Day 0: What does it mean to be “sensitive”?
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with being a “sensitive” guy.
In my work — sales and marketing — you’re often told to develop a “thick skin.” When you’re pounding the pavement every day asking for the sale, you need to build a tough exterior so as not to be worn down by the inevitable deluge of rejections. So I learned to associate “sensitive” with “bad” and “unhelpful.”
And yet as a marketer I’ve also been told sensitivity is essential.
In addition to having a thick skin, they say to be a good marketer you need empathy — an awareness and attunement to how your customer is feeling, to their needs and desires, to their hopes and dreams. You must be sensitive to how they’re reacting to you. You cannot simply memorize your pitch and charge ahead without listening. You must pay careful attention to how you’re received, or else your prospect will quickly put up resistance and even stop listening.
So which is it? Sensitivity or having a thick skin? Is one more important than the other? Can we have both? How?
In dating and relationships we’re also given mixed messages.
According to some, men are supposed to be “alpha.” We must know what we want and go after it unrelentingly and without apology. We must stand unfazed in the face of everything that comes our way. To be derailed by our circumstances is to be “beta” and weak. We must not show — we must not even feel — our emotions.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror many times and practicing my “Clint Eastwood” face. Jaw set. Brows furrowed. Eyes squinted. Cool and collected. Not happy or sad. Just unceasingly “tough.”
But we’re also told — by the women in our lives, usually — that we need to open up. “What are you feeling?” they’ll ask.
“Feeling?” we answer. “I don’t know. Fine, I guess.”
And isn’t that enough? What the hell are feelings anyway?
But for that we’re told we’re being closed off and guarded. That we never let anyone in. That we’re shutting everyone out. And as a result, people drift away. Or we never really connect in the first place.
Here, as in marketing, which is it? Are we to be alpha and stoic? Or sensitive, with our heart on our sleeve? Again, can we have both? How?
I’ve been thinking about these questions a lot over the past couple years. Because I think it is more in my “nature” (whatever that means) to be sensitive. And after spending my early twenties trying really hard to be someone else, I’ve been wondering like hell how I can be more myself.
As much as I wanted to be, I am not a “tough guy.”
As much as I’ve tried to be otherwise, I am emotional and empathetic.
And as much as I tried to run from it, I am, at bottom, sensitive.
I’ve decided it’s finally time to stop beating myself up about it, and find out what that actually means.
Tomorrow I’m beginning a 21-day writing challenge. Every weekday for the next four weeks I’m going to be exploring what it means to be “sensitive” and how it can help us lead richer, more fulfilling lives.
Man or woman, every person is a mix of yin and yang, light and dark, hard and soft, strong and weak. Unfortunately I think there’s a lot of pressure for guys to shun their softer, more sensitive, more emotional sides. And I believe it does a lot of harm, by keeping us ashamed of being our whole selves.
Hopefully over these next few days we can discover that sensitivity is a source — maybe even THE source — of our strength, and not just something we must learn to live with.