Review – Go Put Your Strengths To Work By Marcus Buckingham

Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance by Marcus Buckingham is an excellent book. More than just theory, it’s a practical workbook on how to play to your strengths and do what you love at work.

Too many of us feel trapped in what we do. Entrepreneurial entropy sets in and what we used to love is now filled with boredom, anxiety, and looming burnout.

Marcus’ book is a step by step 6 week guide to regaining your joy in your work.

As the book perceptively notes, most of us don’t hate EVERYTHING about our work. If we’re honest we love part and hate part. And the parts we hate tend to multiply to fill the available hours like weeds filling a garden.

This book tells you how to pull the weeds and eliminate, as much as possible, the things you hate about your business or work so you can focus on the things you’re best at, the things that give you joy and make you want to be at work.

Don’t confuse this book with other books talking about “Strengths” and the “Clifton StrengthsFinder”. This book is RELATED but different. The Clifton StrengthsFinder, Myers Briggs, etc. identify behavior patterns…not the particular strengths each individual exudes based on those patterns.

This is a book that directly focuses on identifying your strengths, but more importantly, helping you to live more in your strengths and stop being distracted by your weaknesses!

This book is also a wonderful case study on integrating “traditional”  book publishing with online marketing too.

Each buyer of a NEW book is given a code for a free online assessment that goes with the book. The assessment tells you how much you currently play to your strengths as well as giving you an indication of the trend… are you playing more and more to your strengths (and getting happier) or less and less to your strengths and getting “burned out”?

The book also gives you some free video downloads to help you visualize the books contents… to buy them all requires an additional investment online. I told you it was a good case study for linking traditional book selling with backend profits online… a good way to sell only new books too! Used books (or at least used assessment codes) mean the used books have greatly reduced value to the reader!

The case studies in the book will strike a chord with you and have you shouting (if only to yourself) “Yes!” and “Aha!”

Maybe you’re not crazy to be so unhappy after all! But maybe the solution isn’t as far away as you thought either. In fact, it could be completely within your control!

I saw this at a Walgreen’s so I paid full retail… but it was still worth it! At Amazon, you can get Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance at a good discount and you should be even happier!

Buy it and start focusing on your strengths.