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Episode 2 - School
19 Plays5 years ago
Episode 2 of the Intro to Extra Podcast, in this episode Ross and Gregg discuss school and its challenges.
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Transcript
Intro to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:04
Speaker
You are listening to Intro to Extra, the life and times of polar people. The podcast where an introvert and extrovert talk about how they perceive and experience life differently through random musings and anecdotes.
School Experiences: Introvert vs Extrovert
00:00:34
Speaker
Welcome back to Intro to Extra, everybody. I'm Ross, the introvert.
00:00:38
Speaker
And I'm Greg, the extrovert. And today, our topic is schools. Not necessarily about subject matter or schools itself, but really how we interacted and navigated through school. So Ross, today, I'll take a little bit more of a backseat on this one, because I am very curious on introverts in school. I have my own narrative, of course, and we'll get to that. But talk to me a little bit about school. How was school for you from navigating it as an introvert?
00:01:07
Speaker
What were the telltale signs to you early on that you were definitely an introvert at school?
Navigating School as an Introvert
00:01:13
Speaker
You know, well, so first off, I thought we were going to be here to talk about social studies the whole time. So I guess let me scratch that school was school was a business transaction for me. Right. And I mean that from I would say from fifth, sixth grade through college, it was very much you don't go to school to have fun. It's business. It's work. You go there to get your grades.
00:01:40
Speaker
Do good in school, keep your head down and move on. Right. And so elementary school, a little bit different, like my, in my opinion, elementary school was very much, it was just a lot of fun, right? I had friends, there was no clicks. So for me as an introvert.
00:01:59
Speaker
I have a love-hate relationship with Clicks, right? Hear me out. So we all know Clicks in a way, they get a bad rap, but from an introvert perspective, that gives me my close-knit group and someone else has their close-knit group. And other than, you know, the whole bad topics of bullying and all of that, which is ridiculous and should end, a Click allowed me to have my group of friends that I could hang out with and other people wouldn't bother me. Elementary school.
00:02:28
Speaker
I think it's really hard to identify as an introvert or an extrovert early on in school, and maybe it's different now. I'm a little bit older, so we'd have to ask some others, but back then,
00:02:39
Speaker
It was kind of whoever your parents friends were, their kids. It was just kind of who you got paired up with. And it was a lot of fun for me because there wasn't really a whole lot of, you know, pointing fingers, trying to figure things out. You just enjoyed yourself. But then as middle school came along, which as everybody always likes to say, middle school is just a bad time for everybody. Not sure if it was for extroverts, but for introverts, it's like,
00:03:06
Speaker
terrible, because you are battling trying to fit in, or not fit in, you don't really want to fit in. But you're conflicted because everybody else is trying to, you know what I mean? I do. So so let's, so let's, let's, from the click perspective, you like the boundaries, like the definition it provided you it gave you in close. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yeah, and the clicks evolved, right? The people I hung out with changed based off of the extracurriculars I did. I was in band, so there was the band click. I was never in athletics. I mean, you could look at me clearly. I don't lift, bro.
00:03:47
Speaker
There's, you know, there's, there's elements of, there's elements of sports and people that I hung out with that played sports or that are like sports. Now, the interesting thing, and I was talking to my wife about this was I love video games and I love video games growing up. Well, I was in a very small town. So maybe we should set a little context. Very small town grew up in.
00:04:12
Speaker
class that I graduated high school was maybe a hundred people, I think. I can't even remember, but I knew most everybody's name, we'll put it that way. But video games had not caught on like they had in big city. So I was talking to my wife, she's like, oh yeah, if you had video game systems, Sega, Nintendo, dating myself, you were one of the popular kids. I'm like, oh no, you were a nerd, almost outcast if you played video games.
00:04:38
Speaker
Well, but the video games is interesting, right? Because yes, I get the social context of the definition of someone who likes computers and video games, et cetera. But thinking about video games as an introvert, it would definitely fuel the ability not to have to spend time with people necessarily. Oh, yeah. Especially in the world where it wasn't online gaming, you had your close group of friends. It was almost built for introverts because it's like, oh, wait, you can only have four players? I'm good with that.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's like, sweet, right? Sometimes I'd bust out the Nintendo because I only wanted to have one friend over, you know, Hey, why not?
Fitting In and Social Dynamics
00:05:16
Speaker
So that was, that was just kind of, from my perspective, there was a level of. Comfort in the clicks to wrap it that wrap that up the clicks, the introversion playing video games, but then there was this difficulty. And I alluded to that earlier of.
00:05:35
Speaker
Do I want to fit in? Do I not want to fit in? Because I'm, you know, as an introvert, I do, you know, I do want to, I'm very sensitive to, you know, the inner thoughts, you know, kind of how I take a perspective on things. And so one example, right, it was six or seventh grade, skateboarding was all the rage. I can't stand on a skateboard and stay balanced to save my life, but
00:06:03
Speaker
Some of my friends that I had before in elementary school had started to get into skateboarding, so what do I do?
00:06:09
Speaker
I have the genius idea to ask for a pair of air walks for my birthday. You remember air walks back? Yeah, I do. I had a pair of air walks, absolutely. Oh, green air walks. They were so nice. Not very comfortable, but I kind of wanted some air walks. One of my friends, he was still kind of one of those, as I would call him borderline friend, he was about to go into his new group of friends, but still thought I was cool. Me being hyper loyal, I was still very loyal to him. So I got some air walks.
00:06:37
Speaker
First day I wear them to school. Not kidding. Somebody asked me, but do you even skate? Oh, crushed dude. Never for those air walks again. They're probably sitting at my mom's house, like collecting dust. So if anybody wants some like, I don't know, like size five kids, greed air walks.
00:07:01
Speaker
hit me up, hit me up on my DM. You're a size five middle school. That's, that's what we've confirmed by this narrative. I really, I really don't know. I mean, I do have, I do have flippers for feet, right? But I'm not a good swimmer, surprisingly enough. Yeah. So, so, you know, my air walk story just goes to say that that was a defining moment of when I was like, you know what, maybe I,
00:07:28
Speaker
don't really need to have a bunch of friends and put myself out there because all it's going to do is put me in a spot where I'm second guessing myself, right? Cause I was, I was probably doing myself and like knowing what I wanted, all of those things are ready at that age. And it was like, do you even skate?
00:07:45
Speaker
But I think all people can relate to that middle school story. I went to three different middle schools growing up. One was in Heidelberg, Germany. One was Hanover, Germany. And one was Leavenworth, Kansas, because that's the happening place on the planet. Yeah, buddy.
00:08:08
Speaker
So I think I'm more curious about how does, I mean, you stayed in the same place, you went to the same school, but how did navigating middle school in general, you're trying to find your identity, you probably switched friends quite a bit. That's kind of the story that most people have about middle school.
00:08:22
Speaker
How does an introvert navigate school? How did you navigate friends and those because because friends are terminal in middle school, right? You have some friends that stick with you, but a lot of friends are just short lived, you had them in home ec, and then you don't see them again. How did you navigate as an introvert, maintaining some level of human friendship levels or those kind of things? Because you have this hyper loyal wanting to keep people close kind of things and not opening up as dramatically. So
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, it was, I would tell you it was based off of the extracurriculars, right? My friends in middle school, I was in band in middle school. I was in the percussion section. Well, surprisingly enough, I had a group of probably five to six close friends, what I would call close, right, in middle school. And four of the six were in the drum section, including myself, right? And then the other two were other bandies, as we were ridiculed and called, whether that's a pro or not.
00:09:19
Speaker
So for me, it was, it was almost like I had to go to those, you know, I had to go to band practice and everything else. So I had to socialize with somebody, right? And it was people who had the closest, closest interest to mine. And that's how I really grouped, grouped my friendships back then, right? Being an adult now.
00:09:40
Speaker
That's what we do as well, whether it's political interests, whether it's social life interests, whether it's work. That's how you build your friends. At least from an introvert. That's how I build my friendships is I've worked with you long enough. I start to build a friendship or I've been doing some sort of activity, whether it's some sort of exercise thing, whether it's book club, who does book club? That's a bad example for me. Audio book club.
00:10:09
Speaker
I do read folks but you know audiobooks but to the point is that really hasn't changed from my perspective of when I was younger to now it was all about the activities I did externally if I did activities that's the biggest thing right because as an introvert
00:10:29
Speaker
I get solace in just having that alone time to recharge with a small group of people. I have to identify people that aren't going to overwhelm me and be able to choose wisely in those people because there are some points where I would even have friends over and I vividly remember we would be playing video games
00:10:51
Speaker
And there's only so much Mortal Kombat you can play with people before I just wanna stop and just like chill out by myself. You know, and so I would, that's how my friendships went. And yeah, and they came and went. And I would tell you, some of the ones I had in middle school stayed in high school, but it was because we then took interest in computers specifically.
High School: Extrovert's Perspective
00:11:16
Speaker
You're listening to him, right? The head president, that's a little bit duplicative, but president of the computer club right here. That was me. And what was it? It was my group of me and like four other nerds. All we did was talk computer stuff. I think the school just felt bad for us and just let us call it the computer club at that point.
00:11:40
Speaker
But it morphed into, okay, we were the computer club. We were made fun of. Sure. It wasn't, fortunately, it wasn't very bad bullying, but it was pretty much just our group of friends. But we were totally, we were totally cool with that. We taught computer stuff, but it was all about the same interests, right? It was all about extracurriculars. Now, my question to you is when you were in middle school and high school,
00:12:06
Speaker
Were extracurriculars where you made your friends or did you already have friends? Did you make friends outside of that? Or is that how you formed friendships as well? So, so Russ, I moved around a lot coming into this, into this topic was interesting. Had I not gone to the hundred person high school, I ended up going to from ninth through 11th grade until I moved to San Antonio. Um, I,
00:12:34
Speaker
I don't think I would have been as extroverted and as extra as I probably am. I was a pretty shy kid when I was younger. I loved the show. I loved the stage. I loved to be up and entertain people. But I was never one to be. I was a nerdy kid. Obviously, we're doing a podcast. I haven't changed much. I was a bit of a nerdy kid. And I was odd trying to find myself through all that. For friends, to answer that question, for friends,
00:13:02
Speaker
It wasn't until I got to high school that I really got to do extracurriculars. I was a Boy Scout. Another way to build your network. But yeah, I was a Boy Scout. Learned a lot about leadership and that stuff. And my favorite point of Boy Scouts was doing the campfire. That was my favorite one, right? Because I got to entertain people. That was always what I wanted to do.
00:13:22
Speaker
But as far as friends outside, I didn't really have a lot of friends in school until high school. And in that realm, it really was because I went to 100% high school and because it got to become me and the hormones hit and I became this very loud extroverted individual.
00:13:38
Speaker
So I don't think the reason I say all that is because I don't think the activities are how I met friends. I think I ended up in activities because my friends were doing activities, not because I wanted to do them. Got it. So yours was yours was truly almost the inverse is, hey, you had made friends and they're like, oh, we're doing this activity. And like, oh, sweet. Sounds like fun. I'll dive into it. Well, I want to be home, right? I didn't want to be home. I want to be out and I would do anything. I played football at 111 pounds for us.
00:14:04
Speaker
I was second straight center on an American football team. Wait, you were center? You were the guy who first made contact with the opposition team at every snap. Yeah, every snap. But 111 pounds. Well, not really, because they wouldn't let me play. Sure. But I couldn't run and I couldn't catch.
00:14:22
Speaker
I had no athletic ability whatsoever. But it was the only way I could get out of town. And because our football trips would take a whole weekend, if you didn't, you'd be the only kid in class watching videos of like whales eating seals or whatever in biology like you. There was never any. You had no choice because the volleyball team would be gone. The football team was gone. The tennis team was gone. So you're just the one guy in biology class by yourself watching it with the sub. Now, I did.
00:14:48
Speaker
I did do UIL, which for those who might not know, stands for University Interscholastic League, which I know why they call it UIL because that's a, that's a mouthful. Anyways, I did UIL in sixth and seventh grade. And you know what I did? Guess, guess what I did, Greg? Let's see if you can, let's see if you can figure it out. I'm not sure if you actually know this story. I don't think I do unless it's mathletes and I didn't, I don't think you weren't mathletes.
00:15:16
Speaker
Oh, no, but no, no offense to mathletes. All this, all this machine learning stuff going on. I wish it would have paid more attention in math class. No, I was oral reading poetry. I can see it, Roz. Come on. Come on. No, no, laugh it up. Laugh it up. Come on. Get it in there. The audience needs some Greg laughter in this podcast. This one's a little, this one's a little, little low light talking into Ross's introversion.
00:15:47
Speaker
All right, folks. Y'all got it. That's it. Y'all can just loop that clip if you want because it's about to get real dull here. I was in poetry, but.
00:15:57
Speaker
This is what's funny. I had the same poem that I did for two straight years Didn't want to mix it up. No, no, no find what works for you Ross, right? But I did a funny one. In fact, I recited it this weekend for my spouse because She took the opportunity to listen to me bless her soul, you know, and I I respect her for that because I don't know if I would have done the same
00:16:23
Speaker
Mrs. Stein by Bill Dodds. Gotta give Bill reps. I don't know if he's still around. If he isn't, bless his soul. He won me a lot of first and second places in sixth and seventh grade. Crushed him in all these little bitty hill country towns with five other random people doing poetry. But yeah, I did poetry, which for me, the interesting part is getting up in front of a group of people
00:16:52
Speaker
and doing the poetry as someone else was almost like
00:16:58
Speaker
It was a super, it was an amazing release because I was somebody completely different. So I could do the motions, I could act, which make no mistake, I cannot act. I mean, listen to the dynamics in my voice. I am not an actor, but I loved doing it because I could be someone else. I would always go first because guess what? I didn't want to hear anybody else go after me.
00:17:27
Speaker
I wanted to be the first one done. I didn't want to hear any of my competition. I go first and I leave and I go sit there and I play my Game Boy while the rest of the UIL meet goes on. That's what I did and hung out with my science and mathlete friends. So yes, I'm not knocking you because y'all were my friends. But I loved poetry. Now, would I do that again? You know, I listened to the Moth podcast, great podcast.
00:17:55
Speaker
I, man, I don't know what possessed me to do that now. I have no idea why I did it. I think you enjoy, I think you enjoy putting words out in the world. I mean, you are doing the whole, you know, translating the book thing, like putting the, you know, your voice to books, you know, doing your own version of books on tape. Yeah. I don't know why we call it books. I call it audio books. I still think it should be called books on tape. It was a much better naming convention.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's, that's fair. I mean, CD books, though, you get that whole like, you just get like, dozens and dozens of CDs, right? Yeah, your mom brings home a briefcase and like, what's that? Oh, it's the Hobbit. Oh, Lord of the Rings trilogy on CD. Listen to the abridged ones, just like classics illustrate the ones that they turn into comic books. I've read all the classics in art form.
00:18:49
Speaker
Art form, love it. Yeah, so poetry was, poetry was an interesting, like I said, that was middle school, that was in between, you know, doing, you're thinking, wow, poetry and air walks. Yeah, this kid really didn't know what he was in middle school, like every child,
Innate Traits: Introversion vs Extroversion
00:19:08
Speaker
okay?
00:19:08
Speaker
Well, I think that's interesting. The question I thought about too around introverts and extroverts is when does, we've never really spent any time defining what an introvert was and an extrovert was. We just assumed our listeners understood that. But in our arguments, pretty much an introvert is someone who doesn't get their batteries charged with people, they get their batteries drained with people, and extroverts people get their batteries charged with people.
00:19:33
Speaker
I wonder at what point are we born extroverts? Did you know you were an introvert early on or did you find out in middle school and high school that you were an introvert? Or was it more, because I have a strong suspicion that I became more and more extroverted as I grew up. Yeah, well I think I've become more and more introverted as I've grown up. The difference is I've learned how to better deal
00:20:02
Speaker
Because of just because of the nature of my profession, I've learned how to deal and how to work with my introversion and how to recharge at the right times. So I think in, I don't know, hypothesizing, I think you probably are born either an introvert or extrovert. You just don't, once you realize it.
00:20:26
Speaker
It's not till later on that you realize it. And when you do realize it, that's probably right about the time you hit puberty, which everything else goes out the window. So are you really learning how to deal with your introversion and extroversion? Are you really just lashing out? Is that that time when your parents become most difficult? What is it really when you hit that age? So I think when you get into high school, you deal with all of that just
00:20:55
Speaker
as I would call it, some people probably had a whole ton of fun in high school. Let's not even, we'll get to college. We'll get to college in a minute. That's another fun time. But I don't think, I think you're bored with it, but I don't think you really realize what it is and how to deal with it until later on in life. That's fair. I think as we look at it, and we brought the topic of school today,
00:21:23
Speaker
I wasn't exactly thrilled and I don't know how many listeners, if we've kept them Ross, we've kept them through one. Two, two listeners. One person said they were excited to hear about schools, probably has multiple family members who are educators.
00:21:44
Speaker
I have so much more optimism than you about people wanting to listen to this. But I do think that I do think school is an interesting topic because it wasn't a great time for me either. I don't think anyone really looks back on school. Really, I hope not. Really looking back on high school going, well, it was the best time of my life. If they do, I have other questions. But I don't think it has anything to do with being introverted and extroverted. Well, it's how you were able to
00:22:13
Speaker
Well, like, like I said at the beginning, school was a business transaction for me, right? I feel as an introvert, there was no.
00:22:25
Speaker
There was no, there was nothing in between that, right? It was business transaction, rest, business transaction, rest. I feel like my observation of college was it was for extroverts. And this is where, this is where I need you to correct me, Greg. It was business transaction, party, business transaction, party, party, party, business transaction, you know, like it was like,
00:22:54
Speaker
What are fraternities and sororities? There is not a single introvert in those. Maybe there is, but if it was, if it was an introverted fraternity party. They're in business fraternities and calculus fraternity. Yeah, there's no, I never went to a single party. Well, they're absolutely social organizations. I mean, they're called that, right? I mean, Greek life is a social organization.
00:23:19
Speaker
I mean, club by its nature is also a social thing. I'm not sure that they're introverts or extroverts because I think introverts would benefit more from being part of fraternities than extroverts. A lot of my super extroverted friends didn't want to be part of fraternities because they can make friends on their own. Their whole attitude was like, why do I need this thing to help me find friends? I've got, I can go make a whole bunch of them without this.
00:23:39
Speaker
I mean, I was part of I was part of by it was so effective being the DJ personality that I am I was part of like seven or eight different fraternities. I just didn't pledge any of them I have my own that I was part of that I don't even know how I got suckered into that thing But yeah now that's but that's got to be in that's got to be some some sort of extraversion slant of being in multiple clubs multiple fraternities because it's it's
00:24:04
Speaker
you're jumping around from one to one trying to find what is exciting for you right and you're like and if you and if you don't like it move on versus as an introvert if i had joined a club which trust me i looked at fraternities for a hot second and i was like i did my deep analysis i'm like no i don't think i would enjoy that right because i was very i was i was very hesitant right to join those things versus
00:24:29
Speaker
I see these other people like yeah we're just gonna go try it out you know because I'd be in group projects and you get paired up with just random people in school which drove me absolutely bonkers it's like wait you want to pair me up with just like count off one two one two what is this elementary school red rover like I don't even know what this is but I would meet these people and they'd be like oh yeah we're just gonna go we're just gonna go
00:24:54
Speaker
you know, hang out here, go to this club or try this out. And like, y'all haven't done any like research on it, looked into it, seen what they do. Nothing. No, no, no, we're just gonna go try it out. Now, hard pass, right? Hard pass. College, college was not, I mean, college was fun. It was an adventure to meet as many different people as I could learn everything there was. I mean, I would show up at anything. I remember one time I went to Diwali ceremony at UT Austin. And, uh,
00:25:24
Speaker
Someone looked over to me and goes, we didn't know you were Indian. I'm like, I'm not Indian. They're like, we didn't know you were Hindu. I said, I'm not Hindu either. They're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I just came to watch. And it sound interesting. I had never been to Diwali before, so I thought this will be fun.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, I love to people watch, right? I'll people watch. But man, if somebody would have questioned that I would have been the first person out the door, I would have felt like, I'd be like, Oh, no, okay, I'm not. And I would have left. Right? Just because I would have felt bad, even though I would have potentially even been interested in that. Just to understand the culture. What's just so I thought that's just how I was how I was wired.
00:25:59
Speaker
I think for me college, college should in many ways return back to I think the definition I had before, which was this idea. And again, it was for privilege. It was for people of the social elite. It was designed as a place, a waiting room basically where we would go find out. I mean, I'm totally being like horribly 1940s pejorative, but when we would go to find a husband and men would go to find career opportunities, right? Not much has evolved from college from then to now. Not really.
00:26:29
Speaker
Except for now, women don't go to find a husband necessarily and men aren't necessarily going to get careers. But regardless, it's a chance for you to find yourself. It's a chance for you to find out who you are and gives you a four year kind of window if you can afford it, because that's privilege right there, absolute privilege.
00:26:46
Speaker
to find
College: Self-Discovery for Different Personalities
00:26:47
Speaker
yourself. And for introverts, I think even though they approached it from a business transaction perspective, they did find some things that they did like or didn't like, whether it was classes or whether it was somewhat social settings. I didn't know anyone that was a complete introvert who never left their dorm room. Like I never met anybody who didn't have some friends in college when they didn't had friends before. Yeah. Okay. Well, you bet one, I think.
00:27:14
Speaker
Well, no, I mean, but no, that's not true. I mean, I met the person who helped me get my job at my my first job out of college. I met he graduated before me made a recommendation. We hung out for a year like we knew each other. We didn't hang out a lot outside of school, but like while in like in between class meet up with this person.
00:27:36
Speaker
And help help me get my first job so i can't say that i didn't have any friends now. For me at the time the college i went to was a commuter college or was.
00:27:48
Speaker
Very strongly commuter college. So what would I do on the weekends? I would I would go home I would hang out with my family I still had some of the friends that I had in high school that I would hang out with so I went back to the You know the comfortable old shoe that I had so That's that's kind of how I that's that's almost how I recharged right? I would go five days work week school
00:28:12
Speaker
hardcore, get the job done. And my recharging was go back to something that, you know, something smaller, something I was comfortable with, recharge the batteries, get ready to go for the next round.
00:28:28
Speaker
And that's where I think there's the greatest service in the college conversation, right? Because we do know from the data, we know from separate, not about introverts and extroverts specifically, but we know from the data that students who go away from home tend to do better in school than if they stay home, do better in grades, they tend to build a better social network if they stay away, they build social capital and they do better in life. But then the question then becomes,
00:28:51
Speaker
what does that mean for the introvert and extrovert? What are the skills we're teaching in high school and in middle school to introverts to help them be successful in an environment that you call an extroverted wonderland? I mean, how do we help them? I know I was a bit tongue in cheek about the whole going to meet your husband, going to find a job, or going to find your wife. Let's just change around. Going to find your spouse of any type. Going to find your future partner.
00:29:16
Speaker
But I think there's a reason why people say that. Do you find your partner in college? I think the reason why they say that is because you are the most...
00:29:22
Speaker
you're the most raw version of yourself, you're willing to be open to experiences and new ideas, and in that process you find, you're finding like-minded people that can appreciate that. Now that doesn't say anything for divorce and so on and so forth, but I just, I do think it's an interesting concept to take that level, that window, and suggest that college is a place where you can find yourself, but for introverts, it might be the way at least it's set up or established, it could be a negative experience, at least from your experience, it doesn't sound like it was a very positive, necessarily a positive one.
00:29:53
Speaker
No, and I mean, I appreciate the schooling I received. You know, once again, I wouldn't have stuck with the transaction if I didn't realize it provided value. At the same time, I do think I learned a significant amount about myself. And that is when I learned to figure out
00:30:15
Speaker
how to better deal with the introversion, right? Because college is a time where people ask you, hey, you wanna go out for drinks, assuming you're of legal age, right? Do you want to go to a party? Do you wanna do this? As an introvert, this is when you start to grip with your feelings of, how do I say no? It's not that I don't like y'all.
00:30:40
Speaker
It's not that I don't want to hang out with these couple of people, but the setting I am going to go to is not going to be energizing and satisfying for me. So you learn how to navigate those social norms, which we all know ends up, at least if you're in a work environment with a large number of working people,
00:31:02
Speaker
Ends up turning into happy hours and other activities where there are people that you truly enjoy conversing with but then afterwards and after work you're Drained and you have to figure out how to navigate Saying no to somebody and you I feel bad every time I have to say no to somebody about going out and doing this or going out and doing that I'm kind of like
00:31:27
Speaker
I need a little bit of me time. I learned how to better navigate that in college. So college did provide value, obviously. It just wasn't what, if I talked to somebody about, oh, I partied, I had so much fun in college, all these stories. I don't have a lot of stories from college. Looking back on it now, years later, doesn't really bother me. When I first got out of college and I heard everybody telling all these stories about college, I was like, oh man,
00:31:57
Speaker
I didn't have any of those stories. Now I'm kind of like, that's okay. I'll just live vicariously through those folks who did have stories, right? Like, I'm totally cool with that. So that's where I think college was important to me because it helped me navigate that. And then corporate America and everything else just amplifies that because now you are
00:32:20
Speaker
responsible for delivering on some sort of company mission, some sort of company piece there, and you have to be and flex to the personality type, or at least the culture that's expected.
00:32:35
Speaker
And sometimes you run into cultural and social norms that are kind of woven together that you have to end up figuring out how to address. So that's kind of where college left me. Now you went to, I just stopped at undergrad, you have continued further education. Has that
00:32:55
Speaker
changed your perspective. Did you did you experience high school and your undergrad differently than you have with furthering education into master's and beyond? I think I approach my master's and my PhD for the same reasons I am. And I know that next week, next week's episode is all about work. So we won't go into the office, we won't talk about work and those kind of things. But when we talk about
00:33:23
Speaker
When we talk about school for me, going back to my master's, I was a year and a job I wasn't a huge fan of. I worked with people that I didn't necessarily feel akin to. I wasn't necessarily socially aligned to.
00:33:36
Speaker
And I wanted to be back with people that I felt connected to, so I went back to school. Clearly must not have been the year you knew me. It was not the year I knew you, no. I went back to school for my master's because I wanted to be around people. I wanted to be around people that I felt were like me, akin to me, had the same interests as me. And I originally wanted to go to business school, and I didn't want to, I wanted to eat path of least resistance, and I didn't want to have to,
00:34:04
Speaker
go take a bunch of prereqs so i went back to sociology which is what my first degree was in and i just did a master's in sociology and then the same thing happened about well that was
00:34:14
Speaker
So 10 years later, when I got the same feeling of feeling like I wasn't involved around people that were, macularly, because by this point I've known Ross, so Ross doesn't feel that it was just him, but macularly around people at the office and doing the work that I thought I fit in with people that were like me, et cetera, I decided to go back to school again. So my reasons and motivations for school were more around
00:34:39
Speaker
being in that environment with people that are going to challenge me mentally and we're going to make me feel because
00:34:46
Speaker
No offense to modern workplace, but you're not necessarily gonna get the most academically challenged people. Most people have gotten there one of multiple ways to achieve their career, and it's not always because they have intelligent things to say. So I wanted to be around people. I don't know what you're talking about. I wanted to be around people that said incredibly intelligent things, whether it was right or wrong or indifferent, and I wanted to get in academic debates, and I wanted to be in an environment of safe to do it.
00:35:14
Speaker
I don't think it's a wise decision to have academic debates at work. People's politics and opinions are different. And so that was the reason I went back to school. So in many ways, it was truly an extroverted motivation to go back to school. And it gave me a safe place to have those conversations. Now granted, after going to school, I realized being in my PhD, I'm not necessarily achieving all the things I wanted from that, but that was the motivation.
00:35:42
Speaker
okay fair enough now do you do you feel that and so that's it that's interesting that you it's the like-minded thing and and we both you went there because you knew like-minded people would be there i ended up with like-minded people because i knew that would be you know that was comfortable for me right so it's it was both it both ended up being a similar path now my question is
00:36:11
Speaker
We don't that could be a whole nother episode where we talk about social media it probably should be but I don't I don't know how school would be Different for introverts versus extroverts in the world that is that it is now being so connected and being with social media I feel like we need to have somebody who's like we need to have somebody who's just out of school and
00:36:38
Speaker
like help learn us a little bit on how it's completely different because everybody has access to so much information on the social media now.
Social Media's Impact on School Life
00:36:49
Speaker
I feel like it would be, I don't know if it would be harder or easier as an extrovert or an introvert nowadays in school with social media. Like immediately I think as an introvert, immediately I immediately think it would be harder.
00:37:05
Speaker
right because there's so much stimulus but then at the same time i'm thinking i love to get lost in a crowd so maybe the social media thing wouldn't be too bad because i could just kind of slide under the radar but i don't know i'm curious your thoughts if you think there would be any
00:37:24
Speaker
If the social media play would be any different, had you been in school and all of the social media had been there, would you have used it? What would be your immediate trigger in high school if I had plopped, I don't know, is TikTok now the official one that you mentioned? I think that's the official social media now, right? Yeah. I don't know if social media
00:37:49
Speaker
I do know this, that there's a lot of proof culture, as opposed to what it was when we were kids. And when we were kids, we could tell stories. And of course, as all people do, if you tell a good story, you're going to exaggerate a bit, right? Of course. But nowadays, with such proof culture, you're constantly on guard to prove people that you know something, or you're right, or you have access to it, and so on and so forth. So I don't know if...
00:38:16
Speaker
I wonder if the dividing line between introvert and extrovert is even more extreme because if you don't have something interesting to share and don't have interesting experiences and you're not out in the world, then you've got to prove it some other way that you're a valuable human to society. That's what I see. That's why I see a social media culture is that it's it's creating an environment where you have to validate that you're a decent human. And I don't I don't completely understand. But now would would would 16 year old Greg be using TikTok? Would you be posting all over TikTok?
00:38:47
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know if 16 year old Greg. I mean, extroverted Greg now is not on social media. I don't know if I would, I don't know if I would like, I think I would get myself in trouble on social media. Yeah. I don't think that's, I don't think that's a good plan. You'd be like, oops, put that out for the internet to see. I mean, even this podcast, right? I mean, even this podcast has elements even twice already. I've already thought through it and been like, did I say something negative that I'm going to edit out later? I'm not sure social media is a good plan.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I'm learning how not to say everything I think.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, and that's good. But I don't know if that's an extroverted thing or an introverted thing. And I'm learning how to say things, so congratulations. Yeah, I don't know how much of those are personality and how much those are introverted and extroverted things. I do know that school for introvert, I would imagine, would be a lot more isolating than school for an extrovert. And I think what makes school isolating for both parties, introverts and extroverts, is that in school,
00:39:45
Speaker
If you're an extrovert, you so desperately want to be accepted as the individual and be seen and be part of it and be asked and invited and want to be part of everything. And I imagine introverts are the same way. Their just pool is a lot smaller.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because because introverts and extroverts, I mean, they both they both want those rewards, right? They both they both like those rewards. It's just ones achieved externally and ones more internally, right? So it's just a different it's just a different trigger for those for those rewards. Yeah, I think my extreme personality and something I've been told most of my life is you want everybody to like you.
00:40:25
Speaker
And I don't think that's entirely true. It's just my overt personality type and added in with the extra version, everything else puts me in a category where I'm constantly winning people, right? Trying to win them over, talk about things they're interested in, show you whatever. And I think that has given the impression that I need everyone to like me, which is not the case. And I think for you, and I would imagine it's probably true,
00:40:52
Speaker
your kind of quieted peace, whatever, it can be a little bit standoffish and it may mean that you don't like lots of people. And that's not true either. The others, right? That you don't like people.
00:41:04
Speaker
No, it's the complete opposite, right? There's so many people that I'm sure that I would love to interact with and talk to that I have probably missed out opportunities multiple times. And it's, I've never really been called, I've never really been called intimidating back to the whole, do you even lift comment? But, you know, definitely not physically intimidating.
00:41:31
Speaker
I've there's been a couple of people who have called me unapproachable. Yeah, or said oh you don't seem approachable which That's in the past my current position has definitely I have to change that because I would not be successful in the job that I am in right now if I were considered unapproachable, but I've I've definitely been called unapproachable and that's hard for me because I
00:41:54
Speaker
I'm just really unapproachable to me is really just, no, no, no, I'm thinking things through, I'm developing an opinion, and I might just be a little bit too late to outwardly express like, hey, yeah, let's talk about that. Let's do this, right? Because I'm more thinking about it as opposed to jumping out there. And sometimes people think that,
00:42:14
Speaker
well, if you're not putting yourself out there right away, you're not approachable. And, and that's tough, right? Because then it's doubly hard, because then I put myself out there. And then if I haven't thought it through to my level of standard, then it's like a double whammy, like, ouch, that was painful. So I think, I think in summation, as we get as we close this, this podcast, and I think through what we've talked about,
00:42:41
Speaker
As we continue our themes, and to those who choose to listen, school as an extension is just another opportunity for us to talk about acceptance of the differences of each other. The acceptance that we exist in the world as we exist and our overtness of our personality types, our extroverted and extroverted, does
00:43:02
Speaker
does create opportunities for us to lack acceptance because either the parties we're dealing with are more extroverted or the parties we're dealing with are more introverted and we get interesting perceptions because of those behaviors of which are innate qualities of our personalities.
Reflection on School and Structure
00:43:17
Speaker
So I do think it's interesting. I want to turn it over for you for thoughts as we conclude on your thoughts around school. I thought it was a good opportunity to dive into that a little bit and talk about school from the introverted perspective as I was genuinely curious.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I mean, I think school was a give or take 15 to 20 year block, depending on your what you say when school started. But for me, school was a time from, you know, first, second grade for me all the way through college where
00:43:54
Speaker
It was weird because I was working. I even told a family member this when my nephew started saying, does he realize that now that he started kindergarten until he turned 60 something, he's going to be working for the rest of his life? And I was like, ooh, that was kind of brutal.
00:44:13
Speaker
Maybe he's not gonna feel that way, but school for me, as somebody who just tried to be very inwardly focused and had to take that time away from just being put in rooms with tons of people that I didn't choose, school was tough. It was hard, but at the same time, the curriculum,
00:44:39
Speaker
The structure of all those other things was helpful and it did help define how I handle things in social situations. So, you know, I appreciated school for what it was. There's a reason I haven't gone back for continuing education. And there's a reason why when I say I'm going back for continuing education, it's probably going to be all online based.
00:45:02
Speaker
But that's just that's just the nature of my personality. And I'm sure I have no doubt that some of it is not even introversion. There's probably a lot of introverts who had a ton of fun in school because there's activities and groups that you could join with just small numbers of people. But for me, school was truly was a business transaction.
Conclusion and Teaser for Next Episode
00:45:24
Speaker
Well, thanks for us for all the insight today on this. I really do appreciate doing this with you every week. Sure. And that being said, since this wasn't as light of a topic, I'll put some laugh tracks in here. Sparse it in throughout. I don't think it needed to be. I think it needed to be for impact. And I think it was a good opportunity for benefit for us, as well as for those who choose to do listening.
00:45:50
Speaker
for us. I mean, as we talk about work next week, I'm sure it will be light as we've had plenty of conversations about the work in the office and the workplace. Everybody is going to be named Pam and Billy to completely obfuscate their identities. So I don't offend anyone who's made potluck items that I do not enjoy.
00:46:16
Speaker
going to apologize in advance right now, people, right now. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Intro to Extra. Next week, work.