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When I was nine years old, I went
off to summer camp for the first time.

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And my mother packed me
a suitcase full of books,

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which to me seemed like
a perfectly natural thing to do.

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Because in my family, reading
was the primary group activity.

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And this might sound antisocial to you,

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but for us it was really just
a different way of being social.

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You have the animal warmth of your
family sitting right next to you,

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but you are also free to go roaming around
the adventureland inside your own mind.

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And I had this idea that camp was going
to be just like this, but better.

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(Laughter) I had a vision
of 10 girls sitting in a cabin

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cozily reading books
in their matching nightgowns.

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(Laughter) Camp was more like
a keg party without any alcohol.

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And on the very first day,
our counselor gathered us all together

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and she taught us a cheer
that she said we would be doing

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every day for the rest of the
summer to instill camp spirit.

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And it went like this: "R-O-W-D-I-E,
that's the way we spell rowdie.

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Rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie."

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(Laughter) Yeah. So I couldn't
figure out for the life of me

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why we were supposed to be so rowdy, or
why we had to spell this word incorrectly.

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(Laughter)

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But I recited a cheer. I recited
a cheer along with everybody else.

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I did my best.

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And I just waited for the time
that I could go off and read my books.

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But the first time that I took
my book out of my suitcase,

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the coolest girl in the bunk came up to me

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and she asked me, "Why are
you being so mellow?" --

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mellow, of course, being
the exact opposite of R-O-W-D-I-E.

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And then the second time I tried it,

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the counselor came up to me with
a concerned expression on her face

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and she repeated
the point about camp spirit

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and said we should all work
very hard to be outgoing.

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And so I put my books away,
back in their suitcase,

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and I put them under my bed, and there
they stayed for the rest of the summer.

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And I felt kind of guilty about this.

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I felt as if the books needed me somehow,

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and they were calling out
to me and I was forsaking them.

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But I did forsake them and I
didn't open that suitcase again

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until I was back home with my
family at the end of the summer.

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Now, I tell you this story
about summer camp.

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I could have told you 50 others just like
it -- all the times that I got the message

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that somehow my quiet
and introverted style of being

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was not necessarily the right way to go,

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that I should be trying
to pass as more of an extrovert.

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And I always sensed deep
down that this was wrong

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and that introverts were pretty
excellent just as they were.

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But for years I denied this intuition,

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and so I became a Wall
Street lawyer, of all things,

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instead of the writer that I
had always longed to be --

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partly because I needed to prove to myself
that I could be bold and assertive too.

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And I was always going off to crowded bars

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when I really would have preferred
to just have a nice dinner with friends.

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And I made these self-negating
choices so reflexively,

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that I wasn't even aware
that I was making them.

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Now this is what many introverts do,
and it's our loss for sure,

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but it is also our colleagues'
loss and our communities' loss.

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And at the risk of sounding
grandiose, it is the world's loss.

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Because when it comes
to creativity and to leadership,

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we need introverts
doing what they do best.

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A third to a half of the population
are introverts -- a third to a half.

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So that's one out of every
two or three people you know.

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So even if you're an extrovert yourself,
I'm talking about your coworkers

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and your spouses and your children and the
person sitting next to you right now --

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all of them subject to this bias that
is pretty deep and real in our society.

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We all internalize it
from a very early age

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without even having a language
for what we're doing.

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Now, to see the bias clearly, you need
to understand what introversion is.

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It's different from being shy.

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Shyness is about fear of social judgment.

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Introversion is more about,
how do you respond to stimulation,

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including social stimulation.

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So extroverts really crave
large amounts of stimulation,

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whereas introverts
feel at their most alive

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and their most switched-on
and their most capable

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when they're in quieter,
more low-key environments.

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Not all the time -- these things aren't
absolute -- but a lot of the time.

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So the key then to maximizing
our talents is for us all to put ourselves

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in the zone of stimulation
that is right for us.

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But now here's where the bias comes in.

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Our most important institutions,
our schools and our workplaces,

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they are designed mostly for extroverts

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and for extroverts' need
for lots of stimulation.

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And also we have this belief system
right now that I call the new groupthink,

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which holds that all
creativity and all productivity

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comes from a very oddly gregarious place.

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So if you picture the typical
classroom nowadays:

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When I was going to school,
we sat in rows.

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We sat in rows of desks like this, and we
did most of our work pretty autonomously.

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But nowadays, your typical
classroom has pods of desks --

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four or five or six or seven
kids all facing each other.

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And kids are working
in countless group assignments.

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Even in subjects like
math and creative writing,

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which you think would depend
on solo flights of thought,

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kids are now expected
to act as committee members.

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And for the kids who prefer to go off
by themselves or just to work alone,

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those kids are seen as outliers
often or, worse, as problem cases.

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And the vast majority of teachers

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reports believing that the
ideal student is an extrovert

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as opposed to an introvert, even though
introverts actually get better grades

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and are more knowledgeable,
according to research.

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(Laughter) Okay, same thing
is true in our workplaces.

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Now, most of us work in open
plan offices, without walls,

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where we are subject to the constant
noise and gaze of our coworkers.

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And when it comes to leadership,

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introverts are routinely passed
over for leadership positions,

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even though introverts
tend to be very careful,

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much less likely to take outsize risks --

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which is something we
might all favor nowadays.

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And interesting research by Adam
Grant at the Wharton School

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has found that introverted leaders

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often deliver better
outcomes than extroverts do,

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because when they are
managing proactive employees,

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they're much more likely to let
those employees run with their ideas,

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whereas an extrovert can, quite
unwittingly, get so excited about things

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that they're putting
their own stamp on things,

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and other people's ideas might not
as easily then bubble up to the surface.

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Now in fact, some of our transformative
leaders in history have been introverts.

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I'll give you some examples.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi --

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all these people described themselves
as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy.

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And they all took the spotlight,

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even though every bone in their
bodies was telling them not to.

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And this turns out to have
a special power all its own,

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because people could feel that
these leaders were at the helm

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not because they enjoyed directing others

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and not out of the pleasure
of being looked at;

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they were there because
they had no choice,

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because they were driven to do
what they thought was right.

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Now I think at this point
it's important for me to say

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that I actually love extroverts.

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I always like to say some
of my best friends are extroverts,

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including my beloved husband.

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And we all fall at different
points, of course,

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along the introvert/extrovert spectrum.

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Even Carl Jung, the psychologist
who first popularized these terms,

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said that there's no such thing
as a pure introvert or a pure extrovert.

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He said that such a man would be in a
lunatic asylum, if he existed at all.

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And some people fall smack in the middle
of the introvert/extrovert spectrum,

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and we call these people ambiverts.

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And I often think that they
have the best of all worlds.

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But many of us do recognize
ourselves as one type or the other.

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And what I'm saying is that culturally,
we need a much better balance.

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We need more of a yin and yang
between these two types.

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This is especially important when it
comes to creativity and to productivity,

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because when psychologists look
at the lives of the most creative people,

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what they find are people who
are very good at exchanging ideas

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and advancing ideas, but who also have
a serious streak of introversion in them.

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And this is because solitude is a crucial
ingredient often to creativity.

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So Darwin, he took long
walks alone in the woods

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and emphatically turned down
dinner-party invitations.

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Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss,

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he dreamed up many
of his amazing creations

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in a lonely bell tower office that he had

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in the back of his house
in La Jolla, California.

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And he was actually afraid to meet
the young children who read his books

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for fear that they were expecting him
this kind of jolly Santa Claus-like figure

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and would be disappointed
with his more reserved persona.

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Steve Wozniak invented
the first Apple computer

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sitting alone in his
cubicle in Hewlett-Packard

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where he was working at the time.

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And he says that he never would have
become such an expert in the first place

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had he not been too introverted to leave
the house when he was growing up.

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Now, of course, this does not mean
that we should all stop collaborating --

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and case in point, is Steve Wozniak
famously coming together with Steve Jobs

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to start Apple Computer -- but it
does mean that solitude matters

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and that for some people it
is the air that they breathe.

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And in fact, we have known for centuries
about the transcendent power of solitude.

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It's only recently that we've
strangely begun to forget it.

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If you look at most of the world's
major religions, you will find seekers --

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Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad --

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seekers who are going off
by themselves alone to the wilderness,

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where they then have profound
epiphanies and revelations

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that they then bring back
to the rest of the community.

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So, no wilderness, no revelations.

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This is no surprise, though,

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if you look at the insights
of contemporary psychology.

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It turns out that we can't
even be in a group of people

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without instinctively mirroring,
mimicking their opinions.

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Even about seemingly personal and visceral
things like who you're attracted to,

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you will start aping the beliefs
of the people around you

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without even realizing
that that's what you're doing.

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And groups famously follow the opinions

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of the most dominant
or charismatic person in the room,

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even though there's zero correlation

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between being the best talker
and having the best ideas -- I mean zero.

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So -- (Laughter) You might be following
the person with the best ideas,

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but you might not. And do you
really want to leave it up to chance?

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Much better for everybody to go off
by themselves, generate their own ideas

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freed from the distortions of group
dynamics, and then come together as a team

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to talk them through in a well-managed
environment and take it from there.

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Now if all this is true,
then why are we getting it so wrong?

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Why are we setting up our schools
this way, and our workplaces?

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And why are we making these
introverts feel so guilty

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about wanting to just go off
by themselves some of the time?

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One answer lies deep
in our cultural history.

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Western societies,
and in particular the U.S.,

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have always favored the man of action
over the "man" of contemplation.

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But in America's early days,

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we lived in what historians
call a culture of character,

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where we still,
at that point, valued people

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for their inner selves
and their moral rectitude.

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And if you look at the self-help
books from this era,

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they all had titles with things like

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"Character, the Grandest
Thing in the World."

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And they featured role
models like Abraham Lincoln,

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who was praised for being
modest and unassuming.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson called him "A man
who does not offend by superiority."

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But then we hit the 20th century,
and we entered a new culture

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that historians call
the culture of personality.

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What happened is we had
evolved an agricultural economy

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to a world of big business.

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And so suddenly people are moving
from small towns to the cities.

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And instead of working alongside
people they've known all their lives,

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now they are having to prove
themselves in a crowd of strangers.

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So, quite understandably,

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qualities like magnetism and charisma
suddenly come to seem really important.

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And sure enough, the self-help
books change to meet these new needs

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and they start to have names like "How
to Win Friends and Influence People."

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And they feature as their role
models really great salesmen.

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So that's the world we're living in today.

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That's our cultural inheritance.

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Now none of this is to say
that social skills are unimportant,

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and I'm also not calling for the
abolishing of teamwork at all.

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The same religions who send their
sages off to lonely mountain tops

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also teach us love and trust.
And the problems that we are facing today

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in fields like science and in
economics are so vast and so complex

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that we are going to need
armies of people coming together

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to solve them working together.

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But I am saying that the more freedom
that we give introverts to be themselves,

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the more likely that they are

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to come up with their own unique
solutions to these problems.

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So now I'd like to share with you
what's in my suitcase today.

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Guess what? Books.
I have a suitcase full of books.

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Here's Margaret Atwood, "Cat's Eye."

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Here's a novel by Milan Kundera.

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And here's "The Guide
for the Perplexed" by Maimonides.

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But these are not exactly my books.

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I brought these books with me

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because they were written by my
grandfather's favorite authors.

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My grandfather was a rabbi
and he was a widower

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who lived alone in a small
apartment in Brooklyn

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that was my favorite place
in the world when I was growing up,

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partly because it was filled with his
very gentle, very courtly presence

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and partly because it
was filled with books.

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I mean literally every table,
every chair in this apartment

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had yielded its original function

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to now serve as a surface
for swaying stacks of books.

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Just like the rest of my family,

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my grandfather's favorite thing
to do in the whole world was to read.

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But he also loved his congregation,

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and you could feel this love
in the sermons that he gave

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every week for the 62
years that he was a rabbi.

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He would takes the fruits of each
week's reading and he would weave

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these intricate tapestries
of ancient and humanist thought.

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And people would come from
all over to hear him speak.

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But here's the thing about my grandfather.

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Underneath this ceremonial role, he was
really modest and really introverted --

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so much so that when he delivered these
sermons, he had trouble making eye contact

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with the very same congregation that he
had been speaking to for 62 years.

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And even away from the podium,
when you called him to say hello,

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he would often end
the conversation prematurely

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for fear that he was taking
up too much of your time.

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But when he died at the age of 94,

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the police had to close down
the streets of his neighborhood

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to accommodate the crowd of people
who came out to mourn him.

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And so these days I try to learn from
my grandfather's example in my own way.

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So I just published
a book about introversion,

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and it took me about seven years to write.

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And for me, that seven
years was like total bliss,

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because I was reading, I was writing,
I was thinking, I was researching.

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It was my version of my grandfather's
hours of the day alone in his library.

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But now all of a sudden
my job is very different,

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and my job is to be out here talking
about it, talking about introversion.

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(Laughter) And that's a lot harder for me,

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because as honored as I am to be
here with all of you right now,

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this is not my natural milieu.

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So I prepared for moments
like these as best I could.

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I spent the last year practicing public
speaking every chance I could get.

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And I call this my "year
of speaking dangerously."

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(Laughter) And that actually helped a lot.

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But I'll tell you, what helps even more

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is my sense, my belief, my hope
that when it comes to our attitudes

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to introversion and to
quiet and to solitude,

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we truly are poised on the
brink on dramatic change.

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I mean, we are. And so I
am going to leave you now

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with three calls for action
for those who share this vision.

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Number one: Stop the madness
for constant group work.

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Just stop it. (Laughter) Thank you.

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(Applause) And I want to be
clear about what I'm saying,

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because I deeply believe our offices

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should be encouraging casual,
chatty cafe-style types of interactions --

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you know, the kind where
people come together

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and serendipitously have
an exchange of ideas.

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That is great. It's great for introverts
and it's great for extroverts.

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But we need much more
privacy and much more freedom

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and much more autonomy at work.

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School, same thing. We need to be
teaching kids to work together, for sure,

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but we also need to be teaching
them how to work on their own.

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This is especially important
for extroverted children too.

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They need to work on their own

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because that is where deep
thought comes from in part.

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Okay, number two: Go to the wilderness.

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Be like Buddha, have your own revelations.

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I'm not saying that we all have to now go
off and build our own cabins in the woods

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and never talk to each other again,

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but I am saying that we
could all stand to unplug

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and get inside our own
heads a little more often.

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Number three: Take a good look
at what's inside your own suitcase

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and why you put it there. So extroverts,

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maybe your suitcases
are also full of books.

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00:18:05,360 --> 00:18:10,177
Or maybe they're full of champagne
glasses or skydiving equipment.

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Whatever it is, I hope you take
these things out every chance you get

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and grace us with your
energy and your joy.

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But introverts, you being you,

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you probably have the impulse
to guard very carefully

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what's inside your own suitcase.

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And that's okay.
But occasionally, just occasionally,

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I hope you will open up your
suitcases for other people to see,

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because the world needs you
and it needs the things you carry.

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So I wish you the best of all possible
journeys and the courage to speak softly.

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Thank you very much. (Applause)

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Thank you. Thank you.

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(Applause)