You Can Bring Your Introvert Capabilities to Most Any Activity

The capabilities that come quite naturally to you as an introvert can help you be successful in all sorts of diverse situations and settings.

Back in the early 2000s, I was “The Campus Career Coach” for global career website Monster.

It was a contract job that paid a monthly stipend, and I was responsible for producing one article each week; writing a weekly newsletter for opt-in subscribers; and running a weekly live chat where college students and recent grads could ask me career-related questions in real time.

I loved all of it.

But there was one additional piece of the job that surpassed all the rest of them put together: the “Campus” online message board, where students/grads could ask questions asynchronously and I could then respond to them asynchronously as well.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this part of the gig.

But looking back on it now, it all makes sense.

Because it was a perfect way for me to unexpectedly tap into one of the many natural capabilities we have as introverts.

When Fingers Do the Talking

Up to that point, I hadn’t pieced together the fact that I could help people—which is all I’ve ever really wanted to do, bottom line—and be my introverted self at the same time.

It had never really occurred to me that I had introverted strengths, and that I could leverage them—purposefully and proactively—in a way that would help both me (in terms of personal fulfillment) and others.

But the “Campus” message board experience—which ended up lasting nearly 10 years!—opened my eyes.

It was like being Dear Abby.

Students and grads posted their questions and I responded to them—as best I could, and in considerable individualized detail—with not only advice but also encouragement and, often, reassurances that whatever the questioner was experiencing was quite normal.

The folks at Monster told me, repeatedly, that I didn’t need to respond to every question that was posted, and that I didn’t need to write a novel each time I did so.

But I loved it all so much that that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

The interactions were so gratifying. I learned as much as I taught, and best of all … we all got to “talk” with our fingers!

And we all got to think carefully first before we talked with our fingers!

Introvert Capabilities Travel Well

I was sad when it all ended in 2010.

But I’ll be forever grateful for the crucial lesson it taught me about introverts’ capabilities:

You can put an introverted spin on almost any job, any activity you can think of; you can contribute in an introverted way.

Sometimes, as it did with me at Monster, the opportunity to do that just falls right in your lap.

But it’s even better when you can create it yourself.

My wife, Adrianne—a teacher as well as a fellow introvert—has experienced both the fall-in-your-lap and create-it forms of this phenomenon over the last several years.

In the spring of 2020, she and so many other in-person teachers ended up becoming online teachers overnight as the global pandemic took hold.

Unlike most of the other teachers we know, however, Adrianne enjoyed it with her kindergartners.

And she was good at it, because it played to so many of her introverted preferences and capabilities.

So when the opportunity came for her to continue teaching kindergarten online in the district, she took a calculated risk and accepted the job. The gig lasted two additional school years.

She’s back in an in-person teaching role now, as a reading specialist, a job she loves even more because she gets to do so much one-on-one work with students and teachers alike.

Once again, the new position plays well to her introverted talents.

And once again, she took a calculated risk in pursuing it in the first place.

Why did she take the leap?

Because she, too, has learned a crucial lesson these last few years—one that all of us introverts should take to heart:

Your introversion travels well—no matter what you’re doing in life.