Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I feel like college was a real struggle for me.
Speaker 1: This is author Jessica Pan.
Speaker 2: I always felt like, when you know college kids would
Speaker 2: go out and party or go to clubs, I thought
Speaker 2: we were all secretly waiting to like come home and
Speaker 2: then you know, get our pajamas.
Speaker 1: Jessica had many close friends in college, she couldn't always
Speaker 1: relate to how outgoing her buddies were. Her besties seemed
Speaker 1: to seek out noisy parties and busy dance floors, but
Speaker 1: Jessica was much more at home with small gatherings and
Speaker 1: intimate conversations. Jessica's friends adored her, but they couldn't always
Speaker 1: relate to her preferences and just assumed Jessica would want
Speaker 1: to go big. To celebrate. When she turned twenty two.
Speaker 2: They threw me this surprise birthday party.
Speaker 1: Friends and family members gathered secretly and waited in Jessica's
Speaker 1: dark bedroom, ready to pop out and scream. As soon
Speaker 1: as she got.
Speaker 2: Home and I walked in, there was like fifty people
Speaker 2: staring at me, and I burst into tears. It was
Speaker 2: my worst nightmare. That's one of the times I felt
Speaker 2: very much like, Okay, I am slightly different from my
Speaker 2: extroverted friends.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just those extroverted friends. Jessica also felt
Speaker 1: different from the people she grew up with.
Speaker 2: I often say that my parents are like the two
Speaker 2: chattiest people in America because they absolutely love talking to
Speaker 2: strangers to the point where it is embarrassing. You'll be
Speaker 2: in line for a restaurant, or you'll be on the
Speaker 2: plane or anywhere, and my mom is talking to someone,
Speaker 2: and then my dad's joining in, and there it's just,
Speaker 2: I don't know. They're the complete opposite of me.
Speaker 1: Jessica knew her social needs differed from the people around her,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't sure why.
Speaker 2: So when I was growing up, the labels introvert and extrovert,
Speaker 2: they were not these buzzy terms that everybody knew about,
Speaker 2: so I'd never heard of them. And I think I
Speaker 2: found out in my twenties what an introvert was, and
Speaker 2: I immediately recognized myself.
Speaker 1: The American Psychological Association defines insion as an orientation towards
Speaker 1: the internal, private world of one's inner thoughts and feelings,
Speaker 1: rather than toward the outer world of people. Compared to extroverts,
Speaker 1: introverts are more withdrawn, reserved, quiet and deliberate.
Speaker 2: Someone who concentrates really well is a good listener, likes
Speaker 2: to be alone, gets exhausted, over stimulated by lots of people.
Speaker 2: And I felt really seen by that definition. I would
Speaker 2: never raise my hand in a class. That would never happen.
Speaker 2: I would fake sick if there was a presentation I
Speaker 2: had to give. I think I got a solo to
Speaker 2: sing in a choir, and I didn't tell my mom
Speaker 2: about it, and I just pretended that I had a fever.
Speaker 2: I don't even think she knows about that to this day.
Speaker 2: And so Jessica began referring to herself as an introvert
Speaker 2: with a capital I. It quickly became a badge of honor.
Speaker 2: But I began to use that label of introvert as
Speaker 2: an excuse to say no to anything that gave me
Speaker 2: any sort of social anxiety.
Speaker 1: Jessica sat out important social events, even ones that she
Speaker 1: knew might be good for her or for her career.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to give speeches. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: host parties. I didn't want to lead workshops because I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, no, I'm an introvert. Introverts don't do
Speaker 2: things like that. And I was completely limiting who I
Speaker 2: was and who I could become. At times, Jessica did
Speaker 2: question what she was passing up, like the time she
Speaker 2: went to a friend's wedding. The bride stood up and
Speaker 2: she gave this amazing speech, and she was crying and
Speaker 2: her parents were crying, and I felt like, why didn't
Speaker 2: I give a speech at my wedding? And I didn't
Speaker 2: do it because I was too anxious. I was scared
Speaker 2: I would not sound articulate. I would be scared that
Speaker 2: I wouldn't look good. I was scared that I embarrassed myself,
Speaker 2: when actually I wish I had done that, because I
Speaker 2: think the benefits could have tremendously outweighed the negative consequences.
Speaker 1: But the negative consequences of Jessica's introversion became even clearer
Speaker 1: when she and her husband moved to London.
Speaker 2: It's notoriously not the most friendly place in the entire world,
Speaker 2: and it's hard to make friends as an adult. And
Speaker 2: also I was a freelancer, so I was working from home,
Speaker 2: so it seemed absolutely impossible to make these connections and
Speaker 2: get out of my shell.
Speaker 1: And that was when Jessica decided to embark on an
Speaker 1: innovative personal experiment, one that wound up changing her life forever.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, if I really want to commit to this,
Speaker 2: I have to do this.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to other episodes in this new season
Speaker 1: on getting more social, then you've probably already heard about
Speaker 1: the benefits of connecting with other people. Pretty Much every
Speaker 1: study ever done on the relationship between well being and
Speaker 1: social interaction shows that more people time makes us happier.
Speaker 1: But what if you, like Jessica dread parties and crowds
Speaker 1: and spontaneous conversations with strangers. Are you doomed to less
Speaker 1: happiness than your more talkative friends. Or is there a
Speaker 1: way that the introverts among us can also get the
Speaker 1: happiness benefits that come from more social connection. Our minds
Speaker 1: are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.
Speaker 1: But what if our minds are wrong? What if our
Speaker 1: minds are lying to us, leading us away from what
Speaker 1: will really make us happy. The good news is the
Speaker 1: understanding the science of the mind can point us all
Speaker 1: back in the right direction. You're listening to the How
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 3: Hi, Laurie, I'm having trouble connecting my MC so give
Speaker 3: me just a sec I.
Speaker 1: Wanted to unpack what psychologists have learned about the science
Speaker 1: of introversion and the unintended consequences it can have for
Speaker 1: our happiness, and that meant there was one person in
Speaker 1: the field I really needed to call.
Speaker 4: My computers are rejecting the bluetooth connection.
Speaker 1: Sonya Lubermirski is a professor at the University of California
Speaker 1: at Riverside. She's the author of the How of Happiness,
Speaker 1: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Sonya
Speaker 1: is a world expert on the science of happiness, so
Speaker 1: not surprisingly, she's very much in demand.
Speaker 4: I've been crazy busy, so I'm like, this is like
Speaker 4: I don't even have time to say hi, Like I bet,
Speaker 4: I'm going from one meeting to another.
Speaker 1: I was super grateful that Sonya made time for us
Speaker 1: and that she put up with a few technical problems.
Speaker 4: Do you can you keep talking? It's working that great?
Speaker 1: In order to share a key finding from her decades
Speaker 1: of work in positive psychology.
Speaker 4: After many years of research, we landed on this cliche,
Speaker 4: which is that the key to happiness is really connection,
Speaker 4: and so if you want to increase happiness, you want
Speaker 4: to make people feel more connected.
Speaker 1: It really is that simple. You will be happier if
Speaker 1: you interact with more people, even if you're an introvert.
Speaker 4: What's interesting is clear if you. Studies have shown that
Speaker 4: actually both extverts and introverts bena fit by more social interaction.
Speaker 1: Most introverts predict that social interaction will feel exhausting, anxiety provoking,
Speaker 1: and crummy, so they don't engage in this activity nearly
Speaker 1: as much as extroverts do, and the science shows that
Speaker 1: this choice can have big negative consequences for introverts. Happiness
Speaker 1: research since the nineteen eighties has shown that, on average,
Speaker 1: introverts are less happy than extroverts, presumably because they consistently
Speaker 1: miss out on the well being benefits that social connection provides.
Speaker 1: But that leads to an even bigger problem, because introversion
Speaker 1: isn't just some flippant label we throw on when we
Speaker 1: don't feel like going to a party. Introversion is one
Speaker 1: of the five core dimensions that make up our person
Speaker 1: the other four being openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Psychologists
Speaker 1: have long assumed that these so called Big five personality
Speaker 1: traits are stable. They don't change all that much. Across
Speaker 1: our lifetimes or across different situations. If you are outgoing
Speaker 1: and the center of attention as a teenager, then psychologists
Speaker 1: would assume that you're still likely to be extroverted decades later.
Speaker 1: But if you spent your teen years, like Jessica Pan
Speaker 1: wishing you could run home to be alone, well, most
Speaker 1: psychologists would probably assume that you're unlikely to be a
Speaker 1: social butterfly today. But does that mean that introverts are
Speaker 1: doomed by their personality, destined never to share the joy
Speaker 1: of connection that extroverts take for granted? Sonia didn't think.
Speaker 3: So, what is a trade is basically behavior, you know,
Speaker 3: like when you do something over and over again. If
Speaker 3: I'm like always making my bed and I'm organized and
Speaker 3: I'm always on time, people say, oh, Sonia's hi conscientiousness.
Speaker 3: But if you're not high on constanciousness, theoretically you can
Speaker 3: try to make your meetings on time and make your
Speaker 3: bed morning and so the same thing for extroversion.
Speaker 1: Sonya reason that introverts could engage in what she called
Speaker 1: volitional personality change. If they simply behaved in a more
Speaker 1: extroverted way, maybe they could reap the happiness benefits that
Speaker 1: come with having a more extroverted personality. To test this theory,
Speaker 1: Sonya teamed up with her graduate student Seth Margolis and
Speaker 1: recruited over one hundred college students to take part in
Speaker 1: a new study. Some of these students were naturally introverted,
Speaker 1: whereas others were more extroverted, but all of the subjects
Speaker 1: were randomly divided into two groups. The first group was
Speaker 1: told that for the next week they needed to be
Speaker 1: as talkative, assertive, and spontaneous as possible. Essentially, they had
Speaker 1: to act extroverted, but the second group was told to
Speaker 1: do just the opposite. They were asked to act as deliberate, quiet,
Speaker 1: and reserved as possible. They were going to be more introverted.
Speaker 1: Both groups then filled out surveys to measure their overall
Speaker 1: well being and how much positive emotion they experienced over
Speaker 1: the week. So what did Sonya find.
Speaker 4: We found that both INTROVERTSI and extroverts during the week
Speaker 4: that they were asked to act more extroverted got hugely happier.
Speaker 1: Sonia says the boost and happiness she observed in this
Speaker 1: be more extroverted condition was one of the largest effects
Speaker 1: she's observed in decades of studying happiness interventions. But just
Speaker 1: as acting more extroverted had a significant upside, Sonya also
Speaker 1: observed an effect of doing the opposite. Subjects who were
Speaker 1: asked to act reserved in shy showed statistically reduced levels
Speaker 1: of well being. Acting introverted for a week appears to
Speaker 1: significantly reduce our happiness, But Sonia says the most shocking
Speaker 1: finding from her study, especially for researchers in the field
Speaker 1: of personality psychology, was that subjects were able to do
Speaker 1: what she asked them to. People could change their personality
Speaker 1: traits if they tried, at least for short periods of time,
Speaker 1: and that finding was very good news to author and
Speaker 1: introvert Jessica Pan.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, so we can change, we don't
Speaker 2: always have to be the same, And yeah, I found
Speaker 2: that really freeing.
Speaker 1: When we last left Jessica, she was sad and lonely
Speaker 1: in her new life in the UK, and that's when
Speaker 1: she began reading about the psychology of introverts and happened
Speaker 1: upon Sonya's new study. Learning that people could volitionally change
Speaker 1: their personality traits led Jessica to try something radical.
Speaker 2: I thought, look, I'm not that happy right now In
Speaker 2: my life and I'm a hardcore introvert. What would happen
Speaker 2: if I lived like the other half of the world?
Speaker 2: What could I gain from that?
Speaker 1: Jessica decided to begin her own experiment, but rather than
Speaker 1: behaving more spontaneously and assertively for just a week, as
Speaker 1: Sonya's subjects had done, Jessica pledged to act like an
Speaker 1: extrovert for an entire year. Her twelve month journey turned
Speaker 1: into a new book, Sorry I'm late. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to come one introverts Year of Saying Yes, and Jessica's
Speaker 1: big Year of Saying Yes didn't just involve becoming a
Speaker 1: bit more talkative. Jessica committed to trying out some of
Speaker 1: the most terrifying social encounters.
Speaker 2: Possible, talking to strangers, public speaking, doing improv comedy, things
Speaker 2: like that. That were my nightmares.
Speaker 1: And as you'll hear when we get back from the break,
Speaker 1: Jessica found that pushing herself to make every social connection
Speaker 1: possible required getting more vulnerable than even she expected.
Speaker 2: I would need to just go for it and embarrass
Speaker 2: myself again and again and again.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: So I had this massive fear of talking to strangers
Speaker 2: I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: Introvert Jessica Pan was ready for an entire year of extraverting,
Speaker 1: but where should she start. Jessica figured that some expert
Speaker 1: advice might help her. First call went out to psychotherapist
Speaker 1: and Boston University professor Stefan Hoffmann.
Speaker 2: He specializes in exposure therapy, so he'll have his patients
Speaker 2: do really humiliating things like stand on the street and
Speaker 2: just sing, or ask someone on the subway for like
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars, things where they are guaranteed to be rejected.
Speaker 1: Jessica explained to Stefan that she was terrified of putting
Speaker 1: herself out there, especially with people she didn't know.
Speaker 2: If I was approaching a stranger, my heart would raise.
Speaker 2: I'd feel like I was gonna throw up. I just
Speaker 2: had so much anxiety around it. Stuffan didn't advocate baby steps.
Speaker 2: He wanted Jessica to dive head first into the social
Speaker 2: deep end. And he said, okay, so you live in
Speaker 2: London and you're scared of strangers. It's what I would
Speaker 2: have you do is I would have you ask a
Speaker 2: really stupid question to a stranger. I would have you
Speaker 2: go up to somebody and say excuse me, is there
Speaker 2: a Queen of England? And if so, what's her name?
Speaker 2: And as soon as he said this, I wanted to
Speaker 2: throw up and I was thinking, there's no way I'm going.
Speaker 4: To do that.
Speaker 1: Steffan was making Jessica ask strangers pretty much the dumbest
Speaker 1: question you could pose to a Londoner because back then
Speaker 1: everyone knew that there was in fact a Queen of
Speaker 1: England and her name was Elizabeth. It was an encounter
Speaker 1: that was set up to make Jessica look as stupid
Speaker 1: as possible, but as Stefan explained, that was kind of
Speaker 1: the point.
Speaker 2: Look, you know, no one's going to fire you, you're
Speaker 2: not going to get arrested, your husband's not going to
Speaker 2: leave you, you're not going to get thrown in jail.
Speaker 2: So you're just going to look a little bit stupid.
Speaker 1: And to compound her discomfort, Jessica headed to one of
Speaker 1: London's least welcoming locations.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the most awkward places to
Speaker 2: talk to a stranger in London is on the underground
Speaker 2: because people they don't want to be bothered.
Speaker 1: Jessica was ready to push herself, just like steffanhead advised,
Speaker 1: so she sought out the least approachable stranger she could find.
Speaker 1: She picked a busy looking businessman in an expensive suit.
Speaker 2: I was like, excuse me, and he was like what?
Speaker 2: And I said, is there a Queen of England? And
Speaker 2: he was like the Queen of England? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: who is she? And he said it's Victoria and then
Speaker 2: he walked off.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the answer she was expecting. Victoria hadn't been
Speaker 1: queen for over one hundred years. Was the man walking
Speaker 1: Jessica giving a stupid answer to her stupid question. Jessica
Speaker 1: wasn't sure, so she flagged down another scary looking businessman
Speaker 1: and posed the same question again, and he also said Victoria.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know if it was they were just
Speaker 2: messing with me or what was happening. But then I
Speaker 2: flagged down a few more women and they told me
Speaker 2: it was Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Looking idiotic in front of total strangers in a noisy,
Speaker 1: dirty subway station might not sound like fun, especially for
Speaker 1: an introvert, but the experience left Jessica feeling elated.
Speaker 2: I felt like I could fly. I felt insanely exhilarated
Speaker 2: because it was so embarrassing, and there were other people listening.
Speaker 2: It was my worst fear, and Stefan was right. Nothing
Speaker 2: bad happened to take her extroverting to the next level.
Speaker 2: Jessica tagged in yet another expert, one who may sound
Speaker 2: kind of familiar if you've listened to other episodes in
Speaker 2: this special season. Should call him Nick? Or what should
Speaker 2: I call him?
Speaker 5: I'm Nicholas Epley, you can call me Nick.
Speaker 1: Nick is a professor of behavioral science at the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago's Booth School of Business.
Speaker 2: I had read his research that said that when two
Speaker 2: commuters are forced to talk to each other, they are
Speaker 2: happier than they would have anticipated.
Speaker 1: You might remember this study from an episode we ran
Speaker 1: in our very first season entitled Mistakenly Seeking Solitude. In
Speaker 1: the experiment, Nick found passengers who were about to hop
Speaker 1: on a train from the Chicago suburbs on their way
Speaker 1: to work.
Speaker 5: We gave them an envelope that had a five dollars
Speaker 5: Starbucks gift card in it, which turns out to be
Speaker 5: the most valuable incentive that we know on the planet.
Speaker 5: People will do anything for a five dollars Starbucks gift card,
Speaker 5: including doctor strangers on trains.
Speaker 1: Nick then told one group to spend the entire train
Speaker 1: ride enjoying their solitude. They weren't allowed to talk to anyone,
Speaker 1: which is pretty much what most of us usually do.
Speaker 5: And almost nobody talks to strangers on the train.
Speaker 1: But Nick asked a second group of commuters to do
Speaker 1: something a little more radical. They had to spend the
Speaker 1: entire train ride talking to someone.
Speaker 5: We asked them to try to make a connection with
Speaker 5: the person who sits down next to you this morning
Speaker 5: on the train. Try to get to know something about
Speaker 5: him or her. So they were going to have a
Speaker 5: conversation after the ride. Nick surveyed the commuters to find
Speaker 5: out how they were all feeling. The results were striking.
Speaker 5: People who were forced to spend their entire train ride
Speaker 5: talking to strangers felt happier than the ones that were
Speaker 5: told to enjoy their solitude.
Speaker 2: When I first read that research, I was like, what
Speaker 2: is he talking about? That sounds insane to me. Nick
Speaker 2: says that Jessica's not the only one with that reaction.
Speaker 5: I get a lot of pushback on this because the
Speaker 5: expectations are so strong.
Speaker 1: Nick has even tested these mistaken expectations directly. In a
Speaker 1: second study, subjects were asked which would feel better talking
Speaker 1: to some random stranger on the train or just enjoying
Speaker 1: the ride in silence. People overwhelmingly thought that being in
Speaker 1: the talkative condition would suck. They predicted the exact opposite
Speaker 1: of what Nick's results showed. Like Jessica, most of us
Speaker 1: think that connecting with strangers will feel awkward, but we're wrong.
Speaker 5: That's not what people's experience actually is.
Speaker 1: Nick's subjects also mispredicted how much the stranger they chatted
Speaker 1: with would enjoy the experience of being talked to.
Speaker 5: That is, they underestimated how social other people were. And
Speaker 5: notice that belief then becomes a kind of self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 5: If I think, Glori, you don't want to talk to me,
Speaker 5: then I'll sit down next to you at a conference,
Speaker 5: say I won't talk to you. You will sit there
Speaker 5: and we'll not talk to me. You'll look to me,
Speaker 5: and because I'm not talking to you, you will infer
Speaker 5: that I'm not interested in talking to you either, And
Speaker 5: we'll both then sit there in silence, next to each other,
Speaker 5: and we will both then confirm our expectations that talking
Speaker 5: to you would have been unpleasant. We don't ever get
Speaker 5: data that would tell us that those beliefs are wrong
Speaker 5: because we don't try it.
Speaker 1: But author Jessica Pan was ready to try it. She
Speaker 1: met with Nick and quickly realized that he really practices
Speaker 1: what he preaches.
Speaker 2: Nicholas has no issue talking to strangers.
Speaker 1: Nick talks with people on trains and planes and buses.
Speaker 1: He chit chats with waiters and baristas and cafes and
Speaker 1: cashiers at his local grocery store.
Speaker 5: We know all of them now, often by name. They
Speaker 5: know our kids, and that's fun. Once you start the conversation,
Speaker 5: it's pretty easy to make it go. That's not hard.
Speaker 5: It's starting that's hard. It's like a speed bump at
Speaker 5: the top of a hill, and you have to get
Speaker 5: over this speed bump to actually get things going.
Speaker 1: Speed bump. What Nick thought of as a bump in
Speaker 1: the road, felt like a mountain to an introvert like Jessica.
Speaker 2: I felt like he could not relate to my anxiety
Speaker 2: at all, and I couldn't relate to his total nonchalance
Speaker 2: about chatting with people.
Speaker 1: But Nick did share one fact about social connection that
Speaker 1: put Jessica a little more at ease.
Speaker 2: He said, look, Jessica, nobody waves, but everybody waves back. Like,
Speaker 2: you have to be the first person to make a move,
Speaker 2: and if you do that, almost one hundred percent of
Speaker 2: the time people will If you wave to someone, they'll
Speaker 2: way back. You say hi to someone, they'll say hi back.
Speaker 1: Jessica began to realize how rarely she put in the
Speaker 1: work to make that all important first move.
Speaker 2: So I feel like in the past, I'd go to
Speaker 2: a party and I'd linger in the hallway or the doorway.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to go fully in. I would hover
Speaker 2: near the cheeseboard or the drinks and the kitchen, or
Speaker 2: look at my phone, and then.
Speaker 1: I would probably leave. But if Jessica was committed to
Speaker 1: being the one to open a conversation, what she wondered
Speaker 1: should she start talking about? Are there particular topics that
Speaker 1: are more effective for really connecting people. In the rare
Speaker 1: cases in which Jessica did talk with someone new, she
Speaker 1: usually stuck to the easy stuff, what Nick calls shallow
Speaker 1: or surface talk.
Speaker 2: Surface talk is like we talk about our commutes or
Speaker 2: what we had for dinner, or the weather. And deep
Speaker 2: talk is our hopes and our dreams and our fears,
Speaker 2: and so much of our life is rooted in just
Speaker 2: doing surface talk. You know, you could see the same
Speaker 2: person every day for ten years and you might not
Speaker 2: actually know what's going on with them because you literally
Speaker 2: just talk about very topical things.
Speaker 1: But Nick has found that there's a much more effective
Speaker 1: style of conversation if your goal is to truly get
Speaker 1: to know someone, to truly connect. It's what he and
Speaker 1: other researchers have called deep conversation.
Speaker 2: It's sharing our human experience of struggling and loneliness and
Speaker 2: things that actually bring us together.
Speaker 1: In one study, Nick asked people to engage either in
Speaker 1: shallow talk talking about the weather or their favorite TV shows,
Speaker 1: or in deep talk. And the deep talk conversation starters
Speaker 1: were pretty heavy, things like can you describe a time
Speaker 1: that you cried in front of another person? And if
Speaker 1: you could undo one mistake you've made in your life,
Speaker 1: what would it be?
Speaker 5: And these deep conversations go much better than people expect
Speaker 5: they will, and they're much less awkward than people expect.
Speaker 5: People pretty dramatically underestimate how much they are going to
Speaker 5: enjoy deep conversation.
Speaker 1: Armed with all of Nick's advice, Jessica threw herself into
Speaker 1: the conversational deep end. She signed up for a professional
Speaker 1: networking event, and rather than hiding away in the corner
Speaker 1: like she'd normally do, she immediately headed over to a
Speaker 1: group of people, started chatting and, going against all her instincts,
Speaker 1: took the conversation deeper.
Speaker 2: I felt like people really responded to that, and they
Speaker 2: would sort of go, oh, this person's here.
Speaker 1: To be real, to be honest, to actually make a connection.
Speaker 1: Jessica went from feeling like a shy wallflower to the
Speaker 1: life of the party. I could visibly see the difference
Speaker 1: in people's faces. They were having that dopamine hit two
Speaker 1: because we were connecting, we were laughing, we were bonding
Speaker 1: over something, and I realized that we all have the
Speaker 1: power to steer the conversation into something deeper. But Jessica
Speaker 1: knew that talking was only half the battle. She had
Speaker 1: succeeded in initiating deeper conversation, but it couldn't be a
Speaker 1: one way thing.
Speaker 2: You need to make a person feel like they're being
Speaker 2: listened to, not just waiting for my turn to talk
Speaker 2: or my turn to share my story, but actually listening
Speaker 2: to them and being a part of what they're saying.
Speaker 2: People like feeling paid attention to it. Really is this
Speaker 2: underrated magic skill that we can all have, and that
Speaker 2: really transforms how they treat you because they like being
Speaker 2: treated that way.
Speaker 1: They like being treated special. Jessica left the event feeling
Speaker 1: over the moon. She had proven to herself that she
Speaker 1: could not only talk to strangers, but also that it
Speaker 1: felt great. Her experiences inspired her to go even more
Speaker 1: hardcore in her quest to extrovert.
Speaker 2: I'm very much at all enough person, So I thought,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to do this insane year of torture
Speaker 2: and extroverting, then I'm not going to leave anything out.
Speaker 1: Exactly what torture was Jessica planning for her introverted self.
Speaker 2: It felt like, Okay, if I can survive that, then
Speaker 2: I can survive anything.
Speaker 1: You'll find out when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment.
Speaker 2: I think. I always thought that to be a good
Speaker 2: public speaker, you need to have total confidence when you
Speaker 2: get on stage and before you even do the thing.
Speaker 1: All if you're an introvert. Jessica Pan had always hated
Speaker 1: speaking in.
Speaker 2: Public when actually it's so obvious, but you have to
Speaker 2: be scared to do it. And then when you survive,
Speaker 2: that's where that confidence comes from, because you survive doing
Speaker 2: the scary thing.
Speaker 1: So for the pinnacle of her ear of acting like
Speaker 1: an extrovert, she decided to push herself to the limit.
Speaker 2: And I thought, okay, So the final step in this
Speaker 2: is to perform for an audience where they're often encouraged
Speaker 2: to heckle you.
Speaker 1: Jessica was going to try stand up comedy. She signed
Speaker 1: up for a comedy course, but when it came time
Speaker 1: for the first class, she was terrified, so terrified that
Speaker 1: she climbed into bed and assumed the fetal position.
Speaker 2: Is that not what other people do? That feels really
Speaker 2: natural to me.
Speaker 1: Hoping somehow to muster the necessary courage. But that first
Speaker 1: comedy class went well, and in a few weeks it
Speaker 1: was time to perform for real.
Speaker 2: The first show I did was with my other fellow
Speaker 2: classmates and our friends and our partners and this pub
Speaker 2: downstairs in central London, and I was so nervous. I
Speaker 2: felt like, I don't know, I felt like I was
Speaker 2: on fire or something.
Speaker 1: And in a way, Jessica was on fire. She got
Speaker 1: a ton of laughs.
Speaker 2: The first performance went really well. My friend and I decided,
Speaker 2: let's go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is like
Speaker 2: the Epicenter of comedy and let's perform on an open
Speaker 2: mic night.
Speaker 1: Performing in front of a small crowd of friends and
Speaker 1: supporters at a low key gig isn't quite the same
Speaker 1: as getting up on stage at the premier comedy festival
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: It did not go as well.
Speaker 1: Jessica now admits that she was a bit unprepared for Edinburgh.
Speaker 1: In that particular act.
Speaker 2: I talk about living in England and loving living in England,
Speaker 2: and I forgot that Edinburgh is in Scotland, and I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, loving and I love it here. And
Speaker 2: it was like an audience full of Scottish people who
Speaker 2: were like boo, like, get off the stage, You're not
Speaker 2: in England And for a delicate, shy introvert, that's enough
Speaker 2: to kill you. But I didn't actually die.
Speaker 1: Jessica had made it through her year of living extrovertedly.
Speaker 1: She'd embarrassed herself on a tube train, talked candidly with
Speaker 1: strangers at parties, taken a comedy class, and had bombed
Speaker 1: in front of an angry crowd at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Speaker 1: But in spite of it all, she'd still emerged unscathed.
Speaker 2: The lesson from the year is that I learned a lot,
Speaker 2: and nothing really bad happened to me.
Speaker 1: Jessica hasn't quit her day job to become a stand
Speaker 1: up regular, but she does still practice many of the
Speaker 1: social skills she learned during her year long experiment.
Speaker 2: I would say one of the biggest lessons from the
Speaker 2: year was to go deeper and be vulnerable and be
Speaker 2: willing to do it. First, most people want to talk
Speaker 2: to you, and most people are nicer than we imagine
Speaker 2: in our heads, because I think we build up these big,
Speaker 2: scary judgments that oftentimes don't even exist.
Speaker 1: Jessica now uses a series of go to social hacks
Speaker 1: to overcome her introversion, little rules that she puts into
Speaker 1: effect whenever she feels daunted by a scary situation. The
Speaker 1: first involves breaking her usual cycle of avoidance. If she's
Speaker 1: invited to a party, she goes, and she even tries
Speaker 1: to show up early.
Speaker 2: If you show up late, everybody looks like they're already
Speaker 2: in those little clicks and circles, and you feel like
Speaker 2: you can't join in, and it's so intimidating. But if
Speaker 2: you're the first person there, like the second person there,
Speaker 2: it's not as scary.
Speaker 1: But Jessica also warns that you shouldn't underestimate the discomfort
Speaker 1: you might initially experience doing something, and this means you
Speaker 1: need to give yourself a little self compassion and patience.
Speaker 2: You know, when you go swimming and you get in
Speaker 2: the water, it's absolutely freezing, but then your body adjusts
Speaker 2: to it and it doesn't feel so bad. I mean
Speaker 2: that's a cliche metaphor, but I think it really works.
Speaker 2: Like after you break the ice with one person, it's
Speaker 2: not as scary with the second one, and it's not
Speaker 2: scary with the third one, and by the fourth you
Speaker 2: know you're the life of the party.
Speaker 1: Jessica has learned to appreciate the benefits of social connection,
Speaker 1: but the extroverted habits she now engages in regularly haven't
Speaker 1: fully dismantled her true personality.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely still an introvert, like I definitely prefer to
Speaker 2: be at home or in a small group of people.
Speaker 2: But I now know I can give a speech, I
Speaker 2: can talk to a stranger.
Speaker 1: And that hard won social confidence that came from this
Speaker 1: year long experiment has had a big impact on Jessica's
Speaker 1: well being.
Speaker 2: I had more friends, I had less anxiety, I you
Speaker 2: know in my neighborhood. Now I talk to tons of people,
Speaker 2: I recognize lots of people. It feels like this small
Speaker 2: little village in central London. I was a lot happier
Speaker 2: by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: When Jessica first encountered the extroverted psychologist Nick Eppley, she
Speaker 1: was floored by the ease with which he talked to
Speaker 1: complete strangers and how quickly he struck up friendships with
Speaker 1: the workers he met in stores and cafes. Jessica didn't
Speaker 1: think she'd ever be that comfortable in getting to know
Speaker 1: strangers herself, but a year into her experiment, she had
Speaker 1: really changed. A barista in her local coffee shop was
Speaker 1: one of the first to notice.
Speaker 2: And he said, I remember when he used to come
Speaker 2: in here, like a long time ago. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember that too. And he said, you didn't talk
Speaker 2: it to us ever, like anybody, and I was like, yes,
Speaker 2: that's correct. And he's like, now you're like friends with
Speaker 2: each other and I was like, yeah, exactly. And you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't say here's the book and here's why, but
Speaker 2: he had noticed it. And it was really strange to
Speaker 2: be perceived as an extrovert and by the end, I
Speaker 2: just thought, I don't even recognize myself. And I don't
Speaker 2: mean like that I was pretending to be someone else
Speaker 2: or that I wasn't being true to myself, But it
Speaker 2: was more like, I haven't let these fears and anxieties
Speaker 2: shackle me to the person I've always been. I felt
Speaker 2: like I had grown and I had changed.
Speaker 1: The science shows that we can all enjoy the well
Speaker 1: being boost that comes from social connection, no matter what
Speaker 1: our personality type is. But to get those social connection benefits,
Speaker 1: we need to actually connect with the people around us,
Speaker 1: whether we know them well or not. So why not
Speaker 1: push yourself and get a little more social You could
Speaker 1: talk to a local cashier or a barista, or the
Speaker 1: person sitting next to you on your commute, and when
Speaker 1: you dive into conversation, try to push past the shallow
Speaker 1: stuff and get to topics that feel a little deeper.
Speaker 1: And remember psychologist Nick Epley's insight that not everyone waves,
Speaker 1: but people usually wave back. I hope this episode has
Speaker 1: given you some tips on how to extrovert a bit more,
Speaker 1: even and perhaps especially if it doesn't come to you naturally,
Speaker 1: And I hope you'll join me again next week. For
Speaker 1: more in our series on getting more Social, next time
Speaker 1: on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilly.
Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,
Speaker 1: mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. Jess Shane and Alice
Speaker 1: find offered additional production support. Special thanks to my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis and all of the Pushkin crew. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and me,
Speaker 1: Doctor Laurie Santos.