Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…I would just say I totally get it that that's what people feel that they want. But what we think we want is not always actually the way to the ultimate goal we want. Because I think what we really want is to learn to be completely comfortable as ourselves. And I will... I know that sounds like a bland or woo woo thing to say, but this is a paradox that I have observed through all the years that I've been doing this, that the more introverts or anybody else become deeply comfortable in their own skin, that's when they start to show up at the job interview, or on the stage, or whatever the venue is in a more powerful way, because you're now there as your own true being, as opposed to there always being a voice in your head saying, "I'm not really supposed to be me, so I'm going to pretend to be somebody else." And people can pick that up, and you can pick it up. I think people hear this idea that you teach in your book that you can be very successful as an introvert, and I bet it's intellectually difficult to actually believe you can be as successful as an introvert versus being an extrovert. Because you see all these founders, they're very charismatic, extroverted, you see people at meetings, all the loud voices in the room always seem to get what they want. How can you help people believe this is actually true, that you can be just as successful being very true to yourself versus learning to be an extrovert? One of the most important things you can do for whoever's listening in whatever field that you happen to be operating in, is to look for people in your field who have your way of being who are introverted, and who are powerful. And there are so many of them in every field. So just to go back to the public speaking example for a second, but then I'm going to go out from there. When I was getting started as a public speaker, for me, my talisman person was Malcolm Gladwell. Because he's an incredibly captivating speaker, he's a self-described introvert, and the power of his speaking is not being the super energized showman, but rather he's a pretty cerebral person with a lot of interesting stuff to say. And I thought, okay, not that my personality is exactly like his, but it's like, okay, that's kind of a way that I could be on stage. I can have interesting things to say that I'm very impassioned about saying. And this is true, you can look at so many different fields. So for example, in finance, somebody like Warren Buffet, he's a shy introvert, he has talked about this. And a lot of the engine of his success is that he figured out how to draw on his own introverted strengths. So for example, he's known for spending hours pouring over financial documents, and he's known for saying that what gets people to be a really good investor is not so much IQ, as having the temperament to control yourself and take prudent bets, which is something that introverts are known for. There's all kinds of studies documenting this and showing introverted traders being especially successful, and so on. He's also known for selecting managers very wisely and carefully, and then really delegating and relying on those people, which again is a hallmark of introverted leadership that we see in various studies and examples. Now, Warren Buffet was also somebody who started out as a shy public speaker, and he signed up for one of those Dale Carnegie training classes when he was like 21. And so he learned how to be this kind of folksy guy out in public. And so there's nothing, I'm saying that's against the idea of, yes, acquire the skills that you need to acquire to be successful in your given field. And yes, that might require stepping outside your comfort zone to acquire those skills, but there's a difference between acquiring skills and trying to be someone who you're not. Those are really different things. So yes, acquire the skills, but then learn how to be you. And whether you are a public speaker, or a salesperson, or a negotiator, or a marketer, or whatever it is, there's a way to do that in a kind of more thoughtful, more deliberative, more analytical, more listening-oriented style that can be incredibly powerful. The bottom line of everything I just said is look for your role models, because they're going to show you that you can do it.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.