At the age of 5, I recognized I was truly, different.
As my mother took me and my little brother on a walk through Central Park, a lady with a full head of those giant rollers in her hair stopped her and bent down to look at me, eye to eye.
She smiled and said to my mom, “Why do you pencil her eyebrows?”
My mother replied, “I don’t; that’s natural.”
The lady replied, “Redheads don’t have dark eyebrows.”
My mother’s response ” This one does. Just like her grandmother.”
Lady with the rollers ” Well, your grandmother must look like Rosalind Russel.”
Mom “Exactly.”
Lady in the rollers to me: “You will be quite a spitfire.”
Mom,” she already is.”
I can remember cringing, already afraid. How do I live up to that moniker? (Mom had to explain what a spitfire was as we walked back to our apartment). It’s the first time I can remember retreating. Wanting nothing more than to go to my room and read my new book “Eloise” (more on that later.). Where I’d sit for hours, taking in each word, each sentence (and if I did not understand a word, I’d ask). Mom would have to get me to eat, to come out of my room. She’d force me to interact when all I wanted to do was retreat. A redhead retreating.
Another paradox.
I think that’s the moment I knew. When I chose books over playing outside. When I chose solitude over social.
In school, I was the kid who sat in the corner desk in the back of the room. The straight-A student other girls hated. I always took the back corner desk. A classic introvert move.
To have any friends at all I had to learn how to survive in an extrovert world.
Becoming an entrepreneur at 13, catering dinner parties for my mom’s friends, I could stay behind the scenes and still do the work I love. Retreating became my way to stay out of the fray. Living in the plastic bubble of the North Shore of Chicago and living up to my parent’s expectations of fitting in to some societal expectations was impossible. It’s where I developed my love of music. I could exit stage left to my room, read and listen to music and be what the world already expected me to be “weird.”
Working in the restaurant and nightclub business for the first half of my career seemed an odd choice for an introvert. That’s where I developed the skills to survive in an extrovert’s world. How to stretch and push myself. The world I knew already thought of me as an extrovert. As a redhead, most people have a preconceived notion of who we are. It could not be further from the truth, at least for me.
My first gig in the music and tech world gave me the best balance of both. I worked in a workplace environment that embraced my introvert. That championed my weirdness. Where my uniqueness was celebrated. A place where I did not have to explain myself.
We need a lot more places like that one.
Then I chose the world of digital marketing. Branding. Sponsorship. Strategy. A world that requires you to be an extrovert. So, I pushed myself again, in ways I never imagined. And it paid off. Yet it left me exhausted. With little energy to be the creative thinker, I knew I could be.
I cherish those leaders in my life who allowed me to be weird. And I’ve made some great stuff. Got to be part of some big stuff. Worked alongside people a whole lot smarter than me. Learned. Gave back. Still do.Became the best wingman I could be. Still am.
In 2012, my perception of introverts changed forever. Susan Cain’s 202 TED talk “The Power of Introverts” came out. “When it comes to creativity and leadership, we need introverts doing what they do best.” Wait, what?
“A third to a half of the population are introverts — a third to a half. So that’s one out of every two or three people you know.” A third to a half of the population? Mic drop.
Abraham Lincoln
Rosa Parks
Albert Einstein
Steven Spielberg
Bill Gates
Eleanor Roosevelt
Larry Paige
Dr. Seuss
and my favorite introvert, JK Rowling.
“Solitude matters, and for some people, it is the air they breathe. And in fact, we have known for centuries about the transcendent power of solitude. It’s only recently that we’ve strangely begun to forget it.”
At the end of her TED Talk (viewed over 30M times), Susan shared the three calls to action for those who share the vision that we are on the brink of change when it comes to attitudes about introversion, quiet, and solitude.
- “Stop the madness for the constant group work.”
- “Go to the wilderness.”
- “Take a good look at what’s inside your suitcase and why you put it there.”
My suitcase is secret. Always will be.That’s an introvert. For those I’m blessed to work with, for and alongside…
We introverts love to collaborate. We respect thecreativeness that comes out of those moments.
Give us space.
Foster autonomy.
Don’t be surprised if we trip over our words. We are no less eloquent.
The introverts in your life are not weird. We are the spark and the space in between.