"I Grew Up in the Moonies Cult": Lisa Kohn's Shocking Escape Story | Ep 088

🌕 Lisa Kohn spent her childhood inside the Moonies cult (Unification Church) and reveals what really happened behind closed doors.

In this shocking conversation, Lisa exposes the truth about life inside one of America's most notorious cults:

🌕 Mom married a stranger with 2,074 other couples at Madison Square Garden
🌕 At 10 years old, she begged her mom to abandon her children for "God"
🌕 She was taught that missing her mother was literally "breaking God's heart"
🌕 Best friends with cult leader Reverend Moon's daughter until she was banished
🌕 The bridge where she almost ended her life rather than leave the cult

The programming was so deep that Lisa couldn't say anything negative about Moon until 2018 - decades after escaping.
From surviving extreme childhood trauma to becoming a successful leadership coach, Lisa's story of healing will change how you see resilience.

Key revelations:

🌕 How cults use "heavenly deception" to recruit new members
🌕 Why she couldn't say anything negative about Moon until 2018 (decades after leaving)
🌕 The moment she realized it would be "better to die than leave"
🌕 How loving yourself first becomes the ultimate shield against manipulation

Chapters:
[00:00] Introduction & Hosts Preview
[02:50] Meet Lisa Kohn
[04:11] What Are the Moonies?
[06:07] How Lisa's Mother Got Recruited
[08:25] First Meeting With Reverend Moon
[09:34] Believing Moon Was the Messiah
[11:08] Satan Inside You If You Question
[12:16] Telling Mom to Abandon Them for God
[14:12] Love Bombing and Self-Love as Protection
[16:14] Childhood Trauma Before the Cult
[19:09] Lost in New York City at Age 8
[23:02] The Slow Process of Leaving
[26:27] Standing on the Bridge, Ready to Jump
[29:06] The Bizarre Marriage Rituals
[30:40] Why Cults Feel Amazing
[32:12] Dad Steps In During Anorexia
[34:27] Finding Healing and Purpose
[39:53] How Cult Recruiting Really Works
[45:23] Working With Corporations Now
[48:38] Speaking Circuit and Future Plans

Lisa now helps leaders and organizations through her coaching practice and powerful keynote speaking. Her book "To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under the Influence" has helped countless cult survivors find their path to healing.

Website: LisaCohn.com | Book available at MainPoint Books

Transcript

00:01 - Stacey (Host)
So, Mark, that episode was phenomenal right. 

00:06 - Mark (Host)
You know I hesitate to say like that was one of my favorite, because I've said that so many times. 

00:11 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
You have. 

00:12 - Mark (Host)
But look, I find cults fascinating. 

00:15 - Stacey (Host)
I do too. And we've had a couple of people, ironically, who've been on it. Five Wow, five. I have four or five guests Wow. 

00:22 - Mark (Host)
But look, I grew up with the Moonies Reverend Moon from Korea. They were in my neighborhood. 

00:27 - Stacey (Host)
I have visual what do you mean? They were in your neighborhood. 

00:31 - Mark (Host)
I grew up in Darby and there were Moonies in the 70s. I didn't know, that. Yeah, yeah, walking around, we moved out of there when I was 11. But my childhood, I remember them walking around with flowers and talking to everybody and they were so friendly, so nice and boy, oh boy, was it an abusive cult. 

00:45 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, and still is, by the way, yeah, A unification church. But in addition to Lisa Cohn's cult experience which she's out now, you know, obviously if she's talking about it her childhood was unbelievable. She wrote a book about it. It's called To the Moon and Back A Childhood Under the Influence, and her mom and dad were an interesting case study what a pair and what influence they had on her right you have the Messiah influence of the cult that her mom was in. 

01:15 - Mark (Host)
And then you have the drug-fueled craziness Absolute opposite of the cult from her father. 

01:20 - Stacey (Host)
Like, everything that her father did was in opposition, in opposition right, right they were divorced, obviously, but, um, she went back and forth from both parents, so hearing her stories about her mom, her dad, the cult and just herself, yeah, and how she came out of this situation all the stuff that happened to her. 

01:38 - Mark (Host)
It's crazy. 

01:38 - Stacey (Host)
And now she talks about amazing. 

01:39 - Mark (Host)
Love yourself first and you can tell she's totally healed. Which blows me away, Because any one of those things people still deal with the trauma of that and the PTSD of that- Just one, just one of the things that happened to her would put somebody under. 

01:52
And she's out there changing other people's lives, the book she said other people have come to her and helped other people who are now out of cults. And it's not just related to cults. She works with corporations and all these things is still related to cult. She works with corporations and all these things. Yeah, she's a coach. Yeah, I love it. 

02:06 - Stacey (Host)
Teaching people how to love themselves, because that's what she figured out. If you love yourself, you probably most likely will not be sucked into a cult. If you truly love yourself. 

02:16 - Mark (Host)
That was a good question that you asked, yeah, but she also said anyone can get sucked into a cult. 

02:23 - Stacey (Host)
Every time I hear these cult stories, I think I could definitely have been in a cult If that opportunity had arose for me it probably would have happened. 

02:33 - Mark (Host)
Yeah. I think, anyone at a certain age could easily be swayed. We were all very impressionable. It's incredible. You're going to love this. 

02:39 - Stacey (Host)
Oh my God, this episode, you guys, it's crazy. So good. 

02:44 - Mark (Host)
So enjoy, enjoy, lisa. 

02:44 - Stacey (Host)
Cohn. Oh my god, this episode, you guys, it's crazy so good, so enjoy. Enjoy Lisa Cohn. 

02:50 - Mark (Host)
Hi, I'm Stacey and I am Mark, and this is the Gurus at Game Changers podcast. So so In the hot seat. Thank you so much for joining us. 

03:01 - Stacey (Host)
It's a big day we have. 

03:02 - Mark (Host)
Lisa Cohn big day Wayne, pennsylvania, wayne, pennsylvania, main mainline studios right walk to the studio. This is a first for us uh, lisa is a keynote speaker, she is an author, and what she speaks on she tells her story and her story is unbelievable she's written a story. There's her book. 

03:19
Story is about her life as, as you see, in the cult we can call it a cult it's been called the Moonies. When her mother got her in at the age of 10, her mother joined and, of course, took her children with her. And this story arc of Lisa's life with her mother, her father, the church and everything else that follows, everything involved, is unbelievable. 

03:42 - Stacey (Host)
It's a great story. It's a great story and an awesome book. Wait, and an awesome book. I literally didn't, I couldn't put it down yeah, you were. 

03:48 - Mark (Host)
You read it in like half a day. Well, I didn't read all of it yet. So I mean, I think you just picked it up and you just buried through it, right? Everyone good book awesome, all right, well, let's go, lisa hello how you doing. 

03:58 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Welcome to the show. Uh, thank you for having me. I'm right thrilled to be here it's like like to be here. 

04:02 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, Really, really awesome to meet you today. So this is called To the Moon and Back A Childhood Under the Influence. Why did you name it that? 

04:11 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I was running one time and my friend came up with To the Moon and Back because I was a moonie, yeah, and it's the story of going in and the story of getting out and then a childhood under the influence, and it's just, I was, I was under the influence in the church, in the cult. I was under the influence in many ways other than that, so it just it all fit together. When I I needed a title, when I finally got a publisher. 

04:39 - Stacey (Host)
Could you explain to our audience what the Moonies are for someone who doesn't know A lot of? 

04:43 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
people now don't know like the line I use. The best seats I ever had at Madison Square Garden were at my mother's wedding, because my mom got married on July 1st 1982 with 2,074 other couples. It was like one of the biggest cults in the 70s and like the American age of cults. It's a religious cult. Reverend Moon Samyang Moon is a self-proclaimed Messiah. Jesus came to him when he was 15 and asked him to finish Jesus's mission on earth. It's a mixture of Judeo-Christian thought like the Old Testament, the New Testament, the divine then, with a lot of Eastern philosophy and stuff wrapped in there, but just a brilliant, brilliant, narcissistic leader who could control a lot of people's brains. Very charismatic in a very Korean way, which, if you don't know what that means, you don't know what that means. 

05:32 - Mark (Host)
But like you know, going like this and speaking and kicking and whatever. But you know he was. 

05:38 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Korean. He was Korean. Korean is the language spoken in the kingdom of heaven. 

05:42 - Mark (Host)
Okay, so I could tell from when you were talking about Reverend Moon. Your body language, your tone, everything is like you're out, you're totally out. You do not believe, but there was a time, I mean, your mother got you in. 

06:01 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So let's start there. 

06:02 - Mark (Host)
Let's start with your mother getting you in and how old you are and how she got. How did she get in? 

06:07 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So I will start with. I do believe that almost everybody is susceptible to extreme belief and cults, so let's start there yeah, right, wrong place, wrong time, wrong state of mind, wrong person. You meet, they say the right thing and they know how to bring you in. It's a slippery slope. So there's that. My mom was a seeker. Uh, she was macrobiotic diets as silent days, like you name it. Trying to find her whole self or something, her whole self. 

06:38
A prime target for a cult, right yeah so she was a prime target and she had someone, a friend, with whom she used to hitchhike cross-country to California every summer. We were going to live at one point on a commune but we didn't. So that was the hippie life she had. And then that friend joined the Unification Church and eventually told my mom to go. And my mom went to hear Reverend Moon speak in January of 1974 and just came back different enthralled like this is it? 

07:07
This is the truth, it's amazing Didn't do anything for a while. We were living. It was my mom, my mom, my brother, my older brother and I. We were living with my grandfather, her father. He was supporting us and she was taking care of the house for him. And then in that summer they they got her to go up to Barrytown, new York, which was the huge indoctrination center in upstate New York, and she went up for the weekend. I still remember her like coming up, coming back, and, you know, jumped there was like a big truck and they pull up the back of the truck and she hops out of the back and she's like hi, hi, it was amazing, it was amazing, amazing, I'm leaving. And she went back up for a week. Um, and again and again, she basically says she spent that whole summer, mostly there. Because that's what happens when you get caught into it and how they catch you into it. 

07:51
And then somewhere in that summer we were like take us, take us, take us. And so she took us up to Barriertown for the weekend and I still remember driving up, driving up to the big building. It used to be a theological seminary, it was like Christian's boarding school. There were these two men, their names were John and Wayne, and I just remember us as John Wayne with big Mooney smiles. Wow, everybody was so loving. And we walk into the building and we go into this huge gymnasium and all the women, all the sisters, are on the right side of the room on the floor and all the brothers on the left side of the room on the floor. And within moments, moon walks in with his interpreter and begins speaking. 

08:25 - Stacey (Host)
With his interpreter? 

08:26 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yeah, because he only spoke Korean, but he was the messiah, so you didn't need to have charisma if you're the Messiah. 

08:32 - Stacey (Host)
Do you remember feeling like wow. Or what was your first feeling with him? Were you looking at your mom like she loves this? 

08:38 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
so I must she loves this, so I love this. Everybody bows, so I bow. Everyone's so excited so it is good. And my childhood up till the church was tumultuous. There was a lot of stuff that happened that shouldn't happen to people. Tumultuous, there was a lot of stuff that happened that shouldn't happen to people and so literally I try to explain that when we joined, it was like a haven. It was like safer and there were rules and my mom started wearing a bra and not cursing and being more whatever conservative, and there were like hundreds of young 20-year-old, glowy-eyed moonies who adored us. I was 10. I probably looked about 7. My brother was 11. He probably looked a little, you know whatever. We just looked really young and we were just loved on, and so it was like this wonderful experience until it wasn't. 

09:27 - Mark (Host)
Your mother? Is she the one who explained to you that he was the Messiah? Did you question this at all, even at 10 years old? 

09:34 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
You know, someone asked me well, why did you believe? And I'm like so. How did you grow up Catholic? 

09:39 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, why did? 

09:40 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
you believe. 

09:41 - Mark (Host)
Because I was told to believe, because it just was. It's the church community, it's your family, it's all that stuff. 

09:50 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
And she was happy. Right. And it's reinforced especially in a cult Like that's true of any belief, any religion, but in a cult it is reinforced in very, very, very specific ways that I realized only really just before the book came out, when I found the cult survivor community and we're called second gens, those of us born and raised, and what it does to your brain when you're supposed to be, developing and you don't. 

10:11
When I was on the Megyn Kelly show when the book came out and they said were you brainwashed? I'm like I didn't have a brain to be washed I was pickled, I was carved. I was like caged in this very way Grooves were carved into my brain. 

10:25 - Mark (Host)
So you say that about Moon. When. 

10:27 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I first started talking out, when the book first came out, people would ask me questions about him and I well, you see how easily I talk yes, I could not say anything negative about him. I couldn't. I'd be like and my whole body and brain would shut down. 

10:40 - Stacey (Host)
Wow. 

10:41 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Because it was and that was 2018. I left somewhere in the early 80s. That's how much it still was like locked into my brain. 

10:51 - Mark (Host)
I mean, I did not believe him to be the messiah at that point, but it was locked into my brain that you can't, you can't, you can't, you just can't. Yeah, if you had, I know, some of the other religious cults yeah, uh encourage the members to tell on each other if there's ever any doubt expressed oh, yeah, yeah is that part of the the unification church as well? 

11:08 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
it's it's more insidious. So I mean, we were literally taught that if you ever question anything, it's satan, it's satan inside of you. Yeah, so you don't? You don't need to tell me. I am telling on me, right? 

11:25
I did not need anyone to say I was I mean by the time I got there there was a lot of stuff already inside me that was shame-based, but like it was so reinforced because anything that was natural human behavior was sinful right, so you talk, and so that's the torment part, right, but you talked about this ecstatic comfort that you had so because your life was so tumultuous up to that point. 

11:52 - Stacey (Host)
Yes, that's where you felt this. 

11:55 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yes, my mom joined in July whatever of 74. By January of 75 she sat us down and said I think I need to be more involved, my brother and I. What do you think I should do? What do you two think I should do? And we said you should leave us. And so she left, why us? And so she left, why why? 

12:12 - Stacey (Host)
why did you say that? Well, because because that made her happy, that made her happy. 

12:16 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
God needed her. Yeah, like that was. That was what you were sacrificing my mother. 

12:21 - Mark (Host)
I was lying down on the altar. Yes, I was right. 

12:26 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So because god has suffered for 6 000 years. God has suffered because mankind has failed God, and so we need to give everything so God doesn't. We were also taught that if we ever thought anything wrong, we broke God's heart. Like so I knew Wow. So not only did I tell my mom to leave, but if I missed her, when I missed her, I was sinful, you felt bad about it. I felt bad about it, so I learned never. 

12:56 - Mark (Host)
So it's emotional and mental. It is, it's really, but it's insidious. 

13:00 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So it was this haven, and so it's only when I got out that I looked back, because when you're there, you don't think this is torment. You think I am failing God. Wow, it's not torment. Like maybe this is the wrong thing to say, Sorry to everyone. 

13:16
No, say it, but when people tell me that they grew up in like evangelical Christianity, which is also very similar. Those of us born and raised in anything are very similar. But when people say I was afraid I would go to hell for what I did, my first thought is if only it was just going to hell, that would have been fine. It was breaking God's heart. That's a lot to put on anyone, especially a 10-year-old kid. It's brilliant. 

13:43 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, but it's awful. 

13:45 - Mark (Host)
It is brilliant, it's manipulative, it's awful. Yeah, it's brilliant in its manipulation. We know that one of the first tactics is love bombing to get people into cult. 

13:51 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Hell yeah, Now I don't know. 

13:52 - Mark (Host)
First tactics is love bombing to get people in the cult and now I don't know if it's love bombing like Jesus loves you, the Messiah loves you, or is it? You're amazing and you're so pretty and you're so, or maybe it's a great combination of both. 

14:08 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
If these, people have their own self-love. Is that a shield against the love bombing? 

14:12 - Mark (Host)
I would think it would be Like my own deep self-love is. 

14:16 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I don't want to say how old I am right I'll be 62 in September. 

14:19 - Mark (Host)
So it's a long time. 

14:21 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
And my deep self-love has grown over the decades. But it's really kicked hard. A lot of healing work I've done recently. It is so gorgeous inside and I adore myself. 

14:32 - Mark (Host)
I can just say that to everyone. I'm like. 

14:34 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I have this love affair with myself and it's great and it was such self-loathing and self-revolve and I cannot explain what it was inside me. But I think that if we do, if anyone does have that sense of self, they would be less susceptible. The love bombing, bombing is just like have you ever met someone? 

14:51 - Stacey (Host)
and they pay only attention to you and they just like make well well, I hope you don't, but I hope you do. He doesn't need it, right, but like. So it's this sense of love, blaming, like the end of the book. 

15:01 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
In the end of the book I go back. So I was best friends with moon's daughter, um, and then not now I was connected, uh, with her again recently until the netflix documentary came out like two weeks after I saw her where I died. Were you in that, how to Become a Cult Leader? I was, yeah, oh, I gotta watch that. It's one of those tongue-in-cheek things so I have mixed feelings about it. 

15:23 - Stacey (Host)
Okay, you talk about how your life was tumultuous before you went into the cult. I think for people who listen to this podcast, they might be like how can I not get into? 

15:31 - Mark (Host)
how can I make sure that my children are that I don't get Nicole? 

15:33 - Stacey (Host)
But there was a lot of things that you went through and your parents were different, right? So your mom you never called mom, nope, it was Mimi. 

15:41 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Mimi and Danny. Mimi and Danny. My kids call her Mimi, which is funny, but it was Mimi and Danny. Her mom was mom. Her mom was mom, yeah dad was pop. 

15:55 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, her dad was pop, but she was Mimi and Danny. Yeah, yeah, and it was a very non-traditional hippies sort of upbringing. Yep, there's this palpable love for your mom. Like you really just wanted to like be in her world and be around her and you know it's all I wanted, and. Danny, your dad was just sort of like amorphous would show up here, show up there, not show up, not be around what other things from your childhood can you tell us? 

16:14 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
For years. My therapist would say I think you'll finally get better when you realize how bad it was, because I would still be like was my childhood bad? Was it bad Like I know I wrote a memoir, but was it bad Like whatever? 

16:26 - Stacey (Host)
I know what you're saying. 

16:27 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
And I've had these realizations, one of them being the amount of violence I experienced and saw well before right. And so I'm with my you know best friends from high school, who've known me decades. And I say that and they say well, like what? And I'm like well. 

16:43
So there's the time as I'm writing the book, I'm at the gym and I'm on the bike and I'm texting my brother and we're having a discussion whether my mom's boyfriend, who I now found out, beat her so badly she went to the hospital. So in this situation, we're at her friend's house. Excuse me, everyone Trigger alert. We're at her friend's house and he is either has a knife to her throat or he's choking her and this is what we're discussing While he's naked on top of her raping her saying, saying get the kids out of the house or I'll kill her. 

17:15
Wow, and I say this to my kids and they're just like wow, yeah, right, yeah, but like I'm like I still haven't dealt with that in therapy, like we still gotta go there, right. 

17:24
So there's like yeah so like, and not that that made me susceptible, but it's part of, I mean, when I um, when I look at how long it's taken me to unwire some of what happened to me, it's the sense of one, my personality. I'm like a very I've always like. When I wrote the book I was like, oh, I decided to be loving in the church and that's why I'm this way. And I got in touch with Moon's daughter and my other friends and they're like no, you were always like that. So I have a big, effusive, loving, accepting heart. I like love embodied is my nickname. I, you know, love yourself first, most, always is my tattoo Like. 

18:02
I said to someone yesterday I love on you in all the appropriate ways. I love to love on people and just shower. Love it's me, so the combination of me, and then maybe all the violence and the fact that I was molested was that another one of your mom's? 

18:16 - Stacey (Host)
that was the same one which I said that to her. She was like well, that makes sense. 

18:19 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yeah, that makes sense I was like, yeah, okay, um, so like all of that wrapped up in the church and then, and then a lot of stuff that happened in the church, right, like you said, were you like sexually manipulate or whatever? And like it took a friend, another second gen, who read it was like, oh my god, you were groomed by so many older men. And I was like, oh, that's what that was right, yeah, you didn't realize it. 

18:41
You don't realize it when, like the 29, year olds are like all over you when you're 16, in a cult where it's a league like whatever so all that wrapped together took a really, really, really long time for me to uncrack my coping mechanisms that do not serve me anymore. 

18:58 - Stacey (Host)
There's a story about how you were in New York City and you're going to your dad's bar, I guess as in the book, and your brother runs through like a red. 

19:09 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
You know like he crosses on the red light on. If you know New New York City on 8th Street and 6th Avenue, how old were you? Maybe like? 

19:16 - Stacey (Host)
eight Eight, but you didn't want to cross the. 

19:19 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I was like the reaction to my parents, every way not. 

19:25 - Mark (Host)
Yes. 

19:25 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Like hippie lifestyle and all of it right, I was just this straight laced little controlled, controlled kid. 

19:30 - Stacey (Host)
How did you have that in? 

19:31 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
your brain. I think it was my coping mechanism. 

19:34 - Stacey (Host)
It was like very, I was very, very tight. You knew it wasn't good. Then they went to the bar. They didn't know who their dad was. 

19:39 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
It takes me forever. I finally realize where I am the playground. That's not there anymore, and I get my way to Broom Street Bar, where he's working. 

19:46
Eight years old. I'm like, okay, I found it, I'm going to be okay. And I walk in and there's this strange bald-headed man behind the bar who is my dad, who shaved his head like two nights earlier. That's funny, he's a character, but like. And so he comes up and he's like twink and I'm like Danny and at the same time my brother, my brother Robbie, is at the other end of the bar crying because he has not realized this is our father and he lost his little sister in New York. City, so I'm lost. 

20:15 - Mark (Host)
But he's like I lost my sister, so yeah, and then, and then, that was my dad well, you spent half the time I don't know about half, but half the time with your mom and half the time with your dad. What was it like living with him? 

20:26 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
because he was he's scary yeah, scary yeah, I once said to my brother like how did we? 

20:31 - Mark (Host)
did we go back and forth and he said I don't know, I wasn't there. That's exactly. Wow, we just kind of shut down. 

20:36 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Dissociate, because on one hand, you're like this is the Messiah and this is all these rules and structure, and it's truth, it's the truth. And then you live with Satan. 

20:47 - Stacey (Host)
He to do You're not supposed to do. Oh my God. 

20:50 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
He's doing the drugs. He's doing the drugs in front of you, he's cursing. He lives this awful lifestyle. 

20:56 - Stacey (Host)
He's you know, he used to Giving your brother pot at 10. 

20:58 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yes, he had my brother smoking pot at the age of 10 because his friends thought it would be funny. So my brother would get higher than my father when he was 10. Yeah, so like my parents, I totally did better. 

21:09 - Stacey (Host)
That's crazy, because you have the two different worlds you're probably wondering if your dad's going to hell. You know he is I know my dad's going to hell, so you're scared for your dad, yes, and your mother's in this place that you think is she's gonna go to heaven yeah, yeah, and, and, and you don't get to see her and you don't get to be with her, and you're guilty, sinful, when you miss her, wasn't? 

21:28 - Mark (Host)
there a story about your dad babysitting you with a bag of cocaine. Oh no, that was in college, so this is older, so the best seats at Madison Square Garden. 

21:38 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
The best cocaine I ever had was for my father's friend the judge. He was a bartender at Raul's, his restaurant in New York City, and the first time I showed up, at 18 and out of the church, he got me plastered on champagne because he was so happy to see me drink. Doesn't everybody's dad do that to them? I came home from a semester in Scotland and my boyfriend at the time had started dealing cocaine and so then we started doing cocaine, and then I started doing a lot of cocaine with my father and a lot of cocaine with my father and his friend the judge. It was great because I was also anorexic. 

22:09
I was just getting over being my anorexia and they would cook me up and then we go out to eat and I wouldn't eat and danny would yell at me and I'd be like dude, like I can't eat because whatever. So the the judge. He was a judge of a small town in new jersey and there was one night my boyfriend, adam, and I were hanging out and he was going out with danny and he's like kids have anything to do tonight. No, like no, we just hanging out and he takes out this bag, like this big bag of cocaine, and this big like soup spoon, and he just like walks like a mound and he's like have a good time tonight. 

22:41
Dan, I gave the kids something to do tonight and he walks out and we tried to finish it and we could not Right. 

22:46 - Stacey (Host)
Oh God. 

22:47 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I mean, that was when I was out, but still it was. 

22:53 - Mark (Host)
But still it was and I didn't. I mean that's when I was out and just self-punishing, trying to deal with getting out Like I got out I got out cold turkey. 

22:58 - Stacey (Host)
It is not easy to leave. Can you tell me the story of when you decided to leave? 

23:02 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yeah, I never really decided to leave. 

23:05 - Stacey (Host)
So you got kicked out. 

23:06 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
No, I just kind of, as my brother said, I slowly drifted, I slowly like, like disappeared. So long soap opera, story short. I'm friends with Moon's children, the true children. 

23:15 - Stacey (Host)
The true children. 

23:16 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I'm friends with these children called the blessed children. Those are the children born to the people married in those huge mass weddings. So it's called blessings and they're born without original sin. 

23:24 - Stacey (Host)
I want to talk about that too. 

23:25 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So there's a really special, really special like really, really special, really special in the me and Like really, really special, really special in the me, and I go off for the summer to music camp and a lot of stuff happens and I, you know, I start to begin a little bit. 

23:39
I start to question a little bit and whatever. And I come back and Moon has declared that only the blessed children, these children over here, can be with his children, the true children. Oh no, and the declaration was to keep me away from his daughter Because one of my 16-year-old blessed children friends had been seduced by our Sunday school teacher. One of the men who did groom me, seduced, had an affair. In order to keep everyone from noticing, she spread a rumor that I wanted to have sex with all the men, and so Moon heard the rumors, believed the rumors and made the decree to keep me away from his kid. So I go into my last year of high school and I'm I know I'm questioning, so I know Satan is in me. And I was questioning because at music camp I became friends with people who were the first time known to me, queer, and my mom was like they're evil, they're sinful, stay away from them. And that didn't. 

24:26
I liked them and they're my friends and it didn't make sense. 

24:29
So, therefore, I am Satan's in me because I'm not believing and then I come back and the Messiah has banished me. So the Messiah knows Satan is in me. So I come back and I go into my last year of high school and I think, okay, I followed my mom into the church as a child, as a 10-year-old, so now I need to pull back a little bit to see life on the outside, at the age of 17, to make a full adult decision to go back and never question again, and that's my absolute intention. 

24:54
I need to get rid of all these doubts and I'm going to dedicate my life to God and I start hanging out with friends in school and I find more unconditional love and fun there than I do in my church which is supposedly about love, and I'm like tormented, tormented, tormented, and I start experimenting with things including alcohol. 

25:11
And I start experimenting with things including alcohol and in the spring April 3rd 1981, I throw a surprise party for my best friend and have, like it's not in the book but pass out under a car in New. 

25:23
York City in the street. Too much to drink? Yes, I did. My brother found me under the car, adam, who became my boyfriend. Adam kisses me at this party and I kiss him back because I'm so drunk. And then the next thing I know, I start dating him, which is like it's a you can't, there's like there's no, that's, that's sinful, yeah and so it just becomes this process, and I and I believe the, the forces against us pushed us into love and, like it just I mean we went out for four years and he's still a really dear friend of mine I 

25:50
still like, we're still very close and I still love him, you know, in that old way, whatever. But so like the whole summer is like am I in, am I out, am I in, am I out? And people are screaming at me and yet like it's just torment and I go off to college and I think that's it, I'm gonna end it. I have to end it. I'm going back and going back, and and I just don't. Um, I mean, as I say I, I knew moon was the messiah and I knew it was true. 

26:19 - Stacey (Host)
I just didn't want to do it anymore, right, which brought me to a moment on the bridge where I almost jumped. Yeah wait, you almost jumped off a bridge, lisa yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

26:27 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So, yeah, we can go there later, but yeah, yeah, yeah, that's when I started. Yeah, I almost, because it would be better to die than to leave. 

26:36 - Stacey (Host)
This episode is brought to you by Mainline Studios and the Podcast Factory, where great content feels right at home. Located in beautiful Wayne, pennsylvania, our creative rental space offers high-end tech in a space that feels like your best friend's living room. Book your session or a free tour at mainlinevideostudiocom, and back to the show. 

26:57 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I mean, that's how hard leaving is when you still know. It's hard to leave even when you don't know it's true. I know a lot of people have left knowing it's not true, but I knew it was true. I just was breaking God's heart because I was selfish. 

27:12 - Stacey (Host)
And Robbie was still in and Robbie was still in. Robbie was still in at the point and your mom was still in my mom was still in. 

27:15 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Robbie left, like at the end of his college experience. He took my mother aside and said I'm out, whereas I still never said it right. Wow, I'm clearly out. And then my mom left in 96 when my first child. Your mom left. My mom left in 96 when my first child was born. Yeah, why, why did she leave? That's a very good question. She at that point, she said I can't even be a Mooney. 

27:42 - Mark (Host)
well, Like she had broken her blessing. 

27:46 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
What defines what that means. The mass marriages are generally assigned marriages. At that point, literally, they would put all the sisters on one side of the room, all the brothers on the other side, and Mooney would go you, you, you, because he could see your spiritual being, so he knew your perfect match that's bullshit my mom was different because he made her stand up, and it is bullshit. He made her stand up and he said this woman has two sinful children. Who is willing to take her on? 

28:09
wow yeah, so there's that. But so she did get married, blessed it's called the blessing in the church. So she broke the blessing and then she just she said like I didn't, I believe in the truth, but I but the church, the leadership of the church, she didn't respect what they were doing anymore. So, like specific ways you have to consummate the marriage. It was like three ways. You have to have sex with the different positions and it's with holy salt sprinkled on the bed and and like in front of pictures of moon and like there's all these things you need to do to restore Eve. 

28:44
Who caused everything was caused by Eve. Eve caused everything. Eve caused all the bad stuff, so there's ways you consummate it. But then you also go through a ceremony where you beat each other three times to get rid of something. Evil spirits. Evil spirits or something, and then you don't live together for a very, very long period of time until you're actually allowed to be together or something. 

29:06 - Stacey (Host)
So it's just very controlled and you can't have another relationship during that time because that's your husband. 

29:11 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
No, you can't have another relationship during that time, because that's your husband. 

29:14 - Stacey (Host)
No, you can't have any other relationships no you, why would you only moon right? 

29:16 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
allowed to have extramarital relationships because it's providential. So this is what extreme belief is he's like you cannot have extramarital sex, but for me it's providential. I am restoring the world, I'm restoring eve, I'm making up for all the sins humankind has done by having sex with these women, and that's why it's okay. 

29:36
And when you believe your brain wants to believe your brain does not want to think you were duped, like people who join these things never want to think that there was something that they were like. I was Mark Vicenti in the NXIVM I forget which one it was. He says no one joins a cult. They join a really good idea and then they realize they were can I say the F word Really good idea and then they realize they were fucked Like. All of them are based on beautiful ideas, with this like evil belly underside. 

30:09 - Mark (Host)
Which is why people stay in. Which is why people stay in. 

30:12 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Or go out and they do what's called cold hopping. People go to another one because there is nothing as intoxicating as having a Messiah. It's the best drug ever. We want certainty, purpose and community. That's all you got. 

30:28
All three Absolute certainty you know you purpose, you know why you're here, you know right from wrong, you know you have the truth and you know you purpose. You know why you're here, you know right from wrong, you know you have the truth. And as long as you don't leave, you have the best community ever. It fills all our needs, many of our needs. 

30:39 - Mark (Host)
It must feel amazing. 

30:40 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
It feels amazing. It's a really bad good drug. It's a powerful drug, yeah. 

30:45 - Stacey (Host)
So take me back to when you were on that bridge. Yeah, yeah. 

30:56 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
What you there and what made you get off of the bridge and not do the unthinkable. I didn't want to be in and I couldn't figure out how to leave. Like I kept saying, what if it's right? What if it's right? What if it's right, like I know it's right, I couldn't fail, like I couldn't fail, like I couldn't, I, I couldn't, I couldn't do it and and the I couldn't not do it. I just didn't want to do it and I just it. So really was a sense of it would be better to die to my physical death than to die my spiritual death and to like like I have the messiah, I have the truth. 

31:32
God's heart has been broken for 6,000 years. You know this and you are saying no, like, how can you? Yeah, so it was, and to this day I don't know what got me not. I mean, I had, the people I reached out to for support were like the men who groomed me in the church. I had really weird anchors of help and love. I, you know, in my healing journey, I finally have met my backbone and I have a part of me that just survives my second year at Cornell. I am anorexic and I finally do go see a therapist, like, literally, my dad steps in like brings me home, danny. 

32:11 - Stacey (Host)
Danny steps in. 

32:12 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yes. 

32:13
You know he the thing is the thing. The thing is my mom, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you cannot show up to this day, cannot fully show up as a parent. Danny can't say I love you until the very last six months of his life when I cracked him open and gave him a lot of drugs. Um, you know, he was in a lot of pain and but showed up, yeah, took care of you, you know, did like. So I have one who loves you but can't show up and one who can't say I love you but shows up but so, yeah, when I was anorexic, he, like, he brought me home and, you know, would scream at me to eat, which didn't help, and you know, whatever. And then I did go to a therapist that second year and I talked about everything except the church, because interesting, because, yeah, everybody hated it in the 80s. 

33:05 - Stacey (Host)
It was the someone was saying yesterday it was here yesterday. 

33:08 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Like my parents wore me don't talk to moonies like it was the they would walk around, and so I knew that there was no way this person would have compassion or what our understanding of it was true. So I. So I'm in therapy, talking about not eating right, never once talking about the fact that I almost jumped off a bridge because I grew up in a cult and. 

33:34
I left Like whatever. And then my junior year, I do the you know like get up in the morning and I'm waitressing and Danny's still up from the night before doing coke and I do a couple lines and I go to work and then I'm looking for it during the day and at some point I have this survival mechanism that kicks in and I stopped. And then my last year of school, I I started dating someone else who had another girlfriend, right Cause I started just getting into more abusive and dysfunctional relationships until I, uh, got engaged to an alcoholic who worked for my father. 

34:04
And that was the beginning of my bottom, where I literally went to my first Al-Anon meeting and I was like, tell me, if he's an alcoholic, there's no way I would ever be with an alcoholic I'm way too smart for that. Yeah, with like addiction all over my family. 

34:18 - Stacey (Host)
I want to sort of transition into what you're doing now and how you've healed and now taken all of that and now you actually really help people. 

34:27 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So two things. One, when the book came out, I found someone I met on Twitter. You do make really good friends on Twitter back then I was like how can it happen? 

34:35
someone I met on Twitter uh told me about the cult survivor community and I found the cult survivor community and, as I get, I said specifically the second gen community and I began to go into what was actually done and all that um and help people's. Yeah. So since the book came out, there are people who write me from cults, non-cults, all that, who say I wouldn't be here without your book there's a win for you, right? 

35:01 - Mark (Host)
yeah, and like for the beginning, I was like if it, you know, if it helps other people yeah then, then it's okay then it's worth it, right and right now I said I love me. 

35:11 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
It's a long time, Right. So I started to find that and I was like, what did I do in therapy before then? Because I've been in trauma therapy, MDR therapy a lot of stuff Delved into it but like. Not on the level, not on the level. Like you know, there's layers. I always when people say like recovery is like an onion. Have you ever had a skein of yarn that you forgot to make into a ball and it becomes like this, like thing that takes eight days. 

35:39
That's me, that's my brain, that was my brain and psyche. So the book came out. I found this Cult Survivor community. I dove whole first into what it means and what it is and all that was done and intentionally done and all of the wiring and all of that. There was a key moment, october 23, when my business partner said you want to go to London for a workshop? I've been recently trained in coaching like energy and deep emotions. But I was with this man who leads this work and we're in a church in London and he's working with me and I'm screaming at cursing at God in this church and it was like the beginning of cracking open. And then I started doing incredible amounts of body work. 

36:22
My body has all these body memories and convulsing and retching and screaming and stuff is pouring out of me and I finally was like, if that's what's coming out, it probably wasn't that good going on, I've really worked to rewire my brain and taught it and yes, my tattoo love yourself first most. Always like that, it's so true. I put it on my arm I see it every day, right? 

36:46
So all I did every, almost every, and then I was like, okay, you're doing this really, really perfectly and anorexically and too hard, and then I got soft and then I had cancer and that does a lot to you as well, right. And so all of this, I was running in Florida. We took my mother-in-law down to Florida. I was running and it hurt in my groin when I ran and it was really weird. 

37:09
And I remember thinking I feel like there's something in me. Well, that's stupid. And then I took a while because I had a lot of scans because of other stuff and I finally went to my doctor who sent me to a GI who said you probably need an ultrasound and that took a while and then April 12th was my ultrasound. April 13th, they said cancer. April 14th I filmed how to Become a Cult Leader. 

37:31
Oh my God, april 20th I had an MRI April 21st. They said 50-50. Crazy 50-50,. You need an oncologist. Oh, and Danny is actually dying now. 

37:41
Oh my God, I spend the weekend with him. And then I'm about to go on my keynoting course and I'm like Dan, I'm going to go away for a few days. If you want to die, call me, I'll come back. I'll be back in a couple of days. That's Sunday. I go Monday. Tuesday my kid texts me. My older kid says are we never going to do anything? Are we really not going to have any anything when papa dies? I'm like no, we're not, not for a while, can't do it right now. Do you want to want me to come out to you? Do you want to come home? And they're like spoiler, I'm on the airport. My kid came home to take care of me. That's's Tuesday. Tuesday night we go to see Danny and I'm like, dude, you got to go, I might have cancer. My brother's never coming to see you. Like I might have cancer, you need to go. I know you're afraid, but go wherever there is, if there is, and go, do something. You got to go. 

38:28 - Stacey (Host)
Like the only thing that moves is his eyebrows. So he was just nothing. 

38:30 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
They were like letting him die in hospice, in hospice, in a nursing home. He was on hospice for like six months but this was dying hospice and Wednesday morning he passed. Thursday morning I saw the oncological surgeon and I said if I cry when you examine me, my dad died yesterday. And then Friday, I'm almost done with this story. Then Friday we went to my mother-in-law's because it was the year anniversary, the year of my father-in-law's passing. And then Sunday, Bruce, my husband, he's like went upstairs and came down. He's like I have COVID. 

39:01 - Stacey (Host)
Oh, my God. 

39:02 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Go away Because that Friday the next Friday was my surgery, in which they discovered stage one C ovarian cancer. 

39:08 - Stacey (Host)
Stage one. 

39:09 - Mark (Host)
And no one ever finds it. I've never heard of that, no one ever finds it. 

39:13 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I'm incredibly lucky in my unluckiness, but that was a huge wake up call in a lot of ways. But so now it's, which is yeah. 

39:21
so my keynote is about loving ourselves first, most always pushing ourselves less, loving ourselves first, most, always more and in that being our best self, our most magical self, a mess magical leader. I'm a leadership consultant, executive coach. I use this with all my clients. Right, really, when we take care of this, when we really love this the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it it gets really good. And it was really not good for a long time and I really didn't know it. I want to go back to the cult real quick, yeah so, like I want to talk about recruiting, yeah, I love how you started. 

39:53 - Mark (Host)
Everyone is susceptible. 

39:54 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. 

39:56 - Mark (Host)
Number one, were you asked to also recruit you were kind of young, so maybe not. But number two I'm sure there's training, or this is how you recruit, or this is what you do. So if you were recruiting Stacey, what would you say to her? 

40:10 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So I will go to. I did recruit, I spent a summer in Seattle trying to bring in members, and I will also tell you that I met someone who was a Mormon and I remember thinking what a weird religion so if I was going to recruit you, I would just ask a lot about you and I'd be really interested in you and I would be really happy and loving and have I would have the love I have. 

40:35
But it wouldn't be real yeah be like come, like you want, like come, just come for. Like come for a song fest, like it's a great group of people, they're really wonderful, you're gonna find people you like. It's just really simple at the beginning. It's not like here's. I mean, I did proselytize in Times Square when I was 10 year old with a bullhorn. Did you Sinners, don't do that thing. That I don't understand. Yeah, yeah. 

40:59 - Mark (Host)
But yeah, I did. But usually there's no mention of religion until no, until you're there, Like you know, literally Moon called it heavenly deception. 

41:07 - Stacey (Host)
It is. He called it heavenly deception it is. 

41:09 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
It is good God wants you to lie because you're saving people. Yeah, you're saving people. You're saving people, okay, so let's go to Jehovah's Witnesses, JWs, right, they look in the obituaries Someone in your family has died. They go to your house and they say do you want to see your father again? If you join us, you'll see your father again. 

41:34
But you know you're, it's a gift you're giving. Someone asked me did Moon believe he was the Messiah? And I say, if enough people bow to you, I think you believe it you talk about, do you want? 

41:47
a better world do you want a better world? We have a way for the world. Look what's going on right now. Look at all the hatred right now. Literally look at all the hatred, Whichever way you divide it, and all the people who are afraid there is an answer. We're one human race. We can come together, and I found people who really have a way to do this. In the wrong space of mind, you'd be like okay, I'll come for dinner. 

42:18
What to do this and the wrong space of mind. You'd be like, okay, I'll come for a dinner, what could possibly go wrong? But there are good things that I got out of it. It's why I am who I am the good, the bad and the ugly. One of the good or bad things about me is that, like I hold a lot of duality, I hold a lot of. That's why I do the work I do right all I'm doing as a coach. But like I hold a lot of dualities, even with the church people read. 

42:31
Read the book and they're like, well, you didn't make it sound that bad, because the bad part for me was very insidious. I was not. It really was within you. It was within me, right, what it did to me. So like I was groomed, but I wasn't like physically. I wasn't physically sexually abused. I wasn't physically abused, right, it was just all this. 

42:57 - Stacey (Host)
It was all what it did to this, the self-loathing that it fed on and carved the guilt, the guilt and shame. 

43:01 - Stacey (Host)
That happens in a lot of religions. Yes, yeah. 

43:05 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
So this is what I say about guilt, and I say this to clients and I said it before when you feel guilty, it means at this point you're probably doing something that's good for you, so lean into it right, sleep late, don't do point. You're probably doing something that's good for you, so lean into it right, sleep late, don't do something you're supposed to do, but go for a walk instead. You know, sit down for five minutes and pet your cat, hold your kid I should be getting up and blah, blah, blah, blah. 

43:24 - Stacey (Host)
Right, stop the shitting on yourself. 

43:26 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Don't shit on yourself, right. Don't shit on yourself, yeah. 

43:35 - Stacey (Host)
Like be nice to yourself what? 

43:35 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
would be one question. People always ask you that you wish they wouldn't. Ooh, no one's asked me that one. You guys are good. Well, I will say, the one question I wish I got asked more was how you ended with, how good it is now and why you're doing what you're doing. Because you know to talk too much about me, which is what I've been doing for a very long time now is I'm. There's a 360 feedback instrument I use in my coaching. That's, it's different and it really gets at the inside of people. That's why I say, with my work, on the inside of people and teams and organizations, the systems work and it gets at that where you literally one person, you look at someone in their eyes and you just say who are you? 

44:17
over and over again and they answer or they don't answer, um, and you know she went first and then she was asking me and I start sobbing and she starts sobbing and excuse me as I say this. I was like I have a message. 

44:30
I'm here for a purpose. I have a message. You know I'm a messenger of really love yourself and it makes it all. It makes it all okay. It's all okay because I know this and I feel this way now and I can say it to people. So and not a lot of people, let me always want to go, because the cult is so much fun to talk about and it's so important and they're still there. 

44:58
But to be able to say that there is absolutely hope is not a question I often get asked, and that's really why I'm here. That's really why I'm here. 

45:07 - Stacey (Host)
Now you work with so many corporations and you're working in the world of business, and is there ever a time when you're in a business situation and a bell rings that reminds you of what it was like to be within that, in the cult mentality I hate when people call? 

45:23 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
their company a cult. 

45:25 - Stacey (Host)
Do people do that? I was going to say that. 

45:26 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, it's really a cult here I'm like no, you have no idea, it's not the other thing. 

45:28 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Let me, because it's the other thing let me, because it's please don't say drink the Kool-Aid. Please don't say drink the Kool-Aid. People died. 

45:36 - Stacey (Host)
People died. It's not funny. 

45:37 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
It's not funny, it comes from Jim Jones. 

45:40
It comes from people drinking the cyanide lace drink and literally laying on their children and suffocating them. Jesus Coercion. So please don't say it. I understand why people say it. Thank you for letting me get on my soapbox. Are there dynamics, cultish dynamics in a lot of places? Absolutely, anything to the extreme, anything, all or nothing, it reeks of it. Absolutely. I will say that since the memoir came out, I use my upbringing Like I didn't used to talk about it, because you say cult and then you've got three hours of people, but now I use my background in everything In a positive way. 

46:15
In a positive way Because even if you didn't grow up in a cult, there's a lot of the same stuff. And then my business partner has been wonderful. But she did question like it's now on my bio, even before my website got launched this week for the keynoting and just Lisa Cohn and even before that I was like I'm going to leave with this, I want to do this, I want it on my buy, I want it to be first thing. 

46:38
And she was like, yeah, why Like we're this and then we were coaching for a black leadership program and we were getting trained in an instrument that we were using, and so it was all virtual, but it was all coaches and the client getting trained in this one instrument. And we were doing introductions and coaches can be very whatever. So somebody goes first and they're like share a bit about themselves, and I'm always like, do I share it, do I not? 

47:00 - Mark (Host)
it's gonna be helpful or not and this person did so. 

47:03 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I shared something about cult and, uh god, I cry every time I say this and so I finish and somebody starts to go third and one of the clients jump in and he says I have to go next. I grew up in a cult and I've never said that out loud in a business setting before and I text Robin and I'm like that's why I do it. 

47:23 - Stacey (Host)
I just got goosebumps all over my body. 

47:25 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Because it freed him to be able to acknowledge that and because I will talk about almost anything clearly. 

47:31
I will talk about almost anything clearly, a few things that are off topic but are off whatever. But because when I admit my secrets and my shame and my dirty secrets, then other people admit theirs and then they lose their power. There's a lot of shame in growing up in a cult until you finally say it and people are like wow, yeah, me too, or whatever. There's like when we hold it inside as if we're the only one, which is part of the way they keep you and all these things is they make you think if you say it like everyone will hate you or whatever. So you don't say it and then you suffer. 

48:03 - Mark (Host)
So, yeah, it's beautiful your whole message of anyone can heal yeah you were just talking about it's. It's interesting because you've gone through through so many things. There are people out there that went through one thing yeah, one, one of your things, whether it's the relationship with their parents or the sexual assault, and pick one. They went through one and they're having trouble healing. Yeah, so hearing the message from you, anybody can heal. 

48:24 - Stacey (Host)
Look what I've been through and look where I am now. 

48:26 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's wonderful. 

48:29 - Stacey (Host)
Wow. So what's next for you? I know you want to get out there on the speaker circuit, Like how can we help you sort of get your message out? 

48:38 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Oh, that's a good question. So yeah, next is I mean, my business is still there chats with the consulting group. But yeah, my goal is really to get out on as many stages as possible, Because you know, I trained and performing on stage and a lot of people were like not feeling comfortable with going out and like saying I'm ready to do this and I'm like when you have a message, it's not about me like will it be fun to be on stage. 

49:02
Yeah, do I always want to be actor absolutely do I really? I'm a ham, oh yeah, but it's about a message. So, yeah, anybody who knows anywhere where they want, where they need someone who will make you laugh with all my stories but also share a little bit of heart, that would be me. 

49:16 - Mark (Host)
How can they reach you? 

49:18 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Now it's really easy if you can spell my last name, which is the hard part, which is K, as in kite, o-h-n. As in Nancy, it's lisaconecom. That's it, lisaconecom. I finally got that. 

49:29 - Stacey (Host)
I did it. It's a nice website too. I've been on it. Yeah, it looks good, thank you. 

49:33 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Yeah, I had so much fun. 

49:34 - Stacey (Host)
And the book is still available. 

49:36 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
The book is still available. Yes, if you go on the website or if you live in this area, you can go to MainPoint Books, which is the bookstore three doors down, where I have my thing, Beautiful bookstore. Beautiful bookstore and I will sign it for you. 

49:49 - Stacey (Host)
I could talk to you for, like LisaConecom. 

49:52 - Mark (Host)
Love the work that you're doing. 

49:53 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
Thank you, thank you for sharing. 

49:55 - Mark (Host)
Thank you for having me. Thank you for everyone who's going to hear your story and who knows who we're going to help. 

50:00 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, as a result. Yeah, and I do mean like Reach out to me. 

50:03 - Lisa Kohn (Guest)
I really Lisa at LisaConecom LisaCone writes the verb writes Is my Instagram and stuff, stuff. But um, yeah, and I'm on linkedin, so yeah, I really when people reach out to me with their stories, it I love to share, so yeah, awesome thank you thank you this has been amazing. 

50:21 - Stacey (Host)
Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you, I feel different I do like I just love. You know you're, you're awesome great energy. 

50:30 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, thank you guys for watching. 

50:37 - Stacey (Host)
You're still here. You're still listening. Thanks for listening to the Gurus and Game Changers podcast While you're here. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to rate this episode and leave us a quick review. We want to know what you thought of the show and what you took from it and how it might have helped you. We read and appreciate every comment. Thanks, See you next week.