Glitter failure

A Facebook update from last weekend, where an insanely introverted Monica went to two, TWO, Christmas parties:

My first journey into glitter eyeshadow was a total failure tonight. But if you’re going to fail, you might as well be a glitter failure.

The things that you carry.

Three calls to action:

1. Stop the madness for constant group work. Just stop it.

2. Go to the wilderness.

3. Take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase, and why you put it there...Whatever it is, I hope you take these things out every chance you get and grace us with your energy and your joy.

But introverts, you being you, you probably have the impulse to guard very carefully what's inside your suitcase. And that's okay. But occasionally, just occasionally, I hope you will open up your own suitcases for other people to see, because the world needs you, and it needs the things that you carry.

(This TED talk is not new, but it popped up on my Facebook feed today. I've listened to it at least a dozen times. I'd recommend you listen to it as well.)

On Introversion

I don't hide the fact that I'm very, very introverted.

Once I realized what that is and that I was one, my life made a whole lot more sense than it did before I knew.

Being an introvert does not mean you hate people. It doesn't mean you don't like public speaking, deep conversations, or that you're shy.

Being an introvert means that being around people, especially large groups of people, is draining and physically exhausting.

When I'm alone, with close friends or family, I don't have to be 'on.'

But around new groups of people, I have to be 'on' and I have to be quick on my feet and think of answers to questions.

To me, it's exhausting and I feel like I just ran a marathon afterwards.

I started this leadership program last week in my hometown. The first session was just the introduction. The program actually begins in a couple of weeks.

It was an all day session, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a working lunch break. (I have to be around people on my lunch break?)

The morning started out strong. We went through "speed dating," which involves having 2-minute conversations with 13 strangers (well, I know one of them, so it was only 12 strangers).

I sailed through that. Small talk is especially painful for me, but I can make small talk for two minutes 13 times in a row. Piece of cake.

Next was an exercise that I had a blast doing. We separated into four groups based off a personality test we did.

There was only one other person in my group, which didn't surprise me.

In crowds of people not a lot of them have my personality.

We were tasked with planning a party. That was the only thing we were told, and we were given markers and big sheets of paper to write out our plans.

Plan a party? What kind of party? I need more direction and details, people!

My partner and I decided to plan a baby birthday party (ha, ha, it was my idea). We wrote down our plans, the time the party would start, and a schedule of each of the events that would happen (introductions, food, gift opening, games, and the time everyone would be kicked out in the end).

I like having a schedule, a to-do list, and a plan.

So did my partner.

Going around the room, it was really funny to see what each group's plans involved. The extroverts, the group of people on the opposite side of the personality spectrum as me, planned a spirit tasting party that involved a lot of people.

Our little baby birthday party had 20 invites (ha, ha).

I loved that exercise.

During the next activity, we were asked to plan something, but we had to pretend to be the group of people whose personalities were opposite of ours.

That means that my partner and I, who like to plan things and know what's going to happen advance, had to plan a kitchen remodel and pretend to be extroverts who don't care about details.

We struggled at first. We wanted to plan expenses, take measurements, hire a designer, stuff like that.

One of the facilitators came over to our table, told us to stop planning, and start writing stuff down. We were challenged to not use numbers.

Oh, Jesus.

I presented our kitchen design to the group. It was really fun doing that.

My opening line was something like: "We want the best kitchen with the most top of the line features. We don't care about price as long as we get what we want! Who cares about money!"

Everyone in the room laughed, including me.

Our kitchen (remember, we're pretending to be care-free extroverts here) involved granite counter tops, soft-close cabinet doors, a table that seated 12 people, French doors going to an outdoor eating area, and a giant chandelier above the table.

We had no plan on getting prices for this stuff. We had no plans of timeline. After all, we don't care!

One of the facilitators asked us how it felt to do that.

I said one word: Painful.

(Haha.)

Next, the group of extroverts across the room had to plan a kitchen and pretend to be my partner and I.

I laughed, hard, the entire time. They nailed it.

They started off by saying that they needed to price every single material used, at different stores. Then they wanted to compare prices, then they needed to spend a while thinking about it before they made a decision.

Um...that's exactly what I would do. Actually, I'm pretty sure I've done this exact thing multiple times, just not with kitchen planning.

I had a blast during the morning session. I smiled a lot, laughed a lot, and talked a lot.

-----

During lunch there were more presentations, more group exercises, more bonding, more teamwork.

Yawn.

I looked at the clock at 2 p.m., and really thought about just crawling on the floor under my table and taking a nap.

I crashed and burned hard and fast, guys. The afternoon session was really difficult for me.

I can take so many hours of group work. At the end of the day, I was ready to go home, cuddle with my Pug, pull my covers over my head and pretend like the day didn't happen.

This leadership course will be good, I think, but it will also be exhausting for me.

At the end of the day, we each had to say one thing we learned.

My response: I learned that I'm tired.

Don't bother the introvert

People who talk a lot bug me.

This probably isn't shocking to anybody who really knows me well (haha).

A couple nights ago I went to a craft store, prepared to zone out and look at all the pretty stuff.

I was looking at all the pretties when I heard something irritating. Somebody was talking an isle over from me. I couldn't understand the words, but it was a low tone and consistent. It went on for a few minutes and I started to wonder how the person could talk so much without pausing to breathe.

How annoying.

I tried to continue shopping but I couldn't. The person just kept on talking. I walked to the other isle to see what the noise was. There were two young girls, probably teenagers, and one was reading a text message to the other one.

I think there should be a rule in craft stores. Don't be noisy and don't bother the introvert who wants to look at pretty stuff.

Ahem.

Talking to have a meaningful conversation with someone, even in a store, is okay. Talking to hear yourself talk is just noise. 

I hate noise. 

(When alcohol is not involved I'm fond of quietness, not hearing people talk and peace.)

Please people, some introverts love that store and don't want to hear your drama while in it.

And now I officially sound old.

I want this.

Quiet.

I bought Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I started reading it, and then my mind exploded because of all the awesomeness it contains.

Tangent: This book is a little different. Well, different in that instead of buying an actual book, I bought the e-book version. Although this is a mortal sin in my world, there are some benefits to this method of reading.

Let's say you're exhausted from life, and you sleep from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. and then 4:30 to 6 a.m. one day. Those 3.5 hours in-between are prime reading hours. It's cool that I don't have to have bright lights on in the middle of the night to read.

Tangent aside, Quiet is wonderful so far. I'm charging my book right now so I can read more of it later (ha, ha).

My favorite parts: 

Introversion--along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness--is not a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology.

Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.

If you're an introvert, you also know that the bias against quiet can cause deep psychic pain.

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. Of course, there's another word for such people: thinkers.

(She) knows she can hold her own when she needs to.

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.

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were at home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

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.

Awkward and awesome

Today was the last day of SXSW Interactive in Austin. My first session of the day was called, 'Introvert Uprising: When the Silent Strike Back.'

I knew it would be awkward. I knew if you stuck a bunch of introverts in a room, we'd all not sit by each other, look at our phones and computers the whole time, and not say a single word to each other.

That's exactly what happened. It was as awkward and awesome as I imagined it would be.

Picture this: The room is pretty large. There are about 300 chairs. There were around 50 people who attended the session, and we all sat at the end of each row of chairs.

No one sat remotely close to each other.

I had a hard time not laughing and giggling throughout the session. I covered my mouth with my hand several times to try to not laugh (I was the only one doing this, so maybe I was the weirdest introvert in the room).

Some of the tweets were pretty funny:

• "What happens when you put 50 introverts in a room together?"

• "Panel on introversion at 9:30 a.m. = no one in the room talking to anybody else."

I had a huge smile on my face that whole hour. Jesus, the world would be a boring place if it was full of people like me.

Part of me was hoping there would be extroverted co-workers and managers in that session, wanting to learn about how to work with and care for introverts. Of course, that wasn't the case. The panel of introverts were really just preaching to an introverted choir...which is okay, I suppose.

I think we all just wanted an hour of quiet, away from the noise of the more than 30,000 people who attend this event. Busy! Noise! Business! People!

I just wanted some quiet time. I got that today, and I'm thankful for that.

I had a session yesterday in the same hotel, and I was brave enough to get a cab ride back to the convention center with a perfectly decent Austin man. We had a nice conversation with the driver, we joked about Kansas weather and talked about where we worked.

The introvert session was in that same hotel. The introverts did not get into a cab with each other afterward. We all walked in a single file line, quietly and without talking to each other, for the handful of blocks back to civilization.

I'm still laughing about this. I've never experienced something so awkward and awesome at the same time.

There are a few points that I liked in the talk. Among them:

It's not something that can be cured.

Yep.

We're not broken extroverts.

I've been meaning to write a blog about introversion for a while now. I'm sure within the bowels of my computer there's a post started somewhere. I'm too lazy to look for it right now.

In the meantime, there's this TED talk from Susan Cain that's all sorts of wonderful. It was mentioned in today's session. She also has a book, which I told myself I'd read soon. As the speakers said today at SXSW, Susan Cain somehow became the authority on all things related to introverts. I listen to her TED talk once a month or so.

My favorite part of it:

But introverts, you being you, you probably have the impulse to guard very carefully what’s inside your own suitcase. And that’s okay. But occasionally, just occasionally, I hope you will open up your suitcases for other people to see, because the world needs you and it needs the things you carry. 

I'm sure I have more to say on the subject, but I have a meeting to go to.

Until later!