Marcus Buckingham - The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success

2008 by Marcus Buckingham

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Buckingham, Marcus.
The Truth About You : Your Secret To Success / Marcus Buckingham.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4002-0226-3
1. Success in business. 2. Success. 3. Employee motivation. I. Title.
HF5386.B8824 2008
650.1dc22

2008014562

Printed in China

08 09 10 11 12 RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

THE BEST ADVICE
YOULL EVER GET

PERFORMANCE IS
ALWAYS THE POINT
So dont expect your organization ever to know you like you do

YOUR STRENGTHS ARENT WHAT YOURE GOOD AT,
AND YOUR WEAKNESSES ARENT WHAT YOURE BAD AT
So youd better find out what your real strengths are

WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR JOB, THE WHAT
ALWAYS TRUMPS THE WHY AND THE WHO
So always ask: What will I be paid to do?

YOULL NEVER FIND
THE PERFECT JOB
So every week, for the rest of your life, write your Strong Week Plan

YOULL NEVER TURN YOUR
WEAKNESSES INTO STRENGTHS
So fess up to your weaknesses, then neutralize them

START STRONG

When I was starting out, I didnt know much. I didnt know what I would do with my life. I didnt know what job I really wanted. I didnt even know how I was going to pay my bills.

But I was sure of one thingI was different from my brother and my sister.

Looking at my older brother and younger sister, I knew I could never be like them. I knew I would never excel at math and science like my brother. I knew I would never match the kind of focus and physical self-discipline my sister relied on to become a ballet dancer. I knew I had my own strengths, and even though I was confused about many things, I was sure that the world was going to wait for me until one day I would pop out of school and make my unique mark on the world.

I bet you feel this way. In school, you knew which subjects you were drawn to, the ones that grabbed your attention and wouldnt let it go, the ones where class time flew by and before you knew it the bell had rung and, though you wouldnt have admitted it to your friends, you almost felt like you wanted to do the class all over again. And even if you didnt like school, you still found yourself drawn to certain situations, certain people, certain times when you knew you were at your best. You might not have called these your strengths, but from a very early age, you knew you had something special to offer.

And now, though you might not know exactly what you want to do with your life, you have faith. You believe in yourself. You yearn for success and achievement, and youre holding out hope that your work will give you the chance to realize these dreams.

Without doubt, work can do this for you. During the last twenty years, Ive interviewed thousands of successful people, and looking through their eyes, work can be a great place. A place where you are challenged in just the way you like to be challenged. A place where people recognize you for what you do well and push you to become better and better at it. A place where you get to make the kind of difference only you can make. A place, in the end, where you get to experience the thrill of success.

But Ive learned something else too. Fewer than two out often of us get to play to our strengths at work most of the time. The most successful people do, but only two out of ten get to feel this thrill of success.

I do hundreds of speeches a year, telling people how to spot their strengths and put them to work. They hear the message, they believe it, and they know its right, but many of them feel as if theyve gone too far down the road to do anything about it. Theyve got their career to think about, bills that keep getting bigger, a growing family, mortgages, promotions. Life has pushed them down a narrowing path, and now they dont feel like they have any freedom to choose.

Youll find this too. Youll find that life gets very heavy, very quicklyand the longer you wait, the heavier it gets. Before you know it, youre pressured into living some second-rate version of your own life. With all the best intentionsto get ahead, to support your family, to pay off your debtsyou dive into a job, work hard, get promoted, and then one day you wake up and find yourself in a job that doesnt engage you, that doesnt call on the best of you, a job where youre just marking time, putting in the hours until the weekend comes around again, a job that doesnt give you a kick but instead bores you and burns you out. This job may pay you well. Or, if it doesnt, you may tell yourself that this job will lead to something better. But, nonetheless, its a job where, today, at this moment, you feel trapped.

When this happens, as it does to so many of us, you may choose to blame someone else. You may blame your family, your teachers, your organization, or your boss for getting you into this situation. But the responsibility doesnt lie there. It lies with youand with what you choose to do to take control.

So now, right now, the questions you have to answer are these:

How can I start strong?

How can I become one of the two out of ten people who plays to my strengths and passions most of the time?

How can I create this kind of life for myself, this kind of success?

What do I need to know, and what do I need to do... before I get too far down lifes path?

In your hands, youre holding the answers to these questions.

First, in the front flap, youll see theres a film. Its a short film, about twenty minutes. Start by watching it. Without giving too much away, it tells the story of a boy, Ewan, whos faced with a common problem: hes good at something, so the people around him keep telling him to stick to it, but he resists because he feels his strengths pushing him in a different direction. What should he do? Take a stand for his strengths, or do what others expect him to do?

If you havent been in this situation already, you will be soon. The world is full of shoulds. Your parents and your teachers look at what youre good at, and they weigh in on what you should do with your life. Your manager sees you perform well in some part of your job and he says you should do more of it. Quickly he comes to rely on you for it, and since youre a responsible person, you now feel you should do it because he wants you to do it. And then he dangles a promotion in front of you, which you feel you should take because, after all, hes been so supportive of you. And besides, this promotion brings with it more money and a bigger title, so of course you should take it, shouldnt you?

Yes, the world is full of shoulds. And some of these shoulds are worth listening to. But what happens when all these shoulds contradict that small, wise voice inside you calling you to do something else? What happens when the world, even a very well-intended world, is wrong about you? What happens when you feel yourself being pushed in a direction that doesnt fit you? What then should you do?

The film answers this question. Watch it. Enjoy it, and learn what you can from it. It will set you up right for the rest of your career.