142. Why Introverts Are Still Being Passed Over for Leadership — with David Boroughs

What if being overlooked at work had nothing to do with your performance — and everything to do with a bias so embedded in workplace culture that most people don't even recognise it as bias at all?

David Boroughs spent 30 years navigating corporate America as an introvert. He received top performance rankings and was still told, repeatedly, that he wasn't visible enough. Near the end of his career, that contradiction became an epiphany: it wasn't him that was broken. It was the culture.

Now retired, David is an author and advocate for personality type inclusion. We talk about what it costs to mask your introversion, why the burden of change cannot keep falling on the individual, and what leaders can practically do to create cultures where introverts thrive as their authentic selves.

We also explore the Anxiety High book series — a fiction series for introverted teenagers that David co-authored with his son, Joshua — and why it's finding just as much resonance with parents, teachers, and school counsellors.

In this episode:

• What "personality type bias" is — unconscious, socially accepted, and legally unchallenged
• The performance review moment that changed everything for David
• The exhaustion of performing extroversion, and why it compounds over time
• What leaders can do differently: hiring language, selection committees, and creating genuine belonging
• Why introverts who break into leadership sometimes perpetuate the very bias they've suffered
• How David and his teenage son wrote fiction books together to help young introverts feel seen

About David Boroughs

David is the author of The Extrovert's Guide to Elevating Introverted Leaders in the Workplace and co-author of the Anxiety High teen fiction series. Connect with David on LinkedIn and his website.

Work with Serena

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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Transcript

Meet David Burrows And The Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Our guest today is David Burrows. David is the author of The Extrovert's Guide to Elevating Introverted Leaders in the Workplace and co-author of the Anxiety High book series. He is a retired professional engineer and corporate leader, now focusing on his family while pursuing his passion as an author and artist. David is an introvert with a desire to help others learn how to be authentically happy and successful while simultaneously championing cultural change so people of all personality types feel like they belong. Welcome, David, to the Quiet Warrior Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thanks, Irina. It's a pleasure to be here and I appreciate the invite.

Corporate Leadership As An Introvert

SPEAKER_01 0:47

David, I'm very curious what your experience of introversion was like as a corporate leader.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Maybe let me start out by just saying that I, as an introvert and a proponent of change when it comes to personality type bias, I'm a strong believer that there's no one, that no one personality type is better than another. And then in our learning spaces and in our worksplaces, we need both extroverts and introverts to be really truly successful and optimal. But at the same time, uh personality type bias is real. And everyday introverts are unfairly overlooked for leadership opportunities. They're held back by unfair headwinds. And that's fundamentally wrong. And I think it's fine that we as a community work to change that. Because really, I think everybody deserves to learn and work in an environment where they can feel like they belong when they're leveraging their authentic strengths. But from my personal perspective, I worked in corporate America for over 30 years. And you know, when I was growing up, I never really knew I was an introvert. And even through university or college, it never really came up. And you know, I did well and I did what I wanted to do, and things were great. And then right after I entered the workforce in corporate America, uh, they sent my entire team, our entire team to a Myers Brig personality assessment. And that's when I really first learned that I was introverted. But at the time, it felt right, you know, the descriptions and the process, you know, I just when I learned I was introverted, I identified with it. It felt like me. And I didn't really think a whole lot about it. Uh but what they didn't really teach us there is what that meant relative to the work I was going to be doing, relative to the culture I was going to be working in. And I really didn't have any mentors to kind of really help me understand. I had lots of mentors to help me be a better engineer, to be a be a better technical person. Um, but I didn't really have a lot of mentors really there to say, as an introvert, these are the things you're going to struggle with in the culture you're working in. So I just dove in and I just started doing my thing, um, working hard, trying to please my customers. And I got to one of my early performance reviews, and I thought what I would hear is, David, you're doing the right things, you're really focused on the right things, you're doing a great job, you're making sure that your projects are efficient, that your customers are taken care of, that uh people are safe. But what I heard was, David, if you want to be promoted, what you need to do is find the people making the decisions and spend as much time in front of them as possible. So I kind of left that meeting in this state of introverted shock, and I didn't really know how to deal with it. And I kept getting coached over this period of time that I needed to be more visible, that I needed to be more outgoing, I needed to talk more. So I kind of just fell into fell into this, I bought into this faulty idea that there was something wrong with me, that I was broken. And this is not a unique story for introverts, this happens all the time for introverts. So I kind of really worked for a long time on just trying to be more visible and um trying to change myself to be that out that gregarious outgoing person that they wanted. And I struggled, but at the same time, I actually saw some success. So it was this weird, kind of diametrically opposed points of view that were coming together and I would that I was both benefiting from, but at the same time struggling with. And so I continued to do that for years and years and years, and I had some success and I kept moving up in the company. Uh, but at the same time, I always kept going back to kind of my core values, my core introverted beliefs, and that's kind of where I eventually settled. And then I would, as I progressed through my career, I would get to the point where I thought I'd I'd crack this visibility nut that I'd figured it out. And then I would have a new supervisor to come in and they would say the same thing. You're not visible enough, but yet I was doing all of this stuff to be more visible. So near the end of my career, probably about 28 years into it, I had a supervisor that gave me a top performance ranking because of the job I was doing. And then we were working on trying to get me my next assignment. And he came back and said, You're not visible enough to compete. And I'm like, Well, I've done all this stuff, you've given me a top performance

The Visibility Trap And Extrovert Bias

SPEAKER_00 5:18

ranking. And that's kind of when I had this epiphany that it wasn't my visibility that was a problem. I wasn't the one that was broken, I wasn't the one that needed fixing, that there was this bigger issue, and it was the fact that the culture generally had a bias towards extroversion and away from introversion. And that bias created this tailwind that pushed some forward and a headwind that held others back. And um until that changed, until we had fundamentally changed that culture, um, I was still gonna people like me, myself, and people like me who prefer to think about things before they talked about them, were gonna struggle. Naturally, when I kind of label this idea of personality type bias, this this idea, and it's based on Susan Cain's um the extrovert ideal, but it's this this thing, this this concept that bias exists, it's not fair, but it's reality. And it's often unconscious, people don't know that they have it. Um, it's socially accepted, so people don't see anything wrong with it, and it's often legal within our environments. You know, there's nothing legally, it's not a protected class, there's nothing legally that that that you can do a whole lot about it. So you can have this weird trifecta of situation that occurs where you have this bias that everybody just believes in. And even introverts, they're taught, they hear so much that there's something wrong, and they're taught, you know, in this culture that they actually start believing it as well, which is the really sad part about it. But it got to a certain point where I was, you know, I just knew that I, you know, I was privileged enough to be in a situation where I could retire, and I knew there was something more I needed to do. And that's when I retired and I wrote the books and started working on the books and started trying to get bring my message to a broader audience.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Thank you for that very detailed explanation and the context of it. What I particularly noticed, you coined the term personality type bias, and you use it a lot in your writing. And I think just looking at it, people get a very strong sense of what you are saying. This bias is unconscious, but it's also socially acceptable and accepted. So nobody is actively pushing against it because it has its rewards. You tried it yourself over a 30-year career and you proved it that it does work, but it also works at a cost to people who are not naturally wired that way. If your personality is the quietest sort, if you like to think before you speak, if you like to be given time to reflect and to analyze, then pushing yourself to be constantly visible in order to gain that approval and the recognition for your good work, which you are delivering anyway, simply that you're not delivering it in the way they like to see it packaged. And that comes at a consequence. So I imagine it there would have been some mental, emotional, maybe even physical toll over a 30-year period of striving.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I think you, yeah, I would agree. I think that you're constantly kind of in a state of exhaustion because you're really uh, especially if you're not planning for downtime and recovery, uh, because you're in this state of having to be on all the time. And that's just kind of not where we're at from a mental perspective. Introverts need time to think, they need time to process, they need time to recharge. And when you're in an environment that doesn't appreciate that, it's just difficult to manage. And if you don't have a plan for managing it, it can it can quickly become overwhelming. Uh so it's something I think that I struggle with, not only I struggle with, I think it's something it's commonly struggled with. But as you said, it is, is it it is accepted. It's kind of the, you know, the the it's the uh unspoken preferred way of doing things that um that you're coaching in you're not only there's an expectation that exists out there, you're coached to act a certain way. Um the people who act a certain way get the opportunities, they get to promotion, they get to leadership. So you have a cis see so it's not only personal bias, it's actually also systemic. You have it built into the cultures, you have it built into the processes, you have it built into the language that you use, and all those things are working against you in this world. So it's it's something that I definitely struggle with. And I think that when you think about it from a business perspective, uh it doesn't make sense to me to unconsciously discount half the workforce. Um, and and at the same time, you're not effectively leveraging their superpowers because when you force them to act a certain way, act extrovert or to fit in as an extrovert, they tend to um, you tend to get extroverted behaviors. So all those strengths that an introvert brings to the table often gets masked or they don't show up in the workplace. Even if you have a diverse workforce and you have a leader that wants inclusion, you often have a behavior set that's not diverse at all.

What Leaders Can Change Now

SPEAKER_01 10:25

So if you already have a leader who is aware of these nuances and these biases, what can leaders do differently to start cultivating or pushing back against that kind of bias?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I think there's a couple of really simple things. Um I think the first thing as a group, I think we just have to be honest with ourselves that personality type bias exists and there is discrimination. So when that bias is acted upon to give some an advantage and and hold others back, that becomes a form of discrimination. It's not necessarily legal, but we have to talk about it in real terms. Um, and it's a serious problem, it's a business problem. So I think that's the first thing we just have to recognize and that it's real. Um and then when leaders, so I had great leaders and I had not so great leaders during my 30-year period, and I had extroverts that were great leaders, and I have introverts that were great leaders. And the people who were great leaders typically let me be authentic, they let me leverage my strengths. Um and when I think as a leader, if you're one of those leaders that kind of can understand that it's not about changing your workforce, it's really about creating cultures where people can feel like they belong and they can thrive when they're authentic. Um, you have to tell other leaders because you have to we have to figure out a way to break by break this bias that exists culturally across the globe. It's about communicating, communicating, because we said a lot of it's unconscious and a lot of it is socially accepted. So when you put those, and there's nothing illegal about it. So when you put those three things together, you know, what's pushing leaders to do something different, especially when a system works for them, um, you know, they really have to be able to figure out that finite motivation and figure that out. So leaders that understand it really need to tell other leaders and become a champion of the change. Um and then there's also a scenario where you'd have an introvert that be that breaks the breaks into leadership. You know, they get the opportunity, and a lot of those people get that opportunity because they're really good at acting extra like they're good at acting extroverted or emulating extroverted or meeting those extroverted behaviors. And I see a lot of those leaders that kind of fall into the trap of believing that the only way to succeed is to do that. And we really need those introverted leaders that kind of break this glass ceiling and kind of move into leadership to to not perpetuate the false bias because that's what they've been taught and learned to believe. So you'll even have introverted leaders at high levels that are pushing extroverted values because they think they've been taught and they think that's what needs to they needed people need to do to succeed. In order to change things, we really need that group of people to kind of understand that there's nothing wrong with introversion. In fact, it's it's good business when you have extroverted behaviors and introverted behaviors complementing each other and leading to better decisions. And I think another thing is that as an introvert, I think this is, you know, we're not always vocal about things, but this is one thing that we can't continue to be quiet about. We have to be vocal proponents of this type of cultural change of ending personality type bias. But specifically, leaders that um, you know, leaders, I think there are a few specific things that leaders can do for your question. Once again, accept it as a legitimate and important, accept personality type as a legitimate, important dimension of diversity, just like any other dimension of diversity. And then I think individually you have to think about bias, because we all have bias. There's nothing wrong with bias, it's just kind of part of who we are as humans. But we got to look at our own biases and really dedicate ourselves to overcoming the thoughts and behaviors that make personality type bias and discrimination and discrimination an accepted part of our workplace. And I think then I think we need to, as leaders, need to work to create safe places where people of all personality types, whether they're extroverted or introverted, are welcome to have open dialogues and conversations with their coworkers. And in, you know, this is across the spectrum, it's across it's across different platforms, it can be in face-to-face, but it also needs to be virtual. There's there, you know, you need to think about how people communicate. And I think another super important thing is when leaders see people pushing for change, don't fall in a trap of labeling them as troublemakers. You know, these people are doing something that's really hard. They're stepping outside their comfort zone, they're pushing for change, they're showing this tremendous courage. So when they do that, those are the people you need to elevate and positively reinforce. And because they're not they're being brave enough to to no longer accept the status quo and to do something different. And I think the last thing is this idea that it's not all about it's not all about individual behaviors. It's this idea that it's it's been integrated and designed into our systems. So, you know, our systems, our processes, our language all have to be overhauled, whether it's um promotion language or job legit, you know, job selection, you know, things like if you're if your if your job selection or um or promotion uh descriptions contain words like they need to be a dynamic leader. So what does dynamic mean? It's not defined. People kind of associate that with extroversion. You know, is that really a are you biasing your pool by using that language? Maybe uh maybe a better word to use would be authentic. You know, you want we want authentic leaders, not necessarily like dynamic, or if you're going to use words like dynamic, you have to define them so everybody has a common baseline of what that really means. Uh, just processes like job selection processes, making sure that you have a committee of people making the processes that contain both extroverts and introverts. And because people typically, if you leave it up to one person, you're really in danger of letting letting bias kind of drive your system because people typically like to pick people like them. And if you have a an extrovert making the job selection, they're probably gonna pick somebody that has the same behavior base or set that they have, and it just kind of promotes this imbalance that exists. So having a having something like a selection committee that has both introverts and extroverts on it and making sure that when you you know make those selections, you're you're not biasing it from the beginning. Same could be true, said for um when you have sponsors or mentors, making sure that sponsors and mentors are really pushing a diverse group of people, not just people who are like them, is important. And in order to do that, you kind of have to design the process. You just can't let it happen by accident. Those are the kind of things, those weak points in the system that have to be changed. Um, because there, you know, the those documents, those words, those policies that we use really drive home can really drive a biased perspective, and we don't even see it happening. So those are the kind of things, Serena, I think that we need to do as leaders to to make long-term change.

Who Owns The Burden Of Bias

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Listening to what you just said there, David, it sounds like we have a a David and Goliath kind of battle ongoing. With um a lot of the responsibility is being placed on the shoulders of the individual to do something about it. So the most of the advice we read and we receive is that we need to change ourselves. So that becomes the introvert needs to fix themselves, the introvert is the problem. And I know you do ask this question in your posts on LinkedIn who should shoulder the burden of personality type bias? Is it the introvert or is it the leader? And clearly, as introverts ourselves, we know how hard it is to go against the system. The system is made up of many individuals, but it also has the power and legitimacy of the organization, the job title, the hierarchy, the systems and processes, and it it really feels like um like an uphill battle. And so what you're saying is it shouldn't all be on the introvert. It should also be on leaders, but that requires leaders to be self-aware and also emotionally intelligent enough. But also, you did stress at the start the importance of the business case that there are actually good business reasons for us not to overlook this group of quiet people who do their work quietly under the radar.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Right. I think that you know, it's just as introverts, it's easy to kind of have that to think that people, everybody has the same perspective that you have, right? But when you have a problem and the leader doesn't even recognize it or doesn't see it, you know, there's not even a basic, you know, you can't even have basic sympathy at that point because they just don't see the problem. You can't get anywhere close to empathy. So at a at a at the at the lowest level, we need people to start understanding that it is a problem. Um and then then you can progress from there um and and do and do other things. Yeah, and I as an introvert for a long time I worked on myself and I grew a lot. I grew a lot. There's nothing wrong with working on yourself. It's super important. I think everybody needs to to question their values, they need to understand why they believe things, they need to understand, you know, what's core to their beliefs and what was just, you know, what was something that was just taught to them that may or may not be uh a value. It just may be something they they either misinterpreted or misread or or wasn't right to begin with. An example of that was my dad was this proponent of never tooting your own horn or never bragging on yourself. And what he was trying to tell me was he just not to be not to not to um exhibit hubris, not to be, you know, over the top. And I interpreted that as never, you know, speaking, and my interpretation was speaking about what I was doing was wrong. So I carried that into the workforce. And it took me a long time to understand that there's nothing right or wrong about speaking about my work. In fact, I have to do that in many cases. So I had to break that cycle of beliefs that I had from a young age, and that was that's a hard thing to do. So as introverts, we all have to do that. But the same, those same kind of beliefs exist on the extroverted end of the spectrum. And and we, you know, the extroverts on the leaders and the people on the extrovert end of the spectrum need the same pressure to break the biases that leaders that introverts can't lead, to break the bias that you have to be loud or gregarious in order to be successful. Um, so we have to be able to kind of break those biases and work to change ourselves. And when I when I when I went when I retired and went to write my nonfiction book, The Extroverts' Guide to Elevating Introverted Leaders in the Workplace, I had like a decision point where I had to decide do I write a book for introverts and tell them, give them advice on how to hope and be successful, fitting into a world that valued extroverted behaviors, or do I do something different? Do I write a book for leaders, helping them understand the value they're missing by not elevating introverted leaders in the workplace? And at the time I knew that it was probably going to be a less popular book, that it would be harder to get people to read it, but I felt like it had to be written, that we Had to tell the story and at least present the case and give the leaders an opportunity to learn how to be more inclusive leaders that understood that belonging was important. And then not only understood that, understood how to create cultures that allowed people to belong or feel like they belong and thrive. So it was really important to me to kind of get that message out there. And now a lot of what I post about and write about is really leadership messages trying to help people understand that that there's a tremendous opportunity out there to really elevate the inverted half-to-workforce and take advantage of the strengths that they bring to the workplace in a way that's never been done before. That it's a huge productivity lever that hasn't been pulled. And that's the business case for leaders. And that's the easy thing for leaders to kind of grab a hold to is right or wrong is a harder thing, but it's bad for business. That's an easier thing to kind of latch on to. The other thing I think people latch onto, leaders latch on extroverted leaders and leaders latch onto is that I see a lot is the an extroverted personality or extroverted person as an introverted child. And there's a struggle there to understand that introverted child and what they're going through because they just don't understand it. And I see a lot of leaders who who experience that that have to take a step back and really reevaluate what they've thought about and believe because as a parent, nobody wants their child to be put into position where they're where they're held back just because they have a different style or a different way of communicating. Um so yeah, that that was super important to me as I wrote that book to kind of get that message out there. And I think that as introverts, um we we need to help, you know, it's the one thing we can't be. I said this a little bit earlier, it's the one thing we can no longer be quiet on, is we have to be out there uh being champions of fairness when it comes to personality type in the workplace. You know, there's there's no introverts can be just as effective leaders as extroverts, they're just gonna do it differently.

Speaking Up Without Changing Yourself

SPEAKER_01 24:09

I really resonate with that last point, David. It's very in very much um in parallel with what I encourage quiet achievers to do, to step into becoming quiet warriors, which is an identity shift. Because when you have something or someone to speak up for, then it's no longer about yourself. It's no longer about your own interests alone. But by speaking up, you can help somebody else. And I think what you mentioned earlier as well is very important about the connection between upbringing and how we show up in the world as adults. And so we could have absorbed certain beliefs, certain stories in childhood about being quiet or about how you know talking about ourselves is is vanity or is arrogance or bragging. And so that becomes part of our identity. I'm not that sort of person. I don't brag. So therefore, I shouldn't talk about my work. And that's a very different thing when you work in a very extrovert biased workplace where you have to let people know the good work you are doing, even as you are doing it. Not till, not only when it's 100% ready to be delivered and it's perfect and you've got your slide deck ready, but even as you're working through the messy middle of it. And so I think that is the part, that is the skill that it's important for introverts in corporate to develop along with some other skills. So perhaps if we see it as if we reframe it as skills and adapting, then it is not so much as an attack on the identity or the personality type of a person. It's more that in this kind of situation, these are the skills you need in order to be recognized. And so you need to decide: do I want to go along with that or do I rebel against that and find some other way to make myself known? So I think you've highlighted some really important questions for consideration.

Writing Anxiety High For Introverted Teens

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Now I want to ask you more about your books. You've also written a series for teens and children and parents of introverted children. Tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

I have two boys. Um they're both they both lean to the introverted into the personality type spectrum. Um the younger, my younger son is still a teenager, and he's probably leans farther than my older son. He's probably more like me from my introvert perspective. But growing up, you know, I saw him struggling the same way that I did, you know, trying. And even in within schools, this bias exists, this personality type bias exists. It's not unique to the workplace. So we start teaching people that they're less than it at an early age, introverts specifically. And um, and he would, I saw him kind of falling into the same stereotypes that a lot of us do. Like, I would try to talk to him about introversion, and he was like, uh, uh, I'm not an introvert, dad. I have friends. I'm like, but John, that's not what introversion is. So we had to have this conversation about what introvert, introvert, you know, what it really means to be an introvert. And then um, you know, try to give him books like um there are there are books for teenagers that are nonfiction books um that are really good books, but he just never was interested in reading it. And then when I went to retire, people always asked me kind of what I would do. And one of my answers was, well, I think I'll write this book. The first book I wrote was the nonfiction leadership book. But I also am an artist, and I kind of had in my mind, because my son loved graphic novels, that it wouldn't it be cool to have a different kind of book for teens, not a nonfiction book. Um, maybe it could be fiction. Maybe we could tell interesting fiction stories that contain parables about real life lessons. And um, so I was telling them, I think I'll write these books for teens to help teens kind of learn what it is to be an introvert and then introduce introduce them to personality type bias. And uh when I got ready to do it, um I I really uh felt like if I could get my teenage son Joshua to help me write it, to co-author the books, they would be better. First, it would help him, it would kind of force him to learn a lot about introversion and learn and a lot about himself by writing these books. Um, but at the same time, all of my experiences are outdated. They're like 30 years old. And it would, I just knew the books would be better if I had a teenager partnering with me to write these books. So uh several years ago, um during the summer, I'm like, Will you do this? I convinced him to help me. So we created this fictional books for teenagers. They're called it's called the Anxiety High book series, and it's based on the concept that these students go to a fictional school called Jane Piety Academy, but it's so difficult both academically and socially, they refer to it as anxiety high because it kind of rhymes with Jane Py or Piety. Um, so they're all kind of, they all got call it anxiety high. And um, in each of the, there's three books in the series. In each of the books, we follow one student through a week in in the life at the school. Um the books are fiction, but they're based on my life experiences and Josh's life experiences. And we talk, we and we focus on topics like you know, helping kids realize that just because you're introverted, there's nothing wrong with you, or helping students realize that you're not alone in your struggles and what you're feeling as an introvert. Half the population shares that those same feelings and same struggles, or that you have awesome superpowers, and really all you need to be successful is to leverage those superpowers. You don't have to be something else, you don't have to fit in as something else. And those are the kind of topics we deal with. But we wrote the books in a way that they're have they're fictional, they have really compelling characters, they have a lot of, you know, we have protagonists and antagonists, we have a lot of you know issues going on in the books. And then at the same time, they they're not grow true that they're not graphic novels because when we started writing them, there was too much story there or to be fit into a graphic novel concept. But what we did is we wrote this novelette, so this story that's they're they're about 200 pages each. They don't take but about two or three hours to read, so they're not long. But within every chapter, we create I created a graphic novel kind of image to kind of help um you know I help it help should kids relate to it and be able to kind of understand what we were thinking. So it has a it has images in there that kind of look like graphic novel type images. So we tried to create this book that was more designed for the age that was the age group that we were targeting, which were teenagers. But what we ended up with was not only a set of books that were good for teenagers, we ended up with a set of books that were really good for parents and introverted teens, a set of books that were really good for teachers of introverted teens. So we have a broader audience now, and we often market it to counselors, we often market it to teachers, we often market it to parents because we have this broader audience of people who could benefit from the messages that are in the book or in the books.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

I think what you and Josh have created together is so is such a brilliant idea. I wish I'd had access to that when I was 13 and going through high school with with all the added layers of being an introvert and a bit socially awkward as well. That is such a blessing to people who are introverted and to parents who who are really trying very hard to connect with their children, to help their children thrive in school, don't have the tools, don't have the language, don't have the resources. And now you've just handed them something that can help them bond with the children much better and help the children feel understood, that they're not alone, that there are others like them, that it's not a condition, it's not a disease, there's nothing wrong with them. It's a very unique way of being in the world, and it has its own gifts. And I think that is what exactly you're trying to help them unveil.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, and the other thing I'd like to say about the books too is they're not anti-extrovert, right? We we we worked really hard to make these books a fair representation of how partnership between introverts and extroverts make us all better. So they're extroverted characters, they're introverted characters, they're you know, they're obviously antagonists, but they're also protagonists. There are people who, you know, um we have introverts that are struggling, and the person that ends up helping them out is an extroverted student, right? So it's we've tried to be very fair in our in in in the storytelling. We we we didn't sugarcoat it. We try to be realistic about struggles of an introvert in today's society, but at the same same time, and we we made it interesting, we made the characters compelling, but at the same time, we uh try not to bias it against extroverts.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Beautiful. That's a beautiful, holistic, healthy way of being, because we all need all kinds of personalities in this world, and that's that's the reason why we are all wired differently. And if only we can accept that and appreciate the good of everyone that we come across and interact with, I think our world would have a quite a few less problems.

Closing Thoughts And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 33:12

So thank you very much, David, for coming on the Quiet Warrior podcast today and sharing your wisdom about personality type bias and the gifts of being an introvert and what extroverted leaders and organizations can do differently to be more inclusive and more understanding. I appreciate your being here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Thank you for the opportunity, Serena. I did enjoy it and I do appreciate being able to bring my message to a broader audience.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

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