An introvert advocate, strategist and founder of the award-winning WGN radio podcast “HushLoudly,” Jeri Bingham is dedicated to amplifying the voices of introverts. She is on a mission to empower and encourage what she believes is the most ill-defined, misunderstood personality type.
Bingham created Black Introvert Week, which will take place Feb. 8 through Feb. 15 and spoke with rolling out about how others can celebrate the week.
Tell us about your company.
The name of my company is HushLoudly, Introverts Redefined. The purpose is to educate about introversion and to empower those introverts who don’t understand their value or worth. We live in a society that is geared toward extroverts. For those of us who are more inward and less outward, like extroverts, we may sometimes be overlooked or misunderstood, misjudged, all of these things that come into place in the workplace, as well as personally. I’m on a mission to help break stigmas, debunk myths, and help people understand that introverts can do everything extroverts do, we’re just different.
All of this started just as I was having a conversation about my bachelor’s program, and I was in a classroom talking about social identity, racial identity, and all of these things. I talked about how I didn’t have the issues of peer pressure, as some people did in the conversation. People were asking why, and I said, I think it was because I was an introvert, so I could care less about the parties and things that were pulling people in other directions. …. It started this conversation and people reacted beautifully. I thought this should be the topic of my dissertation. I’m working on a doctor of education, which I plan to have in 2023. It just evolved into a podcast, and the more I talked about it, I saw that there was so much more to it. I needed to take it to the next level and I realized that it goes beyond me, my group, and Chicago, and it’s something that everybody should be talking about.
Why did you create Black Introvert Week?
I wanted to create Black Introvert Week to raise awareness. There’s a world introvert Day and an introvert week. As a Black introvert and with people that I’m in community with, we talked about how we have an additional sort of layer of mystery that’s tied to our Blackness, that when coupled with our introversion can cause problems and challenges in the office. The more I talked about it, the more people said what happened to them. I thought it was just me and I’m finding out it’s fairly common around amongst Black introverts. The majority or whoever we’re working for may make assumptions that we’re not engaged, excited, team players, or even worse, we are mean and angry, and all of this is a perception because they can’t read us. When they can’t read us they have to make up who they think we are, and they revert to stereotypes. I’ve been told many times at jobs, “I used to think you were mean when you first started, but you’re not.” When I asked why, no one could ever articulate why. I know now why is because I was quieter than they wanted me to be and it made the majority uncomfortable. With all this in mind, and as I continue to talk to people, I wanted to create Black Introvert Week, to raise awareness, bring attention to the fact and celebrate.
What can we do to welcome our kids that are introverts?
My advice for parents is to understand that each of their children is different, and you are responsible for giving each child what they need. You may have one kid who’s a star basketball player, one kid who’s a musician, one kid who’s an artist, and one kid who just wants to chill and read books. There’s nothing wrong with that kid that wants to chill and read books. That might be the next neuroscientist, you never know what that person will be. What I advise is that you just support and nurture whatever that is that they want. Don’t feel that you have to force them to do things such as going to parties, social activities, cheerleading, or other things to fit into society. What you should do is tune into what that child likes and give them as much of it as possible. If they like going to libraries and museums, take them to libraries and museums. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think that people should just slow down and understand that we’re all different, and figure out what it is that that kid needs and try to give it to them.
How can we celebrate Black introvert week with you?
On Feb. 8, I am releasing a T-shirt design that was created by a young man whose name is Howard Griffith II, and he’s a graphic artist. I created this game-changers list this year where I acknowledged and paid homage to introverts who are doing amazing things. This young man is the youngest of the bunch, and I asked him to just create something. So on the eighth, I am releasing his design which will be available on t-shirts and water bottles at my store, which is www.hushloudly.com/shop. I have gear that says, “This extrovert loves introverts” because we need your support. I have another shirt that says “I love introverts,” which is for the extroverts in your life, and for people who consider themselves in between. On Feb. 11, I’m hosting a panel with another group of amazing introverts, but the panel is called Introverted while Black: Lessons Learned. I have a group of individuals who will bring their experiences, and they’re all across different industries. We are talking about our experiences as Black introverts who have I’ll say succeeded, beat the odds, and reversed the stigmas. We made our introversion work for us and we are talking about strategies. We want to help the younger people or people our age, who are still feeling uncomfortable about being different and don’t know how to showcase and shine their worth and their value in the workplace or wherever.
Name two superpowers of an introvert.
Listening and observation. I think that we are the best listeners because we are truly in tune and focused and listening. We’re analyzing, processing, and taking it all in. We’re able to make decisions based on our listening and understanding of what’s happening in the conference room or the conversation. The second is observation. That’s another innate skill or attribute that we have. We see everything, we don’t miss much, and that helps in the workplace. I’ve had this happen multiple times where I’m usually reporting to the CEO or the president and they may be more extroverted. They’ll give the spiel for the new strategic plan and then we’ll go back to the office and they’ll say, “Oh, that was great, that was amazing. There weren’t any questions.” I was looking at the body language, the social cues, and observing all of these things that are not spoken, but that I can see with my eyes because I’m in that observation-listening mode. That is something that introverts always bring and we can use that to our advantage.
