Marcus Buckingham - Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to , or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

First eBook Edition: April 2022

ISBN: 978-1-64782-123-4

eISBN: 978-1-64782-124-1

To Myshel, for it all, with love.

And when you work with love

you bind your self to yourself,

and to one another,

and to God

Work is love made visible.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Contents

2 Where Did the Love Go?
An Epidemic of Lost People

3 Your Wyrd
(And Youre Amazing)

4 Love Is Attention
Why Doesnt George Clooneys Sister Act?

5 Instinct
Can I Be the King?

6 Flow
Find Your Red Threads

7 It Just Clicks
Dr. Don, Strengths Finder

8 Love Lives in the Details
Does It Matter If ?

9 Group-Think
You Are Not Where Youre From

10 The Excellence Curse
Your Strengths Are Not What Youre Good At

11 Mis-Instinct
Whats Really Happening in the Room Where It Happens?

12 Feedbacking
The Road to Hell Is Paved with Other Peoples Advice

13 Fear-Fighting
Make Love to Your Fears

14 Rate-Me-Rank-Me
When You Compare, You Disappear

15 Suckitup
Love Is Not a Luxury

16 I See You, I Love You
Your Love + Work Relationship

17 A Scavenger Hunt for Love
Your Love + Work Career

18 Love @ Work
How to Become a Love + Work Leader

19 Love in Learning
Why It Is Missing and How You Can Get It Back

20 Your Children Are Not Your Children
One Thing I Hope You Learned from Your Parents

Introductions

H i. Im Marcus Buckingham and its lovely to meet you.

I read magazines backwards. And with books, I read the last page first.

Maybe you do the same. If you do, then you already know that this book ends with the same ten words it starts with. Well, nine, actually. I drop the Buckingham because I figure by the end, you and me, well be on a first-name basis. But surname aside, the start and the end are the same.

Introductions are funny, arent they? You dont know me. I dont know you. We say hi, nod, shake, and introduce ourselves. The word introduction comes from the Latin verb introducere , meaning to lead in . This leading in assumes that the parties involved will go deeper and learn more about one another. Otherwise, what would be the point of the introduction, right?

What if I told you that you dont know yourself enough to have any kind of authentic relationship with yourself beyond that lead in.

Its not your fault.

How many years of math did you take? Science? Social studies? What about Spanish or French?

And how many years did you spend learning about you?

No years, I bet.

Months? Nope.

What about a week? Have you ever spent a week diving into the extraordinary uniqueness of you?

Two years ago I was speaking at a large leadership conference. It was a group of spa owners and operators. Mostly women, as it happens. A smart, fun group.

I said the math, science, Spanish thing and then asked, When was the last time you spent any time studying the uniqueness of you?

A pause. Theres always a pause. And straight faces, stares. But this time a woman about ten rows in yells: I took your StrengthsFinder assessment!

People chuckled, cheered. Takes courage to yell out in a room of a thousand. I asked her to stand.

Whats your name?

Destiny, she said.

Brittney?

No, DESTINY, she said louder.

I had erred on purpose. Hi, Destiny how long did the assessment take?

About twenty minutes, she answered.

How about the results report? How long did that take you to read?

About fifteen minutes, she shrugged.

OK, great. And where is your report now?

Uhhhh I put it in my desk drawer, I think? Her pitch rising at the end.

So thirty-five minutes. Only thirty-five minutes on you, Destiny?

A pause.

Well does therapy count? she said with the biggest, best belly laugh. The crowd roared around her.

I cocreated the StrengthsFinder system with Don Clifton in 2001. Then the StandOut assessment exactly a decade later. Ive done research and given thousands of speeches in just about every country. It doesnt seem to matter your gender, age, race, religion, nationality, culturepeople around the world dont spend much time at all learning about who they are at their very best.

And, of course, since theyre so close to those things they love to do, they dont value them. I imagine the samell be true for you. We see just how easy it is for you to remember customers, their names, and something distinct about them, and we marvel at this gift. We see you zero in instinctively on that one error in the long lines of computer code, and were amazed. We watch as you find just the right words, tone, and eye contact to calm that patient down, and we wish we could be so naturally reassuring. You? You arent astounded by these gifts. You are inside them, so interwoven with them that its not just that you dont value them. Its more that you dont see them at all.

You can go a lifetime never seeing them.

Tragically, most of us do.

And Destiny, if youre reading, a) Ill never forget your laugh. It still makes me happy. And b) No, therapy doesnt count. Because the focus in therapy is typically on whats wrong with you. And the work in therapy? How to fix whats wrong.

Us humans, were masters at drilling into whats wrong with us. From the beginning of your existence, the word you heard most from your parents was No or Dont. Your parents job was to keep you alive. They meant well. You got really good at understanding all the bad things around you. Hot stove, busy street, grannys rosary.

Then you go to school. You get an A+ in drawing and painting and a C in math. Nobody talks about your love for the arts. Everyones attention is on your flailing in math.

Then you go to work and have your first performance review. The first thirteen minutes are delightful, and the other forty-seven are spent on your areas of opportunities and a plan for your development.

Then you get married and go to therapy.

The uncomfortable truth is that, more than likely, no one is worrying about what makes you unique. Nobody is dedicated to introducing you to yourself, to helping you get curious about and build a really deep relationship with you at your best. School doesnt do it: schools want to make sure that everybody learns what everybody is supposed to learn. Work doesnt do it: work is most concerned about performance, about what needs to get done. Everybody in your life, since childhood, has had expectations and demands that dont necessarily have any direct connection to you discovering the unique things you love and building a life around them.