Episode 21: Morra Aarons-Mele on Introversion and Anxiety in Remote Work
1Description
Is working from home a breakthrough for introverts?
The answer, of course, is not so simple. Matt Mullenweg’s latest Distributed conversation is with Morra Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever podcast for HBR Presents from Harvard Business Review, and founder of award-winning social impact agency Women Online and its database of women influencers, The Mission List.
She’s also the author of Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home).
To learn more about Aarons-Mele’s work, go to womenandwork.org.
The full episode transcript is below.
(Intro Music)
MATT MULLENWEG: You are listening to Distributed with me, Matt Mullenweg. Today’s guest is Morra Aarons-Mele. Morra is the founder of Women Online, an award-winning social impact agency, and she is also the author of “Hiding In the Bathroom: How to Get Out There When You’d Rather Stay At Home.” A title I love. [laughs] It’s a book that rethinks introversion in the workplace. Interested to hear about her experiences so I can learn more about how Automattic can better serve the many introverts on distributed teams and talk about the theory that maybe distributed is better for introverts. So, welcome, Morra.
MORRA AARONS-MELE: Hi, Matt. How are you?
MATT: Thank you so much for joining. And where are you joining from today just out of curiosity?
MORRA: Right outside Boston.
MATT: Cool. I’m in Houston, Texas.
MORRA: All right.
MATT: I celebrated 100 days here yesterday which is my longest I’ve been here in a long time.
MORRA: Oh my gosh. [laughter]
MATT: So we had a very brief introduction there but what brought you to this topic?
MORRA: Uh, life. [laughter] I didn’t know that I was an introvert with social anxiety, I think that’s an important piece of it, which we can talk about as well, until I was about 35 years old. I would never have wanted to be an introvert when I was younger because I didn’t really know what being an introvert meant. I was really ambitious and I worked in sales and marketing and I talk a lot, I’m not shy. And so I remember even taking a Myers-Briggs once in graduate school and sort of gaming it so that I could be as extroverted as possible because I felt like I should be extroverted, you know?
MATT: How did you game it? What answers did you change?
MORRA: All the answers that are about… This is 16 years ago so I’m… but you know, the answers that are leading you to the E about your interaction style and do you like to be in big groups and all that.
Anyway, so it never occurred to me. But what did happen to me was I was just often really, really unhappy at all my jobs. And I had a lot of jobs. I quit a lot of jobs. I hated office politics. I would get really good jobs but because I was sort of preferring to not be in the ring I would get layered over real quick.
And then I finally quit my last job for good and started freelancing. And it’s like this lightbulb went off when I was sitting at my kitchen table doing the same work I had always done but by myself on my own time, in my own lighting. I was like, “ohhh this is for me.” And as I spent more time working for myself and learning about work styles and workplace flexibility, I began to read up and realized I am really introverted and I have really intense social anxiety and I have been working in an entirely wrong way for many years.
MATT: If it’s worth it, do you mind defining what an introvert is for people and maybe what social anxiety is just so we’re working from the same set of assumptions?
MORRA: Yes. The thing about being an introvert is there is no blood test. So you could probably talk to a bunch of different people and they would say different things. And it’s funny because over the years I’ve had people email me and say you’re not an introvert, you’re a highly sensitive person. You’re not an introvert, you have ADHD. This all may be true but the thing about being an introvert is it’s actually not about whether you are shy, whether you’re quiet, whether you are… some people think you’re socially awkward if you’re an introvert.
It’s really about how you manage your energy and what kind of situations fill you with energy versus drain you. So this is… I think a lot of people know being… engaging with a lot of people, giving a lot of output all day, getting a lot of stimulus back can be really hard for introverts. It’s hard for most people frankly, but introverts just do not get energy from that constant being on with the people in collaboration.
And we are also usually very sensitive to other kinds of stimuli, so lights, noise. If you walk into any modern hotel and it’s full of bright lights and a million different cable channels as well as music piped over the loudspeaker and you want to close your eyes and hide in a dark closet, you might be an introvert.
MATT: The energy part has always been hard for me because I… Like, I love seeing people so much but sometimes I do feel really worn out at the end of the day, but I’m not sure if that’s because it was a great day or that was draining my energy.
MORRA: I mean that’s the thing, right? I think that even extroverts probably at the end of a long day with a lot of people are drained but they would choose to go back the next day whereas most introverts probably wouldn’t. When we gear ourselves up for something like that it tends to be more performative, it’s something that we have to prepare for, something that we have to get ready for, something that we have to rehearse.
And a lot of introverts are performers. Some of our most famous performers, like Oprah and Lady Gaga and people who get up and literally own a stadium are hugely introverted. And this means that when they’re out there, they are giving it their all, they love it, but it is very much about gathering the energy and performing. It may not be a natural switch. You’ll also talk to a lot of introverts and they’ll say, you know, I can go give a speech in front of 3,000 people, no problem, but if I have to mingle afterwards that’s it, I instantly feel drained.
MATT: Did you just say that Oprah and Lady Gaga are introverts?
MORRA: Mhm.
MATT: Wow.
MORRA: Yeah, yeah.
MATT: Mind blown. Today I learned. [laughter]
MORRA: Oprah actually likes to hide in the bathroom to get away from people.
MATT: Wow. You mentioned social anxiety. Do you mind defining that for us?
MORRA: Social anxiety is a learned trait. So introversion is something that we’re naturally born probably one way or the other, although I think it ebbs and flows given your life experience and your life stage. But people might naturally be introverted if they prefer quiet, if they like to be by themselves, if a great day for them involves being with fewer people versus being with more people.
Society anxiety is a learned behavior and it is when you actually fear social interaction and that could be with one other person or it could be a group. It is that experience of walking into a room and feeling like you don’t belong there, everyone hates you, you’re going to make a fool of yourself, it’s really about shame.
Ellen Hendrickson, who is one of my favorite psychologists on this subject, calls it the fear of the reveal. So if you’re listening and you think about a time when you walked into — back when we had networking events — a networking event and you felt like you were a total fraud and that you were scared to open your mouth and talk to people because you definitely did not belong in that room, that’s social anxiety. It can come from being ashamed when you’re a kid, it can come from being criticized if you are a quiet introvert for not talking enough. There’s a lot of reasons why we become socially anxious but it’s really about shame.
MATT: I didn’t realize that one was learned and one you were kind of born with.
MORRA: I mean, I’m not a scientist, but most of the literature would say that introversion is more of a character trait. And the same way that some people really love music and love to work to music and some people need quiet, I think of it like that. You know? It’s just who you are. Whereas social anxiety… Of course there are some people who are more genetically anxious, etcetera, it could be epigenetic, but it tends to stem from learned behavior over time.
MATT: What would you say is t
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