The power of introvert

QUÁ
I. Opening (surprising fact + Question)

Introverts? I’m pretty sure that we have heard about this. Do you know how many introverts
in the world? (A third to a half of the population are introverts.) That means there is one
introvert out of every two or three people. if you're an extrovert yourself, I'm talking about
your coworkers and your spouses and your children and the person sitting next to you right
now. now -- all of them subject to this bias that is pretty deep and real in our society. We all
internalize it from a very early age without even having a language for what we're
doing.Today let’s be with us to discover the power of introverts.

II – What is introversion

Now, to see the bias clearly, you need to understand what introversion is. It's different from Commented [NAVL1]: Thành kiến, xu hướng
being shy. Shyness is about fear of social judgment. Introversion is about how do you
respond to stimulation, including social stimulation. So extroverts really crave large amounts
of stimulation, whereas introverts feel at their most alive and their most switched-on when
they're in quieter, more low-key environments. So the key then to maximize our talents is to
put ourselves in the zone of stimulation that is right for us.

We all are at different points, of course, along the introvert/extrovert spectrum. Even Carl
Jung, the psychologist who first popularized these terms, said that there's no such thing as a
pure introvert or a pure extrovert. some people fall in the middle of the introvert/extrovert
spectrum, and we call these people ambiverts.

III – Extroverts are being favored over introverts

But now here's where the bias comes in. Our most important institutions, our schools and
our workplaces, they are designed mostly for extroverts and for extroverts' stimulation. Here
is an example:

In school

When I was going to school, we sat in rows. We sat in rows of desks like this, and we did
most of our work pretty autonomously. But nowadays, your typical classroom has pods of Commented [NAVL2]: Tự trị
desks -- four or five or six or seven kids all facing each other. And kids are working in Commented [NAVL3]: Tốp
countless group assignments. Even in subjects like math and creative writing, which you
think would depend on solo flights of thought, kids are now expected to act as committee
members. And for the kids who prefer to go off by themselves or just to work alone, those
kids are seen as outliers often or, worse, as problem cases..

Okay, same thing is true in our workplaces. Now, most of us work in open plan offices,
without walls, where we are subject to the constant noise and gaze of our coworkers. And
when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions,
even though introverts tend to be very careful, much less likely to take outsize risks -- which
is something we might all favor nowadays. And interesting research by Adam Grant at the
Wharton School has found that introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than
extroverts do, because when they are managing proactive employees, they're much more
likely to let those employees run with their ideas, whereas an extrovert can, quite unwittingly,
get so excited about things that they're putting their own stamp on things, and other people's
ideas might not as easily then bubble up to the surface.

NA
IV – Surprising power of introverts

Now I think at this point it's important for me to say that I actually love extroverts And we all
fall at different points, of course, along the introvert/extrovert spectrum. Even Carl Jung, the
psychologist who first popularized these terms, said that there's no such thing as a pure
introvert or a pure extrovert. He said that such a man would be in a lunatic asylum, if he
existed at all. And some people fall smack in the middle of the introvert/extrovert spectrum,
and we call these people ambiverts. And I often think that they have the best of all worlds.
But many of us do recognize ourselves as one type or the other.

And when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership
positions, even though introverts tend to be very careful, much less likely to take outsize
risks -- which is something we might all favor nowadays. And interesting research by Adam
Grant at the Wharton School has found that introverted leaders often deliver better
outcomes than extroverts do, because when they are managing proactive employees,
they're much more likely to let those employees run with their ideas, whereas an
extrovert can, quite unwittingly, get so excited about things that they're putting their own
stamp on things, and other people's ideas might not as easily then bubble up to the surface.

Solitude is a crucial ingredient often to creativity. So Darwin (who is he?), he took long
walks alone in the woods and emphatically turned down dinner-party invitations. Steve
Wozniak invented the first Apple computer sitting alone in his cubicle where he was working
at the time. And he says that he never would have become such an expert in the first place
had he not been too introverted to leave the house when he was growing up.

Now, of course, this does not mean that we should all stop collaborating -- and case in
point, is Steve Wozniak famously coming together with Steve Jobs to start Apple Computer -
- but it does mean that solitude matters and that for some people it is the air that they
breathe.

It's only recently that we've strangely begun to forget it. If you look at most of the world's
major religions, you will find seekers -- Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad -- seekers who
are going off by themselves alone to the wilderness, where they then have profound
epiphanies and revelations that they then bring back to the rest of the community. So, no
wilderness, no revelations.

This is no surprise, though, if you look at the insights of contemporary psychology. It turns
out that we can't even be in a group of people without instinctively mirroring, mimicking their
opinions. Even about seemingly personal and visceral things like who you're attracted to,
you will start aping the beliefs of the people around you without even realizing that that's
what you're doing.

NGỌC
You might be following the person with the best ideas, but you might not. And do you really
want to leave it up to chance? Much better for everybody to go off by themselves, generate
their own ideas freed from the distortions of group dynamics, and then come together as a
team to talk them through in a well-managed environment and take it from there.

Now if all this is true, then why are we getting it so wrong? Why are we setting up our
schools this way, and our workplaces? And why are we making these introverts feel so guilty
about wanting to just go off by themselves some of the time?

You know, we hit the 20th century, and we entered a new culture that historians call the
culture of personality. What happened is we had evolved an agricultural economy to a world
of big business. And so suddenly people are moving from small towns to the cities. And
instead of working alongside people they've known all their lives, now they are having to
prove themselves in a crowd of strangers. So, quite understandably, qualities like magnetism
and charisma suddenly come to seem really important.

Now none of this is to say that social skills are unimportant, and I'm also not calling for the
abolishing of teamwork at all. The same religions who send their sages off to lonely
mountain tops also teach us love and trust. And the problems that we are facing today in
fields like science and in economics are so vast and so complex that we are going to need
armies of people coming together to solve them working together. But I am saying that the
more freedom that we give introverts to be themselves, the more likely that they are to come
up with their own unique solutions to these problems.

MÍT
And I want to be clear about what I'm saying, because I deeply believe our offices should be
encouraging casual, chatty cafe-style types of interactions -- you know, the kind where
people come together and serendipitously have an exchange of ideas. That is great. It's
great for introverts and it's great for extroverts. But we need much more privacy and much
more freedom and much more autonomy at work. School, same thing. We need to be
teaching kids to work together, for sure, but we also need to be teaching them how to work
on their own. This is especially important for extroverted children too. They need to work on
their own because that is where deep thought comes from in part.

Okay, number two: Go to the wilderness. Be like Buddha, have your own revelations. I'm not
saying that we all have to now go off and build our own cabins in the woods and never talk to
each other again, but I am saying that we could all stand to unplug and get inside our own
heads a little more often.

Number three: Take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase and why you put it there.
So extroverts, maybe your suitcases are also full of books. Or maybe they're full of
champagne glasses or skydiving equipment. 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 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.

V. Closing (repetitive clause)

We need much more privacy and much more freedom and much more autonomy at work
and school. We need to be teaching kids to work together, for sure, but we also need to be
teaching them how to work on their own. This is especially important for extroverted children
too. They need to work on their own because that is where deep thought comes from in part.

Please remember, we don’t say that social skills are unimportant, and we don’t say people
should abolish teamwork at all. But we say that the more freedom that we give introverts to Commented [NAVL4]: Thủ tiêu
be themselves, the more likely that they are to come up with their own unique solutions to
these problems.