Supersurvivors audiobook

With Supersurvivors I found everything I like about science books nestled between its cover. This book takes a look at how some people find a new direction in life after surviving a traumatic experience. It does not gloss over the fact though that trauma is just that, a horrible experience that you would not wish on anyone.Everyone has heard 'that' tale of someone whose traumatic life experience has given them the drive to go on to great things. The authors take a look at this phenomena and try to piece together the reason and science behind it. They achieve this by breaking the chapters up to cover a single topic like positive thinking or forgiveness. Each chapter tell the story of individuals, their trauma and how it changed them. From this we get a good sense of myriad of drivers that push people through and beyond their trauma.This book is well balanced and thought out it delivers a highly engaging read. I particularly liked it's use of individuals story to support the authors findings. I must admit it also engaged the voyeur in me it was both fascinating and shocking to read what some people had lived through.

I'm not a huge fan of self help books but this book articulated SO MANY THINGS I have been feeling in my life perfectly. As someone who was diagnosed with multiple severe chronic illnesses as a teen, I'm tired of the platitudes and "just think positive!" advice that people like to share. I could see

This book is a great one in highlighting the lives of people who have suffered tremendously and have come out victorious- from the external and their internal world. There are actual stories of people who have undergone pain, rape, sorrows, despair, shock, and all other emotions of a human being that occurs from an unexpected and hopeless conditions. Yet, they have come out victorious in their lives.A book that shall remain with me in times of personal loss or need.

Some people are destroyed by adversity and some people survive it. Others can take a trauma and then come out the other side triumphant and better than they were before. Why? Turns out there are several factors than can contribute to living victoriously in the face of difficulty. Quick read and good real life stories.

I enjoyed this book. I am not sure of the take away if you aren't one of the life/death experience survivors. What I did take away was that the amount of information you sort through to make a choice does not equate with a better/happier/content choice. AND that no matter what you choose, there are daily choices to stay with the "original" choice.

I loved this book. It read like a novel with a lot of interwoven stories. Basically the premise is that those who suffer from trauma or PTSD can be plagued for life and wallow in self-despair or can use that trauma to springboard into success. There were other interesting points as well.I wish they would have had an example about abuse. I felt that was missing/lacking.

A lot of stuff that I have read in other books. It is nice to hear a new perspective on older stories.

A well-written, wide-ranging and thought-provoking book on how ordinary people overcome immense challenges. Highly recommended.

Inspiring

Very interesting read. Great airplane reading for me.

I knew when I met Lee Daniel Kravetz that his book would be a smart read, possibly even inspirational, but it's so much more than that. If you're paying attention, this is actually a practical manual for how to create a meaningful life. These "supersurvivors" have not only survived a difficult, often tragic turning point, but they've used it to propel themselves forward into an entirely new and far more fulfilling path. What I took away from their stories is that fulfillment, happiness, contentment, success—all that good stuff most of us want comes down to this one critical ingredient: purpose. Kravetz's supersurvivors found theirs the hard way, but maybe we don't have to. Maybe we can learn from their example thanks to this book. At the very least, it helps to know what you're really looking for.

We're all powerless against the vicissitudes of fateAuthor/psychologists David B. Feldman and Lee Daniel Kravetz have placed before the general reading public a book that tackles some of those life questions we all face, separate out individuals who have survived seemingly impossible odds, and use their work with these people to probe the arena of `supersurvivors' and in doing so negate some old misunderstood perception and myths about what makes people able to make the most out of a hopeless situation.To get us to the point of understanding the effects of trauma of the psyche and the physical body they offer information form several fine experts; Judith Herman is quoted: `At the moment of trauma the victim is rendered helpless by an overwhelming force. When the force is that of nature, we speak of disasters. When the force is that of other human beings, we speak of atrocities. Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life.'The manner in which they describe the feats of some people who have endured severe hardships and why is enlightening. They also apply the findings of interviewing the `giants' of success by relating the information to daily living. `Successful people fail a lot, but they try a lot, too. When things don't work they move on until an idea does work. Survivors and great entrepreneurs have this in common.' They describe the halo effect and other aspects of phenomena that affect the manner in which the well discussed supersurvivors have functioned.Toward book's end they state `Throughout this book we've seen that the otherwise destructive forces of trauma can sometimes initiate dramatic positive transformation. But is it really necessary to suffer in order to experience this magnitude of change?' `Pain will change you. It does change you. But so does knowledge.' This is a beautifully written book that opens many windows of thinking and allows the reader to reevaluate the way trauma is viewed, experienced and utilized. It is a book about Hope. Highly Recommended.

This book was recommended to me by the parent of a young adult cancer survivor. I thought it would be one more book about the power of positive thinking. NO WAY! In fact, that is one of the urban legends the authors take on. With research and data to back them up, they tell personal stories of survivors of war, brutality, disease, and other traumas, and delve into how differently each individual handles (or not) the experience. What they find is common to everyone of these people is that they are changed and they must deal with the fact that life is no longer what it was prior to the experience that changed them. They try to help the reader travel with the survivors to grasp the powerful tools that the event gave each one, that allowed them to find something within themselves with which they could transform and overcome adversity, to move into a new mode of living. The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is that I can't figure out who the target audience is, and how they will be reached. I would never have picked this book up off a shelf in a store or a library, or ordered it, but for the recommendation. I'm so glad I read it, but still, I wonder: Who reads this book? If you have that answer, please comment. It's message is liberating and challenging, not inspiring. It's about ordinary people, many of whom remain ordinary on the outside. Inside, they are super; they have become something they never realized was possible, before the event that changed them forever. The book tells the reader that no matter what life throws at you, you can take charge of it in some way and figure out a way to turn it into something useful for you. I'm not positive I buy that premise, but I do think it is the book's message.

I was fascinated and impressed with Supersurvivors: The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success. This book was laid out beautifully, reviewing points when necessary and tying together ideas cohesively. The use of statistics and studies were perfectly balanced; the authors didn't exhaust readers with an abundance of unexplained data nor did they make baseless conjectures. It would have been easy for this book to have become an empty shell of feel-good "you can do it" mumbo-jumbo, but it wasn't. The book is a coherent explanation of the ways that some individuals might "bounce forward" after trauma and tragedy.I highly recommend this book for anyone curious about a balanced perspective on human perseverance and the adaptation of mind. This is a refreshing look at concrete commonalities seen in individuals that have turned tragedies into triumphs and/or triumphed after tragedies. Touching on cancer, violence, and even genocide, the book covers a wide area of subject matter and specifically looks at how one might model behaviors and perspectives based on the data.The authors did a wonderful job of summarizing the overall message I got from this book, so I'll leave you with their final words:"From each, we learn that it is possible to brave life's trials with a deep sense of hope. And that, rooted in the act of confronting the entanglements of life, every one of us has the capacity to be super."

This is a popular book and for good reason, it discusses the many perplexities of life, the kind that that make you wonder if its just you or others go through similar things as well. It satisfies the voyeur in us, in a socially acceptable way.In that sense it is a very engaging book.However, having said that the book propounds the Jewish worldview, which stands apart from the Islamic and Christian worldview. In both Islam and Christianity, there is a strong concept of an afterlife in terms of heaven and hell. Those who endure enormous adversities in their life or those who face young and tragic deaths have an assurance of a blissful afterlife, which makes the pains of this earthly life bearable. However, in this book the focus is this world alone, which is hard to reconcile, because after all not every one is a super survivor and billions live tragic lives with no hope otherwise. This is not to advocate fatalism and inaction, because inertia is also anti-thetical to the Islamic faith. Rather it is to say that Allah/God has a plan and within that plan there are many adversities, which require patient perseverance as a religious commandment. The fruits of this would never be lost, but they will be enjoyed in our true life-the afterlife.

I love it when books take wisps of what I could vaguely consider to be common sense and then bring them together in a tangible way, backing these thoughts with science and studies and present a truth or a series of truths.This book just makes sense. Extraordinary humans are just humans who keep putting one foot in front of the other. It is an important message and I think that one everyone needs to hear...that person could be you - they don't have magical powers!I did find it difficult to read and I can't explain why..the layout makes sense, personal story ...psychological study/philosophy/science and back to the personal story. Yet somehow there was a lack of natural transition that I found marginally bewildering and I kept having to remind myself who all the characters were.HAVING SAID That, I think it's a great book and I think the grounded hope premise is a healthy qualifier to all of the magical power of positive thinking out there...