STOP 2 THINK

Waiting for the Sunrise

This is one of the rawest episodes in the whole series. I was genuinely uncertain, in every direction, professionally and personally, and I told Ray plainly that I know who I am more clearly than ever, but had absolutely no idea yet what to do with that knowledge.

We talked about the seven people I consider my great guides in life, and Ray gently pushed me to look honestly at what I was actually afraid of. This is also where I first admitted, out loud, my hesitation about writing a book about my own life.

In this episode:

• The seven people I consider my great guides in life, and Ray's place among them
• Being in the middle of the night, not yet ready for whatever comes next
• My own hesitation about writing a book about my life, wondering if anyone would want to read it
• Seneca's formula, purpose as preparation, which we control, plus opportunity, which we do not
• My early academic struggles, and how they quietly prepared me for the work I do now

Pull quote: "Purpose is the integration of two things: one you can control, and one you can't control."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 18, where we finally say, as directly as we ever have, that where you are is not who you are.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

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Discovering Your Way

This episode is a direct pushback against the idea that there is one right path to real change. Ray and I made it clear, neither of us wants to prescribe anything to anyone, because the only change that ever actually lasts is the change someone finds for themselves.

We talked about how much digital information has changed our ability to focus, the difference between the hedonic pull of the senses and what we actually intend to do, and a story about a friend's husband who transformed his health after a heart attack, not because anyone told him what to do, but because he owned it himself.

In this episode:

• How constant digital information has reshaped our ability to focus on anything
• The hedonic pull of the senses, and how it quietly works against stated intention
• Why Ray refuses to prescribe a lifestyle change to anyone he works with
• The Biggest Loser statistic again, this time applied to ownership versus imposed structure
• A friend's husband's heart attack recovery, driven entirely by his own ownership of it

Pull quote: "I don't think we should be telling anyone what to do ever."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 17, one of the rawest conversations in the whole series, recorded while I was genuinely uncertain about what came next.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

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Here's Episode 15, in my voice, with the corrected footer.

Episode 15: Designing Your Backstage

This episode takes the front stage and backstage idea from the last conversation and turns it into something practical, the actual physical spaces and objects that quietly shape how we feel about ourselves.

Ray and I walked through Erving Goffman's three elements of any performance, setting, appearance, and manner, and I told him the whole story of an enormous table I bought on impulse in China back in 1999, and what it actually took, decades later, to finally get it into my own home.

In this episode:

• Goffman's three elements of performance, setting, appearance, and manner
• The story of my huge table, bought impulsively in China in 1999
• Growing up with a best room that was never actually used
• My old coach Raphael's question, where is home, and what he really meant by it
• Discipline, traced back to its root meaning, student

Pull quote: "You are making an investment in you where no one is seeing that."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 16, where we ask whether there is really only one right way to discover who you are.

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The Person Behind The Performance

This episode introduces one of the most important ideas in the whole series, the difference between front stage, the version of me the world sees, and backstage, who I actually am when nobody is watching.

Ray and I got into Erving Goffman's idea that we are all performers on some level, and I opened up about my own childhood, my dyslexia diagnosis, and a lifetime spent quietly looking for validation from outside myself rather than from within.

In this episode:

• Erving Goffman's idea that everyday life is really a kind of performance
• Front stage, what the world sees, and backstage, the conversation only I hear
• Jane Elliott's classroom experiment, and how quickly arbitrary labels can shape self worth
• Four questions Ray asks people, who are you, what is your value, who do you serve, how do you serve
• My own dyslexia diagnosis, and a lifelong search for validation I did not even know I was doing

Pull quote: "If we leave our backstage dormant and non-intentional, then the front stage informs our backstage."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 15, where we take this idea from theory into practice and start designing our own backstage.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

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Back to Calm

This one is different from the rest. Instead of a conversation with Ray, it is a full guided meditation, my gift to you, turning the one percent of your day idea from the last episode into something you can actually do, right now, rather than just think about.

It runs about fourteen minutes and twenty four seconds, exactly one percent of your day, and it is designed to help calm your nervous system, not through effort or control, but simply by giving your body permission to come out of alert and into rest.

In this episode:

• Settling the body, and noticing tension without needing to fix anything
• Lengthening the exhale as a direct signal of safety to the nervous system
• The repeated phrase, I am safe, I am calm
• A simple colour visualisation to help spread that calm through the body
• Calm as something you allow, not something you have to force into being

Pull quote: "This calm is not something you created. It's something you allowed."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 14, where we go back to a conversation and introduce one of the most important ideas in this whole series, the person behind the performance.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

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Here's Episode 12, in my voice, with the corrected footer.

Episode 12: Hurry Sickness, Why We Struggle to Stop

This episode names, directly, the thing that makes stopping so hard for almost everyone, hurry sickness, a genuine clinical term describing constant, compulsive urgency. It also introduces the one percent of your day idea, fourteen minutes and twenty four seconds, for the very first time.

I admitted, live, that I had been awake since four that morning and had not stopped once. Ray and I went through the real signs of hurry sickness, and why it is so often a defence mechanism rather than simple busyness.

In this episode:

• The clinical origin of hurry sickness, first named back in 1974
• The real signs, impatience, interrupting people, endless to do lists, imposter syndrome
• Hurry sickness as unintentional urgency, energy spent in entirely the wrong direction
• Why hurry sickness can be a defence mechanism, a way of outrunning something painful
• The one percent of your day, fourteen minutes and twenty four seconds, introduced properly

Pull quote: "Hurry sickness sometimes is a defense mechanism. What we do is we distract ourselves by running away from something that hurts us."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 13, a guided meditation putting the one percent idea into real practice.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

The Art and Science of Stop 2 Think

Recorded shortly after cycling seventy five miles into Hungary with my brother, this episode tackles something that runs through the whole series, why knowing what to do so rarely translates into actually doing it.

Ray and I got into the science of change, which is freely available to anyone, versus the art of actually sustaining it, which is where almost everyone struggles. We also talked about The Biggest Loser, why so many contestants regained the weight, and what real relationships have to do with any of it.

In this episode:

• The science of change, which is easy to find, versus the art of sustaining it, which is not
• The Biggest Loser, and why almost all contestants regained the weight afterwards
• A shared thread of dysfunction that runs through Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity
• King Richard, the Williams sisters, and deliberate preparation for opportunity
• The Harvard longevity study, and why relationship quality outweighs even diet and exercise

Pull quote: "New experiences only come from intention. It's difficult to find new experiences outwardly because that's in your strength and your will."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 12, where we finally name the thing making it so hard for any of us to stop, hurry sickness.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/

The Stop Before The Start

Recorded while I was on holiday with my brother, this episode gives stopping its most practical shape yet. Ray laid out a genuine, usable structure for what stopping actually involves, step by step, and I had a real realisation, in the moment, about what I am actually good at.

We talked through aware, acknowledge, appreciate, act, and appraise, and why most of us only ever stop when a crisis forces our hand rather than choosing it ourselves. This is also the episode where I finally named, out loud, that helping people stop is genuinely my gift.

In this episode:

• The four part structure: aware, acknowledge, appreciate, act, and appraise
• Why major stops usually arrive through crisis rather than genuine choice
• Appreciation broken down into value, respect, cherish, treasure, and admiration
• Realising, in real time, that helping people stop is what I am actually good at
• Building small, deliberate stops into an ordinary day, rather than waiting for a big one

Pull quote: "We stop to become aware, we stop to acknowledge, and we stop to appreciate."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 11, recorded after a seventy five mile bike ride with my brother, where we explore the art and science of Stop 2 Think.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

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The Tangible and The Intangible

I recorded this one on a genuinely significant day, what would have been Hannah's thirty ninth birthday and our ninth wedding anniversary. Ray and I went deep into faith, suffering, and the idea that what cannot be measured can still be entirely real.

We talked properly, for the first time, about Romans 5:3 to 5, and what it actually means to rejoice in suffering rather than simply staying attached to it. I also opened up about my own uncertainty over what comes next professionally, alongside Ray's own uncertainty about his job at the time.

In this episode:

• A full explanation of Romans 5:3 to 5, and the path from suffering to hope
• The difference between what is tangibly absent and what is intangibly still present
• My own uncertainty about my career, and Ray's parallel uncertainty about his job
• Roger Bannister's four minute mile, and how belief spreads once someone proves something possible
• Whether it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
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Pull quote: "Rejoicing in your suffering gives you patience, perseverance which then gives you character. And then in character there is hope."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 10, recorded during a family holiday, where we get properly practical about what stopping actually looks like.

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Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

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The Head, The Heart and The Habit of Intention

This episode explores the relationship between what we think, how we feel, and what we actually do, and why trying to change one without the others so rarely works. It is also one of the most personally honest conversations we had recorded up to that point.

I opened up about turning to sugar for comfort, both while my mum was dying and again after Hannah passed, and Ray helped me understand why real change so often has to start with a small action rather than with willpower or new thinking. We also talked about the song we played at Hannah's celebration of life, and what it actually meant.

In this episode:

• The head, heart, habit model, and why change often has to start with habit
• My own comfort eating, both during my mum's illness and again after losing Hannah
• The heart described as an oil tanker's engine room, storing emotional memory
• Abracadabra, the song played at Hannah's celebration of life, and what it means
• Why starting with one small new habit works better than a dramatic overhaul
• 
  

Pull quote: "Lay down new experiences. Look at a habit, a new habit you've never done, and just that small win."

Come and join me and Ray for Episode 9, recorded on what would have been Hannah's birthday and our wedding anniversary, where we go deep into the tangible and the intangible.

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Subscribe to The STOP 2 THINK Newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/stop-2-think-newsletter-7474223126868918272/

Follow Ray on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraysylvester/

Watch Hannah's Story: https://petecohen.com/hannah

Visit Pete's website: https://petecohen.com/