Quick Thinking on Your Feet in the Line of Fire

Do you find it a challenge to both think and act quickly and gracefully in key situations? I ran across three books in the past year all of which have great advice on how to train yourself to do exactly that:

• Quick Thinking on Your Feet: The Art of Thriving under Pressure; by Valerie Pierce


• In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions ... When it Counts; by Jerry Weissman


• Improvise This! How to Think on Your Feet; by Mark Bergen, Molly Cox, and Jim Detmar

Maybe this stuff is obvious for a lot of folks who are already skilled at this. Heck some of it is even obvious to me too ... AFTER you learn about it, or while someone is telling you about it. But being able to see it in the moment -- to recognize and identify it, and in less than a heartbeat, respond intelligently and succinctly with grace, civility, shrewdness, and openness, well ... I'm less skilled at that than most (I think) and these are proving helpful to me.