How to Survive and Thrive When Bad Things Happen: 9 Steps to Cultivating an Opportunity Mindset in a Crisis

Few of us go through life without experiencing some sort of crisis, whether health, financial, relationship, career, or personal safety. Crises happen and they are often out of our control. But the one thing we can control is how we respond to them. Yet, our natural instincts often hinder us as we confront today’s crises that are complex, amorphous, and not readily solvable. Changing our reaction to a crisis is an immense challenge, yet with powerful lessons provided in these pages, anyone can turn crises into opportunities for reflection, positive action, and growth. .

A crisis mentality can overwhelm you when bad things happen. Turning crises into opportunitiesempowers you to overcome the darkness that can engulf you in troubled times and allow you to seek the light that can guide you through hard times. Exploring the essential psychological, emotional, and interpersonal factors that most impact your reaction to a crisis, Jim Taylor provides you with deep insights and practical tools that help you move from a crisis mentality of fear, pessimism, and panic that controls you to an opportunity mindset of calm, confidence, and courage that you control in a crisis. He offers compelling examples, both recent and historical, well-known and unfamiliar, to bring these issues to life. Illustrations from government, large and small business, and ordinary people will highlight who responded well and who did not. Break free from the crisis mentality and embrace an opportunity mindset with nine strategies that will not only help you to survive, but actually thrive, when bad things happen.

Jim Taylor, PhD, is internationally recognized for his work in the psychology of critical performance. He is the author of 17 books and the lead editor of four textbooks. He has published more than 700 articles in scholarly and popular publications, and has given more than 1000 workshops and presentations throughout the world. Taylor has blogged or written columns for The Saturday Evening Post, psychologytoday.com, huffingtonpost.com, sfgate.com, seattlepi.com, the Hearst Interactive Media group, as well as on his own web site.