Welcome to the end of week 6, today is Sunday.

Pffff, time is going fast. It is quite frightening sometimes. Especially these days, something is gnawing at the back of mind that I want to have more done and do much more with my hours every day.
It is a good feeling, it is motivating! But it is also leaving me very unfulfilled. If every day does not quite satisfy, a new strategy is needed.

Looking at it from a theoretical perspective, it makes perfect sense. For my project, there are many topics which have not yet gotten any love. From my goal to build a community, to the focus on stress between personality types.

Especially these past few weeks, I realized just how different every human handles stress or how their personality works. Even more so, a LOT of people have such an incredibly twisted sense of what introversion entails. If anything, I feel almost offended by it at this point, haha!

The other day, I was talking with an old teacher of mine who might want me for a job related to social media. In the end, he asked me about my current project. I explained to him my angle on how old school (and still modern) entrepreneurialism is so laser focused on extraversion and how this can create a twisted sense of necessity to act or be a certain way to be “a successful entrepreneur”.

Here comes the punch line:
This teacher gave out a chuckle and asked me “Well Ilse, this project does not sound like it comes from you personally. Did you start this project based on your experiences with close ones?”.
And I was both baffled and reminded how the perspective of another can be extremely twisted by their own bias. Which is quite the nice reference to the Fast and Slow thinking of the book I am reading.
My teacher’s prejudice was that I am very vocal in class, and have quite the energetic personality. So his bias was that I MUST be extraverted…. Right?

His whole approach changed the second I explained to him that I am a very introverted person. He clearly did not expect to hear the opposite.

And I hate to say it, but this is a regular occurance for me. The idea of a happy, vocal personality being introverted does not fit the public bias at all. There is this incredibly thick stereotype that introversion means calm, quiet and closed. Which is incredibly unfair and untrue.
Introversion is by default nothing more than being able to recharge by being alone or “secluded” in whatever way that is to that person.

This reminder of public bias also put me back on track of what I should be focusing on during my project.
The learning that I have done so far have been very focused on gaining knowledge within my own skills, but it is time to pivot more towards the research part that I have within my project.

Unfortunately, I have done some research on the information availability on the differences between introverts and extraverts, but it has been very difficult to find proper research/books/information on the differences between the two!
There are many books on introverts alone.. Or extraverts separated. But the rounded research on both sides explained is quite challenging to find for me.

Of course, I will keep looking. I have found two interesting books so far:
1. The genius of Opposites, by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler
2. Surrounded by idiots, by Thomas Erikson

These will be my starting point, while also looking into Skillshare (or other learning platform) classes on mental health, mindfulness, energy control, etc.

Simultaneously, I hope to work on building the platform I wish to have. This means figuring out a proper automated mailing system. I have been fidgeting with Mailchimp, and it has been a real struggle! But I was able to figure it out in the end.

For now, the focus will be stress (introvert/extravert) and setting up a funnel for my company!