Introverted, not shy.
By: Romeeta Sukhtankar
Tags: Mental Health, Personal Development, Acceptance, Happiness, Beyourself

“Let’s not hire him. He seems like an introvert and may not get along with others.”

“Your child needs to be pushed out of his shell”

“I don’t know if she can be a good team leader, you know, she doesn’t speak up enough in meetings”

It’s clear that introversion continues to be a wildly misunderstood personality trait.

Growing up, I was made to believe (by no one in particular, but at the same time by everyone around me) that introversion was going to keep me from advancing in life. Like it was something I had to outgrow or change about myself if wanted to “make it”. So I started participating in every group extra-curricular activity at school that remotely piqued my interest and had fun while I was at it. I spent time rehearsing drama, playing basketball, practicing improv, and bettering my dancing and singing skills irrespective of how average I may have been at some of those things. I convinced those around me that I was an outspoken person, excelling in academics and extracurriculars simultaneously. I became the “ideal student”.

What no one noticed, including me, was the energy that was sapped out of me in doing so. The crashes, dubbed as mood swings, that came at the end of a socially active day mostly went unexplained and eventually, everyone just knew they had to “let me be” for a few hours. As years went by and I transitioned from being a student to a working professional, I automatically started to move away from doing the things that didn’t come naturally to me. Then two seemingly small encounters helped me better understand what this all meant and taught me to own the introverted side of my personality. In fact, now I take immense pride in it and what I bring to the table.

I stumbled upon Susan Cain’s TED Talk and subsequently read her book Quiet — The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I participated in an organized personality assessment (the likes of Myers Briggs) with my team at work which empowered me to see the quirks of my personality in a positive light.

This topic has since been top of mind and I now have a heightened sense of awareness of the nuances of introversion, both in myself and those around me. Below are some of the most common generalizations about introversion and my attempt at explaining why these are flawed. These may be true in some people’s cases and not in others — not all introverts are built the same. I call these generalizations and not myths due to the simple fact that personality types are not black and white. Some people in this world will have the traits listed below and they may happen to be introverted, but that’s not something that can be broadly assumed for all.

Generalization: Introverts are not team-players.

I am a growth marketer by profession and have to interact daily with people across the globe, from within and outside my organization. I am good at what I do and mostly enjoy my meeting-packed schedule. I regularly go to conferences, travel to different cities for meetings, and spend time networking with other marketers within the industry. Doesn’t sound like a very ‘introvert-friendly’ choice of profession, does it? Here’s how I manage it — I am intentional about balancing out my face-to-face time with an equal or higher amount of independent working time. I carve out my “thinking” time. I like to analyze and organize my thoughts ahead of the numerous meetings. If there is a ‘brainstorming session’, I have already pre-brainstormed with myself before going into it because it makes me feel prepared and more confident. It’s my way of not wasting people’s time with a random series of disconnected thoughts that might pop up in my head if I were “thinking” and “talking” simultaneously. This is not to say that people who improvise are doing it wrong. In fact, it’s a skill I admire from those that do it well — usually comes with deep knowledge and/or experience.

What I learned from the team personality test at work was that it all comes down to awareness and respect. Awareness about how various members of the team like to think or communicate and genuine respect for their chosen styles. Diversity is everything and the same applies here as well. Simply knowing the motivations and stimulation levels of my colleagues allows me to stretch myself in their direction when the situation demands it and they do the same for me, knowingly or unknowingly.

Generalization: Introverts are shy.

Shyness and introversion often get used interchangeably and is frankly a complex nuance to understand. Susan Cain explains this phenomenon in her book —

“The mental state of a shy extrovert in a business meeting may be very different from that of a calm introvert — the shy person is afraid to speak up, while the introvert is simply overstimulated — but to the outside world, they appear to be the same.”

She has identified several CEOs, world leaders, and movie stars in her book (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Meryl Streep, Gandhi) who are self-identified introverts but as we know, have been anything but shy.

I was asked to speak at an Innovation Summit a few years ago — my first professional talk. People around me advised me to “ease into it” by starting off on a panel along with a few others to avoid the spotlight being wholly on myself. I agreed with that line of thinking, but as luck may have it, the panel topic got switched and the organizers convinced me to do a standalone keynote. I had 3 weeks to prepare and I remember hating myself almost every day for committing to something that could go horribly wrong and what was the need to do this anyway? I could have politely declined but here I was, frantically trying to string together a coherent story for the talk and only somewhat succeeding. Fast-forward, the talk went well (I took it as a sign that several groups of people wanted to chat with me more right after it) but it wasn’t by chance. I prepared and practiced endlessly — recorded videos of myself, sought feedback from co-workers, and challenged my partner to find a minimum of 10 critical points of feedback for me (bless his soul). This process worked for me and I still do the same routine, albeit with lesser panic because now, I know it works — Every single time. So why am I telling you this? To illustrate that the emotions described in this example are that of introversion and not shyness. A shy person would likely never put themselves in a situation like this but an introvert will, and discover their own personal mechanisms to beat the overstimulation.

Generalization: Introverts are anti-social.

This is probably the #1 generalization about introverts out there. People think we are recluse (sometimes misconstrued as rude), hate meeting or interacting with other humans and don’t like going outside our homes — This couldn’t be further from the truth. We build our relationships differently. We prefer a catch-up with a small group of close friends at our favorite brewery over a big party with loud music. If we did end up at a rather large gathering, you will find us somewhere in a corner, deep in conversation trying to get to know someone new, rather than be the center-stage-life-of-the-party. When we come home from that party, we are usually glad we went out because we got to know someone new a bit better but also realize the imminent need to recharge before we do it again.

To all the employers, parents, teachers, friends — let us work towards building environments for a broad range of personality types. Let us not blindly favor the loud over the quiet or the talkers over the thinkers. Let us reward critical thinking and allow for a wide variety of communication styles to bring those ideas to life. Let us all focus on learning and teaching how to flex our mental muscles in both directions.

Most importantly, let us not generalize.