The ability to think critically and creatively are more in demand than ever before as our world becomes increasingly complex and as thinking skills continue to decline.  The MLA program that I oversee at Baker University seeks to engage students in a lifelong practice of critical, creative thinking that can immediately find application in their careers, communities and personal lives.  I can’t think of a better way to simultaneously spend several years exploring fascinating topics taught by passionate teachers AND gain the type of critical, creative thinking skills so desperately in need by industry, organizations, and our society.  As highly sensitive people it is incumbent on us to push our limitations, develop our capacities and engage our creativity in ways that allow for a fuller blossoming of potentialities in service to our often deep need for meaning in life.

I am very proud and humbled to lead this program as the chairman and I challenge any HSP considering a masters degree to consider this wonderful program.  We highly sensitive peoplee must move beyond the simplistic wrangling we so often see with simple descriptions of what it means to be an HSP and on to what it means to apply and embody it in a complex world.  In hindsight, the MLA at Baker University is the degree I WISH I had sought when I was in graduate school!

On a personal note the MLA program is one of the endeavors I engage with on a daily basis.  I teach in the program as well as lead and though it took many years to find a place in life where the challenges were sufficient and recuring (due my being a sensitive, sensation seeker) I feel a sense of placeness with this program that makes me think my contributions are meaningful, necessary, and generative beyond myself.  My path to teaching and administration (like the paths of many sensitive, sensation seekers) was unlikely and fraught with obstacles and setbacks but through resilience, perservance, and a belief that my capacities mattered I completed what became quite an organic journey.  The journey would have been much richer and fuller in the MLA program.              -Tracy Cooper

The avoidance of pain and discomfort seem as natural a pursuit as may be imagined but in doing so we may deprive ourselves (and others) of the opportunity for real personality growth. Kazimierz Dabrowski proposed that disintegration can be a positive event when the individual uses the experience to advance to a better version of self. In that sense, disintegrative experiences, though painful and chaotic at times, may be thought of as positive. Positive disintegration is the process by which we learn from the negative events that take place in all of our lives. Though few wish to suffer on purpose when we face times of disintegration we can use them to our advantage as we work to reach our fullest potential.

In the following article, by Michael Aaron, we learn more about positive disintegration. My book, Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person, also contains an entire chapter on how Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration applies to highly sensitive people and high sensation seeking highly sensitive people.

In many ways, our current society is set up to avoid as much pain as possible. Whether it is new technology, new medical or pharmaceutical advancements, or the self-help industry, everything is set up to make our lives easier, simpler, and more uniquely tailored to our every individual need. Even the names of products such as the iPhone and iPad nod to the symbiotic merger of products and people.

But the question remains, does all of this avoidance of pain and seeking of pleasure really make us any happier or more resilient? Obviously, new technological and medical advancements have helped millions of people rise out of poverty or overcome disease, but overall our social levels of happiness haven’t risen. Indeed, studies have shown that use of social media such as Facebook is correlated with depression and unhappiness. Other studies have shown that there is some increase in levels of happiness when individuals rise out of poverty, but material possessions beyond that don’t make much of a difference.

Anyway, this avoidance of pain isn’t just relegated to technology and consumerism but has also seeped into other areas of society such as education, team sports, and parenting. Such media outlets as the New York Times have bemoaned the rise of participation trophies for all kids, arguing that kids lose out on meaningful life lessons such as the value of competition and working hard for achievement, and are instead saddled with a growing sense of entitlement. The Atlantic has published such articles as “The Coddling of the American Mind,” “The Overprotected Kid,” and “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” criticizing the safety bubble that our society has created around young people to seemingly protect them from even the slightest threat of pain. Indeed, in “How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” the author, Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist herself, states that many of her millennial clients “just generally felt a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose” and “their biggest complaint was they had nothing to complain about!” These were all folks with doting parents, no trauma whatsoever in their past, but still unable to create an adult life for themselves.

I would argue that many, if not most of the preventative measures, used to protect our young people from pain are actually counterproductive and go against sound psychological principles. Adversity is often the catalyst for growth and personal change. Just as evolutionary forces operate on the macro level, adversity forces individuals to adapt to challenging circumstances, furthering their own evolution. Now, when I speak about adversity, I don’t mean extensive trauma, as is assessed by such instruments as the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) survey, which has demonstrated negative life outcomes correlated to the number of adverse childhood experiences. Rather, I’m talking about painful and challenging life experiences that don’t necessarily qualify as trauma (although as I’ve written about before, trauma is not a fait accompli and everyone responds to trauma differently, sometimes without any symptoms at all).

Source: Disintegration | by edwin_young, labeled for reuse, Flickr

Indeed, one prominent psychological thinker believed that adversity was the instrument of growth and centered his entire career around this central idea. Let me introduce you to the work of Polish psychiatrist Kazimierz Dabrowski, and his theory of positive disintegration. Dabrowski theorized that individuals that were born “gifted” needed to go through several existential trials in order to reach their potential and free themselves from social indoctrination. This process, which takes five distinct levels, can only be catalyzed by adversity and challenging life events that force the individual to re-examine his or her every belief and will, in conclusion, lead to the kind of self-actualization written about by other humanistic thinkers such as Abraham Maslow.

Let’s take a brief look at all five levels to give you a better idea of the core concept. The first level is called Primary Integration. People at this level are often influenced primarily by either prominent “first factors,” such as heredity or “second factors,” such as the social environment. Dabrowski believed this level was marked by selfishness and egocentrism, justifying all pursuits through a kind of “all about me” thinking.

According to Dabrowski, the shift to level two, Unilevel Disintegration, occurs as an initial, brief and often intense crisis or series of crises. Unilevel Disintegration may often occur as a result of developmental crises such as puberty or menopause, in periods of acute stress from external events, or under “psychological and psychopathological conditions such as nervousness and psychoneurosis.” Ultimately, the person is thrust into an existential crisis, in which one’s pre-determined beliefs no longer make any sense. During this phase, existential despair is the predominant emotion.

Level III, Spontaneous Multilevel Disintegration, describes a subsequent process of coming into awareness of multiple levels of understanding. In simple terms, it’s a dawning realization of what “ought to be” versus “what is.” The individual begins to contrast their behavior with higher, imagined ideals and alternative idealized choices. Dąbrowski believed that the authentic individual would choose the higher path and if their behavior fell short of the ideal, then internal disharmony would drive the individual to review and reconstruct one’s life. In this way, the individual is propelled by existential angst from Level II to come into contact in Level III with higher ideals to which he or she then aspires to.

In Level IV, Organized Multilevel Disintegration, the person takes full control of his or her development. The spontaneous dawning of Level III is replaced by a deliberate, conscious and self-directed review of life from a multilevel perspective. The person consciously reviews his or her existing belief system and tries to replace lower, automatic views and reactions with carefully thought out, examined and chosen ideals, which increasingly become more reflected in the person’s behavior. In this way, behavior becomes less reactive, less automatic and more deliberate as behavioral choices fall under the influence of the person’s higher, chosen ideals.

Source: Art of the Brick | by wiredforlego, labeled for reuse, Flickr

And finally, the fifth level, Secondary Disintegration, involves an integration of the lessons learned in the previous levels into a cohesive, stronger, and more authentic character. At this highest level, one’s behavior is guided by conscious, deliberately weighed decisions based on an individualized and carefully chosen hierarchy of personal values. In this stage, the individual reaches higher levels of authenticity and congruence.

I find this theory to be a very elegant explanation of human potential and the process of growth and change. Fundamental to this framework is that no change can occur without some sort of conflict or distress that interferes with the homeostasis of the system. Adversity is an essential ingredient that throws the individual into an existential crisis, forcing him or her to go through an awareness of operating in low consciousness and a subsequent process of self-examination leading to further growth.

Dabrowski’s work can be dismissed as highly theoretical, but extensive evidence suggests that protecting individuals from pain or adversity only serves to hamper their development. Instead, I propose that we must continuously strive to find new ways to expose ourselves to hardship that places us outside of our comfort zones. Indeed, as I’ve written about in my book Modern Sexuality, the edges right outside of the comfort zone are where most learning and growth occurs. Instead of seeking safety in comfort, we need to seek out opportunities to expose ourselves to the possibility of falling apart and remaking everything we once thought we knew. In short, we need to expose ourselves to positive disintegration.

About the Author

Michael Aaron, Ph.D., LCSW, CST, is a nationally certified sex therapist and clinical sexologist.

 

 

 

In Print:

Modern Sexuality: The Truth about Sex and Relationships

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Dr Michael Aaron

The singer from the rock group Soundgarden, Chris Cornell, passed away this past week due to a postulated suicide.  High profile performers pass away every year and we take little notice but Cornell’s suicide has hit many of us deeply because he was not an angry young man with a death wish nor was he apparently exhibiting signs of being depressed or suicidal.  When I heard of his passing early in the morning I was dumbstruck because of his status as a statesman of rock who had already passed through the gauntlet so many young men face just starting out in life where intense pressures to perform, achieve, and “be a man” become real and ever-present.  I considered Chris Cornell to be well-adjusted for a rock star.  He had a great marriage, two beautiful children (a preteen and a teen), plus an older daughter from his previous marriage.  By all accounts, he was devoted to his family first and career second, which makes suicide nearly inconceivable (at least that is how I felt and still feel).

My family has also been touched by the suicide of a male member when I was a young teen when my uncle decided to end his life after learning he had cancer.  That was my first experience with death and I was terribly confused about why he would choose to end his own life and leave behind so many hurt and wounded family members (a feeling that persists to this day).  My father also attempted (or at least dramatically stated that was his intention) suicide when he yelled at everyone to “get out” because he was going to shoot himself.  We waited outside in complete horror for the gunshot that thankfully never occurred.  Ironically, he was to pass away just a few short years later in 1982 (his outburst had been several years earlier in the late-1970s when men bottled it all up until they exploded and seeking mental health care was considered a sign of weakness for a man, in fact, it still is).

While I was serving in the US Army in 1984-85 in Germany there was a time when overwork and stress were contributing factors to a period of intense feelings of hopelessness, despair, and anger.  I was likely in an episode of what could have been diagnosed as major clinical depression but, again, mental health is and was a taboo subject for men and I never sought treatment (I did get better as it was mostly situational).  Depression, anxiety, and battles with self-esteem, self-worth, and low self-efficacy have been near-constant companions throughout my life, much as for Chris Cornell, and at the age of 50 I very oddly feel myself entering an age of statesmanship similar to Cornell where others look to me as a realized human being with valuable experience and insights.

The reasons why a man might decide to commit suicide are many and vary from man to man but some of the underlying motivators are similar as pointed out in the article below by Jed Diamond.  For highly sensitive men (and, yes, it is okay to be a man and  highly sensitive) the challenges are many with regard to feelings of aloneness, being a burden and not feeling afraid to die.  HSPs, as we know, are prone to depressive and anxious thinking due to more elaborate processing of experiences on many levels.  Over the course of years/decades, the wearing effect may take a tremendous toll on our bodies, minds, and spirits.  Sometimes it may seem impossible (or implausible) that we serve as vessels capable of containing so much emotion, feeling, and thoughts.  Some of us do so only with the aid of alcohol, drugs, or other crutches or coping mechanisms, while others develop a deep spirituality or self-care practices that sustain and calm us in a sea of swirling forces threatening to pull us apart at the seams.

However we face life, the awful challenges of developing real friendships that can sustain us, feeling as if we are productive and pulling our own weight, and not subscribing to an overly hegemonic ideal of manhood as not fearing death or pain weighs on every man, indeed every person alive.

As highly sensitive men perhaps one of the purposes we may serve to the world is to embody and exemplify deeper understandings of life and what it means to be truly alive in a world that seems hell-bent on the mindless pursuit of efficiency and productivity at the cost of our humanity.

I don’t believe we can arrive at the answers through the loss of one person but we can and should begin the dialog around what it means to be deep feeling, deep thinking, and creative in mind and soul in ways that empower populations, sustain and nurture our families, and enhances our communities.  We, as highly sensitive men, are imbued with a gift that may be difficult to navigate in our dualistic world but that offers the potential of a broader definition of real humanness than would otherwise be possible without us.

Stand up and be counted sensitive men!  Stand up and be who and what you are with no apologies to anyone.  Embrace and embody your true strengths of character for a world desperately in need of compassionate leadership.  Your strengths of empathy, creativity, and sensitivity far outweigh their weaknesses of single-mindedness, superficiality, and lack of emotional depth.  Your strength is your heart, your creative soul, and your fortitude in the face of untold days that could have claimed you anywhere along the way.

This world needs men who will stay around and teach the children, support and grow others to their full potential, and pass on what we have learned about getting through life as complex beings riding the knife-edge of sanity/insanity, riding the emotional waves rather than being swallowed in the undertow, and leading societies that have long ago lost their way in favor of crass, materialistic idols of gold and silver.  Sensitive men, the challenge for you (and me) is to lead through a quiet strength of character that others feel no fear of because it is open, inviting, warm and human.  That, my friends, is worth staying alive for…

~Tracy Cooper, PhD

Jed Diamond, P.h.D, looks at suicide in men from both an individual and societal vantage point and gives ways to prevent it from happening. 

—

Recently I received a review copy of the book, Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men’s Success by Thomas Joiner, Ph.D. I was happy to offer a review. Dr. Joiner is one of the world’s leading experts on suicide and has published two previous books, Myths about Suicide (Harvard University Press 2010) and Why People Die by Suicide (Harvard University Press 2005).

Dr. Joiner and I share a professional interest in suicide prevention. Suicide is a major world-wide epidemic taking the lives of over 1,000,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 times more individuals attempt suicide.

Self-harm now takes more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined.

Our personal lives have also been touched by suicide. My mid-life father tried to commit suicide when I was 5 years old. Although he lived, our lives were never the same.  I grew up wondering what happened to my father and was terrified that the same thing would happen to me. My life-long interest in men’s health grew from my desire to help men, and the women and children who love them, to understand what causes men to give up on life and what we can do to keep them engaged.

Dr. Joiner’s father, also named Thomas, killed himself when Dr. Joiner was in his third year of graduate school. Although the senior Thomas was depressed, he didn’t seem like a suicide risk. As reported by Tony Dokoupil in a recent article, The Suicide Epidemic, “the 56-year old Joiner was gregarious, the kind of guy who was forever talking and laughing and bending people his way. He wasn’t a brittle person with bad genes and big problems. Thomas Joiner Sr. was a successful businessman, a former Marine, tough even by Southern standards.” As it turned out, these “manly” traits may have contributed to his demise.

Joiner remembers the day his father disappeared. “Dad had left an unmade bed in a spare room, and an empty spot where his van usually went. By nightfall he hadn’t been heard from, and the following morning my mother called me at school. The police had found the van. It was parked in an office lot about a mile from the house, the engine cold. Inside, in the back, the police found my father dead, covered in blood. He had been stabbed through the heart.”

The investigators found slash marks on his father’s wrists and a note on a yellow sticky pad by the driver’s seat. “Is this the answer?” it read, in his father’s shaky scrawl. They ruled it a suicide, death by “puncture wound,” an impossibly grisly way to go, which made it all the more difficult for Joiner to understand.

Suicide is a Primarily Male Problem

In his latest book, Lonely at the Top, Joiner asks, “which cause of death stands out as affecting men far more than women?  Given their privileged financial and society status, perhaps it has something to do with the dark side of wealth and power such as the cardiac or stroke-related consequences of influential but stressful jobs, or a taste for expensive but unhealthy foods?”

“No,” he says, “It’s suicide.” Approximately 30,000 people commit suicide each year in the U.S. and 80% were men. Overall, males kill themselves at rates that are 4 times higher than females. But in certain age groups men are even more vulnerable. The suicide rate for those ages 20-24 is 5.4 times higher for males than for females of the same age.

In the older age groups suicide is even more a “male problem.” After retirement, the suicide rate skyrockets for men, but not for women. Between the ages of 65-74 the rate is 6.3 times higher for males. Between the ages of 75-84, the suicide rate is 7 times higher.  And for those over 85, it is nearly 18 times higher for men than it is for women.

A New Understanding of Why People Die by Suicide 

Joiner is 47 now, and a chaired professor at Florida State University, in Tallahassee. He’s made it his life’s work to understand why people kill themselves and what we can do to prevent them from taking their lives. He hopes to honor his father, by combating what killed him and by making his death a stepping stone to better treatment. “Because,” as he says, “no one should have to die alone in a mess in a hotel bathroom, in the back of a van, or on a park bench, thinking incorrectly that the world will be better off without them.”

Dr. Joiner has proposed a new theory of why people commit suicide which he believes is more accurate than previous formulations offered by writers like Edwin Schneidman, Ph.D. and Aaron Beck, MD. According to Schneidman’s model, the key motivator which drives people to suicide is psychological pain. In Beck’s understanding, the key motivator is the development of a pervasive sense of hopelessness. Dr. Joiner suggests that these are correct understandings but are also too vague to be useful for predictive purposes and not capable of offering a complete motivational picture.

Joiner proposes that there are three key motivational aspects which contribute to suicide. These are: 1) a sense of not belonging, of being alone, 2) a sense of not contributing, of being a burden 3) a capability for suicide, not being afraid to die. All three of these motivations or preconditions must be in place before someone will attempt suicide.

Although women, too, can take their own lives when they suffer at the intersection of  “feeling alone, feeling a burden, and not being afraid to die,” this is clearly a more male phenomenon.  Throughout our lives males take more risks and invite injury more often.  We are taught that “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and “no pain, no gain.”

We often invest so much of our lives in our work, when we lose our jobs or retire we feel worthless, unable to contribute.  It’s a short step to feeling we are a burden on those we love.  We also put less effort into developing and maintaining friendships so we can come to feel more and more alone.

Preventing Suicide In Men

I’ve found that Joiner’s model, what he calls the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, can be very helpful in understanding suicide risk in men. The three overlapping circles help alert us to the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves if we want to prevent suicide. Joiner and his colleagues have developed a questionnaire that addresses these issues. Here are a few of the items they assess:

Thwarted Belonginess:

These days, I feel disconnected from other people.

These days, I rarely interact with people who care about me.

These days, I don’t feel I belong.

These days, I often feel like an outsider in social gatherings.

Perceived Burdensomeness:

These days the people in my life would be better off if I were gone.

These days the people in my life would be happier without me.

These days I think I have failed the people in my life.

These days I feel like a burden on the people in my life.

Capacity for Suicide:

Things that scare most people do not scare me.

The sight of my own blood does not bother me.

I can tolerate a lot more pain than most people.

I am not at all afraid to die.

♦◊♦

Like most people, I’ve had thoughts of suicide at numerous times in my life, but the one time I felt at high risk of actually killing myself was when all three sectors overlapped. I was lucky that my wife was smart enough to remove the guy from the house until I saw a therapist and got into treatment for my depression and my suicide risk subsided.

Some people believe that if a person is going to kill themselves, there’s nothing one can do. If you try to stop them, they’ll just bide their time and do it later. However, we now know that suicidal intention is transient. If we can get support to get through those times when we feel disconnected, a burden to others, and having the means and mind-set to actually kill ourselves, we can begin to develop the social supports to turn things around.

I suspect the difference between James Joiner’s dad and my dad wasn’t their level of  “thwarted belongingness” or “perceived burdensomeness” but my father’s lower capacity for suicide. Disrupt one of the risk circles and we buy ourselves more time to heal.  Making a connection can be as simple as a smile. I read the report of a man who left a note as he walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It said, “If one person smiles at me, I won’t kill myself.”  The note was found after he had plunged to his death. We can all reach out, in our own way, and touch someone who may feel disconnected, disrespected, and useless.

We can also let in the love when we are feeling down. I remind myself, and my clients, to take heed of the lines from the Eagles song Desperado.  “You better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you…before it’s too late.”

—

If you’re dealing with feelings of hopelessness or thoughts of suicide, help is available.  800-273-TALK (8255) is on-call 24/7 if you need to talk, or reach out to a friend or health professional in your life.

Tracy Cooper, PhD is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, and Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.  Dr. Cooper provides consulting services on a one on one basis to HSPs in career crisis or transition and to high sensation seeking highly sensitive people on general topics.  He also appeared in the documentary Sensitive-The Untold Story.  His website may be found at drtracycooper.com.

Starting any new business requires a tremendous effort to put together a viable business entity, as a consequence, many first-time business owners take a serious look at franchising.  Franchising is purchasing a turnkey business system already proven to work by a parent company.  They often provide training to new franchisees, ongoing support, and expertise.  In return the franchisee is obligated to follow their business model, providing the services or products according to a strict protocol.  In effect, a franchisee operates a somewhat independent branch location of its parent company and remits a percentage of profits to the franchisor.

Seems like a good idea right?  Buy a franchise where someone else has already worked out how to succeed?  Just follow their roadmap to success and fortune!  The flipside of this is a different story and one that HSPs need to be fully aware of before treading down the franchisee road.  In the following article, by Jason Daley, we learn about the real survival rate of franchised businesses.

“Imagine you’re thinking of leaving your job to open a business and decide to do a little research into franchising. A Google search may lead to an evenly balanced sermon on the pros and cons of franchise ownership. Or you may land on this gem from About.com: “Some studies show that franchises have a success rate of approximately 90 percent as compared to only about 15 percent for businesses that are started from the ground up. The increased probability of success usually far outweighs any initial franchise fee and nominal royalties that are paid monthly.”

Most experienced franchisees would laugh themselves hoarse after reading that statement. But what about a novice entrepreneur who is considering going it alone? That’s the type of thing that might get their heart set on franchising.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that About.com is not alone in espousing such numbers. That claim and myriad variations are all over the internet, from business articles written by people who should know better to puffery put out by franchise brokers and consultants. It’s known as “The Stat”–the notion that franchises have a success rate of 90 to 95 percent–and it has helped fuel franchise fever for decades. It’s also completely unproven.

As an industry model, franchising has been poked and prodded and analyzed by economists since its inception. There are figures on how much franchising contributes to the economy, ownership rates among various demographics, loan performance and a monthly index that shows the strength of the sector as a whole. But that one stat, the success rate of franchised businesses vs. independent shops, has had the biggest impact, even though its origins are dubious. In the absence of solid data, The Stat, which is based on a discredited study, has stepped in to fill the void.

Bad information is the bread and butter of the internet, but this particular nugget is especially troubling. Franchising is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the U.S. for a reason–it has suffered from high-profile cases of misrepresentation and fraud. Critics point to The Stat as a willful misrepresentation and an attempt to sucker people into buying franchises. In many ways it really does lure people into franchising, even if a franchisor has never made the claim. The ubiquity of The Stat means that many candidates come into their businesses thinking franchise ownership is practically guaranteed success.

Robert Purvin, who believes his 1994 book The Franchise Fraud was the first to cast doubt on The Stat, contends it has had an even bigger impact. “Even if the success rates were true, focusing on franchising as a path to riches instead of small-business ownership has caused the industry to evolve in ways detrimental to franchisees,” he says. “They’ve become less and less protective of franchisees over the years.”

The Stat was not just created from whole cloth. In the 1980s, the U.S Department of Commerce published the results of a voluntary survey of nearly 2,000 franchisors who submitted data disclosures. Some analysts interpreted the data to say that over a five-year stretch, 5 percent of units closed. Flip that around, and you have the stat that franchises have a 95 percent success rate over a given five years. Here’s the catch: The data was not audited, and since franchisors chose whether or not to answer the questions, it is likely that the pool of respondents included more successful franchises than unsuccessful ones.

The Stat, with the imprimatur of the Commerce Department, took on a life of its own. Even after the survey was discontinued and the International Franchise Association sent out a letter asking franchisors and brokers to scrub the stat from the web–a request it has repeated several times since–it has been difficult to close Pandora’s box. The SBA has also put out numerous calls over the years to disregard the data, making its latest plea last fall.

But many in the industry haven’t gotten the message. “It’s amazing the number of franchise brokerages still putting it on their website,” says franchise consultant Joel Libava, who has written several articles critical of The Stat. “It gives prospective buyers a false impression. There’s enough spin out there telling people to buy a business in a box or turnkey business. The Stat welcomes them to take a risk and make bad assumptions about their chance for success.”

The main reason The Stat has survived a quarter century of rebuttal and criticism is that no credible number has emerged to replace it. The SBA has released papers showing that in the early 2000s, defaults on its loans were higher for franchised vs. independent businesses. But the most comprehensive study was conducted in 1994 by Timothy Bates, professor emeritus at Wayne State University. His analysis of more than 20,500 small businesses found that 65.3 percent of franchises survived after four years, compared to 72 percent of independent businesses. Retail franchises fared worse, with a 61.3 percent survival rate, vs. 73.1 percent of independent retail businesses.

Brian Headd at the SBA’s Office of Advocacy points out that all these studies are long in the tooth and don’t represent the current economy. More broadly, he questions the overall usefulness of calculating franchise success rates at all. “Survival isn’t everything,” he says. “Business owners have to make up startup costs and try to break even. Just existing for five or six or seven years doesn’t necessarily mean success.”

So why has no ambitious economist or franchise maven taken on the research? Jania Bailey, president of franchise brokerage FranNet, says looking at franchising as a whole would be extremely difficult, and the results would likely not be useful. “You’d have to look at the FDDs [Franchise Disclosure Documents] of 3,100 companies in 80 industries,” she says. “There are new franchises and mature franchises. The success rates between the two are going to be night and day.”

However, her company did want to investigate the success rate of its own clients, so last fall FranNet looked at 1,500 individuals it had helped get into franchised businesses between 2006 and 2010. According to the internal research, 91.2 percent of the businesses were still open after two years, and 85 percent were operating after five years. But Bailey is quick to point out that those stats don’t extend to franchising in general–she attributes the high success rate to the FranNet system. “Arguably, the time period we studied had the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression,” she says. “That success rate speaks volumes about our ability to match a person and their skill set to the right franchise concept.”

Libava, a former FranNet franchise broker, is skeptical of any studies that attempt to quantify franchising as a whole. Each case is unique, he argues, and success is mediated by the performance of individual franchisees, not by the strength of the franchising model. “Here’s how I look at it: The perfect franchise candidate is in the perfect time of their life, has funds and chooses the right franchise for his geographic area,” he says. “A lot of things have to line up, and if they do, I feel in my heart a franchisee has a better chance of success than an independent startup. But there’s no guarantee of that.”

Headd at the SBA takes a more practical view of success. His research has shown that bigger fish tend to survive longer, whether they are independent or part of a chain. “The bottom line is, the larger you are at startup, the more likely you are to stay open,” he says. “It helps to start larger and faster, but it has a cost. And it’s up to the individual to decide if franchising is the right formula for them, or being independent.”

Purvin agrees that research that lumps together thousands of unrelated business concepts, from gyros to muffler repair, into one statistic is ultimately meaningless. “Franchising is just a way of doing business; it’s not a script for success,” he says. “The world is constantly evolving, and all of those ‘proven’ systems have to evolve, too. Proven success does not guarantee success tomorrow. Look at McDonald’s: Thirty years ago it was focused on burgers and shakes; now it’s a coffee shop. It has constantly innovated. Any company standing still and focused on its ‘proven method’ is a company that will be a dinosaur. Buying a company that holds back from change is not a path to success.”

So are franchises more successful than independent businesses? Bailey at FranNet believes franchising can have benefits over going it alone, but she’s not willing to put a number on it. “I think the crux of what we do and the reason we’re so committed is that franchising works,” she says. “You have the support of the franchisor and the experience of other franchisees. You have a back room you don’t have when you go out on your own.””

Source article: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227394

Franchise consultant Joel Libava uttered perhaps the best line in the article when he stated “Here’s how I look at it: The perfect franchise candidate is in the perfect time of their life, has funds and chooses the right franchise for his geographic area,” he says. “A lot of things have to line up, and if they do, I feel in my heart a franchisee has a better chance of success than an independent startup. But there’s no guarantee of that.”  The implications for the aspiring HSP-entrepreneur are that timing is crucial (one is more likely to succeed if the timing is right in one’s life); money is available beyond the startup costs, and the business idea can find a market niche in one’s area.

My feeling is buying a franchise can be a good way to get into business but don’t expect that it will provide all of the answers or that it will remain a viable business model in our changeable world.  It’s also obvious that some HSPs would wish to avoid excess worrying about business matters by buying a franchise.  HSPs are excellent planners but may also be excessive worriers fraught with anxieties and what-ifs.  The resulting “analysis paralysis” can be too much for some and they drop the whole idea.   My advice is to investigate the franchise’s business model with a critical thinking eye looking for inconsistencies in their story and flaws in their model.  Use the Socratic method to ask questions, questions, and more questions.  If a franchise cannot stand up to intellectual scrutiny how can we expect it to be flexible enough to survive in a rapidly changing business climate?  Do you really want to pin your wagon to that star?  Couple that with what may be the actual success rate and you may be just as well off (perhaps more so considering your absolute flexibility as an independent business) going it alone.

Highly sensitive people have a marginally rare personality trait (Sensory Processing Sensitivity) that may facilitate thinking and feeling from a complexity perspective with a broader possible range of behaviors and thoughts but that only means potential not promised.  Use your deep-thinking capacities to engage on a logical level with the problem of starting a business and weigh the pros and cons of each side (franchise versus independent).  You may say “But, I’ll just use my intuition and gut-instinct to guide me!”  Good luck with that!  You’ll be served far better with logic and careful thought informed by instinct than instinct alone.  Creativity requires that we approach any new endeavor from a complexity perspective.  The root of creativity is critical thought!  Once you move beyond thinking of creativity as being associated solely with an end product (artwork, performance, or the realm of artists) you see that creativity is for everyone but it does demand leaving behind neat little boxes of thought in favor of ambiguity and the unknown.  Through the use of careful, fair-minded thinking, informed by feeling and instinct, you may arrive at a consensus regarding whether you are better off buying a franchise or being an independent businessperson.

For more considerations on starting a business for the highly sensitive person see my article Entrepreneurship for the High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person? You Betcha! or Considerations for the High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur.

Tracy Cooper, PhD is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, and Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.  Dr. Cooper provides consulting services on a one on one basis to HSPs in career crisis or transition.  He also appeared in the documentary Sensitive-The Untold Story.  His website may be found at drtracycooper.com.

The current popularity of concepts like grit, hardiness, and mental toughness seem determined to popularize the notion that if we only learn to suppress the finer parts of ourselves that feel, think, and thoroughly plan we can live up to an illusion of “toughness.”  Applying the conceptualization of mental toughness to highly sensitive people in this post I carefully examine the major aspects of mental toughness and suggest ways Sensory Processing Sensitivity not only may provide certain advantages but may be uniquely suited to the overall description of mental toughness.

Mental toughness might be interpreted as stigmatizing sensitivity but let’s look at the definitions from two major groups of researchers:

“Having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to: generally, cope better than your opponents with the many demands (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport places on a performer; specifically, be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.” (Jones, Hanton, & Connaughton, 2002, p. 209).

Here, the part about being “more consistent and better than your opponents…in control under pressure” could as well apply to sensitive people as not. We know that many sensitive people make fantastic performers (including in sports). While we may not be the most vocal of people all the time when we choose to step into the spotlight we may have spent a great deal of time thoroughly considering the nuance of a given task or role before performing.

This more thorough processing (considering of pitfalls, risks, etc..) would actually place sensitive people at an advantage over those without the trait. Similarly, being in control “under pressure” would be more likely the more thoroughly we have considered the ways it could all go wrong. It is true that sensitive people do less well when being observed performing a task but I think that is generally due to absorbing the judgemental energy we might feel in such a situation and being unpleasantly stimulated by such energy.  It’s just as likely a sensitive person would be able to ignore that energy as not because we are so variable in how express the trait. It is a huge disservice to all sensitive people to generalize what we may be like in a given circumstance.

Performance depends on the individual with each individual choosing to react differently. Moreover, “remaining determined, focused, and confident” does not seem to imply that sensitive people would be less so than anyone else. Determination is primarily a measure of commitment to completing a task. Sensitive people are known to exhibit a deep sense of conscientiousness thus we would be more likely than average to want/need to complete any task we undertake. Within that determination sensitive people are also known to be able to focus quite intently on the task at hand and would likely do well at remaining focused unless distractions arose that served to interrupt that intense focus. We do focus better in reasonably distraction-free situations which if you consider the nature of many sports (especially individual sports like running, golf, archery, cycling) allows the individual to control his environment or at least to work within a controlled environment (quiet golf course, minimal noise from observers, etc..).

Confidence is another matter and arises as a matter of feeling that we are matched to the task (not overly so), that we find the task interesting in some sense, and that we are intrinsically motivated. When these align any person (sensitive or not) would feel a fair degree of confidence.

“Mental toughness in Australian Football is a collection of values, attitudes, behaviors, and emotions that enable you to persevere and overcome any obstacle, adversity, or pressure experienced, but also to maintain concentration and motivation when things are going well to consistently achieve your goals. — Gucciardi, Gordon, & Dimmock, 2008, p. 278”

This conceptualization of values, attitudes, behaviors, and emotions is quite different in that values attitudes, behaviors, and emotions are primarily a product of culture. Culture imparts to us everything from what it means to be male or female to what emotions that culture has defined as acceptable to express (including behaviors). As such, how sensitive people would perform under such a construct would depend on how deeply ingrained they are in a culture and how much they choose to subscribe to notions of acceptability for each aspect.

Many sensitive people prefer to live outside the norms (not necessarily by choice) because they inherently occupy a greater possible range of emotional expression and potential behaviors than in those without the trait. In a sense, it is probable that sports (and many other activities) demand a specific range of behaviors that are associated with a lack of emotional expression (not just on the outside but a suppression of emotion inside) that sensitive people find to be superficial and limiting.

This is not true for all sensitive people of course and I am sure many find sports to be a way to decrease stress, increase dopamine, and enjoy the outdoors. There is also the potential for any task to become a flow experience which is always a plus. If there were one aspect of the above model I think sensitive people might struggle with it would be suppression of feeling emotion. We do feel emotions quite deeply and that leads to a need to cognitively process those feelings (and the myriad thoughts that often arise) quite thoroughly.

We sensitive people are very good at learning from the past (or should be by the way the trait is conceptualized) with emotions serving as the cognitive triggering mechanism leading to thorough processing in the brain. Nevertheless, sensitive people who have matured and lived long enough may be as adept at understanding why they’re feeling an emotion (and subsequently thinking it over or not) as anyone else. Sensitive people who have not learned how to process their emotions and control how they react may be at a disadvantage.

How we process emotions is determined by a number of factors but I’ll focus on just our historical precedent for dealing with emotion. For those sensitive people who learned early in life that others are not to be trusted (people who have suffered abuse, neglect, trauma) processing strong emotions may always pose a challenge because their brain architecture (hard-wiring) is different due to trauma and the need to remain hypervigilant to avoid injury or threat. When we are hypervigilant the fight or flight response is prematurely activated, we intuitively leap to conclusions and react before thinking it over. In that regard, and for those sensitive people with a traumatic background who have not sought effective healing and recovery, the ability to process emotion (including how we react) may be impaired making them less able to encounter strong emotions and address them with an effective skillset. That being said, I have encountered a number of sensitive people from such backgrounds who perform in professions such as nursing where patients die in front of them and they do as well or better than others. Perhaps they are able to compartmentalize emotions or possess a dedication to being conscientious or simply are more accustomed to dealing with high intensity situations and do not register the depth of feeling for the moment. It is a strange paradox.

Overall, mental toughness as a cumulative construct does not seem to denigrate Sensory Processing Sensitivity if we consider each aspect of the two constructs carefully. On a superficial level, we might assume “sensitive” people would be fragile, unstable, or less capable of handling demanding circumstances but that would be a gross overgeneralization that cannot possibly apply to over a billion people (15-20% of the overall population).

It is imperative to bear in mind that any personality trait may only represent a possible set of potential behaviors. One thing we know from human history is that anyone is capable of anything at any given time, thus limiting our ability to categorize sensitive people in a lesser category when it concerns potential performance or mental toughness. It is also worth noting that sensitive people’s broader possible range of feeling, internal processing, and behaviors uniquely qualify us as more capable than those without the trait (in some ways) because we may simply move further down the continuum of possible behaviors in a given circumstance and display adaptive behaviors.

All personality traits were evolved to solve two problems: problems of survival and problems of reproduction.  Sensory Processing Sensitivity has some obvious advantages in greater attention to details (especially visual), greater empathy (being able to read other people), thorough processing of stimulation before taking action (think first act later), and greater emotional responsiveness in general (always felt but not necessarily acted on).  Keep in mind that a personality trait need not have provided a massive advantage to have escaped the evolutionary sieve.  Even a minor advantage might have enabled the continuation of a trait and they still exist simply because nothing better has evolved to replace them.  Nature also works by varying a theme, not reinventing the wheel every time.  The binary quality of two eyes, two hands, two legs (in all their variations in animals, fish, birds) simply adapts a theme.

Sensory Processing Sensitivity provided an advantage to our ancestors in survivability and reproduction and still exists today though in specific cultural contexts today that may inhibit or limit its effective expression.  Culture is the water a fish swims in without knowing it is in water.  We exist within culture and espouse views we are sure are our own but are largely products of cultural conditioning.  Mental toughness is such a construct that is rooted in the western societal notion of efficiency, productivity, and perseverance at the cost of our humanity.  Certainly, it is important to exhibit goal persistence in striving to achieve but it is precisely through the very qualities that highly sensitive people embody in the trait that we may reach those goals.

Sources:

Jones, G.; Hanton, S.; Connaughton, D. (2002). “What Is This Thing Called Mental Toughness? An Investigation of Elite Sport Performers“. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. 14 (3): 205–218. doi:10.1080/10413200290103509

Gucciardi, D.; Gordon, S.; Dimmock, J. (2008). “Towards an Understanding of Mental Toughness in American Football”. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology. 20 (3): 261–281. doi:10.1080/10413200801998556

Tracy Cooper, PhD is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career and Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.  Dr. Cooper provides consulting services to those in career crisis and transition at his website: drtracycooper.com.

So, you want to go into business for yourself.  You want to be your own boss, call your own shots, and set your own schedule.  What kind of considerations should you take into account before going into business for yourself?  There are at least a hundred but here let’s focus on just three: making sure your inner house is in order, your business idea is sound, and your commitment is long-term.  Without any of these three your chances for success will be greatly diminished.

Spring Cleaning Your Inner House

Being in business for yourself may seem like a great idea because it offers many aspects that may be attractive to the high sensation seeking highly sensitive person like opportunity for new and novel experiences, a sense of personal control that allows you to potentially stay ahead of boredom, and a certain bucking the system of wage slavery and corporate malfeasance that you find compelling.  In order to have a reasonable shot at success we must first ensure that we have done the personal, inner work on ourselves that sets up the conditions we will need to be successful on a sustainable basis.

By inner work I mean we need to be aware of the factors in our lives that limit us like Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs).  ACEs occur in childhood and may deeply impact brain development in ways that cause us to overreact to ordinary stimuli, experience less connectivity in important parts of the brain regulating emotional control, and deal with the world on a perpetual fight or flight stance.  ACEs need not have been severe or long-lasting to have had a profound effect on us as highly sensitive people.  Highly sensitive people may have been significantly affected by domestic violence in the household, personal experiences of neglect, abuse, or trauma, or similar events in the school experience.  The more ACEs we have the worse our anxiety, depression, and fear may be at taking risks, feeling confident we can master new tasks, or tolerating ambiguity which abounds in small business.

To heal from ACEs, and other events that have scarred us in life, it is important to first acknowledge that they occurred and that we may have been powerless during those times.  It is also important to learn to practice self-care in a way that places emphasis on our needs.  Too often self-care is sacrificed to satisfy the harsh demands of a society that neither feels nor values those who do.  Learning and appreciating that we are whole people with particular needs that need to be met before we can perform at our best isn’t whining, it’s winning!  If you cannot or will not take care of yourself (mind, body, and spirit) you will crash and burn under the weight of starting and running a small business.  Get your inner house in order first before tackling the demanding world of small business.  By ensuring that you have sufficiently addressed your inner issues you decrease your own anxiety and stress thereby enabling you to be a more effective entrepreneur.

Tips for spring cleaning your inner house:

• Reconcile any issues you may have that may be contributing to limiting your ability to function well in the world. This may require a great deal of reading, research, even booking sessions with a good therapist but will pay off in the long run.
• Set personal boundaries and learn to stick to them. If you let people run all over you now, what will be different when you’re in business for yourself?  Know how and when you allow people to unreasonably cross boundaries and work on being more firm.  This means learning to say no and not feel guilty about it.  You’re a highly sensitive person, not a pincushion.
• Know your strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps you are fabulous on the telephone dealing with customers (and, yes, many highly sensitive people make awesome performers) but don’t do as well in face-to-face situations.  You can choose to either work on your face-to-face skills (and, yes, they can be learned by even the most reclusive hermit if the desire is there) or find ways to get around it (choosing a business with less face-to-face for instance or hiring people who are good in those situations).
• Know and appreciate that inner work is never finished. There are always bits and pieces that crop up from time to time and will remind us (sometimes unpleasantly) of past ACEs.  In these times it is important to acknowledge how far we’ve come, how capable we have been in dealing with obstacles, and how we are doing our best at any given moment.  Never give up on yourself even if you are down for the count at times.  Tomorrow is always a new day.
• Develop a self-care practice that you take as seriously as your spiritual life. Our bodies are very simply biological organisms capable of providing a finite amount of clear decision-making time on a daily basis.  We need to know how our bodies work, when our peak times are (and they may be completely off-cycle with the world), and work with that instead of against it.  Get enough sleep, eat a well-balanced diet, get enough exercise and sunshine, and keep your emotional well-being in tune by developing one or more practices that calm the mind and keep you in tune with your body.  We enjoy good health as we age because we work at it, not because it’s a right.

Sound business idea

One we have effectively addressed spring cleaning our inner houses we need a good business idea.  There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of business ideas.  Anywhere there is a human need there is a business idea waiting to be filled.  Even where a need does not exist currently but will there is a need waiting to be filled (though we may need to obviously do some education).  Of the hundreds of business ideas you will note that some come with more inherent control than others.  Purchasing a franchise for instance may be a low risk way to get into a proven business winner but you will also cede a great deal of control to the franchisor and will likely be required to work in the business a set number of days.  Not for you?  Perhaps you’d be better off inventing a new business or adapting an existing idea.  We do not need to reinvent the wheel just to be in business.

Some great businesses are simply variations on a theme.  I once worked for a printing company whose business strategy involved not going after the big clients.  Rather, they chose to go after all the “leftovers” the big printing companies didn’t want to deal with (not enough profit, difficult customer, etc.).  They are a perfectly successful and thriving business yet started as a franchise that grew too big to constrained by the franchisor rules.  They rebranded, relaunched and today do very well.

There’s much talk in HSP circles about “finding your bliss,” “working from the heart,” or other feel-good catchphrases but I’d like to throw cold water on most of that by informing you that business is tough and few people care that you love what you’re doing.  Your potential customers come to you because you can fill their need (or at least they perceive that you can).  If you also like/love what you happen to be doing for a business that’s a bonus.  Life doesn’t have to be perfect and you shouldn’t expect that being in business will be easy or necessarily pleasant all of the time.  It shouldn’t be defeating otherwise why not just work for someone else and forget the hassle?  Be realistic about self-employment and don’t let your intuition take you from A-Z without understanding there’s a whole world of complexity from B-Y.

What makes a sound business idea?   A sound idea is one you can quantify as holding potential.  That means you have data showing there are potential customers or you have experience working with these potential customers in a previous capacity.  Some ideas are time-tested and will always hold good potential, ie., the trades (car mechanic, HVAC repair, construction remodeling, cleaning, etc.), healthcare-related concepts (because people will always be sick at some point, perhaps you can prevent this in your idea), or require a service you can provide (notary public, pest control, home inspector, or home organizer).  The point here is you do not need a million-dollar idea because you don’t need to make a million dollars.  You just need to make enough for yourself and your family.  Perfectly viable ideas exist that you can build up into very good businesses that will allow you to escape from wage slavery, no control over your waking hours, and the madness that can be the modern workplace.

Your business idea should:

• Be doable given your financial means. Ideally you will start a business with no money borrowed from any source.  If that isn’t feasible you will have done your homework and have taken a well-calculated risk on your ability to pay back your loans.
• Be realistic given your skills, experience, and geographic area. You may have always been told that you can “do anything you want if you just try.”  I’m here to tell you that you won’t be becoming a lawyer without years and years of education and training beyond school.  If your dream doesn’t fit your skills, experience, and capabilities you don’t have a good idea.  Within that reality we must be realistic and admit that growth is an inevitable part of starting a business.  You may not know everything at this moment (even in the first few years) but you will learn.  You will make mistakes but you will learn and, in time, you will be a seasoned businessperson who has hopefully taken on a challenging idea (but not completely out of your realm of possibility).  The best business idea is one that works for you given your unique characteristics as a person.

Where you live may also play a crucial role in choosing a business idea.  Will your business cater to local people, will it be internet-based, or otherwise not bound by your location?  If it is a local business you will need to know your market, where the gaps are, and how you will fill them.  If your business is non-local you still have to know your potential customers because your marketing efforts will have to key into their needs and convince them that your business is worth a try.  Internet-based businesses suffer from many issues but one of the chief issues is the fierce amount of competition.  Think you have a great idea?  Check the internet and make sure there aren’t already a million others doing it better.

• Be something you do not absolutely hate. You may not love but if it works well enough you’ll find ways to either improve on it or find fulfillment outside of work.  No one ever said work is the end-all and be-all of life.  If it comes down to working in your own business as a way of not having to work somewhere else you find more unpleasant you have a winning situation.  Be realistic though, you do not need to love what you do.  It helps if you like it but love is optional and perhaps unrealistic in many areas of the world.  Acknowledging that this blog is read by HSPs all over the world I am sure many are shaking their heads in agreement.  Loving what you do is a luxury of countries with high qualities of life where people do not necessarily live hand to mouth.

Lastly, a good business idea is one with potential for growth.  Few things will end your business over time like stagnation.  If you’re cutting edge today you will not be in five years.  Entrepreneurs know that business concepts are constantly evolving to keep up with customer needs.  To do that you need to be in it for the long-term.

Long-Term Commitment

Depending on your age when you enter your new small business you may not think about the long-term but realistically business changes, customers go elsewhere, and you bore of treading the same pathway every day.  People quit businesses out of boredom and as much as desire to do something different as any other reason.  Some people will undoubtedly find being in business will alleviate many of the problems that brought them to entrepreneurship and be very grateful for what they have been able to achieve while others will need to move on to other things.  Regardless, once you have one business going it is relatively simple to set up another business and over time juggle several at once.  I am doing this very thing right now managing drtracycooper.com (a career consulting business for HSPs), a “real” job as a Program Chair for a Master of Liberal Arts degree at Baker University, and my newest venture ProHealth Advocates, llc which is a patient advocacy consulting business I will run the business side of but not otherwise work in.  I do expect to have to devote varying levels of time, effort, and energy to all three, plus continue to push for new angles and possibilities.  It’s likely I’ll start other businesses as well.  You should too.

You might think “this all sounds kind of rough and tumble for an HSP!”  Not at all, you have it wrong!  Highly sensitive people are emotional powerhouses who may use their emotional energy in creative ways to do whatever they like.  As an HSP you certainly have the qualities that would make a decent entrepreneur: more elaborate processing of stimulation in the brain, sensitivity to subtle cues, high empathy (possibly compassion too), high creativity (not just the art kind), and a keen sense of curiosity.  Put those to work for yourself and you can do quite well no matter where you are or what your situation.  You are an innovator, so go innovate!  Even if you don’t feel like you have a grasp on the above qualities you are likely deeply conscientious which can still take you far in many circles.  However, you choose to look at Sensory Processing Sensitivity what you really have is a marginally rare personality trait shared by over one billion people.  Don’t get too stuck on it and don’t let it define your life.

Long-term commitment to your new business/s means you are willing to:

• Face failure when it happens, laugh in its face and try again.
• Invest your life energies into something that matters to you and not be an observer.
• Work to overcome your fears and anxieties while also working to embrace your creative nature. Business is scary but so is wasting your life in a job you hate.  You only live once and for a finite amount of time; make the most of it.
• Tolerate some ambiguity to allow for a space in which your business can grow. As a creative person, you know ambiguity is necessary to facilitate room to grow.  Linear thinking will only take you to C from A and B.
• Develop friendships with other entrepreneurs HSP or otherwise. Nothing will sustain you more than knowing you’re not alone.

Beginnings

Starting a new business requires that we know ourselves, that we are not needlessly hauling harmful emotional baggage behind us, and that we develop sound business concepts that we can commit to for the long-term.  As creative, sensitive individuals HSPs and HSS/HSPs may be in a unique position to innovate, create, and occupy a position in the world that is unique to us.  Though your business need not be the next great idea it may be one in which you can thrive in the fullest possible sense of the word.  To thrive means you have found a balance and work hard to maintain it in all facets of your life.  Thriving implies engagement with challenging tasks and, as such, means you take on risk.  Minimizing that risk through careful research and planning coupled with a flexible, creative approach to concept evolution will keep you in balance no matter what happens in the world.

If you are astute and refuse to allow yourself to be defined by a label you will transcend yourself and become a new possible self; one that may potentially exceed your dreams.  Starting a business is a complex task, or series of tasks, but HSPs are used to complexity.  We live and breathe complexity in our daily lives as we process the whirlwind of stimulation that modern life surrounds us with.  It is through a desire to engage meaningfully with our capacities in a calm, rational way that we may find entrepreneurship offers us the greatest opportunities for growth and development.  To be an entrepreneur means we assume all the risks but we also enjoy all the rewards and if life has led you to self-employment you should endeavor to do it with all the creativity, energy, and enthusiasm you can muster.  You may just find that you’ve found your best path in life.

Tracy Cooper, PhD is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, and Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.  Dr. Cooper also offers consulting to HSPs and HSS/HSPs on career transition and many other issues.  His website is drtracycooper.com

What you know about high sensation seeking highly sensitive people is probably wrong.  Have you read that highly sensitive people are crybabies?  That we are closet introverts preferring to spend our time hidden away?  Do you think highly sensitive people are weak, fragile, or unpredictably emotional?  Moreover, do you think that high sensation seeking highly sensitive people are just about skydiving, bungee-jumping, and insane, extreme thrills?  Boy, do you have it wrong!

There may be a germ of truth in all of the above statements but there is much more to the traits known as Sensation Seeking and Sensory Processing Sensitivity.  There seems to be a very conscious effort on the part of many people to narrow our ability to branch out and challenge ourselves in the workplace.  How do they do this?  By misunderstanding (or not understanding as the case may be) the well-researched, peer-reviewed scientific information, well-researched books, and other materials that may inhabit the market at any given time.  Worse, some people then choose to pick a kernel of truth and latch onto it while extending it to incredible levels in their search for an identity that makes them feel special or unique.  It’s not enough to embody a marginally rare personality trait that is quite beautiful in its own way (Sensory Processing Sensitivity) we instead feel the need to tack on half a dozen other pseudo-traits or blow them out of proportion often moving beyond the realm of scientific knowledge into New Age platitudes (empaths, Indigo children, etc).

What does it matter that we stick to scientific accuracy regarding personality traits?  Because the really good information has been well-researched utilizing strict protocols where data are collected, analyzed, and interpreted according to a systematic method minimizing personal bias.  This method is further enhanced by the peer-review process which serves to weed out inaccurate information and ensure the work meets rigorous standards for accuracy and completeness.  When we stick to the actual constructs of Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Sensation Seeking we see that these individuals may possess an extraordinary propensity for one of the most empowering endeavors available to us in the modern age: entrepreneurship.

It has been suggested many times that working for ourselves may be the best compromise that allows us to create our own working conditions, choose who we deal with (customers or clients), and self-create the types of meaningful lives we seem to require.  In my book, Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career I covered a broad range of possible vocations and careers, even covering what is now becoming a hot topic: the trades.  I minimized any emphasis on entrepreneurship for a very specific reason: I did not want to make working for ourselves a panacea to our workplace woes that may entail more risk and anxiety than many people are prepared to face or endure.  There is no doubt, entrepreneurship is hard!  Don’t like having too much to do at work?  Try entrepreneurship where everything is your responsibility, where failure will be all on you to interpret, and where uncertainty is a fact of life.  That being said, entrepreneurship may be one of the most interesting, most meaningful tracks a high sensation seeking highly sensitive person may hop on to.  Why is this so?  Because entrepreneurship offers us the opportunity to engage three main capacities: creativity, personal control, and resilience.

Creativity

Creativity has been done to death!  There are scores of articles, books, and websites purporting to teach us to how to become more creative, unleash our creativity, or otherwise unlock a “secret” capacity all humans innately possess.  Creativity is nothing more than looking at a problem in a new way and findings ways to solve that problem.  You are as creative as the next person; you just don’t know it or have had it squashed by your culture so you don’t think you are creative.  In a former life as a fine artist, I used to hear non-art people say quite often, “I can’t even draw a stick figure!”  I always replied, “Well, how could you be expected to draw anything if you have not practiced?”  Drawing, painting, wheel-throwing pots on a wheel are all skills that can be learned through instruction and plenty of practice.  Once you understand this, creativity becomes an open resource you can cultivate within yourself in service to your needs at any given time.

Creativity is also much more than the fine or performing arts.  Creativity is a way of being that is exemplified by an openness of mind, a sense of curiosity (what if I did this?), and a willingness to enter the ambiguity of seriously addressing a problem.  All humans are creative but many are not able or willing to be open-minded, are far too busy (or tired) to be curious, and hate ambiguity (uncertainty of outcomes).  This leaves those people who are able to cultivate a rich, inner life where openness, curiosity, and ambiguity may find a working space (our inner studios).  Who are these people and how does this apply to entrepreneurship?  As I stated, all humans are creative (capable of looking at and solving problems in new ways, in fact, we are very good at that as a species) but many have been conditioned to not be creative in service to efficiency, productivity, and the profit motive.  Those three items may be fine in and of themselves but too much focus on them and we get narrow-mindedness, tunnel vision, and groupthink where nothing that is original or interesting can happen.  I argue that many highly sensitive people and high sensation seeking highly sensitive people are innately creative to a degree those without the traits are not.  I say this not to be elitist but to emphasize the potential gifts we may offer to ourselves and to the world.  High sensation seeking highly sensitive people are unique individuals in that we must stay ahead of boredom, have a deep need for the new and novel experience, may be more willing to throw caution to the wind and do something outside the norm, and, yet, are served by the pause to think instinct that so exemplifies Sensory Processing Sensitivity, have rich, deep, inner lives, may be deeply empathic, and may be more comfortable working on our own stuff, our way.

Highly sensitive people, by contrast, may be somewhat less interested in throwing caution to the wind.  They may be as excited by the new and novel and may feel a need to keep ahead of boredom but may prefer an environment that exactly meets their needs for stimulation (which can vary a great deal at any given time from person to person).  These descriptions being rooted in the research literature there is also an underlying need inherent within these two traits: a need for personal control over our environments (interpersonal and physical).

Personal Control

There are some situations that are hard to bear for creative people; the worst being a repetitive, mundane environment that lacks adequate stimulation to engage our often significant capacities to create and develop.  As much as creativity is directed at the external world of things it is also an internal world that may be best managed when we are able to exercise a good degree of personal autonomy.  By autonomy I mean self-choice of activities we engage in.  For the high sensation seeking highly sensitive person having a sense of personal control over one’s life (or autonomy) may be key to well-functioning.  Entrepreneurship may allow us to exercise the level of autonomy we may need in our lives to manage our sensitivities while simultaneously allowing us to ensure we receive the level of stimulation that is most appropriate for us.  Cultivating a sense of personal control may be quite essential for many of us who have tried to fit ourselves into the working world and found it lacking on many levels.  Dissonance may lead us to consider self-employment, especially considering that we may gain the ultimate sense of personal control over our lives we wish we had (and that may be an absolute requirement for highly sensitive people and high sensation seeking highly sensitive people).

As with any new endeavor we must be ready for failure and the many personal slings and arrows we will inevitably torture ourselves with.  Beating ourselves up over a business failure may be all too tempting as we replay what we should have done in our minds but the opportunity that lies in defeat is to learn from it how to create and run our next business.  That’s right, you will probably not do so well at your first business: be prepared for it, do your best to make it work, and, most of all, do not put all of your eggs in one basket.  If you’re going to be an entrepreneur you will face failure, you will face negative results, and you will endure the marathon that is running a small business.  The upside is you will have ultimate personal control over every business decision you need to make and you will be able to build a business that has meaning to you.  To prepare for this, we need to discuss resilience.

Resilience

You may think of resilience as that old notion of “bouncing back” from adversity.  Kind of like a rubber band hurling you at a wall again and again but the real benefit of resilience is our ability to grow and learn from the experience.  After all, we do not wish to repeat a painful experience.  Resilience, then in the context of starting and operating a business means we have to be prepared for the “hell or high waters” that may come our way and, rest assured, running a business will, at some point, entail both scenarios.  Being resilient means we learn from difficult experiences, adapt our methods, and grow as a result.  Resilience for the entrepreneur is essential and cultivating resilience means we must be willing to ‘hit the wall” more than once.  Luckily, and the reason I am now stating boldly that high sensation seeking highly sensitive people may do very well as entrepreneurs, is we have the unique combination of daring-do combined with reflective thought that allows us to effectively learn from mistakes, grow from the experience, and become resilient in our small businesses.  How so you might ask?  Won’t the sensitive side of us crumble to pieces at the first whiff of failure?  Aren’t we too fragile to take a risk?  Again, many people have it mostly wrong!  Here’s why: high sensation seeking highly sensitive people spend their lives bouncing back from adversity and learning from experience as a matter of being alive!  We may be some of the most resilient people alive.  Certainly, a business failure or challenge may frustrate us but we’ve seen it all before and probably far worse at the broad range of employers we’ve worked for.

Resilience for many of us who are high sensation seeking highly sensitive people is built into us, it’s a capability we have cultivated and, many times, perfected long ago as we weathered the storms of personal doubt, career difficulties, and the sideways looks from those who are unable to see the world and its many possibilities through other than a societal lens.  It is probably not a stretch, given the data I have gathered through the past few years of interactions with high sensation seeking highly sensitive people, to say that many of us never fit the box that culture had prepared for us.  We never were interested in their game but may have felt compelled to play it out of duty, responsibility, or simply not being ready to jump out on our own.  Now, as entrepreneurs, we have a unique opportunity that many of us should take a serious look at because it offers us the chance to live the kind of lives we know will work for us.  We may have done quite well in the workplace even but ultimately felt a deep, soul-based need to move beyond a predictable path to something auto-poetic and meaningful.

We’ve been quite broad to this point with painting a wide swath of territory from establishing how high sensation seeking highly sensitive people may be well-suited to entrepreneurship; how creativity may be reVisioned to become something we may all develop within ourselves; how working for ourselves may finally give us the autonomy we so desire to finally discussing the tough, gritty reality of failure and the absolute need for resilience in the face of the many challenges that will undoubtedly come our way as people striking out on our own into often unknown and unpredictable waters.  Now, let’s be more specific:

• Do your research for any new business idea. This means you will probably not jump right into something immediately.  Rather, you will engage your ample capacities to learn everything there is to know about your proposed business field, especially noting where the gaps exist (these become your opportunities to provide a new service or product).
• Trust your intuition but not too much. Gut instincts may tell you something seems like a good idea but bear in mind if the facts don’t support it you are ignoring reality.  Intuition may be especially strong in those with Sensory Processing Sensitivity.  Thus, understanding and being aware that we are given to leaping over everything between A-Z (the starting and ending points we intuitively feel) may help ground us in the necessary details (curse those details!).
• Talk to other people about your proposed idea and be willing to hear a hard truth. Your friend who is very knowledgeable may be saving you from a business failure and potentially years of hard work.  In these instances, put your ego aside and go back to step one with researching your idea.  Adapt, modify, and change as needed: repeat.  This is where creativity comes in as you engage that capacity!
• Form an advisory committee of trusted people who are knowledgeable, trustworthy (in a personal sense to supply you unbiased opinions), and who are interested in actually helping you. Avoid yes-men/women.  Aim for three advisory members, no more than four.  Select members based on complementary expertise.
• Don’t rush into it! Minimize your risks, know what you don’t know, and be prepared for the long haul.  Remember resilience?  It’s not for the faint of heart.  Build your core business before you do anything else.  Without that core stream of income there is no expansion or growth.  That being said, be open to the clues that come your way regarding new opportunities and let those simmer on a side burner.  They will likely come in handy at the right time.
• Don’t put all of your eggs in to one basket! If possible, build the business on the side and retain your job until your business is viable.  If you are producing or selling a product this is especially true.  A service business will require much less of you in terms of overhead (use a home office).
• Don’t suffer alone. Talk to other business people.  Join the local chamber of commerce or other business organizations to build out your network and enjoy social support.  Your just highly sensitive, not a hermit.  You’re also likely a very good performer when you need to be, so do it!  In time, you will become more at ease in your social interactions in this new capacity as a business owner.  Networking will be a continual effort.
• Don’t let fear paralyze you. Anxiety is a natural state designed to alert us to the need to reconsider but when uncontrolled represents a limiting force.  Be willing to break through your own walls of fear.
• Similarly, don’t let analysis paralysis stymy your new business idea. Yes, you have a deep, reflective capacity but know when to make a choice and swallow that fear.  Entrepreneurship is definitely challenging but also rewarding in ways traditional employment can never be.  Minimize your risks but do take them.  No one gets out of life alive; all we have to lose is a bit of time attempting to do something we may be incredibly happy doing.  Is that worth the risk?

On a personal level starting a business can be hard on a family as structured routines may be interrupted and incomes less stable (at least for a while).  Similarly, your social life may take a beating as you devote yourself to building your business.  All that will subside in time and you will likely either find more time or adjust to a new reality.

Is there one type of business that high sensation seeking highly sensitive people would be best suited to?  No, that would be as endlessly variable as grains of sand because people differ so much in their interests and inclinations not to mention geographic area which may determine how viable a business idea is.  As mentioned at the beginning of this post we should refrain from pigeon-holing HSPs and HSS/HSPs as “most suited” to one career or another.  We are in all careers including self-employment but seem to statistically favor the helping professions.  The helping professions is quite a broad category including healthcare, education, and advising fields but creative and high-tech fields are high on the list as well.  Rather than attempting to fit yourself to what you think might be best for an HSP focus on crafting something that is workable for YOU!  Your business does not have to be the most meaningful activity in your life but it does need to be profitable, viable, and sustainable.

Some very good businesses can be created doing very simple things.  Today, I just observed an Amish man walking around our neighborhood offering his services to clean mildew and mold off of siding on houses.  I said right then, “Now there is an entrepreneur!”  That man has found a need (many houses with an obvious mildew issue) and had endeavored to fill the need.  Plus, he is willing to do the work necessary to make it a viable business.  You could very simply look at needs in your community and find a way to fill them.  Your business may not be glamorous but it may be profitable and free you from the sort of soul-sucking wage slavery and predatory corporate culture too common today.

As a high sensation seeking highly sensitive person, I know you.  You get bored easily and need to keep moving.  You are creative and like to think about things very deeply.  You are an odd mix of wanting to push forward with a “great” idea but simultaneously holding back to think it over.  You have a dash of devil-may-care about you and will do something out of character at times, just for the sake of doing it.  You are also an odd duck who needs to do things your own way in your own time, yet you may thrive on having a deadline or structure to force you to focus.  You have a tremendous ability to study “fascinations” until you are a virtual expert, then you move on to the next thing.  Your base of knowledge is deep and broad and it is likely you would make a great conversation partner if only people weren’t so irritating.  You LOVE the idea of having your own business, making your own choices, and taking calculated risks (you get a little tingle with some risk).  You also are excited by new situations and new people, yet you are drained energetically after a while and need to regroup in quiet.  You would make a fantastic creative partner in a business, yet you are quirky and possibly eccentric.  Working with you is to never quite know which person we are going to encounter: the quiet, studious hard worker or the impetuous one who wants to do something new and interesting like invent a new business model or toy with new ideas as if they were big puzzle pieces to be moved around and considered at length.

You, my friend, are a creator and you should be creating and thinking and pushing yourself to do and become more.  You will never be happy with 9-5 but you will with 11-2, 6-10, and 12-3 as you stay up at those late hours unable to sleep because you are a night owl.  You, fellow high sensation seeking highly sensitive person, are an interesting and unique individual and this world needs people like you to build the businesses of today and tomorrow, to bring new and innovative concepts to market, and chart the way forward for a humanity that lacks your vision and compassion.  Let’s get to it…

Over the next few weeks, I will be guiding you through some of the pitfalls of entrepreneurship always brutally honest because I want you to succeed.

Tracy Cooper, Ph.D. is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career and Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.  Dr. Cooper provides consulting services to high sensation seeking highly sensitive people at his website drtracycooper.com.  Additionally, he appeared in the documentary movie Sensitive-The Untold Journey.