The Career Survival Kit (Collection)

Chapter 4. The Power of Play: Optimism and Resilience

There comes a time on the water when you feel as though you know where every bubble is, sense every current, instinctively time each surge, and smoothly absorb its power. And at last you will be set free, gliding gently and serenely in the midst of apparent chaos, with the sunlight sparkling in the spray all around. This is the alchemy of play-paddling—becoming enveloped in the music and magic of flowing water.^[1]—Doug Ammons, "certified play paddler"

We work in a wild, but also potentially invigorating, world. Greg once asked a group of managers from a major telecommunications firm—in the midst of the vortex of deregulation—if their jobs were harder than before. Almost every hand went up. ...