<story><title>How to Succeed as an Introvert</title><url>http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/How-to-Succeed-as-an-Introvert/ba-p/1522</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jonnathanson</author><text>As an introvert repeatedly flummoxed and exhausted by office politics in the earliest stages of my career, I very nearly resigned myself to always being overlooked. I didn&apos;t have the emotional energy to be schmoozing, wheeling, and dealing; I&apos;d much rather have invested that same time and energy in learning, growing, and producing great work. Consciously, I realized that I was taking the sucker&apos;s bet -- that the schmoozers and bullshitters would always rise to the top, and that I&apos;d be stuck in second gear. And so I came to adopt a mentality of learned helplessness: an overreliance on the hope that, someday, somehow, my ship would come in. I&apos;d be recognized. My great work would produce outsized results, and all of my quiet toiling would be vindicated.&lt;p&gt;That day never came. What came, instead, was an eye-opening reversal. I had a very candid conversation with my boss about why I wasn&apos;t on track for promotion, despite a long string of big wins, and a consistent track record well above the expectations of my pay grade. And he told me that &quot;Nobody outside of our group knows what you&apos;re working on.&quot; Note that he &lt;i&gt;didn&apos;t&lt;/i&gt; tell me that I wasn&apos;t bullshitting or schmoozing hard enough. Rather, he told me that I was basically invisible to a large portion of the company. Maybe it&apos;s just the way I&apos;m wired, but this was a nonobvious and nontrivial revelation to me. I suspect it may be for a lot of introverts.&lt;p&gt;To overcome this barrier, I adopted the &quot;win a few key allies&quot; strategy, as loosely advocated in the interview. I knew I wasn&apos;t going to be a world-class bullshitter. So, rather than try to bullshit clumsily and more frequently, I opted to find people in positions of power who were known to have similarly low tolerances for bullshit. And I volunteered to help these people. I made it my mission to knock it out of the park for them -- and, in so doing, to become known as the &quot;no bullshit&quot; guy who really delivered.&lt;p&gt;To this day, it&apos;s not all blue skies and roses. Even as a known commodity at your firm, you&apos;re still going to get lapped by the extroverts. But as an introvert, you really &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; have to step outside of your comfort zone if you want to advance your career. You don&apos;t have to out-BS the BSers, but you have to consciously devote time to getting noticed &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; staying noticed. Never assume that good work will get noticed on its own. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one&apos;s around to hear it, &lt;i&gt;it doesn&apos;t matter&lt;/i&gt; if it makes a sound.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to Succeed as an Introvert</title><url>http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/How-to-Succeed-as-an-Introvert/ba-p/1522</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>eof</author><text>I would imagine the readership of HN is over represented by &apos;successful&apos; &apos;introverts&apos;.&lt;p&gt;I am not rich, but I am reasonably happy and by pretty much any reasonable measure have a &apos;successful&apos; life.  At 29 y/o I command an hourly wage that puts me in something like the top .05% of humanity, I have a gf I love, etc.&lt;p&gt;And, I am an introvert.  I am &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; a tiny bit shy with folks I don&apos;t know.&lt;p&gt;I think my ability to navigate a loud, look-at-me world comes chiefly from self awareness and really just NGAF.&lt;p&gt;Put in a high-schoolesque way; the key to being a succesful introvert is by coming across as mysterious rather than boring.  There can be an inherent urge to justify ones actions when confronted with things like &apos;why are you so quiet.. or you havent said much over there..&apos;.&lt;p&gt;The difference between blubbering and trying to defend yourself with excuses and calmly showing your palms, or saying &apos;im just listening&apos; is the difference between someone who knows who they are and someone who doesn&apos;t.&lt;p&gt;I think really though the title of this submission/article is generally implying something that isn&apos;t so true: that it is particularly difficult to succeed as an introvert.  The advice for an introvert is really the same as an extrovert: do what you are good at and what you like to do; and don&apos;t spend so much time and effort on things you don&apos;t like.</text></comment>