Doctors Gave My Wife 18 Months… We Got 12 Extra Years | Pete Cohen
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
She was given 18 months to live.
You were with her for a year. She gets sick. You didn't leave and fell in love. Today I'm joined by motivational speaker Pete Cohen, who has spent decades helping people change the way they think, live and show up for themselves.
Hannah had a major epileptic fit, a grand mal seizure.
You get the news that she has a brain tumour. What happens to you in that moment? We talk about what it really means to love someone through the hardest chapters of life.
I didn't know who I was. I wish I'd been more present with her. When she died, people said, do you know how much she loved you? I just didn't know because I wouldn't allow myself to see. I didn't allow myself because I was scared.
He also shares about grief and has a way of reminding us what truly matters in this world. What's next for you? Where are you going in life?
I think life is about becoming through overcoming grief. If you can find a way to keep the memory of the person that was in your life alive, what a wonderful thing to do.
Where's life taking you?
I woke up in the middle of the night and I just thought, I know exactly what I need to do, which is I need to finish what I've started.
And it's also a reminder that the best way to honour the people we love is to live our lives fully because it's never too late to begin again. Pete Cohen.
Pete Cohen.
Hi.
Hello.
I just want to say thank you for coming to talk to us today. There's so much I want to talk to you about. But I think I'm just going to say, if you do one thing today, please go to teamhannah.com and watch the documentary. How many awards has your documentary won? Eleven. It's won 11 awards. It is incredibly moving. And I feel like in a way... It's, well, it's a bit of a gift to you, but it's a gift to Hannah to watch it. But it'll be an amazing gift for you to appreciate life and everything that we all take for granted. And it's a love story. But before we go any further, I really want to talk about young Pete. Because I was so amazed to... read about you leaving school at 16 with 1G CSE and what you've achieved.
So let's just talk about you as a young man. North London, tell me everything.
I was born in 1970. I was six weeks premature. My mum told me I was in a hurry to come out and I've been in a hurry ever since. But I had a very happy little childhood. What were you like? I was a nightmare. I never kept still. I was completely hyperactive, a little bit like someone I'm facing. I was always just rosy cheeks, always smiling. But they definitely saw something in school with my attention. And then I was diagnosed with learning difficulties in 1975. Everything was compounding. how I felt about myself, which is I'm not enough. There's something wrong with me and I've got to prove myself. And that's what I've done all my life. Tried to prove myself through all the things I've done professionally have all been about validation, acceptance, and none of it really worked.
None of it really made any difference at all. I was looking for something outside of myself to change me inside. And that never happened until something major happened.
So I understand a bit better about who you were inside. It was like, I know I have something to offer, but I've left with one GCSE. You ended up going to university. What happened in the couple of years between you leaving school and going to uni?
Well, I was actually like you, I was O-levels. I was the last of the O-levels, 1986. I did so badly, they wouldn't let me retake them. I got a U in English, unclassified. I got a grade five in maths at CSE. There was a course at my school. It was called CPVE. It was a Certificate in Prevocational Education. It was basically for people that really struggled with reading and writing. And I started doing that course at a college near to my school. And after doing that for a year, I applied to do something that was equivalent to A-levels. And they turned me down because they just said, we don't think you're academic enough. And back in the day, there were some colleges that were doing higher education courses.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:24
2
How did Pete Cohen’s childhood and learning difficulties shape his early life and career?
6:24–27:08
3
How did Pete and Hannah meet and what role did fate play in their relationship?
27:08–34:31
4
What happened when Hannah had a seizure and how was her brain tumour diagnosed?
34:31–40:19
5
How did Pete find alternative treatment and raise funds to get Hannah to America?
40:19–50:11
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Begin Again with Davina McCall
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