There is a myth that introverts don’t like to talk.
For many, being shy and quiet translates into ineffective communication skills and social ineptitude.
Although introverts have repeatedly quashed the notion of lacking communication skills in favor of intellectually stimulating conversation based on their interest rather than superficial banter, opponents persist in perpetuating this narrative.
Why is it so difficult for those characterized as extroverts to appreciate that inwardly thinking individuals live inside their minds and revel in meaningful dialogue?
Michaela Chung, the author of The Irresistible Introvert, said, “The bottom line is that most extroverts simply don’t understand that introverts behave differently in public than they do with the people they love and trust the most.”
Chung’s insight upends these misguided notions by extroverts.
However, there is a more profound need for a breed of introverts that weaponize communication to gain and leverage power strategically.
The American Academy of Advanced Thinking characterizes strategic thinking introverts as INTJ, ISTJ, and INTP personality types under the Myers-Briggs classification.
Essentially, strategic thinking introverts enjoy two topics: Nutritional value and non-nutritional value.
And both are valuable to these introverts situationally.
Nutritional value topics are what strategic thinking introverts favor the most because it feeds their intellectual curiosity. With this information, these introverts expand their philosophical and psychological worldview.
As active listeners, their conversation partners are doing most of the talking. And in many instances, being used as a social experiment. Strategic thinking introverts are constantly setting up social experiments unbeknownst to the people being studied.
As scholars, strategic thinking introverts are thoughtful enough to know that anecdotal experiences are not objective reality.
What one experiences personally has little bearing on the consensus.
If a research study is published in a reputable magazine or periodical, it may shed new light on current concepts being worked out by these introverts.
Strategic thinking introverts view life as an ongoing social and intellectual experiment.
Non-nutritional value topics are information that has low intellectual value but serves as entertainment.
A friend once referred to it as a “Pleasurable distraction.”
Strategic thinking introverts must be intellectually stimulated even as they enjoy entertainment through movies, plays, and exhibitions.
At a micro level, office gossipers who regale strategic thinking introverts with their latest misadventure allow them to experience these misadventures vicariously.
Secretly, these introverts don’t respect the lifestyle, choices, or value system gossipers embrace but will listen for mere entertainment.
This is analogous to individuals who regularly eat healthy foods but will occasionally eat a candy bar.
At first blush, it would seem that all information falls into either a nutritional or non-nutritional category.
And if this is true, how do strategic thinking introverts discriminate in determining value among available information?
As intellectual elitists, strategic thinking introverts can communicate with anti-intellectuals to test hypotheses and validate points.
Using gossipers, a strategic thinking introvert can hypothesize that “People who don’t value education and broader awareness will engage in counterproductive activities that place them in perilous situations that lead to regret.”
Once the gossiper has become this introvert’s lab rat, there will be an informal, ongoing experiment to prove or disprove the hypothesis that people who devalue education find themselves in difficult or unproductive situations.
Although the gossiper’s journey is anecdotal, it serves as an avatar for a subset of people who share a particular value system.
The silver lining for strategic thinking introverts is that the unfortunate choices of gossipers justify any feelings of moral or intellectual superiority.
Consequently, strategic thinking introverts like to talk only about topics that align with an ongoing intellectual inquiry or new information that serves as fodder for understanding human nature at a deeper level.
The two perennial questions for strategic thinking introverts to explore are: How do people operate, and why do they work in that fashion?
Topics that address these questions are directly or tangentially fair game.
Strategic thinking introverts want to know how and why people operate
Essentially, people are the bane of strategic thinking introverts’ existence.
High intelligence within an anti-intellectual society is an albatross around these introverts’ necks.
The barbs, slights, and criticism by extroverts leave lasting emotional wounds.
Strategic thinking introverts constantly try to learn more about human nature to gain power and leverage in a domineering world.
Conversations that interest these introverts the most surround this topic.
Why?
Understanding how and why people operate in a particular fashion allows strategic thinking introverts to gain leverage, power, and influence over miscreants.
People are seen as software and are hardwired in a certain way. If you understand the circuitry of individuals, you can direct them as you desire.
Strategic thinking introverts, self-aware of gaining power as a self-defense mechanism, use talks and conversation to attain this insight.
There is generally an objective or “Method to their madness” in their exchange with others.
When you come across strategic thinking introverts who are reticent about communicating, they are quietly railing against the notion of giving others more power than they deserve.
A sort of “I’ll ask the questions…not you.”
However, as Chung noted earlier, this dispassionate and analytical approach to people is relegated to outsiders.
Strategic thinking introverts are open and warm to those they know, love, and trust.
Strategic thinking introverts are hardwired for problem-solving
To gain serenity and tranquility in their intellectual pursuits, strategic thinking introverts must first tame their environment.
Teeming with sensitivity and strategic thinking, introverts have to calm the turbulent waters of their existence to be able to solve more compelling problems.
These applied researchers are performance-driven, and their superpowers derive from spending long hours in solitude, reading, and formulating solutions to fundamental problems.
Strategic thinking introverts strive to bring more thought and civility to an often thoughtless and uncivil society.
You might say that this breed of introverts views themselves as heroic figures warring intellectually against the forces of evil.
Ultimately, they only want to be left to tinker within their laboratories to remedy the problems plaguing humankind as they quench their internal need for relevance.
This can only be done with a laser beam focused on topics that matter.
—-Richard Olson
References
Chung, M. (n.d.). The thing about introverts that most extroverts can’t understand. Introvert Spring. Retrieved from: https://bit.ly/3pmihtj.
