Episode 115: Brilliant Resilience — with Lena Cohen-Hawkins

Lena Cohen-Hawkins is an international speaker, powerhouse business consultant, three-time author, and corporate trainer. As a master’s level clinician and executive coach, Lena counsels people on how to access, understand, and regulate emotions, in order to excel in the real world and find fulfillment in their careers and personal lives. She has worked with companies like CBS, Prudential Financial, United Way and The United States Army, and has shared her story on the TED Talks stage.

During this episode, Lena and I talk about her third book, “Brilliant Resilience,” which was published in July 2020, including:

• How a surprise phone call from an old friend made her new book her passion project for 2020
• How she turned a major disappointment in her career into a new start
• How her self-awareness and faith allowed her to move forward in the face of trauma, loss and disappointment
• How sometimes, support comes from the most unlikely places

To find out more about Lena and her work, you can find her on her official website, lenacohen.com. You can also buy her book, “Brilliant Resilience”, on Amazon, and connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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The episode transcript is below.

Today, on Beyond 6 Seconds.

Lena: This is just a moment in time, you know? There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and I felt like a lot of people needed that message of hope right now, not just with COVID but with a lot of social unrest, just this moment, so much going on, and I felt like I needed to share some positivity and some light with the world.

Carolyn: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the 6-second first impression to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Did you know you can watch the video of this episode on the Beyond 6 Seconds YouTube channel? I posted the videos of my most recent episodes there. Just go to YouTube and search for Beyond 6 Seconds. Also, while you’re there, please click the red Subscribe button under the video and then click the little bell icon so you never miss a video. Thank you so much, and now, here’s my interview with Lena.

I’m very excited to be here with my guest today. Her name is Lena Cohen-Hawkins. She is an international speaker, powerhouse business consultant, three-time author, and corporate trainer. As a master’s level clinician and executive coach, Lena counsels people on how to access, understand, and regulate emotions in order to excel in the real world and find fulfillment in their careers and personal lives. She has worked with companies like CBS, Prudential Financial, United Way, and the United States Army. She has told her story on the TED Talk stage and she also stays connected to the community through public service with her non-profit, Women Operating in Opulence, and by working as a legislative aide for the 28th District state of New Jersey. Her third book, Brilliant Resilience, was published earlier this year. Lena, welcome to the podcast.

Lena: Thank you so much! Each year when I redo my bio, I’m always like, wow, that’s a lot — it’s always a journey so it’s great to hear and remind myself.

Carolyn: Yeah, you have so much in your bio. I mean, that was only a selection, you know, of all the amazing things that you’ve done and really that’s what I took away from reading through your latest book, Brilliant Resilience. You really share a lot of amazing stories about your life and your career and all of the things you’ve learned in that book and I’m excited to dig in to that and bring some highlights to our listeners today so they can learn more about your story.

Lena: Absolutely, and I’m excited to bring in and we all have to just keep pushing and that’s how I got here.

Carolyn: Yeah, absolutely. So just to start off, what inspired you to write Brilliant Resilience?

Lena: Well, you know what, Brilliant Resilience is the message that I have brought previously to the world through workshops and through corporate training so it’s something that I had talked about for a long time, but last year, I said, you know what, I really want to talk about some of these huge milestones in my life and, honestly, COVID was just like — it just hit like a ton of bricks I’m sure like maybe for you and for everybody else. It was another one of those milestones and I had time off so I was home, like most people, and I said, you know what, I had already done an outline for the book and I said maybe 2020 I’ll write it and maybe 2021 we’ll do publishing and marketing and all of that, but once I got that time off and I was home, I said, well, let me just start writing and I started writing and then – whoo — depression and anxiety and just loss, so much loss in my family and just dealing with so much. I got set back a little bit and then my girlfriend called me out of nowhere and she said, “Lena, you told you were working on a book this year,” and I said, yeah, I’m still working on it and she’s like, “God told me to call you and tell you don’t wait, to put it out now.” I was like, what are you talking about? I haven’t physically talked to this young lady in like over a year and when she said that, you know, I mustered up the strength and I made the book a goal project for me. So it gave me the strength to get up every day, it gave me the strength to refocus myself and put myself back on a schedule of goal setting and, for me, it really saved me during that time because I was slipping a little bit and, you know, a lot of the conferences were being canceled so all of my speaking engagements were being canceled left and right and I was wondering what I was gonna do financially. Being in the house with my husband 24/7 so that was new for us. So, I mean, there was a lot happening and I wanted, you know, to let people know that this is just a moment in time, you know? That there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and I felt like a lot of people needed that message of hope right now, not just with COVID but with a lot of social unrest. Just this moment, so much going on, and I felt like I needed to share some positivity and some light with the world.

Carolyn: That’s incredible and just so amazing that you were inspired within yourself and also by your friend calling you out of nowhere to come and finish this book at this time because, you’re right, I think it’s really a very difficult time for everyone no matter what, where we are in our lives or what we’re doing or what our circumstances are, it’s a really challenging time, so, yeah, I could definitely see how your latest book really brings a lot of hope and inspiration to people through the telling of your story. Absolutely. So, you know, you share a lot of personal stories in your book. As you were writing and kind of going through the process, how did you uncover those stories and put them together? How did you pick which ones would go in the book?

Lena: Interestingly enough, I didn’t the pick the stories. So, each chapter is highlighted by an affirmation. “I am strong,” “I am transparent,” “I am conscious,” “I am not alone,” and what I did was I enlisted my friends and family to really look at different things that happened in my life that inspired them or allowed them to keep pushing or a time where they saw me going through something and they were able to draw inspiration, motivation, or strength or resilience from that situation and say, “You know what, if Lena could do it, I could do it.” So, I’m so gracious for all of my loved ones that decided to participate in the book and they picked the stories and then I told the story from my perspective. So, they open up the chapter talking about how they were inspired and then I give the backstory — because we always see like the outside thing where everything is shiny and nice and, oh, she had this book, but then people don’t see the depression and the anxiety and the loss, right? Oh, you know, she is going to school, but they may not know that I was a dropout and then I was in an abusive relationship and that, you know, I couldn’t afford to pay my tuition. Oh, you see the end goal, a lot of people see the end goal, but they don’t know the backstory or how we were able to get to that place. So, I’m excited that they were open enough to even talk about their stories and how I inspire them and then I kind of give the juicy background details.

Carolyn: Yeah, I saw that as I read through the book is that you have those introductions, well, one, each chapter, as you said, starts with an affirmation that makes up the definition, I guess, of Brilliant Resilience, all the pieces of it, and then it follows with a short story or remembrance or a note from the different people in your life that talk about you and their impressions of you around this story — and I just thought that was really a very creative and compelling way to start out each of the chapters and, yeah, it’s just really interesting to bring those other perspectives into it and then, as you said, you fill in the backstory of what it really took to get to that point where the people who are writing were inspired by what you did.

Lena: Yeah, you know, I mean, essentially, when we look at the definition of “brilliant resilience,” right? So the original definition of “resilience” is to bounce back, right? So we want to bounce back from something, but who wants to just bounce back, right? We want to be better than we were before when we’re met with challenges, right? So having brilliant resilience is going to the next level. “Brilliance” has two meanings, and in the first one is more of an intellectual definition. So, what are we learning from our challenges? How do we get better? What do I take from this experience? How am I growing from this challenge? Whatever is happening in our lives right now, I’m always thinking, okay, what am I supposed to be taking from this experience? And how is it creating the person that I’m striving to be? Which characteristics is this situation testing, right? So that’s kind of the intellectual side. And then the second meaning of “brilliance” is to shine, which is kind of how I came up with the idea to allow friends and family to kinda chime in. So, when you shine, you’re able to let your light glow, so to be able to go through things and do so with grace, you know, and to have a sense of gratitude in spite of and to create impact so that other people in your life can say, “If she went through this and she stuck it out, then there’s hope for me, I can do it too.” And that is where the beauty in our challenges come, right? Because we forget our kids are watching us, our family members are watching us, our co-workers, our neighbors, and you never know who you’ll inspire just by living out a life that exemplifies gratitude and brilliant resilience.

Carolyn: Oh, yeah, and thank you for explaining the definition of brilliant resilience because the term “resilience” seems like it’s very popular these days and people are somewhat familiar with that but adding that “brilliant” part to it is really beyond just being resilient and just surviving through the challenges. As being brilliant is, as you said, you know, what do you learn, how do we grow and thrive and become better people, so it’s really powerful.

Lena: Absolutely.

Carolyn: So, you share so many pivotal experiences from your life throughout this book and you make it very clear in each chapter how each of those experiences prepared you for the next experience in your life, for the next challenge or the next success that you met. You got so many stories and I only wanna touch on maybe, you know, one or two of them because I don’t wanna give away the whole book, but I think one I’d love to stop on and learn a little bit more about, it happens early in the book, was your experience at CBS. There were a lot of things going on around that time, it seems like, with, you know, education just in your life and then in your career and I feel like, you know, a lot of people in their career have these types of challenges where they’re working towards something and then it just doesn’t work out the way that they expected and I think a lot of people get really lost or angry or confused about it so, you know, I’d love to learn a bit more about your experience at CBS and kind of how you worked through all of that and how it prepared you for the next challenge.

Lena: Yeah, I think we all have to realize that every event in our life comes for a reason, you know? And there’s something that’s at stake and there’s something to learn and there are ways to grow and, for me, that time in my life was, like you said, it was traumatic in a lot of ways because I was a college dropout so I had re-entered school and I was working my behind off and I graduated at the top of my class and I got this internship and I was like so excited about it, but at the same time, I was like, I don’t have a place to live, so how can I take an internship in New York City where $1,200 you might get a roommate and you might get a room, you might have like a bathroom that you have to share with someone else and that’s even like, you know, a fluke to be able to find something at that price. So I was going through a lot of challenges even outside of my career, and then when some of those things started to fall into place, I was like, oh, wow, this is actually working, and then when I got the job, I was like, oh, I’m super excited, and I was truly living the life of my dreams which means I had finished school, I got the internship, I got the job, and I was doing so well — until I was up for the promotion. And I had been doing everything that position had called for and more, but I did not get the position and I lost the position to someone who was less experienced than me and did not have a college degree and did not have the qualifications that I did. But a part of being brilliantly resilient is to get better and not bitter, you know? And I was able to take that energy and say, “Okay, what am I supposed to do now? Again, how do I pivot and where am I gonna go next?” Because sometimes we forget, sometimes it is what it is. Sometimes, we can make waves and shifts and change a situation where we are and sometimes we can’t, and that’s the reality of it, you know, and in that particular situation, I looked around and when every producer in that seat had been in a seat for 20 years or more, you’re like, well, I basically have to wait until someone like chooses to retire or like kicks the bucket to get, you know, to find elevation in this particular company with this particular show and I was like I don’t think that that’s what God has for me. So I channeled that energy. I went back to school and I worked and I went to school, and until I was ready to leave and start my own business, I did both. And when that time came, I left, and all of the experience and all of the knowledge and all of the goodness. It’s a choice, right? We could choose to focus on — I could choose to focus on all the bad things but I chose to focus on all of the magnificent times that I had there, all of the friends that I, you know, still talk to to this day, and all of the leverage that I was able to gain by being in that industry. So, you know, this book throughout talks about choice and our ability to decide and that’s what life is about. We’re always making choices, every single day, from the moment we get up, and those choices will decide the outcome of our lives, and in that particular time, I chose not to, you know, I did fight and I did make it known that I knew what was going on and that, you know, I knew I was qualified and I knew my worth and then I set the plan in motion because if my work will not be valued here, then it shall be valued somewhere else.

Carolyn: Wow, and it’s such an important point that you make about choice. I’m just reflecting on that right now ’cause I feel like a lot of people sometimes feel like they’re in positions where they have no choice for, you know, whatever reason it is in their life and I really feel like this is illustrated in your book because you went through so many different challenges, some of which you just mentioned, you know, not having a place to live and having dropped out of school. You mentioned being in an abusive relationship. You know, someone in your position, having those same or similar circumstances, could easily say like, you know, “I really don’t have a choice because I have so many things going against me,” but it really came out through this book just constantly as you go through these stories, just the amazing self-awareness that you had just to really take that time to reflect on your situation and not just be consumed by all of the trauma and the pain that was going on, to be able to take that step back and say, you know, these are the choices I’m making, I can change my direction, I always have a different direction I could go in. How did you find that level of self-awareness to be able to realize what was going on and then find that strength to turn things around or make a different choice?

Lena: It’s so funny. I probably was in my early 20s when I decided to start my business speaking. You know, I’ll never forget one of the platforms I was speaking on, this guy was like, you know, “How do you think anybody is going to listen to you? You’re in your 20s, like what do you know about life?” And, at that point, even when I was at CBS, I had already had an illustrious career under my belt. I was 16 when I started as a bank teller. By 19, I was a teller manager. By 21, I was doing retirement planning. At 22, 23, I had my own business and, you know, at that point, I was out of school because I had dropped out and I was like, oh, you know, I’m gonna be in the diamond club, you know, I’m gonna fix all of these people’s retirements and have residual income and I’m never gonna need college and then, of course, 2008 hit and it was like, all the people that, you know, that I had accounts with probably woke up one day and didn’t have any money and that’s how I went back to school, but I had a lot of life experience by the time I got to restart that next chapter of my life, but in terms of self-awareness, I came to a breaking point, right? So, right before I had moved and went to Kean University and got the internship and started with CBS, I was at my lowest, darkest place, to have dropped out of school, to be in an abusive relationship, and then to have your career, to literally wake up one day and some of your biggest clients and your biggest accounts, people literally woke up in 2008 and did not have anything. All of their retirements, everything that they worked for was gone and that was really devastating for me. So, building myself back up, going to therapy, doing all of the hard work, you know, doing journals and vision boards and praying and meditating and really turning inward to discover, okay, this whole person that you built is practically gone. Like everything that you’ve done over these years is gone, like what are you gonna do now and how do you get yourself back up? So, self-discovery and self-awareness comes oftentimes when we’re in our darkest place but it’s our ability to, as I talked about in the book, is to get back up, right? To want to get back up and to love yourself enough to get back up and to continue to push. So a lot of that self-awareness that I had to not walk away bitter and to walk away better came from life experience which I always tell people don’t be scared of and don’t run from. It’s a part of growth and it’s a part of what you need for the next level. Sometimes, we want level 10 but if you haven’t gone through 3 and 4 and 5 and 6, how can you be strong enough to handle a level 10 blessing, you know? It takes time and it takes growth at each stage to go through it so you could be prepared for what comes next, you know? And I just wanted to touch on something you said before about choice. Someone once told me that whatever you believe in your mind, it is true, and then if you believe, you have no choice then that’s true. If you believe that somehow, some way, a choice will be presented to you or that you can create one or that you can make one, that is true too. So, oftentimes, it’s about perspective, but, again, it requires us to turn inward and to really find that alignment with whatever higher power you call on. That’s a huge part in the book and it’s a huge part of why I am able to believe that there is a choice because a big part of why I believe I have a choice is because I have faith and that’s in the unseen of course.

Carolyn: And that’s another theme that come through in your book is the strong faith that you’ve had throughout your life that helps carry you through so many of these challenges as well as the different support systems that you had throughout with different friends and family and other people who helped carry you through some of these difficult times and I think that’s really important, you know, especially now that we’re all kind of sequestered and we’re separated from — many of us are separated from our support systems or we just can’t experience them in the same way. So I’d love to learn a little bit more about how the different people in your life, what kind of support they gave you in order to help you move through these challenging times?

Lena: Oh, man. I talk about a lot of that in the book. You know, sometimes support doesn’t always have to look like this big, huge, glamorous thing. When I was in college, I had people that knew that I was in class all day, I had to work and then I was in the studio doing different things and they were just like, “Oh, did you eat yet?” No, I didn’t eat yet. “Oh, I’ll bring you something.” Like that’s support, you know what I mean? Like that’s love. That’s somebody looking out for you, that’s someone caring for you. And then there’s big support. Again, when you believe and you truly start to begin to connect to your higher power, you’ll be able to really — some powerful things will happen. When I was trying to transfer schools and I was leaving Rutgers University and I was going to Kean University and Rutgers was like, “No, we’re not giving you your transcripts because you owe us thousands and thousands of dollars! That’s not gonna happen.” And I was like, in that moment, again, I could’ve said, well, I don’t have a choice, I’m not gonna be able to transfer schools, I’m not gonna be able to start this new life, oh well, drop out. You know, in this relationship, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, whatever, I have no choice, right? But I always said there’s always gonna be an option, there’s always gonna be an option. And I’ll never forget, this random person, I don’t know this person, spoke to them this one time and never spoke to them again, he was one of the debt collectors and I remembered on one of the papers like I picked it up and I called the number and I was like, “Well, can I do a payment plan? I’m like what are the options?” and he’s like, “No, you know, they’re not gonna release it, that’s not how this works, you know, you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” and I was like, listen. I told him my story and I was like, “This could change my life, I need to get out of this city, I need to get out of this relationship, I need to start over,” and this person said, “I am going to lift the hold from your account for 24 hours. You get every single piece of paperwork, you call whoever you need to call and get whatever you need to get and then after 24 hours, the hold will be back on your account.”

Carolyn: Wow.

Leah: Yeah, I don’t know this person. They’re not a family member, they’re not a friend, they were just a random person that I opened up to and I told my situation that changed the trajectory of my life, right?

Carolyn: Yeah.

Lena: And I will never forget that because I didn’t give up. I just said, well, I’ll just keep trying or whatever I have to do. I’m going to change this situation. Then, of course, we have other people, friends and family that, you know, helped me out and in the book I talked about the pastor who when I didn’t have anywhere to stay, she saw me in the hall one day and she was like, “Oh, Lena, you know, I just wanna talk to you for a minute,” and she goes, “You know, you’re always so well dressed and you always look so pretty and your hair is always done,” and she’s like, “The last couple of weeks, you’ve been looking a little disheveled. I just wanna know if everything is okay,” you know, and I was telling her like, I have this internship, I have an opportunity to get this job and I don’t really have anywhere to stay up here and I can’t — you know, like I have to get the job first to make the money to find somewhere to live but I can’t accept the job because I don’t have anywhere to live. And she’s like, “Oh, well, I was supposed to have a foreign exchange student come this year and they didn’t come — you can stay on the third floor of my house.”

Carolyn: Wow!

Lena: “You can meet my family. If your mom wants to come down, she can come down.” How do you explain those things, right? It’s nothing but like faith in God and the universe and just alignment. I mean, a lot of people can say that they may not believe in a higher power but I can’t believe in this much coincidence, you know?

Carolyn: Yeah.

Lena: I’ve had people that have been very close to me, friends and family, that have supported me and then I’ve had perfect strangers that I’ve never met and some that I will never see again or hear from again and others that were strangers and became family that supported me. So, you know, I always say to people, the right person will come at the right time if you believe that.

Carolyn: Wow. That’s amazing and it’s like, I can’t explain it either, you know, beyond just that faith or that higher power or the universe or things coming together and also the fact that you opened up to essentially strangers in some cases about your story and were very upfront about what you were going through and in those cases where you needed it, that help came through and I think, overall, one lesson we could all probably take from that is that, you know, when we need help, we need to ask for help ’cause I think a lot of us don’t wanna say anything about what we’re going through.

Lena: We’re so proud. We don’t want anybody to know what’s going on, we don’t want, you know, anybody to know how disheveled we are, you know? I’m not that proud. I’m not that proud to say that I need help. I’m not that proud to ask for help. I’m not that proud — what they say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Carolyn: Absolutely. I think that’s something that we can all take away from is that we need to remember to ask for that help.

Lena: Being vulnerable. I mean, there’s a lot of trust factor that happens there but you lose that pride when your desire to be great is stronger than the pain of remaining the same, right?

Carolyn: Yeah.

Lena: That time, my desire was to be better and had my mind and heart set on a better life for myself, so I didn’t have that sense of like I’m too proud, and I could have, because I had come from a comfortable situation at 19 making $35,000, I thought that that, coming from where I came from, was more money than probably my parents were making.

Carolyn: Yeah.

Lena: And then to do retirement planning and to have access to that type of money is very different, so I had no pride ’cause I saw what a recession could do to people and so I don’t have that kind of pride, you know, I’m gonna ask for it.

Carolyn: Yeah, and I guess it helps to remember that I think everybody needs something so it’s not that we’re the only ones who need help. I think everyone needs help, one way or another, so it’s not just us. So, another story that you tell in your book is about when you were, you know, with your fiancé who is now your husband, and your stepson came quite suddenly to come live with the two of you and the struggles that you went through of becoming basically the instant stepmom and really having to step into that role — and one thing that really struck me about how you described the difficulty of that situation is that at one point, you said you basically became tired of fighting because it was such a struggle for you and you describe in the chapter how you turn it around and really got through that to a point where you now have very strong, thriving relationships with your husband and stepson. But I feel like, again, a lot of people can probably relate to the feeling of like, I’m just so tired of fighting and having to fight this every single day. So can you talk through a little bit about what you did when you felt tired of fighting and how you turned that around?

Lena: I was exhausted.

Carolyn: Yeah.

Lena: Well, first of all, I always say I have a totally different level of respect, right? Totally different level of respect for individuals that are co-parenting and total new perspective on step parenting as well, because you’re being put into a situation and a system that’s already been built before you, you know? And I didn’t know what that was gonna be like, I didn’t know where the boundaries were, I didn’t know anything, and it was extremely difficult. And I think when we are dealing with family, I think when we’re dealing in relationships and when we’re dealing with our children, we’re constantly pointing the finger, right, at what other people are doing wrong and we’re like, well, if this person would just do this and if this person would just do that and if they would just stop being like this and if they would just do this, and I think at one point I was like, again, what am I contributing to the situation? What type of energy am I bringing to the situation? Am I harboring resentment? Am I harboring these negative emotions? And I had to look at myself and say, okay, I’m not gonna point all these fingers because, guess what, we can’t always change people. The only person in this situation that I can change is myself, and the only events that I can change are the ones that I lead. So, I, again, had to turn to myself and say, okay, what are you gonna do differently? How are you gonna respond differently? And that chapter is about being conscious and really being thoughtful about the energy that I bring to the table and having forethought, right? So thinking ahead of time, so what do I want this new family to look like and if I’m going to lead this new family, what type of wife do I wanna be? What type of stepmother do I wanna be? Although I didn’t know what those things looked like and I didn’t know like how to be those things, I can create the image that I want to aspire to be, and once I create that image of who I aspire to be, every time that I make a move, I can say, okay, are my thoughts, actions, and decisions aligned with that person that I desire to be? So, the challenge wasn’t to get everybody else to change, the challenge was for me, again, right? The challenge is not always for everybody else in the situation, the challenge that I saw at the end of the day was what type of wife do you wanna be and what type of stepmother do you wanna be? And that was the challenge that I needed to get me to hone in on who I wanted to be as a wife and a stepmother. Wow, that’s kinda like, I think I just like, that may have been the first time I said that! Look at you Carolyn!

Carolyn: Wow. Yeah, that was a really powerful chapter, I mean, because you got very open and honest about, you know, a lot of these feelings that, you know, I’m sure a lot of people have been in these types of situations and they just don’t wanna talk about it ’cause they are worried about feeling this way, and as you said, you have to learn and you have to think about, well, what kind of wife and stepmother do I wanna be and then how do I get to that point? So, yeah, I mean, that’s amazing. You know, you were mentioning that we’re the only ones who can change ourselves, we can’t change other people, but I would imagine that as you were changing yourself and your perceptions that, you know, the people around you, like your husband, your stepson probably started to change as well ’cause I would imagine they’re responding to who you’ve become.

Lena: Absolutely, absolutely, and it takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen overnight. It’s still happening. And, you know, you just have to be willing to grow with the situation and to grow as a person. I could have said, oh, wow, you know, I’m not doing this. You know? I’m not challenging myself to grow as an individual if I do that, then, again, I’m saying, oh, I don’t have a choice here, right? Or I can say, you know what, what type of person do I wanna be? What has this challenge brought to me and what am I supposed to take from it? And this is the most transparent that I’ve ever been in any project or any body of work, but I felt like during this time, it was necessary. It was necessary, and of course I’ve had conversations with my family and with my husband about publishing this book but the stories are just so powerful and I want people to know that they’re not alone, right? My editor was like, “I feel like there’s more tea here,” just like, oh, you know, she’s like, “I wanna know the juicy details,” and I’m like it’s okay, we can save it for, you know, the more candid talks later, like these where you’re pulling the gems out of me, you know? But we all have drama and we all have stories and we all have difficult things that happen and, you know, they’re just here to build your character. You have to make the choice of who you wanna be on the other end.

Carolyn: Oh, absolutely. Wow. So, your book’s been out — I think it just came out pretty recently. When did it actually come out?

Lena: July 22nd.

Carolyn: What kind of feedback have you received from readers about the book?

Lena: You know, I had one young lady that said, “Oh, you know, I bought the book and it kinda sat on the kitchen counter for a while and, you know, one day I just opened it up to the page,” and she was like, “I just was crying because it was exactly where I was in my life at the time and it was the exact thing that I was struggling with and needed to hear,” you know? And I think because I’ve been so transparent, people are able to identify with these situations and these experiences that I talk about in the book, so we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback, a lot of personal messages, a lot of DMs, and, you know, people just appreciating the raw honesty and the application. I don’t leave one chapter on hold without the ability to take real life application and use the tools that are in the book to apply to your life and that’s where I believe the greatness is in the books that I have published. Like even my first book, Stop, Drop and Roll: Life Changing Tools for Success, stop procrastinating, drop negativity, and roll with the punches. I had a young lady that would come back to the workshops every year and I’m like, “You come to the same workshop every year, what are you doing here?” and she’s like, “Oh, it’s okay, because the first year I worked on this and then the second year I was working on this and then the third year I was working on that,” and that’s how I always do my work is real applicable tips, techniques, and just pure gems that people can really use in their life to shift their desires and their personalities, their expectations, their existence, you know, and to move towards a better place.

Carolyn: Yeah, and that’s wonderful. Reading through your stories, it’s very easy to imagine similar experiences or feelings that you as the reader have had in your life and really I feel like it really will draw a lot out of the people who read it and really make them think about the challenges that they’ve been through and find different ways to think about it and approach it.

Lena: Yeah, absolutely, and that’s the key, right? You know, in the beginning of the book, I say just keep an open mind. It’s easy to go about the situation or any situation or address any challenge with the same way you’ve always been dealing with it, right? It takes a different level of maturity and a different level of clarity and, again, self-awareness to look at your situation objectively and say, “What is it that I can do objectively to make this situation better? How do I need to change?” In the self-awareness chapter, I talked about just being able to see yourself. Sometimes, we do have growth areas that we know exist in ourselves and, again, you have to have that desire to get to the next level to say, “You know what, I don’t like this particular characteristic of myself. I don’t like who I am when I talk this way. I don’t like how I treat this person. I don’t like how temperamental I can be.” It takes a real desire for growth to recognize your growth areas and then do something about it, right? Because that’s the next step is to do something about it. So, you know, having, again, that level of self-awareness to want to change and to want to do something different and to look at a situation objectively is where change happens. You know, making new decisions, new choices.

Carolyn: And then also realizing that we don’t have to do this alone. You can invoke your faith in a higher power, the support network that you have in your life, or you go find the support that you need.

Lena: That chapter “I Am Not Alone” is just a real awakening for me because for a long time, I felt alone. I felt like I was doing things on my own, and it was very painful. But when I actually looked back, like I said, that random guy on the line or, you know, there was always somebody there, like you said, to carry me to the next page and once we got to that page, we’ll get to the next chapter, once we get to the next chapter, we are able to get to the end of this book and open up a new book. So, oftentimes, we may feel like we’re alone but when we really think about it, more often than not, there are individuals in our lives that are there, that we don’t often acknowledge and I think COVID has really showed us that we have to truly love on and acknowledge those who bring value to our life, even if it’s them just checking on you or calling you or saying hey, or you doing that for a change, you know? Just being able to bring value and support and love to each other. I think COVID has taught as a big lesson that we need to do that a lot more often and acknowledge those who have lifted us up and carried us through.

Carolyn: Yeah, oh, definitely. You know, you mentioned writing this book at this particular time in history during COVID because you really felt like people needed it now more than ever. What are your overall goals for this book in terms of what you’d like for it to achieve or the impact you’d like it to have?

Lena: I always say if it can help one person, I’m happy. So, whatever it does beyond that is great, but, obviously, we always, you know, want success. I mean, the launch was very successful. We were able to be number 1 in our top category, number 1 overall, and then number 4 in women in business so we had a very successful launch which was great but this is really about Brilliant Resilience, right? It’s about impact. It’s about how many lives — you know, I have someone that comes to help me. Actually, this is my new house here. I don’t have anything on the walls. I was like, let me just stick these two books here, but this house, all glory be to God that we were able to do something like this in the pandemic but it’s much bigger than our previous house. So I have a cleaning woman that comes here and when she came the first week, she was like, “Oh, I love the new house,” and I was like, “Oh, I came out with a book.” When she came back the following week, she was in tears and she was just telling me some personal things that happened to her over the last year and how much the book inspired her and she was just saying how she’s gonna go back to school and she started telling me about the career that she really desires and just how she’s gonna just set up goals and just things and she just had a different energy about her, completely different energy and she was just like, “Thank you for sharing your story.” Those are the moments I live for. The numbers and that kind of stuff is great but impact is key. You know, it’s how we touch people. I remember when I first discovered books like The Secret, or, you know, The Secret Laws of Success or The Four Agreements or The Alchemist, you know, all of these books that come to you at just the right time, Conversations with God, you know, that come to you in a moment where you need to make decisions or make changes and I hope and pray that my book falls into the people’s hands that are ready to move forward and ready to be resilient and ready to create an impact in their lives or in their communities or in their children’s lives or wherever. So, impact is always the most desire of my heart.

Carolyn: Wonderful. Well, congratulations on the success of the book and the launch and congratulations on the impact that it’s having on the individuals who are reading it! That is really incredible. Lena, how can people get in touch with you if they wanna learn more about the book or all of the other amazing work that you’re doing?

Lena: Lenacohen.com, of course. Amazon, my book is on Amazon. Just go to Amazon, type in my name, type in Brilliant Resilience, it will be there, and then, of course, on social media all the way around, I’m Lena Cohen-Hawkins and I’d love to chat so get the book, read it, and let me know what you think. Let’s talk.

Carolyn: Awesome, and I’ll also put a link to your book on Amazon and your website and your social links in the show notes so that people can find it there as well.

Lena: Thank you very much.

Carolyn: Absolutely. So, thanks again, Lena, for being on my podcast. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

Lena: No, I just want everybody to just hold on to their dreams. You know, this is such a difficult time and we’ve been through so much and I think about all of the loss that we’ve had, all the losses that my friends and families had, not just, you know, loved ones but loss of jobs, loss of income, and this has been such a trying time but there has been so many blessings as well and if we can hold on to those good things and remain positive and do our best to figure out what it is that we need to do to get to the other side, I want them to just be encouraged and to know that, you know, they are loved and that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. There’s always something else on the other end. Whatever it is that you’re supposed to get from this, go get it.

Carolyn: Great words of wisdom. Thank you again so much for being on my show today.

Lena: Thank you for having me. I really appreciated the conversation, I loved it.

Carolyn: Me too, thank you.

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