Susan Cain explains why introverts are underrated | SVT/TV 2/Skavlan

he's welcome Susan Cain [Applause] welcome thank you we've been watching from backstage right yes so so you you seen him yes he's not an example of an introverted person right he is not no just as he's saying he's exactly the opposite I would say you know and and and I really do you think of this as a spectrum so there's introvert here an extrovert here and then there's everybody who's in the middle and I think you're probably at the farther extreme of extrovert 10 out of 10 yeah yeah that's interesting well but what you you are not you are in too much I'm an introvert yes so tell me try to define the difference you know I think a really quick definition that people can use is how do you feel after you've been at a party let's say it's about two hours at the party you're having a great time you're with people whose company you truly enjoy and how do you feel at the end of the two hours because if you're an extrovert you're probably you know feeling very energized by that you're wanting more and if you're an introvert you know you might be very socially skilled you might be with your best friends in the world but you start to just hit a wall where you know you just want to chill out how is it for you to be here well I mean I really love people I love talking to people I'm actually really comfortable in one-on-one and smaller conversations so all of that is great but it is true you know at the end of a day of doing interviews like this I would definitely like consciously schedule into my calendar the time where I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee by myself or something like that and I really need to be deliberate about it see I've seen that like with my sister she's she's different to me because she's more introverted as well and she just needs like you just need that little kind of bright just a little escape for a while yeah so I know it's just kind of it's different whereas for me I kind of feed off of it right so yeah that kind of difference and how do you feel if you have a lot of time in solitude do you start to get an feel are you I feel like I need to talk to someone yeah definitely yeah how do you changed through life can you can you be an extrovert like him and then can he become an introvert later in life well it's funny because every the the study show and people talk about this that everybody does tend to get more introverted as they get older they all kind of mellow out a little bit and we also just develop all kinds of skills as we grow so I'm guessing you're gonna develop the skill of being comfortable in your solitude and many introverts develop the skill of being comfortable in a room full of strangers so you know you kind of layer all these skills onto who you started out being and and then it turns into a new mishmash all its own but there's some way in which we are fundamentally ourselves I believe and I think that the quickest way to get at that is to ask yourself to imagine let's say a weekend where you have no social no professional obligations and think about how would you want to spend your time when you really have free rein but I I was I was curious about what you write because you write that the Western society favors oh yeah extrovert people mm-hmm how come is that well you know it's funny it was not always true so in the 19th century we had in Western society what historians call a culture of character which had much more to do with valuing people's interior moral compass and then but that was when we all lived in smaller towns and people lived alongside others that they had knew in all their lives then suddenly you have the 20th century and everybody's moving into the cities they're suddenly having to vie for jobs in companies there's movies and actors who are projected you're larger than life and suddenly we entered what they call the the culture of personality and that's when we got into this state of really kind of affirmatively favoring one style over the other if you if you were to have to see people as leaders and followers who would be the leaders and who would be the followers well that's actually one of the great myths because I think that if you ask most people that question and they were answering honestly they would tell you that they would see extroverts as natural leaders and that's can be true for all the kind of obvious reasons but when you look at a lot of studies at actual performance of actual leaders on the ground you find that introverted leaders often deliver outcomes that are as good or in some cases better than extroverted leaders so there really is room for different styles of leadership you don't have to go far I mean you look at Silicon Valley you know so many of the leaders of Silicon Valley companies are introverts and and they're often kind of grown-up versions of children who are very passionate about one or two or three things in their lives which is characteristic of introverts in this case it's technology and you know in the service of these passions people will grow up and and inspire other people and have all kinds of expertise and they really grow into those leadership positions and they end up doing great before you you you wrote your book you you're a lawyer you used to be a Wall Street lawyer yeah so so as it's now ten years since the finance crisis yes whose fault was it the truth I don't think that's the right way to look at it or you know part of it there the right way to frame the question I think really the the question is what fault was there in the culture and so what I would say is at the in the years leading up to that financial crisis we had a culture and we still have it now that favors risk-takers favors people who are gonna be kind of out there and not necessarily thinking what if this thing goes wrong what about that potential concern and if you have a culture that's only favoring one style of evaluating risk and not favoring the other alongside it that's when you get into trouble I'm thinking about the kids here because yeah I understood that you were a quiet kid yes and I've seen parents having quiet kids we weren't but but having quiet kids and almost being ashamed of it or almost being like it's it's oh you've got to say something now please say something because it's it's like the norm that they should be extroverted but they aren't yeah are you seeing the same thing oh I do see that quite a bit not always but but quite a bit and I mean well there's so much I'd want to say to those parents but one thing is whatever you feel in your heart about your child whether you say it or not it's going to communicate itself to your child so if you're having those kinds of feelings you need to really think it through and really see the kind of magical qualities that often go along with a quieter and more sensitive temperament because there is a magic there and and if you're constantly saying to your child speak up speak up like they're getting the message that there's something wrong with who they're who they are as opposed to saying yeah you know it would really make you know aunt Sophie feel good if you said hello to her and I know that's uncomfortable for you right now let me tell you what I do when I'm feeling uncomfortable here's my strategy and and we're gonna practice that and maybe if you get that if you're able to do that next time we'll go for ice cream you know and so you're making it something that's acceptable and warm and affirmative it's very different I think even in school it's it's very encouraged to to to sort of speak up and sit together and be in groups and working groups that is happening but I will say just as we're seeing changes with companies now we're also seeing changes with schools I've seen so many schools and so many educators really understand that there's a quiet revolution happening now and and really changing the way they think about how to teach the introverts and extroverts let that be a final final word thank you so much Susan case hope you enjoyed the clip for more interesting conversations please hit subscribe

Channel: Skavlan

Views: 19,757

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Keywords: Skavlan, interview, talk show, Fredrik skavlan, talkshow, introvert, extrovert, susan, cain, author, social, people

Id: j00zK54ZpPg

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 08 2018