Resilience Without Regrets: Acclaimed Physician on Finding Miracles and Facing Adversity
(This press release may be reprinted in part or in its entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Many people reach the end of their lives wishing they could change the past. Turning back the clock is impossible, but Dr. Harley Rotbart’s new book, No Regrets Living, offers sage guidance to help us better appreciate what we have in our lives, and take greater pride in what we’ve done with our lives — without spending precious time and energy wishing things had turned out differently.
In No Regrets Living, Dr. Rotbart describes the seven keys to a life of wonder and contentment: Belief, Discovery, Healing, Appreciation, Acceptance, Seeking and Growth, and how to cultivate each in your life. Woven into the timeless message of the book are especially timely observations on the COVID-19 pandemic from Dr. Rotbart’s expert perspective as an infectious diseases physician, including coping mechanisms and paths for going forward as individuals and as a society.
Dr. Rotbart is a man of science who also believes in, and “collects,” miracles. No Regrets Living is the much-awaited follow-up to his previous book, Miracles We Have Seen – America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget. In this new work, Dr. Rotbart reconciles science and faith from his unique perspective as physician, scientist, heart surgery patient and child of a Holocaust survivor.
“I have a simple definition of a miracle,” Dr. Rotbart says. “Miracles are objects and events in nature and in our lives that cannot be fully explained or re-created. Yes, like the unimaginable true stories written by physicians in the Miracles We Have Seen book, but I believe the inside of the living human beings I have seen in the operating room and the tiniest of human cells I have seen under a microscope in my laboratory are equally miraculous and unexplainable. And you needn’t go to medical school or use a microscope to appreciate the ubiquity of miracles. They are all around us — we only need to open our eyes and hearts to recognize them.”
A nationally renowned infectious disease specialist, Dr. Rotbart is also a pediatrician, parenting expert, speaker and educator. He is Professor and Vice Chair Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and author of more than 175 medical and scientific publications, and five previous books for general audiences: Miracles We Have Seen; 940 Saturdays; No Regrets Parenting; Germ Proof Your Kids; and The On Deck Circle of Life.
To learn more, please visit www.harleyrotbart.com, or connect with the author on Facebook (HarleyRotbartMd) or Twitter (@HarleyRotbart).
No Regrets Living: 7 Keys to a Life of Wonder and Contentment Publisher: Health Communications, Inc. Release Date: March 16, 2021 ISBN-10: 0757323944 ISBN-13: 978-0757323942 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Lindsey Mach Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Now, More Than Ever, Fighting for Our Children’s Needs Must Come First
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Children dream without boundaries; they aspire to become paleontologists, astronauts, doctors and teachers without considering socioeconomic barriers, discrimination, disease outbreaks, violence or any one of a host of other challenges impacting their likelihood of success. It’s up to us, as a society, to help each and every child fulfill his or her potential. In fact, the future of our nation depends on it.
NBC/MSNBC public health analyst, pediatrician and activist Dr. Irwin Redlener delivers a potent wake-up call that compellingly underscores the urgency with which we must work toward fulfilling the potential of all children in his inspirational call to action, The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America, which contains a new preface and afterword addressing COVID-19 and its impact on kids.
Inadequate education, barriers to health care and crushing poverty make it overwhelmingly difficult for many children to realize their dreams — and these issues have been dramatically compounded by the pandemic. Finding ways to alter these trajectories is serious, grown-up business, Dr. Redlener emphasizes, and it’s time for us to act.
“We need heartstrings to be tugged by the folks who work on the front lines … But we also need the hard-core, take-no-prisoners types who demand that those empowered to determine priorities and allocate resources understand and respond to the needs of children,” he writes.
In The Future of Us, Dr. Redlener draws upon his four decades of professional experiences to examine our nation’s health care safety nets and special programs that are designed to protect and nurture our most vulnerable kids, but that too often fail to do so.
The book follows Dr. Redlener’s long, colorful career, from his work as a pediatrician in the Arkansas delta, to treating child abuse in a Miami hospital, to helping children in the aftermaths of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He has served on the board of USA for Africa, cofounded the Children’s Health Fund with Paul Simon (and persuaded Joan Baez to play a benefit concert) and dined with Fidel Castro. He once sat across the table from Michael Jackson, and he has traveled with presidential candidates. But his most powerful source of motivation remains the children who face terrible adversities yet dream of becoming paleontologists, artists and marine biologists. Their stories are his springboard for discussing larger policy issues that hinder us from effectively eradicating childhood poverty and overcoming barriers to accessible health care. Persistent deprivation and the avoidable problems that accompany poverty ensnare millions of children and impact the health, prosperity and creativity of the adults they become. Dr. Redlener argues that we must drastically change our approach to meeting the needs of children ― for their sake and to ensure America’s resiliency and influence in an increasingly complex world.
It is Dr. Redlener’s hope that readers will emerge optimistic about our future, with a deeper understanding of how investing in children today will increase our chances of a successful tomorrow. Fighting for our nation’s children is far from a lost cause, and nothing could be more important.
Author Irwin Redlener, M.D., is a pediatrician and founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, which works to understand and improve the nation’s capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In 2020, Dr. Redlener created the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia. He is a public health analyst for NBC and MSNBC, and recently partnered with Cher in CherCares, a new program that assists communities struggling with COVID-19.
Dr. Redlener is also President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Children’s Health Fund, a philanthropic initiative that he created with singer/songwriter Paul Simon and Karen Redlener to develop health care programs in 25 of the nation’s most medically underserved urban and rural communities. He currently serves as a special advisor on emergency preparedness to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and regularly communicates with leadership in U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, as well as Homeland Security.
He is also the author of Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now. For more information, please visit www.irwinredlener.org.
The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN-10: 0231177577 ISBN-13: 978-0231177573 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Chris Johnston Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Make ‘Go on a Diet’ Resolutions Obsolete with the Whole Person Integrative Eating Program
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
What if you never again need to make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight or “go on a diet” because your most-of-the-time way of eating empowers you to eat and weigh less? Original, pioneering research by holistic nutrition researcher Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., and behavioral scientist Larry Scherwitz, Ph.D.—authors of the award-winning Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Over-weight, and Obesity—reveals that replacing the complex reasons you overeat— called “over-eating styles”—with the scientifically sound Whole Person Integrative Eating (WPIE) dietary lifestyle (meaning, WPIE is a way of life; it’s not a traditional diet) may make weight-loss resolutions obsolete.
“Now is the time to ‘reset’ and rethink what and how we eat; to replace traditional dieting with a scientifically sound way of eating that lessens overeating and that leads naturally to weight loss, health and healing,” says Kesten.
Kesten and Scherwitz share a simple yet powerful premise: Identify the reasons you overeat (your overeating styles) and gain weight—with the illuminating self-assessment quiz—then overcome overeating and lose weight by replacing your overeating styles with the antidotes: the elements of the Whole Person Integrative Eating program.
By shedding light on the root causes of overeating, Kesten and Scherwitz present a program that empowers readers with a personalized plan, and in turn new hope and new choices to help them reduce overeating, lose weight and keep it off.
WPIE is not a diet that a person goes on … then off. It is a scientifically sound, dietary life-style designed to be practiced for a lifetime.
“If people follow the revolutionary program outlined in this game-changing, insightful book, it may be the most helpful step they can take toward losing weight and keeping it off,” says bestselling author Kenneth Pelletier, M.D., Ph.D., clinical professor of medicine at University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco.
The authors’ paradigm-shifting message is that food influences not only the physical dimensions of health, but also our emotional, spiritual and social well-being. Their dietary lifestyle can build bridges between the millions who struggle with overeating and weight issues and the medical community. And it can inspire us all to re-envision our relationships with food, eating and weight, so that each time we eat, we are nourished … for life.
Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., is an international nutrition researcher, award-winning author and health journalist, with a specialty in preventing and reversing obesity and heart disease. She is also an experienced, expert speaker and presenter—from TV and podcast interviews to large conferences and small-group workshops.
Kesten served as Nutritionist on Dean Ornish, M.D.’s first clinical trial for reversing heart dis-ease through lifestyle changes, the results of which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. She was Director of Nutrition at cardiovascular clinics in Eu-rope and on the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, San Francisco.
Kesten has published more than 400 nutrition and health articles. Her first book, Feeding the Body, Nourishing the Soul, received the first-place gold award in the Spirituality category from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Whole Person Integrative Eating has been honored with the No.1 gold, best-book award in the Health category by Book Excellence Awards and is a No. 1 Amazon best seller. Kesten is a VIP Contributor at Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, and is married to behavioral scientist and co-author of Whole Person Integrative Eating, Larry Scherwitz, Ph.D.
Whole Person Integrative Eating: A Breakthrough Dietary Lifestyle to Treat the Root Causes of Overeating, Overweight, and Obesity Publisher: White River Press ISBN-10: 1887043543 ISBN-13: 978-1887043540 Available from Amazon.com and integrativeeating.com
Trish Stevens Helen Cook Senior Publicist Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 903.654.0938 Direct [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
Job Search Expert Delivers Proven Method to Help You Elevate Your Career
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
If you’re unemployed, underemployed or simply in need of a more satisfying professional path, you are far from alone. 2020 gave us a lot of reasons to take stock in our career choices and realign our priorities. Why not begin the New Year with a new strategy for success that more accurately reflects your interests, talents and goals?
“Your circumstances can be incrementally, if not exponentially, improved,” writes career development coach Helen Horyza in her new book, Elevate Your Career: Live a Life You’re Truly Proud Of. “You can design an amazing career through a comprehensive, step-by-step pro-cess that will allow you to consciously manage your transitions and grow to your full potential.”
Elevate Your Career uses true stories about people from all walks of life and education levels who have reassessed their passions, pivoted their skillsets and created careers that are the perfect fit. How? Horyza explains it all and offers valuable tools that readers can use right away to reassess their own career paths.
First, the Elevate Career Cycle method, which is explained in the book, can help readers un-cover their passion by pinpointing their interests and unique talents. Also included with the book is a coupon code for the Elevations Career Assessment, which synthesizes values, skills, interests and personality in the context of contemporary careers. Individuals who complete the assessment receive a focused report complete with valuable decision-making tools. The result is a comprehensive model for smart and healthy career development.
No matter where you are in your evolving career journey — college student, executive or someone looking to course-correct — this book will provide you with the tools and the momentum you need to elevate your career.
Helen Horyza is an expert in the fields of career development and employee development, engagement and retention. She is an accomplished trainer, motivational speaker and executive coach. She holds a Master of Science degree in Career Counseling from California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), and is a professionally trained coach through Coach Training International. She is a Nationally Certified Career Counselor (NCCC) and has over 20 years of experience uncovering talent and directing it to achieve extraordinary results.
Horyza is comfortable inspiring audiences large and small with her authentic, approachable style. She is the inventor and author of the Elevations® suite of assessments designed to assist individuals in career transition or to enhance employee engagement. Elevations® is utilized in colleges, universities and in consultant practices around the world.
She used her own advice to re-career and recently launched the Career Coach Entrepreneur Academy, a training program for people interested in becoming career coaches.
For more information, please visit www.ElevateYourCareer.com or www.helenhoryza.com. You can also connect with the author on social media at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxts0YopKzHU_dnPmcQ_NHQ https://www.instagram.com/helenhoryza/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenhoryza/ https://www.facebook.com/helen.horyza https://twitter.com/HelenHoryza
Elevate Your Career: Live a Life You’re Truly Proud Of Publisher: Merack ISBN-10: 1949635384 ISBN-13: 978-1949635386 Available from Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and Helenhoryza.com
Trish Stevens Robyn Peterson Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
The Dog Lady of Mexico Gives Hope to Thousands of Unwanted Animals
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Alison Sawyer Current experienced a calling — a powerful pull that she couldn’t ignore — and gave renewed hope to the starving, unwanted cats and dogs roaming Isla Mujeres and set a profound example for others to follow.
The Dog Lady of Mexico shares Alison’s remarkable journey, which began when she and her husband, Jeff, were soaking up the sun on the Mexican island during a much-anticipated month-long honeymoon. The stray animals roaming freely seemed to be woven into the island culture — just another aspect of the backdrop. Until she took a closer look. First, a tiny, pregnant, toothless cat caught Alison’s attention. Then along came a dog with a litter of 12. The animals were suffering, disease-ridden and without any sources of food or clean water.
Alison’s honeymoon became the catalyst to a lifelong pursuit to save as many neglected cats and dogs as humanly possible. Her first rescue took place in 2001, and before she knew it, she was assisting with the creation of the island’s first spay and neuter clinic.
The Dog Lady of Mexico compellingly and accurately depicts Alison’s story through a character named Rose. Her valiant efforts to help stray dogs and cats eventually grew into the nonprofit Isla Animals, which offers free spays and neuters, low-to-no cost veterinary care, arranges adoptions, and runs owner education to help whittle the number of animals destined for the same bleak existence.
The problems Alison encountered were numerous. There are no veterinarians in many areas, so most of the animals are never vaccinated or treated for parasites. The average dog is thin, mangy, and tick and flea infested. Needless to say, they are not welcome inside the home so even dogs that have owners are subject to the same conditions as street dogs. Since most of the people can’t afford a car, and taxi drivers refuse to pick up passengers with dogs, they have no way to get to a veterinarian … and the cycle just goes on and on.
Readers of The Dog Lady of Mexico will experience a world very different from their own, and will see firsthand the blood, sweat, tears and, yes, even laughter, that accompany such massive rescue efforts. They get to share the journey of Rose, whose life takes an uncharted course into unknown territory, and experience the passion that changed a life forever.
Alison is a recipient of The Doris Day Animal Kindred Spirit Award, and in 2007 she was invited to Mexico City for the first Forum on Small Animal Overpopulation in Mexico. To date, Alison has spayed or neutered more than 20,000 animals and promoted adoptions in Mexico, the United States and Canada. Alison resides with her husband in Boulder, Colorado.
Impractical Jokers Star Survives Shark Attack at New Virtual Theme Park
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
James “Murr” Murray, one of the stars of TV’s Impractical Jokers, told his social media followers in a new post that he recently visited Sea Monster Cove, a spectacular, five-star aquarium-themed resort as a guest of friend and fellow bestselling author Steve Alten, when things “got out of hand.” “I was in the Devonian Aquarium watching a 10-foot prehistoric shark circle by when this massive 30-foot Dunkleosteus comes out of nowhere and rips the thing in half! Thank God the tank wasn’t made out of double-paned glass like the one in JAWS 3D.” The incident was recorded and posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1vbrZNyoK8.
Visitors can expect the unexpected at www.SeaMonsterCove.com, a revolutionary new multimedia entertainment concept. The site will serve as the central hub for several prehistoric shark and sea creature ventures, including a remote learning platform and museum, and will soon add a video game where members piloting submersibles can track and capture apex marine predators inhabiting a 380-million-year-old prehistoric aquifer located 2.1 miles beneath the Pacific Ocean. The website will feature an original episodic TV series called Where Sea Monsters Roam, written by Steve Alten, the website’s creator. If you saw the blockbuster movie, The MEG, starring Jason Statham, then you may be familiar with the author’s work. Of his soon-to-be 20 published thrillers, eight are part of his best-selling MEG series and three more are from a Loch Ness trilogy (Alten is currently working on book 3, The LOCH: Heaven’s Lake which can only be purchased by pre-ordering signed hardbacks at www.SteveAlten.com). The LOCH movie as well as MEG 2: The TRENCH are expected to go into production in 2021. All of the action and virtual visits at SeaMonsterCove.com take place on Maug, a remote (and very real) island in the Western Pacific. Maug’s volcano erupted 5 million years ago; today all that remains are three uninhabited islets that had been the volcano’s rim and a flooded magma chamber that serves as its lagoon. Why place a virtual island resort here? That’s where Alten’s research and storytelling take over. Eight years ago, French marine biologist Dr. Maxime Rostand discovered superheated mineral water rising up through Maug’s lagoon. Through a series of events, including an emergency C-section which saved two pups of a deceased pregnant prehistoric Mako shark, Rostand discovers the source of the hot mineral water to be a primordial aquifer located 2 miles beneath the sea floor — its inhabitants dating back 380 million years.
Having established the backstory about how these toothy creatures managed to escape extinction (the “home videos” of the two surviving pups growing up is MUST-SEE), it’s time to meet and interact with the critters. Imagine the greatest aquarium-themed park ever conceived, holding the most terrifying prehistoric sharks and sea monsters that ever lived. It’s not hard to do. At Sea Monster Cove, the special effects are motion picture-worthy, and the wildlife doesn’t just swim around in benign circles; in fact, they seem quite aware that you are watching them, and they clearly do not like it, especially when you enter their domain to do a little “cage diving.” In each of these heart-pounding, 360-degree experiences, the user controls the viewing angle, attempting to track the attacks as they happen (there are day and night versions available). The action is nonstop and the creatures so real that it is easy to lose yourself in a two-hour reprieve from reality.
The adventure is retold and advanced in Alten’s original TV series, Where Sea Monsters Roam, the episodes of which will be posted at SeaMonsterCove.com. Most unique: what happens in the series also happens during your aquarium visits. As an example, if Snowflake, the park’s 63-foot, 25-ton prehistoric albino Mako drags a crane into her tank in the opening episode, don’t be surprised to see it lying on the bottom of her tank in your next visit!
One of the most popular features may just turn out to be CELEBRITY CAMEOS — the first one featuring James “Murr” Murray. The Impractical Jokers star’s new novel, DON’T MOVE (Blackstone Publishing), co-written by Darren Wearmouth, recently made its debut.
Steve Alten, the founder and director of the nonprofit Adopt-an-Author teen reading program, considered by many educators to be the most effective tool to get reluctant readers to read, said DON’T MOVE will be added to the AAA program. “It’s a fun, action-packed read; teens will definitely love it.” For more on the program, go to www.AdoptAnAuthor.com.
The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
His approach is always subtle; his banter is casual and absent any pressure to respond. But when renowned pediatrician and children’s advocate Dr. Irwin Redlener casually asks his young patients, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” the lights invariably come on, eye contact occurs, and the child emerges from deep inside a protective shell. “Children are essentially dreamers … undaunted by adversity or reality-based barriers to success,” Dr. Redlener writes in The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America (with updated information on helping children through the COVID-19 crisis).
Inadequate education, barriers to health care and crushing poverty make it overwhelmingly difficult for many children to realize their dreams. Finding ways to alter these trajectories is serious, grown-up business, Dr. Redlener emphasizes, and it’s time for us to act.
In The Future of Us, Dr. Redlener draws upon his four decades of professional experiences to examine our nation’s health care safety nets and special programs that are designed to protect and nurture our most vulnerable kids, but that too often fail to do so.
The book follows Dr. Redlener’s long, colorful career, from his work as a pediatrician in the Arkansas delta, to treating child abuse in a Miami hospital, to helping children in the aftermaths of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He has served on the board of USA for Africa, cofounded the Children’s Health Fund with Paul Simon (and persuaded Joan Baez to play a benefit concert) and dined with Fidel Castro. He once sat across the table from Michael Jackson, and he has traveled with presidential candidates. But his most powerful source of motivation remains the children who face terrible adversities yet dream of becoming paleontologists, artists and marine biologists. Their stories are his springboard for discussing larger policy issues that hinder us from effectively eradicating childhood poverty and overcoming barriers to accessible health care. Persistent deprivation and the avoidable problems that accompany poverty ensnare millions of children and impact the health, prosperity and creativity of the adults they become. Dr. Redlener argues that we must drastically change our approach to meeting the needs of children ― for their sake and to ensure America’s resiliency and influence in an increasingly complex world.
It is Dr. Redlener’s hope that readers will emerge optimistic about our future, with a deeper understanding of how investing in children today will increase our chances of a successful tomorrow. Fighting for our nation’s children is far from a lost cause, and nothing could be more important.
Author Irwin Redlener, M.D., is a pediatrician and founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, which works to understand and improve the nation’s capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In 2020, Dr. Redlener created the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at Columbia. He is a public health analyst for NBC and MSNBC, and recently partnered with Cher in CherCares, a new program that assists communities struggling with COVID-19.
Dr. Redlener is also President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Children’s Health Fund, a philanthropic initiative that he created with singer/songwriter Paul Simon and Karen Redlener to develop health care programs in 25 of the nation’s most medically underserved urban and rural communities. He currently serves as a special advisor on emergency preparedness to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and regularly communicates with leadership in U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, as well as Homeland Security. He has been a public health advisor to democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden.
He is also the author of Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now. For more information, please visit www.irwinredlener.org.
The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America Publisher: Columbia University Press Release Date: October 13, 2020 ISBN-10: 0231177577 ISBN-13: 978-0231177573 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Judy Frost Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
