Emotional rescue: Agent’s self-help book defines success

Ken Lindner

With a list of clients that reads like a who’s who of the broadcasting business, Ken Lindner has helped manage the careers of countless big egos at some of their most emotionally fragile times.

Now he’s published a guide to mastering emotions and modifying behavior in a smart new self-help book. Lindner’s simple premise is that the more we can understand and control our emotions, the more effectively we can make critical choices in our lives.

Lindner, 58, a Brooklyn-born lawyer and self-styled “career choreographer,” worked at William Morris Agency for nearly a decade before starting his own Los Angeles-based talent representation firm in 1988. He’s one of the biggest agents in the business and the author of three books, including Broadcasting Realities (1999) and Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Life Decisions At The Right Times (2004).

His latest, Your Killer Emotions: The 7 Steps to Mastering the Toxic Emotions, Urges, and Impulses That Sabotage You, was inspired by a speech he delivered to a convention of television executives. When it was over, Lindner was approached by producers from The Oprah Winfrey Show, who told him he’d come up with something unique. “Nobody deals with the emotional component of decision-making. They only focus on the cognitive, intellectual [side],” he recalled them saying. “If you could put this in a book, you will make a big difference in people’s lives.”

That began a five-year odyssey for Lindner, filled with setbacks and rejections that only strengthened his determination.

“It was rejected by a number of agents, and it was not well received by some publishing houses,” he recalled. “I took the constructive criticism and I reworked the manuscript. But I was positive that the emotional component of decision-making really had not been explored. No matter what anybody said, I stuck with it, and I self-published it because I wanted to make it work. I wasn’t going to let anybody tell me that this was not going to be a success. If anything, it is a testament to persistence, to believing in your ideas and just figuring out the set of steps to get things accomplished.”

Already in its second printing since January, Your Killer Emotions shot to the top of Amazon’s health, fitness and dieting category, and stayed there for weeks. The life-affirming message it conveys and the strategies for success it suggests clearly resonate with readers.

“If you make a life choice when you are angry, when you are sad, when you feel disrespected, when you feel hopeless, oftentimes you’ll opt for a quick fix to make you feel better for the moment, but that life choice in all likelihood will be self-sabotaging,” Lindner said. “I wrote Your Killer Emotions to help people master their emotions and make positive life choices.”