Name: Aimee Cohen
Location: Colorado
Professional Industry: Professional Speaking
Company: Woman Up
Job Title: Career Expert, Speaker, Author
WIXII-ISM™ FROM AIMEE:
“Pull on those big-girl panties and take control of your career and your life!”
AIMEE’S STORY:
Meet our featured Wixii™, Aimee Cohen. She is 47 and mother to a 20-year-old-son and 17-year-old-daughter. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Michigan. She owns WOMAN UP and Cohen Career Consulting, delivers keynote speeches to audiences of all sizes, writes for the Denver Business Journal, facilitates a leadership program for executive women, appears on TV as a career expert, was interviewed and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, has been nominated twice for Outstanding Women in Business Award, and just published her first book, WOMAN UP! Overcome the 7 Deadly Sins that Sabotage Success. For more than 20 years, and a nearly 100% success rate, Aimee has empowered women to reach their full professional potential and gain the confidence they need to take their careers to the next level.
A fun fact about Aimee is she is a “Cohen-Cohen”, her maiden name and her married name are the same. Also, she met her husband before she was born.
AIMEE’S CAREER PATH:
I wasn’t born a career coach, but I was born to BE a career coach…and it all started at an empty desk and because I couldn’t find a job. I eventually became a national sales recruiter, and discovered my passion for helping others successfully navigate the job search process. Opened my own business, Cohen Career Consulting in 1998, and have empowered women (especially) to pull on those big-girl panties and take control of their careers. I wrote Woman UP!, it was published and released in 2014, and now I travel internationally delivering keynote speeches to professional women in every industry and at every level.
I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1989 and then moved back to my hometown of Chicago. The unemployment rate was low, and I thought I was going to get a new job as well as a diploma when graduated. That didn’t happen. I struggled to find a job and suffered through one painful failure after another. I felt like the only person in the world who couldn’t successfully navigate the job search process.
My grandparents reached out to their network, and the executive director of the Chicago Bar Association gave me my first job. It didn’t have a title or a job description…it was just an empty desk in a lonely hallway. It took a few months, but eventually a sales position opened up in the publications department. I knew the guys in the department, but I didn’t know anything about selling advertising space. I quickly learned the sales strategies, but I also learned that I needed to do something more meaningful with my life.
My husband and I got married in 1992 and moved to Denver. The new landscape and lifestyle were beautiful, but my sub par job searching skills remained the same. Again, I struggled to find a job and was literally and figuratively lost in a new city. Eventually I was introduced to a national sales recruiter, and felt like he was the solution to my chronically unemployed situation. Unfortunately, the results remained the same…one failure after another.
I finally hit rock bottom and found myself back in his office. However, what I found that day saved my life…I found an empty desk. I already had a history with empty desks, and knew that an empty desk was really an opportunity in disguise. I mustered up the courage to ask him for a job, and he said yes. He believed in me and gave me a chance when I didn’t believe in myself and it changed my life.
I spent the next five years as a national sales recruiter, and dedicated myself to helping other lost souls successfully navigate the job search process. I finally cracked the code and spent the majority of my time coaching our candidates, reformatting resumes, and conducting interview preparations workshops. This was the meaning I was searching for, and there is nothing more rewarding than helping someone else achieve their professional goals.
In 2014, after more than 20 years working with hundreds of women and a nearly 100% success rate, I wrote WOMAN UP! Overcome the 7 Deadly Sins that Sabotage Success as a powerful and practical message that exposes the seven most self-sabotaging behaviors that keep women from success using real-life stories, shared experiences, and my own guilty confessions. Within each chapter, I present practical action steps, tips, and solutions to overcome the “deadly sins” and achieve success. WOMAN UP! is more than informational, it’s transformational…it empowers women to break destructive patterns of behavior the unintentionally hold them back, giving them the confidence they need to pull on those big-girl panties and take control of their careers.
AIMEE’S MINDSET AND WORK-LIFE MIX:
My mindset is best described by Madeleine Albright’s well-known quote…”There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to support a successful woman. Whether its girlfriends, other mothers, professional mentors, or career coaches, we need to minimize the cattiness and competitiveness among women and maximize the collaboration and cheerleading. We are all incredible individuals, but together we are unstoppable.
WOMAN UP! is a call-to-action and a rallying cry from one woman to another…“WOMAN UP! because I know you can do it and I have your back!”
My successful work-life mix has been possible because I have a lot of control over my work schedule. My family has always been my number one priority, but as the needs of my family have evolved so have my professional opportunities. It’s been a constant juggling act, but it’s also been the best of both worlds, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way.
Work: How do you “think outside the box” with respect to your work-life potential and opportunities?
It’s not so much “thinking outside the box” as it is “rethinking the box”. In order to be both a successful, happy, and fulfilled mother and professional woman, I had to rethink my own career path. I had to accept the fact that my path may look different than someone else’s path; my definition of success may be different than someone else’s definition; and my decisions and priorities may be different than someone else’s.
It’s the courage to forge your own path, to resist social pressures and external judgments, and to proudly embrace your own life that leads to the greatest work-life mix.
Self: How do you strengthen your own identity and not lose yourself in the mix?
As a busy woman, wife, mother, and business owner I wear many hats and play many roles (like most women), and I think it’s easy to lose your sense of self in the process. We often think of others first, we’re in service of others first, and we rarely put ourselves first. Even though my first priority has always been my family, it was extremely important that I also had my own purpose, my own identity, and my own goals outside of my family. The biggest thing I needed to work on was patience. I needed to be realistic and stretch my short-term goals into longer-term dreams and work towards that as far as building my business, enhancing my skills and abilities, and broadening my network. The greatest challenge with not losing yourself in the mix is that no one will do it for you…you’re in charge of strengthening and shaping your own identity in the way that best serves your life.
Community: How do you contribute and add value to the larger world around you?
My mission and passion are all about empowering women, strengthening the community of women, and providing women with the support, resources, and information they need to exceed their own expectations. I coach women one-on-one, I wrote a book for professional women that has already reached thousands, and I travel around delivering keynote presentations to audiences of all sizes.
How does your current mindset/attitude empower and/or frustrate your ability to thrive in your work-life mix? How has your mindset/attitude toward life changed over time?
In 18 months I will officially be an empty-nester, and that has definitely changed my mindset over time as I’ve prepared for this stage of life. It means I can do more, explore more opportunities, travel more, but I still need to stay connected to my work-life mix. Even though I can do more, doesn’t necessarily mean I can it all. There are some sacrifices I’m not willing to make, some relationships I’m not willing to lose, and some moments I’m not willing to miss out on.
What advice would you give an earlier version of yourself?
I would tell my earlier self to be patient, to have trust, and belief that everything will work out, to enjoy every single second because it goes by so fast, and to dream bigger.
I wish I would have been kinder and more patient with myself, and learned earlier on how to “live in the moment”. There were times when I was in “mom-mode” and wished I was in “work-mode” and vice-versa. I wish I had more faith in the beginning that everything was going to work out actually exceed my wildest dreams. If I had had a crystal ball and could have seen how amazing my children, my marriage, my home, and my career all turned out, I would have worried and obsessed less and laughed more.
