Episode 008 Show Notes: Kirk St. Amant
Introduction

Kirk St. Amant and Ben Woelk discuss what it’s like being “on” as an introvert, and his introvert strengths of being a reflective listener and being able to tease out details to help people focus and express their ideas. Kirk has some interesting comments on public speaking as well. 

* LinkedIn
* Academia.edu
* Email

Key concepts

* Being a reflective listener
* Teasing out detail
* Debilitating stage fright
* Being who you are
* The echo chamber of social media

Quotable
And I think that’s a major challenge for introverts, is trying to maximize that ability you have to sit and listen, balanced against the expectation that we should have an extroverted communication style for the most part. And helping individuals realize that silence is not necessarily a negative thing.
I’m not the ideal person you want in sort of an outreach season. I’m not a meet-and-greet kind of person. I’m not going to be the person who walks into the room and introduces myself to every single person there, but I am the person who is willing to sit there and listen to everybody who wants to come through and talk about what needs to be done differently or better next time.
I think the biggest thing is you’ve got to be who you are and the biggest impediment is for individuals to think they’ve got to become an extrovert to be successful. Or they’ve got to force their way to be an extrovert in a certain way. We’ve all got to be introverts or extroverts over the course of our professional lives. That’s a given, but it’s got to be according to parameters that work for you with your personality….
Resources or Products Mentioned in this Episode

* Society for Technical Communication
* Rochester Institute of Technology
* American Medical Writers Association

Links

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* Get swag for Hope for the Introvert and Introverted Leadership at Zazzle

Transcript
Ben: Kirk, it’s great to have you back again. Today we’re going to continue our discussion about what it’s like to be an introvert in the workplace and for you specifically to be an introvert in academia. So one of the things we’ve asked our guests is, what do you find to be most challenging as an introvert in your profession?
Kirk: Great question. The need to be on. And by on. I mentioned earlier, you pretend to be an extrovert in many cases and so the need to be on during these instructional times–and these aren’t just in the classroom teaching the class, but they’re in the hallway talking with students. They’re during office hours, being with students and in many cases, I mean you can go for an entire day where you’re in complete “On mode” for eight to ten hours a day, between teaching and meeting with students and talking with students and meeting with colleagues and stuff. And that can be exhausting and I think it’s a matter of–I don’t know about you or other introverts–but I need decompres...