Thread by @AlexBuddyUp1

Do you want to know how to best use your introversion powers?

Here are my 50 favorite quotes from the book #Quiet by @susancain :

🧵 👇👇👇

@susancain Without introverts, the world would be devoid of:

The theory of gravity
The theory of relativity
Chopin's nocturnes
Proust's In Search of Lost Time
Peter Pan
Orwell's 1984
The cat in the hat
Schindler's list
Google
Harry Potter
...

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain As an introvert, you have :
- the power of persistence
- the tenacity to solve complex problems
- the clear sightedness to avoid pitfalls that trip others up

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating.

Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain We live in a system of value called "the extrovert ideal".

The omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain Contrary to the Harvard Business School model of vocal leadership, the ranks of effective CEOs
are filled with introverts, including:
- Charles Schwab
- Bill Gates
- Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee
- and James Copeland, former CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

--@susancain #quiet

@susancain We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.

-- @susancain #quiet

@susancain Extroverted leaders enhance group performance when employees are passive, but introverted leaders are more effective with proactive employees.

--@susancain #quiet (citing @AdamMGrant)

@susancain @AdamMGrant What’s so magical about solitude?

In many fields, Ericsson told me, it’s only when you’re alone that you can engage in Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement.

--@susancain #quiet (citing Anders Erickson)

@susancain @AdamMGrant Top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption.

--@susancain #quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Many children are like dandelions, able to thrive in just about any environment.

But others, including the high-reactive types that Kagan studied, are more like orchids: they wilt easily, but under the right conditions can grow strong and magnificent.

--@susancain #quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Your amygdala may, for the rest of your life, go a bit wild every time you introduce yourself to a stranger at a cocktail party.

But if you feel relatively skilled in company, that’s partly because your frontal cortex is there to tell you to calm down.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant I realize it’s not true that I’m no longer shy; I’ve just learned to talk myself down from the ledge (thank you, prefrontal cortex!). By now I do it so automatically that I’m hardly aware it’s happening.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Eysenck placed lemon juice on the tongues of adult introverts and extroverts to find out who salivated more.

Sure enough, the introverts, being more aroused by sensory stimuli, were the ones with the watery mouths.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Once you understand introversion and extroversion as preferences for certain levels of stimulation, you can organize your life in terms of “optimal levels of arousal” and what I call “sweet spots".

-- @susancain #Quiet**

@susancain @AdamMGrant When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer, says the personality psychologist Brian Little, “they’re really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.”

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Physical lack of cool may be more socially valuable than we think.

Embarrassment reveals how much the individual cares about the rules that bind us to one another.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Many introverts are also “highly sensitive”.

If you are a sensitive sort, then you may be quicker than others to feel sickened by violence and ugliness, and you likely have a very strong conscience.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Many introverts have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Shy animals forage less often & widely for food,conserving energy,sticking to the sidelines & surviving when predators come calling

Bolder animals sally forth,swallowed regularly by those farther up the food chain but surviving when food is scarce & they need to assume more risk

@susancain @AdamMGrant The sensitive (introverts) are the inventors who figure out new ways to behave, while the bullies steal their patents by copying their behavior.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Dorn has observed that her extroverted clients are more likely to be highly reward-sensitive, while the introverts are more likely to pay attention to warning signals.

They’re more successful at regulating their feelings of desire or excitement.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Some scientists are starting to explore the idea that reward-sensitivity is not only an interesting feature of extroversion; it is what makes an extrovert an extrovert.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Extroverts often find themselves in an emotional state we might call “buzz”—a rush of energized, enthusiastic feelings.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant This blindness to danger may explain why extroverts are more likely than introverts to be killed while driving, be hospitalized as a result of accident or injury, smoke, have risky sex, participate in high-risk sports, have affairs, and remarry.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Extroverts get better grades than introverts during elementary school, but introverts outperform extroverts in high school and college.

At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant On any given task, if we have 100 percent cognitive capacity, an introvert may have only 75 percent on task and 25 percent off task, whereas an extrovert may have 90 percent on task.

-- @susancain #Quiet (citing Joseph Newman)

@susancain @AdamMGrant Extroverts appear to allocate most of their cognitive capacity to the goal at hand, while introverts use up capacity by monitoring how the task is going.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Extroverts are more likely to take a quick-and-dirty approach to problem-solving, trading accuracy for speed, making increasing numbers of mistakes as they go, and abandoning ship altogether when the problem seems too difficult or frustrating.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant The trick for introverts is to honor their own styles instead of allowing themselves to be swept up by prevailing norms.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant In the West, we subscribe to the Extrovert Ideal, while in much of Asia (at least before the Westernization of the past several decades), silence is golden.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Chinese high school students tell researchers that they prefer friends who are “humble” and “altruistic,” “honest” and “hardworking,” while American high school students seek out the “cheerful,” “enthusiastic,” and “sociable.”

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant In Asian cultures, aggressive power beats you up; soft power wins you over.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Excellent students seem not only to possess the cognitive ability to solve math and science problems, but also to have a useful personality characteristic: quiet persistence.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant According to Free Trait Theory, we are born and culturally endowed with certain personality traits—introversion, for example—but we can and do act out of character in the service of “core personal projects".

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant There’s a limit to how much we can control our self-presentation. This is partly because of a phenomenon called "behavioral leakage", in which our true selves seep out via unconscious body language.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant What psychologists call “the need for intimacy” is present in introverts and extroverts alike.

In fact, people who value intimacy highly don’t tend to be, as the noted psychologist David Buss puts it, “the loud, outgoing, life-of-the-party extrovert".

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Extroversion seems to influence how many friends you have, but not how good a friend you are.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant If the introverts were truly antisocial and extroverts pro-social, then you’d suppose that the students with the most harmonious relationships would also be highest in extroversion.

And this was not the case at all.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant There is no correlation between extroversion and agreeableness. This explains why some extroverts love the stimulation of socializing but don’t get along particularly well with those closest to them.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant (in relationships) it's hard for introverts to understand just how hurtful their silence can be.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Introverts like people they meet in friendly contexts

Extroverts prefer those they compete with

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Introverts kids are just as likely as the next kid to seek others’ company, though often in smaller doses.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Don’t let your child hear you call her “shy”: she’ll believe the label and experience her nervousness as a fixed trait rather than an emotion she can control.

She also knows full well that “shy” is a negative word in our society.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant The purpose of school should be to prepare kids for the rest of their lives, but too often what kids need to be prepared for is surviving the school day itself.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant We often marvel at how introverted, geeky kids “blossom” into secure and happy adults.

We liken it to a metamorphosis.

However, maybe it’s not the children who change but their environments.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Many shy children are thrilled to discover that their teacher had been as shy as they were.

-- @susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant When encouraging shy children to speak, it helps to make the topic so compelling that they forget their inhibition.

-- @susancain #Quiet (citing LouAnne Johnson)

@susancain @AdamMGrant Love is essential

Gregariousness is optional

@susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Make the most of introverts’ strengths.

These are the people who can help you:
- think deeply
- strategize
- solve complex problems
- and spot canaries in your coal mine

@susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant Next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.

@susancain #Quiet

@susancain @AdamMGrant I hope you enjoyed this.

I have to admit I was about to share only 20 quotes from the book, but I could not do it!

Congratulations @susancain for all these insights :)

I will talk more about how this book relates to my life on my new blog : buddyup.cc