Reinventing Professional Identities

In this chapter, two professionals reflect on the experience of reinventing their professional selves. In the first part of the chapter, Kevin Kelly examines the role of attention at crucial junctures in his professional development. He illustrates the transformative potential of attentiveness to others via a number of examples, from a first job in childhood to the poignant example of a sick friend. In the second part, Darragh Power offers philosophical refection on the soul searching inspired by the experience of being made redundant. Through a number of examples and case studies from his work on a leadership retreat, Power explains how inner creativity lies at the route of self-reinvention in response to professional and personal crisis.