Podcast appearances and mentions of lisa kohn

In this episode, NAWL member Lisa Kohn sits down with David McCraw, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at The New York Times, to discuss the crucial role of press freedom in sustaining democracy. They delve into the challenges faced when this freedom is under attack and explore the intricate dynamics between freedom and the news. Tune in for an enlightening discussion on the urgent need to safeguard press freedom.

NAWL member Lisa Kohn engages in a compelling conversation with Jasleen Singh from the Brennan Center for Justice, delving into the pivotal issues of the presidential election, voting rights, and voter disenfranchisement. Together, they examine the future of voting and the potential challenges to accessibility. From evolving state precedents to the pervasive effects of misinformation, this discussion promises to be both enlightening and essential.  

Episode Guest: Lisa Kohn In this episode Lisa discusses what life was like during her time in the Unification Church, or Moonies, during her younger years. After years of being outside of the group Lisa courageously shares the ups and downs of what life is like and the effects her experience has on her life. You can get a copy of her book here: https://a.co/d/fszcAmV If you would like to support my channel please consider: http://buymeacoffee.com/truththath7 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/truththathealspod Thank you for all of your support and for helping to make this channel a reality :) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ryan-anthony-hernandez/support

When you read about our guest this time, Lisa Kohn, the first thing you read is “The best seats Lisa ever had at Madison Square Garden were at her mother's wedding, and the best cocaine she ever had was from her father's friend, the judge.” Lisa's mother's wedding was a group affair with 4,000 marriages taking place. It wasn't nearly as romantic as one might think as you will discover. You will also get to read about her childhood drug use caused by her father in The Village in New York City. More important, you get to travel with me on Lisa's journey as she eventually overcomes these and other challenges.   Lisa did get to attend college and obtain a degree in Psychology and later an MBA in business.   Lisa's journey has been a hard and long one, but you will see just how unstoppable Lisa became and is today. She started her leadership consulting and life coaching business, Chatworth Consulting Group, in 1995. The business has thrived and grown.   Lisa shares with us her thoughts on life and how easy it can be for all of us to fall into traps that can take our lives in what she would call bad directions and down not good rabbit holes. This episode contains a lot of relevant content we all can use. I hope you enjoy it and, of course, feel free to reach out to Lisa.       About the Guest:   Lisa Kohn is a transformational keynote speaker, leadership consultant, executive coach, and award-winning author of The Power of Thoughtful Leadership and to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence, a memoir that chronicles her childhood growing up in the Unification Church (the Moonies) with her mom and a life of “sex, drugs, and squalor” in New York City's East Village with her dad.   Lisa's unique background has given her a perspective on life, people, and leadership, as well as an expansive array of tools, mind-shifts, and best practices she's found and created, that help her clients find their own paths to powerful, authentic, Thoughtful leadership. With over 25 years of experience supporting senior leaders in areas such as leadership, managing change, interpersonal and team dynamics, strategy, well-being, and life-fulfillment, Lisa partners with her clients as they not only uncover core issues to implement real changes in themselves and their organizations, but also successfully address their own inner challenges and effectively connect with others to ensure the changes stick.   Lisa has been described as “leading with love,” and she's honored to teach C-suite leaders of not-for-profits and Fortune 50 organizations about the compelling impact of self-compassion, self-love, fun, delight, and Thoughtful Leadership – being more present, intentional, and authentic. She works with organizations across a broad range of industries, in companies such as New York City Department of Education, GroupM/WPP, Verizon, World Wrestling Entertainment, American Civil Liberties Union, and Comcast. Lisa brings insight to clients that transforms the way organizations develop and manage their people and the way leaders lead their people and live their lives.   Lisa earned her BA in psychology from Cornell University and her MBA from Columbia University's Executive Program. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University and New York University's Stern School of Business and has been featured in publications addressing topics on leadership, communication, effective teaming, authenticity, selfcare, and, of course, healing from trauma. She has been awarded the designation of Professional Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation. Lisa is an Accredited Facilitator for Everything DiSC®, The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™, The Leadership Circle™, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®.   Lisa lives in Pennsylvania but will always tell you that she is “from New York.” Ways to connect with Lisa:   Instagram and X @lisakohnwrites LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisakohnccg/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lisakohnwrites My websites are www.lisakohnwrites.com and www.chatsworthconsulting.com       About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi, once again, you are listening to another episode of unstoppable mindset, and today, we get to speak with Lisa Kohn, who is the founder of the Chatsworth Consulting Group. She leads with love. Many people say she deals with nonprofits, C suite, people and others, and dealing with business coaching, life coaching, and I'm not going to tell you anymore, because she's going to spend the next hour telling us all about it. So Lisa, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We are really glad you're here.   Lisa Kohn ** 01:55 I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me, Michael,   Michael Hingson ** 01:58 now I do have to tell everyone. I'm going to tell on you that we were talking before we started this. Lisa's had to postpone a couple times because she had a concussion, which in in a way, relates to skiing. And having never skied myself, I love to spread the rumor that the trees are out to get us all the time. So one of these days I'll probably ski but but in the meanwhile, my brother in law is as a great skier, and was a certified mountain ski guide for years, and I always tell him that the trees are out to get us, and he can not convince me otherwise, no matter what he says. And he says, No, it's really you the skier. And I said, That's what you say. So you know, that's my conspiracy theory of the day,   Lisa Kohn ** 02:37 but I will tend to believe it, because not this concussion, but the last concussion I did, ski into a tree, and I don't know how. I really don't know how. So I am convinced maybe to come out to get me. That makes sense. See,   Michael Hingson ** 02:51 there you go. I rest my case. Everyone. You're welcome to let us know what you think, but it is fun to tease about it. My brother in law used to take tours to France, and was, as I said, a certified mountain ski guide, and has done it for years in the winter in Ketchum, Idaho, where he lives, it is all about skiing first foremost and always, and everything else comes second. So that's fine. Well, Lisa, why don't we start by you telling us a little about the early Lisa, I love to start that way. Learn a little bit about you growing up and all that stuff and going to college or whatever you did and anything like that that you want to tell   Lisa Kohn ** 03:31 us. Well, I will do that. It's it's not the simplest story. So I'll give you the overview and the highlights, and then we can move on or go deeper, or whatever works for you. So I love lines, right? I have a line that describes my childhood. I say the best seats I ever had at Madison Square Garden were at my mother's wedding because my mom got married in 1982 with 4074 other people in a mass wedding. I was raised Unification Church, the Moonies. I was raised in a cult. So that's that's my life with my mom. And on the other hand, the best cocaine I ever had was for my father's friend, the judge. Because my dad, I lived with my dad and my dad. Life with my dad was, as I like to say, sex, drugs and squalor in New York City's East Village in the 1970s so I am, I am like this true child of the 60s and 70s, because both my parents were involved in the, you know, the hippie culture and then the cult culture of that era. So very short. You know, very long story, very short. After that synopsis, my parents got married way too young. Had my brother had me split up. We lived with my mom for a number of years, and when I was in third grade, we were about to we lived on the East Coast. Of America. We lived in Jersey, and we were about to move drive across country to California to move on to a commune. And my grandmother, my mom's mom, got sick with cancer, and so instead we moved, instead of cross country, moved across state and moved in with my grandparents and lived there. My grandmother died. My mom stayed with we stayed with my grandfather. My mom was taking care of the house and of him. And in 1974 my mom went to hear, actually, the person she with whom she said, hitchhik, cross country with every year, called her and said, You have to go hear Reverend Moon speak. And my mom went to hear Reverend Moon speak and came back a changed person, just enthralled with what she'd heard. And not much happened. And then a couple months later, members of the Unification Church convinced my mom to go up for a weekend workshop, and my mom went away for the weekend and came back and went back up for a week and came back and went back up and basically spent the summer being indoctrinated into the unification Church's ideology. And then, you know, somewhere that summer, my mom took us, my brother, I have an older brother, took my brother, and I have with her, and we the estates called barrytown, New York. We pull up to this estate. This this huge building. It used to be a Christian brother school, and we go down into the gymnasium, and all the women, the sisters, are sitting on the floor on the right side of the room, and all the brothers, the men, are sitting on the floor on the left side of the room. And with moments Moon Reverend Sam young moon walks in and begins speaking with his interpreter, and that was it. I had a Messiah, and we were Moonies, and again, synopsized down. Within about six months, my mom sat my brother and I down and said, kids, I really feel called to be more involved. What should I do? And we said, you should leave. And so she left, and we were with my grandfather, and I was in sixth grade and running the household. And then my grandfather, due to a variety of different things, was put in the hospital on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and we got shuffled around for a little while. And finally, my father came to get us, and we moved in with him in New York City, disease village, the life of sex, drugs and scholar, and live this dual life of like living the outside world with Satan and believing in a Messiah and a puritanical cult. And that continued for a number of years, until I can go into the details at some point. But through this whole soap opera experience, I started to eventually question. And we were literally taught if that, if we ever questioned, it was Satan inside of us, but I fully questioned and pulled away, and over the space of many years, kind of left it all behind. And yeah, went to college. I was, you know, I started questioning in my last year of high school, and then I went up to college. I was at Cornell University, and, you know, it's surrounded with gorges, and nearly jumped off the bridge into the gorge as I kind of self destructed having when I left the church. And, you know, went on to get worse and worse and worse in kind of my own psyche, until I really crashed and burned, and someone pointed me in the direction of getting help in the mid to late 80s, and it's been a journey ever since. So there, that's the that's the 10 minute version of, you know, what's in my memoir?   Michael Hingson ** 08:14 What a story. What's your memoir called   Lisa Kohn ** 08:18 to the moon and back the influence, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 08:21 yeah. So what about your brother?   Lisa Kohn ** 08:22 My brother? My brother, uh, he so I, my brother likes to say, I never actually left, I just slowly drifted away. And that was, you know, from like 1980 through 1985 my brother, who's a year and a half older than me, a year ahead of me, in school, he, when he was in college, he was in a place that was truly surrounded with with there were Moonies there who knew him. So he could not leave. But as soon as he got out of college, he went to Drew University. He literally sat my mom down and said, That's it. I'm out. So he he announced being out. I still haven't told anyone I'm out. And he is, you know. So he's also happy and thriving. And he lives in New York City, you know, very eager to get out of the city. I got out of the city years ago. Yeah. So we're still, well, there's a lot Go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. No. He's the only person who experienced the weird dichotomy going back and forth between these two crazy worlds that I did. So, yeah, we're very close.   Michael Hingson ** 09:18 There's, there's a lot to be said for the city, and there's a lot that the city can contribute. But on the other hand, there are so many other parts of the country. I met a woman when my wife and I moved back to New Jersey, I stayed at an apartment for a while in Linden. I'm sorry, no, where was it? Not Lyndon, well, anyway, it was north of Springfield in New Jersey, and this woman, well, we met her because we were staying at a Holiday Inn in Springfield at the time, and she was one of the people who worked there. And she also. Then came to help me in just making sure my apartment was good and clean until Karen moved back and we had our house, and one of the things that we learned from her was that her whole life, she lived in the Springfield area and had never been to New York City, less than 40 miles away.   Lisa Kohn ** 10:20 Yeah, people   Michael Hingson ** 10:21 are afraid of it. Yeah, there's elizabeth new jersey, where I lived until Karen came back, and then we we had started and built a house in Westfield. But I'm always amazed, and I know of people who live in the city who have never been out.   10:35 That is true as well. Yes, and there's   Michael Hingson ** 10:38 so much more to the world, and I just love the fact that I've had the opportunity as a speaker to travel all over this country and enjoy going and meeting new people and seeing new places and seeing so many different aspects of our whole US culture. It's great,   Lisa Kohn ** 10:55 absolutely true. There's so much to be said for a lot of different places and and I will always be a New Yorker at heart.   Michael Hingson ** 11:01 Well, there you go. There you go. And there's nothing wrong with being a New Yorker at heart. No, I was born in Chicago, but I grew up being a Californian and and I am, and I'm a Dodger fan, but you know, there you go. Of course, there are those who say that the Dodgers, one day will move back to New York,   Lisa Kohn ** 11:19 back to Brooklyn. We'll   Michael Hingson ** 11:20 see what happens. Yeah, hasn't happened yet. So what did you major in college?   Lisa Kohn ** 11:26 I was a psychology major.   Michael Hingson ** 11:27 Ah, okay, so now, where do you live?   Lisa Kohn ** 11:31 I live in Wayne, Pennsylvania, outside of,   Michael Hingson ** 11:34 okay, I know where that is. So that's, that's pretty cool. So you, you certainly had a life that has had a lot of experiences. And I would think that you probably would agree that, yes, there were a lot of things that weren't necessarily great, but they taught you a lot, and it certainly helps you to be able to step back and think about all that and put it in perspective   Lisa Kohn ** 12:01 that is true, you know, I am. It's not quite the point you're making. But alongside that, similar to that, you know, when, again, when the memoir came out, people started reaching out to me. And some, you know, late teenager, young adult, I don't really remember, the age, Stranger reached out to me and was kind of giving me the lowdown of a situation, which was, you know, hard, lot of trauma, a lot of lot of tough stuff. And I said, What I often say is, like, I wouldn't wish difficulties and struggles or trauma on anyone, sure, but I do know that when you get through, you know, if you can get through, when you can get through, you have an appreciation of life that people who haven't experienced hardship don't really have so, like, I can look outside, I mean, I love the little gold finches. I can look outside and see a little yellow bird, or actually have about 40 in the house at this point, because people keep sending them to me, right? And I am just filled with joy because I've learned, like, I know how, how low can go. And so even just just okay is really great at times. So so it's a similar thing to what you said, right? You have a perspective. You have a you have, you know, coping mechanisms, some that are wonderful and some that are you really could let go of and be done with. But yeah, I do. I feel like I have more of an appreciation for life and joy and love than some people have who haven't had to go through things.   Michael Hingson ** 13:25 I spoke to a life coach on the podcast a couple of days ago, actually. And one of the things that she said, and it's really kind of what you're saying, is that the fact is, she's much better at what she does because she has had a number of life experiences and things happen in her life, and if she hadn't done some of the things that she did and experienced some of the things that she experienced, she would never have been able to be nearly as effective as she is,   Lisa Kohn ** 14:02 yeah, you know, before my memoir was published in 2018 I generally never brought up my background in my work, because it, once you say cult, it literally, it sucks the energy out of the room like nothing else matters when you say I was raised in A cult and but once it came out, and if you Google me, you know, before I walk in a room, if you look me up, you know my story, because I'm very public with it at this point, I now get to use it in all of my work, and I get to use what I've experienced, and the multitude of tools and practices and mindsets and positive psychology and neuroplasticity and mindfulness and all of the things I have learned over the years to be okay and to thrive. I get to use it in in like in the most corporate work I do, I'm still bringing up, you know, teaching people. To take care of themselves and love themselves and love themselves first. Most, you know, always, like, is tattooed on my arm, like, really, to change their perspective of themselves, to start and off in the world. So yeah, if I, if I hadn't gone through what I gone through, I wouldn't be who I am, and I wouldn't get to share some of the things I get to share. So yeah, that's and that's why I do it. If sharing my story helps other people, then it's all worthwhile. And yeah, that's why I do it.   Michael Hingson ** 15:26 And I I hear that very well. And going back to what we were discussing the other day, Mary Beth and I, she starts her story by saying she took her first drink at the age of 11, and she decided that she liked the taste of alcohol and was an alcohol for alcoholic, or was a drunk for many years. And actually she's near 50, and she only quit four and a half years ago, she became, she became a life coach six years ago, although she was always interested in helping people, but she began to make that her business, and did so six years ago, and she is very clear that having adopted that philosophy and process and undertaking that career, even though it was much later in life, the bottom line is that it did lead to her finally recognizing that she shouldn't drink, and that's not a good thing, and she has not had a drink in four and a half years. Good for her. That's so it is all about what you experience and what you choose to do with it. So I hear you, you know, I   Lisa Kohn ** 16:33 hear her. Yeah, last so this is 2024, so two years ago, what you experienced, I was diagnosed by cancer, and you never think you're going to be one of the people who have cancer, until they say cancer to you, and you're thinking, aren't you talking to the person behind me? And I heard, you know, when I was going through the process and going through chemo, which I do not recommend to anyone, unless you absolutely have to do it, I heard a saying from a dialectical behavioral therapy, therapist who did pass from cancer, but the saying was, I will take more from cancer than cancer takes for me. And that, that that just carried me through, right? And I you can look at that with everything, like all the all the different things we experience, I will. I remember when I was first diagnosed, a practitioner said to me, why do you think you got sick? As in, like, what hadn't I healed that caused the cancer? And I, I stopped going to that practitioner, and I very clearly, I've looked at this and I thought, it's never going to help me to think, what did I do wrong, that I had cancer, that I got cancer, I got sick, but it will help me to say I did get sick. And what do I want to learn from that, and how do I want to change and shift and grow from that? So exactly right,   Michael Hingson ** 17:45 yeah, and like I always say to people, I'm my own best teacher. I've dropped saying I'm my own worst critic, because such a negative thing, and you don't necessarily have something to criticize, but I'm my own best teacher. I can look at anything I do and go, can I improve on it? How can I improve on it? And adopting the mindset that takes that approach really makes us stronger?   Lisa Kohn ** 18:11 Yes, it's called a growth mindset, right? And when we have a growth mindset, when we know that we can grow, when we know that we can learn, when we and yeah, when we stop being so hard on ourselves, like so many of us are,   Michael Hingson ** 18:23 yeah, and we learned that, and that's unfortunate that that's what we're taught, and it's so hard to break that cycle, but if you can, you're all the better for it,   Lisa Kohn ** 18:33 absolutely and to, you know, I'm, I mean, I teach this stuff. I've been teaching this stuff for a long time. I've been using it for decades, and just today, I was watching my mind go down a rabbit hole of some negative thinking and thinking and thinking that wasn't going to help me and also. And I pause. I'm like, I was driving. I'm like, I put my hand on my leg. I'm like, Lisa, you're right here. You're right now. You're in the car. Look the sky. Pay attention to the road. You don't have to think that right now. You can just be in this present moment and feel better and poof, like magic, the crazy thinking stops, and you're like, Oh yeah, it's actually okay. I don't have to worry about that right now. But, um, yeah, our brains, our brains, we have that, like we have a negativity bias. Our brains are trained, have evolved to, like, look for danger. Focus on danger. Really think about the bad. Play it over and over. See it bigger than it is. Never look at the good. We're as Rick Hansen likes to say, Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good. But we have a choice to shift that. So I feel like I'm preaching. Sorry, but I get excited about   Michael Hingson ** 19:34 it is it is perfectly okay to preach, and it is all about choice, as I tell people all the time, we had no control over the World Trade Center happening. No one's ever convinced me that we could have really foreseen it and not have it happen. But what we all, each and every person in the world, has a choice about, is how we deal with what happened at the World Trade Center, absolutely and how. We move forward or choose not to. And I've seen all sides of that. I've seen people who talk about the conspiracy of the World Trade Center. It really didn't happen. The government did it in so many different things. And I met one guy who had been a firefighter, and he decided to change careers and become a police officer because he wanted to go kill terrorists who were trying to deal with our country would not be the reason I would choose to go to often be a police officer. He did it because his brother was killed in the World Trade Center. But still, there were so many more positive reasons to do it, but that was his goal at the time, and I don't know, having never seen him since, whether that has changed, but it is still just always a matter of we can choose, and do have the right to choose. God gives us that right. That's why we have free will to choose how we want to deal with things or not.   Lisa Kohn ** 20:55 It is what it is, and what will I do with it, and how will I be with it? And yeah, yeah, and I can accept it, and then what do I want to do about it? Yeah? Yeah. All true. All true.   Michael Hingson ** 21:06 So what did you do after college? So you got a degree in psychology, so I got a degree in psychology, started to psychoanalyze gold finches, but, okay,   Lisa Kohn ** 21:15 you started to psycholize goldfinches. I just love my gold finches. Yeah, it's funny because when I when I was when I was writing the book, and there was a in my town, there's a author who lives here, kind of took me under her wing, and at one point she turned to me, she said, Do you realize, like, everything you experienced as a child and then you majored in psychology, and like, yeah, never dawned on me that I needed to cycle analyze myself, but I did. I got out of Cornell, and on the personal side. I very soon got engaged to someone who my dad, at that point, owned a restaurant, a French restaurant, and I got engaged as someone who worked for him and drank with him, and drank a heck of a lot, and was very not nice when he drank. And you know someone your cousin lovingly pointed me in the direction of the direction of the 12 step programs and to Alan on the 12 step program. For those of us with our arms, class Brown, the alcoholic and I crawled into my first meeting practically on my hands and knees, thinking like, tell me if he's an alcoholic, there's no way I would ever be with an alcoholic. I'm too smart for that, only to realize that there were tons of reasons why I would be and so that's that started my healing growth trajectory and journey. And on the professional side, I did a six month stint in direct mail, back when there was direct mail, a direct mail company, and then a six month stint in address, you know, do in advertising, the advertising agency, and then after that, got a job doing entertainment advertising for a small division of gray advertising, which I dearly, dearly loved. It was fun, it was exciting, it was a lot of good things, but I ended up getting I was running the Good Morning America account, and I ended up there wasn't enough work to fill me, but my boss wouldn't take me off the account because the client adored me, so they didn't want to move me. So I got really, really bored, and I decided to go to business school. And I somehow convinced my boss to convince his boss, the head of the whole agency, to send me to Columbia's Executive MBA Program, which you had to be sponsored by your A by your company, and they had to pay for part of it. And that just wasn't, didn't happen in the advertising world. I remember one of my professors once said, You're they eat, they're young in your industry, don't they like you. Just you did not, and they did not invest in you, but they did. They invested in me, and I went, I got my MBA in Columbia's Executive MBA Program, and there, found the disciplines where I now work in leadership and organizational behavior and organizational development, and began to have confidence in my own voice, business wise, and what I knew, and this is maybe why they don't invest you. I got out of the program, and within not too many months, quit, and I went to work, actually, for a large not for profit fundraising organization, which, you know, because I was like, I'm good, I'm smart, I'm going to go do good for the world. And I ended up in a job where, once again, I just it didn't engage me enough. And I literally had a boss who liked to fight with me, because he thought I was good at fighting, and I was just really not happy. And so then in 1995 I, you know, talked to a couple of so long ago, in 1995 I was talking to a couple of my professors saying, you know, I want to do leadership, and can I be a consultant? And they said, Yeah, go ahead, you can do it. And gave me a few gigs to start. And I, I was three months pregnant with my first child, and I hung out a shingle with Chatsworth Consulting Group and started doing leadership, not actually knowing what that was, and do it, a lot of training and different, different jobs. So I actually, I was, like, hugely pregnant, and I was, I almost. Took a job teaching computer skills for American Express at a very low rate, because I was just I was like, I say, I'm a consultant, but I'm not actually doing anything. And I luckily didn't take that job, that gig. And soon thereafter, I started getting different projects from former professors, and I've been doing and growing the business ever since, and of the 1998 I think I was in front of a client doing, you know, teaching leadership skills or doing some sort of program, and the head of the head of the agency, came over to me and said, I want to be you. Do you coach? And I said, Yeah, I coach. And I went and got coach. I got certified as a coach in the late 90s, before anyone was coaching. And yeah, I've been doing it ever since. And I say, you know, when I am not working, I never want to work, and when I am working, I never want to stop. So I'm that was actually true. That's true since I got sick. So I'm either certifiable or I figured something out. I happen to love what I do. I happen to get to make a difference in people's lives. And yeah, that's, that's my those are my stories   Michael Hingson ** 26:02 where the name Chatsworth consulting came from. Yeah, so   Lisa Kohn ** 26:06 when I founded the company, that is a good question. The funny thing is, when I founded the company, every good name I thought of was already taken, which is actually good, because the what I do and how I do it has so evolved over the years, over the decades, but I lived on Chatsworth Avenue. That's where I lived at the time. And what makes it extra special is, at that point, my you know, someone I met, I literally met my business partner on our first day going to Columbia's executive program. We met on the subway because I introduced myself to her, and she lived in the same building as I did on Chatsworth Avenue. She wasn't my partner at the time, and then number of years later, she said, Can I join you? And so she joined me in 2002 but so now it has even more meaning, because we were both Chatsworth, but it just it was the street on which I lived, because I couldn't come up with any other names, and I didn't want to say Lisa Conan associates. So that's it.   Michael Hingson ** 26:55 Hey, man, that works.   Lisa Kohn ** 26:56 Hey, what else   Michael Hingson ** 26:57 you said? You said you're the guy you were engaged to, drink. Is he still your, your your husband? No,   Lisa Kohn ** 27:03 I managed. Wondered about that. Yeah, no. You know, I was a I can tell you I was sitting in an Al Anon meeting. You know, I postponed the wedding, but I was still sticking it out. And I was sobbing my way through some lunchtime meeting in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. And someone came over to me at the end of the meeting, and he said, you know, there are no victims, there are only volunteers. And I was like, Oh, I don't actually have to do this. And so, you know, when you're raised like I was, if I start talking about religious trauma and extremist thinking I was raised, I literally we were raised to live for the sake of others, to sacrifice everything for God and our True Parents, Reverend and Mrs. Moon, and saving the world. And that if we didn't, if we didn't, you know, live to the expectations we were supposed to, we would break God's heart. So I was raised to be a heavenly soldier. You know, when again, my mom left, and, you know, I couldn't cry, I couldn't miss her, couldn't be sad, couldn't be mad. It was all for God. So I just learned that I would do no matter what. And I till this day, I say, if you put something in front of me, I will do it. I will do it extremely well, even if it takes me down in the process, which isn't as true, because I've learned a lot since I got sick. But that used to be me, and so I was engaged to this man, and it was miserable, but I was gonna like, I have Al Anon. I can marry him. I can do it. And when this person came up to me and said, there are no victims, only volunteers, it's kind of was like crack that said you can do it. I just said this to a client the other day, you can do it, but just because you can do it, it doesn't mean you have to do it, or you should do it, and at luckily, at 24 I was able to say, I deserve a life that's easier and has more happiness than choosing to be with someone who was he was just really, he was really mean when he drank. So, so no, I didn't marry him. I didn't marry him. Think, you know I, you know people look at my life and it's like I, I've skirted disaster. I am, I am lucky. I have a steel rod for a spine. I don't know. I, you know, got out of the church. I almost jumped off a bridge, but I didn't I, you know, I became anorexic. And I can tell you, I am not heavy now, and I was almost 30 pounds less, you know, I was 82 pounds. I'm not tall, but I was really quits growing at 82 pounds. But then I started eating again. When I started doing cocaine with my dad, I did a heck of a lot of cocaine, and all of a sudden, every day, I was doing it. And then I just stopped doing that. And then I got into really more and more destructive and mildly or abusive relationships, and I stopped doing that. So I've, I've, I've managed to, like, avoid disaster numerous times. I'm incredibly lucky. So, yeah, well,   Michael Hingson ** 29:47 and your mind has, uh, has helped you progress from all this. So did you, did you ever find someone and get married, or have a husband, or any of that kind of stuff   Lisa Kohn ** 29:56 I did. I found someone, I my one of my best friends from high. School, set me up with one of his best friends from college as a joke, and we've been married 30 years. Where are you kids? Oh, yeah, we have two kids. So yeah, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 30:12 congratulations. Well, thank   Lisa Kohn ** 30:13 you very much.   Michael Hingson ** 30:14 I met my wife a friend introduced us, and he was actually my friend was dating this person, sort of even though he was married, and she said, you said you were gonna leave her, and he didn't, but he was, he was the kind of guy that always had a girl in every port. Well anyway, he introduced her, this, this lady to me. And 11 months or 10 months later, we were married, and it took for 40 years until she passed away in November of 2022 and yeah, as I tell people, she's monitoring me somewhere, I am absolutely certain, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it, so I have to continue to be a good kid.   Lisa Kohn ** 30:55 There you go. Well, I   Michael Hingson ** 30:56 gotta do Yeah, you know, but I've got 40 years of memories, and can't beat that, yeah, yeah,   Lisa Kohn ** 31:02 that's good. I'm glad you did. Yeah. So   Michael Hingson ** 31:05 you you formed Chatsworth, which is really pretty cool. I'm curious, though. So you didn't really have when you were growing up, at least early on, as much say about it, why do people join cults? Yes,   Lisa Kohn ** 31:20 yes. Why do people join cults? They're in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I used to say everyone is susceptible to extremist thinking. I was not everybody believes that, but I do believe it to be true. I was once corrected and someone said, unless you're a a sociopath, a psychopath, or already in a cult, you're susceptible. Or as there's two cult anti cult activists who were in Nixie and the sex cult a couple years ago, and what they say is, if you think you're not susceptible, you're even more susceptible. Why? Why? Because, as human beings, we crave purpose, certainty and community and having a messiah, believing anything that extremely is absolute certainty, it is, let me tell you, it is the most powerful drug to know that you have the truth, like the Absolute Truth, you have purpose. You know why you're here. You know what you need to do. There's not Sunday, Sunday night, Monday morning, blues, because you have a purpose for your life, and as long as you don't leave or disobey, you have absolute community. So it's you know. As humans, we want to know. We want to understand, right? We make up theories and reasons in our brains, even people who say they don't, they do right? Our brains crave it. And so as you know, I heard someone say a long time ago, I repeat, all it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being the wrong person and being in the wrong state of mind, where you're just going to be a little bit open to something, and you're susceptible. And so the ones that are really successful, they know how to work with the brain to keep you in so again, as I said, we were literally taught that if you ever question anything, it's Satan. So as soon as you start to think for yourself, you you know, you do a 21 minute prayer, you fast for three days, you take a cold shower, you're being invaded by Satan, so you're afraid to think. And when you know when they're when they were first bringing people in to my cult, right? They would, one of the things they did so you would go to, they would get you away to, you know, a workshop. They would keep you not give you enough to eat, not give you enough sleep, keep you surrounded by people so you don't have time to think. And they would give you all the teachings. And then at night, they would say, just write one thing you agree with. Write it down in this journal, just one thing. And so you just want them to shut up. So you write one thing. And then you look back three days later, and your brain goes, Oh, I wrote that down. I must have believed it. So you like your brain. They work with the ways your brain wants to believe something, to get you to believe something. And as well, I don't know if you want me to curse, so I won't curse, but I'm going to quote mark Vicente on the vow, which is also about the the next scene cult. He says, No one joins a cult. They really they join a really good idea, and then they realize they were messed with because they join one human kind, under God, they join, you know, self exactly, actualization. They join some positive idea, and only exactly what they think is positive, or what's sold as a positive idea. And by the time you look back your brain, your brain wants to you. We want to think that we know what we're doing. So our brain starts to convince ourselves that we knew what we were doing, like it's just our brains crave, and you work with it, you can, you can get people to believe anything. You can get people to believe anything. It's the   Michael Hingson ** 34:58 same. I hear you. It's just. Same thing as just there's so many conspiracy theorists today, yes, and it's the same exact sort of thing. They get you to believe it. They make it sound plausible. There's a woman who is a physicist who has written a book about why the World Trade Center wasn't something that was caused by terrorists or anything like that. It was really the US government, because the the amount of of ground shaking when the buildings collapsed wasn't appropriate, and all sorts of things she brings into it. And she she says it in a very convincing way, unless you look deeper, unless you know what to look for, and but, but she talks about it, and the bottom line is that it wasn't a conspiracy. And my immediate response whenever anyone says that it is and talks about what she talks about, is, I just say the difference is, I was there. I know, yeah, yeah. And you can say what you like, but I know, yeah, and, and I think that it's, it's the usual thing some people say, you know, figures can lie, and liars can figure, and it's very unfortunate that that some people just have to fulfill their lives by by doing some of these things, rather than using that knowledge and using their skills in a much more positive way. So yeah, cults, conspiracies, it's all sort of the same thing, isn't   Lisa Kohn ** 36:26 it? It's all extremist belief is extremist belief is extremist belief. And once you believe, once you believe this person's conspiracy theory, then it you can believe the next things they say, like you, you, you keep going like Moon would preach things and do the opposite, and then say was providential, that God told me how to do the opposite, and then you believe. Because, again, we want to believe what we already believe. I was just ot occupational therapy for my concussion this morning, and I was just saying to the occupational therapists, right? We have a we have so many biases in our brain. I love the brain, and we have a bias that tells us we're not biased. So I have a bias that says I'm not biased. I know how objective I am. I'm careful and I'm reflective, but the rest of you are biased, but I'm not biased. So one of our biases is that we're not biased, right? And so once you believe it's you know, people saying, How could people do X, Y and Z, and how can they believe that? And I'm like, once you've chosen to believe, or you've been forced to believe, or you've been tricked to believe, you keep believing, and to break that belief is dangerous. I mean, it's just hard to leave extreme believing is extremely hard. It really is, and   Michael Hingson ** 37:37 it's dangerous because somebody told you it wasn't you believe it,   Lisa Kohn ** 37:40 yes, exactly, exactly yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 37:44 which is so unfortunate, but just so unfortunate, yeah, but it is, it is what we face. It's   Lisa Kohn ** 37:50 human nature. So how do we what do we do about it? Yeah, exactly, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 37:53 which is always that Yes. So with your life and all that is has happened, What messages do you want to share with people? What do you want people ultimately to know and to take away from today?   Lisa Kohn ** 38:07 Well, I will always start with extremist. Situations exist, and we're all susceptible. They're there. They're intoxicating. They're, you know, a slippery slope. And so beware. And there's places to learn. And if you are, I always say, if you are in what you think might be a cult of any sort, there is help. When I left, I never knew there was help. I never knew there was a community. There is a community. There are a lot of online places and therapists to go to. So   Michael Hingson ** 38:32 that's grown a lot over the years, hasn't it? Oh, it's   Lisa Kohn ** 38:35 grown so much. I did not know. Yeah, I did not know was there at all. When I left, I left cold turkey, when my book came out in 2018 I found the cult survivor community, and my mind blew open. It's, it's definitely grown. Awareness of it, concept of religious trauma, has grown, like a lot. It's, there's, there's so much more awareness of it now in so many places to get help. The other thing I would say, I always say, if you think you're damaged or there's no hope, you are not damaged, and there is hope. There is always hope. I, you know, when I in my memoir, my my older child read my memoir, and she got to the part where I wrote about meeting their father, and it said something like, I shared my stories and my demons, and I was afraid he would not, you know, he would be able to stay because of how damaged I was, and my kids said, Wait, what's this? And I just look at I think, well, that's, I literally believe that for a very long time, but there was something wrong with me, and there is hope, and you are not damaged. There are, I call them the lies in my head. There are lies. There are lies that were put in my head intentionally to control me, and there are ways many of us have been taught, like you said, to think poorly of ourselves. So there's hope, and there's a way out of that. And I truly believe that, you know, we all need a lot more self love and self care. I do have tattooed on my arm first most, always to remind myself to love myself first most and always, um. Them, because I just think as a, you know, they do call me I lead with love. They call me love embodied when I took my positive psychology course. But really, we, all, many of us, need a huge dose of self compassion, self love, self care, kindness and gentleness, first to ourselves and then to the rest of the world. So those are, those are probably the you know, and whether it's in like, individually, or in an organization or in an offer, profit, like all of that, it is true, we're human, and we make mistakes, but there's an opportunity to really connect on a deeper, truer level, and there's an opportunity to to, it's called Post Traumatic Growth, right to heal from the trauma and heal from the things that have happened to us. And I know there are people with a lot harder stories than mine, and they're people who have gone through things like I have, and there's always, there's always a way to get help and reach out. So yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 40:53 tell me about, if you would, your journey in Chatsworth consulting. You teach leadership, you teach people to lead, and you you go to leaders and or they come to you. And how do you how do you help them? Tell us a little bit more about all of that, if you would.   Lisa Kohn ** 41:09 So we do a couple of different things. We do executive coaching, one on one coaching, you know, again, one client came up to me and said, do you coach? And I said, Yeah. And I got trained to be a coach back in the late 90s. I was in Al Anon at the time, and I realized it's kind of like being a sponsor only professionally. So it's our coaching is really it's based on a lot of self awareness, self knowledge. We do a incredible there's an incredible online 360 we use with people called the leadership circle profile, which helps us not only look at what like what I'm doing that's working and not but a lot of my thought patterns and beliefs and where they come from. So they call them, you know, they call them the Protect, control and wow, comply behaviors. That's the concussion kicking in. And I call them fight, fight and freeze. But like looking at the ways I coped in the world that get in my way. So we work with leaders, one on one. I'm trying to help them see what they're doing that's effective, what they're thinking that's effective, how they're connecting with other people. That's effective, and what's not we do. We work with a lot of in tech teams, leadership teams, executive teams, helping them have the hard conversations, the strategic conversations, the emotional conversations. You know, we are all human, and we all have triggers, and we all get upset, and we all have agendas, and we all have so much that gets in the way of actually just connecting, one on one with each other. So I get to sit with a group of people and help them find ways to connect more effectively and to more really, more vulnerably, more authentically, you know. And I also, I teach all the general management and leadership skills, you know, connecting with others and giving feedback and authentic leadership and all of that stuff. But truly, what ignites me in the work we do now is really kind of the feel. It's kind of like systems thinking, right? What are the systems within our organization that are operating? Then, how do you look at it, and how do you shift them to be more positive? And what are the systems that's that are operating within me, the belief systems, the you know, the ways I was trained to act, whom to act, and how do I keep the good and shift the ones that are getting in my way. So I am very lucky to do the work I do. I feel very lucky to do it   Michael Hingson ** 43:25 and that, you know, that's great, and it's great to have that kind of attitude and to bring that kind of philosophy to it. What are some of the patterns that you see that a lot of leaders and so on bring to you and want fixed, or that you discover that they need to deal with. I mean, they're, they're probably a few at least, that you see a lot.   Lisa Kohn ** 43:48 So yeah, I would say, well, one thing that I see so often, right, human nature? So you do a 360 or you gather feedback for someone, and all they focuses on is the constructive feedback. All they focus on is what's wrong, looking for the problem. Again, that's the negativity bias in our head, and a lot of other things. But one thing that comes off so clear is, in general, almost all the time, right people, if they're good at something, that thing that they star a star at, that thing that is like second nature to them, the thing that people so admire about them, they think it's not a big deal anybody could do that, and the thing that they are that isn't their greatest skill, that's the thing they think that's important. And it's it just, I see it over Yeah? People, my clients, be like, Well, yeah, anybody can do that? I'm like, no, nobody does that. Like you do that. Like you do that, you do that in a different way. So it's, you know, I just see that over and over and over. I see so many people like and you talk about leadership, right? So we, we so often in the business world, we promote people for being really good at what they do. And being good at what you do as an individual contributor is very. Very different than actually being able to manage other people or lead other people. And so to a lot of leaders just have a hard time getting out of the details, getting out of the weeds, actually delegating, actually letting go. We we coach our leaders to be dispensable. Our clients not said that to one client. She said, indispensable. And I said, No, dispensable. And she she literally started to cry. She said, Lisa, I spent my whole career trying to be incredibly indispensable. And she was a senior, senior leader at a major Fortune 50 company. She was powerful, she was amazing, but it gets in your way, right? We coach our clients to you know you have to be so dispensable that the people who work with you can do your job so you can go do the bigger, better stuff, more like the next stuff you need to do. Yeah, so it's, it's really, and then, you know, so many of us, right, have, unfortunately, so many people have some sort of trauma in their background. And even people who don't have major trauma in their background have had hardships or whatever, and so it's really people get so caught in their own thinking that they can't even realize that it's their own thinking in their way. So I, you know, I learned to say for my own learning and growth, right? When my brain does its wonky, silly things, it says, I've learned to say, that's the cult talking like, that's the cult. That's the cult. That's what I was trained to believe. That's not true. That's the cult. And I heard a class I'm like, take the word out cult and put in alcoholic father, you know, narcissistic first boss, you know, you know, I had a client who no harm, no blame to her parents. She had immigrant parents. They both ran, they both worked three jobs in order to support the family. And so she was taking care of her siblings when she was six. Six, she was caring for other kids, right? So she was able to say, that's that's that. And my brain, like the helping people being able to see, you know, we're so close to our brains that we don't see the kind of loopy things that we do and why we do it, but helping clients see those loopy things, right? And two, again, honestly, I spent a lot of time with seniors, senior executives, talking about self care, self compassion, being kinder to yourself, that kind of stuff.   Michael Hingson ** 47:15 So that woman, who was six taking care of siblings, did she ever get to the point where she could say things like, I really learned a lot, or I value that experience because it helped me in this way or that way,   Lisa Kohn ** 47:32 absolutely, absolutely. And she but, and she also got to the point where she can say, I don't have to keep doing that. I don't have to keep sacrificing myself for everybody else, right? I can, you know, I can self selfishly in quotes, in air quotes, right? I can selfishly go home earlier, at the end of the day, and actually take care of my body, because I'm about to have a baby, you know, yeah, it was so so yes and right? It's not about Yeah, it is yes. And not about like, this is awful and it's all bad. It's it is what it is. It made me who I am, and how do I want to choose to be to go forward with it?   Michael Hingson ** 48:07 I was very fortunate when I started in sales. I took a Dale Carnegie sales course. The company I was working for sent me to it, because either I went from the job I was doing for them into sales, or I had to leave the company, and I, at the time, didn't want to go look for another job, especially as a blind person, with an unemployment rate among employable blind people in the 70% range, that's a real challenge. So I went into sales and took this course. And I don't even know where it came from or when I first started doing it, but one of the things that I learned as I became a manager and started hiring people and working with people, was to say, you have skills. I have skills, and my job is not to boss you around. If I'm hiring you, I'm hiring you because you convinced me that you can do the job that I'm hiring you to do, but at the same time, what I need to do is to work with you to figure out how I can enhance what you do, because my job as your boss is to enhance what you do and to make you success, or help make you more successful. But we have to do that together now, the people who really got that were successful and, and we found that there are a lot of ways that we could blend our skills together. The people who didn't get it and didn't want to do it ended up not working for the company very long. Yeah, but it was because they weren't successful, they weren't able to sell and, and I know that I have some skills that a lot of other people don't have, but it's my life upbringing, and it's my environment that taught me those things. So that's fine. It isn't to say that other people couldn't get them, and a few people would ask me from time to time, how do you do that? And we talk. It, and they got better at it too, which is fine,   Lisa Kohn ** 50:02 yeah, yeah. I mean, that is, that's brilliant, right? But not every manager, not every leader gets that or knows that. So that's your role, is to enhance them, and your role is also to kind of block and tackle, right? What's getting in their way that you can what are the obstacles you can remove, what are the bridges you can build for them to go forward? But yeah, so often again, we get promoted. We get promoted for doing something well, and then we think everybody should do it our way. And it's a huge learning to realize you can do it your way, and as long as it's successful, that's great, as opposed to trying to force other people to do it my way. But I quote, I love tower Brock. Tower Brock's a mindfulness a teacher, and the quote I saw recently was, the world is divided between people who think they're right. Exactly yeah, right. We are going around thinking we're pretty right and what we're doing and yeah. So yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 50:56 The other part about that, and the approach that I took, was that I was always so amazed, impressed and pleased when I was able to work with people who, as I said, Got it how much I learned, and I learned some of their skills, which helped me do my job even better, and We had a lot of fun doing it. I   Lisa Kohn ** 51:23 my clients, yeah, my clients as I hope they think they learn from me, yeah, and have a lot of fun doing it exactly. People together can be it's just a generative, beautiful process when you let it be absolutely   Michael Hingson ** 51:37 Well, I think that it's, it's important to do that. And as I tell people, if I'm not learning at least as much on this podcast and all the things that I get to do and interacting with people, if I'm not learning at least as much as other people, then I'm not doing my job very well. It's fun to learn, and it's fun to be open to exploring new ideas. And I sit back at the end of the day and think about them, think about what I like and don't like, but I base that on everything that I've heard, not only from a particular guest on a particular day, but everyone. So it's it's such a fun learning experience, I can't complain a bit.   Lisa Kohn ** 52:18 Yeah, that's good. Yeah, life. Life can be, life can be truly joyful when you are open to learning and seeing new things. Absolutely true.   Michael Hingson ** 52:25 So what do you love most about being a leadership consultant and an executive coach, you clearly sound like you're having fun.   Lisa Kohn ** 52:32 I definitely have fun, and fun is hugely important. Um, you know When? When? When you see a difference in your clients, when they get something that they needed to get, or they understand, or they move ahead in a way that they hadn't, or when they're, you know, finally standing up for themselves, or finally taking time for themselves, or finally, you know, working better with it, like when they're finally doing those things they set out to do, it is it? Is it is such a gift, right? It is such a gift. And similarly, you know, when you when we're working within tech teams, and you see them connect in ways they haven't connected, or move organization forward, or the team forward, or we were just working with a we're working with one client where there's a department in this organization, and the three areas in the that department are kind of at war with each other. And when you can get them in a room where they can actually start, you know, hearing each other and listening to each other and finding ways to move together forward, it's an organization that does a heck of a lot of good in the world, so they're going to be more effective on what they're doing, even more good is going to be done in the world. So it's, it's very ratifying to be able to be someone who can, I'm told, I inspire people, but I support people. But it's, it's very it's such a gift to be able to give people something that helps them feel better and therefore live and lead better. So   Michael Hingson ** 54:02 yeah, and what? And when you see the results of that, when you actually see them putting into practice the kinds of things that you talk about, and maybe they take it in a different direction than you originally thought. But of course, seeds get planted, where they get planted, and so it's the ultimate results that really count. But by the same token, when you start to see that happening, that has to be a wonderful feeling to experience,   Lisa Kohn ** 54:30 hugely gratifying. And it's the concussion brain kicking in, because I know there's an example just recently where a client told me of a conversation they had or something that happened. And we have a we have a whole conversation about how you realized six months ago, when I first met you, you never would have done it in that way. You never would have shown up in the way. But I can't remember what it was, but it did happen recently, but it's my short term memory that's the most messed up right now, but we'll get there.   Michael Hingson ** 54:55 Well, yeah, as I said, You just never know about seeds. And I've I've told. The story a couple times on the podcast, when I was doing student teaching in at University High School in Irvine, and I was in the teaching program, teacher credentialing program at UC Irvine, I taught high school freshman algebra is one of the two courses I taught. And there was a young man in this course. His name was Marty. He was from the eighth grade, but was very bright, and so he was accelerated for this class and a couple of things to go to a high school algebra class. And we were in class one day, and he asked a question, and it was a very easy question, and I didn't know the answer. Now, mind you, I didn't have a concussed brain. I just didn't know the answer. And immediately I thought, don't try to blow smoke with this kid. Tell him you don't know. So I said, Marty, I gotta tell you I should know the answer. I don't, but I'm gonna go find out, and I will tell you tomorrow. Okay? And he said, Yeah. So the next day, I came into class, and one of the things I love to do as a student, teacher, well as a teacher in general, if we back in those days, we use chalkboards, since I don't write, well, I would always have one of the students come up and be the official writer for the day. Everyone wanted to be the teacher's writer on the board on any given day. Well, I I came in, and I decided, because he hadn't done it for a while, that I'd have Marty come up and write when we started class. And I said, Marty, I got the answer. And he said, I do too. I said, Great, you're the Blackboard writer of the day. Come up and show us. Well, he had it right, and I had it right. So that was a good thing. But 10 years later, Oh, well. So the next thing that happened is, right after class, my master teacher, Jerry Redman, came up, and he said, you know, you absolutely did it the right way. Don't ever try to blow smoke with these kids. They'll see through it every time. Well, 10 years later, we were my wife and I at the Orange County Fair, and this guy comes up, and in this deep voice, he goes, Mr. Hingson, do you remember me? Well, if you didn't sound at all like Marty, and I said, well, not sure. Who are you? Said, I'm Marty. I was in your class 10 years ago, and I remember the algebra thing, you know, you never know where seeds are going to be planted. But that stuck with him all these years. And I didn't, I didn't think about it other than I was glad that Jerry Redman told me I did it the right way, but it was so wonderful to hear that he remembered it. So if I had any effect on him, so much the better.   Lisa Kohn ** 57:32 Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.   Michael Hingson ** 57:35 So what did you learn from cancer? What did I learn from other than, chemo is a pain. Chemo   Lisa Kohn ** 57:41 is not fun. I learned. I learned to slow down even more, like that, that again, the the amount My brother used to call me the little engine that will, no matter what you know, and I've learned to, and maybe this does, doesn't sound positive to people, but to go slower, to be gentler, to do less, to lower, you know, the push that was still in me. I mean, push is good, but too much pushes, too much of anything, is not good. I learned to appreciate life even more, nothing like a cancer diagnosis to kind of make you do that li

In the second installment of our two-part series, Lisa Kohn, Dr. Ashley Jeanlus, and Dr. Rachel Neal continue their in-depth discussion on abortion laws. This episode delves into issues such as the ambiguity in legal language, patient autonomy, and the impact of abortion restrictions on the treatment of other medical conditions in pregnant individuals

Lisa Kohn likes to tell a story about these great seats she once had at Madison Square Garden — at her mother's mass wedding. Yes, Lisa — the award-winning author of “To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence” — grew up in the Unification Church, also known as “the Moonies,” with her mom and a life of “sex, drugs, and squalor” in New York City's East Village. She talks with Sarah and Nippy about her experiences in the church, what was happening during those mass weddings in the 1970s, and what it means to be “under the influence of faith.”    Also… let it be known that: The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody's mad at you, just don't be a culty fuckwad.   Check out our lovely sponsors Join ‘A Little Bit Culty' on Patreon Get poppin' fresh ALBC Swag Support the pod and smash this link Cult awareness and recovery resources Watch Sarah's TEDTalk   CREDITS:    Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames Production Partner: Amphibian.Media Writer & Co-Creator: Jess Tardy Associate producers: Emma Diehl and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media   Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin  

In the first episode of our two-part series, NAWL member and former Associate General Counsel of Girl Scouts of the USA, Lisa Kohn, welcomes Dr. Ashley Jeanlus and Dr. Rachel Neal to discuss the implications of new laws following the Dobbs decision. Our expert guests offer invaluable perspectives on how abortion restrictions in various states are affecting medical practice nationwide. They explore crucial issues, including shield laws and the abortion pill, and examine the evolving intersections between law and medicine.

In this episode, NAWL member (Advocacy and Podcast Committee) and former Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Girl Scouts of the USA, Lisa Kohn, speaks with Joanne Lipman, best-selling author of her most recent book, Next!: The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work (see full bio below). Lisa and Joanne discuss Joanne's best-selling book and how to harness the power of transition. *****Joanne Lipman is a pioneering journalist and the bestselling author of NEXT! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work and the No. 1 bestseller THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID: What Men and Women Need to Know About Working Together. She has served as Editor-in-Chief of USA Today, USA Today Network, Conde Nast Portfolio, and The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal, leading those organizations to six Pulitzer Prizes. She is also an on-air CNBC contributor and Yale University journalism lecturer. Previously, Lipman was Chief Content Officer of Gannett, where she was Editor-in-Chief of its USA Today and the USA Today Network, encompassing the flagship publication plus 109 metro newspapers including the Detroit Free Press, the Des Moines Register, and the Arizona Republic. In that role, she oversaw more than 3,000 journalists and led the organization to three Pulitzer prizes. Lipman began her career as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, ultimately rising to deputy managing editor – the first woman to attain that post – and supervising coverage that won three Pulitzer Prizes. While there she created the Weekend Journal and Personal Journal and oversaw the creation of the Saturday edition. She subsequently was the founding editor-in-chief of Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, which won Loeb and National Magazine Awards. Lipman's work has been published in numerous outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, Fortune, Newsweek, and the Harvard Business Review. She has appeared as a television commentator on ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and PBS, among others. She is a frequent public speaker, with engagements including the World Economic Forum in Davos, the United Nations, the Aspen Ideas Festival, TEDx, the International Lean In conference, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Milken Institute Global conference, and has worked with numerous companies on issues of gender equity, diversity and inclusion. She also is co-author, with Melanie Kupchynsky, of the acclaimed music memoir “Strings Attached.” A winner of the Matrix Award for women in communications, Lipman was the inaugural Distinguished Journalism Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She has served or is currently serving on boards including Yale University Council; the World Editors Forum; the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy; the Yale Daily News; Spirited Media; the Yale Alumni Magazine (chair); the Knights Chamber Orchestra, and the advisory boards of Data.world, Breastcancer.org, The Wire China, and the Yale School of Music. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She and her husband live in New York City and are the parents of two adult children. 

In today's episode I speak at length with Lisa Kohn - author of the Memoir "To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence". Lisa talks us through her childhood coming into the church and her struggles with leaving it behind. I had the honour of meeting with Lisa recently as she travelled to England. We had dinner, talked, wandered the historical streets of Liverpool and speculated on where our lives were headed next. Thank you Lisa for being one of my favourite, most inspirational women I know. https://www.lisakohnwrites.comGet in Touch or Support:Patreon - patreon.com/thecultvaultCrimecon UK 2024 - https://www.crimecon.co.uk - use code CULT for 10% off tickets!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Cult-VaultGmail: cultvaultpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, NAWL member and former Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Girl Scouts of the USA, Lisa Kohn, speaks with Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at The New York Times Company, David McCraw. Lisa and David discuss the legal framework and the behind-the-scenes publication issues that have arisen at the New York Times as freedom of the press, a core principle of democracy, is put into practice. 

Lisa Kohn - Addicted to The MessiahDivorced: Unification Church (The Moonies)CW: Suicidality; abandonment; substance addictionMy guest today was a speaker at the very first Conference on Religious Trauma in 2021. Lisa Kohn is a Unification Church Second Gen, and she is the award-winning author of TO THE MOON AND BACK: A CHILDHOOD UNDER THE INFLUENCE. Lisa understands what it's like to be raised in – and torn between – two worlds. In fact, the best seats Lisa ever had at Madison Square Garden were at her mother's mass wedding; and the best cocaine she ever had was from her father's friend, the judge. FIND LISA:https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/IG: @lisakohnwritesLisa's book excerpt: https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/to-the-moon-and-back/Information on the Unification Church (aka The Moonies) https://www.insider.com/who-are-the-moonies-and-what-is-the-unification-church-2022-7https://www.poconorecord.com/story/news/2023/02/26/unification-church-and-rod-of-iron-ministries-what-sets-them-apart/69933145007/ https://www.unificationcanada.org/en/about-us/Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Joel and Marie. Every dollar helps.Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcastFollow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: Mastodon: JaniceSelbie@mas.toThreads: Wisecounsellor@threads.net Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORTFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligionTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbieInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.It's an Inside JobLearning the art and science of resilience and well-being is, indeed, an Inside Job.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

"I didn't think I was in an extreme situation, I thought I was incredibly lucky" Author Lisa Kohn chats about growing up in a cult

Join Blessed Child Podcast this week for an important discussion with two fellow activists, Lisa Kohn and Teddy Hose. They were recently interviewed and published in a netflix docuseries called "How to become a cult leader." In this episode, we briefly discuss what that experience was like for them, what they liked and disliked about the experience, why they are inspired to do what they do, and so much more. You can find Lisa Kohn and her memoir "To the Moon and Back, a Childhood Under the influence" that was published in 2018 at lisakohnwrites.com. Also, find Lisa on instagram @lisakohnwrites. Teddy Hose can be found at @Teddyhose on instagram, X, Facebook and Bluesky. You can find him on tiktok at @2dhose And you can find Blessed Child on instagram at @blessedchildpodcast Please message me on instagram for an active link to our new discord discussion group!

In this episode, NAWL Member, Lisa Kohn speaks with Nicole Piggott, President and Co-Founder of Synclusiv, an organization dedicated to creating more inclusive work environments to ensure ALL people can achieve their full potential, specializing in best practices and tools that will make inclusive workplaces for all. Lisa and Nicole first discuss the business case for inclusion and then discuss how leaders can drive change and inclusion in their workplace with research-backed tools and insight, and tips for women in the workplace.   

Please buy Lisa's book here: lisakohnwrites.com!https://twitter.com/lisakohnwriteshttps://www.instagram.com/lisakohnwrites/Rob is available here: rob.kohn@gmail.comSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/falling-out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Season 4 starts with the elder states(wo)men of ex-Moonie kids, Rob & Lisa Kohn.Please buy Lisa's book here: lisakohnwrites.com!https://twitter.com/lisakohnwriteshttps://www.instagram.com/lisakohnwrites/Rob is available here: rob.kohn@gmail.comTikTok video with Japanese subtitles on the topic of coerced adoption: https://www.tiktok.com/@fallingoutpod/video/7171131703996452102Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/falling-out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we dive into the mail bag and provide updates on the Mooniesphere, plus provide specific answers to listener questions and recommend additional resources.Resources mentioned include:In the Shadow of the Moons by Nan Sook Hong.Blessed Child Podcast by Ren RobotTo the Moon and Back by Lisa Kohn. Please buy it here: lisakohnwrites.com for a signed copy. Tell Lisa I sent you!Take Back Your Life by Janja LalichTerror, Love and Brainwashing by Alex Stein Conspirituality PodcastSavage LoveGuys we FuckedQanon AnonymousThe full interview with John SweeneyAnd last but not least: Why I JoinedSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/falling-out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lisa Kohn joins The Body Myth for a conversation about growing up in the Unified Church commonly known as the Moonies, and how shame about her burgeoning sexuality and defying the church soon manifested as Anorexia and drug use. Lisa shares how she found freedom, overcame years of self-destructive behavior, and offers her advice for body appreciation and self-care.   Also in this episode: -Lisa's memoir To the Moon and Back -signs of Anorexic and rigid thinking -raising kids body positively    Lisa Kohn is the award-winning author of to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence, a memoir that chronicles her childhood growing up in the Unification Church (the Moonies) with her mom and a life of “sex, drugs, and squalor” in New York City's East Village in the 1970s with her dad, as well as The Power of Thoughtful Leadership. She is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and executive coach (www.chatsworthconsulting.com) who brings to others the tools, mind-shifts, and practices she's found and created that have helped her heal, as well as the hope and joy she's let into her life. She will always tell you that she is a native New Yorker, but she currently lives in Pennsylvania.   Websites: www.lisakohnwrites.com www.chatsworthconsulting.com   Social media: https://www.instagram.com/lisakohnwrites/ www.facebook.com/lisakohnwrites https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisakohnccg/ -- Ronit is a writer, teacher, and mom who has taught elementary school through high school and whose writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Salon, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, Scary Mommy, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about her body image struggles and the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was named Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is also host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and Let's Talk Memoir. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Have a body image story you'd like Ronit to read on air or want to take the Your Body and the World survey? Follow this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZiXP1FklUkWaYg4T6IAqFKDRp6OIvef4be8SRHVaaWt044w/viewform Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank Photo credit: Baran Lotfollahi on Unsplash Theme music: The Lighthouse by Sounds Like Sander

Lisa Kohn is the award-winning author of to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence, a memoir that chronicles her childhood growing up in the Unification Church (the Moonies) with her mom and a life of “sex, drugs, and squalor” in New York City's East Village in the 1970s with her dad, as well as The Power of Thoughtful Leadership. While her story is unique, the themes of low (or no) self-esteem, self-loathing, self-punishment unfortunately are not. She wants to spread three messages: Extremist situations exist - they are prevalent, intoxicating, and dangerous For anyone who feels hopeless or damaged beyond repair, there is hope, and you're not damaged As a species, we are generally too hard on ourselves - too self-critical and self-lambasting - and we need a huge dose of self-love and self-compassion --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kristi-peck/message

Lisa Kohn is the author of her award winning memoir to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence. Born in NJ to hippie parents and raised in New York City's East Village in the 1970s, Lisa's early years were a mixture of encounter groups, primal screams, macrobiotic diets, communes, Indian ashrams, Jefferson Airplane concerts in Central Park, and watching naked actors on off-Broadway stages during the musical HAIR. By the time her older brother was ten, Lisa's father had him smoking pot. By the time Lisa was ten, Lisa's mother had them pledging their lives to the Unification Church, also called the “Moonies,” and the Moonies' self-appointed Messiah, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/griefandrebirth/support

Lisa Kohn is the author of her award winning memoir to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence. Born in NJ to hippie parents and raised in New York City's East Village in the 1970s, Lisa's early years were a mixture of encounter groups, primal screams, macrobiotic diets, communes, Indian ashrams, Jefferson Airplane concerts in Central Park, and watching naked actors on off-Broadway stages during the musical HAIR. By the time her older brother was ten, Lisa's father had him smoking pot. By the time Lisa was ten, Lisa's mother had them pledging their lives to the Unification Church, also called the “Moonies,” and the Moonies' self-appointed Messiah, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/griefandrebirth/support

“Cult kids understand cult kids because of what they do to you in the developmental stages.” Lisa Kohn tells Amy Dix about her life as moonie, how her mom was too busy with religion to parent, why dad was called Danny, and learning to love yourself first. Lisa shares stories of brainwashing, abandonment, and drugs where you'd least expect them but reminds listeners and readers; anyone who feels damaged beyond repair still has hope. Website: lisakohnwrites.com Books: To The Moon and Back: A Childhood Under The Influence The Power of Thoughtful Leadership: 101 Minutes to Being the Leader You Want To Be --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

“Even those worst parts of us are helpful in certain actions at certain times and therefore the idea is to be in choice with your response.” Lisa Kohn A lot of what we become in life is largely determined by the environment we get exposed to and the experiences we get to encounter. Notably, there is no formula for success and this then means that we can always rise above our molded selves and use our experiences to better our lives and the lives of those around us. Our guest today, Lisa Kohn, was able to do exactly that despite her adverse experiences growing up and says that healing from past adverse events entails changing not only the individual's behavior but their mental models as well. Lisa Kohn is the award-winning author of to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence: https://amzn.to/3isGg81 and The Power of Thoughtful Leadership https://amzn.to/2UPxPKw. She says that the best seats she ever had at Madison Square Garden were at her mother's mass wedding, and the best cocaine she ever had was from her father's friend, the judge. Lisa is an accomplished leadership consultant, executive coach, and keynote speaker with a strong business background and a creative approach. Lisa earned her BA in psychology from Cornell University and her MBA from Columbia University's Executive Program. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University and New York University's Stern School of Business, and she brings to others the tools, mind-shifts, and practices she's found that have helped her heal and thrive, as well as the hope and forgiveness she's been blessed to let into her life. Lisa will always tell you that she is a native New Yorker, but she currently lives in Pennsylvania. In today's episode, we will be learning about how our experiences shape our lives and behaviors, and why being aware of ourselves can make use of such experiences to propel us into leading more purposeful lives. Listen in! Social Media Handles: https://www.instagram.com/lisakohnwrites https://www.twitter.com/lisakohnwrites  https://www.twitter.com/thougtfulLdrs LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisakohnccg/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/chatsworth-consulting-group/ FB - https://www.facebook.com/lisakohnwrites YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwx53ZVgUFF709O6EsjiF3Q I was a member of the Unification Church, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed Messiah from Korea and they did mass weddings where large numbers of people got married often to strangers. [4:22] I grew up in Unification Church which my mum joined when I was ten years and it was my life and there is no more intoxicating drug than having a Messiah. It is the most powerful than I've ever felt. [4:43] My mother left me and my nine-year-old brother with my grandfather who later fell into a nervous breakdown and then we went to live with my dad to New York City in the East Village. [5:12] I had a Messiah but in my mind, I lived with my dad a life of sex, drugs, and squalor. [5:37] I eventually pulled myself out of cults, and then tried to self-implode, explode, where I almost jumped off a bridge and got hugely anorexic. [5:50] I did do a hell of a lot of cocaine, including with my dad and the judge who had a lot of amazing cocaine, got into abusive relationships, and finally hit a bottom and started to find help and heal. [6:04] I did go to Cornell and got a degree in psychology because I like people and ended up working in entertainment advertising and later went to Columbia's executive program and got my MBA. [6:20] A couple of jobs later I hung out a shingle in 1995 to do leadership and I have been doing it ever since. [6:43] We do leadership consulting including everything from a full day, multi-day, intern, interpersonal skills, customized programs, leadership programs, and management programs. [6:55] I like to say I'm the executive coach running around the C suite of Fortune 50 companies talking about love. [7:19] I knew my childhood was weird. When I was young my dad was in a bar fight where he got a tooth knocked out and he made it into an earring and hung it from his ear and my mom got married in Madison Square Garden with 4000 plus people but I didn't realize It was bad. [9:38] As I imploded and exploded and punished myself for living my bottom, I got engaged with someone who drank a lot and was mean. [10:03] Someone in my family pointed me to Al-anon and I was in denial before I realized that you become your story and when you are damaged and broken it is a long path to get from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, to post-traumatic growth. [10:14] I do think it is natural for human brains to blame themselves [11:01] When you're a child and have a complex, traumatic life like I did or just a regular normal life, when something doesn't feel safe as a kid your brain knows that if you think the world is unsafe it becomes scarier and if you think that something is wrong with you, then it's less scary. [11:08] It is a very human response that leads us to learn some massive coping behaviors to manage the instability. [11:51] The issue becomes how to let them be there, move past them and not let them force and push me in a certain direction, and that is the conversations I have with my clients. [12:29] I firmly believe that people believe that those coping mechanisms did save them, and they still think when they are in danger the mechanisms will still save them. [15:45] When we are talking about changing thought patterns that saved my life I get terrified because there are parts of me that still know that they're necessary to survive. [16:26] So it is not just changing behaviors but about changing thought patterns, assumptions beliefs, and things that I created and made up and were intentionally carved into my brain. [16:36] Commercial Break. [17:29] So many people came to me and said I need to write a book, you need to write a book. [19:30] 20 years ago I sat down with a coach and decided that I was going to write a hybrid half self-help half memoir. [19:37] I got wonderful glowing rejections from so many agents who said I couldn't sell a hybrid book and that I was not famous enough. 19:53] I got a call from an agent who said if I wrote a memoir they will represent me and so wrote the memoir and the book soon came out. [20:08] I did it, and what it has done is that it has blown apart up my personal life, my view of life, my recovery, and my work. [20:52] Before the book came out, I did not know the community of cult survivors but I have found people who went through the same thing as me and were born and raised in my situation. [21:06] It has cracked open my healing into much deeper levels, which is hard and amazing. [21:50] The book has touched people and now I go to meet new prospects that I'm trying to win business from and they Google me and they know I grew up in a cult. [22:04] I share it and it allows me to use my experiences to help my clients and so it has completely cracked open and blown up wonderfully. [22:25] The book has also reached people who are in pain. The story is unique but the themes are universal. [22:45] I get Facebook messages, tweets, Instagram messages from strangers telling me their story, and my next-door neighbor who had no idea read it and she said thank you for giving us all the courage to tell our childhood stories.[22:53] Three messages I share in the book are first, extremists situations exist, they are prevalent and are all over, they are highly intoxicating and it is a powerful feeling and they are therefore very dangerous. [23:25] Two, for anyone who feels hopeless or damaged beyond repair there is hope and you are not damaged. [23:39] Third, as a species, most of us are at least way too hard on ourselves and we need a huge dose of self-love and self-compassion [23:55] There is the possibility that my experience will mildly control me for the rest of my life but it doesn't have to control me anymore because I can make choices. [27:20] I denied my story because the only way to almost survive was to pretend nothing happened to me and not look at it ever. [28:29] Now I have gone back to every place and reconnected with almost every person and now it is me in a good way. [28:47] I say to people that we are only as sick as our secrets and so I share just about everything as long as it's not about my current immediate family. [29:04] You never know what people have inside because we looked fine on the outside. [29:38] Even those worst parts of us are helpful in certain actions at certain times and therefore the idea is to be in choice with your response. [31:21] When I tell my story or hear someone else's story and realize I'm not alone, they dissipate a little bit, or at least I have the courage to go through them with more strength and ease. [33:17] Be nice and gentle with yourself. Love yourself first and more. Look for love in the world and find reasons to be happy and the rest of it after that falls into place or starts to fall into something. [34:35] There's no complete panacea but it makes all the hard things easier and a lot of things go better with work in life. [34:51] …………………………………………………………………………………… Thank You to our August Sponsor! Tired of the time and expense to get a manicure or pedicure? Try Color Street today! Base, color, and top coats of high-quality liquid nail polish in each strip results in a brilliant, salon-quality manicure in just minutes. No dry time, smudges, or streaks, and your mani/pedi lasts up to 10 days. Color Street is 100% real nail polish, not stickers. Learn More: https://www.colorstreet.com/bhroberts/party/2095611

Lisa Kohn is an accomplished leadership consultant, executive coach, author, and keynote speaker. She joins the show today to share her extraordinary story of being born and raised in a cult, and what skills she developed to heal, grow personally and professionally.  Lisa shares the details of her new memoir To the Moon and Back and connects the dots on how her upbringing now makes her a compassionate and understanding coach. We also talk about the crucial need for self-love and forgiveness to be the true badass we are meant to be.  What You Will Hear in This Episode:  How Lisa transitioned from an unusual childhood to become such a professional businesswoman with accomplishments such as having 20 years of experience partnering with Fortune 500 clients, teaching as an adjunct professor at NYU and Columbia, and a published author including her new book To the Moon and Back.  The powerful and intoxicating side of growing up in a cult and feeling as though you knew the truth, and you were there to spread it and help others through your message.  More about The Unification Church and the Moonie Cult, and some of the beliefs that Lisa grew up with.  Lisa's time in college exposed her to new and different ideas, she speaks of the feelings of shame and the divide between what she felt and what she was taught.  How Lisa found her own truth and embraced her past, present, and future instead of running away from it or trying to numb it.  How her experience informs the work she is doing now with leaders at Fortune 500 companies.   Quotes:  “The best seats I've ever had at Madison Square Garden was at my mother's wedding.”  “There is no drug as intoxicating as knowing you have the truth.”  “I have crazy thoughts in my brain, but they are not me. It's what I was taught.” “I'm not damaged, I have damage. There is a very big difference.”   “How is that workin' for ya?” - Dr. Phil   Mentioned:  Lisa Kohn  To The Moon and Back  Chatsworth Consulting  Not Done Yet! Not Done Yet! Amazon Bonniemarcusleadership.com Iammusicgroup.com The Politics of Promotion Fb @Bonnie.Marcus LinkedIn: @Bonniemarcus Twitter: @selfpromote IG: @self_promote_ Bonniemarcusleadership.com https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/genderedageismatwork

Lisa Kohn a basic New Yorker, a place where her heart and identity reside even though her roots go back to New Jersey where she spent 12 years of her childhood. She will be speaking on her testimony about her life where she grew up in a religious cult( the Moonies) with her mom and life of 'sex, drugs, and squalor' with her dad. Her bizarre childhood was seedy and scary with men's shelter on one corner and Hells Angels' world headquarters on another side of the corner which made her come around with owning a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. She spend her time speaking, writing, teaching, and representing ideas from her life long learning of childhood, business and her MBA. Guest : Lisa Kohn Host: Chaniera & Jenni Lee

Episode 20: PART 2 of my fascinating chat with Jen Kiaba & Lisa Kohn, two brave and inspiring women who broke free from the infamous Unification Church - AKA the "Moonies" cult. *Lisa Kohn's Website: https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/ (https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/) * Link to Lisa Kohn's Book (To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence) https://www.mainpointbooks.com/lisa-kohn (https://www.mainpointbooks.com/lisa-kohn) *Jen Kiaba's Website (you can purchase her amazing art prints here!): https://www.jenkiaba.com/ (https://www.jenkiaba.com/) *True Father at Belvedere 4/16/00 (speech): http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/SunMyungMoon00/UM000416.htm (http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/SunMyungMoon00/UM000416.htm) *The Time of Liberation for the Family of World Peace 9/8/1996:  http://www.unification.net/1996/960908.html *Where Is The Base For The True Ideal?  http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon95/SM950903.htm (http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon95/SM950903.htm) *SUPPORT Follow the Woo: If you would like to help with the creation of this podcast, receive bonus content, merchandise, and more, you can become a member of The Order of Woo: https://www.patreon.com/followthewoo (https://www.patreon.com/followthewoo) *Instagram & TikTok: @followthewoo *Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClifZ3HrpfXEHM3tXUT3lww?view_as=subscriber (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClifZ3HrpfXEHM3tXUT3lww?view_as=subscriber) *All Inquiries: followthewoo@gmail.com

During a recent podcast interview, my friend and fellow survivor Lisa Kohn shared that while she was on tour to promote her memoir To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence, she had the opportunity to be interviewed for a popular daytime talk show. She said that before she went on stage the producer was doing a pre-interview and asked her ‘were you brainwashed?' I was tempted to completely derail the conversation and delve into a treatise on what thought reform is, and why asking a survivor if they were brainwashed is a stigmatizing question - at best. But I refrained and decided to explore those issues in this episode instead. Resourced mentioned: Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships bu Dr. Janja Lalich & Madeline Tobias. Pseudoscience and Minority Religions: An Evaluation of the Brainwashing Theories of Jean-Marie Abgrall by Dick Anthony. Brainwashing and the Moonies by Geri-Ann Galanti, Ph.D. Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control by Kathleen Taylor Ph.D.. Thought Crime, an article on the Guardian by Kathleen Taylor Ph.D.. Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems by Alexandra Stein, Ph.D.. Deception, Dependency, and Dread in the Conversion Process by Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China by Dr. Robert J. Lifton. A 1957 there was a symposium panel of experts at the New York Academy of Medicine to discuss the topic of mind control. Psychotherapist Rosanne Henry's website, https://www.cultrecover.com/. Bad Moon Rising, by John Gorenfeld. Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult, by Josh Freed. The Relational System of the Traumatizing Narcissist, by Daniel Shaw. How Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform applies to NXIVM's Executive Success Programs, by Paul Martin, Ph.D.. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jen-kiaba/message

Episode 19: Don't miss PART 1 of my fascinating chat with Jen Kiaba & Lisa Kohn, two brave and inspiring women who broke free from the infamous Unification Church - AKA the "Moonies" cult. *Lisa Kohn's Website: https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/ (https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/) * Link to Lisa Kohn's Book (To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence) https://www.mainpointbooks.com/lisa-kohn (https://www.mainpointbooks.com/lisa-kohn) *Jen Kiaba's Website (you can purchase her amazing art prints here!): https://www.jenkiaba.com/ (https://www.jenkiaba.com/) *SUPPORT Follow the Woo: If you would like to help with the creation of this podcast, receive bonus content, merchandise, and more, you can become a member of The Order of Woo: https://www.patreon.com/followthewoo (https://www.patreon.com/followthewoo) *Instagram & TikTok: @followthewoo *Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClifZ3HrpfXEHM3tXUT3lww?view_as=subscriber (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClifZ3HrpfXEHM3tXUT3lww?view_as=subscriber) *All Inquiries: followthewoo@gmail.com

Lisa Kohn's memoir of being raised in and torn between two conflicting worlds. There was the world she longed for and lived in on weekends – her mother's world, which was the fanatical, puritanical cult of the Moonies – and the world she was forced to live in during the week – her father's world, which was based in sex, drugs, and the squalor of life in New York City's East Village in the 1970's.

Today's episode is part of a new series called Author Journeys. This ongoing series will focus on interviews Becky conducted for her upcoming book, Reach: Create the Biggest Possible Audience for your Message, Book, or Cause (April 2022). In this episode, we are joined by Lisa Kohn—award winning author, leadership consultant, and executive coach. During this episode, Lisa shares: The journey of publishing her memoir Her greatest hopes for her book How she feels looking back on being on national TV What she thinks has worked best for her for expanding the reach of her book Her attitude towards fame and fortune What role generosity has played in her journey For our show notes, including action steps and resources, visit: https://bit.ly/3fi1z91 Please feel free to send a message to Becky at becky@weavinginfluence.com to share your thoughts!

I loved my interview with Lisa who I originally met over in the Twitter world a few years ago and in real life when she was speaking at a conference in Edinburgh! Lisa's early years in the 1970s New York City were a mixture of encounter groups, macrobiotic diets, communes, Indian ashrams, and watching naked actors on off-Broadway stages during the musical HAIR. By the time her older brother was ten, Lisa's father had him smoking pot. By the time Lisa was ten, Lisa's mother had them pledging their lives to the Unification Church (the “Moonies”) As a child Lisa knew the ecstatic comfort of inclusion in a cult and as a teenager the torment of rebelling against it. As an adult, Lisa struggled to break free from the hold of abuse and the scars in her heart, mind, and psyche—battling her own addictions and inner demons and searching her soul for a sense of self-worth. She is a writer, teacher, and public speaker who owns a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm and who works to bring to others the tools, mind-shifts, and practices she's found that have helped her heal, as well as the hope and forgiveness she's been blessed to let into her life.  Some key points from our interview:·        How she grew up in two contrasting worlds both of which she says can make you a little wacky!·        How she recognises that when her mum joined the Moonies it gave her a lot of stability .·        How when she was attended a music camp at sixteen and met people who were different from her, she started to question all she had been told.·        How she woke up to the conditioning and manipulation she experienced growing up in the cult.·        How she now uses her voice to share three main messages – to educate people that extreme situations exist but you can leave them, that self-love and self-compassion are important and whilst there might be damage there is still always hope . “I learnt that I'm not damaged, I have damage” – Lisa Kohn  Find out more about Lisa here: https://www.lisakohnwrites.com *                                     *                                             *                                *"Unbroken: Healing Through Storytelling" features  individuals who have all triumphed after adversity and have not just bounced back in life, but forward and are now making a difference for others.Hosted by Madeleine Black, the show will share stories of all the amazing people Madeleine has met on her own journey as an author/speaker and these stories will heal, motivate, inspire and bring hope when they share their wisdom and knowledge with her.She really believes in the power that comes when we share our stories, that in fact we are not story tellers but story healers. Tune in to discover what helped them to stay unbroken and together we will discover that none of us are broken beyond repair.You can find out more about Madeleine, her story and her memoir, Unbroken,  from her website: https://madeleineblack.co.uk/Watch the Podcast via YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/c/MadeleineBlackUnbrokenFollow on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/unbrokenthepodcastwithmb  

In today's episode I get to speak at length with Lisa Kohn - author of the Memoir "To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence. Lisa talks us through her strange childhood coming into the church and her struggles with leaving it behind.https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/to-the-moon-and-back/Get In TouchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodTumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cultvaultReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Cult-VaultGmail: cultvaultpodcast@gmail.comPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/thecultvaultSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/cultvaultpodcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Lisa Kohn is the award-winning author of “to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence”, as well as “The Power of Thoughtful Leadership.” The best seats Lisa ever had at Madison Square Garden were at her mother’s mass wedding, and the best cocaine she ever had was from her father’s friend, the judge. Today she is a leadership consultant and executive coach, and keynote speaker who works with C-suite leaders in Fortune 50 organizations and not-for-profit organizations, helping them become more thoughtful in their leadership and their lives. Lisa brings to her clients the tools, mind-shifts, and practices she’s found – and created – that have helped her heal and thrive, as well as the hope and forgiveness she’s been blessed to let into her life.

No matter how bad your situation looks, no matter what is or isn’t going on, author and blogger Lisa Kohn has a message for you, there is always hope. Her memoirs To the Moon and Back tells the story of a childhood and adolescence filled with drugs, addictions and cult membership (Unification Church). Yet she emerged with a very important message to share. Website: https://www.lisakohnwrites.com Book: To the Moon and Back  

The first interview with Lisa is here: https://youtu.be/dVBiYJAPuL0http://lisakohnwrites.comPATREON: https://www.patreon.com/minddogtvSponsors:https://podmatch.com/signup/minddogtvhttps://mybookie.com Promo Code minddoghttps://record.webpartners.co/_6_DFqqtZcLQWqcfzuvZcQGNd7ZgqdRLk/1https://apply.fundwise.com/minddoghttps://myvitalc.com/minddog. promo code minddogtvhttps://skillbuilder.academy/dashboard?view_sequence=1601856764231x540742189759856640&promoCode=MINDDOG100OFFhttps://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=599839&u=1659788&m=52971&urllink=&afftrack=https://enticeme.com/#minddog

Lisa Kohn is the Author of "To The Moon and Back; A Childhood Under the Influence" her story of growing up in the Unification Church or the "Moonies Cult" under Sun Myung Moon. She survived this and grew up to do wonderful things after she left. Below is a brief bio about her from her website https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/ "People ask me where I'm from and while I will mention the town in which I now reside, I always quickly add that I'm “from” New York City. Truthfully I was born in New Jersey and lived mostly there for the first twelve years of my life, but New York City is where my heart and identity reside. I am a New Yorker. An East Villager. From before it was cool – when it was just seedy and scary. When there was “no life above 14th Street” and the men's shelter was around the corner on one side and the Hells Angels' world headquarters around the corner on the other. I now live in Wayne, PA with my husband of nearly twenty years and my two (if I do say so myself) beautiful children, whenever they're around. My friends here tease me because, city kid that I am, I'm afraid of the boogeyman when I walk down the street in the dark – even if it's only 7pm on a winter evening. Even though the Hells Angels never really scared me! I own a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm and spend much of my time speaking, writing, teaching, and presenting my ideas and approaches to life and to business. Ideas that are a compilation of what I've learned along the journey through my bizarre and “way out” childhood, and leadership best practices learned in my many years in business and my MBA. People still have different reactions when they hear all that happened to and around me. A few years ago new neighbors moved in two doors down. I quickly became fast friends with the mom. One night we were out to dinner and facts about my past came out. She looked at me, from across the table, and exclaimed, “But you seem so normal!” I guess I am, whatever normal means. My childhood was anything but. It was quite a path from there to here and a long journey to move beyond all the things that held me captive for many years. It's a weird story. But it's true." Buy the book Here! https://amzn.to/3uInIED This episode is proudly brought to you by: #Betterhelp : https://www.betterhelp.com/sipod for 10% off #LootCrate : http://loot.cr/3rWoAnw Code "Suckitpodcast" for 15% off #CBD #Wildflowerhemp https://wildflowerhempco.com/ BUY MERCH!!!!! #Merch Store: https://www.dckproductions.com/shop Follow me: https://www.youtube.com/c/suckitpodcast https://www.instagram.com/suckitpodcast https://www.facebook.com/suckitpodcast https://www.twitter.com/suckit_podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thedarksideofmusic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thedarksideofmusic/support

Get The Book: https://amzn.to/2LG81vCRead more about her book and life at http://www.lisakohnwrites.comSponsors:https://mybookie.com Promo Code minddoghttps://record.webpartners.co/_6_DFqqtZcLQWqcfzuvZcQGNd7ZgqdRLk/1https://apply.fundwise.com/minddoghttps://myvitalc.com/minddog. promo code minddogtvhttps://skillbuilder.academy/dashboard?view_sequence=1601856764231x540742189759856640&promoCode=MINDDOG100OFFhttps://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=599839&u=1659788&m=52971&urllink=&afftrack=

In her debut memoir, To The Moon And Back: A Childhood Under The Influence (Heliotrope Books), Lisa Kohn tells the tale of how her mother brought her up in the Unification Church (that is, the Moonies), while her hippie dad exposed her to the drugs and decay of the East Village in the 1970s. We talk about how she survived both of those experiences to become a successful executive coach, and how the tools she used to heal herself turned out to be mighty useful for coaching others. We get into the allure of cults and how she managed to transition away from the Moonies, her work in the Second Gen community (people born or raised in a cult), what raising her own kids taught her about her parents' behavior, the perils of telling her kids about her life story (including her extensive drug history), her reaction to the current crop of documentaries about cults, the influence of Mary Karr on her writing, and how long it took her to find out who she actually is. Follow Lisa on Twitter and Instagram and her blog• More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Cassandra Rae’s guest on the #TellItLikeItIs podcast this week is Chatsworth Consulting Group Founder Lisa Kohn (@LisaKohnWrites), an accomplished Fortune 500 Leadership Consultant and author several times over. She opens up with Cassandra about the stories behind her latest book, To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence in which she details her turbulent childhood and early adulthood as a cult survivor, as she puts it, a “mild” cocaine addict.There’s so much in Lisa’s story that’s remarkable, from watching her mother be married at a mass wedding at Madison Square Garden to snorting lines of coke with her father’s friend, the Judge. But, also in a way, there is so much that is unremarkable too. It’s a human story. A heroine’s journey to try and process trauma and find a path out of it to get on with life. Stuff we’ve all been through and stuff we’re all still trying to learn.Follow us on Twitter at @_badasscass_ Follow us on Facebook at @TellItLikeItPodcast Follow us on Instagram at @TellItLikeItIs_Podcast Find out more about Lisa at www.lisakohnwrites.com Join our mailing list so you never miss an update: www.soapbox.work/contact

Lisa Kohn, author of To the Moon and Back shares her life experiences and compares notes between the Moonies and the Mormons --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

The best seats Lisa Kohn ever had at Madison Square Garden were at her mother’s wedding, and the best cocaine she ever had was from her father’s friend, the judge. Do you need more of an introduction or reason to watch than that? Today we’ll hear about the journey from A (the fanatical, puritanical cult of the Moonies) to B (a loving husband, kids and a life filled with joy, hope and forgiveness) and like all journeys, it’s the unpredictable, squiggly and messy path in-between that provides the real insight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the KORE Women podcast Dr. Summer Watson features Lisa Kohn. Lisa is the author of “To The Moon And Back: A childhood under the influence” and “The Power of Thoughtful Leadership.” She is a writer, teacher, and public speaker, who owns a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm, “Chatsworth Consulting.” You don't want to miss Lisa talking about her experience growing up as a Moonie, addiction, resiliency, mental health, love, coaching.... Connect with Lisa Kohn at: chatsworthconsulting.com, lisakohnwrites.com and follow her on Twitter @thoughtfulldrs and @lisakohnwrites on Facebook and LinkedIn. Listen to The KORE Women podcast on your favorite podcast directory— Pandora, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcast, Google Play Music, Spotify, Stitcher, Podbean, and at ‪www.KOREWomen.com/podcast‬. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the KORE Women podcast and being a part of the KORE Women experience. Please leave your comments and reviews about the podcast and check out KORE Women on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. You can also learn more about Dr. Summer Watson and KORE Women at: www.korewomen.com

Lisa had a weird childhood. Some would say tough. My memoir, to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence, was published in 2018. My goal is to spread a message of hope, self-love, and self-compassion with the book. I describe my childhood in this way: “The best seats I ever had at Madison Square Garden were at my mother's wedding, and the best cocaine I ever had was from my father's friend, the judge.” Basically, I grew up in a religious cult (the Moonies) with my mom and a life of “sex, drugs, and squalor” with my dad. I know that while my story is unique – only my brother has a similar childhood – the “scars” I have are unfortunately too common. Low or no self-esteem, self-criticism, self-loathing, and lambasting are, again, all too common. This is why I hope to spread a message of self-love. You can read more about my book and life at lisakohnwrites.com. I also own a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm chatsworthconsulting.com which focuses on Thoughtful Leadership – being present, intentional, and authentic. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/everydayguru/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/everydayguru/support

Extremism of any kind can be so damaging to ourselves and others. And those caught up in those extremist situations can have a very difficult time escaping. And to be fair, often we can be in a "non-extremist" situation that we ourselves become extremists.I am happy to welcome Lisa Kohn on the show. Lisa has a story that you can't miss. She went back and forth from a cult to a live of drugs, etc and was finally able to escape.LIsa shares her story with us.Join us for a fascinating journey,Dr Doug Radio Radio Show is broadcast live at 11am PT Tuesdays on K4HD - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com ) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). This podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com).

Hi There! My guest on this episode is Lisa Kohn. Lisa has great a great story about getting past the unresolved childhood issues that have, unknowingly in many cases, resulted in harmful behaviors as adults. Lisa's story involves judges, drugs, sex, rock and roll, and the Moonies. How could you possibly not want to hear this?  It's all detailed in her book To The Moon And Back A Childhood Under The Influence  You'll hear in our discussion the issues that arose during a rather wild childhood and how Lisa overcame those issues to go to Cornell, graduate school at Columbia University, and to experience success in her life. It is my hope that you can find something in Lisa's story that will be useful to you in your journey. If God is for you, who can be against you?

Lisa Kohn is an accomplished leadership consultant, executive coach, author, and keynote speaker. She joins the show today to share her extraordinary story of being born and raised in a cult, and what skills she developed to heal, grow, and become an extremely accomplished leader. Lisa shares the details of her new memoir To the Moon and Back and connects the dots on how her upbringing now makes her a compassionate and understanding coach. We also talk about the crucial need for self-love and forgiveness to be the true badass we are meant to be.    What You Will Hear in This Episode:  How Lisa transitioned from an unusual childhood to become such a professional businesswoman with accomplishments such as having 20 years of experience partnering with Fortune 500 clients, teaching as an adjunct professor at NYU and Columbia, and a published author including her new book To the Moon and Back.  The powerful and intoxicating side of growing up in a cult and feeling as though you knew the truth, and you were there to spread it and help others through your message.  More about The Unification Church and the Moonie Cult, and some of the beliefs that Lisa grew up with.  Lisa’s time in college exposed her to new and different ideas, she speaks of the feelings of shame and the divide between what she felt and what she was taught.  How Lisa found her own truth and embraced her past, present, and future instead of running away from it or trying to numb it.  How her experience informs the work she is doing now with leaders at Fortune 500 companies.    Quotes:  “The best seats I’ve ever had at Madison Square Garden was at my mother’s wedding.”  “There is no drug as intoxicating as knowing you have the truth.”  “I have crazy thoughts in my brain, but they are not me. It’s what I was taught.” “I’m not damaged, I have damage. There is a very big difference.”   “How is that workin’ for ya?” - Dr. Phil    Mentioned:  Lisa Kohn  To The Moon and Back  Chatsworth Consulting 

Lisa Kohn is an accomplished leadership consultant, executive coach, author, and keynote speaker with a strong business background and a creative approach. She has over 20 years of experience partnering with Fortune 500 clients in areas of leadership, communication styles, managing change, interpersonal and team dynamics, and strategy, as well as life balance and fulfillment. Lisa's latest book is her memoir to the moon and back: a childhood under the influence     Lisa talks to David about her professional and personal journey towards becoming an advocate for authentic leadership. She discusses the initial start-up of her business, discovering her business model, engaging prospects, and how her interesting personal life story circles around towards drawing in new business!

A few months ago, Lisa Kohn joined Jesse on the podcast and the had so much fun, they decided to do it again.  In this episode Lisa and Jesse talk about childhood, parenting and Bruce at her Dad's restaurant.   https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/ 

In Part 2 of our two-part series about The Unification Church (Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) otherwise known as the "Moonies," we chat with Lisa Kohn, author of the recent memoir "To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence." Lisa joined the church at age 10 with her mom and little brother and thought it was the answer to her family's problems. She hadn't approved of her parents' counter-culture lifestyle and craved the stability she believed she was offered in the Unification Church. She preached on soapboxes, enthusiastically wore a pin featuring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's face and watched her mom get remarried in a mass wedding at Madison Square Garden. But in college, her ideas began to change and she suffered while figuring out where she belonged in the outside world -- a struggle that included drug abuse, an eating disorder and unhealthy relationships. *Image from photo courtesy of Lisa Kohn

ATE #'s 22.5 & 23.5: Ashley and Christiana sit down to recap Episode 22 with Zeinah Estrada and Episode 23 with Lisa Kohn, along with deep diving into the important topics covered. Tune in to hear more about the effects of trauma, finding your own voice and what happens when someone is not raised in an optimum environment.**Our Sponsor:**Lionrock Recovery (http://www.lionrockrecovery.com)**Follow us here:**Podcast Website: (http://www.lionrockrecovery.com/podcast)Facebook: (https://www.facebook.com/LionrockRecovery/)Twitter: (https://twitter.com/lionrockrecovry)Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/lionrockrecovery/)Questions, comments or feedback? We want to hear from you! Email us at podcast@lionrockrecovery.com Watch Zeinah's Episode of 'Intervention' on A&E:https://www.aetv.com/shows/intervention/season-11/episode-7

#23: Lisa Kohn is a writer and author who was born in New Jersey, and grew up in the East Village of New York. She now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband of nearly twenty years and her two beautiful children. Lisa's recent book, “To The Moon And Back: A Childhood Under the Influence” is a memoir of being raised in and torn between two conflicting worlds. There was the world she longed for and lived in on weekends – her mother's world, which was the fanatical, puritanical cult of the Moonies – and the world she was forced to live in during the week – her father's world, which was based in sex, drugs, and the squalor of life in New York City's East Village in the 1970's.She now owns a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm and spend much of her time speaking, writing, teaching, and presenting her ideas and approaches to life and to business. Lisa has been featured on Business Insider, Megyn Kelly Today, Daily Mail, Thrive Global, Marie Claire and more!**Our Sponsor:**Lionrock Recovery (http://www.lionrockrecovery.com)**Follow us here:**Podcast Website: (http://www.lionrockrecovery.com/podcast)Facebook: (https://www.facebook.com/LionrockRecovery/)Twitter: (https://twitter.com/lionrockrecovry)Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/lionrockrecovery/)Questions, comments or feedback? We want to hear from you! Email us at podcast@lionrockrecovery.com Show Notes:2:19 - Lisa's book: “To The Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence”3:15 - Lisa describes the foundations of her childhood12:00 - Taking care of her family at a young age + her grandfather's depression and how that affected her life14:35 - Moving in with Danny (her father)16:25 - Lisa describes the beliefs of the Unification Church and why the “Moonies" are considered a cult22:19 - Why Lisa left the Moonies and where the abusive behavior was hidden28:57 - Lisa describes her suicide attempt, eating disorder and substance abuse struggles in college33:00 - Lisa's relationship with her mom now40:30 - Lisa's relationship with her dad now44:05 - Joining Al-Anon and the reasons that got her there50:43 - Describing her recovery and her now husband and children54:18 - Why Lisa feels Al-Anon saved herBuy Lisa's book at the following places:Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Back-Childhood-Under-Influence-ebook/dp/B07DWV6861/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538151436&sr=8-1&keywords=to+the+moon+and+back+lisa+kohnBarnes & Noble:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-the-moon-and-back-lisa-kohn/1129113996?ean=9781942762447Books A Million:https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Moon-Back/Lisa-Kohn/9781942762447?id=7336534269186Indie Bound:https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781942762447Contact Lisa:Website: www.lisakohnwrites.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisakohnwrites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LisaKohnWritesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisakohnwrites

In today's episode, Jesse is joined by writer, blogger and executive coach Lisa Kohn.  Lisa shares her Springsteen story and talks about her book "To the Moon and Back."  This is an episode you don't want to miss.   https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/to-the-moon-and-back/    Jesse's Twitter  @JesseJacksonDFW

This week's conversation covers an area that has required intense recovery work for me personally, recovering from an extremist religious childhood.  "To the Moon and Back" Author Lisa Kohn (whose NYC accent I love), openly shares her personal recovery story which includes a childhood divided between a strict religious cult upbringing with her mother, and a "no rules apply" household with her father. I found it compelling how Lisa shares the evolution of awakening from extreme religious beliefs that are their own subculture, in a real, raw way.  She shares her journey out of addiction and her path of "accidentally" finding the rooms in which she found support, comfort and healing.  Listen in as she shares her fascinating life! You can find Lisa at  https://www.lisakohnwrites.com/    or on social media as @lisakohnwrites for both Twitter and Instagram and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/lisakohnwrites.   Check her out!

In Episode 5, you'll meet Lisa Kohn. With a Moonie mother and a drug-addicted father, Lisa grew up torn between extremes. As she likes to say, “The best seats I ever had were at my mother’s wedding in Madison Square Garden, and the best cocaine I ever snorted was from my father’s friend, the judge.” In this interview, Lisa discusses the pain that comes from loving those that hurt us and how, using hope and love, she was able to transcend her past. This is a story about defying expectations. Helpful links: https://www.daralyselyons.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Llvj_GlzQ4 www.amazon.com/shop/daralyselyons Show sponsors: Just Strong - https://www.juststrong.com Coupon Code: Daralyse10 Guest contact: https://lisakohnwrites.com/

Former member of the Moonies cult and author of the memoir "To The Moon and Back," Lisa Kohn speaks with us about being raised inside the abusive organization.

Lisa Kohn is the author of To The Moon and Back which is a term often associated with love.  But for Lisa, it had a much deeper meaning.  Lisa grew up in the East Village of New York City in the 1970s and in the Unification Church (the Moonies).  Lisa was raised in two conflicting bipolar worlds.  Her mother's world was the fanatical, puritanical cult of the Moonies.  Her father's world was based on sex and drugs in the East Village of New York City. In her interview, she shares how she escaped the lifestyle that almost destroyed her.  She was anorexic, addicted to cocaine and engaged to an alcoholic.  Today she has a successful leadership consulting and coaching practice and blessed with a happy marriage of over twenty years and two amazing children. Listen as she shares her amazing transformation, what she learned, and how she offers hope to anyone struggling with self-destruction and esteem issues.  Most of us know someone who has been swept into a world of addiction or poor choices which can be destructive.  You don't want to miss hearing Lisa's story of how she escaped what she calls "brain pickling" instead of brainwashing:

Today Rachel speaks with Lisa Kohn, business consultant and author of "To The Moon And Back", that details her childhood in the Unification Church. Her mother had spent years looking for a spiritual home for the family. One day, she "figured it all out" and joined the Moonies. The church began to consume the family's life, and her mom seemed spiritually content. But her hard-partying, drug addicted Dad didn't get involved. How did Lisa feel growing up in a cult? And would she and her Mom ever leave or would they be lost to the Moonies forever? Tune in for a great story on growing up in a controlling environment, perfecting "that Moonie smile", developing your own point of view, and breaking free. Stay tuned, Before You Go: Rachel shares the importance of collecting a team of resources to help you in your life, and also how people sometimes choose to conform to beliefs in order to belong. If you're looking for therapy, please don't hesitate to contact Rachel at http://www.rachelbernsteintherapy.com/ or give her office a call at 818-907-0036.

Lisa Kohn was born to hippie parents and raised in New York City's East Village in the 1970s. At age 10, Lisa's mother had her pledging their lives to the Unification Church (the "Moonies") and self-appointed Messiah, Reverend Sun Myung Moon.Lisa's newly released memoir tells a powerful story of how, over time, she has come to terms with a life defined by insecurity and absurdity and has learned to live a life of joyful presence.

Lisa Kohn, an executive coach, author, and trainer shares her memoir, To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence. Lisa shares what a cult is, how she abused herself by becoming suicidal, anorexic, and having a “mild addiction to cocaine” (Lisa's words), to finally learning how to practice self-compassion. Kari and Lisa discuss how her experience impacts how she chooses to run and how running runs or does not run her life. Serena Marie, RD, discusses what three oils to cook with and which to avoid. Update: The next online Flourishing Skills group will start on Thursday, October 4, 2018. If you're feeling stressed out and are looking for some tools to live a life of flourishing and well-being, then this group is an opportunity to learn skills and put them into practice straight away. If you've been trying to reach a goal for the longest time, science shows that having a coach is an effective and empowering way to meet your goal. Coaching prices go up effective October 1, 2018. Email Kari@therunninglifestyle.com to learn more. Find out the 11 Strategies to Live a Running Lifestyle HERE. Click HERE to receive special gifts and to be part of The Running Lifestyle Show team. Please go HERE for this episode's show notes. Please tweet me your biggest takeaways at @KariGormley!