Rephrase Please In a society where being extroverted is rewarded,being introverted is often overlookedand seen as a bad thing. In this TED talk, Susan argues that introverts should be able to keep their abilities to think on their owns and we as a society should not suppress their creative thinking. Cain amplifies the importance that introverts have in our lives by touching on three main subjects which were introverts living in an extroverted world, why introverts are important, and how to help make a change in the way society feels towards introverts. She notes that introverts feel most alive in quieter environments where they can work their best and that the key to maximizing their talents is to give them an environment where they can fully thrive in. Cain’s TED talk is effective because she discusses how introverts are extraordinary to the world and why they should be motivated and acknowledged.Susan Cain is an American writer and lecturer. Cain began working as a Wall Street Lawyer where she eventually left and became an author and lecturer. Today her TED talk has over 24 million views, making it the most viewed talk on the site. She is an author of the 2012 non-fiction book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking where she argues that America misinterprets and undervalues introverts in a world that caters towards extroverts. In 2015, she launched the Quiet Revolution which based around the principles that revolve around introverts.Cain’s purpose was to explain why society needs to acknowledge introverts and understand that they are truly needed in the world. She notes how extroverts are typically favorable in school and work settings. They are often unfavorable because of the fact that group work is the norm such as in classrooms where “your typical classroom has pods of desks — four or five or six or seven kids all facing each other. And kids are working in countless group assignments.” (Cain). They are often dismissed because of the fact that they work better alone instead of in a group. She believes as though this diminishes the creative ideas that introverts have.The audience isn’t stated by Cain, but you can easily conclude that Cain is trying to get across both introverts and extroverts. Though experiences and different implemented tactics that she adds throughout the speech, she is able to reach everyone on the spectrum to really connect with the entire audience. She effectively conveyed her message to both sides of the spectrum in hopes that more extroverts will be willing to acknowledge the personality traits of introverts. By watching her presentation, you can see Cain did just that when most of the audience stood up to give her a standing ovation.In the beginning of her speech, she gives personal experiences of her life where she as an introvert had to be extroverted as well. This makes her presentation effective because sharing these experiences make it possible for Cain to get closer to the audience and connect with fellow introverts on a deeper level. She explains how at camp she was forced to put her books away and participate in the camp activities where they mainly rewarded and catered towards extroverted people. She describes how the camp experience is not the only story and “could have told you 50 others just like it — all the times that I got the message that somehow my quiet and introverted style of being was not necessarily the right way to go, that I should be trying to pass as more of an extrovert.” (Cain). Cain adding theseanecdotes in her presentation gives off pathos which is very effective and ultimately gives her the ability to connect with the audience on an emotional level.To convey her message in a more effective way, Cain uses humor to appeal to the audience. When she mentioned her experience at camp, she compared camp to a keg party by stating “camp was more like a keg party without any alcohol” (Cain). The analogy of a camp full of rowdy kids and a social gathering of adults appeals to the audience in a humorous way. Since most extroverts are typically outgoing and relate to these types of events, this makes it easier for her to connect with the extroverts in the audience. Most of the humor that she uses in her talk is to appeal to extroverts since most of her personal anecdotes are added to relate to the introverts in the audience. Most of the jokes she tells to appeal to the extroverted audience is effective considering they are all followed by laughter from the audience.Cain shares her past feelings that she had towards being introverted. She explains how “for years I denied this intuition, and so I became a Wall Street lawyer, of all things, instead of the writer that I had always longed to be — partly because I needed to prove to myself that I could be bold and assertive too.” Sharing this makes it so the audience can relate to Cain in an emotional way. She shares how she “was always going off to crowded bars when I really would have preferred to just have a nice dinner with friends.” This is an effective way to convey her message to the audience because it shows how introverts are forced to hand over their introverted traits to truly thrive in an extroverted society. The anecdotes that she presents gives the audience the opportunity to relate to similar situations where they were forced to diminish their introverted ways to make others happy.As an introvert, Cain is able to portray herself as an extrovert proving that even introverts are able to take on the stereotypical extrovert persona. She uses this to hopefully convey a message to the audience that even introverts can have extroverted characteristics. She does this in hopes that introverts will learn that having a few extroverted characteristics is not a bad thing and can be a useful trait to help make their voices heard. She then states how she “prepared for moments like these as best I could. I spent the last year practicing public speaking every chance I could get. And I call this my year of speaking dangerously.” (Cain). She adds this in to show that it is not easy for introverts to gain extroverted characteristics, but it is worth it to have. She also gives examples of famous leaders in history that have been introverts such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Gandhi. Cain notes that “they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to. And this turns out to have a special power all its own, because people could feel that these leaders were at the helm not because they enjoyed directing others and not out of the pleasure of being looked at; they were there because they had no choice, because they were driven to do what they thought was right.” (Cain). Adding examples of famous leaders in history that have been introverts and her speaking to a large crowd as an introvert is an effective way of encouraging introverts to stand up for what they believe in and speak up.For credibility, Cain points out that she does not oppose extroverted personas. She states that “I always like to say some of my best friends are extroverts, including my beloved husband. And we all fall at different points, of course, along the introvert/extrovert spectrum.” (Cain). This is an effective way for her to show that she values both sides of the spectrum. By adding what Even Carl Jung said about how “there’s no such thing as a pure introvert or a pure extrovert. He said that such a man would be in a lunatic asylum” and “that some people fall smack in the middle of the introvert/extrovert spectrum, and we call these people ambiverts. And I often think that they have the best of all worlds. But many of us do recognize ourselves as one type or the other.” (Cain). This proves that introverts and extroverts can co-exist together. She states how it is important for both introverts and extroverts are and there needs to be more of a yin and yang between them for creativity and productivity.Overall, I thought Susan Cain’s TED talk was effective in terms of showing the audience why we need more introverts and why they are so important. As an introvert, the personal anecdotes and rhetorical moves that she used made it easier for her to connect with her audience making her speech effective. She did an amazing job effectively showing why we need introverts by not only mentioning why introverts are important, but extroverts as well. She explained how introverts and extroverts are needed to co-exist to truly get best of both worlds in terms of creativity and productivity. Arts & Humanities English Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)