I’m reading “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” by Susan Cain, a lucky find at the local thrift store.
It’s . . . enlightening.
First, for its discussion of our evolution from the Culture of Character, starting at the turn of the last century, to the Culture of Personality, the raging wildfire of alphas and grifters and even presidents to whom popularity and personal branding are far more important than, you know, leadership and character.
The book focuses on how the concept of extroverts versus introverts has skewed and is skewing perceptions of leadership in some pretty terrible ways.
In the book she talks about attending (in the lowest-paid tier) a Tony Robbins seminar bent on making extroverts out of everyone in what sounds like the most painful way possible:
[Usher} Stacy asks if I’ve brought my meals with me. It seems a strange question: Who carries their supper from New York City to Atlanta? She explains that I’ll want to refuel at my seat; for the next few days, Friday through Monday, we’ll be working fifteen hours a day; from 8 am to 11 pm, with only one short afternoon break. Tony will be onstage the entire time, and I won’t want to miss a moment.
Also:
Greeters wearing UPW T-shirts and ecstatic smiles line the entrance, springing up and down, fists pumping. You can’t get inside without slapping them five. I know, because I try.
This is all that came to mind:
Quickly the focus shifts, of course, to the grift, where for more money you can get seats closer to the stage – though attendees are encouraged to get up on their folding chairs and dance while Robbins does performative gestures on the Jumbotron, trying to foist investments of $45,000 yearly on attendees so they can go on vacation with Robbins and other like-minded power-oozing extroverted morons to connect and expand and network until light shines out of their bellybuttons and Robbins can afford two castles in Del Mar, California.
This is contrasted with the story of Rosa Parks, who encountered the same racist bus driver eleven years before the incident that led to the Montgomery bus boycott and who only got on the bus again absentmindedly all those years later because she was extra tired from standing on her feet ironing all day.
Guess which of the two has mightier power in our Cult of Personality today; it’s not the one who was overlooked by even the New York Times when the boycott proved successful and the Supreme Court called separate but equal on the bus unconstitutional.
True, I am an introvert myself, father to another introvert. Hoping as I read this I can better understand myself and maybe help that son of mine. I know he’s struggled with introversion in some ways holding him back. He’s intelligent and a hard worker, but he’s struggled to find employment because for most of the jobs he’s applied for, they pre-screen in ways that weed out introverts. (He’s talked about a few “personality tests” he’s had to take and it’s clear the questions skew to find those who love working with others or in groups or whatnot, and when he answers honestly that he’d rather work on his own, he’s screened out.)
Just a word to you extroverts out there: We introverts are always asked to step out of our comfort zones and mask or fake or cope or whatever it is we have to do to succeed in the extrovert world. Why is it no one asks extroverts to step outside of their comfort zones and recognize that they talk too damn much, that introverts can be effective workers, co-workers, and leaders when given the chance and shouldn’t have to be forced to play-act all the damn day just to bring home a paycheck?
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