Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Summary: Marcus Buckingham teaches readers to look for their strong moments and passions. Women are not happy today, and that seems to correspond with the fact that there are more choices available, especially in the work place. So how do women become happy? They find those things they enjoy the most and choose to recreate them as often as they can. Feelings of being overwhelmed spring from having to little of what strengthens you, Buckingham writes. Of course, you're not going to get your dream job overnight, but it's up to you to keep pushing forward and finding ways to use the strengths that you enjoy. "Career success is a lifelong practice - a potent combination of paying attention, working hard, and gradually pushing your life toward the moments and activities that strengthen you."
Review: While I am single and in the beginning stages of life (freshly graduated and looking for work), I got a lot out of this book. I'm disappointed that it's so focused on married women and women in their later years (40s and 50s), but I suppose that goes with the territory of talking about switching careers and finding peace in the middle of stress.
The book focuses on how to reorganize your life so that you focus on the positive things and work to enhance the things you're good at that you enjoy.
I definitely related to what Buckingham had to say about strengths and weaknesses. He writes that a true strength is something you enjoy and are good at. A weakness can be something that you're good at, but that you don't enjoy and that isn't good for you or doesn't contribute to your happiness. You need to avoid doing the things that drain and bore you, and if you have to do them in the meantime while you push toward a better strength, then you can find ways to put positive spins on the weakness. You can find ways to use your strengths so that your weaknesses won't seem so bad.
Buckingham gives several strengths and describes them in detail. He also provides a test online that you can take to find out what your strengths are. I don't put much stock in the test, though, because my results didn't really fit me. But Buckingham makes up for this with the last section of his book, which focuses on specific situations and how to deal with them. It answered some of my questions about my stress over finding work. But I didn't walk away with a solid, I need to do this and this is how I make a decision.
Overall, though, I got a lot of encouragement out of this book. It's a lot of obvious content written in such a way that makes you think. I recommend to any woman.
*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for my honest review of it.
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