The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 317: Susan Cain - The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking

Episode Date: June 30, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #317: Susan Cain - The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking Join us for our annual workshop - Personal Excellence 2.0 -- Click HERE for dates and availability Full Shownotes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com  Susan Cain is the author of the world-wide bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages, is in its seventh year on the New York Times best seller list, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company magazine, which also named Cain one of its Most Creative People in Business. LinkedIn named her the 6th Top Influencer in the world. Leaders who sustain excellence = Understand that soft is hard and hard is soft.  Soft skills = essential skills.  They are hard, but essential to develop. Leaders in corporate America surprise Susan She expected a lot of resistance from others, but her ideas have been embraced. The responsibility Susan feels for making "introverting so hard" a cool thing to say... It wasn't before her book. People would hide the fact they were an introvert prior to Quiet being published and/or lie on personality tests The point is not to say that you should want to be an introvert or an extrovert -- We need both. Charisma = magic "The wind howls but the mountain remains still."  We moved from being --> To being a culture of personality. Susan's roots: A Harvard educated lawyer Building a Negotiation Consulting business after leaving the corporate world How can an introvert be a good negotiator? The best negotiators are the ones who do their homework Present in a neutral way, calm, collected, ask questions, try to learn, better understand the other person's position Romantic relationships - An extrovert and introvert getting married -- "you must really understand the other person's preferences are legitimate." When should you act more extroverted than you are? We should all step outside of our comfort zones, but be intentional about it.  An introvert who is a public speaker (like Susan) must do this to share the message with groups of people. What are your core projects?  When in service of others, do it. Restorative niches --> After a keynote (for an introvert), go to your hotel room and relax alone (to restore energy expended speaking) Why is cool overrated? In the Enron scandal, Vince Kaminski was the "uncool introverted nerd."  He was the unsung hero in the scandal.  He figured out what was happening in advance.  They told him, "You're like the police and we don't like that." The process to sell the proposal for Quiet: Started writing it in 2005. Agent shopped it an received 12 offers --> A bidding frenzy The importance of writing the "first crappy draft." Take the feedback as a gift Most successful authors have had a lot of help

The point is not to say, okay, you should now want to be an introvert and not want to be an extrovert. It's not bad at all. The point really is more that we desperately need both ways of being. And there's no way to run a company well without having both types of people in there and functioning well. And we know that the best teams are made up of introverts and extroverts, especially once we're working well together. So the idea is not to kind of say that one type is better. The idea is more to have everybody reach the benefit of both ways of being. Before we get started, I want to let you know that we have opened up tickets for our once-a-year personal excellence workshop.

We did this last year and got fantastic reviews, so we wanted to do it again this year, yet make it even better. In addition to the topics that I personally teach, I have reached out to some in my network. who are experts in their particular domain to come and teach in person at this workshop. The workshop is ideal for you if you want to interact with intellectually curious and interesting people. If you want to accelerate your personal and professional growth, if you have an open mind and are not afraid to be challenged, and if you are currently leading a team or you desire to at some point, would love to see you in person at our personal excellence, workshop, go to Ryanhawk.me for more details. Go to Ryanhawk.com. This event is

intentionally kept small so the experience is intimate, engaging, and interactive. Go to Ryanhawk. Me for more details. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the World. Received Mindful Monday updates, the latest on what I'm thinking about watching, reading, and writing. Also, details on how to become part of my book launch team. Text learners to 44222. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. It's the legendary Susan Kane, Harvard Law School grad, 10 years on Wall Street as a corporate attorney,

then started and ran her own negotiation consulting firm. also happens to be the best-selling author of one of the most impactful books of the last decade, Quiet, the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. Susan has sold millions of these books. A few of the topics we discussed, the myth of charismatic leadership. Then why being cool is overrated and when you should act more extroverted than you are and how to talk to members of the opposite type, especially in your marriage. This one is so good. My much-awaited conversation with the great Susan Kane. All right, Susan Kane. It's so good to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. Welcome. Thank you so much. It's so great to be here. I've admired your

work for quite some time. You probably hear that a lot, but it's certainly true in my case. So I was really looking forward to this one. I'm curious to get it started, Susan. And I love studying leaders who have found a way to sustain excellence over an extended period of time. And you are one of these, as well as you've been surrounded or you've surrounded yourself by them over the course of your career. So I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? Yeah. I mean, there's obviously so many factors that go into it. But the one that I've been thinking about a lot lately is leaders who understand.

And here I'm borrowing a phrase from the leadership expert, Tom Peters, if you're familiar with him. Oh, yeah. Yeah, who's a friend of mine and kind of, he sometimes just sort of dropped these little Tom Peters bombs into my email inbox of just things he's thinking about. And the one that I got recently, I couldn't stop thinking about because I, I felt like in just a few words, it encapsulated my views about this. And the words were soft as hard, hard as soft. And the idea is that I hate the term soft skills, but I'm going to use it just for lack of a better phrase.

Essential skills. Essential skills is what we call them. Yes. Okay. Essential skills. So, yeah, I mean, those actually really are hard, and they're a lot harder than getting the quantitative and so on. things right. And I think the leaders who understand that, especially nowadays where millennials and

people in general are really looking for a more humanistic approach to business. I think those are the leaders who are really going to thrive. And of course, there was that really interesting Google study where they looked at their top performing teams. And I think there were eight different characteristics that they identified among those teams and leaders of those teams. And the top seven were essential skills and STEM and tech skills were number eight. So I thought that illustrated it really well. Yeah. And I know you work with leadership teams. You work for the type of people that are probably listening to the show. I usually try to speak to them because I receive so many emails from someone who was in that mid-level management role within a big company. So they're a manager,

director or vice president, not necessarily the CEO. And given that since quiet, your book, which we're going to talk about here in a second, has come out, I think you've become, at least in the space that we play in, pretty famous based on your work, all the research and the great writing that you've put together. When you go into companies and you work with leaders, what have you found that either surprises you in a pleasant way or not pleasant way, the leaders within the corporate space today? Well, one thing that is an incredibly pleasant surprise is when I started doing this work,

you know, in my work focuses on harnessing the talents of the introverted half of the employee population. I say half, but there are some industries where it's way more than half, you know, like tech and pharma and some finance companies and some creative companies and so on. Anyway, so my work is focused on that, and I expected a lot of resistance on the part of corporate leaders because the work is really challenging the status quo, right, of there being a kind of cultural ideal that favors one temperament, namely the extroverted temperament over the other. And it's never comfortable to have your own status quo challenged, even if you're the most well-intentioned person in the world. It doesn't feel good.

So I expected a lot of resistance. And I haven't found that. I've actually found so many companies embracing this idea and really being eager to think about how to make these kinds of changes. And I find that just incredibly inspiring. You know, people really want to know, okay, well, I guess it kind of instantly makes sense to people. people who are leading companies where they do have a sizable population of introverts, once you point that out to them, they'll recognize it instantly. And, you know, once you point out, we did a study where we found that the majority of people

feel that their companies are not doing enough to harness the talents of their introverts. And, you know, I think people hear the results of that study and they're like, oh, yeah, you know what, that makes sense. That's probably right. So that's been a pleasant surprise. In 2012, when this work came out, the work that you published, I feel like there was a shift that was created because of quiet. At the time, it felt like there wasn't necessarily a place for introverts. And now it's almost done a complete 180, whereas people will use a phrase like, I'm going to introvert so hard tonight and go home and read a book and watch Netflix or something along those lines.

And that would have never been said, I think, prior to your book. Have you sensed that or felt that I assume you have, but you're right in the middle of it, but I know I've felt that. I see that where now people almost brag about being or going to go off an introvert as a verb. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I have really seen that change. And one of the best examples of it, I think, is a friend of mine who is a professor at Harvard Business School. And she was telling me that when she would work with her leadership students, she would always start by having them do a personality test.

And this has been going on for years. And she said the part of the test that measured introversion, extroversion, no one would ever admit to being an introvert. I guess they were answering all their questions in such a way that they would come up with the answer revealing that they're an extrovert. And she said that that's not true anymore. And now she gets a third to a half of her students who identify it introverts. and they don't think twice about it and neither does anybody else. So that's been, you know,

and I can give you so many examples like that. And I think that's been an amazing thing. And I think at the same time, there was something that was embedded in your question and I felt like, oh, I really want to touch on this, which is the point is not to say, okay, you should now want to be an introvert and not want to be an extrovert.

It's not bad at all. The point really is more that we desperately need both ways of being and there's no way to run a company well without having both types of people in there and functioning well and we know that the best teams are made up of introverts and extroverts, especially ones who are working well together. So the idea is not to kind of say that one type is better. The idea is more to have everybody reap the benefits of both ways of being. Agree. Why do you think there was this myth of charismatic leadership,

which you write about in chapter two, whether it's a Tony Robbins event that you went to or other aspects. Why do you feel like this was a part of our, a fabric of our society that I've taken those tests. And I vividly remember, especially I worked my first job was a telephonic sales job. And I felt like if I don't, if I don't answer the questions to be an extrovert, I might not get the job. And now I would never feel pressure to do that. And so I'm right there with that study at Harvard with one of those people because I felt like I had to do that in order to get the job. Why do you think that was? What was it in our society that forced us to feel like we have to be that way in order to, whether it's get a job or get promoted or be a leader?

What was it? Well, I mean, partly you can say that this is human nature and the very word charisma means magic. And so we all respond to the type of person who can kind of create a feeling of elation and magic, which is what charismatic people can do. It's a kind of beautiful quality. So to some degree, it's natural, but at the same time, you know, when I started doing my research, I realized that, number one, it had not always been this way in the U.S., and these values are still not this way in other societies, particularly in Confucian belt cultures, such as Korea or China or Japan, where there's much more of a feeling that there are aphorisms in these cultures that the wind howls, but the mountain remains still. So in these societies, a good leader would be

more somebody who's not talking too much and who can keep their own counsel. And talking too much is a kind of sign of foolishness and weakness. So that's to say it's not, there is a very deep cultural element. And I think what happened is we know from cultural history that we moved from being what historians called a culture of character in the 19th century, where we really valued people based on the signs that they had integrity. We moved into what they call a culture of personality, where what mattered is more how magnetic you are, how charismatic, how dominant,

how well did you show up in a job interview? And we made that shift at the turn of the 20th century as people were moving from their small towns into big cities and corporate life. And we haven't really let go of that since then. We still are living in that culture. But at the same time, that culture has been leavened over the last 20 and

30 years with the rise of tech where suddenly there are lots of incredibly influential people who are not, you know, they're not necessarily the most charismatic or the most dominant and they're achieving influence through other means. And that has been causing us to really rethink what qualities we find within us to value. I'm also fascinated by your story, Susan, a Harvard educated lawyer who also had a consulting business where you were teaching negotiation, and then you make this shift. And I don't know the exact timeline, so you could clear that up for me. But as far as you make a shift to being a writer and not only being a writer, but publishing a book that I think has changed the course of millions of people's lives and more than that when you compounded

the effect that's had on so many. Can you take me back to your, time as a lawyer and what you were thinking as you were making the transition transition out of that world, out of the consulting firm, and to be to becoming this person who was going to write about the power of introversion. And did you have any idea at that time? It could have this type of impact. Oh, yeah. Gosh, no, I had no idea. I mean, really the story was that I had wanted to be a writer since the time I was four years old. But I completely forgot about that during all the years that I was practicing corporate law, which was almost a decade.

Yeah, I just forgot. But what was happening was... You literally forgot or you felt like I'm not supposed to do that. I'm supposed to go to Harvard Law School and get a good job and make enough money. And like, was it literally... I'm wondering what it was in your makeup that said, I'm not going to follow the thing I wanted to do since I was. four years old. I'm curious.

Right. When I first made the choice, it wasn't that I had forgotten. As you're suggesting, it was much more everything you just described. My dad sat down with me one day and said, yeah, well, you know, it's a very romantic dream to be a writer, but it's not so romantic when you can't pay your bills and like that. So I went to law school and then I found it all incredibly fascinating. So once I got drawn into all of that, I actually did forget it. Like it wasn't like every day I was thinking, oh, you liked your job. Yeah, I liked my job. Yeah, yeah.

But it is true during the whole time that I was practicing law, it was at this big Wall Street firm, and it was always volunteering for every committee that had to do with professional development or mentoring or, you know, like all the human side of what was going on, was always fascinating to me. And also, I was, though I didn't have language for it yet, I was very much thinking about and struggling with the idea that I was a quieter and more cerebral

type of person. And could I really be a strong negotiator with that kind of personality? And I wrote about it in quiet. I had a few experiences where I really saw that there were ways to where personality like that was even an advantage if he figured out how to use it. And I started looking around at other lawyers in the firm who I admire. and I saw that some of them were the kind of classic extroverted type that you might expect for your fierce advocate of a lawyer. And some of them really weren't.

And I started to realize that there were all these other ways of being. So that even when I started doing the negotiation consulting later, and this was before I ever thought of right and quiet, the focus always was anyone could be a good negotiator. It doesn't matter what personality style you have. So that's kind of been a theme with me from the very beginning long before I ever dreamed of right and quiet. Negotiation is a fascinating topic, I think, Susan, real quick, just to hit on that. Because someone who was a professional teaching that and you're an introvert, and there are a lot of introverts listening to this. People who are working out, driving in their car, people who are introspective, people who are thoughtful, people who spend time. by themselves to think they're intentional with their actions.

I'm curious, just a one-off here, which I just definitely didn't have a plan, but thinking about, you said anybody could become a good negotiator. What are some ways that someone who is an heavy introvert, someone who is not known as a talker, someone who may be called shy by others, what are some ways that they tactically could become a great negotiator? Yeah, there's so many answers to this. I mean, so one thing is the best negotiators are the ones who really do their homework. And it's not the glamorous answer, and we always love the glamorous answer. We should like get rid of the glamour because the best negotiators, they are the ones who figure out, you know, if you're negotiating, let's say, doing a salary negotiation. You know, you've really done your homework about what the market standard is for the role that you're applying for. And so you're not necessarily. necessarily like charming your way into the salary, into a higher salary. You're more like dispassionately saying, you know, like here's what the market looks like. Is there a way that we could bring this

salary up to what the market standard is? And that's a way of taking it out of, out of the domain of a contest of wills, and it's more making it into something that's more neutral where everybody can feel good about the outcome. And that's true in general in a negotiation, you know, that when you're presenting the things that you're asking for in a more neutral, less overly emotional or less willful way, everybody, you have a much better chance of everybody walking away at the end of the day feeling really good about it. And, you know, if you're the person in the negotiation who's asking a lot of questions of the other

side, again, in a neutral way, just like, I want to understand where you're coming from. Can you tell me what's the basis for this claim that you're asking for? I want to understand it better. First of all, you're letting the other person feel heard, but you're also letting them then give you the information that you need where you might be able to come up with a creative solution that makes both sides happy. And again, in negotiation, it's not litigation. It's basically trying to do a deal. And unless it's a one-off deal where you're never going to see the other person again, you want everyone walking away feeling good. Certainly. It made me think of actually conversations with a spouse as well. Yes. And so I, on the scales, when we do these types of tests,

I've taken a ton of them, and very far on the introvert side, my wife is very far on the extrovert side. And I feel like it is a really good balance for us, especially when we go to dinner parties, because She can be the life of the party and I can find the person that I'm really fascinated by and have a long one-on-one conversation and she can bounce from people to people. It's perfect. I love it. How do you feel about this? How is it with you and your husband or when it comes to introversion, extroversion, and then relationships in general? Yeah.

Well, it's funny. I actually devoted a whole chapter of quiet to romantic relationships because I found that the same patterns were kind of coming up again and again. So I'm kind of lucky with my husband because even though he's really extroverted in that if you met him, he has a really big personality. So he would come across as a total extrovert. But it's not like he has a need, at least at this stage of life, to be going out constantly. Whereas one of the things that I found in my research, probably the number one issue faced by introvert extrovert couples is that one person's, idea of the perfect Friday night is curling up on the sofa together in front of Netflix. You know, and the other person wants to invite their 20 best friends over for pasta.

So like that, and that's tricky, you know. So I always suggest to people who are in that situation to try to kind of negotiate it out in advance, which is to say, like, figure out in advance how many, you know, big social evenings. are we going to have per month and how many quiet nights on the sofa are we going to have? And just figure out something you both can live with and then stick to that. And that way you don't have to be arguing about it each night. And it's also something deeper, which is like really understanding that the other person's preferences are legitimate and come from their deepest wiring and their deepest personality

make up because I think if you don't understand that, we have a tendency to kind of look at her spouse and be like, what? You know, like, how could you possibly want this? There's a feeling that the other person's wish is not justified. And I think it can really help to see it all as a deeply ingrained temperament. It makes sense. I mean, be thoughtful about it. Caring.

Understanding, try to truly get to know them at a almost. DNA level to understand why it is we want what we want that I'll help us be more compassion I think in those moments okay there are a few few parts of quiet that I put a highlight and wrote notes about Susan I like to talk about if you're cool with I know I know it's really impacted me in a way so I think about there are times when an introvert should act more extroverted chapter 9 and there's a great story about Professor Brian Little, and I identified so much with how he responded after one of his speeches. But can you share about that particular time for the introverted people who are listening?

And by the way, I think introversion and extroversion is a scale. It's not like you're just one or the other. Or it's like, I think that's the one issue sometimes we mess up too, is it's a sliding scale and you hit at different points. And there are even different moments when you're more extroverted than introvert. For people like you and I who get up on stages and speak, that would be viewed as moments of extraversion, right? We have to be, we have to share our message and be compelling and try to be entertaining and educational at the same time. Like, that's probably moments of extroversion, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's

where we fall all the time. So when should you act more extroverted than you actually are? Yeah. So for this whole question, and it's obviously a huge question for people, I really do draw on Professor Little's work. He's the person in the story that you were just talking about. So Brian Little, he's this incredibly charming and smart personality psychologist who is a deep introvert himself. He's also one of the best public speakers you'll ever find.

And based on his own life experiences in which he is constantly, like just as you described for the two of us, like constantly sort of taking the stage and giving everything he's got while he's on. stage, but then he kind of comes off stage afterwards and feels absolutely exhausted. And in his case, he will rush off to the nearest restroom just in order to have a break. And so based on all these life experiences, he developed a kind of field of psychology where he figured out that we should all of us step outside our comfort zones, but we shouldn't do it in a kind of willy-nilly way. like we should do it strategically. So the first thing is to figure out what are your core projects in this life?

What are your core projects and work? What are your core projects with the people you love? Like who are the people you really care about and who you're dedicated to and so on? And in the service of those core projects and those core people, you will step outside your comfort zone. You're not just doing it for any reason. you're doing it for kind of a higher purpose. And it's a heck of a lot easier to go outside your comfort zone for something you care about.

And like, you know that, Ryan, right? Like when you step on a stage, maybe there, it might not be the first thing that feels most comfortable to you, but when you feel really passionate about a message that you want to share, that lifts you up. And it makes you want to get onto the stage, despite maybe your innate preferences being to be home reading a novel or whatever it is. So you do it for your core project, but then the other key, well, there's two other things he talks about. One is the importance of restorative niches.

So if you know, and I do this, like I travel around speaking to companies about these questions all the time. And I always schedule it so that after I give a talk and maybe do a book signing or whatever, you know, I'm always going off after that maybe in my hotel room of getting a massage or I'm doing something where it's like really restorative. And I schedule that in and I honor those commitments to downtime just as fiercely as I would honor the commitment to be on stage at the right time of day. Like they all really matter. And if you're listening to this and you know about yourself that you feel guilty about taking that downtime that you need, the way to reframe it for yourself is to remember that you're going to be much more present and capable and available to the people

around you during your on times if you really respect and honor your need for the downtimes. Each one matters just as much as the other. Yeah, I'm with you 100%. I felt actually really guilty about this earlier this year. I did a speech in Fairbanks, Alaska, and it's a long trip up there way up north. And I actually had two, one at 10 o'clock and one at five o'clock, same day. And in between, there was very nice people who said, hey, we're going to take you and tour the area in between the talk. And I remember they told me that before I traveled to go up there.

And I remember sitting with my wife, Miranda, saying, oh, my God. I was scared of that moment, not the two speeches. I was left and ready for those. I said, what should I say? What should I tell them? And she goes, just tell them the truth. tell them and I and so I got there I said look I would love to go tour the place but for me to be good at the five o'clock like I was at the 10 o'clock I literally I want to go back and take a nap I want to go back

and relax maybe read a book and recharge and and to I think to people who are more extroverted they're like are you crazy when are you going to come back to northern Alaska and I said I don't know but like I really care about doing a good job and that's my project that's my work that I didn't want to risk being completely dead for the second one. So I did. I skipped a tour and went back and took a nap to get ready for the second one and felt much better because of it. But that's hard for people like us, I think.

Yeah. And I think you're getting at a really important piece of this, which is the communication piece that you had to, and you did find a way of communicating to your hosts, what you needed in a way that wouldn't feel insulting to them and that they can. they could completely understand. And that's really important. And it's a hugely important thing for people to do within their teams. It's one of the biggest things that I stress, like when I'm speaking or consulting or whatever, that team members need to be self-aware enough to know their own temperaments and their own needs and then have the communication skills to teach each other about

what their needs are. And you need to be creating a kind of open. environment where everybody can talk about this stuff in a way where it's not fraught at all. It's completely socially acceptable to just say, this is what I need, this is what my teammate needs. So what can we do to accommodate each other? And if everybody's being honest, you might find that there's one person who really needs to check in with their team members a few times a day and really know what's going on and hear feedback about the thing that they're working on. And then there might be someone else on the team who really needs to be able to get into a deep state of flow for three hours at a time and know that there's going to be a time of the

day where meetings won't be scheduled and they could just put their head down and get into that state. And if you create a climate where the different members of the team can each vocalize those needs, it's actually not that hard to accommodate each other. You know, like in the example I just Gabe, you could say, okay, every morning from 9 to 12 is the no meeting zone. But we're going to check in with each other three times a day, 8.30, noon, and 3 o'clock, or whatever. And now you've just met both parties' needs, and everybody feels good about it. Yeah. I noticed you talk about that in Chapter 10 about how to talk to members of the opposite type, which is something I was thinking about. Another aspect of note I took was there's a bit about Elinor Roosevelt, but in the middle

the book you talk about the why cool is overrated or why being cool is overrated. Can you share more about why that's overrated? Yeah. I mean, maybe I'll

maybe I'll answer that question with a story. Okay. Which is a story from Enron, the corporation that famously blew up. And there was a guy there. His name was Vince

Kaminsky. he, by his own description, is extremely uncool. And he describes himself as an introverted nerd. And he was one of the few heroes really, unsung. Most people don't know his name, but he was one of the few heroes of that situation in that he kind of figured out in advance what was happening and tried to get the company on the right path and tried to warn people that they were entering into these transactions that were not kosher and that were likely to blow up.

And he says nobody listened to him. And the way he described it, he said, you know, you'd have, I may be getting the exact words wrong, but something like this. He said, you know, you'd have an extroverted rainmaker on one side of the table and an introverted nerd on the other. And who do you think they listened to? And at one point he was taken aside and said, you know, Vince, you're acting like a policeman and we don't like police.

And I think that's a really good example of what happens when you live with a culture that overvalues cool and charisma and the type of personality that seems immune to the anxiety that comes from excessive risk-taking. And we do lionize that. Like you look at a James Bond film. And like the next James Bond movie that you see, look at it from this perspective.

You'll notice that the whole point of those movies is really to lionize the James Bond character who feels no fear or anxiety in situations where other people would feel it. And that's interesting, but we have fear and anxiety built into our biologies for a reason. You know, like they're there to tell us when there's an actual threat. And so there's a real danger when you live in a culture that overly values. you know, excess cool in the face of anything. Absolutely. I think that's a great story, great example.

So I mentioned earlier about the book and if you and your expectations and you said that you kind of exceeded it. What were your initial expectations when you wrote and published quiet? Because it's so well researched, well told, incredible stories, really well put together. So you had to feel, I would imagine you had to feel good when that thing went to press. But what were your expectations at that time? Oh, yeah, thank you so much. I mean, I did feel great by the time it went to press, but it was a long road getting there.

It went to press in 2012, but I started working on it in 2005 when I started putting together a book proposal for it. And at that time, I truly, I thought I was working on a kind of small and idiosyncratic project. I had no idea that it was going to be of interest to that many people. I started to get some inkling once my agent started shopping the proposal around to the various publishing houses. And it went to auction. And there were, I don't know how many, I think it was like 12 different publishing houses who were bidding fiercely for it. I started to realize, oh, my gosh, this thing is touching a nerve. But I didn't know it in advance.

And then even when that happened, you know, and I sold the book to my publisher, Crown, I then had to write the book. because I had only written a proposal at that point. And the process of getting it to be this well-researched thing, you know, full of stories and all that, that took me a really long time to do. And I first turned in a draft that was pretty bad. And my editor and agent said, we think you should go back and start from scratch and take as much time as you need to get this right. Wow. Yeah. And I was actually really thrilled that they did that.

because I knew that it wasn't right yet. I knew I needed a lot more time to get it right. And I had a deadline. And so I was thrilled that they were like giving me all the time I needed instead of holding me to that deadline. And I think that that's true with a lot of big projects. You know, there's no way to get big projects right really quickly. I don't know.

Some people can do it, but often, It can't be done that way. It's an iterative process. There's failure as a part of the process, right? I think people who don't fail or don't try. I mean, it just, it doesn't seem to be as impactful if you haven't gone through some of that. It's so much part of the process. And in fact, you know, it's funny, just the other day, I shared with a friend of mine who's also a writer. But she's younger. You know, she's, she's earlier in the process. And I shared with her the letter that my editor sent me. me when I turned in that first crappy draft of Quiet. And, you know, and it was a letter, it was kind, but it didn't pull any punches about what was missing and what was wrong and how much work I still had to do. And she said that it was so helpful for her to see that letter. So I've actually thought of like just publishing it in general so that everybody can see it. Well, it's interesting timing.

I just turned in my first manuscript and then I got the initial notes back. And I've never, I've never seen. seen so many, my editor, publisher from McGraw-Hill, she, you may know her, I don't know, she's in New York, but she prints it out and edits it with a pencil and then scans it back and sends it. I've never seen so many pencil marks in my life. But, and I would say, though, I was so grateful for her for putting so much care for Casey. Yes. Casey for putting so much care into wanting my book to be better than it was when I turned it in. And that's her job. And I, I called her immediately. I said, I am so.

grateful because it is obvious you looked at every single word as close like closer than I did. And it's going to make the book a hundred times better. And so I just I it's because I I've talked to others who said, man, it really knocked me on my back. I felt like can I even do this? And I, my feelings are a little different. I felt a sense of gratitude for her willingness to like insult me in some places, make me feel bad about some of the things I've written. Because I know it'll be better for it. I so agree with you. And really, when you started describing the draft you got back with all the pencil marks,

my first reaction was, Ryan is so lucky. Like, you're so lucky that you have an editor who cared enough to do that. You know, a lot of people actually also have the opposite complete that their editors just kind of rubber stamp, whatever they turn in.

And yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. And I mean, and I, like, I think for anybody listening, like in case this seems like,

God, is it a human reaction? to not feel, you know, knocked back by this. I think that is part of it, too. I don't want to speak for you, but certainly when I got that letter, you know, I was partly like elated that they were giving me the time I needed to make it better. But of course, there were also the feelings of like, gosh, I hope I can actually do this. Exactly.

Maybe I'm not capable of being a published author. And, you know, like that's certainly thoughts coming to your mind, I would imagine. And hearing it from someone like Susan Kane, though, who's sold millions, it literally, millions and millions of books, had the same feeling of, hey, Susan, this is basically, you've got to start over. This isn't good enough. I think that is a comforting feeling for those, for anybody, not just about writing a book, but for any important project in your life, the fact that that happens to the best of the

best. And that's part of the journey. That's part of the iterative process for all of us as we keep going, is that you know that you should look at it with a viewpoint of being grateful that there are people in your life who are willing to care enough to do that. Because if you didn't care, you would say, oh, pretty good, good job, Susan. And then you just publish an average book and nobody would read it. And in this case, it could, it changed probably the course of your life. Oh, God. Yeah. I don't know. I can't, there's no way to overstate how much it changed, how much it changed it. And yeah, yeah, that's also true.

I just think it's true of anything that you want to do. You know, and relatedly, like, somebody had told me while I was writing quiet, someone said, you know, if you look at most of the really good and successful authors, they all get a lot of help. Like, they have editors, they have people who are helping them with research and stuff like that. And that was a really pivotal thing for me, too. So I actually ended up consulting with a couple of other editors as well. even though I loved the ones I had, I just wanted as many, as much feedback as I could get.

And each editor made things a little bit better. You know, like one person said, the opening story that you're using is not compelling enough. So why don't you pick a different story? And so I did. And, you know, changes like that make an enormous difference, but you can't always see them for yourself. Absolutely. I agree. And Susan, I really appreciate your time, investment today.

I know you have to run, but this is a really enjoyable talk. It's so great to finally get a chance to do it after being positively impacted by your work in a huge way for years. So it's great. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? Oh, yeah, sure. Well, the best thing is probably to sign up for my newsletter, and you never share your email address or anything like that. So you can go to my website, which is for QuietRevolution, it's quietrev.com. And if you get there, it'll be pretty easy to see how to sign up.

And then I'm also in all the usual spots. You can find me a big LinkedIn presence, LinkedIn influencer. And I'm not, I don't have the exact handle. But if you just put in Susan Cain, you should find it. And I'm on Twitter at Susan Cain. I'm on Facebook. And you should look for my author page, author Susan Cain. and I just started an Instagram account recently.

So I'm now there too. Love it. Well, Susan, thanks again for investing your time. And I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress and perhaps record again in the future. I would absolutely love that. And I'm working on another book right now. So maybe we can talk when that comes out. Would love to.

Would you have an idea when it's going to be out? I think it's going to be a while because I'm still in that exact same process now that I was able to quiet where I've, you know, written sort of half the book, but want to go back and fix it and stuff. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Well, good. Well, thank you again for being here, and I look forward to the next one.

I really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much, Ryan, for having me. Oh, of course. Thank you. Okay. Have a great day. You too. Okay.

Bye-bye. I really enjoyed that conversation with Susan Kane. I picked up a copy of Quiet when I was a mid-level manager and a big company and and it had a big impact on me. It made me feel a bit better about scoring more on the introversion side on those personality tests. I attribute that all to Susan's work. It was great to get the opportunity

to speak with her more about it, especially about some of her negotiation tips, the moments when you should act more extroverted, and definitely when it comes to relationships and understanding the other person's type and why they act the way that They do. I found this one to be both entertaining and very useful. I hope you did as well. If so, I would love it if you would spread the word tell a friend or two. Perhaps no better episode to listen to

to get started than this one with the great Susan Kane. Doing this continues to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you next week. Can't wait. We have opened up tickets for our once a a year personal excellence workshop. We did this last year and got fantastic reviews so we wanted to do it again this year, yet make it even better. In addition to the topics that I personally teach, I have reached out to some in my network who are experts in their particular domain to come and teach in person at this workshop. The workshop is ideal for you if you want to interact with intellectually curious and interesting people. If you want to accelerate your personal

and professional growth if you have an open mind and are not afraid to be challenged. And if you are currently leading a team or you desire to at some point, would love to see you in person at our personal excellence workshop. Go to Ryanhawk.me for more details. Go to Ryanhawk.com. This event is intentionally kept small so the experience is intimate, engaging, and interactive. Go to Ryanhawk. stop me for more details.