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Jeff Cohen, tell me about your vision.

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You know, my vision is impact. It's the concept of we take a journey in life, we learn things,

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and we deliver those things to our community and the people and the things that we care about.

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You know, it comes from an interview that I saw many years ago. Bill Moyers was interviewing

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a young ant psychologist and the guy was talking about archetypes and he was talking about the

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hero's archetype, how the hero goes in, kills the dragon, learns things from doing it, and then takes

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those lessons back to his or her community. I heard that when I was maybe, I don't know, 35 years old

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and it didn't really make an impact like most things that I encounter. They take years for seeds

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to germinate. They don't really become accessible to me, but about, I don't know, five years or so

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later I realized I'd been on a journey and that the point of the journey wasn't what I thought it was.

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I thought it was to help myself, but in taking that journey and learning so many things,

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the thing that fulfilled me most was sharing what I was learning. So becoming, if you will,

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kind of a conduit of value and then as I got older I just enjoyed having a positive impact

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wherever I went and looking for the opportunity to deliver that value. I am excited for the value

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you'll bring today. Thank you, me too. So would you say, Jeff, that sharing and having an impact

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with people and bringing something positive to other people is what you do? Yeah, it is.

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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

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that I had this kind of calling, this need to deliver everything that had been given to me.

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And it was inexplicable. It wasn't something that I read in a book and it wasn't something that

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I had gotten from somewhere. It was just this kind of internal drive and I began to realize that,

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oh, I guess we go through these seasons in our lives, these developmental cycles in our lives,

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and the one that I had entered was one where the fulfillment, the most remarkable fulfillment

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that I could have is in having conversations like this. That's amazing. At the age of 50,

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that's when you realized your calling. What did you do before that? I was building a business.

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I was building a law firm and had gotten myself into various related businesses. I'm a healthcare

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business and regulatory lawyer and so I had not only gotten into building a healthcare business

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that was a values-centered thing. It was kind of an expression of what mattered to me in life.

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So it became kind of a personal passion, the law firm. Along the way, I ended up owning or

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becoming an owner in a variety of healthcare businesses as well. So I was in kind of a building

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phase, a creation phase, but at the same time, I had written a book about this journey where I ended

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up receiving a lot of value. The name of the book is The Wolf That Wins. It was just me telling the

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story of journeying for value, finding it, and then finding meaning and sharing all of that.

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And at about 50, I had this inexplicable need to keep talking with people like this and sharing

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everything that I could. So I looked for opportunities wherever I could find them to do it.

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It could be having coffee with somebody that reaches out and it could be standing on a stage

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with a microphone or talking to somebody like you this way. That's amazing. I want to go back to

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when you were 50 and you were like, I need to talk to people and share this. When did you realize

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that and how did you come to that conclusion? You know, I was sitting at my desk. I remember the

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moment I was sitting at my desk and I realized that my life had changed, that the calling had changed.

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You know, how you have that little instinct or vision or voice inside you that pulls you in a

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direction. And the direction could be anything. It could be, you know, my fulfillment is to create a

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business that makes a positive impact. Or it could be my vision is to meet somebody to share my life

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with in a really deeply meaningful way. It just so happened that at that time, and it kind of,

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now that I'm talking about it, it kind of coincided because I met my wife when I was about 48.

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And it wasn't just somebody that I was going to marry. It was somebody that I was deeply connected

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to in a very surprising way. And meeting Sassy ended up giving me the freedom and the time

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to get my hands off of raising three kids full-time. And I was able to begin to create a business

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or two. And I think that it was just time for me to receive that kind of love and support so that I

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could do other things other than be a dad and be a lawyer. And I was about 50 years old. I was

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sitting there and I could just feel it. I'm like, why? Because it was kind of a new feeling, you

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know. It wasn't just, you know, boy, it really feels good to make a positive impact with people.

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It wasn't just that. It was like, no, I need to do this. And that was a different feeling. I could

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feel like I have to spend my life delivering value in a personal way.

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Wow. That's amazing. From 50 years until you're 64 now, 14 years, what else has changed when you

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shared your story with other people and shared what you could with other people?

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My commitment to doing it in a way that grows their connection to life. I noticed as I was

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engaging with people in this way to deliver value and be responsive to them that the way that I

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do it is unique in that it's really important for me to support their growing and developing value

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and relationship with life itself. I think I had experienced as a student and as a teacher at

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various times, I'd again, I think, I think that I was a very, very, very, very, very, very, very

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students and as a teacher at various times, I'd experienced being the question, the answer giver,

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the one with the answers. And I enjoyed it. It was fulfilling to a certain degree and what have you.

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But it was inadequate. It left me feeling a little bit disturbed that people were coming to me

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looking for something that they thought they didn't have. And at some point I realized, oh,

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It's kind of a lie and a theft for me to do that.

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And so I found a different way to engage with people

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to help them discover that they too have the same kind

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of instincts, intuition, relationship with life

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and impulses and drives that I do.

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So instead of looking to supplant that in them,

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it was me needing to inspire what was already there in them

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and to help them build on that.

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That's amazing.

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So what is that way of inspiring people?

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It's asking questions.

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The other day I was at coffee with a dear friend

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and he was talking to me about a question that he has,

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a challenge that he has in his work world.

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And I asked him, I said, is there any,

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do you have any instincts or is there anything kind

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of flashing in front of your awareness repeatedly

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that you keep ignoring or you keep not seeing

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or wish wasn't happening?

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And because I noticed that when we ask questions

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as human beings, we're often given the answer

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or we're given clues.

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And because those clues don't match what we expect

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or what we want or what we think, we ignore them.

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But so I was asking him, what is it that's been presenting

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itself perhaps that could be the answer to the very question

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that you're asking?

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And we talked for a little bit and then as these things

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typically go in like the last 15 minutes,

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he told me about a repeated invitation

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from a very wonderful guy that was looking to partner

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with him in precisely the way that my buddy wanted,

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only my friend couldn't see it because he had something else

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in mind.

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But in him talking about that and answering that question,

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he realized, oh, it's kind of right there in front of me.

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He was changing the way that things were designed actually,

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it's just for teaching.

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but he just received it in a

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As we happened just now, it really

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really wonderful way.

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He was talking about Emotion for classes that really

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we could call God. They have that. They use different words for it and everybody has different

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language for it. But everybody were uniquely and universally tied to life and it's communicating

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with us. And we do have a relationship with it. Whether we believe in this or believe

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in that, we're connected to that thing. And we have a relationship. And I think that rather

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than outsourcing that by looking to a person or a thing for guidance, I think it's really

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deeply human and natural and healthy for us to sit with ourselves and to grow our own

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relationship with life.

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How do you do that? How did you do that for yourself?

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By not having one. And suffering the lack of it. You know, I don't think I'm terribly

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unique in the fact that a large part of my early life until I was about 40 was me thinking,

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you know, life was basically on me and my responsibility and that was it. You know,

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I wasn't really aware of much else other than just me and me living life and having that

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responsibility and that burden and that opportunity. So I was kind of like navigating life by

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myself on my own because I wasn't it wasn't time for me to meet anything more than me.

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And and frankly, one day I did meet something more than me. And and then I found some meaning

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and it became a beacon to me in my life when I was about 43. And then and it changed everything,

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changed everything. All of a sudden I had a source that was my go to source for everything.

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And it wasn't that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm happy to. You know, I it happened as these things

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often seem to do with us people where I was really on my ass. I mean, it was just, you

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know, heartbroken and lost and hopeless and grieving. And and I was at the beach one morning

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and I was at sunrise because I would go to sunrise and that was a special kind of ceremonial

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thing I would do. And I remember sitting there and all of a sudden it was like it was like

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somebody went into my not just my head, but my entire being and told me something that

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I didn't know and I'd never heard before, which was that everything in my life that's

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ever happened has been a gift to me. And it's because I'm loved. I'd never heard that. I'd

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never felt that. I'd never read that. And it it changed me. So I walked on the beach

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without that. And however many minutes or hours later, I walked off the beach with that.

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And my life became living with that with that relationship and that awareness. And I never

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had it before. There's so many people like you who missed that in their lives. Me and

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you are some of the fortunate people in the world who actually have that gift and you

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don't share it enough. Yeah. And now that would be today. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks

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for asking and for giving me the opportunity. It's not something that I would necessarily

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just kind of lead with. And it's because it's not something that everybody wants to hear

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about. But I and now the you know, the older I get, this is like now 20 years later, my

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life invites me to not just be aware of that and not just be accountable to that, that

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thing, which I call God. But I'm also aware that other people call it different things.

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Not only do I have that relationship, but as I get older, it seems like the invitation,

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the opportunity and my need as a human being is to entertain that relationship every day

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is to meet with that every day to remind myself of that and to speak with it or to it every

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day. And so life has moved me closer to that source. That thing. Yeah. Thank you. Thank

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you so much for being authentic today and sharing with with me and audience today, Jeff.

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My pleasure. I want to follow up on that question and lead from that. That will be the last

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question for today. From the point you had the experience, what changed about your perspective

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of life and perceiving things that made the difference in what you do? Well, you know,

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before my life before had me kind of externalizing the authority of life itself, and I would

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put it into a person. It'd be one or two people that I would kind of make my source, if you

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will, of right, wrong and fulfillment. And their judgment of me really kind of governed

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how I felt. And my experience of life was like that, that how I felt was based on things

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outside me. It was based on this person or this event or this thing. And the older I

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get and the more I interact with life and and have challenges and respond to them, the

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more I I realize how dependent I am on the one thing that matters most. And that one

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thing that matters most just gets bigger and bigger in my life. And my willingness to base

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how I feel on something or some person or somebody that outside myself grows smaller

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every day. The longer that I that I interact with that source that that I need every day,

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the more I do that, the less impacted I am by anything else.

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That is a superpower. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned

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in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes

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continue to move forward. It's going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more

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engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for

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giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and

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becoming a vision pro yourself.