The Viall Files - E261 Introverts & Extroverts With Expert Susan Cain

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Today on The Viall Files we get to an audience requested topic: Introverts vs. Extroverts. Expert on this topic, Susan Cain, is the author of bestsellers Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking which 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. As a result she was named one of their Most Creative People in Business, as well as named by LinkedIn as the 6th Top Influencer in the world. Susan and Nick talk about introverts and extroverts in the workplace, in dating and relationships, and about general interactions with others out and about in the world.  “People have a real misconception about what introversion is … ” Check out Susan’s Book Quiet at  https://www.quietrev.com/quiet-the-book-2/  and signup for her newsletter at https://www.quietrev.com/newsletter-signup/   Website:www.quietrev.com  Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Blenders Eyewear: http://www.blenderseyewear.com enter promo code VIALLVIP for 15% off.  Mint Mobile: http://www.mintmobile.com/VIALL To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, and get the plan shipped to your door for FREE. Betterhelp: http://wwwbetterhelp.com/VIALLFILES  to get 10% off your first month.  StoryWorth: http://www.storyworth.com/VIALL to get $10 off your first purchase.  Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @susancainauthor See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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For 15% off, Blenders rocked with pride worldwide. You're crazy. What is going on everybody? Hi, it's Nick, the, is it Ambervert? Yeah, I'm an Ambervert as well, by the way. Yeah, I took her test too. Exciting episode for you today. Susan Cain, the author of Quiet, is with us today to talk about the differences of being an introvert versus an extrovert and why our society is the way it is, how it kind of leans to favor extroverts versus introverts.

A lot of people asking for this episode once we, you know, Chrissy stereotyped introverts and how she thought they were incapable of DMing. Anyway, did we learn a lot? We did. Amanda and Allie? What are you two? I'm an ambivert, but I get mistaken for an extrovert a lot. Yeah, I would say, yeah, you would seem to be more an extrovert. If I had to guess, I would have guessed you're an extrovert a lot. Yeah, I would say, yeah, you would seem to be more an extrovert. If I had to guess, I would have guessed you're an extrovert.

Nick likes to think that he knows us better than we know ourselves. I've never. Never said that at all. I do think that I had you guys pegged when I hired you guys as how you guys would balance each other out and so far i have not been proven wrong does that bother you that is true yeah you did do that i was like this is how they're gonna work together and so far it's worked out great uh what are you ellie i have no idea what do you think you are i have no idea i don't even know what the things are an introvert versus she's just a vert i don't know i think ally is an introvert

what do you think amanda i think she's a vert what the vert i don't talk enough about, understanding, you know, do you lean more introvert versus leaning more extrovert? And it is, as we discussed, kind of, it's not a one or the other. There's a bit of a spectrum involved in how it plays a role in our relationships, dating, meeting people, making friends, work, overall just being happy

and not understanding how we operate in the world, whether we are an introvert versus an extrovert can play a big role in kind of our overall happiness. That was kind of one of my biggest takeaways. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope that when you're done listening to it, you feel a little bit more understood, even from yourself. I know that's how I felt about it when I took some time

to understand the difference between introverts and extroverts and understanding where I kind of fell on the spectrum. So thanks for listening, guys. We appreciate it. Don't forget to send in your questions at AskNickAtCastMe.com. Cast with a K for Ask Nick episodes. Be sure to check out our episode with Dave Holmes to get an update on all things Bachelor Nation,

including what's coming up next for Katie's season, Chris Harrison, Colton Underwood, and his announcement about being gay, his upcoming documentary or whatever. We don't still TBD. And that was a fun episode with Dave. And if nothing else, let's get to Susan. Susan, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. This has been a kind of an episode I think my audience has really been anticipating. And just to give you some backstory, it started, and I'll put Chrissy on the spot a little bit. A few weeks ago, we were playing a game with one of our guests in the games called Do You Know Me? And it's just like, we're kind of guessing, you know, personality traits, have they ever done X, Y, or Z? And there was a question that came up, was our guest introverted or extroverted? And earlier in that interview, our guest said how

they never slid into a DM or they never messaged someone to ask them on a date. And they had mentioned that they've, well, they mentioned that they did do that, right? And so I asked the question, are they introverted or extroverted? And Chrissy just jumped. She's like, oh no, they must be extroverted because they slid into a DM. And I was just like, what do you mean by that? It was such a generalization about someone's personality based off of doing something. And I've kind of, in the past couple of years of my life, And I've kind of, in the past couple years of my life, have become more aware of my introversion or the introversion characteristics that I have. And it's something that I never even thought of, right?

It's something that I grew up playing sports. I was very social. I've done a lot of what many would assume to be extroverted things. And I've also been told I was different in very unique ways or sometimes quiet or weird or things like that. And then I would also get defensive when family members or people who really knew me would be like, wait, wait, you're introverted. And I'd be like, no, no, I'm do you what do you mean by that and and I've been like looking into it and studying it and looking at your stuff and and I found more kind of inner peace with myself by like understanding what it means to at least have some introverted characteristics and and so you know I I we mentioned it to our audience and the response was very kind

of overwhelming of oh please have a talk about this because I feel like there's a lot of people out there. And I'm sure I'd love to talk to you about that in terms of, you know, with the work you've done and other people talking about being introverted or extroverted. There's been a lot of kind of like, oh, I finally feel seen or understood and things like that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting to hear you talk about your own experience because, well, you mentioned playing sports and a bunch of other things. You didn't mention acting and being, you know, on camera. Yeah. Yeah. But the really interesting thing is there are so many actors and so many performers and comedians and journalists lots of

people who are in the spotlight um will tell you that privately they're quite introverted and and part of what they're doing when they're acting is playing a role which is something we all learn to do but introverts especially learn to do it um so it's not unusual at all. And it's also interesting how you talked about needing to make peace with it, because I think that the reason that the work that I do touched the nerve that it did is that people have a real misconception about what introversion is, and they assume that it means being misanthropic, not liking people, being wrong or weird in some way. And I think there's a kind of massive coming out right now and feeling permission just to be yourself. Totally. off, which was also just really fascinating because you go so much into kind of how we got to

where we are in terms of why many introverts feel defensive or don't, you know, will fight that, you know, almost the label of being introverted. And it seems like it goes way back to our society, our school system, jobs, our environments are very pro-extroverts, it seems like, or set up to kind of favor people who are extroverted. Am I understanding that right? And how did we get to that place where that was seen as more ideal? I mean, you're really understanding it correctly. And so there is this cultural bias that we have. And one of the first questions that I wanted to figure out when I started researching this was, is this true in every culture? Has it always been true across time?

Because I was curious to know, like, is there something about humans in general that truly does make being extroverted advantageous? Or is there something cultural and therefore not necessary about it? So that's what I was looking at. And yeah, you know, even if you look in this country in the US, where we're recording, if you go back to the 19th century, it was different then. We lived in what historians called a culture of character, as opposed to the culture we live in now that they call a culture of personality. And in the culture of character, it was much more about what kind of a person were you really? What action, good and bad, did you take when no one was looking? Were you a person of morality? But then in the 20th century, when we started moving into cities

and started getting jobs in companies where you had to kind of be a salesperson, either of your company's widget or of your own self in a job interview, suddenly it became really important to be magnetic and charismatic and likable and these kinds of things. And that's the heritage that we're still living with today. So we can talk about it. I think that's actually starting to change in really interesting ways. And we should also talk about how things are different in other countries because the U S and certain countries of the West are their own unique species. And it, these, these, these cultural biases are not the same across the world.

Really? What do you find certain countries to be more introverted or even to favor that type of personality or at least accept it better? Oh, yeah. I mean, very much so. So Finland, for whatever reason, is known as a quite introverted country. And then if you look at all the Confucian Belt countries like Japan and Korea and China and so on, those countries have a much quieter orientation. And that's based on the Confucianism that underpins these cultures. So in Confucianism, what you care about is the harmony of the group, whereas in the US, we care about the individual, right? But if you care about group harmony,

you don't want any one individual to be standing out too much. So where we have sayings like the squeaky wheel gets the grease, in a country like China or like Korea, you have much more the wind howls, but the mountain remains still. So the ability to be quiet is a real strength, which is something we don't relate to at all, but it's out there. Totally. I mean, I think we can all think about our childhoods, whether it was us or people we knew where, ironically,

your book is called Quiet, right? The quiet person was almost seen as the outcast. Why is that? Why are they not socializing? Why are they not doing this? Why are, you know, our leadership qualities? Why, you know, I thought that was really fascinating part about your book, like what it means to be a leader and who makes up good leaders. And I think, again, there was this bias of you have to be an extroverted person to be a great leader. You have to have this big presence. And it doesn't seem that to be always the case. deliver the same outcomes or in some cases better outcomes than extroverted leaders but we but this bias still persists so like in companies introverts tend to get passed over for leadership positions but once they do get there they actually do really well yeah no and you can see this like

you look at you know Bill Gates and Rosa Parks and like lots of leaders across time across industries are actually quiet people who one of the things quiet people tend to do is they tend to get really passionate and dedicated to one or two channels in their lives and then in the service of those passions they end up acquiring all this expertise and building networks and really inspiring people's trust in an incredibly deep way because it's rooted in this authentic passion. And that ends up being the channel to leadership that introverts take. Before I was in this life, I was in sales for 10 years. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And I took your test. I'm right in the middle. So that's an ambivert. Yeah, I was like right in the middle. So what is that? An ambivert. Ambivert. Yeah. I was like right down the middle, which made a lot of sense to me because it was like, why do I thrive in these situations? But why do I also do this? Why do I like going to parties, but like sitting in the background and talking to like one person type of situation? And that kind of all made sense.

But thinking about in my sales background, there's kind of this, there's this classic kind of stereotype and there's a lot of truth to it is great salesperson wins a lot of awards, then they want to get into management. So they get hired to be a manager and they're a terrible sales manager

because they don't know how to stop being salespeople. They don't know how to stop being salespeople. They don't know how to stop overtaking the room. They'll go into the sales meeting with their reps and not collaborate. And they expect all their sales, they expect the people working for them to sell like them, right? And when I was reading your book, that made a lot of sense to me. It's just like, I bet those were all extroverted people who never really stopped and kind of got to understand the people who worked for them, that's probably why they weren't very good because they never really managed. They never really got to know or thought about how different personalities work and do you find that a strength of introverts is to empathize

and relate a little bit better to the people around them or is there no correlation there? Well, I mean, I think what you're getting at, there was a really interesting study that the professor, Wharton professor Adam Grant did, where he looked at different forms of leadership. And he found that introverted leaders got better outcomes than extroverted leaders did when they were managing inherently proactive employees. And it's for the reasons that you were just getting at, which is if you're an introverted leader, you're much more likely to be asking the people who work for you, like, what do you think? What are your ideas? Whereas an extroverted leader

might be kind of like so irrepressible, or dominant that they're putting their own stamp on things and not soliciting other people's ideas. So if you have a proactive workforce, that quieter form of leadership can be incredibly effective. But they found that extroverted leaders did better when the staff was less proactive, because in that case, it was really helpful to have a leader who was inspiring people and really getting them riled up and wrapped. Some of the best places I love to eat are the kind of hole in the wall places that have amazing food because they don't waste any time on all the thrills of the experience of eating out and waiting in line and the douchiness of like clubs

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how they should approach the people they're working with or working for based off of whether they find themselves to be more introverted or extroverted? The best thing is to start with self-awareness, but then also to start from there, to move really quickly to other awareness and not just like one dimensional other awareness, but for every member of the team to be aware of every other member of the

team and how they fall on the temperamental, this temperamental access of introvert extrovert, which is incredibly important. You know, you might say to that, well, there's lots of things I need to know about my teammates. Why should I focus on that? And what I'd say to you is, we know from personality psychology that introversion, extroversion is one of the most fundamental dimensions of human nature. And it's shaped so much about the way we interact with each other, but also the way we make decisions, so much of our workday. So you can't really start effectively collaborating with the people around you until you understand and honor

this dimension about them. So I would start by having everybody take a personality test. And if you want, you could go to my website. There's a free one there. It's quietrev.com for Quiet Revolution, so quietrev.com. Have everybody take a personality test and then use that to jumpstart discussions about, well, how do we all really like to work? In our ideal world,

how many meetings would we want to be going to per day? What would we like our office spaces to look like if we ever come back from COVID? What, how many times a day do we feel we need to check in with each other? You know, cause some people, for some people, it's oxygen to be able to sit down at a desk, put their head down for three, four, five hours uninterrupted and know that they're going to be uninterrupted. But then maybe for their colleague, their oxygen is being able to be checking in all the time and saying, hey, look, here's what I did. What do you think? What are you working on?

what I did? What do you think? What are you working on? You need to know that about each other. And you need to be able to talk about it in a completely non fraught way, where it's just like, oh, yeah, I'm this way, you're this way. How can we work this out for each? How can we each give the other what the other needs? And you should get to the point where it's so socially acceptable to talk about it. It's so much part of your everyday thing that you know you're joking with each other affectionately about your differences like oh there goes michael he he hates these friday afternoon um office parties um you know but they're sophie she she loved them she can't get enough and we're all joking around yeah i mean you said something in your book it was like there's like i mean what is it-50 about in terms of people who tend

to be more introverted versus extroverted? Yeah, more or less. Right. That's 50-50, right? And yet I think we go around, I think with the kind of pressure of our society to be an extroverted, you have kind of introverts in hiding, right? You mentioned how people in relationships, we talk obviously a lot about relationships and dating in this podcast.

So whether it's in a dating situation, marriage, there are people who are married to people who have no idea they're married to an introvert, right? And I find that to be really fascinating, or maybe they do over time, or they understand the personality, but they never really said, oh, that's because they tend to be more introverted. And I find that to be like shocking, you know, because it's like, yeah, I mean, I know my wife or husband's quiet, but like they never thought that. Right. And I think that's such a, that opens up such a level of understanding of who you might be going on a date with or your partner and how you might be attracted to that. How have you found the difference between introverts and extroverts in relationships? And do opposites attract? Do introverts respond better to other

introverts and vice versa? How does it all work? Or is there a mix of all of them? There's so much to talk about here. So first of all, the question of do opposites attract? Yes, they definitely do. So the studies that I've looked at say that it's about half and half, which I mean, half the relationships are what they call assortative meeting where you're Relationships are what they call assortative meeting, where you're with somebody who has a similar personality style to yours. But the other half are introvert-extrovert pairing. And even having said that, having said that that's about half, I can tell you just from walking around the world and over the past 10 years talking to so many people about this it feels to me like there's a larger majority of introvert extrovert relationships that people really do tend to kind of go into these yin and yang type of pairing um but you know of course what happens as with any uh as with any mating of opposites you're attracted

to the thing that you're not, because it seems like mystical and magical to you that somebody could have these qualities that you could never have. But then the very qualities that may have attracted you to that person, you start to have difficulty with. You get irritated. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about that. Oh, I want to go out to a party on Friday night. In fact, I want to go to a party every Friday night. Why doesn't my partner want to do that? Exactly, yeah. And that can really, that can add to issues over time.

Totally. We joke about how, I mean, you said it perfectly. The things that we find sometimes very attractive in a dating situation will be the very things that irritate you in a year. So just be careful. But why, you said there's more to talk about. What are some of the things that we should look out for or pay attention to,

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including photos, into a beautiful keepsake book that's shipped for free. Well, I mean, I think understanding these aspects of temperament is a big relationship saver because the answer to saying the answer to the observation that you're going to get irritated by the very thing that attracted you is not to say oh well therefore that thing that attracted you was wrong you know that never be attracted to that that's not really it. It's more that those two realities have to coexist. You're probably forever going to be attracted to the thing that first drew you in, but now you're in the situation where, okay, I have to manage the downside of that, the places where we're not

connecting so well. So for example, with introverts and extroverts, what I hear about all the time is the problem I was alluding to before. One person wants to be going out and socializing all the time. And for the other person, their idea of the perfect evening is snuggling together on the couch and watching Netflix. And what do you do about that over time, right? So the first step is psychological, and it's understanding that my partner has different needs from mine, not because there's something wrong with their needs, but because they're just wired differently. They have a different temperament. It's okay. okay, now what do we do about it? Well, I think it's really useful to negotiate these things out in advance so that you're not having to fight about them every time Friday and Saturday night roll around.

So maybe you decide as a couple, well, we're gonna socialize X number of times per month and we're gonna socialize this way and not that way. Or there's gonna be a couple nights where one of us goes out just with our friends and to socialize this way and not that way. Or, you know, there's going to be a couple nights where one of us goes out just with our friends and the other one stays home, whatever it is that you agree that works for you. But the important thing is that you agree to it upfront. So you're not having to keep on fighting about it. Totally. Yeah. Setting those upfront expectations too. And just also being okay with saying,

I love this about you. It's so exciting. I mean, it's so, you know, not only is it something you're attracted to because it's not, you know, something that comes as a strength of yours, but it's also like, yeah, they help you. Like, you know, it's great to be in a relationship with someone who helps you, as they say, get out of your shell sometimes. Oh, it's just like, they bring you to the party and they help warm you up. And that is not only like attractive, but's helpful you know you want to date someone who helps you you do that but also it's okay to say this isn't a strength of mine like you are actually helping me do this and it's also like i also do need to have my alone time or quiet time

or you know i i love going to the party but i i don't like doing that to just also set your boundaries of things that you know come easily or are more difficult if for no other reason then you know like you don't want to pretend to be something you're not because instead of your partner understanding you when you might like be quiet in a party they're not asking what's wrong with you. They're not saying, well, why are you being this way? And things like that. They already know because you didn't pretend to be something you're not.

Yeah. I mean, pretending would just really get you nowhere. And I think it's also useful for there to be a real symmetry there. And I think it's also useful for there to be a real symmetry there. So for the extroverted partner to be tuning into what it is about their introverted partner that they really need. And there usually is quite a bit. And it's usually a little bit more abstract and ineffable. So it's harder to put your finger on it.

But it's usually things like, well, this person makes me feel more grounded. This person makes me able to tune into what I'm really thinking and feeling about things. There's something about this person's quiet energy or ability to be self-contained that I really just find alluring or attractive. Whatever it is, you've got to be tuning into that side of it too instead of it being a lopsided discussion. That's a nice segue in terms of what are some of the kind of common strengths of an extrovert versus the strengths of an introvert? What are some of the specific things? Because I feel like we, a lot

of us know what they are for an extrovert, but we, you might say, oh, that person's an extrovert. And you quickly think of all the negative things that that might mean to that, about that person. I think our society does that, right? Sometimes. Do you mean of an introvert? Yeah, of an introvert. Like you hear, oh, that person's introvert. And then the first thing that comes to mind is things they're not good at rather than things that they are good at. And what are some of the specific things that introverts excel in? Well, one thing that people don't think of that much is, but it's very striking, is creativity. it was very striking is creativity. So when psychologists look at who have been the most creative people across a broad variety of fields, they often find quite introverted people.

It's actually interesting, like they find people who are extroverted enough that they can go out and exchange ideas and advance ideas. But they're introverted enough that they tend to seek out the solitude that creativity really requires as a kind of crucial ingredient. So creativity is a big one. And if you start thinking about who are the artists you admire, the writers you admire, and start paying attention to their temperaments, you're going to find this in a pretty widespread type of way. There's also leadership, which is the one we talked about before that's kind of surprising on its face. And then there's the ability to listen, the ability to sit still,

the ability to really tune in to the people around you. And all of this, not like extroverts can't and don't do those things too. It's more that if by your nature, what you want to do is sit, to be in a quieter space and to have less stimulation coming at you, which is actually really what makes an introvert an introvert. If that's what you want by your nature, then certain opportunities are going to open up to you. Interpersonally, you're going to be more likely to spend your social energy

with close friends and with family, maybe sitting and having a thoughtful conversation as opposed to being all over the place with a bunch of people you don't know that well. Just because your nature draws you in that direction. You don't even necessarily have to be better at those things than an extrovert, but that's just where you go. And so all these kinds of practices of being able to meditate, being able to think quietly, they come more easily to introverts because of this desire that introverts have to be in these quieter settings. Interesting. like little babies or young children in terms of introducing new objects or just new things to them and how kind of the neuroscience of it all worked in terms of, and kind of like with introverted leaders

working well with kind of extroverted people, it was almost the opposite of what you would normally think. Like they, I think like you said, like, you know, if a young child kind of responded like sightingly to a new object, you might think, oh, that means they like new things, but it's because they're, it's like the, what is it about the psychology where they're just, it's the senses, right? It's the stimulation that they are more sensitive to. And that kind of. Yeah.

So this is, yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting. So psychologists have been following people like from the time they're babies and doing these longitudinal studies where they trace them across their lives. And what they response to the sugar water, which shows you have a nervous system that reacts more, salivating more. Okay, you take that same baby when they're two years old and put them in a playgroup of kids they haven't seen before. And their nervous system is reacting to those kids, to those new kids, just the way it reacted to the sugar water which is here comes a new input this is like a big new input humans we haven't seen before um we are reacting a lot we're going to now get quiet because we need to kind of chill out and get our nervous system into equilibrium and that of course, we all change a ton as we grow, we develop new skills, all this stuff, but these temperaments tend to stay with us

through our lives so that in general, introverts have nervous systems that react more and extroverts nervous systems react less. And that's why if you're an extrovert listening to this, your liability for you is getting bored and sluggish and like tuned out. And that's because your nervous system, when it doesn't have enough input coming in, it's going to feel like there's too little stimulation coming at you. And for introverts, the liability is when there's too much coming at you, your nervous system gets all jangled up and you just don't feel right. That's so fascinating. So we can almost,

so being an introvert versus an extrovert is, is that more nature versus nurture? Yeah. You know, that's always a huge question in psychological science. It's a mix of both, like everything, like everything. But having said that, it is one of the most heritable of personality traits. So, you know, in any group of people um there's gonna that are introverts or extroverts heritability is playing a huge role really um yeah as any parent will tell you because you know you can see it yeah when your babies are born you can you can see the differences in the way they react from a very very early age if you're paying attention so what makes you know so for the people like myself who

have both introvert and extrovert characteristics is is that because we you know a combination of inheriting it from your parents and maybe you had one parent being extrovert and one an introvert i have 10 siblings so i grew up in a like a really yeah wow i was but it's interesting my my family jokes that like i've i'm the, right? So I was one of the older ones, but I very much acted like an independent only child. I just kind of kept to myself. I did my own thing. I didn't worry about other people. I just was very independent and just liked to be alone.

And I don't know what role that played on my personality, but I assume it played some role. Yeah. You know. Well, I mean, it really is a mix. You know, you inherited whatever temperament that you did. And then on top of that, you've had thousands upon thousands of life experiences and those shape you also. Right. And then you acquire all kinds of skills and

that shapes you too. So it's like you start out with your underlying temperament, then you have the experiences and the skills, and then you end up from there with your personality. But the personality isn't exactly where you started out with, with that inborn temperament. So, you know, it's all a big, big flash. Yeah, totally. A few weeks ago, I do this, you know, Q&A on my Instagram, and it's a lot of relationship based driven advice and stuff like that. And it's, it's anonymous. So no one can tell who's asking the question, right? And it's a lot of, you know, I have a high women audience, right? But I get a mix of men and women.

And this person asked about, I'm in New York and I want to, I'm new to the city, you know, how do I meet more people? And this is like a quick question, quick response. It's not like a long form, like a podcast. And to this person, I just wrote, just smile more, right? general very general and the thought in my thinking was well listen like if even for me as someone who

can be introverted who sometimes can come across as standoffish or aloof to people i will focus on when I want to be inviting, I will focus on smiling more. Now, when I wrote that, now my audience being a lot of women and it was very triggering for a lot of people because I got a lot of, and I didn't think about this, right? And it was like,

women are constantly told to smile all the time. Jenny Garth, who was on this podcast last week, mentioned that she was introverted and how like her whole life, men telling her to smile more was this kind of an irritating thing. And I was kind of surprised by that. Not only, not that it happens,

but as a guy, right? I related to that. I'm a guy who my whole life going out in public to bars and social situations, very, I've been asked to smile or i've been some people come up to me why aren't you having fun have more fun and it was it's always been very frustrating to me and i wouldn't wondered was this a men woman thing is this an introvert extrovert thing or is it a combination of for the women who are introverted and then this kind of social pressure for the guy

to you know generally be the one who pursues right to like the one who hits on the girls at the bar i mean you know we try to break down those kind of barriers but that still seems to be the case and have you found that that's how it kind of that's where a lot of the misunderstanding comes from or what can we learn from that? Because I thought that was really fascinating because it seemed to be triggering for a lot of women, but yet it's something I as a man related to. Well, I mean, it's funny. What I'm thinking about as I listen to you is I actually, well, first of all, yes, I get both sides of that. I get why women are triggered and are told as they walk down the street constantly that they should be smiling.

Totally. What I am thinking about as I listen to that is I started out thinking about this whole question of introverts in an extroverted culture back when I was a corporate lawyer. And I was really interested in feminist questions, Dillam, and in gender questions. and gender questions. But I started to look, and so I was always active in that, but I started to look around and notice all the different aspects of human behavior that were not really explained by looking at questions of gender. And this happened at my law firm, because I was always involved in professional development, mentoring committees and things like that. And I just started to notice, you know, like if we want to analyze, well, how do people show up? How do people behave when they show up at a negotiation or in a meeting? Who's talking and who isn't? Who's comfortable and who isn't? Well, we can look at gender and that explains something, but it's not explaining everything.

And to me, the big missing piece was this question of temperament and personality and introversion and extroversion. I don't think you can really get a full analysis of all these dynamics without having that as a really central piece of the way you look at it. Yeah, totally. It was really, you know, I don't know for the people listening, if that will say anything to them or wonder, or, you know,

if the guys listen to this, if they're like, yeah, no, I, I find it irritating too, because I don't remember a time that I, I haven't had someone come up to me at a social event and tell me to have fun or tell me to smile or, or, and it it's, Oh, I've always gotten very defensive. Like, what does that say about me? And yet, you know, uh, something I learned, you know, just talking to, to women and, and, and certainly that moment when I said smile and, you know, uh, and, and people just assumed it was a woman asking the question, but it was, uh, yeah. And it was, you couldn't tell that the question didn't say anything about gender

or it wasn't about i want to meet more men or women it was i just want to meet people and yet it was something that um you know uh but yeah for the people like in social events like maybe they're it is you know that's why they might not be smiling i don't know like are do you find that extroverts versus introverts have a propensity to smile more versus not? I never thought of it that way, but also something... Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, probably, yes.

I don't know about smiling specifically, but what I do know is another thing that makes an extrovert an extrovert versus an introvert is um okay we all have dopamine pathways in our brain and you know those are the the pathways that kind of they get activated when you get excited about something you know like it could be a piece of chocolate cake that you're thinking about or someone you're going to go on a date with or whatever um and for extroverts their dopamine networks are more easily activated than those of introverts um and that's why you that's why we do tend to associate extroverts with kind of upbeat peppy behavior because they're just more often in that mode of like oh i'm really excited about that thing over there um and uh and and so that would correlate with smiling okay um yeah

yeah because my my kind of resting state is more subside and neutral you said something in your book too about uh introverts aren't as quick to laugh if am i saying that right or you know like or extroverts laugh more easily at things. Is that kind of the same psychology? Because that's how I feel. I always be like, I love to laugh. I love watching comedy and all those things. But I always will say, like, my laughs don't come cheap. Like, I don't, you know, I don't, I can laugh.

I can just like, I'll hear a joke and be like, yeah, you know, I'll smile when someone, but a big laugh, I might be like crying or trying to catch my breath, but it's few and far between. And you're loving it when it happens. Oh my God, I love it. Yeah, absolutely. But I still love the laugh, right?

And I have other people, other people will just be laughing hysterically at like the very small joke. And I'm like, it's not that funny like okay like I don't get it but fine and I never thought there was a correlation about that between you know someone who might be an introvert versus an extrovert yeah I mean that's why I say that there's like there's so much to this personality style beyond just how much do you like going to parties, which is the thing we all think about. But that whole thing of the dopamine pathways, it correlates to how happy and upbeat you seem in general.

But it also gets into questions like, well, how do you make decisions? Because if you're somebody whose dopamine pathway is getting activated very easily at the prospect of, you know, a great new deal, let's say you might be doing great new business deal. Well, the good side of that is you're somebody who's going to like seize the day. You're going to get really excited about that new deal and be working on it. The downside of it is you are more likely to make kind of quick and impulsive decisions because you're so focused on the shiny object over there that you're not noticing as much the potential subtleties or the potential warning signs along the way. Not because you're not intellectually capable of it, but because you're kind of emotionally oriented in that one direction.

And all this stuff has such a huge impact on the way we are processing the world, making decisions about the world, and we don't even know it. Totally. Well, there is a section in your book, and I think it's kind of what you're speaking to now, but the need, I don't know, you called it something, but wanting to get rewarded for something and that desire for like an award. It was a story you talked about the stock trader who lost all this money. And it was more because he was thinking about, well, if he got all this money or what that would mean and how he could spend the money.

And that was affecting his decisions in the moment and whether that was a smart investment or not. And then I think about real-world application in terms of how we operate on social media or in life. I think to myself, someone who kind of operate in this reality TV space and I talk to a lot of my peers about, I try to give advice of my peers about, you know, try to I try to give advice. And I'll say, the things you say no to are often as important as the things you

say yes to, in terms of, you know, playing the long game, you know, how is this good decision is going to affect you five years from now versus tomorrow. Right. And when you were talking about that section, I felt like there was a correlation there in terms of, you know, I want to do this thing because I'm going to get instant attention. People will notice it right away, but they won't think about the fallout after the fact. Right.

Right. And do you, do you find that like in terms of, have there been a lot of studies in terms of how introverts and extroverts deal with social media differently and what they put out and things like that? Oh, do you mean like, do they put out risky content? Yeah, maybe it's a riskier content

or just how does social media play a role in terms of someone's personality or yeah, their decisions to do things or be risk takers or not risk takers or affect their decisions? Yeah. I mean, so there's definitely differences in the way we interact with social media in general. general like just as you predict if you think about it like extroverts are much more likely to um you know like and comment on lots of different posts for example um whereas introverts will maybe read just as many posts but they're only going to interact with like or comment or whatever um the ones that really speak to them so it's like really in their channel of intense interest,

their bullseye interest, or somebody they're very close to, that's when they're going to interact. And also, I believe, not totally sure about this, but I believe there are differences in general and numbers of followers and so on. But what is also true is that social media can be an amazing forum of self-expression and of connection for introverts who don't necessarily want to be, you know, up on a stage or out at a party, but now suddenly you're home in front of your screen, but you can share your thoughts with the world. So there's definitely a phenomenon of kind of in-person introvert and online extrovert. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And it seems like that would be pretty common. You mentioned something in your book

about, and I thought that was really fascinating and I didn't even think about there was a correlation, but how multitasking is a myth is that is that i was just like i was like what really great i i don't have to pretend i'm not anymore you know like yeah no your brain literally cannot multitask your brain must focus on one thing at a time um so when you think you're multitasking what you're really doing is switching your brain from this thing to this thing to this thing and then everything is less efficient so so someone who says i'm a great multitasker they're just better at not making mistakes when doing two things at once rather than they're probably

just better at like not feeling i'm guessing it's something like not feeling as flustered or as bothered by um the cognitive load of constantly switching tasks which everybody has but i think some people just don't mind it as much so yeah and because i think the the stereotype is men women are better at multitasking than men. And it was fascinating to hear you say that's more or less a myth. What is it about from a, is it introvert versus extrovert, men, women, that allow, where did that stereotype come from? I'm just kind of curious. About women being better multitaskers?

Yeah. You know, it's so funny. I don't even i guess i can see that stereotype it's not something i feel like i personally hear a lot yeah um am i the only one who's heard that i don't know absolutely not that you have that women are better multitaskers that's like like a regular thing yeah it's a common stereotype right i also think it's related to like motherhood like it's a big thing that like oh women can handle it all and it relates to being able to juggle a lot of things especially in domestic environments

that is true it's funny i was actually even as i was saying i don't hear that stereotype that much i was thinking okay except in this one place um um context of, yeah, among parents, you know, it's kind of a feeling like, okay, well the mom is the one who can remember to call the school and get the red boots and not the blue boots and, you know, all the different things you have to do. But I don't think that's really at the end of the day about being better at multitasking. I think it's more a question of what,

what are you choosing to focus on? Yeah. Well, I, I read that and i felt such it was such a weight off my shoulders it was like because i was like great i i finally i can accept something i'm not good at that i no one is apparently because i'm always like they'll ask you this in interviews are How good are you at multitasking? It's a very popular interview question. And only to find out that it's not even a real thing is a fascinating thing. Yeah, it's a funny possible answer to your interview question. Well, in fact, there's no such thing as multitasking.

There's no such thing, actually. You mention in your book in terms of often the most charismatic people, the best speakers are incorrectly thought to be the best thought leaders, right? And how there's absolutely no correlation between the two. as we consume content and we look for information to make sure that we're being independent thinkers, because we have this kind of, there's something about us that we, well, we're followers. We like to, you know, oh, this is popular. This is what other people are agreeing with. And we sometimes can be drawn to the big personalities, the big, you know, speakers, and it sounds good, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. I mean, I'll say that a lot. I mean, people will be talking about someone and be like, oh, and they'll say something really charismatic and big. And I'm like, they didn't say anything at

all. In fact, what they did say, it seems pretty harmful, but a lot of people will be like, oh, that's so inspiring. And I'm like, what? I don't get it. Why is that? Why do we have a propensity to do that? And how can we go about making better informed decisions about the information we take in? Yeah. I mean, we have so many different cognitive biases that set us up to do this. You've probably heard the idea that most people are really making up their minds about any given speaker, not even based on what they say, but based on their body language. So you could actually turn off the sound and get the same result in terms of what they think about that speaker.

And then there's also this other bias that if you're in a group of people, if there's one person who's dissenting from the group opinion, they will tend to be overlooked or dismissed or thought of as a harmful outlier. But if you start adding to the number of dissenters, there's two people or three people dissenting. Now suddenly that's an idea that's worthy of being looked at. Now the idea hasn't changed at all. It's just that we've got this cognitive bias that's telling us one person standing apart from the group, be careful. And then, yeah, you know, in my book you might be talking about a guy I interviewed who's in private equity and his job is basically to

make decisions about which companies to invest in. And he says, he looks at his peers and these are like really smart people who are in charge of gigantic investments. And he said, they're all kind of bedazzled by an amazing pitch, you know, by a charismatic pitchman, regardless of what the substance is. And the only way really, because humans seem to be primed to be this way, the only way to step outside it is to become conscious of it and really start noticing what you tend to be swayed by and dazzled by and really start and really kind of force yourself to focus on the substance of what's being said. It's like you kind of have to step away from your automatic brain and go into your analytical, yes, your hyper analytical brain. Oh, that's, that's, that's all really, really fascinating.

So if someone, to kind of wrap things up, going back to kind of the social dynamics of it all in terms of especially in a, you know, making friends, dating, getting to know people, for the introverts out there, what are some advice that you might have for them embracing their introverted characteristics and how they can kind of manage, you know, efficiently meeting people on their terms without feeling defensive and vice versa for extroverts? versa for extroverts? Well, I mean, I think in terms of not feeling defensive and so on, the first thing to do is to really look closely at the world around you. Look at some of the people who you admire the most and who have made the deepest contributions to the world. And you're

going to find that a lot of those people are actually introverts and that they do what they do because of their quiet temperament and not in spite of it. Now, I was really lucky. I think part of the reason I've probably had the career trajectory that I've had is that I grew up in a quite introverted family and kind of saw this firsthand. You know, like my, my father was a medical school professor, and he was a gastroenterologist. And he was known as the guy you would go to if you couldn't figure out what was wrong with your patient, like he would come up with a crazy diagnosis that was right. And I saw that, you know, he was great with his patients, but he would come home from work every day. And

after dinner, he would sit and pour over medical journals for hours by himself. And, and he would go to medical conferences and sit in the first row and tape everything and then listen to the tape a million times, like really, you know, solitarily and diligently. And because of that, he was really contributing. So anyway, so I kind of grew up feeling this in my bones and seeing it viscerally. If that's not as natural to you, you need to be doing that in a conscious way. I guarantee if you look at the people around you, whether it's people you know well, or celebrities or thought leaders or just contributors to the world whoever um chat notices people and keeps them as your kind of emotional talismans and and channel them when

you need them for inner strength um your second question the second part of your question i think was about dating and yeah just kind of yeah i mean this is all very helpful too in terms of yeah but like in dating and just making friends I think how to you know breaking down those barriers of you know how to enter enter if you sent someone if you know you're an extrovert and you sent someone being an introvert or vice versa, how can we mesh those two without kind of any judgment or kind of weird questions or things like that? And just, you know, you know, like kind of to your point, benefit from the other qualities that the person has. Yeah. So, I mean, one piece of good news is this really does happen naturally. There is a kind of, it's not only in mating, which is what we were talking about, but also as friends and as colleagues, there is a kind of attraction between introverts and extroverts.

And we know even at work that the best performing groups are the ones that have a mix of both types, because that chemistry is real and um the different strengths that each brings to bear making um the the sum greater than its parts all of that is real and people feel it they feel it instinctively even if they've never heard the word introvert and extrovert they just know this in their bones so so in the dating, you should just kind of know that too. And I would really embrace it. If you're an introvert going on a date with an extrovert or vice versa, I would look at it as an opportunity.

Like, fantastic. We're actually probably going to mesh really well. Yeah. You spent some time in your book, too, talking about, you know, group activities and and especially how they're like. I mean, like even like 10 years ago, maybe more. I don't know when it all started, but there was everything should be done. A collaboration. Let's all collaborate. Let's get together. Let's group think, you know and and that can be great at getting together and sharing ideas is is fantastic but uh some of the most productive people especially if if if part of that people in that group have uh are introverts they're not necessarily maximizing their creativity as we talked about earlier or or getting ideas out and how can how can you balance that out you

know i you mentioned something like they they're kind of a new trend of some kind of progressive employers are no meetings on certain days. People work, they're specifically told to work alone and then bring the ideas in. Yeah, I just found that to be really fascinating. Yeah, there's all different techniques that are out there. I'm actually in the process of developing an audio course for people um that you can just

kind of listen to on your phone every morning and i have some of these techniques in there because it's such a it's such a i'd say this is probably the biggest question that i get asked about in the work context of like how do do you, how do you manage this? How do you balance the alone time and the group time? And then, and then really tricky, okay, everybody does need sometimes to come together in group meetings. How do we make sure we're actually hearing from everybody? Because we know there was a statistic from the Kellogg school that in your typical meeting, you have three people doing 70% of the talking, your typical meeting, you have three people doing 70% of the talking, which is disastrous. If you figure everyone's got the same amount of good ideas, and you're not hearing from

those people. So one technique that Amazon does, actually, they, if there's an important meeting, they will have the person running the meeting, write down all their thoughts in a well thought out memo. And then everybody comes together to the meeting and they actually spend the first half an hour just sitting quietly reading the memo to themselves. And it's like a real memo. It's not just a dashed out agenda, like, you know, single space, a few pages. memo. It's not just a dashed out agenda, like, you know, single space, a few pages. And the idea is you're having everybody really think things through in a deep and solitary way before they're taking each other's time to process what they've thought about. And you're much more likely

to hear from everybody that way, because you've given everyone the time to think things through. So that's one idea. There's a bunch of different techniques that people can use. And that idea, by the way, that comes from Jeff. I always forget it. Is it Bezos or Bezos? But anyway, it comes from him and he's quite extroverted. And so he's not doing this as a thing for introverts. He does it because it gets the best results. He's an extrovert. Yeah. I don't know why I would have. He's an extrovert. Yeah. I don't know why I would have guessed he's an introvert. I don't know, but that's interesting.

Yeah, that's all really fascinating. Any final thoughts before we let you go, Susan? This has been so fun and enlightening, and I'm sure that everyone listening will have learned something new about what it is to be an introvert or an extrovert. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you've asked such amazing questions that I feel like we've gotten a chance to cover a lot. So I guess I'll just say that for those of you who want to know more are interested there's such an ocean of material um i do have a newsletter and a website and so you can find me there um there's lots of information out there yeah uh

in your book quiet uh your your your ted talk really uh fascinating stuff i mean you you put a lot of great content and yeah i mean it's it's, it's not to sound corny, but I, you know, paying attention to the characteristics that I have that are more introverted. I've, I have me personally gotten more comfortable with myself. Right. And when, you know, I don't get defensive about people pointing out things about me that are more introverted characteristics because I'm like, yeah, you know, that is who I am. And these are strengths I have as a result

and vice versa. And for a good 20 some years of my life, I tried to pretend that wasn't who I was, right? And I think we can all be ourselves a little bit better by kind of understanding. And one final thing, importantly, it's not a black and white thing. It's more of a spectrum, right?

Like introvert, ambivert, extrovert, people can fall all on the spectrum across the board. So it's not like one or the other, but kind of little different characteristics. I'm actually really glad that you said that because I did mean to say that earlier and I forgot to. So yes, like there's people who are real ambiverts, like in general, they're in the middle of the spectrum.

But even people like me, who I consider myself quite introverted or someone who's a hyper extrovert, even for us, no one's all one thing, right? You always have your moments where you feel more like the other type. And, and I think in general, you want to use these ideas as, as ideas that enhance your life and open it up,

but not as labels that constrain you. And it's a bit of an art form to do one and not the other, but it can be done. Yeah, absolutely. I guess what I would say for people listening, a really great rule of thumb is to ask yourself, how would you spend, let's say, your next Saturday? If you had a Saturday where you have absolutely zero work,

social, family obligations, completely up to you, how would you choose to spend your time? How many people would you spend it with? What would the setting be? And your answer to that question will tell you a lot about what you really need in this life. You might be thinking about what kind of job should I get, and maybe you're thinking about the title or the salary

or all kinds of things, but you should also be thinking, will this career, will this job path give me the kind of life that I need and want temperamentally? Because so much of that is going to shape how happy you feel on a daily basis. I feel like that's a big aha moment. When we think about our careers or what we should do in the rest of our lives,

I don't know how many people think about that. What do I want my environment to be like? How the people for the rest of my life on a day-to-day basis and uh that can play a probably a huge role in people's happiness it's a huge huge role yeah and i don't think people think about it i don't think i don't think when you're going to like career day in college that's a would be like i feel like question number one people should ask themselves or at least in the top five and i don't know if that's a would be like i feel like question number one people should ask themselves or at least in the top five and i don't know if that's ever i don't know i don't ever remember that being asked

of me i don't remember giving that any thought yeah no it's true and like it's not that you don't want to think about the substance like i'm imagining you could have two kids let's say going to that career day and let's say they're both really interested in sports and they want a career i don't mean as athletes but a career in the business of sports. You know, but one kid's more introverted and they're going to want more of a behind the scenes role or a role doing the business analysis or whatever. And for another kid, it might be the right thing to be, I don't know what, you know, being the sports announcer on ESPN. But, you know, being the sports announcer on ESPN, look, you can. So what I'm saying is you can take the exact same set of passions and express them in completely different ways that will be right for your temperament. Not for that person, but yes, for yours. Yeah, that's huge. Susan, I had a quick question.

Sorry, this is Amanda. I was wondering, one thing we talk a lot about on the show and Nick talks about with callers all the time is how a lot of bad decisions, particularly in relationships where people find themselves with what others that they're not compatible with, are born out of loneliness and might be more sort of predisposed to that situation and also how they could channel some introvert qualities in order to develop a little bit more self-sufficiency. That way they're more likely to enter an interdependent relationship as opposed to a codependent one. Yeah, that's a really smart question. And you're right. I mean, a fear of loneliness can drive people to make the worst decisions. I mean, the fear of loneliness can drive people to make the worst decisions. And I do want to say, though, I think extroverts are probably more predisposed to it for the reasons you're saying, that introverts can feel lonely too, right? Because we all have our social needs, and if your social needs aren't being met, you feel lonely. So for extroverts, though, or for anybody who is finding themselves

in that situation, I mean, you want to get into the habit of living your day through the channel of what are your core interests and passions. Because once you do that, you're just much less like, well, first of all, it's the right way to live. But to your question, you're much less likely to feel lonely because you're deeply engaged in what you're doing. And you're also then tending to interact with other people who are similarly engaged. So you don't necessarily need to be getting, in that case, your social energies met through the wrong romantic partner because you're having them met already through this other place, through this other channel, and then you're kind of free and open to be waiting for the right person.

I guess in some ways my message is the same no matter what the question we're talking about is, which is to constantly be tuning into where you are really driven to go and being okay with that. And then cultivating a life that's built around that the more you cultivate that life the less lonely you're going to be yeah so i would say start there i've never even thought about that and it's such a like a powerful like and final thought in terms

of like cultivating that life your environment your surroundings and like you said like that kind of applies to everything you know where you want to live who you want to live it with friends you know i mean i was going to say family, but you don't get to pick our family, but everything else, our jobs, our careers, plays a role in that, and being in tune with kind of what we enjoy, and how we like to enjoy it, can go a long way. Yeah, and being unapologetically in tune with it, you know And I'm not going by labels. I'll just give you an example. Like I used to live in New York city.

I actually left Manhattan like kicking and screaming. I absolutely loved it. And you know, people would say, well, if you're such an introvert, how could you love being in a big city? But I actually think a big city is fantastic for some introverts.

I love New York. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Cause like you get all this energy around you, but you can be quite anonymous at the same time. So yeah. So not to go by the labels, like go by what your gut is really telling you. That's great. Susan, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you about all these things. And I hope the people listening did as well. Be sure to check out Susan's book. Again, remind the people of your website so they can check that out as well. Oh, yeah, sure. So my website, it's Quiet Revolution, so quietrev.com. And when you get there, you can see a place to sign up for my newsletter.

But basically, everything there is free and it's just extra information for you. Awesome. Thanks so much for listening, guys. We really appreciate it. Hopefully, you learned something about yourself today and just be unapologetically yourself and and be true to yourself and no matter whether you're an introvert or an extrovert and um yeah i had such a fun time don't forget to send in your questions at ask nick at cast me.com cast with a k and if nothing else we will see you back on monday you