Quiet (Cain)

Author Bio
• Birth—1968
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; J.D., Harvard
   University Law School
• Currently—lives "on the bank of the Hudson River" in New York State


Susan Cain is an American writer and lecturer, and author of the 2012 non-fiction book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, which argues that modern Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the traits and capabilities of introverted people

Cain graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She worked first as an attorney, and then as a negotiations consultant as owner and principal of The Negotiation Company. Cain has been a fellow and a faculty/staff member of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, an educational non-profit organization.

Cain left her careers in corporate law and consulting, for a quieter life of writing at home with her family. She later wrote that she looks back on her years as a Wall Street lawyer "as time spent in a foreign country."

Quiet
When asked what she would be doing if she were not a writer, Cain explained that she would be a research psychologist, saying she is insatiably curious about human nature Cain's interest in writing about introversion reportedly stemmed from her own difficulties with public speaking, which made Harvard Law School "a trial.

While still an attorney, Cain noticed that others at her firm were putting personality traits like hers to good use in the profession, and that gender per se did not explain those traits. She eventually realized that the concepts of introversion and extroversion provided the "language for talking about questions of identity" that had been lacking.[12]

Cain explained that in writing Quiet, she was fueled by the passion and indignation that she imagined fueled the 1963 feminist book, The Feminine Mystique.[11] Cain likened Introverts today to women at that time—second-class citizens with gigantic amounts of untapped talent. Saying that most introverts aren’t aware of how they are constantly spending their time in ways that they would prefer not to be and have been doing so all their lives, Cain explained that she was trying to give people entitlement in their own minds to be who they are.

Cain added that for her, Quiet was not just a book but a mission. Specifically, she said she was interested in working with parents and teachers of introverted kids and to re-shape workplace culture and design, and in particular replace what she terms "The New Groupthink" with an environment more conducive to deep thought and solo reflection. (From Wikipedia.)