Jeff Cohen, tell me about your vision.
You know, my vision is impact. It's the concept of we take a journey in life, we learn things,
and we deliver those things to our community and the people and the things that we care about.
You know, it comes from an interview that I saw many years ago. Bill Moyers was interviewing
a young ant psychologist and the guy was talking about archetypes and he was talking about the
hero's archetype, how the hero goes in, kills the dragon, learns things from doing it, and then takes
those lessons back to his or her community. I heard that when I was maybe, I don't know, 35 years old
and it didn't really make an impact like most things that I encounter. They take years for seeds
to germinate. They don't really become accessible to me, but about, I don't know, five years or so
later I realized I'd been on a journey and that the point of the journey wasn't what I thought it was.
I thought it was to help myself, but in taking that journey and learning so many things,
the thing that fulfilled me most was sharing what I was learning. So becoming, if you will,
kind of a conduit of value and then as I got older I just enjoyed having a positive impact
wherever I went and looking for the opportunity to deliver that value. I am excited for the value
you'll bring today. Thank you, me too. So would you say, Jeff, that sharing and having an impact
with people and bringing something positive to other people is what you do? Yeah, it is.
Yeah, it is. I'm at an age, I'm 64 years old, and I would say that at about 50 years old I noticed
that I had this kind of calling, this need to deliver everything that had been given to me.
And it was inexplicable. It wasn't something that I read in a book and it wasn't something that
I had gotten from somewhere. It was just this kind of internal drive and I began to realize that,
oh, I guess we go through these seasons in our lives, these developmental cycles in our lives,
and the one that I had entered was one where the fulfillment, the most remarkable fulfillment
that I could have is in having conversations like this. That's amazing. At the age of 50,
that's when you realized your calling. What did you do before that? I was building a business.
I was building a law firm and had gotten myself into various related businesses. I'm a healthcare
business and regulatory lawyer and so I had not only gotten into building a healthcare business
that was a values-centered thing. It was kind of an expression of what mattered to me in life.
So it became kind of a personal passion, the law firm. Along the way, I ended up owning or
becoming an owner in a variety of healthcare businesses as well. So I was in kind of a building
phase, a creation phase, but at the same time, I had written a book about this journey where I ended
up receiving a lot of value. The name of the book is The Wolf That Wins. It was just me telling the
story of journeying for value, finding it, and then finding meaning and sharing all of that.
And at about 50, I had this inexplicable need to keep talking with people like this and sharing
everything that I could. So I looked for opportunities wherever I could find them to do it.
It could be having coffee with somebody that reaches out and it could be standing on a stage
with a microphone or talking to somebody like you this way. That's amazing. I want to go back to
when you were 50 and you were like, I need to talk to people and share this. When did you realize
that and how did you come to that conclusion? You know, I was sitting at my desk. I remember the
moment I was sitting at my desk and I realized that my life had changed, that the calling had changed.
You know, how you have that little instinct or vision or voice inside you that pulls you in a
direction. And the direction could be anything. It could be, you know, my fulfillment is to create a
business that makes a positive impact. Or it could be my vision is to meet somebody to share my life
with in a really deeply meaningful way. It just so happened that at that time, and it kind of,
now that I'm talking about it, it kind of coincided because I met my wife when I was about 48.
And it wasn't just somebody that I was going to marry. It was somebody that I was deeply connected
to in a very surprising way. And meeting Sassy ended up giving me the freedom and the time
to get my hands off of raising three kids full-time. And I was able to begin to create a business
or two. And I think that it was just time for me to receive that kind of love and support so that I
could do other things other than be a dad and be a lawyer. And I was about 50 years old. I was
sitting there and I could just feel it. I'm like, why? Because it was kind of a new feeling, you
know. It wasn't just, you know, boy, it really feels good to make a positive impact with people.
It wasn't just that. It was like, no, I need to do this. And that was a different feeling. I could
feel like I have to spend my life delivering value in a personal way.
Wow. That's amazing. From 50 years until you're 64 now, 14 years, what else has changed when you
shared your story with other people and shared what you could with other people?
My commitment to doing it in a way that grows their connection to life. I noticed as I was
engaging with people in this way to deliver value and be responsive to them that the way that I
do it is unique in that it's really important for me to support their growing and developing value
and relationship with life itself. I think I had experienced as a student and as a teacher at
various times, I'd again, I think, I think that I was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very
students and as a teacher at various times, I'd experienced being the question, the answer giver,
the one with the answers. And I enjoyed it. It was fulfilling to a certain degree and what have you.
But it was inadequate. It left me feeling a little bit disturbed that people were coming to me
looking for something that they thought they didn't have. And at some point I realized, oh,
It's kind of a lie and a theft for me to do that.
And so I found a different way to engage with people
to help them discover that they too have the same kind
of instincts, intuition, relationship with life
and impulses and drives that I do.
So instead of looking to supplant that in them,
it was me needing to inspire what was already there in them
and to help them build on that.
That's amazing.
So what is that way of inspiring people?
It's asking questions.
The other day I was at coffee with a dear friend
and he was talking to me about a question that he has,
a challenge that he has in his work world.
And I asked him, I said, is there any,
do you have any instincts or is there anything kind
of flashing in front of your awareness repeatedly
that you keep ignoring or you keep not seeing
or wish wasn't happening?
And because I noticed that when we ask questions
as human beings, we're often given the answer
or we're given clues.
And because those clues don't match what we expect
or what we want or what we think, we ignore them.
But so I was asking him, what is it that's been presenting
itself perhaps that could be the answer to the very question
that you're asking?
And we talked for a little bit and then as these things
typically go in like the last 15 minutes,
he told me about a repeated invitation
from a very wonderful guy that was looking to partner
with him in precisely the way that my buddy wanted,
only my friend couldn't see it because he had something else
in mind.
But in him talking about that and answering that question,
he realized, oh, it's kind of right there in front of me.
He was changing the way that things were designed actually,
it's just for teaching.
but he just received it in a
As we happened just now, it really
really wonderful way.
He was talking about Emotion for classes that really
we could call God. They have that. They use different words for it and everybody has different
language for it. But everybody were uniquely and universally tied to life and it's communicating
with us. And we do have a relationship with it. Whether we believe in this or believe
in that, we're connected to that thing. And we have a relationship. And I think that rather
than outsourcing that by looking to a person or a thing for guidance, I think it's really
deeply human and natural and healthy for us to sit with ourselves and to grow our own
relationship with life.
How do you do that? How did you do that for yourself?
By not having one. And suffering the lack of it. You know, I don't think I'm terribly
unique in the fact that a large part of my early life until I was about 40 was me thinking,
you know, life was basically on me and my responsibility and that was it. You know,
I wasn't really aware of much else other than just me and me living life and having that
responsibility and that burden and that opportunity. So I was kind of like navigating life by
myself on my own because I wasn't it wasn't time for me to meet anything more than me.
And and frankly, one day I did meet something more than me. And and then I found some meaning
and it became a beacon to me in my life when I was about 43. And then and it changed everything,
changed everything. All of a sudden I had a source that was my go to source for everything.
And it wasn't that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm happy to. You know, I it happened as these things
often seem to do with us people where I was really on my ass. I mean, it was just, you
know, heartbroken and lost and hopeless and grieving. And and I was at the beach one morning
and I was at sunrise because I would go to sunrise and that was a special kind of ceremonial
thing I would do. And I remember sitting there and all of a sudden it was like it was like
somebody went into my not just my head, but my entire being and told me something that
I didn't know and I'd never heard before, which was that everything in my life that's
ever happened has been a gift to me. And it's because I'm loved. I'd never heard that. I'd
never felt that. I'd never read that. And it it changed me. So I walked on the beach
without that. And however many minutes or hours later, I walked off the beach with that.
And my life became living with that with that relationship and that awareness. And I never
had it before. There's so many people like you who missed that in their lives. Me and
you are some of the fortunate people in the world who actually have that gift and you
don't share it enough. Yeah. And now that would be today. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks
for asking and for giving me the opportunity. It's not something that I would necessarily
just kind of lead with. And it's because it's not something that everybody wants to hear
about. But I and now the you know, the older I get, this is like now 20 years later, my
life invites me to not just be aware of that and not just be accountable to that, that
thing, which I call God. But I'm also aware that other people call it different things.
Not only do I have that relationship, but as I get older, it seems like the invitation,
the opportunity and my need as a human being is to entertain that relationship every day
is to meet with that every day to remind myself of that and to speak with it or to it every
day. And so life has moved me closer to that source. That thing. Yeah. Thank you. Thank
you so much for being authentic today and sharing with with me and audience today, Jeff.
My pleasure. I want to follow up on that question and lead from that. That will be the last
question for today. From the point you had the experience, what changed about your perspective
of life and perceiving things that made the difference in what you do? Well, you know,
before my life before had me kind of externalizing the authority of life itself, and I would
put it into a person. It'd be one or two people that I would kind of make my source, if you
will, of right, wrong and fulfillment. And their judgment of me really kind of governed
how I felt. And my experience of life was like that, that how I felt was based on things
outside me. It was based on this person or this event or this thing. And the older I
get and the more I interact with life and and have challenges and respond to them, the
more I I realize how dependent I am on the one thing that matters most. And that one
thing that matters most just gets bigger and bigger in my life. And my willingness to base
how I feel on something or some person or somebody that outside myself grows smaller
every day. The longer that I that I interact with that source that that I need every day,
the more I do that, the less impacted I am by anything else.
That is a superpower. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned
in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. It's going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more
engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for
giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and
becoming a vision pro yourself.