Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking Part 1

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.

by Susan Cain.

To my childhood family

A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh. I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, s.e.x symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted. It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circ.u.mstances, and it needs those who can capture the pa.s.sing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boy's feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight.... Indeed the presence of outstanding strengths presupposes that energy needed in other areas has been channeled away from them.

-ALLEN SHAWN

Contents

Author's Note

INTRODUCTION: The North and South of Temperament

PART ONE: THE EXTROVERT IDEAL

1. THE RISE OF THE "MIGHTY LIKEABLE FELLOW": How Extroversion Became the Cultural Ideal

2. THE MYTH OF CHARISMATIC LEADERs.h.i.+P: The Culture of Personality, a Hundred Years Later

3. WHEN COLLABORATION KILLS CREATIVITY: The Rise of the New Groupthink and the Power of Working Alone

PART TWO: YOUR BIOLOGY, YOUR SELF?

4. IS TEMPERAMENT DESTINY?: Nature, Nurture, and the Orchid Hypothesis

5. BEYOND TEMPERAMENT: The Role of Free Will (and the Secret of Public Speaking for Introverts)

6. "FRANKLIN WAS A POLITICIAN, BUT ELEANOR SPOKE OUT OF CONSCIENCE": Why Cool Is Overrated

7. WHY DID WALL STREET CRASH AND WARREN BUFFETT PROSPER?: How Introverts and Extroverts Think (and Process Dopamine) Differently

PART THREE: DO ALL CULTURES HAVE AN EXTROVERT IDEAL?

8. SOFT POWER: Asian-Americans and the Extrovert Ideal

PART FOUR: HOW TO LOVE, HOW TO WORK

9. WHEN SHOULD YOU ACT MORE EXTROVERTED THAN YOU REALLY ARE?

10. THE COMMUNICATION GAP: How to Talk to Members of the Opposite Type

11. ON COBBLERS AND GENERALS: How to Cultivate Quiet Kids in a World That Can't Hear Them

CONCLUSION: Wonderland

A Note on the Dedication

A Note on the Words Introvert and Extrovert

Acknowledgments

Notes

Author's Note

I have been working on this book officially since 2005, and unofficially for my entire adult life. I have spoken and written to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people about the topics covered inside, and have read as many books, scholarly papers, magazine articles, chat-room discussions, and blog posts. Some of these I mention in the book; others informed almost every sentence I wrote. Quiet stands on many shoulders, especially the scholars and researchers whose work taught me so much. In a perfect world, I would have named every one of my sources, mentors, and interviewees. But for the sake of readability, some names appear only in the Notes or Acknowledgments.

For similar reasons, I did not use ellipses or brackets in certain quotations but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the speaker's or writer's meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, the citations directing you to the full quotations appear in the Notes.

I've changed the names and identifying details of some of the people whose stories I tell, and in the stories of my own work as a lawyer and consultant. To protect the privacy of the partic.i.p.ants in Charles di Cagno's public speaking workshop, who did not plan to be included in a book when they signed up for the cla.s.s, the story of my first evening in cla.s.s is a composite based on several sessions; so is the story of Greg and Emily, which is based on many interviews with similar couples. Subject to the limitations of memory, all other stories are recounted as they happened or were told to me. I did not fact-check the stories people told me about themselves, but only included those I believed to be true.

INTRODUCTION

The North and South of Temperament

Montgomery, Alabama. December 1, 1955. Early evening. A public bus pulls to a stop and a sensibly dressed woman in her forties gets on. She carries herself erectly, despite having spent the day bent over an ironing board in a dingy bas.e.m.e.nt tailor shop at the Montgomery Fair department store. Her feet are swollen, her shoulders ache. She sits in the first row of the Colored section and watches quietly as the bus fills with riders. Until the driver orders her to give her seat to a white pa.s.senger.

The woman utters a single word that ignites one of the most important civil rights protests of the twentieth century, one word that helps America find its better self.

The word is "No."

The driver threatens to have her arrested.

"You may do that," says Rosa Parks.

A police officer arrives. He asks Parks why she won't move.

"Why do you all push us around?" she answers simply.

"I don't know," he says. "But the law is the law, and you're under arrest."