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10 LIFE TIPS YOU CAN USE FROM PETER DRUCKER
# 1 Find out who you are.
Find out what your strengths are and put them to work. Whenever people are on the road to success they tend to think of repositioning as something they do if they're a failure. Reposition yourself when you're a success because that's when you can afford it. Repositioning for significance makes more sense when you know who you are and where you belong.
# 2 Reposition yourself for full effectiveness and fulfillment.
Early in their careers people tend to have a fairly limited time frame of four years or so. They can't visualize what comes after that. By the time they achieve a measure of success, the time frame expands. Suddenly they begin to think about options that are twenty, thirty, or more years ahead of them. Imagine how the range of possibilities increases when you add twenty or thirty years to your frame of reference - a whole second adulthood!
# 3 Find your existential core.
Have faith in your existential core. Faith provides the framework for your work, your job, your value system, your personal relationships, and all the other things that make you who you are. There's a strong correlation between high achievement and the ability to come to terms with life's basic questions. The most successful people are those who have a strong faith. They're people who all their lives have believed in faith, hope, and charity and who believe that the greatest of these is charity. There is a very substantial correlation between religious faith, religious commitment and success as doers in the community.
# 4 Make your life your endgame.
The goal is not just long life or even a prosperous one; it's to make a meaningful life out of an ordinary one. At some point everybody wonders, "What's it all about anyway?" Life is often perplexing, and merely chasing "the dream" may not be enough. What do I do now? Set your sights on achievements that really matter, that will make a difference in the world. Set them far enough ahead of where you are today that the journey will be demanding but worth the effort. Make your life your endgame.
# 5 Planning doesn't work.
Planning doesn't work. You can prepare yourself, learn what you ought to know, and expand your experience and professionalism, but ultimately opportunity comes in over the transom and that means you have to be flexible, ready to sieze the right opportunities when they come. Too much planning can make you deaf to opportunity. Knowing what you want to do and being prepared and equipped to do it is more important than the specific "how". Opportunity knocks, but it only knocks once. You have to be ready for the accident.
# 6 Know your values.
Knowing what you value and what you don't can keep you from making some bad choices along the way. Start by asking yourself, "What do I value? What do I respect?" If you don't respect a job, not only will you do a poor job of it but it will corrupt you and eventually it may even kill you. There's a value system that comes from your faith and there is a value system for your work as well.
# 7 Define what finishing well means to you.
Life proceeds in a variety of timelines from "Struggle" to "Success" and then to "Significance". The definition of success changes. Now making a difference in a few lives is a worthy goal. I want to be remembered for having enabled a few people to do the things they want to do.
# 8 Know the difference between harvesting and planting.
For most of us the early part of our careers is a time of planting. It's about finding out what we do best and where we get the most satisfaction. During the "Struggle" years
we spend the majority of our time planting, building, expanding, and tending the farm. But planting season eventually comes to an end, and the time comes to start thinking about harvesting the rewards of what we've sown. I was very productive for many years. I am not so productive today, because these are years of harvesting rather than years of planting. As Solomon says, "There is a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted," and you need to know the difference.
# 9 Good intentions aren't enough. Define the results you're after.
Decide what results you are after and then define them. The only thing good intentions are for (as the old maxim says) is to pave the road to hell. The best results are achieved, when people ask the right questions and then partner with other who have the expertise, knowledge and discipline to get the right results. It takes teamwork to make a dream work.
# 10 There's a downside to "no longer learning, no longer growing."
I see more and more people who make it to their midforties or beyond, and they've been very successful. They've done very well in their work and career, but in my experience they end up in one of three groups. One group will retire. They usually don't live very long. The second group keeps on doing what they've been doing, but they're losing their enthusiasm, feeling less alive. The third group keeps doing what they've been doing, but they're looking for ways to make a contribution. They feel they've been given a lot and they're looking for a chance to give back. They're not satisfied with just writing checks, they want to be involved, to help other people in more positive ways. They're the ones who finish well.
TEN ACTION AND TRACTION QUESTION FROM COACH LORNE
You get to design your new future. What exactly does a newly designed future, with you in it, look like?
How should you adjust your life now so that ten years from now you will look back and say: "am I every glad I made that change?"
What are four things you can do today that will strengthen and vitalize your core belief system?
What is your life all about anyway?
What would happen if you started saying yes more often?
What do you value and respect?
Who could you help succeed and how would you go about doing that?
What past decision and action are you being impacted by today?
Who do you need on your dream team?
What does making a significant contribution look like for you?
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