June 11, 2025 • 28 mins
This week’s “How She Finds Purpose” insight comes from Jenn Cohen. She says –
“Our intuition isn’t here to keep us small. It’s here to guide us into something greater, even if it means stepping into the unknown.”
Jenn Cohen is an intuitive consultant who spent 27 years in the entertainment industry working with major studios like DreamWorks, NBC Universal, IMAX, and Warner Media. She says some of the most pivotal decisions in her career came from tuning into her intuition. After leaving corporate life, she now helps individuals and teams recognize blind spots, find clarity, and make more aligned decisions—both personally and professionally.
Here are 3 reasons why you should listen to this episode:
- You’ll hear what it really looks like to follow that “inner nudge” when everything on the outside seems fine but something still feels off.
- You’ll learn how intuition can show up in real-life moments of restlessness, irritation, and unexpected change.
- You’ll walk away with a gentle mindset shift about honoring your own needs, especially if you’re the one everyone else always depends on.
Connect with Jenn at: https://www.jenncohenintuitive.com/
Would you prefer to watch or listen to the podcast on YouTube?
Head on over to https://www.youtube.com/@leadershippurposepodcast
Want to connect? Connect with Dr. Robin on
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinlowensphd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robinlowensphd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinlowensphd/
Email: Robin@LeadershipPurposePodcast.com
Thank you for listening! Rate, review, & follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. Talk to you soon!
This episode was produced by Lynda, Podcast Manager for GenX Creative Entrepreneurs at https://www.ljscreativeservices.co.nz
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Leadership Purpose with Doctor Robin podcast.
I'm your host, Robin l Owens, PhD. I'm a college
professor. And when I'm not doing that, I am teaching others
how to find and stay in alignment with their true purpose.
And this is where we talk with women who've made bold career
transitions in search for more meaning and purpose in
(00:24):
their work. So if you're feeling that pull toward more meaning and purpose in
your work or just curious about what's possible when you
pursue purpose over position, then these
conversations are here to encourage, inspire,
and guide you. Okay. Let's get started.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Leadership
(00:47):
Purpose with Doctor Robin podcast. I'm so glad you're here and
you listened into the podcast. We've been ranked in the top
5% of all podcasts globally according
to Lift and Notes. So thank you for helping us get here. And let's keep
it going. We hear this from podcasts all the time, but it does make a
difference. Please subscribe, review, and rate the
(01:09):
podcast. It'll help us keep going. Alright. Now
today, I'm very excited to have this conversation. I will
be speaking with Jen Cohen. Now let me tell you a little bit about
Jen. He has always been fascinated by the power
of intuition. That's right. You heard that right, intuition.
And throughout her twenty seven year career in the entertainment
(01:31):
industry, collaborating with major studios like Dreamworks,
NBC Universal, IMAX, and Warner Media,
Jen discovered that some of the most impactful decision
often stem from intuition. Oh, I can't wait to hear
more about this. But after stepping away from the corporate world, Jen
(01:52):
embraced her calling as a intuitive consultant. She
applies her skills to help individuals and organizations
unlock their potential. And today, she empowers clients from
individuals to executives to entire teams with
practical tools to gain clarity, recognize
blind spots, and make decisions aligned with their goals.
(02:14):
And her work fosters personal and professional growth,
creativity, and my favorite, purpose.
Welcome, Jen Cohen. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so glad you're here. Alright. So now you heard me read your
introduction. But why don't you tell us in your own words a little
bit more about you first and then about what you
(02:37):
do? Sure. Sure. So for me, I've spent twenty
seven years, like I said, in the entertainment industry, and it was a fantastic,
fantastic career. I loved it until I
I was hearing a voice that's saying, might be time time to move
on here. And that was my intuition, which had guided
me since day one of getting into the field. And, and I've
(03:00):
told this story before, but I think it bears repeating is, in my
twenties, I had a very unexpected death with my father. He,
he died very suddenly. And, I went home. I was
just starting my junior year in college, and I went home. And the evening
of his funeral, I was lying on his side of the bed,
my parents' bed on his side, and it was pitch black, total
(03:23):
darkness. And I was kind of calling out to God just saying why, why?
And the bedside light just flashed on and off and on and off, and I
just stopped in my tracks. Tears stopped instantly. And
I looked over at the light now again in complete darkness and I said, dad,
is, was that you? Is that you? Flashed on and off and on and
off. And so there was a realization that
(03:46):
communication did not necessarily have to be in physical
form at that point. And when I went back up to school,
continued with, with beautiful signs all around.
And in my grief stage as a 20 year old, I really got stuck on
the anger because just, just knowing that he wasn't gonna be there for all the
milestones. But in that, I didn't really understand what exactly what
(04:08):
he was doing, but intuitively I said to
him, Okay, since you left so early, I'm
giving you the, basically you're in charge of my
profession. And I handed that over to him and I
heard very clearly, I'll take that. I'll take that. Absolutely. You
never have to worry about that. And it was a, it was a way for
(04:30):
me to feel safe and secure and not let my mind really
race. And in doing so, when I could
hand that over to him, I freed up so much of my
mind. I freed it up from worry and anxiety. And it
doesn't mean that there weren't hard times. Of course there were. But
he very beautifully led me on this path in my
(04:52):
entertainment career with through synchronicities of meeting
people. And in that time that I was in entertainment, I
never really pigeonholed myself into one department.
And I really attribute that to my intuition and to my intuitive self and to
listening to my heart and not saying, Oh, well,
if I start in publicity, that means that I have to continue on in publicity.
Now, if I start in
(05:14):
publicity, now if I start in animation, which I did, I started
in in a DreamWorks animation in the publicity department,
the first year that it was in, it was it was it
was built. And I mean, talk about, you know,
an amazing job and I could have stayed there.
The problem was at the time is that everybody was staying there. It was a
(05:36):
fantastic place to work and I could feel my inner purpose
saying, okay, I know this is really comfortable, but it's time to
move on. And I know that you talk about that a lot. And, and for
me, it was that intuitive self that was just like, okay,
like, let's go. And so I spent my twenty seven
years and, probably about two to three
(05:58):
years before I actually left that job and I
was living in Manhattan at this time and I had climbed up the ranks to
the top of the executive, you know, line of work at that point. I could
have left about two to three years before, but I know that you know this,
you know, it's intuition is subtle. It doesn't often get loud, but it does
repeat itself. And it was in that realization that then I
(06:20):
became an intuitive consultant and an intuitive channel. And
so, you know, that's always, you know, the next step after, you know,
decades career in entertainment. You just become a channel. So
it was great to follow-up and hear you. There's quite a bit to unpaint.
But let's go back to the earliest time. Let's go back and thank you for
sharing that experience with your father. It sounds like it was a beautiful way
(06:42):
to stay connected. Now let me ask you, before that
moment, thought you had any sense of intuition,
understanding, and knowledge on that, prior to the next screen? You know,
I think I think I did. I was always very, observant
as a kid. I didn't mind kind of like holding back.
I never had to be like front and center. I loved being front and center,
(07:05):
but I didn't have to be as as a child. And I
could energetically feel, as most children can, well,
children can, but I was very cognizant
of that. I could put a name to what I was feeling.
And I was fascinated. I was fascinated by, you know,
when I was growing up, it was psychics and, you know, mediums. And I, I
(07:27):
just thought that that was so cool. It never scared me,
but it wasn't until, and it's, and it's really been kind of a theme
of my life, it wasn't until this big event happened
that I could name it and say, boom, like
this, this is truth. It it doesn't matter if if
if something is physical, that that can be true. But if if
(07:50):
there is non physical, that is, to me, felt even
more true than anything that I was looking at. So that was a
defining moment that sort of crystallized what had been all along
who've been there. I didn't know it sort of was crystallized in this moment.
Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And I'm
guessing it it reappeared in many ways. We're talking about these sort
(08:12):
of defining moments. So this moment now when your DreamWorks
is that the one you said you were there first? And then it started coming
back again a little louder. Tell us about that moment.
Maybe that exact moment, but the moment in time. Yeah.
Yeah. It becomes a restlessness for me. That's how it starts to
show up. And, you know, when you are
(08:35):
not in your intuitive, free flowing, purposeful
state, your critical mind, you know, comes online
and it tries to keep you safe. It tries to keep you, you know,
comfortable. And our intuition has no reason to keep us
safe and protected. It's not here for smallness, it's here for greatness.
(08:55):
And so I would find myself in, in that
job and it was great. It was fantastic, which again
is the, you know, is the thing that's saying, stay, stay. It's so great. The
grass isn't always greener. All those things that people say,
But I could tell I just wanted more, and I was getting irritated and
I was getting irritable and, you know, I wanted more responsibility.
(09:19):
Things that had brought me joy before weren't anymore,
and there was no reason for it because they hadn't changed, You
know, I had changed. And that's, that's the
realization. And for me, in the beginning of
that journey, it was my intuition ramped up
to begin to take another step outside of that company
(09:41):
when I realized, oh, I'm acting out of character here. And
the moment I start acting out of character, that's okay. That's
my intuition saying, nope, nope, nope. Now's the time and here's the path.
Yeah. So that's that's just one way. Makes
sense. Alright. So you're acting out of character, and you said you were
irritable. Like, what's an example? And I'm only saying this because it might
(10:03):
resonate with someone when they say, oh, that's how that's what I'm doing
right now. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it and and feel it in
your body. You're like, oh, man, I just snapped at that person. I
can just remember there was a specific it was like
a responsibility that I had had for for quite some time.
And I was ready to leap and,
(10:25):
and go and become and have more responsibility at
Dreamworks. And what they had done is that they brought
in somebody to take the to do the
responsibility that I was doing right now, but they didn't position it
as a growth step for me. That's not how it was.
I saw it very clearly as this person is now taking over the
(10:47):
job that I have done for several years,
and now I'm getting kind of, you know, edged out
of this. Had I really
been cognizant of, of my intuitive self, the, you
know, coming in and saying, Okay, see, this is, this is the
time for you to, to step out and, and to,
(11:09):
to, you know, create your new responsibilities,
I wouldn't have been so protective over that.
And that's the beauty of the universe that we live in. When
your I'll just say, when your sixth sense, which I like to think of our
first sense is intuition, but when that sense tells you
it's time to go and you continuously stiff arm or Heisman
(11:32):
it and say, no, no, I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not
ready, it will typically put in a scenario that's
like, are you sure? You you might need to look at this one more time.
Yeah. That's something that helps you tend to move a lot. It's just your attention
and at in various levels of how it could get your attention.
Yeah. Yeah. So throughout my career, almost exact
(11:54):
same scenario, which is interesting. Really? Yeah. Alright. So
you've moved that one, I'm guessing, at that time. Alright. And so
since you said an exact same scenario, tell us about another one, for
example. Yeah. So I built my
job around connections with, I'll just
say, certain departments, and and it had never been
(12:16):
done at the place that I have been, at the company that I had been
in. And it Which is a different company than the last one. Okay. Totally
different. I'll actually say it's my last job. So we'll span those twenty
seven years. And in between, there are versions of this that
happened. But in my, in my last job, it became very
successful, the kind of process that, that I
(12:37):
just developed intuitively. It's not groundbreaking, it's just
how, how this company didn't, didn't operate, but how I
implemented this. And they saw the
results. And when they saw the results in,
and fiscally how it could enhance the bottom
line, they then brought in somebody that was again,
(12:58):
reporting structure into a different reporting structure than I was, so
that that's where that went. And my
intuition was like, Oh my God, I can't Well, that wasn't my
intuition. My ego was like, I can't believe that this is happening again
to me, where my intuition was very slowly
showing me, Hey, you know this pattern. You know this
(13:20):
way. You know what's gonna happen. You've read this book before.
And I could start to see it, but my
ego was still very much wanting it
to be right. And there is no right and wrong. You
know, there's a neutrality, like there's the peace that I
feel now was completely gone from the
(13:43):
behavior that I was acting in, in my last, again, I would say my
last six months at that job, but two to three years before
it was dropping these hints of like, This is coming. This
is coming. And I mean, I would get it's almost like I would get like
a cheat sheet from some of my coworkers of like,
Hey, this person's going to come and they're, they're going to start
(14:05):
doing what you're doing. And then the fear would rise up of, Oh,
you know, I'm, my job is going to be gone, I'm not
going to be relevant anymore, all of that thing, I'm going to get
fired, I'm going to all of the things.
And when I would push
away my intuition, it shut me down completely.
(14:28):
And I was in fighting mode and it was like, that's not right.
That's, you know, and I was never going to convince them to keep
things the same. It's just, they were stuck in, in
how they wanted this organization to feed up
to a different leader. And again, it's a
process. It's a process. But when you become aware of it,
(14:50):
by the time that you make your decision, you have gone through
the fear, you have gone through the egoic stage, you have exhausted
yourself to the point of where you're like, thank goodness I'm
out of that. Thank goodness. So is that how it happened
for you after the you the times that came to
pass, what you kind of thought would happen? So
(15:13):
now it's the time for you to make the decision to either stay or
go. It sounds like you had the option to either stay or
go. Tell us about that. Was there wrestling? Did your intuition
automatically say go? Did you hear a voice? Or was
it a process? Again, there might be somebody listening who
right at this moment, they're going, should I stay? Should I go? They
(15:34):
made all these changes. They may have an experience similar to
yours. The pattern repeated itself. They probably been in
it for a long time, and they were like, this has happened before.
So tell us about what was happening in that specific
moment of time. Yeah. So a good clue that you're
in this is if you continue to say, the same
(15:57):
story or like a phrase when you're talking about something
to friends, you know, colleagues, family. And
what I would continually hear myself saying was, it's like
talking to a wall. Talking to these people is like talking to a
wall. And then I have a meditation practice and in my
practice, I've at that time, I was doing in the evening. One
(16:19):
evening, I saw an image of myself look me
straight in the eyes and and say to me, it's like talking to a
wall. Oh, no. Look at you.
This is me problem. I need to, I need to. Yeah.
Yeah. And so that was, that was the beginning of a
(16:40):
real shift of being, you know, playing this
part of this actor in this movie versus becoming an
audience and then seeing the movie for what it is in that distance and
saying Yeah. I don't need to participate in in this way.
Yeah. So you got that insight. So how long approximately
from the insight to the actual move and what happened in between? Was
(17:02):
there more wrestling or was there, I just gotta
go? Oh my gosh. It escalated pretty quick. I would say
I would say six months, but it this was during pandemic,
so it had a lot of other factors with it. And again, I was living
in Manhattan, which if anyone's lived in Manhattan
or been or visited Manhattan, the energy there is
(17:25):
ridiculous. And I'm a California gal,
and so when the pandemic hit and the city
shut down, I could breathe, which Makes sense. You
know, which is an oxymoron, like, I mean, it doesn't even
make sense with what was going on at the time, but I
could have that space and I could
(17:48):
then hear myself. And then I could
And again, because we were on screens for a lot of our meetings at that
time, there was space, there was space there. And
so from that realization, I would say yes, six to
seven months. And but it once
once you know, you know, once you notice something, you know, in a
(18:10):
picture or whatever, every and you didn't notice it and then you see it, you're
never going to not see it in that picture. And that's that's basically what it
was. And the universe really speeds up in order
to give you, you know, high definition of what's wrong in
that picture. And they don't just continue and continue to the
point of where I was so uncomfortable. And at this
(18:32):
time in the entertainment industry, and it's still going on, unfortunately, but a lot of
layoffs were happening, acquisitions. There was a lot
going on. And so there were rounds of layoffs, and
I called up my, HR representative and I said, For the
next round of layoffs, I would like to submit my name.
And that was kind of the reaction that she said. She's like, What? What?
(18:55):
I said, Yeah. Yeah. She's like, Are you sure? Do you wanna take some time?
I said, Nope, this is it. This is it. And when I hung
up with her, I started dancing around the
room. It was just freedom at that point. Yeah.
Sound like a sensitive belief. Yeah. You were talking about
it because it had been building up, and it was almost like this is an
(19:16):
opportunity. They had a structure built in for you to sort of bow
out gracefully. That's right. Yeah. And it sounds like the six
months prior, it kept getting more and more difficult for you. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a resistance, And I think like that's
one of the processes of listening to your intuition is it's really
seeing where your resistance is and we all have it. Resistance
(19:39):
is really based in our critical hemisphere of our
brain. It's based in fear for
good reason. And and I'll say that I don't regret
those six months. I don't regret those two to three years when I was coming
to it. It was perfectly aligned in perfect timing for
me to put my name on a list that wasn't that was gonna happen pretty
(20:00):
quickly. Yeah. Yeah. And do you think that fear for you wasn't
around, you know, not having a job or not knowing what's next
or what do you know what the particular fear or fears
were? Yeah. You know, I think a lot of us grow
up with the pressures of, you know, in order to be successful, you've gotta
have a corporate job. You've gotta have insurance that's paying for you.
(20:23):
You know? And in the entertainment industry specifically,
it's one of those jobs when you start to talk with someone, you know, their
eyes kinda like perk up and they say, Oh, you know, did you work on
this? Or, Oh, you know this person? Oh, I love that show, or whatever. So
there was there was an instant connection with
people. And I started fearing like, what am I gonna talk about? This
(20:45):
has been my life. How am I gonna support myself? Because that again
is what people will try and, I'll just say, stagnate,
you know, like where where you are, And
those fears, and then again, the pandemic came, that
really wasn't for me though. That was one of those where,
I almost feel as if it was a calling and a
(21:07):
in a real reset of of how I was gonna live
this second kind of half of my life. Yeah. And you used
the word calling, which suggests to me not just
a moving away from the frustrations and the
challenges of that past. Just moving away from that.
A calling suggests to move a compelling
(21:30):
energy towards something else. Was that your experience, this
notion of being compelled, and did you know what it might be?
So my dad started showing up a lot,
a lot. It was kind of like you've gone down this path and, and
he visited with every job transition, you know, with signs
and things like that. And when I moved back,
(21:53):
I just felt the pull to come back to California, and
I had, again, guided by him in intuition,
had bought a place in 2017, didn't move into it
until 2021. And it was
like I had bought it as my safe haven that I didn't know
I was going to need. And it was in this place
(22:15):
where it was quiet, the energy was completely different from Manhattan,
that my dad came to me on Valentine's day of that year.
And Valentine's day was always special for us. And he came
through and I started channeling him with automatic writing and I filled
up three whole journals in the course of four days.
And it was just a divine download of, you know, this is
(22:38):
where you've been. This is kind of this next phase. I'm
reminding you of our pact together. I'm reminding you that
this is actually the work and the purpose. And, and I've
been doing, I I'll just say I was never hired for my like PowerPoint skills,
you know, in, in entertainment. Like that wasn't my thing. I
was really, really good with, with people and
(23:01):
I needed those relationships and I needed the
polarity of not being in my intuition, to be in my
intuition, to come to the place of channeling, of
supporting people in, in tapping into their intuition
and to guiding them through maybe challenging
spaces in their life. That's amazing. And we'll back the
(23:23):
story, Clint, full circle from how it started
with your connection with your father and how it brought you
to the next phase of your life, culmination of this new
move. And it's that's fascinating. Thank you for sharing that
and moving story with us. It's deeply personal.
I'm sure it's gonna be a benefit to a lot of people, and I'm sure
(23:45):
it has already. So now speaking of a lot of people,
the podcast, this is who I imagine the listener to be, a high
achieving woman who is successful but
unfulfilled. And let me tell you what my definition of
high achieving is. High achieving woman is someone who is
ambitious, responsible, good at a couple of
(24:07):
things. He's the one that people come to in a professional life
that just, you know, I wanna hear your advice on this, whether it's related to
her role or not. Even in her personal life, family,
neighbors, community, they come to her, ask for her advice
or wisdom. So she's sort of the go to person. That's the
character. And now she's experiencing nothing's
(24:29):
wrong. Everything looks good. In fact, people are applauding
where she is, what she has achieved, but something's missing.
And she just can't put her finger on it. And she's not quite sure,
but she knows she wants more. She's feeling like she's meant
for more. So this is who we're talking to right now. And
I see, Neli, like, you could relate to her in some ways.
(24:52):
Absolutely. Alright. So now she's listening to us. From your
experience, either professionally or personally, what's just some
words of encouragement or anything you would like to to leave
her with as she's listening today? So all of those people that
you're serving, serving so well and serving
so greatly, there is one person
(25:14):
that needs your attention at the front of the line. And
that is, I'm gonna say it's a younger version of
you. And that younger version of you, If
you imagine a line of all the people that you serve
in a day, it's like she gets to the front of the line and
someone cuts it and someone cuts it and someone cuts
(25:37):
it. And then she ends up farther and
farther and farther back in the line. And if you can kind of
envision that and how that feels to that younger
version of you and what that does in
your mind of how her self worth then
gets impacted. I would say maybe one day,
(25:58):
very soon, if it's today. Amazing. Just say
anytime that someone tries to cut that line, say, you know what? I'm gonna
have to get back to you. And it can be ten minutes. It can be
fifteen minutes. But just beginning to allow
that younger version of you a little bit of your advice,
a little bit of your attention, it's going to do wonders and
(26:21):
and to practice that every single day. Yes. I'm
imagining people just putting themselves at front of the line right now.
So thank you for sharing that wisdom. And, Jenn, you've been so
generous with your thoughts, your insights, and your time. But
before we go and tell people how they can be in touch with you, is
there anything that I didn't get a chance to ask you or didn't think to
(26:43):
ask you that you wanna share? Is there anything that's popping up in your mind
right now? One more thing. One more thing. If not, it's okay. But if
there is, here's an opportunity to share that. We all have
intuition. It is our birthright. We all have it. I said
earlier, not only do I think it's a sense, I think it's our first sense
that we're born with, and we're all channels. And whether it be
(27:04):
writing a book, whether it be painting, whether it be musician, whether it be
singing, whether it be helping others, whether it
be gardening, whether it be, you know, anything that you love to
do is your first clue as to how
you channel. Yes. Yes. I love that. I love
that. Alright. So now I'm imagining people might wanna say, well, how
(27:27):
can I hear more? Or they wanna follow you in some way. So where can
they be in touch with you? Oh, the easiest way is through my website. It's
Jen Cohen. It's Jenn with two n's, c o h e n, intuitive
dot com. Okay. And we'll be sure to put that in the show notes. Jenn,
thank you so much. It's been a pleasure having this conversation with you. Oh,
thank you. Okay, everyone. I love this conversation. I hope you did
(27:49):
too. And I'd love to hear your response to it. Follow me on social
media. I spend most of my time on LinkedIn, but I'd love to
hear your response to this episode at Robin L Owens
PhD, at Robin L Owens PhD.
And until next time, this is Dr.
Robin. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the
(28:11):
Leadership Purpose with Dr. Robin podcast. If
you enjoyed it, head on over and rate and subscribe
so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop
every week, and I can't wait to hang out with you again soon.
Meanwhile, this is Dr Robin
signing off. See you next time.
Welcome to the Leadership Purpose with Doctor Robin podcast.
I'm your host, Robin l Owens, PhD. I'm a college
professor. And when I'm not doing that, I am teaching others
how to find and stay in alignment with their true purpose.
And this is where we talk with women who've made bold career
transitions in search for more meaning and purpose in
(00:24):
their work. So if you're feeling that pull toward more meaning and purpose in
your work or just curious about what's possible when you
pursue purpose over position, then these
conversations are here to encourage, inspire,
and guide you. Okay. Let's get started.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Leadership
(00:47):
Purpose with Doctor Robin podcast. I'm so glad you're here and
you listened into the podcast. We've been ranked in the top
5% of all podcasts globally according
to Lift and Notes. So thank you for helping us get here. And let's keep
it going. We hear this from podcasts all the time, but it does make a
difference. Please subscribe, review, and rate the
(01:09):
podcast. It'll help us keep going. Alright. Now
today, I'm very excited to have this conversation. I will
be speaking with Jen Cohen. Now let me tell you a little bit about
Jen. He has always been fascinated by the power
of intuition. That's right. You heard that right, intuition.
And throughout her twenty seven year career in the entertainment
(01:31):
industry, collaborating with major studios like Dreamworks,
NBC Universal, IMAX, and Warner Media,
Jen discovered that some of the most impactful decision
often stem from intuition. Oh, I can't wait to hear
more about this. But after stepping away from the corporate world, Jen
(01:52):
embraced her calling as a intuitive consultant. She
applies her skills to help individuals and organizations
unlock their potential. And today, she empowers clients from
individuals to executives to entire teams with
practical tools to gain clarity, recognize
blind spots, and make decisions aligned with their goals.
(02:14):
And her work fosters personal and professional growth,
creativity, and my favorite, purpose.
Welcome, Jen Cohen. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so glad you're here. Alright. So now you heard me read your
introduction. But why don't you tell us in your own words a little
bit more about you first and then about what you
(02:37):
do? Sure. Sure. So for me, I've spent twenty
seven years, like I said, in the entertainment industry, and it was a fantastic,
fantastic career. I loved it until I
I was hearing a voice that's saying, might be time time to move
on here. And that was my intuition, which had guided
me since day one of getting into the field. And, and I've
(03:00):
told this story before, but I think it bears repeating is, in my
twenties, I had a very unexpected death with my father. He,
he died very suddenly. And, I went home. I was
just starting my junior year in college, and I went home. And the evening
of his funeral, I was lying on his side of the bed,
my parents' bed on his side, and it was pitch black, total
(03:23):
darkness. And I was kind of calling out to God just saying why, why?
And the bedside light just flashed on and off and on and off, and I
just stopped in my tracks. Tears stopped instantly. And
I looked over at the light now again in complete darkness and I said, dad,
is, was that you? Is that you? Flashed on and off and on and
off. And so there was a realization that
(03:46):
communication did not necessarily have to be in physical
form at that point. And when I went back up to school,
continued with, with beautiful signs all around.
And in my grief stage as a 20 year old, I really got stuck on
the anger because just, just knowing that he wasn't gonna be there for all the
milestones. But in that, I didn't really understand what exactly what
(04:08):
he was doing, but intuitively I said to
him, Okay, since you left so early, I'm
giving you the, basically you're in charge of my
profession. And I handed that over to him and I
heard very clearly, I'll take that. I'll take that. Absolutely. You
never have to worry about that. And it was a, it was a way for
(04:30):
me to feel safe and secure and not let my mind really
race. And in doing so, when I could
hand that over to him, I freed up so much of my
mind. I freed it up from worry and anxiety. And it
doesn't mean that there weren't hard times. Of course there were. But
he very beautifully led me on this path in my
(04:52):
entertainment career with through synchronicities of meeting
people. And in that time that I was in entertainment, I
never really pigeonholed myself into one department.
And I really attribute that to my intuition and to my intuitive self and to
listening to my heart and not saying, Oh, well,
if I start in publicity, that means that I have to continue on in publicity.
Now, if I start in
(05:14):
publicity, now if I start in animation, which I did, I started
in in a DreamWorks animation in the publicity department,
the first year that it was in, it was it was it
was built. And I mean, talk about, you know,
an amazing job and I could have stayed there.
The problem was at the time is that everybody was staying there. It was a
(05:36):
fantastic place to work and I could feel my inner purpose
saying, okay, I know this is really comfortable, but it's time to
move on. And I know that you talk about that a lot. And, and for
me, it was that intuitive self that was just like, okay,
like, let's go. And so I spent my twenty seven
years and, probably about two to three
(05:58):
years before I actually left that job and I
was living in Manhattan at this time and I had climbed up the ranks to
the top of the executive, you know, line of work at that point. I could
have left about two to three years before, but I know that you know this,
you know, it's intuition is subtle. It doesn't often get loud, but it does
repeat itself. And it was in that realization that then I
(06:20):
became an intuitive consultant and an intuitive channel. And
so, you know, that's always, you know, the next step after, you know,
decades career in entertainment. You just become a channel. So
it was great to follow-up and hear you. There's quite a bit to unpaint.
But let's go back to the earliest time. Let's go back and thank you for
sharing that experience with your father. It sounds like it was a beautiful way
(06:42):
to stay connected. Now let me ask you, before that
moment, thought you had any sense of intuition,
understanding, and knowledge on that, prior to the next screen? You know,
I think I think I did. I was always very, observant
as a kid. I didn't mind kind of like holding back.
I never had to be like front and center. I loved being front and center,
(07:05):
but I didn't have to be as as a child. And I
could energetically feel, as most children can, well,
children can, but I was very cognizant
of that. I could put a name to what I was feeling.
And I was fascinated. I was fascinated by, you know,
when I was growing up, it was psychics and, you know, mediums. And I, I
(07:27):
just thought that that was so cool. It never scared me,
but it wasn't until, and it's, and it's really been kind of a theme
of my life, it wasn't until this big event happened
that I could name it and say, boom, like
this, this is truth. It it doesn't matter if if
if something is physical, that that can be true. But if if
(07:50):
there is non physical, that is, to me, felt even
more true than anything that I was looking at. So that was a
defining moment that sort of crystallized what had been all along
who've been there. I didn't know it sort of was crystallized in this moment.
Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And I'm
guessing it it reappeared in many ways. We're talking about these sort
(08:12):
of defining moments. So this moment now when your DreamWorks
is that the one you said you were there first? And then it started coming
back again a little louder. Tell us about that moment.
Maybe that exact moment, but the moment in time. Yeah.
Yeah. It becomes a restlessness for me. That's how it starts to
show up. And, you know, when you are
(08:35):
not in your intuitive, free flowing, purposeful
state, your critical mind, you know, comes online
and it tries to keep you safe. It tries to keep you, you know,
comfortable. And our intuition has no reason to keep us
safe and protected. It's not here for smallness, it's here for greatness.
(08:55):
And so I would find myself in, in that
job and it was great. It was fantastic, which again
is the, you know, is the thing that's saying, stay, stay. It's so great. The
grass isn't always greener. All those things that people say,
But I could tell I just wanted more, and I was getting irritated and
I was getting irritable and, you know, I wanted more responsibility.
(09:19):
Things that had brought me joy before weren't anymore,
and there was no reason for it because they hadn't changed, You
know, I had changed. And that's, that's the
realization. And for me, in the beginning of
that journey, it was my intuition ramped up
to begin to take another step outside of that company
(09:41):
when I realized, oh, I'm acting out of character here. And
the moment I start acting out of character, that's okay. That's
my intuition saying, nope, nope, nope. Now's the time and here's the path.
Yeah. So that's that's just one way. Makes
sense. Alright. So you're acting out of character, and you said you were
irritable. Like, what's an example? And I'm only saying this because it might
(10:03):
resonate with someone when they say, oh, that's how that's what I'm doing
right now. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it and and feel it in
your body. You're like, oh, man, I just snapped at that person. I
can just remember there was a specific it was like
a responsibility that I had had for for quite some time.
And I was ready to leap and,
(10:25):
and go and become and have more responsibility at
Dreamworks. And what they had done is that they brought
in somebody to take the to do the
responsibility that I was doing right now, but they didn't position it
as a growth step for me. That's not how it was.
I saw it very clearly as this person is now taking over the
(10:47):
job that I have done for several years,
and now I'm getting kind of, you know, edged out
of this. Had I really
been cognizant of, of my intuitive self, the, you
know, coming in and saying, Okay, see, this is, this is the
time for you to, to step out and, and to,
(11:09):
to, you know, create your new responsibilities,
I wouldn't have been so protective over that.
And that's the beauty of the universe that we live in. When
your I'll just say, when your sixth sense, which I like to think of our
first sense is intuition, but when that sense tells you
it's time to go and you continuously stiff arm or Heisman
(11:32):
it and say, no, no, I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not
ready, it will typically put in a scenario that's
like, are you sure? You you might need to look at this one more time.
Yeah. That's something that helps you tend to move a lot. It's just your attention
and at in various levels of how it could get your attention.
Yeah. Yeah. So throughout my career, almost exact
(11:54):
same scenario, which is interesting. Really? Yeah. Alright. So
you've moved that one, I'm guessing, at that time. Alright. And so
since you said an exact same scenario, tell us about another one, for
example. Yeah. So I built my
job around connections with, I'll just
say, certain departments, and and it had never been
(12:16):
done at the place that I have been, at the company that I had been
in. And it Which is a different company than the last one. Okay. Totally
different. I'll actually say it's my last job. So we'll span those twenty
seven years. And in between, there are versions of this that
happened. But in my, in my last job, it became very
successful, the kind of process that, that I
(12:37):
just developed intuitively. It's not groundbreaking, it's just
how, how this company didn't, didn't operate, but how I
implemented this. And they saw the
results. And when they saw the results in,
and fiscally how it could enhance the bottom
line, they then brought in somebody that was again,
(12:58):
reporting structure into a different reporting structure than I was, so
that that's where that went. And my
intuition was like, Oh my God, I can't Well, that wasn't my
intuition. My ego was like, I can't believe that this is happening again
to me, where my intuition was very slowly
showing me, Hey, you know this pattern. You know this
(13:20):
way. You know what's gonna happen. You've read this book before.
And I could start to see it, but my
ego was still very much wanting it
to be right. And there is no right and wrong. You
know, there's a neutrality, like there's the peace that I
feel now was completely gone from the
(13:43):
behavior that I was acting in, in my last, again, I would say my
last six months at that job, but two to three years before
it was dropping these hints of like, This is coming. This
is coming. And I mean, I would get it's almost like I would get like
a cheat sheet from some of my coworkers of like,
Hey, this person's going to come and they're, they're going to start
(14:05):
doing what you're doing. And then the fear would rise up of, Oh,
you know, I'm, my job is going to be gone, I'm not
going to be relevant anymore, all of that thing, I'm going to get
fired, I'm going to all of the things.
And when I would push
away my intuition, it shut me down completely.
(14:28):
And I was in fighting mode and it was like, that's not right.
That's, you know, and I was never going to convince them to keep
things the same. It's just, they were stuck in, in
how they wanted this organization to feed up
to a different leader. And again, it's a
process. It's a process. But when you become aware of it,
(14:50):
by the time that you make your decision, you have gone through
the fear, you have gone through the egoic stage, you have exhausted
yourself to the point of where you're like, thank goodness I'm
out of that. Thank goodness. So is that how it happened
for you after the you the times that came to
pass, what you kind of thought would happen? So
(15:13):
now it's the time for you to make the decision to either stay or
go. It sounds like you had the option to either stay or
go. Tell us about that. Was there wrestling? Did your intuition
automatically say go? Did you hear a voice? Or was
it a process? Again, there might be somebody listening who
right at this moment, they're going, should I stay? Should I go? They
(15:34):
made all these changes. They may have an experience similar to
yours. The pattern repeated itself. They probably been in
it for a long time, and they were like, this has happened before.
So tell us about what was happening in that specific
moment of time. Yeah. So a good clue that you're
in this is if you continue to say, the same
(15:57):
story or like a phrase when you're talking about something
to friends, you know, colleagues, family. And
what I would continually hear myself saying was, it's like
talking to a wall. Talking to these people is like talking to a
wall. And then I have a meditation practice and in my
practice, I've at that time, I was doing in the evening. One
(16:19):
evening, I saw an image of myself look me
straight in the eyes and and say to me, it's like talking to a
wall. Oh, no. Look at you.
This is me problem. I need to, I need to. Yeah.
Yeah. And so that was, that was the beginning of a
(16:40):
real shift of being, you know, playing this
part of this actor in this movie versus becoming an
audience and then seeing the movie for what it is in that distance and
saying Yeah. I don't need to participate in in this way.
Yeah. So you got that insight. So how long approximately
from the insight to the actual move and what happened in between? Was
(17:02):
there more wrestling or was there, I just gotta
go? Oh my gosh. It escalated pretty quick. I would say
I would say six months, but it this was during pandemic,
so it had a lot of other factors with it. And again, I was living
in Manhattan, which if anyone's lived in Manhattan
or been or visited Manhattan, the energy there is
(17:25):
ridiculous. And I'm a California gal,
and so when the pandemic hit and the city
shut down, I could breathe, which Makes sense. You
know, which is an oxymoron, like, I mean, it doesn't even
make sense with what was going on at the time, but I
could have that space and I could
(17:48):
then hear myself. And then I could
And again, because we were on screens for a lot of our meetings at that
time, there was space, there was space there. And
so from that realization, I would say yes, six to
seven months. And but it once
once you know, you know, once you notice something, you know, in a
(18:10):
picture or whatever, every and you didn't notice it and then you see it, you're
never going to not see it in that picture. And that's that's basically what it
was. And the universe really speeds up in order
to give you, you know, high definition of what's wrong in
that picture. And they don't just continue and continue to the
point of where I was so uncomfortable. And at this
(18:32):
time in the entertainment industry, and it's still going on, unfortunately, but a lot of
layoffs were happening, acquisitions. There was a lot
going on. And so there were rounds of layoffs, and
I called up my, HR representative and I said, For the
next round of layoffs, I would like to submit my name.
And that was kind of the reaction that she said. She's like, What? What?
(18:55):
I said, Yeah. Yeah. She's like, Are you sure? Do you wanna take some time?
I said, Nope, this is it. This is it. And when I hung
up with her, I started dancing around the
room. It was just freedom at that point. Yeah.
Sound like a sensitive belief. Yeah. You were talking about
it because it had been building up, and it was almost like this is an
(19:16):
opportunity. They had a structure built in for you to sort of bow
out gracefully. That's right. Yeah. And it sounds like the six
months prior, it kept getting more and more difficult for you. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a resistance, And I think like that's
one of the processes of listening to your intuition is it's really
seeing where your resistance is and we all have it. Resistance
(19:39):
is really based in our critical hemisphere of our
brain. It's based in fear for
good reason. And and I'll say that I don't regret
those six months. I don't regret those two to three years when I was coming
to it. It was perfectly aligned in perfect timing for
me to put my name on a list that wasn't that was gonna happen pretty
(20:00):
quickly. Yeah. Yeah. And do you think that fear for you wasn't
around, you know, not having a job or not knowing what's next
or what do you know what the particular fear or fears
were? Yeah. You know, I think a lot of us grow
up with the pressures of, you know, in order to be successful, you've gotta
have a corporate job. You've gotta have insurance that's paying for you.
(20:23):
You know? And in the entertainment industry specifically,
it's one of those jobs when you start to talk with someone, you know, their
eyes kinda like perk up and they say, Oh, you know, did you work on
this? Or, Oh, you know this person? Oh, I love that show, or whatever. So
there was there was an instant connection with
people. And I started fearing like, what am I gonna talk about? This
(20:45):
has been my life. How am I gonna support myself? Because that again
is what people will try and, I'll just say, stagnate,
you know, like where where you are, And
those fears, and then again, the pandemic came, that
really wasn't for me though. That was one of those where,
I almost feel as if it was a calling and a
(21:07):
in a real reset of of how I was gonna live
this second kind of half of my life. Yeah. And you used
the word calling, which suggests to me not just
a moving away from the frustrations and the
challenges of that past. Just moving away from that.
A calling suggests to move a compelling
(21:30):
energy towards something else. Was that your experience, this
notion of being compelled, and did you know what it might be?
So my dad started showing up a lot,
a lot. It was kind of like you've gone down this path and, and
he visited with every job transition, you know, with signs
and things like that. And when I moved back,
(21:53):
I just felt the pull to come back to California, and
I had, again, guided by him in intuition,
had bought a place in 2017, didn't move into it
until 2021. And it was
like I had bought it as my safe haven that I didn't know
I was going to need. And it was in this place
(22:15):
where it was quiet, the energy was completely different from Manhattan,
that my dad came to me on Valentine's day of that year.
And Valentine's day was always special for us. And he came
through and I started channeling him with automatic writing and I filled
up three whole journals in the course of four days.
And it was just a divine download of, you know, this is
(22:38):
where you've been. This is kind of this next phase. I'm
reminding you of our pact together. I'm reminding you that
this is actually the work and the purpose. And, and I've
been doing, I I'll just say I was never hired for my like PowerPoint skills,
you know, in, in entertainment. Like that wasn't my thing. I
was really, really good with, with people and
(23:01):
I needed those relationships and I needed the
polarity of not being in my intuition, to be in my
intuition, to come to the place of channeling, of
supporting people in, in tapping into their intuition
and to guiding them through maybe challenging
spaces in their life. That's amazing. And we'll back the
(23:23):
story, Clint, full circle from how it started
with your connection with your father and how it brought you
to the next phase of your life, culmination of this new
move. And it's that's fascinating. Thank you for sharing that
and moving story with us. It's deeply personal.
I'm sure it's gonna be a benefit to a lot of people, and I'm sure
(23:45):
it has already. So now speaking of a lot of people,
the podcast, this is who I imagine the listener to be, a high
achieving woman who is successful but
unfulfilled. And let me tell you what my definition of
high achieving is. High achieving woman is someone who is
ambitious, responsible, good at a couple of
(24:07):
things. He's the one that people come to in a professional life
that just, you know, I wanna hear your advice on this, whether it's related to
her role or not. Even in her personal life, family,
neighbors, community, they come to her, ask for her advice
or wisdom. So she's sort of the go to person. That's the
character. And now she's experiencing nothing's
(24:29):
wrong. Everything looks good. In fact, people are applauding
where she is, what she has achieved, but something's missing.
And she just can't put her finger on it. And she's not quite sure,
but she knows she wants more. She's feeling like she's meant
for more. So this is who we're talking to right now. And
I see, Neli, like, you could relate to her in some ways.
(24:52):
Absolutely. Alright. So now she's listening to us. From your
experience, either professionally or personally, what's just some
words of encouragement or anything you would like to to leave
her with as she's listening today? So all of those people that
you're serving, serving so well and serving
so greatly, there is one person
(25:14):
that needs your attention at the front of the line. And
that is, I'm gonna say it's a younger version of
you. And that younger version of you, If
you imagine a line of all the people that you serve
in a day, it's like she gets to the front of the line and
someone cuts it and someone cuts it and someone cuts
(25:37):
it. And then she ends up farther and
farther and farther back in the line. And if you can kind of
envision that and how that feels to that younger
version of you and what that does in
your mind of how her self worth then
gets impacted. I would say maybe one day,
(25:58):
very soon, if it's today. Amazing. Just say
anytime that someone tries to cut that line, say, you know what? I'm gonna
have to get back to you. And it can be ten minutes. It can be
fifteen minutes. But just beginning to allow
that younger version of you a little bit of your advice,
a little bit of your attention, it's going to do wonders and
(26:21):
and to practice that every single day. Yes. I'm
imagining people just putting themselves at front of the line right now.
So thank you for sharing that wisdom. And, Jenn, you've been so
generous with your thoughts, your insights, and your time. But
before we go and tell people how they can be in touch with you, is
there anything that I didn't get a chance to ask you or didn't think to
(26:43):
ask you that you wanna share? Is there anything that's popping up in your mind
right now? One more thing. One more thing. If not, it's okay. But if
there is, here's an opportunity to share that. We all have
intuition. It is our birthright. We all have it. I said
earlier, not only do I think it's a sense, I think it's our first sense
that we're born with, and we're all channels. And whether it be
(27:04):
writing a book, whether it be painting, whether it be musician, whether it be
singing, whether it be helping others, whether it
be gardening, whether it be, you know, anything that you love to
do is your first clue as to how
you channel. Yes. Yes. I love that. I love
that. Alright. So now I'm imagining people might wanna say, well, how
(27:27):
can I hear more? Or they wanna follow you in some way. So where can
they be in touch with you? Oh, the easiest way is through my website. It's
Jen Cohen. It's Jenn with two n's, c o h e n, intuitive
dot com. Okay. And we'll be sure to put that in the show notes. Jenn,
thank you so much. It's been a pleasure having this conversation with you. Oh,
thank you. Okay, everyone. I love this conversation. I hope you did
(27:49):
too. And I'd love to hear your response to it. Follow me on social
media. I spend most of my time on LinkedIn, but I'd love to
hear your response to this episode at Robin L Owens
PhD, at Robin L Owens PhD.
And until next time, this is Dr.
Robin. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the
(28:11):
Leadership Purpose with Dr. Robin podcast. If
you enjoyed it, head on over and rate and subscribe
so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop
every week, and I can't wait to hang out with you again soon.
Meanwhile, this is Dr Robin
signing off. See you next time.
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