Comment by lovelearning

I'm not an extrovert. Introversion itself was probably more of a euphemism that I used to rationalize something closer to social anxiety.

But I feel I'm better off now for doing what the article suggested, over the last 5-6 years. Doing so improved my knowledge, my empathy, grew my revenue, built larger professional networks, introduced me to hobby networks, and helped with better financial planning.

I even changed to the extent of actually looking forward to outreach activities that involve a lot of conversations. I find them very satisfying because they help me understand social realities and people better than social media and books and help me develop empathy.

I wouldn't say I'm now an extrovert. My personality still prefers a lot of alone time. There are times when I still don't feel like talking to anyone. But they're now for positive reasons like books to finish rather than negative reasons like social anxiety.

I now tend to see things like introversion and social anxiety as obstacles. One can rationalize them in many ways but they'll remain objective obstacles IMO.