Pod Insights 10% Happier with Dan Harris How To Know Whether You're an Introvert or an Extrovert—and Why That Matters | Susan Cain About this episode Why knowing your tendency can improve your life.
Susan Cain is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. Her Kindred Letters newsletter is read by people in all 193 countries and all 50 American states. Join her at TheQuietLife.net http://thequietlife.net/.
In this episode we talk about:
How to know if you're an introvert or extrovert The strengths of introversion – and how these can you no matter where you are on the introvert / extrovert spectrum Techniques to improve your relationships and work life How to design your life around where you do your best – including figuring out your true goals The perks of exposing ourselves to the things we fear the most The paradox of anxiety and shyness And why introverts and extraverts often get along so well—something Susan calls "introvert/extrovert synergy"
Related Episodes:
What Is Sadness Good For? | Susan Cain https://www.danharris.com/p/what-is-sadness-good-for-susan-cain-edf
Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J
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Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety https://spoti.fi/3Qa8kMT, Sleep https://spoti.fi/3MjtMxF, Relationships https://spoti.fi/3QvyA5J, Most Popular Episodes https://spoti.fi/3QxZASc
Additional Resources:
The Quiet Life with Susan Cain | Substack https://thequietlife.net/
Transcript 11,428 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:05 Dan Harris? It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:19 Dan Harris? Hey, gang. Today, we're talking about how to know whether you are an introvert, an extrovert, or somewhere in between, and why knowing your tendency can improve your life, not only in terms of how you organize your life, but also in terms of how you handle other people. My guest is the great Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which spent eight years on the New York Times Bestseller List and has been translated into 40 languages. Susan also has a popular Substack and online community called The Quiet Life. In this conversation, we talk about how to know whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, the strengths of introverts, and how you can access these strengths, even if you're an extrovert, techniques to improve your relationships and work life, based on knowing your tendency and
1:03 Dan Harris? the tendencies of people around you, how to design your life around where you do your best, including figuring out your true goals, the perks of exposing yourself to things that you're afraid of, the paradox of anxiety and shyness, and why introverts and extroverts often get along so well, something Susan calls introvert-extrovert synergy. Hey, before we get started, I want to make sure that you know about all the good things we've got going on at danharris.com. That is my new-ish online community, built in partnership with Substack, where paid subscribers get cheat sheets and transcripts for every podcast episode. Plus, I do regular live AMAs, that's Ask Me Anything sessions, where I take your questions and more. It's a lot of fun. You'll also get to meet
1:48 Dan Harris? virtually lots of other folks who take all of this stuff seriously. Go to danharris.com and check it out. Susan Cain, coming up right after this. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity and an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit.
2:33 Dan Harris? And not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission. And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity and an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week.
3:15 Dan Harris? The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit. And not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission. And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Susan Cain, welcome back to the show.
3:52 Speaker 01 Thank you so much, Dan. It's so great to be here.
3:55 Dan Harris? It's a pleasure to have you here again. Just so I know, I'm curious, how did you get so curious about the subject of introverts?
4:05 Speaker 01 Well, I am an introvert myself, although I went through the first, I don't know, I think 30 years probably of my life not knowing that word. So I went through those first 30 years feeling some kind of disconnect between my preferences of how I wanted to spend my time versus how you were supposed to spend it. And then I remember discovering the Myers-Briggs personality test, where one of the things it measures is introversion, extroversion. And that news came to me like a huge revelation that explained everything. And I just started telling everyone I knew. And then I found, you know, years later,
4:47 Speaker 01 when I wrote Quiet, that all the introverts out there, whom there are many, were talking about one out of every two or three humans, they all had a similar reaction. Because there is such a gigantic disconnect between, you know, what we want to be doing versus what we feel like we're supposed to be doing.
5:06 Dan Harris? So there was something about learning, like having a name for, I'm going to use this word, it's a loaded word, but I don't mean it in the way it might sound, but having a name for the pathology, like just knowing what your personality type was, that you are an introvert and that comes with lots of consequences, strengths and challenges. Just having the name, it turned the world from black and white to color for you.
5:32 Speaker 01 Well, having the name and then, you know, doing all the research to figure out all the different things that go along with that name. But I actually think it's fantastic that you used that word in your question, which I know you didn't mean, but I think the question, or the way you framed it, is kind of like an indicator of what the whole issue is for introverts in an extroverted culture. Because instead of it being seen as just a different way of being, a different way of loving, a different way of socializing, all the rest of it, it is often seen as something of a pathology.
6:07 Dan Harris? Right. And your whole point is that there are so many strengths that come with being an introvert that are undervalued or unseen.
6:15 Speaker 01 So many strengths that go along with it. Yeah. And, you know, all the people who contribute to our culture in ways that have very specifically to do with being kind of quiet, thoughtful, cerebral, interdirected people. And they're contributing because of those qualities, not in spite of them.
6:32 Dan Harris? What are those qualities?
6:34 Speaker 01 I have them all crowding into my mind right now and I'm trying to think which one do we go with? I'm going to start with one counterintuitive one, which has to do with leadership, because people usually assume that the stereotypical leader is somebody who's very kind of extroverted, dominating, and those kinds of qualities. And yet, there's lots of research showing that many of the best and most effective leaders, and this includes CEOs to creative leaders, are people who are kind of attuned to be listening to and taking in cues from people around them. Because they're a little less irrepressible than an extrovert would be, they're more able to take in those cues and actually learn from them, and adopt what they're learning, and make things happen.
7:18 Speaker 01 And then when it comes to creativity, psychologists have looked at who have been the most creative people across a broad variety of fields, and they almost always find that it's people who are extroverted enough to be able to share and advance their ideas, because you could have an amazing idea, but if you can't get it out there, then it's just going to sit in your living room, right? So you have to have some degree of extroversion there. But these people are also usually introverted enough that they can not just withstand, but actually love the solitude that is required for doing deep creative work. And we tend to discount that so much, you know, especially in corporate life, you have
8:02 Speaker 01 to come up with an idea, get everybody in the room, and they should all be brainstorming the idea together. But in fact, there's loads of research showing that that kind of approach really doesn't work. It makes the group feel really good about what they've come up with. It can be sort of bonding for the group, but it's not good at all for idea generation.
8:20 Dan Harris? Hmm. Just because you mentioned brainstorms, I'm on a small team at my new little company, and we do a lot of getting together and talking about ideas. Are you saying that that's a bad idea, or that we shouldn't overvalue the ideas we come up with jointly, because mostly the best ideas are generated in solitude?
8:42 Speaker 01 I'm saying that there's a place for both and that we tend to value one more highly than the other instead of thinking about how do we incorporate both ways of being and of doing. So like in the case of your company, if you guys were trying to figure out the answer to some, whatever perplexing question you had to solve, I would say, send everybody off to go do a deep dive and a deep think before they even come together in the room and then have everybody come together. And then, you know, if it's a prolonged or complicated question, I would also interrupt the process for people to be able to do deep thinks again, before they come together. And then I would also be looking to use techniques so that
9:25 Speaker 01 you're making sure you actually hear from everybody instead of from the most senior people, the most dominant people, the most talkative people, which is what usually happens. Like there is a study from the Kellogg School that found that in your average large group, you have three people who are doing most of the talking. So I would be trying to do things like maybe have everybody write down their ideas and submit them to you as group leader or whoever it is. And then you read out those ideas for everyone to discuss. There's all kinds of techniques we could talk about, but just to kind of be aware of the ways in which those dynamics so distort our idea generation.
10:03 Dan Harris? Yeah, I mean, I've had to learn this the hard way. I have had to really train myself to, I don't always succeed at this, but to call out the youngest and quietest people in the room so that they're getting a voice. And the other thing I've really tried to learn how to do is to say, all right, we're going to get together, we're going to batter out ideas. There is, you know, what's that term, collective effervescence? You know, when you get a bunch of people in the room. And we don't have to solve it now. Let's take the pressure of finding the solution off the table and let the ideas percolate and then we'll kind of land it over time later. I don't know, how does all that sound to you?
10:42 Speaker 01 I think it sounds great. The one amendment that I would make to what you just said is if you know, There's someone who tends not to participate as much, maybe because they feel shy or younger or whatever the reason is. I might take a few minutes in advance to think, okay, where is there a place where I really want to be hearing from this person and where they have real expertise to contribute? And spend five minutes with them or shoot them an email beforehand and say, you know, I'd love to ask you about such and such topic in this meeting because I know you have so much expertise about it. And then they feel validated, they feel encouraged. But more important, they also feel they have time to think about what they want to say. Because for a lot of people, and introverts in particular,
11:24 Speaker 01 they want to be processing their ideas before they actually say them out loud. They don't want to be like vocalizing the half-baked idea.
11:33 Dan Harris? I'm smiling because the COO of my company, Tony Magiar, is, I believe, hopefully I'm diagnosing her correctly, an introvert. And one of the things-
11:43 Speaker 01 You're using the diagnose word again.
11:44 Dan Harris? Yeah, I know. Sorry.
11:46 Speaker 01 I gotta call you out.
11:47 Dan Harris? Yeah, thank you for calling me out. Hopefully I'm correct about how she sees herself. But I think she would self-describe as an introvert. And I know that she self-describes as a slow processor. And she has trained me to really come into all conversations with her with this room for her to go away and think and then come back and give me her opinion. And I have found that if I actually, I mean, I like when people give me their operating manual. And if I actually follow those rules, we get better results.
12:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, and you know what that made me think of? Remind me, the CEO of Amazon, it's Bezos or Bezos? How do you say his name?
12:26 Dan Harris? I thought it was Bezos, but I could be wrong.
12:29 Speaker 01 Okay, we'll go with Bezos.
12:29 Dan Harris? He's rich enough that I'm not concerned about his feelings as much.
12:33 Speaker 01 Okay, so Jeff Bezos, who describes himself as an extreme extrovert. At Amazon, the way he runs his meetings is he has whoever's in charge of the meeting that day, they have to spend like a lot of time in advance, preparing a written memo about whatever's going to be discussed. And distributing it in advance. And then everybody sits there in the meeting for the first half an hour and they all silently read together this memo. And only then do they start discussing it. And the reason is, he feels that otherwise, they're ending it, they're having a half-baked discussion that doesn't lead to good results. That's just to say that this is useful for everybody, not only for the introverts in the room. Can I tell you one thing?
13:17 Dan Harris? Sure.
13:18 Speaker 01 I feel like this is, the following thing, you're going to relate to it just the way that I do, because we both come, I think, from a hyper-achievement type of background. And I want to tell you about this conversation that I had when I was researching Quiet. Because the first thing you asked me was, what are the strengths of introverts? Right? And I told you a couple of them. We haven't finished the list, but it doesn't matter. When I was working on the book, I remember saying to a friend of mine, you know, I'm doing this book, and the reason is that introverts have contributed in all these different ways, and they have all these strengths, and people don't know about it. And she said, yeah, and what if they didn't?
14:01 Speaker 01 What if they just want to be themselves anyway, regardless of their strengths and regardless of their contributions? And that conversation blew my mind. I think about it all the time now. So, yeah, throwing that out there.
14:15 Dan Harris? Point well taken. This is a bit of a non sequitur, but one of the things you talk about in your book is that some of the, what you see as the kind of devaluing or undervaluing of introverts has its roots in, in history, in the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Can you walk us through that a little bit?
14:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, so, we used to live, according to cultural historians, in what they call a culture of character. This was- Up until the turn of the 20th century. And so the idea was that we were living in smaller towns, smaller communities where everybody knew each other, they'd known each other a long time. And so they would value each other based on their true inner worth because they knew what that was. And so it didn't matter so much, you know, were you charming and charismatic? Or were you quiet and taciturn or anything in between? It mattered more, were you a good neighbor? Were you a good person? Were you a good citizen? And then at the turn of the 20th century, people started leaving those small towns and they're moving out to cities where people don't really know them.
15:21 Speaker 01 And the jobs that they're now vying for are not agricultural, but rather sales jobs of one form or another. And what starts to matter a lot is how do you present yourself in a job interview to a stranger? How do you sell yourself? And so this is what historians call the culture of personality that we switched into. And if you look at the self-help books and you compare them from the 19th century to the 20th century, they're just completely different. The 19th century books were telling you how to develop a good character. And the 20th century books were telling you how should you be more charismatic? And we're still living today with that culture of personality.
16:02 Speaker 01 I think it takes on new forms in the digital era, but it's still here with us.
16:07 Dan Harris? I have so many questions about, you know, how an introvert can navigate this increasingly loud culture. But I do want to ask, just to step back for a second, how do you know whether you're a notice, I didn't say diagnosed. How do you know whether you're an introvert or an extrovert or wherever you may fall on the spectrum? Because I know the argument is that this is not a binary, but a spectrum.
16:31 Speaker 01 Right. I mean, there's so much to talk about, about how to actually define what's actually happening, the differences between an introvert or extrovert. But a kind of quick rule of thumb that you could give yourself is to ask, how do you tend to feel after you've been in a pretty social situation like a party after about two hours? And you should imagine it's a party. Where you truly love the people, you're truly having a great time. But how do you feel at that two hour mark? Because you may have heard that metaphor before of we all have a kind of internal social battery. And so for an extrovert at that party, that battery's been getting charged up. And so now they're like hyper energized and they want to go out to dinner or the after party.
17:16 Speaker 01 And for the introvert, you just suddenly become aware after about one hour and 59 seconds that all you wish you could do is teleport home because your battery is drained. There's a lot to talk about, but that rule of thumb, I think, is is really useful. And then another one is if you imagine that you have a weekend completely to yourself with no social or professional obligations, how would you deep down choose to spend it? Who would be in that picture? Would they be people you know well? Or would it be acquaintances or strangers? How many of them would there be? Would it be solitary? And that will tell you a lot about who you really are.
17:55 Dan Harris? I mean, I'm just answering that question for myself. I'm sure everybody listening is doing that, but I'll, since I am the host of this thing, I'll just abuse my privilege. But for me, at two hours in the party, I am ready to go unless not leave. I mean, I'm ready to like, keep going.
18:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:10 Dan Harris? Especially if it's like with my people. I could feel a little bit differently if it's like a professional thing and or if it's with people that I don't really know or care that much about. But if I don't know them and start to care about them, I'm thinking about you. You and I have both given Ted talks and two of the happiest weeks of my life have been the two weeks I went to Ted and I don't drink, but I stayed up until two or three in the morning, hanging out with everybody every night. I just loved it. And these were people I didn't know. I was just meeting people and my wife, who is an introvert, will talk about how like, I come home from Ted on this high and she would like it for a little bit, but then she'd be back in the hotel room, no question. And similarly, for when I think about a weekend, if there's nothing social on the calendar, I fall into a kind of pit of despair.
18:55 Dan Harris? And like, we've had to, given that I'm married to an introvert, like really figure out how are we going to navigate weekends? Cause I would fill the calendar with everything and she would fill it with nothing. And yeah. Yeah, so I'll stop yammering because I'm sure you have a lot of responses to all of that.
19:09 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, absolutely. And by the way, to your wife, it's probably not filling it with nothing. It's probably filling it with peaceful solitude, or if it's just like the two of you curled up watching Netflix or something, that probably feels really intimate to her.
19:21 Dan Harris? I would just appreciate it if you would not take her side for the rest of this interview.
19:26 Speaker 01 But what I was gonna say about TED is, because I've had that experience of going there. So it's filled with so many really nice and really interesting people. And so for me, I'm always kind of torn between my desire to meet and connect with people who I truly like. And then like my pull to get back to the hotel room and recharge. And I have to kind of keep ricocheting between those two things. But I will tell you, because I am like now this public introvert, and especially the very first time when I spoke at TED about this, it just so happened they had me speaking on the first day of like this five day conference. And I swear, the whole rest of that week, I couldn't even make my way across the hall to get food to eat
20:09 Speaker 01 because I was being stopped every second by people telling me that that was their experience and that they were dying to get back to their hotel rooms too. And it's often really unlikely people, like it's often people who would present the way you present. Like you come across, I would say, as pretty extroverted, but it's a lot of people who also seem that way, but who have kind of learned through their jobs to have a certain persona. And so that's been really interesting.
20:35 Dan Harris? That kind of leads me to this idea of the spectrum because
20:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:38 Dan Harris? there are, and again, sorry, I'll stop being so narcissistic at some point in this conversation, but there are moments where I can feel my batteries drop. I've had this experience many times with, there's this wonderful meditation teacher who I'm really close with. His name is Jeff Warren, and he and I have done many, many public events together. And after the event, I always just want to go back to the green room with the people I know and just sit there and talk and unwind. And he will like stage dive into the crowd like he's Eddie Vedder at a Pearl Jam show. And so that does make me think that I, you know, I may be somewhere between introvert or extrovert, or maybe I'm wrong.
21:16 Speaker 01 It might be that, but there's also the thing to consider of just that everybody has different kinds of situations that push a certain button for them to make them go in one direction or another. Like, I'm sure it would not be the way you're describing Jeff Warren. I'm quite introverted, but after I give talks, I actually love to do like the book signing afterwards and then hear from everybody. Like, that's exactly when they're going to come and tell you their true stories and it's this really deep connection. So even if I'm, on the one hand, feeling exhausted, I'm also feeling like this pull to connect with them. So that's just one example of how different situations work so differently for people.
21:56 Dan Harris? I mean, just to jump in on that, I mean, it's so interesting. Like, I am so extroverted in so many different ways, and yet that exact moment, which is probably not relatable to anybody but me and you and like 30 other human beings, but that exact moment after you give a talk and then there's a book line, that is the hardest moment for me. And I really appreciate, I mean, what a high-class problem to have people come up, they're interested in your book, they want to talk to you. It's, I appreciate it immensely. And I really struggle, I can feel my battery going down rapidly, as opposed to three in the morning at a party, again, bone sober. I can be totally happy to keep going.
22:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, it makes sense because I'm not saying that moment isn't extremely exhausting for me. I'm just saying that I kind of want to connect so much that I override the exhaustion, maybe, but just in that particular place. But I think what we're really getting at is the need for every single individual human in general, and who might be listening to this, to become aware of which are the moments that energize them and which are the moments that make them feel like, okay, I've kind of lost my sense of equilibrium here. And then to try to design your life as best you can so that you're living in your equilibrium moments as much as possible, which doesn't mean that you never want to go outside your comfort zone, because sometimes you should and have to, but as much as possible
23:22 Speaker 01 to design that life. Because like, one thing we didn't talk about, when you asked me, what is the difference between an introvert and extrovert? So a lot of this is happening on the level of the nervous system. So I am guessing, like, if you and I went into a lab and measured various things, we would find that you have a nervous system that reacts less to various forms of stimulation. And that means that for you, you're in your sweet equilibrium spot when you have a lot of inputs coming in. And that's why you feel like you're in a pit of despair if you go through a weekend where you're not seeing people or doing something social. What's really happening is that you're physically understimulated at that point.
24:02 Speaker 01 And for introverts, it's often the exact opposite, that we can feel overstimulated by lights or noise or social life or whatever it is. We're going to get to that overstimulation point much more quickly. And that's why for us, the sweet spot is often have a glass of wine with a close friend, take a walk in the woods or whatever. And that's where we feel inner equilibrium moment. Once you really start paying attention to that and thinking of it as your body's physical response, as well as its emotional one, it goes a long way towards giving you the freedom and the license that you need to really start designing your day so that you get that equilibrium going as much as possible.
24:45 Speaker 01 For those of you listening who feel guilty about this or feel like it's too self-indulgent or something, you know, just know that you're going to be so much more present to people. You're going to do so much better work. You're going to feel more energized, all of it, if you spend more time in that equilibrium zone.
25:02 Dan Harris? I want to state some of this back to you because this seems like the nub of it to me.
25:06 Speaker 01 Yep, I agree.
25:09 Dan Harris? I think what you're saying is that it's not that we all need to go take a Myers-Briggs test to figure out, are we an introvert or an extrovert, or an introverted extrovert, or an extrovert, an introvert, or wherever we are exactly on the spectrum. I think what you're saying is that we should all just muster some self-awareness. To figure out like, where do we thrive? And where do our batteries run down? And design our life around that with the crucial caveat? That doesn't mean you should nestle into a warm blanket of a life where you're never challenging yourself. But generally, to the best of your ability, design your life around where you do your best. Am I close to the core thesis?
25:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that was so perfectly said. So perfectly said. With, I guess, kind of the added twist that another huge part of living a good life is figuring out what are your true goals, your true passions? And it might be that there might be some degree of conflict between designing your perfect life versus achieving those goals. So like, I'll just give my example. You know, my dream in life since I was four was to become a writer. Well, becoming a writer, a successful one in this day and age, requires not only a huge amount of luck, but also being a pretty public person.
26:25 Dan Harris? Yeah.
26:25 Speaker 01 In a way that I don't really have any desire to be. And public speaking used to be a huge challenge for me. So I have had to kind of navigate that, I guess, conflict, you could call it, in order to achieve that passion. And I think that's true for everybody.
26:44 Dan Harris? Coming up, Susan talks about designing a life that supports your needs and your tendencies, the perks of exposing yourself to the shit that scares you, and the paradox of anxiety and shyness.
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28:07 Dan Harris? Say more about that because I do think your techniques for navigating that are probably portable over to anybody who has introverted tendencies and has goals that might make those tendencies very challenging.
28:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, okay, remind me if I don't get to it to talk specifically about the challenge of public speaking and how to overcome that one. Just more generally speaking, I would say that in general, you want to be like designing a life where more or less you're waking up looking forward to the activities that you're doing that day. So just for example, like I could imagine, and I have had at various times, the goal of of having, you know, a huge not-for-profit for introverts in schools and things like that because there's a huge need and if someone wants to run with that, I hope you do. But I've had to realize that I would never in a million years be happy
29:04 Speaker 01 or be able to sustain running a non-for-profit. So I don't do that. But on the other hand, for my larger goal of becoming a writer, I have to kind of like occasionally step out of my comfort zone. So to some extent, I'd say it's a matter of degree and of acquiring the skills you need for the times that you're going to go outside that comfort zone. Which maybe brings me naturally to talking about public speaking, which is such an issue, not only for introverts, lots of extroverts have trouble with it also. So I was a very extreme case. I used to be absolutely terrified, like really terrified of public speaking. I would always lose about five pounds before I had to do any public thing because I couldn't eat for a week before, couldn't sleep.
29:49 Speaker 01 It was very extreme. And what I discovered is one of the most robust findings in social science research is what I think of as the miracle of desensitization, which is that if you have a fear The way to overcome it is not by throwing yourself at it. And it's also not by hiding from it. It's by exposing yourself to the thing you fear, but in very, very small and manageable steps, so that you're slowly, slowly retraining your brain. So like, you can't start with giving a TED Talk. I started by going to a seminar for people with public speaking anxiety in New York City, which is amazing. It's run by a guy named Charles Decagny, and I think he's still going.
30:34 Speaker 01 And we did exercises, like, on the first day, all you would have to do is like, stand up and say your name and sit back down, and then you'd be done. And you declare victory and you move on. And little by little by little, the exercises ratchet up. And what you're doing is you're training your brain that this thing that it thought was the equivalent of a saber-toothed tiger is actually not so dangerous after all. And maybe it's even pleasant. And over time, you become able to do the thing you feared. So now, when I give a talk, I mean, I still have butterflies beforehand, but it's in a completely reasonable realm. And that is true, whatever your fear is. Speaking, snakes, anything, that's the way to go.
31:17 Dan Harris? Massive plus one to that. I have panic disorder and I'm looking over at my colleague Abby, who's been with me all day. We've been moving around Manhattan and I'm terrified of elevators. And I don't live in the city anymore. I live north of the city. And so every time I come, it's like a fresh round of what the shrinks call exposure therapy. And some days I can do it and some days I can't. Today has been a good day. I've been able to get on all the elevators. But in this building we're in right now, there's a security guard, whose name I happen to know, because six to nine months ago, I came to this building. I was late for a podcast. I had all of my luggage with me. And the elevator here is really small and I have terrible claustrophobia.
32:02 Dan Harris? And I was like, asking this guy, we're on the 16th floor. I was like, dude, can I walk up? And this man, Barry is his name. Looked at me, doesn't even speak English that well, looked at me, di- sorry, there I go again with that word, but in this case it's appropriate, diagnosed my panic disorder and said, "I'm gonna hold your hand for 16 floors," and he did.
32:24 Speaker 01 Wow.
32:24 Dan Harris? And I made it to the top. So I see him here every time I come back to the studio. We're just chatting with him downstairs. And moments like that of exposing yourself carefully and systematically and with the right support to the thing that terrifies you is, as you said, the miracle of desensitization. And it can be public speaking, claustrophobia, whatever, but it's, it is a miracle.
32:46 Speaker 01 It is a miracle. But it's also interesting, and I feel like you got it, this with your amazing story, by the way, that you have to kind of keep that muscle going all the time.
32:57 Dan Harris? Yes.
32:58 Speaker 01 Because I notice if I go a period where I'm not doing a lot of speaking, it's much harder when I go back. I'm not starting from ground zero, but I'm also not starting. Like, if I'm going through a period where I'm giving talk after talk, it becomes nothing. I barely have butterflies at all. Charles Decagno, the guy who taught the seminar, I think he said something like, "Fear is a wily enemy."
33:17 Dan Harris? Uh huh.
33:18 Speaker 01 And it's true. Like, it can always reconstitute itself.
33:21 Dan Harris? I have seen it over and over. I've conquered, quote unquote, "my elevator fear," and then I just spend a few weeks out of the city and it comes back. And same with airplanes, and it can be humiliating, frankly. But let me just go back to this issue of your tips for introverts in this noisy world, because I'm just looking at a list of some of them, and I'm gonna tick them off a little bit, and then you can pick any that you want to expand upon. I just think they're worth stating because they're, I would imagine, very, very helpful for people. One is to explain your needs, to like, to reuse a phrase from earlier, give the people in your world at work, to the extent that you're comfortable and in your personal life, your operating manual. You know, this is how I operate best.
34:03 Dan Harris? Two, to prep for social events. You wrote about this. We both have Substacks, and you very graciously did a guest post on my Substack, and you talked about how, this was during the holidays, how for people who have social anxiety, prepping for social events, like preparing, conversation starters can be really helpful. Using your listening skills, you know, asking thoughtful questions and like, you know, listening in a careful way, and then embracing written communication. Like, some people communicate better on email and just telling people in your life that that's what you would prefer. So I'm just throwing some of your ideas back at you. If you want to pick up on any of them, please.
34:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, absolutely. So like, the first one that you talked about, about letting people know what your operating manual is, I think that's really useful. What it also made me think is that, like, for anybody who's listening, who is running an organization or running any group of people, you can help make that happen by creating an environment where it becomes no big deal for people to be freely discussing with each other what their operating manual is. Like, I noticed this when you were talking about you and your COO. It sounds like you have that kind of relationship and that kind of culture, where you're just talking freely about, what does she need? What do you need? You know, how do you both do your
35:20 Speaker 01 best at a meeting? And I will tell you, like, when Quiet first came out, the head of HR at LinkedIn ran a brown bag lunch for people to talk about the book. And she thought it was going to be just like a few people sitting around a table. And it turned out, it was standing room only with lines out the door of people who wanted to participate. And the reason is that everybody is looking for a way for this discussion to become socially acceptable. So for anyone in a leadership position to make that discussion, not just acceptable, but just kind of like, no big deal, we joke about it, we talk about it, this is part of everyday life, that goes such a long way. In terms of the advice you
36:05 Speaker 01 were talking about of listening to people, asking deep thoughtful questions, I think socially introverts are often not aware of what a superpower they have in this way. So I see this all the time in my Substack. Like, I'm always talking with our community about really deep topics. Like, the last one I did was about near-death experiences and what dying is like and things like that. And people are joking around about, in the comments, about how like, I always go to that place. And I do, I'm just drawn to those kinds of topics. And then you can see like in all the comments, how much, how much our community members love to talk that way, too.
36:46 Speaker 01 Not everybody, but a lot of people want to go deeper into whatever the subject is. There was a study that found that almost nobody likes small talk. They mostly prefer deep talk. So if you're someone who just naturally, you know, somebody says topic A and you naturally want to know, well, why did you say A? And like, where did that come from? And, you know, what, what do you love most about A? What, what makes you uncomfortable about it? Like, if you're that person who genuinely, curiously wants to know those things, people will love talking to you that way. And of course, you have to make sure that you don't go into interviewer mode as if you were doing a podcast interview as opposed to just like having a chat at a party. You need to do a little bit of an even interchange and tell people what you're thinking, too.
37:31 Speaker 01 So you don't want to be the one only asking the questions, but people will appreciate your natural tendency to really see them and really hear them.
37:40 Dan Harris? I think part of the brilliance of this particular advice for anybody with social anxiety to prepare questions and then listen carefully is that not only is it going to, I think, relax your nervous system, because you've kind of done some advanced exposure by prepping, it will also kind of get you out of your own head. I mean, the problem with social anxiety, and I actually have a little bit of it at times, and plenty of garden variety anxiety, this is a problem with garden variety anxiety, too, is that you're in kind of a self-centered mode. You are self-conscious, to put it in my language that you might not appreciate. You have your head up your ass a little bit. And so, you know, advising people to be more externally focused is good for them and good
38:25 Dan Harris? for the world.
38:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, you know, what you just said, I have always found to be such a paradox. I remember the first time I read that idea.
38:35 Speaker 01 Years ago, you know, by a psychologist talking about the excessive self-consciousness of the shy person, I felt so indignant about it because the last thing that a shy person feels is egoistic, which that analysis seemed to suggest. But it's true that when you get caught into social anxiety, it's not that it comes from egoism, but it does have the effect of making you think only about yourself and not about the people around you. And you almost don't have the cognitive ability when you're in the grip of anxiety to think or care about other people because the anxiety can feel so intense. So yeah, like having a simple mental trick at a party, let's say, of saying to yourself, okay, what
39:17 Speaker 01 if I were the host here? And what if I imagine that the person I'm talking to feels even more uncomfortable than I do? Like, what would I be doing right now to try to make them feel more comfortable? And that has a way of switching on your natural warmth and taking you away from the question of how am I coming across?
39:35 Dan Harris? It's brilliant. And you know what? Just to back to this question of egotism, I mean, it's kind of a little bit, how do you understand egotism? Because in common parlance, I think it scans as thinking you're awesome. But actually, it's really just being stuck in self-referentiality. If you can tweak the definition, it's a little less indignity or indignance provoking.
40:00 Dan Harris? Coming up, Susan talks about the role of extroverts in all of this, including this term, which I love, introvert-extrovert synergy, how she defines social connections, the importance of naming your experiences, and we're going to talk about some more strengths and superpowers possessed by introverts.
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41:23 Dan Harris? I want to go back to the role of extroverts here. You've talked about how an extrovert running an organization can make room for everybody, including introverts.
41:33 Speaker 01 But or anyone running an organization. Like, it could be an introvert, too.
41:37 Dan Harris? Exactly. Well said. Thank you for that. What about, you know, in a marriage, asking for a friend, clearly? And also, just before I give you the mic, I just want to highlight a term I've seen you use, which is introvert-extrovert synergy.
41:52 Speaker 01 So introverts and extroverts tend to get along really well and to be attracted to each other as romantic partners, as colleagues, as friends, which makes sense when you think about it, because each one has such different strengths and different orientations. So, you know, like, my husband never runs out of things to say, never. Like, we could be on a 10-hour drive to Michigan where we go to visit his parents, and he will never run. It's like hour seven, hour eight. He still has stuff to talk about. And I love that, and I appreciate it so much. And I think he would say he appreciates, you know, things that I do in my quieter way. So those synergies really do happen.
42:34 Speaker 01 And of course, at the same time, you know, there are clashes that come from being different kinds of people. So I was wondering, like, when you were talking about you and your wife on the weekends, that is probably, in all the research that I've done with introvert-extrovert couples, that's probably the most common mishap that I hear about, of one person is dying to go out all the time, the other person wants to stay home. And that's like a point of tension that comes up again and again and again, because it's your whole social life or not. So what I always recommend to people with that one is to try to have an MO that you both agree to in general, so that you're not having to negotiate it every day, or every Friday or Saturday night.
43:19 Speaker 01 So, you know, you decide in advance, like, How many social outings are we going to have per weekend or per month? Or whatever works for you as a couple? And then you just try to stay with that as best you can. And also giving each other the freedom that one person can go out with their friends and the other one curls up at home and, and no one thinks anything about it. Would that work for the two of you? Or does, is that what you guys do?
43:44 Dan Harris? That's pretty much where we've landed. I go out alone all the time. We do go out as a couple and those are the best nights, but I, I go, I have like standing lunch and dinner dates with groups of friends that have, one lunch group has been running for 15 years.
43:59 Speaker 01 How often do you meet?
43:59 Dan Harris? Every six weeks or so.
44:01 Speaker 01 Okay.
44:01 Dan Harris? And it's my brother and a, a third friend. And sometimes we add a fourth. And I have a thriving social life, much of which maybe 40 to 50% doesn't involve my wife. And when she is available and is up for it, she comes. Also, you know, it's not uncommon that we're at a party together and she goes home early and I stay and you know, don't go home early.
44:25 Speaker 01 And are you both, would you say a, a scale of zero to a hundred, are you a hundred percent comfortable with that arrangement by now?
44:34 Dan Harris? I think 90% comfortable, but I mean, I wanted to say a hundred percent comfortable, but I don't want to be overconfident. I think certainly there have been clashes, I think over this, but no, it doesn't seem to be a major source of tension now.
44:47 Speaker 01 Mm hmm, mm hmm. Well, that's great. That really is the biggest issue that I tend to hear about. And the other one that I hear about, I would say, is different approaches to resolving conflict.
45:02 Speaker 01 And this is partly gender, but it's partly personality that extroverts tend as a group to be more comfortable with what psychologists call confrontive coping, you know? So you have a disagreement and like they'll come at you strong with the confrontation. And an introvert will tend to feel, well, if the person loved me, they would soften this. They wouldn't be quite as confronting. An introvert might tend to want to be tamping down the conflict to the point of disengaging from it, making an extrovert feel, oh, if this person loved me, they would care about working out this conflict. They wouldn't be detaching from the situation. So that's where you get into misunderstandings.
45:44 Dan Harris? Yeah, that sounds familiar.
45:45 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, with all of this, like whether it's that or whether it's my husband and I in those, those 10 hour drives to Michigan, we're constantly like, he's turning up the radio dial, I'm turning it down. And I will tell you, we had that particular thing with the radio dial for years before we even realized that that was a difference in temperament between us. And there's something about knowing that that's where it comes from that is so helpful in diffusing the conflict and in making you figure out a way to compromise it. As opposed to like, if you don't know where it's coming from, it's just so much
46:26 Speaker 01 easier to think, why don't they understand me? Or there's something wrong with them for, for having the preference that they do, instead of understanding, these are just different temperaments that we have. And so we're gonna more dispassionately figure out a way to compromise.
46:42 Dan Harris? A million percent. I mean, it deep personalizes it.
46:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:44 Dan Harris? Just to tell you a little story that will give you a sense of why I use the word pathology. It's not because I'm trying to medicalize this. It's because I have this very clear memory of being like 19, 20 years old and having a lot of back pain and getting an x-ray or an MRI or something like that and looking at it with the doctor. And he said, oh yeah, you have one, you have something called, I'm gonna mispronounce this, spondylolasthesis, I think it's called. You have like one lumbar that's a little bit out of trajectory with the rest of your spine. And he's like, there's nothing you can do about it, but it's nice to know there's some pathology. And I liked that because it was like, yeah, it's, I have a name for this thing now. And that's why I use the term pathology, because naming it is really powerful.
47:28 Speaker 01 I so, so agree. I so agree. Yeah, I just broke my foot and tore my ligaments playing tennis six months ago. And like, I love to play every day, so it was such a bummer. And anyway, my bone doctor is very dismissive about the ankle ligament thing. And then I went to my GP yesterday and mentioned it. And he said, oh, you know, those never heal. They never fully heal. That's bad news, but I actually felt like he was giving me good news because he was validating the experience I've been having, which is just another example for what you just said.
48:00 Dan Harris? Absolutely. I want to ask another question from an extrovert standpoint. This is probably me, you know, selfishly abusing my position of of host. But there was something you said to me, I think, before we started rolling here, that even if you're an extrovert, we all need quiet. We all need solitude. Can you say more about that?
48:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. So just the way we all need social life, like, you know, introverts still love some noise and they still like to socialize and all the rest. You know, the same is true of an extrovert. We're describing basic human needs when we talk about the need for social life and when we talk about the need for solitude. That's just part of what it is to be human. And because we tend to live now in a culture that's so focused on socializing, even for extroverts, they will often feel that they're getting too much of it, which is something. I don't know if you had this experience with your friends during the part of the pandemic when people weren't leaving the house. I had extroverted friends who were telling me, you know, this is actually a relief for
49:02 Speaker 01 me and I'm realizing that the life I lived beforehand was too much, even for me, they would say.
49:09 Speaker 01 I don't know if you had that experience at all or if it was just purely difficult for you.
49:13 Dan Harris? Actually, the way the pandemic went was actually good for me as an extrovert because we had a pod, me and my wife and our son, and then my cousin, who's a single mother, and her daughter, and our nanny and some of her children were all living in this house together. So I really enjoyed that.
49:28 Speaker 01 It's like a reality show.
49:30 Dan Harris? It was a bit of a reality show. And because I was a news anchor at the time, I would have to go in to anchor the weekend editions of Good Morning America, Saturday and Sunday mornings. And I really still have very close relationships with my co-hosts and a lot of the people behind the scenes. And so I actually was getting a lot of what I needed during the pandemic. So now I'm sounding like a privileged jerk.
49:50 Speaker 01 No, not at all. But yeah, OK, I can see how that would have been perfect for you. But yeah, basically, everybody needs some degree of solitude sometimes. Like, I assume even for you, you wouldn't want to be. You said earlier, you know, you give a talk and then it's too exhausting to then have a series of 100 small conversations after.
50:08 Dan Harris? Yes.
50:09 Speaker 01 Because everybody hits their limits at some point.
50:12 Dan Harris? You know, where I really struggle is not so much in the too much socializing, although for sure I hit my limits. But what's coming to mind at this juncture in the conversation is I'm a meditation evangelist. And so I go on every year at least one meditation retreat, often many more. And some of them are nine, 10, 11 days long. And man, is that hard on my nervous system. And I am so happy when it's over. My wife is always like, you're so happy when these are over. Why do you do it? And I really see the value for my practice and of solitude. And when you talked before about understimulation and how hard that can be for extroverts, the first thing that came to my mind was, well, that's what's happening for me on retreats.
50:57 Speaker 01 That's really interesting. And I have to tell you, I always think I should do one of those silent retreats. And I've not done it. And I would not be looking forward to it. Even as me, as a person who loves solitude, I feel like that would be too much. Because one thing I was going to say about solitude is, it kind of depends how you define it. I mean, there's the solitude of walking alone in the woods. One of my favorite forms of solitude is reading a book where an author is expressing some experience that I've had myself, that I'd never quite articulated before.
51:36 Speaker 01 And then they articulate it for me. Not only was this formerly nebulous thing now put into words, but also just this feeling of such an intense connection of like, oh, my gosh, you know, I'm not alone in having that experience. And it might be somebody who's not even alive anymore. But it's this moment of intense connection. Which is to say that I think we define social connection in way too limited way. You know, it's not only meeting each other at a networking event or whatever. It's also the act of reading a book or similar.
52:09 Dan Harris? Somebody's taking a walk right now, listening to us talk and having a social connection with us.
52:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. And that is a funny thing, right? Like, the extent to which you feel like, you know, those paraphilic relationships, I guess that's what it's called, where you feel like you're friends with the people whose podcasts you listen to or the TV shows you watch all the time. But it is real. And I don't think it's fully sustaining. But I also don't think that- We should denigrate that type of connection. I think it's very valid.
52:40 Dan Harris? I agree. And when sometimes people sheepishly say to me, I feel like I know you. And I'm like, if you've been listening to the show, you do know me. For better or worse, you do know me. And so, yeah. And also, I want to say that that moment of reading, and even as an extrovert, I really love to read, where somebody crystallizes an aspect of the human condition that you've been ambiently aware of.
53:00 Speaker 01 Yes.
53:01 Dan Harris? And then they name it. It goes right back to the whole discussion around the word pathology, which I know I'm using in a little bit inappropriate way, but.
53:09 Speaker 01 No, I totally get it. The naming of experience.
53:11 Dan Harris? Yes. I think Jonathan Franzen, the novelist, has this expression, micro felicities.
53:17 Speaker 01 Oh, I don't know that one.
53:18 Dan Harris? And as you're reading, there are these, either that, the crystallizing of an aspect of the human experience that hasn't been quite so well described before, or just a lovely turn of phrase, he describes as a micro felicity, which I love. Okay, I'm aware, I'm looking at the clock and I just want to make sure I get all my questions in before I let you go. Before, I asked you about the superpowers and strengths of introverts, and we didn't get all the way through the list, which you made clear. And I just want to make sure I give you an opportunity to talk about other strengths or superpowers of introverts that we haven't yet touched on.
53:52 Speaker 01 Well, let's see. We talked about creativity. We talked about leadership. We talked about the ability to connect with people by really tuning into what they're saying. I would say what goes along with that is the facility for active listening, which is something that most introverts just kind of acquire over a lifetime of referring to listen rather than to speak. That has a way of turning you into a pretty good listener, even if you didn't start out that way. And that's a deeply underappreciated skill and a powerful one.
54:24 Dan Harris? I'm having an embarrassing realization as you're talking, again, as an extrovert.
54:30 Dan Harris? I'm realizing that. So I find interviewing, being in the seat of interviewer, where I'm mostly listening, way more exhausting than I do being interviewed. And could that be, where I do most of the talking, could that be a not so flattering realization that would be a hallmark of an extrovert?
54:51 Speaker 01 I wouldn't necessarily say that because I don't find it tiring in real life to be asking questions of people like I usually really want to know about them. But when I'm in a formally interviewing position, the way you are, I sometimes find that kind of stressful. I don't know, you're feeling like you have to keep the conversation moving at the right speed. There's just like all this ambient noise that you have to think about along with really listening to what the person is saying. There's a lot of mental balls that you're juggling in the air that I don't think are true of everyday life. Do you know what I mean?
55:24 Dan Harris? I do. Now I feel better.
55:25 Speaker 01 I'm gonna throw one other big strength out there that I think might be underappreciated, which is by their nature, introverts tend to want to focus on one or two or three areas of their lives. They tend to get these passions and really go deep with them. And that can be a real superpower because you cultivate all kinds of expertise. It also ends up becoming an unexpected pathway to leadership. So what you find is a lot of introverts ascending to leadership positions in their companies or wherever it is, or in social causes, not because they're the so-called natural leaders, but rather that they have so much expertise and they're usually approaching
56:10 Speaker 01 the cause or their work or whatever it is from a position of like great passion and caring. And that has a way of attracting other people who have a similar level of intensity about that thing. And now you've got a core of people who are really caring about whatever it is. You look at a Gandhi, he was a really shy person, very introverted person. He writes in his autobiography, he was a kid who would run home from school as soon as the bell rang because he didn't want to have to talk to anybody. And he said, even in his later life, he was really uncomfortable at meetings or having to hold forth. But he was this person of like deep principle who really cared about his mission and that attracted other people too.
56:51 Speaker 01 Because you know, I know you know this, that whatever you're feeling deep down has a way of communicating itself, regardless of what words you use or what body language you're aware of. You're communicating in a thousand other ways that you don't have control over. So if you are that person who has these deep passions and you figure out how to align those passions with your goals and with your work and with your everyday life, well now you're leading. A really aligned life that is fueled by a superpower of deeply caring. And the same thing is true with introverts and their social lives. Like, they tend to invest all their social energies in their romantic partners and their children and their closest friends.
57:33 Speaker 01 So those people, like, really, really get the benefit of those relationships. And the introverts do too, because those tend to be incredibly deep relationships, because so much is being invested into them.
57:45 Dan Harris? Yeah, I see that with my wife.
57:47 Speaker 01 You're not, like, spreading yourself thin.
57:49 Dan Harris? Yeah.
57:52 Dan Harris? My final question for you is, I don't know, this might be putting you in an awkward situation as an introvert, but can I get you to just plug your books and your Substack and anything else you want that the world should know about?
58:04 Speaker 01 Oh, thank you. Yeah, the thing I'm working on most intensely right now is my Substack, which is called The Quiet Life. And it's just become this incredible place to share all the stuff I like to think about and art and ideas and constellations. And we have candlelight chats together. And it's just become this incredible community of people who I would say are all on a wavelength of loving, kind of, well, I call it quiet depth and beauty. So if that resonates, you know? And anyone who's on the wavelength of loving those things tends to find their way to the Substack.
58:45 Speaker 01 And it's just become this incredible place to discuss together things that you can't as easily talk about in everyday life. So that's the main thing that I'm working on now. My books are Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and also Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, which is something we talked about in a previous one of your episodes. And I guess I forgot to say, if you're looking to find the Substack, it's at thequietlife.net.
59:13 Dan Harris? And I will drop links in the show notes to Susan's Substack, to her books, and to the last conversation we had about her second book, Bittersweet. Susan Cain, a pleasure. Thank you very much for making time for this.
59:27 Speaker 01 Dan, it's always amazing to talk to you. I've been a fan for a really long time, so thank you so much.
59:38 Dan Harris? Thanks again to Susan Cain. Great to talk to her. Don't forget to check out her Substack. Also, don't forget to check out my Substack. If you're a subscriber, you'll get a cheat sheet of this episode sent directly to your inbox. It will sum up all of the key learnings and include a full transcript. We do this for paid subscribers for every episode. So that's cool. Before I go, I want to thank everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Podpeople. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
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