72. Interview with Susan Cain, author of Quiet

The Highly Sensitive Person Podcast

Kelly

Sensitive, Highlysensitiveperson, Mental Health, Aron, Introversion, Social Sciences, Personality, Mentalhealth, Introvert, Sensitivity, Shyness, Science, Health & Fitness, Hsp, Anxiety, Wellness

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2016

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When I started this podcast, my #1 dream guest was Susan Cain. So, I'm very happy to bring this episode to you today.

Susan's 2012 book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking was my first introduction to introversion. The book changed my life (and thousands of others worldwide) because it changed how I saw myself.

It was through learning about introversion that I learned about high sensitivity; I wouldn't be typing this to you today without her book as the inception.

More about Susan Cain:

Susan is the co-founder of Quiet Revolution, a site that features advice and stories for introverts and extroverts alike on how to appreciate our quiet sides. She is the author of the bestsellers Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, which has been translated into 40 languages and been on the New York Times bestseller list for over four years. Her record-smashing TED talk has been viewed over 15 million times. She is an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School.

Some of the topics covered in this episode include:

What it was like to be a Wall Street lawyer and an introvert
If she's an HSP
How Susan dealt with the huge popularity of her book and TED talk
The difference between HSPs and introverts
Her Quiet Leadership Institute
The introvert backlash
....and more.

Susan's books:

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts (A guide for teens and kids)

You can also find her on Twitter.

Podcast music attribution: Bust This Bust That (Professor Kliq) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the highly sensitive person podcast, a podcast for people who experience the world intensely.
0:11.2	Join me on a journey of acceptance of our highly sensitive person traits.
0:17.7	Welcome to episode 72 of the highly sensitive person podcast. I'm your host, Kelly. It's that time of the year again, the holiday season, and for the fourth year now, I've created a gift guide for highly sensitive people and introverts. I know those are not the same thing, but just for the sake of this list, I've kind of lumped them together.
0:38.1	I really enjoy putting this list together and I keep my eyes and ears open all year to try
0:42.9	to find gifts that HSPs would enjoy. And honestly, I actually think the list is better as a list
0:49.5	of gifts to treat yourself with. You can check it out at highly sensitive person.net slash gifts.
0:56.6	Before I get into this episode, I want to read a blog comment I got from a listener a while back.
1:02.2	As you guys know, I often do this before the content of the shows just to help you realize that
1:07.1	you aren't alone and how you feel. There are lots of us out there learning and
1:11.6	discovering more about ourselves. This comment is a response to episode 38, which was about
1:17.1	handling criticism. The commenter writes, all of my life I was made to believe that I was a coward
1:23.6	or weak, fearful, broken, anxious, panicky, or defective, because I was always different from
1:29.9	most men. When I saw myself as broken, my only options seem to be to approach things with a,
1:35.9	I have to fix everything that's wrong with me, mentality, that took a lot of wasted years from my
1:41.4	life. Seeing myself as anxious and fearful, there were never gifts
1:45.7	to build upon. After spending time listening to your show, I now see that there are many gifts
1:50.6	in being highly sensitive. Almost instantly, all of the false data and false labels that were stuck
1:56.4	to me by myself, others, and the world, peeled off and fell to the ground. So many memories and past
2:03.6	experiences make sense to me now. I went from a place of shame and guilt to a place of
2:08.5	self-understanding, self-acceptance, self-compassion. I got criticized yesterday and I felt
2:14.7	hurt this morning. This episode helped me to see that it's okay to care
2:18.3	less to let go. I guess I always thought that caring less made me a bad person, so I always made it
	...

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