How to make 2022 your best year ever

ILLUSTRATION BY ROBBIE CASTAÑEDA

In 2021, we all thought that the global pandemic would all be over soon and we could go back to living our normal lives. Now, it doesn’t look like this is going to happen any time soon.

The pandemic has brought many new business challenges, but it has also created a range of new and exciting opportunities. Here are some pointers on how you can make 2022 the best year ever for yourself and your business.

Rule No. 1: Play to your strengths

“The most successful people in the world have very few weaknesses.” I hear that myth all the time. And it is so wrong! Actually, the opposite is true. They have many weaknesses. How are they still able to accomplish such extraordinary success?

I’ve worked closely with many self-made millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs, including some of the most famous you read about in the news every week. I’ve also had the pleasure to personally coach world-famous CEOs and champion athletes. All of them have one thing in common: they play to their strengths.

I remember meeting with a global icon in the fashion industry, a self-made entrepreneur who has created one of the most recognizable brands on the planet and has amassed a fortune doing so, making her one of the richest in the business. Guess what? When we were meeting, her staff had to switch off all the screens in the room. Otherwise, her attention span was about as long as that of a 2-year-old toddler. Did that stop her from creating a global business empire? No!

So don’t let your weaknesses stop you. The trick is to know what your unique strengths are and play to them. “What about my weaknesses then?” You may ask. Great question! The best solution is to know what they are and then create a support system around those weaknesses so that they don’t stop you from reaching your goals. What does that mean? Surround yourself with others who are excellent at what you lack most.

Rule No. 2: Know thyself and to thyself be true

The Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself” was the first of three maxims inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. However, most people rarely apply it. How do you find out who you are and what your greatest strengths really are?

This requires you to take an honest look at yourself. Let me assure you that most high achievers—including the super achievers in the world of business and entrepreneurship like Elon Musk, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson—have a few key strengths. That is all you need.

You need to find the things you can do uncommonly well, the things you are naturally made for. But then again, we all have blind spots, especially when it comes to ourselves. So, take an honest look at yourself and ask: “What are my absolute key strengths, the ones that set me apart from others?” The more open-minded you are when approaching these questions, and the more you are interested in finding out what reality is like and not what you want it to be, the faster you will find the answers.

Rule No. 3: Stay within your circle of genius

Once you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, play to your strengths! And create the support system around your weaknesses so that they do not matter.

Yet a lot of CEOs I have worked with do not have such a system when I meet them for the first time. Instead, they are involved in a myriad of activities that they should not be doing. I recall a conversation with a client of mine, the owner of a large family-owned food empire, who had his hands full in micromanaging all kinds of minute details of the entire value chain, from design to distribution. When one of the positions in the boardroom became vacant, he even wanted to take that over—on top of his CEO job! And his business employs over 13,000 people. Wrong move.

The art is to stay very tightly around your core competence. Tom Watson Sr., founder of IBM, put it best: “I’m no genius. I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.” Trust me: what is good for him is good for all of us.

Rule No. 4: Profit from the many new opportunities

The pandemic will eventually come to an end or we will get used to living with it. But one thing is for sure: business has changed forever. This new economic order will produce a very uneven distribution of winners and losers. The global news coverage and its focus on negative news have made a lot of entrepreneurs blind to the many new and exciting opportunities that already exist in abundance in this new economic order.

How do you profit from them? A business is not much different from an individual in that it also has its unique strengths and weaknesses. You have to undertake the same kind of analysis for your business. And you have to be ruthlessly open-minded. If this proves to be challenging, external experts can help you uncover your natural blind spots.

Remember that some of the biggest companies in history started during a recession or crisis, from General Electric to General Motors, from IBM to Disney, from HP to Microsoft. Play to your strengths and the ones of your business to create your own unique success story.

Solutions and next steps

If you find it challenging to uncover your real strengths, enlist the help of a friend, coach, colleague or family member.

Another good source for insight is the personality assessment created by Ray Dalio, legendary American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager, called Principles You. You can find it here: https://principlesyou.com.

It is one of the best in the world, and—at the time of writing—still free! It even has a feature where you can compare your results with others to make sure you work well as a team. This is especially useful in the light of what we discussed above. You need to have people who make up for what you lack most so your unique strengths can shine.

Refrain from doing anything and everything that is not your core competence. Get other people who are excellent at doing just that which is outside of your circle of competence. That is a winning strategy for you and your business in 2022.

I wish you an energizing start into a new year of your life.

See you next week! INQ

Tom Oliver, a “global management guru” (Bloomberg), is the chair of The Tom Oliver Group, the trusted advisor and counselor to many of the world’s most influential family businesses, medium-sized enterprises, market leaders and global conglomerates. For more information and inquiries: www.TomOliverGroup.com or email [email protected].