We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Arielle Cohen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Arielle below.
Arielle, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power. During his rein of Germany of 12.25 years he managed to intentionally murder over 11 million innocent people and create the deaths of many millions more. He was one person with a plan. He took action and got massive and massive results. But, it was all for the negative, the dark side.
My current social change projects (each book will be a new project) are called:
The I Am Brave and Unafraid Book Project.
The Put On a Big Smile Book Project.
The projects’ goals are to increase the emotional intelligence of over 11 million readers which can then in turn affect millions and millions more, thereby bringing light, love, and massive happiness and joy to the people in our world. Can I be that person to spread it? To help others understand how to meet their own needs, and the needs of others, and how that in turn raises their emotional intelligence? This is exactly my purpose/mission in life. Create happy, joy filled humans who give positively to our world and continue to bring light.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hello, My name is Arielle Cohen. I am a mother to three inspirational children who are the back bone to my mission in life. The problem I am here to solve is that of low emotional intelligence. It is my dream to raise the next generation’s emotional intelligence level in order to create a positive more happy world. Below is the story behind my first book.
In the same night our two children complained of nightmares. Our daughter, who was 5 at the time, said the only way she knew how to deal with them was to come and snuggle with me in bed. Although I love snuggling with her, I wanted her to learn other ways to handle her nightmares.
“My love, do you know you can change your nightmare?”
“No.”
“The next time you see that scary lion, be brave and change him into a birthday cake and blow out the candles.”
“But how can I do that Mama?”
“With the power of your thought. You control your thoughts. You choose what you dream about. If you don’t like your dream use your power of thought to change your dream. If you like your dream, use your power of thought to keep the dream going. Try it tonight”.
“I will Mama, goodnight.”
I then headed off to my son’s room. Even though the lights were out, he wanted me to read him another story. I said I would tell him a story instead. Together, we laid on his bedroom floor, covers on top, and the story of The Boy and The Bear began. He wanted it again. And again. The next day he wanted it before nap, and then again before bedtime. After about the 7th time of telling the story I thought to myself, “This is pretty good, I better write it down.” And so I did.
My second book, “Put On a Big Smile”, encourages children to build “Forever Friendships” by creating deep and meaningful connections with others. This focuses on the skill of social effectiveness in the dimension of relationship management.
23 more books are planned to complete the full emotional intelligence series, each one dedicated to a different emotional intelligence skill.
What makes me feel good, proud, bring a smile to my face, is when I get feedback from my readers that the mantra, “I Am Brave and Unafraid” helped them overcome a fear, or learn a new skills. I have readers that say that mantra before the doctors visit, or to help them ride their bike alone for the first time, or put their head under water while swimming. I feel happy when I learn my readers try out smiling more and they see these smiles work and bring them a happier day.
I offer a number of services to my readers.
I have kicked off my book tour and I can come to your school/library/children’s museum to share my books. I also coach children to increase their emotional intelligence skills. Additionally, in a corporate or other wok setting I present workshops for adults to help them increase their emotional intelligence skills. My books are for sale and I offer custom signing/wrapping and mailing the books. This service is especially popular with industries looking to give a unique custom gift, like for client appreciation gift. Additionally, I create fun family and women only parties to keep building community, or EI skills and create opportunities to give to others.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Resilience is a very important Emotional Intelligence Skill that must be honed to be successful, as there are many times we fall.
After publishing “I Am Brave and Unafraid” a slew of good things happened. I shared with a theatre director my dream to turn my book into a play. She took it to heart and made it happen. Even the mayor of the town and the Alderman got involved and I was presented with an award.
Then it was time to throw the big book party and I partnered with a non-profit that had big goals with me to distribute the book across the cities through their organization. We worked for over 9 months planning this event. I found donors to contribute in kind donations for the guests like food, art projects for the kids, etc. Everything went as planned. The agreement was that any donation money that came into the party would be used by the non-profit to purchase the books at a wholesale price and then to distribute to the kids in their organization. Instead…shortly after the event there were some changes made to the organization and the new person in charge not only wasn’t willing to continue to work together on our lagre scale distribution plan, but she also had no intention of using hte money I earned for the organization towards the I Am Brave and Unafraid Book Project, the project that we agreed to create together.
That summer I was truly devastated. I didn’t know exactly which direction to turn to next. I was also very early on in my learning about Emotional Intelligence and so I got quite down. But then, I looked at myself and said…Arielle…this is why you are doing this project. The way this person treated you is exactly what you want to help make sure that others in the world don’t get treated this way…you are confident. You can find a new direction. You needed this to happen to you to push you to the next place in your book journey. This is good. And once I was able to look at it for what it really was, a perfect learning experience, I let it go, and moved on. A few months afterwards, once I had clarity about how to proceed, I approached the organization with love and kindly asked them to reconsider the book order as I really wanted the hospitalized children to receive the books to help them through their rough moments. And they agreed. I delivered the books and the children received them.
Every downturn has an upturn, and I just needed to look at it from the right angle.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Continual learning is key to my success to succeed being an entrepreneur. A number of books/teaching I have done and continue to do are key.
Jack Canfield is one major person that has helped me a lot durning my journey. I have read and listened to the audio version of his book, The Success Principals. I also attended his training, Breakthrough to Success, as well as purchased his Best Sellers Blueprint. Tony Robbins training, Unleash Your Power Within, gave me additional skills required. Taking the Blue EQ test opened up a full understanding of Emotional Intelligence and it is from tips and tricks that Blue EQ provides after the test that have majorly impacted my life. I have printed those sheets out for each emotional intelligence skill and I hang them in the bathroom and learn from them daily. I have also become a lot closer to God over the last 4 years and learned more about my religion, Judaism. As I learn more I grow more as a person and my leadership and management skills increase because I have a high emotional intelligence now than when I began. My latest guru passed away in 2015 at the age of 80, Marshall Rosenberg, who wrote Non-Violent Communication. In October I will be travelling to Bali to take his 9 day intensive learning. The book has already had a significant impact on my life, and I believe the training will do even more wonders.
Another big thing I do is observe. I observe nature, people, myself and I experiment regularly on myself and my kids and husband…if I can change my reaction, do I get different results? I Do! :-)
Contact Info:
- Website: arielleturovercohen.com, iambraveandunafraid.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_arielle/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorArielleTuroverCohen
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielleturovercohen/
- Twitter: @Brave_Unafraid
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3AHPZay6Q493CiujJJJCVg