Introverts & Extroverts: Setting the Record Straight
How to identify your type and why it’s so important for Performance
Most of us have heard the terms ‘Introvert’ and ‘Extrovert’. Some of us might even associate ourselves with one or the other based on a test early on in college or popular stereotypes. Perhaps you see Introverts as quiet or shy and Extroverts as outgoing and talkative. While neither of these cliches is necessarily wrong, they’re not exactly correct either.
Even if you’re fairly confident that you’re a strong Extrovert or are convinced you’re a lone Introvert, what we’re about to go over will forever change how you understand these types and will equip you with the tools to hack your brain for higher performance, better quality of life and a deeper appreciation for those who are different from you.
Understanding Introversion vs Extroversion Boosts Our Confidence
In the world of performance coaching, much of the work revolves around important topics like Communication, Leadership, and Inner World Development. The successful execution of these principles however lies in Confidence. We define Confidence as the trust you have in your abilities, qualities, and judgments.
How can we be confident in our work if we don’t know the key components of who we are and what we need to be at our best? One of the first things we do with all our clients is to take them through the MBTI Personality Test which is used internationally by Universities, corporations, and high-performing professions to identify cognitive preferences that are the foundation of each of our personalities. Introversion and Extroversion are the first out of four types of cognitive preferences. Where we fall on the Introversion/Extraversion continuum is the basis of how we derive our energy. This is critical for our performance in the workplace. Understanding just this one cognitive preference can transform your confidence, performance, and quality of life in and out of the workplace.
Introversion & Extroversion: It’s all about Energy
Introversion and Extroversion have gathered many stereotypes that have led to a major misunderstanding of what these terms mean. Introversion is NOT about being shy, quiet, or working alone with headphones on all day. Being an Extrovert is NOT about being loud, talkative, and constantly networking. Instead, these terms indicate how your brain rewards you, gives you energy, and what you need from an environment to be at your best performance energetically.
There are a few important points to understand about this continuum.
#1: Introversion and Extroversion are two ends of a continuum.
Your MBTI test will show a percentage of how much you prefer this cognitive orientation. This means that while you may be an Extrovert, you might be more in the middle of the continuum and therefore your needs differ from an extrovert at the very extreme of the continuum. Let’s take a look at why that is and how these preferences are laid out in our brains.
As you can see in the image above, extroverts and introverts use different pathways in the brain. Extrovert pathways are much shorter while introverts utilize a much longer pathway. The pathways represent the process our brains take when given stimulation.
Stimulus in the workplace can be anything from a co-worker talking to you, an assignment from your boss, a group meeting, phone notifications, and so on. The pathways above also indicate blood flow. Where there is more blood flow, there is a greater sensitivity (think about when you smash your thumb, it gets red and for the next hour you wince whenever anything touches it). So far we can see that a simple stimulus in the workplace can trigger two completely different reactions in the brain and that introverts and extroverts are quite literally ‘wired’ differently. This is a crucial point that we’ll elaborate on below so that you can learn how to quickly leverage your brain’s natural pathways to boost confidence in your abilities, expand your performance, and enjoy your unique brain more often.
#2: Where You Fall on the Continuum Predicts How You Derive Energy
Stimulus from our environments are always creating a reaction inside of us and how the stimulus affects us is determined by our pathways (introverted path vs extroverted path). Each reaction to these stimuli is either rewarded internally with balanced chemicals that make us feel good, or we become out of balance and those same chemicals drain us or make us feel depressed, unmotivated, and overwhelmed.
For example, we all need Dopamine. Hits of Dopamine make us feel good, happy, rewarded, and energized. However, too much Dopamine can make us feel stressed out, overwhelmed, and even insane (like hallucinations) while too little Dopamine can make us feel depressed, unmotivated, and sluggish.
Since Extroverts have a shorter pathway in the brain, there’s less blood flow from the stimulus and this creates a lower sensitivity to Dopamine and a higher need for it than Introverts.
stimuli
With such a short brain pathway, how do they ever get enough? They utilize Adrenaline by activating their Sympathetic Nervous System which is often better known as the “flight or fight” system. This is an energy-spending system that rewards them with extra hits of Dopamine that they need to feel good and at their best throughout the day. Extroverts often need more “hits” of external stimuli to perform optimally and feel good. They can achieve this through more frequent hits and greater intensity of hits to feel optimal.
The extroverted brain structure can be very helpful to the workplace, as this type can be the ‘movers and shakers’ of an organization. It’s important to understand extroverts' needs so that they can contribute without being taken advantage of or overworked. Since they are constantly utilizing a spending system in the body, extroverts need to take careful steps to include proper self-care, rest, and reflection time to avoid burnout.
Tips for Extroverts:
- Quality over Quantity: Dopamine hits are not all equal. Just like eating, those overly-processed snacks will cause a crash but a nutritionally dense meal will sustain you. Know what 'hits' are in your best interest and which ones are shallow distractions.
- Focus: It's an extraverts world so most of you can energize yourselves naturally. Focusing that energy is where you will see a big bump in performance. Learn to leverage your quality dopamine hits into high-focus, deep work.
- Rest: It feels good to feel good, and extroverts can accidentally burn out their bodies and adrenals running from one feel-good moment to the next. They will see a rise in performance and sustainability by investing in their physical self-care: exercise, sleep, meditation, and nutrition. Even the tiniest fasts from constant stimulation can help reset the sensitivity resulting in greater experiences with less effort moving forward.
Knowing this information can change how we structure even the smallest things in our day. Leveraging your brain's cognitive preferences can be a quick bump in performance, greater energy, and clearer thinking throughout your day. Oftentimes it’s not that we’re lazy, unmotivated, or even procrastinating. For an extrovert, it could be as little as being more stimulated throughout the day to keep their energy, mood, and performance high. Knowing your type and how to manage this crucial aspect of yourself will create an immediate boost of confidence.
#3: Understanding your type can change the way you work and live
Extroverts make up two-thirds of the population. This means Introverts exist at a 1:3 ratio to their Extroverted peers. Therefore the workplace and many other environments can often be set up around extroverted preferences. This can create additional challenges for introverts when they don’t understand how they’re wired or how to leverage their unique brain pathways for better performance and happier lives.
We learned that more blood flow equals greater sensitivity when looking at the brain pathways above. This means that the introverted brain pathways are highly sensitive to Dopamine and unlike their extroverted peers, they need much less of it. So while extroverts can feel sluggish, depressed, and unmotivated without enough Dopamine, introverts can feel overwhelmed, stressed out,energy-conserving, and physically depleted from too much Dopamine. With such a long brain path and high sensitivity, how do introverts avoid being ‘doped’ out all the time? They utilize the Parasympathetic Nervous System or ‘the rest and digest’ system. This is an energy-conserving system and it triggers a neurotransmitter called Acetylcholine. Acetylcholine rewards introverts with ‘feel good’ sensations akin to what yogis feel after a long meditation session. It’s released to calm, soothe, and restore the introvert system and allows them to reap the benefits of the long brain pathway (including complex problem solving, memory, various brain connections, and other internal processes that feel good to introverts). Therefore, introverts need fewer external hits and they get rewarded internally when they spend time inside of themselves thinking, feeling, and problem-solving.
Since introverts rely on an energy-conserving system to feel rewarded, they need to pay, careful attention to areas where quick, outward action is needed so as not to feel frustrated around meeting their goals in an externally oriented world. Introverts also usually need a little validation, support, and information on how to best protect and enhance their unique process instead of trying to conform it inappropriately to an extroverted preference in the workplace. As the less common of the two, introverts have much to offer the extroverted-dominant world. To contribute their full potential, they need to understand how their brain works and leverage this day-to-day to sustain confidence, performance, and well-being.
Tips for Introverts:
- Know thyself: Introverts can be tricky. There's a lot of misinformation and confusion around this group. Find out your type, your preferences, and where you fall on the continuum to demystify your cognitive preferences for performance. The Introvert Advantage is an excellent resource.
- Take Control: Don't expect an extroverted world to know, understand or naturally accommodate your preferences. Instead, invest your energy into knowing what you need and create your environment around what makes you perform your best. Introverts are incredible problem solvers, thinkers, and communicators. Use this to your advantage and take control of your little corner of the world.
- Confidence: There's less competition and more of a need for introvert skill sets. Being the less common type has its perks; get to know these benefits and leverage them. As an introvert, if you want to be a high performer, don't waste time trying to win an extrovert's game. Use those long pathways to creatively understand your unique advantage and then confidently take up that space.
Do you know yourself?
Understanding yourself, including how to gain critical Self-confidence, is a foundational principle of performance. Knowing your energy type, personality type and the other parts of the self are all crucial in boosting performance, enjoying your work, and getting the results you want from yourself, your team, and your company.
Comment if you know you know your type. Introverts or Extroverts? Let me know who's who below.
