[Rerun] Susan Cain on The Quiet Revolution: Unlocking the Power of Introverts

human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Just a quick note that today's episode is going to be a rerun the next season of the Psychology Podcast we'll begin later this year. I haven't taken any break in five years of doing this podcast, so I thought it was about time to take a step back and think about how it can make this a better experience for you all. Until then, enjoy these episodes from our archives.

Today we have Susan Kin on the show. Susan is a writer, public speaker, an author of the book Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. Most recently, Susan launched the Quiet Revolution, an online initiative to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of us all. Thank you Susan for agreeing to be on the show today. Absolutely, it is a pleasure to be here. I'm like, so gooddy to talk to you. I can't

stant it. Everybody loves Scott Barry Kapman, and so it's so much fun for me to be here with you. I think you are collecting so many fans and admirers as you go through the world than I deserved. Thank you so much. I think, like my in my twenties, I was like deeply insecure. And the more I just uh just embraced my ond baldness, the more friends I accumulate. So I realized is actually a good thing to just

like own it. Well, you know, it's a funny thing because I've signed you know, because the subject matter that I tend to focus on has to do kind of inherently with vulnerability. I have found other people now tell me about the things that feel vulnerable for them, And people invariably tell me that the more they start opening up with others about their vulnerability like that, that's when

they really connect with people. Like I think of Douglas Conant, who was the CEO of Campbell's Soup, you know, and he's a very petrician like figure. He reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie It's a Wonderful Life. But Doug is very shy and introverted, and he says that when he first started telling people about that in himself, that that was when he had more influence than any

than at any other time in his career. So it doesn't surprise me to hear that when you started talking about new feeling and talking about your insecurities or feeling like an odd velvet, that would be when you actually had locked all your powers. Yeah. I really like that you told that story because I have noticed that personally that I give talks and the part where I tell my personal story tends to be like what people remember, like don't remember the science, you know, but they talked

to me about the personal story. It actually makes me wonder what's the point of doing science. I was just telling all my personal stories and retired point. I told these like wraps and correlations, and people like, yeah about

the story. I totally understand that. You know, it's funny because I remember now like I was planning, I was preparing for my TED talk and they give you eighteen minutes, and like eighteen minutes and you shouldn't go over but even thirty seconds, although I did, but like, you know, so you feel like those minutes are so precious, and so at first I wrote this whole thing that was all packed with like statistics and correlations, and and then and I realized I had to throw three quarters of

it out the window because people want to hear stories. It's just like what you say. So the question is how can we make stories ring true in a generalizable way, because that's what science is, right. I don't believe that stories are you know, there's some scientists, so my colleagues really don't like stories. They think it's not genuine. But it is certainly genuine for the individual, right, I mean, it's a very live, real experience for that person that

we shouldn't take away from that person. And yet some stories captivate so many people that I believe they are revealing some generalizable truths. So stories can lead us too.

I think can can certainly inform the science absolutely. I mean, this is such an interesting question actually really because I can understand why scientists feel that way, because the story is basically it's like an end of one, and it's the really compelling end of one so you could see how it could be used to bamboos a little bit. But on the other hand, to like try to say that all human experience should be distilled down to the abstractions that you get through a scientific process, it feels

like that does not lead to truth at all. You know that there's a reason humans have been telling stories for all these centuries, so it's very complicated. What do you think doesn't lead to truth at all? I think they're trying to distill everything down to the scientific process and leaving the stories out of it does not lead to truth. It's leaving out like all the blood and

guts and the human experience. I like that, But you know, I, aside from the kind of scientific ones with stories, do you feel when you tell them, let's say, on stage or somewhere that it always feels self centered to me? It feels like I shouldn't be taking the audience's time to listen to like something that happened to me at summer camp thirty years ago, you know, And yet that's what they wanted to hear. But that I always have

trouble truly believing it. So I when I when I first started telling my personal story, I was very nervous, very very nervous. I if it did feel very I

did feel very it did feel very vulnerable. And I also felt as though the arc of my story kind of starts, you know, I was in special education, that I thought, and then it kind of ends in a triumph and I'm like, this is the most narcissistic, Like people like, how are people not going to hear this story and say, Scott, you are such a narcissist, Like, like, the whole point of the story is how you triumphed and you've got a PhD from Yale Well, and that

certainly wasn't the motivation of telling this story. But in my head, I was like, how this is, like, how can I do this in a way? There it is? How could it possibly not be perceived that way? And shockingly, no, not one person, Yeah, out of thousands of you know, people, of people I've given talks to the past a year and a half has made a vert overtly maybe they're thinking it, I think, so I've heard your story, you know what, Okay, you know what I mean? You know

what I mean. No, It's like I'm expecting it, but they didn't happen. No, I know its exactly exactly what you mean, And I mean it's interesting hearing it through from your point of view because I can tell you, as the person who you listen to that story, the idea of narcissism or something like that never enters the mind. And I think the reason is that I think humans are really good at reading each other's motive true motivations.

I agree. So if your true motivation is not narcissistic, but for some other purpose, I think people know it, you know, like I think we're all reading the codes without even knowing what it is we're picking up on, and it's so clear that that's not your motivation. So interesting. Wow. So so there's a kind of like a key message there of like like you should like people should have confidence to be vulnerable and know that as long as it's coming from like the right intentions, like they should

be confident and about it. Maybe that was like kind of a message there, like kind of like own the truth, like you know, it's the truth. You know, it's you know, can help and empower a lot of people. You should you should go for it. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think it's kind of true across everything, Like I think whatever you're truly thinking and feeling to self known one way or another, there's almost nothing you can do about it.

So very cool. Yeah, you know, if you're feeling vulnerable, you might as well say it because everyone's going to know it anyway. For example, and usually like whatever's making you vulnerable, probably the flip side of it is also your greatest strength. Like this is something I really believe right that for most people, you know, our greatest strengths are also our greatest weakness and vice versa. So you might as well just own it. And so you've owned

being an introvert? Is this something that like like when did you like first come out of the closet? Like how old were you like when you first when did you first realized that you were different from extroverts? I guess it depends on what you mean by that, because I obviously didn't have a language for this until I was an adult, you know, Like I think I first got the language for all these things when I came

across the book. This is when I was a corporate lawyer and I was probably like thirty or something at the time, and I came across a book called do what You Are which helps you figure out you're Meyers Briggs type and then decide what career you should have based on that type. And that was the first thing I'd ever heard of Myers Briggs or really the idea of personality typology. Fascinated by it, and that was when I first really started thinking about being an introgirt and

what did it mean. But I mean, on some level, though, I've been thinking about this since I was four years old, for sure. You know, I just remember being in camp, like in summer camp years old, and like everybody had to gather around and sing that song and if you're happy and your hands, Like I was a mystified How could anybody possibly think that that experience would make us

happy feeling? It's so funny. I just lived in my own head, like my own imaginative and like like I was just like running around the circles with a cape on, you know, like just completely like it storytime, because you know, I just didn't like see the point of social and my parents say that, you know, like I never saw the point of like cops, Like I was went cops and robbers on the street or this and that, and I just never like got it, like I never understood

why that was something i'd want to do right, right, But you know, I think that a lot of childhood is like that for a lot of kids. Yeah, you know, and it expresses differently for each individual kid, right, But in childhood in particular, everything is presented as all kids should like all of these experiences when And it's funny because as adults, I think we're a lot better at knowing that there's a variety of human experience, and the

children we forget it. So, you know, with kids, we say, well, every kid would want to have, you know, their entire class over to the birthday party, and every kid wants to play cops and Albert Harvey boy does Maybe people think and it's not true, you know. I remember I can't believe I'm like, I just I'm telling I'm gonna start telling you things in are TONI I want this is what you bring out of people, because you know, you're very You're very genuine. I remember I overtly made

a decision. I was about twenty four or twenty five. I was in England on a master's degree, and I remember remember making a decision that I was going to see what it felt like to be an extrovert. I've never told one this before. I made like a like up to that point, I really hadn't been much work, but I was like, I wonder what be like to

like be like the social life of this college. I was at King's College in Cambridge for my master's degree, and that year I became in this two thousand and five, I became the guy everyone went to be find out what's the party tonight? What's the party? And I realized figure out that I could actually play that role. I could. I was like, you know what, I can do this. It didn't feel natural whatsoever, but I was like just intellectually curious whether or not I could be that guy. Yeah,

And I realized I could be that guy. But I didn't really enjoy it. And it just made me like think about like, you know, like maybe like introverses not necessarily like you have bad social skills. I think it's a huge misconception, right, It's not it's not even that you do that you like talking to people. That's also a huge misconception. It's just like it's not it doesn't feel like that's your like nature to it doesn't bring you the most the most intrinsic joy and meaning in life,

to be the center of the party. Yeah, and I I mean, I actually think that phrase the center of the party is really right because like anybody who knows you knows you're one of the warmest, most connected people around. So it's not that you're not social, it's just, you know, you didn't want to be the social director, which is very,

very different, you know. And like I mean, the idea that all the four year old singing happening, you know, Like I mean, during most of those settings, probably ten minutes before we were all corralled to sing that song merrily together, like I had probably been off, you know, playing one on one with a good friend, and that was really fun to me. So I think, I think

that's what ends up happening. I think there's a lot of different ways of expending our social energy and love, and we should just allow people to connect in the way that works for them. I want to ask you about this as a psychologist, about what you just said about you know, so you try to be the life of the party. For that was a year I was a party on I really was a party one feel natural and it sounds like it wasn't really. Here's my question.

You know, there's this research that you hear about often in psychology, finding that even you know, supposedly that even introverts are happier when they are engaging socially. And I think about that research a lot, because I don't know, there's so much to say about that. I think it's sometimes true and it's sometimes not true, and there's so many nuances to what does it really mean to be social?

You know, And it's one thing to say, yes, human beings are happier when they have meaningful connections in their lives, and no one's going to argue with that, and it's another to say, therefore, the conclusion is we should all be gregarious and connecting for as large a portion of our waking hours as possible. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts about that. Yeah, I think it's it's it's

it's tricky territory. It's like the research showing that extroverts on average are our report higher well being, right and happiness in life. You know, I study well being and I teach a course in positive psychology, and I teach

well being as a very multi dimensional construct. It's something that in which positive emotions is not even a necessary condition, and positive emotions being the kind of emotions that tend to be activated more and extroverts on average, and that that is a scientifically solid finding that on average, those who report higher you know, levels of extroversion on self report scille do tend you know, if you measure them throughout the day like beepers randomly and stuff, during the

course of their day life, they will report greater you know, positive emotions such as like joy and excitement. They always excited. Absolutely, Yeah, so that's true. But that's I know, I know, really disputed that one. That that makes me absolutely. But what I find is really interesting is that we've sort of have this idea of happiness in American culture, that that

is that the hedonic view is is happiness. And you know, my teaching my course is that there are like so many different paths to fulfillment, and fulfillment is not the same thing as hedonic happiness. So, you know, you look

at some great case studies. Uh, there's this famous existential philosopher who's uh, I forget which one, which excess existential philosopher in particular, but he was like known in his lifetime to be the most like miserable, like saying like there's no meaning, there's no point, you know, you know all that, and on his deathbed his last words or something like I've lived a good life. And I say, and I use that example my question. Yeah, because full, a full life is a life full of a multitude

of emotions and suffering and heartache. And that's actually what a full life is. You know, the experiment I do, the experiment of my class about if you could have a happy machine where you were fed twenty four hours a day, sevent days a week positive emotions, that would actually be No. No student takes that option. They don't want it and like to be hooked up to that machine. But now the experience it's called the experience machine. Well,

you know, it's funny. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and thinking how interesting it is that in American culture, like the foundational principle is, it's that everyone's entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and not life liberty and the pursuit of meaning. Yeah, yeah, I wonder why we went in that direction. And I mean I do get it, because we all want to be happy, of course, but it gets interpreted in a very narrow way. I often think absolutely happiness is often

equitted with hedonic pleasure. Yeah. And then I also think, I think there's two different sets of positive emotions, you know. So there's the activated ones like jumping for joy and physy excitement, right, and then and then there's the quieter ones like contentment and a sense of peace and just that feeling when you're in a state of flow and your mind is completely engaged, if you're either bored nor anxious, but just totally engaged. Yeah, And there is research showing

all of that gets slashed up together. I think when people talk about happiness, but they're really distinct. It's a really good point. It's a report, really important point. And Luke Smiley and Colin Young have published a paper recently showing that is absolutely the case that extroverts do not show these quiet it is it is specifically those activated emotions. So that's interesting. I didn't know that's to you. I've always that's always been my working hypothesis, but I didn't

know that paper was out there. I will send it to you, and in fact, I hope to do more research on these quiet emotions among introverts with my team of Quietears next year pen that Adam Grant gave me his a list of a list students and who are interested in who are fans of student game? Did I tell you this? Well, you told me that there are the clienteers doing this research and I'm so excited about that. So we have to talk more. We'll talk more about that,

maybe all channel. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah, I think we need hours because there's so many different avenues you guys could be pursuing. Absolutely, Like I have one student in particular, I've had an email, an extensive email thread, but who really wants to catalog all the different quiet emotions and stuff. And then I have other students that

want to look at situational effects. Yeah yeah, yeah. So anyway, there's lots of directions to go and Adam is going to be collaborating with us and all of this, and yeah, I think it'd be really exciting, Like it's lots of lots of questions. I think that, you know, the field could kind of move in new directions to kind of get at this. So I'm absolutely with you on these emotions. And I think a lot of these quiet emotions are

still significant, substantial contributors to well being. So that's why we really need to I really do look at it as like like fulfillment is requires a full life. Fulfillment requires, you know, life while lived is not. Most people don't consider life while lived a life full of only handonic pleasures. You know, you think also that do the philosophical experiment. Like the person who is just sitting on their couch twenty four hours a day sevendays a week of watching Netflix.

They may be getting pleasure from Netflix, but they very rarely will any of them say that I feel like I'm living a fulfilled life. So fulfilledment is taking your powers and and expressing and activating them and making them come to for you know, to flourish, and and that you know doesn't doesn't require you know, these kinds of positive emotions that that we talk about when we talk

about differences between introverts and experts. So that's kind of my long nuanced way of saying that I do think, you know, our society fundamentally needs to think of a broader, multi dimensional construct of of what fulfillment means. Fulfillment really is such an individualized thing. What's fulfillment for one person really isn't fulfillment for another person because there's individual differences, you know, Oh oh yes, a yeah, absolutely absolutely So.

In your book Quiet, you talk about lots of different characteristics, and you do you do say these are characteristics of introverts. Let's talk about some of these adjectives that you use. Reflective, cerebral, bookish, unassuming, sensitive, thoughtful, serious, contemplative, subtle, intro I like subtle, by the way, let's talk about that in a second. Introspective, interdirected, gentle, calm, modest, solitude seeking, shy,

risk averse, and thick skinned. So maybe like probably this says thick skin for some reason, but I wonder, gosh that in my book. I'm sorry, funny, I'm sorry. Let's double check that, and if you're wrong, I'm gonna edit this out. Let me know if you want me to edit out that last. Okay, I'm sorry, but I look at this list. I want to tell you what I see as a scientist. You know, I say to my you know, my muediic gut reaction is, you know, there

are a lot of characteristics. The thing that ties them all together to me is that they all are all like quiet strengths. You know, they're all like they can be strengths, they can be hardest, and there are more on the quiet, you know, quiet side of things. You're they're not they're not as obvious as you know the person who's like like like like assertiveness or narcissism, like, they're not as obvious, and you know, may take quite a bit to to unravel the layers of the onion

and see that. Oh my god, U going on the side here is some amazingly active in our life things like that. But you know, as you know, one of the Christmas would be that these things aren't all introversion per se. Yeah, they're quiet. How do you respond to that kind because you probably get that. You get that all the time of scientists, don't you. Yeah, I mean, I guess there's so many different responses to that. So

one is, and I said this in the book. You know, my point in the book was not so much to do as scientific inquiry, but to talk about a whole constellation of traits that tend to be associated culturally. And and so I think there's a there's a reason that scientists should not be ignoring that the popular conception of what introversion is is completely different from what a Big five the Big five tests would say that it is.

And while I'm fascinated by the scientific process behind getting to the Big five test, I don't think it has that much to say to us culturally. And I'm really interested in what happens to children and they're sitting at school and they're either shy or introverted, which are not necessarily the same thing or their sense. You know, you might have one kid who's quiet because they're more sensitive and another who's quiet because they're more aspergers or whatever

it happens to be. Yes, from a scientific point of view, those things are different, but they're not actually that different when you're talking about what is actually the day to day lived experience in a classroom and what our business is doing or failing to do, to take to make the most of the talents of all these different kinds of people who all kind of do exhibit pretty similar behaviors in terms of the way they're interpreted in our culture.

So I think there's another really important nuance that completely gets lost in the Big five focus on just categorizing and deciding which traits are correlated and which aren't. Which is, you know, if you are a person with a preference for solitude, let's say, if you're a person who's introverted, if you're a person who's shy, if you're a person with any number of these characteristics, all of those characteristics tend to breed people who tend on average to be

let's say, better listeners. And it's not necessarily because they started out as agreeable people who are really interested in listening to others. It might simply be that their preference for being quiet has played out in the social sphere, creates people who are just more comfortable listening than talking, and because of that, they end up cultivating the skill of listening, whereas if you are a person who really likes to talk, you end up cultivating the skill of

the skill of let's say, dominating a room. So all of these traits interact with each other like there's only so many hours in the day. So imagine you have two kids who both really love to read, but one kid wants to be really social and out there with their friends, and the other kid just as a preference to stay home. Now, these traits interact really differently because the more extroverted kid who likes to read is going to be doing less reading simply because they are out

there doing other stuff. And the introverted kids who likes to stay home has lots of time to read. So they take their traits and they take them in completely different directions. So if you imagine somebody who is let's say, introverted and high in openness to experience, and then somebody who's extroverted and high in openness to experience, those are going to be very different types of people. You know, one is going to end up being through giving examples

representative examples. You know, one might end up being an impresario or a conference organizer who loves to bring together people with all different ideas and presie over a great conference, and the other person is comfortable sitting in their proverbial garrett alone, generating paintings. And these are completely different lives. So to just simply say that openness and experience and introversion extroversion completely different traits, end of story, I think

it's ignoring the realities of human experience. And I think that that's why. I think that's why from a cultural point of view, the Big Five doesn't make intuitive sense to people, or it just leads too much out of

the picture, or that's one of many reasons. I also suspect that a lot of the scientific research around introversion and extroversion is muddied by the fact that, you know, you could take somebody who's let's say, just depressed, clinically depressed, and they're probably going to come out they're going to self test as an introvert, whether they really are one in some platonic sense or not, because their depression is making them exhibit behaviors that will end up, you know,

in a Big five self reporting test being an introvert. So that's it's one example. So I think I suspect some of the underlying tests are remedied, but that actually is less interesting to me really than the cultural aspect, which is really what motivated my project from the beginning. I totally get that, and I see, I see your point. You know, this is something I've struggled with in terms of understanding intelligence, is that you have these general correlations

in the general population. They're showing what on average tends to be the case, looking at patterns amongst lots and lots of people. Interestingly enough, in the general population, extraversion is strongly correlated with openness to experience, not introversion. So in the general population, those who tend to be more who report that they're hiring an extra version tend to also be more likely to be the readers believe it or not to be the like be intellectually curious, to

be in or some beauty and experiences just the full range. However, I think what you're your point is, and it's a

very valid point. I think it gets missed out on a lot is that there's great, great intra individual differences, So not just individual differences like comparing one person to another, but within a person, we we have very unique profiles and blends of these different traits that at the end of the day, it almost doesn't matter what the general population you are, who you are, you know, it's not like at the end of the day, like if you're if you're like profile is your like impresario kind of

you know, extroverted, openness to experience blend. You know, at the end of the day, who why do you care what the general trends are? You know, like like this is you you know as an as a person, why do you care what the trends are. At the end of the day, if like, what you care most about

is getting in touch with who you are. Yeah, So, as you know, one of the things we've done is we've started the Quiet Leadership Institute right where we go into companies and we're helping them harness the talents of

the more introverted half of their employee population. And I can tell you in company after company after company that I speak to, and these are like, you know, big name companies that you've heard about, they all tell me like, well, yes, our R and D department is full of introverts, our graphic design department is full of introverts. Our creatives, of course are introverts. Our engineers, they say, of course, like they use the words of course. Our engineers, of course

are introverts. Our accountants, of course are introverts. And so like those are the it's usually the people from those departments or the companies who have heavy concentrations of people in those areas who end up reaching out to us. And there's a reason for that, and it's not explained by the Big Five methodology, but the people living in the world know it to be true. So I don't

know the answered, but I know it's real. So what I want to make sure I understand that point really well, So what what exactly is not explained by the Big five that they're I mean, I guess because I guess what I'm saying. You know, you're saying, well, why would you lump these things together? You know, the list of adjectives that you named at the beginning. I guess what

take a step back. What people are saying is in their creative departments, and there they're engineering departments, which those are departments of people who who have to do deep thinking work, work that's going on inside the brain, you know, work that requires a great deal of deep thinking, cerebral type of processing. In company after company, people are telling

me those departments are filled with introverts. The departments are filled with people who tend to be quiet and reserved and who would test as introverts on the Big five scale. And I think we have to pay attention to that reality and explain it. So what I'm saying is, like I've think a scientific critique would be, well, you know, so there's no such thing as saying that someone who's that the trait of being cerebral is correlated with introversion.

But I'm telling you on the ground it's correlated. Like in real life culture. What would they say, They would say that that you that population are the blend of introverts with cerebral That's that's that's particular population that you've discovered. Is that particular blend of the inter of the genuine introvert with having also high intellectual curiosity and the voraciousness

for cerebral activities. Yeah, no, now that may be. That's what I was saying at the beginning, Like I think, I think we need to be looking much more at the interactions between these kinds of traits we have, you know. So so right, there's a reason like I'm not called in by the conference organizing people to say how can you help our people? Because that those are probably the people who are the blend of you know, extroverts and

open is to experience. Example, There's more going on than just to say, you know, you take an R and D department. It's not just their introverts, their high and openness to experience. There is an interaction between those two traits, and human nature has lived out in those interactions in really profound ways, and that That's why it resonates with people in this way, and that's why like the clinical process of trying to separate it all out, I think it's not satisfying. I hear you. I hear you. I

mean this is why I resonate with you. Yeah, I want to be quiver the way I'm giving you, like stereotypical scientific criticisms, I personally never said that, I don't understand why you want these together, Like I understand why you want these together, Like, I think there's something very poetic about it. That that's that is getting at a deep truth in our in maybe an artistic way, saying that we're all like a system of these characters sticks that are inseparable in how they form the core of

our identity. For the core of form the core of how we experience the world. And I think there is great value to that. So I I mean, I get it, Like, I understand why you're why doing this. You know, I also hear and understand the scientific criticism. You know, that's just like unearthing co variations, you know, among the general population. I do wonder the value of these co variations. I wonder the value of them for intelligence as well. I mean I've had I've had, like I've been in your

shoes making arguments about intelligence. Right, I'm saying that, like, why do we equate intelligence with an IQ test score? Right, You're almost saying, why are we equating interversion with just your score on this big five introversion tests? You know, it's a broader sort of construct, the broader sort of label that encapsulates a lot of things. You know, I've argued, Yeah,

if I said about it, it's it's more complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I guess part of the reason I'm like going on and on about this, I actually think it would be really interesting for the next generation of personality psychology research to do much more with the interactions between these traits and these characteristics than what's been done in the past, where it's more than about trying to separate

them out from each other. No, I agree. And I did a podcast with Luke Smiley, who's a psychologist who teaches positive psychology. His lasting Smiley that's like, oh, that's so predestined, and it's uh, it does feel that way. And I will send you that podcast and we chat about you know this, and these are two scientists chatting about your things, and you know, you will see that a lot of personal psychologsts are very open minded, maybe

maybe more so than you realize. To really taking and listening to your perspective, you really can actually impact you know, like science. Even though you said I'm not a science you're actually I think you can. Someone like you can really have a substantial impact on the science and and the kinds of questions that are asked. And you've already had a deep profound impact on me the questions I've been asking about introversion on our mutual friend Adam Grant.

I mean a lot of scientists, so I don't underestimate the extent to what you've You can really change that as well. Oh thank you. No, I don't. I don't, And I actually would love to start expanding that dialogue because I think there's so much to be done from these kinds of collaborations. You know, absolutely agree, So I don't want to take much more of your time. With about five more minutes, and I would be so remissive we didn't talk about the quiet revolution. Oh yeah, yeah, congratulations,

he wants a revolution? Oh my god, I never sent out to launch your revolution. Truly I know you didn't I know. I mean you've had to You've been put in kind of an extroverted position, haven't you. I see these videos that you do, I think it was, oh my gosh, like if I should these videos? I mean, it's amazing. What's what's been like, what's experience been like for you? Almost having to act like much more social too, empower and you know your fellow introverts and make them

feel like it's okay to be them. It's kind of it's the greatest gift in the world, really, and it's funny. I mean, it just kind of ties back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the difference between happiness and meaning, because I'm not an extrovert, and yet I'm in a really extroverted rule right now, and so that means that I do a lot of things on a day to day basis that don't bring me like happiness on a day to day level in the

way that book writing brought me happiness. Like you know, during those years when I was writing my book and no one knew who I was, and during those years, I didn't even need a calendar, Like I did not have a date book. I had nothing, and it didn't matter because I didn't have anything to schedule in and like, you know, I just had my family and my book and that was what I was doing, and I was happy,

really really happy. And now I got this crazy calendar that I can't keep track of, and so it's not like on a day to day level, I'm doing all these things that are actually kind of anxiety making some of the time. But you know, like the sense of impact or just like, you know, I get these letters from people and they talk about what it means to them to feel for the first time in their lives

that they have permissioned to be themselves. And you know, letters from parents tell me that like it revolutionize their relationship with their child, and it's like they feel like it saved their child because they they now understand who they are. And I'm speechless, like I don't I don't have words for what that means. But yeah, it's almost likely you go and enter that level, you really can't

go back. I I can deeply resonate with with this in the sense that, you know, there was something so beautiful about the year and a half that I devoted my life to writing this book on gifted and uh in that year hand there's it was so wonderful because I had nothing competing for my attention but that one meaningful project that I wanted to bring to the world. And then you bring it to the world and and you and you're reminded instantly why you sit out to

write it, you know, to begin with. When you get these letters, right, you get people saying like, you know, my son, you know, you've got you understand him, you know, or you know people send you letters. But it does redically, I don't know if that's the right word, but it does change your life. And you know, your email like email, Like I've never had so many emails like yes in my life, and it brings so much stress. I feel

like whackable. I feel like, yeah, I got it down to zero, and then like an hour later, it's like thirty more emails. You're like, no, I know, I know. I never it's a completely assisiveent thing. You can never never get the boulder up the hill completely. No, But

maybe that's just like life. It's going to move forward from here, and like you can't go back to that beautiful year and a half when no one knew who, like no one knew who I was, you know, like no one cared, and then you know, and now they care. So it's kind of like you take that and you say, and you just become grateful for Yeah. Yeah, no, I

mean I feel incredibly grateful for it. But I think, you know, I'm actually thinking about your case, and I think you seem to be You seem to do a really good job of the following thing, which is I imagine a lot of what well, okay, just knowing you, I can imagine that two different things really motivate you. One of them would be helping people and being warm to other people, helpful and kind to them, and another it would be just the pure pursuit of knowledge for

its own sake. And so I think the more mean, the more impact your work has in the world, the easier it is to do the kind of work that helps other people, and the harder it is to have time to do the kind of work that's purely just the pleasure of acquiring knowledge. And you seem to balance that pretty well. Actually I don't know how you do that, but I do feel sometimes that those two goals or desires are you know, they're kind of at odds with each other, just because there's only so many hours in

the day. Completely, And I would also say it's partly due to pressure from publishers to put everything I say and say what's the practical takeaway? I say, you know, I'm so excited by this because I've discovered something. Don't people care about just knowledge for the streak of colge. Don't people get excited by just learning something new? I feel like, you know, we underestimate people's intelligence a lot.

I think that's true. And also just like the people's thirst for new knowledge, just the sheer pleasure of acquiring new knowledge or hearing a new idea for its own sake, for any other sake. Yeah, that's something. One thing that frustrates me is, how ever, you know, if I have an interview and I say, look, I found there, like, oh so what does that mean for a mother of And I'm like, oh my gosh, can I just like

be excited to tell you share something with you? So let's let's end here with you know, what is the purpose of the choir revolution? And you know what, what what message do you have for a lot of you know, for for introverse or for anyone who wants to harness more of these quiet strengths for their own personal fulfillment. Yeah, I mean so, the mission of the Quiet Revolution is to unlock the power of introverts for the benefit of

us all. And the reason we say for the benefit of us all is that, you know, we believe just as it's great for men to have women reach their full potential, we believe it's better for everybody when we have introverts operating at their full potential and feeling happy and using their talents and feeling productive and creative. You know. So we're focused above all on children and people in the workplace because it's just kind of emerged over the years since my book came out that those are the

two areas where our culture needs the most help. So we've started a website, quiet revolution dot com, which is a kind of an online community for people with a quiet consciousness and who are just interested in more information and community around these ideas. And we're in the process also creating a video library of interviews with well known introverts or just people who have interesting stuff to say about this. And you know, you're next on my list

for they're being in the series. Of course, Well, I love and yeah, and then, as I mentioned, with the Quiet Leadership Institute, where we're going into companies and organizations and helping them to harness the power of the quiet half of their population. So you know, we've been working with everybody from Procter and Gamble to NASA to the Dutch military. It's like it's a very broad base of

clients who are interested in this stuff. And it's really exciting, you know, because we have people like we have them take these little surveys before and after our learning experiences and before they come in. You know, sometimes you zero percent of people answering the survey saying that they think

introverts can be good leaders. Yeah, despite all of let's say Adam Brandt's research showing the introverted leaders often to the or better outcomes in a popular imagination, Like, we often get zero percent who think that's true, and then by the time we're done, you know, it's over seventy percent. And then they have the tools to actually start empowering

the up and coming leaders in their organizations. And you know, just imagine what that can do for all of us, right if we start tapping all this potential that right now, but then until now has been passing, so it's really exciting. That is really exciting. And you know, testament, if anyone wants to see just how much your inplosing people lives, go on Susan Kane's Facebook page, where daily you get all these commentators who are just like saying thank you, Susan.

You know, so you're really it's the best thing about that Facebook page. Yeah, if you've noticed this, but like we have almost no trolls on that page. Yeah, so I'm thoughtful, right, It's amazing. Yeah, Like, I you know, I did one post on gay marriage because I had changed my photograph into a though on Facebook, and I hit some followers who are really uncomfortable with that, and so I wrote a post just sharing my thoughts about it,

plaining oh thank you, thank you. So I don't know if you read all the commentary to the post, but I was so struck by it because even the people who really were unhappy with the decision and didn't like it and made it made them feel uncomfortable, they were all expressing their dissension in such a respectful way. And so to me, that's the thing I love about this community.

However it's defined Susan, I just want to thank you so much for being on this podcast and having such an open minded discussion with me about science, about you know, all these issues, and we're just being such a thoughtful, kind, sensitive soul. Thank you. Oh my goshy Scott Barry Cafman read that got you. Thank you. It's always such a

joy to talk to you. And I know we could have done this for five more hours if only it weren't what time is it right now, ten thirty two pm while we're recording this podcast, but that the time flies by, So thank you, thank you. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast

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