Love Is Essential, Gregariousness Is

I Get A Lot Of Letters From Introverts Asking How They Can Meet People. The Key Is To Make Sure That You Are Doing Things You Enjoy.

Even When The Attention Focused On Me Is Positive, I Am Uncomfortable Being Looked At By A Lot Of People - It's Just Not My Natural State Of Being.

We Don’t Ask Why God Chose As His Prophet A Stutterer With A Public Speaking Phobia. But We Should. The Book Of Exodus Is Short On Explication, But Its Stories Suggest That Introversion Plays Yin To The Yang Of Extroversion; That The Medium Is Not Always The Message; And That People Followed Moses Because His Words Were Thoughtful, Not Because He Spoke Them Well.

In The First Study, Grant And His Colleagues Analyzed Data From One Of The Five Biggest Pizza Chains In The United States. They Discovered That The Weekly Profits Of The Stores Managed By Extroverts Were 16 Percent Higher Than The Profits Of Those Led By Introverts—but Only When The Employees Were Passive Types Who Tended To Do Their Job Without Exercising Initiative. Introverted Leaders Had The Exact Opposite Results. When They Worked With Employees Who Actively Tried To Improve Work Procedures, Their Stores Outperformed Those Led By Extroverts By More Than 14 Percent.

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 In 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 Feel We Must Conform.