Charisma for Introverts: In Depth Analysis #1

This forty minute video is designed to be a how-to guide for introverts on how to improve their ability to relate to others; both for the sake of improving their interpersonal outcomes, as well as enabling them to maintain a shield of privacy when circumstances demand socialization.

This is the first of my In Depth Analysis series of Patreon-backed videos; if you found it useful, please consider becoming a backer yourself for $1/month.  Future topics will likely include more psychological analysis (possibly a revisiting and expansion of my old aberrant psychology videos) as well as a breakdown of political/historical forces that are shaping the modern world.

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What follows is the rough script for the video itself, for those of you who prefer reading to listening.

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1. The Purpose of this Video

Charisma for introverts… if I were to describe the past ten years in a single word, it would be “Polarization”; economic polarization, political polarization, and social polarization; for the purposes of this video the latter is the most significant.

Society has morphed over the years, simultaneously demanding more social interaction – while enabling more isolation. The friendly bar scene, where long conversations were the norm, has turned into the ADD nightmare of clubbing to techno beats, where conversation is impossible, and crude body language becomes the norm. Meanwhile, the sorts of communities where introverts would be most comfortable have shifted to the online world; instead of a chess club, it’s World of Warcraft. And instead of a church group, it’s an internet forum. Introverts who naturally prefer privacy wind up hiding behind avatars and text-based dialogue; which makes sense in the short term, but over the long-term it deprives them of the interpersonal skills that are needed to form meaningful relationships with others.

Introvert does not mean anti-social. An Introvert is simply the sort of person who prefers the slower rhythm of quiet conversation

However because they aren’t exposed to the same degree of social interaction they would have been 10, 20, let alone 50 years ago – because the school system wants everyone to be a leader and the party scene demand maximum sociability, to a degree which makes them uncomfortable – they wind up being stunted in their ability to relate to others.

Hence my reasons for making this video;

1. First, because charisma is something which can be learned [Charisma is teachable]
2. Second, by improving your ability to interact with others, it will improve what you get back from them – and what you give them in return [Charisma enables reciprocity]
3. And third, by learning how to deal with others effectively – you’ll then be able to maintain your own privacy, even when social interaction is necessary, thereby improving your own life, and the lives of those you around you. [Practical Charisma reinforces Privacy]

So the goal of this video isn’t to make you into this asshole [Cappy Video] – or, god forbid, this sweet girl [Boxxy] but rather, to provide you with a frame work of how practical Charisma works, how you can start to learn these skills without immersing yourself in raver culture, and what the ultimate payoff is for you.

But, well – there’s a bit more to it than just pure charity on my part. Some of the best salesmen, comedians, musicians, and social butterflies that I’ve known have been introverts, and Charisma is more than just your ability to interact with people. When each and every one of us flourishes – expressing our own unique talents, in our own way – it improves this world for everybody.

That’s the real reason I’m making this video; but let’s start with the practical aspects.

2. What is introversion?

Before we start discussing charisma, we should start by taking a page from Marcus Aurelius and defining what Introversion is in the first place. This is necessary for two reasons: first, because if we don’t understand what introversion is specifically, we risk conflating it with many of its side effects;

• fear of public speaking
• depression
• approach anxiety
• bouts of anti-socialism

The fact of the matter is that extroverts suffer all of these as well; an introvert who’s unskilled at charisma will experience them more frequently, but these are the effects, rather than the cause, of their introversion.

The second reason for defining introversion is because I’ve run into a lot of extroverts who think their introverts – because of how dumbed down our culture has become.

Folks, we’re living in a world of mass marketing, aimed at the lowest common denominator. A world of McDonalds and High Fructose Corn Syrup, of Michael Bay movies. In the past ten years, the lyrics in popular music have dropped an entire grade level, and for every Breaking Bad that appears on the scene, there are dozens of mindless sitcoms and family dramas. Political Correctness only increases the banality of our culture, demanding a simplistic, streamlined thought process, where everything’s been decided for you beforehand.

When mediocrity is the norm, it doesn’t matter if you’re introverted or extroverted; just the thought of going out winds up making you feel like King Arthur in Monty Python’s Holy Grail:

>Clip

Over the years there are two systems of personality analysis which I have found particularly useful; the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, an extensive breakdown with 16 different types – and the simpler, and thus, more generally useful breakdown of the four medieval temperaments or humours; the optimistic sanguine, the ambitious choleric, the self-contained phlegmatic, and the hermitic melancholic. The fundamental differences between them can be delineated on two axis; the judging/perceiving axis of left to right; and the extrovert/introvert axis of north/south.

We’ll start by examining the east/west axis, and by doing so prepare the ground for the north/south axis.

On the left we have “Right Brained” and on the right we have “Left brained”; this is no accident, as the two hemispheres of the brain control the opposite sides of the body. Those on the left can be described as “people focussed” or “emotional” understanding of the world, with definite answers. Socially, they want to know how the crowd is specifically feeling; environmentally, they want to seek out and create beauty, which is recognized as such. Those who are “Left Brained” are process focussed. They wish to understand the big picture, the pattern of all the moving parts. Socially, they seek out a simplistic understanding of individuals for the sake of the greater whole; environmentally they pursue efficiency.

The two extroverts from earlier – Boxxy and Aaron Clarey’s Jimmy Jam persona – naturally fall into this pattern, with her falling into the Sanguine personality in the upper left, boisterous and seeking to encourage positive feelings in those around her, while jimmy Jam is a Choleric on the upper right, who wants to identify, organize, and lead those around him to victory.

For an example of how these two differ along the Southern, introverted side of this spectrum, there is no better example than Red Letter Media’s Jack and Rich Evans – in particular their review of the game Fire Watch. Rich is a Melancholic, concerned with the well-being of others, but masking his inner self behind a wall of humour; Jack is a Phlegmatic, who ensures that all the behind-the-scenes machinery is working. Their different takes on the game highlight their different approaches.

Rich hated it; viewing it as a great story hidden behind pointless and unrewarding exploration, while Jack relished the opportunity to delineate and navigate the environment, even though it presented no narrative metaphor, merely a goal at the destination.

The East-West spectrum on this chart describes a complex mechanism behind how we approaches information; not merely a simplistic question such as “Do you prefer people or spreadsheets” – but how we manipulate data in general.

The North/South spectrum is equally subtle. “Extroversion” doesn’t mean that a person wants to be around people all of the time; and “Introversion” doesn’t mean that a person is antisocial. Rather, it describes the difference between those who are driven to seek out confrontations and battles to test themselves and to learn new skills, versus those who prefer to meditate deeply on the world.

An Extrovert approaches study as a challenge, they seek out argument and new ideas; they’re prone to using overly simplistic metaphors that are “good enough for government work”, as the saying goes. An introvert is more liable to analyze material in depth, categorizing minutiae and building a codex, potentially missing out on important new ideas.

Socially, the extrovert will regularly feel the need for hot confrontations with others which are unpredictable in nature; the introvert will prefer pre-defined settings with people they know, where the conversational growth happens organically.

Of course, neither Extrovert nor Introvert is absolute, anymore than the difference between Judging and Perceiving prevents a mechanic from enjoying art, or a sculptor from learning programming. In a certain sense, all of these positions are relative to the other people in the room; the most extroverted introvert is liable to take on the leadership role in a chess club. And furthermore, everyone experiences shifts during their daily, circadian rhythm, more introverted in the morning, and more extroverted at night.

Overall though, following the statistics compiled by the Myers-Briggs people, it is safe to say that each person has a dominant temperament they fall into, which determines their optimum form of socialization, and these are pretty much equally balanced between the four types.

3. Charisma vs Charisma

So what is charisma? The word summons up images of someone who’s charming, debonair, and comfortable in all sorts of social situations – but what does any of that mean? What are the elements?

I would argue that it has a two-fold nature; the practical, and the spiritual.

The practical covers everything from sales techniques, to NLP, to simply memorizing funny anecdotes and good jokes. These are the techniques learned by effective public speakers, managers and CEOs, salesman, and preacher men – and while the naturally extroverted on average tend to excel at these skills, the true masters are usually introverts.

The reason is obvious if you think about it.

Most extroverts enjoy intense socializing – it’s like a game of pick-up basketball for them. They learn the rules, the patterns, they learn how to make a shot, but for them it’s never really serious. It’s a hobby – maybe a semi-professional hobby – but because they’re innately talented at it they have trouble seeing what’s actually going on.

Another example would be Jazz improvisation. On my bookshelf is a musical transcription of every improvised solo of Giant Steps ever recorded by John Coltrane. When the transcriber, David Demsey – a Professor of Music and Coordinator of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University – showed Coltrane the sheet music, and asked him if he could play it, the Jazz legend just laughed and said “Not on your life.”

When an introvert approaches practical charisma, they come to it as an outsider. At first it’s all noise – a maelstrom of movement on the court, or fingers shimmying up and down an instrument’s keys – but as they begin to understand it, they take note of the subtle aspects which the extrovert takes for granted. Of assumptions which the extrovert never questions. Through their outsider status, some of them come to master it to a degree that few extroverts ever achieve.

The second form of charisma is the spiritual; the force of personality. The most perfect summation I’ve ever heard came from the anime series Psycho-Pass.

>clip

This inner form of charisma might be more obvious in the extrovert, but it’s just as powerful when it’s present in the introvert. We’ll return to the spiritual form of charisma later, however, because we need to start off by delineating the basics

4. The Basics Part 1: Creating the Persona

The word Persona traces back to the Latin word for person, but with specific implications; it was the word used to describe the role an actor would play in a drama, and the mask they would wear to play it; it is also closely related to the verb personare “to sound through” – that is, to speak through an amplifying mask. Or to speak politically. It is a term that describes somebody’s personage rather than their person hood.

This observation is nothing new. It’s been endlessly analyzed, derided, and condemned, and many a writer has observed that people often wear false masks; but this sort of cynical approach winds up indicting all of human behaviour. It’s one thing to look out for the wolves in sheep’s clothing; the psychopaths, the manipulators, the monsters who feign friendship to put you at ease. It’s quite another to condemn all of humanity for our propensity to put on a false face.

If personas are nought but hypocrisy – by what standards do we condemn the monsters? If persona is an a priori evil, then we’re all just as guilty, and in no position to rebuke the creature.

The reason I bring all of this up is because persona gets a bad rap amongst people who value sincerity; and as a rule introverts prefer low-key, sincere communication amongst a tight-knit group of friends – contrast to the extroverts, who often enjoy creating raucous, false personas, and knocking one another down in a friendly social wrestling match.

But knowingly putting on a false persona to amuse your friends is no more insincere than enjoying a work of fiction; and by denouncing all personas, one not only risks becoming a caricature of Holden Caulfield, arguing that everyone else is a phony, but also misses out on one of the most simple and powerful tools for social interaction – especially for introverts.

The persona is a crucial element of our psyches. Forget the parts about actors, or manipulation – and focus on the personage aspect. Who are you when you interact with others? What is your role in this world?

Our inner life is a chaotic jumble of emotions, memories, snippets of songs, and passing fancies. We all occasionally disappear into ourselves and follow a particular train of thought, oblivious to the outside world. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some sort of coherence to us, as a person, taken as a whole; merely that the moment to moment thoughts have very little bearing on who that person is.

For example: imagine you went up to a person and said “What’s on your mind?” and they replied with:

>Urkel clip

It would be understandably off putting, wouldn’t it? And yet this is precisely what happens with so many introverts. Social interaction catches them off guard, and they either blurt out something confusing – or quickly say “Nothing” – and then adopt a defensive pose.

Hence, the Persona. Who are you to this person? What role do you play in their life? How much do they know about you? How much do you know about them? What common background, hobbies, or interests do you share? What sort of persona can you adopt – to put them at ease?

Notice something about all of this; none of it is disingenuous. You’re not putting on a false front, or trying to manipulate them; instead, you’re trying to understand them, and figure out a communication protocol which the two of you can share. The author Orson Scott Card once commented that a well written character will speak differently to different characters; because in real life you speak differently to your mother, than your father, than your friends, than your boss. Each relationship is unique, and the Persona is the set of common topics that the two of you share. Rather than being phony, it is – in a way – one of the most effective ways of being genuine at short notice. A truly deep heart-to-heart conversation takes hours; but by devoting some forethought, and maintaining some awareness of who you are to other people, you’ll be able to communicate with them more effectively.

And most importantly – by adopting such a genuine Persona, you’re be able to maintain your own privacy without anybody else being the wiser. It will do the talking for you, so that you can disengage, and go back to whatever you were doing beforehand, and then when it’s time to re-engage you’ll also know how to approach.

The Persona Part 2: Directed Interactions

In the first section we covered how to use a Persona as an automatic tool to deal with the world around you. With a little bit of forethought and preparation, you won’t be left feeling flat footed in social encounters. But another difficulty some introverts run into is communicating their emotional needs to another person. The Persona on its own will ensure that you fit in, and that you’re a pleasure to be around – it will even make it easier to decline offers when you need some alone time – but on its own, it won’t help you communicate to someone when your needs, emotional or otherwise, aren’t being met.

We all remember poor Milton from Office Space, after all – an exaggerated, comedic version of the introvert, granted, but there’s a grain of truth to his character nonetheless.

The persona on its own is reactive; but to lead a happy and healthy life you need to be able to enact action as well. So how do you go about it?

A Sergeant I once knew summed up the structure every lesson plan in the military thusly:

First you tell them what you’re going to learn,
Then you learn ‘em,
Then you tell them what they just learned.

It’s crude but effective; and it’s the basis of every form of communication. Essays have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion; stories have the inciting incident, the arc, and the denouement; music starts off by playing a basic tune, expanding upon it, and then bringing it to its ultimate point; and even complex and esoteric forms of art only ‘reject’ these rules because they’re adhering to them on a deeper level. This is how Eraserhead still manages to tell a story, despite being filled with obscurantist imagery and an incoherent narrative.

So right off the bat we have the basic structure of communication, informed by your persona; informed by who you are to this person, and what they understand about you.

I need to talk to you because there is a problem.
Let me describe this problem to you.
And this is why the problem matters to me.

It seems redundant, but by simplifying into ‘baby talk’ like this, it ensures that – not just your message – but the important elements of your message make it all the way across to the other person.

Those are the bare bones; let’s start to put some flesh on them.

Simply info-dumping the person isn’t enough; you need to engage them throughout the process. The introduction prepares them so that you have their attention, but you need to maintain that attention throughout the conversation. In lectures they do it by asking the audience for responses. In fiction they do this with rising and falling tension; in essays, each paragraph is its own mini-essay; and in music they modulate the volume. But for our purposes we’ll be using sales as an example.

So how does your typical sales script go?

*Hi, I’m so and so
*I’m calling you about X
*X is a really great thing
*Have you heard anything about X?

Let’s put this in military terms for a second.

*Hi, I’m Corporal (retired) Aurini
*I’m here to teach you about rifles
*Understanding your weapon will keep you alive on the battlefield
*Who here has any experience with rifles in the past?

Introduction
Definition
Emphasis
Question

It’s all the same thing. Let’s put it into a professional context:

*Hi Boss, I’m Joe from the IT Department
*We’ve been having a problem with the Cisco routers
*These routers are necessary to maintain the bank machines
*Has anybody informed you about this yet?

And finally, a personal context.

*Hi honey, I’m your husband
*There’s something I’d like us to do
*I think this thing could be a lot of fun
*Have you ever considered doing something like that?

Now saying; “Hi honey, I’m your husband” might sound ridiculous at first blush, but there’s a reason I include it here. You are not just her husband after all; you’re also her lover; the co-parent of an obnoxious child; part of a financial unit with her; and a close friend with shared interests. Which one of these people – which one of these Personas – is the one talking to her?

And how many lover’s quarrels have occurred because the homeowner started arguing with the lover?

These four steps are how you get the ball rolling; they’re friendly and non-confrontational – they don’t get people’s defenses up because rather than lecturing, you’re asking for their input – but they’re only the beginning. The ABCs of sales are “Always Be Closing”; Stephen King referred to this as the “gotcha!” that keeps you reading; as PT Barnum put it “Always leave them wanting more.”

Let’s return to poor Milton; >play clip< he stops at step 2, but even if he had carried on into step 4, what would have happened? Nina still would have ignored his complaint.

This is why we need Step 5: The Rebuttal.

In any sort of conversation or negotiation the other person will have an opposing point of view to your own. The boss will be busy worrying about something else. Your wife will be thinking about the children’s school district. Your friend won’t understand why visiting a classic video game arcade is important to you.

Every successful sale starts with a no; and every successful conversation starts with a misunderstanding and a disagreement. Don’t let yourself get shut down by rejection on the first go; this is all part of the negotiating process. This is all part of the understanding process. The other person will assume that – because you didn’t rebut them – that you didn’t really care about the topic, or that it was the sort of thing that could be handled later. If it’s urgent – if it’s important to you – don’t bottle it up. Walk into the conversation with a plan, and ensure that they hear what you’re trying to say.

Introduction – who are you?
Description –what’s the problem?
Emphasis – why does matter?
Question –what’s their take on things?
Negotiation,
Negotiation,
Negotiation, and finally –
Resolution

Remember; people care about what you have to say, whether it’s a loved one, or your boss. Just because they dismiss you initially doesn’t mean they’re ignoring you; use the dismissal to understand them better, so that they can understand you better.

Don’t be like Milton and bottle things up until you burn down the entire office. Communicate with those around you.

Person Part 3: Body Language

Thus far we’ve spoken about how the persona is important because it is essentially a series of communication protocols between you and another person; we’ve covered the basic tactics of how to communicate effectively, but now I’d like to cover a critical component of communication that will provide necessary verisimilitude to your communication; that will determine what sort of person other people see: body language.

I’d like you to do something for me right now. I assume you’re sitting down, watching this from your computer – and probably hunched forward, the way I usually am when I’m watching something online – or reclined backwards with your feet up in the air. I’d like you to sit up straight. Now roll your shoulders back a couple of times… and now let your arms sit by your sides in a natural pose. Don’t be worried about taking up too much space. Butt back on your seat, feet square on the floor. Head up, looking straight forward. Now – unfurrow your brow. And – smile. Doesn’t need to be a big smile; just a friendly face to show the world.

How do you feel right now? I’ll bet you feel just a little bit better than you did a few minutes before.

The way we stand affects the way we feel, and the way we feel affects the way we stand. At the beginning I speculated on some of the reasons that antisocial behaviour has been growing more pronounced; let’s add one more: bad posture.

How you stand tells the world who you are – and it also tells you who you are.

I’m sure you were occasionally lectured about your posture while growing up, but the emphasis is usually upon your health; proper posture feels like it takes more energy at first, but it prevents injury and fatigue, which is the main reason it used to be enforced. But there’s a secondary reason for maintaining good posture. Take a look at this photo from America’s past…

…now look at this one from the present day.

https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/then-and-now-part-two/

The people in the first photo are poor, desperate even, and yet they hold themselves in a manner that demands respect. In the latter we see how far culture has fallen, shambling monsters who don’t care about anything beyond their own immediate gratification, and posture plays a huge role in this.

People will treat you how you allow them to treat you; and your posture tells the world how you want to be treated.

The military is one of the few institutions which still demands good posture, and in it the men are taught to stand at ease with their hands behind their back. The reason? Dominance.

A man standing in such a position leaves his testicles fully exposed. It’s a position that subconsciously communicates that he isn’t afraid of any rivals; that he’s a warrior, at the top of the pecking order. Ladies, meanwhile, protect their sex demurely; standing straight while keeping themselves private, neither titillating nor cowering. Both sexes – in embracing proper posture – demand respect, but more importantly – they instill self-respect in themselves.

So how do you stand on a day to day basis? Does your body language match the words coming out of your mouth? Chest forward, chin up, shoulders back? If your body language is nervous, your tone of voice will be nervous, and you’ll make the person you’re speaking to nervous.

This isn’t to say that you need to be standing rigidly at attention 24-7; both the Attention and the At Ease stances are meant to be striking; far more natural is the position known as ‘contrapposto’, most perfectly realized in Michelangelo’s David. 70% of the weight on the back foot; shoulders back and head straight; arms hanging loosely at the sides – and testicles exposed, of course.

I’ve even been known to employ this stance myself. But then again, I’ve also been known to pose like a douche bag, so – take it for what it’s worth.

All of this can be boiled down to three points:

Good posture
Open body language
And a friendly facial expression

When you integrate body language into your persona – assuming an air of quiet confidence, and cautious friendliness – your interpersonal interactions will transform overnight. People mirror your body language, and what you send out into the world is what you get back.

Persona Part 4: Addendum

There are several pointers I’d like to leave you with before moving on to the next section. They’re important points, but this has been about establishing the basic framework for practical charisma, rather than trying to turn you into an expert salesman. Just keep these ideas in mind as you practice your communication skills.

1. Learn to use power words

It might sound ridiculous, but by using words with the correct oomph behind them you will get your message across faster and more successfully. In Pushing Rubber Downhill Adam Piggott recounts the story of his first job working for a motivational speaker, where he started off in the role of telemarketer. The speaker’s wife – who also worked on the phones – told him to open the call with the statement “I’m here to inspire you to come to the course.”

Think about that for a moment. Think about a young man phoning somebody out of the blue and saying “I’m here to inspire you.” It sounds douchey, doesn’t it? The thing is – it works. Don’t be afraid to be a little flamboyant.

2. Learn to read faces

The eyes have long been considered to be the eyes to the soul; this is because it is very hard to lie about one’s emotions through the eyes. Study someone’s face as you speak to them; look at their eyes, watch what they’re saying. Take note of how they respond to the words that you say. When my father was teaching me to drive he told me “The car goes wherever your eyes go,” and the same thing holds true for communication. Watch the eyes, and you’ll see what they’re thinking.

Also; when you do read the rest of the face, pay attention to the off-handed side. People will have more control over the side of their face that corresponds to their dominant hand than the other. Their true personality will come out on their off side.

3. Learn Kino

Nobody likes to be touched inappropriately >Beebo Clip< But if you can master the correct time to touch someone else, it can be employed to escalate intimacy. Not just with women, either, but with your brothers as well. We can all use a hand on our shoulder when we’re feeling down, or a high-five in camaraderie. Use it sparingly, but don’t be afraid of Kino.

Otherwise you become the hover-hand guy. Don’t be that guy.

4. High Five!

Speaking of High Fives, if you’re uncomfortable dealing with children, and you’re ever at a loss for what to say in response to their weird ramblings about Pokémon, just hold up your hand and say “High 5!”

Everybody loves a high five. In fact – this doesn’t just work on children. It works on almost everybody. Even when it doesn’t fit the conversation, it’s weird, it’s fun, and it’s open.

It’s also a great way of introducing yourself during jury duty, to ensure you don’t get selected. Hey – if it works for Borat – and it does – it will definitely work for you.

Charisma as a spiritual Force

Thus far we’ve spoken about Charisma tactically; both as a defensive measure – that is, to maintain your privacy in crowded situations – and as an offensive measure – how to communicate with others, and have successful relationships.

Perhaps all of this strikes you as cynical. Well, what do you think Sun Tzu would have said if you told him that “The just side always wins the war?” Whatever he said in reply – it would have been a lot more polite than what the ancient Hebrews would have said.

Yes, charisma is an arena of battle like any other; military, political, economic – all of these are arenas of battle which obey mathematical laws. But even in something as prosaic as an online RTS, there’s a phenomenon known as… momentum.

Maintain momentum – and you will always achieve victory. Spirituality… is the ghost in the machine.

>Replay clip<

Who are you?

I began this video by exploring – in depth – the four cardinal archetypes of human personality. They can be broken down further, into the 16 different types of the Myer’s Briggs – so long as you don’t mind looking at a tesseract.

Gnōthi seauton.

Know thyself; one of the basic aphorisms of the ancient Greeks.

So who are you? Based upon what? And how do you know?

There are two phrases that we use interchangeably in English, despite having utterly different root meanings: Self-Esteem and Self-Respect.

Esteem is self-evident; your Self-Esteem is what you think you’re worth. $15/hour? A trophy at every parade? Or abuse, because you enjoy it? How you esteem yourself is similar to your body language, the only difference being that they seldom correlate.

Self-Respect though; that’s an interesting one. The stripper at your nearest strip club certainly has a high Self-Esteem – after all, she thinks she’s worth $40 for a 20 minute lap dance – but we all know that her Self-Respect is pretty low.

Re+Specere – Latin for – to look back upon. Self-Esteem is what you think you’re worth, it’s the price you demand in the marketplace. Self-Respect, on the other hand – that’s who you know yourself to be. Self-Respect is when you look back upon your life, and see it accurately; you see the victories, you see the failures; you see where luck of birth benefited you, and accident of fate doomed you; you look back and see a person who succeeded sometimes, failed other times, but learned through the process.

Those with a great self-esteem have never rebus speciēbāmur looked back upon themselves, and have never learned who they are, what their faults are, or what their victories have been.

Gnōthi seauton; who are you?

What is the Introvert?

Is he an awkward loser, who never fits in, and is forever consigned to second place while the fun people go to the parties?

Hardly.

He is a person of depth and study, of profound emotional complexion, who pays attention to the things that most people ignore. She is sensitive, as understanding as she is irritable, and as convicted of her purpose as the warrior with his sword.

Charisma is your force of personality. The fire and air are explicit in what they do; but the water is slow, while the earth is subtle. Have you ever walked into a Church and felt the Spirit of God? Or walked into a home and known who lived there?

The Sanguine wields Charisma like it’s a dance, the right answers at the right time; the Fieldmarshal, the Teacher, the Provider, the Supervisor – each of them knows what is going on, and they present you the answer that you need when you need it.

The Choleric wields Charisma like a weapon; the Inventor, the Champion, the Performer, the Promoter – they use their Charisma to force a new dynamic upon the world.

The Phlegmatic uses their Charisma to sustain; the Architect, the Healer, the Composer, the Crafter – they maintain the world through force of will.

The Melancholic’s Charisma sets the beat of the world, without you even knowing it; the Mastermind, the Counsellor, the Protector, the Inspector – they establish the beat of society.

How do you come to know yourself?

The sanguine who never challenges himself becomes a hedonist of no significance.
The Choleric who never challenges himself becomes an infantile capitalist.
The Phlegmatic who never challenges himself becomes a replaceable technician.
The Melancholic who never challenges himself becomes an obedient cog.

Self-Respect – re-specere – requires something to look back on. Without life experience, without challenges without overcoming, and battles lost, you cannot know who you are. The extrovert naturally knows socializing; so he must discipline himself into study. The introvert naturally knows study; so he must discipline himself into socializing.

Introversion is no more a handicap than having an aptitude for mechanical; and yet it is used as an excuse in the exact same manner as Engineers who never apologize for an ignorance of History, Literature, or Politics.

To know who you are you must learn about yourself. You must study yourself. And you must study others as well.

You must challenge yourself. You must challenge others. And you must make a fair estimate of how the battles went.

Introversion is not a deficiency, it is the fundamental nature of how half of the human race operates – and the human race could not operate without you Introverts! But despite being gifted with the sight of how society operates behind the scenes, you are likewise called upon to help the extroverts see what you do.

Charisma for introverts is not merely an opportunity; it is a moral calling, it is your duty to your fellow man. And it is a battle that you are capable of winning.