Introverts and Extroverts
Introverts are often better observers of other people than extraverts, even though extraverts rely on their relationships with others in order to feel that they exist.
I have owned this book for many years, but it was a while before I really grasped the many useful messages it contains. If you get nothing else from this book other than an understanding that introverts can be sociable and extraverts can be shy, you are likely to find yourself with a vastly increased sense of what makes different people 'tick' - yourself included - and why one man's emotional meat is another man's emotional poison. This can be particularly helpful in a world busy focusing on extravert preferences - open-plan living and working spaces, constant action, suspense, thrills and horror in popular entertainment etc., etc.. Our brains are wired up differently from each other, and it is helpful to recognize that the external stimulation which enables extraverts to thrive can easily challenge and overwhelm the senses of the introvert - however well-balanced s/he is. The converse is also true - if you want to stress an extravert, keep him/her out of social contact, and away from busy activities, lots of sensory stimulation and new environments.
The psychologist Dorothy Rowe saw introverts and extroverts as two different ways the human mind protects itself and stays alive psychologically. Her core belief:
“Every human being has one primary fear: the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist as a person. We all build a structure of meaning to keep that terror at bay. Extroverts and introverts simply build that structure in opposite directions.”The extrovert’s terror is silence and emptiness. The introvert’s terror is noise and intrusion.”
An extrovert feels real when others are responding. An introvert feels real when no one is demanding a response.” Neither is better. Both are attempts to solve the same problem: how to go on existing when everything inside us knows we will one day die. She repeatedly stressed:
Trying to force yourself to live the opposite way is one of the fastest routes to depression.
The work is not to become more extroverted or more introverted; the work is to stop being frightened of what you actually are. I have found that introverts always know what is the most important to them but many extraverts do not, usually because they find it difficult to distinguish what they do from why they do it.…
She’s clear that: ‘Either we are “people persons’, who judge ourselves in terms of how others respond to us, or we are ‘what have I achieved today?’ people.”We all know (regardless of personality) about the value of thought leadership. The blogs and articles most of us share are those that speak with authority and expertise.
They’re the ones that really add value (another overused phrase, but again, for a reason). Self-promotional fluff, written in a hurry, simply isn’t heard above the online noise.
That’s not to say that extroverts only write self-promotional fluff. Of course, there are many outstanding, valuable articles written by extroverts.
It’s simply that an introvert is less likely to get caught up in self-promotion and more likely to take the time to think ‘what use is this to my audience? What value will they gain from it?’. That builds real, deep trust that is hard to shatter.
