Reading People summary

As a child, the author was very shy. This was something her mother, who often tried to convince her to say “hello” when running into acquaintances at the supermarket, struggled to understand. But the simple reason was this: the author was an introvert, whereas her chatty mother was an extrovert.

So what does that mean? Well, although the idea goes back to the psychologist Carl Jung’s work in the 1920s, it was first popularized by Susan Cain’s 2012 book Quiet and her TED talks about the power of introverts. Today, we’re beginning to understand that the differences between these two personality types come down to the way in which the brain is wired. 

When her children were young, the author often spent her Thursday mornings alone with them. Looking around, she’d see littered surfaces, over-excited kids rushing around, and the family’s barking dog. This was extremely stressful for the author, although she couldn’t quite explain why. It was only later that she realized what was going on – she’s a highly sensitive person or HSP for short. 

Highly sensitive people are often mixed up with introverts, but these labels describe different personality types. Introverts find excessive social interaction draining. HSPs, by contrast, suffer when they are overstimulated by their environments. Excessive noise, visual clutter, or smells are all types of stimuli that can overwhelm an HSP. 

For many years, regardless of the occasion, the author received greeting cards from her mother-in-law. She wasn’t the only recipient of these small tokens of affection. Whether it was a small or large occasion, virtually everyone in her mother-in-law’s address book got a card. The author, on the other hand, never wrote a single card in her life – until she discovered the five languages of love. 

This concept comes from a book by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages. Let’s take a look at these languages. 

The author once ran into a problem with one of her children. As someone who is naturally spontaneous, she would often book last-minute holidays and trips. Her child, however, preferred planning ahead and wanted to know if anything out of the ordinary was happening months in advance. 

This had all the makings of a conflict until the author realized that she and her child simply had different temperaments. 

The gold standard in personality testing is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It was created more than a century ago by mother-and-daughter team Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. The schema they developed is based on four dichotomies. 

The first is between introversion and extroversion. Introverts prefer turning their attention inward toward the world of ideas and imagination. Extroverts, by contrast, prefer engaging with the outside world. 

Writing, as any author will tell you, is an arduous business, which is why very few authors enjoy the process itself. Once they’ve finished writing, however, they feel great. The same goes for the Enneagram: using the system is tough, but it’s worth it in the end. 

The term Enneagram is derived from the Greek words for “nine” – ennea – and “drawing” – gramma. And that’s what it is: a “sketch” of nine personality types. This schema was popularized by the Armenian philosopher George Gurdjieff, though its exact origins remain unclear. Let’s take a closer look at these nine types. 

People who spend their entire lives in the same small town know that personalities tend to remain a constant down the years. The loud, boisterous teenager often becomes a loud, boisterous adult. But it isn’t always this way – in fact, people can change a lot over time. 

Take it from the author. She once met one of her old high-school classmates at a local farmers’ market. Back then, this friend had been a troublemaker who rarely paid attention to teachers and who had been expelled time and again. At one point, she had even called all the boys in their class and pretended to be the author. Luckily, one of the boys saw through the ruse and blew her cover!