Nov 15, 2021
The Highly Sensitive Business Owner: Module 3
Module 3 of The Highly Sensitive Business Owner™ is all about other people. Dun dun dunnnn!
But first—
It’s one of the tools of the patriarchy to get us to distrust our own instincts and vilify our own emotions. Empathy is the enemy of *othering*, & othering is necessary to keep a population divided and fighting amongst themselves.
Capitalism NEEDS us to disregard our emotions in order to continue producing. Because if we were encouraged to tune into what we were really feeling—
…we might realize that our jobs, and the endless pursuit of $$ above all else, are not how we want to spend our lives.
We MIGHT start rejecting this model, and that would be very bad for business. (See: “labor shortage.”)
But there’s another level to this—embracing the idea that **what we want** actually matters in the first place. Power structures and economic systems are clever, and they’ve already put a failsafe in place for this kind of awakening:
“Wanting stuff is a luxury for weak, naïve little snowflakes.”
“Hard work is the ultimate virtue.”
“Work is just a part of life, and we all need to suck it up and get used to it.”
One of the common denominators of entrepreneurs with ADHD & SPS is that they went into business for themselves so they could have control over how other people were treated.
They want to “bring the human back into business.” They want to make meaningful connections, and change our culture, and save the planet, and treat people like full human beings as opposed to percentage points in a conversion formula.
In our businesses, this usually means we are verrry attached to our clients’ experience, and our team members’ experiences.
We lose sleep over whether or not a client hates a piece of copy or a home page design.
We have a full-blown existential crisis if ONE project with ONE client is going poorly or isn’t aligned with our values.
None of this would be a bad thing if we weren’t all blanketed in this stupid false idea that EMOTIONS—having them, trusting them, acting on them—are bad, unreliable, lame, and unprofessional.
Wanna have discussions like this with other cool people? Join my email list and stay tuned for the next cohort of the HSBO program.
About Sam
Samantha Pollack is a Copywriter & Creative Director who works with ethically minded, mission driven businesses who are actively trying to reshape our culture (and possibly tear down the patriarchy). She’s also the founder of The Highly Sensitive Business Owner, a 12-week online program that helps HSPs & neurodivergent business owners create healthier, more sustainable systems in their work.
Sam also writes about feminism, privilege, pop culture, entrepreneurship, the creative process, and whatever else is on her mind. She currently lives in Asheville, NC.
Emails for cult thought leaders.
(Personality included.)
Want to learn how to craft emails that inspire action and engagement WITHOUT the “tried and true” (cough: patriarchal) norms we’ve all been taught?
I’m doing it, and I can show you how to do it, too.
(But sometimes, I also like to write about the books I’m reading, or the creative process, or the entrepreneurial experience, or why I hate Steve Jobs, or how I met my BFF. I’ll send you emails like that, too.)
*Just kidding. It’s only an email list.
Books. Cats. Rants. Drawrings.
(and every couple months or so, an unexplained absence 🤷🏻)
