Chaos Reveals It
Leadership lessons forged in the worst moments imaginable—from September 11 to the boardroom—for anyone who has ever faced a moment where the plan failed and the only option was to lead.
Also available at your local independent bookstore. Speaking engagements are handled at chaosrevealsit.com/speaking.
About the Book
A field manual for leading when everything falls apart.
Chaos Reveals It arrives at a moment when the lessons inside it have never been more urgent. Geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty, fractured alliances, and a world that feels like it is in permanent crisis—these are not new problems. Billet has been navigating them for four decades, from the streets of New York to the halls of the United Nations to the boardrooms around the world, advising CEOs and political leaders on how to stabilize when everything is falling apart.
Billet takes you inside the rooms where life-and-death decisions are made in seconds: the Family Assistance Center at JFK, the boardrooms, the diplomatic standoffs with sovereign nations, the hospital bed overseas where he refused to quit until his father was safe. He also reveals the inner superpower he hid for decades—dyslexia—and how it forced him to see patterns, read people, and process chaos in ways no textbook could teach.
As a deputy commissioner on September 11 — a responder at Ground Zero who helped evacuate people from Lower Manhattan that morning, and then a coordinator of the City's international response in the months that followed — and over a career spanning emergency management, international diplomacy, and a number of aviation incidents, he developed a system for leading when everything falls apart.
"This is not just a book about disasters. It is a book about the principles that govern every crisis—from the boardroom to the courtroom to the kitchen table."
For anyone who has ever faced a moment where the plan failed, the pressure mounted, and the only option was to lead.
About the Author
Bradford E. Billet, OBE, CEM
Bradford E. Billet served in New York City government for 22 years across three mayoral administrations. He was the chief architect of the 1996 EMS–FDNY merger, delivered from the EMS side as Associate Executive Director of New York City EMS, and served as Deputy Director of the New York City Mayor's Office of Emergency Management from June 1996 to June 1997. He created the FDNY Certified First Responder program.
As Deputy Commissioner and Acting Commissioner of the Mayor's Office for International Affairs for seventeen years, he served as the City's principal liaison to the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, and the 193 permanent missions and consular corps in New York. He designed the Alternative Dispute Resolution program for the Office of International Affairs, mediating more than a thousand cases with a very high settlement rate.
He operated within the government structure responsible for interagency coordination during TWA Flight 800 and September 11 and was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his work in the aftermath of the attacks. He was a Managing Director and Global Geopolitical Strategist at Mercury LLC.
He is the Founder and Chairman of STAT Advisors and the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the East Hampton Village Foundation, established in 2021. He travels extensively, serves on several boards, and lives in New York.
Chaos Reveals It is available now.
Order online or ask for it at your local independent bookstore.