4

Leveraging the Gift of Introversion

Introversion comes with a lot of benefits, none of which should be overlooked. We need more introverts who fully embrace their introversion and give their gifts to the world. As one of my friends told me, “It’s time to come out of your shell, shed the fears, and share more of yourself with the world!” That’s the message I’d like to share with you. It might be time for you to share more of yourself with the world, whatever that means to you.

You weren’t born an introvert just so you could pretend to be an extrovert. Would you expect an elephant to climb a tree? You were born an introvert, and you’re here to use all your strengths and contribute to the world as much as you can. If extroverts are the yin, introverts are the yang. If you spend most of your time trying to behave like an extrovert, the world will be out of balance for you. Nature and millions of years of evolution can’t be wrong. If introverts account for around fifty percent of the population, it’s because we have a role to play in our society.

Millions of introverts before you have used their talents to make the world a better place. You can, too. Now, let’s go over some of the strengths that are common in introverts.

Action step

Answer the following question in your workbook (Section IV. Leveraging the gift of introversion - 1. Your biggest strength)

According to you, what is your biggest strength as an introvert?

1. Leveraging your ability to spend time alone

I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone.

Marilynne Robinson, novelist and essayist.

You may underestimate it, but your ability to be by yourself is one of your biggest strengths. Use this time wisely, and you’ll achieve exceptional things in your life. Your ability to spend a considerable amount of time alone doesn’t just allow you to think and come up with great ideas, it also enables you to get to know yourself on a deeper level. Furthermore, your ‘alone time’ provides opportunities to practice your craft. For extroverts, spending time alone doesn’t come that easily.

2. Leveraging your propensity for deliberate practice

Practice is what creates champions. It has been shown that experts spend more time engaging in what is often referred as deliberate practice than most people do. For introverts, who would rather be left alone than work in teams, deliberate practice comes easier.

For instance, studying alone using deliberate practice has been shown to be the best predictor of skill for chess players.

Grandmasters, during their first ten years, spend 5,000 hours studying the game by themselves. This is almost five times the number of hours intermediate-level players spend studying the game. Similarly, college students who study by themselves tend to learn more than those who work in groups. The same applies to many other skills, sports, and games.

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, credited his introversion for his creativity and success. He admitted that he would never have learned so much about computers if he hadn’t been too introverted to leave the house. He spent a lot of time by himself learning about them, not because he knew all the science behind deliberate practice, but because he was an introvert with a strong passion. In his memoir, he gave the following advice, “Work alone. You’re going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you’re working on your own. Not in a committee. Not on a team.” I think this is true, especially for introverts.

What exactly is deliberate practice?

In their book Peak, Secrets from The New Science of Expertise, Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool suggest that deliberate practice:

• Builds skills for which effective training techniques have already been established
• Takes place outside one’s comfort zone, requires significant effort, and is generally not enjoyable
• Involves specific, well-defined goals
• Involves taking conscious action and requires a person’s full attention
• Involves regular feedback and requires adequate responses to said feedback
• Both creates and relies upon effective mental representation (the patterns we mentioned earlier) and
• Almost always involves working on existing skills or building new ones by focusing specifically on some aspect of those skills that needs to be improved.

It’s easy to see how deliberate practice can lead to better long-term results than “just putting in the work.” Deliberate practice makes you work both smarter and harder by consciously focusing on improving the skills you need to reach your goal.

You might be thinking, “If deliberate practice is so great, why aren’t more people using it?” There are three main reasons for that:

1. Deliberate practice must be based on existing training techniques that are effective. It works well with activities for which performance can be concretely assessed, like sports, music, or chess. Yet, it’s harder to implement activities where performance is more difficult to assess (like teaching or business management).
2. It requires effort and, let’s face it, most people aren’t willing to go through the hassle.
3. Many people just don’t know about deliberate practice and how they can use it to improve their skills.

Below are some examples of what deliberate practice is and is not.

Writing:

Typical practice:

Writing, writing, and more writing. In the words of Stephen King, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” But what if it’s more complex than that?

Deliberate Practice

It seems as though Benjamin Franklin felt he needed to do more than read and write a lot. He focused on improving specific skills: his writing style, vocabulary, and sense of organization.

• Writing style: He made notes on articles from Spectator, a high-quality newspaper, which he would use to rewrite the articles a few days later. He would then compare his version to the original and modify it accordingly.
• Vocabulary: He rewrote Spectator essays in verse and then in prose so that he could compare his vocabulary to that which the original article used.
• Organization: He wrote summaries of every sentence in a particular article on separate sheets of paper. He would then wait a few weeks before challenging himself to write the article in the correct order and compare his work to the original article.

Doesn’t that sound like fun? And he did that consistently while holding down a full-time job!

Public speaking

Typical practice:

Practicing a certain speech again and again until your performance becomes satisfactory.

Deliberate practice:

Focusing on a specific skill or aspect of your speech that would allow you to improve your overall performance. These skills and aspects include the following:

• The tone of your voice
• Your rhythm
• The structure of your speech
• Your body language/eye contact
• The use of your space
• How you tell stories
• Your vocal projection

As you start using deliberate practice in your daily life, you’ll be able to get far better results than most people. And although practice is best done alone, the benefits of deliberate practice aren’t limited to solo activities. Public speaking, which involves interacting with a room full of people, requires a lot of deliberate practice. However, you can certainly become a great public speaker if you choose to. The same goes for any other skills you want to develop to create the life you want.

3. Leveraging the time you spend thinking

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

Albert Einstein.

As introverts, we tend to think a lot. This can be an amazing strength, as thinking is the key to problem solving, and it’s been the source of many amazing ideas and inventions. An individual’s ability to stay with a certain topic for a lengthy amount of time can yield some awesome things. That said, it’s important to realize that this strength requires honing, otherwise it can easily turn into a weakness.

Sometimes we think so much we might even have a hard time sleeping. Our ability to think so intensely can turn from being a blessing to a curse if we’re unable to control our thoughts properly.

While extroverts are often able to take action without thinking excessively, as introverts, we tend to overthink things. If we want to do something, we’ll go over it so many times that just thinking about what it will involve drains us! I need to take my car, then I’ll have to find a place to park it. The shop will be crowded and I’ll get tired. What if they don’t have the right size or color. Then, when I’ll go home it might be the rush hour etc. It’s almost as draining as actually doing what we’re thinking about. We create all types of scenarios in our minds, which just wastes our precious energy.

Since we deplete our energy during most social interactions, this tendency to overthink might be a defense mechanism to protect our energy and avoid taking on more than we can handle. That would make sense. But overdoing it actually wastes our energy.

Thinking is one of the most powerful tools we have as human beings. When we begin focusing our thoughts on something that’s important to us, we start unleashing our introvert power.

Since ideas can be more exciting for us than anything else, leveraging our obsession to overcome a particular challenge can allow us to achieve great results.

Tip: Each time you catch yourself overthinking, remind yourself that you can only take one step at a time. When you learn to take one step at a time and stop trying to predict the future, things can become much less overwhelming.

4. Leveraging your ability to stay focused and dig deep

As introverts, we generally prefer depth to breadth. We like to delve more deeply into specific topics, which can be used to our advantage. When we find something we’re passionate about, we can get really excited and intense about it. For instance, we may be quiet for the majority of a conversation, only to talk nonstop when a topic of interest comes up. Once that happens, we’ll start talking confidently and will be pretty hard to shut up. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Nowadays, many people struggle to focus on a specific thing and instead jump from one topic to another. Even when they do have a specific goal, they jump from one diet to another, one course to the next, or this book to that book. Then they wonder why they fail to obtain the results they want. This is Shiny Object Syndrome, and it’s a major problem for many people. The great thing about introversion is that, in my opinion, it makes it easier to remain focused on one goal until it’s achieved. That’s because introverts are less excited by novelty and external rewards. As Einstein says, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” The more you train yourself to focus on one thing you love and go deeper with it, the happier you’ll be. This will also increase your chances of achieving the results you want.

Now that we’ve covered some of the most important strengths that come with extroversion, it’s time to talk about perseverance. Let’s get started!

5. Leveraging your writing skills

Many introverts write better than they speak. As such, creating a habit of writing every day can make a big difference in your life. It will help you come up with great insights that will assist you in multiple areas of your life.

Keep a journal

Journaling can be helpful to anyone, but introverts may find it especially beneficial. Putting all your thoughts and ideas on paper provides two advantages:

1. It allows you to identify negative thought patterns and limiting beliefs.
2. It assists you in coming up with new ideas.

Identify negative thought patterns and limiting beliefs

As introverts, we may think too much. Yet the key question is what do we think about most? While we have thousands of thoughts every day, most of them are the same thoughts we had yesterday, last month, or even last year. Our brain is like a computer. It runs its own programs and software based on preexisting beliefs. These core beliefs are the result of repeated exposure to external stimulus, and they impact our actions on a day-to-day basis.

As you keep journaling, these core beliefs will become clear. You may constantly feel like you aren’t good enough. Or you might realize that certain external events create a particular emotional reaction.

These thought patterns are self-sustaining and feed themselves. An external event triggers a core belief and generates a thought. You entertain that thought, which triggers an emotional reaction. This emotional reaction in turn reinforces your thought pattern.

Example: Someone told you your speech could have been better. You connect this event to your core belief of “I’m not good enough”. It generates thoughts like “I’ll never be good enough” or “I’m stupid”. You identify with these thoughts and believe them, which creates an emotional reaction. This emotional reaction could be shame, frustration, or anger, among other things.

To overcome your success-limiting beliefs, you must first identify what your programming is. That is, what your thought patterns are, and what triggers them. The more you know about yourself, the better you’ll be able to identify your negative patterns and stop entertaining unhelpful thoughts. You’ll start seeing them as a broken record playing the same song again and again. You’ll get tired of it over time and stop listening.

Each time you experience negative emotions, ask yourself the following:

• What was the trigger? - What made me shift from happiness or neutrality to a negative state of mind?
• What was the exact thought generated by that trigger? - What thought did I identify with?
• How did that make me feel? – Ashamed? Guilty? Frustrated? Angry? Sad? Something else?
• How is it serving me? - Does it serve a purpose? Is it helping me in some way?
• How often have I had similar thoughts in the past? - Is this thought like a broken record? Have you had it thousands of times before? Use the old entries of your journal and look for similar patterns. What happened in the past?

After the negative emotions are gone, ask yourself the following three questions:

1. What was the trigger? - What made me shift from a negative state of mind to a positive one?
2. What was my thought process? - What thought(s) created that shift?
3. How did this negative wave of emotions serve me? Did I learn something from them, or were they a waste of time and energy?

This process will help you realize that, most of the time, your negative emotions aren’t helping you. That doesn’t mean that they serve no purpose, however. If used correctly, they can force you to look deep inside yourself and examine the core beliefs behind these negative emotions. This, of course, allows you to change your beliefs for the better.

Coming up with new ideas

Have you ever had a great idea that you wound up forgetting? I have!

Journaling is a powerful way to capture all of your ideas in one place. It keeps you from forgetting the innovative thoughts that come your way. As introverts, we tend to be creative and enjoy thinking about various concepts. We feed on ideas. So, the more we capture, the better!

Many of your ideas won’t lead to anything, but sometimes they can change your entire life. You could come up with an idea that turns into a seven-figure business. You could have an idea for a book that will become a best-seller. Or you could have an idea that will completely change the way you see the world.

If you’re not journaling yet, why not get started today?

6. Leveraging your interpersonal skills

As an introvert, you may be better at talking in small groups or having one-on-one conversations. Many introverts have good listening skills that they can use to their advantage. Why not utilize your strengths and prioritize situations that better suit your personality? You'll feel increased levels of happiness, confidence, and competence, something you can’t do if you’re forcing yourself to act like an extrovert.

Let’s just say you’re looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Sure, you could go out every weekend, wear your extrovert hat, and hope for the best. But that’s likely to leave you tired and frustrated. It probably won’t yield any results, either.

In this scenario, why not forget about loud and crowded environments and play the game on your own turf? Wouldn’t it be better to be in situations where you can have the kind of conversations you’re good at? Putting yourself in favorable situations will give you more opportunities to show your personality.

To this end, you could try online dating. You could also go on a double date with your friend, or meet people in cafés or libraries. You could even join Meetup groups to connect with people who share your interests. You’d be better off spending time with people who have similar passions than standing around at a party you’re not enjoying.

When you hang out with people who have similar interests, it’s easier to strike up conversations and small talk is unnecessary. Personally, I find it easier to interact with people when I’m talking about things I love than I do when at a cocktail party. How about you?

7. Practicing Meditation

Meditation can be particularly beneficial for introverts. Although introverts may seem calm on the surface, their inner worlds can become chaotic. Personally, a book can get me so excited I have a hard time sleeping.

On the other hand, some of us can drown in waves of negative emotions that take days to escape. I’ve experienced this myself. I used to criticize and even insult myself for not being the person I wanted to be. Meditation allowed me to distance myself from my thoughts and stop taking them so seriously. In times of stress, meditation has enhanced my mood and enabled me to increase my focus.

As such, I meditate for 25 minutes as part of my daily morning ritual*. I encourage you to adopt a daily meditation practice, too. You can start with as little as five minutes per day.

*If you want to create a daily morning ritual that supports your goals and increases your happiness, check out my book Wake Up Call. The book will provide you with a simple, 10-step method you can use right away to create a lasting morning ritual.

8. Leveraging your ability to persevere

Introverts tend to stay focused on a task longer than extroverts. That’s because we’re less dependent on external rewards and instant gratification. We don’t need that extra rush of dopamine as much as extroverts do. Thus, we find it easier to think long-term and anticipate potential risks.

Perseverance often beats talent. Once we are able to maintain our levels of perseverance, over time, we will be able to accomplish things that are far beyond our imaginations. As with Einstein, our propensity to “stay longer with problems” can make a big difference.

What if you could leverage your perseverance to achieve your goals and dreams? What if you could use it to create a happier life? This could be done by learning a new skill that allows you to fire your boss and work as a freelancer. And that’s just one of the many possibilities!

In this section, I’ll offer a simple method to help you become significantly more adept at persevering and make the most of your introversion.

Prepare yourself mentally

Many people give up when they realize that things aren’t going as well as planned. When they fail to earn tangible results after a couple of months, they jump to something else and repeat the same process, never achieving anything substantial. Whatever your goal may be, you’ll face many challenging situations. In fact, you’re likely to find yourself on the verge of quitting many, many times.

One of the main reasons people give up is because they start their journey with unrealistic expectations. They naively believe that things will go as planned, when we all know that they never do.

To avoid giving up too quickly, it’s important to prepare for the worst even before you even start working on your goal. Ask yourself, what’s the worst that could happen? What is the worst-case scenario ever? What would you do if you work on your side business for 6 months without making a single sale? What if you can’t sell even one copy of that book that took you months or years to write? Considering scenarios like these will serve you well in the coming months. Make sure you visualize the situation and engage your emotions. How would you feel? Could you accept what was happening and keep pushing forward?

Let me give you a recent example related to this book. A short while ago, the computer I had been using for six years crashed and I lost all my data. Even worse, I hadn’t backed up any of my data (I know, I know…). As a result, I lost the two new books I was working on along with many other files related to my business. The 25,000 words I wrote for my introversion book? Gone! Yes, I had to rewrite the book you’re reading right now from scratch. What an absolute nightmare!

When I imagined the worst-case scenario, I had envisioned losing all my books on Amazon and all of the articles on my blog. However unlikely, I considered the idea of Amazon closing my account for some reason and my website being hacked. The point wasn’t to come up with a realistic scenario, but to come up with the worst one to prepare myself for potential challenges ahead.

When I lost all my data and realized I would have to rewrite this book from scratch, I wasn’t happy about it. However, I didn’t dwell on it for days. I didn’t get depressed and waste an entire week trying to change the past. I went back to work right away, because I was mentally prepared for it.

Now, imagine what would’ve happened if I expected things to go smoothly with little to no challenges. I would have been devastated, wouldn’t I? That’s why preparing for the worst is a wise thing to do. I expect to encounter many challenges in the future that are far more challenging than this one. All successful people have had to face major setbacks, and we will, too. I remember Jim Rohn discussing how he lost $250,000 because he signed a contract without reading it. At least he learned his lesson. I did, too. Now, I make sure to back up my files!

The second question is, what would make you give up? At what point would you say enough is enough? By deciding this ahead of time, you’ll know that, unless you encounter that situation, you must keep going. And you can always reassess the situation. Maybe, you want to quit your job and look for another one that’s more introvert-friendly. If so, what would make you give up on that goal? Will you give up after six months? One year? Two years? After ten job interviews? Twenty? Thirty?

Stick with one major goal

Having too many goals is one of the most common mistakes people make when they set goals. While having lots of short-term goals might be okay, it’s usually counterproductive when it comes to long-term ones. It’s far better to stick with one major goal and achieve it than to dabble in several big goals. Doing this builds your self-discipline muscles and translates to greater results over time.

You may want to use this book to improve your relationships or redesign your career. Or perhaps you want to become better at networking and deal with parties in a more “gracious” way. If you try to do everything at once, however, you’ll feel overwhelmed and fail to achieve any of your goals. You'll get better results by focusing on one major goal during the next, say, thirty days.

Let’s say you decide to focus first on your relationship with your partner. Once you find a satisfying balance, you can then move on the next area of your life, such as your career. Please note that this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything to improve other areas of your life. It just means that you should focus the majority of your efforts towards your one primary goal.

Commit to Your Bullet-Proof Timeframe

The Bullet-Proof Timeframe is a concept that I came up with to help me remain patient and stick to my main goal. The idea behind it is to give yourself a period of time during which you commit to working on your major goal. The idea is to make a promise to yourself to never give up before the deadline.

My main goal is to keep writing books until I reach the deadline of my Bullet-Proof Timeframe, which is April 18^th, 2020 (my 35th birthday). Each time I want to give up, I remind myself that I have time and I bring my focus back to my goal. I’ve had to do this dozens of times.

Below is an excerpt from my book The One Goal, which summarizes the main benefits of implementing a Bullet-Proof Timeframe. A Bullet-Proof Timeframe does the following:

• It forces you to select a goal that matters to you. Why would you care about some distant deadline two to three years from today if your goal wasn’t that important?
• It reminds you that you have time. You can step back and look at the bigger picture. As you realize you still have time, persevering becomes less of a challenge.
• It helps you avoid ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’. You’ll stop jumping from one thing to the next if you don’t get the results you expected. This is a major trap that derails many people.
• It gives you the option to give up. You can give yourself total permission to give up, BUT ONLY once you’ve reached the deadline. Never before. Here’s the mindset you want to adopt: I can always give up when I reach my deadline, so for now I’m going to hang on and keep going.

I hope that by now you’re convinced of the benefits of setting a Bullet-Proof Timeframe. It will allow you to turbocharge your perseverance in all areas of your life.

Goal-setting crash course for introverts

Let’s go over a powerful goal-setting method. This will help you as you work on redesigning your life as an introvert.

1. How to set goals

Imagine you could achieve anything you want and had no limitations whatsoever. What are the goals that, if achieved, would enable you to be the happiest introvert possible? Write down anything that comes to mind without judging it.

2. Select one goal

Select the one goal that, if achieved, would have the biggest impact on your life. Then circle it, because that will be your main goal.

3. Make it SMART

Too often, people set goals that are way too vague. When it comes to goals, the more specific, the better! So, make sure you use the SMART goal method, which is explained below:

SMART stands for:

• Specific: What exactly do you want? What are you trying to achieve?
• Measurable: Can you assess the progress towards your goal? How will you know if you’ve achieved it?
• Achievable: Is it achievable? Is the timeframe realistic? Can you put in the effort required despite other responsibilities?
• Relevant: Is it in line with your values? Is it exciting to you?
• Time-bound: Do you have a clear deadline for your goal?

4. Break down your goals

If your goal is long-term, break it down into a yearly, monthly, weekly, and even daily goal. Now, ask yourself how confident you feel about your ability to achieve your goal. On a scale of 1 to 10, you want to be at a 7 or 8. If you’re below this, try extending your timeline or making your goal smaller.

5. Implement at least one daily habit to support your goal

Implement one small habit that moves you towards your goal each day. For instance, my goal involves writing books, so I make sure I write every day no matter what. My small goal is to write at least 500 words per day. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s close to 200,000 words per year or 1,000,000 words in five years. That’s about eight 25,000-word books a year. And I usually write more than 500 words per day! Your daily habit will help you maintain momentum and sustain long-term motivation. Furthermore, by keeping each new daily goal small, you’ll also be less tempted to procrastinate. Remember to use deliberate practice with your daily habits.

Well, that’s the end of this crash course. If you want to learn more about setting exciting goals, feel free to check my goal-setting book Goal Setting: The Ultimate Guide to Achieving Goals That Truly Excite You.

Action step

Take the time to complete the exercises in your workbook (Section V. Leveraging the gift of introversion - sub-sections 2 to 8)