Reddit mentions of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

So here's my take: I think introversion is a very misunderstood concept in general, not just in India. Case in point, another comment here says "You aren't an introvert, you do have some close friends" - that is NOT what being an introvert entails.

Being an introvert means that you are energized by being by yourself and drained quickly in large groups. Introverts function best when they are with a small handful of familiar friends - your energy will not drain as quickly and it can be very fulfilling to even go out with them.

As an introvert myself, growing up here I faced a lot of the same problems that you seem to be facing, but I educated myself on what it really means to be an introvert, and I embraced it proudly. I have no problem telling off haters - own who you are and hold your head up high. If people are scolding you for this - they are very misguided, and may not be the right kind of people you want to be friends or even acquaintances with. Do not feel pressured to always be outside, but on the flip side, don't completely close yourself from society. Be comfortable with saying no when you are feeling particularly drained, but definitely keep in touch with people you enjoy spending time with, and be open to meeting new people as well.

Another point here, and I may be generalizing, but introverts tend to enjoy more conceptual or abstract topics of conversation than an extrovert who is energized by social conversation and gossip. This is not a rule, there are obviously people on both sides and in the middle as well, but I've noticed this tendency. My advice here would be to find what you are very passionate about, educate yourself as much as you can about that, and find people with similar interests.

At parties or functions, it helps to find a smaller group with people you share interests with and find a spot that's not very noisy to have a more meaningful conversation than the ones that normally take place at these kinds of events. Introverts tend to be very sensitive to external stimuli like noise or lights which make it difficult to keep up when there are many people talking all at once.

I would recommend the book "Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking" by Susan Cain

https://www.amazon.in/Quiet-power-introverts-world-talking/dp/0141029196

Best of luck, man

Lord above! thanks firstly for recognising your introverted children as such (and not just as failures). I really wish my parents had bothered when I was little.

Secondly you need to understand how introverts work. I recommend The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney and Quiet by Susan Cain who also rocks a mean TEDTalk In fact, start with the TED Talk then dig deeper with the books once that has settled in your mind. Once you can understand, that will inform your decisions in how you treat your children. All the best!

• Join a company with a "technical ladder".
  
  
• Technical architect this needs telling people they are wrong, so it won't work for you.
  
  
• Technical consultant / contractor -- equal or higher pay, if you can demonstrate your skill.
  
  EDIT:
  
  
• big companies have research divisions and positions - "Centres of Excellence".
  
  
• Some software companies have "documentation" jobs.
  
  
• become a system administrator (but you have to take a lot of whining from cranky / lazy users - who are often amazing developers themselves)
  
  EDIT2:
  
  If hunger and/or poverty can change your inner programming (survival mode kicks in) then you can do freelancing / consulting and develop people skills where you don't order people, but you negotiate / bargain with them - because if you don't do that well, you don't get paid at all. This is the last option for someone like you, but it exists.
  
  EDIT3:
  
  some lip-service motivation:
  
  https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts
  
  http://www.amazon.in/Quiet-power-introverts-world-talking/dp/0141029196
  
  And also:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi4JOlMSWjo
  
  http://hsperson.com/books/the-highly-sensitive-person/
  
  EDIT4:
  
  Also check out r/introvert

Ooh, an actual unpopular opinion.

I agree with some of what you say, but like a lot of people (including the ones you’re attacking) you’ve conflated introversion with being shy or being socially awkward. Introversion is not either of those things. Shyness and social awkwardness seem to arise more often in Introverts because of the high social value placed on Extroverted traits in our culture, and the fact that Introverts often get treated as if there is something wrong with them from a young age.

Introverts also do tend have higher IQs than Extroverts. So yes, even though being an Introvert doesn’t guarantee you’re some kind of tortured genius, it does make it more likely that they’re further to the right on the IQ bell curve than a randomly selected Extrovert.

A good book on the subject - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0141029196

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There's a wonderful text about that in the book about introverts... “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking”.

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https://www.amazon.es/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0141029196/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536191453&sr=8-1&keywords=power+of+introverts


The problem with feminine strength is that it's gained with time and confidence. It's twice as hard to be strong and soft as it is to be strong and crass. Let me find this excerpt. It's a bit long, but I think it gets it.

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This is one I loved, I think it might help. It's about introverts, but can apply to your case (I think):


“My very first client was a young woman named Laura. She was a Wall Street lawyer, but a quiet and daydreamy one who dreaded the spotlight and disliked aggression. She had managed somehow to make it through the crucible of Harvard Law School—a place where classes are conducted in huge, gladiatorial amphitheaters, and where she once got so nervous that she threw up on the way to class. Now that she was in the real world, she wasn’t sure she could represent her clients as forcefully as they expected.

For the first three years on the job, Laura was so junior that she never had to test this premise. But one day the senior lawyer she’d been working with went on vacation, leaving her in charge of an important negotiation. The client was a South American manufacturing company that was about to default on a bank loan and hoped to renegotiate its terms; a syndicate of bankers that owned the endangered loan sat on the other side of the negotiating table.

Laura would have preferred to hide under said table, but she was accustomed to fighting such impulses. Gamely but nervously, she took her spot in the lead chair, flanked by her clients: general counsel on one side and senior financial officer on the other. These happened to be Laura’s favorite clients: gracious and soft-spoken, very different from the master-of-the-universe types her firm usually represented. In the past, Laura had taken the general counsel to a Yankees game and the financial officer shopping for a handbag for her sister. But now these cozy outings—just the kind of socializing Laura enjoyed—seemed a world away. Across the table sat nine disgruntled investment bankers in tailored suits and expensive shoes, accompanied by their lawyer, a square-jawed woman with a hearty manner. Clearly not the self-doubting type, this woman launched into an impressive speech on how Laura’s clients would be lucky simply to accept the bankers’ terms. It was, she said, a very magnanimous offer.

Everyone waited for Laura to reply, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. So she just sat there. Blinking. All eyes on her. Her clients shifting uneasily in their seats. Her thoughts running in a familiar loop: I’m too quiet for this kind of thing, too unassuming, too cerebral. She imagined the person who would be better equipped to save the day: someone bold, smooth, ready to pound the table. In middle school this person, unlike Laura, would have been called “outgoing,” the highest accolade her seventh-grade classmates knew, higher even than “pretty,” for a girl, or “athletic,” for a guy. Laura promised herself that she only had to make it through the day. Tomorrow she would go look for another career.

Then she remembered what I’d told her again and again: she was an introvert, and as such she had unique powers in negotiation—perhaps less obvious but no less formidable. She’d probably prepared more than everyone else. She had a quiet but firm speaking style. She rarely spoke without thinking. Being mild-mannered, she could take strong, even aggressive, positions while coming across as perfectly reasonable. And she tended to ask questions—lots of them—and actually listen to the answers, which, no matter what your personality, is crucial to strong negotiation.

So Laura finally started doing what came naturally.

“Let’s go back a step. What are your numbers based on?” she asked.

“What if we structured the loan this way, do you think it might work?”

“That way?”

“Some other way?”

At first her questions were tentative. She picked up steam as she went along, posing them more forcefully and making it clear that she’d done her homework and wouldn’t concede the facts. But she also stayed true to her own style, never raising her voice or losing her decorum. Every time the bankers made an assertion that seemed unbudgeable, Laura tried to be constructive. “Are you saying that’s the only way to go? What if we took a different approach?”

Eventually her simple queries shifted the mood in the room, just as the negotiation textbooks say they will. The bankers stopped speechifying and dominance-posing, activities for which Laura felt hopelessly ill-equipped, and they started having an actual conversation.

More discussion. Still no agreement. One of the bankers revved up again, throwing his papers down and storming out of the room. Laura ignored this display, mostly because she didn’t know what else to do. Later on someone told her that at that pivotal moment she’d played a good game of something called “negotiation jujitsu”; but she knew that she was just doing what you learn to do naturally as a quiet person in a loudmouth world.

Finally the two sides struck a deal. The bankers left the building, Laura’s favorite clients headed for the airport, and Laura went home, curled up with a book, and tried to forget the day’s tensions.

But the next morning, the lead lawyer for the bankers—the vigorous woman with the strong jaw—called to offer her a job. “I’ve never seen anyone so nice and so tough at the same time,” she said. And the day after that, the lead banker called Laura, asking if her law firm would represent his company in the future. “We need someone who can help us put deals together without letting ego get in the way,” he said.”

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The problem with trying to be feminine strong is that you have to be really superior. You cannot blow past your way with threats, screaming or banging the table. You have to know everything better than the others, be really competent. That's why I didn't start to feel safe in my femininity until after my 30s. It takes MUCH more hard work and much more competence to be feminine-strong than to be macho-strong (really masculine strength is not easy either).


Be nice, be relentless, and be better prepared than everyone else in the room. If someone raises their voice, you answer lowering yours (you never tell anyone to calm down UNLESS you want them to get furious). They scream, you speak even louder. You need physical help, you either fetch your pepper spray or call security. But unless whoever's at work lays a hand on you, you are poised, calm, polite and empathetic, just poised, calm, polite and empathetic steel.

Actually just realised the paperback version is much cheaper http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quiet-power-introverts-world-talking/dp/0141029196/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1348261987&sr=8-1

On the subject of introverts and extroverts, Susan Cain wrote an interesting book called "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking". I'm only about a chapter in, but it's really interesting.

In the introduction, she talks about something she calls the Extrovert Ideal. This is the idea that society has dictated that the thing that everyone should strive for, the ideal self, is to be comfortable in the spotlight, outgoing and have a colourful personality. However, she also talks about Closet Introverts, that many people act as extroverts to suit society, but really are introverted.

Also in the introduction, there was an informal personality test (link here to the same test online). Particularly interesting and relevant questions to the 'coat' conversation (bloody hilarious, if I may say so) are questions 5 (I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me.) and question 15 (I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself.).

Finally, Dan thought he was a mixture of the two. If you take the test and get a generally balanced score, that means you'd probably be an ambivert, a mixture of introvert and extrovert.

I'm not expert on this, just thought it was an interesting book with an interesting topic and it came to mind when they were talking about it.

(Amazon book links in case your interested: US UK ISBN: 978-0-141-02919-1)