Many of us desire to self-improve and self-develop. However, many of us may not have considered doing a SWOT analysis on ourselves.
In case you have not come across this term before, it’s an old business assessment strategy where you look at the:
S — strengths of;
W — weaknesses of;
O — opportunities of; and
T — threats for the business.
It’s great to do this when you are designing a business plan or updating your business’ current business plan and is especially important if you think you are underperforming or you are determined to take it to the next level.
Getting clarity about a business and what’s holding it back or what could really turn it into a great operation is such a good idea, but some really high-achieving individuals have used this SWOT analysis in different ways to make them better business performers, as individuals. The self-improvement it encouraged transformed their respective businesses taking them into the fast lane of growth and made them legends on Australian business.
Famous restauranteur, Neil Perry, was told by his mentor to do a SWOT analysis on himself and then look at how he used his time. In simple terms, apart from his great cooking he was terrific at getting publicity for the business and building his brand was a strength that he sacrificed, time-wise, by doing work in areas where he was not strong, such as bookkeeping and administration.
He decided to give half of his business to his cousin who was an accountant and she took over the jobs where he was weak and she was strong, which meant that Neil operated in his strength zone. That business boomed after that SWOT analysis innovation and the action that followed.
Real estate agent John McGrath actually wrote a book called ‘You Inc.’ where he effectively explained how he looked at himself as a business that could be objectively assessed, fine-tuned and improved. John read and tried to meet the best business-building minds of the time because he wanted to be successful. He pioneered the idea of the one-page business plan and I recommend you do that for yourself in these final weeks before we get closer to normalcy.
Of course, only do this if you want to make yourself into a better you, who can perform better, be paid more income and be largely seen as a success. If you do a one-page plan on yourself and it helps you lift your business-life game, you then could use the same successful process of a one-page plan to build your wealth. Success is a process and few people commit to it and that’s why there are more wealth-strugglers than wealthy people who are living the good life.
And when you look back on this time locked up, I hope you eventually see it as the opportunity of a lifetime where you created a new you!
