Introverts Supporting Extroverts

Hello and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I am going to be talking about supporting extroverts. During this time, a lot of us are in what Bill Gates is calling a lockdown, quarantine and staying in place self isolation. There are many different words for it. And what I found in the past week is that there are a lot of memes around. Say, you know, introverts being like, Oh, this is this is what I normally do. This is my life. I don't know what you're all you know what all the excitement is about. However, what I have found is that I have been pouring a lot of support into or supporting people in general. But generally, I've realized that I've been supporting a lot of extroverts. And for us introverts what we do on an everyday is normal to us, and possibly staying in and keeping ourselves occupied Just one on one or, you know, just with one other person we have possibly arranged for hobbies that we do to recharge, but that we can do by ourselves. And a lot of extroverts don't have that. And instead of us versus them, and us being like, Well, we know how to do this, why don't you figure it out? It would be really good for introverts to support extroverts in any way that they can to try and help them through this, this phase. And it but there is the flip side of that is helping too much. So what I've discovered in the past couple of weeks that I've been spending so much time on zoom on Skype on phone calls, that sometimes work isn't getting done, but also I'm just drained because it is still draining. There's a reason why I set up my business so I don't have to do that amount of calls and that sort of a thing. And now I'm doing it into supporting other people. Obviously there's that extra emotional level to it. So it's hard to figure out the perf balance for you of how much time you spent supporting other people and how much time you still have for yourself. And when you're thinking about extroverts, reach out to them, see if you can do a big zoom call, get all the extroverts on one zoom call that we have to do multiple one on one calls. Not great for you, but great for them. And they feel like they have a community. Anything that you hear about which has online communities where people can work online, co work online, do activities online, there's an cooking one of my friends started a cooking show. People are spending a lot more time on social media, but there's so much negativity and scare and fear information out there that people are getting very depressed. And there's going to be a spike in suicides, depression. And so what I want to do is have content out there that is uplifting and helpful, rather than fear and scare mongering is a part of that is you know, making people happy. playing games with them having a co working session where we don't talk about the C word, anything that you can do to show people, hey, this is how I do introversion and this is how I do self isolating and quarantining. You know, what do you do share with me? Yeah? Can you make your home office? Awesome? Does it change every day? Can you change your background color, things to do with zoom or Skype, and team building activities, communication, communication is key through all of this. And so and so companies are starting to figure out how they're going to communicate with their staff during this time. And some people have just become managers. They become managers of a remote workforce, and they've never done it before. So figuring out how to keep your team motivated and strong while all of this is going on. I know some people have a lot of work and some people have less work and some people have no work. So try and be as supportive as possible as you can during that time, but those of you who don't have any work, don't assume that everyone else is the same and has all that time to devote to you. There are some people who are overwhelmed with work because I tried to make sure that people get paid, that nurses get paid that people have equipment. There are some really vital services out there, that people don't realize what's going on. Even though they're not nurses or doctors, payroll companies, they are vitally important. If you used to get paid by cheque and had to go into the office, they are doing everything in their power to make sure that your check either goes direct deposit or gets to your house. They are working overtime to make sure stuff happens, but they are the unsung heroes. So just be aware of what other people might be going through and take some compassion instead of that, Oh, we've been doing this our entire lives in Japan. It's a wonderful show. compassion, it goes a long, long way. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the career introvert and the traveling introvert. Stay safe and speak to you next week