ساکت

083 - Quiet

Hello there, Kevin here, with another episode of The Feel Good English Podcast; the only English podcast that is helping you to become more fluent in English and life.

And today I have an episode based on a book that will help you become more fluent in self-awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to know yourself, to notice things about you and to know what you are good at, what you are bad at.

A question for you, do you consider yourself shy? Are you quiet, or are you outgoing? Do you like to talk? Are you very social?

And what about with English? Are you kind of nervous and apprehensive when it comes to speaking English, or do you have full confidence and you throw yourself into situations without even worrying about mistakes?

Another question, you ever heard the term introvert or the term extrovert?

Introverts and extroverts are the topic in the book “Quiet” by Susan Cain, and in today’s episode we’re going to talk about the difference between introverts and extroverts, with the intention of helping those out there that might find themselves being quieter, they might even consider themselves a little antisocial because they’re not always interested in being around other people and always hanging out with other people and being the center of attention. It could be at work, social life, school, maybe you see others that are always interacting with other people and they seem like they have endless energy and enthusiasm in social situations; gonna get into some key lessons from the book “Quiet.”

If you do want to go deeper with the lessons of the Feel Good English Podcast, go to feelgoodenglish.com and get the free seven-audio course based on the book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” So go over to feelgoodenglish.com after this episode if you haven’t yet.

And now let’s get into the episode on the book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.”

So, I’m going to start out with a quote from the book and this has to do with the difference between introverts and being shy.

And the quote is:

“Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not over stimulating. Shyness is inherently painful, introversion is not.” So that’s the quote there from the book. And this is important because many people think that shyness and introversion are the same thing. The fact is that introverts can be extremely outgoing in certain situations that stimulate them, it just depends on the context.

So if you literally feel pain or you feel very out of place and uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable in social situations or speaking English maybe, then you might be shy and that’s a topic for another day.

Introverts, however, might just not want to be around an overly stimulating environment where there is a lot of people talking and a lot of things going on and a lot of interactions happening.

So, that’s the first thing here, is the difference between being shy and being an introvert. So it’s an important distinction.

And another distinction here, a distinction between introverts and extroverts, extroverts are sociable and outgoing, they actually get energized by interacting with others. The more they are around people, the longer they are in social situations, the more energized they get; versus an introvert, if they are around people a lot, talking, socializing, it doesn’t mean they don’t like it, but after sometime they start to get tired, they start to get drained.

“Drained” means to lose energy. Or like in a sink, water goes down a drain, but if you’re talking about “somebody gets drained”, it means they lose their energy.

So introverts like to be in calm situations, they don’t really like big groups, being around large groups and maybe at a big party or something like that.

Introverts prefer deeper and fewer relationships, where extroverts might like to have more relationships even if they could be considered somewhat superficial, they like to have a lot of relationships.

Some very interesting research done in this book, or shown in this book, was the difference in the brain and in the brain activity between introverts and extroverts.

And to answer this question, psychologists, researchers, they observed how infants responded to certain stimuli.

Infants, infant is a baby basically; it’s a very young child or baby, maybe one year old.

So anyway, they tested how infants reacted to certain situations.

And what they did in their research, and this is interesting, let me help you visualize this. In one experience they held cotton swabs soaked in alcohol under the infants’ noses while simultaneously playing a recording of balloons popping.

What is a cotton swab? Cotton swab. Well cotton is what clothing is usually made out of and a cotton swab is what you put in your ear to clean it.

They put that in alcohol so it had a strong smell and then they would play a sound, or basically a loud popping sound and the reactions of the children displayed two very distinct behavioral patterns.

Twenty percent of the children fell intohigh reactive category, that means they reacted highly, they screamed and kicked when they heard the balloon popping; where forty percent, low reactive category, they remained cool and composed.

And these are actually controlled by what they call the human brain’s emotional switchboard. So these are reactions, nothing that we control.

And basically summarizing this research is, what they decided, or what they found was some of these children reacted more strongly to this popping noise or to stimuli than the others.

So over time, they would want to avoid these noises, they would want to be in a quiet area because they are going to react to external stimuli very strongly, so they want to avoid that, to be calmer.

Whereas the other babies, or the other people who aren’t reacting to these situations as much, don’t mind being around this heavy stimuli, these stimulating situations.

They don’t mind, to “not mind” means you don’t care, it doesn’t bother you, it’s not a negative thing. So, these babies that weren’t reacting highly to the stimulus, they didn’t mind, they didn’t care.

But one thing about current society is we idealize, we give more credit to extroverts in the Western world. If you think about famous, popular, successful people, extroverts outgoing social people are considered more qualified and intelligent because of their sociability.

This even has affected Harvard Business School where they make it their mission to turn every one of their business students into an extrovert; they make sure that students are participating in groups and seminars and they even make going out with other students at night to bars and restaurants and what not, they make that an obligatory program. Can you believe that?

So they are training people that might be quiet, on how to be more social, at Harvard University.

Looking at the other side of things, if we look at Eastern culture, Japan, Korea, they have a totally different ideal. Students there are often just putting all of their time and energy into studying, not going out with friends. They take diligent notes, they are quiet, respectful, they ask for permission to speak. So value there is put on the diligent, studious student.

So quite different than the Western idea that everybody has to be confident and social and outgoing.

So what can you do? Let’s say you find yourself in one of these situations in business or school where you have to be more social and you have to participate in groups and you are forced to act like an extrovert when you consider yourself a quiet more introverted person.

Well, there are some tips on how to be more extroverted in the book “Quiet” and I am going to talk about that next.

So often, even the most introverted of people willend up in a situation where being extroverted is a must. Remember “end up” is to have a result at the end, or to happen; so even an introvert “ends up” in situations where they have to be more outgoing.

Imagine a professor at a university that is kind of shy and quiet and doesn’t really like to socialize too often, but has to bring enthusiasm and energy to her students.

You ever heard the expression “Fake it ‘til you make it”? Well, here is kind of an example of that.

There are specific extroverted behavior that you can copy, that you can imitate. Walking with long strides, meaning it’s not walking quickly with your feet very close together. If you can imagine somebody taking bigger steps, longer strides, that’s something.

Speaking clearly and precisely, and posture, having a relaxed posture and looking relaxed. These are things that can help you look at least, like you are more of an extrovert, so you are not boring people and so you are not making the people that are listening to you feel uncomfortable.

So, even if you don’t think you are an extroverted, social, outgoing person, there’s ways that when you are forced to be in front of people and talking, that you can make it seem more like you are.

And believe me, I know how this is, and especially you as an English speaker, if you are quiet and you find yourself being more of an introvert, remember there is a difference here between being shy and an introvert.

Introverts might not be shy, they don’t feel, literally bad when they are around other people all of the time, it’s not painful, where somebody who is shy, literally finds it painful.

So, there is a difference there, but just because other people are social all the time and you think well that’s just the way it needs to be, this person is confident, they are always talking with each other, not everybody needs to be that way.

And if you want to go deeper into this, I would recommend reading this book “Quiet”, where she goes into a lot more of the strategies behind how teams and how companies can utilize not only outgoing extroverts, but also introverts. And there are very specific qualities that the quieter, introverted worker brings to a company. So go into this book, go dive deep into this book if this is something that interests you.

So how do you know if you are an introvert? Maybe you think, “well I am quiet I am not as social as other people, but I don’t know, am I an introvert or not?”

Well I am going to give you some key signs to help you understand yourself better, right after this quick message from our sponsor italki.

So are you, listening to this podcast, an introvert? Well, these are some signs that you are an introvert.

First one, you find small talk really, really tiresome, tiring, almost painful. Small talk, talking about it day to day things, “Hi, what are you doing?” “How are you doing?” “How is the weather?” “What’s the latest news on your football team?”

So if you don’t really like small talk, maybe you are an introvert.

Also, if you are in a big crowd, you sometimes feel alone? You’re at work or you are somewhere and there is a lot of people around and you feel kind of isolated from the group, or not totally included not as included as the other people.

Have you ever been called intense when you socialize, when you talk to people? You go straight to the point and talk about things that are pretty deep? That could be a sign that you are an introvert.

When you get on the subway or a train or even in a restaurant, do you always sit in a corner by the wall, by the window and not in the middle?

What about your relationship? Do you have a relationship with an extrovert, somebody who is a lot more social than you?

Well, believe it or not, I would answer yes to all of those questions; I do consider myself an introvert. Maybe that’s why I’m doing a podcast because it’s just me alone in a room. It doesn’t mean I’m shy, I really to do like being around people, I like being social.

However, well not only would I answer yes to all of the questions that I just asked you, but after being in a social situation for some time I do get drained, I get tired and I need to kind of recharge my energy, recharge my battery

So if I go out at night and social, of course I have a great conversation with everybody, laugh, have fun, make jokes, but the next day I am done, I need time to recharge.

I am not the person that is going to wake up the next morning call all of my friends and say “Hey, let’s go have breakfast.” I am more like, “Okay, that’s enough for me. I will see you guys in a week.”

So, I consider myself an introvert for sure. Maybe why I picked up this book and read it. So, again if you want get deeper into this book, go check it out and if anything go check out her Ted talk, go to ted.com, type in “Introvert”, it will be the first one that comes up, Susan Cain’s talk on introversion, very very beneficial to not only us introverts out there, but to people that work with introverts and hire introverts in their company.

And that will do it for today’s episode ofThe Feel Good English Podcast, helping the introverts out there be comfortable with themselves.

If you do want a transcript to this episode go to feelgoodenglish.com and learn how you can become a member.

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Until next time, keep learning, keep striving to be better, and also make sure to accept and appreciate everything that you are and everything that you do.

And of course I’m going to leave you with an introvert joke today.

So an introvert walks into a bar and goes up to the bartender and the bartender asks him “Hey buddy, what can I get ya?” And the introvert says, “I’ll have a beer…to go.” See you in the next episode.