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Contrary to public belief, and surprising to many who have seen me, particularly in a professional capacity, I'm actually inherently quite shy.

A long time ago, a patient of mine who's extraordinarily talented and successful as a corporate psychologist gave me an analysis of my psychological profile, free as a gift for completing the treatment of her daughter.

At the time, I thought it was nonsense, but it is not nonsense; it's extraordinary.

I am an extroverted introvert.

I have developed the ability to conceal my shyness with a mask with the appearance of an extrovert in public situations, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt or exhaust me to do it.

A short story to show how that fits and how what I thought was normal.

Just a few days after I broke my foot, in fact, right after I came out of the fracture clinic, Alison and I had decided to go to a wood yard to see if we could get someone to build us a little wood store for our garden.

Prior to that, Alice asked me just to phone the wood yard to see whether it's something they would do so that we didn't waste our time.

The prospect of phoning somewhere and speaking to someone that I've not spoken to before makes me nervous (the modern word probably is anxious).

But it needs to be done, and so I did it, and I called, and a lady answered the phone, and she was wonderful and kind and helpful.

We then went to the wood yard and spoke to the guy who did it and asked him to build it for us; at that point, for me particularly, price was irrelevant (to a point) because of the kindness.

In case you haven't got it already, the antidote to shyness is kindness.

Many of the people that you meet that you haven't met before are shy; maybe you don't realise it.

Just be kind; see what happens; the world opens up.

Blog Post Number - 4654