Dreaming of the right success while driving on my own track
A Guide to Corporate Life for Introverts

Former LG CEO Cho Jun-ho and
Psychologist Kim Kyung-il tells us
Insights on work and wisdom for life

Just because I'm not the type of person who gets excited by the noisy world, or because I don't have the personality that the organization likes, don't try to force myself to change my personality.
Rather than changing my temperament and trying to fit in with the world's standards, it's better to focus on creating principles of life and an attitude toward work that suit my temperament, sticking to them, and achieving results.


If you try to improve what people point out as weaknesses, you may end up feeling like you've failed again and again.
Rather, it is a much smarter strategy to focus on honing your strengths, such as your meticulousness and perseverance, into your strongest weapons.
If you are evaluated as 'the most meticulous person in our company' or 'a person who perseveres through difficult projects', then that is creating your own path and becoming your own brand.
Being yourself always gives you the answer.


This book introduces the essential tasks for office workers who want to quietly achieve success, and how to become a successful individual who sticks to their own methods.
Former LG CEO Cho Jun-ho, who is always described as a "fast-tracked promotion, youngest executive, and gentle and wise strategist," and Professor Kim Kyung-il, a leading psychologist in South Korea, will be your mentors as you strive to win through work.

“In my opinion, Junho has a strong will to learn and is very curious.
I've been getting a lot of help by volunteering a lot of things.
However, if you don't change your 'student mentality,' it will be difficult to become someone who plays a major role in the company."
“What is student mentality?”
“They submit their work by the deadline, just like they would a final assignment in school, and then forget about it.
“At work, you have to do ‘complete work’ on any task you are assigned.”
It meant that when doing something, you must have the mindset to take responsibility and complete the task from beginning to end.
He also said that you have to be someone who finds problems, someone who finds ways to solve them, and someone who makes things happen.
It was the first reprimand I received at my first job.
Only then did I realize what kind of attitude a worker should have, and I came to my senses and reflected a lot.
Even though I had completed my MBA in the United States, I was just someone who did what I was told.
But it was after one more incident that I fully realized the meaning of 'complete work'.
A few days after the calculation error, my boss called me directly and asked me what was causing the significant drop in market share in the Detroit area in the previous month's market share analysis report and what I could do about it.
‘Ask that of a new employee who hasn’t even been with the company for a year…
I wondered if I had dialed the wrong number for my boss, but it was definitely me.
When a company delegates work, there is no such thing as meaningless work.
It may seem like they just did some simple number crunching, but they expected to understand the overall market share trends for the product and even devise countermeasures.
These two experiences completely changed my perspective on work.
Once you take on a job, you must take full responsibility for its quality and level.
It's the basics of work.
Even if the given task is simple, I should not stop there. I should think about where my work will be used and how it should proceed next, and then take the necessary measures to produce proper results.
If the first part is called 'perfect work', the second part is called 'complete work'.
No matter what task you undertake, you must always keep in mind what the ultimate purpose of that task is.
Then, naturally, I become the master of my own work.
--- From Chapter 1, "Doing a Good Job - Beyond 'Perfect' to 'Completely'"

The short story 『The Biography of Mr. Chabuduo』 by the modern Chinese novelist Hu Shih features a man named Chabuduo as the main character.
The Chinese character 差不多 means 'not much difference', 'more or less the same', or 'that's it'.
When his mother told him to buy brown sugar, he bought white sugar and said that brown sugar and white sugar are the same, so there is no difference. When he missed the train because he was two minutes late, instead of reflecting on it, he blamed the train for leaving on time, saying that it would be the same whether he went today or tomorrow.
Then one day, Mr. Cha Bu-du fell ill and was on the verge of death. His family could not find a doctor, Dr. Wang, so they ended up bringing in a veterinarian, Dr. Wang.
Chabudu knew he had brought the wrong doctor, but he said that whether it was Dr. Wang or Dr. Wang, the veterinarian, it was all the same and asked for treatment quickly.
Eventually, his illness worsened and he died, saying this.
“It’s either life or death, it’s the same thing.
“Why are you trying so hard to live?”
This novel satirizes the Chinese people's sloppy way of doing things, and it makes us think about whether our way of doing things is also sloppy.
In the past, we also considered people who nitpicked to be petty people, and we considered people who knew how to accept what was good rather than nitpicking to be gentlemen.
These days, it is said that the popular idea is that it is practical to work just enough to avoid getting fired, just enough to earn a decent salary.
While it may be a smart way to live, this defensive attitude at work can make it difficult to get opportunities to engage in more challenging and creative work.
That's why, instead of doing things half-heartedly, you need to set a goal of working thoroughly and perfectly and produce results so that you can prove your presence not only to yourself but also to others.
Having 'detail' or 'thoroughness' in your work means you have the opportunity to develop and create new opportunities.
--- From "Chapter 2: The Power of Small but Powerful Details"

I'm not saying you have to be a star player in whatever you're doing right now, but rather, don't complain if things aren't that great right now, and approach it with the mindset of doing a good job.
If you work hard, there will definitely be people who will recognize you.
Good opportunities are those that you create for yourself.
So there is no reason to envy others and feel self-pity, like, “Why am I the only one having such a hard time?”
Just live as you are, and when the opportunity comes to do well by making the most of your unique characteristics, just take the chance and that's it.
You can't tell if something is a good opportunity for you just by thinking about it.
You have to actually try hard and experience it to get the feel of it.
Looking at my experience and the people around me, if you try to find an opportunity that suits you, such an opportunity will come several times.
So it's important to do your best at what you're doing now.
I often hear that the most difficult thing in corporate life is relationships with people.
A boss who only nags and keeps track of your schedule without being of much help, a colleague who is always trying to pass on difficult and unimportant tasks, a junior who is incompetent at his job but is always trying to take advantage of his rights, a business partner who tries to avoid taking responsibility for something...
It seems like everyone you meet at work is annoying.
But what kind of person do I seem to others? I might be a subordinate who never keeps to schedules, a squeamish colleague who never bothers to contribute to shared tasks outside of his own, or a senior colleague who always passes on tasks he doesn't want to do.
From the client's perspective, I may be polite, but I may also be a bully whose true intentions are completely incomprehensible.
That's why people in the past said, "Put yourself in the other person's shoes" and always think from the other person's perspective.
If you have difficulties in interpersonal relationships, first try to change your perspective.

--- From "Chapter 3: Between Anxiety and Complaints"