I had an interesting conversation with someone recently about introversion where I mentioned that I am very introverted. The person I was talking too sounded quite shocked, and their reaction was, “You speak at loads of conferences on stage, surely you are not shy?”. I found this interesting that the concept of being shy is perceived to be a trait of being introverted.
I don’t consider myself shy at all. I will quite happily get up on stage in front of several hundred or a thousand people to deliver a technical talk. I will also mingle and talk with people at social gatherings, but when I do, I find this exhausting, and all I want to do afterward is hideaway by myself for several hours and recharge. This is especially true after delivering a talk; I want to be alone afterward when I have packed up and finished answering questions. The thing that makes me an introvert is that I require solitude to recharge my batteries whereas extroverts recharge in the presence of others.
This all got me thinking, and I decided to research the topic a little more. I hope you find this post interesting.
Read More “Introverts and Extroverts — How Different Are They?”