Book Review - Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Listen

When I was a child in the 1960s and 1970s, there was not a lot of talk about introverts and extroverts.  However, looking back I can see that I was an extremely introverted child born into a family of six who were all extreme extroverts.  You can imagine that this made for a lot of misunderstandings growing up.  I ended up going to a college that had the most extroverted learning style possible. That was painful also. Very painful.  When I was a graduate student in the School of Education at Ole Miss, we talked a lot about different learning styles and appealing to all kinds of learners.  That was not the case when I was growing up.  When I took the Meyers-Briggs test the first time and it showed me as an introvert that is off the charts, a lot started to make more sense.  Books like this one by Susan Cain have helped me understand my introverted nature.  When I am overloaded by stimulus, when I am drained of my energy by going to a social event or working with people all day, when I need time to process something in order to make the right decision, I realize that it is a part of my introverted nature, the way I am hard wired.  I am very appreciative of books like that.