Find your Strongest Life by Marcus Buckingham

Have you ever wondered if you can or should “have it all”? Does life feel seriously out of whack? Is a balanced life really attainable? These are questions that Marcus Buckingham confronts in his new book, Find your Strongest Life. The tag line is What the happiest and most successful women do differently. He says that a strong life isn’t about what you do but what you feel and he defines success as “feeling effective and capable.” Find Your Strongest Life is positive, affirming and challenging. It acknowledges the complicated lives women lead and offers help in finding focus and clarity. It’s the next best thing to having a personal life coach

I found this book to be very helpful. If you’re worried about a man writing a book like this for women, don’t be. He has a lot of experience in counseling and coaching and really seems to understand women. In fact reading the book felt like being in a coaching session with lots of good advice and information to help you move forward in your life. In addition, the book is full of stories from women who are moving forward and finding their strongest life. He’s formulated nine life roles that he says identifies women’s character. He’s developed a test to help the reader discover lead and supporting roles. There is a detailed description of each role and suggestions on how to make the most of your role.

I recently had a few friends over for dinner and we ended up spending part of the evening talking about the book. Everyone took the online test and we read the descriptions and discussed how right on most of them were for us. That made me realize that one of the best uses of this book might be in small group discussions. Read if for yourself first and then join with other women to discuss and really make the most of what you’ve read.