The Introverted Entrepreneur and the Extroverted Business
A Tale of Harmony (in the making)
I know way more introverts than extroverts.
Including entrepreneurs.
But I know way more extrovert businesses.
Businesses, like mine, are nourished and enriched by a variety of environments and connections. It’s not just clients but a strong network of peers, a vibrant community of interest and lots of interaction that are key to the health of an extrovert business.
Meanwhile, the introverted entrepreneur can quickly and easily find themselves over-reaching their capacity in this environment. Needing to retreat to their inner world, business gets shut down so they can restore. They re-emerge only to repeat the pattern.
The feelings of guilt that dominate this scenario are pretty crippling, which is why so many introverted entrepreneurs try to push through and end up burning out.
There is no need to retreat or push through. You can establish a harmonious balance that works for you and allows your business to flourish consistently.
Business has always been structured around ego and logic. It is this that leads us to assume that without constant action we are not making progress. Success and failure, we are told, come down entirely to the actions we take or don’t on a daily basis.
How can an introvert run a successful business if they can never honour their own need to step back and recharge? We need to expand our understanding to find an alternative path through this conundrum.
Business isn’t ego and logic. It’s an expression of creative life force.
It is energy but it’s not your energy.
When energy moves into expression, it becomes independent. If you consider a work of art, once the artist has completed it, it becomes separate from them to be experienced by everyone individually.
Your business is the same. It is a completely separate energetic force. Once it has been birthed and come into form, you have entered a partnership.
Like all good partnerships, you have skills that complement the qualities your business itself brings to the table.
As an introvert, you bring an ability to go deep into the darkness to find the light. While your extroverted business is happy to share its light with all, you are the one who knows how to bring this light into the world.
An extroverted business is inspired and motivated by experiencing all kinds of contact with people, situations and topics. However, it’s ability to create impact has to come through you. If your business needs to spread itself far and wide but you need to focus on depth rather than breadth it may feel impossible to square the circle.
The biggest area of struggle for many introverted entrepreneurs is being visible and showing up consistently. Ultimately, they are trying to emulate extrovert qualities which are unsustainable.
The solution is within business design and finding ways for energy to continue in motion during times of rest and restoration.
What you are looking to create in these situations is a business model that is never full throttle all the time. Having a few core areas of strategic activity that are worked on in phases can liberate the introverted entrepreneur whilst sustaining the energy behind their business.
For example, you might produce courses and on-demand content.
You work on these and share them in distinct phases and then the ongoing promotion is set to autopilot. You get to step away while your business keeps moving.
Or perhaps you choose to spread your message via podcast. You develop a strategic programme of approaching podcasts or producing your own. Everything is scheduled, you get to step away from this aspect.
Meanwhile, you can be working in intimate settings with a handful of clients that nourish your need to connect deeply. You aren’t spread thinly and your capacity isn’t over-stretched. Or you can be taking the necessary time and space to feel your way into your next phase of growth without the pressure of showing up every single day.
Your business model is unlikely to look conventional but space is created for harmony with your business.
When you move into creation mode, you consciously step into the extroverted energy of your business and feel that high-intensity presence that it has in buckets. This becomes infused into what you create in a perfect blend of you and your business that conveys the essence of the experience.
What is then imperative for all entrepreneurs, introverted or not, is to consciously step out of the energy again.
This is what preserves your energy.
Businesses need to be designed to create the space and permission to step out of the energy and just be, while the works of creation keep the energy of your business in motion and connecting with people far and wide.
Business design is the missing piece of the puzzle for introverts, highly sensitive people and anyone who finds themselves losing energy in the fast-paced world of entrepreneurship. If you want to explore the ways it can support you and your business to thrive, click here.
