>>Alana Weiss: Hello and welcome.
My name is Alana Weiss and today it is my
pleasure to welcome Susan Cain to the Leading@Google
series.
Today we'll hear about her new book Quiet:
The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't
Stop Talking.
Next week you'll see its number four on the
New York Times Bestseller List and Susan will
soon be giving a presentation at TED 2012.
Before Susan became a writer, she practiced
corporate law for seven years representing
clients like J.P. Morgan and General Electric.
She, then, worked as a negotiations consultant
training all kinds of people from Hedge Fund
managers to TV producers to college students
negotiating their first salary.
She went to Princeton University and Harvard
Law School.
Reflecting on these experiences Susan writes,
"From all this, you might guess that I'm a
hardcore, wonderfully, self confident, pound
the table kind of person, when in fact I'm
just the opposite."
So today, in a room full of introverts and
their champions, Susan will share her research
and firsthand knowledge about the power of
introverts.
Thank you and help me in welcoming Susan.
[applause]
>>Susan Cain: Thank you, Alana.
Hi everyone.
Well, I have come to believe from researching
and writing this book for about seven years
now, started back in 2005, I've come to believe
that introversion and extroversion are as
profound a part of who we are, as core to
our identities as our gender.
And that therefore it's very important to
understand where we truly fall on the introvert/extrovert
spectrum.
And when I say this, I'm not talking about
where we appear to fall, or who we appear
to be because most of us, in this extroverted
culture of ours, act much more extroverted
than we really are.
So what I'm asking is who you are deep down
if you could spend your time exactly as you
please, your workdays, your weekends who would
you be?
Would you be more of an introvert or would
you be more of an extrovert?
And this is a really important question so
I want us to get to the answer, get to the
bottom of it before we move forward with the
talk.
And so what I'm gonna ask you to do is to
break up into groups of six quickly and share
with your group a private and personal memory
from your childhood that you think illustrates
who you really are.
And then we're gonna take the most private
and personal and profound of these memories
and share them with the entire audience.
[laughter]
And yeah, that's right I'm just kidding.
[laughter]
And if there are any consultants in the audience,
please don't do this to people in future talks,
introverts hate this kind of stuff.
[laughter]
So let me just though get a show of hands
how many of you were thinking, when you still
thought that I might be serious, like how
can I get out of here right now --
[laughter]
without insulting the speaker?
[laughter]
Yeah, yeah.
And how many of you would describe yourself
as introverts?
Wow, oh my gosh could it be a hundred percent?
No.
[laughter]
Any extroverts in the room?
[laughter]
Okay maybe.
I would say we have about five extroverts.
So that's good because you can tell us your
perspective.
[laughter]
So, of course also the important thing is
not only to identify who we are but why are
we the way we are?
What is it that makes an introvert an introvert
or an extrovert an extrovert?
And the truth is there are as many answers
to this question as there are personality
psychologists.
But boiling it down, what really distinguishes
us is that introverts prefer environments
that are lower stimulation environments.
So I'm talking now about social stimulation
so by that I mean you'd rather maybe have
a glass of wine with a close friend as opposed
go to a thumping party full of strangers.
But I'm not talking only about social stimulation
this also plays out in things like how much
noise you like to have on in the background,
how bright the lights are, how bright you
like your lights to be.
Even something as crazy as if I place a drop
of lemon juice on your tongue, if I could
do that right now, we would find that the
introverts in the room would salivate more
[laughs] in response to the lemon juice than
our five extroverts would, because introverts
respond more to stimulation and therefore
prefer lower amounts of it.
And this is so important to understand because
what it tells us is that if we want to optimize
our lives and to be operating at our fullest
powers and with our fullest amount of energy,
we really need to put ourselves in environments
that have the proper amount of stimulation
for us.
And there's one interesting experiment by
the psychologist Russell Geen that has even
found that if you give introverts and extroverts
math problems to solve with different levels
of background noise, the introverts will do
better when the background noise is lower
and the extroverts will solve the problems
better when the background noise is higher.
So we all have our different sweet spots and
then, of course, the question becomes most
of life is kind of a one size fits all environment:
our schools, our workplaces are like this.
So how do you design things, how can we think
about ways to tailor the amount of stimulation
for individual preferences?
And the fuel that lead me to write this book,
to spend the last seven years doing it, is
that I have been distressed to see that our
world is primarily set up in a way that I
believe maximizes the energies of extroverts
while not those of introverts.
I think the bias in our culture against introversion
it is so deep and it's so profound and we
internalize it from such an early age we don't
even realize that we're doing it.
But from the minute that you're introduced
to a preschool classroom, when you were a
young child, you're immediately in an environment
where you're expected to be happy in a group.
And teachers have been found, all the way
through at every age level of the educational
system, the vast majority of teachers believe,
thank you, oh much better.
The vast majority of teachers believe that
the ideal student is an extrovert.
Even though, by the way, introverted kids
get better grades.
And same thing is true at the work place,
in our work places, and you can tell me what
your experiences are at Google, I would to
hear about this when we get to the Q and A
later.
But, in general, in the work place, we now
live in an environment that it's increasingly
open plan offices where people don't have
very much privacy, they're working in groups
for a lot of the time.
And studies tell us that introverts are routinely
passed over for leadership positions even
though research by Adam Grant from the Wharton
School, recent ground breaking research, has
found that introverted leaders often deliver
better outcomes than extroverts do.
And I say all this, when I say this is not
to take anything away from extroverts, I think
extroversion is a really enormously appealing
personality style, it's just to say that this
tendency, this kind of chauvinism that we
have, this two tier structure of how we view
personality leads to a colossal waste of talent
and of energy and of happiness and we need
to be adopting much more of a yin and yang
approach of balance between the two styles.
And I wanna talk about how this plays out
in our lives and I wanna show you why it is
so important that we get to this place of
yin and yang and why we will all be the better
for it; introverts for sure, but all of us.
And to do this I'm gonna start in an unlikely
place.
I'm gonna take you on a very quick tour of
the animal kingdom [chuckles] starting with
a colony of fruit flies.
So it turns out that there are introverts
and extroverts in almost every single species
of the animal kingdom.
I mean, who knew this [chuckles] but I found
this out when I was doing my research.
Many species have introverts and extroverts.
So down to the level of fruit flies, there
are what biologists call sitter fruit flies
who kind of sit still and kind of hop up [chuckles]
and down in place.
And then there are rover fruit flies who explore
the outer margins of fruit fly society.
[laughter]
And the reason that they do this, the reason
that many species are structured this way
is because the two types have very different
kinds of survival strategies.
And so now I'm gonna move a little bit up
the animal kingdom and I'm gonna take you
to the world of pumpkinseed fish.
An evolutionary biologist named David Sloan
Wilson did a really fascinating experiment
with a pond full of these fish where he came
to the pond and he dropped this gigantic trap
right into the middle of the pond, an event
which he says from the fishes perspective
must have seemed like a space ship landing
right in the middle of their backyard.
And the fish responded really differently
to this foreign presence.
Some of the fish, the introvert fish, responded
by saying, "I'm not getting anywhere near
that thing [chuckles]."
And they hovered on the sidelines of the pond
and as a result they made it completely impossible
for David Sloan Wilson to catch them in his
trap.
So had that trap been a real predator those
fish, the introverted fish, would have been
the ones that survived.
The extroverted fish immediately had to investigate
what this [chuckles] trap was and they went
swimming right up to it with no, with nothing
standing in their way and, of course, they
were immediately trapped.
Had it been a real predator they would have
been zonked.
But it's not so simple because then Sloan
Wilson comes back a few days later with a
fishing net and he manages to scoop up the
introverted fish who had eluded him the first
time around and he brings them back to his
lab.
And what he finds in this environment is that
the extroverted fish do much better because
this is an alien world, it's a world of unfamiliarity
and extroverts tend to be more comfortable
very quickly in unfamiliar environments.
And so in this case, the extroverted fish
started eating more quickly and going about
their business more quickly while the introverted
fish were kind of hanging back and not faring
well.
So this is all kind of a parable [chuckles]
to tell us that there really are different
kinds of strategies for success and strategies
for the survival and thriving of our species.
And so now I'm gonna come back to human beings
finally and I want first to talk to you about
children, about human children.
Let me ask you, how many people in the audience
here have kids?
Okay, so probably about two-thirds of you.
But even for those of you who don't have children,
the reason that what I'm gonna tell you is
important is that human children they haven't
yet absorbed the social norms of our society
and so therefore they act the way they are
really meant to act, the way they truly are.
And so if we look at the behavior of children
we learn a lot about ourselves.
So, of you parents, how many of you have ever
been to some kind of Mommy and me class or
a Daddy and me class?
[pause]
Okay, not many of you.
So let me explain what this is 'cause it's
gonna be relevant.
This is basically a class where a parent or
a babysitter takes a young child usually a
baby or a two year old, maybe a three year
old and you all sit around in a circle.
I'm gonna show you what it looks like.
Yeah --
[laughter]
it looks like this.
You all sit around in a circle and you sing
songs and you play musical instruments and
like that.
Now what you will find in these classes is
that some of the children will behave like
the sitter fish meaning they will stay closely
by their parents' sides, they'll sit in their
parents' laps, they won't really participate
and they will look either scared or just reserved.
And then others of the children like that
[chuckles] little baby in the read jumpsuit
who's right in the middle of the room he's
a rover child.
And so he doesn't know where his Mom is, it's
all good with him, he's perfectly comfortable.
[pause]
Now the thing is that the parents of the sitter
children in this kind of a situation tend
to feel pretty worried about their offspring.
They feel like, "Wow, my child's not getting
much out of this class and maybe this is gonna
be the story of his or her life.
Maybe he or she will always have trouble participating
and won't get the fruits of what life has
to offer."
And this is a really understandable worry
but I want to broaden the picture for you
of what's really happening with a child who
behaves this way.
That child is doing what psychologists call
paying alert attention to things.
So it may appear as if the child is sitting
inertly and passively and not taking anything
in, but that's not what's happening.
They're actually, they're learning by observing
and they're observing in a very intent way.
And so very often with these children, I see
it again and again, it may take them minutes
or days or weeks or months to actually plunge
into the situation at hand, but when they
do they already know the social rules, they
already know the subtle nuances of what's
going on because they have been paying attention
all that time.
And this form of paying attention to things,
of noticing things that are scary but noticing
things in general at a subtle level, this
carries through with these children all the
way into adulthood.
It becomes a kind of way of dealing with the
world and a way of processing information.
So, for example, if you give these children
when they're a little bit older this kind
of a puzzle to solve where you have two pictures
that seem to be very similar and you ask them
to figure out what the subtle differences
are between them, these kinds of children
will spend much more time than other children
will comparing the two.
In the lab you can actually see their eyes
darting back and forth more times than those
of bolder children.
And they more often get the right answers.
And this kind of thing continues as these
kids grow up.
So --
[pause]
you give them puzzles to solve, adult size
puzzles, they take more time to do it.
They get better grades in school, they get,
they're more likely to get Phi Beta Kappa
keys.
And then the other thing [chuckles] and I'm
sorry about this extroverts but introverts
have actually been found to know more [chuckles]
about many subjects.
In one study of college freshman they tested
the students of their knowledge of, what was
it, 21 different subjects.
It was like everything from art to astronomy
to physics to statistics and they found that
the introverts knew more about all of these
subjects.
And what's relevant about this is that the
introverts are not smarter, as far as IQ goes
the two groups, introverts and extroverts,
totally similar IQ.
So instead what's happening here, the advantage
that introverts have in these kinds of intellectual
problem solving puzzles is the very behavioral
style for which introverts often criticized,
the very behavioral style that has you sitting
still more, reflecting more, being more reserved,
being more just slow to process stuff, that
is the flip side of the behavioral style that
helps you in problem solving.
Now another way in which these kinds of children
grow up to play really important [chuckles]
roles in our culture is introverts and extroverts
have very different attitudes to risk taking,
profoundly different attitudes.
Extroverts are much more likely, when they
see something that they want, to go for it.
And this actually goes down to the level of
neurochemistry.
Extroverts have been found to have more active
reward networks in their brain so that if
they see something that they want or if they're
contemplating a promotion or whatever it is
literally their reward networks become more
activated and they get excited and this is
accompanied by all kinds of joyful and fizzy
emotions.
And it's actually these emotions, I think,
that make extroverts such delightful company.
They're kind of like champagne bubble emotions
that come with the contemplation of a reward.
And this can be a really great thing because
it helps us to seize the day when we have
these kinds of feelings.
But the downside to this way of being, is
that when you're that focused on a reward
you don't see the warning signals that are
also coming at you saying, "Hum. maybe you
should stop.
Maybe there's a problem here."
I mean you literally don't see them as much.
And introverts are much less likely to fall
prey to that dynamic.
I mean they sometimes do, this stuff is not
black and white, but they're less likely to
fall prey to it.
And so this is not to say that introverts
don't also take risks 'cause they do.
But they tend to be more slow and more circumspect
about it.
One study of a group of traders at a London
investment bank found that the introverts
were the most successful traders, probably
because of this way of processing information.
And another example of this would be somebody
like a Warren Buffett who is a self described
introvert and is famous for sitting out on
market bubbles that other people fell prey
to 'cause he is the type of person, he's actually
said that the key to investing for him is
not his knowledge but his temperament.
So he pays attention to warning signals and
he sees them when they're coming.
Okay, there are actually so many advantages
that I want to talk to you about but I'm gonna
run outta time so I'm just gonna tell you
about one more for now and we can talk more
in the Q and A as well.
I wanna talk to you about creativity.
So –
[pause]
two important studies by, one by the psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and another by Gregory
Feist have found that the most spectacularly
creative people in a number of fields have
tended to be introverts.
And they're not just any introverts these
are introverts who have extroverted sides
to them as well.
They're people who can go out and they can
exchange ideas and they can advance ideas
and so on.
But they're also people who are comfortable
with solitude.
And that is the key component because solitude
turns out to be a real catalyst to creativity.
Not the be all and end all it's not the, it's
a necessary but not sufficient condition,
but it is necessary.
And the reason for this is, it turns out we're
such social creatures all of us [chuckles]
introverts included, we're such social creatures
that we can't literally be around a group
of people without being, without instinctively
mimicking the opinions of the people in the
group.
So even something as seemingly primal and
personal and visceral as who you're attracted
to, you will actually, if you're in a group
of people who have declared so and so to be
attractive, you will start finding so and
so more attractive than you otherwise would
have.
And this is just a kind of fundamental tenet
of human nature.
And so if you want to go and find out what
you really think about things you almost can't
do it without secluding yourself to some degree.
But I wanna be really clear about what I'm
saying here and what I'm not saying.
So when I say this I'm not trying to argue
that [chuckles] man is an island after all,
to contradict John Donne.
We're human beings, we love and we need each
other.
And I'm also not trying to say that we should
be abolishing group work and abolishing team
work.
I think it's clear that we need that part
of the creative puzzle as well.
And that this is probably increasingly true
everyday because as the problems that we face
grow more complex we're going to need more
and more and more than we've ever done before
to really stand on each other's shoulders.
But what I am saying is that there are two
kind of contradictory drives in human nature
and one of these drives is the drive that
makes us come together.
It's the drive that makes us love each other
and need other and trust each other.
And then another of these drives is the drive
for solitude and for autonomy and for independence.
Excuse me.
[pause]
And introverts have that latter drive particularly
strongly but this is a drive that we all share.
And so if we're going to, we need to figure
out ways of harnessing both of these drives
as productively as we can.
And so I'm just gonna call for three different
kind of takeaways for us to think about and
I'm talking now at the kind of big picture
level and then at the Q and A you can ask
me questions that are more specific about
your lives, your work lives or your personal
lives or whatever.
So the first takeaway I'd like to share with
you is just to give yourself more time for
quiet, more time for solitude, more time to
just get away, to feel truly entitled to it
instead of feeling like it's something that
you need to feel guilty about.
The second one is to think really differently
about the next generation of introverted children
because the same children who have been sitting
on their parents' laps when they're two or
three years old and then grow into teenagers
who develop solitary interests that they love
to pursue whether it's in spider taxonomy
or for 19th century art, or whatever it happens
to be these children often are the great artists
and writers and thinkers of tomorrow or they're
just really fantastic human beings.
And so we need to stop treating them as if
there's something wrong with them and instead
appreciate and take delight in what is right
about them.
And then the final thing that I would say
to you is for all of you to really think hard
about what is the key to your own power.
and from fairy tales that there are many kinds
of different powers that are on offer in this
world.
And some of us are given lightsabers like
Luke Skywalker, and we get to swashbuckle
our way through the galaxies.
And some people are given scholars' education,
I am sorry wizard's educations.
But then there are some people where the power
that is given to them is a key to a secret
garden that is full of inner riches.
And the trick to living well, the trick to
living well is to use the power that has been
granted to you instead of trying to make do
with all the different powers that are on
offer.
What is the power that has been given to you?
And so that is what I wanna say to you in
closing.
May you all use your powers well and brilliantly.
Thank you very much.
[applause]
[pause]
>>male #1: We have questions of course.
[laughter]
>>Susan Cain: Okay I know there are questions.
[laughter]
So -- you can ask me anything, any topic.
It's all good.
>>Alana Weiss: And I'll kick it off by --
>>Susan Cain: You're gonna start
>>Alana Weiss: by a reading a –
>>Susan Cain: Okay.
>>Alana Weiss: question that came from Lynn
who's a Googler based in Chicago.
>>Susan Cain: Okay.
>>Alana Weiss: And she wanted to know what
you thought of the cover of Time Magazine.
She writes, "As soon as I saw the cover, I
immediately became alarmed by how inaccurate
Time could have been with its choice.
The cover says, 'The Power of Shyness.'
This is ironic since Susan Cain who's book
this Time article is based on wrote an article
titled, 'Don't Call Introverted Children Shy'
published by Time online at the same time.
I believe this cover was widely read and it
is a respectable magazine."
And she is concerned about this doing disservice
to children by reinforcing a misconception.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, so thank you that's an
important question.
So yeah, Time Magazine did have this cover
story about a week or two ago that was based
on the research from my book and they called
it, "The Power of Shyness."
Shyness has nothing, well that's not true,
shyness is very different from introversion.
So what shyness is, is it's the fear of social
judgment.
It's the fear of being socially humiliated,
whereas introversion is just what I was talking
about before, the preference for lower stimulation
environments.
And, in practice, these two do overlap to
some degree so there are some people who are
both shy and introverted.
But psychologists debate to what degree they
overlap and so it muddies the waters to act
as if they're synonymous.
But it's also a tricky thing because at the
same time that I say all this there's sometimes
a tendency nowadays more and more people are
talking about the value of introversion and
in doing this I think there's sometimes a
tendency to demonize shyness and I don't wanna
do that either.
Because really the under, shyness itself doesn't
have that much to recommend it.
It's a painful emotion.
But the underlying temperament, the careful
and sensitive temperament that tends to produce
people who are either shy or introverted,
that temperament has a lot of value to it.
And these things all get kind of thrown together
into one soup.
>>male #2: Hi, thank you --
>>Susan Cain: Yes, hi.
>>male #2: for your talk.
>>Susan Cain: Sure.
>>male #2: One of the things that I've been
struggling with or at least listening to all
of this is that I always struggled that I
didn't find myself as extroverted or introverted.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #2: And I've taken the Myers-Briggs
five times, six times, numerous times --
>>Susan Cain: [laughs]
[laughter]
>>male #2: and extroverts will tell me, "Oh
you're definitely introverted" and then introverts
will tell me, "Oh you're definitely extroverted."
>>Susan Cain: Right, right.
>>male #2: Even in your talk, like there's
certain elements that you'll tell about that
like when I was a child like I know I was
that way --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #2: but then there's other things that
are like, oh no, I've definitely introverted
so --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #2: and then you have these key takeaways
where it's like I gotta find my inner self
--
>>Susan Cain: Um-hum.
>>male #2: or like whatever gift has been
given to me.
>>Susan Cain: [chuckles] Right.
>>male #2: Well it's very unclear to like
what I'm supposed to be emphasizing and --
>>Susan Cain: [laughs]
>>male #2: no one's ever been able to tell
me otherwise --
>>Susan Cain: [laughs] Uh-huh.
>>male #2: so I'm interested to hear, I mean
am I like a mutant case or --
>>Susan Cain: [laughs]
>>male #2: like --
[laughter]
or like is it, 'cause I know it's a gradient
and I know --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #2: I know there's a lot of ambiguity
around it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts
on that.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, absolutely.
There's actually a word for people like you.
You're not a mutant you're an ambivert.
And that is the word for people who fall kind
of right of the middle of the introvert/extrovert
spectrum.
And I often think that people who are ambiverts
have the best of both worlds because I think
each of these personality styles has real
gifts and people like you can, I think, choose
more easily which style you want to adapt
at any given moment.
But I will say, too, even for people who really
feel like you're on one side of the spectrum
or the other we're still gloriously mish-moshed
creatures, all of us.
So we all have a little bit of the other side
in us.
It's kind of like if I were standing up here
trying to give a talk on what maleness is
and what femaleness is.
I could get it mostly right but I wouldn't
be able to get it right for any one human
being, and I wouldn't be able to get it right
even for the group in general because it's
a little bit too complex.
And yet it's useful to talk about these categories
'cause it does illuminate something.
So –
your question.
>>male #2: Yeah, thank you.
[pause]
>>Susan Cain: Hi.
>>male #3: Hello.
So I've read a little bit about just kind
of different temperaments like the Please
Understand Me books --
>>Susan Cain: Um-hum.
>>male #3: Keirsey I think it is I'm not sure
but I'm wondering how your definition of introversion
and extroversion relates to these other aspects
of temperament like introspective and things
like that.
Like how do these, how do they interact with
each other?
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, it's all very complicated
[chuckles] what this stuff is exactly.
But I would say the definition that I'm using,
like in this talk, is it's pretty similar
to what you would find in those books.
And another way of looking at it is to ask
yourself the kind of famous question you've
probably most of you heard, "How do I feel
after I've been out and about in company?
Do I feel energized and like I want more of
it or do I feel oh I'm really depleted I've
gotta go home and just take a break?"
And the people in the latter category tend
to be more on the introverted side and useful
to know it 'cause then you can build in the
breaks you need.
Which is something I have been doing on my
book tour.
>>male #3: Thanks.
I guess --
>>Susan Cain: Sure.
>>male #3: I was just asking 'cause it seems
like a lot of the qualities of introverts
that you described are sort of these introspective
qualities sort of observing or taking in the
world around them.
>>Susan Cain: Right, right.
And I'm sorry and your question about that
is?
>>male #3: [unintelligible]
>>Susan Cain: Okay. [laughs]
Yeah, yeah I would say that is very much part
of the way I've defining introversion.
Yes.
Hi.
>>male #4: Hi.
It's somewhat related to the last question.
So you have a, your definition about seeking
lower stimulation environments --
>>Susan Cain: Um-hum.
>>male #4: which most of the other qualities
[ inaudible ] fall out of, but another difference
I believe is extroverts talk all the time
--
>>Susan Cain: Um-hum.
>>male #4: and introverts wait 'til they have
something to say.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #4: And that doesn't really --
>>Susan Cain: Absolutely.
>>male #4: seem to follow from the previous
definition.
How does that, how is that, does that fall
out of it?
>>Susan Cain: Well you mean what does that
have to do with stimulation.
>>male #4: Yeah.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, well it really, actually
if you think about it, talking and interacting
is kind of the highest form of stimulation
that there is.
If you think about a, like a simple conversation
with your best friend there's an enormous
amount of stuff going on with it.
You're reading body language, you're reading
facial expressions, you're thinking about
what you wanna say, you're reacting to what
they said.
And so this is something that extroverts tend
to plunge into with a little more ease.
>>male #4: Right, but they will keep talking
with no response at all.
[laughter]
>>Susan Cain: [laughs]
And --
>>male #4: So it's not working, they're not
getting stimulation from that so it's -
>>Susan Cain: Oh, well I don't if I would
say that.
Well, first of all I don't know that all extroverts
do that.
>>male #4: Right.
>>Susan Cain: But to the extent that that's
happening, the active talking itself is a
form of --
>>male #4: Alright.
>>Susan Cain: of real activity and of stimulation.
>>male #4: Okay.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
Hi.
>>male #5: Hi Susan.
Thank you for coming.
So --
>>Susan Cain: You're welcome.
>>male #5: so I'm pretty junior in my career.
I feel like many times I heard like from career
advices is that you should build your network
--
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #5: you should meet a lot of people;
you should know a lot of people --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #5: I feel like obviously extroverts
has a leg up on introverts on this.
So what are your thoughts about that?
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, I think that the key to
these kinds of exhortations is to find ways
to do it that really are natural to you.
And that sounds ahh, that sounds sort of fluffy.
But it actually really can be done.
So for example, if you're going to a networking
event, I always approach any networking event
as a series of one-on-one conversations.
And not only that I consider it to be a success
if I have made one honest to God new, authentic
relationship with one person who's company
I sincerely enjoyed and look forward to staying
in touch with.
Because honestly how many people can you stay
in touch with in a real way after any given
event?
And if you use that test and you go to enough
events you will find pretty soon that you've
got a Rolodex of people where you really wanna
help them and they really wanna help you.
So that's just one example but I think there
are ways to reframe almost all of the things
that we need to do in the workplace in ways
that suit our natural strengths.
And then I would say in addition to that sometimes
you really do have to kind of go out of, push
yourself outside of your natural temperament.
And extroverts need to do this, too.
An extrovert might need to sit down and work
on a memo for five hours when they might prefer
to be chatting with colleagues in the hallway.
So I think it's natural and good and healthy
to be able to stretch ourselves to some extent,
but just to make sure that we're not living
in that place that's not really who we are
most of the time.
Sure.
[pause]
Hi.
>>male #6: Unlike a lot of the people here,
I'm an extrovert married to an introvert --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #6: and I'm also interested, so I'm
A interested in learning how to better work
as an extrovert, deal with introverts --
>>Susan Cain: Right.
>>male #6: and also --
>>Susan Cain: [laughs]
>>male #6: also I'd welcome any advice what
extroverts can learn from some of the advantages
that introverts have that may not have come
as natural to us but that we may want to work
on.
>>Susan Cain: Right, right.
Would you like me to speak first about --
>>male #6: Either, either
>>Susan Cain: the marital.
Yeah.
[laughs]
So this is actually a pretty common question
because I don't know, the studies say that
it's half of marriages that are introvert/extrovert
and that the other half people are married
to those of a like type.
But I can tell you in my anecdotal experience
it seems like most couplings that I've seen
are yin and yang couplings where it's one
introvert and one extrovert.
And I think is because there really is a natural
and mutual attraction between the two types.
And this has been found by the way int he
workplace, too, that teams that are composed
of a mix of introverts and extroverts that
these teams actually, they're more effective
because people are happier in that kind of
a setting.
But having said that there are certain conflicts
that arise and I can tell you about two or
three of the main ones that come up.
So one of them is the question of how much
to socialize.
It might be that your partner wants to stay
home all the time and you wanna be going out
all the time and so the key is to really have
a sense of understanding where each person's
coming from.
And I always say pre-negotiate these things
so that you don't have to negotiate it every
single Friday and Saturday night.
Just agree in advance, "Okay we're going out
one night every weekend, we're snuggling on
the sofa the other night.
That's it, we don't have to talk about it
anymore."
Another thing that comes up, that's relevant
to both marriages and workplace situations,
with the two types is they actually have really
different approaches to solving conflict.
So in general, there's some exceptions to
this, but in general introverts prefer a much
more mild mannered approach to conflict and
might prefer to avoid it altogether.
And extroverts tends to approach conflict
in a more confrontive style it's called.
So I don't know if you've seen this in your
situation, but that can lead to real misunderstandings
'cause it can make the introverted person
in the relationship feel kind of aggressed
against if their partner or their colleague
brings up an issue too directly.
But the extrovert can feel lonely and abandoned
if the introvert doesn't want to address an
issue.
Like the extrovert might feel like they don't
really care that much or they're not that
engaged with me or else they would take the
trouble to [chuckles] just hammer this thing
out.
So with all this stuff really understanding
where it's coming from can go a long way.
>>male #6: And if you have any comments for
extroverts trying to learn from introverts
--
>>Susan Cain: Oh yes, yes, yes.
Yeah so a big one that I would say is to learn
from introverts' tendency to think carefully
about things.
I was talking before about the tendency of
extroverts to sometimes get so carried away
with positive emotions and with wanting to
go after a goal that you might not take the
time to slow down and see what's really happening.
And, in fact, if you do slow down, if you
put in place certain mechanisms that will
say stop before you act you will be able to
see the warning signals that get in your way.
It's the moving and the action that prevents
you from actually seeing those warning signals.
And then another thing I would say extroverts
can learn from introverts is just to kind
of sit down and be still [chuckles] and see
what you can get from solitude and from just
thinking and being and not moving all the
time.
>>male #6: Thank you.
>>Susan Cain: You're welcome.
[pause]
Hi.
>>male #7: Hi.
>>Susan Cain: Hi.
>>male #7: I keep thinkin' about your fruit
flies --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>male #7: that stay in one spot, introverts
stay in one spot and then you have the extrovert
fruit flies that kind of roam the world.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, yeah.
>>male #7: And so extroverts are kind of more
roamers and introverts kind of stay in the
same place or at least their more familiar
in the same area.
What does that say about, what studies have
been done about extroverts and introverts
in relationships as far as like faithfulness
or, or whether they roam--
[laughter]
>>Susan Cain: [laughs] Oh, Aha.
Actually, extroverts have been found to be
a little less faithful.
It kind of goes into the overall profile of
risk taking we were talking about before.
They've actually been found to get into car
accidents, to place larger financial bets,
to be somewhat less faithful in relationships,
I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean it's always
true.
These are just --
>>male #7: I'm only partially an extrovert,
by the way.
[laughter]
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
Some of these things have small affect, but
there are differences between the two groups.
>>male #7: Okay, thanks.
>>Susan Cain: Sure.
[pause]
>>female #1: I just wanted to say you had
a pretty compelling talk to get me up to a
microphone.
It only happens like once or twice a year
--
>>Susan Cain: Oh, thank you.
Thank you for being here.
>>female #1: Yeah, so I just really appreciate
your book and also I wanted to ask you about
how introverts can get more visibility at
work because on my team there are people who
are shameless self-promoters who are always
saying, "Look I launched this thing --
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, yeah.
>>female #1: and I'm just like, "Oh I could
never do that."
I kind of look at them with admiration and
then a little bit of irritation because it's
something I can't quite do myself --
>>Susan Cain: Right, right.
Can you figure out what is the, what's the
essence of what's keeping you from doing it?
Is it that you don't really approve of it
or that you want to but you can't?
>>female #1: It just seems too, I don't know
just self-promotion is really difficult for
me.
It's being very verbal about what you've done
well.
I guess it's kind of just saying that you've
done a better job than other people maybe
or I don't know.
>>Susan Cain: Right, right.
I mean so that's one, I don't if you guys
all heard that but that's one thing right
there.
If you view self-promotion as being an announcement
of superiority over your peers that could
be pretty inhibiting.
So that's one thing I would just suggest reframing.
It's not really that, it's more just talking
about what you personally have done and don't
think about it in relative terms.
But I would also say, with all these things,
is to try to find ways of doing it that are
comfortable for you because if you try to
ape somebody else it's never gonna happen.
You might push yourself to do it once or twice
but you won't keep doing it.
So might it work for you to call, to ask your
boss, for example, for a meeting one on one
where you just talk about your career and
you kind of go over the things that you think
you've been doing well and where you might
wanna be in the future?
And maybe come to that meeting with a list,
a memo that you've prepared in advance that
lists the ways you've contributed.
Like I wonder if something like that would
be more --
>>female #1: Yeah --
>>Susan Cain: comfortable for you.
>>female #1: sounds very appealing --
>>Susan Cain: Does it?
>>female #1: [unintelligible]
>>Susan Cain: Yeah.
>>female #1: Thank you.
>>Susan Cain: You're welcome.
Hello again.
>>male #8: So do extroverts have more fun?
>>Susan Cain: [laughs]
[laughter]
Oh, yeah, well.
So this is something I talk about this a lot
on my blog.
I have a blog it's called, The Power of Introverts
dot com and I talk about this 'cause it comes
up in the research a lot.
The idea that extroverts might be happier
than introverts because it does seem that
in general extroverts have more of the, they're
very exuberant, very fizzy emotions that I
was talking about that kind of accompany the
pursuit of reward.
But being a pretty happy introvert myself,
I'm always motivated to think that must not
be the full picture.
So yeah, what I think is that there are a
lot of different ways of having fun and that
many of the ways that introverts tend to have
fun, they're not necessarily defined that
way and they're accompanied by a different
constellation of emotions from the one that
we normally associate with fun.
So it's not like jump for joy, huge grin on
your face.
It's something else, it's something quieter.
And I've even started to explore this state
that I call the happiness of melancholy which
is, why is it that things like minor key music,
I love minor key music it always makes me
happy to listen to it, why, why does it make
me happy?
Why does the evanescence of a cherry blossom
make us so happy when we know it's gonna wither
and disappear a week from the day that we're
viewing it?
Why does that make us happy that, it's like
the fact of it's imminent disappearance is
somehow elevating.
And I think, I'm trying to figure out what
it is, I think it has something to do with
these kinds of states make us acutely aware
of the fragile beauty of life and of love
and that that's a form of a happiness in and
of itself that is not necessarily captured
in the view of fun and of happiness that we
tend to think of in our culture.
So that may be a more philosophical [chuckles]
answer than what you were hoping for, but
those are my thoughts for today.
Yes.
>>female #2: Hi, I work on a team where I'm
the introvert who is supposed to lead --
>>Susan Cain: [laughs] Uh-huh.
>>female #2: and I have a super-extroverted
member.
And very strong, very strong team.
But how do I, if I take a long time to talk
as you can see I'm doing right now --
>>Susan Cain: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
>>female #2: and I have a colleague who can
fill that space very easily.
>>Susan Cain: Right.
>>female #2: Are there strategies for me to
honor that person's voice yet still be part
of the conversation?
>>Susan Cain: But still be part of the conversation?
Yeah, I mean does, are you at all comfortable
ever interrupting or does interrupting feel
to you like you're breaking a sacred trust?
'Cause I mean I think that is something a
lot of people feel.
>>female #2: I think that I, yeah, I think
it's challenging, yeah.
>>Susan Cain: Yeah, yeah.
So one thing would be to understand that to
interrupt is actually not a terrible violation
especially if the other person is talkin'
a lot.
But --
[laughter]
and it might be helpful for you to interrupt
using your hands like to say, "Oh that's a
great point, what about this?"
And kind of signal that, physically that you're
now taking the space.
I'm trying to think of other ideas for you.
[pause]
Another thing, do you have the kind of relationship
where you can actually talk about this, you
and your colleague?
>>female #2: That, that sounds like a good
idea.
>>Susan Cain: More comfortable?
>>female #2: [laughs]
>>Susan Cain: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
>>female #2: Okay.
>>Susan Cain: Okay.
>>female #2: Thanks.
>>Susan Cain: You're welcome.
And I thank you so much.
You were a really wonderful audience and it
was an honor to be here with you.
Thank you.
[applause]
