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Plan D: Building Your Resilience in the Face of Adversity
Lessons learnt for over 35 years from the battlefield of soldiering to the hidden battlefield of life. Plan D explores the unique skills that one soldier developed from operating on the frontline of war, immersing in polar exploration and engaging with the frontline of climate change. From working in hostile unforgiving terrains, Paul ‘Vic’ Vicary now inspires everyday people to be resilient in the face of adversity – adapting coping mechanisms to improve their own lives and keeping us going always a little further.
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 21, 2022
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February 1, 2026
This book, Plan D: building your resilience in the face of adversity by Paul Vicary, appealed to me with it’s title and dramatic front cover of an Arctic explorer being challenged by the snow and ice. I bought it online and it arrived a couple of days later, signed by Paul and with a compliment slip from him too, something that I had not been expecting at all. It is a hardback book which is always more appealing to me if I am wanting to keep the book. It will certainly form part of my ‘library’ collection of books.
Chapters 1 - 3 concentrate on the ‘getting to know’ Paul with some great pictorial references as well as information on his South Pole expedition. Early on in the book we are introduced to the climate change crisis. In the foreword Sir Ranulph Fiennes, British Explorer and Patron of Vicary’s North Pole Expedition, said “… to this end Plan D raises awareness of the desperate plight of our planet”.
From Chapter 4 onwards it is all about the North Pole expedition he ventured on with two colleagues. Here, we are introduced to some very useful resilience building strategies, that are easily applied to our own circumstances, whilst taking us through his experiences of his North Pole expedition. This is where the Pesto comes in; or more correctly named: P.E.S.T.O - Perseverance, Effort, Support, Time and Opportunity [ibid, pg 68-69]. Pesto, normally referred to as a dressing, and originating from Italy, is not an anagram I would immediately associate with either building resilience or of the Arctic. However, it works perfectly here as one would not go out into Arctic weather without ‘dressing’ plus Paul’s choice of word reference and expanded meaning fits perfectly.
P is for Perseverance = keep going at it
E is for Effort = you have to work hard at the task you have set yourself
S is for Support = your advisers, friends, family and others
T is for Time = Lack of time is not an excuse, it is how Time is managed.
O is for Opportunity = some times you have to make your own opportunities or say yes instead of no to possibilities that arise.
I found Paul’s conversational tone quite lightening on a subject that is perhaps more suited to an academic report. Yes, there are statistics discussed and shown in graphs and tables, but the body of text is very easily readable and understandable. The diary excerpts he has included also make it quite personal, almost as if a family member is ‘writing home’ to us. Using the memoir approach in writing this book, Paul has, in my opinion, brought the severity of the climate change to the attention of the average person in an easily accessible format. “… as we looked down [whilst they were travelling back in a helicopter] we saw the horrendous impact of the climate crisis. It was awful, with large cracks, broken ice, and simply open water, all across what was supposed to be the ice-locked North Pole. It was just messed up out there, like a battlefield …” [ibid. pg 170] His conversational tone in the book certainly made me think more deeply and gave me a desire to seek out more information about climate change plus what is in store for the planet if we do not take some action now.
A book worth reading and one to hang onto; a great ‘gifting’ book too.
Chapters 1 - 3 concentrate on the ‘getting to know’ Paul with some great pictorial references as well as information on his South Pole expedition. Early on in the book we are introduced to the climate change crisis. In the foreword Sir Ranulph Fiennes, British Explorer and Patron of Vicary’s North Pole Expedition, said “… to this end Plan D raises awareness of the desperate plight of our planet”.
From Chapter 4 onwards it is all about the North Pole expedition he ventured on with two colleagues. Here, we are introduced to some very useful resilience building strategies, that are easily applied to our own circumstances, whilst taking us through his experiences of his North Pole expedition. This is where the Pesto comes in; or more correctly named: P.E.S.T.O - Perseverance, Effort, Support, Time and Opportunity [ibid, pg 68-69]. Pesto, normally referred to as a dressing, and originating from Italy, is not an anagram I would immediately associate with either building resilience or of the Arctic. However, it works perfectly here as one would not go out into Arctic weather without ‘dressing’ plus Paul’s choice of word reference and expanded meaning fits perfectly.
P is for Perseverance = keep going at it
E is for Effort = you have to work hard at the task you have set yourself
S is for Support = your advisers, friends, family and others
T is for Time = Lack of time is not an excuse, it is how Time is managed.
O is for Opportunity = some times you have to make your own opportunities or say yes instead of no to possibilities that arise.
I found Paul’s conversational tone quite lightening on a subject that is perhaps more suited to an academic report. Yes, there are statistics discussed and shown in graphs and tables, but the body of text is very easily readable and understandable. The diary excerpts he has included also make it quite personal, almost as if a family member is ‘writing home’ to us. Using the memoir approach in writing this book, Paul has, in my opinion, brought the severity of the climate change to the attention of the average person in an easily accessible format. “… as we looked down [whilst they were travelling back in a helicopter] we saw the horrendous impact of the climate crisis. It was awful, with large cracks, broken ice, and simply open water, all across what was supposed to be the ice-locked North Pole. It was just messed up out there, like a battlefield …” [ibid. pg 170] His conversational tone in the book certainly made me think more deeply and gave me a desire to seek out more information about climate change plus what is in store for the planet if we do not take some action now.
A book worth reading and one to hang onto; a great ‘gifting’ book too.
Displaying 1 of 1 review