Success Advice

How to Develop Your Strengths According to Peter Drucker

Published

7 months ago

Mar 31, 2021

Developing yourself as an individual means improving on your strengths and finding a way to minimize your weaknesses. Recently, I’ve been reading the teachings of the late Peter Drucker, who many consider to be the father of modern business management. In fact, over his lifetime, Drucker wrote 39 books and produced countless newspaper columns, essays and educational films about corporate management, as well as teaching it in university.

This is his advice on how you can develop your strengths, according to Drucker’s writings and teachings:

Recognize the Need for Improvement

Before you can start to develop your strengths, you need to recognize that you need improvement. Confidence is great, but the one downside of having a lot of confidence is that it can leave you feeling like you are as good as you can get and don’t have any room for improvement.

The first step is to recognize that everyone can improve. Improvement doesn’t mean you’re bad at something. It just means you can do it better. Even if you feel like you’re at the top of your game, you can always push yourself to become better at something.

You have to be willing to improve and you have to have some kind of foundation to improve on. That foundation could be raw talent or it could be knowledge you’ve gained through experience. I’m not trying to discourage anyone from learning new skills. Obviously, starting something from scratch is possible, but it takes longer to improve at it than improving something you’re already good at or have natural ability for.

And the more natural talent you have at something, the more you can progress. Let’s say you have natural selling ability and you would rate yourself as a 6/10 as a salesperson. You could easily get to an all-star level of 9 or even 10/10. But, if you don’t have a lot of natural talent in sales — say, only a 3/10 — you would likely only be able to get to the level of a 7/10.

So, embrace what you’re naturally good at. Many people aren’t aware of their weaknesses and therefore they may believe they don’t need to improve on anything or get help to handle weak areas. To help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, talk with someone you trust who can provide you with honest feedback. Listen to what they have to say with an open mind and refrain from taking their feedback negatively. Look at it as a learning experience and a chance to discuss the areas that need improvement.

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” – Peter Drucker

Concentrate on your strengths instead of your weaknesses

This may seem counterintuitive at first. If you don’t focus energy on your weaknesses, how are you going to eliminate them or get competent in those areas? If you think of it in terms of learning an instrument, if you do one thing really well already on an instrument (say, switching between chords on guitar), but you can’t do something else (like play fingerstyle), you need to practice the thing you can’t do so you can eliminate that weakness and become a better player.

However, what works for learning an instrument doesn’t always work in self development. Drucker says it’s better to concentrate on what you already do well so you can become an expert at it. Rather than being a well-rounded generalist, try to focus your attention on being the absolute best at one thing. That begs the question: What should you do about weaknesses, then?

Eliminate Your Weaknesses Through Partnership

Obviously you can’t just ignore what you’re weak at. You have to find a way to shore up weaknesses, but it’s possible to do that through partnerships with others. If you’re really good at A, but you struggle with B, find someone who is excellent at B, but who needs help with A. Together, you can each focus on what you’re strong at while the other one takes care of what you’re weak at.

To give you a real world example, many entrepreneurs, when they’re starting a new business, try to do everything themselves. But, even though they might be great at finding new markets and coming up with business ideas, they may not be competent at bookkeeping or marketing. So, the entrepreneur can partner with (or hire) someone who is strong in those areas rather than spend their precious time trying to get strong in those areas themselves.

Resist Comparing Yourself with Others

You can only be your best, not someone else’s best. Instead of focusing on what another person can or cannot do and how that relates to you, learn to appreciate what they can do and how you can learn from them instead. Comparisons will either leave you feeling bad because you don’t think you’re doing something as good as someone else or they’ll just feed your ego if you see that you can do something better than someone else (and possibly lead to a false sense of security with your own knowledge of a subject).

Layout a Training Program for Yourself

You can’t get somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going. If you want to improve a skill set or increase your expertise in an area, you’ll need to have a plan to do that. Research what courses you’ll need to take and work out a plan that gives you the time and opportunity to do that. Identify mentors you can potentially partner with and have a timeline to accomplish this.

When thinking about partnering with a mentor, Drucker suggests approaching people who inspire and even intimidate you. Depending on who you’re targeting, you may not be able to actually get in touch with these people, but if you keep your expectations reasonable and target people who you have a shot at meeting, you may find some of them receptive to acting in a mentorship role (or at least becoming a professional acquaintance).

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker

Measure Your Progress

The only way to discern if you’re getting better at something is to measure your progress with actual results on a regular basis. How you do that will depend on what it is you want to measure, but preferably it should be something that you can put numbers to rather than just having a sense of whether you’re improving or not. Having a number you can reference is key to keeping your progress going. If you’re trying to improve your sales ability, for example, an obvious number you could use would be how much your sales have gone up by. Whatever you are trying to improve, come up with a solid measurement that you can rely on to keep track of your progress.

By following Peter Drucker’s advice and recognizing your need to improve, concentrating on your strengths, partnering with others, refraining from comparisons, having a plan for improvement and measuring your progress, you’ll be able to develop into an expert in your chosen field.

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John English

John English is an expert communication trainer, helping well over 2000 happy student learn how to communicate more effectively with their teams, improve their public speaking skills, helping sales professional communicate more effectively with customers and prospects. Consulting and assisting corporate professional get the most out of their negotiations.

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Success Advice

How Your Friends Determine Whether You Succeed or Not

Published

1 week ago

Oct 18, 2021

TheThrives

Image Credit: Unsplash

Can anyone do without having friends? We all have our friends, we share ideas with them, talk together, have fun, and fight. Yes, that’s the baseline of friendship. But, do you know that aside from you, your friends can determine whether you achieve success or not?

There are two things in friendship which are the ability to ”love” and the ability to “influence”. This means you are loved and you are influenced. How do your friends affect your success in life? How are they one of the biggest deciding factors of your success? Let’s find out.

What type of friends do you keep?

First, what type of friends do you keep? Who do you call your best friend? There are two different kinds of friends, good friends, and bad ones. A lot of people have lost their pathway to success and some have also found their road to success all because of the friends they keep, the people they mingle with.

Who is your best friend? Answer carefully. Having a best friend means you find each other compatible and understanding. Analyze who your best friend is. If your best friend has not motivated you to do something positive, if who you call your bestie has never given you positive advice, lastly if your best friend has never informed and advised you on your shortcomings, then you don’t have a best friend.

This quote tells us “birds of the same feather flock together”. Countless people have changed from their good nature into a bad one all because of friends. One thing to note is, “negative people move with negative aura”. If your best friend is filled with negativity inside-out then you will surely be affected by his/her negative aura.

They influence your success with positivity or negativity

The friends you keep can either influence you with positivity or negativity because your friends have the power to change your kind of person completely.

This is how your friends influence you:

They influence you indirectly with what they do
They influence you directly by teaching and giving you advice

Yes, that is how they influence you. For instance, you watch a movie and you like the way the actor walks. The question is if you truly like the way the actor walks, won’t you try to imitate the actor? Of course, you will.

Just the way you imitate the actor is the same way your friends can influence you with their character. However, the funny part is, they don’t have to teach you to do things like them. You just find yourself imitating and copying them gradually.

An important question to ask is, are you imitating a good friend or a bad one? If you imitate a good friend then you will be good, but if you imitate a bad person, you will surely become a bad person.

Everyone wants to succeed, a good friend will always teach, enlighten, and motivate you for success. A bad friend will only motivate you to do evil things (smoking, drinking, fight, envy,).

And you should know that things like that are a great enemy of success and even of God. So, if you have these bad elements in your life, how will you achieve success? There is no way!

And also, they can teach and advise you directly. But, what do your friends teach you? When you ask them for advice do they inspire you positively or teach you the bad stuff.? A lot of people have regretted lifelong decisions just by listening to the advice of friends.

The company you keep has the power to influence and change you. Never forget that a positive influence will teach, motivate, and brush you up for success. While a negative influence will inspire you to become a bad person, change your good nature, and leave you with regrets in the end.

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The 3 Step Process to Building a Profitable Pitch

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Oct 17, 2021

Monique Maley

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As a communication coach, one of the top questions entrepreneurs ask me is how to deliver a winning pitch to potential investors. They want to know if there’s a magic formula to get an investor to say yes and buy into their dream and their business. (more…)

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The 4 Pillars of Wealth and Abundance

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Oct 16, 2021

Dalia Escobar

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Have you ever wondered what the formula for a wealthy and abundant life is? Many people have. Lots has been written about the subject of wealth creation and living an abundant life. It was a breaking point in my journey and pursuit of success when I found out that there is a clear path to achieve success in life. Thanks to those who have shared their journey, we can clearly see and follow the principles of prosperity. (more…)

Success Advice

Here Are 4 Reasons Why You Should Have a Podcast, Youtube Channel or Online Show

Published

2 weeks ago

Oct 14, 2021

Timothy Craggette

Image Credit: Unsplash

Confidence comes from a place of strong understanding of self. After close to three years on radio, I’ve grown from a shy introvert to a shy introvert with an extrovert persona. When the mic is turned on, I can channel a version of myself that some say is attractive, strong, and of course, confident but it wasn’t always this way.

What I want to share with you is what I discovered on this journey into broadcast that you can apply to your life, your ventures, and your personal development. This doesn’t require any fancy gear. It does require a leap of faith on your part because once you go down the road of media; it can change your life.

1. Perceived Expertise

When you go to a doctor, you expect their knowledge will guide them to a solution to your problems. When you have a show, you become your listeners’ doctor. For all the multiple thousands, maybe millions, of YouTube channels, podcasts, and user-created content in the world, each person that gets behind a mic takes a position on their passion, their opinions, and their themes.

They challenge the status quo for the benefit of their listeners in hopes to entertain and educate. With consistency on your side, those fans place you on a platform and give you permission to influence them.

2. Global Acknowledgement

One of the benefits to increasing confidence is when you receive thank you notes from people you may never meet. The feeling of enriching someone’s life from halfway around the globe, provides validation you’re enhancing someone else’s life with your wisdom and your wit.

The very first time I was told I was making a difference in someone’s life in a country other than my own, I felt like I caused massive impact that transcends my circle of influence. When you experience just how much you can cause impact and it comes back to you, it’ll change your worldview.

“Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining – it bores everybody else, does you no good, and doesn’t solve any problems.” – Zig Ziglar

3. Backed By Numbers

One of the most exciting ways to measure success is to quantify your growth. It’s not enough to just broadcast. Having subscribers and downloads helps to know, numerically, how well you’re doing. Word of caution. This can be a way to set yourself up for distress because of number envy but if you understand what the numbers mean; you can control the narrative of the numbers.

The major number that makes most people smile is 10,000. I’d advise it to be 1. Here’s why. As you grow in your industry, so does your reach. If you learned that the one person that subscribed totally changed for the better because of you, wouldn’t that be worth the effort?

4. Effective Communication

While it’s not talked about much, having a show is documentation. You create a dynamic account of your life, your industry, and the pulse on what’s important simply by having a show. When you find a channel to improve your communication skills, you demand attention and people will listen to you. You become more trusted as a leader and people will follow you once they believe you can lead them to their wants and needs.

“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” – Tony Robbins

These insights have helped many people become leaders and, ultimately, move others to their best selves. It’s worked for me and I hope it works for you. At the end of the day, it’s all about showing up and showing out.