Customer Reviews

Lotus and the Pool: How to Create Your Own Career (Odyssey Guides)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first read this book about ten years ago, I was floudering about in a very unfulfilling career with no idea what made me happy or how to incorporate the happy, successful part of my life into what I did for a living.

I'll be truthful and say I didn't do all the exercises, I skipped some of the meditations and hopped and skimmed through a number of chapters. Nevertheless, some very important processes that I did complete were rather profound and did eventually lead me to move to a better city, and make career choices that were much more closely aligned with who I really wanted to be.

The book is most useful in getting one to stop focusing on the intensly negative experience of not being in balance. Of feeling stuck and unfulfilled. It is at it's best a guidebook for discerning the you who wants to be actualized.

I give it four stars because it doesn't have an index and that makes it a bit difficult to navigate between the steps described.
OTherwise, I think it should be regarded as a standard reference in the field of career counseling.

This was the book that influenced my transition from marketing to career counseling. What I found most powerful was the visualization exercise: "What am I?" "What I'd like to be." "What hinders me?" "What will overcome the obstacle?" I normally don't respond to such an introspective approach but the exercises in this book helped me to create a new vision for myself. It also helped that I had an instructor guide me through this exercise, but it can work on its own.

I gave the rating of 4 because it is an older book, but the process is still valid. It has an extensive bibliography in the back although most are academic works and quite dated.