“Love + Work” by Marcus Buckingham

BOOK REVIEW

“Love + Work: How to find what you love, love what you do, and do it for the rest of your life”

By Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham is the parent/teacher/mentor who really sees YOU. The one who encourages you to look inward and find your unique talents – the ones you use in your working life. He’s a firm believer in focusing on strengths, rather than trying to fix weaknesses. And he’s a data nerd who can make research findings easy to digest while throwing in some personal stories to make things interesting.

If you love a motivational TED talk in book form, you’ll love Love + Work. This book is a big dose of “Find what you love!” with entertaining anecdotes and some nuggets of advice. Buckingham’s background in management consulting shines through with excellent advice to supervisors who want to create more engaged teams.

Love + Work is a tad light on specifics of how to make a living doing what you love. If you need action steps for making changes in your work life, Switchers, Design Your Work Life, or Job Therapy would offer more hands-on guidance.

The last two chapters veer off in new directions (his ex-wife was apparently part of the college admissions bribery scandal in 2019) and – despite some interesting points about educational systems not designed to help students uncover strengths – may feel less relevant to people searching for ways to “Do what they love.”

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