All personality traits have their good side and their bad side. But for a long time, we've seen introversion only through its negative side and extroversion mostly through its positive side.
Your tendency to be inward-directed or outward-directed is huge; it governs every part of the way you live and work and love.
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.
you once said to would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing one self 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 in his right mind...That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.
Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.
If you enjoy depth, don't force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi-tasking, stick to your guns.
Opposites attract, and I think temperament is so fundamental that you end up craving someone of the opposite temperament to complete you.
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.
One honest relationship can be more productive than fistfuls of business cards.
Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity...In a state of flow, you're neither bored nor anxious, and you don't question your own adequacy. Hours pass without your noticing.
Should we become so proficient at self-presentation that we can dissemble without anyone suspecting?
Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizeable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
It's not that there is no small talk...It's that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end...Sensitive people...'enjoy small talk only after they've gone deep' says Strickland. 'When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else.
Women were also urged to work on a mysterious quality called 'fascination.' Coming of age in the 1920's was a competitive business.
Do you really believe in what you said or wrote – in the thing that’s bringing criticism? And if I do believe it, I can withstand anything.
We have a two-tier class system when it comes to personality style. To devalue introversion is a waste of talent, energy and happiness.
In a way, education by its nature favours the extrovert because you are taking kids and putting them into a big classroom, which is automatically going to be a high-stimulation environment. Probably the best way of teaching in general is one on one, but that's not something everyone can afford.
Love is essential; gregariousness is optional. Cherish your nearest and dearest. Work with colleagues you like and respect. Scan new acquaintances for those who might fall into the former categories or whose company you enjoy for its own sake. And don't worry about socializing with everyone else. Relationships make everyone happier, introverts included, but think quality over quantity.
Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place.
Shyness is inherently uncomfortable; introversion is not. The traits do overlap, though psychologists debate to what degree.
Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I'm not one of them.
I'm insatiably curious about human nature. I feel very lucky that as a writer I get to learn so much about it just to do my job right.
I use a lot of old-fashioned expressions.
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.
In most job interviews, people say they are looking for people skills and emotional intelligence. That's reasonable, but the question is, how do you define what that looks like?
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