Chapter 4
Quiet Influence Strength #1: Taking Quiet Time
“What a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be.”
Ellen Burstyn, Actress
Julie Irving is an administrative professional who supports more than sixty people at the Battelle Energy Alliance, a contractor for the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Julie won the prestigious American Management Association’s Administrative Professionals Innovation award in 2009 for voluntarily creating and executing a car blind-spot safety program for her company and the wider community. It has reached more than ten thousand adults and children at regional and local events.
The educational safety program Julie conceived and implemented has certainly influenced others and saved many lives. Her motivation to pursue her journey came in the form of a potentially tragic car accident involving her daughter. Julie said, “One day I received a phone call from my daughter. She told me that she had been involved in an accident. Now, nobody was injured in the accident, but it seemed quite unbelievable. You see, she told me that she was backing up her Dodge Durango and backed into a ‘monster truck.’ I asked her why she didn’t check her rear- and side-view mirror’s before backing up, and she said, ‘I did, but I couldn’t see it. It was in my blind spot.’ Now, I have great trust in my daughter but have to admit that this story seemed a little hard to believe. So I decided to get online and do a little research on back-over accidents. What I discovered led me down an incredible road that not only changed my life, but touched thousands of other lives as well.”
Realizing the lack of national attention to car blind-spot safety, she relentlessly pursued her crusade. Julie started by researching blind-spot safety online. She found a video that showed a couple of vehicles lined up with an array of props placed behind them. The video demonstrated how the drivers were unable to see those props. Intrigued, Julie set up her own simulation. She placed props behind her own vehicle every ten feet up to sixty feet. When she then sat in her vehicle and properly adjusted the rear and side-view mirrors, she was shocked to discover that neither the ten-speed bicycle nor the tricycle that she had just placed thirty feet behind her were within her view!
Julie shared this newfound information with her own family but wanted to do more “in hopes of preventing a tragedy.” She developed posters and family awareness booklets. Additionally, she created an interactive blind-spot safety presentation, which she presented alongside her organization’s safety team first, to hundreds of coworkers then at a regional conference. She then took the presentation to the broader community. Together with volunteer trainers she ultimately reached more than ten thousand adults and children.
Although her daughter’s accident inspired her, the seeds of her influential work were planted under the stars during the quiet moments she gives herself at the end of the day. Julie recalls, “I am always mentally exhausted by the end of the day. I really look forward to my quiet time. It is essential to my being able to recharge.... My quiet time usually comes in the evening, when I’ve completed what I feel to be the most important things that I needed to accomplish for that day. I finally take the time to unwind and rejuvenate, usually in the hot tub.” She went on to say, “My quiet time is also my time to think, think and think... dream, plan, face frustrations, and then work through fears and issues. I have found that during this time, I often come up with original thoughts and ideas, explanations, or answers that I had not considered before.... Looking at the stars and the heavens is always refreshing and makes me smile.” And, it seems, doing that also inspires her to make a big difference here on earth.
How do you find and use your quiet time? How do you escape from the jarring static of texts, emails, and the “Do you have a minute?” conversations that interrupt you from your best thinking just as it emerges? Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician said, “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” In fact, studies show that meditating—perhaps the most intense form of conscious quiet time—brings down blood pressure and slow breathing reduces anxiety. And that’s important because stress, distraction, unhappiness, and anxiety can keep you from being the best influencer you can be.
If you want to increase your total QIQ, begin by prioritizing quiet time and using it to your best advantage. Ironically, you improve your ability to influence others by finding a time and place to be away from others. As an introvert, you need solitude—or at least time away from actively interacting with others—to perform at your peak. You’re probably well aware that you want and need to spend time alone. Introverts suffer from people exhaustion and are more sensitive to various kinds of stimulation, including noise, movement, and light. Because it lays a solid foundation for each of the other strengths, Taking Quiet Time is the first strength we’ll delve into. Remember, even though it is most often the first step Quiet Influencers take, quiet time is also an energy-restoring retreat to which you can return again and again throughout the influencing process.
Taking Quiet Time and Influence
Taking Quiet Time contributes to your ability to influence others because it unleashes your most creative thoughts, sustains your energy, increases your understanding of yourself and others, and helps you maintain focus.
1. Unleash Creativity
When you prioritize quiet time, you increase your ability to tap into your knowledge, skills, and experience in order to solve problems and develop ideas. Influencers, by definition, promote new ways of thinking. Quiet time allows these innovative ideas to percolate and then emerge from your mind. Your right brain, the side that is more unstructured, experimental, creative, visionary, and less orderly, has a chance to work to a fuller capacity when you are in a relaxed state. The ideas that set you apart as an influencer—the ones that cause people to stop and listen—are nurtured in these moments of solitude.
In fact, new research reveals that the best ideas emerge from solitude. Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, writes that solitude is actually a catalyst to innovation because it has long been associated with creativity and transcendence. She mentions that creative geniuses such as Steve Wozniak, builder of the first PC, naturalist Charles Darwin, and author Madeleine L’Engle all cultivated their dreams during quiet time.6
Science journalist Sharon Begley would agree. Writing in Newsweek, she noted, “Creative decisions are more likely to bubble up from a brain that applies unconscious thought to a problem, rather than going at it in a full-frontal, analytical assault. So although we’re likely to think creative thoughts in the shower, it’s much harder if we’re under a virtual deluge of data.”7
Quiet Influencers report seeing this phenomenon in action. Former salesperson and now executive coach Vinay Kumar explains how quiet time contributes to his version of creativity: “Most of my writings emerge from someplace deep within during moments when I am jogging, hiking, et cetera.... Those are the times my subconscious mind seems to be most active.”
2. Sustain Energy
Introverts recharge by spending time alone, often with reduced sensory input. As an introvert, you need solitary quiet time in order to be present and your best with people. If you are worn out, it’s difficult to be present enough to challenge the status quo and inspire others to move forward. Rebuild your energy by stepping away from the action for as much time as you need and can take.
Writers are influencers who provoke us to think differently through their words. Many are introverted and have learned to conserve their energy for the often draining task of writing. Author Stephen King, for instance, reserves his mornings when his energy is highest for serious writing. “Mornings are for my new novel. Afternoons are for naps and letters. Evenings are for reading, family, Red Sox games on TV, and any revisions that just cannot wait. Basically, mornings are my prime writing time.”8 There’s no doubt that this schedule has helped King influence millions of readers with his prolific and diverse work.
3. Increase Your Understanding of Yourself and Others
When you use your quiet time for calm reflection, you get to know who you are. You become more self-aware when you take time to allow your thoughts and feelings to emerge. You can assess your motivations, tap into your values, recognize your strengths, and address your weaknesses. Keen self-awareness means that you can make better choices about how you influence others and react to others who try to influence you.
One influential CEO of a successful media company shared that he often has his influence-related “breakthroughs” on his fifteen-minute walk from the bus stop to his office. “I figure out how I will approach a situation and how I will frame the conversation. I may decide, for instance, that this time I don’t have to be assertive and can let the conversation flow and the dynamic emerge.”
As this example illustrates, calm reflection during your quiet time also gets you ready to interact most effectively with others. If you’re always stimulated, in constant action, or incessantly interrupted, you’ll find it hard to really think about other people and see life from their perspective. But in your own space, you are able to consider the position of other people before you engage directly with them.
Ann, a senior paralegal for a leading fashion house, walks for exercise and quiet time. On one walk, she made the decision to connect with a “highly aggressive co-worker” by asking about her young son. These conversations brought them to common ground and proved to be a turning point in their relationship—one that opened up an avenue of influence for Ann and helped her unglue a sticky project. In short, because of a decision she made during quiet time, Ann was able to lead this powerful woman to consider new ways of thinking by developing rapport and trust with her.
4. Maintain Focus
Taking Quiet Time—even if it is just a few concentrated minutes—can sharpen your focus and effectiveness so that you can best challenge the status quo and influence situations and outcomes. Take for example Adam, a former ski racer. He started the sport at an early age and, by the time he reached college, was skiing with the likes of Olympic champion Bode Miller. Adam explained that before every race, he visualized each and every turn. He could see the entire run clearly in his mind before he left the gate. When it came time to perform, he had already been there in his mind.
Adam performed this focusing exercise during the quiet time he took right before competing. Today, as a management consultant, he uses that same approach in quiet conference rooms on project sites. Before client briefings, he runs over presentations in his mind. Just as he did back on the ski run several years before, he anticipates the twists and turns ahead. He visualizes tough questions and potential push back, deciding in these moments how he will respond. Through the focus he develops in quiet time, Adam has developed an enormously effective low-key, persuasive influencing approach that results in his clients often taking the actions he proposes.
Taking Quiet Time to focus is also essential for Jane, a program manager at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She deals with outbreaks of infectious diseases and says that “everything is urgent because you could be saving lives and you always feel like you are flying a plane... and... building it at the same time.” In one situation, she was trying to figure out how to win the buy-in of another department. Before a session with a small peer-coaching group, she quietly mulled over ideas in her head. Then she was ready to engage with the coaching group to discuss potential solutions. This initial step of mental preparation helped her to focus the discussion. Jane ended up using the group’s input very effectively to solidify her case.
As described here, focus is a form of mental preparation that’s part and parcel of the other kinds of preparation covered in the next chapter, chapter 5. One Quiet Influencing strength naturally blends into another, but only by prioritizing quiet time can you undertake this kind of mental preparation.
How to Take Quiet Time in Order to Influence
Quiet Influencers use a variety of highly successful approaches to obtain their quiet time and turn it into a zone for calm reflection. There is no one right way to recharge and reflect, and no two introverts interviewed for the book have precisely the same approach to stepping away. Many do so by creating structure to protect their quiet time, managing technology, and going within themselves.
1. Create Structure and Protect Your Quiet Time
Schedule and protect quiet times on your calendar Make a date with yourself as important as your appointments with others. Consider the experience of Wally Bock, who calls himself a “borderline introvert.” A personable leadership coach and prolific writer, he swears by solitude. When discussing the option of joining writers’ groups, he laughingly said that he isn’t a “flocker.” Bock explained that he would rather write than talk about writing. Each morning, he schedules three hours to write and he invariably plants himself at his desk. He methodically writes blog entries and posts them on social networking sites. He influences others by engaging with people online and promoting his colleagues’ ideas. Wally recently surpassed blog post number one thousand and has more than nine thousand followers on Twitter. Now, that’s a lot of influence that emerges out of scheduled quiet time!
Ava, a sophisticated city-based sales rep, hosted her counterpart Lauren, who came from a small town. During the rounds of calling on customers, they stopped at the local Starbucks. It turned out that Lauren had never been inside one of the ubiquitous stores. As they left, Lauren asked Ava what all those people were doing “with laptops and earphones.” She wondered why they would go to a gathering place and not gather. Because engaging in the activity of quiet, communal solitude was second nature to her, Ava was surprised at the question. She explained the “alone but together” concept to her perplexed partner.
Quiet time doesn’t necessarily have to involve physical isolation. Sometimes, that’s not possible. And, in fact, many introverts get some of their best work done in the company of others. They don’t have to be talking to them. In a coffee shop, for instance, the energy of other people, the forced focus, and the choice of whether to engage in the action heighten the experience of quiet time. Like group meditation or sitting communally in a library, simply being in the company of others can provide an unexplained comfort that builds confidence and allows people to go deeper into self- and other-awareness.
Get up early Like Stephen King, you can use the morning to get a head start. Sophia Dembling, a popular blogger and author of The Introvert’s Way, has had more than two million views on her Introvert’s Corner blog. She said, “I work alone, so finding quiet time comes very naturally.9 In fact, I find a lot of quiet time! I had houseguests last week... and so sometimes in the morning I wouldn’t get out of bed right away. Instead, I’d bring my computer into bed. And I just would spend a little time by myself before I got up and faced them. I adore these people, but it was a lot of people!”
Keep eating lunch alone Do you feel guilty for eating lunch alone? Don’t. These breaks give you the opportunity to be with yourself. Using your midday break to regroup and recharge can be an ideal strategy, especially if you don’t do it every day. Take for example David, an executive who works at a software company. He says that he always dines alone on days that involve a lot of time in front of people. By having a book in front of him, he says he wards off friendly would-be visitors.
Build in breaks Because being “out there” can be so draining, be sure to take yourself out of the office, away from the conference, or removed from wherever work happens to be—if only for a few minutes. Even a short walk outside or down the hall will make a difference. You will find yourself returning to your influencing role refreshed and re-energized.
Select your optimal working environment Think about where you are most effective. With technology and company practices allowing more latitude as to where and when work gets done, you may have more control over your environment than you assume. A flexible work environment can provide the quiet time you need. Try negotiating for home-based work a few days a week, or, if you work in an open-plan office, book a conference room for time by yourself.
2. Manage Technology
Turn off your devices Go ahead. Try it. Push that off or silent button during your quiet time. Wait until later—preferably a planned time—to turn it back on. Even for introverts, it can be extremely challenging to set aside certain times to check electronic devices. Yet ongoing interruptions become huge distractions when they break up the blocks of time you need to think and create. It is commonly thought that it takes from four to fifteen seconds to get back on track from every email interruption. Find applications (apps) and software programs that help you manage this issue. These programs can schedule your social media postings, turn off Internet access after a set period, and even manage what lands in your inbox.
HOW ONE ORGANIZATION SUPPORTS QUIET TIME
Microsoft’s New Way of Working Program exemplifies how an organization has recognized the need for its employees to have quiet time. All employees at the software giant’s office outside of Amsterdam have home offices but also come in for meetings and collaboration.
When researchers at the Rotterdam School of Management measured the impact of this program, they found 40 percent improvement in work/life balance scores over five years and measurable improvements in productivity. The report said: “Now, no one has a fixed office anymore and the building has been designed to be what we call activity based. It is no longer an office in the traditional sense. Instead it is a workspace where employees can locate themselves in different parts of the building depending on the tasks they need to perform. Increasingly, it is a meeting place where employees can interact with colleagues, partners, and clients.”10
Because this balanced approach provides options that respond to the preferences of both introverts and extroverts, it promotes an environment that encourages thoughtful, purposeful, communication and nurtures creativity and decision making, the hallmarks of influence.
Reduce stimuli Adapt your environment to foster quiet time. Introverts often dim the lights and use white noise machines to drown out the cacophony and create a calm, quiet atmosphere. If stimuli interfere with your quiet time, avoid noisy restaurants and crowded places; opt instead for the quiet of your home or a hidden corner of a park.
Turn off all sound Try taking a walk without headphones and driving with the radio off. Use earplugs or noise-canceling headphones on a plane. Just being quiet allows your brain and body to take a much-needed rest so that you can restore your energy and let the creative thoughts flow in. A few years back, I took an Amtrak train from Baltimore to New York City. After a long day, I settled into my seat on the crowded car and immediately noticed that something felt different from past excursions on commuter trains in the Northeast. What was it? Suddenly, it struck me. No one was shouting into a cell phone or engaging in loud chatter. I looked around and noticed people dozing, dreaming out the window, reading, writing and simply zoning out. I had landed in the middle of the “quiet car!” I enjoyed a beautifully peaceful ride and arrived at Penn Station rejuvenated and more ready than ever to use my influencing skills to hail that elusive taxi.
3. Go within Yourself
Exercise Get up and move around. Quiet time doesn’t have to be sedentary time. In fact, exercise is an essential component of many people’s quiet time. Josh, a thirty-something operations manager at a Fortune 100 company and introverted father of three, seems to handle his many responsibilities with ease. Where does he get the energy to influence in all the ways he does? Josh said that he squeezes in a workout whenever he can. After those mini-breaks, he finds himself more focused. He says, “It’s kind of . . . resetting, recharging my battery.” His active version of quiet time provides some of the fuel for the influence he has demonstrated through bringing innovative programs to his organization’s business resource groups, writing Japanese language books for businesspeople, and leading cross-cultural training programs to help improve communication with overseas call centers. He even has added graduate school to his list of vibrant activities.
Keep a journal Capture your thoughts, insights, dreams, joys, and worries in a notebook or computer. The process of writing, which is Quiet Influence Strength #5, brings clarity to your thinking and serves as a kind of meditation. Former salesperson and executive coach Vinay Kumar said that when he tries to force his thoughts, nothing happens. But when he enters his quiet time, ideas flow. As Vinay humbly explained, “I don’t think I have the brains to come up with a lot of the stuff I write. Thoughts just come out of nowhere. And for me, unless I write—until I write them down—they keep coming up over and over again. And the minute I can write them down, they are gone and then new thoughts surface in my mind.” As a former salesman and executive coach, Vinay is an advocate for introverts and challenges conventional thinking by writing encouraging words to the many introverts in his community. Likewise, writer Randy Peterson emphasizes the importance of having the right tools when he settles into quiet time. “When I want to be creative, it’s time for the classical music, a yellow pad and a fountain pen—not a ballpoint—sitting by the fireplace, and I just sketch things out. Something about the smell of good ink,” he muses.
Don’t forget to breathe Shake out the kinks in your body, take a good stretch, and focus on your breath. Consider counting “1, 2, 3” on each inhale and exhale. You will become more aware of your breathing and inevitably ease into quiet time. Purposeful breathing also helps you stay in the present moment. You forget about what happened yesterday and what waits for you tomorrow. With conscious breath, you are able to stay focused on your best and deepest thinking.
Take naps Find an appropriate time and place to take a daytime doze. Many successful influencers swear by power naps because their subconscious works best during sleep. David, the software executive, explains the link this way: “I am considered an introvert, and I am transitioning to a leadership role. My position requires a lot of public speaking, training, and facilitating meetings. Often, I will withdraw after long meetings or training sessions. I take two-hour naps to recharge.”
Overuse of Taking Quiet Time
Overuse of any strength can translate into a weakness. Life is about balance. That’s why taking too much quiet time can negatively impact your ability to influence others. Specifically, too much quiet time can lead to ideas that languish, lack of motivation, lost perspective, and lost opportunities.
1. Ideas that Languish
When you take too much quiet time, you can generate so many ideas that you end up in a form of creative paralysis. The ideas that emerge might be brilliant. Yet if they remain within you and you and do not move any of them into action, they remain just that: ideas. Millions of books remain unwritten and innovations continue untapped because their originators stayed in quiet time instead of moving out to share these ideas with others.
2. Lack of Motivation
Batteries need only a certain amount of time to recharge. Any time past the point of full charge becomes self-defeating and yields no positive effects. Even though each introvert needs a different amount of quiet time, most agree that overuse of this strategy ends up depleting their energy. It can even lead to isolation and even depression.
Take for example a common challenge facing the long-term unemployed, a group I have worked with through several recessions. I found that when these potential job candidates spent too much time at the computer sending out résumé after résumé, they lost energy and motivation. When they volunteered their services to others, however, their sadness diminished, they moved away from a focus on their problems, and they became re-energized. Having too much quiet time to focus on their predicament clearly did not motivate them and that time at home drained the energy they needed in order to influence an employer to hire them.
3. Lost Perspective
Although being aware of your strengths and blind spots can help you be an effective influencer, staying inside your head too much can be self-defeating. You end up second-guessing your decisions, questioning your abilities, and delaying action. All in all, you can lose perspective and erode your ability to make a difference and effect change.
How much introspection is too much introspection? Keep this helpful phrase in mind as you considering how much self-awareness is enough: “Look back but don’t stare.” When you realize that you are simply recycling the same thoughts and not learning anything new about yourself, it’s time to stop the mental music. Getting stuck in self-analysis can plant you too firmly in the act of dredging up of the past—an action that rarely helps you move on to productive action.
4. Lost Opportunities
Staying parked in solitude can also contribute to lost opportunities to advance yourself and your cause. Here is how it works. Something called the “perception gap” kicks into gear; that is the difference between how you want to be perceived and how you are actually seen. Let’s say you spend a lot of time alone at work on your projects. Unfortunately, “out of sight and out of mind” rings true in most workplaces. When you are not visible, coworkers may decide you are aloof, snobby, or angry when this is not actually true. Unfortunately, this misperception can lead to strained working relationships and your ultimate ability to influence others.
Consider this example: A university administrative office had a staff of six people. Five withheld important information from the sixth named Jaya. The staff assumed her closed door meant she was not interested in their discussions. But the opposite was true; Jaya needed that information but she also needed downtime. Not having that vital information affected Jaya’s ability to influence her faculty constituency. Unfortunately, her need for privacy led to the staff’s false assumption that Jaya was disengaged. That was not at all her intent. When both parties honestly aired their impressions, they cleared up the disconnect and were able to figure out a way to share important information with each other while still respecting Jaya’s need for quiet time.
Another way too much quiet time can lead to lost opportunities is an overreliance on the vision you create during quiet time. Relying too heavily on a specific outcome can throw you off balance when the real scene unfolds. Life in the real world is never exactly as we imagine it. Multiple scenarios can occur and you don’t want to get so wedded to your view of events that you are unable to go with the flow. Sarah, a purchasing agent, imagined winning over a team leader on her proposal. She pictured everything about the pitch meeting and replayed the successful scene in her head multiple times. Unfortunately, at the actual meeting, she was interrupted by questions from a guest expert who had been invited at the last minute. Sarah was thrown off guard, lost her cool, and swept up into an anxious place, leaving her unable to truly listen to what was being asked. In the end, she lost her opportunity to sell her proposal.
Your Next Steps
Taking Quiet Time isn’t a luxury only a few can afford. It is an essential way to take care of yourself so that you can have the most impact in your work and home life. If you already find and use quiet time, stick to it. And if you don’t dedicate time to yourself in this way, give it a try. It will help you with each of the other Quiet Influencing Strengths and form the foundation for a strong QIQ.
Start ramping up your commitment to taking quiet time by focusing on these five main points from the chapter:
1. The ideas that set you apart as an influencer often emerge from solitude.
2. Even a few concentrated quiet minutes can sharpen your focus and effectiveness so that you can move action forward and challenge the status quo.
3. Change some habits to make quiet time a priority. Try eating lunch alone and recharge by building in breaks, exercising, or taking naps.
4. To make the most of quiet time, turn off your technology devices.
5. Remember, too much quiet time can deplete your energy and keep your great ideas locked inside your head. Take your quiet time and then return to the world to influence people and situations.
Next, deepen your learning by reflecting on these questions:
1. When recently did you take quiet time to think through a problem, issue, or opportunity? If you took quiet time, were you able to calm down or see the situation in a new light?
2. Where can you go without distraction to reflect and plan? What activities provide you with good reflection time?
3. How might taking some quiet time help you with the influencing challenge you are facing now—the one you identified in chapter 3?
Taking Quiet Time is good for you, your QIQ, and ultimately your organization. But what do you do with the clarity, energy, and focus that emerge from quiet time? You apply it to fuel the next core Quiet Influencing Strength, Preparation.