Photo credit: Llanydd Lloyd
Feeling people is SO business-relevant. It comes into play in so many ways: Recruiting and interviewing, partnerships, sales, VC / PE / M&A deals, business meetings, and a myriad of other ways. Plus, in business, 'people mistakes' can be very costly - whether it comes to recruiting an employee who is not a good fit ; or splitting up with a co-founder (to name just those).
I always 'felt' people. Since I was a child, I had a strong feeling whether I could trust a person straight away or if I needed to be cautious. I could also feel how a person actually felt behind his/her social 'mask'. Now, that sense is stronger than ever: I can feel people remotely, and in a very physical way (I will get to that further below).
In my professional life, my people sense helped me tremendously (in the instances where I dared to follow it in action). I have long been credited for connecting easily to anyone (quickly and deeply) and for making relevant connections between people in my network (introducing people to each other). I don't count the number of times people came to me to ask for connections or contact ideas, while they were looking for a job / an employee / a partner / a speaker / an investor / a donor ! A tech colleague once told me I should consider being a headhunter... (Let’s say I have tried enough jobs/functions for now!)
Let me show you the power of 'feeling' people with a couple of concrete cases, using recruitment examples.
First example: During an interview call with a Director, I did not get a good feeling. The hiring process entailed 8 interview rounds, so I went past that feeling - all the more as I would not report directly to him (he would be the boss of my boss). Plus, he was based across the pond, thousands of miles away from me. My direct manager would be someone that I had a good feeling about. And so that time, my brain got the last word. I got the job offer, said 'yes', and enthusiastically started working at that company. Yet in my first month (surprise surprise!) my direct manager announced that her request for internal transfer had been approved by the company - and she moved abroad a few weeks later. That was definitely not part of my plan (my little brain had not anticipated it...). Since the recruitment of her successor took many months, I ended up reporting directly to my N+2. It did not go very well, to say the least. I ended up having to raise a grievance against him for sex discrimination and harassment (it is the only complaint I ever made in my career). Talk about a feeling !
Conversely, I got great surprises when I put my people sense to full use. Hence a second example: After I had applied for a job, the founder of that company left a message on my answering machine to invite me for a first interview. The audio record was a couple of minutes only. Just by listening to the voice of the founder, I knew it was a person I could trust and someone I would be glad to work with. The job interviews were very pleasant (totally exceeding my expectations) and I loved the team. I started working with that company. The team turned out to be intellectually bright, trustworthy and respectful, full of humour, and - above all - so human. I had felt it strongly, without even meeting or seeing them - A voice message was enough for me to 'feel' them!
I have countless examples of feeling people in my professional life (not to mention the personal sphere). I chose recruitment examples because those have significant consequences on both organizations and individuals, and interviewing is something we all experienced. But in fact, feeling people matters everywhere and anytime we interact with someone. Feeling people matters even in what can seem trivial: Think for instance about daily interactions with co-workers.
Have you ever felt when someone is down behind his/her social mask (an apparent smile or joyful facade)? That person's feeling could be due to so many reasons (personal or professional). It is so common for a person not to disclose what upsets him/her when in the office. Feeling the distress of someone else behind appearances can be the opportunity, for instance, to ask a question (giving the opportunity to the person to share his/her feelings) or simply for the 'feeling person' to be extra-gentle with the person that is apparently unwell.
Feeling people is a great asset as long as it is not overwhelming.
A few years ago (end of 2018), I started feeling people in a much more potent way. As I previously wrote, until 2017, I used to be cut from my body (‘dissociated’). And so, hyper-feeling others on top of my own body (since end of 2018) was quite a steep learning curve!
In truth, when I started hyper-feeling people, it got more downsides than upsides. It was unmanageable (sometimes violent) and I did not know what to do with it. I could not stand being in groups of people (and I was living in downtown London). It was a problem for me to go out of my apartment. Worse, I even got hyper-sensitive to the energy of people that were close to me (whether those relatives were there in person or even in touch at a distance!). Needless to say it became difficult socially. In that period, I even lost a close friend who did not understand that my need to pause our interactions had nothing to do with her (our chats were daily until then). It all had to do with me (I was unable to not hyper-feel at the time). I couldn't handle feeling both my own pains and the various physical and psychological pains of my relatives. I did not know how to protect myself then and needed much time alone (For the social butterfly I was, this was quite a change!). Of course, hyper-feeling people also has bright and useful sides - and I will get to this further below.
Let me first tell you how I understood I was hyper-feeling people. In November 2018, one of my aunts disappeared (She was suffering from a degenerative disease similar to Alzheimer). One of my cousins sent a group email to the whole family sharing a picture of his mother, for us to share on social media. As I opened the attachment with the intent of posting it on Facebook, I looked at the picture and felt my feet freezing, in a furtive manner. Thankfully, my aunt was found the following day. I learnt she had spent a few nights outside before being rescued and sent to the hospital. Since it was November (no one wants to sleep under the stars in France at November temperatures) she was suffering from hypothermia...
In 2019, I got a whole range of examples of feeling ailments of people I knew - from a sore throat (which I felt on and off - I was not sick myself) when a close one had a throat infection, to a temporary feeling of being overwhelmed (corresponding to what a close one felt as she was dangerously close to burn out). I felt like an antenna for all kinds of pains. And acting like a magnet for all sorts of wounds and diseases is not exactly what I call a source of peace!
In the instance of my lost aunt, hyper-feeling got triggered by watching the picture. Yet later I got this kind of hyper-feeling episodes with people I was not in touch but simply connected to - i.e. close socially speaking. It just ‘occurred’ to me (and I can guarantee I was not asking for it!). It posed a problem, because sometimes it was not clear to me whose pain or discomfort I was feeling! I just knew it did not ‘belong’ to me, because it was coming and going. Nothing in what I was experiencing in such cases was persistent. Funnily, I sometimes ended up investigating who among my relatives was experiencing this or that (I will let you imagine the reactions of people in my close circle when I asked questions such as “Don’t you have lower back pain?”)...
Gradually, I learnt how to better handle my 'hyper-feeling' antenna, in order to not feel anything from anyone at anytime, and to better identify the source of my perceptions (whom I am hyper-feeling).
Hyper-feeling is a superpower once you know how to handle it and not be a passive victim of it. Today I am able to see the gift (hyper-) feeling people is, to trust it, and to put it to good use. I not only leverage this sense in my personal life, but also use it professionally.
Obviously, I can be much more in tune with my clients thanks to this (hyper-) feeling sense. Plus, I can help executives sense better the strengths (or weaknesses), truthfulness, intentions, and emotions of people around them. And in my executive trainings, (hyper-) feeling is a great resource - especially to help leaders recognise and trust their intuition, and develop their own capacity to 'feel people'. Thanks to my strong 'people feeling' gifts, I can help my clients get to a point where they fully own their 'people intuition', are at peace with it, and use it to their advantage both at home and at work. It makes their relationships (and their lives!) much smoother and easier.
Not everyone hyper-feels others (although I believe we all have this capability), but feeling people is quite commonplace. Do you recall experiencing 'feeling' someone ? Did you trust this feeling then? Where did it lead you?
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PS: The relevance of intuition goes beyond people / relationships and applies more broadly to the professional sphere. Find more in "Let your intuition guide you on your career path".
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