Welcome to this episode of the modern mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Cook.

Today's episode is dedicated to introverts. Whether you identify as one, you lead one, or you're

just trying to connect with introverted colleagues. Today is all about bumping up the introverts

experience of working from home. In March of 2020,

according to a Slack report on remote work during COVID, approximately 16 million U.S.

knowledge workers began working from home, and likely that number is even higher today.

In the early days of the pandemic, every extrovert I knew, myself included, went into panic

mode. How we wondered would we keep our energy tanks full without the ability to refuel by

interacting with humanity? And at the same time, I watched a lot of introverts around me celebrate

the opportunity to work at home, laps piled high

with blankets and dogs. These observations are, of course, grand generalizations, but they do

illustrate the experiences I watched people have. Fast forward several months, and introverts in my

network are sharing that they're feeling the strain right now.

CNN reports that introverts make up 30 to 50% of the population.

That's a lot of people to be struggling.

So if you identify as an introvert,

let's talk about some things you can do to maximize your experience of working from home for as long as it persists.

First, start by recognizing the challenge you might be having.

Success can't begin with a belief that you've already failed.

So if you're an introvert who's struggling, start by recognizing it's okay not to be okay.

Maybe you're not living your best life right now, but that's nothing to apologize for.

Many of the things you might do to forge stimulating introvert-friendly connections just aren't

...