Q&A with Marcus Buckingham
PAGE 6
Q: What is the secret to women being happy and successful?
MB: I believe that we are all innately quite wise; most women are wiser than they think. When we make poor decisions, it's not because we've listened to our intuitions or yearnings too intensely, it's because we haven't listened to them enough.
The bottom line is that women are harder on themselves than men, so if you asked men, "Which do you think will help you be more successful in life, building on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses," 50 percent of men say "strength," and 50 percent say "fix my weaknesses." Women are at 27/73; 73 percent of women say, "I need to fix my weaknesses," and 27 percent of women say, "Build on my strengths." In general, women are spending an awful lot of time thinking, "Who am I not?" instead of thinking "What strong moments can I find in my life?" When you spend a lot of time doing that, you are spending your life thinking about what you don't have. That is a recipe for unhappiness. I hope, if nothing else, Find Your Strongest Life gives women the tools they need to be able to identify what strengthens them and build their lives around it; then it will have done its job.
MB: I believe that we are all innately quite wise; most women are wiser than they think. When we make poor decisions, it's not because we've listened to our intuitions or yearnings too intensely, it's because we haven't listened to them enough.
The bottom line is that women are harder on themselves than men, so if you asked men, "Which do you think will help you be more successful in life, building on your strengths or fixing your weaknesses," 50 percent of men say "strength," and 50 percent say "fix my weaknesses." Women are at 27/73; 73 percent of women say, "I need to fix my weaknesses," and 27 percent of women say, "Build on my strengths." In general, women are spending an awful lot of time thinking, "Who am I not?" instead of thinking "What strong moments can I find in my life?" When you spend a lot of time doing that, you are spending your life thinking about what you don't have. That is a recipe for unhappiness. I hope, if nothing else, Find Your Strongest Life gives women the tools they need to be able to identify what strengthens them and build their lives around it; then it will have done its job.
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