If You’re Introvert But Done Hiding, Please Watch This!

If you're an introvert trying to grow your brand or business, you've probably felt this. You're doing the work. You've got the skills, but the clients, the visibility, the momentum, it's not landing. You start wondering, "Do I need to be more outgoing? Am I not built for this? Is this just the way it is for people like me?" Let me tell you, you're not broken. You've just been trying to win a game that wasn't designed for you. as a loud introvert who's built an eight figureure business, spoke around the world, and led thousands of creatives. These are the eight strategies that help me stop hiding, start leading, and succeed without pretending to be someone I'm not. Let's get into it. Let's start with number one. What you think of as a deficiency is your quiet superpower. Your ability to leverage it will determine how successful you are. So, here's the idea. Introverts have a natural advantage in creativity, leadership, and business if they learn to recognize them. What do I mean by that? Well, listening can be more than just passive. It's a way to gather vital information to get the data, and that is your superpower. When you learn how to really listen, you hear what people want before they even say it. You're able to read between the lines, the subtext, and that makes you a better problem solver. The ability to observe things, lets you to see things that most people miss. This could be body language, emotional tension, tonality, or even unspoken objections. You don't need to be the loudest person. You don't need to be the most social, gregarious person. You don't have to be the person screaming for attention to be in the spotlight. You need to be the most attuned, to be the most aware, the most observant. That's your superpower. A lot of introverts think that the loudest, most vocal person is the one who's the leader, who is in charge, and the one that's worthy of being heard. But I would just want to reinforce this concept that's missed a lot, which is listening isn't a passive thing if it's done correctly. It's a way for you to process, absorb information, and to think about something thoughtful to say or to contribute. And we all know this. If you don't have something to add, you don't have to say anything at all. What we often tell ourselves in our mind is, "Oh, that person's unimportant. Who's sitting in a corner? Who invited them? Why are they even here in this room?" But what you don't realize is when everybody's finished talking because no one's really listening to each other and you're able to add that one clarifying point, it adds a lot of value to the room and they all sit back and say, "Whoa, that's the deep thinker in the room." That's the person who becomes inherently the most interesting person. So this quiet listening, which is really active listening, if you're doing this correctly, makes you a better problem solver. Let me put this in context in my own life, my own story here. I was recently at a meeting with some very powerful, successful people. In fact, I think I'm the least successful, the least accomplished, and the poorest person at the table. And what I saw was everyone trying to outdo each other talking and no one's listening because everyone is cutting the other person off. It's hard to get a word in edge-wise. The introverted me starts to recoil and think, I need to escape this conversation. This really boring. No one's really that interested in each other. But like the cobra kind of coiled in the basket. there was an opportunity to contribute something meaningful and then I struck and I said what I needed to say and I can tell from the room everybody kind of just was thrown back a little bit like there's been this sleeper here just quietly patiently waiting to contribute something to the conversation and I think immediately I was able to create an impression on people that was far more substantial than if I were trying to compete with them and talking the entire time. So, I just want to reinforce this concept that this thing that you kind of are fearful of being so quiet in the room and not saying anything and this desire to be louder than everyone else. Let the others do that. Stay in your pocket. Stay where you're strong. Stay observant and be attuned to what's happening and you're going to be able to process and record and observe and see things that everyone else is going to miss. Strategy two, be quiet in person, but be really loud online. This is how you get the best of both worlds. The internet, believe it or not, is introverts stage to play. It's our playground. It lets you control the spotlight to rehearse your message if necessary and scale your voice way beyond the circle of influence of being in person without draining yourself socially. As an introvert, I am just socially drained by being around people and I dread social gatherings. Now, you can overcome that, but you can also leverage the internet to help you amplify your voice. You don't have to actually deal with people, which is wonderful. and you get to meditate, pontificate, and reflect on the things that you want to say so that every word you say punches hard and hits like truth. Find a platform that works best for your communication style. So, if you love to write, write. If you have a great speaking voice, use that on a podcast. And if you're dynamic and charismatic on camera when no one's around, use YouTube or Instagram reels or something like that. This is a huge advantage for you to be able to use these platforms to be in your pocket, your zone of genius, and to amplify that across multiple platforms. I didn't start making content until I was 42 years old, producing content on YouTube. And you've seen me through the struggles of finding my voice, showing up online, and slowly becoming comfortable in my own skin on camera. And all of what I'm able to accomplish now was because despite being quiet in person, I was able to be loud online and amplify my message. I often tell people that I don't have social skills, that I'm super socially awkward. And my strategy to survive and to play with people on a much bigger scale was to be able to create content so good that I didn't need to develop social skills. So if your content is really good, people get a sense of knowing who you are in an asymmetrical way. What that means is you speak once but a thousand people can be listening. So when I enter a room in real life, people already have a sense of who I am, what my ideas are about, and they're happy to come up to me and I'm happy to talk to them at that point because now they don't feel like such scary strangers to talk to anymore. Strategy three, step outside your comfort zone. It sucks less each time. Confidence isn't a personality trait. It's a byproduct of you putting in the necessary reps. You don't become fearless. It just becomes familiar. Many years ago, when I was working with my business coach, he came to this conclusion after observing me for a number of years, he asked me this question. Why are you so busy being the world's bestkept secret? And it kind of caught me off guard. I'm like, what do you mean? And he said, I think you're brilliant. I think you have a lot to offer the world, but you're so reluctant to go out there even to meet your clients who are here at the company. And I'm sure there's lots of designers, some young minds, some entrepreneurs in the making that want to hear from you and your experience. So I asked him, "So what am I supposed to do?" He goes, "Volunteer to speak." And I got to tell you, and if you haven't thrown up already, the idea of being in front of a lot of people, let alone just a few people, if it's scary to you, it is and still is scary to me. But here's the thing. I threw my caution to the wind because Kier told me this thing. There are two types of people in this world. people who run towards change and people who run away from change. And in my own life and experience, every time I stepped into change to grow, to expand, opportunities met me there. So although I was sweating bullets during my first talk, and I bombed horribly the first couple of talks, I didn't give up. Each time I'd go back, I'd look at what I did wrong, what I did well, and I would just try to improve. And I developed a way of doing talks that was congruent with my style of speaking. Something I learned from Kier. He goes, "You can present to lots of people if there's an image, right, like in front of clients." I'm like, "Yeah, I do that all day long." So he says, "Turn your whole presentation into a series of slides that you could just talk about." And it seems so obvious, but yeah, I could do that all day long. So how I was able to do this was to be able to present a series of images that would just allow me to speak freely and not try to memorize any specific key points or data. Over time, I would be able to remember those points and data, and I spoke more eloquently and intelligently. But we can just take those little steps. And if we put in those reps and stay consistent and try to improve just a little bit each time, you cannot fail. You will get better. And at some point, you're going to look back on this moment and say to yourself, "How the heck did I get here? And I've come so far." Strategy four, dance with your fear in networking. You don't have to love it, just play with it. Networking doesn't require you to work the entire room. It just requires you to show up, even awkwardly, and stay present. Maybe like a lot of you, I dread in-person events, especially when I feel like I don't know a single person. So, I want to tell you a real life story right now. I'm a speaker at Design Thinkers in Toronto and I'm dreading going to this event. It's for speakers and I should be there and I know the value of being there and there's some relief to me that Douglas Davis is going to be there. And so, I text him like, "You coming to this party?" He goes, "Yeah, I'll be there soon." Cool. So, I go through a series of rituals. First, I just get dressed cuz I know I can't go anywhere if I don't get dressed. And then now I'm standing in my hotel room thinking, I'm dressed. What should I do now? So I go down to the lobby. I just stay in the lobby for a while. I'm just thinking and just lying to myself. Oh, you could be fashionably late. But what I was really doing was I was just procrastinating. And instead of taking an Uber there, I walk there just to prolong this whole process as if it's like my death march or something. Eventually, I do arrive and I'm met by the host and she's welcoming me. And thank God that's the first and only familiar face. And I'm looking around the entire room wondering, is Douglas here? And that rat, he was not there. And so now I'm feeling super awkward and clingy. I'm thinking I should just hang around the host for as much as I can. But I know that's super weird, even weirder than just being standing there by myself. I'm looking around the bar. It seems like everybody knows everybody. There's groups of two, three, and four. Everyone's laughing. I'm just feeling like I'm going to jump out of my skin and run for the door. But I have a conversation with myself. what's going to happen if you stand here so awkwardly? What would happen to you? So, I made the commitment that no matter what, I was not going to leave this bar until they kicked us out. So, I got a cup of water. I stood there in the middle and I strategically placed myself between the bathroom and the bar, the hight traffic zones, in case someone separated from their pack and would walk up and talk to me. Fate was not that kind. I just stood there and imagined myself to be a tree with my feet as roots planted into the ground, immovable. As awkward as that sounds, it was even weirder to experience through my lens. I don't know how long it was, but it was several minutes. I'm just standing there looking around slowly pretending to slip this non-alcoholic beverage. When someone says, "Hey, Chris." I turn around and they're like, "Hey, big fan of your work." I'm like, "Thank God. Thank god somebody finally said something and they motioned me." come over to our table. Sat down and started talking to them. And just what happened as soon as I'm in a groove with a conversation, Mr. Douglas Davis casually saunters into the room like, "Yeah, the party's about to start." I'm like, "You rat. You dirty rat. You came after I already met some people." I'm just telling you this that things are going to be weird and awkward. But if you just find a trick, a mental trick, and the trick that I always use is take very small steps, it'll seem silly that you don't take the next evolutionary step, and eventually you'll be at one of these things. And do everything in your power to not run away. Be the tree. This next strategy, number five, is the thing that's going to make everything else that you heard work. That introversion isn't a limitation. It's not something for us to be ashamed of. It's just a different operating system. So, I want you to reframe that. Stop looking at introversion as a bug. It's not something to be fixed or to get rid of or to solve. It's a different operating system and it runs better in long games, not quick wins. There's a powerful phrase that I've learned and it's worth repeating to you that words shape worlds. The words that you choose to describe the events and and how you see things, how you record things in your own self story determine largely how successful you're going to be, how happy you're going to be. And that's why it's really important for us to not think of introversion as a deficit or a disease or something to be cured of. And if you keep telling yourself, I'm not good at this. I'm not made for this. I shouldn't be here. You're confirming this self- story. That's a lot of negative selft talk. And it's a limiting belief that you're perpetuating over time. The reason why this is so harmful is if you say, "I'm not going to be good at something," you're going to manifest that into reality just to confirm that this is true. You go to rooms, you're like, "This is stupid." So, you don't make an effort. When somebody speaks, you're like, "I'm going to be weird. This is going to be weird." And you say weird things. So, then when somebody leaves you stranded there once again to be alone by yourself, you're like, "See, I knew it. Going to this event was stupid. Showing up to this party was dumb. people don't like me and I'm super weird. If you keep telling yourself those stories, you're going to make this true because the universe works in a really weird way. It gives you what you're looking for. It gives you more of what you want. Let's face reality. There are many people out there, people that might be even related to you, so-called friends, and especially enemies who are rooting for your demise. They're throwing stones at your glass house. It does not need an ally in self-sabotage. Strategy number six, play the part when it counts. So here's the big idea. You don't have to fake it to make it. You can step into it. I think Shakespeare wrote, "All the world's a stage and aren't we all but mere actors in this world?" And there's something about this that when we grow and reach for things that we are not capable of doing just yet. We feel really awkward, inauthentic, and as if we're fakers. And the imposttor monster is very loud in our own head. I just want to tell you something. Every time you do something new is the first time you're doing something new. It's meant to be uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean we can't reach for those goals. Let me tell you how I've been able to overcome this myself. There's a powerful concept. It's called modeling, where you look at someone and you study them and you start to act, walk, and speak and then eventually think like them. So, here's the fundamental shift that a lot of people don't understand. We know that the mind influences the body, but what we didn't realize until Amy Cuddi started talking about this is that the body can influence the mind. So, when you start to behave in physical ways, it starts to rewire your thinking, too. So, while I was art center, there's this guy. He's an industrial designer. His name is Barton Chin. Barton is short. He has skin issues. He has really poor eyesight. So, he's really thick eyeglasses. And I saw him interact and move in the world in ways that I'd never seen another Asian man do. He was able to meet people socially and talk and seemingly strikeable conversation with anybody. So, Barton was my friend and he was super relatable to the kinds of things I was going through. And I thought to myself, man, if Barton can do this, why can't I? I have more advantages than him, and I should be able to do this. So, when Barton would walk down the hallway and say, "Hey, what's up? What's going on? How's your project? I love what you just did." I started to do that. And it felt so weird and so creepy to me. But here's the weird thing. As I walked there, I told my cell phone story, "This is creepy. You're being weird." But the reaction, the response was anything but. I'd walk around and say, "Hey, Michelle. Hey, Jesse. What's going on?" And they would just tell me. So, I had this whole premeditated outcome of how it's supposed to go, this rehearsed thing, and it was nothing like that. And to them, it was just as natural as everybody else. And maybe they were thinking, "God, thank God he's not as awkward as he used to be." Maybe they were relieved more than I was. So, what I had learned is if I can emulate and act as if I was comfortable and social and outgoing, that eventually my body would fool my mind. And this is why a lot of times when people meet me in person and we're talking and chatting and I tell them I'm an introvert, a painfully awkwardly shy introvert, like there's no way you can be that person. And it's just because I've put in the work. I've rehearsed a new, more improved version of me. And eventually I filled those gaps. I filled into this new skin. And that's the most beautiful thing about human nature is that we can evolve and we can become whoever we set out to be. Strategy number seven, it's a beautiful tactical thing that you can actually do, which is to make conversations about other people and not make it about you. And the best way to feel confident socially, stop performing, start asking. I forget who tells this story, but the story is like this where there's a well-known public speaker and author, somebody who's really well respected. And he tells a story that he always arrives the day early and he'll go down to the bar or the lounge and have a drink just so he can settle in and kind of take in the environment and he meets an older man and the the older man has nothing to do with the conference in which he's speaking at. Ask him, "What are you here for?" And he goes, "Um, I'm here to speak about X." And the rest of the night, he just asked the man questions about what he was doing, found out he's married, what's going on in his life. At the end of the conversation, he goes, "You know what? I got to go prep. I'm going to go to bed." And he's just walking away. He goes, "Young man, you're the most interesting person I've met in a really long time." And he was thinking to himself, "That's funny cuz I barely talked about myself. What I learned to do was to ask questions." So, if you want to be the most interesting person, be interested. Be interested in what they're going through and listening to their stories. and we make space for other people. There's additional benefits, especially if you're an introvert. You don't have to know what to say. You don't have to talk about yourself. You don't have to put yourself in a spotlight. And I got to tell you something. I don't care how popular, successful, or famous that you are. You never tire of people who are interested in you in a genuine way. That's what people want. They want to be seen. They want to be heard. And they want to feel understood and appreciated. And that's what you're doing for people. strategy is a little bit different because believe it or not, your introversion makes you really great at sales. I know you don't believe me, but I'll tell you why in a second. So, you're able to as an introvert reframe objections as requests. So, we already know this, right? Extroverts want to do all the talking. So, when in a sales process, in a buy sales cycle, when they hear an objection, they don't even want to know what is underneath the objection. They're going to be so quick to respond. This is where your introversion is actually another huge advantage because before we speak we want to have an understanding of what is being asked of us. So your natural tendency is to ask someone what's behind this request. So when they say this is expensive we don't hear it as I can't afford you. You're not valuable enough. What we say is what is expensive about this? What do you find to be valuable? And we are engaged in conversation and listening. And what happens in this whole process is the buyer of these services starts to feel like you're taking the time to understand them. And often times we can resolve objections just because we help the person talk and think through the problem. And often times it's not what we think it is. Here's the example and I hear this a lot. Somebody says, "This is a lot more than I thought I was going to pay." So someone who's going to just respond in a knee-jerk fashion will say, "Well, let's reduce the price then or how much do we need to discount?" Whereas the introvert who knows how to leverage the scale will ask, "What about this is too much? What were you expecting to pay and what needs to happen for you to feel like it's worth whatever it is that you're going to invest in this project?" And then we just let them talk once again. And you know what builds trust better than anything else is your ability to ask smart questions to process quietly without interrupting the other person, giving them space to speak, then asking them deep follow-up questions so they feel like, "My god, everything I say is important." And this is a concept that is reinforced by Kevin Daly's book, Socratic selling. He calls it full value listening. That everything the prospect says is important. And this is one of your superpowers. Okay, let's wrap this up here. I believe as an introvert, you can have your cake and eat it. I know, really weird. You could be the deep thinker. You could be introspective. You can be highly observant and in tune to the needs of others. And if you're able to leverage media to play in the social space, you can take these big beautiful ideas that only you are able to see and you could amplify them across all platforms. So that when you walk into a room of strangers, everybody turns to notice you because they've heard your voice, they've read your thoughts, and you've moved them in some way. In life and in business, the world needs your ideas. Let's make sure it hears