Work Your Strengths: A Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career for You

Do you panic when your car won't start or blurt out the first thing that pops in your mind? Can you keep track of your possessions and remember your appointments? How good are you at coming up with long-term plans and then actually sticking to them?

The answers are determined by your Executive Skills, a set of cognitive functions hardwired in the adult brain that define who you are and how you operate. Figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your own skill set and you can figure out exactly what job you'll excel at.

That's the promise of Work Your Strengths, the most on-target, research-based career advice you'll ever find. Written by an award-winning author, together with experts in the field of neuroscience and psychology, Work Your Strengths draws on the latest discoveries about the brain and the authors' original data to help you accurately assess your Executive Skills, pinpoint your ideal job---and avoid potential trouble.

You'll learn about working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, organizational skills, goal-directed persistence, flexibility, stress tolerance, and more---skills that can make or break your chances of success. Take a free online test to gauge your own skill set, then match your profile against the Executive Skills exhibited by more than two thousand high achievers in a multitude of industries and positions.

Packed with the authors' eye-opening findings, this unique book gives you a wholly new, scientifically sound way to play to your strengths---and locate the job that best fits your own strongest set of Executive Skills.

No more haphazard job switching, hazy career path, or worse, landing a really great job that you're really bad at! Now there's a surefire, scientific way to pinpoint the best job for you---and those you should definitely avoid.

Work Your Strengths taps into the powerful new concept of Executive Skills, which you can use to predict and maximize career success. With Work Your Strengths, the groundbreaking neuroscience behind the Executive Skills model has finally been brought into the career realm.

Executive Skills aren't simply your IQ or temperament or even education and training. Instead, they're a combination of brain functions that begin at birth and become hardwired in adulthood. Take the authors' free online test to discover your innate strengths and weaknesses in areas such as working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, organizational skills, goal-directed persistence, flexibility, stress tolerance, and more. By matching your own profile against the Executive Skills of high achievers in a multitude of professions and industries, you'll understand exactly which ones are crucial in which positions---and which weaknesses could spell serious trouble in specific jobs, departments, and industries.

The authors dig deeper than the vague "good with numbers" or "likes working with people" assessments. And the focus is far more practical than career books that ask you to explore your inner desires. Instead, Work Your Strengths draws on original research with more than two thousand people at hundreds of organizations of all types, from Fortune 500s to nonprofits, and at all levels, from CEOs to frontline employees.

This is solid, real-life data that you can use to match how your brain is wired with the wiring of people already successful in specific jobs. And the book makes its message plain, with an easy-to-read style devoid of scientific jargon and an abundance of examples of everyday behaviors that indicate high or low skills in each of the twelve areas.

Whether you are seeking a new and better job for yourself or a manager struggling to match the right employees with the right jobs, Work Your Strengths brings you a completely new, science based way to build a highly successful career.

Chuck Martin is the Chairman and CEO of NFI Research, a top management research firm, and a highly sought-after speaker. He lives in Madbury, New Hampshire.
Richard Guare, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and the director of the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders. He lives in Rye, New Hampshire.
Peg Dawson, Ed.D., is a psychologist at the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders. She lives in Brentwood, New Hampshire. Together, they are the authors of Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success?

CHUCK MARTIN (Madbury, NH) is the Chairman and CEO of NFI Research, a top management research firm, and a highly sought-after speaker.

RICHARD GUARE, PH.D., (Rye, NH) is a neuropsychologist and the Director of the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders.

PEG DAWSON, ED.D., (Brentwood, NH) is a psychologist at the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders. Together they are the authors ofSmarts (978-0-8144-0906-0).