{"id":24344,"date":"2021-01-18T21:26:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T01:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=24344"},"modified":"2021-01-29T16:28:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T20:28:35","slug":"quiet-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/quiet-author\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quiet Author and Her Personal Experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who is the Quiet<\/em> author? How do her experiences shape her writing and what do those experiences tell us about introverts in society?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quiet <\/em>author Susan Cain struggled with the conflict between her introversion and the public speaking component of her job. He shares her experience and research to show how you can stretch beyond your temperament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read on for more about the Quiet<\/em> author and what she shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Quiet <\/em>Author on Changing Your Temperament<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Further research by Dr. Carl Schwartz at Massachusetts General Hospital on Kagan\u2019s subjects as teenagers showed that we can stretch beyond our inherited characteristics, but only to a point<\/strong>. Our temperaments continue to influence us throughout our lives<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schwartz used an fMRI machine that measures brain activity. He showed participants a fast-moving series of photos of people\u2019s faces to simulate the experience of walking into a crowded room. Some of the photos were repeated and became \u201cfamiliar,\u201d while new ones were continually added to the sequence. The people who had been highly reactive as children were more sensitive\u2014they reacted more strongly\u2014to the photos of unfamiliar faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the high-reactives had grown into socially engaged and friendly teenagers who were not outwardly bothered by new experiences, but their brains still reacted more strongly to the unfamiliar faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our personalities are somewhat like rubber bands, able to stretch but only so far. <\/strong>Introvert Bill Gates can hone his social skills but he\u2019ll never be as gregarious as Bill Clinton\u2014and Clinton will never be a solitary computer genius like Gates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stretching Yourself<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When the emotional center of our brain\u2014the amygdala\u2014reacts with anxiety to a situation, another part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex<\/a>, can send a counter-message to calm down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, we can teach ourselves to react differently, although we may revert to our old reactions under stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both introverts and extroverts can stretch beyond their comfort zones when it\u2019s to their advantage, particularly to further a career.<\/strong> For example, an introvert can learn and practice skills to be more comfortable interacting socially, while an extrovert can learn to slow down and be more reflective by cultivating friendships with introverts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an introvert, Quiet <\/em>author Susan Cain struggled with public speaking, yet it was something her work often required her to do. To make the experience less stressful, she took a class in public speaking and also taught herself a number of stress-reduction techniques, such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n