How To Handle Everyday Crises

 October 16, 2009

Interview with Brain Tracy author of the book Crunch Point: The 21 Secrets to Succeeding When It Matters Most

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Mike Carruthers:
Does it ever seem like things go wrong more often for you than for everyone else? Well, that's probably not true.

Brian Tracy:
We say that life is a continuous succession of problems only broken by the occasional crisis - and that the average person will have crisis every two to three months - a personal crisis or a financial crisis.

Brian Tracy, author of the book Crunch Point

And the only question is: "How well do you deal with it?" In fact, the mark of exceptional people is they deal effectively with unexpected reversal. And the mark of unsuccessful people is that they deal poorly -  they go to pieces, they fall apart, and they become angry.

Brian says that knowing that a crisis is going to happen to you, you can prepare for it.

Here's an interesting discovery: If you make a decision in advance that when you hit the inevitable storms of life, you will not get upset. When you do hit them you are ready, you can actually pre-program yourself psychologically to respond effectively. By deciding in advance that no matter what happens, I'm going to respond to it in a calm and cool way.

And staying calm in a crisis is the key to overcoming it.

Your brain is very much like a skyscraper that's all lit up at night, with all the lights on for all the floors. And when you become angry or upset, all the lights start to go off and the only lights that are left on are the basement lights - and we call this your primal brain, which is solely responsible for "fight or flight". Whereas when you're relaxed, your neocortex (your thinking brain) lights up. And so when you stay calm and relaxed, all your mental capabilities are available to you to analyze and to make good decisions.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.