WEBVTT

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When I was nine years old,

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I went off to summer camp
for the first time.

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And my mother packed me a suitcase
full of books,

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which to me seemed like
a perfectly natural thing to do.

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Because in my family,
reading was the primary group activity.

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And this might sound antisocial to you,

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but for us it was really just
a different way of being social.

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You have the animal warmth of your family
sitting right next to you,

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but you are also free to go
roaming around the adventureland

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inside your own mind.

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And I had this idea

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that camp was going to be
just like this, but better.

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(Laughter)

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I had a vision of 10 girls
sitting in a cabin

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cozily reading books
in their matching nightgowns.

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(Laughter)

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Camp was more like a keg party
without any alcohol.

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And on the very first day,

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our counselor gathered us all together

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and she taught us a cheer
that she said we would be doing

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every day for the rest of the summer
to instill camp spirit.

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And it went like this:

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"R-O-W-D-I-E,

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that's the way we spell rowdie.

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Rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie."

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(Laughter)

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Yeah.

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So I couldn't figure out
for the life of me

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why we were supposed to be so rowdy,

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or why we had to spell
this word incorrectly.

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(Laughter)

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But I recited a cheer. I recited
a cheer along with everybody else.

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I did my best.

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And I just waited for the time
that I could go off and read my books.

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But the first time that I took
my book out of my suitcase,

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the coolest girl in the bunk came up to me

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and she asked me, "Why
are you being so mellow?" --

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mellow, of course,
being the exact opposite

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of R-O-W-D-I-E.

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And then the second time I tried it,

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the counselor came up to me
with a concerned expression on her face

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and she repeated the point
about camp spirit

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and said we should all work very hard
to be outgoing.

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And so I put my books away,

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back in their suitcase,

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and I put them under my bed,

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and there they stayed
for the rest of the summer.

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And I felt kind of guilty about this.

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I felt as if the books needed me somehow,

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and they were calling out to me
and I was forsaking them.

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But I did forsake them
and I didn't open that suitcase again

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until I was back home with my family
at the end of the summer.

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Now, I tell you this story
about summer camp.

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I could have told you
50 others just like it --

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all the times that I got the message

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that somehow my quiet
and introverted style of being

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was not necessarily the right way to go,

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that I should be trying to pass
as more of an extrovert.

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And I always sensed deep down
that this was wrong

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and that introverts were
pretty excellent just as they were.

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But for years I denied this intuition,

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and so I became a Wall Street
lawyer, of all things,

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instead of the writer
that I had always longed to be --

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partly because I needed to prove to myself
that I could be bold and assertive too.

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And I was always going off to crowded bars

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when I really would have preferred
to just have a nice dinner with friends.

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And I made these
self-negating choices so reflexively,

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that I wasn't even aware
that I was making them.

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Now this is what many introverts do,

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and it's our loss for sure,

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but it is also our colleagues' loss

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and our communities' loss.

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And at the risk of sounding grandiose,
it is the world's loss.

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Because when it comes
to creativity and to leadership,

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we need introverts doing
what they do best.

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A third to a half of the population
are introverts --

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a third to a half.

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So that's one out of every two
or three people you know.

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So even if you're an extrovert yourself,

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I'm talking about your coworkers

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and your spouses and your children

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and the person sitting
next to you right now --

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all of them subject to this bias

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that is pretty deep
and real in our society.

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We all internalize it
from a very early age

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without even having a language
for what we're doing.

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Now, to see the bias clearly,

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you need to understand
what introversion is.

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It's different from being shy.

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Shyness is about fear of social judgment.

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Introversion is more about,

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how do you respond to stimulation,

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including social stimulation.

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So extroverts really crave
large amounts of stimulation,

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whereas introverts feel
at their most alive

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and their most switched-on
and their most capable

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when they're in quieter,
more low-key environments.

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Not all the time --
these things aren't absolute --

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but a lot of the time.

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So the key then to maximizing our talents

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is for us all to put ourselves

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in the zone of stimulation
that is right for us.

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But now here's where the bias comes in.

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Our most important institutions,

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our schools and our workplaces,

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they are designed mostly for extroverts

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and for extroverts' need
for lots of stimulation.

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And also we have
this belief system right now

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that I call the new groupthink,

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which holds that all creativity
and all productivity

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comes from a very oddly gregarious place.

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So if you picture the typical
classroom nowadays:

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When I was going to school,
we sat in rows.

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We sat in rows of desks like this,

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and we did most of our work
pretty autonomously.

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But nowadays, your typical classroom
has pods of desks --

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four or five or six or seven kids
all facing each other.

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And kids are working
in countless group assignments.

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Even in subjects like math
and creative writing,

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which you think would depend
on solo flights of thought,

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kids are now expected to act
as committee members.

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And for the kids who prefer to go off
by themselves or just to work alone,

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those kids are seen as outliers often

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or, worse, as problem cases.

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And the vast majority of teachers

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reports believing that
the ideal student is an extrovert

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as opposed to an introvert,

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even though introverts
actually get better grades

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and are more knowledgeable,

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according to research.

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(Laughter)

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Okay, same thing is true
in our workplaces.

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Now, most of us work in open plan offices,

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without walls,

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where we are subject to the constant
noise and gaze of our coworkers.

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And when it comes to leadership,

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introverts are routinely passed over
for leadership positions,

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even though introverts
tend to be very careful,

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much less likely to take outsize risks --

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which is something
we might all favor nowadays.

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And interesting research
by Adam Grant at the Wharton School

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has found that introverted leaders

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often deliver better outcomes
than extroverts do,

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because when they are managing
proactive employees,

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they're much more likely to let
those employees run with their ideas,

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whereas an extrovert
can, quite unwittingly,

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get so excited about things

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that they're putting
their own stamp on things,

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and other people's ideas might not
as easily then bubble up to the surface.

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Now in fact, some of our transformative
leaders in history have been introverts.

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I'll give you some examples.

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Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi --

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all these people described themselves
as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy.

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And they all took the spotlight,

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even though every bone in their bodies
was telling them not to.

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And this turns out to have
a special power all its own,

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because people could feel
that these leaders were at the helm

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not because they enjoyed directing others

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and not out of the pleasure
of being looked at;

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they were there
because they had no choice,

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because they were driven to do
what they thought was right.

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Now I think at this point
it's important for me to say

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that I actually love extroverts.

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I always like to say some of my best
friends are extroverts,

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including my beloved husband.

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And we all fall
at different points, of course,

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along the introvert/extrovert spectrum.

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Even Carl Jung, the psychologist
who first popularized these terms,

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said that there's no such thing
as a pure introvert

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or a pure extrovert.

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He said that such a man
would be in a lunatic asylum,

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if he existed at all.

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And some people fall smack in the middle
of the introvert/extrovert spectrum,

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and we call these people ambiverts.

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And I often think that they have
the best of all worlds.

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But many of us do recognize
ourselves as one type or the other.

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And what I'm saying is that culturally,
we need a much better balance.

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We need more of a yin and yang
between these two types.

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This is especially important

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when it comes to creativity
and to productivity,

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because when psychologists look
at the lives of the most creative people,

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what they find

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are people who are very good
at exchanging ideas

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and advancing ideas,

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but who also have a serious
streak of introversion in them.

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And this is because solitude

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is a crucial ingredient
often to creativity.

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So Darwin,

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he took long walks alone in the woods

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and emphatically turned down
dinner-party invitations.

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Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss,

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he dreamed up many
of his amazing creations

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in a lonely bell tower office that he had

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in the back of his house
in La Jolla, California.

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And he was actually afraid to meet
the young children who read his books

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for fear that they were expecting him
this kind of jolly Santa Claus-like figure

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and would be disappointed
with his more reserved persona.

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Steve Wozniak invented
the first Apple computer

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sitting alone in his cubicle
in Hewlett-Packard

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where he was working at the time.

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And he says that he never would have
become such an expert in the first place

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had he not been too introverted
to leave the house

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when he was growing up.

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Now, of course,

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this does not mean that we should
all stop collaborating --

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and case in point, is Steve Wozniak
famously coming together with Steve Jobs

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to start Apple Computer --

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but it does mean that solitude matters

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and that for some people
it is the air that they breathe.

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And in fact, we have known for centuries
about the transcendent power of solitude.

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It's only recently that
we've strangely begun to forget it.

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If you look at most
of the world's major religions,

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you will find seekers --

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Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad --

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seekers who are going off by themselves
alone to the wilderness,

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where they then have profound
epiphanies and revelations

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that they then bring back
to the rest of the community.

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So, no wilderness, no revelations.

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This is no surprise, though,

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if you look at the insights
of contemporary psychology.

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It turns out that we can't
even be in a group of people

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without instinctively mirroring,
mimicking their opinions.

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Even about seemingly
personal and visceral things

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like who you're attracted to,

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you will start aping the beliefs
of the people around you

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without even realizing
that that's what you're doing.

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And groups famously follow the opinions

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of the most dominant
or charismatic person in the room,

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even though there's zero correlation

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between being the best talker
and having the best ideas --

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I mean zero.

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So --

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(Laughter)

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You might be following the person
with the best ideas,

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but you might not.

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And do you really want
to leave it up to chance?

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Much better for everybody
to go off by themselves,

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generate their own ideas

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freed from the distortions
of group dynamics,

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and then come together as a team

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to talk them through
in a well-managed environment

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and take it from there.

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Now if all this is true,

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then why are we getting it so wrong?

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Why are we setting up our schools
this way, and our workplaces?

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And why are we making
these introverts feel so guilty

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about wanting to just go off
by themselves some of the time?

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One answer lies deep
in our cultural history.

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Western societies,

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and in particular the U.S.,

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have always favored the man of action
over the "man" of contemplation.

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But in America's early days,

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we lived in what historians
call a culture of character,

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where we still,
at that point, valued people

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for their inner selves
and their moral rectitude.

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And if you look at the self-help
books from this era,

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they all had titles with things like

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"Character, the Grandest
Thing in the World."

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And they featured role models
like Abraham Lincoln,

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who was praised for being
modest and unassuming.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson called him

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"A man who does not
offend by superiority."

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:49.976
But then we hit the 20th century,

00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:51.976
and we entered a new culture

00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:54.263
that historians call
the culture of personality.

00:11:54.287 --> 00:11:56.963
What happened is we had evolved
an agricultural economy

00:11:56.987 --> 00:11:58.376
to a world of big business.

00:11:58.400 --> 00:12:01.976
And so suddenly people are moving
from small towns to the cities.

00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:05.311
And instead of working alongside people
they've known all their lives,

00:12:05.335 --> 00:12:08.976
now they are having to prove themselves
in a crowd of strangers.

00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:10.976
So, quite understandably,

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:14.976
qualities like magnetism and charisma
suddenly come to seem really important.

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.191
And sure enough, the self-help books
change to meet these new needs

00:12:18.215 --> 00:12:19.976
and they start to have names

00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.216
like "How to Win Friends
and Influence People."

00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:26.976
And they feature as their role models
really great salesmen.

00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:29.000
So that's the world we're living in today.

00:12:29.024 --> 00:12:32.976
That's our cultural inheritance.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.976
Now none of this is to say
that social skills are unimportant,

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:42.976
and I'm also not calling
for the abolishing of teamwork at all.

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The same religions who send their sages
off to lonely mountain tops

00:12:46.215 --> 00:12:48.976
also teach us love and trust.

00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:50.976
And the problems that we are facing today

00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:52.976
in fields like science and in economics

00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:54.976
are so vast and so complex

00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.776
that we are going to need armies
of people coming together

00:12:57.800 --> 00:12:59.376
to solve them working together.

00:12:59.400 --> 00:13:03.176
But I am saying that the more freedom
that we give introverts to be themselves,

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the more likely that they are

00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:07.700
to come up with their own unique
solutions to these problems.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:14.000
So now I'd like to share with you
what's in my suitcase today.

00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:19.976
Guess what?

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Books.

00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:23.976
I have a suitcase full of books.

00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:25.976
Here's Margaret Atwood, "Cat's Eye."

00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.976
Here's a novel by Milan Kundera.

00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:33.976
And here's "The Guide for the Perplexed"
by Maimonides.

00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:36.976
But these are not exactly my books.

00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:38.976
I brought these books with me

00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:42.976
because they were written
by my grandfather's favorite authors.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:44.976
My grandfather was a rabbi

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:46.976
and he was a widower

00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.976
who lived alone in a small
apartment in Brooklyn

00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.976
that was my favorite place
in the world when I was growing up,

00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.429
partly because it was filled with
his very gentle, very courtly presence

00:13:56.453 --> 00:13:58.976
and partly because
it was filled with books.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:01.976
I mean literally every table,
every chair in this apartment

00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:03.976
had yielded its original function

00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.976
to now serve as a surface
for swaying stacks of books.

00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:08.976
Just like the rest of my family,

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.286
my grandfather's favorite thing to do
in the whole world was to read.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:12.310 --> 00:14:14.976
But he also loved his congregation,

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:17.976
and you could feel this love
in the sermons that he gave

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:21.976
every week for the 62 years
that he was a rabbi.

00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.976
He would takes the fruits
of each week's reading

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:26.312
and he would weave

00:14:26.336 --> 00:14:29.177
these intricate tapestries
of ancient and humanist thought.

00:14:29.201 --> 00:14:31.839
And people would come from all over
to hear him speak.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:32.703 --> 00:14:34.976
But here's the thing about my grandfather.

00:14:36.067 --> 00:14:37.676
Underneath this ceremonial role,

00:14:37.700 --> 00:14:39.976
he was really modest
and really introverted --

00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:42.976
so much so that when
he delivered these sermons,

00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:44.976
he had trouble making eye contact

00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.000
with the very same congregation
that he had been speaking to for 62 years.

00:14:49.024 --> 00:14:50.976
And even away from the podium,

00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:52.976
when you called him to say hello,

00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.239
he would often end
the conversation prematurely

00:14:55.263 --> 00:14:58.976
for fear that he was taking up
too much of your time.

00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:01.976
But when he died at the age of 94,

00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:04.976
the police had to close down
the streets of his neighborhood

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:08.910
to accommodate the crowd of people
who came out to mourn him.

00:15:11.846 --> 00:15:14.876
And so these days I try to learn
from my grandfather's example

00:15:14.900 --> 00:15:16.276
in my own way.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:16.300 --> 00:15:18.976
So I just published a book
about introversion,

00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:21.000
and it took me about seven years to write.

00:15:21.024 --> 00:15:23.976
And for me, that seven years
was like total bliss,

00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:26.976
because I was reading, I was writing,

00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:28.976
I was thinking, I was researching.

00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:30.976
It was my version

00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:33.976
of my grandfather's hours
of the day alone in his library.

00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:36.976
But now all of a sudden
my job is very different,

00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:39.976
and my job is to be
out here talking about it,

00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.976
talking about introversion.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.976
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:48.976
And that's a lot harder for me,

00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:52.976
because as honored as I am
to be here with all of you right now,

00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:55.976
this is not my natural milieu.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:59.976
So I prepared for moments
like these as best I could.

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.286
I spent the last year
practicing public speaking

00:16:02.310 --> 00:16:03.976
every chance I could get.

00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:06.976
And I call this my "year
of speaking dangerously."

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:08.976
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:10.976
And that actually helped a lot.

00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:12.976
But I'll tell you, what helps even more

00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:17.976
is my sense, my belief, my hope
that when it comes to our attitudes

00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:20.120
to introversion and to quiet
and to solitude,

00:16:20.144 --> 00:16:22.621
we truly are poised on the brink
on dramatic change.

00:16:22.645 --> 00:16:23.976
I mean, we are.

00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:25.976
And so I am going to leave you now

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.976
with three calls for action
for those who share this vision.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:31.976
Number one:

00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:33.976
Stop the madness for constant group work.

00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:35.976
Just stop it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:38.976
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:40.976
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:42.976
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.143
And I want to be clear
about what I'm saying,

00:16:45.167 --> 00:16:46.976
because I deeply believe our offices

00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:50.976
should be encouraging casual, chatty
cafe-style types of interactions --

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.120
you know, the kind
where people come together

00:16:53.144 --> 00:16:55.335
and serendipitously have
an exchange of ideas.

00:16:55.359 --> 00:16:56.976
That is great.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:16:59.676
It's great for introverts
and it's great for extroverts.

00:16:59.700 --> 00:17:02.129
But we need much more privacy
and much more freedom

00:17:02.153 --> 00:17:03.676
and much more autonomy at work.

00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:04.976
School, same thing.

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:07.976
We need to be teaching kids
to work together, for sure,

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.976
but we also need to be teaching them
how to work on their own.

00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:13.776
This is especially important
for extroverted children too.

00:17:13.800 --> 00:17:15.276
They need to work on their own

00:17:15.300 --> 00:17:17.872
because that is where deep thought
comes from in part.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:17.896 --> 00:17:19.976
Okay, number two: Go to the wilderness.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:22.976
Be like Buddha, have your own revelations.

00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:24.976
I'm not saying

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:28.239
that we all have to now go off and build
our own cabins in the woods

00:17:28.263 --> 00:17:30.976
and never talk to each other again,

00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.334
but I am saying that we could
all stand to unplug

00:17:33.358 --> 00:17:38.000
and get inside our own heads
a little more often.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:41.976
Number three:

00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.429
Take a good look
at what's inside your own suitcase

00:17:44.453 --> 00:17:45.976
and why you put it there.

00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:47.976
So extroverts,

00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.073
maybe your suitcases
are also full of books.

00:17:50.097 --> 00:17:54.976
Or maybe they're full of champagne glasses
or skydiving equipment.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:58.976
Whatever it is, I hope you take
these things out every chance you get

00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.976
and grace us with your energy
and your joy.

00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.976
But introverts, you being you,

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:07.554
you probably have the impulse
to guard very carefully

00:18:07.578 --> 00:18:09.454
what's inside your own suitcase.

00:18:09.478 --> 00:18:10.976
And that's okay.

00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:12.976
But occasionally, just occasionally,

00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:16.000
I hope you will open up your suitcases
for other people to see,

00:18:16.024 --> 00:18:19.024
because the world needs you and it
needs the things you carry.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.239
So I wish you the best
of all possible journeys

00:18:23.263 --> 00:18:25.976
and the courage to speak softly.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:27.976
Thank you very much.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:31.976
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.976
Thank you. Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:42.000
(Applause)