The Truth About You is Marcus Buckingham's latest book. If you didn't know already, I'm a huge Marcus fan. His ideas about strengths have continually helped me try to shape more effective teams and his book The One Thing You Need to Know still stands out to me as one of the best leadership books that I have ever read. The Truth About You is a quick, short read that encapsulates more ideas about 'playing to your strengths' in a way that is concise, easily readable and multi-dimensional.
One dimension included in this book is a DVD of Marcus talking for about 20 minutes through the concepts. I made my kids sit and watch this - my ten year old mostly listened and my seven year old played Polly Pockets. Well, you can't win them all.
Another dimension included is the "ReMemo Pad" which serves as a hands-on journal for the reader to jot down reactions to every day tasks. What did you love and what did you hate and why? And what does that mean in terms of your passions, talents and strengths?
There were three ideas from the book that stood out to me:
- Push yourself within your comfort zone.
Strengths are your comfort zone - where you have the greatest capacity to learn and grow.
- Key question: What will I be paid to do?
And then ask yourself: Can I see myself doing these actual activities and How can I use my three strengths to get this job done?
- The best teams have lots of I's in them.
Lots of individuals that know their strengths and volunteer these strengths to the team.
This book seems ideally suited for a young person, perhaps a high school or college student on the verge of big life impact decisions. Most of the material will get you thinking about yourself and the life you intend to live. Although not very deep, the insights in this book also have value if you are a seasoned leader. Some of the ideas may spur you on to be more intentional with how you build teams, how you measure your work or helping a person you work with refine their calling.
[I received this book via the Thomas Nelson book review bloggers program.]
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