Because two of my most favorite and trusted introverts just did this, I was inspired to follow in their footsteps. Lisa has a great explanation at the beginning of her list about what it’s like to be an introvert—really we’re not aloof, we just want to connect at a much deeper level. And Havi explains the HSP part, in case you don’t know what that is.
Without further ado, 42 things that you might not know about me. (in no particular order) If you’re skimming, just read the stuff in bold and you’ll get to the end quicker.
Here we go.
I use sesame oil as a moisturizer. I used to buy a $75 product but no longer. I put oil EVERYWHERE. It’s seriously calming for the nervous system and if you travel alot, it helps you stay grounded. Highly recommend.
In 1986 I pierced my nose myself after spending a semester in London. (This was about five years ahead of the whole piercing trend that is still alive and well. And yes, that says something about me being a visionary if you want to take it that far.)
When I got back to Purdue that year, I know I was the only white girl in the state of Indiana with a pierced nose. People used to get out of my way in bars like I was some kind of a badass. That was kind of cool.
Cheese-covered vegetables. Carving spoons.
I went to a camp named Honey Rock in the Northwoods of Wisconsin for 10 summers growing up from age 8 to 18. It was the best part of my childhood. It’s where my spirituality took root and my environmental ethic was formed. And my sense of what it’s like to live in community. I still go up there often. It’s a place that speaks to my soul.
But I avoid the cheese-covered vegetables that are rampant in those parts.
While at camp I learned how to orienteer. I was the best at it. This is true. I won the contest. Give me a compass and a topo map and I’ll find the way home.
I also carved my own spoon. I have no idea what happened to that spoon. I wish I still had it.
The very first friend of mine to die at a young age (he was in his 30s) was a special friend from camp. Chris, I miss you dearly.
I had an idyllic childhood growing up in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago. Then my parents bought a marina in Pensacola, a part of the Gulf of Mexico affectionately known as the Redneck Riviera. It was a culture shock I still haven’t recovered from. Three months later, a hurricane destroyed the place. It took two years to rebuild. This was the dream my dad left his family’s business for.
This move also meant that I showed up on the first day of high school with a Chicago accent in the South, not knowing a single person in a totally new cultural terrain. Did I mention that I’m an introvert? Uh, yeah.
I went to high school with Joe Scarborough. He was two years older. I remember him as really nerdy. (I could tell more stories about him but I’ll refrain.)
Yep, always been creative.
I’ve always been creative. I loved art and took art classes all the way through school. In college I minored in photography.
In 5th grade, I sewed my own puppets. My favorite was Mr. Jazzman. He was made out of polka dot fabric and had little pompoms on strings for hair that would bounce around kind of crazy-like. I wish I still had him too along with that spoon.
Eating fried catfish with Jimmy Carter. Politics. Intuition.
I missed my most recent high school reunion because I was having dinner with former President Jimmy Carter. Across from him. At a picnic table. Eating fried catfish and cole slaw off paper plates. In a tiny town in South Georgia. Apparently Jimmy likes a good fish fry.
I’m the board chair for Georgia River Network and we had a week-long paddle on the Flint River, a river Carter knew like the back of his hand. He’s been fighting against a proposal to dam the river since he was a state senator. More than 30 years ago.
He’s an amazing man. Showed up in his jeans, denim shirt and a big belt buckle that said “JC.” Still sharp as a tack.
I can’t do the same thing day in and day out. My idea of hell is reporting to an office for a 9-5 job, 20 years straight. I mean, commit me right now. I couldn’t survive it without massive amounts of drugs and alcohol. Good thing my little plan here is working out so far….
I think I chose my college major, political science, because a guy I really liked said that’s what he was going to study and I had no idea while still in high school what major I wanted to declare on my paperwork. As it turned out, I love politics—campaigning much more than governing. As Mario Cuomo once said, “You campaign in poetry and govern in prose.” I prefer poetry.
I’ve only loved two men so far in my life.
When my boyfriend was in Desert Storm (the first Gulf war, where he served as a helicopter pilot with the Navy) his ship hit a mine, and exploded. I felt it happen thousands of miles away. All were safe fortunately.
When my grandpa died, I felt that happen too. My first inklings that I’m very intuitive. Now I trust my intuition completely.
Art. And having a painting stolen.
I started painting seriously when I was 26. I was hooked immediately when I put gooey wet watercolor paint onto a piece of paper. I painted this drawing I had just made of three artichokes. *Swoon* was I ever in love. I still have that painting and look at it every so often to remember the thrill.
I went to an “artcamp” as I liked to call it where for two weeks straight all we did, with very little sleep, was paint, draw and critique. My favorite art teacher, Joyce Bennick, sent me there. She had attended 13 years straight and had never won an award during that whole time. (There’s a juried show at the end.)
The first year I went and out of a show of 99 paintings, two of mine took first and second place. It was a huge compliment to my teacher and boy did that fill me with confidence. I also got a great friend out of the experience who’s been in my life for about 17 years.
I had a painting stolen once. I got it back after a few days. It’s the same painting I got into my first national show.
Visual patterns and daytrading.
I was a daytrader for a couple of years during the crazy internet boom. I did well. For example, I turned $1500 of Mindspring stock into $40,000 in a year (technically that wasn’t a daytrade, I was buying into a company who’s principles I wanted to support). I learned a ton about how the street works. It was a huge education.
I shorted the market In September when everything tanked permanently and covered two weeks later. I could have let those shorts unwind for about, oh…. another six months before covering. I was optimistic.
I’m especially good at reading charts and patterns. It’s the whole visual pattern sense-making thing.
The visual thing also comes into play with puzzles. I’m insanely good at them. I’m also obsessive about them. So I only do a puzzle once a year at Christmas, if that, otherwise I wouldn’t get anything else done.
I come off as mysterious and a little hard to get to know which is funny because I see myself as an open book. That’s part of the introvert thing—there are layers and layers to travel through to get to know me. But I know me really well.
I’m also a Cancer sun sign so I’m naturally a bit protective until I feel safe. Help me feel safe and I’m completely wide open and accessible, which is where I love to be.
Meltdowns in figure drawing class. Not my meltdowns.
I taught figure drawing once a week for about five years mostly to adults who had done art in high school and college then put it aside to have a career and/or a family. I figured (ha) out pretty quick that my job was more about managing the emotional state of my students than teaching skills—though that was important too.
Like clockwork, during the third week of class there would be meltdowns. Tears. Tearing of paper. A general pause in the action while they assessed how hard it was to do what they wanted to do.
My students would struggle to reproduce with their hand what their eye was seeing. I would teach them how to see—how to really see— and eventually with practice their hand would catch up. This always resulted in breakthroughs, slow steady progress and appreciation for the small victories: the path of a true artist. I was really good at showing that path. And cheerleading along the way.
In college I wanted to be a diplomat.
Winter. Sausage. 62,000 cans of Labatts beer.
I miss winter. Last January after a gig in Milwaukee, I took four or five days and went north to my beloved woods of Wisconsin. I had never been up there in winter. I had also never been on a vacation by myself and wanted to try it out.
I stayed at a place I had been many times. I was the only guest except for a couple of snowmobilers one night. I loved it. I stomped through the snow. Walked on frozen lakes. Ice-skated. Cross-country skied at my old camp. “Oh, you’re the camper who is here to ski?” Watched the firemen prep a small lake for the National Pond Hockey championships—30 rinks, thousands of people, and 62,000 cans of Labatts beer—taking place the weekend after I left. I will do that again.
I love sausage. It’s the Chicago upbrining in me. And I haven’t found a decent one in the South. They don’t know the importance of fennel down here.
I learned about the field I’m working in now as a graphic facilitator while on a vacation in the Tetons. (Thank you, Mary Parish.) I like that the origin story of my career comes from those magnificent mountains.
I have been a yogi for about 13 years.
I hardly ever read books these days. I just don’t make time for them. It’s sad, I know. A few of the books that have had huge imprints on me: Cradle to Cradle, North Enough and everything by James Salter.
I am currently getting postcards in the mail from faeries and that’s the coolest thing ever.
My superpower. Seriously, don’t tell me your dream. It will come true.
One of my superpowers, or really the core of it, is that when people tell me their deep innermost wish or secret dream for what they really want to do with their life, I can immediately see it. Like all of it. In Technicolor.
I should really start warning people about this because as soon as I see it—just the act of seeing it starts to put things in motion. Soon I’m manifesting stuff: connections, opportunities, trips to Morocco. It’s crazy.
It doesn’t surprise me at all but I’m starting to see how it can be a little startling to the person who’s just whispered their dream in my ear and suddenly the world shifts a bit on its axis.
I once spent a day with The Art Guys and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. No really, they were great fun to be around. And I did get a one-of-a-kind iron-on t-shirt from them.
There is one sure way to disappoint me: say you are going to do something and then don’t do. Flakiness doesn’t work for me. Ever.
In 2nd grade, I was Rudolph in the school Christmas pageant. I absolutely adored being pulled out of class for secret rehearsals with the older kids. And the taste of stardom and attention the day of the play. Intoxicating.
I have quite a few epic friendships—those people you know you’ll have all your life even if some time passes between contacts. And I fully appreciate that these are some of the greatest treasures of my life.
The greatest gig ever. And the need for f-bombs.
Some people think that being a creative entrepreneur is the greatest gig ever. It’s also the scariest especially when you have experiences like I did last week when $12,000 in potential business vanished. *Poof*
You have to be brave. And willing to look deeply inside yourself—because working on your stuff is the same as working on your business. It’s not for weenies. Or pussies.
I really like to swear. Sometimes you just need a good ole f-bomb. Like last week, for instance.
One of the tricks to getting good at what you do is to start paying attention to How you do what you do. That’s an advanced practice because for most of us, how we do it is so natural we take it for granted. You need to know the How so you can teach it.
My favorite college professor, Michael Weinstein, (go on, click on the link–you have to see his picture) taught modern philosophy under the guise of political science. I was the only undergrad he let into his graduate/PhD seminars. I lived for those three hours every week where we would toss around big ideas about how life works.
(see how doing this can show you your life’s roadmap—all those experiences that make up who you are and why you do what you do.)
And what about you?
Feel free to leave some things about you that we don’t know in the comments. Or better yet, write your own and help your people get to know you.