STOP 2 THINK

Episode 36 - Stories, States and Sentences Part Two: What Are You Saying to Yourself?

Welcome to the STOP 2 THINK Podcast. In this episode, Stories, States and Sentences Part Two: What Are You Saying to Yourself?, we continue our conversation with Dr Ray Sylvester about the powerful connection between the stories we believe, the states we live in, and the sentences we repeat to ourselves. We explore how the stories we carry can shape our emotions, decisions, relationships and sense of possibility. Some of these stories may have been with us for years, quietly influencing the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Together, we look at the impact of familiar sentences such as: “I’m not good enough.” “It’s too late.” “I should be further ahead.” “The best years are behind me.” We consider where these beliefs come from, why they can be so difficult to change, and what happens when we pause long enough to notice the language we use internally. Most importantly, this episode invites us to question whether the sentences we repeat are actually true—or whether they are simply stories we have believed for a long time. Because when we become aware of the story, we create the possibility of changing it. And perhaps it is time to write a new one. In this episode, we explore: How our stories influence the states we live in The connection between thoughts, emotions and behaviour Why certain beliefs can stay with us for decades How repeated sentences shape our identity and choices The impact of self-critical and limiting language Why awareness is the first step towards change How to begin creating a more empowering story for yourself Listen now and take a moment to consider: What are you saying to yourself—and is it time to say something different? Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

Episode 35 : Stories, States & Sentences

This is one of the most personal and revealing conversations Ray and I have recorded. We talk about fear, grief, loss, health, getting older and something I’ve only recently begun to recognise about the way I’ve lived much of my life. For years, I became very good at helping other people change their lives while often avoiding some of the things going on inside my own. In this conversation, Ray challenges me to look at that and at the extraordinary difference between living your life from the outside in and from the inside out. The fear that can exist beneath busyness and achievement Why helping others can sometimes stop us looking at ourselves What grief has taught me about slowing down Learning to be kinder to yourself Why the hardest journey can be the journey within What can arise when we finally give ourselves permission to stop Pull quote:“What I’m looking for isn’t out there. It’s in here.” This conversation gave me a lot to think about. I hope it does the same for you. Maybe the most important question is: what might you discover if you stopped long enough to really listen to yourself? Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah’s Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete’s website: https://petecohen.com/

Episode 34: Finding Your Balance: Outside-in and Inside-Out

How much of your life is being shaped by what’s happening around you, and how much is coming from within you? In this episode, Dr Ray Sylvester and I continue our exploration of outside-in and inside-out living. We talk about why we need both, the impact of the constant noise around us, and why STOP 2 THINK isn’t about withdrawing from the world. It’s about creating enough space to hear yourself within it. We explore the difference between reacting and responding, the person and the performer, and the importance of creating what Ray calls intentional time. Perhaps the question isn’t whether you live outside-in or inside-out. Perhaps it’s simply: Have you found your balance? Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https:// www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

Episode 33 - What Will You Pass On? Legacy, Hope and the Lives We Touch

What Will You Pass On? Legacy, Hope and the Lives We Touch What do we really leave behind? This very special episode of the STOP 2 THINK Podcast was recorded in Uganda with my friend Mandela Salim Buluma. Mandela and his team care for 101 vulnerable children, many of whom have experienced extraordinary challenges very early in their lives. But this isn’t really a conversation about charity. It’s a conversation about legacy, leadership, hope and what we choose to pass on. Mandela shares how his father inspired the work he does today, and how losing him created an even greater responsibility to continue what he had started. We talk about the importance of giving children more than food, shelter and education. Mandela’s vision is to help them develop practical skills, confidence, independence and the belief that they can become valuable members and leaders within their communities. We also explore something much bigger. What happens to the things people give us after they’re gone? Can someone’s values, love and influence continue through the lives of other people? And can our most difficult experiences eventually become something that helps somebody else? During our conversation, Mandela said something to me about my late wife Hannah that genuinely stopped me in my tracks. I’m not going to tell you what he said here. I’d rather you experience that moment for yourself. The extraordinary story of how Mandela and I first met How his father’s legacy inspired his work with vulnerable children Why creating independence is more powerful than creating dependency Giving young people skills, responsibility and a voice Why asking for help is a strength What suffering can teach us about leadership and life The importance of hope when circumstances are difficult The vision for creating a sustainable future for 101 children in Uganda And a deeply personal moment that I will never forget This conversation reminded me that perhaps legacy isn’t something we start thinking about towards the end of our lives. We’re creating it now. In our conversations. In our choices. In the way we treat people. In what we teach. In what we give. And in what we choose to do with the things life has given us. So as you listen, STOP 2 THINK: What are you passing on? And perhaps more importantly… What would you like to pass on? If you like to find out more about Mandela, the work he does then check the links below. If you would like to donate or set up a fundraising event then contact him directly thorough the website. https://www.godinactionuganda.com/ Follow him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/godinactionuganda/ If you like to donate then please visit here. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=N8QJFV8NTGETJ

Episode 32 - The Day I Stopped Resisting Life - An Interview With Scott Edwards Jimena

When Scott Edwards Jimena reached out to me, I had no idea just how much this conversation would stay with me. Like Hannah, Scott is living with glioblastoma. But this isn’t really a conversation about cancer. It’s a conversation about what happens when life forces us to STOP. Scott shares, for the first time publicly, the childhood trauma he carried in silence for more than thirty years and how confronting it completely changed the way he sees himself and the world around him. We talk about identity, vulnerability, fatherhood, purpose, spirituality, healing and why so many of us spend our lives wearing masks. What struck me most wasn’t Scott’s diagnosis—it was the peace he has found despite it. His story is a reminder that sometimes the greatest transformation begins when we stop resisting life, stop running from ourselves, and have the courage to discover who we really are. I genuinely believe this is one of the most honest and courageous conversations I’ve ever recorded, and I hope it encourages you to stop, reflect and perhaps see your own life a little differently. I hope you enjoy it. Follow Scott on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/scott_edwards_jimena/

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Celebrate The Journey - Episode 31

Celebrate the Journey As the first series comes to a close, Ray asked me a question I had never quite asked myself before. Not how do I celebrate Hannah, but how do I celebrate the whole journey, including who I used to be. We recorded this one walking an old railway path in South Buckinghamshire, looking back across thirty one episodes and ten months of raw, unscripted conversation. It started with a walk round Ray's Indianapolis neighbourhood just days after Hannah's funeral, and it has brought me all the way to a recent, unguarded conversation on Davina McCall's podcast. This is the episode where the whole series comes full circle, and where celebration finally turned inward, toward me. In this episode: What I finally understood, ten months on, about celebrating in your suffering The moment on Davina McCall's Begin Again that changed how I share my own story Why an overactive nervous system can run for years before you even notice it is happening Purging, and how I use sauna, journaling and meditation to deliberately release the old me The harder question Ray finally asked me, how do you celebrate the old Pete, not just Hannah Pull quote: "This transition from old Pete to new Pete deserves celebration. Celebrating the old Pete, because without the old Pete, this narrative wouldn't exist. So nothing is wasted." That is the first series of Stop 2 Think, complete. If you have walked the whole way with me and Ray, thank you. Go back to Episode 1 and hear where it all began, or reach out and tell me what has stayed with you. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/⁠ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/⁠ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/⁠ Watch Hannah's Story: ⁠https://petecohen.com/hannah⁠ Visit Pete's website petecohen.com

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Stand Up For Your Authenticity - Episode 30

Stand Up For Your Authenticity Recorded on the same Indianapolis visit as the last episode, this one brings the whole attachment versus authenticity thread to its fullest conclusion. It closes with a piece of advice from my late coach Raphael that has genuinely become one of the most important lines in this entire journey. I went deeper into my own school days than I ever had before, tracing a lifetime of feeling not enough all the way back to being singled out at five years old, and assessed again at ten. Ray helped me see that even a real, hard won achievement, like beating a future Olympian in judo, can be undone in a moment by someone else's disbelief, if you let it. In this episode: Attachment as something necessary for survival, authenticity as a later, deliberate choice My own school trauma, traced back to being singled out at five and assessed again at ten The runner I met in a shop, and why plateaus are a necessary, unglamorous stage of growth My judo story revisited, beating a future Olympian and still doubting myself afterwards Raphael's instruction, cross out the if in life, so that only legacy, le, remains Pull quote: "You can't outlearn your potential. Your potential is always a scope of expansion of self that you can't breach." That brings this stretch of Stop 2 Think to a close. If any of this has resonated with you, go back to Episode 1 and walk the whole journey with us, or reach out and let us know what stayed with you. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Who Are You, Really? - Episode 29

Who Are You, Really? Recorded after Ray and I spoke together at a global health and fitness conference, this is one of the most personally exposing episodes in the whole series. I admit, openly, to something I had been doing quietly for a long time. I told Ray about eating an entire Toblerone on a plane, and connected it, in real time, to Hannah's own one indulgence, smoking, the single thing she ever did purely for herself in a life spent giving to everyone else. We also worked through a genuinely useful exercise, two columns on a page, where am I and who am I, that I had actually done on the flight over. In this episode: Why fame and possessions never actually fulfil people from the inside, however much they accumulate Admitting, openly, to eating an entire family sized Toblerone on a plane Connecting my own comfort eating to Hannah's one private indulgence, smoking The where am I, who am I exercise, done honestly on the flight to Los Angeles David Goggins, and what it actually looks like to reject comfort entirely Pull quote: "The easiest thing we can be is ourselves, and the hardest thing is to be something we're not. However, the world teaches us the opposite." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 30, the final episode of this stretch, where we ask what it really means to stand up for your own authenticity. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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The Journey Continues: Identity, Attachment & Authenticity - Episode 28

The Journey Continues, Identity, Attachment and Authenticity Recorded on my last day in Indianapolis, right after Ray and I spoke together on stage for the very first time, this episode goes deeper into identity, attachment, and authenticity than we ever had before. We watched the Bob Marley film One Love together that morning, and it gave us a way into something I have said for years without ever quite knowing what to do with it, you can't unpickle a pickle. Ray took that phrase somewhere genuinely useful, pulling the pickled onion apart layer by layer, and I got triggered live, by nothing more than a cancelled flight, and we used it as a real example right there in the moment. In this episode: Watching Bob Marley's One Love, and his own genuine ambiguity around identity You can't unpickle a pickle, and Ray's extension of it, pulling the pickled onion apart Getting triggered live by a cancelled British Airways flight, and what it actually revealed Viktor Frankl again, and the real freedom that lives in the space between stimulus and response Marley's idea of I and I, and what it means to remove hierarchy from how we relate to people Pull quote: "What you can't do is unpickle the pickledness, but you can pull the onions and get the layers back, to see the essence of who you really are." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 29, where I open up honestly about my own struggle with comfort eating and what it actually means to ask, who are you, really. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Open to Everything. Attached to Nothing - Episode 27

Open to Everything, Attached to Nothing This episode introduces a guiding principle that has genuinely stayed with me ever since Ray first said it, being open to everything and attached to nothing. It goes right to the heart of what Stop 2 Think actually means, and why real openness is so much harder to live out than it sounds. We got into branding, of all things, using an exercise Ray ran with three hundred students where ninety eight percent owned an iPhone yet almost none of them could give an actual reason why. We also played with a simple perception exercise that reads as I am nowhere until you slow down enough to see it can also read as I am now here. In this episode: What being open to everything and attached to nothing actually means, and does not mean The iPhone exercise, ninety eight percent ownership, almost no genuine justification I am nowhere and I am now here, the same letters read two completely different ways Diet and exercise trends across my whole career, all really just brands carrying meaning Your right is someone else's left, a line from my old coach I still use to this day Pull quote: "Being open to everything attached to nothing is a decision to at least be open." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 28, recorded after we spoke together on stage for the first time, where we go deeper into identity, attachment, and authenticity. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Living From the Inside Out. Episode 26

Living From the Inside Out Recorded in Los Angeles, this episode leans on the work of trauma expert Gabor Maté to explain, with real precision, why authenticity and attachment get so easily confused with each other, and why untangling them is genuinely hard work. I opened up about something small but revealing, a moment at the airport with my parents where I ate food I knew wasn't good for me, purely out of what I now recognise as separation anxiety rooted all the way back in childhood. Ray helped me see that authenticity has no competition, while attachment is built entirely from the five senses, starting from the moment we're born. In this episode: The tension between the external world everyone sees and the internal one only I know Cold plunge exposure, and the real link between challenging the body and shifting the internal state Who you are only ever exists in the present moment, where you are is really just yesterday's residue The airport story, eating out of separation anxiety I hadn't recognised in myself before Why authenticity has no competition, while attachment is built entirely from the five senses Pull quote: "Authenticity has no competition; authenticity has no compunction, it just is." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 27, where we explore a guiding principle that has stayed with me ever since, being open to everything and attached to nothing. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Becoming By Overcoming - Episode 25

Becoming By Overcoming I recorded this one after a dramatic stretch of travel, from the wealth of Hong Kong and Macau to a Ugandan orphanage full of children who have already overcome more than most of us ever will. It introduces one of my favourite ideas from the whole series, the tree and its fruit. Ray and I talked about how fruit is never really for the tree itself, only for others, and how the deepest growth in any life often happens completely unseen, in the roots, during the hardest seasons. Somewhere in the middle of that conversation, Ray coined an acronym on the spot, RESL, that has stayed with me ever since. In this episode: The metaphor of the tree, and why fruit is meant to be given away, not kept Meeting children at the orphanage who had already found the strength to leave unsafe situations Receive, exchange, and sow, the RESL cycle Ray built in real time as we talked Meeting Mandela, who runs the orphanage through a charity called God in Action Speaking honestly to anyone listening who has not received the same foundation of love I have Pull quote: "You are giving love into the future, but you don't know explicitly where it's going." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 26, recorded in Los Angeles, where we explore the real difference between authenticity and attachment. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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The Investment of Becoming - Episode 24

The Investment of Becoming This episode explores what it actually means to invest in who I am becoming, not in some distant, imagined future, but through what I actually do today. It also reframes my own future self work in light of the hardest possible test, real, profound loss. Ray asked me something genuinely difficult, how do you keep believing in the idea of a future self when the person you most wanted that future with is gone. I told him plainly that becoming that person means being them right now, in this moment, because there is no tomorrow, only what I am actually investing in today. In this episode: Future casting, and why becoming that person happens now, not later The seeding paradox, nothing grows tomorrow unless you plant something today What actually sustains consistency, loving what you do, not just gritted discipline Seneca again, preparation, which we control, and opportunity, which we never fully do Why loving myself more since losing Hannah has never once diminished my love for her Pull quote: "There is a convergence of two things: one you can control, and one you can't control. The one you can control is preparation." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 25, recorded after travelling from Hong Kong to a Ugandan orphanage, where we explore becoming through overcoming. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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The Person Behind The Performance - Episode 23

The Person Behind The Performance Recorded jet lagged, the morning after ten unstructured days spent together in Indianapolis, this episode goes back into performance versus person, but with far more depth than the first time we touched on it. I told Ray how much deeper my appreciation of who I am had become just from spending real, unhurried time together, and we talked properly about thought life as its own genuine layer of wellbeing, right alongside diet, sleep, and exercise, not separate from them. In this episode: Three levels we operate on, physical, psychological, and metaphysical How what you think about before sleep actually affects the quality of that sleep Fight, flight, and freeze, and how freeze often hides behind constant busyness Wrestling, out loud, with the label the people's coach versus performance coach Why so many genuinely successful people say they feel empty once they get there Pull quote: "We are more interested in you, the person. Then you, the performer." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 24, where we explore what it really means to invest in who you are becoming. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Significance Without Dominance - Episode 22

Significance Without Dominance Recorded on my last evening in Indianapolis on that visit, this episode introduces one of the sharpest tools in the whole series, the difference between something being significant in your life and something being allowed to dominate it entirely. Ray and I got into the Serenity Prayer, and why willpower driven diets so often fail while genuine identity shift tends to last. I also opened up about something harder, my own instinctive reaction to Black Lives Matter, and what it actually took for me to stop and look at things properly with a fresh pair of eyes. In this episode: The real difference between something being significant and something dominating your life The Serenity Prayer, taken further than its usual reading Why willpower driven diets fail, and identity based lifestyle change tends to last Ray's own experience as a Black British man, and the honest limits of empathy My own instinctive reaction to Black Lives Matter, and what it took to actually reconsider it Pull quote: "Making a decision to say that something is significant and treasure that without making a decision to say it will dominate." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 23, recorded the jet lagged morning after ten days together, where we go back into the difference between performance and the person underneath it. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Who You Are Is Bigger Than Where You Are - Episode 21

Who You Are Is Bigger Than Where You Are Recorded on another walk with Ray, this episode pushes further into Viktor Frankl's ideas and sharpens the distinction between circumstance and identity even more than before. We talked about why where you are always includes time, meaning even something you have already overcome still carries the shape of what you escaped, while who you are carries no such attachment at all. I also opened up about the letters that came in after my parents died, describing them both as people who always had time for others. In this episode: Why where you are always includes time, and who you are does not Carol Dweck's fixed versus flexible mindset, and which one I was actually showing The letters that came in after my parents died, and what they revealed about who they really were Where research itself came from, interpretation, long before it became obsessed with numbers Triggers, and why how we respond to them is always a genuine choice Pull quote: "Where you are is always contingent on context, and context is always time as well." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 22, recorded on my last evening in Indianapolis, where we explore the difference between something being significant in your life and something dominating it entirely. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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When Life Changes Everything - Episode 20

When Life Changes Everything This is a solo episode, no Ray this time, just me talking directly to you, recorded while I was genuinely waiting, phone in hand, for a very special delivery to arrive. It is one of the most emotionally raw conversations in the whole series. I talk honestly about the sheer amount of travel I had taken on recently, and address, directly, the suggestion from someone that it might be avoidance. I also tell the full story of Hannah becoming a quilter after her diagnosis, and the quilt she started but never got to finish herself. In this episode: Addressing head on the suggestion that all my recent travel might be a way of avoiding my grief Meaning as something you give your own life, not something you simply find waiting for you How Hannah reinvented herself as the bespoke quilter after her diagnosis The Michael Jordan shirt quilt she started, and the friends who finished it after she died A stranger I met in a hotel who had also lost his wife, and the instant kinship we shared Pull quote: "I think we're love." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 21, where we go even deeper into Viktor Frankl and what it really means to be bigger than where you are. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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The Journey Beyond Circumstance - Episode 19

The Journey Beyond Circumstance I recorded this one walking with Ray the day before Thanksgiving, deliberately, as a kind of prequel to a much harder conversation that follows it. I wanted to give you the context first, before you hear something far more raw. We talked about branding as identity, and about Steve Jobs's Stanford speech, connecting the dots, love and loss, and facing death. I also admitted something that felt strange to say out loud at the time, that despite everything, I felt more content and more alive than I had in years. In this episode: Branding as identity, and why so much of the world confuses where you are with who you are Steve Jobs's Stanford speech, connecting the dots, love and loss, and facing death Admitting, out loud, that I felt content and alive in the middle of active grief Real connection built across distance and different beliefs, without ever needing agreement How you treat someone in a position of lesser visible status, like a waiter, and what it actually reveals Pull quote: "You are connecting the dots in terms of meaning. What does it mean to you because you are still here?" Come and join me and Ray for Episode 20, one of the most personal episodes in the whole series, recorded while I was genuinely waiting for a very special delivery to arrive. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Where You Are Is Not Who You Are - Episode 18

Where You Are Is Not Who You Are This episode states the idea that everything else in this series ultimately returns to, as directly as we have ever said it. Ray and I use real, well known lives to prove the point, because I think it lands harder when you can see it actually lived out by someone else first. We talked about Nelson Mandela, twenty seven years in a cell and still choosing not to be defined by it, about Arnold Schwarzenegger realising, right at the end, that none of it was ever really about him alone, and about my friend MJ, who lives with a permanent disability and taught me something important about the limits of comparison. In this episode: Nelson Mandela's twenty seven years in prison as the clearest possible example Arnold Schwarzenegger's documentary, and his realisation that it was always we, never just him My friend MJ, and what her story taught me about circumstance versus identity Simon Sinek's Golden Circle, and the difference between a label and a real why Dolores Jordan's vision for her son Michael, long before anyone else could see it Pull quote: "Your circumstances never define you; they're a moment in time." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 19, a walking prequel recorded the day before Thanksgiving, setting the stage for one of the most personal conversations in this whole series. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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Waiting for the Sunrise - Episode 17

Waiting for the Sunrise This is one of the rawest episodes in the whole series. I was genuinely uncertain, in every direction, professionally and personally, and I told Ray plainly that I know who I am more clearly than ever, but had absolutely no idea yet what to do with that knowledge. We talked about the seven people I consider my great guides in life, and Ray gently pushed me to look honestly at what I was actually afraid of. This is also where I first admitted, out loud, my hesitation about writing a book about my own life. In this episode: The seven people I consider my great guides in life, and Ray's place among them Being in the middle of the night, not yet ready for whatever comes next My own hesitation about writing a book about my life, wondering if anyone would want to read it Seneca's formula, purpose as preparation, which we control, plus opportunity, which we do not My early academic struggles, and how they quietly prepared me for the work I do now Pull quote: "Purpose is the integration of two things: one you can control, and one you can't control." Come and join me and Ray for Episode 18, where we finally say, as directly as we ever have, that where you are is not who you are. Follow us here. Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/petecohen_/ Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/ Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/ Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

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