I first heard of Marcus Buckingham on the Dave Ramsey Show. I found one of Marcus’ insights to be particularly eye opening… just because you are good at something doesn’t mean that it’s a strength. Essentially, this is how Marcus Buckingham defines strengths and weaknesses.

A strength is something that completes you. A weakness is something that depletes you.

You can take the workshop that Marcus Buckingham offers for free via Oprah’s website. For your convenience a quick summary of the Marcus Buckingham workshop materials are also listed below:

• Syllabus – This details what you will need to do before you take the workshop as well as the activities you will complete in each session.
• Green Cards – You’ll use the green cards to write down all of the times when you loved a task or felt strong during the course of a week.
• Red Cards – You’ll use the red cards to write down all of the items you loathed a task or felt weak (drained or bored) during the course of a week.
• Strength Statement – In Session 6, you’ll create a strength statement for each of the things you wrote down on the green cards.
• Weakness Statement – In Session 7, you’ll create a weakness statement for each of the things you wrote down on the red cards.
• Strong Week Plan – In Session 8, you’ll create a plan with key outcomes, activities needed to meet those outcomes and strategies to leverage your strengths and minimize your weaknesses for a strong week.