Jonathan Z. Cohen

PNY Technologies

At PNY, I lead an 8 person Business Development Unit with the mission of generating demand for PNY and NVIDIA GPU solutions. Additionally, I've lead teams ranging from HR, security, and sales while supporting legal and business strategy. My role supports multiple departments across shared services and sales driving new and existing business opportunities, hiring and developing talent, curating company wide training, and traveling the globe. My journey at PNY started as a Financial Analyst Intern. Today, my role supports the legal department, leads security, hosts 6 direct reports, manages 100+ accounts across the east coast, west coast, and all of Canada.

Associate General Counsel | North America Business Development Leader

Inside the Inspired

Keynotes, workshops, seminars, and performance coaching for mental fitness, stress management, burnout, and mental resilience.

Partners include government entities, bar associations, law firms, law schools, recruiting firms, charitable organizations like the Friendship Circle, business schools, and colleges like Stanford University.

Podcast with 180 episodes featuring high performers across multiple disciplines talking about how they build resilience and overcome the hardest things they’ve ever experienced.

Founder

Bronx County District Attorney Office

Special Victims Division, Domestic Violence Bureau Criminal Prosecutor
- Fulfilled Three-Year Service Commitment

Assistant District Attorney

Winston & Strawn LLP

In the final year of my JD/MBA program, I worked full time in Document Review at Winston & Strawn LLP and attended graduate school at night. Upon being admitted to the New York Bar in May of 2018, I was promoted to a Contract Litigation Attorney. I accepted the offer from the Bronx DA's Office in December 2017 and committed to begin my service in September 2018.

Attorney

Suffolk County Superior Court

Extern for Judge Mark Cohen

Suffolk County District Attorney's Office (New York)

Extern

Summer Associate

Muhlenberg College

Student

Financial Analyst Intern

Follow for posts on mindset, fitness, & personal growth | JD/MBA

I’m Jonathan, 

👉 Follow me for actionable posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth. 
👉 Listen to my podcast here: insidetheinspired.com

✅ Every week, you'll get new episodes featuring high performers and insights on how to build personal growth.
✅ You'll get my reading list, training plan, and ‘How To Find Purpose’ module from The Inspired Action System (for free). 
_______

I help you unlock your full potential to elevate:

- personal growth
- career opportunities
- physical and mental wellness

I've read hundreds of books, trained for over a decade, coached hundreds of professionals, and interviewed hundreds high performers so you don't make the same mistakes.
 
My experience includes:

5 years of public service in 2 countries
Rocking over 1,000 pushups in 1 hour
Running 9x marathons/ultramarathons
Performing over 1,000 pullups in 4 hours
Raising collectively $50,000+ for multiple charities
Building the Inside The Inspired podcast community
Training 1000+ lawyers and professionals on stress management and resilience

I share my experience to help you design your advantage.

Ready to unlock your potential?

Get started with Inside The Inspired here: insidetheinspired.com/podcast-1

Podcast Host

A New Year isn’t only about resolutions…
It’s about reflection.

Taking inventory of where we’ve been.
Recommitting to what matters to us most.
Setting up a vision for how to show up in the year ahead.

Wishing to everyone who celebrates a sweet and healthy New Year from my family to yours🍯

No alternative text description for this image

Lawyers say well-being matters but...91% skip the trainings that could help them...
Here’s the irony:

On a 10-point scale, attorneys rated the importance of well-being as 8.7 for their career and 7.7 for the profession.

A 2024 Well-Being Survey from Bloomberg Law found:
73% of attorneys don’t attend well-being trainings
91% skip the mental health sessions
 
Why is there such a gap?
 
𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 is the top reason cited for skipping.
 
Here's a few ideas firms can consider to incentivize their lawyers:
 
Offer CLE credit
Ensure leadership participates
Consider billable credit for well-being classes

In 2025, well-being is a performance strategy.
 
The issue isn’t whether lawyers value it…
It’s whether firms will go the extra mile to make it possible for their lawyers to act on it.
 
If you’re a lawyer looking for a clean, 60-minute program built on hundreds of testimonials and trusted by thousands of attorneys trained, DM me to learn how you can bring mental fitness training to your firm.

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

I used to panic under pressure all the time. Here’s 5 practices that rewired me.

1. Put yourself in hard situations on purpose.

Early in your career, take on the tough jobs. That’s how you build the capacity to handle bigger stress later.

For me, that meant working in the Special Victims Division as a Criminal Prosecutor, serving in the Israeli military, and pushing myself through extreme physical challenges.

Those experiences changed my perspective on what “high stakes” or “hard” means. My perception of a threat or stressful situation changed over time. Each one gave me a new baseline and a fresh approach to the next challenge.

2. Train your mind through your body.

Pushing past physical discomfort comfort is a rep for your nervous system. Testing yourself right outside the bound of your skillset. Show yourself through action that you can go beyond your expectations and deliver. For me, running further, faster or improving strength is a practical way to demonstrate effort and going beyond my perceived limit.

3. Keep promises to yourself. 

When you know you are the type of person who follows through based on enough evidence over a long period time, pressure doesn’t feel like a threat - you learn to expect it and sometimes even wish for it because that’s how you get better and deliver when it counts.

4. Condition your nervous system. 

Voluntary adversity teaches your body discomfort doesn’t mean danger so when a hard conversation or unexpected situation comes about, your won’t sense a threat and be able to adapt to circumstances naturally.

I interviewed a pro UFC Fighter about getting ready for a cage match. He said if you don’t feel nerves, either you don’t care enough or you’re too stupid not to care. Understanding where to guide or investigate emotions when they rise is practical way to get to know yourself to understand what value is triggered so you can process faster and make an informed decision.

5. Redefine calm. 

Calm does not mean easy. 

It’s about self control. 

Whether with a client on a high-stakes deal or in an argument at home. Knowing where to guide emotions is important when they rise. Instead of burying the emotion or avoiding it. Leaning into it to investigate and understand it. Now I see that nerves in my body doesn’t mean my body is failing me. It’s actually preparing me to perform. The nerves are energy I can redirect.

I learned to label emotions when they came up (“this is stress,” “this is nerves,” “this is anger”) then ask: “How can I channel this energy effectively right now?” Over time, that space helped me turn my panic into performance.

Being calm in high stakes situations is about building yourself into the kind of person who can show up when it matters most.

It comes down to experience, preparation, and a desire to be someone who rises to the occasion.

The rest follows from there.

Which one lands with you?

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

“Do you think you’re well enough to teach people how to be well?”


I got this question recently and honestly imposter syndrome set in, again.

I used to hesitate to share what I learned about wellness, resilience, or performance because I felt like if I wasn’t perfect then I didn’t have a right to speak to anything I love to talk about. As if I was a fraud because I train through pain even though I talk about recovery.

We assume credibility comes only when we’ve “arrived.”

Wellness isn’t a finish line, though.
It’s a practice. 

Some days you hit. 
Some days you miss.

If perfection was the requirement, nobody would qualify to teach.

In training over 2,000 lawyers this year, I learned:

• People connect with imperfections.

• Leadership is about showing process, not hiding behind it.

• Teaching is actually learning in public.

It’s not about whether you’re “perfectly well”. 

It’s whether you’re willing to do the work, share genuinely, and keep practicing out loud.

Do you think people need to be fully “well” before they can teach it or is the struggle itself the qualification?

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

The most dangerous myth in the legal profession:


“Rest is weakness.”

Here’s the reality: rest is restoration.

Your body can’t change without a day off.

Performance improves when you give yourself time to adapt.

Changing the culture of legal profession doesn’t happen overnight. We need to show results.

Here’s 3 ways to shift the stigma:

1. Evolution 

Just because past generations didn’t rest doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. Science, sports, and performance psychology all show recovery is a competitive advantage.

2. Context

Some people say, “I never rested and look where I am.” 

Even if they’re where you want to be, survival isn’t the same as sustainability. Their path worked, but that doesn’t make it the best model for you.

3. Cost

Ignoring rest comes with a bill: health, family, and longevity in the profession. The question isn’t just “Did it work?” It’s “What did it cost?”

And yes, some will take advantage of “rest” or use it as an excuse to underperform. 

That is not a reason to dismiss it altogether. Rest can be used as a leadership tool. The key is pairing it with standards and accountability so it fuels performance onstead of excuses.

If you want to make it practical today:

1. Normalize recovery. 

Talk about sleep, rest days, and time off as performance enhancers, not signs of weakness.

2. Lead by example. 

Partners, managers, and senior attorneys who set boundaries give permission for younger lawyers to do the same.

3. Reframe rest as strategy. 

Call it “adaptation time” or “active recovery”because that’s exactly what it is.

Rest isn’t weakness. 
It’s part of the strategy.

It’s how we make sure the next generation of lawyers don’t have to burn out to succeed.

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

The most unpopular advice that made me a better father, husband, and professional:


Serve yourself first before serving everyone else.

That doesn’t mean it’s selfish.
And it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Sometimes it looks like a 4:30 AM alarm and a hard workout cause that’s the only time there is.

Sometimes it’s late nights working on the project you can’t stop thinking about to keep sanity.

What I’ve learned is when I take care of me first, I’m not distracted by resentment, exhaustion, or guilt.

I can show up with full energy and presence. 

I can serve everyone else better because I got myself out of the way.

Serving yourself first isn’t selfish…it’s strategic. 

How do you make sure you’re serving yourself first?

At a recent seminar, an attorney asked me:
“What litigation skills still serve you most today?”
Two things you wouldn't expect:
 
1. Resourcefulness → Being willing to make 50 calls, dig through endless research, and track down the one answer that unlocks the case.
 
2. Simplification → Learning how to be ready for 10 trials at once by building a binder system. Figuring out how to condense 50 phone calls into 1 prepared call.
 
Those same skills fuel me now:

Simplifying frameworks for lawyers to handle stress.
Speaking to audiences who need clarity, not clutter.
Training for endurance events where resourcefulness matters more than talent.

The skills that carry you furthest aren’t the flashy ones.
They’re the ones that teach you to keep going and make things simple.

What skills have made the biggest difference in your career?

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

We talk about well-being. We measure it. We know it fuels performance. But few of us act on it. 7 ways to help lead the change:


✅ Lead by example. 

Set boundaries.
Share your experiences.
Model what “healthy” looks like.
 
✅ Open the conversation.

Normalize discussions about stress, workload, and mental health. Rest is not weakness, it’s restoration.
 
✅ Prioritize resources.

Point colleagues to counseling, workshops, or mental health days. Make them visible and accessible.
 
✅ Encourage physical health.

Whether it’s investing in sleep, healthier snacks, or stepping outside for a daily walk…small changes compound.
 
✅ Recognize efforts. 

Recognize colleagues who take steps toward well-being. A simple “good job” thank-you can shift culture.
 
✅ Review and adapt. 

Well-being is not one-size-fits-all. Keep listening and adjusting.
 
✅ Leverage tech. 

Test out user friendly tools to try and lower admin burden.
 
Being a champion doesn’t mean doing everything.

It means building a culture, opening up the conversation, the aperture, where well-being is respected, rewarded, and sustainable.
 
When organizations focus on well-being as a performance enhancer to change the conversation, lawyers don’t just survive, they thrive.
 
Which one are you starting today?

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

The best leadership lesson I ever learned didn’t come from law school.
It came from a Bronx detective.

In July 2019, less than a year into my career handling SVU cases, a detective handed me a recommended ‘Extreme Ownership’ by Jocko Willink.

At the time, I thought leadership was about titles. Partners. Prosecutors. Managers.

But what I learned was that the hardest form of leadership isn’t leading others.

It’s leading yourself.

When COVID hit, that mindset gave me an edge. 

Instead of blaming circumstances I took full responsibility. For the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

Self-leadership is about owning your reactions, your outcomes, and even your self talk. 

It means you make peace with the reality that it’s all on you.

That Bronx detective was a gateway to the most powerful lesson I learned about leadership:

Responsibility isn’t about fault…

It’s about power.

Are you taking ownership over your life or are you still pointing the finger at everyone else?

Follow Jonathan Z. Cohen for posts on mindset, fitness, and personal growth.

Taplio

Jonathan Z. Cohen's Linkedin Analytics

What is Jonathan Z. talking about?

Who is engaging with Jonathan Z.

's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?