Episode 403: Cathy Heller: Why Women Should Embrace Wealth and Live in Possibility, not Probability

Are you living in possibility or probability? In this Habits and Hustle episode, I am joined by Cathy Heller as she shares her incredible journey from struggling artist to successful entrepreneur and author. Her story is a testament to the power of living in possibility rather than probability. We dive into her new book Abundant Ever After and discuss the importance of taking action, being resourceful, and embracing an optimistic mindset to achieve one's goals. We also discuss the stigma around women and wealth, encouraging listeners to unapologetically declare their desire for financial abundance while using it to make a positive impact. Cathy Heller is a renowned teacher, podcaster and author. She hosts one of the top spiritual podcasts, Abundant Ever After, which has been downloaded more than 45 million times. She's a practitioner of the law of reception, and has a deep understanding of the universal principles of manifestation. Check out her new book Abundant Ever After https://www.cathyheller.com/abundant-ever-after-book-1. What We Discuss: (01:07) Friendship and Support in Success (05:01) Exploring Jewish Manifestation and Energy (11:20) Changing Energy Through Mindful Awareness (19:31) From Record Deal to Music Licensing (31:02) Breaking Free From Past Trauma (36:54) Optimism, Wealth, and Transformative Courses (45:03) Female Entrepreneurship and Authenticity (57:42) Balance Between Spirituality and Action …and more! Thank you to our sponsors: AquaTru: Get 20% off any purifier at aquatru.com http://aquatru.com with code HUSTLE Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen and use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen http://timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to http://airdoctorpro.com/airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Cathy Heller: Website: https://www.cathyheller.com/ Book: Abundant Ever After https://www.cathyheller.com/abundant-ever-after-book-1 Podcast: Abundant Ever After https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/abundant-ever-after-with-cathy-heller/id1191831035

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Jen Cohen?

  Okay, guys, we have a very special treat. We have one of my favorite ladies on the podcast today. Her name is Cathy Heller. She's actually the reason that I even have a podcast.

• 0:17Speaker 02

  I love that. That's the best.

• 0:20Jen Cohen?

  It's true. Kathy and I went for coffee, maybe what, four or five years ago? And Kathy said to me, I was, I don't even know what we were talking about. What were we talking about?

• 0:28Speaker 02

  Our careers and what's next. And I'm like, this is so you. All you have to do is talk and you're the, you're not just, it's not just that you talk and have interesting things to say, which you do. You're so loving and you're so enthusiastic that people like talking to you. And I was like, you should totally have a podcast. It'd be like the easiest, it's the easiest medium that God ever made for you. And then you did it.

• 0:52Jen Cohen?

  And I didn't even, thank you. I thank you for that beautiful intro. I should be doing you a beautiful, I have an intro for you, but that's a great one. I'm gonna keep it.

• 1:01Jen Cohen?

  As usual, I, I say to Kathy that she is like molasses. She can just pour, like, she pours sugar sweetness on everybody.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  You do that for me. You're one of like five people that always tells me how proud you are of me. Like no matter, we've been friends for a long time.

• 1:16Jen Cohen?

  Many years.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  And it's just like this, like, very beautiful generous heart. Like, like most people, look, most people have like a competitive vibe.

• 1:26Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:26Speaker 02

  I feel like you and I are just like so happy to see each other just like in your light, thriving. And you do that for me. Always.

• 1:34Jen Cohen?

  You're, okay, well, this is, okay, I'm glad that that's a great segue into what I was gonna say about you because, A, you're right, I'm very proud of you.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42Jen Cohen?

  Kathy is, wait, what, okay, I don't even know where to begin. So Kathy is very talented. And it's true that you, where you, where you've come from where you were is extraordinary.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Same. Thank you.

• 1:57Jen Cohen?

  This girl, when, when you say habits and hustle, the word hustle personified. The funny thing is, if you know Kathy and her, and her work and what she does, she's all about like, like I said, like, Sugar and sweet and manifestation and abundance. Her new book, of course, is called Abundant Ever After, of course. She's that girl who typically, you know, I'm not into that like, that like woo.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:23Jen Cohen?

  You know, like be present and all that kind of thing. But you do it like that, but inside you are the most resourceful.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  So resourceful.

• 2:34Jen Cohen?

  Such a driven and ambitious soul. And what you've done and how you've kind of evolved and elevated over the last, God knows how many years I've known you is literally astounding.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  That's so incredibly kind. I fully receive it. I feel like I'm getting like electricity running through me, just being in your presence and hearing all of those nice things. And it is really special when someone's known you the whole journey because you see the person continue to reach for who they really are. And it's really cool. And I've watched you do that, too. And that's really amazing. I think one of the reasons that we'll talk about it today, why I get away with that with you, like the manifestation-ish.

• 3:12Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Sort of spiritual, like the ease of the flow rather than the pushing.

• 3:18Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Is because I think you know from where it comes and you understand on some level, there's like a sincerity to it with me of what it really means to me. And I'm going to explain it to you so that your listeners hear it. But my word for and my paradigm for how to manifest is through a Jewish lens. And Judaism is really different with what we would call the law of reception, which is what Rabbi Aaron says, that's like fairly Jewish. Then probably what's out there in the zeitgeist about most of what people hear with the law of attraction. That's not as much a Jewish concept as the law of reception. And I'm happy to like go into why they're different. But I think that's why, because you know me and because you, you're also really good at spotting if it's like bullshit or if it's real.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  We come from that same DNA, truly.

• 4:05Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  We're part of the Jewish people. And so there's something about it that feels actually grounded to you. And I'm happy to like explain why I think Judaism has an amazing lens on manifestation.

• 4:16Jen Cohen?

  Good, because I was going to say, I love that because I was the. First question I was actually gonna ask you is when I was looking at the bio that I guess your team sent me.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:24Jen Cohen?

  It says here, okay, Kathy is a renowned teacher, podcaster and author. She hosts one of the top spiritual podcasts, which is one reason why I would never have her on if it wasn't for you. Abundant Ever After, which is the name of the book, which has been downloaded 45 million times. I'm talking like, that's insanity. And it says here, she's a practitioner of the law of reception and has a deep understanding of the universal principles of manifestation. I've never heard of the word law of reception before. And the first question I was gonna say is, what the hell is that?

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Okay, so here's the cool thing. So when I was 21, I went to Israel. I was supposed to be there for three weeks.

• 5:03Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Great, graduate of college, go to Israel for three weeks and then go into my life. Instead, I met Rabbi Aaron. I was so compelled by the depth that he offered. I just kept extending my trip and I stayed for three years. And in those three years, I feel like something hit Ctrl, Alt, Delete on the software program, which was how I saw the world, and inserted in me like new software, to which allowed me to like see the universe through the eyes of Judaism, which was unbelievably expansive.

• 5:33Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Like, growing up, I knew Judaism was like Lox and Bagels and Mel Brooks. And it's like, I like Mel Brooks and I like Lox and Bagels, but there's so much more to it. And Rabbi Aaron said to me at some point in those three years, he said, I feel like everyone's into the law of attraction. Have you heard of it? I'm like, yeah, that's kind of like the thing everyone's talking about. He's like, I just want to share with you, like, if you're in a conversation like that, I want you to know the Jewish take on it. I'm like, sure. So he's like, we would say the law of reception. I'm like, what is that? He's like, well, the word Kabbalah comes from the word Le Kabel. Kabbalah means to receive. So it's the law of reception. I said, well, what does that mean? He said, well, if you had a radio and you put the radio in this room right now, and this isn't woo, this is reality. If you put the radio in this room, you turn it on and all of a sudden you would hear something. You might hear music, right? You might hear static, but you'll hear something.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  He's like, so let's say you hear music. Where was the music before you turned it on? And I'm like, I've never thought of that question. But it's a fair question. He's like, the answer is, it was. Hidden in plain sight. It's here. It's already an escrow. But in order to hear it, you have to tune the receiver to a frequency that can actually receive the music. And so he said, most people go through their life pointing at the music, so to speak, of their life. This is my reality. This is my relationship. This is my health. This is my bank account. Not realizing that they're choosing what station they're hearing based on their vibration. And Einstein, right? Like, this is again, not woo, this is just science. Said that the world is not really made of three dimensions, but we perceive 3D with our naked eye.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Cause the eyeball sees things in cubes. It sees things in three dimensions. But the truth is that atoms are 99% energy and 1% particle. So most of the world in reality is something we don't perceive with our eyes, but it exists. It's 99% of the world, 99% of atoms are energy. So it's a frequency, which is why Malcolm Gladwell says in Blink, when someone walks in a room, within four seconds, you feel their energy. You just know if this person is net positive, net neutral, net negative. Because the energy goes first. Even my cat, like if someone walks in the space, my cat either like runs under the bed or is like kind of intrigued by this person. Babies can feel energy. You and I can feel energy. We know that if you sit down with someone and have coffee, the most impressive thing is not what they're wearing.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  It's their energy. It's like, you have great energy. I feel like the reason people like being around you, you happen to be stunning. It's your energy. Your energy brings people to life. Your energy is like bubbles that are boiling water that turn everything on. That's your energy. That's your greatest offer to the world. So Rabbi Aaron said, we have to understand that like we are vibrational beings. And when we're truly in flow and we're truly in alignment with our soul, not our ego, but our soul, then the music is on and everything is like beautiful music. And then our life is just like that. And then the synchronicity kind of takes over because what goes first is you're in the music. You have the vibration that like everybody wants to be around.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  So it becomes a magnet for stuff.

• 8:34Jen Cohen?

  So how, I guess my question to you is, how does somebody change their energy? If you were born or have a certain energy,

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:41Jen Cohen?

  right? Or frequency, how do you elevate it? If you are somebody who has bad energy or a low frequency? Is that even possible?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, first of all, it's a really good question. And when I left Israel, I moved to Los Angeles and I started taking classes at the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. And I studied there for a few years and I started studying meditation, which was super hard for me at first.

• 9:02Jen Cohen?

  Oh.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  And then I wound up learning what meditation really is, which is, this is a long way to answer your question, but it's how I would answer it. Meditation is not about not thinking. Meditation is about witnessing your thinking. When I met John Kabat-Zinn, when I've gone to Joe Dispenza's workshops, anyone who teaches meditation is helping you to get out of the swirling blizzard of your thoughts and perceive them, witness those thoughts, because consciousness is actually not even in the brain. I just had dinner with my friend, Dr. Lisa Miller, who's a professor at Columbia, who studies the awakened brain, brains that have like a spiritual flow state, brains that connect to something transcendent. And she said they did an FMRI on a monk and there was no activity in the brain. Here's what I mean.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Most of the time, we are unconscious, thinking the same thing we thought yesterday, which makes us feel what we felt yesterday. We know that every thought secretes a hormone like, or a chemical like cortisol or dopamine or serotonin. And we are unconsciously living the same thoughts and the same feelings, which make us then do the same things we did the day before. So how do we change our energy? First of all, understanding, instead of being in the blizzard of the mind, it's kind of like if it was Christmas morning and it's snowing outside, if you were in the living room looking at a snowstorm, it's actually beautiful. But if you're out in the blizzard, walking through the blizzard, it sucks. It's cold. You can't see in front of you four feet. That's being caught in the mind. So you've done a lot of podcasts. I've done almost a thousand podcasts.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Everybody I interview who's living their best life, feeling really good, and you said how to change your feeling good, is doing some version of some practice that gets them out of the cortisol addiction. That could be working out for some people. That could be meditating for some people. There's some thing they do so they don't just sit in the unconscious eh all day long. So when you say, how do you change your energy? Well, most people, first of all, become conscious that you're unconscious a lot of the time. You're just scrolling your phone and taking in a lot of like ick, right? We have to remember, we get to decide. I say to people, the same way you select what you're going to wear today, select how you want to feel. And when I teach people how to meditate now, I teach them like a five minute meditation.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  That first of all, what you first do is like, notice your body first. Is your body regulated or dysregulated? You're either betraying yourself or you're not. It's that simple. And you will notice, oh my God, I'm actually like racing, right? I tell people, look out at nature. Do you see a tree that's rushing? Do you see like, you know, animals that are worrying and serious? No, they're in flow state. They're in homeostasis, right? You're not. You're in fight or flight. The amygdala is constantly putting you in fight or flight. So first, notice your body, like attend to your body and maybe notice your sit bones. I'm like, can you feel your left or your right? Can you distribute your weight? So you feel them both. Okay, that's the first step. Now, can you notice your thoughts with non judgmental awareness?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Like, oh, I'm thinking about my mother in law. I'm thinking about my weight loss. Oh, I'm mad at myself. It's like, what if you could just have some distance from your thoughts? And then the trick is, who am I really? Cause I'm not my thoughts. And when you really find this center part of you, there's a part of you that has equanimity, wisdom, it has a capacity to just see for miles and miles, right? And so that's what you start to do is you start to realize you are outsourcing your wellbeing all day long to what's going to happen, who you'll meet at the DMV, what good thing will happen? And when I teach people to meditate and they start to feel good again, they start to feel peace and equanimity and the lightness of being in their heart open and all that.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  It feels so freaking good. I'm like, if you could feel that good and give yourself less cortisol in those moments, which is good for you biologically, why would you wait to maybe feel good today as opposed to like plugging in, plugging in? Right? That is how you start to feel better.

• 12:57Jen Cohen?

  So it's funny because we say we say the same things, but we use different words.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:02Jen Cohen?

  And to kind of get to the same, I guess, the same goal, right? What I hear you say is people need to take action. They have to do something different than they did before.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 13:12Jen Cohen?

  To change their state of being, right? And so.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 13:16Jen Cohen?

  Right? So like, if it's meditation for some, like I am someone who really believes that you don't need, I mean, I'm not, I can't meditate to save my life. I've tried a hundred times. It doesn't work for me in that way. But what I realized over many years of like beating myself up for not being able to sit in the om position and try to feel my heart, or whatever the wording is, my meditation is going for a run.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 13:40Jen Cohen?

  Right? Because it quiets everything around me.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  First of all, meditation has been such an abused word. That is meditation. The definition of mindfulness, right? And meditation is a byproduct of being in a state of mindful awareness is having your own attention, right?

• 13:55Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  So a lot of monks, their meditation is making sand art. They say that an adult coloring book.

• 14:02Jen Cohen?

  Great.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Is a form of meditation. Like, there's no such thing as beating yourself up that one version of meditation doesn't work for you. Like, I also don't want to sit and breathe in and breathe out and say a mantra. Also, the other thing that's really cool about what you and I, I think, are more drawn to is when people are in flow state, when Tom Petty was writing a song, let's say, he's in a meditation. Because what they've come to find out from the science of the brain is like, when you're in a creative flow, you are in the present moment, right? You and I are not people that overthink things. I don't sit and try to figure out the ROI, what's gonna happen, like, let's just take action. Let's just go. And guess what?

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Then my whole life is like a meditation because I'm in the present moment, having fun now, not saying, well, I'll only have fun if this gets 15,000 downloads. Or somebody, it's like, no, no, no, I don't even know if this idea is gonna work, but I want to test it. I want to create. I want to keep going. That is what, that's what. Nature is doing all the time.

• 15:05Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, because analysis paralysis kills every dream and every and every possibility. Right. Could you sit in this like terrible place of like, is it not gonna work? Is it maybe gonna work? I agree. So that's like the first thing. But you have something that's very interesting to me and I just realized it as you were talking. Right. Because very few people, like you have people who are very hardcore in business or hardcore and creative.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:28Jen Cohen?

  Very rarely do people have both sides of the brain working so so well together.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 15:33Jen Cohen?

  You are somebody, that's what I think I'm really, I've always been very, I admire it and I find it's very impressive. Let me just give you some background because I know like I didn't really, I said all those like buzzwords like podcaster, teacher. She's telling you she's a meditation teacher. She's not. I mean, she might be now.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:49Jen Cohen?

  But she wasn't. Okay. So when I met Kathy, Kathy was a struggling artist, like a music artist, who was exceptionally talented. You were dropped from your record label, right? So she was a singer songwriter and I was obsessed with your with your stuff.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  You're home to me.

• 16:07Jen Cohen?

  Remember? Oh, first of all, her voice, her, she's exceptionally talented. And by the way, this, I do like kind of blow smoke up people's ass sometimes.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  You're like three, you're one of three people that listen to my CD all the time.

• 16:18Jen Cohen?

  But I will say this.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  When CD is worth it.

• 16:20Jen Cohen?

  I am not just making this shit up. And you can ask Noah, that I would put your CD in my car every day. I would listen to it like I would like the like Alanis Morissette, you know, album, like, you know, Jagged Little Pill. You are so, you're so talented.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  So sweet.

• 16:36Jen Cohen?

  So this is why I want to bring this up. Okay. So when I met you, you were kind of doing all that stuff. You got dropped, then you ended up, then she, you, she, I'm gonna say, talk to you because that's, you're here. You know, figuring out like, okay, now what? Like I have all this like creative talent and you figured out that you should maybe, okay, maybe the record labels don't want you. By the way, did you ever figure out why they, why they dropped you?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Let's be honest. I was in the Sunset Sounds recording studio and Lady Gaga was there and I had just gotten signed and she was recording Paparazzi. And I was like, um, I'm out of my league. Like I was signed because Ron Fair had.

• 17:14Jen Cohen?

  Vanessa Carlton.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  And I

• 17:16Jen Cohen?

  Yes, totally.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Do this guy. And like, I, they were phasing out of that. Like, they wanted pop, amazing singles. I don't write that kind of music. I don't sing that kind of way. I was like more in the Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant era. It was over. I had to come to terms with it. And then, as you know, I started licensing music.

• 17:34Jen Cohen?

  Don't tell me, don't tell, okay, wait.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Hold on.

• 17:36Jen Cohen?

  So she, because she was a Colby Kelly. I always say you're like a Colby Kelly, okay? It's like the singer-songwriter. Vanessa Carlton is a great example, actually, too. Okay, so then, that, we were kind of like getting out of that genre, right? So then you're like, okay, what the hell am I gonna do now? And then you saw something or heard something, and you figure out that, like, okay, just because I can't do that, I'm gonna then license my music

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 18:00Jen Cohen?

  to TV shows and to companies. So you started writing music for McDonald's, I remember.

• 18:05Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 18:05Jen Cohen?

  Grey's Anatomy.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Yep, Little Liars, Younger, Target, Walmart. It was so fun.

• 18:11Jen Cohen?

  And you were now, at now, she went from being a starving artist making no money to now making money.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  You could make a lot of money with the commercials. Yeah, there was like 75 grand per use.

• 18:21Jen Cohen?

  How did you get from, okay, my career and my life is over, to then finding that opportunity? And then, by the way, we're not done yet. This is just part one. And then making a business from that? Because this girl, like I said, just wait. So how did you do that?

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Okay, well, first of all, I just want to say that in the book I just wrote, it starts off with this like really spiritual sort of like landscape, and then dives into the business and the resourcefulness. Because, I just want to pay homage to you. 100%, we were put here to take action. 100%, we live in a physical world. You cannot just sit on a mountaintop and think that all of these things will happen. And also, you would miss out on who you become when you take action. Like, we were meant to do hard things and find that we have a bigger capacity to do things than we thought. Like, that's all in the book. It just starts off with this, like, you know what? It starts off with a lot of the spirituality. I have to say why, because my book was a version of this, and it was supposed to come out in May.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  And after October 7th, I actually asked my publisher if I could put more spirituality and Judaism The book and a little less business because everyone talks about antisemitism, which they should, I get it. But to me, I'm like, what about pro-Semitism? Like, these ideas are so beautiful. I'm like, I want people to know them. So, yes, to the business part. So how did I do that? Yes, you were right. I thought it was Beyonce or bust. You know, I had a record deal. I was like, I did it. Look, mom, take a picture. And then I got dropped. And then I actually got a second record deal with Craig Kalman at Atlantic. And I was like, oh, my God, this is going to be so much better and so glad this is where I landed. And then I was supposed to write a soundtrack to Fraggle Rock. Ahmet Zappa wrote the script. Weinstein was going to do the movie.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  The movie never got made. And then Craig Kalman, who's like a sweet guy at Atlantic Records, like, we have no vehicle for your music. So then that ended. And then I thought, well, now it's really over. And a friend of mine said, okay, so if you're going to give up your dream, you should go make a lot of money. And so, long story short, she's like, what can you do to make a lot of money? Um, you should work in commercial real estate. And so because you and I are pretty, we're good at manifesting. Like, whether you like it or not, like, good energy is the trick to manifestation. Like, having fun wherever you are is how you manifest. So I was in line at the Cheesecake Factory, and this guy was standing in front of me in Bretwood. And he was like, what do you do? And I was like, actually, I'm looking for my next thing. And he's like, I own $300 million of shopping centers. You should come work for me. You have good energy. I'm like, oh, I was just thinking about commercial real estate. I went to work for this guy, and I had a blast. Because you and I have a blast wherever we are.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  And I bought my little CLK coop, and I would like go with him to golf courses. And then they'd make deals and exchange like tendencies in common. I don't even know what they were doing. They're buying pieces of shopping centers. And I was like, oh, my God, people just neutrally exchange hundreds of millions of dollars. Like, it's no big deal. Meanwhile, they're having fun. They're going to lunch. They're going to the opera. Like, I'm in, you know? And after two years, I was like, you know what? I'm not in. Like, I didn't come to LA to do this. And I saw that I could be successful at it because I realized that every business, but especially real estate, at that level is all people. It's just knowing how to be with good with people. And they have to diversify their asset anyway. They may as well go with you. And I was like, but this isn't my life. Like, I don't want to do this. And I was making good money, but I left. And then I asked myself a new question, which is, is there any other way I can make money with music? Is it record deal or nothing?

• 21:32Speaker 02

  And I Googled that. Articles came up about like you can license your music. I was like, what is that? I had never heard of that. And I saw Ingrid Michaelson was licensing her songs to an Old Navy commercial. And I was like, you know what? I should do that. And now that I've had two years in the real estate world, I'm gonna cold call my ass off. So I started cold calling Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and they were like, uh, who are you? Click. And then I just got, I like have a thick skin. So I'd be like, oh, okay, don't call it noon, you know, call it four, like.

• 21:57Jen Cohen?

  But wait a second, you forgot a big part of it, which I love. The first part is when you did connect with people, you offered, you said to them, I want your Starbucks.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Oh, you remember? Yeah. So I decided it's the gold. It's the juice.

• 22:10Jen Cohen?

  How are you like burying the lead?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Okay, that's in my book. Yeah. So what I decided to do is I realized like it's people, it's people skills, right? So I was like, instead of asking them to give me an opportunity to write songs for their next ad, I was like, listen, what's your favorite Starbucks drink? And she's like, what? I'm like, yeah, I'm like making it up on the spot. I'm like, I do this thing called mokas and music. I take your Starbucks order and then I'll bring you the Starbucks and I'll also bring you some music. This is like back when we would bring like a zip drive or something. And half the time they'd be like, no, thank you. But the other half of the time they were like, I want a caramel macchiato. Oh, can you get one for my assistant? I'm like, sure. So I went to like 50 people's offices and sometimes I would even call like an ad agency in Minnesota because a lot of the big brands are there, like General Mills and Target. So the ad agencies there do a lot of the big spots. So I would call these ad agencies in Minnesota and be like, you know,

• 22:57Speaker 02

  I'm gonna be in Minneapolis. Could I? And they'd like, oh, you're, when are you gonna be here? I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be there in October. And where should I go apple picking? And then I would take a trip because then I would get the meeting and I would go and then I would land the spot. And then I was like, oh, my God, every one of these trips is worth it. Because if you get one song in a McDonald's commercial, they pay you $85,000 just to use it and you still own it. And then you can license it again, license it again. And then you're right, I started teaching other artists how to do that. And again, I didn't overthink that either. It was like you and I are not, I'm not existential. It's not like, oh, is my whole life licensing music? No, you're just doing it. Is my whole life now teaching artists to license music? No, it's just another yes. And other artists started asking me, actually, my friends and distant cousins

• 23:39Speaker 02

  were living right next door to me. And they were my first people like, can you teach me how you? Do this. And I'm like, sure, here's the list of people that I've now found, but you can find more of these people by Googling, who's the music supervisor? Da, da, da, da. I'll show you how to Google it. I'll show you the numbers of names I know. And then my friend was like, this is so valuable. You should teach this. And I had my first class in my living room for 10 people. And then I was like, you know, resourceful. I should rent a theater. And I start calling around LA and people are like, yeah, we don't even use our theaters on Tuesday during the day. We only use them at night. So I'm like, okay, there'll be like some weird set behind me for the play, but like I can rent it. She's like, yeah, if you rent it during the day, weekday, it costs like nothing, like 50 bucks an hour. Great. So I start renting theaters, filling seats. And then one of my students,

• 24:22Speaker 02

  now I was licensing my own music and teaching people how to license music. One of my students in one of the classes said, you should do an online class. I'm like, I don't have an online account. I don't have Instagram. She's like, but why would it only be, this is only available to people in LA? Like there's people graduating from Berklee School Music in Boston. They might want to learn this. So I put up my first webinar. Again, didn't overthink it. I was pregnant with my third daughter. I didn't have a single slide, no slide deck. I just did what you and I did, just like told people my story and said, it's a thousand dollars. I made that up. Thousand dollars and you can be in a group for a year and I'll come on Zoom once a week. And 147 people bought it that night.

• 24:57Jen Cohen?

  How did they even know? Like this, cause this is the thing, right? Like, cause I think people get, they also get, they stop in the start, right? Cause where, if you don't have all these things, you don't have the Instagram, you don't have this, you don't know people, right? I know. How do you get?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Cause you and I, you use this word and I think this should be our like buzzword is resourceful. So you know what I did? I thought to myself, who knows songwriters? And I'm like, where do songwriters hang out? And then I thought, oh, you know, who knows songwriters? The guy who books Hotel Cafe, the guy who books what used to be Room Five. These were songwriter places. So I called James at Hotel Cafe. I'm like, how long is your list, your email list of songwriters? Cause he'd been booking there for years. He's like, it's like at least a few thousand. I said, why don't you send them this email that I'm going to do this thing? It's a free workshop. So he's like, okay. Like we weren't even smart enough to like give him an affiliate. I didn't even know that at the time. He was just like, sure. And then because he was a songwriter, he wanted to come to it. And then the, the deal that we made, he was like, can I just be in your class for free?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  I'm like, sure. But after that, I said, why don't I give you like a cut if you send people? And then I did that. And then the next thing I did was like, but this is called hustle, darling. But I, all I was, what I was doing was just having fun and not overthinking it.

• 26:07Jen Cohen?

  See, exactly. And so what I think that like people, people now are, are really kind of creating this, this, there's like a whole movement, like, oh, the word hustle is a, is a bad word.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't know what it means.

• 26:18Jen Cohen?

  It's because, yeah, exactly. It's like, you don't, you can't, no matter how much you, the word, you people, now the new buzzword is manifesting or sitting back, whatever the word is of the day, I don't care. It all comes back to, you still have to like, get out of the chair.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 26:32Jen Cohen?

  And, and do the work.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Show up.

• 26:33Jen Cohen?

  Show up.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  And do the work. A hundred percent. You know, I was thinking, my grandmother was a dancer. That's how she met my grandfather and he danced with Gregory Hines' dad. And they used to do the hustle. It was a dance.

• 26:43Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  But what I just realized is, the hustle can be fun. Meaning to say, that is how it should be. Like, I think the reason people don't like it is because they're not as much like us, where so when they do it, they feel, they have to do it perfectly. They have to overthink it. They have to be, you know, over preparing. And then they feel really rejected when it's something doesn't work. I think you and I are like, I don't even notice if someone rejects me.

• 27:07Jen Cohen?

  I don't.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  I'm just like, fine, on to the next one. And then it's actually fun because I don't overthink. I don't overplan. So to me, the hustle is more like my grandmother and grandfather dancing.

• 27:16Jen Cohen?

  You know, it's so funny that you say that, because that's the one question people, especially when I wrote my book, and I was doing the whole circuit, like the podcast and all that, always people would say to me, like, you know, like, well, how are you okay with rejection or failure, failure, fail? I'm like, um, I did it so much and I failed so many times that like, I became desensitized and immune to the feeling, or it didn't even like make a difference.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Don't even notice.

• 27:41Jen Cohen?

  Like, honestly, here's part of, what I say to people is this.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  I'm okay if people decide not to like me. Isn't that insane? Because guess what? I don't like everybody.

• 27:50Jen Cohen?

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  I don't. Like, how many times you go to a party and you're like, oh, all these people, these are my people? No, there's like four girls. You're like, I love these girls. The other one, nah, not so much. Like, I think it's weird that we think everyone's supposed to like us.

• 28:02Jen Cohen?

  Totally true.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  People should reject you because you're not everyone's cup of tea. Oh, my God, can you handle that? And also, why would you take it personally? People are so busy with their own self and their own life. They sometimes can't get back to you, or they sometimes can't help you. Let it go. I'm like, I find it a little narcissistic how people want other people's approval. I really don't.

• 28:22Jen Cohen?

  I don't either.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  I don't need it. I'm really okay.

• 28:26Jen Cohen?

  I wonder why that is. Like, why are we okay with that and other people are not?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  That's a good question.

• 28:31Jen Cohen?

  What is the reason behind it? Because the truth is like, I feel like people are like, she doesn't give a shit. She's so the, and it's not, I, I feel like I don't.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  I don't either.

• 28:40Jen Cohen?

  People ask me why, and I'm like, I don't know.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  I wonder, I don't know. I'm thinking, what do we have in common? But like, my parents got divorced when I was younger. I was making, like, if I missed an orthodontist appointment, like, I had to call. Like, I knew I had to talk to adults. I was a little bit older than my peers in a way, and my dad left, and so it was on me. I didn't, I guess maybe on some level, that's like the ultimate rejection, and I didn't even take that that way.

• 29:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  So I'm like, if I don't take that that way, I'm gonna be fine. I don't care. Like, I don't care. Let him go do his thing. Like, I was relieved when he left. It was a toxic mess when he was there.

• 29:20Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, my parents fought all the time. So then when they got divorced, I was like, thank God you got divorced.

• 29:25Jen Cohen?

  How old were you when they got divorced?

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Um, well, my dad lived a double life for a while, which was really gross because he would tell me about these sexual things he got to do with this new woman. And I'm like 12, but then he eventually left when I was 14.

• 29:36Jen Cohen?

  Wait, so he was telling you about his double life?

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Gross.

• 29:39Jen Cohen?

  Did you tell your mom?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah. And then she would try not to know that I was telling the truth to keep herself from leaving. Like, it was so lame. And also, I think because my mom was so crippled with depression, I was like, that will never be me. I was like, you deserved to live your life and to bloom. And instead, you let this guy, like, totally walk all over you and then left you. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that.

• 30:04Jen Cohen?

  See, it's what I find so interesting, why you say the story, is it can go either way, right?

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:09Jen Cohen?

  You took it, you, you did like a balls to the wall type of approach.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 30:14Jen Cohen?

  And right, and like, it didn't, you didn't let it penetrate to the point where you became debilitated.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 30:20Jen Cohen?

  And you didn't like, sit and ruminate on trauma. And I think this is the big problem we have in today's culture.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  By the way, you're right. I'm serious. Seriously agree with you. I'm like, why would you keep going back into something? And I, you know, I'm, I'm speaking, I know, I'm sure you're friendly and connected to her. Dr. Edith Eager, I'm going this weekend to like this event to speak at her event.

• 30:40Jen Cohen?

  No, I don't know who she is.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  She's a Holocaust survivor. She wrote the book called The Gift and The Choice, like super bestseller books. And she's also a therapist. She was like, being a survivor, right? She's a Holocaust survivor, but she's also like a therapist. She's like, being a survivor is like, everything from the past just turns to wisdom. And you survive by living your best freaking life. Like, that's what you do, is you're saying, I will not eat this poison again and again. Because when you go back into old memories, your body thinks it's happening again. And it's like, instead, why don't you create a good, amazing moment right now? Like, I, I've always kind of been like that, though. Like, since I was a little girl, I was just like, there's so much to enjoy. Why are you guys like just sitting in the sadness? There's so much more here.

• 31:25Jen Cohen?

  Because that's what I was, what, what my point that I wanted to make was, and I, like I said, I'm a big believer. That's why you and I get along very well, is not to sit and ruminate and talk about your problems day in and day out. People are using therapy now, and I'm going to probably get a ton of shit for saying this, but as like a crutch, it becomes like their new hobby is just to go to therapy over and over again to talk about the same problem they had many years ago, when it's been proven and shown that that rumination is actually a major reason for all this mental health decline. And so, why is it, though, that some people are doing it that way? While other ones are like you, like, because you have a sister, obviously, who's, is she older or younger?

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Older.

• 32:09Jen Cohen?

  Older. Did she take the same approach as you?

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Yes and no. We're different.

• 32:13Jen Cohen?

  Very different.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Different lives. But I think what you just said is like, one of the reasons I actually love going on like a week-long meditation retreat, like, I've been with Dr. Joe Dispenza maybe four times on a retreat. And one reason I really love it is because you're not there to go back into your past and in your story. What you're actually doing is going to the truth of this present moment where you are bigger than your past. And you find within you like your capacity for passion and creativity and to see further. It's really interesting. I have friends who do mushrooms, okay?

• 32:45Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, of course.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  And they love it.

• 32:48Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  And when I was with Dr. Joe at the last retreat, he showed us what psilocybin does to the brain. It shuts off the amygdala, which is where you sit in the past and your trauma.

• 32:58Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 02

  And opens up the third eye because it's a serotonin enhancer. And then you feel joy, right? But what he shared with us is you can create that experience by just getting out of the past, right? And stop projecting the past onto the present moment and actually go beyond time to where you really are. The part of you that is actually available for a greater possibility, right? Like I say in the book, people either live from probability, which is really just called the past, what evidence they have of the past, or possibility, which is in the present moment, what is possible, right? And I think this is interesting research based on what we just were saying. We know this, you live this. Grit got a whole lot of attention with Angela Duckworth's book.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  And what I found fascinating, when she says gritty people are the most successful, she says, what makes a person gritty is optimism. Because in order to be in the science lab again and again and again, and have the resilience to find a cure for cancer, you can't say, oh, my gosh, I'm so upset I didn't find it yesterday. You have to be like, I know it's here, it's here, it's coming, it's here. So this is what you just said, think about this. If the most successful people have grit, and if the only thing that they can show that actually correlates to grit is optimism, then that is a person living in possibility, living in what's possible in the future, in here, in the present moment, rather than going back into the story of what already was.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  So, you know, people might not like it, or there might be other things. Of course, you and I can get a lot of things wrong, and we don't know the full scope of why people go to therapy. And maybe some of it is really beautiful and helpful and all that. But I went to therapy for years, and I would say, based on what Angela Duckworth is saying, at some point, if you want to be, and when she says successful, she doesn't just mean like having followers on Instagram. She means a life that feels fulfilling and where you're walking in your potential and everything feels good to you, right? That's success, fulfillment. Right? Then optimism has to be something, and that is a discipline. My grandmother used to say, it's easy to find the bad. You have to look for the good.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  And I think that's what this is. In fact, I write about her in the book because she was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. You know, lost her family in the pogroms and they had no money, lived in a tenement and her mother died really young. And yet, my grandmother told me they had no money. So in order to go to a dance club, because she was a dancer, she would take an eyeliner pencil and draw a line up the back of her leg. Because you could only get in with stockings, but she couldn't afford the stockings. And the eyeliner pencil made it look like she had stockings on. And then she didn't go to school past the fifth grade. And she had a note on her shirt one day that said, this child suffers from malnutrition. Because the school said to her parents, you know, she had nothing. And yet, she would go to the library and she would read and she would go to this dance hall. In fact, you would think this is cute. It was a restricted club to Jews.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Jews couldn't dance there. So she said she was Italian because she had like dark hair and dark skin. She met my grandfather there and they started becoming dance partners. And she's like, oh, he's Italian. And he went by Benedetto, even though his name was Baruch. He used an Italian version of that name to get into the club, but they were the two best dancers. And one day, he walked her home and they were sitting on the stoop. And she said, I can't date you, but I'm in love with you, but I'm Jewish. And he said, I'm Jewish. And I say that because I think my grandmother lives in me. I think her optimism, like with all the crap that's going on around me, I'm gonna go dance. I'm gonna find the music. Like, her siblings didn't necessarily do that. Her siblings were like trapped in depression. Their mom had died. They came from the pogroms.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  They lost their family in the Holocaust, like, well, this is before the Holocaust. But they lost their family to other versions of the Holocaust, which were happening in Eastern Europe, which is why three million Jews were killed in what is now the Ukraine, which is why so many came here. It was like a horrible time. And her mom died of tuberculosis and they had no money. Like, it was so easy to say, here's all the trauma, here's... And she used to say to me, always find the music, always dance. And I, like, why would you rob yourself of like what's possible in this moment and just keep looking at the past? And I think you and I were too excited about what's gonna be possible today. I don't want to really focus on where I once was because I want to be here with you in this moment.

• 37:15Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  I know, she's just a rock star.

• 37:17Jen Cohen?

  That's amazing. I like that whole idea of the pencil bit. That's really smart. You are such a good orator.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  So are you.

• 37:26Jen Cohen?

  No, no, no, you are really.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 37:29Jen Cohen?

  You are, you are.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:37Jen Cohen?

  Let's take a quick break from this episode to discuss a very important habit we can all improve on. Do you know that three out of four homes in America have harmful contaminants in their tap water? As someone like me, who is obsessed with building better, healthy habits, this statistic stopped me in my tracks. I mean, our bodies are 60% water. Shouldn't we care about what's in it? That's why I'm really excited to tell you guys about Aqua True. It has been a game changer in my journey towards better health. Here's what makes it special. Their purifiers use a four-stage reverse osmosis process that removes 15 times more contaminants than regular pitcher filters. And we're talking about that scary stuff,

• 38:21Jen Cohen?

  like PFAs, that forever chemicals found in almost 45% of US tap water. And the one thing I actually love about Aqua True is that it's not complicated to install. You just plug it in and you're good to go. And they last between six months to two years. And one set of filters makes an equivalent of 4,500 bottles of water. So that's like less than 3% per bottle. It is really amazing. So if you're ready to upgrade your water, I hope you are, do it now, because Aqua True comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and even makes a great gift. Today, you guys can receive 20% off any Aqua True purifier.

• 39:04Jen Cohen?

  Just go to aquatru.com, that's A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com, and enter code HUSTLE at checkout. That's 20% off any Aqua True water purifier when you go to aquatru.com and use the promo code HUSTLE.

• 39:28Jen Cohen?

  I've got so many questions for you, but okay. When I was reading through your book, although I just got the hard copy, but I was reading the PDF. When I was going through it, I saw something that I thought was very true. You're talking about when you ask people, because now Kathy also has these, she does like, what do you call these groups, these courses, these masterminds?

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I started doing courses in 2017, like every three months for like 500 people.

• 39:52Jen Cohen?

  She's making like millions of dollars a guy, like this girl's like, it's really a great, it's fun. You gotta teach me how to make a course, to do a course, I swear, I think I'm.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Yesterday.

• 40:01Jen Cohen?

  Okay, you should be doing that.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  I didn't, I haven't, I don't do.

• 40:03Jen Cohen?

  Oh, my God, we need a deep dive. No, because it's so much more than a course.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Courses, it's just like anything else. People use the internet for, for either lame things or cool things. So somebody can have an Instagram account that's very like lame and someone else can put a lot of value there. Your course doesn't need to be like a dumb course. It's going to be a program, it's going to transform people's lives.

• 40:20Jen Cohen?

  I don't know how to do a course.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  I'm going to worry about that.

• 40:22Jen Cohen?

  Okay, this could be the second.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  That's part two of my reaction.

• 40:25Jen Cohen?

  The first was a podcast and now it's the courses. But what you said was so interesting, I think this is very true. Because you're like, when you, you, you say to people when, when they start or when you do your work with all these women.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Mostly women, yeah.

• 40:37Jen Cohen?

  Mostly women, I would say it's 100% women, mostly women. It's like 99.9% women.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  And then one guy.

• 40:44Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. That if you could have anything or what would you do? Like they'll say, oh, they want a better body or they want this or that. But the idea of them making a ton of money never even occurs to them.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  It's so gross, I'm so allergic to this because we have, this is again, one thing I love about Jewish wisdom.

• 41:02Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Is the way I've learned how we, we don't have to choose, right? King David was one of the most spiritually evolved people. He wrote all those Psalms as I walked through the Valley of Asher. People are still singing these words and yet he, he ran an empire. Like, forget Kardashian wealth, like King David, like had more money than Kris Jenner, okay?

• 41:26Jen Cohen?

  Really, are you sure about that? Have you seen her bank account?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  And maybe not, maybe not, but he has had inflation. But he, he could be both. And the word currency comes from the word current, which means on behalf of the world, when you get money in, it immediately is helping the world. Like, what do you put it under your pillow? No, you put it in a bank. So immediately while you're making money, you're thriving. So now your money is paying off people's loans and credit cards. Like if you improve your house and you paint your house and you have money, your neighbor's house just went up in value. Like, why would you not allow yourself to say with a big declaration? Because I say this in the book and you know this, this is like your world. I say, if you decided that you want to be healthy, would you declare that to your friends at like a dinner?

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Would you post on social media like, I've decided this is my healthy era. Let's go. I'm going to be healthy AF. And they're like, yeah, I would totally do that. I'm like, great, you should do that. Would you declare to your friends and to your world and on social media? Like you want to be the wealthiest version of you and like, oh, I would never do that. I'm like, why the stigma? Honestly, that's gross. It's not good. It's because we've been taught such scarcity mindset that if I have money, I'm somehow taking it from you. That's not true. If I open a store on Main Street because I have money, I just created more opportunities for other people to create stores on Main Street. This Talmud says like this, this Talmud says that money is like rain falling in a garden. It's an activator. This is really important because we have so much in our culture

• 42:56Speaker 02

  that tells us the more money you have, the more evil you become. That's a lie. There, you could make a list right now of people who have money who are horrible and people who have money who are amazing, whose names are on the sides of hospitals and theaters and everything. And you can make a list of people who have no money who are shitty people. And you can make a list of people who have a lot of, who have no money who are awesome and kind. So this Talmud says, it's, it's not, it's an activator of what is. So Talmud says like, if, if money is like rain and rain falls on weeds, more weeds grow. If money is like rain and rain falls on the flowers, more flowers will grow. So that means if a person is blessed to have money and they're out of integrity, they'll do more out of integrity with it. But if a person is in integrity and they've given more money,

• 43:39Speaker 02

  they'll just do more good with it. Well, I think like I'll say it in a simpler way, which is more that whatever you

• 43:45Jen Cohen?

  Whatever it is, whoever you are, it will be exempt. It will be just exacerbated.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 43:50Jen Cohen?

  If you're a dick before, you'll be even a bigger dick.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  That's exactly what I'm saying.

• 43:53Jen Cohen?

  If you were a nice person, you'll be even a nice, you know, you'll be even more nice. It's the same thing.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  But women have a hard time. Like, we've been raised, you know, little boys, whether we know it or not, now I'm generalizing, but it's the truth. Like, by, by and large, boys are raised like you will be a provider when you grow up.

• 44:08Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  And you're gonna own it. Girls are raised like you will be codependent. What I mean is you will people-please your way through life. Make sure everyone's comfortable all the time and set yourself on fire if you have to, to make sure, because that's your job. You're responsible for everyone's feelings. No, like, that's insane.

• 44:25Jen Cohen?

  Well, it's also been very much about, especially, especially, I think it's kind of come full circle now, where we had like an era where like women could, like, you know, they could be, they could be bosses, girl boss, all these, you know, silly names. And now it's actually like there's a big movement with masculinity versus femininity with social media. That like, if you're somebody who wants to be a quote-unquote boss as a woman, then you're, it's very, it's a very masculine energy. And it becomes, this becomes the thing, right?

• 44:55Speaker 02

  It doesn't have to be.

• 44:56Jen Cohen?

  It doesn't have to be.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  You know, there's a lot of potency to alignment, right? And so if a woman decides like she wants to have a business and whatever, she might be able, like, I've been doing this work that I've been doing, working part-time and picking my kids up at three o'clock because I wanted to. I went through IVF. I want to be with my kids, like, each one, right? So, I think when you focus on the right things in business, I don't know that I can claim Tim Ferriss that I do that a four-hour work week. I don't. But I work 20 hours a week. What I mean to say is you don't have to do it just because someone else did it that way.

• 45:33Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  I think there is a way for you to bring more ease and joy and play into it because business at the end of the day, we know this, it's not a numbers game, it is a people's game. And your greatest strategy in a business is your identity. What energy, what you put in the world, how you hold yourself, the way you talk to people, the doors that will open for you from that, that's your first strategy. Your second strategy is like Seth Godin would say. Do you have radical empathy? Are you listening? Because if you're nailing it with a client or a customer, you've factored in what works for them. That's healthy. A business is basically a relationship at scale. You're good at reading the room and you're also good at having the confidence to be a leader. Like so many women are like, I'm afraid to start a business because why? Well, because then I feel responsible for getting it all right.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  No, really good leaders don't have all the answers, but they lead their way through it. Like really good leaders in a business, in a family, you don't know what's coming around the bend. You can't be perfect, but you have the accountability to say like, all right, I'll figure it out. I'll ask good questions. I'll be resourceful. It goes back to that.

• 46:33Jen Cohen?

  It goes back to, I think also the quote, you also love it. Our greatest resource is our resourcefulness. And it's a hundred percent true.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Exactly. So I think that's what keeps people is this feeling of like, I couldn't do it unless I could do it the way someone else does it, or I could do it perfectly. It's like, it's not required. What's required is like, have the confidence to know that you've been preparing to be you every day of your life. It's enough. You know, a lot of women, I think you and I also have this in common. For some reason along the way, we decided to give ourselves the permission. We didn't wait for someone to give us permission. And so that's huge. Like who gave Oprah permission? Not that she's even the, but like who, who, she, she gave it to herself.

• 47:13Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Right? At some point, that's gotta happen. It's like, I think the two biggest lies in the brain, which is mostly lying to you anyway, is I'm not enough and it's not possible anyway. And the truth is, who says anyone's enough to do anything?

• 47:28Jen Cohen?

  Well, no, though, like this is a big pillar point for me, right? This whole, I'm not enough thing. Because I think we always, we always over-index what someone else is. Like, oh, they're there because they're so great and phenomenal and talented and skilled. And we under-index what we can do. That's just human nature, right? When the truth is that, and I, and by the way, and I can say this because I meet everybody like you. And then you meet these people who are so extraordinary and wonderful. And you're like, oh, they must be this, this and the other. And you meet them, you're like, they're not, they're not what that, that, they're not that great. The only difference between that person and the other person is that they. Like believed in themselves just a little bit more and like kept on going and kept on trying.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  I mean, I will not name names because it would be so disgusting, although it'd be fun. The amount of people that I know who are like made it people who are like at the top of their game.

• 48:18Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Who are literally weeping and feel dead inside is shocking, honestly. Cause I think, why I go back to this idea of the law of reception and all of that jibber jabber. Because in a way, it's like all we do is like blather as people. It's like, just, you're either like being real or you're not. But I think the real part of that is, I'm very impatient. So for me, I want to have fun every step of the way. Which means I'm not going to try to be perfect. I'm going to know that I can think on my feet and be resourceful. And I'm gonna like myself enough to give myself permission to show up.

• 48:50Jen Cohen?

  Totally, yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  And when you're doing that, then if you get to the top of the mountain with some goal, it doesn't matter if you hit the New York Times list. You just had fun the whole time. That's what I'm saying. That's what I mean. That people, I want to give you a good example. When I started my podcast, I went to Podcast Movement. And I'm like, okay, I'm here. And everyone had business cards. And I'm like, oh, I don't have business cards because I'm never prepared and I forget. So walking around, everybody had very schmoozy energy, which you and I were just talking before. I don't like that. I don't need to be in that room. So I'm like, when does this end? Okay, it ends in an hour. I was like, I'm gonna leave. I'll come back when like the panel starts and the content starts. So I leave, completely leave the event for the networking, go to another hotel.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  And I said to my friend before I left, I'm gonna leave. She's like, you don't want to stay? You could meet the head of Apple Podcasts. You could meet Spotify. They're here. I'm like, oh my God, I can't. Like, I just need to be, no, these people are just too, yeah. So it was inauthentic to me. So I go to another hotel. I ordered a nice tea. I sat down. All of a sudden, I felt fine again. I'm like, oh my God, that energy of like, you know, that's trying to get something. I just can't do it. So I sit there, this man sits down next to me. He's wearing the same badge I was wearing. And I'm like, were you in there? He's like, I hate that energy. I'm like, me too. So we started talking. He's from Chicago. We talked about the Midwest. He's really interesting. We talked about the last good book we read. And then he gets up, it's like 45 minutes later. And he's like, I'm gonna go back in there. Me, me too. He hands me his card. He was the head of Apple Podcasts.

• 50:15Jen Cohen?

  Love that.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  He is now such a good friend of mine. And of course, he then featured me on Apple. Of course, he then took me to New York to the podcast upfronts. And then, yeah, a lot of good shit happened. But my point is, I know it sounds woo, but when you every moment, instead of thinking someone has the power that you don't, keep choosing yourself, you you already won, even if he didn't walk in, even if I didn't get featured on Apple, even if Steve and I never had become friends, it didn't, it wouldn't matter. It just wouldn't matter. What mattered is that I knew enough to say, this is me losing my power all of a sudden, trying to meet the right person who can do it for me. No one can do it for you. That's what I'm saying.

• 50:56Jen Cohen?

  I'm clipping that. How long is that? Because that's gonna be the longest clip ever. It's what? Five minutes? Damn. Okay, well, I'm gonna try to clip it because that is such a great story, Kathy. And like, this is what I'm saying, like, you have such, you have good energy because you bring it. Like, you are so passionate. And you can feel it's it's it's true. Like you're saying, like, to wrap it all up, the truth is, like, you can feel the authenticity. Like, they're not bullshit, you're not sitting there bullshitting it. Like, this is like, who you are. Like, it is. And that's why so many women love you and come to you for these courses, or whatever you want to call them, these, these

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Programs.

• 51:35Jen Cohen?

  Programs. Because like, it's infectious. Like, you give people, you you make people feel like they actually have the power.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  We do have the power. And to wrap it up, the way I wrapped up what's in this book at the end, I was like, how am I gonna close this book? And I think you'll appreciate this. I may have even shared this with you. Esther Young Rice, who's another Holocaust survivor, was such a powerhouse, like, just amazing. She used to speak, I think, on the Upper West Side once a week. I think a thousand people would come to the synagogue to hear her. She was incredible. And she said to me something just magnificent. She said her favorite prayer in all of Judaism is that in the morning blessings, which admittedly, I don't do them, but I have seen this in the Sidorah, so I know it's true. Um, there's a prayer to be like a rooster. And she said, it's her favorite prayer. And she said when she was in a concentration camp, before she parted ways with her family, her father said,

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Never forget that prayer. It makes me cry. Be like a rooster. So there she was in a concentration camp, her head shaved. Be like a rooster. Be like a rooster. She didn't really know what that meant. And years later, get this. She was called, George W. Bush was president. He was going to Yad Vashem, which is a Holocaust museum, for those who don't know, in Jerusalem. He invited her to be his guest. So she gets on Air Force One, they go to Jerusalem, and they have a great time, and they're flying back on Air Force One, and she fell asleep and she woke. Well, he tapped her on the shoulder and he said, do you know where you are? And she's like, no. And he said, you're flying over Germany in Air Force One, coming from the state of Israel to America. He said, I just, I had, I had to have that moment with you.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  And she said, that is exactly when I knew why we pray to be like a rooster. That was the moment, she said, because the rooster, this is so powerful. The rooster is the first one on the farm, who knows? Just when it looks like the night cannot get any darker, the exact second is the darkest, that's the second the rooster crows and says, the light is about to break. You see the light? It got as dark as it could go, so that's how you know it's time to wake up, because the light is here, because the dawn is here. Jen, that is everything we basically just talked about, is that I feel like I won the DNA frickin lottery, because my grandparents and their grandparents, and by the way, everyone has this capacity. Don't want to be Jewish, don't want to be booted. We all have the ability to be like a rooster.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  That's what we just talked about. No matter how you slice it, it's no matter where you are, the first question, one of the first question, how do you change your energy? Be like a rooster. No matter what you've seen, no matter what you see at any moment, that's just the beginning of the story. The darkness is just the beginning. The light's around the corner, and you have the capacity to bring that light and to bring that to other people. And that's, that's why we're all here for, for that.

• 54:19Jen Cohen?

  I'm clipping that, too.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  One last thing I wanted to say, because we were talking about spirituality and we were also talking about doing, like, taking action. I find it really interesting. When I graduated from college, I wrote a paper comparing Moses and the Buddha, Siddhartha. And I thought it was really an interesting comparison because they both grew up in a palace. Okay, which is so interesting.

• 54:39Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  They both grew up as a prince, and then they both went into the wilderness. Except, what I think is interesting, and this is just a matter of, like, observation. It doesn't mean one is right or wrong. I think it's beautiful to be Buddhist, it's beautiful to be Jewish, it's just interesting to me. I like the fact that, I think the idea in Buddhism is to really get into a state of peace, which I think they believe could then really affect the world, which you're probably right. I mean, who are we kidding? If people walked around in a state of inner peace and well-being, that'd be a really good thing.

• 55:06Jen Cohen?

  Totally.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  But what I like about Judaism, for me, is that one day a week, we rest. We have the Sabbath, which is just similar to that whole idea of being at peace. But six days a week, God says, "Go out and make the world better. Go use your gifts because you're needed to contribute something and build something because you have something." I'm telling you, you're needed to help create and build this world. And I find that really fulfilling. Like, I really do. Like, I find it really satisfying to go out and to be a part of helping to create and to build things. So I think the balance of one day a week, being with what is and having equanimity, and six days a week, being out in the world and trying to take the right action to make the

• 55:51Speaker 02

  world better, I think that that's a really nice thing to keep in mind.

• 55:54Jen Cohen?

  I love that.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 55:56Jen Cohen?

  Kathy, okay. Guys, the book is called Abundant Ever After. You are incredible. You really are. You are a light, you are an inspiration, you are, like, you walk the walk, you talk the talk. Kathy, where do people, okay, everyone buy the book, that's obvious, but where can they follow you on Instagram?

• 56:15Speaker 02

  All men Instagram.

• 56:16Jen Cohen?

  Listen to her podcast if you haven't, if you're one of the un-45 million or so.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  You can find the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target. And then, once you buy the book, we have all these really fun bonuses. Like, you get a journal, and you get affirmation decks, and there's a course that I teach on, sort of like, a guide to the book. And you can get all of that if you go to kathyhowe.com/book, and then you can get all your bonuses.

• 56:38Jen Cohen?

  You're amazing. Thank you for being on this podcast. Thank you.