Introvert Superpowers After 50: Reinvention & Mindset for Quiet Strength

I'm Beverley Glazer and , if you're new to my world , I provide tools for women to overcome challenges and connect the missing links in both their personal and professional lives , and I want you to know that you have more power than you can ever imagine .

And sometimes life kicks in , and when that happens , it gives us a little bit of a shot , so we tend to forget that . Consider these episodes your weekly reminders . Today , I want you to meet Kimberly Jergen . Kimberly is an introvert empowerment coach with a passion for helping women break free from their limiting behaviors . Welcome , kim . Limiting behaviors .

Welcome , kim Kimberly . Were you always considered an introvert ? Because as soon as anyone talks to you or sees you , you don't look like an introvert at all .

Just sometimes it takes me a little bit of time to recharge my batteries If I just get a little overstimulated , especially if it's an environment that's unfamiliar to me .

I guess negative consequences , like something bad would happen to me if adults found out that there was something wrong . So I created my own strategies so that no one would ever find out what it was . And it wasn't until I got to college and was reading in a biology textbook that there was a word for what I experience every day , and it's dyslexia .

And suddenly it all made sense .

Yes , I was different than a lot of people , but we are all different in a million different ways , and so this just gave a new difference to me . But by putting a name to it , suddenly everything made sense .

And where it was frustrating before and I was constantly having to create strategies so that when I was giving directions I wouldn't say left , when I meant right , I got so many people lost .

Or being an actor on stage with stage left and stage right I was constantly having to have these reminders for myself so that I could say the right thing and I could interpret it correctly when somebody told me to go left or go right , to make sure that I actually went the direction they said rather than the opposite , which is oftentimes what my brain would

tell me to do .

Well , I had loved acting throughout high school and had worked , had taken a course at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center one summer for high school students and it was amazing . And during that time I actually had a teacher who told me not to go to conservatory . She said that I should go to a liberal arts college and major in life .

Now , as a 16 year old , I'm like nod and smile , yeah , whatever . I don't even know what that means , but okay , sure . Nod and smile , yeah , whatever . I don't even know what that means , but okay , sure . But what ended up happening was I went to a liberal arts college .

I floated around through so many different majors because I fell in love with learning when I was in college , and then I ended up majoring in life because I experienced so many things while I was there , got my degree in theater studies and film , because I had never seen acting as a viable career path , because it didn't seem like you could make a living at it

, and my mom was very stressed when she discovered that's what I have decided to do . But I booked my first professional gig while I was still in college continued booking after graduation , so I was able to be a professional actor Pretty much out of the gate once I had made the decision . This is what I'm going to do .

I just I don't think and maybe it's partly because I'm an introvert and so going up to all of those tables just sounds exhausting to me , and because I'm dyslexic . Having to remember all the orders and put them down at the right tables in front of the right people also is a little overwhelming .

I have known myself well enough to know I would fail at that job , and you never had to do it .

How did someone who was introverted start out and say I'm going to go was introverted , start out and say I'm going to go , I'm going to do it alone , I'm going to go to NYC , new York City ? Here I come and actually do that ? How did you get to land jobs in New York City ?

So if I had waited maybe another couple of years , things might have turned out completely differently . But I've always lived in the South and so I was thinking where do I want to go ? Looking at New York and LA . And I'd been to New York a lot .

I had studied in New York , I had even been on stages in New York and I loved the idea of going to New York . My family loved New York , so I thought they're going to visit all the time . This will be great . And then I thought of Los Angeles .

I had never been to Los Angeles , did not know a single person in Los Angeles , had never even been to LAX in a layover . So like I had zero knowledge of Los Angeles .

But because I had always lived in the South , I knew that going through three feet of snow to an audition was probably not something I was going to do so that the weather actually was the reason why I chose Los Angeles over New York City , and so it's the most ridiculous reason on the planet .

But I have to say some of the biggest decisions I have made in my life have been for really off center reasons . The reason that first got me into Atlanta was a little unusual , and then the reason that got me to Los Angeles also was a little bit of a head scratcher too .

. I even had to find roommates on Craigslist Like I didn't even know them , like I didn't even know them .

It's not predominant , obviously , because there's so much film and TV production here in Los Angeles , but I loved getting to know people and it started to feel like home to me and also , coming from the South , I just have a genuinely friendly demeanor when it comes to seeing people on the street , and that was very unusual , I think , for people here .

So I would just start talking to people and they would be so surprised and they would engage in conversation with me and I started making connections just because I was allowing myself to be me , but me without fears or frustrations or the feeling that I'm going to fail .

I knew from the minute I got here I was going to succeed that is amazing because that's mindset . Exactly .

I started doing a lot of improv back when I was in Atlanta , and , as a professional improviser , part of what it taught me to do was to comfortably go up to strangers and have conversations , because I was required to do that , and so it gave me that sense of confidence , and that sometimes is what can make the difference between taking that step , even knowing I

don't know what's going to happen , but going forward anyway , and that made a huge difference for me . But going forward anyway , yeah , and that made a huge difference for me .

Not that it's going to be easy and it's going to be a piece of cake , but the mindset that you go into it with can make all the difference . Because if you say this is going to be hard , there is a part of your brain that has already decided it may not work out .

But if you say this is going to be an exciting challenge , now it's an adventure , and you don't know what's going to happen next . And sure , the outcome might be less awesome than what it could have been , but you have given yourself the opportunity to have a new experience and to learn from that and to grow with that .

Going onto a film set where I don't know anybody and I've never been on the set before , and suddenly I have to interact with another actor that I've never even met , as though I am her parent , that I am her mom and I have known her all of her life , and so suddenly we have to have that bond on camera and I don't know her from Adam's house yet .

So , knowing that , yes , sometimes it's going to be challenging and sometimes it will be absolutely draining times , it will be absolutely draining . But being so excited at the possibilities of the experience that's going to happen for me , that is what keeps me going .

It makes it worth going to that completely foreign environment and doing I don't know what's going to happen .

being able to help others have an experience that is unique to them and gives them the opportunity to live a life that is fuller and richer than they may have experienced before . I started calling myself the radiant introvert .

We were talking about labels and just by saying that and introducing myself to potential clients or at networking events as hi , I'm Kimberly Jergen , the Radiant Introvert . Yes , it may have felt a little clunky in the beginning , but eventually I grew into that because every time I said it I was reminding myself that there are two sides to the coin .

Being an introvert is a superpower , and embracing that and recognizing what are the assets that you have because you are an introvert , that folks who are extroverts or omniverts don't have , that folks who are extroverts or omniverts don't have , and embracing those and letting those become strengths rather than seeing this as something that diminishes my experience of life .

And so in life , recognizing that for myself , that , yes , I could just let my life stay the same as it has always been , but then I won't have any new experiences , then I will always be caught up in the cycle of making the same choices , which , when you're making a choice that is one that hurts you . That's certainly not a place that I want to be .

I don't want to feed that part of myself that is in pain or that part of myself that is afraid to step forward , even if I don't know what's going to happen .

Being curious , exactly what you have now is elegant curiosity . That is your coaching system . Yes , talk about that . What is that ?

For me , that's like one of the most beautifully elegant expressions of an incredibly complicated and powerful result .

And so , with that idea , I decided let's call my system elegant , because it becomes that there are so many ripples , like you throw a rock into water and you get the ripples , and that's what this is , and each one , as you embrace it , it creates so many results that you couldn't have envisioned coming .

It starts by engaging your curiosity , because with that sense of curiosity , you are bringing a feeling of adventure . That's where you are okay with whatever the outcome may be . Then you are listening actively , so that you are present in every single moment when you are having a conversation with yourself , with others , that you are fully present .

And then you embrace vulnerability , and this is where you also become courageous enough to step forward , because being vulnerable is part of that . It's the other side of the coin and if you are okay with being vulnerable , that will give you the courage to take risks and step outside your comfort zone . Then you're generating opportunities .

This is where you are creating more than you could have imagined . Then you assess and you adapt , because if we are not changing then we are becoming that stagnant water and stagnant . If you've ever been to a pond that is stagnant water , it is like icky .

There is that pond scum and all kinds of unpleasant things happening and then you have to be in motion and keep moving and growing . Exactly and by assessing what's happening and then adapting it , makes sure that you are aware of what the choices are that you're making and then shifting if you need to , then nurturing your relationships .

That's your relationships with others , but also your relationship with yourself . I find that so much of the time introverts are unaware of themselves , even that we get disconnected from ourselves , that we start to take so much about ourselves for granted , and that also leads to that cycle of repetitive stagnation .

And then the final step in the elegant system is to transform assumptions , because assumptions are the things that I find prevent us from moving forward again and again , and again .

And this can be your physical sensations Am I hot , am I cold , am I hungry , am I tired ? Am I energized ? What are you physically feeling emotionally ? And then , what are you physically feeling physically , so that you are tuning in to your own thermostat , your own barometer , your own internal clock , your own self .

And if you start with understanding you and how you feel from moment to moment , then you'll start to become aware of tension . And I find that tension is the enemy of creativity , it is the enemy of change of creativity , it is the enemy of change . And tension within yourself is anytime you are not in alignment with your natural flow .

You are being something that somebody else has said you should be , rather than being in flow with your authentic self .

And so the first way that you can start to recognize that is just by checking in with yourself and noticing how you feel , again the sensory feelings , but also the emotional feelings , and the more you do that , the more you're aware of yourself and you're going to start to feel that tension and that's going to help you take those risks as you feel I feel

powerful . Today I'm going to step out . What can I do today that this feeling can fuel ?

also going to be on my site too . That's Reinventedpossiblecom . So what's next for you , my friends ? Are you just going through the motions or are you prepared to transform your own life ? Download From Suck to Unstoppable and find out , and that's also going to be in the show notes below .

You can connect with me , Beverley Glazer , on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook that's Women Over 50 Rock , and you can also schedule a quick Zoom with me personally , should you want to . All those links , once again , are going to be in the show notes below . Have you enjoyed this conversation ? Please join me next week .

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