Dr. Peter Tarlow on Personal Resilience and Personal Reconstruction
“It doesn’t matter how difficult the world makes our lives, we still need to find a way to see the beauty in life and understand that each day of life is a gift of God.”
–Dr. Peter Tarlow, co-author of Personal Resilience and Personal Reconstruction
BY ROSE MARIE QUINTOS
Aside from being a world-renowned speaker and expert specializing in the impact of crime and terrorism on the tourism industry, a rabbi, and the president of Tourism & More, Dr. Peter E. Tarlow is also a popular author on tourism and social religious commentaries. And now, together with his co-authors, he treats us to timely and useful books during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
Two of his books, Personal Resilience: Survival Strategies for Pandemic Times, and Personal Reconstruction: A Psychological, Spiritual, Financial and Legal Course in the Art of Preventing Personal Crises, and Recovering from Them, consist of strategies, lessons, and advice. In this interview, Peter discussed the creation of these books and his experiences as a rabbi and a tourism and security expert.
The importance of his life experiences in his writings
Peter emphasized that both his rabbinical work and his work in tourism safety and security distinctly contribute to his writings.
“It’s not two sides of the same coin,” he explained, “…When we work in security, we understand the value of each human being.” And he pointed out that, from his religious perspective, there is nothing more important than helping save a life. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, or Catholic, or Protestant, or Muslim, or Hindu. Whatever you are … you’re still a creature of God.”
This perspective has resulted in numerous publications and articles focused on extending a helping hand, passing on knowledge, and increasing awareness among people. “Everything that I write—the undercurrent—is always to celebrate life and to realize that each of us is special and a unique creation in God’s eyes.”
Our personal resilience during this pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all corners of the world and has caused millions of deaths and so many more victims. Not only have our health and economy been tested by this crisis, but also our resilience.
These have been tough times for so many. Still, these years have also taught us that we can be more powerful than anything that gets thrown at us. He noted that “despite [the pandemic], we’ve used that time to get closer to our family, we’ve used that time to explore our own spirituality, we’ve learned [during] that time … if this is the direction [we] want to go in the world, or what [we] want to do with [our lives].”
After a short pause, he added that “…even in suffering we can find beauty, and if we can … transform the negative into positive, then that’s really what personal resilience is all about.”
Personal Resilience: Survival Strategies for Pandemic Times
After musing about the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter turned his attention to his new book, Personal Resilience: Survival Strategies for Pandemic Times, which he co-authored with Séverine Obertelli, an internationally valued speaker, advisor, management consultant, and mental health practitioner.
Personal Resilience describes the crisis and offers advice and strategies for coping with stresses. Each chapter explores briefly one of four areas of our human condition: health, spirituality, social issues, and finances, and offers practical strategies for dealing with a pandemic and other personal crises.
Peter described “the book [as] a way to get back into life and not allow the COVID [pandemic] to defeat us, but rather that we have to find ways to grow even in the most difficult circumstances.”
“Hopefully that’s a theme of my life, and I would like to share that idea with people around the world—that it doesn’t matter how difficult the world makes our lives, we still need to find a way to see the beauty in life and understand that each day of life is a gift from God. So,” he stressed, “resilience is getting back to the living of life [and] not allowing Covid to defeat us, but rather we defeat it.”
Personal Reconstruction: A Psychological, Spiritual, Financial and Legal Course in the Art of Preventing Personal Crises, and Recovering from Them
“Well, let me take a step back.” Peter stopped briefly and reminisced about his inspiration in writing the Personal Reconstruction book.
According to him, a police officer friend from the College Station, Texas police department inspired this book. Peter said the officer “…worked on what we call ‘auto reconstruction.’ That when there was an accident, [the officer] would try to reconstruct the accident to [show] what was good and what was bad, and what mistakes were made, and how they could learn from this accident and prevent [other] accidents.”
Using the analogy of vehicle crashes, Peter conceived the notion that people have accidents in their personal lives just as they do in vehicles, and that those “personal crashes” could be similarly reconstructed and learned from—and avoid future personal crashes.
“You know, there are really four key elements: We lack a sense of spirituality, and then we end with economic problems, and … psychological problems … and legal problems. We think we’re above the law,” Peter added.
To realize the Reconstruction book he teamed up with three other co-writers, each an expert in their field: “…one is my son, who is a lawyer. [Nathaniel Tarlow] wrote the section on law; and my friend, Dr. Thomas Marrs, who is a psychologist; and my friend who lives in Portugal … Eduardo Leite [an economics expert].” As the book’s title shows, each co-author contributed their expertise to sections of the book from the perspective of avoiding or mitigating “personal crashes.”
Spirituality, however, plays an important role in this book and in our lives, according to Peter. “[People] have crises because of economic [psychological, and legal issues] they don’t know how to handle … but … we always end up with a spiritual crisis.”
A surprising outcome of creating his books
As an author of multiple books on tourism security and numerous academic and applied research articles, Peter shared that “probably the most surprising thing [as an outcome of his writings] is that I got to know myself better.”
He gave as an example a new book that he’s currently writing about tourism policing that “… mention[s] the prejudice … against police officers. But as I’m exploring those issues and looking back at the United States of the last 30 to 40 years … I am discovering … that so much of me is in those books without realizing it.”
Whenever he writes a book, he continued, it also becomes a dialog between the subject matter and himself. “I think in all cases, all authors reflect their inner selves. They may claim to be objective, but none of us are totally objective. All of us bring something of ourselves into whatever subject matter we write on.” He stressed that in writing a book, an author is not just teaching others but also teaching oneself.
Indeed, his passion for helping others, and his perspective that everyone is special in the eyes of God, has brought to life the inspiring works and service of Dr. Peter Tarlow.
At Dr. Peter Tarlow’s request, please comment below what you think about these books, and what would you like the next book to be about.
See the full interview :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8LP_vs9uMI&list=PL1YH2qeJVzRnU6aexKJA8n3TWZVPqgwNa
Connect with Dr. Peter Tarlow:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-peter-tarlow-aa602b15/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ptarlow
Rose Marie Quintos is a Publishing Assistant and the Marketing Director for Quest Publishing,
a division of the Inquesta Corporation. (She can be reached at rquintos@inquesta.com.)
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