Susan Cain On The Great Ache That Binds Us

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.8 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2022

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are you one of those people that finds solace and comfort in rainy days or melancholy music? It’s not quite sadness. It's more like longing. A beautiful ache that makes you feel more connected to the human experience. What is that specifically? And why does it compel us so? Former corporate lawyer turned author Susan Cain wondered the same—a query that launched a 7-year journey to better understand the complex and nuanced nature of all things melancholic. The result of Susan’s adventure is Bittersweet, her #1 New York Times bestselling book that ponders this quiet state of being and why embracing it paves a true path to creativity, connection, and transcendence. Bluntly put, quiet states of being are Susan Cain’s jam. Today we go delightfully deep on Susan’s transition from attorney to writer and how she came to write about introversion. We discuss the irony of being a public introvert, the power of honoring your inner introvert, and how to support introverted kids and co-workers. We also go deep on bittersweetness—and the how and whys behind cultivating it as a means of giving our lives more resonance and meaning and appreciation. If you protect your quiet like I do, this one's for you. Watch: YouTube. Read: Show notes. Today’s Sponsors: ROKA: Cutting-edge eyewear & apparel built for top performance.ROKA combines the no-slip performance with fashionable frames. Visit roka.com and enter code RichRoll for 20% off. Salomon: The world’s best road and trail running footwear & hydration gear. Check out my top picks at salomon.com/richroll and use code LOVETHEPAIN at checkout to get 20% OFF—exclusions apply. BetterHelp: The world’s largest therapy service, 100% online. Professional, licensed, and vetted therapists who you can trust. Listeners get 10% off their first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/richroll. Squarespace: The easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Visit Squarespace.com/RichRoll or a FREE trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use offer code RichRoll to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Athletic Greens: 75 whole food sourced ingredients designed to optimize 5 key areas of health. Go to: athleticgreens.com/richroll to get a FREE year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs of AG1 with your first purchase. Both introversion and bittersweetness are states that society doesn’t do a great job of encouraging, but Susan really encouraged my acceptance and embrace of these ideas as an introvert myself (and someone who scored pretty high on the bittersweetness scale) as powerful when nourished. My hope is that you will find this conversation equally nourishing. Peace + Plants, Rich

Transcript

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0:00.0	Better sweetness is a view of the world and a way of being in the world.
0:07.4	It's a way to connection, it's a way to transcendence.
0:10.9	You're very attuned to the gap between the world as it is and the world as we would wish
0:18.2	it to be.
0:19.2	But somehow what comes with that knowledge, there comes a kind of deep joy at the beauty
0:26.0	of the world, so it's like a real blend of all these deep instincts.
0:31.5	You can take those pains and sit with them somehow and then make meaning out of them.
0:38.2	The Rich Roll Podcast
0:51.2	Are you one of those people that find solace, comfort in things like rainy days or melancholy
0:58.9	music?
1:00.6	It's not a feeling of sadness really, if you know what I'm talking about.
1:05.2	It's more like this feeling of longing, like this ache, this beautiful ache, an ache that
1:13.4	actually makes you feel more connected to the human experience.
1:18.6	What is that exactly?
1:20.8	Well today's guest, a former corporate lawyer, turned author, wondered the same.
1:25.7	She went on like a seven year journey to actually better understand it, the result of which
1:31.0	is bittersweet.
1:32.6	Her number one, New York Times bestselling book that ponders this quiet state of being
1:37.8	and why embracing it paves a true path to creativity, to connection, and even transcendence.
1:47.2	You could say that quiet states of being our Susan Cain specialty.
1:51.3	Her first book, Quiet, the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking, spent
1:56.6	eight years on the New York Times bestseller list and was named the number one best book
	...

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