Drucker Thursday: Examples of Reinventing yourself

A few weeks ago, we discussed the importance of Reinventing Yourself in Drucker Thursday. A few of my readers are wondering how to do it if you are in your later stages of your life, whether you see that as set after 40s or 50s or 60s. In my mid-40s I am thinking the same. What is the second half of your life like?

Here are examples of three individuals in three different fields that show how we can reinvent ourselves well into what can be classified as old age and continue to create.

Drucker

Let’s start with Drucker. Drucker was prolific in his books and HBR articles, plus creating the first Executive MBA in the US. All of this happened after he reached his 50s, and in fact 2/3rd of his work after 60. When he was 63 yrs of age, he started teaching Japanese art and history. That is called re-invention.

Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood went from hero in Westerns in the 1970s before I was born to being a Director, and continued to re-invent himself and deliver into his 90s.

Warren Buffett

Buffett, as we all know, is famous for his compounded annual growth of Berkshire Hathaway of 20%+ over decades. No one else comes close for this long. One key reason is his re-invention by re-defining what is a value stock? From low P/E or P/B (Graham style) to moats from Munger (Coca-Cola) to understanding technology stocks (BYD, Apple) with his new lieutenants. Apple has become the biggest ever investment for him, and that was bought in his 80s.

What you will see in these charts (which ChatGPT helped me create) is the actual growth and quality of their work after the 50s and 60s. That is phenomenal and gives all of us hope that there is more for us to do into the future.

Let’s re-invent ourselves.