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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Book Review: Find Your Strongest Life by Marcus Buckingham



When I received my copy of Find Your Strongest Life, I read the reviews on the jacket first and became skeptical. I'm not a feminist by any means, but my first thought was how is a MAN going to teach me a WOMAN how to have a strong life, to discover the role I was born to play. I had never heard of Marcus Buckingham until Michael and Gail Hyatt started twittering excerpts from his book. It was time to choose my next book for the Thomas Nelson: Book Review Bloggers and I was curious as to what Marcus Buckingham had to say that could affect my life. I only recognized two names on the book jackets back cover; Deborah Norville and Robin McGraw. I admire these ladies, so I figured this book couldn't be all that bad. I'm also reading this book during a time of desert wandering in my spiritual life and I know that God actually chose this book for me, not my curiosity. So how did I like this book.............
All I can say is WOW! Marcus Buckingham really did his research. I saw my self in the pages as he described finding your strongest life. I took the Strong Life Test before reading the book. I learned some new things about myself and had some things confirmed that I already knew about myself. I learned that am living a strong life now and never realized it. I also found I have areas to work on either to develop or let go. Marcus Buckingham gives practical suggestions to getting you started in finding your strengths and your weaknesses and then what to do with them.
When I started reading this book, I was out of a job. As I read page after page, a job finally opened up for me. It was a position in hospice which is my hearts desire to work in. I had been working in hospice as a nurse for the last 7 years until I was laid off a year ago. I then decide to combine my two favorite things travel and nursing, but finding hospice assignments as a travel nurse is hard. I worked for 26 weeks in a Long term care facility in California for 26 weeks. My husband was fired from his job during that time and joined me for the last 13 weeks. When we came home we thought I'd have a job soon and we waited for 3 months. God was testing us and growing our faith. I knew when the time was right the right job would happen and it did. When I got the job, I felt the excitement, the passion that Marcus Buckingham describes when you are using your strengths and living your strongest life. So for the next 26 weeks I am right where I need to be and thanks to Marcus Buckingham and Finding Your Strongest Life I will have less fears if I go a long dry spell again and I will know how to use my strengths to keep my life the strongest it can be.
My recommendation is to take the Strong Life Test first to see what your Leading and Supporting roles are and then read this book to see how to develop those roles to have YOUR STRONGEST LIFE. This is a book that every woman needs in her library.