899: Jennifer Cohen | Live the Life You Want, Not the Life You Get

23:01But if I didn't and it kept me stuck now, and then I heard you say, no, it's not that bad. You'd be thinking about it for three weeks. I'd be like, what the? So rude. How can you say that? It was rude. Oh my God. It was rude. But I've moved past it is my point. And the three buckets, like I said, one is fix it. So you either fix what it is that's really bothering you that you really can't get over. I could have fixed my nose. Yeah, plastic surgeon. And got myself a nose job like most other Jewish girls that we know. Or... Oh, man. I did not say it. Jennifer Cohen, everybody. Cohen. Keeping it real here, guys.

23:34I can get someone else to fix it for me. That's the point. Or I could forget about it and put that in the bucket and not think about it. It is what it is. I'm not going to change it. Move on with my life. Sure. And so that's a silly, very superficial example. But it could be any other example. in business. A lot of times when we can't move forward, we get really stuck and paralyzed because something's not working in our business. I do see a lot of entrepreneurs who get stuck being like, we don't know how to do this particular thing and we don't have the money to hire it out. Well, then don't do it at all right now.

24:06Right. So either you forget about it and you move on with other pieces of your business, right? Or you farm it out and delegate it to like an outside vendor. Yeah, if you can afford to do that. If you can afford to do it or you fix it yourself and you find some way to do it internally by hiring an intern or doing a cheaper version of it. I think the point is because people are like, yes, fix it or find someone else to fix it or forget about it. Like, why is this deep? The point isn't actually handling the problem. The point is making a decision and moving along from there. It's the indecision that stops us.

24:33It's the analysis paralysis of really smart people that we talked about earlier, right? What comes along with being super smart is that you overthink everything. Better at rationalizing indecision. Better at coming up with reasons not to do something that you're scared of. And figuring out systems that you won't allow yourself to sit there and overthink it to a place of analysis paralysis where you don't do anything. And then time goes by and life goes by and you're nowhere better off, you're nowhere further along. Again, these are simple systems and solutions. This is not supposed to be of war and peace here, okay?

25:07This is not Noriel Roubini's economist mega threats. Everybody's the same at the end of the day, right? We have certain goals we're trying to achieve. We're trying to live the best life. We're trying to live a life that's rich, which is, to me, a rich life isn't just about having a lot of money. It's about really having meaningful relationships and being satiated with the time you have on earth. So let's not count ourselves out. Let's figure out simple systems that can get us there. And that's why I did this. You've got an interesting gratitude story exercise. Normally, I hate stuff like this because it's so cheesy.

25:43But this one's from Andrew Huberman. Everybody loves Andrew Huberman. Everybody loves Andrew Huberman. That's why I included it. Yeah, tell me about this because most gratitude stuff is barf. I agree with you. But this one seems to be scientific or at least from a scientist. Yeah, at least from a neuroscientist. From a scientist, if not scientific. Well, you know what's funny? I always ask people, what are the habits? What do you do every day to optimize your life and optimize your health? Tell me what you do in the morning, right? Nine out of 10 people say either meditation or they say a gratitude journal, right?

26:16I've heard it so many times. I almost don't believe people do that. At nauseam, I hear the same things. I actually truly believe that people are saying a lot of these things because it sounds good. For sure they are. And because it's a very popular hashtag. You know, I journal, I meditate. I don't think there's any real authenticity to the majority of that. I think it's baloney. A lot of the guys who say make your bed in the morning, I'm like, you're a billionaire. You're making your own bed. I don't believe you. Exactly. First thing you stop doing when you got rich is make your own bed. 100%.

26:46But maybe they mean their bed is being made. I'm not going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Yeah. My point of saying all this about the Gratitude Journal is like, A, I don't necessarily believe that people actually do it. Right. And B, I'm not necessarily convinced that is the reason for people who do it that it actually changes their psychology and their mental idea and doesn't really create more productivity for them. Yeah, yeah, sure. Right. But I do believe there's something to be said about being happy with what you have and feeling like fulfilled. So I saw this thing with Andrew Huberman, and he like made some really good points about what is a thing that make people feel full.

27:22And he had a spin on it that I thought was very interesting, which was like when you talk to people and do something for somebody, it gives you a sense of gratitude or fulfillment. So when you do something for someone else. Yes. Okay. And say, I'm doing this for you. And therefore I feel gratitude for that. It lacked the writing in a journal, like 10 things that I'm happy for. And by the way, when you write something today, I wrote, I'm happy for my children. I'm happy for my podcast with Jordan. What do I write tomorrow? I feel it's a little trite. That's why I never really got into that. But how do you feel?

27:59I'm just going to take it to a human level. If I was able to do something for you that really helped and benefited you in some way, and it makes me feel good. Of course. That makes me feel like, oh, I actually made a difference. I helped so-and-so. And that's like a true feeling, an emotion that I can live with that kind of carries me further. Okay. That's the point of why I wrote it. Huberman's gratitude exercise is not think of the things you're grateful for, but do something that someone else should be grateful for. Do something that makes you feel grateful by doing something for somebody else.

28:28It's certainly better than just thinking about why your life is good, I suppose. Over time, it would seem like it may get a little repetitive in your brain. I'm a big habit person and maybe it does change maybe the neuroplasticity. But I think that to me is a very overused, one-dimensional way of feeling grateful. And a habit that's been talked about a lot. And that I'm not really necessarily sure that just because people say they do it all the time, that it actually is that beneficial. Yeah, I agree with that. you're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest Jen Cohen. We'll be right.

29:04This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant. So you can feel confident you're finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. The best part is that these great candidates are already on LinkedIn. In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal when every hire counts. Early on, I learned that hiring isn't headcount.

29:32It's do I see my family this week? Do we actually release episodes on time? Can I take a few days off without everything falling apart? When I've hired the right person, my life got easier. They took real work off my plate, caught problems early, and treated the business like it was theirs. That's when we actually grow. With the wrong hire, I've spent months training, fixing mistakes, having the same conversations, and still ended up letting them go and starting over. You don't just lose money. You lose momentum. you lose morale, and you lose time. That's why I'm big on hiring right the first time, even if it takes a little longer.

30:00Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash harbinger. Then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash harbinger to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing thinkers, creators, every single week. It is because of my network, the group of people around me, the stuff we're talking about in part today on the show. I've got a free course on this. JordanHarbinger.com slash course is where you can find it.

30:31It's not schmoozy. It's not cringy. It will make you a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer and more effective at work. Or just enjoy that happiness dividend that you get from creating and maintaining connections over time. And many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course once again at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Now, back to Jen Cohen. We do have the challenge of beating our brain at negative thoughts. I think you said we have 6 ,200 thoughts per day, 80 % of which are negative.

31:05That's a lot of thoughts, and that's a lot of negative thoughts. It's a little depressing to think that's how many negative thoughts I have per day, 4 ,500 or whatever the math works out to be. Just think about just between now and when you had your sugar fish lunch, how many thoughts you were thinking of. Just like little things that you didn't even think about, like how you had five crab hand rolls and you're going to be cut off. Sugarfish is a sushi place nearby here in Los Angeles that I always go to. And I usually, I get cut off on the amount of blue crab hand rolls that I'm allowed to order because apparently there's a shortage and they don't want some schlub eating like 10 in one sitting.

31:40I've never heard that in my life. Apparently my money's not green enough for Sugarfish to have unlimited blue crab hand rolls. But it's true. I'm pretty good at catastrophizing. I'm pretty good at negative thoughts. It's definitely been a journey for me. You give the example in the book of Amanda Knox, episode 386 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. This is a girl whose roommate got murdered. She went to prison in Italy for, I think, four years. And then it turned out that she didn't do it. But she did some sort of negative visualization that was somehow different. Yeah, here's a girl who has been exonerated for the murder of those two people in Italy.

32:14And by the way, she was very young. She was, what, 18 years old. And so she was kept in an Italian prison. And so my question to her was, how did you get through it? And she had this exercise where she thought of the worst thing that could have happened or where she could be and then compare it to where she was right there in life. And it made her feel better. And so when she was telling me the story, I was like, this is really interesting because here you are in jail. Like, how much worse can it be? But you can always find a situation that's way worse than where you are at that moment. And when you do and you think of that and you come back to where you really are in life, it's a calming effect.

32:52And so when she told me that story, I went like down the rabbit hole and started talking to different psychologists and different people and asking them about this. Is this actually a thing? Is this something that people can do? It sounds like the opposite of what you should be doing. What's the worst thing that can happen? Don't think about that. That hasn't happened yet. Why are you worrying about that? Yeah, especially if you're in jail, right? In an Italian prison for murder that you didn't commit. Right. I was riveted by it. I'm like, how much worse can it be? And then she started talking about these things.

33:19She says, I could be getting raped in a jail, like whatever it was. You can take whatever your situation is. And it can always be so much worse that when you come back to the reality, it doesn't seem as bad. Basically, when I went down that rabbit hole and I spoke to different psychologists and they told me this was actually a thing that really helped and worked, I like was fascinated by it. Yeah, it's surprising because it almost seems like you should not necessarily be thinking about the worst things that can happen. What it does is contrast your actual situation with something else. You have to have the ideology of you can go into a situation of what is the worst that can happen?

33:55It should preempt you to at least make the attempt at whatever it is that you want. Tell me about limbic friction. I never heard this term before. Oh my, you never did? No. Oh my God. So putting certain habits in place so that you can do the things that you need to do. For example, if you want to work out in the morning, right, Put a yoga mat in front of you. Put your shoes and your shirts on the floor so it's a reminder or a habit so that it will cause a reaction for you to do what you need to do. Sleeping in your running clothes. I wouldn't be sleeping in my workout clothes. But yeah. You don't need to.

34:27Some people do. Do you sleep in workout clothes? No, I don't need to. But I remember when I started running in Michigan in the winter, I was like, oh God, I really don't want to go. It's still dark outside. This sucks. So I slept in my running clothes and I would get up and go, well, I don't even have to get cold until I go outside because I don't even have to change. So then I would just go put my shoes on and walk outside. And I gave myself permission to go walk outside. And if it was too cold, come back in. But then you're already outside. Then you're already outside. Yeah. The idea is to do the hard things first so you can get other things taken care of.

35:01What happens is the things that you have to do later on is a lot of brain energy. So if you can do the hard things first or do something hard in the morning, it It really helps you with your productivity later on. So what's that book, Eat That Frog, where you do the hardest project of your day first? It builds momentum. And the other thing about the frog, we are the most alert and we have the most energy first thing. As the day goes on, it gets harder and harder to have the motivation to do these things. If you take it off your checklist, compounds in different ways. If I don't know how to do something, I always have to figure it out in the morning.

35:35Because if I go, I'll do that later, I'll do that later, then it's 4 p.m. and I have time to do it. I'm like, I don't want to figure this crap out right now. I'm freaking tired already. And you're exhausted. But if you do those things, it gives you a feeling of accomplishment to help you get through to the next thing. And then it doesn't take up the brainpower of what you need to get done later on. Yeah, this is like some James Clear stuff, I think. A little bit. In one of the best-selling books of the decade, James Clear episode 108. Oh, yeah. I mean, that book is still a number one. It's crazy, right?

36:01Yeah, he's eating down on that for the rest of his life. Oh, 100%. Although, like, the subtle art of not giving a fuck is still up there, too. It is. It's like 20 million books sold. Yeah, crazy. It's crazy knowing those guys before they even wrote those books and being like, oh, these guys are pretty smart. Now I'm like, dang. I know, right? Look at that. Knowing all these super smart people. Usually you meet people after they're famous. Yeah, that's true. Usually you don't meet people when they're not doing anything. Did you think they were so smart before? I did. Both of them? But they were like, they're bloggers.

36:29They're bloggers. By the way, still bloggers. Yeah, I was like, yeah, they're interesting guys. They're all really, really good dudes that deserve their success, in my opinion. Anyway. We digress. Yes, but we digress. Choose a direction, not a destination. This is a really good point because it's very easy to get demotivated if you choose an outcome versus choosing a direction to go in. To use weight loss as an example, if you say I'm going to lose 30 pounds and you only lose 10, then you're like, oh, crap, I failed. But what I did was decided I was going to lose a little bit of fat. That was it.

36:59Line go down. That was all I was thinking. It didn't matter how long it took. as long as the line was going down every week by 0.1 pounds. Yeah. Most weeks, I should say, over an average of each month, then I'm happy. And I did that and I lost 40 pounds of fat in eight months. I wasn't fat before, but I just had weight to lose. So the idea was choose a direction and not a destination. And then you don't get demotivated. It's the same thing with a business. Yes, you need goals or something to shoot for, but you do mostly need a direction, especially when it comes to personal goals that are hard to measure.

37:31Like I didn't know I was going to lose 40 pounds. But if I'd said 10, I could have stopped way too early. I just chose the direction and not the destination. 100%. And that's where people get stuck again, right? Exactly, yeah. Because they don't know exactly what it is. And then they put a lot of pressure. The momentum piece is so huge, right? Something in motion stays in motion. Something stagnant stays stagnant. So that's why if you just pick a direction, right? Not the destination. You're at least on the path of motion, on the path of action to get you a little closer to whatever that is. A lot of times in life, just doing something got them to a place where an opportunity or a place that they otherwise never would have even known about because they were at least like doing something, right?

38:16Versus just sitting still and not making anything. Luck favors the prepared type of thing. Fortune does favor the bold. I put that on my Facebook back in law school. It was very 2006 dude bro finance guy. Fortune favors the bold. And my wife saw that. She's like, can you take that off? That just looks douchey. I mean, but I don't think it's very douchey at all. I think it's factual and true. And the funny thing is I believe it. And I think it's actually something that is accurate. The other way to translate is luck favors their prepared. I think it's the same quote in Latin that just gets translated differently.

38:51This is a bingo card of douche self-help. No, no, no, I'm saying, isn't that the same? buzzwords isn't this about being bold yeah yeah one of the things that i love that's also in your book by the way is connecting the dots with our experiences and seeing how they have led to good things tell me about connecting the dots so good because i realize most of recognizing victories and things that motivate me is me looking backwards and thinking like oh actually this led to this all of which i thought were bad things at the time and turned out to be some of the best things that ever happened to me. Essentially getting fired.

39:24Oh my God, what am I going to do? I have to start over. And now it's like, oh, thank God I got fired and started over. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Exactly. Usually a lot of times your biggest failures or your biggest letdowns become your biggest successes. And so you don't know at the moment how all the dots connect, but they all find a way to connect at the end or when you look back. And it's not just cheesy. The universe gave you everything you needed. It's more like as you get better at connecting the dots, you start to realize that experiences that maybe didn't turn out the way you wanted them to will have better outcomes than you could have hoped for.

39:59And that's very general. Or you needed those things not to work. So another opportunity will present itself that you never knew existed. That's really the point, right? I think the skill is instead of losing momentum in the moment, you have to realize at that point that, OK, whatever that is, maybe a dot later that leads to something great. If I ever have to start this show again, God forbid, because something horrible happens or something similar to that. I will now be able to go, all right, I just don't know what this means yet. There's a Chinese proverb where you're scared about this. I told you about this.

40:28The Chinese farmer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me say it. Do you want to say it? So the Chinese farmer, his son falls off a horse, breaks his leg. Everyone feels bad for him. Chinese farmer says, we'll see. Army comes by recruiting. They don't take his son because he's got a broken leg. Everyone says, you're so lucky. He says, we'll see. And onward from there. There's more things that happen, but you get the idea. He doesn't know what to make of the event in the moment because it could be lucky or unlucky. Only time will tell. That's the TLDR on that one. Yeah, you didn't have passion and emotion with that.

40:59I did not. But I don't want people to listen to the show and go, I've heard this 8 billion times. A lot of people haven't. You know how many times I've told people the story at different dinner parties and no one's heard it? They're like, wow, Jen knows Chinese problems. She's so smart. So profound. Yeah. Anyway, I love the idea of looking at the dots That's only in retrospect knowing what they mean. That's, I think, very insightful and comes with life experience. The other thing that occurred to me when reading this was a lot of people want to protect us from failure. So your mom might not want you to go out and do something because if it fails, then you'll feel bad.

41:33And she wants to protect you from that feeling. And the same thing can happen. Good friends, parents, spouses can try to convince us not to do something because they don't want us to fall on our faces because they'll feel bad for us. not because they don't think we can do it and because they don't want to see us get hurt. But it can really keep us from achieving our goals or doing something. A lot of people told me not to start my own business. They were like, you are a lawyer. What are you doing? Are you stupid? Do the safe route. Do the safe thing. You know how many businesses fail? You have one in three chance of even making it a few years doing this, let alone making money.

42:07You already have a Wall Street job paying more than you ever thought you were going to make. What are you doing? And that was actually pretty good advice. I just didn't follow it. Thankfully. Thankfully. We don't know the people's motivations who tell us not to do something. Yes, that's absolutely. And sometimes they also don't know their motivations. They might have selfish motivations where they don't want to see us succeed because it means something for them. Or maybe because they're too chicken to be bold themselves or haven't found the willpower or because they don't want to see us fall on our face.

42:36So since we can't guess at their motivations, the best thing to do is to be bold, in your words. No, you got to be very careful of who you seek advice from because you don't know what their reasons are. They can have the best intentions a lot of times, but some people don't have the best intentions. But you don't want to seek advice from people who, A, don't have the experience or the wherewithal to even know what that would be like. And a lot of times in life, we seek advice from someone who's never done it themselves, who have no clue, and then we decide on our direction and what we're going to do based on somebody else's inexperience.

43:10Insecurities or inexperience, yeah. Fear or whatever. And then our life is now created based on that thing. So the idea of creating this bold of directors around you, as opposed to the board of directors where... No, we get it. Just for those at home who don't know, where the idea, of course, is to create a group where, A, you're confident that they have the right reasons, they have the right experience, they want to see you succeed and win, they've already done it before. and you're curating this group of people who you seek advice from versus just randomly nilly, willy, nilly, willy, just asking people.

43:46Willy, nilly, yeah. Willy, nilly is the... I wonder if you make fun of all the guests. No, but I should. This is a lot of fun, actually. Did you make fun of Kobe like this with the... I did not. I was too busy running the cameras, the photos, and the audio at the same time because the freaking kid who I hired was in the shitter. Because of me. That you recommended playing Candy Crush. I'll put that story at the end of the show, folks. And checking out ESPN News. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, the point is the bolder directors is basically being much more. Having a panel of folks around you whose advice you can trust and know that their intentions are usually going to be good because you've curated them in the first place instead of just asking random people that you're close to giving advice.

44:29But also people who have had the experience before. A lot of times people have good intentions. Like my mom would have a good intention, but she's so scared of her own shadow in a lot of ways. she would never take a risk. Like for you, when you left law and you did the stuff that you're doing now, you did it even though people told you not to. Everyone told me not to. So then why did you do it? Was there one person that said, go for it? Gary Vaynerchuk, which is funny because this is way before he was famous. Way before he was famous. Okay, what happened? YouTube didn't exist at the time. What year was this?

44:582007. Okay, and what happened? I went and met him somewhere and I was like, who's this guy, the wine guy? And we were just talking and hanging out and he was like, you know how Gary Vaynerchuk is now. He was not even close to how he is now. He's like, you can do it. Come on, guys. F-bomb every third word. He was not like that. But he just told me that digital stuff was really going to be on the come up and that influencers were going to exist at some point. He told you that? Yeah, he didn't put it in those exact words. But he's, look, you have the nascent beginning of this. Podcasting's going to be huge.

45:30Digital's going to be huge. There's going to be a way for you to make a full-time living doing this. We're talking about 16 years ago now. Really? Yeah. I love some of these examples of you being bold and getting something that most people would probably not bother doing. The email mix-up story and how that essentially got you a job at Forbes before Forbes was a joke of a click farm. Yes, it wasn't what it is now. Back then it was a real magazine. And it was a real job. It was a staff writer job. It's funny how we have to say that now. But tell me about this. Most people would never do this. I want to start by saying this is a testament to curiosity more than anything.

46:02I think curiosity is a sister or a brother to being bold. When you're curious, it opens up your mind to opportunities and communication and all sorts of connectedness. And so when you combine the curiosity with the boldness, it's a really nice blend. And what the story that you're talking about is I got an email randomly from some guy who was trying to email another Jennifer Cohen. Who knew there was more than one Jennifer Cohen? Definitely not one of the world's most popular names. It's not common at all, right? Especially in showbiz. Yeah, exactly. She was in publishing, really? Yeah. I hope people know that we're tastefully joking about this.

46:38Yeah, we're both. We'll see. Yeah. We're both yids. Yeah. So what happened was he was trying to send an email to a Jennifer Cohen, but he forgot a dot. Really? That's how easy that was? That's how easy it was. And so I got the email instead of this guy who was sending it to his agent who had a manuscript he was handing in. And so when I got this email, instead of just deleting it like most people would do, I was very curious about who he was. And I was like, who is this guy? What is he sending me? And I was looking at it and then I'm very interested in what this was. And I can tell it was an important email.

47:11And so I called him and I said, hey, my name is Jennifer. You sent me an email by accident. I think you meant to send it to somebody else. we ended up having a 45-minute conversation where I was asking him about his manuscript and blah, blah, blah. He was answering me. We started talking about what I do. And I gave him an idea. One of the things that he did, he was like a New York Times political author and was an analyst, but he also worked for Forbes. And I pitched him this idea that I thought of where I could write a wellness topic or wellness column for entrepreneurs and executives for Forbes.

47:47and I pitched this random dude this idea. And he was like, who is this girl? Whatever. The conversation led me to him giving me his editor at Forbes with a little conjoling and whatever else. I ended up talking to the editor. It was a hard sell. Again, these are very conservative people who I was speaking with. I was a young adult who's never really written that much at all in my life. Your last job was at the Olive Garden. Yeah, that was when I was 12, but close. Yeah, so I had a few jobs in between, but close enough. but I was very audacious and I basically just pitched this idea, even though they thought I was weird and completely not experienced.

48:25I said, I will do it for free. Let me write one column for free and see how it does. And you don't have to pay me, blah, blah, blah. And he gave me a shot after a lot of conjoling, like I said. And that article ended up being like the most viewed online of that week of that month, maybe still, who knows. And one article turned into two, that turned into three. And then I got my own column in leadership at Forbes, which then of course opened a lot of other doors and opportunities that I would otherwise never have gotten if I didn't respond to that one email. That wasn't addressed to you. That wasn't addressed to me.

49:01But A, that's about connecting the dots, right? Because I had another thing failed where I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that if that was not even the case. But more than that, it's about creating your own opportunities through curiosity. What percentage of that is I'm bold and what percentage of that is I'm naive enough where I don't understand that this might have negative consequences? Not that there were in this particular case, but in some cases, it's better to almost be blissfully ignorant of, like, you can't do this. This could be bad for you or whatever. Yeah, I'm not putting myself in any situation where it's dangerous.

49:35But I will say I have a whole chapter on naivety because naivety is a strength, in my opinion. I believe that naivety, it is a superpower because the less you know, the better. Because the more experience you have, the more seasoned you are doing something, that's when you really tend to overthink of all the things that like have been done already or how you don't make a difference or like you can never really figure out different ways of systems because it seems like why can you make a difference or why this or why that? But again, you talk yourself out of all the reasons why you should not do something.

50:05Well, it's like start a podcast. Why not? Well, it's never going to get anywhere. But you don't know that because you're naive. So you just do it. Only it's one of the biggest podcasts in the world. Absolutely. And you don't know all the work that goes into it. You learn these things while you're doing something. And so that's the whole idea is let naivety be your superpower. If you don't know something, don't let that stop you from at least attempting and trying. This is The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jennifer Cohen. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors.

50:39All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are over at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. That should have pretty much everything from every episode that we've ever created. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Jennifer Cohen. Not knowing what you're getting into can be good because you don't then talk yourself out of that course of action. Basically, yes. Yeah. There's something to that. I still research things a lot, obviously, for the show.

51:09But sometimes I stop. And you steal people's lines. Yeah. Okay. Get over it. Sometimes I stop doing it, though, because I don't want to know the workload necessarily that's going to be involved in something or all the pitfalls. I want to just solve the problem when I get to that. Usually I'll hire like a vendor to get me through something. And they're like, do you want an outline of the whole process? And sometimes I don't because I don't want to get overwhelmed with all the things that can go wrong. I don't want to lose three nights of sleep thinking about my YouTube channel. Absolutely. If they know they can get me through that, then I'll just trust them to do that in the moment when the problem arises.

51:45Basically, you don't know why something is supposedly impossible. And so you simply go and do that. Exactly. And that's sometimes when the best projects disruptors happen. Was it Jewel that was in your book? She was known as somebody who, like, tell me the story. She was bold. She was curious enough to research a way where they offered her a contract. She was young and very inexperienced. And she didn't like the way a contract was. She was curious and she figured out a better way around it, where she was bold enough to recreate a contract that they offered her, where she would end up making way more money.

52:17People usually get taken advantage of in the music industry, right? Because they, like, prey on people who don't know what they don't know and who really want something bad enough. stuff that's what happens when you are so desperate for something to happen a lot of times that's when you get away with a lot of things and she refused to do that and so she figured out a way to create a contract that was way monetarily way more beneficial for her and she was curious and she was bold and so i used her as an example of someone who really utilized these strengths isn't branson got to start some very companies yeah he just oh he's let's create like a rocket Like, I mean, a spaceship.

52:51Like, hey, you can't do that. It's too hard. Dot, dot, dot. Got a space company. Right. To my point, the people who know the least about something are the ones who succeed in it a lot of times because they're not letting the idea of not knowing bog them down. What's that thing? Like, ready, shoot, aim. Ready, fire, aim. Yeah. Ready, aim, shoot. Ready, shoot. Ready, aim, fire. Ready, fire, aim. Yeah. We can do this all day. One's right and one is just not. No, ready, shoot, aim. Nobody says shoot. You say fire. Oh, we say shoot in Canada. No, you don't. I'm going to get email from Canadians that are like, she's lying.

53:24That's all right. Nobody says shoot. They don't? No. Oh, I do. Okay, well, you've done really well at finding which talents you have and carving out a niche using those same talents. And there's more about this in the book, so we don't have to break down the whole thing. But training celebrities to stay fit for music tours specifically is a really interesting narrow niche that you basically invented, didn't you? Basically, yeah. So the truth of the matter is I'm a big believer in creating your own opportunities and not letting what's in front of you be your stop and start. This is why you always order off the menu when we go to dinner.

53:57This is why I always order off. This is like a metaphor for your whole life. This whole thing is a metaphor for my entire life, right? I was not somebody who was ever a fitness person. I wasn't somebody who went to school to be in nutrition or fitness, right? That wasn't what I was doing. At the time, I was working at a record label and I moved to L.A. based on I got a working visa through Sony because I was fast tracking in the marketing. Right. I'm Canadian. I was at BMG. I got a great job offer to come here to Los Angeles. And I was like running marketing at a very young age and creating all these like marketing initiatives, blah, blah, blah for bands.

54:33And I got burnt out. I didn't want to be in the music world anymore. And so because I was here young, very young, and on someone else's visa, I couldn't make money any other way. So I figured, okay, what am I going to do to make some money so I can live in the state and not get kicked out? I thought I'll become a personal trainer. That way I can make some extra money. I like working out. Didn't know anything about it. I'm like, I like to ride my bike and I like aerobics. So let's do it. Putting a time stamp on this. That's why I said it. Spinning didn't exist. That did actually exist. Yeah. it's had a resurgence.

55:08But anyways, I'll just do that. So I quit my job, got like my first training certification. And I'm like, all right, maybe I'll just do this. And while I was going through my training certification, it dawned on me, listen, I have all these relationships in the music world, right? I've been there for five years working in the music world. I know a lot of different people. There's transferable skills that you can use. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. These are transferable. I can use them somewhere else. So I thought to myself, okay, I know all these people. I got a meeting with the head of MCA Universal, a friend who I knew.

55:39And I said, listen, you know what? I have a proposition for you. I want to become a trainer for the record label. I was like, put me on retainer, give me a certain amount of money, and I will train all the different talent for when they go on tour or when they do a music video. And I will train them. He looked at me. He's like, what the hell do you know about training, personal training? I'm like, I got my certification. I know how to do a lunge. I know how to do a push-up. Give me a shot. The bar is so low here. But it's about having the audacity and the boldness to think, why not me? Why not?

56:09What's the worst that can happen? He kicks me out and says, sorry, we're not going to give you the money. We don't want to do it. Move on, lady. He finally said, okay, you know what? I'll give you a shot. Let's do it for a month. Let's see what happens. From that opportunity, one month turned into many months, and one label turned into multiple labels, turned into multiple people working underneath me to an entire fitness business and industry that kind of wasn't really there at the time. And I was training literally everybody for tours and for videos. And now I became this like fitness influencer.

56:44The first celebrity trainer. No, no, no. I don't ever say that. But what I say is I created this position for myself that otherwise wouldn't have existed. I would have been basically shipped back to Canada if I didn't think of this opportunity for myself, which then, by the way, took me on an entirely different trajectory of my life, where then I became a health and fitness person, which, by the way, was nothing that I would have ever thought five years before then. We've been friends for a long time, and you've done a lot of really incredible things in your life. And I know we've been wanting to do a show for a while.

57:18It's been hard to put what you do into a container. So it's actually really appropriate that you wrote a book about taking all of these random things that don't fit into a container and turning it into your career and your strength and your talents and stuff like that. Does that make sense? A hundred percent. It's like the perfect thing for you to do. Because I'm like, what are you going to write a book about? You have all these disparate skills and talents that don't really necessarily neatly fit together. Hey, the book is about fitting all these disparate talents and skills that don't really neatly fit together and turning it into something special, a catalyst for something special.

57:46It's like Seinfeld, but a book. Okay. I mean, I guess. It's just random things that kind of work together. Yeah. If you would look at my career, there is a lot of zig and zagging. It doesn't make a lot of sense, right? But at the same time, it makes a lot of sense because what I've done is really lean on the things that I'm really good at and figure those things out quickly and then compensate for the things I'm not good at. I really believe that people need to figure out what they're good at, really lean hard into those strengths, and then go all in. I do believe that to be true. Yeah, but you do it in a smart way that's not just as reckless.

58:22Quit your job and burn the ship. I appreciate that. I want to end with your Keanu Reeves story because I think it's really funny. It's a good example of just doing something that is completely ridiculous and surprisingly getting a result. Absolutely. So when I was young, I loved music when I was a kid. Loved it. That was one of my big passions. And I knew a lot about every band and everything else. And I really wanted to be like a video disc jockey, like a Carson Daly. A VJ? A VJ. Yeah. Video disc jockey sounds super 90s. Well, it was like the TRL, remember? Yeah. So we had our own version in Canada, Much Music.

58:56And that was like the job that like every young teen wanted, right? It was the coolest job in the world. And they were having an open call for it at Much Music. And so I was like, oh my God, I need that job. And at the time, Keanu Reeves was at the precipice of his career. Guess he still is. Keanu Reeves never went out of style. He never went out of style. It's unbelievable. But at the time, I was like, wow, this guy just did speed. It was like the biggest thing since sliced bread. And he was coming to Winnipeg to practice his acting chops with Shakespeare. He always wanted to do Shakespeare. Oh, that's so random.

59:29Random. And I found out, I'm like, this is my shot. This is my chance. I'm going to get Keanu Reeves to be on my demo tape. And that way they are going to look at that demo tape. If I can get Keanu Reeves on that demo tape, they'll be blown away and I'll for sure get the audition and get the job and blah, blah, blah. And so I told all my friends, I told my family, I went to school. I was like, I'm going to do this. Everyone, of course, laughed at me. They're like, oh, God, here she goes again. And what did I do? I coerced a girlfriend of mine to come with me. And by the way, Winnipeg in the winter is minus 45.

1:00:01It's so cold. And I didn't care. I put on my warmest jacket and boots, and I sat outside of the theater, the Manitoba Theater Center for 45 minutes. My friend came with me. She lasted seven minutes. She went home after seven minutes. She's like, screw this. This is too cold. You're on your own. And I waited and waited. And he finally came out. And at the time when this was happening, it was like, do you remember like her in a fair and hard copy and Entertainment Tonight magazine? Happy Tablet. They were all waiting for him, right? And all the other shows too. And all the girls were waiting for him.

1:00:34And I was so determined. I saw him come out and I walked right up to him. I went through the crowd. I tapped him on the shoulder. And he finally looked at me and he's like, I know you want an autograph. And I'm like, no, I don't want an autograph. I really need your help. I need to make this demo tape because I have this job that I really want. He must have been like, oh, for crying out loud. He looked at me confused. What are you talking about? And I'm totally stunned and said it again. And this girl's pushing me out of the way. And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about, but write down your phone number on a piece of paper and I'll call you.

1:01:08And I was like, come on, you're not really going to call me. I'm not that like naive. Right. And he's like, just do it. And so some girl gave me an eyeliner. I found a gum wrapper. I wrote my phone number down. Gave it to him. Went home. He's like, you expect me to put this soggy eyeliner gum wrapper that's covered in Manitoba snow in my pocket? He did. Yeah, and he did. Lord. I went back to school. I told my friends. Everyone was laughing at me. I was like the laughingstock. I'd walk around. They're like, oh, did Keanu call? One day, two days, three days go by. On the fourth day, come home. My mom says, hey, did you check the answering machine today yet?

1:01:43because at the time we had answering machines. And I was like, no, why? She's like, well, you should check it. And so I go and press play. And the first message I hear, hello? And I hear my mother picking up on that last ring. Like, who is this? And then I hear, hi, is Jennifer home? And my mom's like, who's this? She's at school. Either call back or leave a message. And she hung up. And then I hear the machine being like, beep again. And hi, this is Keanu Reeves calling. I met Jennifer five nights ago. You came up to me. You're asking me something. I don't know what it was. Blah, blah, blah. Here's my phone number.

1:02:19Call me back. You can imagine. I can't even. This is ridiculous. I was 18 years old. I was freaking out. I was like, oh, my God. He left me a phone number. I called the phone number. Cut to. The guy from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure called me back. Cut to. Two days later, picking up Keanu Reeves in my mom's Cutlass Supreme. Stop. He didn't get a ride on his own? This is a different era. I pick him up at his hotel in my mom's Cutlass Supreme. I drive him back home to my house. My mom has lunch prepared for him. I have my friends all in different corners of my living room with their different camcorders to film me basically interviewing Keanu Reeves.

1:03:00I'm sure you had no shortage of volunteers to come and film. No shortage. And I had my boyfriend at the time or whatever. I wouldn't have included him. I didn't want to, but he was insistent. and I interviewed this guy for two and a half hours. Wow. And he was so gracious. What a legend this guy is. He's a legend. And then I, with no technical chops, go through two different VHSs and edit this tape together. My God. Send it into MuchMusic. Got the audition. Promptly blew it. What? Then promptly blew it and didn't get the job. It came down to between me and another girl after thousands and thousands of people.

1:03:36And then the other girl got the job. but it doesn't matter. Like the job was so irrelevant. You still have this VHS tape? Of course I do. I talk about this in my TED Talk. How big is your hair in the tape? Oh my God, you have to watch it. You got to watch my TED Talk. No, I'm just going to watch the Keanu Reeves portion. It is hilarious. What I'm wearing. I think it's great that you got that. Oh my gosh. And to me, it showed me, it wasn't about the job. Who cares about the job? It was that moment, pivotal moment where I'm like, you know what? You never know unless you ask. And that to me was a sign of being bold is way more important than being smart because it was so easy for me and my friends and my family to be like, you shouldn't do it.

1:04:15Why would you? He's not gonna help you. It's too cold outside. Why would you wait? What was it gonna happen? If I listened to all of that chatter, I would never have gotten that opportunity to prove to myself that it really is boldness that's the secret sauce. It's not how much talent you have. It's not about how smart you are or how pretty you are. It's about just going for it. That's the lesson that I learned and throughout my life just went through that with gusto every time. I would always think, what's the worst that can happen? You never know. And to me, that's why that story was such a huge turning point in my life.

1:04:48Sure. So here's the thing. Everybody up to this point was, I'm not sure if I believe this story. And even I was like, if I didn't know you, I wouldn't be so sure about the story. But you have the tape. I'm willing to your TED Talk where you have a piece of the tape. Yeah, I had me talking to him on my mom's sofa. That's incredible. I also knew it was true because I met your mom and she verified it because I asked her about this a long time ago when you weren't in the room. So how was Keanu Reeves? And she wasn't like, what? Who? Who? I'm telling you, my life, honestly, weird combination of lots of stories like that.

1:05:24I've got some thoughts on this one as usual, but before I get into that, behavioral economist Dan Ariely shares the hidden logic that shapes our motivations and helps us understand what makes us tick. Here's a preview. I think that we used to think that the big mysteries of life is what's in the stars and maybe microbiology. And of course, these are big mysteries. But the human mystery is wonderful. And even though it's just in front of us, there's so much we don't know. We operate as if we know how the world works. But because our model is wrong, we inflict more pain and increase suffering. I think it's true for lots of things.

1:06:03What is our understanding? Think about how we waste our time. Think about how we waste our money, how we waste our health. My mission is to do kind of good social engineering. And I think there's just a ton of progress to make. And sadly, we're not doing it in the right way. I think we're actually going backward. And the process of social science in which we try different things and try to measure objectively what's going on and attributing and trying to improve things over time, I think is a wonderful process. So when people read or listen or think about those topics, I think the real benefit is to say, what can I take for my life?

1:06:44What are the things about my life that I'm not observing? Can I be a bit better in observing my own life? Can I try to implement something? And then hopefully also, can I try to experiment with something? Is there something I would like to try out in a few different ways and see what leads to a better outcome? For more with Dan Ariely on one of the best productivity tools around, what will help you utilize the most productive hours of the day and why even the best of us lie and cheat sometimes, check out episode 417 on The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's a lot of practicals in the book, negative thoughts, getting stuck in negative thought loops, getting away from negative thoughts by changing our environment.

1:07:23But of course, what if we can't just up and move out of the country for a few months? Environment does trump willpower. We talk about that a lot on our James Clear episode, which is episode 108. Jen's got a lot of crazy stories. scrappiness, boldness, a little bit of luck here and there, but definitely in combo with all of the other skills. I have lost count of the number of times that people have tried to hire her to manage or be their agent or something like that. In fact, I think she did work in an industry for a little while in LA, but well, she had bigger plans. All things Jen Cohen will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com or ask the AI chat bot.

1:07:54Also on the website, transcripts in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, the newsletter every week, the team and I dig into an older episode of the show and dissect the lessons from it. So if you are a fan of the show, you want a recap of important highlights and takeaways, or you just want to know what to listen to next, the newsletter is a great place to do that. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. I'm constantly working on that. I'm trying to make it funnier, more entertaining, more insightful.

1:08:24So please reply with your feedback. I do appreciate that. Six-minute networking also on the site at JordanHarbinger.com slash course. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. This show is created in association with podcast one. And my team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Milio Campo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

1:08:54If you know somebody who needs a little bit of boldness in their life, definitely share this episode with him. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. I should play these outtakes at the end of the show. I think so. It's a great addition. There's the story about one of the guys that you recommended for me to hire when I interviewed Kobe Bryant and what happened. You recommend me this guy and I meet him and he's a schlep, whatever. I buy him a hotel room. We fly him down to SoCal. Everybody's going to meet Kobe Bryant the night before.

1:09:28We go to bed early. Next day, get up, get there early, set up all the cameras. Everything's ready to go. He goes, hey, I got to go to the bathroom before the show. Okay, fine. Humans have needs. Kobe walks in. I'm like, I got to start. So I'm starting. I got the audio going. My photographer's there. Thank God. This guy's supposed to handle all the video. Five minutes go in, 10 minutes go in. I'm like to the photographer, can you go find this guy? Where is he? Comes out, starts the cameras late. So my video's cut. Right. So then afterwards I go, what the hell was that, man? And he goes, oh, I had to go to the bathroom.

1:10:01I just figured you guys would come get me when Kobe came out. You think that when Kobe Bryant comes out and sits down in a set that we have made in his office, that I'm going to get up and go to the men's room and knock on the stall door and be like, hey, man, get off your phone. Kobe is waiting for you now. Kobe will see you now. The best part is like he had like a stomach, like not even a stomach bug. He had like some kind of runs. So this is what he said. Yeah. Here's the thing. Not true at all. Oh, how did we find out? Afterwards, he apologized. He had no excuse. He said, sorry, I thought you guys were going to come get me.

1:10:32I got lost in my phone. I was on Instagram, whatever it was. Then we all went to lunch, and he ordered like a meatball hoagie. Right. Later, his boss called and was like, I am so sorry. He got sick. Oh, he said he had stomach pains and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, no. He apologized. He didn't have any excuse for an hour afterwards. We all went to lunch. He ate a ton, stuffed himself, had three drinks and a rib hoagie. Then he went home, sent me a text about how he screwed that up, and he apologizes. He just randomly thought to tell you he was sick. He's not sick. He's just a dumbass. So basically, he was just sitting in the stall scrolling Instagram.

1:11:07The boss will come out and get me when Kobe Bryant is ready to be interviewed so I can turn the cameras on. I hate the fact that I'm the one who actually set you up with him, but that was all I knew at the time. You were in a bind, and he was very cost-effective from what I remember. He was. In fact, they offered to do the next one for free. I kindly passed. on that opportunity, though. Kindly. I love it. That story, for whatever reason, is a classic to me.