University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Truth About You
Book

The Truth About You

Your Secret to Success

Marcus Buckingham
Thomas Nelson, 2008
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Editorial Rating

6

Recommendation

Marcus Buckingham is a popular author of career advice that is upbeat, if a bit obvious. In this book, he encourages job seekers to focus on their strengths so they can find positions that suit them well. Buckingham provides five tips that he calls the “best advice you’ll ever get.” He lists them, explains them and lists them again to really reinforce them. This workbook even comes with a writing pad to make it easy for you to do the exercises Buckingham suggests. The advice will sound familiar if you have read his previous books, but if you’re stuck in a dead-end job, he explains how and where to start making changes. Buckingham writes for meek and inexperienced people, for job beginners and people who have stopped believing that a job can be fun. If a pep talk would spur you to ditch that painful pencil-pushing position and find something you’re glad to go do when you get up every morning, getAbstract suggests reading this book with your morning coffee.

Summary

Work Your Strengths

You are unique. No one else has the same likes and dislikes, or the same combination of strengths, capabilities and weaknesses. The secret to finding fulfilling work is to focus on your unique strengths, likes and capabilities. Unfortunately, few people can do that. In fact, 80% of employees say they are trapped in jobs that neither engage them, nor “play to their strengths” or basic interests. That means, two out of 10 people are truly happy in their work and the rest spend their days marking time in jobs that don’t satisfy or challenge them. They go to work because they have to pay the mortgage and the bills.

If you see yourself as being trapped, who do you think is responsible for caging you this way? Your parents or family? Your company or boss? None of the above – you are the only person who is responsible for shaping your life.

Begin the process of change by asking yourself how things got to this point. How and where did you get off the right track, and how can you quickly get back on it? People often pay too much attention to bad advice, to advisors who tell them they “should” do this or “shouldn’t” do that. They tend to follow advice...

About the Author

Marcus Buckingham, a former senior researcher at Gallup, is the author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work and First, Break All the Rules.

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