00:00:15
When I was nine years old,
00:00:17
I went off to summer camp
for the first time.
00:00:19
And my mother packed me a suitcase
full of books,
00:00:23
which to me seemed like
a perfectly natural thing to do.
00:00:25
Because in my family,
reading was the primary group activity.
00:00:30
And this might sound antisocial to you,
00:00:32
but for us it was really just
a different way of being social.
00:00:35
You have the animal warmth of your family
sitting right next to you,
00:00:39
but you are also free to go
roaming around the adventureland
00:00:42
inside your own mind.
00:00:43
And I had this idea
00:00:45
that camp was going to be
just like this, but better.
00:00:47
(Laughter)
00:00:50
I had a vision of 10 girls
sitting in a cabin
00:00:53
cozily reading books
in their matching nightgowns.
00:00:55
(Laughter)
00:00:57
Camp was more like a keg party
without any alcohol.
00:01:00
And on the very first day,
00:01:03
our counselor gathered us all together
00:01:05
and she taught us a cheer
that she said we would be doing
00:01:07
every day for the rest of the summer
to instill camp spirit.
00:01:11
And it went like this:
00:01:13
"R-O-W-D-I-E,
00:01:15
that's the way we spell rowdie.
00:01:17
Rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie."
00:01:20
(Laughter)
00:01:22
Yeah.
00:01:24
So I couldn't figure out
for the life of me
00:01:26
why we were supposed to be so rowdy,
00:01:28
or why we had to spell
this word incorrectly.
00:01:31
(Laughter)
00:01:37
But I recited a cheer. I recited
a cheer along with everybody else.
00:01:40
I did my best.
00:01:42
And I just waited for the time
that I could go off and read my books.
00:01:47
But the first time that I took
my book out of my suitcase,
00:01:50
the coolest girl in the bunk came up to me
00:01:52
and she asked me, "Why
are you being so mellow?" --
00:01:55
mellow, of course,
being the exact opposite
00:01:57
of R-O-W-D-I-E.
00:01:59
And then the second time I tried it,
00:02:01
the counselor came up to me
with a concerned expression on her face
00:02:04
and she repeated the point
about camp spirit
00:02:06
and said we should all work very hard
to be outgoing.
00:02:09
And so I put my books away,
00:02:12
back in their suitcase,
00:02:15
and I put them under my bed,
00:02:19
and there they stayed
for the rest of the summer.
00:02:21
And I felt kind of guilty about this.
00:02:23
I felt as if the books needed me somehow,
00:02:25
and they were calling out to me
and I was forsaking them.
00:02:28
But I did forsake them
and I didn't open that suitcase again
00:02:31
until I was back home with my family
at the end of the summer.
00:02:34
Now, I tell you this story
about summer camp.
00:02:37
I could have told you
50 others just like it --
00:02:40
all the times that I got the message
00:02:42
that somehow my quiet
and introverted style of being
00:02:46
was not necessarily the right way to go,
00:02:48
that I should be trying to pass
as more of an extrovert.
00:02:51
And I always sensed deep down
that this was wrong
00:02:54
and that introverts were
pretty excellent just as they were.
00:02:57
But for years I denied this intuition,
00:02:59
and so I became a Wall Street
lawyer, of all things,
00:03:02
instead of the writer
that I had always longed to be --
00:03:05
partly because I needed to prove to myself
that I could be bold and assertive too.
00:03:09
And I was always going off to crowded bars
00:03:11
when I really would have preferred
to just have a nice dinner with friends.
00:03:14
And I made these
self-negating choices so reflexively,
00:03:19
that I wasn't even aware
that I was making them.
00:03:22
Now this is what many introverts do,
00:03:24
and it's our loss for sure,
00:03:26
but it is also our colleagues' loss
00:03:28
and our communities' loss.
00:03:30
And at the risk of sounding grandiose,
it is the world's loss.
00:03:33
Because when it comes
to creativity and to leadership,
00:03:36
we need introverts doing
what they do best.
00:03:39
A third to a half of the population
are introverts --
00:03:41
a third to a half.
00:03:43
So that's one out of every two
or three people you know.
00:03:46
So even if you're an extrovert yourself,
00:03:49
I'm talking about your coworkers
00:03:51
and your spouses and your children
00:03:53
and the person sitting
next to you right now --
00:03:56
all of them subject to this bias
00:03:58
that is pretty deep
and real in our society.
00:04:00
We all internalize it
from a very early age
00:04:03
without even having a language
for what we're doing.
00:04:06
Now, to see the bias clearly,
00:04:08
you need to understand
what introversion is.
00:04:11
It's different from being shy.
00:04:13
Shyness is about fear of social judgment.
00:04:15
Introversion is more about,
00:04:17
how do you respond to stimulation,
00:04:19
including social stimulation.
00:04:21
So extroverts really crave
large amounts of stimulation,
00:04:24
whereas introverts feel
at their most alive
00:04:26
and their most switched-on
and their most capable
00:04:28
when they're in quieter,
more low-key environments.
00:04:31
Not all the time --
these things aren't absolute --
00:04:33
but a lot of the time.
00:04:34
So the key then to maximizing our talents
00:04:39
is for us all to put ourselves
00:04:41
in the zone of stimulation
that is right for us.
00:04:44
But now here's where the bias comes in.
00:04:46
Our most important institutions,
00:04:48
our schools and our workplaces,
00:04:50
they are designed mostly for extroverts
00:04:52
and for extroverts' need
for lots of stimulation.
00:04:55
And also we have
this belief system right now
00:04:59
that I call the new groupthink,
00:05:01
which holds that all creativity
and all productivity
00:05:04
comes from a very oddly gregarious place.
00:05:09
So if you picture the typical
classroom nowadays:
00:05:11
When I was going to school,
we sat in rows.
00:05:15
We sat in rows of desks like this,
00:05:17
and we did most of our work
pretty autonomously.
00:05:19
But nowadays, your typical classroom
has pods of desks --
00:05:23
four or five or six or seven kids
all facing each other.
00:05:26
And kids are working
in countless group assignments.
00:05:28
Even in subjects like math
and creative writing,
00:05:31
which you think would depend
on solo flights of thought,
00:05:34
kids are now expected to act
as committee members.
00:05:38
And for the kids who prefer to go off
by themselves or just to work alone,
00:05:42
those kids are seen as outliers often
00:05:44
or, worse, as problem cases.
00:05:49
And the vast majority of teachers
00:05:50
reports believing that
the ideal student is an extrovert
00:05:53
as opposed to an introvert,
00:05:55
even though introverts
actually get better grades
00:05:57
and are more knowledgeable,
00:05:59
according to research.
00:06:01
(Laughter)
00:06:03
Okay, same thing is true
in our workplaces.
00:06:06
Now, most of us work in open plan offices,
00:06:09
without walls,
00:06:11
where we are subject to the constant
noise and gaze of our coworkers.
00:06:15
And when it comes to leadership,
00:06:17
introverts are routinely passed over
for leadership positions,
00:06:20
even though introverts
tend to be very careful,
00:06:22
much less likely to take outsize risks --
00:06:24
which is something
we might all favor nowadays.
00:06:27
And interesting research
by Adam Grant at the Wharton School
00:06:30
has found that introverted leaders
00:06:32
often deliver better outcomes
than extroverts do,
00:06:34
because when they are managing
proactive employees,
00:06:37
they're much more likely to let
those employees run with their ideas,
00:06:40
whereas an extrovert
can, quite unwittingly,
00:06:42
get so excited about things
00:06:44
that they're putting
their own stamp on things,
00:06:46
and other people's ideas might not
as easily then bubble up to the surface.
00:06:51
Now in fact, some of our transformative
leaders in history have been introverts.
00:06:55
I'll give you some examples.
00:06:56
Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi --
00:06:59
all these people described themselves
as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy.
00:07:04
And they all took the spotlight,
00:07:06
even though every bone in their bodies
was telling them not to.
00:07:11
And this turns out to have
a special power all its own,
00:07:14
because people could feel
that these leaders were at the helm
00:07:17
not because they enjoyed directing others
00:07:19
and not out of the pleasure
of being looked at;
00:07:21
they were there
because they had no choice,
00:07:23
because they were driven to do
what they thought was right.
00:07:26
Now I think at this point
it's important for me to say
00:07:29
that I actually love extroverts.
00:07:32
I always like to say some of my best
friends are extroverts,
00:07:35
including my beloved husband.
00:07:39
And we all fall
at different points, of course,
00:07:41
along the introvert/extrovert spectrum.
00:07:44
Even Carl Jung, the psychologist
who first popularized these terms,
00:07:47
said that there's no such thing
as a pure introvert
00:07:50
or a pure extrovert.
00:07:51
He said that such a man
would be in a lunatic asylum,
00:07:54
if he existed at all.
00:07:56
And some people fall smack in the middle
of the introvert/extrovert spectrum,
00:08:00
and we call these people ambiverts.
00:08:02
And I often think that they have
the best of all worlds.
00:08:06
But many of us do recognize
ourselves as one type or the other.
00:08:09
And what I'm saying is that culturally,
we need a much better balance.
00:08:12
We need more of a yin and yang
between these two types.
00:08:16
This is especially important
00:08:18
when it comes to creativity
and to productivity,
00:08:20
because when psychologists look
at the lives of the most creative people,
00:08:24
what they find
00:08:26
are people who are very good
at exchanging ideas
00:08:28
and advancing ideas,
00:08:30
but who also have a serious
streak of introversion in them.
00:08:33
And this is because solitude
00:08:35
is a crucial ingredient
often to creativity.
00:08:37
So Darwin,
00:08:39
he took long walks alone in the woods
00:08:41
and emphatically turned down
dinner-party invitations.
00:08:44
Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss,
00:08:47
he dreamed up many
of his amazing creations
00:08:49
in a lonely bell tower office that he had
00:08:51
in the back of his house
in La Jolla, California.
00:08:54
And he was actually afraid to meet
the young children who read his books
00:08:58
for fear that they were expecting him
this kind of jolly Santa Claus-like figure
00:09:02
and would be disappointed
with his more reserved persona.
00:09:06
Steve Wozniak invented
the first Apple computer
00:09:08
sitting alone in his cubicle
in Hewlett-Packard
00:09:11
where he was working at the time.
00:09:13
And he says that he never would have
become such an expert in the first place
00:09:16
had he not been too introverted
to leave the house
00:09:19
when he was growing up.
00:09:21
Now, of course,
00:09:23
this does not mean that we should
all stop collaborating --
00:09:26
and case in point, is Steve Wozniak
famously coming together with Steve Jobs
00:09:29
to start Apple Computer --
00:09:32
but it does mean that solitude matters
00:09:35
and that for some people
it is the air that they breathe.
00:09:39
And in fact, we have known for centuries
about the transcendent power of solitude.
00:09:45
It's only recently that
we've strangely begun to forget it.
00:09:48
If you look at most
of the world's major religions,
00:09:51
you will find seekers --
00:09:53
Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad --
00:09:56
seekers who are going off by themselves
alone to the wilderness,
00:10:00
where they then have profound
epiphanies and revelations
00:10:02
that they then bring back
to the rest of the community.
00:10:05
So, no wilderness, no revelations.
00:10:09
This is no surprise, though,
00:10:11
if you look at the insights
of contemporary psychology.
00:10:14
It turns out that we can't
even be in a group of people
00:10:17
without instinctively mirroring,
mimicking their opinions.
00:10:20
Even about seemingly
personal and visceral things
00:10:22
like who you're attracted to,
00:10:24
you will start aping the beliefs
of the people around you
00:10:27
without even realizing
that that's what you're doing.
00:10:29
And groups famously follow the opinions
00:10:32
of the most dominant
or charismatic person in the room,
00:10:34
even though there's zero correlation
00:10:36
between being the best talker
and having the best ideas --
00:10:39
I mean zero.
00:10:41
So --
00:10:43
(Laughter)
00:10:45
You might be following the person
with the best ideas,
00:10:48
but you might not.
00:10:50
And do you really want
to leave it up to chance?
00:10:53
Much better for everybody
to go off by themselves,
00:10:55
generate their own ideas
00:10:57
freed from the distortions
of group dynamics,
00:10:59
and then come together as a team
00:11:01
to talk them through
in a well-managed environment
00:11:04
and take it from there.
00:11:06
Now if all this is true,
00:11:08
then why are we getting it so wrong?
00:11:11
Why are we setting up our schools
this way, and our workplaces?
00:11:14
And why are we making
these introverts feel so guilty
00:11:16
about wanting to just go off
by themselves some of the time?
00:11:19
One answer lies deep
in our cultural history.
00:11:22
Western societies,
00:11:24
and in particular the U.S.,
00:11:26
have always favored the man of action
over the "man" of contemplation.
00:11:34
But in America's early days,
00:11:37
we lived in what historians
call a culture of character,
00:11:40
where we still,
at that point, valued people
00:11:42
for their inner selves
and their moral rectitude.
00:11:45
And if you look at the self-help
books from this era,
00:11:47
they all had titles with things like
00:11:49
"Character, the Grandest
Thing in the World."
00:11:52
And they featured role models
like Abraham Lincoln,
00:11:55
who was praised for being
modest and unassuming.
00:11:57
Ralph Waldo Emerson called him
00:11:59
"A man who does not
offend by superiority."
00:12:02
But then we hit the 20th century,
00:12:05
and we entered a new culture
00:12:07
that historians call
the culture of personality.
00:12:09
What happened is we had evolved
an agricultural economy
00:12:12
to a world of big business.
00:12:13
And so suddenly people are moving
from small towns to the cities.
00:12:17
And instead of working alongside people
they've known all their lives,
00:12:20
now they are having to prove themselves
in a crowd of strangers.
00:12:24
So, quite understandably,
00:12:26
qualities like magnetism and charisma
suddenly come to seem really important.
00:12:30
And sure enough, the self-help books
change to meet these new needs
00:12:33
and they start to have names
00:12:35
like "How to Win Friends
and Influence People."
00:12:37
And they feature as their role models
really great salesmen.
00:12:42
So that's the world we're living in today.
00:12:44
That's our cultural inheritance.
00:12:48
Now none of this is to say
that social skills are unimportant,
00:12:53
and I'm also not calling
for the abolishing of teamwork at all.
00:12:58
The same religions who send their sages
off to lonely mountain tops
00:13:01
also teach us love and trust.
00:13:04
And the problems that we are facing today
00:13:06
in fields like science and in economics
00:13:08
are so vast and so complex
00:13:10
that we are going to need armies
of people coming together
00:13:13
to solve them working together.
00:13:14
But I am saying that the more freedom
that we give introverts to be themselves,
00:13:18
the more likely that they are
00:13:19
to come up with their own unique
solutions to these problems.
00:13:24
So now I'd like to share with you
what's in my suitcase today.
00:13:33
Guess what?
00:13:35
Books.
00:13:37
I have a suitcase full of books.
00:13:39
Here's Margaret Atwood, "Cat's Eye."
00:13:41
Here's a novel by Milan Kundera.
00:13:44
And here's "The Guide for the Perplexed"
by Maimonides.
00:13:49
But these are not exactly my books.
00:13:52
I brought these books with me
00:13:54
because they were written
by my grandfather's favorite authors.
00:13:58
My grandfather was a rabbi
00:14:00
and he was a widower
00:14:02
who lived alone in a small
apartment in Brooklyn
00:14:05
that was my favorite place
in the world when I was growing up,
00:14:08
partly because it was filled with
his very gentle, very courtly presence
00:14:11
and partly because
it was filled with books.
00:14:14
I mean literally every table,
every chair in this apartment
00:14:17
had yielded its original function
00:14:19
to now serve as a surface
for swaying stacks of books.
00:14:22
Just like the rest of my family,
00:14:24
my grandfather's favorite thing to do
in the whole world was to read.
00:14:27
But he also loved his congregation,
00:14:30
and you could feel this love
in the sermons that he gave
00:14:33
every week for the 62 years
that he was a rabbi.
00:14:37
He would takes the fruits
of each week's reading
00:14:40
and he would weave
00:14:41
these intricate tapestries
of ancient and humanist thought.
00:14:44
And people would come from all over
to hear him speak.
00:14:47
But here's the thing about my grandfather.
00:14:51
Underneath this ceremonial role,
00:14:52
he was really modest
and really introverted --
00:14:55
so much so that when
he delivered these sermons,
00:14:58
he had trouble making eye contact
00:15:00
with the very same congregation
that he had been speaking to for 62 years.
00:15:04
And even away from the podium,
00:15:06
when you called him to say hello,
00:15:08
he would often end
the conversation prematurely
00:15:10
for fear that he was taking up
too much of your time.
00:15:14
But when he died at the age of 94,
00:15:17
the police had to close down
the streets of his neighborhood
00:15:20
to accommodate the crowd of people
who came out to mourn him.
00:15:27
And so these days I try to learn
from my grandfather's example
00:15:30
in my own way.
00:15:31
So I just published a book
about introversion,
00:15:34
and it took me about seven years to write.
00:15:36
And for me, that seven years
was like total bliss,
00:15:39
because I was reading, I was writing,
00:15:42
I was thinking, I was researching.
00:15:44
It was my version
00:15:46
of my grandfather's hours
of the day alone in his library.
00:15:49
But now all of a sudden
my job is very different,
00:15:52
and my job is to be
out here talking about it,
00:15:55
talking about introversion.
00:15:58
(Laughter)
00:16:02
And that's a lot harder for me,
00:16:04
because as honored as I am
to be here with all of you right now,
00:16:08
this is not my natural milieu.
00:16:11
So I prepared for moments
like these as best I could.
00:16:15
I spent the last year
practicing public speaking
00:16:17
every chance I could get.
00:16:19
And I call this my "year
of speaking dangerously."
00:16:22
(Laughter)
00:16:24
And that actually helped a lot.
00:16:26
But I'll tell you, what helps even more
00:16:28
is my sense, my belief, my hope
that when it comes to our attitudes
00:16:33
to introversion and to quiet
and to solitude,
00:16:35
we truly are poised on the brink
on dramatic change.
00:16:37
I mean, we are.
00:16:39
And so I am going to leave you now
00:16:41
with three calls for action
for those who share this vision.
00:16:45
Number one:
00:16:47
Stop the madness for constant group work.
00:16:49
Just stop it.
00:16:51
(Laughter)
00:16:54
Thank you.
00:16:56
(Applause)
00:16:58
And I want to be clear
about what I'm saying,
00:17:00
because I deeply believe our offices
00:17:02
should be encouraging casual, chatty
cafe-style types of interactions --
00:17:06
you know, the kind
where people come together
00:17:08
and serendipitously have
an exchange of ideas.
00:17:10
That is great.
00:17:12
It's great for introverts
and it's great for extroverts.
00:17:14
But we need much more privacy
and much more freedom
00:17:17
and much more autonomy at work.
00:17:18
School, same thing.
00:17:20
We need to be teaching kids
to work together, for sure,
00:17:23
but we also need to be teaching them
how to work on their own.
00:17:26
This is especially important
for extroverted children too.
00:17:29
They need to work on their own
00:17:30
because that is where deep thought
comes from in part.
00:17:33
Okay, number two: Go to the wilderness.
00:17:35
Be like Buddha, have your own revelations.
00:17:38
I'm not saying
00:17:40
that we all have to now go off and build
our own cabins in the woods
00:17:43
and never talk to each other again,
00:17:46
but I am saying that we could
all stand to unplug
00:17:48
and get inside our own heads
a little more often.
00:17:54
Number three:
00:17:57
Take a good look
at what's inside your own suitcase
00:17:59
and why you put it there.
00:18:01
So extroverts,
00:18:03
maybe your suitcases
are also full of books.
00:18:05
Or maybe they're full of champagne glasses
or skydiving equipment.
00:18:10
Whatever it is, I hope you take
these things out every chance you get
00:18:14
and grace us with your energy
and your joy.
00:18:17
But introverts, you being you,
00:18:20
you probably have the impulse
to guard very carefully
00:18:22
what's inside your own suitcase.
00:18:24
And that's okay.
00:18:26
But occasionally, just occasionally,
00:18:28
I hope you will open up your suitcases
for other people to see,
00:18:31
because the world needs you and it
needs the things you carry.
00:18:36
So I wish you the best
of all possible journeys
00:18:38
and the courage to speak softly.
00:18:41
Thank you very much.
00:18:43
(Applause)
00:18:47
Thank you. Thank you.
00:18:50
(Applause)
