Coach, facilitator, and mediator Beth Buelow gets into the mechanics of energy drain and gain, the "Friday night test", and the definition of what exactly is an ambivert?

My guest today is Beth Buelow. She has a book called

the Introvert Entrepreneur. She's really involved in this,

this whole area of study around introverts and specifically with

entrepreneurs. And she writes for Psychology Today, she's you

know, been featured in ink and Fast Company in Forbes. And

she's just awesome. And she's the sweetest, sweetest lady. So

Beth thanks for being here.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So are you an introvert? That's my first question.

I am absolutely I feel like I fall pretty, pretty

squarely on the introvert scale. Although over the years, as I've

taken the assessment, I inch a little bit more towards the

middle, which I see as a very healthy thing. And I'd like to

share a little bit more about that, because I think a lot of

introvert entrepreneurs find that as they grow their

businesses, they do start to inch a little towards the middle.

Well, what really even is an introvert to start, I think

there's probably some, you know, misconceptions that people have

about introverts. So can you kind of clearly define that term

for us?

Introversion and extraversion has to do with

where we gain and drain energy. And I must say I'm doing a

rather simplistic definition of it just for ease of explanation

and to get to kind of the root of it. So introverts gain energy

through solitude and drain energy during social

interaction. And while I don't like to think of them as

opposites, again, for purposes of simplicity, if you think of

extroverts as the opposite, they gain energy through social

interaction and drain energy, when left alone to their own

devices for too long. And so we all fall on a spectrum, that all

of us have introvert and extrovert energy in us, like I

was saying, you know, when you asked me that question, I'm

definitely an introvert. But I have cultivated and been able to

learn to tap into the extrovert energy that I have within me,

that allows me to be an entrepreneur, you know, to do my

business to talk to people like you, it's there, I think it's a

matter of forming a healthy relationship with it, you know,

recognizing it, and learning how to pull it out. In the context

of being an introvert, as opposed to trying to be a fake extrovert.

What exactly is the introvert entrepreneur? And, you

know, why did you start studying this and write this whole book

about it?

Well, what I love about the introvert

entrepreneurs that describes me and it describes who I serve,

and it's, it's kind of an under tapped or I should say, under

represented group of people who are making big strides in

business, but the, the literature, the work that's out

there is not all of these something that resonates with

us, because there does tend to be a message of bigger, faster,

more and more and more. And you've got to be out networking

constantly. It's all about sales. You know, you have to be

outgoing and, and all of that in order to succeed. And introverts

who are drawn to entrepreneurship, feel an

initial excitement, and they have that initial energy around

creating their business, taking their message out into the

world, you know, working with clients and customers and all of

that. So there's an initial rush, if you will, of energy

that happens, then as they start to kind of you know, the

honeymoons over and you start to kind of dig into to everyday

life and, and getting into ways that you can make your business

more sustainable, it's sometimes challenging to find information

to find affirmation, that the way that you are in the world as

an introvert is number one, okay? You know, it's, it's

perfectly normal. And number two, that it's possible to

balance your energy, your tendencies, your preferences

with the need to be able to go out and sell and network and

market and do all of those extroverted activities that are

required. So this book and my, my mission is to fill that gap,

you know, to, to reach out to the introverts who feel that

entrepreneurial call and say, You can't number one, you can do

this, you know, and you can do this in such a way that you

don't burn out because you're trying to meet the extrovert

expectation that is so prevalent in all of the information out

there. Here are some ways to honor who you are without

selling your soul to use that kind of cliche.

What do you think are some of the misconceptions that

people have about introverts in general?

It goes to how they how they're perceived in social

situations. And that's one reason why I like to separate

out the definition from and say it's about energy. It's not

about personality, people will think that introvert equals shy

when I give presentations. And I ask people what word comes to

mind when you hear the word introvert, it is always shy,

even from people who know better, they say, you know, our

minds typically default to the stereotype to the single story

that we have about introverts, that they're shy. And introverts

sometimes internalize that, you know, from a young age, when a

child is, you know, starting to walk and talk, parents are

looking for social skills, you know, they're looking for

evidence that that child is going to be, you know, socially

well adjusted. And that's, that's talking that's reaching

out to other kids wanting to play with them and wanting to be

social. And if a child is not, if they're already showing those

introvert tendencies of needing a lot of downtime alone time, if

a parent isn't tuned into that, they can already start putting

that label of, well, you know, little Beth, she's, she's just

shy, you know, it's okay. And then you grow up with that

label, and you don't ever really question it. And so you think

that when you go to a party, or a networking event, or any other

big social outing, and you're uncomfortable, or you find it

really exhausting, that it's because you're shy, as opposed

to well, perhaps it's about your energy. And about being an

introvert, that's interesting. You know, people will say, well,

introverts Don't you know, I'm a people person. I'm not an

introvert. Well, an introvert can be a people person, it's

just that we need to have a certain ratio of alone time to

people time, that allows us to reach out to people. So for me,

you know, it might be I need two hours of downtime for every one

hour, I'm out and socializing and interacting with people. And

that can include and what's important for the entrepreneur

to understand is that includes clients and customers, it

includes the time you spend on the line, I remember the day I

realized that just because I'm sitting alone in my office, and

I'm on the computer, maybe I'm blogging, or I'm on social

media, or reading articles and commenting, it's still noisy,

there could not be a peep coming out of my computer. But you

realize how noisy it is when you shut the lid on your laptop, for

instance, and you walk away? And it's like, wow, that's like I

just hit the mute button. So it's recognizing all of those

different places that you are interacting with people and

understanding for yourself, what's the balance that you

need, so that you have the energy to do those things, when

it's called for it stimulation? You know, it's just a different

form of stimulation than when you're talking with people. I

mean, you know, email, and you think of how easily you can get

overwhelmed. Or if you have too many tabs open on your browser.

You know, that's another way that we can create over

stimulation for ourselves that if you start to become aware of

it, and how much it's draining your energy, then you can start

to manage it a little better.

Yeah. So do you think introverts can they be

charismatic? Like, can you go so far as to say you could be

charismatic and still be an introvert?

Absolutely. I think that it's a different kind

of charisma. You know, as I mentioned before, it's not about

being a fake extrovert. When I get up on stage, I don't want to

try to be charismatic Allah, Tony Robbins, or any of these

other you know, high energy speakers. So charisma doesn't

necessarily have to do in my opinion, with being, you know,

really high energy and really extroverted. It has to do with

an inner power and inner confidence and trust, and being

able to sincerely connect with other people, just like they say

the best conversationalist are those who are the best

listeners, not necessarily the best talkers. I think those with

charisma are, it's not necessarily somebody who's like

larger than life. It's somebody who emanates a very powerful,

positive presence that helps other people feel connected to

them and feel good about themselves. And I think you

know, introverts absolutely have that power at their disposal.

What are the challenges there for an introvert

salesperson or entrepreneur?

First, it has to do with recognizing that you can

approach those processes on your own terms, that you have

inherent strength, that it's not about having the gift of gab.

It's not about being able to, you know, talk up a blue streak

or any of that I remember I was Do you ever watch the show the

Prophet? There was an episode when he was you know, of course,

visiting a company and meeting the various staff and he met the

person who was the salesman, and he said, So what makes you good

at sales or, you know, what's, what are your strengths? And he

says, Well, I'm a really good talker. And as soon as I heard

that I was like, and that's gonna come into that's going to

end up in trouble later on. So introverts can have this story

that it's all about talking and what Marcus proved a little bit

later in that same episode was that it wasn't the salesman's

ability to talk that was an asset. I don't know, I think he

did eventually find an asset in that person. But he basically

kind of took the reins and said, Here, let me let me demonstrate

what really needs to happen here. And he asked questions,

and he listened. And it's something that I think we know,

intuitive, like, Oh, of course, how do I like to be sold to? I

like for somebody to listen to me to ask questions to find out

what I really need, and to be honest with me if they don't

have it, and if introverts can get through this idea that it's

kind of the the cheesy car salesman, and you know, what's

it gonna take to get you into my practice today? That it's really

about listening to somebody and asking good questions. And, and

being a, you know, a guide and a witness for, for what they for

solving their problem. A lot of it is mindset, and then

realizing that if you that you have some inherent strengths as

an introvert in that, we often are really good listeners, we

often do have that strong feeling of curiosity about the

world about other people about their needs. And we'd like to

put the spotlight on others, if you can bring those ideas into

your sales process, that you're really taking something that

might have seemed like a challenge, and turning it into a

strength. And to release this, this story or this idea that I

have to be able to answer all of their questions so much as it's

about, I have to ask the right questions and trust that those

answers are going to come out. So it can be you know, it's such

a mental, it's such a mental game, you know, the inner game

of sales is I think introverts can, if they understand that

those assets are there for them, they can cultivate the other

skills that they need to be successful.

So you actually just wrote an article that was connected to

some research that came out about introverts, extroverts,

and then ambiverts. Tell us what ambivert means. And then tell

tell us about this study.

Well, remember, in the beginning, I talked about

introverts and extroverts all being on a spectrum. And most

people lean one way or the other. But there is a group of

people who fall squarely in the middle, and they're called

ambiverts. So think of ambidextrous, you're

comfortable, you know, writing with either hand ambiverts are

comfortable gaining energy through social interaction or

solitude. And I often think of it as a Friday night test. So

think of Monday morning. So it's Monday, and you're already

looking forward to Friday, and you say, ah, Friday, five

o'clock, I can't wait to walk into my house and do what you

know. So an introvert most likely their default is going to

be I can't wait to decompress. I can't wait to not have to answer

email or not have to talk to anybody. Yeah, I have to go to

something on Sunday. But that's okay. I have the next few days

to rest. And gear up for that an extrovert would be like, Oh, I

can't wait for Friday, I get to put on my you know, my my party

clothes and go out to hear the band with my friends or I'm

having a dinner party on Saturday night. The ambivert

doesn't necessarily have that strong default on Monday,

they're going to be like, Well, I just want to kind of want to

see how things go. You know, I don't have a default setting.

You know, where I as an introvert, I don't think you

would ever find me on a Monday saying I can't wait until go to

that party on Friday night. No offense against the people who

are giving the party but it's just not what would come

naturally. So ambiverts fall in that middle. And there was a

researcher named Adam Grant of the Wharton School of the

University of Pennsylvania. And he looked at, he did a

personality survey more than 300 salespeople, and then he tracked

their sales records for three months. And interestingly

enough, he started with the premise that it would not be the

extroverts who outperformed the introverts, he figured that

introverts would probably do better. And he was proven right.

But what he also found was that people who fell in the middle

outproduce them both, so those ambiverts did better than the

introverts, and the introverts did do better than the

extroverts, actually, let's see, ambiverts earned 24% more sales

than introverts did, and 32% more than extroverts. And what

he posited was that the ambiverts can naturally engage

in this really flexible dance between, you know, speaking and

having enthusiasm and talking with the prospect, and then

being quiet and listening and asking questions and just

creating a great spaciousness around the conversation. Those

were the people that were the most successful, and so they

weren't, they weren't persuasive. They were

influential, but they weren't pressuring, you know, again, a

very spacious kind of environment for that

conversation. So I think introverts can take heart in

that number one that you success in sales doesn't just belong to

the extroverts, and that you can cultivate some of those ambivert

skills and for introverts, that means being confident and and I

hesitate to use the word bold because it implies that the

opposite is timid. I don't think that we're timid in sales

conversations, but we can do kind of hold back questions or

hold back thoughts? Because we want to process them or we want

to save them in Newbury think, oh, I can just follow up later.

And so the being bold, would be asking them right there in that

moment, you know, extrovert yourself as a verb during that

time in order to strike that balance that that the ambiverts

have found.

I think that's fascinating. We're running out

of time best. Where do you want people to go to learn more about

you? And check out the introvert entrepreneur?

Yeah, my website is home to my blog, podcast and

books. So that's the introvertentrepreneur.com. And

from there, you'll find my presence on all sorts of social

media. And of course, you'll find links to the introvert

entrepreneur, the book.

So if somebody is out there, just the last little

thing who's listening in and maybe they've they've never,

they've always written off the idea of having their own

business, or they've always written off the idea of being in

sales. What advice would you give to that person

To challenge your assumptions and your stories,

you know, which requires first of course, being able to look at

them and identify them. And for introverts, that story is often

I'm not a good networker, I'm not good at sales. I don't have

the energy to sustain a business, challenge all of those

things and, you know, find resources like my book like

other there's several other great authors who've written

about introversion, then of course, entrepreneurship, but,

you know, seek out resources seek out support and and learn

how to, you know, embrace your introversion so that you can

work with it instead of against it.

Awesome. Well, thanks for encouraging us and inspiring us

and helping us to challenge some of those beliefs.

I appreciate it.