The Mysterious Introvert
The Mysterious Introvert
Do you know any introverts? We are the quiet ones. We prefer our own company. And we certainly don’t like public speaking? Or do we? Introverts are full of contradictions. We often confuse people and sometimes we even confuse ourselves.
What is an introvert you ask? When I started writing my book The Dynamic Introvert I discovered how little I understood introversion and how little I knew myself.
My Awakening!
Let me give you an example, a few years ago I worked on a management team for a large non-profit organization. One Monday morning Susan, the head of the physiotherapy department, stopped and asked me how my weekend had been. I paused to consider her question and then instead of responding to her immediately I had a conversation with myself, in my HEAD: I thought, “should I tell her about the hike I went on yesterday? or should I tell her about the dinner party I organized on Saturday? Or? All of a sudden I noticed that her eyes had glazed over and she was walking away.
The fact that she walked away struck me as odd but it wasn’t until I started doing research for my book that the light bulbs started going off!!!
It’s no wonder people are confused. For decades it was believed that introverts were in the minority, at least in North America, and compared to extroverts, we were described as: withdrawn, boring, unsociable, shy, not high in confidence, and self-centred.
Who was deliberately spreading this inaccurate information? Was there a conspiracy?
Ever since psychiatrist Carl Jung introduced the personality traits of introversion and extroversion to the world, about 100 years ago, we’ve been told that extroverts comprise a whopping two-thirds of the population. So in order to be successful introverts have tried really hard to act like extroverts; it seemed as if extroverts got all the breaks: the best jobs, the promotions and other opportunities.
But in reality there are as many introverts as extroverts.
Self-Preservation 101: (the introverted brain)
Another thing you should know is that introverts are easily aroused. All joking aside it doesn’t take much for us to become overstimulated. Our brains are wired differently from extrovert’s brains. We have more blood flow and electrical activity in the “neo cortex”.
When this happens our brains may “shut down” and stop functioning.
A few years ago I was at a Toastmasters Evaluation workshop. In the morning we listened to some great speakers and in the afternoon we broke into small groups. In my small group I was told that I would be summarizing our discussion and reporting back to the plenary session. That’s when my difficulties began.
I didn’t know it at the time but my brain was highly aroused by all the activity and noise in the room and I quickly became overwhelmed.
We were in a LARGE, NOISY room and it seemed as if everyone was talking at once. I tried to write down the comments that people were making so that I could summarize them but the more I tried to focus the more my brain BUZZED until eventually it shut down. At least that’s what it felt like! Later on when I was asked to report on our group’s discussion, my mind went blank, and I stumbled over my report. I was mortified.
Looking back I now realize that I should have excused myself from the working group and found a quiet spot to THINK and process all of the information that I had taken in.
The Mysterious Introvert
To some people we are mysterious but to others we are downright annoying.
It’s fairly easy to know who the extroverts are. They are the life of the party…the person with the lampshade on his or her head surrounded by a circle of laughing friends. In contrast, the introverts are lined up along the wall looking like they would rather be anywhere else.
Or is it the opposite? In reality an introvert is not always easy to spot. We may, in fact, be the life of the party. Pass the lampshade please!
Where we really get into trouble is in the workplace. We drive the extroverts crazy because in meetings we don’t say very much and they have to try to guess what we are thinking.
The extroverts feel that we are unprepared or simply don’t have any opinions, so they dominate more; and the introverts stop trying. And they may even disappear…in plain sight.
But it’s not completely our fault. Blame it on our brains. When we take in a lot of new information we need to think about it before we discuss it. Extroverts have the advantage here because they process information by talking about it.
One solution is to raise our hands and wait to be recognized, which doesn’t always work. Another is to join Toastmasters and find our voices!
Introverts of the world unite indeed!!!
This post was adapted from a speech that I gave recently at my Toastmasters Club.