It’s ironic that I’m posting a podcast on personal branding just a few days before the biggest commercial extravaganza of the year, the Super Bowl. Most people think the elements they see in commercials represent the product’s brand: its logo, colors, tagline and music are all tangible ways the brand is expressed. But what’s at the heart of the brand is none of those things; it’s really about the feelings that are aroused through the combination of those elements. This is valuable information for the introvert who wants to discover his or her personal brand, as Peg Marckworth shares with us in this podcast interview.

It’s interesting that as I was editing this podcast interview about collaboration, a fabulous New York Times piece by Susan Cain ran about the Rise of the New Groupthink. In her NYT piece, Susan expresses concern about the push in corporate environments to have open work spaces and a team-centric approach to innovation. She makes the point that solitude often sparks creativity, and groupthink trends don’t provide much space for solitude.

Today’s conversation serves as another perspective, this time looking through the lens of entrepreneurship. Rather than being forced into groupthink situations, introvert entrepreneurs often experience the opposite challenge of isolation, or of too much time alone. The middle ground between working in solitude and working in “all teams, all the time,” is strategic collaboration. My podcast guests, Monique MacKinnon and Patricia Weber, are examples of successful and strategic collaboration in action.

There’s a marvelous quote by Martha Graham, simple in its truth. She says, “The body never lies.” Over the years, I’ve noticed that one of the ways my introversion shows itself most strongly is that I live in my head. That means that I can sometimes ignore what my body is telling me, which can lead to all sorts of trouble. The trouble is usually around my energy management – or lack thereof. Introverts are especially aware of their energy, since it’s a valuable currency that’s frequently expended in the normal business of living in a highly social world.

This podcast interview with Kathryn Hunter of The Social Caterpillar focuses on how we can increase our energy awareness and listen to our body’s truth more closely.

For this first podcast of the new year, I’m going to share with you an interview I did back in the fall of 2011 but saved for now because the timing works so well. Maybe you’re among the millions of people who use the new year as a catalyst to make some sort of resolution about their physical health.
Physical activity is key to our overall health, and my guest today takes that truth even further by sharing with us the mental game that contributes to our health, for better or for worse. He calls it “the athlete within,” and it’s not just about being able to run around the track and not collapse when you’re done… it’s about taking care of yourself, body, mind and spirit, so that you can have energy for all of things that you want to accomplish.

Recently I was reading about the origin of fairy tales and various children’s stories. I happened upon the story behind The Princess and the Pea, and it fit perfectly into today’s podcast. In this day and age, being sensitive is sometimes regarded as being weak, or emotional, or thin skinned. You hear some people say, “Stop being so sensitive!” as if it were a disgrace to not only have feelings, but to show them.

This was not the case with the Princess and the Pea. On the contrary, sensitivity was a signal that a person was of royal blood. Think about that! It was desirable, and a mark of nobility, to be sensitive.

There are those among us – especially among us introverts – for whom emotions, feelings, sensations and the environment play a profound role in how we relate to the world. We are the HSPs, or Highly Sensitive Persons.

This interview with Ane Axford, CEO and founder of sensitive + thriving, Inc., is not only interesting, but life changing … at least it was for me. Ane and I explore what it means to be an HSP, and specifically, an introverted HSP.