Susan Cain
Susan Cain
spent five years officially—and her entire life unofficially—researching Quiet. This self-proclaimed introvert set
out to write a book that would empower the quieter half of the population and
increase awareness among parents, teachers, and employers.
As part of
her extensive research, Cain visited an evangelical mega church, Harvard
Business School, and a Tony Robbins seminar. While visiting the church, Cain
discovered that “evangelical churches often make extroversion a prerequisite
for leadership.” Some parishes even check Myers-Briggs scores and think twice
“if the first letter isn’t an ‘E’ (for extrovert).” At Harvard, one of the
students commented, “Good luck finding an introvert around here.” After watching
Tony Robbins perform, Cain concluded that he has a “hyperthymic temperament, a
kind of extroversion-on-steroids.”
I put on my
teacher hat and paid particular attention to the interviews Cain conducted with
Asian-American students living near Cupertino, California. While they excelled
academically, many of these introverted students struggled with class
participation and hit a brick wall in workplaces where “loudness and speaking
out are the keys to popularity and financial success.”
Cain also interviewed
successful introverts who have learned to survive and thrive in highly-charged
workplaces. In fact, Susan Cain herself is a great example of an introvert who
has managed to adapt, since she would never have be able to publish Quiet if she hadn’t convinced her
publisher she was enough of a pseudo-extrovert to promote it. Cain helps us to understand the unique things introverts have to offer, and helps introverts to
better understand themselves.
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