PLAY YOUR GAME! (Or How to Keep Your Self-Esteem High, when the Rewards Only Come Later) One of my favorite scenes in a movie is the scene in Miracle, when Kurt Russell, playing U.S. Olympic hockey team coach Herb Brooks, yells at his players, “Play your game!” The last minutes …

So much has been written about the mind-body connection—and rightfully so.  It now seems obvious that our psychological state affects the function not only of the central nervous system, but the heart and every organ in the body.  Diseases from cancer to multiple sclerosis to hypertension, and everything in between, …

HERE’S HOW So many of my counseling clients (The Ablow Center) and creative consulting clients (Keith Ablow Creative) can envision the next chapter of their life stories, but need some help actualizing the next chapter. Why? Sometimes it’s about resources, but very often it is about the resolve to let …

I recently was fortunate to have my book To Wrestle with Demons: A Psychiatrist Struggles to Understand His Patients and Himself published in a leather-bound collector’s edition by Gryphon Editions’ Classics of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Library Holding the book in my hands made me think a little bit about …

Boston, MA For Immediate Release According to a recent Veteran’s Department study, more than 20 veterans and active duty personnel commit suicide each day. A prior VA study put that number closer to 22. The toll of military service could not be starker than the way it manifests in those …

The great novelist J.D. Salinger got a lot of things right. Among them, he wrote that one of the only questions that will be asked of us when we die is this: Were most of your stars out? Now, obviously, no one can know God’s plans for us. And I …

None of us has time or words to spare, when you really think about it. Our lives on the planet are brief, and our opportunities to impact others are not infinite. Given this, I want to share three ways I believe you can truly move people when you interact with …

There are plenty of resources that provide advice on delivering a speech and which focus on organizing the material, providing visuals, selecting a topic and being a commanding presence. My advice is more ambitious: What keys make a speech something that changes people, in meaningful ways, within the scope of …

There’s plenty of good advice there for fiction writers. Some of it, by the way, is contained in the work of the late Gary Provost (www.garyprovost.com), who created the Video Novel Workshop. The workshop is now available as a free download, but I bought that series of DVDs from Gary …

I still remember about 12 years ago, sitting with my television agent Greg Lipstone at a sandwich shop in Los Angeles. Greg was one of the heads of television for the mega-entertainment agency William Morris. We had a few meetings scheduled with television show runners to talk about a drama …

A crisis is a disruption in one’s life story, whether the particular disruption is personal, professional or political. That’s why every crisis requires creative vision, in order to emerge with as little damage as possible—or, preferably, stronger than ever. In the midst of the crisis, it can be difficult to …

Starting a business has an inevitable element of storytelling to it. First of all, it all starts with an idea, just like a novel does. The idea is an answer to this question: “What if?” Here are three examples: • What if people could . . . ? • What …

For executives, authors, attorneys or anyone who is not a veteran of on-camera work, it can be daunting when a news event or a publicity tour means going in front of the camera. Sitting in a small room for a satellite interview, with an earpiece in your ear and a …

EMPATHY — the capacity to feel the emotions of others as one’s own — is the glue that binds people. It’s the psychological software that allows us to worry about a friend’s economic troubles across the country or cry at a movie. It’s also one major reason humans extend themselves …

I have written before that there is no original evil left in the world; everyone is just recycling pain. Ariel Castro was, of course, wrong when he claimed, bizarrely, Thursday that there was “harmony” in the house where he kept three women hostage, repeatedly beating and raping them. But he …

In an age dominated by quick fixes, e-mail and Twitter, it’s easy to keep wearing masks that make us strangers not only to one another, but also to ourselves. What’s the antidote to this kind of estrangement? Introspection. These questions are the beginning of a journey that can reintroduce you …

Headlines about predators like Anthony Sowell, whose “House of Horrors” in Cleveland contained the remains of at least 11 victims, are evidence that too many people put themselves in harm’s way by interacting with dangerous individuals. I’ve evaluated and treated murderers, kidnappers and rapists — and know some of the …