Shy by Design Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: Shy by Design is a collection of 12 principles you can use to stand out as a quiet person in a loud world, gathered by Michael Thompson, who went from stuttering salesman to thriving communication coach, to help you stay curious, form meaningful connections, and develop a still but strong belief in yourself.

Read in: 4 minutes

Favorite quote from the author:

Michael was sitting in his favorite patatas bravas bar in Barcelona, making casual conversation with the waiter. “Hey, how do you manage to stay so cheerful all the time?” he asked. “Oh, that’s easy,” said the waiter. “There is no reason to be angry.” What a great attitude!

Years later, Michael told me this story as we sat in the very same bar together. A decade earlier, he said, he would have been too shy to make any small talk at all.

Michael grew up as an introvert—and with a stutter. Only after much bullying, ridicule, and taking an uncomfortable sales job, among other things, has he arrived at a place where he is not just happy with himself but also thriving in his career.

Today, Michael Thompson is a communication coach, MBA lecturer, and writer. In his book, Shy by Design: 12 Timeless Principles to Quietly Stand Out, he shares everything he has learned about connecting with people, forging meaningful relationships, and making an impact—all without yelling at the top of our lungs.

Here are 3 of his 12 principles, 1 from each part of the book, to help you make noise without being loud at all:

1. If you want to be a better listener and speaker, adopt 5 conversation mindsets.
2. Use 4 simple follow-up templates for building meaningful connections.
3. Summon the courage to do hard things with a Boldness list and the AAA framework.

Let’s learn how the quiet ones can thrive!

Lesson 1: Use 5 conversation personas to become a better listener—and thus also better at speaking.

“Your problem isn’t speaking,” Michael’s speech therapist told him. “It’s that you don’t listen. You’re too caught up in what you’re going to say.” As a mostly silent guy who listened all the time, this was not what Mike wanted to hear.

But his therapist was right, and the unusual exercise of watching videos of other people talking and noting down what he learned was more than helpful. Since then, Michael carries a notebook wherever he goes. “Lead with listening,” he calls this principle.

It comes with 5 mindsets you can practice in any conversation:

1. Be a feather. Before or during chats, take a moment to bring yourself back to the present. Drop your judgments, if only for a few minutes.
2. Think like a set designer. Make your conversation environments comfortable, for example with nice chairs or by simply opening a window.
3. Be a biographer. Ask specific questions about people’s past to keep conversations going. “What music did you listen to in high school?” for example.
4. Act like a trampoline. Don’t just nod along. Add your own ideas to the conversation when they are relevant. Let other people feel their thinking evolve thanks to you.
5. Be a smart parrot. Every now and then, repeat what you’ve heard in your own words. This makes sure you’re both on the same page and opens people up to share more of their story.

“Talking is easy. Listening is a virtue,” I wrote in my 5th-most popular Quora answer of all time. It also makes you a better conversationalist when you do open your mouth—because what you’ll say will actually be thoughtful.

Always lead with listening.

Lesson 2: Consistently follow up with people in 4 easy ways to build and nurture your relationships.

I’ll never forget the day my hero, Seth Godin, sent me an email out of the blue. “Keep writing,” he said. “Go go go!” The reason he sent it? “Michael shared your Medium post with me.”

“Friendships are forged in the follow-up,” Michael calls the 6th principle in his book. Clearly, he lives up to it. With his email, he both connected with someone influential and did a nice thing for a friend. But he also does other things to consistently follow up with people. Here are 4 kinds of messages you can easily send on the regular:

1. Anything you come across you think the other person might find interesting, like a book or movie recommendation.
2. Inspiration for their work, like an article they could write that you’d love to read.
3. A question only they can answer (and that’s not easy to google).
4. Anything that reminds you of them. “I saw this, and it made me think of you” is powerful.

“When it comes to relationships, there’s no such thing as ‘little acts of kindness,'” Michael writes. “There’s just kindness.” If you can “figure out just one way to consistently follow up with the people you want in your life that works for you,” you’ll be well on your way to building lasting, meaningful relationships with everyone you truly care about.

Lesson 3: Remind yourself that you can do scary things with a Boldness list and the AAA framework.

After retiring, Mike’s dad walked the Camino de Santiago at 73 years old. When he dropped him off at the train station, the man he’d always known as a rock of confidence suddenly said: “This is the most scared I’ve ever been.” It was a raw but beautiful moment of vulnerability.

“Acting bravely or leading with boldness isn’t about fighting to rid yourself of [fear, uncertainty, and doubt] entirely, but rather acknowledging them and making the commitment to act anyway,” Michael writes.

To do so, he recommends making “a Boldness list:” Write down the moments when you showed courage, big and small. This will help you remember that you’ve survived hard and scary things before when the going gets tough.

Michael also learned a useful tool from Jeanette Bronée, author of The Self-Care Mindset. The “AAA” framework has 3 parts:

1. Acknowledge your feelings. “I’m scared I’ll screw up this Zoom call.”
2. Accept the circumstances. “I may lack confidence right now, but at least I care about the outcome.”
3. Ask yourself what you need to move forward. “What do I need to feel more confident?”

Choosing to be “the type of person who tries” is more important than getting everything right the first time, Mike says. After all, “the things we worry about are also the things we care about,” and other people can see that—because they, too, get scared.

Remember these tools the next time you embark on a daunting adventure, and you’ll live to see another day, even if you’re “the most scared you’ve ever been.”

Shy by Design Review

I’ve been friends with the author for years, and I even appear here and there in the book. Biased or not, however, I believe that Shy by Design is a wonderful mix of honest biography, fascinating stories, and grounded, thoughtful advice. If you’re an introvert trying to get by in our noisy, extroverted world, don’t miss this book.

Who would I recommend our Shy by Design summary to?

The 15-year-old nerd with a stutter who already feels like an outsider in high school, the 28-year-old young professional who just joined an extremely extrovert-focused company, and anyone who wants to stand out without being constantly hyper.

Last Updated on August 15, 2024