In his latest book, Find Your Strongest Life, Marcus Buckingham challenges traditional thinking about what, for a woman, defines and creates a successful life. According to the author's research, the multitude of lifestyle choices available to women today has counterintuitively resulted in a less--not more--fulfilled generation that in decades past. Partially at fault, says the author, could be the myth of the woman who "has it all" and achieves the coveted state of work-life balance (to use an already frightfully overused phrase). In real life such a balance, it turns out, is not only next to humanly impossible, but undesirable. It is those women who have deliberately skewed their investment of time and energy toward their individual areas of greatest strength that consider themselves most fulfilled.
This notion of focusing on personal strengths flies in the face of all we’ve been taught in our lifetimes of report cards and performance evaluations. Rather than spin our wheels trying to fix what is “wrong” with us—roles or activities in which we don’t naturally excel or feel competent—we’d be wiser to devote more time to the few core things that just...fit.
It reads like good advice from a marketing angle, too—a reminder that the brand is diluted when it tries to be everything to too many audiences. To be strong and authentic your personal brand must have a distinct value proposition, and your “business model” must fall in line with delivering those core elements of value. Define what you honestly and naturally do best (not what you got your degree in, what you managed to force yourself to learn, what you’ve been doing diligently and unhappily for all these years, or what your family or friends expect from you). Then, quite simply, stick to that.
The book’s premise and research behind the method are certainly eye-opening, and the easy Strong Life test helps the reader pinpoint and understand the Lead Role and Supporting Role (or top two core strength areas) she was born to play in various dimensions of life. One relatively weak section of the book is the hurriedly put together chapters on practical advice. The troubleshooting how-to for career, relationships, and parenting is overly general and reads in places as if it’s been lifted from a college-prep handbook. Perhaps the author felt he had given enough advice on designing a life around your strengths in his previous books. The concept of playing only to my strengths is so enlightening that I’ll be going back to them to figure out how.
In case you want to know more, a book trailer from the publisher right here.
Monday, October 5, 2009
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