To succeed, talk about your past performance, NOT about your future potential

Peter Drucker advises managers, when they evaluate employees, to look at what the person has done well in the past. That is a good indication of how the person will do in the future, for a particular task or position.

In life, whenever we want something -- whether we are salespeople, entrepreneurs, job seekers, etc. -- we have to be willing to submit to evaluation by others. And smart decision-makers always look at what a person has done well in the past.

The success secret, therefore, is to try to succeed at something as soon as possible. Success is the ultimate credential. Everybody goes for success. Everybody believes success. This is why they say that "nothing succeeds like success."

The more you succeed, the more opportunities will come your way.

Many people ask for something big when they can't succeed at something small. This shows a profound misunderstanding of how the universe works.

The key is to develop one's self-knowledge, so that one attempts only tasks where one can reasonably expect to beb successful at. Once that little success is achieved, then one can aim a bit higher, and repeat this "compounding" success sequence over time.