Available Now from Portfolio

As a professional, you want to be ready for anything. You’ll spend hours, days, even years, perfecting your technique, studying the competition, and stepping up to challenges in order to make yourself an all-star.

But at some point in your life, regardless of what you do or how far up the ladder you’ve climbed, you will be thrown a curveball—an unexpected challenge that comes at you quickly and without warning. The kind that forces you to rethink, well, everything.

Whether it’s the loss of a job, a newly assigned responsibility at work, or a global recession that threatens your entire company or industry, an unanticipated change can knock even the most experienced among us off guard. So if you want to succeed in business—and in life—it’s not enough to be the smartest in the room or even the hardest working; you have to be a great curveball hitter.

Scott Singer learned this lesson the hard way. After a series of career challenges and personal setbacks, he started to develop a new approach to dealing with unforeseen problems. He realized that curveballs are a part of the game and the greatest players know how to knock them out of the park.

Singer shares his personal story and insights as well as features
prominent curveball hitters, their stories, and their steps to dealing
with the unexpected: Leslie Moonves of CBS, Alan Schwartz of Bear
Stearns, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and actor Michael J. Fox.

This fun yet practical book is full of valuable advice and anecdotes that can help anyone avoid striking out at work (or at home) and maybe even turn those surprising challenges into tremendous opportunities.