How the Author of "Quiet" Delivered a Rousing Speech I awoke one January morning from uneasy dreams to find myself transformed. For seven blissful years I had spent my time reading, writing and researching a book about introversion. But the publication date had arrived, the idyll was over and my metamorphosis was complete. I was now that impossibly oxymoronic creature: the Public Introvert. Having never given a single media interview in the first 43 years of my life, I appeared that day on "CBS This Morning" to promote my book, a critique of our overly loquacious culture. Then I shuttled uptown to my publisher's office to continue talking - for 21 radio interviews. My book is about the power of being quiet. About the perils of a society that appreciates good talkers over good ideas. And about the terrible pressure to entertain, to sell ourselves and never to be visibly anxious. I believe all this passionately - which puts me in an interesting pickle. Promoting my work requires doing the very thing my book questions: putting down my pen and picking up a microphone. Now, in what I've come to think of as my Year of Speaking Dangerously, I've gone on national TV to talk about being the kind of person who dislikes going on national TV. I let my friends talk me into having a big book party, even though my book advises introverts to stay home on New Year's Eve if they feel like it (I usually feel like it). And in February I took the stage at the 2012 TED conference before an audience of 1,500 people to critique a society that favors the kind of person who craves an audience. For me, TED embodied the paradox that lay at the heart of my book tour. On the one hand, TED stands for everything I love. Its mission is to promote "Ideas Worth Spreading," and how many tranquil evenings have I spent at my kitchen table, listening as thinkers of various stripes delivered eloquent soliloquies from deep inside my laptop? TED takes scholars and turns them into rock stars. On the other hand, this approach emphasizes the need to be a rock star in the first place. TED presenters share their brain waves from a backlighted, red-carpeted dais while giant cameras glide overhead, capturing their every gesture from multiple angles and projecting them onto Jumbotron megascreens. Implicit in the stellar production values is the notion that people might pay less attention without them. At TED, a mere speech delivered from the lectern won't do. You have to visibly emote your idea, preferably without notes - a prospect I found terrifying. My first instinct was to make my case with facts and data. But I knew I had to animate it with drama and humor. So I talked about the time I went to summer camp as a 9-year-old with a suitcase full of books, only to discover that reading made you uncool. I described my discomfort on the first day of camp when the counselor taught us a cheer meant to instill group spirit: "R-O-W-D-I-E; that's the way we spell rowdy! Rowdy! Let's get rowdy! I even performed the cheer - onstage. In front of 1,500 people! I talked about my lifelong fear of public speaking, and about how I'd spent a year training in the style of a marathon runner to be the best and bravest speaker I could. Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I'm not one of them. My year of preparation unfolded in three stages of accelerating dread. First, I joined Toastmasters, a worldwide organization whose members meet weekly in local chapters to practice public speaking. Toastmasters was founded in 1924 by a man named Ralph Smedley, who declared that "all talking is selling, and all selling involves talking." This slogan is a little off-putting to someone like me, but I still found it invaluable to practice speaking in a supportive, low-stakes setting. I also scheduled a two-hour crash course with TED's speaking coach, who gave me voice and breath exercises. In one exercise, she asked me to inhale, open my mouth dentist-wide, and say "ah" in order to transform my naturally soft and high-pitched voice into a low and sonorous tone. This felt not only ridiculous, but also impolite, and she had to remind me repeatedly to keep my mouth propped open. In fact, all of the recommended techniques felt rude, which is no doubt why I was there in the first place. In the end, I grew to enjoy the mysterious new sounds emanating from my belly. Susan Cain is the author of "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking."