Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Keith Ablow, MD. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Keith, appreciate you joining us today. Setting up an independent practice is a daunting endeavor. Can you talk to us about what it was like for you – what were some of the main steps, challenges, etc.

Everything I have done professionally–and much of what I have been able to optimize in my own life–relates to my sixth sense for “story” and how to optimize the life stories of my clients. When I set up my practice of counseling, coaching and strategizing with leaders in business, the arts and professional sports (to name a few), it was based on delivering them a searing understanding of the earlier chapters in their life histories, taking stock of the current moment and then deciding on the best possible next chapters to “write.” Every one of us has a “best story,” and it isn’t random. It’s a calling. It’s the truth about that person that relates to his or her deepest Self. Discovering that core Self is the work of a lifetime, and it is much easier with a guide. I feel so privileged to be that guide, so that we turn my client’s energies and insights and my energies and insights into an exponential kind of arithmetic, in which 1 + 1 = 11.

I remember one of my clients who was deciding between pursuing the career he truly loved and another that was more predictable and involved a steadier income, though with less potential for achieving wealth. He said he was thinking of the more predictable career “for his kids.” And I pointed out that kids never judge their parents based on whether they make a lot of money. They judge them based on whether they have followed their hearts. That’s the real gift we can give our kids, not a nicer family car or bigger house. He chose the career he truly loved and has never looked back.

Keith, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I went to medical school thinking I would be a neurosurgeon. But when I got into the operating room, I found myself less fascinated by surgery than by what the surgery meant to the person who was facing a critical illness. How was that person thinking about her life? Had she lived authentically and allowed herself to feel and express true love? In other words, the anatomy of her brain didn’t transfix me. The trajectory of her life did.

I also found myself wondering what her husband, waiting back in her hospital room, was thinking and how he would turn this painful chapter in their lives into some kind of power as they moved forward together.

Because I believe in the power of optimizing life stories, I have been able to write novels and non-fiction books about people’s lives and self-help books that can transform lives (like Living the Truth and The Seven Wonders). And I have developed resources at www.pain2power.com that are free and that can also help people optimize their lives.

I’ve always believed that we can–though it is sometimes very difficult–turn our pain into power. We can demonstrate our convictions, even when we have to pay a price for them. We can show great courage in the midst of adversity and, thereby, triumph over it.

Whereas lots of therapists, counselors and coaches sort of sit back and ask their clients to reflect, I am much more actively engaged and challenging in helping my clients drive towards the truth. I’m a burrower for the real and authentic best Self at their cores, and I am absolutely committed to getting them to find that and express that. I also use every contact of my own that I possibly can to advance my clients in the direction of their dreams. I believe that everything I have done and everyone I have met should be leveraged for the clients who work with me.

I’m very grateful that people have sought me out from all over the world, often at the lowest imaginable points in their lives, to team up and turn things around. And we have. Again and again.

I’ve worked with everyone from Fortune 500 C-suite executives to professional athletes to members of Presidents’ families and Cabinets to the homeless to individuals accused of almost every imaginable crime, including murder. And I have found that there is always a best path forward, and there is always hope, and there is never a reason to quit.

Every single hurdle in your way is meant to make you stronger by clearing it–without exception. Life is a gym for the mind and soul. Seen that way, all the weight we carry in our lives (and there is plenty of it; I know) is also meant to strengthen us, if we let it.

I don’t know why two people working together to optimize the life of one of them unleashes exponential energy and results, but it does. And I have considered it an incredible opportunity to be part of that miraculous process each and every time.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’ve had to deal with personal and legal attacks from people who clearly wanted to take me down based on my very public views about very controversial matters–many of them expressed during my twelve years as a Fox News Network on-air Contributor. It has required me to remind myself, again and again, that dealing with negative headlines comes with the territory when you’re trying to tell tough truths and enter the arena of political ideas and when you’re working very closely with very complex people, some of whom have extremely unpredictable emotions and motives.

I had to decide whether to stop taking the most challenging clients–the ones with really dark histories who need very badly to emerge into the light. But I have never stopped. And I never will. Because that is part of my calling. Freud once said that no one who sought to unearth the half-tamed demons that inhabit people and to do battle with them should expect to come through the battle unscathed. I have learned that, for sure. But it’s still an honor to keep fighting for people to be everything they can be.

I had a really unexpected thing happen recently. I had arranged for a lawyer to help my family with some estate planning. Nothing controversial at all. And then the lawyer called and said he was canceling the consultation his assistant had set up because of my view that transgenderism isn’t the right path for people to take. I suggested that I pay him for an extra hour so we could also discuss that issue–despite it being completely unrelated, of course, to estate planning. He turned me down. The old me might have told him to go f*ck himself, but, instead, I told him that he could call me if he ran into trouble in his life and that I would try to help him.

There’s a lot of hate that has been directed at me, but I want to counter it with strength, firmness, openness and continuing to care about people (even those who disagree with me, vehemently or violently). That’s the only way to win against intolerance and evil and denial and destructiveness.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I’ve built my reputation through a combination of word-of-mouth and the publicity that has come from my work in television. I’ve appeared on national television well over 1,000 times, including the 180 episodes of The Dr. Keith Ablow Show, my syndicated talk show. But, really, the bulk of my clients have been referred by others.

It’s now well-known (and only because the press reported on it, not because I divulged it–which I wouldn’t have done) that I worked to get Hunter Biden to stop using drugs. He spent months in my town in order to get help from me, living part of that time in the cottage adjacent to my own. I call that retreat cottage www.hiatus1.com. He certainly didn’t come to me for help because we were politically aligned; we weren’t at all. He came because someone told him that I wouldn’t let politics get in the way of trying my best to do anything and everything to get him stronger. In fact, I don’t let anything whatsoever get in the way of trying to do my best to resurrect those who seek me out. Ever.

It also went public when I offered to keep working with a man who tried to kill me years ago, too. He was in prison for killing other people when he tried to strangle me during an evaluation I was doing of him. Print and television news outlets learned of the story and covered it. His lawyer decided to cut off my work with him, but I really should have tried harder than I did to convince him not to intervene. You’re either willing to go to the ends of the earth to fight for someone’s soul, or you’re not.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.keithablow.com, www.projectprescription.com, www.pain2power.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keithablowpain2power/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keith.ablow.7
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-ablow-m-d-908139b6/
• Twitter: https://x.com/keithablow
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrKeithAblow1
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/keith-ablow-md-newburyport-2