Life deals all of us tough breaks: those low blows or bad situations that are virtually impossible to bob and weave around. Sometimes they catch us by surprise and other times we see them coming. Either way, they can still knock us for a loop. Long-term loving relationships can and do end badly. Careers take downturns. Jobs disappear. These are the unpleasant and often painful facts of life. They may not be fair and most certainly will pain us in some way, but they are part of all of our lives at one time or another.

We all know somebody who is quick to say get up, brush herself off, and move on. This usually doesn't help matters much. When life knocks us on our butts, it's hard to get up and continue as if nothing has happened. We're in pain, perhaps even confused about what exactly happened. After a bad experience, none of us is in the mood to get up and continue as if everything is fine. However, the way we deal with the tough breaks determines how successful we are in the future. Sometimes just as one door closes behind us, another one unexpectedly opens. I know that sounds cliché, but it's true.

I haven't welcomed the hardships that have come my way, but I've tried not to complain about them. To the best of my ability, I've worked hard to accept the tough breaks and move on. And, in many instances, I know they helped me to overcome obstacles that came my way later. The best way to deal with life's letdowns is not to pretend they didn't happen, but try to salvage something positive out of them.

First, there are two basic kinds of bad breaks: those we can anticipate and those we never see coming until it's too late. We can prepare for the first kind. A smart fighter always wants to know his opponent's best punch. If an opponent has a devastating left hook, there's a good chance that sometime during the fight, regardless of how long or hard he's prepared, he's going to get hit with a left hook and it's going to hurt. For a fighter who prepares properly, that punch will not be a surprise. Oh, it may hurt like hell, but anticipating it will help him avoid the blows.

I always want to know the worst-case scenario of any given situation. Like the old saying, "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst," I always need to know the downside of any situation into which I enter. In business, this is absolutely essential. All business deals begin with the best of intentions, yet very often the smallest detail can send an entire enterprise into a tailspin that leads to hard feelings or worse-lawsuits. Each time I enter into a business deal, I study both the best possible result as well as the worst imaginable outcome. Once I know and understand the worst possible outcome, then I can begin to prepare for it. The moment I've acknowledged the possibility of the worst-case scenario and begun preparing for it, I've already begun the process of minimizing its effect. This thinking isn't negative, it's simply realistic.

However, sometimes you can find yourself in a situation that you couldn't have possibly anticipated beforehand. For instance, the dream job that turns into an office nightmare because the person who hired you decides to leave the company, or the attentive lover who turns out to be a cheater can't be anticipated. They leave you hurt and resentful. Yet, with a little creative thinking, it is possible to carry something positive away from these situations, or even turn them completely around.

You should take what you have learned from the tough fights of one situation and apply them to another. Suppose you're given an assignment by the company president to compile a detailed report in a very short period of time. No doubt, it's a tough assignment. There isn't much time and the report has to be perfect. Why panic? You've handled tough assignments before. There was the project for the division manager six months before, and another assignment from a vice president last year. At the time, those assignments seemed overwhelming, but you managed to do them. You've already been there and done that, and, more importantly, survived.

A German philosopher once said, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." I say: what doesn't knock you out puts you in a better position to win, either the current fight or the next one. You can learn something from a bad situation that can help you either overcome the present obstacles or those in the future. No fight is ever completely lost as long as you have learned from it and can apply it to your advantage in future situations.

For more down to earth advice about dealing with life's hard knocks the Jackie Kallen way, read "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" available from Penmarin Publishers and watch for her this fall on the new CBS reality program from Mark Burnett, "The Contender".