Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Just
Speaker 1: a quick note that today's episode is going to be
Speaker 1: a rerun the next season of the Psychology Podcast we'll
Speaker 1: begin later this year. I haven't taken any break in
Speaker 1: five years of doing this podcast, so I thought it
Speaker 1: was about time to take a step back and think
Speaker 1: about how it can make this a better experience for
Speaker 1: you all. Until then, enjoy these episodes from our archives.
Speaker 1: Today we have Susan Kin on the show. Susan is
Speaker 1: a writer, public speaker, an author of the book Quiet,
Speaker 1: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.
Speaker 1: Most recently, Susan launched the Quiet Revolution, an online initiative
Speaker 1: to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of
Speaker 1: us all. Thank you Susan for agreeing to be on
Speaker 1: the show today. Absolutely, it is a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm like, so gooddy to talk to you. I can't
Speaker 1: stant it. Everybody loves Scott Barry Kapman, and so it's
Speaker 1: so much fun for me to be here with you.
Speaker 1: I think you are collecting so many fans and admirers
Speaker 1: as you go through the world than I deserved. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I think, like my in my twenties,
Speaker 1: I was like deeply insecure. And the more I just
Speaker 1: uh just embraced my ond baldness, the more friends I accumulate.
Speaker 1: So I realized is actually a good thing to just
Speaker 1: like own it. Well, you know, it's a funny thing
Speaker 1: because I've signed you know, because the subject matter that
Speaker 1: I tend to focus on has to do kind of
Speaker 1: inherently with vulnerability. I have found other people now tell
Speaker 1: me about the things that feel vulnerable for them, And
Speaker 1: people invariably tell me that the more they start opening
Speaker 1: up with others about their vulnerability like that, that's when
Speaker 1: they really connect with people. Like I think of Douglas Conant,
Speaker 1: who was the CEO of Campbell's Soup, you know, and
Speaker 1: he's a very petrician like figure. He reminds me of
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart in the movie It's a Wonderful Life. But
Speaker 1: Doug is very shy and introverted, and he says that
Speaker 1: when he first started telling people about that in himself,
Speaker 1: that that was when he had more influence than any
Speaker 1: than at any other time in his career. So it
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me to hear that when you started talking
Speaker 1: about new feeling and talking about your insecurities or feeling
Speaker 1: like an odd velvet, that would be when you actually
Speaker 1: had locked all your powers. Yeah. I really like that
Speaker 1: you told that story because I have noticed that personally
Speaker 1: that I give talks and the part where I tell
Speaker 1: my personal story tends to be like what people remember,
Speaker 1: like don't remember the science, you know, but they talked
Speaker 1: to me about the personal story. It actually makes me
Speaker 1: wonder what's the point of doing science. I was just
Speaker 1: telling all my personal stories and retired point. I told
Speaker 1: these like wraps and correlations, and people like, yeah about
Speaker 1: the story. I totally understand that. You know, it's funny
Speaker 1: because I remember now like I was planning, I was
Speaker 1: preparing for my TED talk and they give you eighteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and like eighteen minutes and you shouldn't go over but
Speaker 1: even thirty seconds, although I did, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: so you feel like those minutes are so precious, and
Speaker 1: so at first I wrote this whole thing that was
Speaker 1: all packed with like statistics and correlations, and and then
Speaker 1: and I realized I had to throw three quarters of
Speaker 1: it out the window because people want to hear stories.
Speaker 1: It's just like what you say. So the question is
Speaker 1: how can we make stories ring true in a generalizable way,
Speaker 1: because that's what science is, right. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: stories are you know, there's some scientists, so my colleagues
Speaker 1: really don't like stories. They think it's not genuine. But
Speaker 1: it is certainly genuine for the individual, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a very live, real experience for that person that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't take away from that person. And yet some
Speaker 1: stories captivate so many people that I believe they are
Speaker 1: revealing some generalizable truths. So stories can lead us too.
Speaker 1: I think can can certainly inform the science absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is such an interesting question actually really because I
Speaker 1: can understand why scientists feel that way, because the story
Speaker 1: is basically it's like an end of one, and it's
Speaker 1: the really compelling end of one so you could see
Speaker 1: how it could be used to bamboos a little bit.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, to like try to say
Speaker 1: that all human experience should be distilled down to the
Speaker 1: abstractions that you get through a scientific process, it feels
Speaker 1: like that does not lead to truth at all. You
Speaker 1: know that there's a reason humans have been telling stories
Speaker 1: for all these centuries, so it's very complicated. What do
Speaker 1: you think doesn't lead to truth at all? I think
Speaker 1: they're trying to distill everything down to the scientific process
Speaker 1: and leaving the stories out of it does not lead
Speaker 1: to truth. It's leaving out like all the blood and
Speaker 1: guts and the human experience. I like that, But you know, I,
Speaker 1: aside from the kind of scientific ones with stories, do
Speaker 1: you feel when you tell them, let's say, on stage
Speaker 1: or somewhere that it always feels self centered to me?
Speaker 1: It feels like I shouldn't be taking the audience's time
Speaker 1: to listen to like something that happened to me at
Speaker 1: summer camp thirty years ago, you know, And yet that's
Speaker 1: what they wanted to hear. But that I always have
Speaker 1: trouble truly believing it. So I when I when I
Speaker 1: first started telling my personal story, I was very nervous,
Speaker 1: very very nervous. I if it did feel very I
Speaker 1: did feel very it did feel very vulnerable. And I
Speaker 1: also felt as though the arc of my story kind
Speaker 1: of starts, you know, I was in special education, that
Speaker 1: I thought, and then it kind of ends in a
Speaker 1: triumph and I'm like, this is the most narcissistic, Like
Speaker 1: people like, how are people not going to hear this
Speaker 1: story and say, Scott, you are such a narcissist, Like, like,
Speaker 1: the whole point of the story is how you triumphed
Speaker 1: and you've got a PhD from Yale Well, and that
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't the motivation of telling this story. But in
Speaker 1: my head, I was like, how this is, like, how
Speaker 1: can I do this in a way? There it is?
Speaker 1: How could it possibly not be perceived that way? And shockingly, no,
Speaker 1: not one person, Yeah, out of thousands of you know, people,
Speaker 1: of people I've given talks to the past a year
Speaker 1: and a half has made a vert overtly maybe they're
Speaker 1: thinking it, I think, so I've heard your story, you
Speaker 1: know what, Okay, you know what I mean? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. No, It's like I'm expecting it, but
Speaker 1: they didn't happen. No, I know its exactly exactly what
Speaker 1: you mean, And I mean it's interesting hearing it through
Speaker 1: from your point of view because I can tell you,
Speaker 1: as the person who you listen to that story, the
Speaker 1: idea of narcissism or something like that never enters the mind.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason is that I think humans
Speaker 1: are really good at reading each other's motive true motivations.
Speaker 1: I agree. So if your true motivation is not narcissistic,
Speaker 1: but for some other purpose, I think people know it,
Speaker 1: you know, like I think we're all reading the codes
Speaker 1: without even knowing what it is we're picking up on,
Speaker 1: and it's so clear that that's not your motivation. So interesting. Wow.
Speaker 1: So so there's a kind of like a key message
Speaker 1: there of like like you should like people should have
Speaker 1: confidence to be vulnerable and know that as long as
Speaker 1: it's coming from like the right intentions, like they should
Speaker 1: be confident and about it. Maybe that was like kind
Speaker 1: of a message there, like kind of like own the truth,
Speaker 1: like you know, it's the truth. You know, it's you know,
Speaker 1: can help and empower a lot of people. You should
Speaker 1: you should go for it. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of true across everything, Like I think
Speaker 1: whatever you're truly thinking and feeling to self known one
Speaker 1: way or another, there's almost nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: So very cool. Yeah, you know, if you're feeling vulnerable,
Speaker 1: you might as well say it because everyone's going to
Speaker 1: know it anyway. For example, and usually like whatever's making
Speaker 1: you vulnerable, probably the flip side of it is also
Speaker 1: your greatest strength. Like this is something I really believe
Speaker 1: right that for most people, you know, our greatest strengths
Speaker 1: are also our greatest weakness and vice versa. So you
Speaker 1: might as well just own it. And so you've owned
Speaker 1: being an introvert? Is this something that like like when
Speaker 1: did you like first come out of the closet? Like
Speaker 1: how old were you like when you first when did
Speaker 1: you first realized that you were different from extroverts? I
Speaker 1: guess it depends on what you mean by that, because
Speaker 1: I obviously didn't have a language for this until I
Speaker 1: was an adult, you know, Like I think I first
Speaker 1: got the language for all these things when I came
Speaker 1: across the book. This is when I was a corporate
Speaker 1: lawyer and I was probably like thirty or something at
Speaker 1: the time, and I came across a book called do
Speaker 1: what You Are which helps you figure out you're Meyers
Speaker 1: Briggs type and then decide what career you should have
Speaker 1: based on that type. And that was the first thing
Speaker 1: I'd ever heard of Myers Briggs or really the idea
Speaker 1: of personality typology. Fascinated by it, and that was when
Speaker 1: I first really started thinking about being an introgirt and
Speaker 1: what did it mean. But I mean, on some level, though,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this since I was four years old,
Speaker 1: for sure. You know, I just remember being in camp,
Speaker 1: like in summer camp years old, and like everybody had
Speaker 1: to gather around and sing that song and if you're
Speaker 1: happy and your hands, Like I was a mystified How
Speaker 1: could anybody possibly think that that experience would make us
Speaker 1: happy feeling? It's so funny. I just lived in my
Speaker 1: own head, like my own imaginative and like like I
Speaker 1: was just like running around the circles with a cape on,
Speaker 1: you know, like just completely like it storytime, because you know,
Speaker 1: I just didn't like see the point of social and
Speaker 1: my parents say that, you know, like I never saw
Speaker 1: the point of like cops, Like I was went cops
Speaker 1: and robbers on the street or this and that, and
Speaker 1: I just never like got it, like I never understood
Speaker 1: why that was something i'd want to do right, right,
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that a lot of childhood
Speaker 1: is like that for a lot of kids. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and it expresses differently for each individual kid, right, But
Speaker 1: in childhood in particular, everything is presented as all kids
Speaker 1: should like all of these experiences when And it's funny
Speaker 1: because as adults, I think we're a lot better at
Speaker 1: knowing that there's a variety of human experience, and the
Speaker 1: children we forget it. So, you know, with kids, we say, well,
Speaker 1: every kid would want to have, you know, their entire
Speaker 1: class over to the birthday party, and every kid wants
Speaker 1: to play cops and Albert Harvey boy does Maybe people
Speaker 1: think and it's not true, you know. I remember I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm like, I just I'm telling I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start telling you things in are TONI I want this
Speaker 1: is what you bring out of people, because you know,
Speaker 1: you're very You're very genuine. I remember I overtly made
Speaker 1: a decision. I was about twenty four or twenty five.
Speaker 1: I was in England on a master's degree, and I
Speaker 1: remember remember making a decision that I was going to
Speaker 1: see what it felt like to be an extrovert. I've
Speaker 1: never told one this before. I made like a like
Speaker 1: up to that point, I really hadn't been much work,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I wonder what be like to
Speaker 1: like be like the social life of this college. I
Speaker 1: was at King's College in Cambridge for my master's degree,
Speaker 1: and that year I became in this two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: I became the guy everyone went to be find out
Speaker 1: what's the party tonight? What's the party? And I realized
Speaker 1: figure out that I could actually play that role. I could.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I can do this.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel natural whatsoever, but I was like just
Speaker 1: intellectually curious whether or not I could be that guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I realized I could be that guy. But I
Speaker 1: didn't really enjoy it. And it just made me like
Speaker 1: think about like, you know, like maybe like introverses not
Speaker 1: necessarily like you have bad social skills. I think it's
Speaker 1: a huge misconception, right, It's not it's not even that
Speaker 1: you do that you like talking to people. That's also
Speaker 1: a huge misconception. It's just like it's not it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like that's your like nature to it doesn't bring
Speaker 1: you the most the most intrinsic joy and meaning in life,
Speaker 1: to be the center of the party. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually think that phrase the center of
Speaker 1: the party is really right because like anybody who knows
Speaker 1: you knows you're one of the warmest, most connected people around.
Speaker 1: So it's not that you're not social, it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't want to be the social director, which is very,
Speaker 1: very different, you know. And like I mean, the idea
Speaker 1: that all the four year old singing happening, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, during most of those settings, probably ten
Speaker 1: minutes before we were all corralled to sing that song
Speaker 1: merrily together, like I had probably been off, you know,
Speaker 1: playing one on one with a good friend, and that
Speaker 1: was really fun to me. So I think, I think
Speaker 1: that's what ends up happening. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways of expending our social energy and love,
Speaker 1: and we should just allow people to connect in the
Speaker 1: way that works for them. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about this as a psychologist, about what you just said
Speaker 1: about you know, so you try to be the life
Speaker 1: of the party. For that was a year I was
Speaker 1: a party on I really was a party one feel
Speaker 1: natural and it sounds like it wasn't really. Here's my question.
Speaker 1: You know, there's this research that you hear about often
Speaker 1: in psychology, finding that even you know, supposedly that even
Speaker 1: introverts are happier when they are engaging socially. And I
Speaker 1: think about that research a lot, because I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's so much to say about that. I think it's
Speaker 1: sometimes true and it's sometimes not true, and there's so
Speaker 1: many nuances to what does it really mean to be social?
Speaker 1: You know, And it's one thing to say, yes, human
Speaker 1: beings are happier when they have meaningful connections in their lives,
Speaker 1: and no one's going to argue with that, and it's
Speaker 1: another to say, therefore, the conclusion is we should all
Speaker 1: be gregarious and connecting for as large a portion of
Speaker 1: our waking hours as possible. So I'm curious to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts about that. Yeah, I think it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's tricky territory. It's like the research showing that extroverts
Speaker 1: on average are our report higher well being, right and
Speaker 1: happiness in life. You know, I study well being and
Speaker 1: I teach a course in positive psychology, and I teach
Speaker 1: well being as a very multi dimensional construct. It's something
Speaker 1: that in which positive emotions is not even a necessary condition,
Speaker 1: and positive emotions being the kind of emotions that tend
Speaker 1: to be activated more and extroverts on average, and that
Speaker 1: that is a scientifically solid finding that on average, those
Speaker 1: who report higher you know, levels of extroversion on self
Speaker 1: report scille do tend you know, if you measure them
Speaker 1: throughout the day like beepers randomly and stuff, during the
Speaker 1: course of their day life, they will report greater you know,
Speaker 1: positive emotions such as like joy and excitement. They always excited. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's true. But that's I know, I know, really
Speaker 1: disputed that one. That that makes me absolutely. But what
Speaker 1: I find is really interesting is that we've sort of
Speaker 1: have this idea of happiness in American culture, that that
Speaker 1: is that the hedonic view is is happiness. And you know,
Speaker 1: my teaching my course is that there are like so
Speaker 1: many different paths to fulfillment, and fulfillment is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as hedonic happiness. So, you know, you look
Speaker 1: at some great case studies. Uh, there's this famous existential
Speaker 1: philosopher who's uh, I forget which one, which excess existential
Speaker 1: philosopher in particular, but he was like known in his
Speaker 1: lifetime to be the most like miserable, like saying like
Speaker 1: there's no meaning, there's no point, you know, you know
Speaker 1: all that, and on his deathbed his last words or
Speaker 1: something like I've lived a good life. And I say,
Speaker 1: and I use that example my question. Yeah, because full,
Speaker 1: a full life is a life full of a multitude
Speaker 1: of emotions and suffering and heartache. And that's actually what
Speaker 1: a full life is. You know, the experiment I do,
Speaker 1: the experiment of my class about if you could have
Speaker 1: a happy machine where you were fed twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day, sevent days a week positive emotions, that would
Speaker 1: actually be No. No student takes that option. They don't
Speaker 1: want it and like to be hooked up to that machine.
Speaker 1: But now the experience it's called the experience machine. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I've been thinking about this a
Speaker 1: lot recently and thinking how interesting it is that in
Speaker 1: American culture, like the foundational principle is, it's that everyone's
Speaker 1: entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and
Speaker 1: not life liberty and the pursuit of meaning. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder why we went in that direction. And I
Speaker 1: mean I do get it, because we all want to
Speaker 1: be happy, of course, but it gets interpreted in a
Speaker 1: very narrow way. I often think absolutely happiness is often
Speaker 1: equitted with hedonic pleasure. Yeah. And then I also think,
Speaker 1: I think there's two different sets of positive emotions, you know.
Speaker 1: So there's the activated ones like jumping for joy and
Speaker 1: physy excitement, right, and then and then there's the quieter
Speaker 1: ones like contentment and a sense of peace and just
Speaker 1: that feeling when you're in a state of flow and
Speaker 1: your mind is completely engaged, if you're either bored nor anxious,
Speaker 1: but just totally engaged. Yeah, And there is research showing
Speaker 1: all of that gets slashed up together. I think when
Speaker 1: people talk about happiness, but they're really distinct. It's a
Speaker 1: really good point. It's a report, really important point. And
Speaker 1: Luke Smiley and Colin Young have published a paper recently
Speaker 1: showing that is absolutely the case that extroverts do not
Speaker 1: show these quiet it is it is specifically those activated emotions.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. I didn't know that's to you. I've
Speaker 1: always that's always been my working hypothesis, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know that paper was out there. I will send it
Speaker 1: to you, and in fact, I hope to do more
Speaker 1: research on these quiet emotions among introverts with my team
Speaker 1: of Quietears next year pen that Adam Grant gave me
Speaker 1: his a list of a list students and who are
Speaker 1: interested in who are fans of student game? Did I
Speaker 1: tell you this? Well, you told me that there are
Speaker 1: the clienteers doing this research and I'm so excited about that.
Speaker 1: So we have to talk more. We'll talk more about that,
Speaker 1: maybe all channel. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we need hours because there's so many different avenues you
Speaker 1: guys could be pursuing. Absolutely, Like I have one student
Speaker 1: in particular, I've had an email, an extensive email thread,
Speaker 1: but who really wants to catalog all the different quiet
Speaker 1: emotions and stuff. And then I have other students that
Speaker 1: want to look at situational effects. Yeah yeah, yeah. So anyway,
Speaker 1: there's lots of directions to go and Adam is going
Speaker 1: to be collaborating with us and all of this, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it'd be really exciting, Like it's lots of
Speaker 1: lots of questions. I think that, you know, the field
Speaker 1: could kind of move in new directions to kind of
Speaker 1: get at this. So I'm absolutely with you on these emotions.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of these quiet emotions are
Speaker 1: still significant, substantial contributors to well being. So that's why
Speaker 1: we really need to I really do look at it
Speaker 1: as like like fulfillment is requires a full life. Fulfillment requires,
Speaker 1: you know, life while lived is not. Most people don't
Speaker 1: consider life while lived a life full of only handonic pleasures.
Speaker 1: You know, you think also that do the philosophical experiment.
Speaker 1: Like the person who is just sitting on their couch
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day sevendays a week of watching Netflix.
Speaker 1: They may be getting pleasure from Netflix, but they very
Speaker 1: rarely will any of them say that I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm living a fulfilled life. So fulfilledment is taking your
Speaker 1: powers and and expressing and activating them and making them
Speaker 1: come to for you know, to flourish, and and that
Speaker 1: you know doesn't doesn't require you know, these kinds of
Speaker 1: positive emotions that that we talk about when we talk
Speaker 1: about differences between introverts and experts. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: my long nuanced way of saying that I do think,
Speaker 1: you know, our society fundamentally needs to think of a broader,
Speaker 1: multi dimensional construct of of what fulfillment means. Fulfillment really
Speaker 1: is such an individualized thing. What's fulfillment for one person
Speaker 1: really isn't fulfillment for another person because there's individual differences,
Speaker 1: you know, Oh oh yes, a yeah, absolutely absolutely So.
Speaker 1: In your book Quiet, you talk about lots of different characteristics,
Speaker 1: and you do you do say these are characteristics of introverts.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of these adjectives that you use. Reflective, cerebral, bookish, unassuming, sensitive, thoughtful, serious, contemplative, subtle,
Speaker 1: intro I like subtle, by the way, let's talk about
Speaker 1: that in a second. Introspective, interdirected, gentle, calm, modest, solitude seeking, shy,
Speaker 1: risk averse, and thick skinned. So maybe like probably this
Speaker 1: says thick skin for some reason, but I wonder, gosh
Speaker 1: that in my book. I'm sorry, funny, I'm sorry. Let's
Speaker 1: double check that, and if you're wrong, I'm gonna edit
Speaker 1: this out. Let me know if you want me to
Speaker 1: edit out that last. Okay, I'm sorry, but I look
Speaker 1: at this list. I want to tell you what I
Speaker 1: see as a scientist. You know, I say to my
Speaker 1: you know, my muediic gut reaction is, you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of characteristics. The thing that ties them
Speaker 1: all together to me is that they all are all
Speaker 1: like quiet strengths. You know, they're all like they can
Speaker 1: be strengths, they can be hardest, and there are more
Speaker 1: on the quiet, you know, quiet side of things. You're
Speaker 1: they're not they're not as obvious as you know the
Speaker 1: person who's like like like like assertiveness or narcissism, like,
Speaker 1: they're not as obvious, and you know, may take quite
Speaker 1: a bit to to unravel the layers of the onion
Speaker 1: and see that. Oh my god, U going on the
Speaker 1: side here is some amazingly active in our life things
Speaker 1: like that. But you know, as you know, one of
Speaker 1: the Christmas would be that these things aren't all introversion
Speaker 1: per se. Yeah, they're quiet. How do you respond to
Speaker 1: that kind because you probably get that. You get that
Speaker 1: all the time of scientists, don't you. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess there's so many different responses to that. So
Speaker 1: one is, and I said this in the book. You know,
Speaker 1: my point in the book was not so much to
Speaker 1: do as scientific inquiry, but to talk about a whole
Speaker 1: constellation of traits that tend to be associated culturally. And
Speaker 1: and so I think there's a there's a reason that
Speaker 1: scientists should not be ignoring that the popular conception of
Speaker 1: what introversion is is completely different from what a Big
Speaker 1: five the Big five tests would say that it is.
Speaker 1: And while I'm fascinated by the scientific process behind getting
Speaker 1: to the Big five test, I don't think it has
Speaker 1: that much to say to us culturally. And I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in what happens to children and they're sitting at
Speaker 1: school and they're either shy or introverted, which are not
Speaker 1: necessarily the same thing or their sense. You know, you
Speaker 1: might have one kid who's quiet because they're more sensitive
Speaker 1: and another who's quiet because they're more aspergers or whatever
Speaker 1: it happens to be. Yes, from a scientific point of view,
Speaker 1: those things are different, but they're not actually that different
Speaker 1: when you're talking about what is actually the day to
Speaker 1: day lived experience in a classroom and what our business
Speaker 1: is doing or failing to do, to take to make
Speaker 1: the most of the talents of all these different kinds
Speaker 1: of people who all kind of do exhibit pretty similar
Speaker 1: behaviors in terms of the way they're interpreted in our culture.
Speaker 1: So I think there's another really important nuance that completely
Speaker 1: gets lost in the Big five focus on just categorizing
Speaker 1: and deciding which traits are correlated and which aren't. Which is,
Speaker 1: you know, if you are a person with a preference
Speaker 1: for solitude, let's say, if you're a person who's introverted,
Speaker 1: if you're a person who's shy, if you're a person
Speaker 1: with any number of these characteristics, all of those characteristics
Speaker 1: tend to breed people who tend on average to be
Speaker 1: let's say, better listeners. And it's not necessarily because they
Speaker 1: started out as agreeable people who are really interested in
Speaker 1: listening to others. It might simply be that their preference
Speaker 1: for being quiet has played out in the social sphere,
Speaker 1: creates people who are just more comfortable listening than talking,
Speaker 1: and because of that, they end up cultivating the skill
Speaker 1: of listening, whereas if you are a person who really
Speaker 1: likes to talk, you end up cultivating the skill of
Speaker 1: the skill of let's say, dominating a room. So all
Speaker 1: of these traits interact with each other like there's only
Speaker 1: so many hours in the day. So imagine you have
Speaker 1: two kids who both really love to read, but one
Speaker 1: kid wants to be really social and out there with
Speaker 1: their friends, and the other kid just as a preference
Speaker 1: to stay home. Now, these traits interact really differently because
Speaker 1: the more extroverted kid who likes to read is going
Speaker 1: to be doing less reading simply because they are out
Speaker 1: there doing other stuff. And the introverted kids who likes
Speaker 1: to stay home has lots of time to read. So
Speaker 1: they take their traits and they take them in completely
Speaker 1: different directions. So if you imagine somebody who is let's say,
Speaker 1: introverted and high in openness to experience, and then somebody
Speaker 1: who's extroverted and high in openness to experience, those are
Speaker 1: going to be very different types of people. You know,
Speaker 1: one is going to end up being through giving examples
Speaker 1: representative examples. You know, one might end up being an
Speaker 1: impresario or a conference organizer who loves to bring together
Speaker 1: people with all different ideas and presie over a great conference,
Speaker 1: and the other person is comfortable sitting in their proverbial
Speaker 1: garrett alone, generating paintings. And these are completely different lives.
Speaker 1: So to just simply say that openness and experience and
Speaker 1: introversion extroversion completely different traits, end of story, I think
Speaker 1: it's ignoring the realities of human experience. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's why. I think that's why from a cultural
Speaker 1: point of view, the Big Five doesn't make intuitive sense
Speaker 1: to people, or it just leads too much out of
Speaker 1: the picture, or that's one of many reasons. I also
Speaker 1: suspect that a lot of the scientific research around introversion
Speaker 1: and extroversion is muddied by the fact that, you know,
Speaker 1: you could take somebody who's let's say, just depressed, clinically depressed,
Speaker 1: and they're probably going to come out they're going to
Speaker 1: self test as an introvert, whether they really are one
Speaker 1: in some platonic sense or not, because their depression is
Speaker 1: making them exhibit behaviors that will end up, you know,
Speaker 1: in a Big five self reporting test being an introvert.
Speaker 1: So that's it's one example. So I think I suspect
Speaker 1: some of the underlying tests are remedied, but that actually
Speaker 1: is less interesting to me really than the cultural aspect,
Speaker 1: which is really what motivated my project from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I totally get that, and I see, I see your point.
Speaker 1: You know, this is something I've struggled with in terms
Speaker 1: of understanding intelligence, is that you have these general correlations
Speaker 1: in the general population. They're showing what on average tends
Speaker 1: to be the case, looking at patterns amongst lots and
Speaker 1: lots of people. Interestingly enough, in the general population, extraversion
Speaker 1: is strongly correlated with openness to experience, not introversion. So
Speaker 1: in the general population, those who tend to be more
Speaker 1: who report that they're hiring an extra version tend to
Speaker 1: also be more likely to be the readers believe it
Speaker 1: or not to be the like be intellectually curious, to
Speaker 1: be in or some beauty and experiences just the full range. However,
Speaker 1: I think what you're your point is, and it's a
Speaker 1: very valid point. I think it gets missed out on
Speaker 1: a lot is that there's great, great intra individual differences,
Speaker 1: So not just individual differences like comparing one person to another,
Speaker 1: but within a person, we we have very unique profiles
Speaker 1: and blends of these different traits that at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it almost doesn't matter what the general
Speaker 1: population you are, who you are, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like at the end of the day, like if you're
Speaker 1: if you're like profile is your like impresario kind of
Speaker 1: you know, extroverted, openness to experience blend. You know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, who why do you care
Speaker 1: what the general trends are? You know, like like this
Speaker 1: is you you know as an as a person, why
Speaker 1: do you care what the trends are. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, if like, what you care most about
Speaker 1: is getting in touch with who you are. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: as you know, one of the things we've done is
Speaker 1: we've started the Quiet Leadership Institute right where we go
Speaker 1: into companies and we're helping them harness the talents of
Speaker 1: the more introverted half of their employee population. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you in company after company after company that
Speaker 1: I speak to, and these are like, you know, big
Speaker 1: name companies that you've heard about, they all tell me like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: our R and D department is full of introverts, our
Speaker 1: graphic design department is full of introverts. Our creatives, of
Speaker 1: course are introverts. Our engineers, they say, of course, like
Speaker 1: they use the words of course. Our engineers, of course
Speaker 1: are introverts. Our accountants, of course are introverts. And so
Speaker 1: like those are the it's usually the people from those
Speaker 1: departments or the companies who have heavy concentrations of people
Speaker 1: in those areas who end up reaching out to us.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason for that, and it's not explained
Speaker 1: by the Big Five methodology, but the people living in
Speaker 1: the world know it to be true. So I don't
Speaker 1: know the answered, but I know it's real. So what
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I understand that point really well,
Speaker 1: So what what exactly is not explained by the Big
Speaker 1: five that they're I mean, I guess because I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. You know, you're saying, well, why would
Speaker 1: you lump these things together? You know, the list of
Speaker 1: adjectives that you named at the beginning. I guess what
Speaker 1: take a step back. What people are saying is in
Speaker 1: their creative departments, and there they're engineering departments, which those
Speaker 1: are departments of people who who have to do deep
Speaker 1: thinking work, work that's going on inside the brain, you know,
Speaker 1: work that requires a great deal of deep thinking, cerebral
Speaker 1: type of processing. In company after company, people are telling
Speaker 1: me those departments are filled with introverts. The departments are
Speaker 1: filled with people who tend to be quiet and reserved
Speaker 1: and who would test as introverts on the Big five scale.
Speaker 1: And I think we have to pay attention to that
Speaker 1: reality and explain it. So what I'm saying is, like
Speaker 1: I've think a scientific critique would be, well, you know,
Speaker 1: so there's no such thing as saying that someone who's
Speaker 1: that the trait of being cerebral is correlated with introversion.
Speaker 1: But I'm telling you on the ground it's correlated. Like
Speaker 1: in real life culture. What would they say, They would
Speaker 1: say that that you that population are the blend of
Speaker 1: introverts with cerebral That's that's that's particular population that you've discovered.
Speaker 1: Is that particular blend of the inter of the genuine
Speaker 1: introvert with having also high intellectual curiosity and the voraciousness
Speaker 1: for cerebral activities. Yeah, no, now that may be. That's
Speaker 1: what I was saying at the beginning, Like I think,
Speaker 1: I think we need to be looking much more at
Speaker 1: the interactions between these kinds of traits we have, you know.
Speaker 1: So so right, there's a reason like I'm not called
Speaker 1: in by the conference organizing people to say how can
Speaker 1: you help our people? Because that those are probably the
Speaker 1: people who are the blend of you know, extroverts and
Speaker 1: open is to experience. Example, There's more going on than
Speaker 1: just to say, you know, you take an R and
Speaker 1: D department. It's not just their introverts, their high and
Speaker 1: openness to experience. There is an interaction between those two traits,
Speaker 1: and human nature has lived out in those interactions in
Speaker 1: really profound ways, and that That's why it resonates with
Speaker 1: people in this way, and that's why like the clinical
Speaker 1: process of trying to separate it all out, I think
Speaker 1: it's not satisfying. I hear you. I hear you. I
Speaker 1: mean this is why I resonate with you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to be quiver the way I'm giving you, like
Speaker 1: stereotypical scientific criticisms, I personally never said that, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why you want these together, Like I understand why
Speaker 1: you want these together, Like, I think there's something very
Speaker 1: poetic about it. That that's that is getting at a
Speaker 1: deep truth in our in maybe an artistic way, saying
Speaker 1: that we're all like a system of these characters sticks
Speaker 1: that are inseparable in how they form the core of
Speaker 1: our identity. For the core of form the core of
Speaker 1: how we experience the world. And I think there is
Speaker 1: great value to that. So I I mean, I get it, Like,
Speaker 1: I understand why you're why doing this. You know, I
Speaker 1: also hear and understand the scientific criticism. You know, that's
Speaker 1: just like unearthing co variations, you know, among the general population.
Speaker 1: I do wonder the value of these co variations. I
Speaker 1: wonder the value of them for intelligence as well. I
Speaker 1: mean I've had I've had, like I've been in your
Speaker 1: shoes making arguments about intelligence. Right, I'm saying that, like,
Speaker 1: why do we equate intelligence with an IQ test score? Right,
Speaker 1: You're almost saying, why are we equating interversion with just
Speaker 1: your score on this big five introversion tests? You know,
Speaker 1: it's a broader sort of construct, the broader sort of
Speaker 1: label that encapsulates a lot of things. You know, I've argued, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I said about it, it's it's more complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I guess part of the reason I'm like
Speaker 1: going on and on about this, I actually think it
Speaker 1: would be really interesting for the next generation of personality
Speaker 1: psychology research to do much more with the interactions between
Speaker 1: these traits and these characteristics than what's been done in
Speaker 1: the past, where it's more than about trying to separate
Speaker 1: them out from each other. No, I agree. And I
Speaker 1: did a podcast with Luke Smiley, who's a psychologist who
Speaker 1: teaches positive psychology. His lasting Smiley that's like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: so predestined, and it's uh, it does feel that way.
Speaker 1: And I will send you that podcast and we chat
Speaker 1: about you know this, and these are two scientists chatting
Speaker 1: about your things, and you know, you will see that
Speaker 1: a lot of personal psychologsts are very open minded, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe more so than you realize. To really taking and
Speaker 1: listening to your perspective, you really can actually impact you know,
Speaker 1: like science. Even though you said I'm not a science
Speaker 1: you're actually I think you can. Someone like you can
Speaker 1: really have a substantial impact on the science and and
Speaker 1: the kinds of questions that are asked. And you've already
Speaker 1: had a deep profound impact on me the questions I've
Speaker 1: been asking about introversion on our mutual friend Adam Grant.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of scientists, so I don't underestimate
Speaker 1: the extent to what you've You can really change that
Speaker 1: as well. Oh thank you. No, I don't. I don't,
Speaker 1: And I actually would love to start expanding that dialogue
Speaker 1: because I think there's so much to be done from
Speaker 1: these kinds of collaborations. You know, absolutely agree, So I
Speaker 1: don't want to take much more of your time. With
Speaker 1: about five more minutes, and I would be so remissive
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about the quiet revolution. Oh yeah, yeah, congratulations,
Speaker 1: he wants a revolution? Oh my god, I never sent
Speaker 1: out to launch your revolution. Truly I know you didn't
Speaker 1: I know. I mean you've had to You've been put
Speaker 1: in kind of an extroverted position, haven't you. I see
Speaker 1: these videos that you do, I think it was, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, like if I should these videos? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. What's what's been like, what's experience been like
Speaker 1: for you? Almost having to act like much more social too,
Speaker 1: empower and you know your fellow introverts and make them
Speaker 1: feel like it's okay to be them. It's kind of
Speaker 1: it's the greatest gift in the world, really, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just kind of ties back to what
Speaker 1: we were talking about at the beginning of the difference
Speaker 1: between happiness and meaning, because I'm not an extrovert, and
Speaker 1: yet I'm in a really extroverted rule right now, and
Speaker 1: so that means that I do a lot of things
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis that don't bring me
Speaker 1: like happiness on a day to day level in the
Speaker 1: way that book writing brought me happiness. Like you know,
Speaker 1: during those years when I was writing my book and
Speaker 1: no one knew who I was, and during those years,
Speaker 1: I didn't even need a calendar, Like I did not
Speaker 1: have a date book. I had nothing, and it didn't
Speaker 1: matter because I didn't have anything to schedule in and like,
Speaker 1: you know, I just had my family and my book
Speaker 1: and that was what I was doing, and I was happy,
Speaker 1: really really happy. And now I got this crazy calendar
Speaker 1: that I can't keep track of, and so it's not
Speaker 1: like on a day to day level, I'm doing all
Speaker 1: these things that are actually kind of anxiety making some
Speaker 1: of the time. But you know, like the sense of
Speaker 1: impact or just like, you know, I get these letters
Speaker 1: from people and they talk about what it means to
Speaker 1: them to feel for the first time in their lives
Speaker 1: that they have permissioned to be themselves. And you know,
Speaker 1: letters from parents tell me that like it revolutionize their
Speaker 1: relationship with their child, and it's like they feel like
Speaker 1: it saved their child because they they now understand who
Speaker 1: they are. And I'm speechless, like I don't I don't
Speaker 1: have words for what that means. But yeah, it's almost
Speaker 1: likely you go and enter that level, you really can't
Speaker 1: go back. I I can deeply resonate with with this
Speaker 1: in the sense that, you know, there was something so
Speaker 1: beautiful about the year and a half that I devoted
Speaker 1: my life to writing this book on gifted and uh
Speaker 1: in that year hand there's it was so wonderful because
Speaker 1: I had nothing competing for my attention but that one
Speaker 1: meaningful project that I wanted to bring to the world.
Speaker 1: And then you bring it to the world and and
Speaker 1: you and you're reminded instantly why you sit out to
Speaker 1: write it, you know, to begin with. When you get
Speaker 1: these letters, right, you get people saying like, you know,
Speaker 1: my son, you know, you've got you understand him, you know,
Speaker 1: or you know people send you letters. But it does redically,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the right word, but it
Speaker 1: does change your life. And you know, your email like email,
Speaker 1: Like I've never had so many emails like yes in
Speaker 1: my life, and it brings so much stress. I feel
Speaker 1: like whackable. I feel like, yeah, I got it down
Speaker 1: to zero, and then like an hour later, it's like
Speaker 1: thirty more emails. You're like, no, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: I never it's a completely assisiveent thing. You can never
Speaker 1: never get the boulder up the hill completely. No, But
Speaker 1: maybe that's just like life. It's going to move forward
Speaker 1: from here, and like you can't go back to that
Speaker 1: beautiful year and a half when no one knew who,
Speaker 1: like no one knew who I was, you know, like
Speaker 1: no one cared, and then you know, and now they care.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like you take that and you say,
Speaker 1: and you just become grateful for Yeah. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: mean I feel incredibly grateful for it. But I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm actually thinking about your case, and I
Speaker 1: think you seem to be You seem to do a
Speaker 1: really good job of the following thing, which is I
Speaker 1: imagine a lot of what well, okay, just knowing you,
Speaker 1: I can imagine that two different things really motivate you.
Speaker 1: One of them would be helping people and being warm
Speaker 1: to other people, helpful and kind to them, and another
Speaker 1: it would be just the pure pursuit of knowledge for
Speaker 1: its own sake. And so I think the more mean,
Speaker 1: the more impact your work has in the world, the
Speaker 1: easier it is to do the kind of work that
Speaker 1: helps other people, and the harder it is to have
Speaker 1: time to do the kind of work that's purely just
Speaker 1: the pleasure of acquiring knowledge. And you seem to balance
Speaker 1: that pretty well. Actually I don't know how you do that,
Speaker 1: but I do feel sometimes that those two goals or
Speaker 1: desires are you know, they're kind of at odds with
Speaker 1: each other, just because there's only so many hours in
Speaker 1: the day. Completely, And I would also say it's partly
Speaker 1: due to pressure from publishers to put everything I say
Speaker 1: and say what's the practical takeaway? I say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited by this because I've discovered something. Don't
Speaker 1: people care about just knowledge for the streak of colge.
Speaker 1: Don't people get excited by just learning something new? I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, we underestimate people's intelligence a lot.
Speaker 1: I think that's true. And also just like the people's
Speaker 1: thirst for new knowledge, just the sheer pleasure of acquiring
Speaker 1: new knowledge or hearing a new idea for its own sake,
Speaker 1: for any other sake. Yeah, that's something. One thing that
Speaker 1: frustrates me is, how ever, you know, if I have
Speaker 1: an interview and I say, look, I found there, like,
Speaker 1: oh so what does that mean for a mother of
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh my gosh, can I just like
Speaker 1: be excited to tell you share something with you? So
Speaker 1: let's let's end here with you know, what is the
Speaker 1: purpose of the choir revolution? And you know what, what
Speaker 1: what message do you have for a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: for for introverse or for anyone who wants to harness
Speaker 1: more of these quiet strengths for their own personal fulfillment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean so, the mission of the Quiet Revolution is
Speaker 1: to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of
Speaker 1: us all. And the reason we say for the benefit
Speaker 1: of us all is that, you know, we believe just
Speaker 1: as it's great for men to have women reach their
Speaker 1: full potential, we believe it's better for everybody when we
Speaker 1: have introverts operating at their full potential and feeling happy
Speaker 1: and using their talents and feeling productive and creative. You know.
Speaker 1: So we're focused above all on children and people in
Speaker 1: the workplace because it's just kind of emerged over the
Speaker 1: years since my book came out that those are the
Speaker 1: two areas where our culture needs the most help. So
Speaker 1: we've started a website, quiet revolution dot com, which is
Speaker 1: a kind of an online community for people with a
Speaker 1: quiet consciousness and who are just interested in more information
Speaker 1: and community around these ideas. And we're in the process
Speaker 1: also creating a video library of interviews with well known
Speaker 1: introverts or just people who have interesting stuff to say
Speaker 1: about this. And you know, you're next on my list
Speaker 1: for they're being in the series. Of course, Well, I
Speaker 1: love and yeah, and then, as I mentioned, with the
Speaker 1: Quiet Leadership Institute, where we're going into companies and organizations
Speaker 1: and helping them to harness the power of the quiet
Speaker 1: half of their population. So you know, we've been working
Speaker 1: with everybody from Procter and Gamble to NASA to the
Speaker 1: Dutch military. It's like it's a very broad base of
Speaker 1: clients who are interested in this stuff. And it's really exciting,
Speaker 1: you know, because we have people like we have them
Speaker 1: take these little surveys before and after our learning experiences
Speaker 1: and before they come in. You know, sometimes you zero
Speaker 1: percent of people answering the survey saying that they think
Speaker 1: introverts can be good leaders. Yeah, despite all of let's
Speaker 1: say Adam Brandt's research showing the introverted leaders often to
Speaker 1: the or better outcomes in a popular imagination, Like, we
Speaker 1: often get zero percent who think that's true, and then
Speaker 1: by the time we're done, you know, it's over seventy percent.
Speaker 1: And then they have the tools to actually start empowering
Speaker 1: the up and coming leaders in their organizations. And you know,
Speaker 1: just imagine what that can do for all of us,
Speaker 1: right if we start tapping all this potential that right now,
Speaker 1: but then until now has been passing, so it's really exciting.
Speaker 1: That is really exciting. And you know, testament, if anyone
Speaker 1: wants to see just how much your inplosing people lives,
Speaker 1: go on Susan Kane's Facebook page, where daily you get
Speaker 1: all these commentators who are just like saying thank you, Susan.
Speaker 1: You know, so you're really it's the best thing about
Speaker 1: that Facebook page. Yeah, if you've noticed this, but like
Speaker 1: we have almost no trolls on that page. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I'm thoughtful, right, It's amazing. Yeah, Like, I you know,
Speaker 1: I did one post on gay marriage because I had
Speaker 1: changed my photograph into a though on Facebook, and I
Speaker 1: hit some followers who are really uncomfortable with that, and
Speaker 1: so I wrote a post just sharing my thoughts about it,
Speaker 1: plaining oh thank you, thank you. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you read all the commentary to the post, but
Speaker 1: I was so struck by it because even the people
Speaker 1: who really were unhappy with the decision and didn't like
Speaker 1: it and made it made them feel uncomfortable, they were
Speaker 1: all expressing their dissension in such a respectful way. And
Speaker 1: so to me, that's the thing I love about this community.
Speaker 1: However it's defined Susan, I just want to thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being on this podcast and having such
Speaker 1: an open minded discussion with me about science, about you know,
Speaker 1: all these issues, and we're just being such a thoughtful, kind,
Speaker 1: sensitive soul. Thank you. Oh my goshy Scott Barry Cafman
Speaker 1: read that got you. Thank you. It's always such a
Speaker 1: joy to talk to you. And I know we could
Speaker 1: have done this for five more hours if only it
Speaker 1: weren't what time is it right now, ten thirty two
Speaker 1: pm while we're recording this podcast, but that the time
Speaker 1: flies by, So thank you, thank you. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast
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