now in fact, some of our transformative leaders in history have been introverts. i'll give you some examples. eleanor roosevelt, rosa parks, gandhi -- all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy. and they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to. and this turns out to have a special power all its own, because people could feel that these leaders were at the helm, not because they enjoyed directing others and not out of the pleasure of being looked at; they were there because they had no choice, because they were driven to do what they thought was right.
now i think at this point it's important for me to say that i actually love extroverts. i always like to say some of my best friends are extroverts, including my beloved husband. and we all fall at different points, of course, along the introvert/extrovert spectrum. even carl jung, the psychologist who first popularized these terms, said that there's no such thing as a pure introvert or a pure extrovert. he said that such a man would be in a lunatic asylum, if he existed at all. and some people fall smack in the middle of the introvert/extrovert spectrum, and we call these people ambiverts. and i often think that they have the best of all worlds. but many of us do recognize ourselves as one type or the other.
and what i'm saying is that culturally we need a much better balance. we need more of a yin and yang between these two types. this is especially important when it comes to creativity and to productivity, because when psychologists look at the lives of the most creative people, what they find are people who are very good at exchanging ideas and advancing ideas, but who also have a serious streak of introversion in them.
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