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Hey Reader,

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This week, when searching my files for something, I found a spreadsheet I’d made a few years ago where I’d collated my qualifications, accomplishments, feedback and a survey I’d done of people who know me when I was training as a coach.
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I updated it, and then asked AI to analyse it.
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I’m not sure what I was expecting but it was NOT what I got:

• I’m world-class at facilitating training
• I have the kind of proof most speakers never accumulate (but have done nothing with it)
• I’ve been massively underpricing and underselling myself​
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The irony is not lost on me.

I spent nearly three years as the face of a Google initiative helping people from underrepresented groups talk about their accomplishments and break through glass ceilings.

And I needed AI to tell me what my own evidence already showed.

I’ve been sitting with why that is.

The silence around our own accomplishments runs deeper than confidence.

There’s a biological reason self-promotion stays hard for introverts.

Research published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that extroverts form strong associations between social contexts and reward. Their brains learn that talking about themselves feels good, and that association strengthens with every repetition.

Over time, self-promotion becomes automatic.

For introverts, whose brains run on acetylcholine rather than dopamine, that conditioning doesn’t happen.

Every time we’re asked to make ourselves visible, to name what we’ve built, to say out loud what we’re worth, we’re starting from scratch.

The discomfort doesn’t diminish with practice the way it does for extroverts. Our wiring just doesn’t work that way.

So the proof sits in a folder somewhere. The price stays lower than it should. The accomplishment gets attributed to luck, or timing, or the team.

Because our brains were never wired to find self-promotion rewarding, rather than because we lack anything.

So this week’s question:

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Sit with it. And if something comes up, hit reply. I read everything.

This is often where we start in async coaching – looking at what your existing evidence actually shows about you. Not what you should be doing differently: what you’ve already done, seen clearly, possibly for the first time.

If you’re ready to look at it, find out how async coaching works here.

In your corner always,

Sam 💛

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P.S. Know someone who’s been waiting to be discovered rather than making themselves visible? Forward this to them!

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Sam Sheppard Introvert Strategist Neuroscience-backed insights for introverts who are tired of adapting to a world that wasn’t built for them. ​