Management & Leadership
![Andre Sólo - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00HG8PL8U.jpg)
![Jenn Granneman - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B071NT3JTN.jpg)
Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World
"This important book reframes the way we think about sensitivity-our own or someone else's-and shines a light on the great power in being highly attuned to the world."-Susan Cain, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and Quiet
A paradigm-shifting look at a long-undervalued yet hugely beneficial personality trait, from the creators of the world's largest community for highly sensitive people
"Don't be so sensitive!"
Everyone has a sensitive side, but nearly 1 in 3 people have the genes to be more sensitive than others-both physically and emotionally. These are the people who pause before speaking and think before acting; they tune into subtle details and make connections that others miss. They tend to be intelligent, big-hearted, and wonderfully creative; they are wired to go deep, yet society tells them to hide the very sensitivity that makes them this way. These are the world's "highly sensitive people," and Sensitive is the book that champions them.
By the creators of the world's largest community for sensitive people, Sensitive teaches us how to unlock the potential in this undervalued strength and leverage it across the most important areas of our lives: in friendships and relationships, the workplace, leadership, and parenting. Through fascinating research and expert storytelling, Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo show readers that the way to thrive as a sensitive person is not to hide their sensitivity, but to embrace it-and they demonstrate how to do that in each area of life. Weaving together actionable advice, relatable anecdotes, and the latest scientific research, Sensitive shows readers how leaning in to their sensitivity unlocks a powerful "boost effect" to launch them ahead in life. It hands them the tools and insights they need to thrive as a sensitive person in a loud, fast, too-much world.
A powerfully validating, destigmatizing, and practical book, Sensitive plants a gently fluttering flag in the ground for sensitive people everywhere. This inspiring book has the power to change-once and for all-how we see sensitive people, and how they see themselves.
A paradigm-shifting look at a long-undervalued yet hugely beneficial personality trait, from the creators of the world's largest community for highly sensitive people
"Don't be so sensitive!"
Everyone has a sensitive side, but nearly 1 in 3 people have the genes to be more sensitive than others-both physically and emotionally. These are the people who pause before speaking and think before acting; they tune into subtle details and make connections that others miss. They tend to be intelligent, big-hearted, and wonderfully creative; they are wired to go deep, yet society tells them to hide the very sensitivity that makes them this way. These are the world's "highly sensitive people," and Sensitive is the book that champions them.
By the creators of the world's largest community for sensitive people, Sensitive teaches us how to unlock the potential in this undervalued strength and leverage it across the most important areas of our lives: in friendships and relationships, the workplace, leadership, and parenting. Through fascinating research and expert storytelling, Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo show readers that the way to thrive as a sensitive person is not to hide their sensitivity, but to embrace it-and they demonstrate how to do that in each area of life. Weaving together actionable advice, relatable anecdotes, and the latest scientific research, Sensitive shows readers how leaning in to their sensitivity unlocks a powerful "boost effect" to launch them ahead in life. It hands them the tools and insights they need to thrive as a sensitive person in a loud, fast, too-much world.
A powerfully validating, destigmatizing, and practical book, Sensitive plants a gently fluttering flag in the ground for sensitive people everywhere. This inspiring book has the power to change-once and for all-how we see sensitive people, and how they see themselves.
Editorial Reviews
"Offering a deft mixture of science reporting, manifesto, and advice, Granneman and Solo make an urgent case for harnessing the power of the sensitive individual in an increasingly noisy world."-Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work
"Granneman and Solo's engaging and science-backed gem of a book is equal parts revelation, validation, and celebration. An absolute must-read for everyone who experiences this world with wholehearted deep feeling, conscience, and empathy."-Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, author of How to Be Yourself
"A well-organized, thoughtful look at sensitivity by the devoted creators of a popular, information-rich online community for sensitive people."-Judith Orloff, author of The Empath's Survival Guide
"Who wins human flourishing wins the future. In gardens of the overlooked and underrated, smart leaders will discover amazing talents: introverts, late bloomers, and now the highly sensitive. Granneman and Solo's book expands our horizons. It is a victory for humanity."-Rich Karlgaard, author of Late Bloomers
"Granneman and Sólo, creators of Highly Sensitive Refuge online community for sensitive people, skillfully explore the misunderstood trait. The authors' argument is cogent and accessible, and they make clear ways readers can harness the trait without ignoring its challenges. This will empower readers to reframe their sensitivity as a strength."-Publishers Weekly
"Granneman and Solo's engaging and science-backed gem of a book is equal parts revelation, validation, and celebration. An absolute must-read for everyone who experiences this world with wholehearted deep feeling, conscience, and empathy."-Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, author of How to Be Yourself
"A well-organized, thoughtful look at sensitivity by the devoted creators of a popular, information-rich online community for sensitive people."-Judith Orloff, author of The Empath's Survival Guide
"Who wins human flourishing wins the future. In gardens of the overlooked and underrated, smart leaders will discover amazing talents: introverts, late bloomers, and now the highly sensitive. Granneman and Solo's book expands our horizons. It is a victory for humanity."-Rich Karlgaard, author of Late Bloomers
"Granneman and Sólo, creators of Highly Sensitive Refuge online community for sensitive people, skillfully explore the misunderstood trait. The authors' argument is cogent and accessible, and they make clear ways readers can harness the trait without ignoring its challenges. This will empower readers to reframe their sensitivity as a strength."-Publishers Weekly
Readers Top Reviews
Kindle
I remember when National Public Radio used to, or still does I couldn't find it in a cursory search, on a program where a man would speak and I am paraphrasing here " We all thought our fish were lonely, and our bikes didn't like to be out in the rain". That ad always had a lot of resonance with me because that is the way that I always kind of thought. Did my Star Wars characters miss me when I didn't play with them, or those books look don't look happy over there let me put all these books on one shelf. I would let people ramble on about things, feeling bad that they never had anyone to share with, and yet never wanting to share with others. I always assumed I was an introvert, not by choice but by makeup. I would always laugh when I would hear about people wishing others were in touch with their sensitive, because being sensitive enough I knew that they were both lying having no respect for sensitive people. So in many ways Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World by Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo really spoke to me in many ways. The book offers both a look at sensitive people, advice for dealing with an insensitive world, and a look into the lives of sensitive people for those that love them. The book begins with what sounds like two different people, but both have a problem with dealing with the public and what society seems to have wanted. One liked to be left alone, to be able to play by themselves far away from the other kids as being around others was a little too much. The other seemed to bask in attention, taking on so many things to make others happy, and yet always seemed almost overcome by not only the attention but the emotions that came with it. These are our authors, and though they seem different both would be considered Highly Sensitive People. From there the book describes the challenges and there are many, and the strengths, some which don't seem apparant but are there. They look at problems in work, life, learning and love, and tricks and ways to help a sensitive person grow and strive. A very different kind of lifestyle and self-improvement book. Both writers are highly sensitive people who have founded two different websites for both introverts and sensitive people. Their sensitivity present them with a different set of problems, and this is interesting to learn, and to learn how they have dealt with it. There are a lot of personal stories and stories about others, but unlike some books I found the way they deal with live and their issues far more interesting, and informative. The writing is good, the advice is helpful, though sometimes it might seem a little strange. Both authors are very good at communicating what they did wrong, and did right, and want to share the lessons they learned, sometimes painfully. The book is written for both sensitive people, and fo...
SusieKindle
I am already half way through the book and it really speaks to me. It’s a lovelybook that explain in easy to understand terms what it’s like to be a sensitive person.
Mindy CreamerSusi
I have only read the first chapter so far but am really excited to read on! I get so much value from highlysensitiverefuge.com articles! So validating and groundbreaking for those of us who have struggled to understand our gifts!
EMA Mindy Creamer
Excellent book! Includes a great deal of factual, biologically-based research and emotional understanding of sensitive people. Unfortunately, the word 'sensitive' can have a negative connotation of being weak. This book negates this incorrect bias and embraces all the wonderful attributes a sensitive person brings to their family, workplace, society, and so much more. Read it for yourself and buy it for others. The world would be a better place if there were more sensitive people - and others who understood and can appreciate the value sensitive people bring to their lives.
poetsna1poetsna1E
I pre-ordered this book and couldn't wait to receive it! As an HSP I've received so much helpful information from the author's website: Highly Sensitive Refuge that I was looking forward to learning more. I am also the grandmother of a HSP child and the chapter on Raising a Sensitive Generation is one I'm looking forward to exploring. I highly recommend this book to anyone who may sometimes feel that the world can be too loud sometimes.
Short Excerpt Teaser
chapter 1
Sensitivity: Stigma or Superpower?
I can't stand chaos. I hate loud environments. Art makes me cry. No, I'm not crazy; I'm a textbook example of a highly sensitive person. -Anne Marie Crosthwaite
The year was 1903. Picasso danced at the Moulin Rouge, electric lights burned at all-night clubs, and Europe's cities thundered into a new era. Streetcars rushed commuters down buggy-packed streets, telegraphs connected faraway places, and breaking news crossed continents in minutes. Technology charmed its way into people's homes, too, with phonographs squawking out music on demand for parties. The songs may have been a prelude to an evening at the picture house-or they may have covered up the sound of streets being ripped up to install modern sewers. Even the countryside was abuzz, with farmers using mechanized equipment for the first time. Life was changing, and progress, it was believed, was good.
The German city of Dresden wasn't about to be left behind. Its leaders wanted to show off their own steps forward and crib achievements from other cities. Votes were held, committees were formed, and a citywide expo was announced, complete with a series of public lectures. One of the speakers was the early sociologist Georg Simmel. Although little known today, Simmel was influential in his time. He was one of the first people to apply a scientific approach to human interaction, and his work tackled every part of modern life, from the role of money in human happiness to why people flirt. If city officials hoped he would praise progress, however, they were badly mistaken. Simmel took the podium and promptly threw out the topic he'd been given. He wasn't there to talk about the glories of modern life. He was there to discuss its effect on the human soul.
Innovation, he suggested, had not just given us more efficiency; it gave us a world that taxed the human brain and its ability to keep up. He described a nonstop stream of "external and internal stimuli" in a loud, fast, overscheduled world. Far ahead of his time, he suggested that people have a limited amount of "mental energy"-something we now know to be more or less true-and that a highly stimulating environment consumes far more of it. One side of our psyche, the side built around achievement and work, may be able to keep up, he explained, but our spiritual and emotional side was absolutely spent. Humanity, Simmel was saying, was too sensitive for such a life.
Of particular concern to Simmel was how people coped. Unable to react meaningfully to every new piece of information, overstimulated citizens were apt to become "blasé" or, simply put, apathetic. They learned to suppress their feelings, to treat one another transactionally, to care less. After all, they had to. They heard terrible news from around the world daily, like the eruption of Mount Pelée, which killed twenty-eight thousand people in minutes, or the horrors of British concentration camps in Africa. Meanwhile, they tripped over homeless people and tuned out strangers packed tightly in the streetcar. How could they possibly extend empathy, or even simple acknowledgment, to everyone they met? Instead, they closed off their hearts out of necessity. Their demanding outer world had devoured their inner world and, with it, their ability to connect.
Simmel warned that by living under such overload, we face "being levelled down and swallowed up." As you might expect, his words were initially met with scorn. But once published, they became his most-talked-about essay. The piece spread quickly because it put to words something that many people secretly felt: The world had become too fast, too loud, too much.
That was more than 120 years ago, when much of life still moved at the speed of the horse and buggy. It was before the invention of the internet, the smartphone, and social media. Today, life is even busier, as we work long hours, care for our children or aging parents with little support, and squeeze friendships into text threads between errands. No wonder we are stressed, burned out, and anxious. Even the world itself is objectively more overstimulating than in Simmel's day. By some estimates, we are now exposed to more information each day than a person living in the Renaissance encountered in their entire lifetime: As of 2020, we produce 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of data per day. At that rate, roughly 90 percent of all the data in human history has been created in the last five years. Every scrap of this data, in theory, is aimed at someone's brain.
The human animal is not designed for such unlimited input. Rather, our brain is a sensitive instrument. Researchers who study that inst...
Sensitivity: Stigma or Superpower?
I can't stand chaos. I hate loud environments. Art makes me cry. No, I'm not crazy; I'm a textbook example of a highly sensitive person. -Anne Marie Crosthwaite
The year was 1903. Picasso danced at the Moulin Rouge, electric lights burned at all-night clubs, and Europe's cities thundered into a new era. Streetcars rushed commuters down buggy-packed streets, telegraphs connected faraway places, and breaking news crossed continents in minutes. Technology charmed its way into people's homes, too, with phonographs squawking out music on demand for parties. The songs may have been a prelude to an evening at the picture house-or they may have covered up the sound of streets being ripped up to install modern sewers. Even the countryside was abuzz, with farmers using mechanized equipment for the first time. Life was changing, and progress, it was believed, was good.
The German city of Dresden wasn't about to be left behind. Its leaders wanted to show off their own steps forward and crib achievements from other cities. Votes were held, committees were formed, and a citywide expo was announced, complete with a series of public lectures. One of the speakers was the early sociologist Georg Simmel. Although little known today, Simmel was influential in his time. He was one of the first people to apply a scientific approach to human interaction, and his work tackled every part of modern life, from the role of money in human happiness to why people flirt. If city officials hoped he would praise progress, however, they were badly mistaken. Simmel took the podium and promptly threw out the topic he'd been given. He wasn't there to talk about the glories of modern life. He was there to discuss its effect on the human soul.
Innovation, he suggested, had not just given us more efficiency; it gave us a world that taxed the human brain and its ability to keep up. He described a nonstop stream of "external and internal stimuli" in a loud, fast, overscheduled world. Far ahead of his time, he suggested that people have a limited amount of "mental energy"-something we now know to be more or less true-and that a highly stimulating environment consumes far more of it. One side of our psyche, the side built around achievement and work, may be able to keep up, he explained, but our spiritual and emotional side was absolutely spent. Humanity, Simmel was saying, was too sensitive for such a life.
Of particular concern to Simmel was how people coped. Unable to react meaningfully to every new piece of information, overstimulated citizens were apt to become "blasé" or, simply put, apathetic. They learned to suppress their feelings, to treat one another transactionally, to care less. After all, they had to. They heard terrible news from around the world daily, like the eruption of Mount Pelée, which killed twenty-eight thousand people in minutes, or the horrors of British concentration camps in Africa. Meanwhile, they tripped over homeless people and tuned out strangers packed tightly in the streetcar. How could they possibly extend empathy, or even simple acknowledgment, to everyone they met? Instead, they closed off their hearts out of necessity. Their demanding outer world had devoured their inner world and, with it, their ability to connect.
Simmel warned that by living under such overload, we face "being levelled down and swallowed up." As you might expect, his words were initially met with scorn. But once published, they became his most-talked-about essay. The piece spread quickly because it put to words something that many people secretly felt: The world had become too fast, too loud, too much.
That was more than 120 years ago, when much of life still moved at the speed of the horse and buggy. It was before the invention of the internet, the smartphone, and social media. Today, life is even busier, as we work long hours, care for our children or aging parents with little support, and squeeze friendships into text threads between errands. No wonder we are stressed, burned out, and anxious. Even the world itself is objectively more overstimulating than in Simmel's day. By some estimates, we are now exposed to more information each day than a person living in the Renaissance encountered in their entire lifetime: As of 2020, we produce 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of data per day. At that rate, roughly 90 percent of all the data in human history has been created in the last five years. Every scrap of this data, in theory, is aimed at someone's brain.
The human animal is not designed for such unlimited input. Rather, our brain is a sensitive instrument. Researchers who study that inst...
