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- [00:07]
Andrew Cohn
Journey on Magic lies within the trails we ride. You're listening to the Journey On Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home study courses@videos.warwick shiller.com.
- [00:45]
Warwick Schiller
G'day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey On Podcast. I'm your host Warwick Schiller and my special guest on the podcast this week is an amazing man named Andrew Cohn. And I met Andrew a couple of years ago on a course that I did with previous podcast guests, Kelly Wendorf. In this course we would, you know, it was a six week course meeting once a week and you would actually have homework where you had to zoom with some of the other people on the course and go through this homework. And in one week I got paired with Andrew and found him to be pretty amazing human. So I wanted to get him on the podcast. But let me read you Andrew's bio. So Andrew Cohen is the founder and principal of Lighthouse Consulting and for over 20 years he's worked globally as a counselor, facilitator and executive coach for businesses and individuals. Andrew's work improves his clients business results and culture and enhances individual performance and satisfaction. Andrew has also taught leadership ethics, mindfulness and conflict management, including the application of Aikido principles because he's got two black belts in Aikido at the MBA and undergraduate levels. He also coaches MBA students at Wharton School of Business. And in 2020, Andrew launched the podcast Spirituality and Leadership. He also provides his clients with impactful experiential learning opportunities, including equine assisted learnings in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico in conjunction with Equus, which Equus is Kelly's business. So yeah, quite the, quite the bio. And another interesting fact I probably didn't read out of his bio is he has a degree in spiritual psychology and previous podcast guest Kate Nelligan also has a degree in spiritual psychology. So interest factoid there, which Andrew and I actually talk about. So I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation with Andrew as much as I did. But before we get to our next guest, I want to tell you guys about our new Journey on Podcast courses. You know, we have a podcast summit every year where we have the guests come and present over three days and the feedback from that has been absolutely amazing. And my wife Robin thought Wouldn't it be a great idea if we could get these guys to do some sort of an online course where people could dive deeper into each of the podcast guests area of expertise? And so at the moment we have 11 of these journey on podcast courses. We have one from Heather Lucas called rewilding. Carla Buckmuller does one on the writer's breath unlocking the power of proper breathing. Jamin Fraser from Australia does one called unhindered. My wife Robin does one called reset your nervous system, reset your life. Hannah Pazquinzo does one called mindful mornings. Everybody's favorite astrologer, Denise Elizabeth Byron does one called flow with the changes. Pete and Louisa Brendel do one on long riding explained. So it's videos on how to long ride if you want to do what they're doing. Super Genie does one called light your life on fire. Shirley Harkin does one called the genie within and Cathy woods does one on mindfulness and horsemanship. And also Emily Ksdotter does one on if you've listened to her podcast episode and she talked about the Hashemite horses which fascinated me, she does one called the seven lines, the teaching of the Jordanian Hashemite horses. And so I can't. It's a four part zoom series and I cannot wait to listen to that one. But yeah, if you guys are interested in doing a bit more of a deep dive into any one of these podcast guests, these courses are great. They're exclusive so you can't get these information, these courses anywhere else and all you have to do is go to courses.warwickshiller.com and you can get started on those. Andrew Cohen, welcome to the Journey on podcast.
- [04:57]
Andrew Cohn
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [04:59]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. From one podcaster to another, I know you have a podcast which we'll get into at some point in time, but before we get started, do you want to explain to me and the listeners what exactly it is you are doing in the world these days and then unravel how you how you got to that point.
- [05:19]
Andrew Cohn
I am a counselor and coach to leaders and teams, mostly in the business world. My background is in law, which I'm sure we'll get into. And I in recent years work more with experiential learning, including working with our equine facilitators, which you know much more about than I will ever know. But I consider myself a counselor and coach to leaders and teams, mostly in the business world. And I get to be a guide and partner in the various learning communities that mostly is in the corporate space. It includes men's groups, it includes community groups, and sometimes families and the like.
- [06:06]
Warwick Schiller
Very cool. So let's unravel how you. How you ended up there. You. You got a law degree and you practiced law for seven years. What led you to the law? You know, like, was. Was it what. I'm always interested in how people ended up doing what they, like, first did. Because you, you know, you get this idea that I want to do this, and then at some point in time, you get drawn in other directions. What led you to the. To being a lawyer?
- [06:36]
Andrew Cohn
I think you frame it well. You get an idea, there's an image, there's a sense of what it is. What would it be like to do that? And of course, when we're kids, we think we know what we think. We have a clear picture of what that is. It's a little bit like marriage. We think we know what that's going to be like. And then we get married, and then the fun begins, in a good way, of course, but the fun begins. I had lawyers around me in my life. My dad was a lawyer, my uncle Godfather was and is a lawyer. It was something I've always been interested in the law. I'm still interested in the law. And I had an image of what practicing law would be like. And it was something where it was also the kind of education that, again, my idea was even if I didn't practice for an extended period of time, it would be useful learning experience. Not just credential, but way of thinking that would be useful to have. I had heard stories of people who were in business who had legal backgrounds or even if they weren't practicing anymore, that legal experience would be very helpful. So what led me to law school was the role models in my life and the idea that I had about what the practice would be like. You know, it's all about, you know, what is it to be a lawyer? It's Atticus Finch. It's, you know, these models of civil rights law or something, or meaningful cases all the time, et cetera. And that, of course, is a miniscule percentage of the actual work that gets done. I don't even know if I dreamt of being Gregory Peck in that film or otherwise. But I did have an image of what it would be like, and I was drawn to it. And frankly, I'm glad I did. Took me a little bit of time to realize it wasn't for me, but I did it because I had an idea of what it would be like and because of these role models that, frankly, were very positive role models about what it's like to work in this space. So I was fortunate for the role models that I still have, and I pursued the idea and until I didn't.
- [08:43]
Warwick Schiller
Did you have a specialty?
- [08:45]
Andrew Cohn
I was in litigation. So I. Which I had a sense of what that was. When I was in law school, I had some experience working for the District Attorney in the city of Los Angeles. I was around the courtrooms in LA at the time of O.J. simpson in the early 90s, and I had. So I had some criminal law experience working with the district attorney while I was in school. And then when I graduated, I got a job working for a small litigation firm that was very. I'll see if you can relate to this work. But I'm a New York kid and I went to law school in la. Very different culture. And the law firm where I was working was a very LA firm. So rather than have golf outings, the partners at this small firm would play basketball every Monday night at a. At a junior high school gym in Westwood in la, and which invite and invited me in. And it was a great place to socialize and connect and connect with the people who ran the place. And I was so grateful because I still have not the slightest interest in golf. And I was. It was just a bit of an alternative place. Good people, family people. Had they not been such inviting people, I'm not sure I would have stayed even as long as I did, which was seven years, ultimately. But culturally, it was a good fit. But litigation in la, in the wacky world of California litigation, we have this thing in this country where everybody's entitled to their day in court, and therefore the courts are filled with all of this nonsense that can't we just work this out? Why are we suing each other for these things? And you hear about these stories about these massive verdicts and otherwise, and it differs widely state to state. You know, the practice of law in California is a lot different than the practice of law in New Mexico, where I now live. It's just a lot more reasonable here than it is in the Wild west world of California litigation. Or at least that's what it was a few decades ago when I was practicing. And it's a space where there's many, many lawsuits. Some of these cases are. I did, for example, a fair amount of construction defect litigation. Well, there was a lot of new construction in Southern California in the 80s and 90s, and a lot of it was built quickly. And that means that a lot of it was built not so well or not perfectly. And so that led to a whole industry of lawyers looking for problems in construction, especially in these massive condominium projects. God, I could feel myself flashing back to that time and place. Perhaps you're hearing my voice change a little bit. This whole industry of people who found problems with roofing things or nailing patterns or irrigation systems or earthquake stable construction. And there was a whole industry of lawsuits, and therefore there was a parallel whole industry of defending these lawsuits largely through insurance policies. So insurance was very expensive. Construction wasn't as expensive as it could have been, but the insurance was expensive. And so the way the construction economy worked was that contractors would load up on insurance and if there was ever a problem, they'd hand it off to the insurance company and they'd hand it off to the insurance company and the insurance company would call us.
- [12:20]
Warwick Schiller
So you were talking about that, and I was just thinking about, you know, the term ambulance chases. And so there's the lawyers that are. Ambulance chase is chasing people who, you know, been struck by a car or, you know, whatever. But I imagine there was a whole lot of construction, construction work chases. Was there?
- [12:42]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, there is some of that. I mean, the thing is, there were some things that I still scratch my head and say, really? Is this what this really is? Do you really want to do this? But ordinarily, if a company or a restaurant or. I mean, I defended. Geez. Over the years, Jeep dealerships, John Deere, heavy equipment manufacturers, Cargill chemical manufacturing, the local karate dojo owned by this very old Korean man who ran this place. I'll never forget speaking with him. He said, no, we need to take care of this boy. He broke his arm. He broke his arm in my class. And I said, sir, he signed a waiver that said that he couldn't come after you. And that's why your insurance policy was x instead of 3x. And your insurance policy is defending you now. But the insurance policy is not going to pay him because he specifically signed a waiver for this. And it was a fascinating meaning. It was sort of a legal human translation that I needed to do, but also cross cultural because of the sense of responsibility that this man had to care for this boy in his class. What do you mean we're not going to pay for his doctor bill? So it was a but, but again, the law is what the law is and people sign waivers. And I suspect you're familiar with the waiver process in your world. There's a reason for that. But the point was that There would be all kinds of lawsuits in California at the time to expose me to a range of different things. What really did most, I think would expose me to, you know, what did I want to be around and what I not. What did I not want to be around? What was energizing and positive for me and what was energizing for me in a negative way? What were the things that I'd wake up in the night and think about what my counter argument was going to be? And that was no fun whatsoever. I recognized that I was a very sensitive boy growing up thinking about being a lawyer. And I'm still a sensitive man. And that was a challenge in that career because to some extent, litigation being by definition an adversarial system, brings out those dimensions in people. It brings out the people who will cheat and be uncooperative and short sighted. And I was fortunate because the people with whom I was practicing, the people who were teaching me how it works, and they were very good teachers, these mostly men, but men and women who taught me, they were teaching me the long game. Right? I mean, today you're representing this contractor in this dispute and next week you might have the other guy and your interests might change. And therefore, and it's the same, even though it was a huge city and a huge number of lawyers, it was the same population of people and you are going to see them again. So I'm not burning bridges with these people. I'm not going to play some short sighted cheating games and put one over on this guy because I'm going to see him next week and the roles might be reversed. And even if the roles are in reverse, and this was part of my learning journey, do I want to be that guy who's playing the short sighted game and who doesn't want to run into that lawyer next week? I didn't want to be that guy. But it took me a while to realize this profession is feeding a certain dimension, a certain part of my personality. And if you know the parable of the two wolves, you know that, right?
- [16:25]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. So which wolf?
- [16:26]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, which wolf is it feeding? Exactly right. So what I would also say too though, is that I did find a way to make it work. And that was to a large degree the people again, who were mentoring me for whom I was working. And we would often do the good cop, bad cop thing. I would be often paired up with the very aggressive litigator person in our office. And the people on the other side would see me and they'd say, oh, so is it either you or him. And I'd say, yes. I said, we'll talk to you. Because just by my nature, I'm much more accommodating, cooperative, caring. And that was very useful at times with certain people. The firm used it well because I was the good cop. And I would say, do you want to talk to me, or do you want to talk to. What's his name? Because he. Do you want me to. Do you want me to get them in? No, no, no, no. We'll. We'll talk to you.
- [17:21]
Warwick Schiller
Just wait till your father comes home.
- [17:23]
Andrew Cohn
Exactly right.
- [17:26]
Warwick Schiller
So it sounds like the. Not necessarily the culture, but maybe, you know, some of the things you had to do didn't quite align with you. But I'm guessing, did you like the puzzle? Like the figuring out of the. It's kind of one. One of the things I like about helping people with their horses is when people, you know, when people bring horses to clinics or whatever, and they have. Most of these horses have quite a bit of trauma in their past with humans and whatever and figuring out how to unravel that. I actually enjoy that. When there's nothing to. There's. When there's nothing to work on, it's not. It's not nearly much fun. So was the, the, you know, was that puzzle part of it attractive to you?
- [18:13]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a good way to put it. I mean, anytime there, I was almost always defending, usually companies, usually businesses, sometimes nonprofits and the like. There was always something to figure out what happened, when did it happen? And sometimes the when and where impacted the insurance coverage question, which was always very important. Who's going to pay for this? That was a whole other side of the legal industry as who's going to slice up the damages. That would be appropriate, but that's different than what are the damages? And is there a legal cause of action in this case? But figuring out what happened, which sometimes was fascinating, Very interesting. If I had a products liability case, I had a parking garage case, Northern California. And I'm noticing myself deliberately saying garage, like. Like an American does, like a New Yorker does garage, where there was rebar in the. Inside the concrete of this garage, right? This post tension steel inside the garage. And that post tension steel failed. And the case became about how did it fail? And it became involving experts and talking to manufacturing people and looking at the pieces that were left over. And it was a bit of a forensic puzzle to figure out what actually happened. I would also add that those situations were much more interesting and engaging when it didn't involve a body like a medical malpractice or something like that, for which I had no appetite and somebody else would handle that. There were certain things I just, again, too sensitive a man to be handling that or arguing over what actually caused this bone to break. But in any case, so the puzzle of figuring out what actually happened, the part that I love the most about it related to that puzzle, was walking the client through the process. So the client invariably would be, hey, what is this? What's this about? We don't think we did anything wrong, what is this going to mean, how much is it going to cost us, etc. How long is it going to take? And so the puzzle was about the it of figuring out what happened, the impersonal dimension of that, and also the very personal, especially for the small business, of what does this mean for us and what's the process? So to be able to walk the client through the process, that was the part that, after a while became clear that was most important for me. So to be able to take this pile of documents, which may have included questions and answers in a deposition interview, a report from an expert, a finding, or a piece of evidence of some kind. And it's not like it is on tv. Oh, we've got the piece of paper that proves, no, no, no, it's rarely that dramatic. But to take that pile of stuff and turn it into a report for the client that says, here's what we've learned, here's what that means for the timetable, here's what it may mean in terms of liability for you, and if there's another party in the case, what that means. Here's what's next, here's what it's going to cost. Here's when. We'll keep you updated. So as I started to realize, that was the part that was most energizing for me. Not taking the depositions, although that was interesting, or appearing in court and walking through the procedural things, which to me was usually very unsatisfying for me, most of the time, courtroom stuff, most of the time it's boring. But when it's not boring, it's often theater. And to me, that was always disappointing and unfulfilling because it wasn't fair. And I had a sense this was part of what my idea of working in the law was like. It was promoting and defending fairness, not getting into the theater of jury trials and things like that. But I recognize it. For me, the part that was most fulfilling was, was trying to help the client solve the puzzle and the communication to the client about here's where we are, here's what we need to know, here's what we're going to do here, how much it's going to cost and turning that six inch pile of stuff into a six or seven page report. And I always love writing and crafting and editing. One of my favorite things, my regular things in my life now work is my partner's week, blogs and essays that she talks to me about and we get to talk through and edit together. So I was, I will come back to that. But I always love the process of editing and refining and making it clear for the client to follow along. My job is to help the client through the process that became very clear and the part of it that was most, most energizing for me. Some of the other parts I just had to go through in order to gather the information that I was then going to share with the client and for them. Hope I'm, I'm looking at this client as somebody who's looking forward and they would say thank, thank you so much for that report. You've laid it out clearly. I understand completely. I'm a lot less anxious now.
- [23:31]
Warwick Schiller
Sounds a little bit like what you're doing now. So how does a, how does a New Yorker end up in la? And I'm. I don't know, I. It's funny, you have this, you have this very calm, empathetic vibe and it's like so not New York or at least I can't say that because I don't know much about New York, but my perception of a New Yorker, that's not it. So how did you end up getting from one coast to the other coast?
- [24:00]
Andrew Cohn
I grew up in the suburbs outside New York City. I could not wait to get out of there. I went to school in Boston. I'm a proud, proud graduate of Boston University. I love that place and what it was in my life. And the people who were from the same part of the world as me, who were there, I quickly distanced myself from them to the extent that I had a New York accent, I tried to lose it as quickly as possible. I just wanted to be not from there anymore as perhaps many 17 year olds feel. And I loved being in Boston. I loved the global student population. I loved. I was a student of international relations and French with a focus in international business and economics. I did a study abroad in France that changed my life just in terms of opening up the world to me in a, in an amazing way.
- [24:57]
Warwick Schiller
Well, let's not skip over that. What.
- [24:59]
Andrew Cohn
Okay.
- [25:00]
Warwick Schiller
What happened in France that. That changed your life? Because I love the saying, going and coming back is not the same as never having left. And it's, you know, if you. Especially if you go to a country that's quite a bit different than yours, when you come back, your hometown is not the same place it was when you. Before you went away. So what was France like for you?
- [25:23]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, I don't know how different. I mean, French culture is obviously different. I lived in a city called Grenoble, where the. Where the Olympics were in 1968. It's at the foothills of the French Alps. It's a beautiful area, and the town is known as a university town. There's a very big university there, more than one known for engineering. The French are, of course, masterful engineering. Between engineers. Excuse me, between the hydroelectric and nuclear and manufacturing engineering, which, of course, I had nothing to do with at all. I was there to take intensive French language courses for four hours a day, which is what I did. But I don't know how different. I mean, it's not as though I went to Morocco or something like that, of course, so I just need to acknowledge that. But where I was, in terms of being in a suburban New York, the shadow of New York City, the consumerism of suburbia, at least in this country, perhaps elsewhere, too, to fall into a different culture. Well, first of all, I became much quieter because all of a sudden I was an observer much more than I was a participant, at least initially. And I think there's something probably typical in that arc, if you will, my dad. One of the gifts my dad gave me was, I think, a love of travel. He traveled for work at times, and he always came back energized by it. I don't know that he ever told a lot of stories about it, but I could see what it meant for him. I could sense what it meant for him. And at one point he said to me, he said, and I'm smiling because he was not the kind of dad that would sit me down and, you know, recount something or provide a lesson in life. That wasn't his style at all. But he said to me, you know, the world is like a beautiful book, and if you don't travel, you only see one page. And so for me, to be able to be embedded in a culture that was different, it felt different, even though, again, it's not dramatically different. I mean, when I traveled to Russia and Bulgaria and years later, it was a very different thing. The customs, the pace, even Just even. Just to be an outsider and at the age of 18, to process what it's like to be an outsider, to have to be deliberate about how I'm communicating. Because I was not fluent in the language when I went over there, much to the dismay of my French mother, who expected that when I arrived at the train station, I'd be speaking fluently with her. And she was a bit disappointed, to say the least.
- [28:14]
Warwick Schiller
Well, it's interesting that you chose France to go to, because it's probably the one place in Europe where they don't speak English much. You know, it's almost like everybody else speaks pretty good English. And as far as I know, the French are like, if you don't speak English, you're an idiot. I mean, if you don't speak French, you're an idiot. Like, we're not going to help you out.
- [28:32]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, there was some of that. There was a fair amount of that. But mostly, I think, like anywhere else, I think that if we try, I mean, it's. I mean, I was not as aware of the ugly American stereotype and image as I am now. Now it's all over the place, if you will, in this country, perhaps. But I still knew that I was a visitor, and the least I could do was try to communicate in that language. And I think that when people saw that I was trying, maybe it was just pity, I'm not sure. But they came around fairly quickly. But it was the dropping into the newness of that, the exploration, just the land itself being as beautiful as it was. The journey of this wonderful woman who opened this room in her flat to me that her son had been living in, but he was off in the French army. I moved into her son's room. I was about her son's age, and she welcomed me. And she had never done anything like that before. She had been divorced a couple of years. She was my mom's age, and she welcomed me into her home. And so for the first month or so, she was running after me, trying to communicate, but I didn't feel comfortable communicating with her. And so I was hiding as politely as I could. For the second month or so, I was chasing her, trying to use the language that I was learning and put it to use. And then after that, for the next three or four months, we had this lovely relationship, really, like his adopted mother and son. She would cook, I would clean up after her. She would ask me to shop, I would do that. We would go to concerts together. So it was quite lovely. But it was definitely life Changing. And it was the first of. I mean, I have not been to all the corners of the world by any stretch, but my interest in doing so was largely activated because of that.
- [30:34]
Warwick Schiller
You mentioned Russia before and you also have a law degree. You didn't work for the FBI, did you?
- [30:38]
Andrew Cohn
I did not. My trip to Russia. If I did, I wouldn't tell you, but no, I did not. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I did not. I went to Russia for purely personal reasons. I was assisting in the. In the presentation and facilitation of some personal growth seminars in Russia and mostly in Siberia, of all places. And it's not remote outpost, freeze to death Siberia, but central Russia. Yeah, it was quite a talk about culture shock. That was quite a wonderful experience. But no, it was not work related.
- [31:16]
Warwick Schiller
So you mentioned that you went to Russia working on personal growth stuff, which. Teaching personal growth stuff, which sounds a lot like what you're up to now. And so you said, well, I read in your Bio that in 1997 you went from practicing law to doing something different. What was the. We'll talk about what the diff. What it was differently that you started doing. But what was the. What was the catalyst for that?
- [31:42]
Andrew Cohn
Well, there were several things that happened during the course of those years. That was in my mid to late 20s. I had some people around me who said, oh yeah, it's around 28 years old that certain things happen, and around 35 years old. Things tend to happen in these cycles of seven years. Some people had some approaches about that. But it was clear to me after a few years of practice that this was not necessarily the career I wanted to have the rest of my life. I didn't want to be billing hours the rest of my life. If I could go into an organization and play a little bit of a bigger role related to legal issues, that may have been something, but that did not present itself to me as an option. And I did not want to be a hired conflict resolver, especially in the antagonistic world of litigation, especially in California. So I began to keep my ears open a little bit. And after a few years of practice, I went back to school and I got a master's in spiritual psychology. And I did not do this with the intention of changing careers. I actually did this because my girlfriend at the time said, why don't we do this together? And I said, okay, because it was something she'd wanted to do. And this type of a theme for me, work is fairly similar. I sort of find myself in A great situation. Not because I was searching for it, because it sort of found me. And there have been struggles in my life, just as in anybody else's life, but I've been lucky. There's been a number of very important things that I found in my life that really have found me. Whereas I hear these stories about people searching for the perfect thing and the perfect program and the perfect spouse, these things tend to find me. I'm very blessed that way.
- [33:33]
Warwick Schiller
I'm totally with you. Because nothing that I'm doing these days was any plan on my part. They came to me. Do you know, have you studied anything about Enneagrams?
- [33:43]
Andrew Cohn
Yes, I'm familiar with them. I don't use it very often in my practices as much as some others do, but I am familiar with them. But tell me what interests you about that?
- [33:52]
Warwick Schiller
Well, I was at a horse expo recently, and someone came up and gave me a book on. On Enneagrams. And so I started reading it. And, you know, there's nine. Nine different types. And in this book, at the start of each, like, there's a chapter on each of the types, each of them. There's nine of them. And I think it starts out with the number eight, but it says the things an eight might say. And then at least it has these 20 statements, and you kind of go through. And like, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that. But the number nine, I went through 20 of them. Fourteen of them are like, that's definitely me. But one of them was something about I tend to take the path of least resistance, and it works out for me, you know, and that's kind of how I ended up here. You sound a little. A little similar, but. Yeah, but that's. Do you feel like that's almost like your Dharma sort of a thing? Like, when good things happen. I've just arrived on your doorstep and you're like, oh, here it is. It's almost like this is what I'm meant to be doing.
- [35:02]
Andrew Cohn
In retrospect. Yes. At the time. Not necessarily. Of course, there's a little bit, like, you know, there's a lovely Paul Simon song called Something so Right. And I think he's talking about a relationship. And do you know the song? He says, if. If something goes wrong, I'm the first to admit it and the last one to know. If something goes wrong. If something goes right, it's likely to lose me. It's apt to confuse me. I can't get used to something so Right. And. And so for me, I. Maybe this is what brought me into the law. But I have a mind that tends to second guess everything. And rather than simply look at and appreciate what's coming to me, and that's changing. That's. I'm growing in that direction every day. But sometimes it's, can I just stop to recognize how amazing this is instead of questioning, well, how did it come from? Or what else might there be? Or are there other options? Or am I sure this is right? But as I look back, I mean, one of my teachers used to say that we try, you know, we live life looking forward, but the only way to really understand is to look back and look at the pattern and connect the dots. But we can't live our lives looking back. We've got to look forward. And so I know for me, I can recognize and appreciate the things that have, that have come my way and have come to me. And it hasn't all been shits and giggles, as we say, but in many significant ways, things have sort of found me. So that master's in applied psychology found me. And it was a. The way I would describe the curriculum is essentially a counseling curriculum. So I was trained to be a counselor. Some people went on to do clinical work. Many people did not. But it was a counseling curriculum and counseling skills and counseling mindsets with an overlay of what I would call universal spiritual principles. And this term might come back later when we talk about my podcast, but universal spiritual principles. So in the context of counseling and working with someone as a resource, as a counselor, it includes, and to me, very importantly, acceptance and forgiveness and loving and compassion. And just especially having been trained this way, I recognize I am biased. But how could this not be part of a conversation with counseling? You know, if you're counseling someone or helping someone through a tough time, that's what the curriculum was. And in part, the way to learn these skills and really get these skills is to practice and practice and practice and work. And as my teachers used to say, the best credential you could offer a client is an ability to work your own process. Doesn't necessarily mean that you would have had to work through the same issue as the client is working through. And I want to be careful with that because I don't know if, for example, if I were ever asked to counsel someone who was moving through an addiction or alcohol, for example, does that. Do they need to work with someone who's moved through that addiction? There's a part of me that says, no, not necessarily. If I've worked through different addictions or something that I can relate, but I also want to be careful because I haven't lived through that addiction. So I'm not going to tell them what I know they need or what they don't need to be clear about that. But, but that's what the curriculum was. And there was a lot of working myself through various things, a lot of healing of past memories and relationships and questioning what am I doing and what do I want to be doing, Hence the evaluation. Do I want to keep in this law practice path that I was on quite successfully, by the way, but that was the path that I was on.
- [38:55]
Warwick Schiller
So this applied psychology degree, you've called it an applied psychology degree, but in your, in your bio it says an applied spiritual psychology degree. And so when we met last year, when we did Kelly's course together, you told me that we were partnered one week to do some homework and you told me you had a degree in spiritual psychology. And I'd never heard the term before. The very next day I had a new podcast guest on the podcast named Kate Neligan. And Kate Nelligan, she spent a lot of time in LA in the conscious media sphere, a lot of the. Like, she was part of the Heal documentary and all those sorts of things. But she has a degree in spiritual psychology. And I said I must need to know something about this because I'm 57 years old and I've never heard the term spiritual and psychology put one after another in relation to a degree. And yesterday I heard it for the first time and then today I'm talking to you and you go in too. So. And she had told me, you've got to do the work. Like, part of the thing is you go through all that healing stuff yourself. Was that the same for you?
- [40:07]
Andrew Cohn
Absolutely, absolutely. You don't mail this in. You don't do it from a distance. You go through it. And Kate, as I look very quickly, is a graduate of the same program in Santa Monica.
- [40:21]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, okay.
- [40:22]
Andrew Cohn
Sorry for the distraction.
- [40:23]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that's.
- [40:24]
Andrew Cohn
But yes, you, you absolutely need to again, because the best qualification you could offer, not to mention your sense of, of confidence and credibility to support another human being is I've been there. Well, I may not have been there, but I've been someplace like there.
- [40:42]
Warwick Schiller
Well, you know, there is a big place, but yes, sir. Yes. Yeah. May not have had your problem, but I've worked through some stuff.
- [40:49]
Andrew Cohn
Yes, exactly, exactly. So, absolutely. And so you, you. So, for example, in the second year of that two year program, which by the way, was designed for working people. It was all on weekends, with the exception of some five day retreats in the California desert in the summertime and after each of the two years. But it was, it was, I mean, I would, I would go do these weekends. Nobody in the law firm knew what I was doing. Everybody who had their head down, billing hours. But the second year of that program involves some sort of a life project. And for me, that project became exploring a career in consulting. At the time, in the mid-90s, there really wasn't a career in executive coaching. It didn't exist yet, in fact, something we could talk about. But coaching really didn't, as far as I'm concerned, really hit its stride until maybe the mid 2000s or something. My first coaching client in 1999 was, you know, oh, we're getting him a coach. And that was not a compliment, that was a warning. That was not something that was a, we're investing in you for development because we believe in you to succeed in this role. It was, you're on the way out, so we're going to get some person.
- [42:02]
Warwick Schiller
You're like a last resort sort of thing.
- [42:04]
Andrew Cohn
You're a last resort or you're our first witness in the wrongful discrimination lawsuit that this person's going to bring because we're going to fire him. Perhaps I was still skeptical, thinking like a lawyer at that time, but so it was exploring a career in consulting. And the beautiful thing about the curriculum which really helped me actually, even as I became a coach, well, the curriculum I use every day in my coaching work. But the project needed to involve work on the physical level, the mental level, the emotional level and the spiritual level. So there needed to be initiatives and strategies and activities on each of those levels. So on the mental level, I'd be reading books or interviewing people. On the emotional level, I might be just, just exploring what was happening. At the feeling level, did I need to forgive anything? Did I need to process anything? On the spiritual level, it was, is this in line with what my spiritual intention is? Or things like that? And on the physical it was, I was interviewing people. In fact, that's where I needed something. I remember thinking, what am I going to do in the physical? I'm going to do the physical. And somebody said, have you thought about something in the martial arts? And I said, yes, I've always been interested in that. And somebody turned me on to aikido and they invited me to some place. Again, this is a great example. Did I go searching for, oh, I tried 15 different dojos? No, no. I just dropped into one place, and it fit beautifully. And I wound up practicing there for three years. And that was the beginning of about 15 years and two black belts in aikido. And that started with the physical dimension in that second year of the master's program. But the. But the belief was. If you're going to interrupt you for.
- [43:52]
Warwick Schiller
A second, of course. So interesting that, you know, in your degree, getting a degree in applied in spiritual psychology, that the physical thing you chose was aikido, which is. Out of all the martial arts. It's probably way more mental than physical anyway.
- [44:13]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, that's interesting. I don't think of it as mental. I get how it can be thought of as mental. For me, it's very. There's so much flow to it.
- [44:26]
Warwick Schiller
That's the mental part. So I was listening to a book by Ram Dass the other day, and he was talking about this friend of his who was a black belt in aikido, and he lived in Japan, and he was on a train one day, and this great big Japanese, he looked like a construction worker guy who was drunk gets on the train and he's swearing and yelling and kind of being totally belligerent and stuff. And this guy said he'd been practicing aikido for so many years and he'd never really had a chance to test himself. And, like, this big guy, like, he's twice his size, but, you know, if he gets close enough to me, I'm gonna. Whatever. And the big guy kind of made his way down the carriage of the train, and he's yelling at all sorts of people and swearing and just being completely belligerent. And he stopped right in front of this guy and turned, and he almost had his back to him. And he's thinking, okay, I'm about to do the thing. And there was a little old Japanese man sitting on the seat there, and this big drunk guy said something to him. And the little old Japanese man said, what you been drinking? And this guy says, sake. He goes, oh, I love sake. What kind of sake have you been drinking? I've been drinking this kind of sake. And he said, yes, my wife and I, we like to take sake in the evenings and. And we like to sit out and watch the leaves on the persimmon trees, you know? And the guy's like, well, I don't have a wife. My wife died. And the conversation goes on, and the big drunk guy ends up sitting down and putting his head in this guy's lap and crying and the aikido guy was like. And right then I realized I didn't know anything about aikido. It's about that non forceful. It's about coming to a peaceful resolution. And I was going to do physical things to this guy and this little Japanese man showed me I didn't need to. So it's kind of. That's the. I don't know if it's mental, but there's a mindset to it that's not.
- [46:25]
Andrew Cohn
Oh, yes.
- [46:26]
Warwick Schiller
It's not that it's not a dominant. It's so much aligns with, you know, like the course we took with. With Kelly and all Kelly's work about that. You know, it's not a power over dynamic, it's a care for dynamic, you know.
- [46:42]
Andrew Cohn
Yes. And it's absolutely. And it's a different kind of power. Right. So it's not a muscle power. So it's interesting. So it, in a way it is mental. But the mental game is to stay out of my head. Because in aikido, what you're. You're not leveraging muscle, you're extending qi, or qi in Chinese, what you're extending key. So. And there's a lot of strength. So I remember I even, even in talking about it, I have a visceral sense of the. What we would call the extension of ki. Right. The movement of energy from me. And it feels different in my body than when I'm not talking about or what. Or when I'm not aware of it. Because you practice this, you practice feeling this move through you and it's an incredible source of physical strength. Just if you need to move something or deflect something, you're not philosophically and principally, you're not never moving directly against someone. It's. It's really against. It's all about redirection and flow and it's very circular, but you're not moving right against someone. There's no boom. Yeah.
- [47:56]
Warwick Schiller
It's not linear like that. It's very.
- [47:58]
Andrew Cohn
It's. Yes, it's. Exactly. But. But it's how to stay out of my head. And, and that was one of the reasons it's continued to be such a gift for me. Because when, when it, when you. You have to get to a certain level of proficiency, it doesn't take very long. But when you have those moments, it's like having a moment of being in love or having a moment of being in the forest or having a moment with a horse of deep connection and you just want more of it. And the distinction between Being in my head and thinking and worrying, especially as a lawyer, and this, this constant enticement that I would feel towards. What's my next argument? The wolf that I did not want to feed, that my profession was feeding. Aikido was such a refreshing counterbalance to that because it taught me, among other things, it taught me, but it taught me how I could get out of my head and I could drop into my body and I could drop into a source of power that is beyond me, that's available. And it's not a power that's inflicting. It is a power with, not a power over. I mean, one of the principles of aikido is you care for your attacker. That's not exactly something we see every day in this country.
- [49:14]
Warwick Schiller
That's what I meant more about when I said it was mental. It's more, you know, it's, it's, it's. There's a mindset to it that's not. I would say it's probably not similar to a lot of other martial arts, I'd say.
- [49:32]
Andrew Cohn
And what I would say is that's what I've heard. But I found aikido and that's all I've practiced. So I don't know. My nephew is a rising star at the age of 14 in judo and I look forward to some conversations with him about the differences in the martial arts, both in terms of learning about judo, but also, of course, learning about him.
- [49:55]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, so it was interesting. You were talking about. There was the five day retreats out in the desert, and when I had Kate Nelligan on, she was telling me that's where she had some major things happening. And you also mentioned the word healing before. And one of the things you do, men's retreats. And I want to, I want to get to that at some point in time because I've been involved in a couple and didn't know anything about them. And most men don't know anything about that. Like that men's movement and those men's retreats and how powerful they are. But you mentioned the word healing. I imagine a lot of men would. If you mention, especially of say of my generation, if you mention something about my healing or whatever, they think, what are you talking about? But that healing is unraveling. The shit you're carrying around that you don't even know you're carrying around. And looking back, you go, I was going through the world this way because I was carrying this baggage that it's invisible baggage. You don't even know it's there. And I imagine those five day retreats in the desert had a lot to do with a lot of that stuff. But my question here is, how did that going through all that affect how you viewed your job as a lawyer?
- [51:25]
Andrew Cohn
I didn't think that's where you were going at the end of that question, so thank you for that. Well, what it showed me quite clearly because what would happen is I'd leave those five day retreats and then the next day, or if we finished on a Friday, Saturday, I'd have a least one day to re enter society before going back to work on Monday and picking up my time sheets once again. But it really reminded me of what I wanted to move toward, because the distinction between, especially on day four or day five of those retreats where everyone is soaking in an intention to support and care and learn and practice for one another, and also to push ourselves just a little bit more towards what can I release? What can I let go of? What do I no longer need? This is a place to do that. So by the fourth or fifth day, you're operating in another realm. You don't want to drive home, especially on the freeways in Southern California.
- [52:18]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [52:19]
Andrew Cohn
But it showed me what I more of what I wanted and what I wanted less of as well. That was also important. And it also showed me that even while I was still going back to work and in that practice of law, in the, in the antagonistic world of litigation, that these are people and these are people often who are just. I would go, wow, you're gonna go there. That's what you're gonna do. Okay. You know, and hopefully, Warwick, I feel as though as a result of some of my learning, maybe I should use the word healing, but I don't want to offend anyone as a result of some of my learning, I could think, wow, you're gonna go there. Okay, okay. As opposed to you're gonna go there, you.
- [53:10]
Warwick Schiller
Right, right.
- [53:11]
Andrew Cohn
Which may have been the older me that still comes in from time to time. So it definitely the experience helped with some of my rewiring for sure.
- [53:22]
Warwick Schiller
Don't you find that those sorts of experiences, though, like those healing experiences where you kind of start to unravel your stuff and you, for me, it's. It's like you start to understand why you make the choices you make or act the way you do, and then you realize, oh, I wasn't being an asshole. That was something in my part, you know, further back in life that triggered me that I haven't healed. And then you Then you have the perspective when someone else does something that in the past, you would have said, he's being an asshole. You have a different perspective on why he's doing that thing he's doing. You understand? It's, you know, it's an unhealed part of him that's showing itself.
- [54:08]
Andrew Cohn
Absolutely. And I think what you're. I like how you just said you understand what's happening. It's understanding, and it's compassion. So it's. It's. And I think compassion opens the door, right, to reflection, which opens the door to learning and thinking and feeling about things differently. So a very important dimension of. And you tell me, as you work, for example, with people and their horses, for you to hold a space of compassion. Oh, maybe I have a sense of. As I observe this person and how she's treating her horse, you can have a sense of compassion for why she's showing up that way, and it's right.
- [54:50]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, most certainly. I heard the best line the other day. I was listening to a book by Rick Rubin. You know who Rick Rubin is? The music producer. Famous music producer. He's won Grammy Awards. Everything from, like, I don't know, Beastie Boys to rap to heavy metal to Pink to Boys to men. You know, the whole gamut. But he wrote a book called the Creative act, and each chapter is on a little snippet on something or other. And one chapter is on patience. And people have always told me that I'm patient with horses and also patient with people, like when I'm helping them with their horses. And I don't think I'm patient, but lots of people say I'm patient, you know. And Rick Rubin had the best line in there. He said, impatience is simply denying reality. And I went, oh, that's why I appear to be. I appear to be patient because I don't deny reality, which means I have a. You know, I have a lack of impatience. That doesn't necessarily. I don't think it means I'm patient, but I don't have impatience because impatience is denying reality. And so if you. Like you said, if you have compassion, you understand how this person came to be acting that way or thinking this way about their horse. Yeah, I just love that line, you know, Impatience. It really helps.
- [56:15]
Andrew Cohn
It's a. It's a beautiful line. And it's. It's. It's really accepting impatience is not. Is. Is. It's not accepting the pace of reality. Right. No, this should be going faster. This should be a. Something like that. There's A certain pace. And. And this is where the horses. In. In my limited experience with the horses, is. Is the horses operate at the right pace? I mean, would we ever judge the horse. The horse is operating at the right pace.
- [56:45]
Warwick Schiller
Their nature, you know, you plant a seed in the ground, you don't stand there and get mad because it's not growing fast enough. It's like.
- [56:51]
Andrew Cohn
That's right. Or try to pull it out of the ground. Right, right.
- [56:54]
Warwick Schiller
It takes the time it takes. And you've. Yeah, so. Yeah, so imagine that. That the spiritual psychology thing is probably what led you to your. Your next thing. So in 1997, you stopped practicing law. What was your first step after that? On the. On the path to what you're doing now professionally?
- [57:14]
Andrew Cohn
It was a. It was a lean few years as I was figuring out what I was doing. And at the same time, I moved back across this vast country, back from Southern California, back to Philadelphia. So I was born in New York, went to university in Boston, flew to la, or, well, actually drove to la, but flew across the country, so to speak, lived in LA, moved back to Philadelphia in 1997. And in part because I got engaged, people said to me, wait, you moved from Santa Monica to Philadelphia? That's, you know, it's like moving from the circus to the orphanage. Somebody from Philadelphia told me that, by the way, otherwise I wouldn't have the right to repeat the story.
- [57:58]
Warwick Schiller
I was there a couple of weeks ago and it was nasty cold, so I can see why people would ask you that question. Yeah.
- [58:04]
Andrew Cohn
Although it is some beautiful horse country there as well, in the Philadelphia area. We invested some time and money to teach my son to ride very well, and he comes out here and rides with Kelly, and that's the dividend of that. Of course, I never could have foreseen that my son would be riding in Santa Fe with my partner here. But, yeah, so I went back to Philadelphia and was engaged. And there was all of this appropriate and lovely energy of settling in and finding my wife, et cetera. Some lean years. So I began to facilitate workshops in the corporate world. My first engagement was facilitating workshops for Deloitte around the country with their partners in offices all around the US on their gender initiative. What's it like to be a man in this culture, a woman in this culture? How do we talk about the tension points related to culture in our office? How do we work together as teams? How do we travel together? How do we figure out how assignments are made? How do we offset the numbers being what they were? I remember The CEO at the time saying, you know, we hire at a rate of something like 52% of new hires. And this was usually at a business school. 52% of new hires, I think, was the number are women. But when it comes time for who's eligible for partner, it's 92% men and 8% women. He Very diplomatically then said, I don't think we have a glass ceiling, but I definitely think we have holes in the pipeline, like noted. But in any case, and it wasn't a. We were working with the existing partners. We were not trying to solve the problem of numbers or anything like that or representation, but the discussions about gender in the workplace, and I think about that now, Warwick, as I'm moving into doing more men's work. And what were the conversations we're having with people at work, and then what are the conversations that we have with men in other settings? Because that professional experience also bears well on some of the men's retreats. I've been involved with men's circles for almost 30 years, and. And it's been an important part of my growth. What I would share is that when I did my master's program, there was a good friend of mine, dear very unique and powerful man, who, month after month, he would come into the classroom in Southern California, having flown in from another state, and he'd say, dude, you got to do this men's weekend. Dude, you got to do this men's weekend. And I'd say, you know, you're scaring me. This. This whole thing about men, you know, going up the mountain. I don't know what they're doing up there, and what sort of crazy ritual, you know, sacrifice is happening up there. And he would laugh and. And finally, the year after he and I both graduated from this master's program in 1995, the year after, he called me up and he said, hey, I'm going to be coming to Southern California to staff a weekend. Maybe it's time for you to do it. And I said to him, the whole thing scares me, honestly, but I trust you. And if you're going to be staffing and you tell me it's okay and you'll keep an eye on me, count me in. And so I was very fortunate.
- [61:14]
Warwick Schiller
What scared you? What was the story you were telling yourself about what was going to happen?
- [61:20]
Andrew Cohn
That's a great question. Let me think about that, because that's an important question to answer clearly.
- [61:27]
Warwick Schiller
Did you think it was going to be ritualistic sacrifice, or did you have an inkling that there's going to be vulnerability in front of other men. And was that the scary part? You know, which one of those.
- [61:42]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah. I mean, so what can't. What came. What comes to mind for me first is I don't know that I trusted to be in a space that was all men, you know, up on a mountain somewhere. I don't know that I trusted men. Which relates to what you're sharing about vulnerability, of course, but I don't, I just don't know that I would feel comfortable, especially.
- [62:06]
Warwick Schiller
Sorry, I was going to say, is that because you are a sensitive man. So you're not what we call in Australia a blokey bloke. And you're thinking you're going to be up on this mountain with all these blokey blokes and you're going to be like this outcast. Is that what possibly was going through your head?
- [62:26]
Andrew Cohn
There was a part of that, I think that's definitely true. Like this sort of. I mean, who's going to come to a weekend that's all about men? Well, only the manliest of men. And maybe we'll go up there and have to like, you know, skin some animals of some kind or something like that. And I knew that wasn't the case. I mean, I knew enough about this man and he told me about it and, and, and that's part of how I felt comfortable. But, yeah, I don't, I just don't know that I trusted a circle of men. And I never had an experience of a, A, a supportive and nurturing circle of men. And even if I flash back, when I think about where in my youth or just in growing up, where have I been in groups of males, it would have been in the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts in the us And a lot of that was about competition. So even though it was a supportive community group, we were competing for things. And I was tired of competing, especially with everything that was happening in my law career, because everything is winning and losing. And that was something I did. I was another wolf that I did not want to feed. But, you know, as it turns out, I was, again, I was very fortunate. I didn't experiment with five or six men's groups. He came to me and said, this is this group that I've been involved with for the last five years. And I said, great. I did it. It was wonderful. I stayed involved and still am involved with that group called the Mankind Project. I know they do groups in Australia as well as here in the US and elsewhere, and I don't love everything about it, but I definitely love enough about it. And I was very fortunate because for me, in terms of an environment for learning and helping me build my various muscles of learning and awareness, the spiritual psychology curriculum and classroom had a very, very predominantly feminine energy. It was all about compassion. And compassion is feminine. In my experience, compassion is feminine. But then we introduce this male thing where it is very male, and the experience in these weekends that they call initiatory weekends, very, very male energy. But it didn't have to be contrary to the compassion. It was a different type of male energy. It was supportive, it was nurturing. It was. I was blown away. I was like, oh, my God, it could be like this with a circle of men. It's unbelievable. And so I consider myself very fortunate that that found me and that I continue to participate in it. And it is something as well that has also taught me about the. What I want to say, the sort of. And Kelly speaks about this too, and I think she did in the class that we did together. But she talks about the. The sword of the warrior as a very compassionate, discerning sword. It's not a destructive sword, but you need to be able to pull that sword out. And one of the things that a good men's weekend can do, particularly of the type that the new warrior training adventure could do, and there are others, I'm not saying it's the only one, is that it provides a place where men can give that voice a voice, where men can, for lack of a better term, or maybe this is the best term, I don't know. We'll get letters, as we used to say, it provides a place where men can roar, where we can let that voice out. And that's something that can happen in my experience with other men and needs to be with other men, because only another man can understand that. And I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that with a woman in the room, especially somebody I don't know. Whereas with another man, I don't know, it may even be more inviting. So it provides a place for that sort of expression and that very masculine energy. So my point in sharing that is it provided a beautiful counterbalance to the feminine energy of the master's program. So now I feel, wow, now I really feel a little bit more equipped, first of all, to live my life and secondly, to help other people.
- [66:38]
Warwick Schiller
Have you ever heard of a book called I just got it up here, this one, To Be a Man by Robert Augustus Masters?
- [66:51]
Andrew Cohn
I've heard of it. I haven't read it, but tell me, tell me, tell me.
- [66:54]
Warwick Schiller
It's called to be a Man, A Guide to True Masculine Power. And it's fascinating because as you start to, you know, do some work on yourself, be vulnerable, whatever you. You find that some of the things you share that you think you, you know, you should be ashamed of and no one else would ever think that way. And you get. Other people go, yeah, me too. And like, oh, so you. And it's almost like you get almost all the things off your chest that you thought no one else would understand, but they do understand it. But then you think, oh, but there's all this other stuff that I'm never gonna tell anybody because they're not gonna get it. So I was kind of at that point in time, like, you know, I've shared the stuff that's shareable and the other stuff's just me. Then I read this book and it's like, this guy's been inside my head. Like, it was like, oh, my God, this guy. Yes, he said the same thing. And yeah, it was absolutely. It was fascinating. But there's a lot of it about power. And either. Either end of the scale having. Having access to power, but it's only anger and it's uncontrollable or kind of being afraid of your own power, which is. And it's funny, that Enneagram book, I was talking about one of the things in there. So I'm apparently a 9, but one of the things in there that. That. That nines don't have access to their own power because they're actually afraid of their own power. And yeah, it was really. It was really, really, really interesting stuff. Especially the power stuff.
- [68:34]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's. I think that is in my experience with men's circles, that is a common experience. It's like to sense my power as a man. And of course, that's a whole thing to double click. Well, what does that mean? But my power could mean my anger. My power could mean my hunger for something. It could mean my ambition, it could mean lust. It's something that's male and feels like a drive. Right. And these are often things that we do not talk about. We don't talk about it. I mean, maybe we talk about ambition and that's a good thing, you know, to be competitive and top of the mountain and be the lead wolf. And if you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? We don't talk about it. But. But in some of these shared circles where we start to recognize, to your point, oh, wait, everybody in this circle deals with that. Everybody in the circle deals with that. And it's. So what I find is that I don't know. I mean, I was very fortunate. I stumbled upon personal development work in my early 20s. And like I mentioned, I assisted in some of this work in different parts of the world in my early to mid 20s. I'm grateful to my law career for enabling me to pay for that, those experiences. But especially now as I move into a different type of men's work and stepping into this, to your point, to invite a man to consider some of these questions, if he's going to go there, I got to go there first to some degree. I need to demonstrate an ability to take the first step and to walk with him. But it's okay. It's okay, brother. I've been there. We're okay. I'm not going to push you anywhere. I'm not in the pushing business, but I can share a little bit about what I've been through. And even as I explain that the fact that I'm talking about, I have been through it in the past, it's more available as I'm now 60 years old, I just have more of a sense of I don't want to waste my time on what's insignificant and unimportant. If there's a man here who's struggling, what can I do to support him? Most of the work that I do is in the corporate world, but I still meet men where they are and I meet women where they are as well. And I love working with women because they can. That there's a certain opening that can happen. And maybe they don't have other men they can talk to this way about. Nothing intimate. I don't mean to suggest that, but there's an opening that can happen. And there's a part of me at this stage where I don't want to mess around with what's not important, you know, and if you're holding something that you're struggling with, let's talk about it. You know, I'm with you. I'm sitting right next to you in this boat.
- [71:23]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, there's. That there's been able to create that safe space to where they can, you know. So one of the. What we've been doing since the podcast. About a year into the podcast, we started having podcast summits. Kelly came and presented at the one out here in California last year.
- [71:41]
Andrew Cohn
Yes.
- [71:41]
Warwick Schiller
And one of the things we started doing last year at the one in we had in the UK was we started having. At the end of the day, we started having these connection circles where you split up into groups of probably 20 or whatever, and there's. There's a topic to. Not to discuss. But if you've got anything you want to say about the particular topic, like, I think the first question the first day might be what is something that you've learned today that you think you want to take home with you and continue on with or whatever. And they're called connection circles, but there's no discussion. Everybody that speaks. When you speak, the only right answer from everybody else is a little. Put your hands together in a little namaste and like, thank you. That's it. That no one's fixing. Because a lot of people don't have a space where they can actually just say things without either being judged one way or the other. You know, someone trying to fix it or belittle you or whatever. And the first one we did was it in England. And two out of the three days that I facilitated one of those circles, someone said something and then kind of looked around the circle and said, I just realized I've never told anybody that in my entire life. And one of them was my mother's age, and it was little girl stuff or something about something that happened or someone said to her. I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't a terribly traumatic thing, but it was something that happened when she was like six and this lady was in her. She had to be 80. And I was like, wow, what a. What a. You know, what a.
- [73:24]
Andrew Cohn
What a gift.
- [73:25]
Warwick Schiller
What a gift it is to be able to cultivate a space to where someone can get off their chest. It's been there for 70 years. You know what I mean?
- [73:35]
Andrew Cohn
Right.
- [73:36]
Warwick Schiller
And so, yeah, totally get that. Making that. Creating that safe. That safe space thing.
- [73:41]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah. And the, and the end. As I've heard, as I've heard it said, the only appropriate response is gratitude, like, thank God or thank whomever that I was able to be in this room at this time. You know, and. And these tend to be conversations that are more that are foreign to most men.
- [74:03]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, yeah.
- [74:04]
Andrew Cohn
So. So a lot of the, the men's discussions that I. That I'm leading these days are just places to reflect upon what's important and just. And raise it and share it and be seen for it. I am not. I do not hold myself out as an initiator of men. I don't do intense Initiatory weekends with deep ceremony or things like that. I love that work. It's important work, but that's not what I'm doing. My work is a little bit more. I sometimes will say, if you're men's group curious, this might be for you. So curious. Right, so. So it's, you know, it's more about finding the simple, lovely support of a group and the opportunity to take the time to reflect upon things that are not like, to your point, very often a lot of the decisions that I make, I'm not making. I mean, I am making. I have to take responsibility for them, but I'm just making the decision that I was taught.
- [75:00]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [75:01]
Andrew Cohn
And making it unconsciously or certainly not mindfully at all. I'm not even aware of I'm doing it. And if somebody challenges me on it, I'm going to defend myself and yada, yada. Well, hold on. Just. Is this what I really want to be doing? Am I taking the time to consider what's really true for me? So the. The men's retreats that I'm. That I did. I did my one in here in Santa Fe in October. Next one's next month. Please join us if you're available April 2024.
- [75:32]
Warwick Schiller
We'll talk about that later.
- [75:33]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, yeah, 2025.
- [75:35]
Warwick Schiller
Sorry.
- [75:36]
Andrew Cohn
There's a quotation that I love, and I like to start the. So I needed a title for this weekend, and I call it Genuine Masculinity. And so what does that mean? And in fact, somebody was recently, you know, pushing back on it online when I posted something about it. But it has to do with a quotation from an American theologian and civil rights activist named Howard Thurman. I'm not sure if you've heard his name. And the quotation is, there is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.
- [76:26]
Warwick Schiller
Wow.
- [76:28]
Andrew Cohn
The question is, what is genuine for me? And that is a gorgeous, glorious, incredibly powerful question. And do I have the courage to consider what's genuine for me, whether that's about my sexuality or my vocation or my physical being and what I choose to do, how I express myself, where I choose to live? I mean, there's a. Obviously, there's infinite areas of inquiry, but as a man, am I, you know, what's genuine for me? How do I want to show up when I sometimes, you know, in the circles, when I raise this. I don't know if you've heard of this, but I think it was in early 2024, CNN put this question out to certain. I think it was X number of thousands of women and said, if you were hiking in the woods, would you rather come upon a man or a bear? Yes, exactly. And the question was, would you rather come upon a man or a bear? And overwhelmingly, the women said bear. And that led to this whole online viral thing. And some men were pushing back in snarky ways. And then they asked men the same question, and more than half of the men said bear. And we are so afraid of men. Even men are afraid of men, but not as much as women are. But to be, for example, to be in a mixed circle and to hear from women that they are reflexively afraid of men, that they, a man that they don't know, they just see a man approaching on the other side of the trail or something, and this is what they feel. This is an experience that most men, certainly straight men, don't have that experience. So to be in a mixed circle and to recognize, whoa, my God, what is. I never would have even thought of that. But then we become aware of this, and what do we do with this information? What do we do with this information? Do we deny it? Do we argue against it or something like that? Or do we say, wow, well, how does that inform how I want to be? That, to me, is the most meaningful inquiry. How can I use this?
- [78:34]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And how did we get to the point to where they'd rather meet a bear than a man in the woods? You just said something about at least for a straight man. And it made me think of homophobic men and why they're homophobic. And the way I kind of perceive that is if, if, if there was a woman in the room, they'd be thinking lewd thoughts about them. And so they assume if there's a homosexual man in the room, you're going to be thinking lewd thoughts about me. So it's kind of a projection thing, wouldn't you say? Like, you know, oh, totally. If I was gay, I'd be wanting to, you know, take advantage of me.
- [79:40]
Andrew Cohn
Get with this guy. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's completely a projection, in part because the man who's feeling, the man who's running this judgment can't imagine what it's like to live in there.
- [79:54]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [79:55]
Andrew Cohn
And so it's by definition, a projection, because I'm not hearing anything from him. I'm just projecting what I think he might be feeling. It's. It's a very powerful and very. It's a very threatening inquiry for a lot of men. It's like, well, what is it about that that is threatening to you? Like, what is it about that that's uneasy? And maybe it is a notion of. I feel like somebody might be looking at me in a way that's uncomfortable. Now, of course, many of those men don't mind if the woman is looking at them that way, but if another man is looking at them that way, does that mean I have to do something that I can't imagine doing? It doesn't fit for me? Or I just don't want to be objectified that way? Hello. How do we think women feel?
- [80:32]
Warwick Schiller
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's the point I was getting at, is they're the objectifiers, and so they assume that, you know, that they're getting objectified. So don't come anywhere near me.
- [80:44]
Andrew Cohn
Well, and if. If we are, let's. Let's just carry this through just a little bit. So, wait, I'm a man. I'm an objectifier. That's part of my role. This man, or at least my projection of this man, is threatening that part of my identity. Right? Wait a minute. Wait, I'm not supposed to be the objectifier? Or, wait, I'm not the only one allowed to be an objectifier, somehow that's threatening some. Some dimension of my identity in some odd way. Yeah, but I. But I say that. I mean, I make the distinction straight man and gay man because. Well, partly because I don't know what it's like to live inside of that in this lifetime. I just don't have a reference for it. And also because it does play a major role, and it is a point of great discomfort for a lot of straight men, including me. Sometimes it's discomfort, and we don't want to look at our discomfort. Nobody wants to look at their disc. I shouldn't say nobody, but it's a hard thing to do. It's learned behavior to turn toward your discomfort.
- [81:53]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, very much so. And so, you know, that's. Those. Those men's groups are fascinating.
- [82:02]
Andrew Cohn
Is it?
- [82:03]
Warwick Schiller
If there's, like this. Let's say there's any men listening now? I'm sure there's some men listening to the podcast who may not have had any experience with men's groups. Can you talk maybe a little bit more? A little bit More about them. I think it's a fascinating subject, but it's. And maybe people think it's like you thought it was. We're going to go up the mountain and skin an animal and howl at the moon and pee off a cliff. You know.
- [82:31]
Andrew Cohn
Oh, wait, is cliff peeing not okay? Is that perfectly okay? Right. Men rarely have the opportunity to think in a focused way about who they want to be, especially about who they want to be as men, not who they want to be as a vacuum cleaner salesman or who they want to be as a, you know, a board member of an organization. But who do I want to be as a man and what does that mean to me? To be able to look at issues of gender, about expectations, for example, what is expected of me and how do I feel about it? Do I, like. You know, most men take pride in being a provider. And at the same time, I don't want to try to quantify this. A lot of men resent being expected being a provider, to be a provider that way. Where do I get to say that out loud? Not at work, you know, not in my mixed gender groups. There's a certain category of conversation that is so much more, I would say, emboldened, empowered, invited, as a circle of men, because the other men in this group will get it and the heads begin to nod. Right. You share something with me that's meaningful to you if it resonates with me at all, which if it is something having to do with gender, again, especially in terms of straight sexuality, it might be different in other settings. And that doesn't mean that I only invite straight men to my weekends. In fact, I want gay men on the weekends because I get to learn from them in this way for things that. And I want to get out of my projections. I want to hear from your experience. But we can relate to one another's experience in a particularly unique way. When it's just men in the circle and the conversations are largely about expectations, values, what is genuine for me, how do I want to show up, what's important for me, what was painful for me in my past having to do with being a male or a young man or a boy, what was I taught, and if I could express something about some experience of shame or some experience of whatever it may have been as a boy, yes, of course, it's something I might share with my partner or my girlfriend or wife, et cetera, but there's something about sharing it in a circle of men where everybody in the circle can to some extent probably relate to it. There's a recognition, there's a support, there's. I'm seeing some of myself in you and I feel seen when I see how you respond to me and the way that the support can come together. It's usually quite startling. Of course, I never promise anything to men in this regard, but it's quite startling how in a relatively short amount of time, these are like my brothers here, because we've shared some things. I mean, not in a forced disclosure kind of way. I do not believe in forced disclosure, but I do believe in giving people an opportunity to reflect on what's most important and in fact, strongly encouraging them to reflect on what's most important. Important, including myself, to reflect on what's most important, to share it with someone and then have the opportunity to share it with a group. And then that's either there may be something to claim out loud, to own, to claim, to celebrate, to recommit to. And it could be something to release, to wave goodbye to, to say thank you for your service. I know that you, you, you, you led me to do this because you wanted to keep me safe or because of a sense of loyalty to my dad or because it's what I thought it was. Right. I'm letting this go now. Thank you. It's gone. And to be witnessed in that sense is really, really powerful. It's just a different dynamic than clearing something through journaling, which I also am a very big believer of, but it's just a different dynamic. Very often, to use the word healing, if you'll permit me, healing is often a shared activity. It doesn't need to be, of course, but it's often and it can be uniquely a shared activity. And in a circle of men talking about issues of gender and expectations and role and what's genuine. For me, the opportunity for reconnection to what's most important and release of what isn't is quite strong. And in my case, when I'm able to do these retreats in Santa Fe in the spring, I have one in Santa Fe and two weeks later I'll be co leading a weekend in the woods outside of Prague of all places.
- [87:00]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, really?
- [87:01]
Andrew Cohn
This is where the world takes you? Where the world takes me to be able to do and to have a portion of the weekend that involves the horses, where the men, we are all identifying what are our values, what is most important to me, what maybe do I want to release? What does it feel like in my body? Let's go be with the horses. And to have that dimension of It, I'm just thrilled to be able to include that in the experience because of the opportunity to, to, to embody certain qualities, the opportunity to have that reflected back with the horse. And there's a whole array of other things that can happen that of course, I don't need to tell you about.
- [87:40]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, the, the, the one that I went to, you know, the first night we started out in this big cabin. It was up in the hills above, outside of LA there. And the guy that was facilitating, we sat around the fireplace and he goes, okay, so we're going to get around the room, introduce yourselves, and then we're going to go in the room. And if you feel like you want to, we want you to share something you're ashamed of that you've never told anybody before. And he said, no, I'll go first. And what he spat out, we were like, well, if he can tell us that, I can tell you anything sort of thing. And we all ran around runs once and then he goes, does anybody want to go again? And that was the start of the weekend. And you know, that opening up and, and basically everybody having some skin in the game.
- [88:30]
Andrew Cohn
Now, let me just, Let me interrupt you for a second. So skin in the game meant we are all to a certain degree exposed or something like that. I'm not sure if that's the right word. But skin in the game is. We're all invested in this vulnerability exercise. That's what I hear.
- [88:43]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Like I'd been to therapists and they sit over there and they ask you questions and you talk, but they've got no skin in the game. Like they are not, they're not being vulnerable. You're gotta be vulnerable, but they just sit over there and nod sort of thing. And I just found that, that, that whole having some skin in the game thing was a complete game changer, especially with men and especially, like you said, when the heads start nodding. And that's when I first started realizing, oh, some of this stuff that I've held onto forever because I'm too ashamed to tell anybody because I'm the only one who feels that way. You know, there's nine of us here and seven of them are nodding like they've been there before. You know what I mean? And it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's amazing. And you're just going to Prague. When we had our podcast summit in England last year, we had a meet and greet the night before and there was a guy there that I met who's from maybe One of those Eastern bloc type countries. And he had listened to the podcast episode I did with the guy who led the men's retreat. I went on, and he said he'd. He'd been over here. He's been to three of his now, I think. But this guy, when he shook my hand and introduced himself and he was telling me this story, he looked me in the eye and he said, you know, thank you for introducing me to that. But when someone's been through that, the way they look at you is different. Like, he didn't. It wasn't like he was looking at, like, 2 inches short of my eyes. He was looking into me. Like, you could tell there was an openness there. It's. It's. I don't know you know exactly what I'm talking about, but.
- [90:28]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah. Or almost, perhaps two inches behind your eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful. What a great experience to have. And. And it's hard to. It's a little bit hard to explain. It's a little bit hard to explain if you haven't had it, but if you had, it's. It's worth trying to explain it.
- [90:47]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. No, yeah, most certainly. So, something else I want to talk about with you because you said you've been in men's circles for 30 years. What, what. What came first? The spiritual psychology degree or the men's circles?
- [91:01]
Andrew Cohn
The spiritual psychology. Okay.
- [91:03]
Warwick Schiller
So that kind of led you into that method of inquiry.
- [91:06]
Andrew Cohn
Well, it did it. Well. And this friend of mine who invited me in, or. And I had heard about it from elsewhere, but he had made it safer for me, I guess, is the way that I would put it. Yeah. And so in. In these circles, these ongoing circles, the. For the people who have done this particular weekend, there's a community of circles all over the world, and you have that common experience because you've gone through the weekend. There's a sense of common language. There's a commonality that way. Often that's very, very useful. Sometimes it's not, but it's often very useful to have that common experience. We have a certain. We can refer back to something. And even if I wasn't in the room with you when you did your weekend, as compared to when I did mine, there's a common language or framework for things, which is helpful. It's not essential, but it's helpful.
- [91:51]
Warwick Schiller
And is that the Mankind Project you're talking about?
- [91:53]
Andrew Cohn
Yes.
- [91:54]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [91:54]
Andrew Cohn
Okay.
- [91:55]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, very cool. The other thing I wanted to chat with you about is you have a podcast that you started in 2023. With the most amazing name, spirituality and leadership. Tell me, how did. How did the that subject come up? What made you decide to do a podcast on it?
- [92:16]
Andrew Cohn
I was hiking in Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico with my partner Kelly, and I was expressing to her about my challenges with marketing and promotion and things like that. Or more honestly, I probably could say that I was whining about marketing. And she said, well, let's break this down a little bit. What would you want to put out into the world that would be the voice that you would want to put out into the world? And I thought about it for a second and I said, I've been noodling on this podcast about integrating spirituality and leadership. And so it took me a year to, I think, to finally launch the first episode. It's a big learning curve for me. I don't know how. I mean, I watch you do this, and it's just the easiest thing in the whole world. And however you do it, it sure looks easy from the outside.
- [93:13]
Warwick Schiller
It's easy to have a conversation with interesting people, if you're curious.
- [93:17]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, I appreciate that. And it is. And so my original hypothesis is just in the worlds that I was operating very personally connecting with people and then very professionally supporting people, in my capacity as a coach and leadership consultant and counselor to leaders and leadership teams and organizations, I would hear so often how people were working on things and working on parts of themselves, sometimes the most important parts of themselves, as they would describe it. I want to be more forgiving. I want to be more caring. I want to be more compassionate. I want to be more present with my kids. I want to be more focused on what's important. I want to take care of myself. So a lot of these qualities, what I might say, some of these are the most important dimensions of ourselves. In the spiritual psychology program, their framework, what they would call the map of consciousness, was a recognition that we have what's happening on the physical level and then the mental, emotional, which some would call the ego. And then down below, this is what in the parlance of spiritual psychology, and not just spiritual psychology, but also Buddhism and other faiths, that's the self level, right, where it's non duality. There's no judgment down there that's sort of like always running, always available below the positive and negative of the good or bad, physically or positive or negative emotions or judgment or acceptance, etc. On the physical level, down below, there's no polarity. And down below is where these qualities live that I'm speaking of, that I would hear so often, and including for me, oh, I'm working on this in myself. And then I would talk to people at work about what they were struggling with or whatever, and I'd say, well, wait a minute, didn't you just say you were working on this outside of work? How can we bring this in? Because my hypothesis, Warwick, is that the workplace needs this now more than ever, especially as we're virtual younger team members. Work is just a little bit more tenuous than it's been in the past for a lot of us. And how do we bring these qualities into our leadership in ways that are inclusive and adaptive and effective? And that was the opening hypothesis of the podcast. And so I'll ask people about these dimensions. What I've learned is that people hear my introduction and they sort of. Some guests, fascinatingly, if that's a word, they'll go, you know what it means to me, Andrew? It means focusing on what brings you alive, or it means helping people find their passion or helping people find their purpose. Or it means just respecting people in the deepest sense. And my response to that is, yep, absolutely, that's what it's about. But tell me how you've done it as a leader. Tell me how you've seen it done. Tell me how you can. These qualities and these dimensions and these values and this, this energy, for lack of a better term, can come in in an open, inclusive, inviting way, not in a way that's. Well, I went to church and this is what I was taught. And we all have to believe this because that's alienating. And the thing is, most people of strong faith that I've met, they don't want to be dogmatic and proselytizing. They want to bring the best of their faith experience in a way that invites people, because they know, in my experience, and I am generalizing, that that's what's important. They know that it's not about converting people, it's about serving people. So there's been a range of guests in different areas. I've got a whole bunch more lined up. It's been fascinating. And for me, I'm so grateful that I stumbled upon this and found this. This venue, this very low barrier to entry thing called a podcast. Because for me, it's just so important to have a place to discuss how we can do this. And this is the work that I do with organizations. It's not always using the word spiritual in any sense of the word. It could just be as simple as how do we accept people more or respect People more or have more compassion for someone whose style is different or whose culture is different. Different. You know, how do we. How do we engage in healthy conflict while being respectful and extending and bringing these wonderful qualities of ourselves into conflict? Because the workplace needs healthy conflict. That's part of our job as leaders, is to promote healthy conflict. And in fact, in my relationship, my. If. If I feel like we're glossing over something, we're cheating ourselves. No, we need to engage in this, and we need to lock up a little bit about this and do this dance. Can we trust each other enough to engage in this healthy conflict? So I want to be. I'm glad that this has come up through the course of my rambling, if you'll forgive me, is we talk about healing, and healing can be tough. Healing can be leaning in and saying, you know what? I am scared to say this to you, but I have to say can be fierce. And so it's not, oh, healing is all about crystals and, you know, laying flowers on our foreheads. It can be tough. It can be rough in there, in that arena. But once we're clear about what we need to do, consistent with our values, we got to do it. And I feel so fortunate that they get to work with people in that process.
- [99:19]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it's got to be. I bet it's more gratifying than when you're a lawyer, a little more aligned with how you view the world.
- [99:30]
Andrew Cohn
Oh, it's. Well, yeah. I mean, I. It was. It was. It was gratifying at certain moments to do that kind of work, but the level of gratification was. No, no, no. Much smaller, if we can call it that. But that's. But that's also what led me to move in this direction. So through the course of that master's program, I realized I really wanted to be working with people and helping people, not resolving issues impersonally. I am not an impersonal person, if I can use that term. I know that about myself. I'm sensitive, and I like to engage with people. And I want to know what's happening with you now in my place, I almost always work with people in a business setting, except for these men's retreats. So often the presenting issue is a business issue. It's a conflict with the team. It's a problem of engagement or motivation or balance or something. It's in the playground of the workplace, but it's personal.
- [100:27]
Warwick Schiller
I was going to say, how often is it nothing to do with the playground of the workplace, but it's all the stuff that they bring from their past to the playground of the workplace.
- [100:37]
Andrew Cohn
Yes, sir.
- [100:38]
Warwick Schiller
You know, I had a guest on the podcast last year who was a intelligence officer in the Australian army in the Special Forces, actually. And he was a. They called him the. The. Was he the bomb catcher? But anyway, he was the intelligence. But he would find bomb makers.
- [101:02]
Andrew Cohn
Wow.
- [101:03]
Warwick Schiller
That was basically what he was doing. But anyway, when he got out of the. The army, he had severe PTSD and attempted suicide. And now him and his wife are counselors. And his wife has a master's in social work and a master's in terrorism. I've never met anybody with those 2 degrees side by side.
- [101:23]
Andrew Cohn
I've never heard of a master's in terrorism. Oh, boy.
- [101:26]
Warwick Schiller
But he was saying that a lot of the stuff they help with, with people with PTSD is not war stuff. It's before that stuff. Then everything's laid on top of that. And they're doing a lot of. And it sounds like that's kind of what you're doing here is, you know, you've got work stuff, there's the business stuff. But what's causing you to act that way in the workplace is that kind of how it goes down?
- [101:58]
Andrew Cohn
Absolutely. Yeah. That's right. What does it trigger? What's being threatened, what's being activated, if you will.
- [102:11]
Warwick Schiller
That's kind of shadow work.
- [102:13]
Andrew Cohn
Exactly. And in that way, I'm focusing on what the aggravating factor is. But then there's also the. What's the part of me that wants to emerge from a place of satisfaction and achievement? One of the reasons I love working with people in the workplace is that people get a lot of satisfaction out of doing good work. And that's something to be pursued. That's not superficial and insignificant. That's something to be pursued. I want to help people unlock what they can individually and collectively, so that together we can achieve something. Because that. I mean, I find that people are most threatened and also most fulfilled in their personal intimate relationships, their marriages and otherwise. And at work. Right. I am most threatened and annoyed and frustrated, whatever, and also most satisfied out of what I can achieve or create. And maybe it's the intangible objects and widgets that we're making, but maybe it's as a leader to empower other people to realize and challenge themselves and do what they didn't think they could do, etc. There's a whole lot of fulfillment at work, even as messed up as the working world can sometimes be. And I'll certainly acknowledge that there's a whole lot of fulfillment that can happen. And therefore it's a playground to me that's worth playing in because I've had people say to me, why do you continue to work with people in the corporate space? It's so dark and corporations are evil and I'm exaggerating, but I do hear that from people. And my response is because I think that first of all, I do believe that corporations still run the world. Sometimes there's a blurred line between corporate interests and government interests. Leave that for now. But corporations are extremely powerful and corporations are led by people. And there's an incredible impact that corporations can have, certainly on the climate, but also on employees, on stakeholders, on customers, on communities, et cetera. And you know, this movement towards sustainable development goals and triple bottom line. And corporations are thinking about these things and they're thinking about it through people. And I want to work with those people because they have a powerful impact on the world so that I do. So for me, I keep going back to that corporate space. I mean, I'm very open to working with people outside of work as well, but I tend to meet people in the business space just because of what the rewards can be and also of how challenging it can be.
- [104:41]
Warwick Schiller
So on top of all that big ramble there, forgive me for calling it a ramble, but one of the questions that you chose is what do you feel is your true purpose in the world? And I feel like this would be a great place to lay that on top of all that.
- [104:58]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, for me it's really about integration. It's about integrating the deeper parts of ourselves with perhaps the more day to day mundane quotidian parts of ourselves. And you know, to bring the spiritual dimensions into the workplace, to bring the physical, normal realities of life into the places of higher connection, whether it be in a relationship or otherwise, or raising kids or something like that, but really about integration. That's how I see it. I often perceive myself if I'm working in an organization as I am a middle child and I often perceive myself as a professional middle child to get into the family of a team and help them work better, integrate, acknowledge what needs to be acknowledged, fight clean and come together and understand each other better. But really integrating that personal dimension with that professional dimension and integrating all four of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual or self, however we may define that and integrating that. So for me, I really see myself as one way I could describe it, is essentially like a minister for hire in different settings to come in and help people make peace with these different dimensions, however they may define them. I'm not here to tell you what to call something any more than I'm here to tell you what success looks like for you. But it's interesting, one of the things that being a lawyer taught me as a litigator, where in the morning you're representing a contractor in a construction defect thing, and in the afternoon you're representing a. A producer of a chemical that is alleged to have injured somebody. I mean, your world is always changing. I'm used to not understanding the details of the business that I'm supporting. I'm used to feeling overwhelmed and, oh, my God, I don't know enough about what's happening. But my role is a role of process, not necessarily a role of understanding all the details of the business. So I'm grateful for that legal experience because it serves me well when I now go into other organizations. In the morning, I'm coaching a CEO of a railroad technology company. In the afternoon, I'm working with a woman who's the CEO of a small defense contractor, and I'm working with a team of finance leaders in an aviation company. That was my day yesterday. And I'm used to moving between those worlds, and I enjoy moving between worlds. It's stimulating. It's very interesting. Wait, what? Tell me about your business. What do you do? How do you make money? And my legal experience prepared me to not really know what's going on and to be okay with coming in to offer support without the substantive knowledge.
- [107:49]
Warwick Schiller
Right. Without knowing that.
- [107:50]
Andrew Cohn
If that makes sense.
- [107:51]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Without knowing about all the ins and outs of the whole business.
- [107:55]
Andrew Cohn
Yes.
- [107:57]
Warwick Schiller
One of the other questions that you chose, and you may have probably already talked about this yet, but I don't know which one it is. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
- [108:09]
Andrew Cohn
Being a dad? I don't know if I could call that an accomplishment, but it's certainly something that I'm the most proud of. And I'd probably say the reason why is because I made that a priority. And it always has been a priority for me, and it still is. And I think I'm most proud of the. I mean, I'm not saying I'm most proud of. I did this great. I did that great. But I'm most proud of prioritizing that the way I did, both in terms. Certainly in terms of my activity and time, et cetera, but also in terms of my. Like, I knew that this was, if not the most important thing I could do in this life, it would certainly be, you know, first or second. I knew it from the beginning, and I treated it that way, and I'm proud of that.
- [108:58]
Warwick Schiller
I have a question for you. So when did you do your spiritual psychology degree, and when did you become a father?
- [109:07]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, so I became a father after the spiritual psychology degree, after doing this men's work.
- [109:15]
Warwick Schiller
So the reason I'm asking this is because when you unravel your stuff and become aware of, you know, how much of an effect, say, little T traumas have, you know, big T's, of course, have effects, but how much little T traumas affect you and how insignificant they may have seemed. Like if your parents inflicted these little T traumas on you, how insignificant that little T trauma seemed to them at the time. Once you unravel that, you're like, wow, like, those little things make a big difference. And does it. Do you feel like that informed the choices you made as a father?
- [110:05]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, I believe so. I think. I think, too, I'm. Some of the. I mean, a lot of the work and unpacking that I did during that master's program helped me see some of the. What I want to say is it's not the best way to put it, but some of the mistakes I didn't want to make, but it was more just directionally. What did I really want to pay attention to? I think. I think. Look, every. Every. Every child, I think, wants to be fully accepted by their parents. And I think that every parent wants to be forgiven by their kids because we didn't do it perfectly or perfectly for that child, for what that child needed. But in fact, that's part of the perfection of growing up. You know, it's all perfect. Even though part of the reason it's perfect is because I now have this thing to work with because my parent messed it up or messed it up in a way, as I'm judging it.
- [110:56]
Warwick Schiller
Right. Yeah. They provided you with, you know, it's almost like if you're into Buddhist stuff, they provided you with some challenges that were actually your soul's purpose this time around anyway. So they were just doing their job.
- [111:11]
Andrew Cohn
Exactly right. Thank you very much. Yeah. So it is something that. I mean, it's not about getting everything right. It is much more about intention and energy and consciousness. And, I mean, there's. There's very few moments of a day that go by that I'm not thinking about my. My son. And so that. That certainly jumps to the top of the line. And the other thing I'd say what I'm most proud of is, is just having walked away From a very clear, successful career, lucrative, you know, very much laid out in front of me and moving into the space. That's much less clear. That's much. Well, it's much more iffy than, you know. And I've had people in my life who said, wait, so you walked away from that? You know, I'm like, yeah, because I had to. And that's not. That's not being heroic. That's just what I needed to do.
- [112:08]
Warwick Schiller
Which you, you know, you're. You're blowing it off. But that is pretty heroic. You know what I mean? Like, a lot, especially in this culture where status and money and all that sort of stuff and. And, you know, safety and, you know, things being.
- [112:36]
Andrew Cohn
Security.
- [112:37]
Warwick Schiller
Security, that's the word I'm looking for. Thank you. Tough word to find that one. Yeah. All that security, walking away from that. Most people would kind of go, that's. How could you do that? But most people have, on the podcast are now doing something that's not the normal thing. And a lot of times they had to walk away from the normal thing to do what they're truly meant to be doing.
- [113:03]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, I absolutely would agree. And I think, Yeah, I don't know that it's. I mean, for me, I suppose that it's. It's not heroic, but it's courageous because it's courageous to break out of the force field of a predictable, defined career path. So that's definitely true. And sometimes a little blind optimism and naivete and dreaming can go a long way. It can get us through some periods of time.
- [113:31]
Warwick Schiller
Hey, it got me here. So all those.
- [113:33]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, I know that's true. But. But the other piece is like, I just, I was for, you know, and even like, you know, my ex wife and we. We got together and I was changing careers and she was unbelievably supportive, and it was the right relationship at the time in terms of helping me move through that. And she was changing careers and as well. So I really benefited from just, you know, what was happening personally. At the same time, it was. It was happening professionally, and it was just clear that I needed to move in this direction. I was also fortunate from a practical point of view that I made this big career change before the kid arrived, so it seemed like I was less concerned with how are you going to feed this little fellow? I did not have the family home mortgage obligation and the financial risk, et cetera. So it was a good time for me to do it or a better time for me to do it. But overall, I hear what you're saying, and it's a big change and sometimes you just got to do it. You just got to do it. And I was lucky that I did. And I was lucky that I did when I did as well. I sometimes joke with people. I mean, I've been in the leadership development space now full on, it's coming up on 28 years. And I joke and say, well, well that's because I started at the age of 10. No, not really, but. But it is, it is. I consider myself very fortunate that I've been in this space a real long time and worked with different people with different methodologies and technologies. And I've worked in one on one training and experiential learning and, and formal corporate thing and ropes courses and experiential things. And now of course, equine assisted learning with the horses here in Santa Fe. And that's become a. It's breathed a new life into my work with more experiential work in the work that I'm doing. So I'm just consider myself really fortunate. And we live in a time where the, of course, the science is catching up with some of these practices. Right? I don't need to tell you that. And so it's an exciting time to be in this field of people development and growth because the science is catching up with it. And there's whole areas of science now that can sometimes persuade some of the skeptics to be a part of the conversation because it's a whole zeitgeist towards industrial psychology and learning and making this more mainstream, which helps people like me have some of the conversations we need to have. I'm grateful for that too.
- [115:59]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, we live in a pretty exciting time where there's no reason for anybody to be uneducated on any subject. And you talked about starting your podcast before. Like we've never had this. We've never had this much information available of any type, like whatever you're interested in. Excuse me, There's a podcast for it.
- [116:22]
Andrew Cohn
Yes sir.
- [116:23]
Warwick Schiller
Even spirituality and leadership.
- [116:26]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, imagine that.
- [116:27]
Warwick Schiller
Imagine that.
- [116:28]
Andrew Cohn
Imagine.
- [116:29]
Warwick Schiller
So what else was I going to ask you here? One of the questions you chose. What's a common myth about your profession? But first you have to exactly quantify your profession for that one.
- [116:42]
Andrew Cohn
My profession, I mean the net net distilled version is it's leadership and team development. Sometimes that happens one to one. Some happens with teams, sometimes it's leadership learning sessions, workshops that may happen in front of the room or keynotes or things like that, but that's the field. So what was the question?
- [117:02]
Warwick Schiller
What is the myth? What is a common myth?
- [117:05]
Andrew Cohn
Common myth is that development and growth is soft. Like healing is soft. Right. It's, you know, it's a luxury. It's touchy feely. When in fact, like I said, when talking about, for example, the metaphor of the sword, it's like, no, if you want to get in there and really look at that. And when I work with corporate leaders and I say, this is the feedback that you've been getting. Are you hearing this? No. Are you hearing this? What are you prepared to do and to really hold it up to someone? Not because I've observed something. I'm outside the system, as we've discussed. I'm outside the system. But how do I hold this up for them and say, well, how do you really want to look at this? Because if you want to, if you're trying to use a metaphor, if you're trying to tend to your garden and you've got some weeds to pull, you don't approach them with a scissors or even a lawnmower. You got to get under the surface.
- [118:15]
Warwick Schiller
Right? Yeah.
- [118:17]
Andrew Cohn
You know, and so it's not soft by any stretch. It's not. I mean, it is a luxury to be able to have these conversations in the world that we live in. It's a gift to have to take the time to do that. And I recognize that every day. And I hope my clients appreciate that as well. And I approach it that way. And if we're doing this, it could be tough. If we're going to be honest, it's going to be tough because we can't. I will not push people, but I will also not deny something that's present. And sometimes to acknowledge something that's present and to hold it up, it's not necessarily always fun to hear, but I see that as part of my job. And whether that's with a team or an individual or in my partnership or otherwise, it is not for the faint of heart.
- [119:08]
Warwick Schiller
Sounds like you might be good at the five whys.
- [119:11]
Andrew Cohn
You know, the five whys, yes, I'm familiar with that. But tell me about your experience with that and what it means for you.
- [119:19]
Warwick Schiller
I just read about it in a. In a book one time, and it was fascinating because I talk about it sometimes at, you know, horse expos or clinics or whatever, and I say it's a good method of figuring out what's going on, really what's going on. You know, like my, you know, a lot of times it comes on the. The back of someone Saying, my horse reared up. Okay. Stood on his hind legs. Horses don't want to do that. Usually horses that rear up are trying to get somewhere else. They're trying to either get away from something or get to something. They're trying to run home, or they're trying to run away from something scary and the rider won't let them and the horse rears up. So, you know, the example I use, like, my horse reared up. Why? Well, he was actually trying to spin around and run home, but it wouldn't let him. Why? Why did he want to run home? Well, he is quite herdbound with his friends. Why? Well, because he doesn't really trust me. Why? Well, because I treat him like a tractor, you know, whatever it is. But yeah, it's just. Yeah, I just love that method of inquiry. Trying to figure out what's really going on.
- [120:42]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah. No, and inquiry is such a beautiful thing. It's a, you know, it can be a major, major vulnerability to actually be able to go there and to ask, I mean, to ask good questions is an incredible skill. And to be able to, you know, meet people with the right language. It's interesting because in the world, you know, as I was trained as a young lawyer, you're often trained, don't ask a why question.
- [121:13]
Warwick Schiller
I had a lady at a clinic in England who was a Oxford educated lawyer and she was a trial lawyer and she said, you never ask a question you don't know the answer to because you might get the answer that you don't want.
- [121:28]
Andrew Cohn
That's right. And you're trying to control a process and you're trying to control an outcome. Absolutely. And I was taught the same thing. But I mean, I love a why question. I also love a how can I rephrase a why question. And the reason I say that is not because I. It's because I want to be careful with a why question. Because often a why question will put someone on their heels. Like, why did you do that?
- [121:50]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [121:50]
Andrew Cohn
Is. Is it like, oh, I feel like I have to defend myself? But of course. And it's funny, again, I'll come back to editing and, and working with documents and words. And Kelly and I dance in this space a lot. I love to find the right words and I need to listen well enough to know what the right words might be for a particular client. But what was your thought process behind that? Or what led you to that conclusion? Or what was going on for you at the time that that was the result? Or just different ways to ask the why question.
- [122:22]
Warwick Schiller
It's a lot less abrasive. It doesn't put them on the back foot sort of thing. It doesn't.
- [122:26]
Andrew Cohn
Or, or potentially. Yeah. But I'm totally in agreement with the five whys. I think it's. It's brilliant. And it's. Do we need to use that exact word? No, that's not really the point. But just to get underneath.
- [122:35]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it's like, well, this happened. Okay, so let's figure out why that happened, but this happened before that. Well, why did that happen? And let's figure out.
- [122:41]
Andrew Cohn
Yeah, yeah, because if we're, if we're going to make the effort to get rid of that weed and, and try to prevent it from growing back again, you got to get down there.
- [122:51]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Sounds like you do a great job of that. So how can, how can people find out more about you and what you offer?
- [123:01]
Andrew Cohn
Thank you for asking. My primary website is www.lighthouseteams.com. my business is called Lighthouse Consulting. I also work through Equus, as you know. That's E Q U u s equusinspired.com here in Northern New Mexico. And my podcast you mentioned is called spirituality in leadership, spiritualityinleadership.com or wherever you get your podcasts, as people like to say. And I certainly appreciate the conversation and welcome any inquiry that people would have. It's. There's so much to learn in the space that we're in work, you know, and I'm grateful for this conversation. You work in a space that's really new to me, and I have a lot of curiosity, not to mention wonder about the work that you do. So I'm grateful for the conversation.
- [123:53]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, thanks for joining me. It's been great chatting with you and I'm sure especially some men listening to this may have got something to think about because that's, that's the great thing about these podcasts is, is the feedback I get is like, oh, so and so said this thing and it changed my life. Or I, I went down a, you know, a rabbit hole of inquiry about something and that changed my life.
- [124:17]
Andrew Cohn
And.
- [124:17]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, that's why I love having people like you on here to just plant seeds in people's minds. And.
- [124:22]
Andrew Cohn
Thank you. Yeah, it's a gift to be able to do that and also to feel myself being planted as well. The planter or the plant E, if I could say that. And, and yes, we do have a retreat coming up here in Santa Fe April 25th. I'm not sure when this will be broadcast. Whatever is appropriate, but there will be.
- [124:40]
Warwick Schiller
More it'll be out in a couple of weeks from now, but so it'll be probably the beginning of April, but yeah. So that your retreat information is that on your Lighthouse Teams website?
- [124:52]
Andrew Cohn
It's on the Lighthouse Team's website, also on my LinkedIn page. And again, it's Andrew Cohn C O h. And you will find me.
- [125:02]
Warwick Schiller
Perfect.
- [125:02]
Andrew Cohn
Awesome.
- [125:03]
Warwick Schiller
Well, thank you so much for joining me, Andrew. I really appreciate you sharing your story and your wisdom.
- [125:08]
Andrew Cohn
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.
- [125:10]
Warwick Schiller
And you guys at home, thanks so much for joining us. And we'll catch you on the next episode of the Journey on Podcast.
- [125:16]
Andrew Cohn
Thanks for being a part of the Journey on Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video library@videos.warwickshiller.com Be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.