Review – "The Truth About You" by Marcus Buckingham

I am a bit of a self-help junkie. I purchase self-help books for the motivation that they provide. The funny thing is that I am an unusually optimistic person who always looks for the good. I realize now that I’m not looking for a book to change anything about myself, but rather books to fill that validation that I somehow need (a weakness of mine). Champagne Living is about enhancing your life, so I really feel that motivational/self-help tools are an essential part of creating the FULLEST life that you can.

I received The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success, by Marcus Buckingham well over a month ago from the publisher in order to read and review. I opened it up, flipped through and immediately made a judgment based upon what I saw. The front cover contained a DVD (which I didn’t BOTHER to watch until TODAY), the back cover contained a small .59 notebook (called a “rememo” book) and the book itself is 110 pages with what looks like there are actually 75 pages worth of information with pages of NOTHING in between. So, I made my judgment (not worth reading) without having read it and left it sitting on the table.

Bored and trying to avoid doing housework earlier this week, I actually READ this little book and although at first I thought it was VERY simplistic, as it really only covered 5 points, I’m not convinced that this is really “the best advice you’ll ever get.” That being said, I think this would be helpful for graduating high school and college students ready to face the world of work as I remember NOT HAVING A CLUE as to what I’d later excel at and this book could definitely help.

The subject matter really is about finding your STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES, as well as how to use them (or not use them) to your advantage and although the information was FRESH and not something that I had really read before, I’m not blown away by Mr. Buckingham’s grade school approach to using the notebook or the simplistic writing style of the book. As a matter of fact, I probably would not have purchased this book if I had picked it up at the bookstore and flipped through it.

This morning, before beginning this review, I tossed the video in, thinking that I would listen and write this post at the same time…..

Can I TAKE BACK everything that I just wrote? Marcus Buckingham’s strength’s definitely lie in his ability to SPEAK. He is a motivational speaker who is DYNAMIC! I learned more from watching this short DVD then I did from the book, the notebook, etc. I felt as though he was speaking to ME – not you, not my husband but ME! His ability to connect, even through DVD is amazing and I now understand why these lessons are SO important as they’d have impacted my ENTIRE work world. I can go on & on, but it’s truly a DVD that has to be experienced (there’s no way that I can do justice to it).

The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success needs to be watched and listened to. Instead of a self-help book with a DVD, you need to think of this package as a DVD with a workbook. So, the old adage of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” applies here.

I recommend this DVD, book & notebook if you have students ready to graduate and figure out what their strengths are before entering the workforce or for those who are early enough in their careers to reassess. I only wish that it had been marketed as a DVD rather than a book.