An Excerpt from Shy by Design
October 08, 2024
Michael Thompson provides a powerful guide to leading with quiet conviction and uplifting others on the journey to success.
The business world, with its focus on extroversion, can feel daunting for naturally more reserved people. For Michael Thompson, the challenge was even more significant as he sought to establish himself as a career salesman while dealing with shyness and a debilitating stutter.
In his latest book, Shy by Design, Thompson shares his journey of transforming from a person filled with self-doubt to a career coach, university leadership lecturer, and strategic communication advisor for top global business executives and entrepreneurs. By staying true to his naturally quieter self, his story proves that success can be achieved by embracing one’s unique strengths and finding unexpected advantages from being underestimated.
In this excerpt, Thompson discusses how being open and vulnerable with his graduate students on the first day of class encourages them to share their own experiences and feel worthy and empowered exactly as they are.
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The master’s program where I teach leadership and communication skills is located ninety minutes away from my home. Each time I go, I have to prepare and deliver a five-hour session and between travel, meals, and parking, the gig may end up costing me more money than I make. The reason I do it? The students teach me just as much—if not more—than I teach them. If they don’t, then I know I’m not doing my job.
My last class had forty-three students hailing from thirty-seven different countries. Iceland. Nigeria. Italy. Bulgaria. Iran. Colombia. Egypt. Romania. Their backgrounds vary and the systems they’re coming from range from slightly bent to flat-out broken.
To set the stage and create an environment where they feel comfortable sharing their stories, before the course I send a welcome message with a few details of my story and the challenges I’ve faced. I then recommend they connect with me on LinkedIn so I can get an overview of their background and they can learn a bit more about me. Last, as an early homework assignment, not to be discussed for a few classes (or at all, if they’re not comfortable), I ask them to think about the following three questions:
- What is one of the defining moments of your life (good or bad)?
- What is your “why” or motivator for doing what you do?
- What is one person or piece of advice that has helped you on your way?
I conclude the message by saying the purpose of the course isn’t for me to tell them what to do but for us to work together to bring out our strengths and break through some tightly held barriers we are facing.
On the first day of class, I begin by sharing a more detailed version of my story. This includes pursuing a sales job shortly after graduating college to gain some confidence despite being shy with a debilitating stutter and a few more bumps and bruises I’ve incurred along the way. I do this because sharing my story helps them to see me as a person who has also faced challenges. To round things out, I tell them that no matter how many times I’ve taught, every time I’m terrified of speaking to an audience. To ensure they don’t think I’m blowing smoke, I show them my trembling hands and sweat-drenched palms.
This may seem like an odd way to position myself as someone who can help them. But by doing so, something magical happens: they slowly share their own experiences. When they do, the curiosity in the room goes through the roof while any preconceived notions or judgments they are holding onto go out the window.
Think about it. How would you feel about a shy twenty-five-year-old guy from Beirut if you learned he quit his stable job in a very unstable environment to volunteer his skills to rebuild the city after explosions ripped it apart?
What about a young Russian woman who made the terrifying decision to leave her home after the war in Ukraine began and had to rely on the generosity of strangers in neighboring countries to survive, before fighting to find a school that would accept her to live somewhere—anywhere—legally?
What about an Indian man who, at age forty-five, came to Spain without his family to study, hoping to find a job that will allow his children to grow up in a first-world country?
What about a young woman from Albania who recently lost her father and quit her job to move to Barcelona to find her superpowers again?
How about a twenty-three-year-old Syrian man who also left his job to volunteer in the war? When asked why he did it, he states, “We volunteer. It’s what we do. Community is everything.”
What would you think about these people after hearing their stories? Would you look at them through a new lens? If you’re anything like me, the words “brave” “bold,” and most of all, “hero” come to mind. These are actual stories from people you walk by every day. People not like you or me, but also people just like you and me. People who have had to overcome challenges and setbacks and are, at times, scared as hell. Yet, they’ve made something of themselves and are fighting for a life they can be proud of.
If you were to ask most of them for their story, they’d say they don’t have one. Like many of us, most of my students have spent a lifetime feeling invisible. By asking them about their experiences with a question as simple as what brought them to Barcelona, it becomes abundantly clear they not only have a story, but one that transcends borders as each of their stories speaks directly to the human experience.
My title may be “Leadership and Communication Lecturer.” But my actual role is nothing more than to give a damn. It’s creating space where they can express who they are, where they came from, and what they are fighting for. The aim is to provide a safe environment for all class members to recognize their inherent worth and draw strength from one another, as they are already strong just the way they are.
These stories of my students may sound like extreme examples. And don’t get me wrong, some are. But every one of us has a story, and that means that each person around the globe has one too. Maybe the story of the person who comes from a wealthy family is fighting to find the courage to strike out on their own and step out of their parents’ shadow. There’s respect for that. Or maybe their driver is to work in the health sector because they lost a loved one to cancer. Perhaps, similar to me, it’s not being heard growing up and their fight is to ensure the people around them don’t feel that way.
Bringing out the stories of others holds tremendous power, but it doesn’t come from being charismatic or confident. Instead, it comes from adopting the principle of treating your curiosity as your primary responsibility. It comes from choosing to give a damn. It comes from listening and asking questions. Questions that set the stage to build authentic connections with others.
