The title of Harold Kushner’s classic book When Bad Things Happen to Good People conveys an eternal truth – it’s not if bad things happen to good people, it’s when. At one time or another, we all have our worlds turn upside down on us. We are overwhelmed by health problems, money troubles, relationship challenges, career crashes, and dark nights of the soul. When (not if) these things happen to you, how you choose to respond will, more than any other single factor, define your character and set a path for your future.
When bad things happen to good people, they often happen unexpectedly: the cancer diagnosis, pink slip, court subpoena, divorce papers; the fall down the stairs, the fall in the stock market, the fall in sales as a new competitor enters your market; the call every parent dreads: “there’s been an accident.” The world suddenly turns upside down and you must respond – even hiding out in paralyzed fear and doing nothing is a response of sorts.
The purpose of this book is to help you avoid reacting in ways that are counterproductive and self-sabotaging, and instead respond with courage, determination, and faith – to respond in such a way that you grow as a person and create new opportunities out of apparent adversity. There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, said Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play. When bad things happen, it’s tough to see how anything good can come from it. It takes a conscious act of will to find the silver lining, the blessing in disguise that will help you find, or create, meaning from adversity.
Eric LeGrand was on his way to a professional football career when he was paralyzed making a tackle in a college game. The way he chose to think about what had happened to him set him on a path where, through his writing and speaking, he is helping many others better handle the challenges in their lives. Marcus Blank was fired from his dream job as CEO of Handy Dan’s. The way he chose to think about what happened set him on a path to launch Home Depot, one of the great American business success stories. Candace Lightner’s daughter was killed by a drunk driver. The way she chose to think about what had happened set her on a path to found Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), an organization that by some estimates is responsible for saving the lives of more than 300,000 people who otherwise would have been killed by drunk drivers.
This book will not prevent bad things from happening to you, nor can it stop your world from turning upside down. My goal, with the help of the “coauthors” whose books are quoted within, is to help you be prepared to respond in ways that are positive, nurturing, and constructive. When bad things happen, they do not un-happen; no amount of crying, complaining, self-pity, being a victim, or blaming others will return you to the status quo ante, the way things were before. But by the way we choose to think about and respond to what has happened, we can change everything. We might or might not someday be able to say it was the best thing that could have happened (almost everyone who has ever lost a job will eventually say that, but no parent who has ever lost a child will), but we will be able to say that we did what we could to make something good come from it. And though it might not be immediately obvious, the way in which we handle the adversity might confirm the audacious claim of Friedrich Nietzsche that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
How this book is organized
Staying on Top When Your World’s Upside Down is a completely different book than the original 1996 edition. Instead of 1001 bite-sized bits of advice, this version features 101 short chapters. Each chapter is introduced by a brief excerpt from a book written by one of the 101 people I think of as my co-authors because they each have something important to say about coping with, and emerging stronger from, hard times. I hope you will be inspired to read some of these books as well – think of it as homework.
Your world will turn upside down. Following the advice in this book will help you make sure that when it does, you come out on top.
- Staying on Top When Your World's Upside Down
- Introduction
- The Laws of Adversity
- The Great Divide – defining moments in adversity
- Carve the statue of you
- The four ways to handle brick walls
- Embrace the 4 personal freedoms
- Get clear about your values
- Align your goals with your values
- Have the courage to pursue your highest goal
- Thank God Ahead of Time (TGAoT) for whatever happens
- Use adversity as a platform for change
- Fear of failure is really fear of humiliation
- Congratulate yourself on being rejected and on failing
- You must overcome your fear of success
- Leadership is most important when the world is upside down
- The flip side of love is loss
- In grief seek comfort - and give comfort
- Imagine your organization as a support group
- Grieve – then move on
- There’s no such thing as false hope
- Practice a healthy humility
- Go off alone somewhere
- In the trials of adversity work on character strength
- Identify the problem behind the problem
- Change your questions
- Make the most of midlife crisis
- Stop doing what isn’t working and try something new
- When you put the pieces back together make the vessel stronger
- Stop thinking about yourself
- Stop ruminating
- Train your doubt
- When one door closes, push open another
- Ignore the nattering nabobs of negativity
- Utilize your gifts
- Hang tough!
- Don’t give in to apparent failure in the middle
- Rescue your failures
- There is no free lunch
- Raise your expectations
- Live into your potential
- You don’t need OPA
- Use DDQs to redirect your actions
- Use EDQs to redirect your moods
- Do good for others
- Practice Rafe’s Law
- Work until your mission is finished
- Bigger problems = better life
- The difference between courageous and crazy is often
- Escape prisons you’ve made yourself
- It’s not personal, permanent or pervasive
- Develop emotional power
- Get real by integrating ego and soul
- Do something!
- Get more sleep and practice Neuro-Attitudinal
- Practice strategic laziness
- Break your addiction to negative thinking
- Transform negative self-talk into positive affirmation
- Erase the graffiti of negative self-talk
- Pay attention to the metaphors by which you create your perception of reality
- Direct your dreams in a positive way
- Interpret dreams to your benefit
- Distinguish between problems and predicaments
- Create rituals
- Playing it safe can be a dangerous game
- Use the 6-A Formula to Create Memories of the Future
- Face the granddaddy of all fears
- Ignore the chatter of the world
- Stop whining
- The Pickle Pledge – a simple promise that will change your life
- Take The Pickle Challenge
- Build up your stamina
- Don’t pick fights you don’t need
- The steepest hills are in your mind
- Turn off the tragi-tainment
- Build upon The Pyramid of Self-Belief
- Act confident to earn confidence
- Stop waiting for someone else to “empower” you
- Take to heart The Self-Empowerment Pledge
- Monday’s Promise: Responsibility
- Tuesday’s Promise: Accountability
- Wednesday’s Promise: Determination
- Thursday’s Promise: Contribution
- Friday’s Promise: Resilience
- Saturday’s Promise: Perspective
- Sunday’s Promise: Faith
- Keep a personal journal
- Pay attention to the patterns in your life
- Overcome your own laziness
- Transform despair into determination
- Enthusiasm is the master value
- Stop awfulizing
- Adopt the Nedlog Rule
- Practice mutuality
- Say Yes to what matters by saying No to what doesn’t
- Write a poem
- Train your brain
- Replace anguish with hope
- Combine ignorant bliss with unearned confidence
- You can be a victim or a visionary but not both
- Work fast
- Caring is the root of courage
- See the world as it really is
- Fear can make you stupid
- Maintain your momentum
- The most important choice you ever make
- Illuminate the darkness
- Get out of stuck
- You cannot change the past but you can rewrite your memory of it
- Turn bad news into the best thing ever
- Write your own horoscope – a Youroscope
- Don’t hit the brakes when you hit the gravel
- Dealing with the energy vampires
- Be productive
- Your trajectory is more important than where you are at any point in time
- Forgive
- Even when the last thing you want to do is to forgive
- Forgive 360
- Stop abusing your imagination with delusions of grandeur and delusions of disaster
- Stop procrastinating
- Create something knowing there are no guarantees
- Get started
- Lost causes are only really lost when you stop fighting for them
- What doesn’t kill you…
- Expect a miracle