Day 215: Simon Cohen
“… the fact that I am grappling in a professional sense with issues that I would talk about at the pub with my best friends, it means that I am so much more engaged with those issues rather than it being something that I have to do. It’s something with my heart.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Simon, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you introduce yourself?
Simon Cohen: Yes. My name is Simon Cohen. I’m the Founder and Managing Director of Global Tolerance.
Toni: Thank you, and thank you for being here. Simon, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?
Simon: When I think of inspiration, I think of my family. I think of … in terms of who do I inspire, I’d like to think I inspire my fiancée. I’d like to think that she felt quite inspired when I got down on bended knee. The people at Global Tolerance as well, I’d like to feel that I’m something of an inspiration to them as they are no doubt to me.
In terms of how, my life has been … I’ve just turned 31, and I’m probably going through an early midlife crisis. I’ve just bought a shiny red car – it can’t be a good sign – but in terms of my life, I think that it’s really been a journey of remembering who I am, really stripping down the emotional core, the sequins and the lipstick and all of the details, the meaningless things which manifest themselves in a good wage packet in my previous job and a fast car, and all of these different things that really didn’t mean so much on a spiritual or a moral level.
In terms of how I inspire people now, I think it’s really by me trying my very best to be in touch with who I am, really stripping down the sequins, taking off the lipstick, and really being my authentic self and seeing the love that I have for other people and expressing that in the best way in which I know how.
Toni: And is that done … I would imagine that’s done personally with your family, but you also said Global Tolerance as well. Do you show that authentic self to that organization?
Simon: I try and do that with the person on the street; I mean, it’s just who I am. One of the things that I did when I set up Global Tolerance nearly seven years ago was I decided that I no longer wanted there to be a conflict between my personal and professional life. I didn’t want to be the moral or spiritual Simon before 9:00 in the morning and after 5:00 at night and act in a certain way during office hours because that was acceptable because of the industry I was in. So when we talk about Global Tolerance or myself or my family, or you, or the listeners, or the people on the street, I am the same person to all of those people, and I try my very best to be the love that I want to see in the world.
Toni: And actually have other people see that, regardless of the time of day or what you’re doing.
Simon: Well, absolutely, because otherwise it’s just pretense. If I’m … I came from a sales background where in a conversation like this I would be thinking about what you’re saying and thinking about how I could turn it round into a commercial or other opportunity, and there’s something quite disingenuous; it’s about transactional relationships.
I had a something of a transactional relationship with my dad. I was always a mummy’s boy and my sister was the daddy’s girl. My dad used to give a lot more from the pocket than from the heart, and it wasn’t really a real relationship. It was only when he got cancer and had a heart attack — and it was actually when my best friend at the time, his father died, and I saw the mortality in my own dad — that I shifted the way in which I perceived him. The transactional relationship completely changed, and we’re now pretty much best friends.
And so, there wasn’t anything in him that changed; it was me that had to change my perspective and my opinion of him, so I’m constantly learning and trying to apply these principles in my own life.
Toni: Thank you for sharing that. Simon, how do you believe then that what you do and how you are inspiring others helps people to explore their potential?
Simon: One of the most rewarding elements of my work at Global Tolerance is the media communications training or facilitation. What that really means is it’s a jargonistic way of saying how can Simon learn more about himself while at the same time under the shroud of training others?
There is nothing more rewarding … I’ve just come back from New York where I was a facilitator for something called the Just Peace Summit working with 26 global team leaders, and that’s … being able to work with such inspirational young people and see just through saying something, nuggets of authentic truth from my own heart, and seeing that reflect in an inspirational light in someone’s … in a young person’s eye, is just the most rewarding thing that I could imagine doing. I absolutely, absolutely love it.
Toni: And so is the way that you help others to explore their potential is to train and provide awareness to people that are already doing this type of work as well?
Simon: The main way in which I do it is not by telling the answers. I think that there’s so much, and I think that this is a general reflection on communications in the media and in the politics. I think the challenge of our time is not to come up with clever answers but to ask powerful questions. And so one of the ways in which I try and inspire others is not to presuppose that I have the answers to their problems or issues, but to recognize that within themselves they have the answers and that my role as a facilitator or trainer is to communicate – not as a trainer or facilitator – but to communicate as another person on an equal footing, a reciprocal relationship based on mutual trust and respect and ask powerful questions to enable people to come up with the answers themselves.
And through going through that process, my experience is a very empowering and enabling process where people feel inspired because they think “Oh, I didn’t realize that I could actually do that.” It’s really about uncovering, remembering, unveiling the potential that’s within all of us rather than me doing anything magical myself.
Toni: It absolutely does make complete sense to me, because I am a coach and so that’s what you do; you ask the powerful questions. But the word that I wrote down as far as what you are doing is also something that I believe in very strongly, which is engagement. And so I really like the way that you positioned that you’re not coming up with clever answers, but you’re engaging with powerful questions to get a very important dialogue out there.
Simon: I think so. I think part of the reason that I’m inspired is because I’m only working on issues that are helping to build a stronger, better, richer – and I don’t mean in a material sense – society. Global Tolerance and I only work on issues about positive social change. So the fact that I am grappling in a professional sense with issues that I would talk about at the pub with my best friends, it means that I am so much more engaged with those issues rather than it being something that I have to do. It’s something with my heart.
I’ve got an emotional and spiritual investment in these things, and I think that that really comes across in the people that I work with and in my family and friends as well. It’s not a joke to me; it’s not a pay packet. It is in some cases life or death, and I’m going to do everything that I can in my power not just for me, but for my six-year-old nephew and the future that may unfold for him and for others on the other side of the world.
Toni: Simon, you’ve led beautifully into the next question of the Project, which is, what do you need to be inspired? What inspires you?
Simon: Authenticity and love. I love love. I really do. And it may be the musings of somebody who’s recently got engaged, but I really do love love, and I see it. When I see it and when I hear it. And it can be in the way in which my colleague laughs or says something with such clarity and purpose and vulnerability, putting himself out there in a position of vulnerability. There’s nothing that inspires me more than someone being really, truly there – out there.
As Gandhi suggested, we need to be ready to suffer, be in a position of vulnerability in order to affect real social change. I really respect when people share, when they open up with me, because I think that that takes courage and conviction, and I feel that I want to reciprocate by sharing back with them, and I think that in that sharing there is real … they’re the seeds of social progress.
But I’m also a sensitive soul, and I was one of those people at work — and I’m sure you can relate to them — I may be doing a good job, but having that pat on the shoulder and saying “Oh, well done, Simon, that’s really, really great.” That really, really meant a lot to me. In fact, it probably meant too much to me at the time, but if I’m really honest with myself I probably … to answer the question what do I need to be inspired, I think there is a sense of approval or at least encouragement, not necessarily approval. Not so much approval, but for that kind of encouragement of you’re going along a strong and a steady path.
Because goodness knows, when I’m trying my very level best to be a leader of some sort, within ethical communications or just within my very own life, it can sometimes be quite a solitary and difficult path to take, so having my friends and family and colleagues encourage me along that path really helps me to stay inspired.
Toni: Part of the Get Inspired! Project has been uncovering … it’s really … it’s happened organically through the interviews, but it’s uncovering the need that people have to work on their purpose. And maybe they didn’t know what that purpose was going to be, but they’re in it now, and it sounds as though you are so in it now … but did you always know? Did you always know that this was to be your purpose, or was that an evolution? What happened?
Simon: I wish I did. I wish I did. I was quite jealous of friends, you know, going through school. “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be a fireman” or, you know, they just knew from an early age. Either their father’s father had been a fireman and their father before that, and that was what they were going to do. I was always quite envious at the time about that certainty. I had no idea. I was pretty good at a lot of things, but I didn’t really excel at anything particularly. So I really struggled to position myself or envision myself in any one particular role or position.
So I studied theology at University. I’m from a very reformed, non-practicing Jewish household; never been religious, but fascinated by faith and spirituality, and it was the only subject that really, really excited me, the prospect of doing that. And I loved every minute of that, but because I’m not a religious person, I never thought for one minute that I would be doing anything related to my degree, that someone somewhere has got a sense of humor.
Looking back over the last seven years, there’s a sense of inevitability about that, that it couldn’t have happened any other way. It harks back to my dissertation back at University about the relationship between free will and pre-destination, but that’s another conversation for another time.
To answer your question, no, it certainly wasn’t for sure. It hasn’t always been this way. It has been something that has evolved, actually, since setting up Global Tolerance and listening to the people around me … having an encouraging, love- and hope-filled group of people around me that I believed in and who believed in me. And Global Tolerance has really evolved from that foundation.
Toni: Fantastic. Simon, the final question of the Project is, how do you continue to explore your own potential? What do you do in order to keep that alive in yourself … your potential alive, so that you can continue to do the wonderful work that you’re doing?
Simon: Well, I try and do a few things. One of the things I do is try and get people around me who will disagree with me. I am still young of years and still have a lot to learn, and I may well have done well on the path towards Global Tolerance — which is a social vision as well as the name of the organization — but getting people who will just aim to pull the rug from underneath my feet and will disagree with me, because I think that being constantly challenged and having my rationale challenged and changed is really, really constructive.
As I said … as I pointed to earlier, I think being a true leader isn’t about having the answers, but being able to pose powerful questions, and so I’m always open to changing my opinions as long as there’s a good argument for it as sparked by a powerful question. So getting people to disagree with me is one of the ways in which I keep inspired.
Another way is really thinking about how the principles of Global Tolerance can be living. If you go to the home page of our website, you’ll see five principles on that. But what do they really mean?
So one of the things that we’ve set up here, for example, is love and compassion at Global Tolerance. So we are now trying to have a compassionate workplace where we will all eat together on certain days, or we will have a Thursday inspiration – you say “get inspired” – well, inspiration is one of our principles. And every Thursday now we invite either actors or performers or storytellers or musicians or other artists here, all people within Global Tolerance, to share inspiration and lunch with each other.
And so, one of the things we’re constantly doing and I’m constantly doing is thinking about how can I make these principles, this love that I love – what does that mean? What does that mean pragmatically and practically, and how do I make these live in the real world? So that’s a real thing.
And last but not the least, I spend as much time as I can … that’s probably a lie. I intend on spending as much time as I can with my family — in particular, my six-year-old nephew — because for me he is Joshua. He is the most real, innocent, peaceful being there is. I can’t think of a more appropriate and meaningful way to keep inspired than to look into his bright eyes.
Toni: Simon, you’ve given a wonderful interview today and a lot to think about. And also for those of us who have heard of your organization, may not know everything there is to know about it, we will post a way for people to become educated to what you’re trying to do. And taking the time to have such a very … this was a very gentle but yet very powerful interview from my perspective, and I think others will agree. We can’t thank you enough for joining the Get Inspired! Project.
Simon: Well, I’d like to thank you. I mean, what you’re doing is an absolute act of inspiration, and it’s a very simple but powerful way of spreading inspiration around the world, so congratulations to you.
Toni: Thank you. Take care, Simon.
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For more information about Simon Cohen: www.globaltolerance.com, www.tole-rants.com
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