For many people, discovering where they fell on the introvert-extrovert spectrum didn’t come at an early age. So they grew up with a set of perceptions about who they were that may or may not have been based in reality. This is especially true for introverts; for instance, I grew up thinking that I was socially unskilled and not a good conversationalist.
I hear similar stories from my clients and the people I’ve spoken with over the past three years. From this one piece of information – knowing they’re introverts – they can start the journey of learning how to be their most powerful selves.
My guest is New Zealand psychologist Dr. Alice Boyes, and she was fortunate; she learned that she was an introvert at a very young age. But it was only recently that she started to appreciate her introversion, rather than see it as a personal fault.
We talk about her journey from feeling ashamed of being an introvert to feeling at peace with it. We also cover a wide range of topics, including
- Taking what could be perceived as a negative trait and becoming more comfortable with it
- How lessons from traditional work places help inform making the transition to entrepreneurship
- Distinguishing between introversion, anxiety and lack of confidence
- Identifying your “tracks of avoidance” that could hold you back
- What’s really behind our fear of success
PS: 2/22/15: Being published on March 3, 2015: The Anxiety Toolkit! Congratulations, Alice!
PPS: One of her recent Psychology Today articles was featured on Lifehacker.com and has gotten over 100,000 views (read the original article).
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Did anyone else have serious difficulty understanding most of Dr. Boyes’s speaking during this interview? The accent certainly wasn’t a problem, but the audio-quality on her end of the call was pretty fuzzy — clusters of words and occasionally entire sentences just unintelligible — to the point that I sadly stopped and deleted the episode about halfway through ’cause I just couldn’t follow it. (Maybe it was just me?) And the pieces that I could make out sounded so promising…
Introversion, Perception and Reality via Beth Buelow https://twitter.com/introvertcoach with https://twitter.com/DrAliceBoyes http://theintrovertentrepreneur.com/2013/02/22/introversion-perception-and-reality-with-alice-boyes/
Thogek I suggest she slow down more. Quick talking can be an indication of anxiety. https://twitter.com/Peta_de_Aztlan