In Marcus Buckingham’s latest book Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life, he tells us that to do anything great in your life, you will have to take seriously what you love and express it in some sort of productive way. I have enjoyed Buckingham’s work for a number of years, especially his work on strengths, and his 2007 book Go Put Your Strengths to work.
When Buckingham talks about strengths and weaknesses it may be a bit different from how you have always thought of them. For Buckingham, a strength is an activity that strengthens you, while a weakness is an activity that weakens you. It does not necessarily matter if the activity is something at which you are particularly good. There are just some activities that we love and some that we loathe. I worked with someone who was particularly good with budgets, and as a result was always asked to do our team’s budget work. But even though she was good at this activity, she hated it (loathed it), and it always weakened her. Do you have a similar example in your work – something you are particularly good at, but you hate doing? My wife Tammy is particularly good at accounting work, but she does not really like it, and it weakens her when she must do it.

Buckingham currently leads research at the ADP Research Institute. He tells us that at work, according to the most recent data, less than 16 percent of us are fully engaged, with the rest of us just selling our time and our talent and getting compensated for our trouble. Many of us see work as a necessary evil, while others look to integrate their faith with their work to serve God and others. The great reformer Martin Luther is famous for saying that God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does. Think of your co-workers as your neighbors. Buckingham writes that anything of value you offer to others is your work.
To help us thrive in a life that feels fully our own, Buckingham introduces us to a new language, a love language (not Gary Chapman’s love languages). One new concept is that of “red threads.” Buckingham explains:
“When we are inside an activity, we love we are enveloped, so in the moment that we are no longer aware of ourselves. You are not doing the activity. You are the activity. We all have certain activities that give us this same feeling—of vanishing into the act, of fluidity, of the steps falling away and time speeding up. Activities where you disappear within them, and time flies by. Think of these as your “red threads.” Your red threads won’t tell you in which particular job you will be successful. Instead, they’ll reveal how you—one particular individual—will be most successful in whatever job you happen to choose.”
Buckingham tells us that our strengths are our red threads. In the book, he provides a helpful “Red Threads Questionnaire” to help us identify our own red threads. And once we identify these red threads, our challenge will be to weave them into the fabric of our life, both at home and at work.
kBuckingham tells us that any day that goes by without finding something to love, something to get excited about, raises the chance that you will, over time, become less engaged and less productive. He tells us that it is up to us – no matter what role we find ourselves in – to take responsibility for weaving what you love into what you are being paid to do.
Do you love the work you do? Nobody loves all aspects of their work of course. But do you love a good portion of the activities that make up your daily work – whether it is paid work, that of a mom, a volunteer, etc.?