Marcus Buckingham

Reserve your place here: designlovein.com After years in the data, this book is ready. And I think we need it now more than ever. HBR has opened Design Love In for pre-order, and I’d love you to come into the Discovery Series with me.

Most people bomb interviews for one reason: They try to be someone they're not. After 25 years of studying human strengths, I can tell you—the biggest mistake isn't a weak handshake or forgetting to ask questions. It's showing up as a generic version of yourself. Here's what actually works: Stop trying to be perfect. Start being precise about who you are. The best candidates I've seen don't memorize scripts. They get crystal clear on their unique pattern of strengths. They can tell you exactly when they're at their best—not in theory, but with real moments. Instead of: "I'm a people person." Try: "I thrive when I'm connecting individual team members to work that energizes them." Instead of: "I'm detail-oriented." Try: "I get energized by organizing complex information so others can make faster decisions." The science is simple: Specificity about your strengths beats generic perfection every time. So before your next interview, ask yourself: •When do I feel strongest at work? •What kind of problems do I love solving? •When have others recognized my unique contribution? Your job isn't to impress with flawless answers. It's to show them exactly who you are—so they can picture you succeeding in their environment. Your uniqueness isn't a nice-to-have. It's your competitive advantage. Save this for your next interview. Follow @mwbuckingham for more strengths-based career insights.

In any job, sustained excellence without love is impossible. Love isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.

Fear itself is not the thing to be afraid of. It’s not fear which causes the problems in your life. It’s what fear degrades into when you shun it.

Virtually any job is awful and soul-destroying, if it is being done by a person who doesn’t find love in it.

These institutions – high school, college, work - which supposedly are set up to help you give off your best, are in fact designed to distract your attention from your unique loves and loathes, and instead convince you that there’s nothing enduringly unique about you. They’re purpose-built to convince you that you’re an empty vessel, and that your chief challenge in life is to fill this empty vessel with the skills, knowledge, grades and degrees required to climb onto the right next rung on the ladder.

At some point in your career, you are going to want to honor the path you have chosen – the craft you have chosen – by giving it your extended, undivided attention. Distraction is the enemy of excellence.

When it comes to your loves, you have all the answers. No one else has any. When it comes to your loves, you are the only genius.

Pay close attention to other people’s ‘reactions.’ These reactions will be excellent raw material to help you understand the dent you are making in the world. When someone’s reaction wasn’t quite what you wanted, honor their reaction and then think through which actions of yours they were reacting to.

Your weaknesses need to be dealt with, but your instinctive strengths are where you will experience exceptional growth...

No two people who excel at the same job achieve excellence in the same way.

Love matters, but you don’t need to love all you do. You just need to find the love in what you do. Even a little love goes a long, long way.

How are you feeling right now in your job? Join me and @HarvardBiz for an interactive event, How to Find A Career You Love. Register now for June 22: events.bizzabo.com/HBR062223?utm_…

You won’t ever ‘do only what you love.’ But you can, every single day, find some activity or situation or moment or event that you love. It might be the thinnest of red threads, but you can find it.

Your responsibility is to take seriously the uniqueness of your uniqueness, and design the most intelligent, the most honest, and the most effective ways to volunteer it to the rest of us.

Your role as team leader is the most important role in any company. And who your company chooses to make team leader is the most important decision it ever makes.

Your life, lived fully, is the search for the strongest possible connection between what you feel – your ‘loves’ – and what you give to others – your ‘work.’

Work’ is anything of value you create for someone else. Yes, your job – done well – is work. But learning is also work. Supporting a loved one in a relationship is work. Parenting your kids is work.

Specificity wins over generalization always. I first heard @mwbuckingham keynote at the @EntreLeadership summit in San Diego a few years back. He couldn’t be more spot on in this video. How can you improve your brand story with specifics?