Jawad Mian Profile picture
24 Nov, 21 tweets, 4 min read
1) Among the quick, incisive thrusts of practical wisdom from Peter Drucker is this: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

But before we can create, we must get to know ourselves. 🧵
2) Drucker points out that success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

Only then, armed with such self-knowledge, can we decide where we belong and what our contribution should be.
3) “It's amazing how few people know what they are good at,” Drucker says.

We’re much better at knowing what we’re not good at.

So, he suggests constantly giving yourself feedback on how you’re doing.
4) Once we’ve figured out what we’re good at, we should go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge we need to fully realize our strengths.
5) See where the gaps are and fill them in.

Find where our intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it.
6) Drucker believes one should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.

“It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity,” he reckons, “than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”
7) Working in an organization whose value system is incompatible with our own condemns us to frustration.

For us to be effective in our roles, our values do not need to be the same, but they must be close enough to coexist.
8) “If you believe in yourself, perform solo,” Drucker says.

“Jobs are too risky.” He calls them “dangerous liaisons.”
9) His advice to those taking the plunge: “If you have the emotional fortitude to last three years, you’ll succeed.”

It’s not the money that’s the crucial resource; it’s that ability to survive those first years of hopeful, promising leads that lead nowhere.
10) A midlife crisis is mostly boredom.

Today, most work is knowledge work, and knowledge workers are not “finished” after forty years on the job, they are merely bored.

At 45, most people have reached the peak of their careers—and they know it.
11) After twenty years of doing the same kind of work, they are very good at their jobs.

But they are not learning or contributing or deriving challenge or satisfaction. They’re facing another twenty years of the same thing.
12) At such time, Drucker says, we should develop a second career.

One way is to switch jobs for a new challenge. Another is to develop a parallel career, a side business, or volunteer.
13) It is important to have an area in which we can contribute, make a difference, and be “somebody.”

This does not have to be work-related. It means finding a second area that satisfies our soul. It can be family, faith, or a personal passion.
14) No one can expect to reach professional heights and sustain them indefinitely.

Professional decline starts earlier than almost anyone thinks.

At some point we all experience a setback at work or in life.
15) A second major interest—not just a hobby—may make all the difference. Drucker recommends that we develop it early.

We must manage the second half of our life long before we enter it.
16) Historically, there was no such thing as “success,” Drucker points out.

The vast majority of people did not expect anything but to stay in their “proper station,” as an old English prayer has it.

The only mobility was downward mobility.
17) In a knowledge society, however, we expect everyone to be a success.

“This is clearly an impossibility,” Drucker declares from experience. “For many people, there is at best an absence of failure.”
18) What we should focus on instead is another question he poses: What do you want to be remembered for?
19) The answers should change as one gets older, and adjust with changes in the world.

For Drucker, the one thing worth being remembered for is how you touch people.
20) That’s what made Drucker as powerful a brand as a corporation. stray-reflections.com/article/177/Th…
21) If you enjoyed this thread, follow me @jsmian for more infusions of clarity and inspiration.

You might also like the Stray Reflections book. An antidote to the great angst of modern life. strayreflectionsbook.com

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More from @jsmian

17 Nov
1) Of all the early warning signs that can help prevent investment disasters, one stands out.

COMFORT.
2) It’s our natural tendency to seek comfort; but in investing, when we tend to get comfortable in our views, feel our portfolio is safe, experience tells us something bad is about to happen.
3) Our comfort zone is a state of mental security where our uncertainty and sense of vulnerability are minimized.

Where we feel we have some control.
Read 13 tweets
9 Sep
1) Man, I didn't know this story about Muhammad Ali, what a lesson:

Taken entirely from @DailyDadEmail.
2) You might not think of Muhammad Ali as someone who needed anyone to believe in him, but that’s because you only saw him later in life.
3) You saw the cocky boxer, the brilliant self-promoter, the master of his craft, the fearless warrior.
Read 17 tweets
28 Aug
1) Every decade, there is a theme that captures the zeitgeist and turns into an investment mania.
2) It was gold in the 1970s, Japan in the 1980s, Nasdaq in the 1990s, China and commodities in the 2000s, and software in the 2010s.
3) Now that climate change has become a political and economic priority, I believe the global race to zero emissions is the investment zeitgeist for this decade.
Read 4 tweets
7 Aug
Fifteen years ago, I blew my first shot at joining the buy side.

It was the first time I learned about humility. 🧵
1) I was in the final round for an analyst position with CIBC Asset Management in Toronto.

After a candid back and forth, the interviewer posed his final question:

“What’s the most important trait for a successful investing career?”
2) An image of my father flashed into my mind.

“Hard work and discipline,” I replied.
Read 24 tweets
5 Aug
What makes Warren Buffett the greatest investor of all-time?

He is the only infinite-minded investor in the stock market, which is an infinite game. 🧵
1) An infinite game is not bounded by time and the objective is not winning but ensuring the continuation of play.

An infinite game continues with you or without you.
2) Investing is an infinite game. But most people play with a finite mindset. That’s a problem.

Finite play in an infinite game is contradictory.
Read 22 tweets
25 Jul
1) The way we breathe is inextricably linked to the way we live.

I’m embarrassed how long it took me to figure this out.

Given my sinus I’ve been breathing poorly my whole life.

What I’ve learned 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
2) Breathing, with awareness and intention, sits at the heart of spiritual practice.

To let one breath go, say the Sufis, without being conscious of it is a sin.
3) Our daily intake is twenty-five thousand breaths, and we may well not even notice one.
Read 23 tweets

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