Susan Cain Quotes & Sayings

If "fast" and "slow" animals had parties, writes the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, "some of the fasts would bore everyone with their loud conversation, while others would mutter into their beer that they don't get any respect. Slow animals are best described as shy, sensitive types. They don't assert themselves, but they are observant and notice things that are invisible to the bullies. They are the writers and artists at the party who have interesting conversations out of earshot of the bullies. They are the inventors who figure out new ways to behave, while the bullies steal their patents by copying their behavior. — Susan Cain

According to Free Trait Theory, we are born and culturally endowed with certain personality traits - introversion, for example - but we can and do act out of character in the service of "core personal projects."
In other words, introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly. Free Trait Theory explains why an introvert might throw his extroverted wife a surprise party or join the PTA at his daughter's school. It explains how it's possible for an extroverted scientist to behave with reserve in her laboratory, for an agreeable person to act hard-nosed during a business negotiation, and for a cantankerous uncle to treat his niece tenderly when he takes her out for ice cream. — Susan Cain

I was the nicest person you'd ever want to know," Alex recalls, "but the world wasn't that way. The problem was that if you were just a nice person, you'd get crushed. I refused to live a life where people could do that stuff to me. — Susan Cain

The orchid hypothesis by David Dobbs in a wonderful article in The Atlantic. This theory holds that many children are like dandelions, able to thrive in just about any environment. But others, including the high-reactive types that Kagan studied, are more like orchids: they wilt easily, but under the right conditions can grow strong and magnificent. — Susan Cain

Extroverts tend to tackle assignments quickly. They make fast (sometimes rash) decisions, and are comfortable multitasking and risk-taking. They enjoy "the thrill of the chase" for rewards like money and status. Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately. They like to focus on one task at a time and can have mighty powers of concentration. They're relatively immune to the lures of wealth and fame. — Susan Cain

The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither E=mc2 nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal. — Susan Cain

Because conflict-avoidant Emily would never "bite" or even hiss unless Greg had done something truly horrible, on some level she processes his bite to mean that she's terribly guilty - of something, anything, who knows what? — Susan Cain

It makes sense that introverts are uniquely good at leading intiative-takers. Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtious circle of proactivity. — Susan Cain

That was what collaboration meant for Steve Woz: the ability to share a donut and a brainwave with his laid-back, nonjudgmental, poorly dressed colleagues - who minded not a whit when he disappeared into his cubicle to get the real work done. — Susan Cain

The most effective teams are composed of a healthy mix of introverts and extroverts, studies show, and so are many leadership structures. — Susan Cain

In other words, introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly. — Susan Cain

I've never given a speech without being terrified first. — Susan Cain

At the Foley Center for the Study of Lives at Northwestern University, McAdams studies the stories that people tell about themselves. We all write our life stories as if we were novelists, McAdams believes, with beginnings, conflicts, turning points, and endings. And the way we characterize our past setbacks profoundly influences how satisfied we are with our current lives. Unhappy people tend to see setbacks as contaminants that ruined an otherwise good thing ("I was never the same again after my wife left me"), while generative adults see them as blessings in disguise ("The divorce was the most painful thing that ever happened to me, but I'm so much happier with my new wife"). Those who live the most fully realized lives - giving back to their families, societies, and ultimately themselves - tend to find meaning in their obstacles. In a sense, McAdams has breathed new life into one of the great insights of Western mythology: that where we stumble is where our treasure lies. — Susan Cain

It's never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population. We discovered this with women decades ago, and now it's time to realize it with introverts. — Susan Cain

not everyone aspires to be a leader in the conventional sense of the word - that — Susan Cain

They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. — Susan Cain

I'm continually amazed by how many people who appear to be extroverts are actually introverts. — Susan Cain

Students take ownership of their education when they learn from one another — Susan Cain

Connecting people to fix the world over time is the deepest spiritual value you can have,' Newmark [Craigslist creator] has said. — Susan Cain

Use your natural powers - of persistence, concentration, and insight - to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems, make art, and think deeply — Susan Cain

38,000 knowledge workers across different sectors, found that the simple act of being interrupted is one of the biggest barriers to productivity. — Susan Cain

They focused on the so-called Big Five traits: Introversion-Extroversion; Agreeableness; Openness to Experience; Conscientiousness; and Emotional Stability. — Susan Cain

Introverts .. may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas, — Susan Cain

The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They — Susan Cain

In our house, reading was the primary group activity. On Saturday afternoons we curled up with our books in the den. It was the best of both worlds: you had the animal warmth of your family right next to you, but you also got to roam around the adventure-land inside your own head. — Susan Cain

Studies have shown that performance gets worse as group size increases: groups of nine generate fewer and poorer ideas compared to groups of six, which do worse than groups of four. The "evidence from science suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming groups," writes the organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham. "If you have talented and motivated people, they should be encouraged to work alone when creativity or efficiency is the highest priority." The one exception to this is online brainstorming. — Susan Cain

A mountain of recent data on open-plan offices from many different industries corroborates the results of the games. Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They're associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They're often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body's fight-or-flight "stress" hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others. — Susan Cain

Psychologists often discuss the difference between "temperament" and "personality." Temperament refers to inborn, biologically based behavioral and emotional patterns that are observable in infancy and early childhood; personality is the complex brew that emerges after cultural influence and personal experience are thrown into the mix. Some say that temperament is the foundation, and personality is the building. — Susan Cain

Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not. — Susan Cain

When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer [ ... ], they're really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion. — Susan Cain

We can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
These seem like contradictory principles, but they are not. Free will can take us far, suggests Dr. Schwartz's research, but it cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer.
We might call this the "rubber band theory" of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much. — Susan Cain

College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. — Susan Cain

If you force extroverts to pause, says Newman, they'll do just as well as introverts at the numbers game. — Susan Cain

Everyone shines, given the right lighting. — Susan Cain

FOR THE ANXIETY THAT COMES FROM NOT FITTING IN, — Susan Cain

The contrast is striking," writes Michael Harris Bond, a cross-cultural psychologist who focuses on China. "The Americans emphasize sociability and prize those attributes that make for easy, cheerful association. The Chinese emphasize deeper attributes, focusing on moral virtues and achievement." Another — Susan Cain

Try to think of happy things," he says, caressing my forehead. I stare at the ceiling, tears welling. What happy things? Who could be happy in a world of podiums and microphones? "There are a billion people in China who don't give a rat's ass about your speech," Ken offers sympathetically. — Susan Cain

To some extent, we've always had an admiration for extroversion in our culture. But the extrovert ideal really came to play at the turn of the 20th century when we had the rise of big business. — Susan Cain

It's important for a parent to learn to take delight in a child whose behavior might seem mystifying. In the case of an extroverted parent with an introverted child, it can be learning to see the inner riches of your child that may not always be expressed on the surface - but are there. — Susan Cain

You can't pick up a business magazine ever without seeing the word 'collaborate' splashed all over it. I think people are probably feeling assaulted by the need to always be on and always be interacting. — Susan Cain

Purification and redemption are such recurrent themes in ritual because there is a clear and ubiquitous need for them: we all do regrettable things as a result of our own circumstances, and new rituals are frequently invented in response to new circumstances. — Susan Cain

Osborn was a founding partner of the advertising agency Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBDO), but it was as an author that he really made his mark, beginning with the day in 1938 that a magazine editor invited him to lunch and asked what his hobby was. "Imagination," replied Osborn. — Susan Cain

I've wanted to be a writer since I was four years old! — Susan Cain

Quiet demonstrates just how deep and disturbing is this plague of extroverts - the showoffs, risk-takers, salesmen, charmers, charlatans and politicians." - New York Post — Susan Cain

And it suggests, says Jadzia Jagiellowicz, the lead scientist at Stony Brook, that sensitive types think in an unusually complex fashion. It may also help explain why they're so bored by small talk. "If you're thinking in more complicated ways," she told me, "then talking about the weather or where you went for the holidays is not quite as interesting as talking about values or morality. — Susan Cain

I get a lot of letters from introverts asking how they can meet people. The key is to make sure that you are doing things you enjoy. — Susan Cain

Why are some people talkative while others measure their words? Why — Susan Cain

Most leading in a corporation is done in small meetings and it's done at a distance, through written and video communications, — Susan Cain

Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet - seems — Susan Cain

It can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day. We all empathize with a sleep-deprived mate who comes home from work too tired to talk, but it's harder to grasp that social overstimulation can be just as exhausting. — Susan Cain

Bolder animals sally forth, swallowed regularly by those farther up the food chain but surviving when food is scarce and they need to assume more risk. — Susan Cain

A reward-sensitive person is highly motivated to seek rewards - from a promotion to a lottery jackpot to an enjoyable evening out with friends. Reward sensitivity motivates us to pursue goals like sex and money, social status and influence. — Susan Cain

In our society, the ideal self is bold, gregarious, and comfortable in the spotlight. We like to think that we value individuality, but mostly we admire the type of individual who's comfortable 'putting himself out there.' — Susan Cain

Frustrated by the superficiality of dining-hall conversation, — Susan Cain

One highly successful venture capitalist who is regularly pitched by young entrepreneurs told me how frustrated he is by his colleagues' failure to distinguish between good presentation skills and true leadership ability. "I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they're good talkers, but they don't have good ideas," he said. "It's so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. — Susan Cain

The pressure to entertain, to sell ourselves, and never to be visibly anxious keeps ratcheting up. — Susan Cain

Should we become so proficient at self-presentation that we can dissemble without anyone suspecting? — Susan Cain

America had shifted from what the influential cultural historian Warren Susman called a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality — Susan Cain

Career counselor Shoya Zichy told me the story of one of her clients, an introverted financial analyst who worked in an environment where she was either presenting to clients or talking to colleagues who continually cycled in and out of her office. She was so burned out that she planned to quit her job - until Zichy suggested that she negotiate for downtime. — Susan Cain

The authors whose books get published - once accepted as a reclusive breed - are now vetted by publicists to make sure they're talk-show ready. — Susan Cain

Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. The — Susan Cain

Introverts feel "just right" with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo. — Susan Cain

I actually find extroversion to be a really appealing personality style. — Susan Cain

Conversely, high-reactive children may be more likely to develop into artists and writers and scientists and thinkers because their aversion to novelty causes them to spend time inside the familiar - and intellectually fertile - environment of their own heads. — Susan Cain

In other words, the four-month-olds who thrashed their arms like punk rockers did so not because they were extroverts in the making, but because their little bodies reacted strongly - they were "high-reactive" - to new sights, sounds, and smells. The quiet infants were silent not because they were future introverts - just the opposite - but because they had nervous systems that were unmoved by novelty. The — Susan Cain

Now that you're an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you're told that you're "in your head too much", a phrase that's often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.
Or maybe there's another word for such people: thinkers. — Susan Cain

In fact, public speaking anxiety may be primal and quintessentially human, not limited to those of us born with a high-reactive nervous system. One theory, based on the writings of the sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, holds that when our ancestors lived on the savannah, being watched intently meant only one thing: a wild animal was stalking us. And when we think we're about to be eaten, do we stand tall and hold forth confidently? No. We run. In other words, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution urge us to get the hell off the stage, where we can mistake the gaze of the spectators for the glint in a predator's eye. — Susan Cain

It's not that I'm so smart," said Einstein, who was a consummate introvert. "It's that I stay with problems longer. — Susan Cain

Who could be happy in a world of podiums and microphones? — Susan Cain

Functional, moderate guilt," writes Kochanska, "may promote future altruism, personal responsibility, adaptive behavior in school, and harmonious, competent, and prosocial relationships with parents, teachers, and friends." This is an especially important set of attributes at a time when a 2010 University of Michigan study shows that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were thirty years ago, with much of the drop having occurred since 2000. (The study's authors speculate that the decline in empathy is related to the prevalence of social media, reality TV, and "hyper-competitiveness.") Of — Susan Cain

we revere our founding fathers precisely because they were loudmouths on the subject of freedom: Give me liberty or give me death! — Susan Cain

The purpose of school should be to prepare kids for the rest of their lives, but too often what kids need to be prepared for is surviving the school day itself. — Susan Cain

To advance our careers, we're expected to promote ourselves unabashedly. — Susan Cain

It was only when God paired him up with his extroverted brother Aaron that Moses agreed to take on the assignment. Moses would be the speechwriter, the behind-the-scenes guy, the Cyrano de Bergerac; Aaron would be the public face of the operation. "It will be as if he were your mouth," said God, "and as if you were God to him. — Susan Cain

People who tend to [suppress their negative emotions] regularly," concludes Grob, "might start to see the world in a more negative light. — Susan Cain

(Never mind that the assistants were likely interchangeable, while Michelangelo was not.) — Susan Cain

When you're more focused in getting your message across than you are worrying about how people are viewing you, that's huge. — Susan Cain

It's not that there is no small talk ... It's that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end ... Sensitive people ... 'enjoy small talk only after they've gone deep' says Strickland. 'When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else. — Susan Cain

We like to believe that we live in a grand age of creative individualism. We look back at the midcentury era in which the Berkeley researchers conducted their creativity studies, and feel superior. Unlike the starched-shirted conformists of the 1950s, we hang posters of Einstein on our walls, his tongue stuck out iconoclastically. We consume indie music and films, and generate our own online content. We "think different" (even if we got the idea from Apple Computer's famous ad campaign). But the way we organize many of our most important institutions - our schools and our workplaces - tells a very different story. — Susan Cain

Amazingly, neuroscientists have even found that people who use Botox, which prevents them from making angry faces, seem to be less anger-prone than those who don't, because the very act of frowning triggers the amygdala to process negative emotions. — Susan Cain

As a parent, if give yourself what you need, your children will watch you doing that and will give themselves what they need. — Susan Cain

We live with a value system that I call the Extrovert Ideal - the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight. — Susan Cain

Flow is an optimal state in which you feel totally engaged in an activity ... In a state of flow, you're neither bored nor anxious, and you don't question your own adequacy. Hours pass without your noticing. — Susan Cain

So stay true to your own nature. If you like to do things in a slow and steady way, don't let others make you feel as if you have to race. If you enjoy depth, don't force yourself to seek breadth. If you prefer single-tasking to multi-tasking, stick to your guns. Being relatively unmoved by rewards gives you the incalculable power to go your own way. — Susan Cain

Introverts and extroverts also direct their attention differently: if you leave them to their own devices, the introverts tend to sit around wondering about things, imagining things, recalling events from their past, and making plans for the future. The extroverts are more likely to focus on what's happening around them. It's as if extroverts are seeing "what is" while their introverted peers are asking "what if." Introverts — Susan Cain

Your tendency to be inward-directed or outward-directed is huge; it governs every part of the way you live and work and love. — Susan Cain

Most people who have grown up introverted in this very extroverted culture of ours have had painful experiences of feeling like they are out of step with what's expected of them. Parenting can pose unique challenges for introverted parents, who fear that their own painful experiences will be repeated in their children's lives. — Susan Cain

can be hard for extroverts to understand how badly introverts need to recharge at the end of a busy day. We all empathize with a sleep-deprived mate who comes home from work too tired to talk, but it's harder to grasp that social overstimulation can be just as exhausting. It's also hard for introverts to understand just how hurtful their silence can be. I — Susan Cain

The bias against introversion leads to a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness. — Susan Cain

Words are potentially dangerous weapons that reveal things better left unsaid. — Susan Cain

And every day, Don wrestles with himself. Should he go back to his apartment and recharge over a quiet lunch, as he longs to do, or join his classmates? — Susan Cain

Nor are introverts necessarily shy. Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not. One reason that people confuse the two concepts is that they sometimes overlap (though psychologists debate to what degree). Some psychologists map the two tendencies on vertical and horizontal axes, with the introvert-extrovert spectrum on the horizontal axis, and the anxious-stable spectrum on the vertical. With this model, you end up with four quadrants of personality types: calm extroverts, anxious (or impulsive) extroverts, calm introverts, and anxious introverts. In other words, you can be a shy extrovert, like Barbra Streisand, who has a larger-than-life personality and paralyzing stage fright; or a non-shy introvert, like Bill Gates, who by all accounts keeps to himself but is unfazed by the opinions of others. — Susan Cain

Introverts just just don't buzz as easily. — Susan Cain

Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me - they're shy and they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don't believe anything really revolutionary has been invented by committee. If you're that rare engineer who's an inventor and also an artist, I'm going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone. You're going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you're working on your own. Not on a committee. Not on a team — Susan Cain

I am a horse for a single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork ... for well I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person do the thinking and the commanding. - ALBERT EINSTEIN — Susan Cain

But for all their differences, shyness and introversion have in common something profound. The mental state of a shy extrovert sitting quietly in a business meeting may be very different from that of a calm introvert - the shy person is afraid to speak up, while the introvert is simply overstimulated - but to the outside world, the two appear to be the same. This can give both types insight into how our reverence for alpha status blinds us to things that are good and smart and wise. — Susan Cain

Ask your child for information in a gentle, nonjudgmental way, with specific, clear questions. Instead of "How was your day?" try "What did you do in math class today?" Instead of "Do you like your teacher?" ask "What do you like about your teacher?" Or "What do you not like so much?" Let her take her time to answer. Try to avoid asking, in the overly bright voice of parents everywhere, "Did you have fun in school today?!" She'll sense how important it is that the answer be yes. — Susan Cain

Kuhnen and Brian Knutson have found that men who are shown erotic pictures just before they gamble take more risks than those shown neutral images like desks and chairs. This is because anticipating rewards - any rewards, whether or not related to the subject at hand - excites our dopamine-driven reward networks and makes us act more rashly. (This may be the single best argument yet for banning pornography from workplaces.) — Susan Cain

Whenever you're in an army group and somebody says, 'I think we're all getting on the bus to Abilene here,' that is a red flag. — Susan Cain

Men are more likely to be introverted than women are, but it's really very slight. But the real difference I think is in how it plays out, how it relates to cultural stereotypes. — Susan Cain