“The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamp-lit desk.”
I’ve wanted to read Susan Cain’s “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” for a long time, with great interest about the insight she brings in talking about my personality type.
The result? There’s no doubt I highlighted more in this book than any other — roughly five times more than the average book. She both explores and explains the differences between how introverts and extroverts experience the world and points to how embracing your personality type can help tailor your life to be more successful.
“Probably the most common — and damaging — misunderstanding about personality type is that introverts are antisocial and extroverts are pro-social,” she writes. “Introverts and extroverts are differently social.”
I would bold, italicize and make those sentences bright green if they wouldn’t look too odd on the screen. In talking to extroverted friends, this is the exact thing I feel like they don’t get when talking about our social lives. Cain describes a big part of the difference through the way extroverts and introverts “recharge.” Extroverts draw energy from being around people and feel drained when they spend too much time alone, while introverts can get drained by being around a lot of people and need that alone time to recover.
That doesn’t mean we don’t like being around people or doing social things, but that the environment and timing matter. Hanging out with a group every day — especially if we work in a more social environment — is what leads introverts to decline the next invitation or seek a one-on-one hangout to relax. We can be up for doing group things once in a while, but ultimately it’s those smaller groups we prefer. To my more extroverted friends, that idea can seem crazy, but as Cain writes, “It can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day.”
She also discusses how people like me really dislike small talk and tend to play the “observer” in taking in what’s going on in the world around us, whether that’s in a group conversation or just sitting somewhere by ourselves.
“When introverts assume the observer role, as when they write novels, or contemplate unified field theory — or fall quiet at dinner parties — they’re not demonstrating a failure of will or a lack of energy. They’re simply doing what they’re constitutionally suited for.”
That last sentence is a great sub-thesis of the book that I found myself nodding along to over and over. Cain describes a situation I know all to well, then clearly states that it’s totally fine. Embrace it, use it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a group big or small, listening to what other people have to say — the most interesting part of any conversation to me — only to have one of the super outgoing members pause and ask why I’m not saying as much. An example is a movie outing with a few friends earlier this year during which one girl stopped mid-sentence to say, “We’re not getting much from you over there.”
Cain talks to an introverted student at a very extro-centered school where class participation is considered essential. But the student tells her that he’s not into making comments during class for the sake of making comments, but rather participates when he really has something to say or disagrees with what others are bringing up. I wanted to high-five him. If I have something I think is interesting or adds to the conversation, I’ll say it, if not, I’m perfectly content hearing other people’s contributions.
The book also covers the intersection of the two groups and how they can often work together really well, whether it’s a group of extroverted employees working for an introverted boss, or a couple with different personality types. Cain shares the story of an introverted woman named Emily and her relationship with the extroverted Greg. Emily “has always been attracted to extroverts, who she says ‘do all the work of making conversation. For them, it’s not work at all.'”
Cain describes how in one-on-one conversations, extroverts enjoy talking to introverts because they can “relax more” and are “freer to confide their problems.” I find this is very true with my own friends. Whether it’s that their extroverted friends are more interested in small talk or don’t listen in the same way, I have a number of friends who have called me “Dr. Phil” after listening to what is going on in their lives. That fits with what Cain says is a preference to devote “social energies to close friends, colleagues and family,” and “enjoy deep discussions.”
Introverts, she writes, “Listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation.”
So in a country where Cain says “we see ourselves as a nation of extroverts,” how should we act in professional, educational and social environments? Should introverts — a third to a half of Americans — be pushed to be more social, bold, outgoing?
Cain says that once we understand introversion/extroversion as preferences for certain levels of stimulation, we can begin to put ourselves in favorable environments — what she calls “sweet spots” — to “feel more energetic and alive.” Think about your own personality and how your life is structured. I know that if I am busy every day for two weeks, there’s nothing I like more than seeing a weekend on my calendar with absolutely nothing written down. That recharge time is something I count down to, knowing I need it to feel truly like myself again.
An extrovert might see those same empty calendar boxes as the source of stress and need to find a way to fill them in order to feel the same way. So what we have to understand is that difference, and when trying to make plans with the other type to keep in mind that saying no or finding a quieter weekend are not anti-social, but just putting ourselves in a “sweet spot.”
Cain writes that there are “physiological limits on who we are…But should we attempt to manipulate our behavior within the range available for us, or should we simply be true to ourselves? At what point does controlling behavior become futile, or exhausting?”
Think about any time that you’ve been told to function outside of your disposition. That could be an extrovert stuck in an office by themselves all day with little co-worker interaction, or an introvert exhorted to spend all their free time meeting groups of strangers. It’s good to move outside our comfort zones at times, but reverse those situations and everyone is in a zone that allows them to thrive on a day-to-day basis.
Personality is a spectrum, and well all fall somewhere along the way. We should embrace who we are, as well as those around us, finding the niches that make everyone the best they can be.
Maybe Cain says it better:
“We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kinds of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard’s education. The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of available power, but to use well the kind you’ve been granted.”