The Way of Adventure: The Six Steps to the Top in Business and Life: Transforming Your Life and Work with Spirit and Vision

A jack-of-all-trades, Salz has spent most of his life pursuing adventures of one kind or another: climbing mountains in Patagonia, spending three nights in Disneyland, sleeping in New York train stations, apprenticing with a shaman in Peru. But this cultural anthropologist has also worked as a motivational speaker. In this hybrid self-help book, Salz combines adventure tales with advice on how to find ""the joyful determination to go out and rediscover life for ourselves, finding peak experiences in situations and environments that previously seemed mundane."" Writing in a friendly tone, Salz structures his book around six progressive stepsDLeap Before You Look, Aim Higher Than Everest, Give It All You've Got, Work Some Magic, Keep on Your Bearing, Enjoy the ViewDeach of which he presents in two chapters: the first recounts an episode from Salz's own adventures, and the second blends an explanation of the lesson with comments from other wilderness travelers, businesspeople or artists. The author also provides lots of suggestions on how readers can devise their own adventures, but since Salz's definition of adventure is ""any intentional experience that substantially alters our perspective,"" these can range widely, from spending 48 hours away from home on 50 cents or giving away something you value to taking a vigorous half-day hike. The hybrid approach may leave both traditional self-help readers and adventure fans dissatisfied. This book's real audience may be those looking for ways to shake up life's routines. (Oct.)