Introverts is one of my Google alerts phrases. This weekend one directed me to a slideshare presentation for the shy connector. Even though there is a subtle difference between the introvert and shy, the author of the presentation, Sacha Chua, is an introvert who clearly understands how we can network more easily, even as a shy introvert. Using some of her presentation, included here, here’s a summary of a few things we’ve been talking about right here.
Extroverts Who Want to Understand Introverts, Get a Look!
Regardless of how you label yourself or someone you know:
1 – Introversion and extroversion is all about energy; where we get our charge.
2 – You can be shy and introverted or shy and extroverted. But in the case of introverts, we don’t like small talk because our preference is fat, big and deep talk.
3 – Sacha says it on slide 8 of her presentation: you cannot network effectively as an introvert if you try it like an extrovert. Once we learn that we can relax and be ourselves.
4 – Our natural inclination in meeting people the first time is not to be all self-disclosing. Leave that to the extroverts! Being yourself on an initial meeting is about you being other focused: so ask those questions you like to ask, listen, and let the extrovert talk.
5 – Where we can really become comfortable is in the ensuing pieces: taking the relationship deeper one-to-one. Guess what? We do it naturally.
Sit back and enjoy Sacha’s presentation and then ask yourself, what are the strengths you can see that you have that you may not be letting out of that genie’s bottle?