Living From The Heart: On Life, Love, And Spirituality With Alan Cohen – REPLAY

And so as I take this breath and I receive this breath, I feel so cared for, so loved, so perfectly on point in this moment that I get to spend this time with all of you wherever you are and whatever you're doing. You might be doing any number of things, and that's your private affair, but we are here together, and I can't think of anything that's more— Affirming or reaffirming of the fact that we are one. There's just no limit to the ways in which we can feel connected. And, and yet at the same time, there's one thing more than anything else that I feel connected to everything, and that is through the breath. So as we're breathing right now, whatever you're up to, whatever you're doing, I wish you peace and I wish you love. And I also know that what I'm about to share with you is going to be— Just wonderful. It's gonna be a great journey in the next little while as I have a conversation with a new friend, somebody that I met recently at a TLC meeting that we were having in Oahu. And this gentleman is no stranger to most of you, I'm sure, uh, no stranger to me, but somebody I have never met before. And I already developed a great admiration for him as a very authentic And wonderful human being. His name is Alan Cohen. Alan is the author of 24— I mean, I say that and it's just— I'll have to share a little bit later about my dad, who's also an author, but of fiction works. And Alan is the author of 24 popular inspirational books, including the bestselling The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore, award-winning A Deep Breath of Life, and the classic Are you as happy as your dog? Hmm, that's a good question. We have 2 dogs. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to answer that one in the affirmative, but we'll see. He is a contributing writer for the New York Times number one bestselling series, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and his books have been translated into 24 foreign languages. His work has been featured on Oprah.com and in USA Today, the Washington Post, and 101 Top Experts. Alan's radio program, Get Real, is broadcast weekly on Hay House Radio, and his monthly column, From the Heart, is featured in magazines internationally. What a beautiful blessing it is to spend some time together. Alan, welcome to the show.

I am honored and delighted to be with you, Adam. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. And the bio that I've just read, obviously there's, there's a lot that's not in that bio. I love that it is actually so succinct, but Is there anything you want to add to that? Is there something missing there that's important that people know about you at the moment?

Simply that I prefer to live from my heart rather than my head, and that like all of us, I'm on a journey to ever deeper authenticity. So the more real I become, the happier I become, and the more successful I become. And I'm doing my best to keep the journey light. I like to play and laugh, not take things too seriously. Seriously, I think we could all use a dose of that. So that's what I'm up to.

There's a lot of serious things in the world for sure. A book that I read some time ago that I absolutely love, I'm not sure if you've heard of Michael Brown or his book, The Presence Process, but it's

a

magnificent book about the journey from presence, or I should say from pretense to presence, and the distinction between those 2 things. And that's a wonderful concept. In fact, I'd love for us, if our talk leads in that direction, I'd love to talk about what presence presence means to you and how you practice presence. But I would love to know a little bit about and have you share, I guess, not so much with me, but with our listeners and our viewers, a little bit about what has inspired this body of work. 24 books. My dad's a fiction writer. He's been doing it for, well, from before the time that I was born and has written all my life and has been tenacious and voracious in both writing and reading. And I take it that this has been a calling of yours for some time. Would you share a little bit about how it was that you got started? Yeah. Well,

we're all teaching what we need to learn, aren't we? So all those books are depictions of the cutting edge of my own spiritual growth. I started way back in 1980 or so. I woke up one morning, this voice said, sit down and write. It wasn't a voice with words, but it was just an urge. And it was a Sunday morning, and I was laying in bed. I didn't really want to get up. And I said to the voice, I don't want to get up. And the voice said, well, it's not really one of the questions. I got up and I just started with some ideas about what was going on in me and around my heart and my challenges and my joys and my sorrows. And the writing just kind of took over, Adam. As a writer, I'm sure you understand this process where when you really tap into a stream of truth or wisdom or heart, it kind of takes you over. I think Wayne Dyer said that motivation is when you take hold of an idea, and inspiration is when the idea takes hold of you. That's exactly what happened to me. I wrote almost constantly for about 9 months or so, and then I had this book in my hand. I told my mother about it. She said, you're crazy, why would you write a book? And the next day she called me back and said, would you like the money to publish it? One thing led to the next, and it became a popular book. So ever since that day, I have striven to write as my own therapy. Everything I write about is stuff that I'm working on. Everything I write about is stuff that I need to learn. One book was on sufficiency, another one was on grace, another one was on relationships, another one was on business. So these are all my cutting edge of growth, where my challenge lives. And as I have mastered pieces of those challenges, I have broken through into a certain degree of clarity. So in my books, I include my challenges and the clarity I've gained through passing through those challenges. And it seems to be a good combination. People seem to like it. So, you know, James Michener said, you know, I'll be writing for another 20 years, and then he died, but he had 20 more books in him for sure. I could write for the rest of my life and many more lifetimes because this urge, this passion to just share What's real to me is really compelling. It's more fun than just about anything else I do.

What a blessing that your mom was willing to both question at the same time and support in one breath, question and support. That's pretty incredible.

Those days, she was not a wealthy woman by any means. And all she had to her name was $5,000. That was her whole life savings. And she said, just take it. She says, you'll have it when I die. You might as well have something positive now. So I invested that in self-publishing, which was a big deal at the time. It's easy now. And then the book took off. I remember vibrantly the day when I went back to her safe deposit box with her and I showed her the $5,000 was back there and doubled and tripled. And she said, that's right, you keep it anyway. I don't really care about it. But that was a poignant moment for me to acknowledge that her investment and belief in me had come back in many ways.

Paid dividends and then some. What book was that? The first one?

That was the first one, The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

What was the essence of the book there?

It was the beginnings of my realization that fear was the liar. And Love Is the Truth. So I wrote it when I was 30 years old. I'd been on a spiritual path for many years by that time. And I talked about the monsters that I'd faced in my own psyche, and how I confronted them, challenged them, and loved my way through them, and recognized that, as A Course in Miracles says, only the creations of light are real. Are real. Everything else is your own nightmare. So it's basically the story of me confronting my fears and moving past them.

I think it's Chapter 30 in A Course in Miracles, The New Beginning, where there's this beautiful exposition on decision-making. And that section has really changed my life as well, because it talks about us, each of us making decisions consciously or unconsciously, but continuously. They make them with love or fear.

I open up my new book, A Course in Miracles Made Easy, with this story about a friend of mine who's living in Brooklyn. And he heard a guy— he was sitting alone in his living room— he heard a guy breaking in through his bedroom window. And he went in, there was a crook. And the guy started to run. I actually had this happen in my house too, but I'll tell you the story. He said to the guy, wait, you don't need to be afraid. What's going on in your life? Like, what would make you want to break into somebody's house and steal? And the guy said, well, I lost my job, my girlfriend left me, and just my life is in pits. And the guy said, you know, let's sit down and talk about this. And he kind of walked him through a coaching session. He gave him some cash and said, come back if I can help you.

One gentleman recently that I met, and he says, nah, I'm not afraid of anything. And I thought to myself, this guy is so full of shit. And he was an older guy, very successful, and I got to know him later, and his obstreperousness was more of an act than anything else, and he's actually a gentle, kind man, but it's also his defense mechanism that he doesn't wish to acknowledge any fear. Alan, what's— has there been one fear more than any other that has been the dragon for you?

I have always been the kind of guy who wanted everybody to like me. And I've been pretty good at getting most people to like me. I guess if there was some underlying fear, it was that I would not be accepted or liked for who I am. And I have to do some kind of dance to make sure everybody's happy. Like, if I'm in a room with 30 people and somebody's unhappy, I feel like it's my job to make them happy, which of course is kind of dysfunctional. So a lot of it for me, Adam, has been taking back the power that I have attributed to other people. determine my happiness. I've learned that you just have to free people to make their own decisions, including maybe not liking me. I think I'll ponder on that for a few years and get back to you.

Yeah, I'm turning the question on myself, how I would answer that, but I will. I'll say I've probably been more afraid that I'd be punished. That's what's coming up for me. I don't know that I've made any greater number of mistakes. I've probably made more mistakes than most people just because I know that my success is a result of having made enough mistakes to learn what—

Yeah.

On some level what not to do. And I think that's one of those crazy things. We work with people who are changing aspects of their business life and people who are making career transitions and changes and are striking out on new exciting adventures like Writing a book. So many people I've spoken to and been around, when I've asked them, do you feel like there's a book inside of you? Almost every hand always kind of gets raised. But why haven't you written it? And all the usual stuff comes up. But whatever those things are that people are striking out on— oh, that's interesting. I said striking out, like to strike out.

To strike out. And yet to strike

out is really an interesting

Well, yeah, interesting play on words. You're right.

So in any event, I've struck out quite a lot in my life, which I know is part and parcel for learning. And yet I think at the root, I'm most afraid that any of my harder lessons in life were really there because I deserved that or been punished or somehow it's a karmic thing. So interesting that that's what just came up.

Let's look at that. It's a really good point. Did you grow up Jewish like I did, by any chance?

I did, yes.

Well, you know, they say that Jews invented guilt and Catholics perfected it.

I've heard that, yes.

Being Jewish and feeling a great deal of guilt myself, for no good reason, has really sent me to A Course in Miracles. And what I love about the Course is that it just affirms over and over again in a thousand ways That guilt is always a fictitious story we made up. What we believe are our guilts are just errors. And God is not a punishing God. It says over and over and over and over again that there's not one thing that you or I deserve to be punished for. That whole idea of punishment is just a projection of human wrath onto a loving God. And so, you know, that's a really good item to tinker with us now? Or what is it about us that thinks we deserve to be punished? Who made up that story and why does it continue? I mean, that's a really fruitful path of inquiry.

I was reading this morning— I love Emmet Fox. I don't know if you've ever gotten into him. Sure. Yeah, just love his work. And there's a beautiful book called Around the Year with Emmet Fox and then several others that I've really enjoyed. But He dives into a number of sections of the Bible and explains them from a metaphysical standpoint, but also from a real common sense standpoint. And even the Lord's Prayer, as it begins, Our Father, and it's not my Father, it's ours, that there's a brotherhood of man and for all of us, and a brotherhood and a fatherhood that we would— to think of any God that we believe in as not Loving and forgiving is— it really flies in the face of everything that I know about being a father, and I'm fortunate to be a father. So yeah, it doesn't make sense that it would be otherwise. And yet you're right, we sort of arrive on this place of fear and guilt for things that— I wonder how much of that is passed through DNA. You know, the thing that Eckhart Tolle called the collective pain body that gets passed generation to generation.

Voltaire said that God created us in his image and likeness, and we returned the compliment. So, you know, we made up God in the story of a flawed person, when really God sees flawed people in his own image of perfection. And someone once said, we're doing time for imaginary crimes. And my definition of guilt is Punishing yourself before God doesn't. In other words, a part of our mind believes, well, I'm going to be punished, so I'm going to beat myself up, and then maybe I can avoid God punishing me. But we never waited around long enough to find out if God would really punish us. If we did, we'd find out that punishment never comes. All punishment is self-inflicted. It's a big one, isn't it?

But

as far as I can see, that's the hurdle we need to get over to really break out into

Does it start with love, with understanding at a better, a deeper, more truthful level what unconditional love actually is?

That's where it ends for me.

It's the whole story, I guess.

Yeah, it's like when I drop into that place of self-love, everything becomes clear. All of a sudden I get to forgive people I held grudges against because My grudges against them were just my self-hatred projected outward. Who was it? Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said, when I was a young man, I respected people who were wise, and now that I'm old, I respect people who are kind. So the older I get, the more I appreciate the value of simple human kindness. Beginning with kindness to ourselves. I mean, most of my coaching— I do a lot, a lot of coaching— is based on bringing people to a place of loving and accepting themselves just as they are, without any more, quote, self-improvement or fixing. And, you know, that place is so simple and yet so profound that it's life-changing when we hit on it. That's, that's where all the cookies are, as far as I can tell.

We can't give anything that we don't possess ourselves. It's in that same piece of A Course in Miracles where I think it says something along the lines of, as we receive, so shall we give. We can't give anything that we've not been willing to receive ourselves. How can we forgive anyone else if we've not forgiven ourselves? How can we love anyone if we don't know and understand love for ourselves?

I mentioned at our conference, this is one of my favorite lines in my speech. I really hadn't thought about it before like this, but I enjoyed it when I heard it. I said, I've graduated from self-improvement and now I'm into self-acceptance.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different, something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

And it kind of sounds like a joke, but it's not. It means that You know, who is it that thinks I have to improve? Who is it that thinks that I have faults I need to change before I can be worthy? And if you can just get that you're lovable and whole and acceptable and beautiful right now, whoo! That cuts through years or lifetimes of self-improvement. I mean, then you're very close to home. That's where a big piece of the work is, isn't it?

This idea that we're seeking completion or there's something broken. I mean, look, it screws up the work of a lot of psychologists. It's like—

Yeah.

And personal development industry would probably fall apart if everybody thought somehow they didn't require fixing. But we'll keep it to our— just to ourselves in this community, okay? That'll be our private affair. You've transitioned many times in your life, and I know that intuitively. Is there one particular transition pivot strikes you as being important to share in this moment?

Yeah. You hear the thunder? Like God is speaking out in Hawaii.

Are you on Molokai?

What island? No, I'm on the Big Island.

You're on the Big Island. So there's some thunder. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a beautiful thunderstorm coming. I enjoy it. My dogs don't like it, but I enjoy it. There have been many transitions, Adam, but the one that always comes to mind is I was in graduate school. And that was the beginning of this human potential movement, Encounter Groups and Fritz Perls and Carl Rogers, and lots of doors were opening then. And they had this retreat that was called the Human Relations Laboratory, where you take a bunch of college students, go away for a weekend, you sit in a cabin, and you basically relate. You talk about what's in your heart, your challenges, you make yourself naked emotionally, you know, the kind of stuff we do now, but it was kind of in seminal form then. I sat in this group for 4 days, and it was, you know, many hours a day. And I just bullshitted my way through the group. I was in my head, I was playing games, I was— I didn't know it, but I was posturing myself in 100 ways that I was asleep about. And then it was the last night of the group, and it was an all-nighter, it was a marathon. And the group got around to me, and somebody said, hey, Alan, tell us what you're really feeling. I said, oh, I feel pretty comfortable. And one by one, each person in the group said, well, you know, Alan, I gotta tell you, you don't seem real comfortable to me. I don't get that you're a comfortable guy at the moment. And after about the 4th person said this, Adam, something inside me clicked and said, you haven't fooled anybody. That your presentation has gotten you no mileage whatsoever. And then it was followed by a little voice. And once again, it wasn't a real voice, but it was a sensing. It said, you can let go now. And I remember this girl next to me was holding my hand very sweetly, and I felt comforted. And it said, just be who you are, you know, quit trying to prove something. And I said, well, you know, guys, You're really right, because I'm not really comfortable at this moment. And they were like, yay, he's finally told the truth. Yay, we like you now. It sounds like a very tiny little moment, Adam, but it was huge for me because it was the end of 21 years, or however old I was at that stage, hustling and bustling and manipulating to look cool and to be acceptable and to be attractive. And in that moment, I had the first inkling, like the first light, that I could live my life and be who I am and not have to worry. That being who I am was going to get me a lot more mileage than posturing and image management. And my whole life shifted 180 degrees. I started going to gurus and seminars and trainers and teachers and healers. And that was the beginning of my true spiritual path. It was a It was a noble and celebratory pivotal moment in my life. And it's funny that 40 years later, I'm still thinking about it because the journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step. And that was my one little step. And of course, there've been many since then, but that was one I remember.

That one step, did it change the direction, your professional direction as well?

Yeah. Yeah.

It informed what you wanted to write about? I mean, so many things occurred in In a moment where somebody just said to you honestly— well, they didn't call you fake, but basically—

Basically. No. Well, you know, they saw me and loved me enough beyond my fakeness that they were willing to speak to the higher part of me that knew I would get it. I got it. I was teaching psychology and assistant training those kind of groups. I was nervous and reticent about bringing my spiritual values that were growing at that time into my groups. I was teaching and doing straight psychology at the moment. And then I began to find the courage to bring spirituality into my work— meditation, prayer, and yoga, and metaphysics, and all that good stuff. At first, I was afraid that I would bomb doing it, but my work really took off because I was being authentic, and I was meeting people where they lived in that place, and the whole chemistry of what I was doing exploded. Because I was incorporating higher power and I was being real and passionate about it. That was a big course correction for me in my career.

I feel like I'm in a bit of that stage where— I don't call it a stage, but I'm in a place similar to that where I've been sharing things that have been on my heart when I've spoken and trained. And I've had the blessing to do that a lot over the years, speak to a lot of people. my spiritual path, if I call it that, but just the things I've been interested in and following have been things I've shared with people. And that's been some of the greatest— it's caused the greatest inspiration in myself, uh, in those moments to go deeper and to be more real and to connect, mostly connect at a real— at a level that has— it's been the most profound integration or resolution for myself. So My challenges, my problems, all my shit has had an opportunity to be aired, resolved in those environments where I've let spirit in, where I've invited spirit to join. And I would say God. And today I look at my work and people have said to me, you know, Adam, I really, I would love more of your spiritual things to show up in what it is you're doing.

Yeah.

And yet I still have that little voice that says, Is this my path and is it my place to impose my views? And I still have this, I'll say, a little voice inside of my head that says, just don't be this, you know, like, don't be a manipulative preacher. Don't preach for the sake of— and I know that's, of course, that's just in my head, but it does come up from time to time and I've been thinking about it more seriously.

Yeah. Well, thank you for your honesty. I want to ask you a question, but first I want to make Sure. In my mind, there's a big difference between imposing your views and sharing what you're passionate about. You know, to me, sharing passion is the most enlivening gift to a student, because you're sharing what's happy for you without needing them to follow along. And I have been most impressed and transformed by people who just put it out there because they believed in it, and could care less about whether I agreed with them or not. I guess if I could give you some support and encouragement, just put it out there without defining it as imposing your views, because you're not really. You're just showing up with what lights you. Which leads to my question I want to ask you, so if I may be so bold. So what would you be doing next or differently if you were willing to step into that broader consciousness and pull in that spiritual vantage point that you would like to share? How would that show up in your life?

I'd be speaking about this topic more. I would share more of the fact that the beginning, the middle, and the end of the journey for me is about being connected to presence, to experiencing presence in every moment that I'm able to. And that means for me receiving, really receiving unconditional love and unconditional acceptance and attention and unconditional forgiveness in every moment. I'm also in this place where praying and the power of prayer and the miracles that I've seen from the power of— from the prayers that I've been guided to, that these are things that I would love to spend even more time doing. Even more than I currently do. And so it's this balancing between living in the world of things, the world of objects and all the other machinations of the human condition, and not wanting to retreat from that. I'm not looking to go to a cave. I got 4 kids and a wife I love and 2 dogs and all the rest. And so I'm not planning on a pilgrimage, but I am making my stand. Here, now, in this. And in the midst of all the chaos of just human endeavor and all my— all the fears and all the angers and everything else that shows up, I want to apply the prayer and that truth, what I know to be true, in each moment. I want to share it, but I also sort of want to figure it out a bit more before I have the audacity To share it at another level. I don't know what to do with that other than I'm thrilled to be able to speak about it with you.

That's beautiful. Thank you for your honesty. In my experience, Adam, if I wait until I perfect something to share it, to me, that's one of the ego's ways of, you know, holding on to the small self. And I found that if I'm honest about what I've mastered and what I've not, And I shared what I've mastered, or even what I'd like to master, as an act of authenticity, people really get that. You know, like, the world is such a screwy place. There's a lot of weird stuff going down. And, you know, I'm always telling people that, you know, if you wait until you're perfect before you share, you may never get around to it. So even if you can even share a smidgen of wisdom or insight or healing energy, That's going to go a long, long, long way in a world that is darkened by people in fear. So I'm always encouraging everybody to get out there and show up and share what you can, even if you're not a master yet. That's how you become a master, by sharing it.

Well, you said it at the beginning, we teach what we most need to learn or want to learn. And so it's so funny, it's just so perfect to hear these words reflected back to me. So yes. Alan, thank you for those very— I think that's quite sage. I would love to ask you about the practices that you have because I really believe that the quality of our lives is in some way related, in a deep way related to the rituals that we keep, the things that we hold sacred.

Yeah.

What are some of the things that you do to maintain presence or to be whatever the best version of you is on a day-to-day basis?

I meditate every morning. I've been meditating every morning for many, many years. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Sometimes I go shallow, sometimes I go deep. But I can't imagine not starting my day on a conscious tone. I'm a student of A Course in Miracles. I still do the lessons after many years. My dogs are my therapists. You know, if I'm balled up at the computer with emails and spreadsheets, I grab my dogs and we go out in the field and I get sane again. So really, I'm a big fan of dog therapy, and if you have 2 dogs, I'm sure you understand that. Those are my main practices, and my writing is my therapy. I write really for myself. I mean, when I write, I throw my consciousness into big ideas. I have to be in a broader spectrum in order to write. And what happens to me when I write is I lift it. I tap into ideas I often haven't even thought of before myself. My writing is a practice that seems like I'm doing it for other people, but it's really for myself. And if other people get the benefit from it, then it's a happy overflow.

Do you write every day?

Yeah, yeah. I like to write every morning when I get up, like, Between 6 and 8 or something like that. That's my favorite time to write, you know, when the world is quiet, there's no emails, and I'm just kind of focused. And boy, good stuff comes through when I can really focus. I also have a special writing place. I built a little cabin out on my land, and just getting away from electricity and the computer and stuff, the phone, it really, really helps me just to detach and to tune in and focus. And I recommend to anybody, if you can create some— even if you have an apartment, just have a chair, a little area in the apartment to do that. I think it's— you just develop a frequency, and when you get into that frequency, you get hooked up really easily.

Yeah, creating sacred space really for some activity. Do you write by hand? Because you say there's no electricity out there. Do you—

Well, I have my laptop.

Oh, you have your laptop.

It's electricity in my computer, but I don't have any power.

I was thinking, yeah, there's still people that are writing that way.

Some like to do that, yeah.

Yeah. I've so enjoyed our conversation and look forward to the next opportunity that we have to converse about these things. I know that for you right now, you're working on the next thing, the next pivot, and what that looks like is exciting for you, I'm sure.

For me, it's about Peeling away not it to get to it. Lao Tzu said in the Tao Te Ching that for the worldly person, advancement is attained by acquiring, and for the spiritual person, the sage, it's all about releasing. What I'm seeking to do now is really peel away this stuff that I learned that doesn't apply to me or truth, reality, and just get naked again about who I was when I was born. I believe I came in whole. And like Swami Satchidananda said, we started out fine, then we got defined, now we're getting refined. What I'm seeking to do, as we all are, is to return to my original innocence and to see that in everyone else. And the more I can do that, the better I am and we all are.

The road to self-acceptance. We're going to bring this particular show to an end, but again, it feels so— I feel wonderful in this moment that we got to have this conversation. I don't know who said this. I've said it for a number of years, but I have no designs or delusions that somehow these are my words, but the whole of life is, is a process of letting go. It is an interesting thing when we start to think about the things that we are attached to and— Yeah. And what we will not take with us, just on the most basic logical Level, we will not take very much with us at all. And so—

With our soul. I don't know if we have time, but I'm gonna make time. Do you remember David Cassidy from The Partridge Family?

I do.

He passed away recently, and his daughter was at his side, and she said her father's last words were these 4 words: so much wasted time. So much wasted time.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy.

And she said when she heard that, she made it her absolute intention that she would not waste any more time in her life, that she would live true to her soul. So when she gets to her point, she won't be able— she won't have to say the same thing. I took that as sage advice to me as well.

Alan, where can people find out more information? I know they can Google and all the rest of it. And we'll have show notes, so our show notes will have access to your website. It's alancohen.com. Is that right?

Yeah. A-L-A-N-C-O-H-E-N.

Yes. And so for programs, for coaching, for books that you've written, kind of all of that is housed at the website?

Everything's right there. I have a life coach training program. I have new books. I have webinars. I have online courses. It's all right there.

Beautiful, beautiful. And for those of you that are enjoying this podcast, have enjoyed this and others, I love that often I hear people are binge listening and binge watching, and that's kind of cool. And so if you haven't yet subscribed, please go ahead and subscribe to the podcast. You can do that at adamarkel.com. And please on iTunes, feel free to leave a review. We read them and really important as feedback for us as well. So love to get your thoughts there. And our Pivot community, this community of people who are reinventing themselves and are transitioning, maybe not even waiting for the transitions to occur but actually getting out ahead of the curve and cultivating those transitions. What a beautiful community it is. You can get there by going to pivotfb.com, which takes you right to the front door of the Start My Pivot community on Facebook. That's pivotfb.com. As we end this session, I will bookend it with how we began, which is to be in gratitude, to take a collective breath that we get to breathe together. We're all breathing together whether we know it or not, and that's just a wonderful thing that gives me great comfort when I think about that. And I want to wish you something. I want to wish you everything that your heart desires. That all your dreams come true. And I have one wish in particular for you, which is that tomorrow morning that you wake up, that you get to wake up a little bit more conscious, a little bit more awake and aware, and that you wake up in ways that you might not even be able to imagine. Because in that waking breath, that first conscious breath that you take of the new day, realize, as we must realize and remember, that there will be people At that moment taking their very last breath. And in addition to that, there will be babies born who are taking their very first breath. So it is certainly a sacred moment, a holy moment if you will, and one that we can be grateful for. If for nothing else, we can be grateful for that breath. So wake up is number one. Take that breath and be grateful for it. That's number two. And, and number three, if you're inclined to say these words out loud, they're pretty powerful and I've shared them I've been blessed to share them with a lot of folks and I've been declaring them myself for almost 10 years. And the words are, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. It's been a blessing to be with all of you. I look forward to seeing or to having you experience another one of our podcasts very, very soon. So wherever you are right now, blessings to you. Ciao for now, everyone. Ciao.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com. Thank you.