Mike Taigman

When Mike was 11 years old growing up in Colorado, he took a class on wilderness survival.  He and a buddy then spent three cold winter days in the Rocky Mountains trying out what they’d learned.  After that, a local ski club engaged him to tell them about his experience. Mike was forever hooked on teaching people how to get through tough situations.

Later Mike became a street paramedic at Denver General Hospital.  He watched as some colleagues in Fire, Law, and EMS weathered traumatic situation after traumatic situation with little repercussion.  Meanwhile, other friends suffered emotional and psychological wounds that took longer to heal, and sometimes never did, with no obvious reason why. 

While working in the field Mike began a parallel path of in-depth study in psychology, neuroscience, organizational systems, Eastern philosophy, improvement science, management, and other areas of knowledge searching for the answers to what helps people thrive under intense stress. 

Mike’s hope is that the information and strategies he offers in this book will help all caregivers and the people who support them get through this pandemic and other life challenges with a little more ease and a little less suffering. 

Mike has authored more than 600 articles in professional journals and worked with emergency services and healthcare organizations in 48 of the 50 states, most of the Canadian Provinces, Israel, Palestine, Australia, and throughout Europe. His expertise includes stress management, resilience, EMS street survival, patient-centered leadership, and effective quality and performance improvement.

Mike began his career on the front line of emergency services and has helped build some of the most innovative, complex, and largest emergency medical systems in the Country. Mike leads ResilientFirst, the neuroscience-based resilience-training program offered by FirstWatch where he serves as Improvement Guide. Mike teaches improvement science at UCSF’s MS in Healthcare Administration and Interprofessional Leadership program and at UMBC’s MA in Emergency Health Services Management program. He also frequently serves as faculty for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Mike holds an MA in Organizational Systems.  For Mike, taking care of frontline personnel is the right thing to do on every level. This book is his offering to help his community get through the pandemic.

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Sascha Liebowitz

In 2004, when I met Mike in a hot tub overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur I was a burnt out Wall Street lawyer and yoga enthusiast on my way to India to find myself. I’d gone to prep schools and an Ivy League college, gotten great grades, worked for household name clients in the corporate world, but I wasn’t happy. I was exhausted, frustrated and disillusioned. I wanted more meaning from life but I was so lost I don’t even think I knew that’s what I wanted. 

My pick-up line was, “I’m all effed up and in transition so it’s not a good time for me to start a thing.” Mike’s comeback was, “You can be all effed up and in transition with me.” He was the strongest, coolest guy I’d ever met.

We fell in love, moved in with each other, and started working together right away, not in that order. As we were driving the U-Haul full of my stuff to his place in Oakland he got a call to help a 9-1-1 service in Utah. I still didn’t really know what he did for a living. He hung up and said, “Well, we can unpack and get you settled in the house like we planned or we can get on a plane tomorrow and do some work together.” I picked work. 

So we parked the truck, I dug out a suit, and off we went. It turned out that Mike and I had some complimentary skills and knowledge to offer and we had a good run helping clients together for several years. Then, in 2011 when we had our son Ax, I became very ill, wound up in the ICU for 10 days, got put on painkillers, got off them, and spent a year recovering my strength. 

Slowly, and then quickly, I found myself with a THC and alcohol problem that threatened everything. I found help and got sober. I continue to maintain a lot of involvement in the world of recovery. I began my blog, Living Every Minute Of It, to help myself get comfortable being seen in the world as I am rather than as I’d like to be seen. I get a lot of feedback that my revealing my process helps other people too. 

Mike and I live our wedding vows every day:

“I promise to take care of myself so that I can take good care of you, our relationship, and our family.

“I promise to stay in the conversation with you until we both feel complete, no matter how long that takes.

“I promise to work with you as my partner to make the world a better place.”

My experience has been that when each of us takes care of ourselves, everyone around us benefits. My hope is that you will use the tools this book suggests and find relief as I have.

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