How To Find Ultimate Fulfilment At Work: Marcus Buckingham | E140

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I lost my dad. I lost my marriage. I sold my company. Then you sort of ask yourself, "What are you doing with your life?" My name's Marcus Buckingham. He's a best-selling author.

A rock star in corporate America.

I couldn't say my own name until I was 12. The more you try to fix a stammer, the worse it gets. From a very early age, we start telling people that our strength is what you're good at, but yet I'm good at some things I hate. What's that? That's a weakness. I had got myself into a position where I was solely responsible for one huge client, Disney. I look like I sort of feel confident, but I had years of panic attacks. It was super psychologically damaging to be trying to be somebody that you're not. The first relationship you better have is a really good one with yourself. The best people in any job, they find love in the activities themselves. Love is for work and work is for love, and if we do that, it's not just individualistically satisfying, it's what companies want from us.

So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO: USA Edition. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (instrumental music) Marcus, it's a, it's a pleasure to have you here, in our studio here in LA, another Brit, s- sits... We've had quite a few Brits in, but, um, you're one that's particularly inspired me with your work. When I was doing the research on you and reading through your book and your prior book, um, I, I was overwhelmed with the amount of questions I wanted to ask you because of the, the depth of knowledge, but also how much the topics you talk about resonate with me. The place I wanted to start with you, though, that I found particularly surprising, having met you, having spoken to you, having seen how people have, um, become very enamored y- with you as a public speaker, is you started your life with a stammer.

Yes.

A, a really bad stammer.

Yes.

How does someone get from... And I want to talk about that, but for context, you went from having a stammer which was pretty crippling in terms of social aspects to Mark French, who's the US, US's top lecture, leader of the top lecture agency, calls you one of the best public speakers he's ever seen. How does one go from having a stammer and being, you know, really hindered by it to that position? And tell me about the stammer.

Yeah, so when I first started to speak, and this happens for quite a lot more boys than girls actually, as it happens, my synapses, um, didn't fire right, and so you have almost immediate disfluency. So my earliest memories, Steve, are not being able to say my name. One of my very earliest fears was not ever being able to be married 'cause I couldn't say, "Will you marry me?" So you start off and you start trying to communicate at three and four, and then you realize that something's really wrong, but you're so young you don't really understand what's wrong, and then you get older and older and you realize you can't, you can't put words together. Um, so for the first 12 years of my life, not being able to speak was what I thought about every single moment of every day. And everyone's got their own traumas and their own difficulties, and I had lots of blessings in my life, but, um, I couldn't speak and I had a lot to say. (laughs)