This is an excerpt from a book by the great business philosopher Jim Rohn:

"We must not allow our plan to become excessively burdened by complexities. Many of the answers take time to discover. It is virtually impossible to plan every detail or to anticipate every obstacle. We must also be careful not to allow the opinions of others to unduly influence the development of our plan for the good life. Others will have dozens of opinions about what we should do, but the final plan for progress must be our plan. We should listen to the voices of value, but we must remember that no one else will see our plan or sense our obsession quite the way we do. It must be a personally designed plan, and its creator and architect must remain at the helm of the ship throughout the entirety of the journey."


I highly recommend Jim Rohn to anyone who wants to take themselves to the next level in any field. He is a man of vast wisdom that is deeply applicable to any person's life. Rohn has numerous audio recordings and books, as well as video seminars on his web site. After all, he isn't called America's Foremost Business Philosopher for nothing!

The following are a few intriguing excerpts and quotes from a short book I am reading which is the Successful Introvert by Wendy Gelberg. Overall, this book is really beneficial for introverts in the workplace, how to advance your career, and generally how to make your introversion work for you and use it to your advantage. It really does offer some good information, and it's also short and to the point. Read these book quotes and get a glimpse!

Nancy Loderick, Internet strategist and efficiency expert:
“In B-school, I remember thinking I’m not going to say something, it sounds stupid, but then the man next to me says it, and it’s a wonderful idea. I could have said that! It’s the same thing in a meeting. I used to think if you keep your head down and do a good job, you’ll get recognized. It doesn’t work that way.”

 

Introverts at work

Jay, a college professor had this to say about introverted people:
“One thing I tell my class is that introverts are likely to come back with more information—don’t think they weren’t paying attention. I tell those who aren’t introverts to understand that, and those that are that it doesn’t hurt to make that explicit, alert your work group that (a) you’re unlikely to, won’t be the highest participator in terms of words spoken per person and (b) you often need time to go off and think about it and come back. You might set a norm that we don’t make decisions until the second meeting and have patience for people.”

Another great tip was, “Find someone who’s an extravert who can lead the way for you.”

Introverts in the workplace

And useful advice on handling interruptive coworkers:
If someone is noisy or chatty with or around me, I can be or look very busy. Or, I can say, ‘I want to talk more about his later, I need to catch up on some work today.’

Networking for introverts and marketing yourself

 Murray A. Mann, CCM, CPBS, Principal of Global Diversity Solutions Group, LLC:
“I’ve developed the habit, if I don’t want to go [to a networking function], I tell myself that this is what business is all about. Just doing it and not being visible, establishing the credibility—the presence was important. I could be credible in my research but I couldn’t be successful without
creating the visibility. So I just had to do it.”

“I think about: What do I need to accomplish for the project that I’m working on or for the issue I’m passionate about. It’s never about me. And that’s what made it palatable.”

Closing remarks

I would really recommend this book for anyone who considers themselves an introvert and wants to overcome some of the obstacles. But really, one of the greatest things in the book also is how to use your introversion as an advantageous tool. It could certainly help anyone learn how to interact with other introverts at work as well. Here's a link for Wendy Gelberg's book:
The Successful Introvert: How to Enhance Your Job Search and Advance Your Career

A great quote by the incredible Jim Rohn goes like this: In five years you are going to arrive. The question is "where?"

This is an incredibly powerful quote and question because it is terse and evocative. Oftentimes, we don't know where we are headed. We do good things each day (or most days) but just because we do good things does NOT mean we will end up in a good place, and more importantly, where we want to be.

Design your own life

We need to be conscious about our lives and plans in order to make sure we know (a) where we want to end up, and (b) how to plan our future very specifically. Our plans need to be measurable and have a time attached to them. Now, this has nothing to do with the means to get somewhere. It is merely the ends of where we want to be. Once we have the end in mind, then and only then should we design the means. Otherwise, we could end up doing good things but ending up somewhere we don't particularly want to be at. Do not fool yourself. Every day of your life you meet with people who do good things, yet they know they are not the right things. Walk away from the crowd that does not design their own life.

Questions on planning the future

And remember, in 5 years you are going to arrive, whether you define the results or someone else does for you. So RIGHT NOW ask yourself:
In 5 years will I arrive somewhere? (A simple yes or no will do.)

1. Where am I headed?
2. Am I okay with that?
3. What can I do about it?

Answer these questions right now. If you don't have the ability to save it then write it in the comment and pick it up another time. Or e-mail it to yourself. The most important thing to do is anything. Your 5 years from now begins NOW.

More great insights from the book I am reading, 30 Seconds That Can Change Your Life:

Ask yourself “If my organization is the solution, what’s the problem?” (Or ask, “If I am the solution, what’s the problem?”)

Some more random insights from the book:

• Keep the whole in mind and work on it too; and don't think that because you are working on the parts that the whole will necessarily be taken care of.
• To initiate change you must make sure everyone involved gets a payoff, and that the rewards change in accordance with the change.
• "Focus on the whole before attempting to improve any part."
• We often are getting better at things we should not be doing in the first place. Take time to consider the why behind our actions to make sure they are worth continuing.

• "Opinions are fine; they can open the door to mutual exploration. But opinions not based on data and reality are just about emotions. Be careful of naked opinions, for there is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action."
  

The following is a very insightful article I came across some time ago. The original link I had was dead, but I found it through goog thankfully. Take the time to read this and really muse over it. There are some powerful messages and evoking questions. You cannot simply read this once, and not reflect on it. Do yourself a favor and soak it up.

Bookmark this link and come back at a set timeframe -- maybe once a month, once every 3 months or 6 months. Read this article occasionally to help prevent yourself from slipping up and getting caught in that dreaded comfort zone.



The fear of failure is probably one of the biggest reasons why most people never even start to pursue their dreams. This fear is not always a conscious fear but mostly an unconscious reaction that prevents you from taking the very actions that will lead to the achievement of your goals. What happens is that the majority of people never even start to pursue their dreams as the mountain of success seems too big to climb and the road to success too long to travel. So, they start finding excuses and blame their position on events and circumstances. For them, living an extraordinary life is something that is "given" to other "lucky" people. Even the few who do eventually draw the line and take responsibility for their destiny run into fear along the way. The way you deal with your fear will determine whether you "make it" or not.

The only way to eventually make any change in your life is to take action. Dreaming and hoping won't do anything for you apart from making yourself feel more out of control. Having the desire for something and not being able to have and experience it is the ultimate pain in life. Fulfilment in life comes from fulfilling your needs and desires elegantly; from wanting something and then having the ability to get it and enjoy getting it. The main reason why most people never take action is because of their fears. Fear gets installed by our interpretations of feedback that we get from taking action. The key word being interpretation. When you take action you always get a result. Whether the result is a success or a failure is entirely up to your interpretation. The quality of your life is not determined by the events of your life, but by your interpretation of what these events and experiences mean. People build up fears by misinterpreting the results of their actions. If they don't achieve exactly their desired outcome after the first or second try they will "train" themselves to avoid it altogether. Think of fear is your personal bodyguard that keeps you from doing things that can be potentially painful. By making the wrong linkages to actions and outcomes you actually instruct your unconscious bodyguard to protect you and keep you from taking action.

The ironic thing is that most people don't even really judge the outcomes of their actions subjectively. They learn to judge outcomes by what is considered failure or success by their own peer group. This explains why most people will try something once or twice and if they don't achieve their desired outcome they will never try it again. If they do they hope that no else finds out. Nobody wants to look stupid and be a failure, right? Unfortunately this mentality is prevalent in our society and with the pressure of being loved, we all learn to do things, almost automatically, that what we believe will be safe. The truth is that most people don't want to be left behind and they are all to happy to see you "fail."

By society's standards, all the great successes in the world are actually "failures" in that they failed numerous times before they succeeded. When you realize that failure is part of the process of success you can start to use it by anticipating it and not allowing any so called failure to defer you from your goals and your vision. Napoleon Hill, after studying more than 500 of the most successful individuals in the world concluded that persistence is one of the key characteristics for success. The ability to keep going regardless of unfavourable outcomes to your actions is a mindset and a testament to your emotional strength. It is therefore not a capability but a skill that you develop as part of your character.

They key to taking consistent action is to not try and overcome your fears but to embrace them. One of the most empowering beliefs you can adopt to assist you in becoming more action minded, is to realize that there are no failures, only results. Every action will produce a result and you are the judge and jury as to what that result means. Thomas Edison was the master of this belief. He "failed" more than a thousand times in trying to invent an electric light bulb. He just never saw any of his experiments as failures, but merely saw them as stepping stones; as a series of results that he had to learn from. He trusted that if he kept on going he will eventually achieve the desired result. Although he was ridiculed by all his peers he had persistence and knew that he cannot fail as long as he keeps taking action.

Success or failure is never based on the outcome of the situation but rather on your beliefs about what constitutes success or failure. If there are no failures what would you attempt that you feared in the past? If you had the belief that there are no failures but only results what would you attempt to do? The number one reason why people fail is not because of ability, talent or resources; but because they never even take the first step. They are immobilized by their fear of failing and looking bad. Can it be that not taking action and spending a lifetime wanting something in vain be the ultimate failure? What if taking action and producing a result means success and procrastination means failure? You get to choose.

By Deon Du Plessis

A link to the article: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Would-You-Attempt-To-Do-If-You-Know-You-Could-Not-Fail?&id=204038

"If you don't like what's happening to you now, then it isn't much of a risk to choose to think and respond differently from what you do now."

This quote is also from the current book I am reading, 30 Seconds That Can Change Your Life. Oftentimes, as people we get caught up so vigorously in assessing risk that we forget or even forgo assessing value. If what you're doing today really isn't what you want in your life, then ask yourself: "How risky is it really if I just try one new thing today?"

Additionally, here are some more inspiring risk quotes!

The only person who never makes mistakes is the person who never does anything.

Denis Waitley

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Charles Du Bos, French critic and essayist

Progress always involves risks. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.

Frederick Wilcox

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.

George Bernard Shaw

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Pablo Picasso

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Robert F. Kennedy

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin, Author

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

Andre Gide

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain More Mark Twain quotes on life

It doesn't work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps.

An American Proverb

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

T S Eliot, Thomas Stearns Eliot

This struck a cord with me:

From the book 30 Seconds That Can Change Your Life the author says that one of the 5 keys to successful decision making and becoming a strategic thinker is to use a "world-wide view." That is, to have an ideal vision of the world as far as what you want for all people, including future generations, as an underlying basis for all your decisions. Unfortunately for many people, their decision making process is entirely sub-conscious. Being able to make decisions and to stick with them is certainly important, but have you ever heard the story of the man who climbed the corporate ladder and realized his ladder was leaning against the wrong wall?

Well, we have many types of decision making encounters throughout the day, but do not let your important decisions - your life decisions - be automatic. The efforts you put into planning your life the way you wish it will be will undoubtedly pay dividends.

I think this is quite powerful because it puts out desires into a greater frame of reference. After all, most people who desire gold are never happy with gold. Perhaps these people have focused on a very small, insignificant part within themselves to direct their goal-driven-behavior. I believe that ultimately people in general want to feel like they have contributed to the world, and that this will lead to self satisfaction far more than gold.

Being a skeptic in the game of life can be a blessing... sometimes (and, I should add, when used in moderation). Of course, I do mean can be a blessing if you do something productive with it! Here are a few famous quotes from some very respected and famous people:

Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are an impossibility.

640K ought to be enough for anybody.