Success Advice
How to Develop Your Strengths According to Peter Drucker
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.
Success Advice
How Your Beliefs Can Supercharge or Sabotage Your Success
Your life is dictated by beliefs and biases that drive your thinking, behaviors, and decisions
Pause for a moment and ponder two pandemic-era beliefs: First, closing schools will control the spread of a serious virus. Second, the consequences of such school closures—particularly social interruption and the prevention of immunity—are worse than becoming sick with the virus. (more…)
Success Advice
How to Break the Cycles of Mediocrity and Manifest Your Greatness
There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity
In just a few weeks, we will be wrapping up 2023. Can you believe it? This year has been absolutely incredible for me.
I have seen amazing doors opened, new relationships formed and I am seeing dreams realized in my life. While this seems like the hallmarks of a great year, this has also been the most challenging year of my life. With all of the change happening in my life, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and challenged to grow in every area of my life.
I can truly say that I have made the most of my moments this year and I have used everything as a catalyst for maximizing my greatest potential.
As a revolutionary leader, I have the pleasure of consulting and advising leaders around the world to fulfill purpose, realize their greatest potential and make an impact.
I want to share some insights with you that will help you to break cycles of mediocrity and manifest your greatness.
Everything legal must come through the matrix
I am sure that some of you are wondering why I am using the term matrix. However, what you have to understand is that I am trying to make a highly complex spiritual principle practical to understand.
Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, every life has an origin and I believe that origin is divine and begins with eternity. You are birthed from eternity and into time to fulfill a unique purpose and assignment in your lifetime and generation.
The matrix is simply the portal or vehicle that brings something out of the invisible realm and into tangible form. The problem with much of the teaching today is that it excludes the matrix. We are told to believe that success is instantaneous and overnight.
Nobody talks about how a dream progresses through stages beginning with visualization and ultimately culminating in manifestation. Without a matrix or portal then everything that you attempt to birth and build will be illegal.
The matrix not only makes you legal but it gives you the authority and power to function as the greatest expression of who you were created to be.
Every matrix has an incubation process
While many people admire and respect me today, I remember a time when nobody knew who I was or the significance of my message. How did I get to where I am today? I got here through an incubation process.
In other words, everything that has been destined for your life is incubating and awaiting a set time of manifestation. The problem is that most people live their entire lives idle and never initiate the incubation process.
What do I meany by that? Most people are living reckless and very few people are living intentionally. I am amazed at the number of people I have conversations with that have no vision, goals or strategies for their lives. They show great promise and they have undeniable potential.
However, without development they will die with their dreams still in them.
Everything that has been destined for your life must be incubated and converted to become realities born to time.
“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin to build.” – Robert Collier
You must give expression to that which is not yet born to time
When you think about a matrix or a prophetic incubation process, you have to understand that potential is often unrealized and untapped. In other words, your potential is in raw form and your potential cannot serve you as long as it is untapped.
The thing that makes me valuable is that I have the ability to convert potential into power. I have done it in my own life and I have empowered leaders around the world to do the same. How do you convert potential into power?
First, it is important to note that you have to perceive potential. If you cannot perceive your potential then you can never cultivate your potential. In addition, you must take the time to cultivate your potential. We often get excited about our capabilities; however, we never expand our capacity in order to realize our greatest potential.
In other words, the strength of your potential is only discovered through your willingness to stretch. The more we are challenged the more we are empowered to expand our capacity for greatness. Most of all, you must begin to express your potential. The expression of potential is different for every person.
For example, the expression of my potential is best demonstrated through the thoughts, ideas, products, services, books, etc.
For another person the expression of potential may look like a screenplay, artwork, sports, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc.
Regardless of the form of expression, I know that you will live empty and unfulfilled until you make the decision to express your potential. The expression of your potential gives voice to your dreams, life to your vision, significance to your moments and activates your true power.
You must manifest your greatness
As a revolutionary thinker and leader, my work has impacted people around the world. I am grateful that my life is a source of empowerment to so many people. However, before anyone could ever benefit from my life, I had to make a non-negotiable decision to become who I was born to be.
I wish I could tell you that this journey is easy and that you will get there overnight. However, in a world that celebrates us for doing we are often criticized for being. As a result, I wasted a lot of time trying to be who other people wanted me to be instead of being who I was born to be.
There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity. It is through our bravery to be vulnerable that we ultimately manifest our greatness. We do not bless the world by being a duplicate. We bless the world when we honor our difference. When you honor your difference you honor your potential.
Ultimately, your difference is how you manifest your greatness.
When you present anything but your authentic self to the world, you are playing small and you are robbing the world of your significance. Manifesting your greatness requires you to master your gifts.
Success Advice
Here’s a Young Man’s Antidote for the Uncertainty of the Modern World
Why do a lot of young guys lack confidence in today’s world?
We all have been told that confidence is a key factor in achieving success and happiness in life. But what is it exactly? (more…)
Success Advice
Toxic Leadership: 5 Ways to Identify a Bad Leader
if you have a leader who displays any of the toxic traits, it’s time to move on to greener pastures.
Let’s be honest, we’ve all crossed paths with a toxic leader in our careers at some point. Unfortunately, while some toxic leaders don’t even bother to hide their behaviour, some know very well how to conceal their true selves behind a strong-built facade. The latter is the most dangerous of the two. (more…)
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