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If you want your child to learn these skills, don't let her 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. Above all, do not shame her for her shyness."
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Susan Cain |
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db5ca80
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The "evidence from science suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming groups," writes the organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham. "If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority."
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Susan Cain |
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1e1f862
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We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts--which means that we've lost sight of who we really are.
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Susan Cain |
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America had shifted from what the influential cultural historian Warren Susman called a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality
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Susan Cain |
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can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day. We all empathize with a sleep-deprived mate who comes home from work too tired to talk, but it's harder to grasp that social overstimulation can be just as exhausting. It's also hard for introverts to understand just how hurtful their silence can be. I
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Susan Cain |
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90dae3a
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Will this job allow me to spend time on in-character activities like, for example, reading, strategizing, writing, and researching? Will I have a private workspace or be subject to the constant demands of an open office plan? If the job doesn't give me enough restorative niches, will I have enough free time on evenings and weekends to grant them to myself?
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Susan Cain |
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Manche Menschen sind sich aller Dinge sicherer als ich mir einer einzigen Sache. Robert Rubin
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Susan Cain |
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it makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading initiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions.
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Susan Cain |
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61f7a9d
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A martial arts instructor named Lateesha was first up that evening. Lateesha's assignment was to read aloud to the class from a Robert Frost poem. With her dreadlocks and wide smile, Lateesha looked as if she wasn't afraid of anything. But as she got ready to speak, her book propped open at the podium, Charles asked how anxious she was, on a scale of 1 to 10. "At least seven," said Lateesha. "Take it slow," he said. "There are only a few pe..
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Susan Cain |
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0842279
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But the same receptivity to experience that can make life difficult for the highly sensitive also builds their consciences. Aron tells of one sensitive teen who persuaded his mother to feed a homeless person he'd met in the park, and of another eight-year-old who cried
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Susan Cain |
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ccbbe24
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We're best off when we don't allow ourselves to go to our angry place. Amazingly, neuroscientists have even found that people who use Botox, which prevents them from making angry faces, seem to be less anger-prone than those who don't, because the very act of frowning triggers the amygdala to process negative emotions.
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Susan Cain |
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c9f4208
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Introversion--along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness--is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us fe..
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Susan Cain |
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16b72ac
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Restorative niche" is Professor Little's term for the place you go when you want to return to your true self. It can be a physical place, like the path beside the Richelieu River, or a temporal one, like the quiet breaks you plan between sales calls. It can mean canceling your social plans on the weekend before a big meeting at work, practicing yoga"
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Susan Cain |
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Introverts recharge their batteries by being alone; extroverts need to recharge when they don't socialize enough. If
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Susan Cain |
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Einmal schriebst Du, Du wolltest bei mir sitzen, wahrend ich schreibe; denke nur, da konnte ich nicht schreiben... Schreiben heisst ja, sich offnen bis zum Ubermass; die ausserste Offenherzigkeit und Hingabe, in der sich ein Mensch im menschlichen Verkehr schon zu verlieren glaubt und vor der er also, solange er bei Sinnen ist, immer zuruckscheuen wird... Deshalb kann man nicht genug allein sein, wenn man schreibt, deshalb kann es nicht gen..
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Susan Cain |
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233c252
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Kafka, for example, couldn't bear to be near even his adoring fiancee while he worked: You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is ..
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Susan Cain |
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f4e5dd4
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This is the final piece of Free Trait Theory. A Free Trait Agreement acknowledges that we'll each act out of character some of the time--in exchange for being ourselves the rest of the time. It's a Free Trait Agreement when a wife who wants to go out every Saturday night and a husband who wants to relax by the fire work out a schedule: half the time we'll go out, and half the time we'll stay home.
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Susan Cain |
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d83d714
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The "Bus to Abilene" anecdote reveals our tendency to follow those who initiate action--any action. We are similarly inclined to empower dynamic speakers."
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Susan Cain |
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People who tend to [suppress their negative emotions] regularly," concludes Grob, "might start to see the world in a more negative light."
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Susan Cain |
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The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of available power, but to use well the kind you've been granted.
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Susan Cain |
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If you're an introvert, find your flow by using your gifts. You have the power of persistence, the tenacity to solve complex problems, and the clear-sightedness to avoid pitfalls that trip others up. You enjoy relative freedom from the temptations of superficial prizes like money and status. Indeed, your biggest challenge may be to fully harness your strengths.
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Susan Cain |
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afa389f
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neuroscientists have even found that people who use Botox, which prevents them from making angry faces, seem to be less anger-prone than those who don't, because the very act of frowning triggers the amygdala to process negative emotions. And
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Susan Cain |
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54f49b5
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Depending on which study you consult, one third to one half of Americans are introverts--in other words, one out of every two or three people you know. (Given that the United States is among the most extroverted of nations, the number must be at least as high in other parts of the world.) If you're not an introvert yourself, you are surely raising, managing, married to, or coupled with one.
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Susan Cain |
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e07bdd2
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Eleanor (Roosevelt) wasn't the light, witty type he'd been expected to marry. Just the opposite: she was slow to laugh, bored by small talk, serious-minded, shy. Her mother, a fine-boned, vivacious aristocrat, had nicknamed her "Granny" because of her demeanor. Franklin was everything that she was not: bold and buoyant, with a wide, irrepressible grin, as easy with people as she was cautious. Eleanor craved intimacy and weighty conversation..
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Susan Cain |
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c99c097
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They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions--sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information
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Susan Cain |
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The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some it's a Broadway spotlight;
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Susan Cain |
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Emily is talking to Greg about dinner parties, not divorce, but her communication style echoes Celia's. When she and Greg disagree, her voice gets quiet and flat, her manner slightly distant. What she's trying to do is minimize aggression--Emily is uncomfortable with anger--but she appears to be receding emotionally.
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Susan Cain |
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ac865ab
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The truth is that many schools are designed for extroverts. Introverts need different kinds of instruction from extroverts, write College of William and Mary education scholars Jill Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. And too often, "very little is made available to that learner except constant advice on becoming more social and gregarious."
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Susan Cain |
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P]arents need to step back from their own preferences and see what the world looks like to their quiet children.
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parenting
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Susan Cain |
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e918a35
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Nor are introverts necessarily shy. 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.
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Susan Cain |
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e7a830c
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If we assume that quiet and loud people have roughly the same number of good (and bad) ideas, then we should worry if the louder and more forceful people always carry the day. This would mean that an awful lot of bad ideas prevail while good ones get squashed. Yet studies in group dynamics suggest that this is exactly what happens. We perceive talkers as smarter than quiet types--even though grade-point averages and SAT and intelligence tes..
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Susan Cain |
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2b837e4
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I think it's our culture," explains Tiffany Liao, a poised Swarthmore-bound high school senior whose parents are from Taiwan. "Study, do well, don't create waves. It's inbred in us to be more quiet. When I was a kid and would go to my parents' friends' house and didn't want to talk, I would bring a book. It was like this shield, and they would be like, 'She's so studious!' And that was praise." It's hard to imagine other American moms and d..
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Susan Cain |
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84bb7d7
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But for all their differences, shyness and introversion have in common something profound. The mental state of a shy extrovert sitting quietly in a business meeting may be very different from that of a calm introvert--the shy person is afraid to speak up, while the introvert is simply overstimulated--but to the outside world, the two appear to be the same. This can give both types insight into how our reverence for alpha status blinds us to..
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Susan Cain |
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b2a01a2
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Persistence isn't very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent. "It's not that I'm so smart," said Einstein, who was a consummate introvert. "It's that I stay with problems longer."
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Susan Cain |
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Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.
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Susan Cain |
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They focused on the so-called Big Five traits: Introversion-Extroversion; Agreeableness; Openness to Experience; Conscientiousness; and Emotional Stability.
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Susan Cain |
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57d79cb
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Our lives are shaped as profoundly by personality as by gender or race. And the single most important aspect of personality--the "north and south of temperament," as one scientist puts it--is where we fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum. Our place on this continuum influences our choice of friends and mates, and how we make conversation, resolve differences, and show love. It affects the careers we choose and whether or not we succeed ..
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Susan Cain |
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42001a0
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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." They are more likely to be someone with a select group of close friends, who prefers "sincere and meaningful conversations over wild parties."
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Susan Cain |
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What scientists haven't realized until recently is that these risk factors have an upside. In other words, the sensitivities and the strengths are a package deal. High-reactive kids who enjoy good parenting, child care, and a stable home environment tend to have fewer emotional problems and more social skills than their lower-reactive peers, studies show. Often they're exceedingly empathic, caring, and cooperative. They work well with other..
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Susan Cain |
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3607681
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Love is essential; gregariousness is optional. Cherish your nearest and dearest. Work with colleagues you like and respect.
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Susan Cain |
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1ed0a87
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I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas," he said."
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Susan Cain |
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If you're in the backyard sitting under a tree while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, you're more likely to have an apple fall on your head.
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Susan Cain |
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College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. Even elite athletes in team sports often spend unusual amounts of time in solitary practice.
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Susan Cain |
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8df8ab9
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If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent.
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genius
giftednessss
perspiration
introverts
talent
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Susan Cain |