Julie Cohen, PCC, spends her days as a professional Career and Personal Leadership Coach. Her work focuses on areas such as: work-life balance, leadership, communication, and personal growth. Julie is also a long-time reader and supporter of Philadelphia Stories. Given Philadelphia Stories’ recent ten year anniversary, we thought it would be interesting to look back and gain some perspective on what the magazine means to one of our many valued readers.
1. Working as a Career and Personal Leadership Coach seems like an interesting and challenging profession. Could you briefly explain what the job entails?
Individuals hire me when they seek support in making a change regarding their work and/or life situation. They usually want to do something differently, do something better, or make a change that will enable them to be more effective, more satisfied, or navigate through a challenging situation. Organizations hire me when they want support for their employees – to either help them become better leaders and more effective in their positions, or to offer their employees tools and strategies to create a more manageable and satisfying work-life balance.
2. In March, you will be presenting a workshop—at a Philadelphia Stories run conference—on the topic of “Write/Life Balance.” Can you describe some of the material that you plan to cover in the workshop?
The Write-Life Balance workshop will take many of the principles I teach and apply them to individuals whose writing is a significant part of their life. We will discuss how to create boundaries to protect one’s writing and creative time, how to develop priorities that include writing and all that goes with it, and how to design reasonable expectations, so others can support the writer with their commitment to his/her craft. And more!
3. In your professional life, do you often suggest the arts as a means of achieving balance in a work-heavy life?
I don’t prescribe any specific avenue for enhancing someone’s work-life balance. How one chooses to achieve balance is a very personal decision based on one’s own unique values, priorities, and goals. The arts (or any hobby, interest, passion, etc.,) can enhance energy and provide a lot of pleasure in a ‘work-heavy life.’ If a client or reader would like more space and time for the arts in their life, I support them in making the sometimes-difficult choice to place aside the time and energy to do so.
4. Why do you believe it is important to support the local arts community?
On a completely personal level, the local arts community expands my awareness, challenges me to think in new ways, and enables me to experience new things. I want this for my son, my friends, the larger world and myself. I also want more joy, beauty and creativity in the world.
5. Do you have any suggestions for improvement or things that you would like to see Philadelphia Stories do in the future that could benefit the local arts community?
Well, I’ve noticed that most of the workshops are geared towards writers.
Perhaps offer a workshop for the reader. Maybe something like ‘why and how to read poetry’. It would be interesting to have a poet at the class who could explain to the reader the value of poetry and why and how we should be reading it? A class on the value of short stories, opposed to novels, would also be interesting.
6. As a long-time reader of Philadelphia Stories and local arts enthusiast, what role do you believe the magazine plays in the greater community of Delaware Valley artists?
It’s been exciting to see the magazine grow over the past 10 years. It’s filling a void and providing a place for great talent to be shared with many who would not normally experience it. As someone who mostly reads novels, PS has exposed me to short stories and poetry that I most likely, would not have read elsewhere.