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Introvert Advantage

Book Notes

Mid-book thoughts
I'm struggling a little bit with the part of the book that links thrill-seeking, dopamine resistant genetics with extroversion. The author has a section that talks about how thrill seekers have lower dopamine sensitivity and seek out novel, often dangerous, activities to alleviate boredom. My difficulty with this idea is that if introversion is building energy from the inside (instead of extroversion of absorbing energy from the outside), seeking novelty is orthogonal to introversion. Okay, if not orthogonal, at least not a causation as she seems to indicate.

Recognizing that a data point of one is the same as a data point of none, and that my experiences aren't necessarily reflective of a whole, blah blah blah, I find myself seeing experiences outside of my comfort zone, in the area of discomfort the author says thrill-seeking extroverts thrive. I don't seek thrills or need to do dangerous stunts to believe that I'm alive, but I do want experiences, to live life fully.

Maybe it's because I have trained myself to be outside of my comfort zone, and that training means that my natural state is OUTSIDE of it. Maybe I'm not comfortable IN a comfort zone, which is one of the weirdest things to say about an introvert.

I'm not sure. Have to think on this more. I will say that I had to reread the section several times, pondering it. I don't agree with it. I think she found a correlation, not a causation.

More mid-book reading, I've stalled on this book, based on the irrelevancy of some of the content. In particular, introverts dating. The advice isn't relevant to me.

End of book thoughts

This book ended up being a better book than I was expecting it to be. The beginning was annoying to me because it started off as all about the author and her world as an introvert. It didn't seem to apply to me. The middle part about introverts dating didn't seem to fit either, because the advice was for shy introverts. I'm not a shy introvert. I am completely and totally an introvert. I am, however, likely to go up and talk to people while ignoring social norms like "You aren't supposed to just ask the CEO out for dinner, bring the family" sort of things. People are people and I find some of the limitations and barriers we create to be not worth seeing, since they aren't valid. So, yeah, I'm not a shy introvert. I am, however, an introvert.

Which is why the last 40% or so of the book WAS relevant and incredibly interesting to me. Introverts in the workplace? F--- YES, let's talk.

Introverts and communication styles?

Introverts and personal space?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

God, I wish I had some of this insight three years ago. My world would have been a lot less grey back then had I had it.

So, while the first part, meh, get through it, the last part is incredibly insightful for introverts. On that basis, I recommend this book.

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