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

We look at this topical book, aimed at asking some hard questions and sharing some honest and personal insights. You can see more about the book, written by Marcus Buckingham here.

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

This book is open and relatable. Buckingham aims to speak from a place of truth, even as he negotiates some deeply challenging events in his own life. These include separating from his wife of 25+ years, and then also being told by their mutual parents that she has been arrested by the FBI. Events like this can certainly compel anyone to look deeply at who they are, and what their life is and is not.

Buckingham also uses these events to draw some interesting insights in terms of when advice he gave was not of help to the intended receiver. We think we are helping sometimes, when actually people often work out their own solutions. Buckingham gives interesting examples, both with his friend and his own son, where they found their own path, and a better solution than the one he was able to conceive of.

These types of episodes ensured that the book was an interesting read, and one that gives plenty of food for thought. What is work, what is love, can the two come together, should they ever not be combined? Do you do something and just stick it out, or does that stop you from getting to where you really want to be? A good book, well worth reading.

More about the book

Marcus Buckingham is a New York Times bestselling author and global researcher focused on unlocking strengths, increasing human performance, and the future of how people work. His strengths assessments have been taken by over 10 million people worldwide. He now leads People + Performance research at ADP Research Institute, spearheading groundbreaking global studies on Resilience and Engagement.

In his new book Love+Work, Marcus Buckingham helps us discover where we’re at our best—both at work and in life. Love+Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life will be published by Harvard Business Review Press in April 2022.

We’ve all been told to ‘Do what you love’. Sounds simple, but the real challenge is how to do this in a world that’s not set up to help you. Most of us don’t actually know the real truth of what we love—what engages us and makes us thrive—and our workplaces, jobs, schools—even our parents—are focused instead on making us conform. Sadly, no person or system is dedicated to discovering the crucial intersection between what you love to do and how you contribute it to others.

In this eye-opening, uplifting book, Buckingham shows you how to break free from this conformity—how to decode your own loves, turn them into their most powerful expression, and do the same for those you lead and those you love.

How can you use love to reveal your unique gifts?
How can you pinpoint what makes you stand out from anyone else?
How can you choose roles in which you’ll excel?

Love + Work unlocks answers to these questions and others, so you can:

• Choose the right role on the team.
• Describe yourself compellingly in job interviews.
• Mould your existing role so that it calls upon the very best of you.
• Position yourself as a leader in such a way that your followers quickly come to trust in you.
• Make lasting change for your team, your company, your family, or your students.

Love, the most powerful of human emotions, the source of all creativity, collaboration, insight, and excellence, has been systematically drained from our lives—our work, teams, and classrooms.

It’s time we brought love back in. Love + Work shows you how.

Marcus Buckingham was born, raised and educated in Britain, before moving to the USA at the age of 21. He is Head of People and Performance Research at the ADP Research Institute, a bestselling author, global researcher and thought leader focused on unlocking people’s strengths, improving their performance, and pioneering the future of how people work.

He is the author of two of the best-selling business books of all time, has two of Harvard Business Review’s most circulated, industry-changing cover articles, and has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company, The Today Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

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