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

Author: Marcus Buckingham

Citation: Buckingham, M. (2022). Love + work: how to find what you love, love what you do, and do it for the rest of your life. Boston, MA, Harvard Business Review Press.

Why this book?

It’s about love, work, performance reviews, schools, leadership, teams, and families. But mainly, it provides thought-provoking questions for you, dear reader. Plus, February is the month of ❤️.

Key Ideas

• We are all “wyrd” (pronounced “weird”), an ancient Norse term meaning each person is born with a distinct spirit.

• Finding and honoring our unique wyrd is what life, school, and work are all about. Once we find it, we manifest more love into all we do.

• Red threads are activities woven throughout life in which we can express our unique loves. We may excel at them or not. They may be hobbies that bring us joy.

• Research showed the most successful people found roles in which they

  • fulfilled their sense of purpose,

  • worked with people they admired and trusted, and

  • performed activities they loved.

• Ask yourself: In the past week…

  • Have I had a chance to use my strengths every day?

  • Was I excited to work every day?

• More love at work means more trust in the workplace.

Conclusion

I ❤️ this book. Post-Covid (knock on wood), many are reevaluating their relationship to work and looking for opportunities to contribute in meaningful ways. Nearly all of us—leaders and individual contributors alike—have experienced some burnout. This research-based book reminds us to reflect deeply and assess where we are in this moment and who we are and want to be going forward.

Further, as we head into the season of performance reviews in which we “rate and rank” others, we would do well to recognize our colleagues’ unique red threads, just as we’d like others to see ours.

My takeaway from Buckingham’s book is this: If we spent more time learning about who we are at our best, we could live more fulfilling lives at school, work, and home. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Resources

• Author’s Love + Work site

• Short 2.5 min YouTube video

• My live Mac Freeform board
  (Note: you must have the Freeform app to view)