Repost : The Napoleon Hill Foundation

 The two kinds of people who never get ahead or those who do only what they are told and those who are not doing what they are told.

It's hard to say which would be more discouraging: drifting from job to job because you're always the first to be laid off, or laboring in monotonous obscurity at the same job. The first results from not doing what you were told to do, the second from doing only what you were told to do. You can get by for a time for with either approach, but you will never get ahead. Personal initiative is more important in today's enlightened, high-tech workplace than it was during the industrial age, when the ability to follow orders was a critical skill. As technology makes many supervisory functions obsolete, everyone of us is expected to do more with less, determine what needs to be done, and do it. Don't wait to be told. Know your company and your job so well that when you can anticipate what needs to be done, then do it.