Before I even give you the link to this TED talk, let me just say one thing: YES. Introverts have often been criticized for being too quiet, too passive, lacking leadership qualities and have been encouraged to become more outgoing, more social--as I have been criticized and encouraged for years. In this TED talk, Cain rejects these ideas and says, instead, that we should embrace the introverts in our society backing up her point with research done on introverts. And I personally think that encouraging someone to be something that they aren't is just kind of wrong.
There is the link to the talk--it's about 20 minutes long and I think it's a really great testimonial for introvert power! She emphasizes that her point is not that we should all be isolated and work individually, but that we should utilize the resources we have--introverts and extroverts have a different, wide-range of skills that should be combined to work to an advantage. And the assumption that an extrovert would be better for a job than an introvert is absurd!
Just wanted to share this talk with you--I think she makes a great point and this is something we need to really think about! The number of hours I've spent pretending to be happy in a large group of people have pretty much been wasted--and I didn't even think about whether or not to torture myself thus. I've been told that I should be more social/outgoing, so I attempted to do so!
Enjoy that talk!
AJ
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