Emotions are signals. Each one points to a need that's being met, or one that isn't. Once you can read them, you get a faster route to what's really going on.
A feeling tells you whether a need is being met. In a leadership role it often shows up mid-meeting, before you've worked out why. Read the feeling and you can trace it back to the need underneath.
The numbers are uncertain and the next quarter isn't fully in your hands.
↓Anxiety
Security feels shaky, so your mind runs the worst case.
You're carrying the whole thing and no one around you fully gets the weight.
↓Loneliness or resentment
Connection is missing, even in a full room.
You raise the same concern again and it still doesn't land.
↓Resentment or frustration
You don't feel heard, and it builds.
Most people reach for the same three or four emotion words. The wheel gives you the more precise one, which makes the need underneath easier to spot.
Start in the middle. Pick the core emotion that's closest.
Move outwards. Find the more specific word for it.
Ask what need that word is pointing at.
Most of us aren't fully aware of our deeper needs. Once you can see them, you can find new ways to meet them, and more contentment follows.
If you're reading this, some of your needs probably aren't being met as fully or as often as you'd like.
The highlighted needs are the ones that come up most for ADHD and AuDHD founders and senior leaders.
Feeling close to people, and mattering to them.
Knowing the ground under you is stable.
Room to choose, and to run your own life.
Rest, play and time that's yours.
Work and ideas that engage you and count for something.
Living and being dealt with straight.
Knowing who you are and growing into it.
Calm inside and around you.
For a lot of founders and senior leaders, this one sits under everything else. Masking is the effort of looking like the version of you that you think is acceptable.
You hold it together all day in front of the team, then crash the moment you're alone.
You over-prepare for a meeting you could handle easily, so no one sees the gaps.
You say yes to something you didn't want, because a no feels like being found out.
A small piece of feedback lands like proof that you're a fraud.
Underneath, this is usually a connection need. The need to matter, and to be accepted without the performance. Masking is what you do when you're not sure you'd be accepted without it.
It's also a need for compassion and kindness, aimed at yourself. Most leaders give patience to everyone around them and very little to themselves. More self-compassion is often the actual work.
If your needs keep going unmet in the same places, there's usually a pattern underneath it. That's the kind of thing we work on directly, alongside the role or the business.
