Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can\'t Stop Talking pdfdrive com

Couldn’t tell at all
, they
echoed. Lateesha sat down, looking pleased.
Next it was my turn. I stood at a makeshift podium—really a music
stand—and faced the group. The only sound in the room was the ticking
of the ceiling fan and the blare of traffic outside. Charles asked me to
introduce myself. I took a deep breath.
“HELLOOO!!!!” I shouted, hoping to sound dynamic.
Charles looked alarmed. “Just be yourself,” he said.
My first exercise was simple. All I had to do was answer a few
questions that people called out: Where do you live? What do you do for
a living? What did you do this weekend?
I answered the questions in my normal, soft-spoken way. The group

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listened carefully.
“Does anyone have any more questions for Susan?” asked Charles. The
group shook their heads.
“Now, Dan,” said Charles, nodding at a strapping red-haired fellow
who looked like one of those CNBC journalists reporting directly from
the New York Stock Exchange, “you’re a banker and you have tough
standards. Tell me, did Susan look nervous?”
“Not at all,” said Dan.
The rest of the group nodded. 
Not nervous at all
, they murmured—just
as they had for Lateesha.
You seem so outgoing
, they added.
You came across as really confident!
You’re lucky because you never run out of things to say
.
I sat down feeling pretty good about myself. But soon I saw that
Lateesha and I weren’t the only ones to get that kind of feedback. A few
others did as well. “You looked so calm!” these speakers were told, to
their visible relief. “No one would ever know if they didn’t know! What
are you doing in this class?”
At first I wondered why I prized these reassurances so highly. Then I
realized that I was attending the workshop because I wanted to stretch
myself to the outer limits of my temperament. I wanted to be the best
and bravest speaker I could be. The reassurances were evidence that I
was on my way toward achieving this goal. I suspected that the feedback
I was getting was overly charitable, but I didn’t care. What mattered was
that I’d addressed an audience that had received me well, and I felt good
about the experience. I had begun to desensitize myself to the horrors of
public speaking.
Since then, I’ve done plenty of speaking, to groups of ten and crowds
of hundreds. I’ve come to embrace the power of the podium. For me this
involves taking specific steps, including treating every speech as a
creative project, so that when I get ready for the big day, I experience
that delving-deep sensation I enjoy so much. I also speak on topics that
matter to me deeply, and have found that I feel much more centered
when I truly care about my subject.
This isn’t always possible, of course. Sometimes speakers need to talk
about subjects that don’t interest them much, especially at work. I
believe this is harder for introverts, who have trouble projecting

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artificial enthusiasm. But there’s a hidden advantage to this inflexibility:
it can motivate us to make tough but worthwhile career changes if we
find ourselves compelled to speak too often about topics that leave us
cold. There is no one more courageous than the person who speaks with
the courage of his convictions.

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