Blog – With Integrity

The Hay Festival – introvert heaven?

May 23, 2013

This is The Hay Festival, where I’ll be at the end of the week.

This is the first time I’ve been, and I have great hopes.

Actually, that’s quite an understatement.

I’ve not felt this much excitement, nor emitted such high pitched noises of excitement, in quite the long while.

I’m anticipating introvert heaven.

I’ll be there as a festival goer and also in my capacity as an introverted leader coach.

I’m bringing some special festival coaching sessions. And special offers.

If you’re going, and think you might be an introverted leader, and like special offers you can see them here.

Hay Festival Introvert Poll

I’m also really intrigued at what the mix of introverts and extroverts at the festival will be and so I’m planning on running a poll to find out.

Some estimates have it that we now live in a world dominated by extroverts, 70% extrovert, 30% introvert at some counts.

And this extrovert domination can make it a struggle for introverts to find places where their preferred inner world of thoughts and imagination is valued and can be given time.

If Hay ‘gathers people together to think about the world as it is and to imagine how it might be’,

then I believe it might just be an introvert’s paradise.

I’m an introvert and I’m visiting the festival with two other introverts. That’s us off to a high introvert start.

What do you reckon the introvert %age of hay festival goers might be?

I’m going high.

I’m going to go out on a limb and hazard a guess of 80% or higher.

Take part in the poll, say whether you’re an introvert or extrovert and let’s find out.

* Go here if you’re not sure what kind of ‘vert’ you are.

And for fun, and because I’m quite the giddy kipper at the prospect of my first Hay Festival,

I’m giving away a PRIZE

An Introverted Gifts 1:1 telephone coaching session

The person who guesses closest to the poll results of what percentage of Hay Festival goers are introverts, will win a free session worth £75, so include your details when you take part in the poll so I can let you know if you’ve won.

The session will be transferrable to your favourite introvert if you don’t want it for yourself. I’m also open to tailoring a session to your needs whether they’re introverted ones or not.

*If you’re not sure whether you’re an introvert, Susan Cain, the author of ”Quiet, the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking”, has devised a quick questionaire to establish whether you’re, introvert, extrovert or in the middle, ambivert.

You can find it online here or come and find me, with my Harris Tweed handbag, at the festival for a hard copy.

Take part in the Poll

Once you know what you are, there are three ways to take part in the poll.

You can

1. Tweet me

@paulineesson using the poll hashtag and your name, your preference, your hay introvert estimate.

Eg @paulineesson #hayintrovertpoll Your name, I’m an introvert/extrovert/ambivert, I estimate x%age introverts at #hayfestival

2. Leave a comment here at the blog

Scroll down to the end of this page to ‘Post a Comment’ and write in the comments box.

Leave Your name and Email address, I’m an introvert/extrovert/ambivert, I estimate x%age introverts at Hay

3. Come and thrust a piece of paper with aforementioned details into my Harris Tweed handbag.

Name, email, I’m an introvert/extrovert/ambivert, I estimate x%age introverts at Hay.

You can find me and my handbag at Richard Booth’s Cafe Bar at 10am, 2pm and 3pm from Sat 25th to Tue 28th.

Maybe better check it’s me, the Harris Tweed handbag carrying, Introverted Leader coaching Scot, first of course : )

You never know how many Harris Tweed handbag carrying people there’ll be at Hay. Maybe that’s a poll for next year.

Harris Tweed handbag

Poll results

The poll closes on Sunday 2nd June and results will be published here at the blog after the festival so come and visit to find out .

Or if you sign up for the newsletter (top right corner here at the blog) you’ll get the results delivered straight to your inbox.

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By Pauline | Posted in Introverted leaders, introverts | Tagged hay festival, introvert, introverted leaders, susan cain |

True to yourself or fighting it?

May 2, 2013

“In the final analysis,

we count for something only because of the essential we embody,

and if we do not embody that,

life is wasted.”

C.G. Jung

How’s it going?

On track?

Essential Gifts relished and poured happily into the world?

It’s not too late to find them, never too late for that.

Gift seeking is a speciality of mine… if you’d like a hand get in touch.

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By Pauline | Posted in Ease, Introverted leaders, introverts, Just how alive are you | Tagged ease, introvert, introverted leaders |

Being the Introvert You Are

April 4, 2013

“It is easier to try

to be better

than you are

than to be

who you are.”

Marion Woodman, Coming Home to Myself.

Being who you are.

Accepting and being who you are, as an introvert, especially as an introverted leader, when the world says ’extrovert please’ and ploughs happily on imagining that extrovert is better for everyone.

To be the introvert you are in the face of that, is harder than trying to be extroverted.

Would you like a hand with that?

A little help with being the introvert that you are instead of trying to be the extrovert you’re not?

Some sharing of ‘how I’m doing it’ from a few people

Some sharing of ‘what I’m struggling with’ from others, so you know you’re not alone

A place to get some heartfelt empathy for the things you’re struggling with

A place for all things introvert

You’re in the right place if you’d like some of that. Right here at the blog, that’s what we’ll be doing here.

The being an introvert, sharing how, the struggles, the empathy…all here.

You can sign up if you’d like to get introverted updates sent to you as they’re posted.

If you’re reading this at the with integrity website, the sign up box is up there to the right, in the sidebar.

If you’re reading anywhere else, come here to the blog to sign up.

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By Pauline | Posted in Introverted leaders, introverts | Tagged authenticity, introvert, introverted leaders |

When you don’t even have ten minutes

March 8, 2013

When you can’t find ten minutes in the day for a break.

When the quality of the day is squeezed out and vanished, ungraspable.

When you’ve even stopped noticing the quality isn’t there.

And the back to back meetings have reached the point where none of what people say is going in any more.

And you’ve decided that you want better, more respect for their time, and yours, and what they have to say.

Tomorrow, in your respectfully adjusted day, now with breaks between meetings, you’ll have time for this.

More than respectful, now it’s also a pleasure.

Just under six and a half minutes of another world and, imho, sublime beauty via Maria Popova.

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By Pauline | Posted in 'Make it a pleasure' doing business with you, introverts |

Rest

January 14, 2013

Rest.

So important for everyone, introverts even more so.

I don’t think I know anyone who thinks they get enough.

I wonder whether it’s the quantity or the quality that I need to adjust.

David Whyte looks at what resting is and writes beautifully about stages of rest.

I wonder how far through the stages I get. On an average day.

I wonder how often I rest deeply, through to stage five?

And how much better I’d feel and better I’d function if all or at least most of my resting went that deep.

Here’s David Whyte’s words on rest.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below

Rest.

In the first stage of rest is the sense of stopping, of giving up on what we have been doing or how we have been being.

In the second stage is the sense of slowly coming home, the physical journey into the body’s un-coerced and un-bullied self, as if trying to remember the way or even the destination itself.

In the third state is a sense of healing and self-forgiveness and of arrival.

In the fourth stage, deep in the primal exchange of the breath is the give and the take, the blessing and the being blessed and the ability to delight in both.

The fifth stage of rest is a sense of absolute readiness and presence, a delight in and an anticipation of the world and all its forms; the sense of being the meeting itself between inner and outer, and of receiving and responding occuring in one spontaneous movement.

A deep experience of rest is the template of perfection in the human imagination, a perspective from which we are able to perceive the outer specific forms of our work and our relationships whilst being nourished by the shared foundational gift of the breath itself. From this perspective we can be rested while putting together an elaborate meal for an arriving crowd, whilst climbing the highest mountain or sitting at home surrounded by the chaos of a loving family…

Excerpt from Readers’ Circle Essay,

“Rest”

©2011 David Whyte