Name: 3 Lessons I Wish I Knew in My 20s (as an Introvert at Work)
Uploaded: 2025-08-19T17:52:07.000Z
Duration: 14 min 38 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The superlative

I spent my entire high school and university trying to get the best grades, sacrificing my sleep, sacrificing hobbies, and even friendships, all for one thing.

To-infinitive

And that was to land a stable, prestigious career.

Future simple

Because I was raised to believe that just work hard, put your head down, study hard, and once you get that job, once you get that career, you'll be set for life.

And obviously, many of us are now realizing that that's not true, that that belief is completely outdated.

And on top of that, what I learned about myself was being an A student actually did not prepare me well to be successful in the corporate world.

Because being an A student meant that I was constantly anxious, constantly struggling with self-doubt, at least for me, because I felt that I continuously had to work harder, work harder, work harder.

I wasn't naturally book smart, I had to study hard in order to get my grades.

And so I applied that same thinking into the corporate world, that I just have to work hard, work hard, work hard.

And I ended up realizing that that caused me to struggle when I was in the workplace, because I didn't have the confidence and the communication skills to do all the other things that I needed to do to be successful in the corporate world.

And so this is relevant for you if you're someone who's like me, who was an A student through school, you studied really hard, and you thought, that's all I need if I just get that good job and I work really hard in my job, then I'll feel successful, I'll be living my happily ever after.

If you're realizing that that's not how you're feeling right now, and you've led this life up until now with this sort of mindset, then this video will be helpful for you because I want to share with you the three lies that we were raised to believe growing up as students and going into the work world that actually caused us to be insecure and full of self-doubt once we got to the work world.

Because if you understand that these are lies, that these are false beliefs, then hopefully it'll help you to shift out of them.

And this is all coming from the book that I've written that is now going to be available very soon called The Quiet Achiever, and I have the manuscript right here.

And I want to read part of my book to you because I think it's going to be really relevant for what we're talking about in this video.

Many quiet achievers, particularly those who have spent years forging ahead, inevitably experience this feeling.

The quiet dread that creeps in on Sunday night, the countdown to the weekend before Monday even begins, the way we drag ourselves through each day doing what's expected, but feeling like we're running on empty.

We show up, we deliver, we function, but the spark that once made it feel meaningful is gone.

Life looks fine on the outside, it's not that anything is terribly wrong, but underneath there's a steady hum of discontent, a low-grade sense of fatigue, restlessness, and the lingering question, is this all there is?

The reason why I write about this is because I've experienced this.

This is exactly what I experienced once I got to a certain level of success in my career, and also recognizing and realizing that a lot of it had to do with my own confidence issues and self-worth issues.

Now, before we get into the three lies, I do want to say that my book, The Quiet Achiever, is going to be out very soon, and I want to offer you some special bonuses if you decide to pre-order right now.

So I'm going to be offering some free live workshops on how to communicate with confidence and speak up in meetings and all those types of things at work that I think will really help you.

They're going to be live, so you can join me on Zoom and I'll teach those techniques to you.

I will also be offering a PDF that talks about how to communicate confidently with coworkers, specifically making small talk, making connections.

So all of this is going to be available to you if you just simply put in the words Quiet Achiever down in the comments below, and I'll send you the link as to how you can pre-order my book, The Quiet Achiever.

Again, if you pre-order, you will get access to all of the bonuses and all the freebies that I'm going to be giving up until the book becomes available.

So myth number one is assuming that because I was a good student, that would mean I would be a good employee too.

I honestly believed that just because I was good in school, that that would mean I will be good in the corporate world at work.

And that could not be further from the truth than it is because at school, it was all about marks and grades and getting awards, whereas in the workplace, it's about are you sharing your opinions in meetings?

Are you making sure you perform in a way that your boss recognizes you?

Are you speaking to your coworkers in a way that they understand your value?

All of these things that we did not have to do when we were students.

When we were students, we just had to work.

We had to just make sure we understood what was in front of us and just do that.

And then our work spoke for itself through our grades.

But that's not how it works in the work world.

We know that just showing up and doing your job is the bare minimum of how to be successful, unfortunately.

And if you're someone that is feeling this way, where you're working so hard in your job, but you're not feeling confident, you're not feeling comfortable, you don't feel as though you're using your voice and adding value in other ways, then it's likely because you still hold onto this belief that because you were a good student, it means that you would be good at your job too.

Yes, you are good at your job, but there are other skills.

There are other things that you need to recognize about yourself that you need to work on if you genuinely want to move ahead.

And so a lot of the clients that I work with are just like me, quiet, introverted.

They were very good students growing up and they got good jobs as a result.

You feel confused a lot of the time, sometimes.

I know I was always confused when I was working at the big four accounting firm.

Even though I was a good student and I studied hard, I just, for whatever reason, I didn't really get the work.

But for you, it might be, yes, you understand the work, but you're also feeling as though you're working really hard.

You're firing on all cylinders and no one's noticing it.

No one is acknowledging you for the value that you bring.

And so it's really important to get down to the level of, what am I believing?

Do I genuinely believe that working hard is all I have to do?

And the truth is, if that's what you're believing, you have to recognize that there's more.

And I don't want to push you and say, oh, you have to do more, but you have to recognize that you're putting so much energy into just one thing, which is working hard, when really it's about opening yourself up, being more available to make connections with others, being able to use your voice, speak from a place of authenticity, sharing your ideas, making connections.

That will then allow you to feel more comfortable and less anxious.

Because when you put all your focus on just the one thing, which is your work, and just doing a perfect job at your work, it can be very aggravating when you don't get credit for it, or when others don't notice you for it, because you didn't do the other things that were necessary to make sure that your hard work becomes seen and is visible.

And just to add on to that, there were these other aspects of social networking and personal branding that when I first started my career in my early 20s, I still had that student mindset.

I didn't know about having to show up a certain way.

I just approached work like I approached as a student.

And I just thought, if I just work hard, I'll get the results.

And that's when, over time, I realized that's not the case, and that's not how it works, and that you do have to know how to share your opinions.

You have to know how to speak positively about yourself.

You have to know how to speak up in meetings.

You have to know how to make connections with people.

Those are all things that I was too full of self-doubt, too insecure to be able to even attempt to do when I was in my early 20s.

And I've since then have learned a lot about all of that, especially running my own business.

And so this is something that I just want to bring to your attention, that is something that you will likely have to work on right now if it is something that you still struggle with.

The second myth that I believed was the idea that being an introvert is not an issue in the corporate world.

You know, there's lots of introverts in the corporate world.

But in the job that I was in, even though it was an accounting job or an auditor job, it still negatively impacted me.

And I don't want to say this in a way where, oh, because we're introverts, that's a bad thing.

But what I actually want to say more is you have to recognize and be very self-aware of your boundaries as an introvert, how you approach the world as an introvert, and make sure that you do it in a way that is still cohesive and aligned and peaceful with the working corporate world.

And I'm not saying here, go and be an extrovert.

What I am saying is don't only identify as an introvert and then show up and just hide, right?

And just shy away and just keep everyone at a distance because that's not going to work for you.

If you want to thrive in your career, if you want to thrive in your life, even though you're an introvert, you have to acknowledge and know with my limited energy, because introverts, we have limited energy.

We have this amount of energy, let's say, in a day.

And as we have interactions, that energy goes down, down, down, down, down.

Whereas for extroverts, they have zero energy.

They start their day with zero energy, but as they interact with people, it grows their energy.

So we have to acknowledge that about ourselves and we have to know, okay, I have a finite amount of energy.

And so what am I going to spend my energy towards today as an introvert to make sure that I'm getting the best bang for my buck, that I'm using my energy in the right places rather than just, I'm going to preserve all my energy by hiding away from everyone.

Because we know that that's not going to help you.

So it's really important to just acknowledge, okay, if you are an introvert like I am, then you want to understand how you're going to maneuver and use your energy in the best way every single day, because it's going to help you to feel more at ease, more confident, more self-aware.