” I am considered an introvert and I am transitioning to a leadership role,” he said.
“……The ironic thing for me is that my position requires a lot of public speaking, training and facilitating in meetings. This is not very difficult for me now, nor has it been from the start. I will say that it can be very draining, and very often I will withdraw from the public for hours or the rest of the day after long meetings or training sessions. I dine alone, or take two hour naps to recharge.
The public speaking aspects, as well as the internal and external customer interactions that I am “forced” to do, are not so problematic for me now because I had a similar experience to the individual you referenced who had acting experience in school. I am a musician, and have for much of my life focused on solo piano. There is nothing quite as nerve-racking as walking up to the stage to expose your every weakness, physical and mental, before an audience who is all too familiar with the repertoire. You think you will make a mistake, then you do, and everybody knows when it happened. It often looms larger in the performer’s mind than it does with the audience, and so it eats away at you. The small mistakes can make you that much more nervous during your next performance, and so on.
One of the things I tried to do was to put more focus on the energy or the spirit of the performance, to focus on the performance itself and not the technical aspects of the piece. In this way, someone might say, “oh, it’s a shame you didn’t nail such-and-such a section”; however, they cannot take away from the energy or the emotion of the performance. This makes a performance satisfying to both audience and performer.
Besides all that, it makes public speaking a breeze! I always go into a meeting or a training room with the idea that talking is easier than playing Liszt. I will be a bit more restrained in a public speaking setting than a performance because the end results are different; however, because I have placed my mindset in advance I can methodically present or train and “improvise” as necessary. This way, public speaking becomes like playing and I am never nervous.
My advice for people with public speaking fears is to go out and take some piano lessons, with the goal of performing a piece in a group recital after a year or so. These things are typically arranged by studio teachers, and are great for inviting family and friends. Not only does one benefit from learning a new language, but one also benefits from the trial-by-fire performance of a Mozart trifle, missing some notes, then moving on with life and getting better.”
Thank you, David. Let’s see if anyone takes you up on your suggestion. I hear that playing an instrument also helps your brain cells multiply!
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]]>Applying the 4 ’s Process to Your Job Search
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]]>As a proud introvert, Sheri relates to the great blue heron. This bird will stalk prey slowly and deliberately. They are solitary or small-group foragers. While the geese are loudly squawking, or doing what geese do, she thinks about the blue heron and it gives her a sense of peace.
I mentioned this in my recent newsletter and received some interesting reactions. Here is sampling:
From Bob Cady: ” Read your newsletter and enjoyed your jottings. Keep it up. The Blue Heron story reminds me that each of us believes in the stories that feature US. Isn’t it the truth. The eagle is shaking its head about that slow old bird. No wonder he’s so thin. Doesn’t eat much…the ‘tortoise and the hare’ is supposed to be a fable about sticking to it and relentless pursuit of goals. The Intros love the tortoise. We are supposed to reject the hare because it is reckless and thoughtless. However, each has its good and bad points, as we all do. That Blue Heron…..is just doing its thing. The extroverted, fast acting eagle also has a nature….The Heron is not, after all the symbol of our country. In most of the stories you read, the character that is the quiet, introverted, slow, low voiced speaker when the President needs someone to solve the world crisis, is the one chosen to lead the exercise….”
From Kathy Greider: “Thanks for the great blue story — made me think about when I worked in an office. I always surrounded myself with as much nature as possible (plants, sea shells, round beach stones and lots of photos) when I was upset I would find myself rubbing the shells and stones to calm down. It always worked — and still does….Thanks for sharing this — maybe it will help others.”
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]]>I like her take on the Push strategy of the 4 P’s.”To have “presence,” you have to be yourself, but you may also have to learn to “act” in order to push yourself to pretend that you’re not paralyzed in social settings. I can reconcile that by trying to act like the confident and assertive version of me that I can imagine but doesn’t show up very often.”
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]]>Early in the 1960s, a freelance writer from New York, traveling to Boston to interview a psychologist for a book she was working on, stopped by the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and ordered a drink at the bar. “We do not serve women,” the bartender said, and whisked her off to a little lounge off the women’s restroom, where he brought her the whiskey sour. It was a moment Betty Friedan recalled with humiliation decades later, long after she helped spark a movement that made sure nobody ever got consigned to that lounge again.
Excerpted from When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. Copyright 2009 by Gail Collins. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publishe.
At my SWE workshop on The Introverted Leader today, it occured to me how far we have come. These bright women (all introverts) are building rockets and designing battleships. They are also managing people and projects that require a combination of technical prowess and humanity. I am in awe -because from their 20’s through their 50’s, they still face challenges every day in mostly male dominated workplaces. We practiced strategies to be more visible, to network, to speak up and to share our successes.
I feel privileged to help them in this journey towards being powerful leaders – and to be part of this sea change of women taking hold of their power.
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]]>She is a “real lifer” to look up to! Check out Laura Raine’s excellent piece in Pulse, a pub of the AJC.
http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-job-blog/2009/08/25/pulse-quiet-strength/
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]]>She adds, “Even now, we’re one of the top women-owned businesses in New York, but we don’t really seek fame or publicity. We like being quietly successful.” Nothing wrong with that–is there?
Read the rest here:
http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/executive_inbox/2009/07/tips-introverts-can-use-to-get.html
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]]>Yet they know that they will have to get with the program and are trying to figure out how to create a healthy balance between thinking and talking..a common organizational challenge for introverts.
Taking time to pause so that we can carefully consider proposals(even sleep on it?) makes total sense. It is hard to do when the message is “Talk to us, talk to us!”
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]]>But I have found that it has helped to cut back. For me it is the morning routine that has changed. For now, the radio is off. This was hard in the beginningl(extroverts like noise) but I have come to enjoy the peaceful side of morning. There is plenty of time to get my fix of news throughout the rest of the day. Are you scaling back your intake? How?
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]]>I reached my saturation point a few weeks ago after I realized that I had not one live conversation all day. That is an energy drain for an extrovert. The real tipping point came during a back and forth email dialogue with an introverted work colleague.
As our email tennis match proceeded, I could see the misunderstandings multiply. I wrote him an email to ask for a five minute phone call to clear up the issue. He wrote back, asking me if we could “settle it on email”. “No way,” I thought. “It would take more time to write each other again that it will to talk.”
So, a bit nervously, I picked up the phone and dialed his number anyway. We had a brief conversation in which he explained his position and we discussed several viable options. The matter was resolved in four minutes.
I know that, as an introvert, he prefers to communicate via email. As an extrovert, I agree — most of our communication can be handled that way. I also believe that a personality preference is not a prescription for every situation. There are times when we need to be able to ask each other questions, dig a little deeper, and listen to a person’s voice tone to better understand their point of view. We also need to clearly express what we mean.
To what degree should the situation drive the communication mode? How much do you moderate your preferred style to accommodate others?