Courtesy of Jennifer Cohen When Jennifer Cohen was a teenager, it was her dream to become a video jockey on MuchMusic in her home country of Canada. She knew that she needed to make a big splash to stand out to the casting directors, so she had an idea: She was going to snag an interview with a huge celebrity, Keanu Reeves.
Reeves was in her hometown of Winnipeg performing “Hamlet.” So one day, after a show, she boldly approached him and said, “Keanu, you’re going to be my ticket to my dream job.” He looked at Cohen dumbfounded and asked if she’d like an autograph. She said, “Autograph? Why would I want your autograph? That doesn’t help me at all. I need you to get me my dream job.”
The actor wasn’t available then, so he asked for Cohen’s phone number. The next two days, at school, people were making fun of Cohen for thinking she was going to snag an interview with the star.
On the third day, though, something miraculous happened: Reeves called Cohen. And two days later, he was sitting on Cohen’s living room sofa while she interviewed him for her demo tape.
“It taught me a real big truth about success, which is you need to ask for what you want. Period.”
Cohen didn’t get the job at MuchMusic, but she learned a valuable lesson. “That was a very pivotal moment for me in my life,” she said, in a TEDx talk about her experience. “It taught me a real big truth about success, which is you need to ask for what you want. Period.”
This philosophy has guided Cohen throughout her career – and it’s obviously served her well. The motivational TEDx video in which she tells the story of her encounter with Reeves, “The Secret to Getting Anything You Want in Life,” has over 3 million views.
She is a bestselling author, CEO of her own company, Suprema, former physical trainer to the stars (including Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera) and a brand strategist for Weight Watchers, Muscle Milk, KIND Bar and BLK Water. She has 300,000 Instagram followers, Greatist named her one of the “100 Most Influential People in Health and Fitness” and WebMD ranked her as the no. 16 most impactful fitness entrepreneur. In her personal life, she is a wife and mother of two children.
Cohen said that everyone thinks her Keanu Reeves story is what set her up for success as an adult, but in fact, she had to have the confidence to approach him in the first place. She credits having a strong fitness routine with helping her cultivate a bold attitude.
“There was this Jewish dance company called Chai, and you had to audition to be in it,” she told the Journal. “It was something that all my friends and I wanted to do. We auditioned, and everyone made it in except for me. I was so embarrassed and down on myself and felt like a failure.”
Instead of wallowing in self-pity for too long, however, she decided she was going to do something about it. All her friends had been practicing and dancing for their audition, so Cohen decided to go to the gym to start working on her fitness as well.
“Exercising taught me commitment, consistency and all these core beliefs that are so fundamental and important for every area of your life.”
“I ended up really liking how exercising made me feel,” she said. “I felt a difference in my overall mood and confidence. Exercising taught me commitment, consistency and all these core beliefs that are so fundamental and important for every area of your life. It changed the way my brain worked and taught me so many values I was able to transfer to other things, like goal setting.”
It didn’t immediately click for Cohen that she should go into the fitness world. She earned her degree and went to work for Sony in Los Angeles, but she wasn’t passionate about it.
“I was very much in love with health and fitness before it became something that’s super popular today,” she said. “Now it’s very much a big business and it’s constantly growing and changing with fads. I was one of the only people who was very into it in my core circle back then.”
So, Cohen set about quitting her job at Sony. She only had one problem: she needed a working visa to stay in L.A. That’s when she decided to follow her dreams and get a personal training certificate. She then went to the head of MCA Universal and pitched herself as the record label’s trainer, where she would train the talent before they filmed a music video or went on tour.
“He said he’d give it a shot for three months,” she said. “One label I was working with turned into two, three and four, and I had a bunch of these labels and artists I was training,” including Spears and Aguilera, among many other popular performers at the time.
From there, things took off: Cohen got her first book deal, she created a weighted toning shoe and became a spokesperson for Weight Watchers. She also transformed into a motivational influencer, giving advice to others on how to live boldly and go after their goals.
One thing she stresses is to not overthink everything and to instead take a leap of faith.
One thing she stresses is to not overthink everything and to instead take a leap of faith.
“Sometimes naivete and ignorance are very important for people to go out there and give something a try,” she said. “Otherwise, you overthink things and [contemplate] all the reasons why you won’t do something.”
There is one area where Cohen is more rigid – she very much believes in routines. Every morning, she eats breakfast, makes meals for her children, takes them to school and then starts exercising. She loves running on the treadmill the most.
“The treadmill is my favorite business partner,” she said. “I get really great ideas when I’m running on it. The movement gives me the cognitive focus I need.”
Aside from working at Suprema Fitness, Cohen also hosts a podcast, Habits & Hustle, where she interviews interesting personalities like Amanda Knox and Chelsea Handler, and creates motivational fitness videos for Instagram.
Last May, when terrorists were shooting rockets into Israel, she felt compelled to speak up, and wrote about how it was shameful that notable Jews were silent. While Jewish personalities with big followings were secretly direct-messaging her, they weren’t advocating for Israel publicly.
When it’s called for, Cohen will get serious on her Instagram about Jewish issues as well. Last May, when terrorists were shooting rockets into Israel, she felt compelled to speak up, and wrote about how it was shameful that notable Jews were silent. While Jewish personalities with big followings were secretly direct-messaging her, they weren’t advocating for Israel publicly.
“They were scared of standing up in public [out of] fear of the cancel culture and losing followers,” she said. “To me, that’s unacceptable and cowardly. That’s how they win and we lose. In my opinion, we need to correct this behavior because this is detrimental to the Jewish people. Our world is now about social media and if we don’t have more people standing together in union on those platforms, we are doomed. One of my goals is to make being Jewish cool and to educate the younger generation who look up to the Gigi Hadids of the world and give them the true facts and history.”
Cohen recently spoke at MIT to students, alumni and staff about resilience and the importance of getting comfortable with failure to win at life.
In addition to posting on social media and doing a TEDx Talk on crucial life skills, Cohen recently spoke at MIT to students, alumni and staff about resilience and the importance of getting comfortable with failure to win at life. She hit it off with the person who spoke before her, David Edwards, an engineer who worked at MIT and the Technion in Israel, and is now a strategic advisor at his new health company called FEND.
“The product hydrates your upper respiratory system and is a total game changer in the health and wellness space and is essential for immune health,” she said. It won TIME magazine’s best invention of the year for 2020.
Since it’s now the beginning of the New Year, Cohen offered some helpful tips for people who are making resolutions, especially when it comes to fitness and health. One key piece of advice is that it’s important not to be vague about goals, because you’ll end up getting nowhere fast.
“If you’re much more focused and specific when it comes to what your exact goal is, then you can create a path to realistically get there. Having a routine and healthy habits in place are going to keep you on point. And the more you take care of yourself, the better you are for everyone in your life. And it helps you professionally. You’re going to be much more productive and appealing to everyone else.”
Of course, she encourages everyone to incorporate exercise into their daily lives. “I tell people all the time that making fitness a habit will be so much more beneficial in every way you can imagine,” she said. “Fitness can be about weight loss and getting a nicer physique, but the benefits extend beyond that. They are much more impactful in a deeper way for your mental health. It really helped me with my anxiety, depression, insecurity and self-esteem when I was a teenage girl.”
Along with sticking with a routine and working out regularly, Cohen believes in discipline. It’s why she and her family keep kosher.
“If you don’t have discipline in life, good luck to you, because anything that’s worth it in life requires it,” she said. “The best way to acquire that skill is to practice it early in life. When my kid is confronted with going to a birthday party and they have to say no to the non-kosher chicken fingers there, this benefits them later on in life. It helps them to be successful as adults.”
“We eat together every Friday night, do the blessings, light candles, sing Shabbat songs, have challah, of course and put tzedakah in our tzedakah box.”
At the end of every busy week, she and her family do Shabbat to bond and reconnect. “We eat together every Friday night, do the blessings, light candles, sing Shabbat songs, have challah, of course and put tzedakah in our tzedakah box, which we keep on the table at the front of our house,” she said. “To me, it’s extremely important for my kids to have these memories and traditions they can take with them as adults. Also, our household is so hectic during the week it’s a time when we can all spend quality time together.”
In her own life, having a solid foundation helped her tremendously. She grew up in an “extremely close-knit Jewish community” in Winnipeg, she said, and her father was president of their synagogue. Having the support of her family and her community gave Cohen her initial sense of confidence.
“It helped me build my character and my core beliefs,” she said. “It was very impactful to me.”
Still, all the outside validation in the world wasn’t as beneficial as working on strengthening her own inner voice. One thing she firmly believes in is failing upwards, which she learned from being a mediocre student when she was younger.
“It was because of that mediocrity that when I did try something and I failed, it wasn’t so terrible,” she said. “I was OK getting back up and trying again. The ability to keep on failing to succeed became second nature. When you’re not a great student, it forces you to find other things you could be good at. You need that resourcefulness.”
“Being comfortable with failure is very important. It’s the only way you become resilient.”
She continued, “Being comfortable with failure is very important. It’s the only way you become resilient.”
Aside from not being afraid of failure, Cohen relies on a gratitude practice to keep her centered. “I’ll visualize the worst-case scenario and realize that it’s not happening in real life,” she said. “It ignites gratitude by proving the point that things can always get worse. You become happy with what you have.”
Just like she did when she was coming of age in Winnipeg, she surrounds herself with the right people as well. Today, that includes individuals who also have an abundance mindset and “are much smarter than I am,” she said. “The only way you grow is to have people you glean information from. You grow from watching and listening to them. That’s why I started my podcast. I wanted to pick the brains of people who were the best in the world at what they do and share that with anyone who wanted that information. It will only benefit society when people are happier.”
Cohen truly believes that if she has knowledge that will help others, why not share it?
“You pay it forward and it comes back to you tenfold,” she said. “I give away any type of trick or tip that can benefit someone else. Their success does not take away from my own success. The more you give, the more that comes back to you.” n
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