Roger Crawford is one of America's most highly regarded speakers and a shining example of the power of resilience to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. Physically challenged from birth, he has learned from experience that resilience — our ability to thrive under stress and bounce back from hardship — is a skill that we can all develop and maintain. Now, with his unique blend of humor, savvy, and hard-won wisdom, he shows you how you can make resilience the springboard to your own success.

Where are you coming from? How long have you been there? Where are you going? Starting with these fundamental questions, How High Can You Bounce? invites you to take stock, to examine your attitudes, the way you see yourself, and your motivations. Then, from this new wellspring of awareness, you can begin to build your resilience — and reap the benefits of living a healthier, happier, more productive life.

Let Roger Crawford help you discover:

• The Best Defense Against Hard Times — how to harness the extraordinary power of humor and optimism

• The Keys To Success You Already Possess — how to take an inventory of your personal riches and make use of all your resources

• The Greatest Confidence Builders — how to fortify your positive attitudes and rethink the perceptions that are holding you back

• What's Better Than Money In The Bank — how to stockpile resilience so you can draw on it whenever you need it

• The Friends You Can't Afford To Be Without — how to attract strong, nurturing friends who lift you up and cheer you on

• How To Write Your Own Life Script — knowing when to take responsibility puts you in the director's seat

• When Challenge Is Sweet — why obstacles should be embraced, as springboards to new levels of achievement and as exciting opportunities

• The Secret Of Becoming An Effective Leader — how your unshakable resilience can win you respect at home, at work, in the community

Elevating and inspiring, How High Can You Bounce? introduces you to dozens of unforgettable men and women who illustrate these principles in every walk of life. Their amazing stories of courage and resourcefulness make this a book to treasure in good times and bad.

If you put a golf ball in the freezer until the core gets very cold, it loses its resilience. No matter how hard you hit it, it's not going to go far. Even after the outside has warmed up and the ball seems completely normal, it won't perform like a regular ball. And if the ball gets cold enough, it will splinter on impact.

People are like that. They can look pretty much alike, come from similar backgrounds, and go through similar experiences. Yet, in the same situation, one person soars and another comes up short, one person flourishes and another is devastated.

Those who soar through life have resilience. Their resilient core transforms the momentum of life's many blows into speed and distance. The same forces that shatter others are what keep them going.

Resilient people regain their stability more quickly in difficult situations, and stay physically and emotionally healthy during periods of stress and uncertainty. They stay hopeful and optimistic when others give up. They rebound from adversity even stronger than before.

A high level of resilience is a great thing to have. It makes our lives richer, more productive, happier, and more successful. But how do we get it? We're all born with some resilience or we wouldn't be here. A few charmed individuals seem to have gotten more than the rest of us, surviving with a smile everything that life throws at them.

The rest of us have a conscious choice. We can allow ourselves to freeze up, calcify, to slowly become brittle and inflexible like frail old trees waiting to blow down in the next strong wind. Or we can take steps to develop and maintain our resilience. Fortunately, resilience is a skill you can learn.

If you're alive, you're going to face challenges and hardships. Many of mine are obvious. At birth, I faced a physical challenge that affected all four limbs. The medical explanation was "ectrodactylism." My preferred term is "inconvenienced. " Basically, my hands aren't fully developed. A thumb extends from my right wrist, and a thumb and pinky from my left wrist. One foot has three toes. My other leg was underdeveloped and was amputated below the knee when I was five so I could wear an artificial leg. Suddenly I had the agility to walk and run. What an incredible turning point in my life!

Has this physical challenge limited me? Of course. I can't eat with chopsticks or play "Chopsticks. " That's one of the realities of my life and yours: We must accept what we cannot change.

As soon as I developed the necessary mobility, athletics (especially tennis) became a positive influence in my life. I captained my high school tennis team and had a single record of forty-seven wins, six losses. In college, I became the first person with a physical challenge affecting two or more limbs to participate in Division 1 NCAA athletics. I'm proud of this accomplishment, but I didn't do it alone. Loving, supportive parents, excellent coaching, and some God-given ability made it possible.

Was I any more "handicapped" than someone able-bodied who is disadvantaged by poverty, a dysfunctional family, or a negative self-image? I don't believe so. It's the invisible handicaps — attitudinal, spiritual, or emotional — that are the most painful and difficult to overcome.

But this book is not about my life, it's about yours. It's about nine ways to make yourself stronger, more powerful, and more resilient. In sports, in business, and in life, I've always been fascinated by the enormous difference that resilience makes. Is there a way to tell who will thrive and who will fail? Is there a formula for building resilient organizations or raising resilient children? And can we learn to be more resilient? After studying hundreds of organizations and talking with thousands of exceptional people, I'm convinced that the answer to all these questions is yes!

In this book, you will be reading stories about highly resilient people — people who have been challenged and who have emerged even wiser and better equipped to manage the future. At first you may think, "Oh, I could never do that!" But how do you know? These are all ordinary people who have been able to tap the extraordinary resources within themselves. This can be your life as well!

Excerpted from How High Can You Bounce? by Roger Crawford. Excerpted by permission of Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Tags: Success

About the Author

Roger Crawford receives standing ovations from more than 100,000 people annually at major organizations, including Aetna, American Airlines, General Motors, Met Life, IBM, AT&T, Kraft, and Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and is a consultant to a number of Fortune 500 companies. His first book was his autobiography, Playing from the Heart. Once told he would never walk, Roger Crawford became a Division I college athlete and was certified by the United States Professional Tennis Association.