964 Martine Cohen:

Wings of Inspired Business Podcast EP964 – Host Melinda Wittstock Interviews Martine Cohen

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Martine Cohen:

Check your mindset. Awareness is going inside and really figuring out who’s driving me right now. Is it too much ambition? Is it fear? Is it greed? Am I chasing something? Am I avoiding something? Because life happens in between those two extremes? Am I doing what I really, really feel is the right thing to do in this moment? And you’ll be surprised that many times the answer is actually no. But we’re not even aware of it. And once we understand and we’re aware of what’s driving us, it’s a fear, it’s a layer. It’s my perfectionism, it’s my shame, it’s my shyness, it’s my, you know, any of those things, my entitlement may be my agency that I don’t have on myself. My sense of identity, that’s actually off because I’m doing something that I don’t believe in, whatever it is.

Melinda Wittstock:

In some 25 years now as a serial entrepreneur, there have been many lessons along my up and down path, but the one persistent learning is that it’s all an “inner game”. That’s why I joke so often that if you want therapy, just launch a business because it will confront you with all your subconscious beliefs you’re meant to heal. Martine Cohen is a corporate attorney turned mindset strategist and author of No More Layers. Today Martine dives deep into the subconscious beliefs and cultural conditioning that hold women entrepreneurs back. We explore how fears of both failure and success often shape our business journeys, so stay tuned for some practical and powerful insights on rewiring mindset, navigating male-dominated industries with authenticity, and leveraging the unique strengths women bring to leadership. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, how’s the New Year going for you so far? It’s crazy out there, maybe my first understatement of the year, so know you are not alone, you’re building the future you want as you build your business, and this is a safe space of sanity and compassion.  I’m Melinda Wittstock and if you’re new to Wings of Inspired Business, this is the podcast where – for the past decade – we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I believe in paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb. So, if you like what you’ve been hearing, please subscribe, tell your friends and colleagues, and help more people like you discover the show with a 5-star rating and review on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is dedicated to empowering individuals to lead themselves authentically, separate their identity from their emotions and thoughts, and make choices from a place of deep inner awareness and alignment. Martine Cohen is an author, speaker, transformational coach and former corporate attorney who helps high-achieving professionals and entrepreneurs navigate personal and professional transitions. So, if you’re ready to banish self-sabotage and redefine success on your own terms, this episode, packed with inspiration and actionable strategies, is just for you.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, let’s make 2026 the year where nothing holds us back. No more fear of failure, no more fear of success. No more procrastination, no more perfectionism. No more playing small, no more self-doubt and apology, no more relentless overworking to prove our worth. Let’s instead embrace our authentic selves and our unique feminine powers – intuition, attention to detail, collaboration, empathetic communication, and creativity. After all, business doesn’t have to be archetypal masculine ‘Art of War’. It can be about partnership, lifting others up, negotiation, and growing something mission-driven and meaningful. 

Melinda Wittstock:

So, let’s dive into Martine’s method – it’s all about adventure, awareness and alignment. She takes us through what all that means in practice, including how to replace fear with curiosity and how to welcome transitions as growth.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Martine Cohen.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Martine, welcome to Wings.

Martine Cohen:

Thank you for having me, Melinda. I’m so happy to be here today.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, we talk about transformation on this podcast because it’s inherent to entrepreneurship. Every single successful entrepreneur battle overcoming their subconscious blocks in some way or another. So, you work with a lot of female founders. Is there anything in particular that you think is the biggest thing that is holding us back, or do we all have our own things?

Martine Cohen:

So, both. How is that? We all definitely have our own things. We also have some things in common. Um, and some of the things that I see mostly with my female entrepreneur clients are it’s one of two. It’s either a fear of failure or fear of success. So it depends on their initial mindset or part of their limiting beliefs or what they’ve absorbed from a very young age when they didn’t have sort of any filters and any buffer and they were not even aware of it, is either, oh, I’m being too much, and I shouldn’t do this, and I shouldn’t be that, and I kind of have to stay in my own little lane. And a lot of people, people like that today fear success.

Martine Cohen:

Like, this is too much. This is going too fast. I don’t know how to step into my own shoes. A lot of perfectionists will have that issue as well. They believe it’s fear of failure, but it’s really fear of success. And then there’s a. Another category where people who have felt slighted or unseen or misunderstood, where they keep on having to prove themselves. So, they may go way outside, not just their comfort zone, but even what they would normally want to do or be drawn to do, because they feel they keep on having to prove themselves, themselves.

Martine Cohen:

And that’s really very exhausting and depleting.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Sometimes we think to be able to deserve success, it has to be hard, or we have to work really hard. We have to kind of show how hard we’re working, and maybe even subconsciously invent problems that don’t even need to.

Martine Cohen:

Especially in today’s society. It’s like the bigger the grind, the harder it is. There’s almost a competition. I worked for 14 hours. I slept for only three hours. And it’s all these badges that were accumulating.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. And that doesn’t necessarily translate into a bigger business. In fact, you find that the people with the biggest businesses and the biggest asset values really for their business are actually probably working less.

Martine Cohen:

Just smart work. It’s not more work. It’s different work. It’s a different way to work. Rather than just adding and adding more things to your plate or doing more of the same thing. It’s a whole, whole different approach to begin with.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, and entirely I want to loop back though, to this idea of fear of success. Because it’s true that most people think they fear failure, but actually women, I think, fear success maybe a little bit more. Like we’re sort of afraid of being…

Martine Cohen:

Too much, like too loud because we’re told that, right? We, we’re sometimes meant made to feel that, or we’re told that, or there’s still this concept of what a woman is supposed to be or not be. And there’s also, there’s a big male influence in business ownership still today. And so sometimes women have to grapple with that rather than saying, okay, what are my strengths and what can I do here and what do I want to do here? And I’m just staying in my lane. I’m going out there and I’m just doing it and it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kind of quiet the outside noise, you know, in the peanut gallery and just do what I know is aligned with me.

Melinda Wittstock:

One of the things is how few women, although it is changing, set out to build unicorn billion-dollar businesses, like from the outset, like not very many. And what does it actually take to change that? Because that’s really a mindset thing, like thinking that you can even do it or even wanting to do it. Are women afraid? Like, so say for instance, a woman who’s like a billion-dollar success, is she deep down afraid she like will alienate her husband or not find a husband?

Martine Cohen:

I’m not sure, but I would hope not. But I mean, deep down, I mean, I don’t think this is very deep down. It’s so deep down that it’s super subconscious. We need to go and dig what I call the layers up. Right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Martine Cohen:

There’s conditioning, right? Because if I think of, you know, my grandmother, my great grandmother, let’s say that’s not how they were brought up or conditioned, so to speak. So, first of all, it’s a generational thing where maybe, you know, in a generation or two that will be even more diluted than it is today, where women will sort of like be on an equal footing in the sense of like, they won’t have that kind of conditioning. But the other thing is, and I’ve heard this by a number of my, both my clients and my friends, is they feel that in order to run those, you know, multi-million- or billion-dollar companies or even aim for that, they have to do it in a man’s way. In other words, a way that’s not aligned with a woman. You don’t, you don’t have to be super manly and tough and whatever to get the job done. You have to be more of who you are, not of somebody else. And there, there is a perception that strength means toughness and means sort of like a wall up.

Martine Cohen:

And there’s a lot of power. And I know this is not a podcast about femininity, but there’s a lot of power to the woman in who she is. We have great intuition, we have great thinking, we’re fantastic at detail orientation and multitasking and really being able to have an image in our mind and connect the dots and run big businesses with a lot of, you know, staff, employees, products, whatever it is. But we shortchange ourselves, A, because of conditioning and B, because we think there’s only one way to do it. There are many ways to do it, and you just need to find your own way to do it and express it. But if it’s an uphill battle, it may not be your goal that’s wrong, and it may be your process that’s not aligned with who you are.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. This has come up on the podcast a lot like the, the balancing, if you will, of the archetypal masculine and feminine energies. And, you know, if you think back, business and the language around business, it’s all sort of the ‘Art of War.’ It’s all Sun Tzu, you know.

Martine Cohen:

Well, that. So, so you said it right there. Just the fact that it’s the art of war and not the art of communication or the art of negotiation or the art of partnership.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, exactly. And that’s where I think women brings so much to the table that just advances, makes business better, more successful, actually, if we really, like, just dare to lean into that because that those skills are not weak, they’re strong, right, and they require strength. It’s just a different type of strength. And so, the masculine, we leverage just to kind of for momentum to, you know, get things done, you know, all that kind of stuff. But that, the, but that archetypal feminine and the intuition. I think of all my businesses, the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made is just not following my intuition or overthinking.

Martine Cohen:

Well, exactly. And so, when you go out there into the world, it doesn’t have to be this huge mountain. It’s not going out there into the world. It’s like, what’s my goal? I want to create this business. I want to make it successful. Okay, what’s my vision? And my vision need not be influenced by anybody else’s vision or anybody else’s way of doing things. It’s got to be my vision. Because if it’s your visions, it’ll tap into your strengths and your skill set and the tools that you have, and you’ll just get better at using them.

Martine Cohen:

And we all have these tools and sometimes we’re afraid to use them because they have been underdeveloped or underused in the past or we were told they were wrong to use, or we were compared to other things. But in reality, I, I don’t know if I’ve never met a woman who’s actually weak. There in my vocabulary, there’s no such thing as a person who’s weak. They have different strengths. They just may not see their own strengths. And I think part of being a woman is learning to see yourself truly see yourself in the mirror. And what I mean by that is not, you know, sort of this kind of like self-criticism over the hair’s at his place and the pimple and the this and the that and the whatever. But it’s more about who do I stand, what do I stand for and who am I truly? And when you go out with that mindset, whatever it is that you want to conquer, whatever it is that you want to create and nurture and develop and grow.

Martine Cohen:

Because we don’t need to conquer as women. We create, we grow, we expand things, and that’s equally strong. It’s just. We don’t need to conquer.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, exactly. So, when we swim, particularly in male dominated areas with businesses. For instance, if you are a female tech entrepreneur and you need venture capital and you’re swimming in that tide where it’s so male-dominated – technology and venture that you have to turn a lot of those structural and, and subconscious biases on their head somehow to be able to get the funding. So, you’re swimming in a different lane. You want to be yourself obviously and be authentic and use all your strengths, as you’re saying, but you’re still getting evaluated in sort of a different way.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s just an extra layer of a difficulty to master. I mean, not only within yourself, but also externally and how you express that.

Martine Cohen:

So, it’s really interesting what you’re saying. I want to unpack that for a second. So, the first sort of obstacle or challenge will be for a woman to go out there into a so-called man’s world and say this is a challenge and this is an extra, you know, layer that I have to overcome. Because seeing it as that it already something that doesn’t necessarily paralyze us, but like puts us one step back. Right. It brings us back and it’s like, okay, now how do I do this? Not only am I in this world that’s mostly male dominated in terms of the thinking, but that means that me as a woman, I don’t have an equal shot. So my entire legal career, because I was in the venture capitalism and I was in all those, those growth companies and going public and all that, there was one time, and I’ll never forget it because it was so much fun for me in one meeting where I had a forensic accountant that was a woman and every single other encounter in my entire career was all with men. Never had a woman in the room, like ever.

Martine Cohen:

So, I really had to pivot very quickly because it’s not something I expected. I thought there’s sometimes you have women and sometimes you have men and whatnot. And so, the idea is to say, what do I bring to the table? It doesn’t matter whether it’s, you know, sort of, it’s not a gender thing. I’m great at strategy. Let’s say another person is going to be great at organization. Other person is going to be great at sort of like vision and seeing the business 10 years down the road. Everybody has a strength.

Martine Cohen:

If you’re there, it’s because you have a strength. Don’t be there if you’re trying to prove something, be there because it aligns with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right?

Martine Cohen:

Right. So, once you’re there and it makes sense to you and you love it, you’re going to bring something to the table that as a woman nobody else can bring. You don’t have to prove yourself to them. You just have to show them who you are. So be yourself fully. When we’re proving ourselves, we’re trying to get out of our lane into another lane. We won’t do very well there when we’re saying, I’m going to shine with who I am and I’m going to bring to the table my uniqueness and my skills and why I’m here, my why, that’s when it works.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. And there’s just an authenticity in that. And so, you work with a lot of entrepreneurs. So, tell me about the process. So obviously implicit in that these are the layers and layers and layers is like peeling an onion. There’s the kind of outward things, the things that we all have in common as women that may be holding us back, but then our individual different experiences of overcoming traumas, childhood, all sorts of things, right. Talk me through your process of how you peel those layers and…

Martine Cohen:

Right. So, I wrote the book so that it can meet each person where they’re at and when they want to kind of like have an intro to all of this work and learn to do it a bit on their own. So I have client stories and exercises and just a lot of, you know, sort of inspiration and just really awareness and information. Because the first thing that we don’t have, and this is unique to. This is not unique to a gender, but this is like across the board in terms of humanity, is we don’t have the awareness of what’s below the conscious level. So, we can have a thought, but we don’t know the whole conversation that happened within us that led to that conclusive thought of I can’t do this, or this is going to be too difficult, or this is too much for me, or this is not enough for me, or. And then, you know, because growing a business is also a question of timing and strategy. And it’s like an art.

Martine Cohen:

And timing matters. It’s its own entity. It comes alive. And you can also grow business too quickly and then it kind of can crumble as well, right. So, it’s a matter of managing all of that. And it’s that kind of balancing act. And often we’re not in control of that.

Martine Cohen:

There are things inside of us that make us react rather than what I used to call proactively make us decide things just to get them off our plates rather than really choose from a place of alignment and freely do what you feel is right. Most people will be held back by their own stuff on the inside, not by another person. On the outside.

Melinda Wittstock:

100 per cent. So, so what is your process? One-on-one coaching? 

Martine Cohen:

Yes, I typically do either group workshops on specific topics. If, if there’s a, you know, some team or organization that needs me for a specific issue that they’re having, you know, in, on in their teams or, or their companies or whatnot. But otherwise, I do a lot of one-on-one coaching, which I also call consulting because I can be on retainer and somebody just calls me up and says, okay, I have this issue, I can’t see through it. And, and, and I’m like, okay, this is the surface level of what’s going on, but below the level, this is actually what you’re dealing with. And then once you get that kind of clarity, what we, we talk strategy together and they’re on their way. You know, if it’s, if it’s mid management, if it’s a CFO, if it’s, you know, time to, you know, grow your company in a different direction or maybe just sell it off and go do something else or whatever it is, there’s also those transitional things. But it’s always remembering that if you’re not aligned from within, you can’t lead outwardly or you can’t grow your business well, or it’s not about, you know, getting your employee to do what you want, it’s about bringing out the best.

Martine Cohen:

I also talk to them a lot about boss versus leader. There’s a very big difference. But it’s also different in how you show up, how you see yourself in your mindset. So, my process is really like, it’s very intuitive. It’s highly customized to every sort of individual at every point in time and every professional. But if I had to sort of break it down into three pillars, which I do in the book too, for points of reference, it’s adventure, awareness, alignment. And what I mean by adventure is check your mindset. The first thing you need to do is check your mindset, and check your mindset multiple times a day, but first thing in the morning, because that first series of thoughts or that clusters of thoughts that you have in the morning before you even start your day, when you just open up your eyes, is actually a way to program your brain for the day.

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Martine Cohen, author, speaker, transformational coach and former corporate attorney.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Martine Cohen:

If you’re starting off with, oh my goodness, I’m gonna have this crazy, challenging day today because three employees are missing and I have to grow this and the suppliers out. And I was thinking of starting this, you know, Branching out to this new venue and it’s falling apart. Your day is going to be as chaotic as your, your first few thoughts in the morning. So, watch your mindset because it ends up being reflected in the way you’re going to experience your day. Not what’s going to come before you and at you, but how it’s going to be recorded in your mind. And that ends up at some point even affecting what you think about yourself, what you think about your business, what you think about your life. And it’s going to start instructing your actions instead of you.

Martine Cohen:

So that’s number one. Check your mindset. Awareness is going inside and really figuring out who’s driving me right now. Is it too much ambition? Is it fear? Is it greed? Am I chasing something? Am I avoiding something? Because life happens in between those two extremes? Am I doing what I really, really feel is the right thing to do in this moment? And you’ll be surprised that many times the answer is actually no. But we’re not even aware of it. And once we understand and we’re aware of what’s driving us, it’s a fear, it’s a layer. It’s my perfectionism, it’s my shame, it’s my shyness, it’s my, you know, any of those things, my entitlement may be my agency that I don’t have on myself. My sense of identity, that’s actually off because I’m doing something that I don’t believe in, whatever it is.

Martine Cohen:

And all of these layers, these primary layers have also sort of derivative layers, so they can show up in different ways. I didn’t make the call. I’m procrastinating. Well, if you’re a business owner, you’re a doer. So, if you’re procrastinating or feel like you’re self-sabotaging, that’s a very strong message to let you know something’s misaligned from within. But it’s not that you’re a procrastinator or you’re lazy. There’s something else. Your body’s trying to give you a message and we’re knocking ourselves instead of listening to it, right? And then the last thing is alignment.

Martine Cohen:

Once you, your mindset’s in check, you have the awareness of what’s going on inside of you, then you can make an aligned choice. Then you could decide your next step, but from a place that actually resonates with you, where you can be whole with it and all we can do is our best. But most of the time we’re not even in control of. We’re not the one driving our own. Our own life. There are things, and it’s not other people. It’s layers from within us. And that’s why I call them layers, because they really disconnect us from our own power, our awareness, and our freedom of choice.

Melinda Wittstock:

You mentioned the morning, and this is so important, like having a morning process. So, if you roll over and you pick up your phone and you immediately look at text messages, email, social media, whatever, your whole brain has been hijacked by somebody else, many other people. Right. And you’re not even embodied at that point, eight. And so, what is a good morning practice to really check your mindset? Do you suggest a practice? You know, a lot of people use gratitude or meditation or a whole bunch of different things to just make sure that you’re in that right frame of mind.

Martine Cohen:

I call it checking in with yourself. Absolutely. , gratitude is great. Meditation is great exercise. Which, being aware, like being in your body exercise, but like mindful exercise, we’re actually aware of what you’re doing is great. But even before all that, before you get out of bed, when you open up your eyes, just like, be in the stillness for a second and observe whatever thoughts are coming before you as if it’s like, you know, sort of clouds that are passing in the sky without judgment, just observing, because it’s letting you know where your brain is at. And if you know where you’re at, then you can reframe it or redirect it to something else where you want it to be. So, first thing in the morning, you wake up and you’re like, oh, I feel so tired.

Martine Cohen:

And I’m like this. And then don’t judge it. Just listen to it. Once you’ve heard it, first of all, it’s. It. It’ll dissolve. Like, it’s. It’s not as strong anymore.

Martine Cohen:

Once we pay attention to something, not to go into it, but just to hear it, it’s heard, it’s going to go away. And then you’re like, okay. And then you can acknowledge it. I am actually feeling tired. Or, no, I’m good. You give yourself, like even 30 seconds. We all have the 30 seconds, right? And then if you feel tired, you’re like, okay, I am actually tired today. Not because I stayed up late last night or I was working in this meeting or whatever.

Martine Cohen:

Just I am. That’s it. What is. And then. So now I’m really curious. I want to go see what happens in a day that I’m Tired. What can I actually do? Let me see what kind of day I can create for myself. So that’s called the adventure mindset, which means I’m open.

Martine Cohen:

I haven’t already decided to determine it needs to be or it’s got to be a great day. And then why all these expectations? What is that based on? Just, I know who I am. I trust my tools. I know what I want to do. Now let me see what. Let me see what these days can bring. Let me see how I can interact with this day and what I can create. Because then you stay in your own driver’s seat.

Martine Cohen:

And then if something, you know, falls apart in the middle of your day or you have some sort of obstacle or unexpected sort of, you know, issue, you’ll rem. You won’t get caught in it. You won’t get so caught off guard that your brain goes into fight or flight mode. You’re just going to pick up your tools and figure out what to do next. And I want to say that some of our best days, especially as business owners, are not the days where everything goes smoothly are the days where you showed up in the way that at the end, you think, wow, I would have never thought that I can get through this obstacle and this mishap and this. And move things forward. It’s a day where we feel empowered, is the day where we’ve had to actually use our tools. But it worked out well, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. I mean, that’s. It’s like a muscle memory. When you overcome something or something seems impossible, but you… 

Martine Cohen:

I like that.

Melinda Wittstock:

The adventure mindset, where you’re not preconceiving a bad outcome or preconceiving that you can’t do something, but you get through the day and you have that accomplishment, and you can acknowledge that accomplishment. The more you do that, the less fear you have. Generally, like, you know that the next time something happens, you’ll be able to deal with it.

Martine Cohen:

Right. Because most of life is actually unexpected. Our brain really loves the expected because that’s safe and that’s determined. And therefore, sometimes it’ll even force us into a certain belief system so that we don’t take risks. But as entrepreneurs, this is what it’s about.

Martine Cohen:

Right? You don’t know how something’s gonna end up. You’re just gonna give it your all. And if you have an open mindset, you might find an opportunity that you would have otherwise missed. If you’re on one single minded kind of trajectory, it needs to work out and it needs to work out in this way and that. Some of my clients also come to me and they’re like, this is not working. And I keep on trying and trying and I’m like, well, if it’s not working, you don’t need to keep on trying and trying. You can go a different route. And let’s start being curious.

Martine Cohen:

So, the antidote to fear, at least with my clients, is curiosity. Replace fear with curiosity. Because when the brain gets curious, it forgets to be afraid. And when the brain gets curious, it leans into something rather than away from it. So, it gets to know it a little bit better. And when we understand what our fear is about, we’ll know what to do with it because it no longer has that grip where it actually, you know, makes you freeze or stops you in your tracks. So, it’s very important to remember that you can turn your fear into something else. But also, fear only exists in the future.

Martine Cohen:

If you live in the present moment and you’re fully invested in what you’re doing, you don’t, you’re not afraid. Even if you’re thinking two seconds forward, that’s where your fear comes in. So, fear does not exist in the present.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s a very important thing. Because I think with life in general, but especially with entrepreneurship, you know, we create all these milestones for ourselves, all these different things, like, I’ve got to do this so I can do that, so I can have that, so I can get here, so I can, you know, so, so, so, so. And that it, that in just that process, just that thought process right there introduces fear about all those different things and dependencies and interdependencies that have to happen to get you where you want to be.

Martine Cohen:

Right, exactly, exactly. So, first of all, that’s overload for the mind. You can have your vision; you can have your step by step and then focus on one at a time. But the other thing is, and I’ve had this with some of my surprisingly more successful business owners and entrepreneurs, is once they get there, they’re like, okay, so now what? So, something to remember is not to get caught up in the outcome, but to really enjoy and live the experience of the process. Because that’s how you truly grow as an entrepreneur, with awareness. Because we’ll grow anyways. The question is, are you aware of it or is it you’re just doing it sort of on automatic pilot, and then when you get somewhere, you’re like, but it doesn’t feel like what I expected. It doesn’t feel like what I thought it would be.

Martine Cohen:

So, I don’t feel fulfilled or. Now it’s not enough anymore. So, we keep on living in that fear of. I keep on needing to do better and better and better. But it doesn’t feel good, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, exactly. I’ve gone through this process myself. Like, you get to the destination, and it feels sort of, ‘Oh, what was that about?’ Like, you know, sort of like an emptiness or. Especially if you exit a business and your entire identity is wrapped up with it, and like, there’s almost a sense of grieving, even though you should be celebrating because you just sold your business. And that’s awesome. Right.

Martine Cohen:

And this is where we allow ourselves to be who we are, and we give ourselves permission to experience life fully, boldly, and courageously. Is You can simultaneously celebrate something and grieve it at the same time. And that’s totally okay.

Martine Cohen:

They’re not mutually exclusive. That’s something really, really important. And the more that we’re able to hold space for what feels like competing emotions, the more that we really grow and expand and sort of like, get rid of fear. Because our brain is like, black or white, one or the other, always contrast. But what if you could celebrate the fact that you sold your business, which means you got this far, but then you’re grieving the fact that you no longer have it. It’s like, you know, if you have kids and all of a sudden, like, they’re grown up and now they’re off on their own. So that’s awesome, because when you’re raising your kid, that’s totally what you want, but there’s another part of you that misses. Kind of like having the little kid around and being able to be a parent in that way.

Martine Cohen:

So, you adapt and you become the parent to the child at the age the child is at. Right. Whether they’re 20 or 10 or whatever it is. Same thing here. You now become an entrepreneur that sold their business. Rather than looking at one or the other, you can look at both and say, okay, so there. That it’s actually not so easy, you know, And I want to help other interpreters realize, because those are transition. Life transitions are tough for the brain.

Martine Cohen:

Any transition, any change is tough. But Saying this is my work paid off and this is what I wanted and I reached my goal. So why does it feel so bad? Well, because there’s multiple aspects to me. There’s the fact that now I no longer have anything to work so hard towards. Great. But at the same time, it was successful. So now what do I want to do with that? It’s not that I need to change my identity or reinvent myself, but now I’m not an entrepreneur that sold their business or that no longer has one. I’m an entrepreneur that was successful enough that I could sell my business, and that’s what I chose to do.

Martine Cohen:

So, all of a sudden now you have, you. You own that choice because it’s a choice to sell your business. If you have that choice, A, you want to prepare yourself for it, and B, you want to know that you will have multiple sort of voices inside of you. And that’s what I call the inner boardroom in my book, which is where you go and you listen to every voice, but then you draw the conclusion that you want. So, it’s like, yes, this is a celebratory time, let’s say. Or no, this is a time where I need to let myself just get used to the idea or maybe I’ll sell in a week from now because I just need my time. When you’re in tuned with yourself, you’ll have less of these extremes and less of not knowing what to do when you’re in them. So, you sell your business, but there’s prep to do for that.

Martine Cohen:

Like in other words, you got to hear yourself too. You’re part of the equation. We’re not just like a nuisance, like our emotions are nuisance or they’re along for the ride. They’re an integral part of our life experience.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. So much of this is, you know, you talk about the idea of conscious communication. We’ve been talking about your communication with yourself because this is all business is all really, at the end of the day, an inner game, right. But the communication with others as well. So, talk to me about the link between the internal communication and the external communication in terms of how that mastering the inner changes the outer, and how as women, we’re best equipped to succeed with communication, whether it’s marketing, sales, just how we deal with our team members, investors, etc.

Martine Cohen:

That’s, that’s, that’s an excellent question. I’m so happy that you asked that. So Communication starts from within. Actually, everything starts from within, which is what you said before. But communication starts from within. You’re not going to be able to be a better communicator outwardly than you are with yourself. So, if you want to know the kind of communicator you are, you need to just watch your thoughts. Well, you can listen to them, but literally just be a witness to the inner dialogue that you have and then imagine that somebody else is having that dialogue with you.

Martine Cohen:

And how would that land for you? So, for example, if it’s I don’t do this right, or I think I did this wrong, or I did this, this was too much and I shouldn’t have said this, or I’m going to send an email in a different way or right. Depending again, on the layer that you have, whether your, your foundational layers may be perfectionism or maybe it’s sort of, you know, where you, you, you feel shame or there’s a trust where you think everybody’s out to get you. But in business, that’s, you know, yes, you have to sort of be proactive and you have to be cautious, but when there is a trust and issue at play, you can’t. It’s not only that you don’t trust others; it also means deep down that you actually don’t trust yourself. So, we first have to understand, to understand ourselves really well, and we have to see how do we react to our own inner dialogue. Do we quash it? Do we add to it? So, if you’re, if a person is, for example, you know, I don’t know, criticizing themselves over something, are they being too harsh? Are they being fair? Are they being too lax? You have to have such a deep awareness with how your internal dialogue works for you because the more you do, it’s almost like a practice run for how you’re going to interact with other people. So, when you have fairness, when you have compassion, and you also have creativity, which means that you’re going to look at every situation as, what can I do with this? I don’t have time to criticize it. I don’t have time to feel bad for it.

Martine Cohen:

I just want to make it work as best as possible. So again, it’s, it really all starts in the mindset. I know that my brain is going to generate all sorts of thoughts. I don’t have to agree with all of them. I can question them. I can say, is this the kind of relationship I want myself? Is this the kind of inner dialogue I want? Because we can change that. And as we change our inner dialogue, our outward experience of dialogue with others also changes, also improves. And you’ll notice it without having to do a lot of conscious work.

Martine Cohen:

It’ll just happen because you can’t treat others better than you treat yourself truly and consistently. And you will not be able to relate to others if you don’t know how to relate to yourself. Because the, the primary relationship that we have and that we kind of like are born with is a relationship to ourselves. It’s the one that we neglect the most. But it’s. It’s front and center in terms of our ability to then be out there with others without getting triggered in ways that we don’t want to get triggered. So, become a listener, hear yourself without judgment. That’s active listening.

Martine Cohen:

A big component, and I teach that to some of my entrepreneurs and CEOs, is like, don’t just run to give the answer. Even if you know when somebody’s talking to you and employees talking to you or investors talking to you, understand where they’re coming from, not just what they’re saying. Because at the end of the day, we’re all human. And if we can connect on that level, right, that’s what a great networker does. If we can connect on that emotional slash intellectual level, then that’s when you’ve created that kind of sort of trust, you know, in a light way, but still there, where the person’s going to want to invest in you versus your competitor, or they’re going to want to come to work for you, or they’re going to want to part with you in some sort of venture because you’re authentic. You’re showing up authentically, you’re really hearing what they’re saying. You’re listening to what they’re saying. And before we.

Martine Cohen:

You’re formulating a response, you’re just listening to them out with that adventure mindset that also works for this, like an open mindset of just, I want to hear this person because everything that they’re saying and not saying is information for me. And once I’ve heard that, I process it and then I respond. And that goes very, very far in terms of negotiation, in terms of conflict management, in terms of even conflict prevention, in terms of setting a kind of corporate culture in your business, and in terms of really communicating your vision to your team and bringing out the best in them. People feel and need to be seen, I think now more than ever, but always it’s a human need. So, if people see that you see them, they’re going to respond in kind.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. So how did you get inspired, Martine, to do this work? You sort of alluded to the fact that you were an entrepreneur. You were working in a number of other businesses before you, you know, really started working with others to help them trend, you know, Sorry. Before you started working with others to really help them with this transformation and removing the layers that obscure their inner light, what were you doing before?

Martine Cohen:

So, a corporate attorney for around 25 years and, and, and strategic consultant. So, I’ve dealt with a lot of different businesses and had a lot of fun juggling all these things, private companies, public companies. But what actually happened to me was something, you know, totally unexpected. But in 2016, there’s a car that rammed into me. So, it was a very serious car accident, and it resulted in a concussion. And I was diagnosed with post concussive syndrome, which meant that my biggest tool or what I had learned to identify myself with, we’re talking about identifying, you know, with a business. I identified with my brain and my strategic thinking and all the mental gymnastics that I love to do. 

Martine Cohen:

I didn’t have that anymore. And my brain just wasn’t functioning properly. It was concussed. I couldn’t hold a conversation. I couldn’t filter the world around me. It was a very, very scary and dark time. And I really couldn’t be. I didn’t feel like myself anymore.

Martine Cohen:

I didn’t know how to be me, basically. And it sort of catapulted me into this, like, journey, internal journey of just trying to figure out where else this darkness was coming from. I was, like, enveloped in fear. I didn’t know if I was ever gonna feel good again, be myself again, be able to work again. Like, I didn’t know anything anymore. But because my brain wasn’t working properly, it also didn’t make me afraid of fear, because we didn’t mention this. But the biggest fear that we have is a feeling fear.

Martine Cohen:

It’s the most destabilizing people for most feeling for most people, which is why they’ll do anything to avoid fear, even if it doesn’t serve them well. I didn’t have that, the fear of fear. So, I started feeling my fear. I started going inwards and realizing what I called layers, because that’s what they felt. Like these. This gunk from childhood, these limiting beliefs, these fears that I had, these identities that I created. I need to be like this. I need to do this.

Martine Cohen:

This is who I am. I was like, I realized the perfectionist I was like, I don’t need to be that. What if I don’t want to be that? And I started working through all these things, and again, because my brain was dysfunctional, it didn’t get in my way. I wasn’t afraid to feel extreme fear or pain because I didn’t have a story created around it. I shouldn’t. I should. What does this mean? I’m. I’m.

Martine Cohen:

I’m a weak person or I’m. It just. I just did. And when we face something like that, it actually dissolves after a while because it doesn’t have a long shelf life. It’s because we hold on to fear and we hide it and we try to disassociate ourselves from it, and we move it to the side, and we try to bury it. 

Martine Cohen:

It sort of grows over time, and it becomes really hindrance to our development. So, I worked through my layers, and as I was working through my layers, I was like, well, where’s this awareness coming from? Because I was aware of what I was doing. I just had no issue with it and no judgment about it, but my brain was still dysfunctional. I wouldn’t be able to have this conversation with you, like, at all. Not even, like, three sentences. So how do you have all this internal awareness? And then I realized, oh, like, we’re not our brain. Like, I thought I was my brain. I think I didn’t even realize that I thought I was my brain.

Martine Cohen:

And we’re so much more. There’s so much more to who we are than just this organ that’s very helpful, very useful, but should not be in the driver’s seat and creates thoughts and emotions and stories and tells us who we are and what we should be and what we can do and what we can instead of being us doing all that. And I, as I got better, slowly, slowly realizing this, and I was like, okay. Oh, my goodness. I. I know this. I believe things happen for a reason. That’s my belief.

Martine Cohen:

And I know this did just happen for me to have a concussion and. And, you know, sort of like it kind completely sort of like sidetracking my life. There’s something more to this. And then I realized I was called to do this, to help other people realize this. I believe it’s a birthright that we have, but we’re not aware of how to do it, what to do. The fact that we even have these things that are holding us back, we just feel the outcome of it, but we don’t actually understand it. And so, coupled with my business acumen and with my strategic thinking and all that, I sort of intuitively and sort of, because I have such an intricate understanding of how the brain works now said, what if we applied strategies like business strategies or just strategies in general to the way we live? Like, we’re not strategic in the way we live. We just get caught up in thoughts and feelings.

Martine Cohen:

But what if we could also have awareness and take a step back and understand what it’s about from a higher sort of, you know, bird’s eyed view so that we don’t get, you know, sort of sunk into things, but we can observe them and then we could choose how they land for us and we could choose what we want to do with them because that’s how we remain empowered and we can feel who we are and then go out into the world and do whatever it is that we want to do. And we know we were meant to do, or we can do or is aligned with us. So, we give ourselves permission to just be free, but from the inside out. And then we can sort of redefine success in that way as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, amazing. So, Martine, I mean, for anyone listening to this, who wants to work with you, what’s the best way to find you and work with you?

Martine Cohen:

So, reach me@infoartincohen.com so super easy. That’s my name by email. Website is Martine Cohen. So that’s easy as well. The book is on Amazon. It’s called No More Layers: Discover Your Inner Power and Reclaim True Freedom from the Inside Out. Believe it’s our birthright.

Martine Cohen:

I’m also on social media, Martine Cohen underscore on Instagram. You can also find me and my name on LinkedIn, Facebook, but the easiest would be through an email. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Martine Cohen:

Thank you today. Thank you for allowing me the space to do so and it was great speaking to you, Melinda, and to your audience today.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Martine Cohen is transformational coach and former corporate attorney who helps high-achieving professionals and entrepreneurs navigate personal and professional transitions. She’s the author of No More Layers: Discover Your Inner Power and Reclaim True Freedom From the Inside Out.

Melinda Wittstock:

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Melinda Wittstock:

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