Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently

08.12.09

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We need to find our purpose, make changes when we feel like we’re losing our purpose, and evaluate relationships to make sure we don’t hold onto unhealthy ones. Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently helps you do just that.

Buckingham wrote the book after appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show to host a career intervention workshop for women. Following the show, the workshop was downloaded 1.7 million times and over 100,000 women voiced their opinions, concerns and questions on the Oprah.com message boards.

A common theme rose from the discussions -many women felt like they weren’t fulfilling a purpose and felt overwhelmed by the pressure of trying to juggle work and family. Buckingham rejects the idea of juggling since that involves keeping everything in the air at once. And we all know, at some point, something has got to give.

Find Your Strongest LifeHe instead encourages women to embrace a strong-life concept called catch-and-cradle. Catching means believing in strong moments and weak moments and searching for the strong moments while the practice of cradling is paying attention to our strong moments and allowing those moments to guide our choices.

Buckingham also rejects the notion of striving for balance which I appreciated because the topic of work-life balance is often discussed on She Takes On The World. “Strive for fullness instead,” Buckingham says, “You have one life. One mind. One heart. One cup, if you will. Your challenge is not to separate one cup from another, erect boundaries between each, and then somehow balance them all. Your challenge is to move your life, tilt your life, intentionally imbalance your life toward those few specific moments that will fill your one cup.”

Buckingham helped develop the Strong Life Test to help women identify their leading and supporting roles, strong moments, and how to make the most of your roles. There are nine roles including Advisor, Caretaker, Creator, Equalizer, Influencer, Motivator, Pioneer, Teacher, and Weaver. You can take the Strong Life Test online to discover your roles and strengths.

A note from the publisher, Brian C. Hampton, says “If you’ve ever wondered why ‘juggling’ your job, your family, your friends, and your own sanity seems like an impossible ideal, you should read this book.” I couldn’t agree more.

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Natalie MacNeil

Natalie MacNeil is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of She Takes on the World. She is also the Co-founder of award-winning digital media firm, Imaginarius. For more information about Natalie, visit NatalieMacNeil.com.

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  • https://authenticityareyougame.blogspot.com Denise Barreto

    I’ve participated in a leadership summit where Marcus Buckingham was a facilitator – he is amazing. Marcus has an incredible energy and heart for people finding wholeness in their lives. Love this idea and will pick up the book if I don’t win it!

  • http://www.thecluelesscrafter.com/ Lydia, Clueless Crafter

    Funny, I thought the cradle aspect was to use our weak moments to guide our strong moments.  Not cradle the strong.  If we are already strong in one aspect, we should use the weak to get stronger, no?
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  • http://www.TMGpr.com Tami McCarthy

    Natalie,

    I cannot wait to read this book…I’m going to take the Strong Life Test right now. I’m successful. I’m happy…and strong. But am I my strongest? That is an intriguing question I want the answer to. I find the notion of “juggling” being less than ideal, and find this approach refreshing and empowering. Thanks so much for sharing this. Good stuff!

  • Susana Perez

    I do fully agree with the content of this article. I have always said that we women, do not have to fight for balance. While we focus on that we are not living. We like to complain that men do not help us with the kids, home tasks, and so on, but we forget that we also have to create an environment of collaboration. Kids and tasks are for both of us, men and women. But we tend to put men apart when raising children, we are the best cookers, we do the best ironing. We think that men are careless, do not have a clue, and in the end, its our task, our iroring, and our kids. We have to be more inclusive, and dont forget to say what do we want from men.

  • http://melissatayloronline.com Melissa Taylor

    I loved his other book, Strength Finder. I’d really like this one, too!

  • http://www.scribendi.com Chantielle

    I would love to have the chance to read this book :)

  • http://www.marketlikeachick.com Coree Silvera

    I totally love this quote from the book: “Your challenge is to move your life, tilt your life, intentionally imbalance your life toward those few specific moments that will fill your one cup.”

    For so many of us that work from home and possibly have a family to raise, it is difficult to try and set up boundaries of work – life balance. You have to learn to roll with life and the daily (or hourly) challenges it brings you. Each one of those challenges is an opportunity to grow and teach. If we were to say “I will only accept work-growth opportunities from 8am-6pm, and after that I will only take child-rearing opportunities” we are just creating stress in our lives by trying to control the uncontrollable.

    It may seem as though we spend a lot of time working by letting go of the boundaries but, I wouldn’t want to go back to an office 9-5 in exchange for this life anytime! I’d love to learn more of the techniques Marcus shared in his book. Seems like a winner!
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  • http://www.womenwisemarketing.com Kelly Watson

    Oooh, this looks awesome. I’d love to do a video book review on this one for my site :) Thanks for the opportunity!
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  • Kat King

    “…while the practice of cradling is paying attention to our strong moments and allowing those moments to guide our choices.”

    So well put! How many of us cradle weak moments and have those moments guide our choices and impugn our positive esteem.

  • http://www.oneorganizedlife.com Alaia Williams

    Looking forward to this book! I love Marcus Buckingham’s work and I’m interested to see him tackle this topic! I wish I would have caught him when he was on Oprah.

  • http://actsoffaithblog.com faith

    Ok it seems like an interesting read. Not sure I want to take advice from a man about issues pertaining specifically to women though.

  • Natalie MacNeil

    Great comments everyone!

    @Lydia -Cradling the strong moments helps us realize how important those moments are and how we can recreate them. The weak moments are definitely important too though so thank you for raising that point. We have to be able to identify the moments that make us feel weak so that we can eliminate the actions that weaken us -whether it be a job, task, or relationship.

    @faith -My initial thought was “Why should a man give advice about women’s issues” as well. I changed my mind while I read the book though because Marcus Buckingham has done tons of research and studies in his role as Senior Researcher for the Gallup Organization and he has interviewed thousands of women on these issues. So while Marcus is a superstar research and conducted all this research, many women had input.

  • Nazima Ali

    I read Now discover Your Strengths and recommend it highly. Great way to really focus yourself in anything you do in a positive manner.

  • Natalie MacNeil

    I like to do contests the old fashioned way -by drawing names from a hat.

    AND THE WINNER IS….

    Nazima Ali! I’ll be contacting you to get your address and send you the book. To everyone else, I have another book giveaway and a gift card giveaway this coming week! Thanks for reading :-)

  • http://www.HobokenMommy.com Cat – Hoboken Mommy

    Wow. This is exactly what I needed to read tonight. I was just stressing out about having a 2nd child and feeling unfulfilled about my career. I’ll get this right now.

  • Natalie MacNeil

    Cat, I’m glad you found this article (and She Takes on the World) during a stressful time for you. What you’re feeling is something I hear from A LOT of women. As women, we often put everyone and everything before ourselves and it causes us so much stress. I think you’ll find inspiration in the stories from Find Your Strongest Life. The Strong Life Test is also a great tool to get yourself started. All the best :)

  • http://www.Escapingthe9to5.com maren kate

    Great blog, just found it & wow this is such a great resource for women entrepreneurs like myself! Thanks!

  • http://www.greenblossoms.net/blog zee

    I’m soo glad I found this blog! so many interesting and inspiring stories to read! this is the first time i’ve heard of the book and i somehow agree with Faith about not being sure about taking advice from a man about women and how they (we) should juggle our lives. ;) what i agree on though is finding our purpose, embracing life and living it happily. this is also one of the reasons why we put up our own blog — to help modern women live greener, healthier and happier lives!
    .-= zee´s last blog ..DIY Spa Series – Week 5 =-.

  • http://performtoprofit.com Tracy Matthewman

    I totally agree with everything you said. I believe that an amazing time management skill is also a very helpful thing that woman entrepreneurs/busy moms/busy women should have. I want to share to you this amazing program that will make you become the master of your time and make the most out of it like you never did before. It’s an amazing time management modules that will walk you through a step by step process that will unbelievably change how you will take advantage of time and finally feel like you had no time wasted. Here’s the link http://performtoprofit.com/. Please let me know what you think.

  • http://www.trishcardona.com/ Trish Cardona

    I just took the test and it is spot on! I have read the strengthsfinder but didn’t realize he was the author. I’d love to get my hands on the book. And it gives me more confirmation and encouragement to pursue what I’m doing on the web.
    Thanks for this article!
    .-= Trish Cardona´s last blog ..The Soulful Style of Alicia Keys =-.

  • FreeReferrals

    Great information here and I am gonna bookmark this

  • http://www.thesorority.org Jintana Khieochaum

    I love this blog and glad I came across this article as I’ve found it truly inspirational. I also think that most of all that women should support women and recognize ourselves as well as each other. The Sorority club is founded on this principle. Its another great resource.

  • http://twitter.com/athenanetwork Zsa Zsa

    Totally agree about the juggling part — something, somewhere along the way, has got to give. That’s why many busy women today do NOT encourage multi-tasking! Better to work on a few, focused tasks than spread yourself too thin. This sounds like an awesome book, Natalie. Thanks!