Recognizing Your Secret Powers: A Survival Guide for Introverts

Reflection and Artwork by Sebila Kratovac

Navigating my life as an introvert, I have realized that many people have the wrong idea about introversion and, to make things more confusing, even introverts don’t truly understand how they differ from extroverts. From my perspective, the biggest myth about introverts is that they don’t like social situations. For example, I love getting together with friends and talking to people that can handle my communication style, but put me in a classroom or a meeting with many talkative extroverts, I can’t wait to get out and spend some time alone.

Another common myth is that all introverts are shy. Shyness can develop from insecurity and anxiety, but many introverts actually love connecting with people and thrive in more relaxed and intimate social situations. Instead of thinking that introverts innately dislike human contact, I believe that their nervous system is wired differently and is much more sensitive to outside stimuli. With new and unfamiliar situations, introverts are easily drained of energy, needing to recharge by spending some time alone. If they are in their element - if they feel safe, seen, and valued - introverts can be the most talkative and dynamic people in the room.

Sadly, many societies don’t value introversion, especially in schools and the workplace. In Western societies in particular, it seems that extroverts are handsomely rewarded in the public sphere, while introverts, working quietly and often doing an excellent job, get passed for jobs, promotions, and other opportunities. Loudness and assertiveness are seen as competence, while diligence and quietness signal weakness.

I was recently watching a YouTube coaching session with Chris Do, a graphic designer and an incredible design educator at The Futur, and his self-proclaimed introvert client, Rebecca Heinemann. In the video called Secret Power of Introverts - Being A Great Listener ep. 4, Chris turns the table around on introverts because he gets Rebecca to see that, instead of believing that something is wrong with her, she can embrace the way she is and let introversion work for her. As Rebecca talks about her reluctance to approach people and engage in small talk, Chris challenges her to connect with people from an empowered state of mind. Our beliefs are powerful and thinking that we are worth engaging with calms the nervous system down and helps us have a fulfilling exchange with another person. If we start seeing introversion as an asset, we can even feel excited about networking and doing business.

As an introvert himself, Chris talks about being in design meetings with a room full of extroverts talking over each other and feeling petrified to speak up and assert himself. This is where he learned about his superpowers as an introvert. After a particularly intense meeting, his boss noticed that he was quiet and asked him his opinion on the presentation. Chris answered with a very thoughtful and cohesive strategy on how to improve a design discussed at the meeting. From then on, his boss always knew where to go for smart advice. This important experience taught Chris that his power lies in being an excellent listener, soaking up all the information, and giving himself time to think about everyone’s and his own opinion to formulate a win-win scenario for the design team. For me, listening lets us “see into” people and connect on a much deeper level that allows us to understand others and their needs. In workplaces and personal relationships, this quality is priceless.

Chris discovered his second superpower as he started valuing himself more. Since everyone stopped to listen to him when he did talk, his words weighed a lot and he could transform the vibe in a room as he wished. Because people responded to him positively, he realized that he has power to shape energy around him. Chris also discovered that his tendency to think deeply and have a rich inner life gave him an incredible manifesting ability. He could visualize what he wanted and was usually able to see it come to fruition. When he was living through situations that he clearly pictured in his mind, he felt a sense of déjà vu, as if he had experienced the same situation before. Through empowering himself, Chris was eventually able to show up in the world with confidence and, using his empathetic traits, has helped many people including Rebecca to thrive in life and business. In fact, serving others and showing them how they can cultivate confidence has been his greatest fulfillment and his most cherished superpower.  

So, what are some practical steps that other introverts can take to tap into their superpowers? Chris suggests to Rebecca that the first step is to accept herself as she is an to stop caring about what others think. Appreciating ourselves and believing that there is nothing wrong with us is important so that we can feel relaxed enough to let go of control in social situations. The second step is to commit to making important changes in our life and see introversion as an asset rather than an excuse to limit ourselves. With commitment to change, we can start getting out of our comfort zone every single day. It is a good idea to ask a friend or hire a coach to hold us accountable for accomplishing our goals. Lastly, Chris encourages Rebecca to trust the transformation process and to go with it even though he sees that she is resistant to some of the advice he is giving her. In my experience, resistance is a sign that I am confronting something important and that I should examine how I feel about what I am resisting. Is it something that will benefit me in the long run? Am I resisting change because of fear or because the change is not aligned with my desires?

I am not at all surprised that introverts are well-represented in creative fields since thoughtfulness and introspection are very conducive to creativity. I often marvel at the courage it takes for artists to put their work out there for everyone to judge. It is truly a paradox since artists tend to be the most resistant to this kind of social exposure. There must be something about introversion that helps artists deeply connect with their audience. I believe it is their ability to be alone, to feel the depths of their emotions, to be intimately familiar with their own inner landscape which they can energetically transmit to the audience. Interestingly, many performers note that they experience a high after a play or a concert because they feel that they become one with the audience through an equal exchange of energy. The superpower to merge with others is another important introvert superpower. This superpower allows introverts to receive energy that is freely given to them and to give out energy that they desire to share with others. Extroverts, of course, have many incredible superpowers as well. The big question is, will the West finally recognize the riches of the subtle introvert? 

Finding Our Truest Niche: Creating a Business from the Heart

Reflection and Artwork by Sebila Kratovac

For creatives and healers, making money with our art and services has been one of the most difficult roadblocks to overcome. As I watch many YouTube videos and resources online, I am constantly advised to structure my business around what sells and to get inspired by trends. I am told to mimic (but not copy!) the way “successful” people have run their businesses. I am reminded that I have to “hustle” and market myself through many social media channels to get myself out here. Since I couldn’t envision my every-day life chasing clients and being in lots of social situations that drain my energy, I knew that there must be another way to thrive, to have a successful business that fits my purpose and personality.

Growing up, I always thought that as long as I could crack the social code and fit in, my life would be easy and prosperous. This method never worked for me because I could never “conform” to any standard, even if I tried to do it in desperation to achieve financial independence. I wanted to convince myself that living a life of constant competition, overworking, and burnout was how live is - that I should “get over” my anxiety and exhaustion, and abandon my need for a lot of self-care and relaxation. This “working like a bull” to survive attitude made me very sick physically as I abandoned myself, going against who I am and what makes me thrive. Looking for advice on how to have a sustainable business that would also be true to who I am, I really resonated with Tad Hargrave who runs Marketing for Hippies where he helps creative and holistic business owners with marketing. In a few of his wonderful Youtube vlogs (Your Deepest Wound and Your Truest Niche, On Niching: Your Gifts. Your Nature. Your Wounds., and The Three Elements of Your Niche), he teaches people how to recognize and use their uniqueness - their niche - to create a specialized business.

Niching is an interesting, and well-talked about topic in the business world. Hargrave has a unique spin on how business owners can find their specific, true niche. One of his most illuminating tips is to find our biggest wound, a wound that we are on our way to healing or that we have already healed. This is the place where we are most likely to have a lot of knowledge and passion. We are also working from our own life experience instead of helping people from what we learned in school or from what has worked for others. For example, our wound could be that we have had many skin issues in our life but we have managed to heal our skin inside out by cultivating a healthier lifestyle. Reflecting on our healing experience, we can empathize with others who are going through the same issues and could help them with very practical ways to heal. Knowing our wound, according to Hargrave, gives us the direction for our business: What problem will the business try to solve for people?

Hargrave’s second suggestion for narrowing down our niche is to ask ourselves what our gifts are. What have we always been able to do easily and with joy? What do people complement us for? In the case of helping others heal their skin, we could focus on our love for plants and use herbalism to teach people how to detox and heal their body. Many different gifts can be combined together – knowledge of plants and talent in art can translate into personalized, illustrated herbal protocols for each client. Our talents can help us define the tools we have at our disposal to form the shape of our business. They can also help us narrow down the kind of people that would be drawn to our offerings. The third aspect or our business to consider is how we would like to present our business to others. This will depend on our vibe/nature/personality. Our overall vibe is a very important part of our business because it plays a huge role in the kind of people we will attract. Hargrave, for instance, is a very chill, funny, and hippyish guy so naming his business Marketing for Hippies was an effective way to attract people who like his vibe. Knowing ourselves and having the courage to be authentic in the world is a huge asset in business because we can capitalize on our sensibility and captivate new clients naturally by letting our personality shine.

In practical terms, how can a niche-specific business be profitable? After all, focusing on a much smaller group of people eliminates a big number of potential customers. Many business insiders consider niching a risky business model. I think that this belief of having to standardize how we are and what business we provide is a very outdated scheme benefiting only certain kind of people and it is not at all realistic for everyone. From Hargrave’s own life experience, he was only able to be successful and happy with his business after starting to do his business from a place that feels good. Before this, he was a run-of-the-mill sales/marketing guy who did business the way he was taught by the old industry leaders. His approach was cutthroat, pushy, ethically questionable. Hargrave felt terrible interacting with people this way and his approach also alienated his friends who knew that the personality he was taking on wasn’t truly him. Once he stopped doing what didn’t feel right for him, he was able to reach his ideal customers.

What if we feel that people don’t want what we have to offer or aren’t willing to pay the amount we charge? Does this mean that we have no chance in living an abundant life and running a business we love at the same time? Attracting our niche clients may be the most difficult part of establishing a sustainable business. This is where we could be tempted to standardize our business or even give up completely. Through my life experience, I have found that working just to make money is only a temporary financial fix with many consequences (unless our sole purpose and motivation for having a business is to make money). Firstly, the effort it takes to be someone we aren’t, can lead to quick burnout and even illness. Secondly, if we don’t enjoy what we are doing, we will not be motivated to work through glitches and hardships that are a part of business. It is very much worth fine-tuning a business to fit us first and then to attract specific customers. We may have to become very honest with ourselves about who we are and what we want. We can also seek help from others, be it a business coach or friends who can give us suggestions based on their interaction with us. The more we become confident being who we are and connecting to the outside world through our authenticity, the easier it will be to find our clients. There are no guarantees in life, no matter which road we take, but we are free to experiment and decide if it is worth it for us committing to our uniqueness and creating a niche business from the heart.

Building Authentic Creative Communities

Artwork and Reflection by Sebila Kratovac

Living in New York City throughout my 20s, I became disillusioned with what it means to belong to a creative community. As an artist and a creative, I tried to figure out how to make artist friends without success. Either I wasn’t “cool” enough, self-destructive enough, or technically skilled enough to find the right fit for me so I developed a negative view of artist communities in general. My perceived failure to belong to a creative community in NYC planted a seed of unworthiness into my subconscious, a self-sabotaging belief that I somehow would never belong to anything just the way I am.

The fact that many artists, including me, are introverts, at least most of the time, led me on a path of isolation, loneliness, and stuckness. I am still on this journey of finding my “tribe” and have recently come across very informative YouTube vlogs (4 Ways to Build Creative Community and How I Built a Creative Community That Kicked Off My Creative Career) by Tom Froese, a very talented illustrator and educator. In his story-infused videos, Froese talks about how he brought himself out of depression by building a creative community around him before the days of social media. He mentions ways in which he connected with other creatives, initiating relationships that helped him become more confident and inspired to pursue an illustration career. But how does an introvert with limiting beliefs become a creative community builder?

Froese describes how his yearning for being seen and appreciated for who he is became a strong motivation for him to share his art. He started with blogging - sharing his thoughts, song lyrics, digital photography, and other creations. Once he gained a following, he slowly developed confidence and created his own meetup group Creative Breakfast. Taking a small step such as sharing our art on Instagram so that people can find us can be a powerful catalyst for getting unstuck. This way, we can attract an audience and can get our followers involved with our creative process. For example, Froese started posting illustrations of noses on Instagram every day for 100 days under the hashtag #the100dayproject. As he received more interest in his art, he began engaging with his followers by commenting on their posts and leaving positive feedback, as well as answering all their questions. Social media can be a great tool to attract people who match our interests and many people who meet through social media go on to start online communities through Zoom and other digital platforms. 

This amount of online engagement can seem intimidating and exposing to a lot of introverts and I have found myself coming in and out of social media when it begins to feel too overwhelming for me. But, luckily, there are many alternative ways to engage with other creatives. If you are more comfortable connecting with others in person, you can create a workshop, a meetup group, or an event such as a dance party or a potluck where creatives with similar interests and values can come together. Froese talks about going to conferences for creatives where he made many personal and business connections. From my own experience, taking a course or pursuing further education in a desired creative field will automatically give you access to other creatives, feedback, and mentorship. You can also seek out mentorship outside of academia so don’t be afraid to reach out to more experienced creatives for help. 

What if there aren’t many physical opportunities to meet creatives in your area? Since big cities are becoming too expensive for artists, Froese suggests to search online for smaller, more affordable towns with burgeoning artist communities and see if moving to one of them is a good choice for you. If moving is not possible, collaborating with other creatives remotely could be a good way to create deeper relationships with others. Collaborations are also a great way to get inspired, learn from others, get feedback, or just to be held accountable for creating new artwork.

How can we make the first step to put ourselves out there? What has helped me is to make peace with my discomfort in certain social situations. It is okay to feel anxious, slow to trust, or uncertain about how to create boundaries with people. But, since most of us, introverts included, want to connect with others - to be seen and heard – we can take small steps toward connecting with others, even if it seems uncomfortable in the beginning. To make the process less stressful, we can think about how we want to feel around people we want to connect with and imagine we are already surrounded by our tribe. We can pay attention to how we feel when we meet people and ask ourselves “Do I feel good around this person or am I pursuing this relationship because I feel lonely?” Most of us have a desire to belong, but at what price? One of Froese’s greatest takeaways is that the best way to become unstuck and authentically connect with others is to build our own creative communities, on our own terms. This way, we can attract people to us through freely sharing who we are, be it by writing a blog or posting our artwork. Connecting with people takes vulnerability and an open heart ready to risk disappointment. As long as we can cultivate courage and healthy boundaries (this comes with life experience), as well as patience for authentic connection, we will eventually find what we are looking for and thrive.

The Artist’s Dream: From Resistance to Inspiration

A drawing using my non-dominant right hand. Such a fun exercise and surprisingly easy and flowing!

Reflection and Artwork by Sebila Kratovac

There is nothing so frightening yet full of possibilities than a blank page. We have all been there. I believe that we are born with the ability to create freely and abundantly but, as we grow up, we learn that things should not come so easily to us and that we have to work very hard to create anything worthwhile. Resistance creeps in and we manifest the pain that we originally believed was necessary to create what we desire. Inspiration, which is available to us as the air we breathe, seems to be in short supply and only accessible to “true artists.”

Creatives often find themselves in a situation where their passion is to make art but inspiration doesn’t always show up when they wish to create. They feel guilty, overwhelmed, and stressed out, an emotional space that can easily lead to a self-sabotaging downward spiral. Kendyll Hillegas, a freelance illustrator, talks about her struggle to keep inspired in her YouTube video The Truth About Inspiration for Artists and Illustrators. She believes that inspiration comes once we commit to a particular creative practice through all the trials and tribulations that can come with resistance. This period of testing our commitment is crucial to finding our true passion. If we find that we cannot stick with something through completion, we are then free to explore different ways to create or even completely change our direction in life.

Breaking through resistance and letting inspiration flow is not an easy endeavor, even when we fully commit to pursuing our passion. To complicate matters even more, resistance seems to be proportional to how much we love the work we do. In his must-read book The War of Art, dealing with ways to conquer resistance, Steven Pressfield writes that “the more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you - and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.” Where does this blockage to inspiration come from? Sometimes we are resistant because of perfectionism or pressure we put on ourselves to create in a particular way. In Hillegas’ case, she resisted her art practice because of pressure she put on herself to draw realistically. But, with constantly asking herself “Is this what I really am interested in and passionate about?” she found that the blood, sweat, and tears she put into her artwork were worth it. After that first breakthrough, Hillegas felt inspired to continue with realistic drawing, feeling more joyful and excited to see how she can improve her drawings with more experience.

As Pressfield puts it, by committing to creating something we love, we have earned favor of the muses and are now magnetized to attract synchronicities, guidance, mentors, insights, and ideas to help us get inspired. So, what are some of the ways that we can open up to inspiration? One way to get inspired is to bypass the brain circuits which we usually employ when we are attempting to create. For example, we can write down poems or stream-of-consciousness thoughts, draw or sculpt, or even brush our teeth using our non-dominant hand. As we are creating new brain circuits, we are also strengthening communication between the left and right brain hemispheres. Another way to trick our brain to welcome inspiration is to switch our tasks drastically. Instead of sitting frustrated at our desk, we can go out for a walk, prepare a delicious meal, or watch comedy skits for an hour. Connecting with others – going for a coffee with a friend, playing with our pets, spending time with loved ones – has the power to shift our mind from contraction to expansion. Movement, especially freestyle movement, can prepare our body and mind for inspiration. Yoga, sports, dancing, walking, and any other forms of movement increase the flow of energy and oxygen throughout the body and make us feel more embodied, grounded, and present. We feel that we can take up space and create, that our actions can impact something out there in the world. Far from distractions, these exercises are meant to save us time and energy we spend on resistance so we can get to the fun stuff.

For some people, bringing their mind and body into a relaxed state can be the most effective way to release resistance. Taking a bath, listening to soothing music, going to a sound healing class, having a hypnotherapy session, trying yin/restorative yoga and yoga nidra, and starting to meditate with binaural beats can bring the brain into the alpha and theta wave states of deep relaxation, priming us for receiving inspiration. And for an even deeper state of relaxation, how about taking a nap? Getting our brain to the delta wave state during sleep, gives us access to our subconscious through our dreams. Paying attention to our dreams can be a huge gold mine for inspiration. To go even further, exploring lucid dreaming (a dream state in which we are aware that we are dreaming and are able to influence the dream) can help us see that we have the power to create our own reality and that there is nothing that can stop us from creating anything we want.

When nothing else works, all we can do is surrender to the fact that we are not in a place to be inspired. As Hillegas advises, we can give ourselves some time and space to come back to this journey of creating. In her channeling work through Abraham, Esther Hicks talks about how each morning is a new opportunity to live our best life. When we are in that zero-point neutral state, before any negative thought enters our mind, everything is possible, even letting go of resistance. Coming to terms with how we are feeling, we can then move on with our day, wake up the next day refreshed, and start over anew.