you. Yes, you are in the minority and most people are not like you, but this does not mean that you are crazy or need to be fixed in any way. Quite the opposite - because only a few people have this gift, what you might for years have been thinking is your great weakness can actually be your greatest strength. Some of the most successful business people are highly sensitive, because they can sense opportunities before anyone else does. They are able to become great leaders because they feel the mood and desires of people around them.
If you are a men, being highly sensitive does not mean that you're not masculine - but your partners might find it much easier to connect with you!

Give yourself a permission to be highly sensitive - because a lot of people may benefit from your gift in professional and personal life. As a highly sensitive person, you need to be aware of the fact that it’s perfectly normal to want to withdraw from time to time, and so need to organize your life accordingly and let people around you know about it. Even if you are working in an office, it’s perfectly fine to want to hide in a closed room with your cup of coffee for some time and yet afterwards want to talk to people again.

As an HSP, you need to watch very carefully how much time you are spending online and connected. If you are on your phone/laptop 24/7, chances are that you are overstimulating yourself and getting exhausted. You more than anyone else need to be able to consciously unplug.

How to deal with a highly sensitive person

When dealing with a highly sensitive person, please, take into account that they might overreact to many things, and easily get exhausted if they get too much information at once. If you are a boss and one of your employees is constantly spending time in the bathroom or asks to work from home, there’s a chance that they are not simply trying to skive off work, but are a self-adjusting HSP. One highly sensitive person I talked complained that she absolutely could not stay in the shop she was working in because it had music in the background, and she was strongly disturbed by it. Her bosses could not believe that until she showed them the research on HSPs.

A highly sensitive child needs very strong discipline and boundaries to enable him to function well in the society. Because they have a stronger need to withdraw, make sure that they don’t have their communication devices on and with them all the time - they need some rest time, even though they might not yet recognize it. They are also more influenced by anything around them, so you need to watch them very carefully for any negative influence.

Highly sensitive people who experienced problems in their childhood are more at risk to suffer from different kinds of disorders, including depression, anxiety or various dependancies. However, those whose childhoods have been normal, are no different to others (perhaps, as the researchers point out, are even slightly happier). So nurture your highly sensitive child (or your inner child if you are highly sensitive yourself), and you're likely to feel happier than most of others.

If you are curious whether you are a highly sensitive person, you may want to take this test to determine it (takes only a couple of minutes), or come back to it after you're finished reading.

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Want Your Team to Perform? Be Positive (but Not Too Much)!

11/3/2015

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Positive interactions is what makes a big difference in team performance, according to positive psychologists. Having studied records of 60 team meetings, researchers Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada discovered that top performing teams had more positive than negative interactions among their members.

Negativity included criticism, not listening to others, and only concentrating on what issues important to oneself, whereas positive interactions meant participants openly appreciated others' ideas, gave feedback and were oriented towards solutions, and not criticism.

Researchers thought there was a specific tipping point when a number of positive interactions produced quality changes in team dynamics, making a team look for out-of-the-box solutions, be more creative and perform better. Although the precise ratio they suggested (1 negative to 3 positive) has been criticized by the scientific community because of the mathematical model used, their discovery is in line with the research on successful marriages, which says that happy spouses experience 5 positive interactions over 1 negative. So it's likely that the "ideal ratio" lies somewhere between these numbers.

How much positivity is healthy though?Again, you will have to find yourself the magic formula that works for your team, but there’s scientific evidence that team performance starts to decrease after a certain level of positive interactions is reached. In other words, be positive, but also stay authentic. Nothing can be perfect all the time, and you need to find constructive ways to express that, too.

Ok - but how do I do it? To make your team flourish, you need to reduce negativity and increase positivity. The following four tools might help:

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1. Yes, and... tool to increase positivity
This tools allows you to make sure that in team meeting or brainstorming session everyone listens to everyone else. After a participant shares his idea, the next person to speak should say “yes, and…” and link their idea to what has just been said. For example, Participant A says: We should make sure that there's somebody in the office during lunch break to take urgent calls. Participant B might say: Yes, those who go out for lunch can get them a free lunch!

Instead of "Yes, and..." you can also say “What I like about this idea is…” and express whatever you like about what was just said, and add your idea on top. For example, Participant C could say about B's idea: What I like about this idea is that it creates a sense of community and taking care of each other. We could also do the same by organizing buddying experience, so that each team member gets their own buddy from the team for a month.

2. What have we learned to reformulate negative as positive

Allow mistakes to happen and be discussed, but make sure that you don’t spend time on dwelling on how bad things are, but concentrate on what you and your team can do different next time. The following questions might help (you may want to ask them aloud or build the discussion around it):

Is there anything to appreciate about this situation?

Is there any learning for everyone in what happened?

What can we do next time to make sure it doesn’t happen?

3. Reducing negativity: don’t allow these team toxins to spread

There are four major toxic behaviours that are poisonous to any team – blame, defensiveness, withdrawal/stonewalling and contempt (that includes sarcasm and irony). These are extremely contagious and the moment they show up, you need to act fast if you don't want the disease to spread.

The first thing you need to do to fight them is to simply name them: “Bill, it sounds like you are blaming X for Y”.

Second, explain why this type of behaviour might be dangerous and how it can impact the team performance. Do not blame the person - they might not know what their impact is!

Third, suggest alternative ways to express the same idea and be really patient – many people are not used to expressing their needs and ideas in a positive way, so help them do that! Say: I hear you are unhappy with what your colleague did. What you could you ask them to do in the future to avoid such situations?

Last but not least, make sure that everyone holds themselves responsible for sticking to the rules and notices toxic behaviours not only in others, but in themselves, too.

4. Creating a consistent result: no talking behind one's back!

This is absolutely crucial - if you want your team to stay positive (and therefore productive), you should not allow any negative talks behind people's backs. Lead by example: tell your people that you would not discuss anything about a third person that you would not be able to repeat in front of them.

This is the most important thing you can do to make sure your team is consistently positive, because when people interact behind one's back, they create a subgroup within a given group, so even if you make an effort to change the dynamics of a large group, the smaller ones will sabotage it over and over again without you being able to control that. So no discussions or complaints behind the backs if they cannot be repeated in public.

Stay positive and find your balance!

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Who is Anastasia?

Chief inspirator, start-up mentor, professional Co-Active life coach and career coach, systems worker and passionate tango dancer. Get to know me!

Sensitive and Successful: Episode 5. What's the story you are telling yourself?

Highly Sensitive and Successful: Episode 3. A business with the light heart - a highly sensitive entrepreneur

How much do coaches make?

Do you want to make a breakthrough in your coaching practice?

Happy birthday to me

Are You Sensitive? This Can Be Your Biggest Career Advantage

Learn more about highly sensitive people Subscribe to my free coaching newsletter! You'll get one email per month and I never share your address with anyone

The Gift and Challenge of Being Highly Sensitive

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Want Your Team to Perform? Be Positive (but Not Too Much)!

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Who is Anastasia?

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