IN COUNTLESS STUDIES, PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE DISCOVERED A SURPRISING FACT:

For decades they assumed that people who face adversity—a difficult childhood, career turbulence, sudden bouts of bad luck—will succumb to their circumstances. Yet over and over again they found a significant percentage are able to overcome their life circumstances and achieve spectacular success.

How is it that individuals who are not “supposed” to succeed manage to overcome the odds? Are there certain traits that such people have in common? Can the rest of us learn from their success and apply it to our own lives?

In Succeeding When You’re Supposed to Fail, Rom Brafman, psychologist and coauthor of the bestselling book Sway, set out to answer these questions. In a riveting narrative that interweaves compelling stories from education, the military, and business and a wide range of groundbreaking new research, Brafman identifies the six hidden drivers behind unlikely success. Among them:

•The critical importance of the Limelight Effect—our ability to redirect the focus of our lives to the result of our own efforts, as opposed to external forces
•The value of a satellite in our lives—the remarkable way in which a consistent ally who accepts us unconditionally while still challenging us to be our best can make a huge difference
•The power of temperament—people who are able to tunnel through life’s obstacles have a surprisingly mild disposition; they don’t allow the bumps in the road to unsettle them

By understanding and incorporating these strat-egies in our own lives, Brafman argues, we can all be better prepared to overcome the inevitable obstacles we face, from setbacks at work to chall-enges in our personal lives.