Book reviews by GPRA members

What could you accomplish if you were more courageous?

A guidebook to help you be more purposeful in what you do, and more courageous in how you do it.

Stop Playing Safe is a great book with lots of practical tips on how to make your career successful and help you achieve what you really want it to be. It also happens to be written by my older sister Margie. So I’m declaring my bias upfront!

Stop Playing Safe, which was the #1 bestselling book on Amazon recently for ‘career guidance,’ talks about how fear and avoiding risk can limit what we do. Obviously as medical professionals we need to be cautious when caring for someone’s health. However, Stop Playing Safe (Wiley Press) approaches risk from a different angle, inviting you to consider where your unwillingness to take social and emotional risks may be holding you back in your work and career, and undermining your fulfillment and success in the bigger game of life.

Margie interviewed many successful leaders - like Ita Buttrose and Kathy Calvin, CEO of the UN Foundation – for their insights on why being willing to step outside their comfort zone – whether to speak up and have a difficult conversation with a colleague or to step into a bigger role – is important to make a difference in the world and achieve our potential.  

In the final chapter Margie writes about what we have to do to ‘set ourselves up for success.’   She says how important it is to cultivate daily habits and rituals that build and reinforce our resilience – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual - and expand our “capacity for courageous action.” Being a doctor is extremely demanding, so her advice to be deliberate in making a habit of doing things that keep us connected to why we chose this profession in the first place is extremely relevant and crucial.

I think there is something in it for everyone – personally and professionally.Stop Playing Safe, should inspire you, but also provide some very practical strategies for managing the people and problems you encounter on a daily basis with more resilience, purposefulness, confidence, and courage.

You can watch Margie talking about her book here.

Stop Playing Safe is available in most bookstores around Australia. A list of online retailers and more information is listed here.

Reviewed by: Dr Anne Kleinitz, GPRA Board member