Play to your strengths.

How to build a successful business?

That’s quite a big topic isn’t it?

Let’s break it down.

The topic actually aligns well with one of my biggest values: Play to your strengths.

To me, the smartest thing to do when building a business is to build it based on your pre-existing skills and networks. Use what you already have. Instead of focusing on your weaknesses and what you can’t do, play to your strengths and ask yourself “what can I do?” “How can I provide value?”. 

I haven’t built a successful business yet (that’s the next thing on my bucket list) but I have already built a respectable career in the field of project management considering my age by using these same exact methods. Most importantly, I have found a lot of happiness.

That’s what you live for, right?

 

Personally, I’ve already realised a lot of these things a few years ago and I have systematically developed my strengths knowing that I will eventually build my career around this theory. I feel extremely lucky that I happened to be interested in psychology when I was around 15-16 years old. Somehow I stumbled into the topic of self-improvement and quite literally got hooked right away. During the past 4-years, I have spent over 500 hours of reading and researching about the topic and continuously looked for new ways to improve myself in different areas. One of the key points that I have realized is that the improvement happens outside of your comfort zone and by evaluating your actions. 

Another important thing I want to point out is something that has helped me a lot along the years: 

The only things you can control are your own actions. You can’t control how other people around you act or behave – instead you can affect their actions in the future by the way you react to their actions now in the moment. Your reaction makes the difference. Your reaction speaks about your values.  Ultimately It is in your hands how people behave towards you.

 

I’ve always been passionate about my career. I’ve realised my core strengths at an early age, which are natural sales- and networking skills, communication and most importantly: Confidence in myself and in what I can do. Not many people realise their core strengths at as young age, some maybe never. Not sure how I did it, but for that I feel incredibly grateful to myself and to my parents who raised me. The reason I listed confidence at last in my core strengths is because confidence is something that is built. You build confidence through experiences and success. “A confident” person without basing the confidence on past successes and experiences will automatically be seen as cocky. That’s not confidence, that’s overoptimism and seek for attention. Confidence can’t be faked. At least not consistently. 

After experiencing, getting out of my comfort zone and then starting to realize my core strengths, I quickly found a passion to take my career towards project management. I browsed through different career paths but after researching what project management is it felt like a no-brainer. I could finally continuously find success by using my strengths and create value off of them.

I’m proud of myself

for what I’ve been able to accomplish already in my young 20-years of life. Acknowledging my strengths has provided me meaning. And to me, meaning in life is the measurement of happiness. Finding a way to utilize my strengths to the fullest and realizing how to develop them even further has been the best thing that has happened to me so far. That’s why I so excitedly want to share my experiences in the hope of even one person getting a spark of will to seek for self-improvement themselves.

Ultimately I’m doing this blog for myself and for my own self-improvement but even as a thought it’s amazing to possibly help someone find their meaning.

Take of the day?

Repeating:  Meaning in what you do = Happiness.

Encourage yourself to get out of your comfort zone. By experiencing and continuously finding ways to find success, you will naturally realize your strengths by analyzing what works and what doesn’t. You can then go back to looking into different career paths and see where you can utilize and play to your strengths.

That’s what I did and It worked!

 

Something that I learned from my first projects was that no person can do everything by themselves. We need people around us to bring the best out of us. They help us to evaluate and evolve ourselves to get to where and what we want to be. 

This is why networking has to be one of the most crucial skills to develop. This is a skill that I’m extremely proud to naturally have and  something I’m continuously looking to develop even further.

It is important to remember that networking is a social skill and it is something you need to practise and maintain. It’s not easy.

Not all of us are social butterflies naturally, but when pushed out of your comfort zone you could become one. 

Now.

            To go back to the topic of how to build a business . . .

            Yes I might have almost forgotten too.

While building the ideas and ways of working around your strengths, you will need to include and find other people to fill those gaps you’re not able to do; people who can do the things outside of your strengths. Or what the heck, maybe your business could even focus entirely on finding people to do things you can’t do. That’s possible!

The main point here however is for example:

If you find yourself struggling on maintaining process – Find yourself a partner that can maintain or keep you motivated and interested on long term. If you have difficulties coming up with innovative solutions but instead you’re good at networking and allowing others – Find someone who can constantly produce ideas out of no where.

However, this is where networking comes to the picture and why it is so important. The biggest reason for businesses not finding success, is the lack of the skill in networking. The businesses will not be able to adapt or find new depth in the work they do, causing other businesses that do, to run past them. ( potentially run them out of business )

Lack of skill in networking correlates straight into not realising or finding new business opportunities.

 

         You will accomplish a lot more with good connections                 and relationships than with money.

         Of course money’s great but it’s also temporary.

I choose to find happiness in what I do, not in what I possess. Money comes second and follows happiness.