If there’s one thing that’s anathema to any aggressive personality, it’s being told: “No.”

The most important thing for anyone to accept is that the disturbed character’s behaviors are his (or her) problems to address through appropriate guidance and dedicated self-correction.

Here’s the rule for moving on and bringing joy back into your life: don’t direct any energy toward things you can’t control anyway; focus instead on actions only you have the power to take.

Dealing with a skilled manipulator is often like getting whiplash: you don’t know all that’s really happened until after the damage is done.

The antics of Charlie Sheen, Bernie Madoff, and Mel Gibson demonstrate why character really does matter. As I state in the title of one of my books, character disturbance is the phenomenon of our age.