In today’s Attitude & Motivation class, we watched a DVD entitled Trombone Player Wanted by Marcus Buckingham as part of our midterm exam. Wikipedia describes the British-American and New York Times best-selling author, researcher, motivational speaker, and business consultant as being “best known for promoting what he calls ‘strengths’… basing most of his writing on extensive survey data from interviews… he promotes the idea that people will get the best results by making the most of their strengths.”
I found the film to be incredibly fascinating. It reminded me why I chose to enroll at the Golf Academy in the first place – because I wanted to do something more fulfilling with my life other than to sell office equipment and peddle IT services! Buckingham challenges the myths that he believes are holding us all back – that as we grow, our personality changes, that we’ll grow the most in the areas where we’re weakest, and that a great team member does whatever it takes to help the team. The film is broken up into six different chapters:
* So What’s Stopping You?
* Do You Know What Your Strengths Are?
* How Can You Make the Most of Them?
* How Do You Cut Out Your Weaknesses?
* Why Is It So Hard to Talk About?
* Why Can’t This Last Forever
Buckingham’s basic premise is that we spend too much time focusing on our weaknesses in our personal and professional lives that drain us when we are all endowed with strengths that empower and enrich our lives. Buckingham says we all have wonderful and powerful strengths, that no one has the same strengths as us, and that we’ll make our biggest contributions when we learn to play to our strengths most of the time. If you can get your hands on a copy of this film, I highly recommend it. Check out the opening chapter of the film below: