Introversion and extroversion

- Introversion is more how you deal with energy and relating to other people. It's not so much whether you're shy or socially awkward, but just whether being around people gives you energy or it takes energy away. - So when you are an introvert, it's not that it's a bad thing. It's a good thing. - In my experience, some of the best public speakers are introverts and some of the people who are the best to work with are introverts. - If someone walks up to me and starts talking to me, I can have a conversation with pretty much anyone and I love talking to people, but I'm not very good at approaching people to start that conversation. - I have moments where I'm feeling quite extroverted. And then I have moments where I'm feeling introverted. It's not ever one way for me. For me, I can be very, very social, you know, quote unquote, the life of the party, such and such. There are times when that switches on and I'm feeling it, I can talk to anybody, but then there are times where the switch is off, and I know the switch is not going to turn on no matter what I do. - So as someone who's more introverted myself, some things that I've done is just made sure to make time for that sort of recharging. So I can still go to a conference and I can still attend talks and talk to people, but I might take a time slot and not go to a talk and go back to my room and just rest and recharge for getting out there and talking to more people later on. - One of the important things is if I know I'm going to have to go to that, have to, see there's my introvert, I have to go to that event in the evening to meet people. I'll take time in the middle of the day, I'll skip a session or I'll take some time in between sessions and I'll go find a chair off in a corner somewhere. I'll listen to some music. I'll write some code. I'll do something where I get some of that downtime in the middle of the day so that I don't lose all my energy to do things later in the day as well. - I lock myself in my hotel room, or my room, or my house and I just stay there. First off, you need to know that's okay. There's nothing wrong with you. If you feel like you don't want to be around anybody, there's nothing wrong with you. You just don't want to be around anybody for that point. - So when I go to conferences or meetups or whatever, what I do is, if you see two people talking together, there's a pretty good chance that they came together and they don't know other people. So they're just talking to each other. So, find two people that are talking together and go introduce yourself. - You grow on many levels. It's about awareness, the confidence, the ability to speak to people, the ability to understand people. - If you're more of a quiet kind of person that's usually perfectly fine. But the thing that I would suggest is that when you're out and about whether it's in a meeting in your own company, meetings with friends, after church or whatever, going to meetups, going to conferences, just introduce yourself to just one person. - Make it a point to participate. If you feel a little shy, volunteer for something like signing people up, that's a great way to sort of do something that makes you a little bit less scared. - It's not that you need to change yourself from being an introvert to extrovert because that's not how you really want to do things with yourself. Being introverted is fine. But when you start going towards the zone of opening up and getting to know people, you actually build a confidence in you. You build a lot of confidence in you. - And that's why these conferences exist so that you can go to them and be around like minded people who, when you go to a tech conference, it's very likely you're around a lot of people that are also very, very nervous about being in a situation where I'm not used to talking to so many people. I'm not used to having so many people around, Oh my God, what am I doing? It turns out a lot of these people around you feel the exact same way. And sometimes you just turn to somebody and say, "Hey, how are you? "This is a weird social situation to be in isn't it?" You might strike a conversation with somebody, you never know who's standing next to you at a tech conference.