0:00:00.000,0:00:02.000
When I was nine years old

0:00:02.000,0:00:04.000
I went off to summer camp for the first time.

0:00:04.000,0:00:06.000
And my mother packed me a suitcase

0:00:06.000,0:00:08.000
full of books,

0:00:08.000,0:00:10.000
which to me seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do.

0:00:10.000,0:00:12.000
Because in my family,

0:00:12.000,0:00:15.000
reading was the primary group activity.

0:00:15.000,0:00:17.000
And this might sound antisocial to you,

0:00:17.000,0:00:20.000
but for us it was really just a different way of being social.

0:00:20.000,0:00:22.000
You have the animal warmth of your family

0:00:22.000,0:00:24.000
sitting right next to you,

0:00:24.000,0:00:26.000
but you are also free to go roaming around the adventureland

0:00:26.000,0:00:28.000
inside your own mind.

0:00:28.000,0:00:30.000
And I had this idea

0:00:30.000,0:00:32.000
that camp was going to be just like this, but better.

0:00:32.000,0:00:35.000
(Laughter)

0:00:35.000,0:00:38.000
I had a vision of 10 girls sitting in a cabin

0:00:38.000,0:00:40.000
cozily reading books in their matching nightgowns.

0:00:40.000,0:00:42.000
(Laughter)

0:00:42.000,0:00:45.000
Camp was more like a keg party without any alcohol.

0:00:45.000,0:00:48.000
And on the very first day

0:00:48.000,0:00:50.000
our counselor gathered us all together

0:00:50.000,0:00:52.000
and she taught us a cheer that she said we would be doing

0:00:52.000,0:00:54.000
every day for the rest of the summer

0:00:54.000,0:00:56.000
to instill camp spirit.

0:00:56.000,0:00:58.000
And it went like this:

0:00:58.000,0:01:00.000
"R-O-W-D-I-E,

0:01:00.000,0:01:02.000
that's the way we spell rowdie.

0:01:02.000,0:01:05.000
Rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie."

0:01:07.000,0:01:09.000
Yeah.

0:01:09.000,0:01:11.000
So I couldn't figure out for the life of me

0:01:11.000,0:01:13.000
why we were supposed to be so rowdy,

0:01:13.000,0:01:16.000
or why we had to spell this word incorrectly.

0:01:16.000,0:01:22.000
(Laughter)

0:01:22.000,0:01:25.000
But I recited a cheer. I recited a cheer along with everybody else.

0:01:25.000,0:01:27.000
I did my best.

0:01:27.000,0:01:29.000
And I just waited for the time

0:01:29.000,0:01:32.000
that I could go off and read my books.

0:01:32.000,0:01:34.000
But the first time that I took my book out of my suitcase,

0:01:34.000,0:01:36.000
the coolest girl in the bunk came up to me

0:01:36.000,0:01:39.000
and she asked me, "Why are you being so mellow?" --

0:01:39.000,0:01:41.000
mellow, of course, being the exact opposite

0:01:41.000,0:01:43.000
of R-O-W-D-I-E.

0:01:43.000,0:01:45.000
And then the second time I tried it,

0:01:45.000,0:01:48.000
the counselor came up to me with a concerned expression on her face

0:01:48.000,0:01:50.000
and she repeated the point about camp spirit

0:01:50.000,0:01:52.000
and said we should all work very hard

0:01:52.000,0:01:54.000
to be outgoing.

0:01:54.000,0:01:57.000
And so I put my books away,

0:01:57.000,0:02:00.000
back in their suitcase,

0:02:00.000,0:02:04.000
and I put them under my bed,

0:02:04.000,0:02:06.000
and there they stayed for the rest of the summer.

0:02:06.000,0:02:08.000
And I felt kind of guilty about this.

0:02:08.000,0:02:10.000
I felt as if the books needed me somehow,

0:02:10.000,0:02:13.000
and they were calling out to me and I was forsaking them.

0:02:13.000,0:02:15.000
But I did forsake them and I didn't open that suitcase again

0:02:15.000,0:02:17.000
until I was back home with my family

0:02:17.000,0:02:19.000
at the end of the summer.

0:02:19.000,0:02:22.000
Now, I tell you this story about summer camp.

0:02:22.000,0:02:25.000
I could have told you 50 others just like it --

0:02:25.000,0:02:27.000
all the times that I got the message

0:02:27.000,0:02:31.000
that somehow my quiet and introverted style of being

0:02:31.000,0:02:33.000
was not necessarily the right way to go,

0:02:33.000,0:02:36.000
that I should be trying to pass as more of an extrovert.

0:02:36.000,0:02:39.000
And I always sensed deep down that this was wrong

0:02:39.000,0:02:41.000
and that introverts were pretty excellent just as they were.

0:02:41.000,0:02:44.000
But for years I denied this intuition,

0:02:44.000,0:02:47.000
and so I became a Wall Street lawyer, of all things,

0:02:47.000,0:02:50.000
instead of the writer that I had always longed to be --

0:02:50.000,0:02:52.000
partly because I needed to prove to myself

0:02:52.000,0:02:54.000
that I could be bold and assertive too.

0:02:54.000,0:02:56.000
And I was always going off to crowded bars

0:02:56.000,0:02:59.000
when I really would have preferred to just have a nice dinner with friends.

0:02:59.000,0:03:02.000
And I made these self-negating choices

0:03:02.000,0:03:04.000
so reflexively,

0:03:04.000,0:03:07.000
that I wasn't even aware that I was making them.

0:03:07.000,0:03:09.000
Now this is what many introverts do,

0:03:09.000,0:03:11.000
and it's our loss for sure,

0:03:11.000,0:03:13.000
but it is also our colleagues' loss

0:03:13.000,0:03:15.000
and our communities' loss.

0:03:15.000,0:03:18.000
And at the risk of sounding grandiose, it is the world's loss.

0:03:18.000,0:03:21.000
Because when it comes to creativity and to leadership,

0:03:21.000,0:03:24.000
we need introverts doing what they do best.

0:03:24.000,0:03:26.000
A third to a half of the population are introverts --

0:03:26.000,0:03:28.000
a third to a half.

0:03:28.000,0:03:31.000
So that's one out of every two or three people you know.

0:03:31.000,0:03:34.000
So even if you're an extrovert yourself,

0:03:34.000,0:03:36.000
I'm talking about your coworkers

0:03:36.000,0:03:38.000
and your spouses and your children

0:03:38.000,0:03:41.000
and the person sitting next to you right now --

0:03:41.000,0:03:43.000
all of them subject to this bias

0:03:43.000,0:03:45.000
that is pretty deep and real in our society.

0:03:45.000,0:03:48.000
We all internalize it from a very early age

0:03:48.000,0:03:51.000
without even having a language for what we're doing.

0:03:51.000,0:03:53.000
Now to see the bias clearly

0:03:53.000,0:03:56.000
you need to understand what introversion is.

0:03:56.000,0:03:58.000
It's different from being shy.

0:03:58.000,0:04:00.000
Shyness is about fear of social judgment.

0:04:00.000,0:04:02.000
Introversion is more about,

0:04:02.000,0:04:04.000
how do you respond to stimulation,

0:04:04.000,0:04:06.000
including social stimulation.

0:04:06.000,0:04:09.000
So extroverts really crave large amounts of stimulation,

0:04:09.000,0:04:11.000
whereas introverts feel at their most alive

0:04:11.000,0:04:13.000
and their most switched-on and their most capable

0:04:13.000,0:04:15.000
when they're in quieter, more low-key environments.

0:04:15.000,0:04:17.000
Not all the time -- these things aren't absolute --

0:04:17.000,0:04:19.000
but a lot of the time.

0:04:19.000,0:04:21.000
So the key then

0:04:21.000,0:04:24.000
to maximizing our talents

0:04:24.000,0:04:26.000
is for us all to put ourselves

0:04:26.000,0:04:29.000
in the zone of stimulation that is right for us.

0:04:29.000,0:04:31.000
But now here's where the bias comes in.

0:04:31.000,0:04:33.000
Our most important institutions,

0:04:33.000,0:04:35.000
our schools and our workplaces,

0:04:35.000,0:04:37.000
they are designed mostly for extroverts

0:04:37.000,0:04:40.000
and for extroverts' need for lots of stimulation.

0:04:40.000,0:04:44.000
And also we have this belief system right now

0:04:44.000,0:04:46.000
that I call the new groupthink,

0:04:46.000,0:04:49.000
which holds that all creativity and all productivity

0:04:49.000,0:04:53.000
comes from a very oddly gregarious place.

0:04:54.000,0:04:56.000
So if you picture the typical classroom nowadays:

0:04:56.000,0:04:58.000
When I was going to school,

0:04:58.000,0:05:00.000
we sat in rows.

0:05:00.000,0:05:02.000
We sat in rows of desks like this,

0:05:02.000,0:05:04.000
and we did most of our work pretty autonomously.

0:05:04.000,0:05:06.000
But nowadays, your typical classroom

0:05:06.000,0:05:08.000
has pods of desks --

0:05:08.000,0:05:11.000
four or five or six or seven kids all facing each other.

0:05:11.000,0:05:13.000
And kids are working in countless group assignments.

0:05:13.000,0:05:16.000
Even in subjects like math and creative writing,

0:05:16.000,0:05:19.000
which you think would depend on solo flights of thought,

0:05:19.000,0:05:23.000
kids are now expected to act as committee members.

0:05:23.000,0:05:25.000
And for the kids who prefer

0:05:25.000,0:05:27.000
to go off by themselves or just to work alone,

0:05:27.000,0:05:29.000
those kids are seen as outliers often

0:05:29.000,0:05:31.000
or, worse, as problem cases.

0:05:33.000,0:05:36.000
And the vast majority of teachers reports believing

0:05:36.000,0:05:38.000
that the ideal student is an extrovert

0:05:38.000,0:05:40.000
as opposed to an introvert,

0:05:40.000,0:05:42.000
even though introverts actually get better grades

0:05:42.000,0:05:44.000
and are more knowledgeable,

0:05:44.000,0:05:46.000
according to research.

0:05:46.000,0:05:48.000
(Laughter)

0:05:48.000,0:05:51.000
Okay, same thing is true in our workplaces.

0:05:51.000,0:05:54.000
Now, most of us work in open plan offices,

0:05:54.000,0:05:56.000
without walls,

0:05:56.000,0:05:58.000
where we are subject

0:05:58.000,0:06:00.000
to the constant noise and gaze of our coworkers.

0:06:00.000,0:06:02.000
And when it comes to leadership,

0:06:02.000,0:06:04.000
introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions,

0:06:04.000,0:06:06.000
even though introverts tend to be very careful,

0:06:06.000,0:06:08.000
much less likely to take outsize risks --

0:06:08.000,0:06:12.000
which is something we might all favor nowadays.

0:06:12.000,0:06:15.000
And interesting research by Adam Grant at the Wharton School

0:06:15.000,0:06:17.000
has found that introverted leaders

0:06:17.000,0:06:19.000
often deliver better outcomes than extroverts do,

0:06:19.000,0:06:22.000
because when they are managing proactive employees,

0:06:22.000,0:06:25.000
they're much more likely to let those employees run with their ideas,

0:06:25.000,0:06:27.000
whereas an extrovert can, quite unwittingly,

0:06:27.000,0:06:29.000
get so excited about things

0:06:29.000,0:06:31.000
that they're putting their own stamp on things,

0:06:31.000,0:06:33.000
and other people's ideas might not as easily then

0:06:33.000,0:06:36.000
bubble up to the surface.

0:06:36.000,0:06:39.000
Now in fact, some of our transformative leaders in history have been introverts.

0:06:39.000,0:06:41.000
I'll give you some examples.

0:06:41.000,0:06:44.000
Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi --

0:06:44.000,0:06:46.000
all these peopled described themselves

0:06:46.000,0:06:49.000
as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy.

0:06:49.000,0:06:51.000
And they all took the spotlight,

0:06:51.000,0:06:53.000
even though every bone in their bodies

0:06:53.000,0:06:56.000
was telling them not to.

0:06:56.000,0:06:58.000
And this turns out to have a special power all its own,

0:06:58.000,0:07:01.000
because people could feel that these leaders were at the helm,

0:07:01.000,0:07:03.000
not because they enjoyed directing others

0:07:03.000,0:07:05.000
and not out of the pleasure of being looked at;

0:07:05.000,0:07:07.000
they were there because they had no choice,

0:07:07.000,0:07:10.000
because they were driven to do what they thought was right.

0:07:11.000,0:07:14.000
Now I think at this point it's important for me to say

0:07:14.000,0:07:17.000
that I actually love extroverts.

0:07:17.000,0:07:20.000
I always like to say some of my best friends are extroverts,

0:07:20.000,0:07:22.000
including my beloved husband.

0:07:24.000,0:07:26.000
And we all fall at different points, of course,

0:07:26.000,0:07:29.000
along the introvert/extrovert spectrum.

0:07:29.000,0:07:32.000
Even Carl Jung, the psychologist who first popularized these terms, said

0:07:32.000,0:07:34.000
that there's no such thing as a pure introvert

0:07:34.000,0:07:36.000
or a pure extrovert.

0:07:36.000,0:07:38.000
He said that such a man would be in a lunatic asylum,

0:07:38.000,0:07:41.000
if he existed at all.

0:07:41.000,0:07:43.000
And some people fall smack in the middle

0:07:43.000,0:07:45.000
of the introvert/extrovert spectrum,

0:07:45.000,0:07:47.000
and we call these people ambiverts.

0:07:47.000,0:07:50.000
And I often think that they have the best of all worlds.

0:07:51.000,0:07:54.000
But many of us do recognize ourselves as one type or the other.

0:07:54.000,0:07:57.000
And what I'm saying is that culturally we need a much better balance.

0:07:57.000,0:07:59.000
We need more of a yin and yang

0:07:59.000,0:08:01.000
between these two types.

0:08:01.000,0:08:03.000
This is especially important

0:08:03.000,0:08:05.000
when it comes to creativity and to productivity,

0:08:05.000,0:08:07.000
because when psychologists look

0:08:07.000,0:08:09.000
at the lives of the most creative people,

0:08:09.000,0:08:11.000
what they find

0:08:11.000,0:08:13.000
are people who are very good at exchanging ideas

0:08:13.000,0:08:15.000
and advancing ideas,

0:08:15.000,0:08:18.000
but who also have a serious streak of introversion in them.

0:08:18.000,0:08:20.000
And this is because solitude is a crucial ingredient often

0:08:20.000,0:08:22.000
to creativity.

0:08:22.000,0:08:24.000
So Darwin,

0:08:24.000,0:08:26.000
he took long walks alone in the woods

0:08:26.000,0:08:29.000
and emphatically turned down dinner party invitations.

0:08:29.000,0:08:32.000
Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss,

0:08:32.000,0:08:34.000
he dreamed up many of his amazing creations

0:08:34.000,0:08:36.000
in a lonely bell tower office that he had

0:08:36.000,0:08:39.000
in the back of his house in La Jolla, California.

0:08:39.000,0:08:41.000
And he was actually afraid to meet

0:08:41.000,0:08:43.000
the young children who read his books

0:08:43.000,0:08:45.000
for fear that they were expecting him

0:08:45.000,0:08:47.000
this kind of jolly Santa Claus-like figure

0:08:47.000,0:08:51.000
and would be disappointed with his more reserved persona.

0:08:51.000,0:08:53.000
Steve Wozniak invented the first Apple computer

0:08:53.000,0:08:55.000
sitting alone in his cubical

0:08:55.000,0:08:57.000
in Hewlett-Packard where he was working at the time.

0:08:57.000,0:09:00.000
And he says that he never would have become such an expert in the first place

0:09:00.000,0:09:03.000
had he not been too introverted to leave the house

0:09:03.000,0:09:05.000
when he was growing up.

0:09:05.000,0:09:08.000
Now of course,

0:09:08.000,0:09:11.000
this does not mean that we should all stop collaborating --

0:09:11.000,0:09:14.000
and case in point, is Steve Wozniak famously coming together with Steve Jobs

0:09:14.000,0:09:17.000
to start Apple Computer --

0:09:17.000,0:09:20.000
but it does mean that solitude matters

0:09:20.000,0:09:22.000
and that for some people

0:09:22.000,0:09:24.000
it is the air that they breathe.

0:09:24.000,0:09:27.000
And in fact, we have known for centuries

0:09:27.000,0:09:30.000
about the transcendent power of solitude.

0:09:30.000,0:09:33.000
It's only recently that we've strangely begun to forget it.

0:09:33.000,0:09:36.000
If you look at most of the world's major religions,

0:09:36.000,0:09:38.000
you will find seekers --

0:09:38.000,0:09:41.000
Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad --

0:09:41.000,0:09:43.000
seekers who are going off by themselves

0:09:43.000,0:09:45.000
alone to the wilderness

0:09:45.000,0:09:47.000
where they then have profound epiphanies and revelations

0:09:47.000,0:09:50.000
that they then bring back to the rest of the community.

0:09:50.000,0:09:54.000
So no wilderness, no revelations.

0:09:54.000,0:09:56.000
This is no surprise though

0:09:56.000,0:09:59.000
if you look at the insights of contemporary psychology.

0:09:59.000,0:10:02.000
It turns out that we can't even be in a group of people

0:10:02.000,0:10:05.000
without instinctively mirroring, mimicking their opinions.

0:10:05.000,0:10:07.000
Even about seemingly personal and visceral things

0:10:07.000,0:10:09.000
like who you're attracted to,

0:10:09.000,0:10:12.000
you will start aping the beliefs of the people around you

0:10:12.000,0:10:14.000
without even realizing that that's what you're doing.

0:10:14.000,0:10:17.000
And groups famously follow the opinions

0:10:17.000,0:10:19.000
of the most dominant or charismatic person in the room,

0:10:19.000,0:10:21.000
even though there's zero correlation

0:10:21.000,0:10:24.000
between being the best talker and having the best ideas --

0:10:24.000,0:10:26.000
I mean zero.

0:10:26.000,0:10:28.000
So ...

0:10:28.000,0:10:30.000
(Laughter)

0:10:30.000,0:10:33.000
You might be following the person with the best ideas,

0:10:33.000,0:10:35.000
but you might not.

0:10:35.000,0:10:38.000
And do you really want to leave it up to chance?

0:10:38.000,0:10:40.000
Much better for everybody to go off by themselves,

0:10:40.000,0:10:42.000
generate their own ideas

0:10:42.000,0:10:44.000
freed from the distortions of group dynamics,

0:10:44.000,0:10:46.000
and then come together as a team

0:10:46.000,0:10:49.000
to talk them through in a well-managed environment

0:10:49.000,0:10:51.000
and take it from there.

0:10:51.000,0:10:53.000
Now if all this is true,

0:10:53.000,0:10:56.000
then why are we getting it so wrong?

0:10:56.000,0:10:58.000
Why are we setting up our schools this way and our workplaces?

0:10:58.000,0:11:00.000
And why are we making these introverts feel so guilty

0:11:00.000,0:11:04.000
about wanting to just go off by themselves some of the time?

0:11:04.000,0:11:07.000
One answer lies deep in our cultural history.

0:11:07.000,0:11:09.000
Western societies,

0:11:09.000,0:11:11.000
and in particular the U.S.,

0:11:11.000,0:11:13.000
have always favored the man of action

0:11:13.000,0:11:15.000
over the man of contemplation

0:11:15.000,0:11:19.000
and "man" of contemplation.

0:11:19.000,0:11:22.000
But in America's early days,

0:11:22.000,0:11:25.000
we lived in what historians call a culture of character,

0:11:25.000,0:11:27.000
where we still, at that point, valued people

0:11:27.000,0:11:30.000
for their inner selves and their moral rectitude.

0:11:30.000,0:11:32.000
And if you look at the self-help books from this era,

0:11:32.000,0:11:34.000
they all had titles with things like

0:11:34.000,0:11:37.000
"Character, the Grandest Thing in the World."

0:11:37.000,0:11:40.000
And they featured role models like Abraham Lincoln

0:11:40.000,0:11:42.000
who was praised for being modest and unassuming.

0:11:42.000,0:11:44.000
Ralph Waldo Emerson called him

0:11:44.000,0:11:47.000
"A man who does not offend by superiority."

0:11:47.000,0:11:50.000
But then we hit the 20th century

0:11:50.000,0:11:52.000
and we entered a new culture

0:11:52.000,0:11:54.000
that historians call the culture of personality.

0:11:54.000,0:11:56.000
What happened is we had evolved an agricultural economy

0:11:56.000,0:11:58.000
to a world of big business.

0:11:58.000,0:12:00.000
And so suddenly people are moving

0:12:00.000,0:12:02.000
from small towns to the cities.

0:12:02.000,0:12:05.000
And instead of working alongside people they've known all their lives,

0:12:05.000,0:12:07.000
now they are having to prove themselves

0:12:07.000,0:12:09.000
in a crowd of strangers.

0:12:09.000,0:12:11.000
So, quite understandably,

0:12:11.000,0:12:13.000
qualities like magnetism and charisma

0:12:13.000,0:12:15.000
suddenly come to seem really important.

0:12:15.000,0:12:18.000
And sure enough, the self-help books change to meet these new needs

0:12:18.000,0:12:20.000
and they start to have names

0:12:20.000,0:12:22.000
like "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

0:12:22.000,0:12:24.000
And they feature as their role models

0:12:24.000,0:12:27.000
really great salesmen.

0:12:27.000,0:12:29.000
So that's the world we're living in today.

0:12:29.000,0:12:33.000
That's our cultural inheritance.

0:12:33.000,0:12:35.000
Now none of this is to say

0:12:35.000,0:12:38.000
that social skills are unimportant,

0:12:38.000,0:12:40.000
and I'm also not calling

0:12:40.000,0:12:43.000
for the abolishing of teamwork at all.

0:12:43.000,0:12:46.000
The same religions who send their sages off to lonely mountain tops

0:12:46.000,0:12:49.000
also teach us love and trust.

0:12:49.000,0:12:51.000
And the problems that we are facing today

0:12:51.000,0:12:53.000
in fields like science and in economics

0:12:53.000,0:12:55.000
are so vast and so complex

0:12:55.000,0:12:57.000
that we are going to need armies of people coming together

0:12:57.000,0:12:59.000
to solve them working together.

0:12:59.000,0:13:02.000
But I am saying that the more freedom that we give introverts to be themselves,

0:13:02.000,0:13:04.000
the more likely that they are

0:13:04.000,0:13:07.000
to come up with their own unique solutions to these problems.

0:13:09.000,0:13:11.000
So now I'd like to share with you

0:13:11.000,0:13:14.000
what's in my suitcase today.

0:13:18.000,0:13:20.000
Guess what?

0:13:20.000,0:13:22.000
Books.

0:13:22.000,0:13:24.000
I have a suitcase full of books.

0:13:24.000,0:13:26.000
Here's Margaret Atwood, "Cat's Eye."

0:13:26.000,0:13:29.000
Here's a novel by Milan Kundera.

0:13:29.000,0:13:31.000
And here's "The Guide for the Perplexed"

0:13:31.000,0:13:34.000
by Maimonides.

0:13:34.000,0:13:37.000
But these are not exactly my books.

0:13:37.000,0:13:39.000
I brought these books with me

0:13:39.000,0:13:43.000
because they were written by my grandfather's favorite authors.

0:13:43.000,0:13:45.000
My grandfather was a rabbi

0:13:45.000,0:13:47.000
and he was a widower

0:13:47.000,0:13:50.000
who lived alone in a small apartment in Brooklyn

0:13:50.000,0:13:53.000
that was my favorite place in the world when I was growing up,

0:13:53.000,0:13:56.000
partly because it was filled with his very gentle, very courtly presence

0:13:56.000,0:13:59.000
and partly because it was filled with books.

0:13:59.000,0:14:02.000
I mean literally every table, every chair in this apartment

0:14:02.000,0:14:04.000
had yielded its original function

0:14:04.000,0:14:07.000
to now serve as a surface for swaying stacks of books.

0:14:07.000,0:14:09.000
Just like the rest of my family,

0:14:09.000,0:14:12.000
my grandfather's favorite thing to do in the whole world was to read.

0:14:12.000,0:14:15.000
But he also loved his congregation,

0:14:15.000,0:14:18.000
and you could feel this love in the sermons that he gave

0:14:18.000,0:14:22.000
every week for the 62 years that he was a rabbi.

0:14:22.000,0:14:25.000
He would takes the fruits of each week's reading

0:14:25.000,0:14:28.000
and he would weave these intricate tapestries of ancient and humanist thought.

0:14:28.000,0:14:30.000
And people would come from all over

0:14:30.000,0:14:32.000
to hear him speak.

0:14:32.000,0:14:35.000
But here's the thing about my grandfather.

0:14:35.000,0:14:37.000
Underneath this ceremonial role,

0:14:37.000,0:14:40.000
he was really modest and really introverted --

0:14:40.000,0:14:43.000
so much so that when he delivered these sermons,

0:14:43.000,0:14:45.000
he had trouble making eye contact

0:14:45.000,0:14:47.000
with the very same congregation

0:14:47.000,0:14:49.000
that he had been speaking to for 62 years.

0:14:49.000,0:14:51.000
And even away from the podium,

0:14:51.000,0:14:53.000
when you called him to say hello,

0:14:53.000,0:14:55.000
he would often end the conversation prematurely

0:14:55.000,0:14:59.000
for fear that he was taking up too much of your time.

0:14:59.000,0:15:02.000
But when he died at the age of 94,

0:15:02.000,0:15:05.000
the police had to close down the streets of his neighborhood

0:15:05.000,0:15:07.000
to accommodate the crowd of people

0:15:07.000,0:15:10.000
who came out to mourn him.

0:15:11.000,0:15:14.000
And so these days I try to learn from my grandfather's example

0:15:14.000,0:15:16.000
in my own way.

0:15:16.000,0:15:19.000
So I just published a book about introversion,

0:15:19.000,0:15:21.000
and it took me about seven years to write.

0:15:21.000,0:15:24.000
And for me, that seven years was like total bliss,

0:15:24.000,0:15:27.000
because I was reading, I was writing,

0:15:27.000,0:15:29.000
I was thinking, I was researching.

0:15:29.000,0:15:31.000
It was my version

0:15:31.000,0:15:34.000
of my grandfather's hours of the day alone in his library.

0:15:34.000,0:15:37.000
But now all of a sudden my job is very different,

0:15:37.000,0:15:40.000
and my job is to be out here talking about it,

0:15:40.000,0:15:43.000
talking about introversion.

0:15:43.000,0:15:47.000
(Laughter)

0:15:47.000,0:15:49.000
And that's a lot harder for me,

0:15:49.000,0:15:51.000
because as honored as I am

0:15:51.000,0:15:53.000
to be here with all of you right now,

0:15:53.000,0:15:56.000
this is not my natural milieu.

0:15:56.000,0:15:58.000
So I prepared for moments like these

0:15:58.000,0:16:00.000
as best I could.

0:16:00.000,0:16:02.000
I spent the last year practicing public speaking

0:16:02.000,0:16:04.000
every chance I could get.

0:16:04.000,0:16:07.000
And I call this my "year of speaking dangerously."

0:16:07.000,0:16:09.000
(Laughter)

0:16:09.000,0:16:11.000
And that actually helped a lot.

0:16:11.000,0:16:13.000
But I'll tell you, what helps even more

0:16:13.000,0:16:16.000
is my sense, my belief, my hope

0:16:16.000,0:16:18.000
that when it comes to our attitudes

0:16:18.000,0:16:20.000
to introversion and to quiet and to solitude,

0:16:20.000,0:16:22.000
we truly are poised on the brink on dramatic change.

0:16:22.000,0:16:24.000
I mean, we are.

0:16:24.000,0:16:26.000
And so I am going to leave you now

0:16:26.000,0:16:28.000
with three calls for action

0:16:28.000,0:16:30.000
for those who share this vision.

0:16:30.000,0:16:32.000
Number one:

0:16:32.000,0:16:34.000
Stop the madness for constant group work.

0:16:34.000,0:16:36.000
Just stop it.

0:16:36.000,0:16:39.000
(Laughter)

0:16:39.000,0:16:41.000
Thank you.

0:16:41.000,0:16:43.000
(Applause)

0:16:43.000,0:16:45.000
And I want to be clear about what I'm saying,

0:16:45.000,0:16:47.000
because I deeply believe our offices

0:16:47.000,0:16:49.000
should be encouraging

0:16:49.000,0:16:51.000
casual, chatty cafe-style types of interactions --

0:16:51.000,0:16:53.000
you know, the kind where people come together

0:16:53.000,0:16:55.000
and serendipitously have an exchange of ideas.

0:16:55.000,0:16:57.000
That is great.

0:16:57.000,0:16:59.000
It's great for introverts and it's great for extroverts.

0:16:59.000,0:17:01.000
But we need much more privacy and much more freedom

0:17:01.000,0:17:03.000
and much more autonomy at work.

0:17:03.000,0:17:05.000
School, same thing.

0:17:05.000,0:17:08.000
We need to be teaching kids to work together, for sure,

0:17:08.000,0:17:10.000
but we also need to be teaching them how to work on their own.

0:17:10.000,0:17:13.000
This is especially important for extroverted children too.

0:17:13.000,0:17:15.000
They need to work on their own

0:17:15.000,0:17:17.000
because that is where deep thought comes from in part.

0:17:17.000,0:17:20.000
Okay, number two: Go to the wilderness.

0:17:20.000,0:17:23.000
Be like Buddha, have your own revelations.

0:17:23.000,0:17:25.000
I'm not saying

0:17:25.000,0:17:28.000
that we all have to now go off and build our own cabins in the woods

0:17:28.000,0:17:31.000
and never talk to each other again,

0:17:31.000,0:17:33.000
but I am saying that we could all stand to unplug

0:17:33.000,0:17:35.000
and get inside our own heads

0:17:35.000,0:17:38.000
a little more often.

0:17:39.000,0:17:42.000
Number three:

0:17:42.000,0:17:44.000
Take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase

0:17:44.000,0:17:46.000
and why you put it there.

0:17:46.000,0:17:48.000
So extroverts,

0:17:48.000,0:17:50.000
maybe your suitcases are also full of books.

0:17:50.000,0:17:52.000
Or maybe they're full of champagne glasses

0:17:52.000,0:17:55.000
or skydiving equipment.

0:17:55.000,0:17:59.000
Whatever it is, I hope you take these things out every chance you get

0:17:59.000,0:18:02.000
and grace us with your energy and your joy.

0:18:02.000,0:18:05.000
But introverts, you being you,

0:18:05.000,0:18:07.000
you probably have the impulse to guard very carefully

0:18:07.000,0:18:09.000
what's inside your own suitcase.

0:18:09.000,0:18:11.000
And that's okay.

0:18:11.000,0:18:13.000
But occasionally, just occasionally,

0:18:13.000,0:18:16.000
I hope you will open up your suitcases for other people to see,

0:18:16.000,0:18:19.000
because the world needs you and it needs the things you carry.

0:18:21.000,0:18:23.000
So I wish you the best of all possible journeys

0:18:23.000,0:18:26.000
and the courage to speak softly.

0:18:26.000,0:18:28.000
Thank you very much.

0:18:28.000,0:18:32.000
(Applause)

0:18:32.000,0:18:35.000
Thank you. Thank you.

0:18:35.000,0:18:42.000
(Applause)