#23 - Rachel Radway - Thriving as a High Sensory Introvert in a Digital World

Rachel Radway is a high sensory introvert, coach, facilitator, and author of “Perceptive: The Power and Potential of High Sensory Perception” (2025). 

Highly perceptive herself, Rachel has faced all the challenges that come with this trait (which affects around 20% of people) and she now coaches high sensory female leaders to lean into the gifts that this trait offers, so they can thrive professionally and personally.

During our conversation, we talk about leaning into our innate abilities, supporting our social wellbeing, exploring the Metaverse and reconnecting through letter writing.

Some platforms and communities we discuss on this podcast:

Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation https://www.jocrf.org/ 
SpatialChat https://www.spatial.chat/
Pavia.io https://pavia.io/

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Learn more about Rachel Radway

https://www.rercoaching.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/reradway/
https://www.youtube.com/@rachelradway-rercoaching/videos

Rachel Radway’s a certified leadership and executive coach with 25+ years’ leadership experience in tech startups and Fortune 500s, she’s passionate about helping other high-sensory women leaders learn to thrive professionally and personally.

Having lived in nine countries and changed careers a few times, Rachel knows the value of connection. Because so many of the women she works with have told her they feel alone, she created her mastermind, the G.R.I.T. Collaborative, to offer community and a safe space to share, learn, and grow.

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I hope our conversation inspires you to rediscover connection in your own life!

Subscribe now and let the magic unfold.

Love,
Shelley x

About Your Host

Hi, I'm Shelley Doyle, a Social Wealth Strategist and Connection Coach, helping remote and hybrid leaders who are struggling to retain their high performers, with tools and strategies to reconnect their distributed teams.

I also help people who move or work remotely, to elevate and sustain their social wealth, online/offline - everywhere! Discover More

I am currently working on my MA thesis, combining cutting edge research on social wellbeing and digital health, with two decades in corporate communications, to deliver mind-shifting talks, workshops, and programs around the world.

Find me at TheCommuniverse.com and on LinkedIn.

Global Workshop Tour "Beyond Screens" launches September 2024.

To hear when new episodes drop, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, or check out recent episodes.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome to Rediscovering Connection. I am your host, shelley Doyle, and before I introduce today's guest, I would just love to share a little bit about my journey to here. So this is about a year into my podcast journey. When I started working in connection belonging a couple of years ago, I kind of felt like I was alone in this, doing this work, helping people to create friendships, connections, particularly working with expats, people that move and people that haven't naturally got a circle around them, because that's how I was when I first moved to Canada. I have now named what I do, which is always helpful. So what I'm doing now is social well-being, and the reality is that when I moved across the other side of the world, my social well-being suffered big time. Not only did I not have connections here, but I felt disconnected with my friends, my family, my connections around the world because we moved in the middle of the pandemic. My connections around the world, because we moved in the middle of the pandemic not ideal. So I am really thrilled that I can now name what it is that I do, which is to support social wellbeing, working with individuals and also going into the workplace to help teams, because loneliness is a big contributor to ill health. It also contributes to a lack of engagement in organizations. So this is something that I'm delving deep into in my master's thesis, which I've now begun. I'm in my literature review and finding some astounding information which I'm really looking forward to share across my different platforms. So that's just a little bit about my journey where I'm at at the moment.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Now I will introduce you to my guest. This is episode 23 of Rediscovering Connection, and today's guest is Rachel Radway, who's based in California, and Rachel specializes in working with high sensory leaders. So I was really curious about this high sensory leaders to delve into what this is. Am I a high sensory leader? Are you this high sensory leaders? To delve into what this is? Am I a high sensory leader? Are you a high sensory leader? So come with me on this journey to understand what this is and what's really brought Rachel into this realm of supporting these leaders to connect in new ways.

Speaker 2: 2:19

I'm thrilled to be here Thank you for having me, and I'm excited about talking about this topic. When I was about a young teenager, an adolescent, and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wanted to find a company that would sponsor me to live in every country in the world for six months to a year so that I could learn every language, so that I could basically help people communicate, and I have always been a language person. I've always been a culture person. I've lived, like you. I've lived abroad. I've lived in nine different countries and studied nine different languages, and I've always been really interested in learning about other cultures and how people communicate with each other and connect with each other. There have also been times in my life where I felt very, very disconnected, and I think the older I get to it. There was a long period of time where connection wasn't a priority for me, and the older I get, the more important it is, and that's it's. It's come around again to becoming an important focus, both personally and professionally.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Wow, I'm so envious of your language skills. So is this something that's innate? Do you think some people are just particularly good at languages? Or is it just opening that doorway in your mind and then it all kind of fits together?

Speaker 2: 3:57

When I was a couple of years out of college, I had this really, really random job. I worked at this national nonprofit in the United States. It's called the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation and they are focused on people's innate abilities and we actually talked a lot about this. So there was a whole series of tests that we ran on people, and they weren't paper and pencil tests, they weren't the kinds of things that you could know the answer to, and I scored in the 99th percentile on the tests that were associated with language learning.

Speaker 2: 4:36

So I think there are different pieces to it. There are memories, different kinds of memory. There's a memory for word learning and there are memories for rhythm and for sort of. You know, people who are musical often can learn languages a little bit more. So I think there's definitely an innate ability to it, and then, of course, when you have that, when it comes more easily to you, you get more excited about it, more enthusiastic about it, and then you might sort of get into it more. Anybody can learn a language, but I also think if it's harder for you, people sometimes start building up resistance when it's not as easy.

Speaker 1: 5:17

So how about musical then? Are you musical and have you learned different instruments simultaneously to the languages?

Speaker 2: 5:24

I wish. So I, let's see. We had to study the recorder in seventh grade in music class. I was pretty good and I actually composed some music for percussion instruments. I never really learned an instrument and I wish that was something that I had started when I was really young. I tried in my early 30s to pick up. I wanted to play the fiddle, I wanted to be Alison Krauss and just do bluegrass and I found crazily enough. I found a music teacher who was willing to take me on at that point and she said you know, most of my students are actually six years old. I said it's OK, I'm not planning on getting on any stages, I just want to, like I want to play fiddle in my living room, like that's all I want. But I quickly realized that that is one particular instrument that you really need to start when you're like six years old. It didn't work very well, so used to sing, uh, in choirs, although I'm I get serious stage fright. But um, yeah, that's about the extent of my musical abilities.

Speaker 1: 6:33

I actually just received an invitation this morning. My friend, maya uh, sings in a rock choir so I've just received an invitation to go watch the rock choir in June, which which I'm super excited about. Maybe I'll put a link here for anyone in Victoria that wants to come and visit the rock choir. But I had heard about the rock choir. There were some friends in in Hemel Hempstead that joined a rock choir. I think it's maybe a franchise around the world and yeah, like really fun current modern rock songs in choir and there's definitely something about the connection that's formed in in song singing together. Right, it's what the church does extremely well.

Speaker 2: 7:12

That sounds really fun. I'd love to learn more about that.

Speaker 1: 7:17

I need to go look it up after our after our call yes, okay, so why don't we delve a little bit bit into the work and the method that you've created? Is it called the GRIT method?

Speaker 2: 7:31

So I have a small group mastermind that I facilitate, and it is called the GRIT Collaborative. Grit is an acronym for Grace, resilience, intuition and Trust, which are the four foundational elements that are really important to me and to the women that I work with. I work with women who have a trait that I call high sensory perception, and it's a global trait, although that name is not very well known. About 20 to 30% of the population have it.

Speaker 2: 8:05

70% of the people who have it are introverts, and, on top of that, our brains work a little bit differently. We're wired a little bit differently, and the number one thing that I hear from women that I work with clients, women whom I talk with on a regular basis is I feel so alone, I don't have people that I can talk with about this. My brain doesn't work like other people. I'm at work and the situation comes up and nobody else is reacting the same way I am. So I created this mastermind for these women, to show them that they're not alone, to create a really safe, supportive community where they can be their full selves, unmask and learn and grow, embrace their superpowers, because a lot of women who have this trait don't even realize that they have them deal with some of the challenges that come with it and just really form a community. It's the most important part, I know.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Know that's, I know it's your focus yes, so I've got a couple of things coming up for me. One is so it is some of that being that you're quite affected by other people's energies. Um, yeah, so I have spoken to quite a few people that have really felt this like after the pandemic, when they were then going back into the workplace and they realized that that sense it was kind of a sensory overload in a way, because you you've stopped being used to that environment and maybe you're used to over so many years that you didn't necessarily realize that there was any anything wrong. But then you're thrown back into it and it's almost like we then need to, we need to prepare ourselves again for those energies meshing.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Uh, I have also experienced this myself as well, like in the work that I do, um, connecting and kind of making new friends and connections where I am in this new place, and then I I have the one-to-one connection with individuals, but then I bring them all together into group environments and actually sometimes the energies don't mesh well and then I'm feeling uneasy because there's some the energies aren't working and maybe people aren't seeing each other in the way that I see them, and then I'm uncomfortable and I'm unable to just be in the environment because there's things going on in my head that right is that I might, should I be in your circle.

Speaker 2: 10:45

I would love to have you in my circle, shelly. So there are a couple different things that come up for me based on what you were saying. Uh, for the first part of it, I think um, people who have this trait, you typically have it from birth. It's, it's a genetic thing, it is our. Our brains are wired a little bit differently, but people handle that in different ways. So for some people and it can be both feeling other people's energy and it can be external stimuli like sound, like lighting, like temperature, like smells, if there's a kitchen in your workplace and people are microwaving food there are dozens and dozens of different things that people are sensitive to or that people are perceiving, who have this trait, and some people do learn to kind of block it all out after you know, years training themselves or in the workplace. Some people never do. I actually never really did, and after COVID I never ended up going back into the workplace. I've worked remotely for a long time. So people have different ways of kind of handling it and different thresholds too for the different stimuli.

Speaker 2: 12:04

Switching to the second part of what you were talking about in terms of the one-on-one connections and then bringing people together in the group. One of the things I've learned is because I do have one-on-one relationships with all of the people. That came into my first when I was doing a beta of the mastermind, and so I knew them all and I brought them together. And the first session, silence.

Speaker 2: 12:33

I'm sitting there thinking, no, come on, I know all these women. They're all super smart, they're all kind, they're all warm, they're all empathetic. This is going to work, and what I realized is it really just takes time, especially when you have a group who are primarily introverts. It takes a lot of time to build up that feeling of psychological safety. I may have assumed well, of course it's safe because you know I'm facilitating and I know all these people, but they don't know each other, of course, and you really have to not only hold the space but create ways for them to engage with each other and for them to feel safe, being vulnerable with each other and sharing things that help them learn about each other as human beings and not just as professionals in workplaces.

Speaker 1: 13:34

And it can take a while, but then it starts to gel yeah, this really speaks to to what I'm doing, because we, with what I am doing, like a lot of it is social and not professional, like in my own life, as well as professional stuff that I do. So, um, the last couple of group activities that I brought together, I did bring everybody into circle and then we would, we were going around and sharing, so that definitely started to help. Prior to that, I was just kind of doing these social mixes and people were coming together but because I wasn't charging for them, because they're like my social connections, I almost didn't feel in my power to facilitate. So I was bringing them together. But then everyone was kind of coming together and not really knowing what they're meant to be doing. And there was also the thing about do we want to be talking about personal life or professional life, because a lot of them are solopreneurs yeah so it's like helping to guide people on what the expectation is.

Speaker 2: 14:43

It's really interesting. I was just on a call this morning. I've just recently joined a community that is focused on creating better workplaces, but a lot of the community A gets together socially and B they're just it's. It's a really warm, lovely group of people and they all do different things. Some of them are employees in in companies and some of them are self-employed and they have this monthly community call.

Speaker 2: 15:13

So today was my first one and it's interesting because it's really uh, so today was my first one and it's interesting because it's really they've obviously they've done this several times and so I don't know whether they've tried different formats. It was a blend of out with a story that was a personal story of his own, and then we got into breakout groups and they provided prompts and the breakouts were three people and you could either go with the prompts or not go with the prompts and you could take the prompts either personally or professionally. So it was a lovely blend of enough structure so that people didn't feel too awkward and knew what to do, but also freedom so that if the prompt didn't feel like didn't resonate or didn't feel like something we could really have a conversation about, we could always change it, so it worked really nicely, and I could see that working in a purely social group as well, and I could see that working in a purely social group as well.

Speaker 1: 16:19

And as we're on the topic of social, why don't we go into social well-being? So the definition of social well-being is a feeling of being connected and supported by others. So that might be in our professional life, in our personal life. Social well-being doesn't decipher between these. It's really how we're feeling in our life. So I just wondered, thinking of those topics like what does social wellbeing look like for you? Like when you're feeling connected and supported, how much social interaction do you need? And you mentioned about being introverts being a core market for you. Would you consider yourself an introvert and does that play a part in your social well-being?

Speaker 2: 17:01

It absolutely does. So I am definitely an introvert. I also need more downtime because of the perceptiveness that I was talking about. I can easily go a day or two with very little social interaction and be fine with it. After that I start to get a little bit itchy. I live alone and so you know too much of it and I start getting really isolated and I'm very aware of that. So I'm in an interesting situation right now because I live in a little tiny town where I actually don't know very many people.

Speaker 2: 17:39

There were very specific reasons I moved here, questioning those now or not questioning them. They were the right things at the time. But now I'm really missing local community. So I, first of all, I'm getting out there, I'm starting to meet more people locally and starting to go to more events, but I'm really not a big event kind of person. I'm getting out there, I'm starting to meet more people locally and starting to go to more events, but I'm really not a big event kind of person. I'm more one-on-one.

Speaker 2: 18:02

So I have very consciously chosen to I don't want to say schedule my life, because that's not it, but I reach out to people that are friends or you know that I really enjoy talking with and make sure that I have connections scheduled every few days, you know so, and they could be all over the world, which is great because I love that but just making sure that I have both those personal social connections as well as my my work connections. I love working with my clients, but in between I also have to schedule some of the people who are my friends in New Zealand and in the UK and in Spain and in Ireland and in lots of other places whom I can't just sort of run out to see and have lunch with easily.

Speaker 1: 18:55

So I'm hearing that there is a piece missing there and that is the in-person piece.

Speaker 2: 19:01

Very definitely and I am um. I'm renting where I am at the moment and I have another bit on my lease. I haven't had another year here, but I am very actively um. Looking at. It was interesting when you were talking about roots earlier, before we got on the call. I've really never had roots. I've probably moved more than 50 times in my life and I've lived all over the world and all over the United States and I'm really looking for my community. I think I have a sense of where.

Speaker 1: 19:38

I'm going to be moving, but I'm also. You want to share it as an exclusive.

Speaker 2: 19:43

The world is waiting to hear. So there are some areas in the North Bay of San Francisco where I still have a lot of friends I lived. I was born in San Francisco. I did not grow up there. I moved back there after college. I was born in San Francisco, I did not grow up there. I moved back there after college. I lived there for most of the next 20 something years, took six years out, moved to Seattle, moved back to California and then moved away again and I was just back there visiting some friends in April and that really probably is home more than any place else for me. So I suspect that that's where I'm going to be going back.

Speaker 1: 20:25

So, my, I have a really big history of travel myself. Um, my father emigrated to New Zealand when I was 11 and actually he just returned to the UK last year. After 30 years he's returned to the UK, so I think I am feeling a bit more of a pull to the UK at the moment because both my parents are now in the UK, so my kids grandparents are all there and my partner's father's also there. So, yeah, I'm definitely feeling a bit of this pull to the UK, or at least to Europe, to be a bit closer, conscious that, um, yeah, my parents are all in really good health right now and I feel incredibly blessed for that, because I've got a lot of friends who's uh who are going through um, a lot with looking after their elderly parents right now. So I really want to embrace this time that we have, um, and time just seems to go so, so quickly.

Speaker 1: 21:26

Um, so let's talk about digital. So, um, spoken about, there's definitely a gap missing in the in-person. So have you toyed with any digital boundaries? Um, leaning into kind of platforms that are filling you up versus ones that are depleting your energy? Uh, having apps on your phone and then taking them off, deleting profiles, putting them back on does any of that resonate it?

Speaker 2: 21:55

it does. I'm'm laughing because I have pretty clear boundaries as far as my phone Again, because I can get overstimulated easily and I'm very sensitive around sleep. For example, if I'm doing anything digital late at night, I don't sleep well at all. So I also I learned this long ago when I was in the corporate world I put as few apps on my phone as possible. I really don't spend a lot of time on my phone.

Speaker 2: 22:29

I hate texting and when people try to have whole conversations back and forth via text it drives me nuts. I'm just like pick up the phone, let's just have a phone call and actually talk. I am on WhatsApp because I do have friends all over the world and that's just the easiest way to be able to connect with them. But if we really want to have a conversation, we'll jump on a Zoom call or on a WhatsApp call and not just do the you know, the texting back and forth, the messaging. I just let somebody know this morning I don't do video calls after 6 pm. I just you know if I try not to do any work related stuff after 6 pm, but I can get on a phone call, especially if it's the person who wanted to connect is a former client who I was very close to, and so I really want to catch up with her and we'll just do a phone call.

Speaker 2: 23:23

There's a tension definitely because, being geographically isolated, digital is how most of my connection is and at the same time I'm, you know, zoom fatigue is a real thing. So there are some connections. I have a friend in the Bay Area, for example. We talk every couple of months, we have a regularly scheduled call, but we do it by phone rather than on Zoom, and we can just. Sometimes we'll go walking around and I live by the ocean right now so I can go walk by the beach while I'm talking to her, go walk by the beach while I'm talking to her. So I experiment, but I try to make it as warm and human as possible within the digital realm.

Speaker 1: 24:10

Beautiful.

Speaker 1: 24:11

Yeah, it sounds like you've got some really healthy boundaries, and something that's coming up for me when you're just talking about Zoom fatigue is just wondering have you explored any metaverse platforms yet?

Speaker 1: 24:22

Because I have, and a recent catch-up that I facilitated with a group of friends that I studied with 20 years ago. I've been bringing them together in um, in group live, uh virtual gatherings, probably once a quarter for the last 18 months or so, and the last one was the first one we did in the metaverse and I debriefed with one of the girls afterwards and she just said how different it felt and her feedback was that, um, you kind of you still see each other, but you're, you have it like you have a beautiful backdrop and it's more like you're in a bubble rather than in a square box, and then your bubbles are like overlapping. So it was almost like we were hugging each other in real life rather than being in these square boxes where you're literally not even touching each other. It really gave her a different sensation of togetherness. So I wonder if you've explored any of these platforms yet so I haven't gone out on my own to explore them.

Speaker 2: 25:27

I have participated in retreats and gatherings and other things that have used a few different AR VR platforms and I have to say I haven't loved any them. I'm not sure that I've encountered one that is like what you're describing. Some of them you just have avatars and you don't see the faces at all. Some of them you do see the faces and they're in these. You know other kinds of environments, but some of the environments don't, for me, don't spark intimacy or, or you know, or warmth or anything like that. It's very funny because there was one.

Speaker 2: 26:07

The company that I worked for a few years ago had a woman who was absolutely amazing at creating virtual retreats for the entire company stellar, and they were the best experiences I can possibly imagine. And I can't remember the name of the, the metaverse that we were in, the universe that we were in. But, um, I decided to go out one morning and get on the boat in the in the AR, the VR universe, and I just went on the speedboat and I went, you know, tooling around and bizarrely, it actually felt like I had taken a little boat trip. I don't know how. It was a really strange thing, but the personal connection in that world didn't feel the same.

Speaker 1: 26:54

But were there people that you already knew? Some of them, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:59

From the office environment, yeah yeah, we had still never met in person because we were from all over the world.

Speaker 1: 27:06

But you've been zooming together for some time, so you're familiar with each other in this space. Exactly some of my events um in is spatial chat, which is very simple. It's free for up to five users at one time. Really easy to get in. You don't need to set up an avatar or anything, you can just jump in, which I think is the obstacle for some of the world. It's like the setup and everything you have to choose your outfit and all that jazz.

Speaker 1: 27:33

So you don't need to do any of this. It's a very, very simple and basic one, but it's felt the best one for me. I have toyed with quite a few and this one just feels nice for social interactions. Okay, and this is I. I've been doing it personally with people that I already know. So, um, I'm actually starting with a client in a couple of weeks who wants to do this for his own, for his own friends, so I'm going to be kind of taking him on tours to see which worlds feel good for him to then send very compelling invitations to his friends who he wants to reconnect with around the world, to make it sound a bit more yeah, a bit more exciting to join, to see if it can really enhance his personal connections.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Interesting. Oh, that's fascinating. I will look into it more and I will definitely look and see if I can figure out which world the experience was.

Speaker 1: 28:30

You went on the speedboat.

Speaker 2: 28:31

Yes, it was very cool.

Speaker 1: 28:34

I am invested in one of the worlds which I invested off plan a couple of years ago. It's a world called Pavia, based on an Italian town. I did not anticipate investing I think it was February 2022, and to still not be able to be hosting events here. So I'm really hoping that I can have my space here. So that's where I'm intending to kind of have my headquarters and be able to facilitate personal events and also have clients facilitate their events in as well. So watch this space. I'm excited. It looks very, very, very cool and lots of businesses are there, so it's kind of going to be a cool place to network with other companies as well. So I shall be inviting you into a to an event in Pavia before long, rachel.

Speaker 2: 29:23

Watch your inbox sounds good, I will do that, looking forward to it.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Yeah, so I just want to, as we're wrapping up our conversation, just wondering if anything else is coming to you on the topic of rediscovering connection in your own life or personally or professionally. Has any real key nugget dropped in for you that really helps you to stay connected or potentially really helps your clients to feel connected again, when maybe they've really been feeling this period of disconnection, when they come to you?

Speaker 2: 30:02

I think what comes up for me is just how common it is for us to want more connection and not necessarily know how to find it. And I also know, among a lot of the women that I work with, because we are highly empathetic and highly sensitive to a lot of details, we tend to overthink a lot and a lot of fears come up around putting ourselves out there sometimes and also around reaching out to people that we may not have been in contact with for a while. I had a client very recently who had lost touch with somebody that had been a very, very, very dear friend who lives in another country. And when I asked about you know, we actually talked about handwriting a letter and because writing is something that is important to this person and she was afraid that the person might not want to get back in touch or that something would be awkward, because you know that there would be blame or shame or something around.

Speaker 2: 31:18

Well, I didn't get in touch and I didn't get in touch and we, we build these things up in our minds and and they tend to snowball and, honestly, if you can just get out of your own way and take that first step, chances are that person is just going to be thrilled that you reached out and you can create. I've done this myself and you can. You can create and reconnect, recreate really wonderful connections this way. So I think just being a little vulnerable and being, you know, willing to put yourself out there can bring such amazing rewards.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Beautiful. I couldn't put it better myself. And as a build to that, I would just say that when you're thinking about doing this and taking some initiative to reconnect, put yourself in the place of the receiver. Imagine how beautiful it would be to go to your letterbox and to receive a letter from this person that you do have this authentic connection with and that can really help you to get to the other side of it and go wow, this is a gift. This is a gift that you're giving. Thank, rachel. This has been such a pleasure to connect with you today and go deep into this to learn about your connection habits, and I really do think that some of these insights are going to help other people. We will leave some links. If there's one particular place that people can find you, then feel free to share it with us here.

Speaker 2: 32:57

I will do that. My website is RERcoachingcom, and that's a great way to find me. I'm also Rachel Radway on LinkedIn, which is where I spend most of my time, so I would love to see your listeners there, beautiful. Thanks, Rachel Thank you so much for having me, Shelley. It's been a pleasure.