Marie: Hey it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV,
the place to be to create a business and life you love, and this whole shindig is Q&A Tuesday.
Today’s question comes from Kristin, and Kristin writes:
“Hi, Marie.
I know that I have the talent to make it big with my business, and yet my business challenge
is my introverted nature.
I'm contemplative and a great observer, and that’s a strength with my photography, but
not so much with putting myself out there.
The classic artist syndrome of good art and bad marketing.
Too many business for introvert articles I've read imply that we would have fit the go-getter
mold in order to succeed.
I find it hard to believe that I have to change my nature so fundamentally.
Are there ways to work the room that don’t drain the life out of us introverts?
Thanks again, Marie, you are creating exactly what your gifts and talents are made for.”
Kristin, this is a question that we hear over and over again so you are so not alone.
We get tons of emails about it and I hear it all the time in B-School.
So to answer that question today, I have the world’s best expert to help me A this Q.
Susan Cain is the author of the award winning NY Times bestseller Quiet, the Power of Introverts
in a World that Can't Stop Talking, which is being translated into over 30 languages
and was named the #1 book of the year by Fast Company.
Quiet was a subject of a Time Magazine cover story and her writing has appeared in the
NY Times, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and many others.
Her record smashing Ted Talk has been viewed over 5 million times and was named by Bill
Gates as one of his all time favorites.
She's an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard law school and lives in the Hudson
River Valley with her husband and two sons.
Susan, thank you so much for being here on MarieTV.
It is such an honor to have you here on the show.
Susan: Thank you so much for having me.
I love your show.
Marie: So the first thing I want to talk about, and
this is probably something that not a lot of people know, but you and I discussed when
we talked on the phone is that I actually have a lot of introverted qualities and that’s
why I was so excited to talk to you today.
Most people don’t realize it but even though I do this, it’s like when I travel or go
speak at a seminar or do anything, I need a lot of downtime when I come home, and even
in my personal life, I actually prefer very small intimate get togethers like two, three
or maybe four people versus big parties.
I know you were quite shocked to hear that.
Susan: It’s so funny because I was shocked when you first told me, and
this was in the phone conversation that we had, and then I hung up the phone and was
like “what were you so surprised for,” because people tell me this all the time.
I find the most unlikely people tell me that either they're introverts or just that they're
extroverts who feel like they wish they could have more downtime than our amped up society
gives anybody.
Especially people who are in the media the way you are, media is filled with introverts,
so I sat on a panel recently and it was Candice Bergen and George Stephanopoulos and all these
other people who were really there out in their daily lives; they all said they're complete
introverts.
I think that’s one of the interesting things because I just think so many introverts learn
from a very early age to act more extroverted than they really are, so if you really are
an introvert, you go around thinking that you are the only one who has these needs to
get away sometimes, and that there’s something wrong with you for having them and you don’t
realize that half the population feels the exact same way.
Marie: That’s amazing.
Your work is reaching millions and it’s so important and I think one of the things
that struck me the most about you, and it gave me chills when I read it, is that you
really see this like a civil rights movement in its own way.
Tell us more about that.
Susan: I really do.
I believe that introverts today are more or less where women were around the 1950s or
1960s.
You have this group that makes up probably half the population; studies say that it’s
anywhere from a half to a third of the population is introverted.
That’s half the population that is feeling discounted because of this trait that goes
to the core of who they are and just the way we were with the women’s movement in the
1950s or 1960, we’re at the start of this big profound consciousness raising in terms
of getting people to notice that there is this bias towards extroversion.
The other thing that’s great about the analogy is men are great; sexism is a problem, so
same thing here.
Extroverts are wonderful; the problem is only that we have this bias that tells everyone
that they have to be an extrovert whether they are or not.
We’re at the start of this big consciousness raising but I believe in the next decades
to come, we’re going to start seeing real impactful concrete changes in the way our
schools are run and the way our businesses are run and in the way people think about
themselves and their psyches.
Marie: What I love about you too is that you wrote this
book, you're doing this work and you had shared with me that you had a real fear of public
speaking of letting yourself out there.
Tell us about that.
Susan: Of all the people you have met in your entire life, you’ve never
met anybody as terrified as I once was at public speaking; that’s the only way I can
think of to describe it.
The silver lining to it was I couldn’t eat before giving a speech so I would always lose
5 or 10 pounds before I do a speech and I couldn’t sleep the night before; it was
always this horrendous experience.
What happened for me was that my book was coming out, this was in 2012, and I really
deeply, passionately, cared about what I was saying in the book and I knew that to be able
to promote it, I was going to have to give talks.
I embarked on what I called My Year of Speaking Dangerously where I practiced public speaking
every chance that I could, and I started in very small, very safe, very supportive environments,
which by the way is what you have to do.
It does not work to just throw yourself up in a big high stakes stage situation; you
have to start small.
Marie: I love that too.
That’s how I did it.
I remember my first workshops when I was a life coach.
There were three people in the room, my yoga and my parents and a pet.
Susan: You really do have to do that, and then this magical thing happens
after a while where you start to become desensitized.
It used to be to me was just a primal horror to have all these people looking at me and
I just don’t really feel it anymore, little by little by little.
Marie: That’s awesome, so its almost like you build up stamina,
you build up your strength and you're able to handle it.
I know for me all that energy looking at you, and most of it is always really good, people
generally tend to want to see a speaker succeed, they’re excited to hear what you have to
say.
I love that.
Susan: I think on that point one of the other important things for a nervous
speaker is actually to train themselves to look at the people in the audience who do
look happy about what you're saying because there are always going to be people who are
bored or sleepy or disgruntled or whatever they are, and nervous speakers tend to focus
on the disgruntled people, and then that makes me feel bad about what they’re doing, and
so you can train yourself over time to focus on the positive.
Marie: I love what you said there because I think its
something that whether you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert or anywhere on
that spectrum, I think we tend to do that in our whole lives.
For example, even with MarieTV or maybe even book reviews, I don’t know if you’ve seen
this, but it’s like so many people can say great things or have found value or have some
kind of awesome dialogue with you about a creation, but then the one stinker that may
not even be a piece of useful critical information but it could be mean-spirited or just at a
left field or maybe it hits personal where it gets you in a sore spot, and that’s the
thing that your mind hangs onto; it’s the place that you focus and then you're done
for a little while.
Susan: That’s so true and I actually think that one of the great things
about being out there online and having those things come to you mediated through a computer
screen is that you can train yourself to deal with those things in the privacy of your own
home; you can take five minutes to be like “okay, that hurt for a moment and now I'm
moving on.”
I find you can take that practice into your real life also, your offline life.
Marie: Are you cool if we get into some practical tips?
Again, I love your book by the way.
For anyone who has not read Quiet, you have got to get your hands on this book and read
it immediately.
It is awesome and Susan also has more cool stuff coming out that we’re going to tell
you about at the end of the show.
The first point, we’ve got a few points to share with you all, but the first point
which I really really love was something in your book and it was like a broad stroke and
it was so simple yet so profound.
You talked about choosing your business or your career wisely.
Susan: It’s really important.
People, when they are thinking about their career or evaluating a potential employer,
they think about health insurance, they think about what will my office look like, they
think about their salary and they don’t tend to think about whether the job or career
is going to be a good fit for their temperament.
You really need to be thinking, if you're an introvert, “is this a job that’s going
to have me having to be on all day long or is it someplace where the things that I love
to do,” it could be photography or could be the sitting and thinking deeply and strategizing,
could be anything.
You need to make sure you're choosing a line of work that fits you.
Also, I do think for everybody, introvert or extrovert, the most important thing of
course is to be doing the work that you're super passionate about.
Many introverts find themselves being passionate about something that requires them to also
be out in places that are beyond their comfort zone.
Like what happened to me, I spent seven years happily writing a book in splendid solitude
and then since then my life has been all about being in public.
What do you do with that?
I think the answer there is you can act out of character, and I'm drawing here in the
work of the psychologist Brian Little who talks about this all the time; you act out
of character for the sake of work that you really love, but you're doing it mindfully
and as soon as you're done shooting your episode or whatever it happens to be, you come back
and you take a restorative niche where you go into your own space and you have life working
the way you want it to work.
All of this has to come from a place of feeling entitled to be that way.
Marie: The next point, which is genius, you talk about
making a quota.
Tell us about that.
Susan: One of the things introverts, like the women who wrote to you, struggle
with all the time is this feeling, I have this party invitation or a networking event,
I really want to stay home but I might be missing out if I don’t go.
I would advise, instead of wrestling with yourself every night for each of these invitations,
come up with a quota system where you say whatever it is, once a week I'm going to go
to these networking events six times a month; you pick what feels reasonable for you.
You meet your quota system and then you don’t have to feel guilty the rest of the time,
and you also don’t have to agonize night after night what you're going to do.
Marie: I love that and it goes to this idea I’ve
been playing with lately which had been talked about before but I’ve been seeing to come
to life in my life is decision free living for a certain spectrum.
It’s emotionally taxing, it’s mental, it’s like you go back and forth and I feel
like your creative energy gets sucked out.
Tim Ferris talks a lot about it in all of his work and I was looking at it, I just did
this detox not too long ago, and basically it was regimented when I was eating, what
I was eating and I was like “this is the best thing ever.”
It’s like I know what I'm doing and then all of my creative energy can then be devoted
to the things for me really matter.
Making a quota; genius.
Susan: I would also add to that that you can use that kind of quota system
if you find yourself in a relationship as many people do where you're one introvert
and one extrovert and I think this happens all the time because introverts and extroverts
are so attracted to each other.
My husband’s an extrovert.
You can come up with that kind of quota system as a couple so that you're not always arguing
about whether you're going to go out as a couple or whether you're going to stay in.
Marie: I love that.
Genius.
Moving on.
Number three.
This was great and this was from your manifesto, the power of one and the rule of thumb for
networking events.
Susan: Everybody tells you for networking that your job is to work the room
and you should emerge from every networking event with a big fistful of business cards,
and I say that is ridiculous.
It works for some people but it’s ridiculous as a “one size fits all” doctrine.
You need to reframe networking in a way that works for you.
For me, when I think about networking, I don’t even use the word network because I hate it;
it sounds really machine like and cold to me.
I think in terms of kindred spirits, so I go through the world looking for kindred spirits
and there’s always at least one in every party or any event, like the person who you
really connect with; you really want to be with them, you want to get to know them better,
you want to stay in touch and usually at any event, there’s many one such person who
you have that kind of chemistry with and that’s fine.
Once you’ve met that one person, great.
You go through life that way and now you’ve got this gigantic collection of kindred spirits
and I just find that a much more humane way to live and also a more effective one.
Marie: I have to say I feel the same way.
I was telling off camera Josh and I go to a lot of social events; sometimes they’re
movie premieres, sometimes it’s a big seminar or a big event, and I always find myself going
like “where’s one person and let me just find one person I can have a great conversation
with” that makes me feel more connected in my heart, and it also takes the pressure
off of me thinking I'm a bad networker.
Susan: I'm really glad you said that because the underlying theme to everything
that we’re talking about today is take the pressure off.
All of these ideas, I'm a bad networker, I'm not social enough, all of these things, these
are ideas that are imposed on us culturally and we don’t have own; we can reframe it
all.
Marie: Love it.
Point number four was about the power of partnerships so tell us about that.
Susan: I was thinking about this when I was listening to the Q&A that came
in because I believe that most business owners are best suited finding a partner who is their
temperamental compliment, an introvert looks for an extrovert and vice versa, and also
just in terms of skill sets.
If you're the ideas person, you might need a really grounded finance person.
I can tell you I'm doing this now; I'm building out a quiet revolution organization to develop
tools for individuals and companies and schools who want to help introverts draw on their
own natural strengths instead of turning them into extroverts.
I have a partner in this venture, his name is Paul Shabeta, he’s an old friend of mine
and he’s a total extrovert to my introvert and it makes life so much easier because I
go on doing the things that I like to do, writing and speaking and connecting, and he’s
the one who very naturally picks up the phone to strike up a deal with someone.
Things that I could do but I would have to push myself really hard to make them happen
and for him it’s really easy.
Why would you struggle like that instead of just having each person be in the domain that
they feel strongest with?
Marie: I can hear some of our audience going “I can’t
find a partner,” I think even what you're saying is surrounding yourself with person,
even if they’re not “an official business partner.”
It might be someone you work with regularly or someone you work with on your team, that
you create somewhat of a support system around yourself where everyone’s leveraging their
strengths and honoring their own temperament.
Susan: And that’s where I go back to the kindred spirit thing again because
if you collect that network of kindred spirits then you're going to find those partners just
naturally.
Marie: I love it.
So beautiful.
The final point, and I know this is my language, this is not necessarily your language to everybody,
it’s not Susan Cain’s not doing some ghetto stuff like I always do, but I called it “when
it’s time to fly, don’t deny.”
I find it to be so fascinating because as I was sharing, I feel this way sometimes so
I’ll let you reveal what this strategy is about.
Susan: It’s just the idea that everybody, when you are out in the world being
on and being social, reaches their breaking point.
I know any time I go to a dinner party, it always happens; I’ll be having a nice time
and I’ve had my glass of red wine and everything is good, then all of a sudden I hit this two
hour mark and I'm like “I really want to go home.”
I look around and I'm like “does anybody else feel this way” and no one appears to
feel that way.
I now know that many people feel that way; they just aren’t saying so.
I think you can train yourself in graceful ways to extricate from those situations.
I have a friend who does this beautifully, she’s an introvert and she never says no
really to any invitation; she always shows and she always leaves really early, and you
know what?
It’s okay.
I think I'm actually the only one who even notices that she leaves early just because
that’s my job but I don’t think anyone else pays attention; they’re just happy
that she’s there.
Marie: I love it because from a certain other framework,
it’s like “leave them wanting more.”
Susan: There's that too.
Marie: You show up, you make an appearance and you feel
good for the time you feel good, but I know for me, I have some really dear friends that
we’ll spend time with, and when I’ve hit the wall and these particular friends, you
have to get a ferry to go to their house, so it’s a pretty big ordeal, and if Josh
isn’t ready to leave yet, I just tell them “You know what, y'all, I’ve hit my wall,
I’m gonna go hang out,” and they know me, so they’re like “She’s not being
weird, she’s not being rude; she just needs to go hang out for a little while.”
Sometimes if I’ve had enough of a break I can then come back and re-engage, but I
just think it’s so great for us to give ourselves permission.
I know for me in the past I’ve always felt so guilty, “Am I being a party pooper?
Am I being so selfish?”
As we continue and go on and maybe start wrapping up, one of the other things I love is the
quote from Gandhi.
Do you want to share that?
Susan: The quote from Gandhi, this is to me my motivating cry in life in
general, he says, “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”
I actually by the way thought of calling my book Shake the World Gently, which I still
love that idea but my editor said it sounded like a memoir of growing up in the African
savannah, so we didn’t go with it in the end, but I love it.
Gandhi really lived that way and he was by the way incredibly shy and quiet and introverted.
So much so that when he was a kid growing up in school, he used to apparently run home
from class every day as soon as his class was over because he didn’t want to socialize
with this classmates afterwards, and he remained shy his whole life, but he did what he needed
to do.
He talks about it in his autobiography that his shyness was his greatest source of strength.
I think many quieter and shier people all need to get in touch with that because once
you start realizing that your shyness or your quiet is connected also to sensitivity, powers
of observation and all kinds of other powers that you probably value about yourself, you
start reframing the way you think about it.
Marie: So beautiful.
I love this conversation.
I know you have some really exciting projects coming up and for everybody, we’re going
to put links to everything below to know where it is, but do you want to share a little bit
about what you're creating next?
Susan: Sure.
We are developing this quiet revolution organization and ultimately the suite of tools that we
have will be I think quite enormous, but we’re starting out with courses in public speaking
for introverts and communication skills for introverts, and again, the idea of these is
not “we’re going to tell you how to be this larger than life character on stage.”
Instead, we’re going to be helping people to be themselves on stage and make that really
work.
Marie: Susan, thank you so much for being here today.
I wanted to do this episode and I wanted to have this conversation with you for so long
and I am so grateful that you took the time out to come to be with us today.
Susan: Thank you so much.
I'm so honored to be here so thank you for inviting me.
Marie: Susan and I have a challenge for you.
If you're up for it, the first thing is if you consider yourself an introvert, which
of the strategies that we shared today resonates most for you and why?
If you don’t consider yourself an introvert, perhaps you have someone in your life who
is, maybe it’s family member or a colleague, and what today resonated for you and how can
you perhaps approach the people that you love in a more loving and powerful way?
We would love to hear about it in the comments below.
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Thank you so much for watching and we’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.