Marcus Buckingham uses his famous teaching on strengths to encourage women that there is a better way to live.  Through the stories of Anna and Charlie, one who is living in her strengths and one who journeys from living in the “shoulds” to discovering her strengths, Marcus encourages women to stop trying to have it all and learn to really enjoy those activities that make them feel strong.  Give up juggling and balance for cradling and imbalance.

I have learned so much about myself in reading Marcus’ books.  The great thing about Find Your Strongest Life is that it is a great follow up to his other books, but it is also a great stand alone book that you can pick up and understand the concepts without needing all the background from his previous books.  Highly recommended for not just women but anyone looking to give more detail to their passion, strengths, and life.

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*** This book was reviewed for the Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers program.

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What does “having it all” really mean?  For so long, some women have thought that it means “having everything, all at once, all the time.”  What if we redefined it to mean taking yourself seriously, knowing yourself, and finding purpose in life?  The secret to this is living in your strengths.  The secret is not in figuring out how to juggle everything but in “knowing how to draw a few things in towards you.”  What we need is to learn to be discriminating, selective, and intentional in every area of our lives.

In Find Your Strongest Life, Marcus gives research to show that women today are not as happy as they were 40 years ago.  Women also find themselves less happy as they age.  Why?  It seems to be rooted in that too many choices can paralyze us.  Women have in fact become less happy, more anxious, and more stressed despite having greater opportunity, greater achievement, greater influence, and more money.

So what does a strong woman look like?  She’s successful, which means effective and capable.  Having no outlet for your strengths leads to losing your sense of self.  Being strong means: positively anticipating the future, learning and growing with a sense of focus and concentration, and feeling that you are filled up and your needs are met.

To show what a strong woman looks like and show how you can become a strong woman, Marcus tells the stories of two women, Anna and Charlie.  Anna knows who she is, what her strengths are, and is using her strengths.  Charlie is stuck in a job she doesn’t like and is letting “shoulds” overtake her life.  Strength is really in “your emotional reaction to specific moments in your life”.  Strong moments are those times when you experience strong, positive, authentic, emotional reactions.  Anna took these moments and her reactions seriously and used them to guide her choices in life.  Charlie didn’t and she found that you begin to feel empty when you take on activities and responsibilities because you feel like you should.  This is not about positive thinking.  It is about targeted optimism.  This is not about achieving balance, but intentionally striving for imbalance.  Balance is actually impossible to attain and is really unfulfilling.  It is about cradling, not juggling.  Cradling involves concentrating on something, accepting it, and nurturing it.  Allow these strong moments to determine what your priorities should be.

Marcus has developed test that you can take at www.stronglifetest.com.  The questions are designed to determine which of nine roles are your lead role and your supporting role.  These roles are more emotional that the strengths types that he teaches in his previous books.  These roles are what cause us to feel love, joy, fear, and pain.  They explain why we are patient in some areas and impatient in others as well as why we’re drawn to some persons and repelled by others.  Finally, they give shape to our dreams and desires.  Marcus says, “Always sweat the small stuff.  The details matter”.  These nine roles are: Advisor, Caretaker, Creator, Equalizer, Influencer, Motivator, Pioneer, Teacher, and Weaver.

I found that my leading role is “Advisor” and my support role is “Equalizer”.  An advisor is one who loves helping people make better decisions.  They ask lots of questions.  They love the details.  This is fed by my strengths traits of learner, achiever, input, and context.  An equalizer is one who wants to know the right thing to do.  They love deadlines and highly defined rules.  They strive to keep everything aligned and hold everyone together.  This role is fed by my strength traits of context and harmony as well as my personality type C (on the DISC profile) which makes me a rule following perfectionist.

Once you know what your roles are, you need to accept who you are and allow that to cure you of the problem of excess choice.  You need to trust that you are the best judge of your strengths.  Others may be able to better judge your performance, but only you can determine your strengths and weaknesses.  Using your strengths and roles requires boldness and gentleness with yourself.  You have to be deliberate and create strong moments in your life.  When you have strong moments, celebrate them and talk about them with others.  In the end, focusing on these strengths with give “exponential return”.  Following these cues leads to passion.  Passion is not really found.  It’s built.  And it needs detail.  “Passion is useless without precision.”

Marcus uses the last several chapters of the book to give advice for specific types of situations in a Q&A format.  There are some great questions and great advice found here on topics ranging from career to family, raising kids to communicating with your spouse.

This quote from the last page of the book really sums everything up so well: “The secret to success and happiness lies in your ability to know yourself well enough to make strong choices without regret, no matter what life bestows on you, or throws at you.”

Another must read Marcus Buckingham book.  A great place to start your journey in discovering your strengths and also a great next step for those women, or men, who have already started the discovery process.  Another great feature of this book is the online content which includes leader and participant guides for group study.  Check it out at http://marcusbuckingham.com/stronglife.

First, there are three myths and truths that must be grasped:

Myth: As you grow, your personality changes.
Truth: As you grow, you become more of who you already are.

Myth: You will grow the most in your areas of greatest weakness.
Truth: You will grow the most in your areas of greatest strength.

Myth: A good team member does whatever it takes to help the team.
Truth: A good team member deliberately volunteers his strength to the team most of the time.

Using acronyms SIGN, FREE, and STOP, Marcus provides guidance and a plan for determining what your strengths are, how to find ways to use those strengths, and how to find ways to stop doing activities that require your weaknesses.  Included with the book is a code to be used at www.simplystrengths.com that unlocks a test that will help you see to what degree you’re currently using your strengths and to what degree you’re likely (or not likely) to use them in the future.  Also included are some short videos that really help drive the points in the book home.

I love reading Marcus’ books because they are so conversational and easy to read.  If you’ve ever heard him speak, you can almost hear him read the book!  He really has a way of capturing and keeping your attention.  Another great resource!

Even Jonathan got into reading this book while I was writing this review tonight: