Callapidder Days

The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success by Marcus Buckingham is a concise guide to figuring out what to do in life. An enhanced DVD, a book, and a “ReMemo” pad are the tools, but your personal strengths are the foundation.

The whole package can be summed up with:

• Figure out what your strengths are
• Focus on your strengths and develop them (rather than trying to “improve” your weaknesses)
• Do what you can to structure your life and career so you are living in your strengths as much possible

Books like this appeal to me for two reasons:

1. I am fascinated with the concepts of personality type, natural strengths, and anything that centers around what makes people tick.

2. I like gadgets, so I like how this system is set up — there’s not just a book, but a DVD and a special “ReMemo” Pad that gives you a place to put what you’ve learned into practice.

Buckingham guides readers through the process of discovering their strengths, using probing questions, self-examination, examples from real life, and the included ReMemo Pad, which readers carry with them to record experiences, both good and bad.

One point I appreciated was when the author said your strengths aren’t always necessarily “what you’re good at.” You can be very good at something…but hate it. You can excel in a certain area…but it sucks you dry. Rather than just look at what others think your talents are, you have to discover the things and activities that energize you, excite you, bring you real fulfillment — those things align more closely with your strengths. If you concentrate on developing them and improving them, you’ll be on the right track.

The other concept I appreciated was that we often are encouraged to “work on our weaknesses,” to try to improve in areas where we are currently lacking. Buckingham admitted that we can’t simply ignore our weaknesses, but said that we’ll find much greater success when we concentrate on our strengths and seek to be part of teams or situations where our weaknesses are compensated for. (I’m thinking this means I need to hire someone to clean my house, rather than try to get better at it, right?)

Buckingham keeps the concepts in this book simple, so I think it would be ideal for high school and college students who are trying to figure out what to pursue and what comes next. The concepts are applicable to adults as well, and those who have been in their chosen career for years, but I think there are other books from Buckingham that would be better suited to that audience (such as Now, Discover Your Strengths).

I plan to hold on to this set and go through it with my kids when they are older. I believe it will give them a good basis for deciding what course of study to pursue in college, and also give them the confidence to know that the way they are hard-wired is important and can be the key to finding life work that is a good fit for them.

You can get a deeper look into The Truth About You at the Thomas Nelson site, and you can pick up a copy of the set for yourself at Amazon.com.