Every schedule, every plan you made in February was shot.

March began, and life changed in big ways and small. Calendars were tossed, and things got scary. Maybe they still are.

So how did you deal with the virus, its impacts and its unknowns. What will you do if it recurs? In “Becoming Bulletproof” by Evy Poumpouras, there may be many distinct answers to that question.

Five months after joining the NYPD at the age of 23, Poumpouras received a “conditional offer of employment” with the Secret Service. By that time she was physically fit, emotionally ready for challenge and had learned much about herself and others, a good thing, since this wasn’t long before Sept. 11, 2001.

That day, she helped others and was commended for it, though she was reluctant to get the kudos. Helping was her job and, she says, “being willing to help... is the first step toward becoming bulletproof.”

The second step is knowing your adversity reaction, or your “F3.” Do you fight, flee or freeze when disaster happens? Knowing your automatic response will let you harness your fears and give you a split-second chance to decide on the validity of instantaneous reactions. In decision-making, knowing your F3 will help you recognize what kind of regret you fear is keeping you from making a difficult decision. Your F3 will also help you to “prepare your mental armor,” which you’ll want to do soon, to give yourself more control over any sort of adversity you might face.

“Fear is like fire,” Poumpouras says. “If you extinguish it while it’s small, it won’t become an inferno.”

Once you know how to handle your fear and your reactions to it, then “become a human lie detector” by knowing exactly how to read people. That’s also a good time to know how to present yourself, to keep others from reading you.

You might have used books to distract you during the COVID-19 shutdown, and there’s nothing like a good spy story for that. Nothing, except maybe a thrilling and true story that’ll help you survive crisis and calamity.

Nothing that’s all cloak-and-daggerish, though; no, maybe something like “Becoming Bulletproof.”

The author uses brutal, serious honesty, generously tinged with spirit, humor and confidence, in a personal look at the hard road that leads to one of the most elite organizations in this nation, and how she traveled it.

That’s impressively fascinating but not a distraction. Poumpouras returns to the meat of her book again and again, never letting readers lose focus on the reason for it, which is how to gain resilience and control. Don’t be surprised, then, if you find latent superpowers, or you suddenly feel 10 feet tall.

This book will appeal to lovers of espionage, business readers and, because of her work with the Secret Service, to presidential history buffs. Or if you’re just up for an action-packed, informational, steely-eyed read, give “Becoming Bulletproof” a shot.

Terri Schlichenmeyer’s reviews of business books are read in more than 260 publications in the U.S. and Canada.