Lindner - Crunch time!: 8 steps to making the right life decisions at the right times

Praise for Crunch Time!

Kens professional counsel has helped me make the right choices during my own crunch times. Now everyone can draw upon his simple but effective strategies for smart decision-making.

Lester Holt, host/anchor/correspondent, NBC News

This is the bible for anyone who wants to aim for the stars, personally and professionally. Ken Lindner manages to encapsulate phenomenal life and career advice with a clear explanation of how to pull it off, no matter what your field. Crunch Time! is the definitive How to Succeed book of the new millenium.

Liz Claman, host of Countdown to the Closing Bell, and co-host of After the Bell on the Fox Business Channel

Crunch Time! gives you a clear road map as to how to take positive and tangible ownership of your life through making constructive and emotionally intelligent big-picture decisions.

Robin Meade, host of Morning Express with Robin Meade

Great decisions can certainly change lives; they have mine. Crunch Time! is loaded with Ken Lindners brilliant decision-making Strategies and insights, all of which have enabled me to truly live my dreams.

Dayna Devon, host of EXTRA

As Ken Lindners very first client, I can personally attest to his genius in helping people make life-enhancing decisions. In Crunch Time!, he compellingly shares his life Strategies so that you can immediately begin to change your life in the most beneficial ways.

Ernie Anastos, anchor, WNYW, New York City

If youre frustrated with any part of your life, dont put this book down! Crunch Time! is packed with invaluable decision-making tools that can immediately improve the quality of your life. Ken Lindners book helped me personally and professionally from page one.

Lu Parker, Miss USA, 1994, and anchor/reporter, KTLA, Los Angeles

By reading Crunch Time!, you can achieve your goals and feel good about who you are as you grow. Its so rare to go to a bookstore these days and find something that can truly transform your life. This book can!

Flavia Colgan, network news commentator

Published by River Grove Books
Austin, TX
www.greenleafbookgroup.com

Copyright 2013 Ken Lindner
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Distributed by River Grove Books

For ordering information, please contact River Grove Books at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group LLC Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group LLC

Publishers Cataloging-In-Publication Data
(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)
Lindner, Ken.
Crunch time!: 8 steps to making the right life decisions at the right times / Ken Lindner.2nd ed.
p. ; cm.
Issued also as an ebook.
1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Decision making. I. Title.

ISBN: 978-1-938416-23-1
eBook ISBN:978-1-938416-24-8

Second Edition

Acknowledgments and Dedications

T hank you to:

My parents, Betty and Jack Lindner, and to Shelley and Bill Berman, Jack Hartley, Dr. Charles Masterson, Richard Scheer, Martine Zoller, and Lanie and Joe Havens for filling my Heart-of-Hearts with love;

Mel Berger, for believing in me and this book, and for your stellar representation and advice;

Lauren Marino and Bill Shinker, for immediately and enthusiastically embracing Crunch Time! and making it a reality; Hilary Terrell, for your invaluable help and support;

My clients, for believing in me and entrusting me with your precious careers;

Susan Levin, for running Ken Lindner & Associates (KLA) all these years, and for being such a caring friend; Karen Wang-Lavelle and Kristin Allen, for proofreading my manuscript and sharing their excellent input with me; Shari Freis, for so effectively organizing my life that I was able to write this book; and my other wonderful KLA teammates for doing such a great job in helping our clients to fulfill their potential;

Ben Cammarata, for showing unparalleled loyalty and sensitivity, as well as the foresight to recognize that individuals in their seventies, eighties, and nineties can still make valuable contributions;

Robert Dealy, Robert Morrison, Thomas Dingman, Klaus Freundrich Koch, Sam Weisbord, and Lee Stevens for seeing my abilities and potential; Roberta Lee, for your excellent typing work; and Edward Miller, for your always-stellar proofreading and editing services.

Crunch Time! is dedicated to you, Dad, for teaching me how to live, love, and constructively navigate through life by way of your words and your awesome example; and to you, Mom, for your psychological and sociological insights and wisdom, your love of learning, and your sensitivity to othersqualities that comprise the foundation upon which this book is based. Mom, Crunch Time! is an embodiment and a reflection of your love, your humaneness, and your brilliance.

This book is also dedicated to my loving, beautiful, amazing family: Melinda, Mary, Tristan, Peanut, and Weegee. You are the loves of my life. You fill my life, heart, and soul with love and radiant light. I so deeply love you!

I have devoted both my professional and personal life to enabling people to fulfill their potential by giving them the tools to make wise, constructive, and self-enhancing decisions. It gives me incredible satisfaction to see the individuals with whom Ive worked and/or coached enhance themselves and others by thinking and acting in constructive ways, so that they not only achieve their most cherished goals, but also develop valid, positive self-esteem in the process. And, as you will glean from what follows, the process or manner in which you reach your decisions is vitally important to your psychological and emotional well-being.

As someone who works with and develops the careers of highly talented individuals, I have observed over and over again that talent alone is merely unrealized potential. Attaining sustained success in any endeavor takes more than just talent, ability, or heartfelt dreamsit requires rock-solid decision-making skills, based upon constructive and self-enhancing decision-making Strategies.

I was blessed, as a late-blooming child, to have had loving parentsespecially a motherwho believed in me, effectively counseled me, and never made me feel less than. As a result of this support, my extensive athletic endeavors, and the creation and implementation of my Crunch Time! Decision-Making Strategies, I have grown to be much happier and have achieved many of my goals and dreams. Resulting in large part from this good feeling and my various successes, my life mission is to believe in and counsel others, so that they can achieve their most precious goals and develop legitimate, high self-esteem in and as a result of the process.

In the film Dead Poets Society, prep-school teacher John Keating, portrayed by Robin Williams, shares the following thought about life with his students:

The powerful play goes on and you may
contribute a verse. What will that verse be?

What you are about to read in Crunch Time! is my versethe heart and soul of my lifes work. I believe that if you take the time to reflect upon and absorb the material herein, it can and will make a very positive difference in how you write the future verses of your lifes play.