Rachel's comments

Thanks, Brandi. Which card did you get?

Victoria, welcome! Glad you'll be joining us. :)

Will do, Debra. I think you'd love learning more about this in a small group setting. It's a rich experience!

Thanks, Pamela!

It's too bad you can't make it (although I can't say I'm surprised you're booked!).

It would be lovely to see you at the next one if it works out. :)

Hey Jennifer,

I'd love it if you'd come. You'll bring a lot of wisdom to the table. It's always richer when another person comes who has an inside take on the enneagram.

I hope you RSVP!

Yay, first sign up! Kate, I know you and I will have a ball. :)

I will keep you on the list, Rina. :)

Cool, Leif. I hope you'll be able to make it. I know you're dying to hear more about what the deal is with being a 7.

I will remind you when we get close, if it's needed. Thanks for the RT!

Kate, that's sweet to hear you still have your card. I'd love to know which one it was. :)

Andrea, I'm touched if this conversation helped you to go public with your 'vert type. It definitely sounds like you're in good company in Biznik, since many of the intros who have spoken here are people I know, respect and admire.

Yikes, I missed a couple days of responding and the comments here took off! Obviously, this topic of how our personalities are in our businesses is a big one.

Suzette, it sounds like you've become very practiced in noticing who is good for you to be around and who is not. That's a skill that everyone can benefit from--choosing our company wisely.

Jezra, yes, I did manage to get myself into a community that was ill-suited to my 'vert type, and yes, it's funny how I (as we all do at times) managed to find the one place that would directly challenge my way of being.

John, thanks for offering your visceral take on what it feels like to be an introvert in a crowd. Sounds like that resonated for other readers!

Bob, thanks for the compliment. It's always interesting to hear someone's 'vert type when it wasn't obvious. Fascinating that you and Judy both identify as intros. In my anecdotal experience, I've mostly heard of couples who are opposites, like my strongly introverted husband and my super extroverted self.

Kate, I'm so glad you stopped by to comment! You always write great and popular articles, so your compliment is dear to me. I love hearing about your experience with the strong duality of your 'vert sides. It sounds like you're playing all the notes on the keyboard of life.

Lee, I'm enjoying the comments on this article, too! More than I enjoyed writing the article itself, actually. :) (That's the social hound in me talking.) Your thought about the tendency to consider perception makes me want to discuss the Enneagram here, which is another typing system, but I digress on that for now.

Judy, it sounds like another good suggestion for introverts then is to find something to do at an event. Funny, but that helped me out the other day, too. I went to a Biznik event at Twist and felt like being a little fun, so I printed up some of my TOTDs (Thoughts of the Day, which I post on Twitter) on biz cards and put them in a box. I carried that box around with me at the event and invited everyone I met to take one. Definitely made the networking event more fun for me.

Leila, those are some great bullet points to help people understand more about the introvert experience. I love the suggestion to focus on one thing, even if it's a tree outside the window, to help keep context, which Joe seconded with a similar useful tip. Maybe you could write a companion article to this one, focused solely on the intro experience and giving your tips on what has worked for you?

Teri, yes, we're all working to be better self-experience-noticers and copers, I think. For the introvert and extrovert parts in all of us.

Tom, you're the third or fourth person to bring up the sensory input sentivity that intros have. I guess that's one of the biggest signs to me that I'm not an intro. While I don't love a noisy restaurant, nine times out of ten, it stops being noticeable to me within a couple minutes of sitting down. And sometimes I even like the buzz. Interesting that filmmaking challenges your intro self. I have done some amateur documentary filmmaking on a small scale and found that I struggle a lot with all the focused, silent activity: holding the camera and filming, editing and final production all have their rewards and cool stuff, but are somewhat tortuous for me because they're SO solitary.

Barbara, thanks for letting me know I'm representing the intros alright. It's always a little challenging to speak on the behalf of a style of living that you haven't actually lived, you know? And you're right, most of the comments are from intros. My suspicion is that this is for two reasons: 1) intros have more sustained attention for reading and so are still following what's up in the conversation, and 2) in our extrovert-preferred culture, intros are more interested in a conversation about difference. The difficult thing about those in power is that they don't have to participate in the conversations about prejudice and difference. That's the privilege of being in power. (Oops, some of my grad school learnin' just leaked out of me.) Thanks for sharing your method of teaming up with your opposite. I do something similar and it's so ridiculously helpful!

I hear you Frith about how useful it is to know this stuff about ourselves and each other. I'm so grateful for all my learning about myself and how I and others work! And I have the flip side of your marriage experience. It's taken a few years for me and my hubby to figure out that we each need to do our own thang, cause I can't couch it every night for him any more than he can be social every night for me. Thank God for compromise.

Awesome, thanks for the comment, Frith! I agree that a passionate person speaking about just about anything is pretty compelling.

I hope to meet you sometime at an event and hear more about your passion for organic paint and textiles.

Thanks for the comment, Leslie. I just saw it tonight!

Yes, it's always helpful to know what regulations are out there that could apply to your business. We probably all skirt the edge of some unknown reg from time to time without knowing, maybe ever!

Joe, to me that still sounds like mostly introvert territory. Like Jezra refers to above, I think it's more the massive amount of more surfacial conversation that drains introverts, rather than a serious of deeper chats that you might find at a gathering of your closest friends.

In other words, I think it's more about the level of connection you need from the people you interact with and less about the number, per se.

It's just that it's rare (for most people) to have that many friends that they get deep with.

Intros like John and Leila, I'd love for you to chime in and say how that rings for you. As an extro, I'm never going to know as well as someone who lives the intro life.

I would expect that as Biznik Ambassador, Joe, you definitely do have to mingle more than most intros! Thanks for the compliment.

Brody, thanks for your comments. I bet having a psych teacher mom came with an equal share of challenges and benefits. Your extroverted basement dweller club sounds like a great idea! I have a close colleague with whom I share a lot of my work days, and I have my Nia community to keep me sane.

Judy and Jezra, it's so interesting that you both comment on how intros can feel "less than" at times, because I've experienced the other side.

Growing up, I was really into reading and I majored in creative writing in college. Many of my friends were other poets and fiction writers (and artists, too). And I'll tell you, it's taken me some years to get over how much shame I felt at not sitting down to write more often.

I knew I had talent and good ideas AND I knew that the successful writers were the ones with discipline, so WHY couldn't I just be more dedicated like my friends and put time into my writing?!

And I'll admit, Judy, that I still sometimes have to stop myself from giving me a hard time when I see how well you do on Biznik with all your articles and thoughtful comments. There's a part of me that gets all "why couldn't I be more like that?!"

Ooof. Because I'm an extrovert. I just don't work that way. I just don't. And I remind myself that there's no reason to shame myself for it.

Wow, thanks for all the comments, guys!

Kory, it's great to see you online again. Thanks for the compliment.

Leila, I love what you said about the online personality allowing intros to get comfortably connected with people so that networking in person feels easier. And yes, we definitely miss you and the other intros when you are absent from events!

Rina, part of why I wrote this article was to debunk the perception that extros have the world on a silver platter. It's true that I can network till the cows come home, but it's also true that I rarely write articles because it takes so much out of me. But I have tons to say, and could happily wax rhapsodic for hours...if I were talking TO somebody in person.

As for the early-exit strategy, I believe every intro has to find her own. For some, it may be a mere half hour and for others, they could handle two hours or more. What is it for you?

John, you're definitely an intro who has extro qualities. Everytime I see you at an event, you're diving into the middle of the energy in the room. You meet people with gusto and it's very charming. :) And yes, I hear you about nature being the ultimate restoration. Even this extro needs to recharge her soul at times with some crisp air, an ocean breeze, and some seagulls (Golden Gardens is my preferred nature spot...still kinda public).

Heather, I wonder if those of us who really work on our personal growth don't all eventually end up in the middle of intro and extro (and other dualities in general).

Jezra, wow! Thank you for that amazing compliment. And I totally see what you're saying about intros becoming speakers. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've met a few intros in Biznik who are popular speakers...and I couldn't tell they were intros until they were off stage. Further proof that intros can also shine brightly when they find the right method for themselves.

Anyone else want to share how they cope with their side of the intro/extro coin?