From Loss to Legacy: Danielle Cobo’s Journey to Unstoppable Grit
"What legacy will you leave behind?"
In this episode, Danielle Cobo opens up about the life-altering moment that inspired her to write her own obituary—and how that reflection became a blueprint for leading a meaningful, purpose-driven life. From personal tragedy to career reinvention, Danielle’s story is a masterclass in resilience.
When perfectionism holds you back, purpose pulls you forward. Danielle shares how she overcame a fear of judgment and failure by shifting her mindset from “What will people think?” to “How can I serve others?” This episode offers tactical ways to redefine success, align with your values, and take bold steps—imperfectly but confidently.
Want to break free from burnout and rediscover your joy? Danielle’s heartfelt advice on living as a “whole person”—not separating who you are from what you do—offers clarity, inspiration, and permission to build a life of impact, balance, and grit. You’ll walk away with perspective-changing tools and renewed motivation.
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
Danielle shares how personal tragedy led her to redefine success and legacy.
She explains how writing her own obituary became a self-awareness tool.
The concept of “showing up” and sharing vulnerably—scar vs. open wound.
Powerful exercise for career clarity and personal alignment.
The turning point of launching her business after a toxic work environment.
Insight into parenting, balance, and living in the present.
Lessons from her bestselling book Unstoppable Grit.
Why success isn’t always about climbing the ladder—it’s about designing your life.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“We don't realize how powerful our bold moves are—until we share them.” - Courtney Turich
“There is so much power in just being in the here and now.” - Courtney Turich
“Sometimes our mess can be our message, and our pain can be our purpose.” - Danielle Cobo
“If you don’t believe in yourself, others won’t. It starts with you.” - Danielle Cobo
“Writing my own obituary helped me understand who I want to be—not just what I want to do.” - Danielle Cobo
About Danielle
Danielle Cobo is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, bestselling author, and host of the globally top-rated podcast Unstoppable Grit. With 15 years of corporate experience—including leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies—Danielle has earned multiple accolades such as Regional Sales Manager of the Year and four Sales Excellence Awards. A military spouse to a U.S. Army Blackhawk pilot and mother to adventurous twin boys, Danielle brings unmatched resilience and perspective to her work. She draws from her own powerful story of overcoming personal and professional adversity—including becoming the sole caregiver during her husband’s deployment, surviving a Category 5 hurricane with premature twins, and losing her mother to suicide—to inspire audiences to lead with grit and authenticity. Danielle is the author of Unstoppable Grit: Break Through the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals, and a two-time 60-mile walker for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Through her speaking, writing, and podcast, she equips leaders to rise above burnout, redefine success, and unlock their full potential—with heart, humor, and courage.
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BLOG TRANSCRIPT
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Hey friends. In today's episode, we're chatting with Danielle Cobo, who's made bold moves and confident choices to build something incredible. We'll dive into our journey, the key lessons learned, and some surprising insights along the way. A little about our incredible guest, Danielle Cobo is a powerhouse in resilience and leadership, a former Fortune 500 sales leader who took a bold leap to build her own business, and she now helps professionals rise, lead and thrive.
Courtney Turich: She is a bestselling author of Unstoppable Grit, and she's on a mission to ignite success. While balancing life as a military spouse and a twin boy mom, she's got her hands full. So get ready for this conversation. It is packed with insights you can apply today. So Danielle, I am super excited to have you today.
Thank you. I am thrilled to be here. Well, you know, I know everybody still wants to know a little bit more about you, so can you share a little more about your story? I.
The Unplanned Path to Purpose
Danielle Cobo: Oh, I, you know, I had no intention of necessarily starting a business, but ended up starting my first business when I was seven years old.
Uh. Selling mistletoe outside the grocery store. And that's where I learned, uh, you know, that's where I learned and had a passion for sales. Spent 15 years in corporate working as a senior sales manager for a medical sales company. And then for the past, oh gosh, now five years I've actually been doing, speaking specifically on resilience in sales and leadership.
Courtney Turich: Wow. Okay. So Danielle, a few things. So everyone I was introduced to to, to Danielle through of course a connection, you know, the power of networking when I first met her and saw her incredible marketing. You are a marketing powerhouse girlfriend.
Danielle Cobo: Well, it, and that's funny you mention it because that's why I say I wasn't intending and starting a business.
What ended up happening was. In a series of events that took place in 2020, which as many of us had an experience in 2020, it was a year of a lot of change. So in six month period. My husband had just returned home from serving a year deployment in Iraq, where um, he was in Iraq for a year. Our twins would put between the ages of one and a half and two and a half years old.
So he comes back and as we're starting to kind of adjust to this new life with him home, which was a little bit harder than I anticipated, um, I had actually lost my mom and my mom had passed away from suicide. So as I was. Trying to cope with this loss. A week later, the pandemic hit shut the global world down.
And then a couple months after that, the organization that I'd been with seven, with seven years had been acquired by a larger organization. And it became a very, very toxic work culture where a lot of people ended up leaving. And so these series of events all took place within a six month period. And I share this with you because.
Initially, I went on LinkedIn to look for a job, and I realized if I wanna start looking for a job, I wanna really start to work on my, my brand. Like who am I, as Danielle, and what type of jobs do I want to start attracting? And what ended up happening is I ended up sharing posts about sales and leadership and failures that I've made and learning lessons along the way, and then all of a sudden.
People started reaching out to me and asking for coaching and asking for me to come in and teach, to teach to their sales team. And that's why I say I, I didn't have the intention of starting a business and being a full-time speaker, but it ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise.
Courtney Turich: What a story. I mean, there are so many people who are wanting to jump in and do what you do, Danielle, and it just naturally happened for you.
Not to mention, oh, go
Danielle Cobo: ahead. Yeah, I would say it's, it's just a matter of showing up. It's amazing what happens when we show up.
Courtney Turich: Hmm. Something that seems so simple but can be so hard for people.
Danielle Cobo: You're right. It can be a lot of hard, 'cause one of the roadblocks that I, I talk about in the book that prevent us from achieving the goals or the, the success that we want is this fear of perfectionism.
Yeah, people will go to write something. Maybe they have a story that they wanna share, but perfectionism gets in the way or the fear of what will people think? It's, it's when you go in with the intention of, I just wanna help people, I wanna inspire people, I want people to read this story and find themselves in it.
It removes the fear because you're not thinking about what's in it for me or how will people think of me. You start thinking about how can I serve other people? And it's more of a them focused than it is a you focused.
From Grief to Clarity—Writing Her Own Obituary
Courtney Turich: What a great perspective. If we can just flip the script right there, it allows it to become easier and more manageable in our mind, and that people aren't judging us for saying what we might say or for putting ourselves out there because in our mind at that point, we're helping others.
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Which should always be at the forefront. Mm-hmm. So Danielle, I could keep digging into your story more, but I have a feeling maybe some of this might come out when I ask you the big question, and that is, what would you say was the big, bold and confident move in your life that took things to the next level for you professionally or personally?
Danielle Cobo: That moment when my mom had passed. I started writing her obituary and it became a very self-reflective moment when I started to think about what does my mom want to be recognized for and what does she want her legacy to be? And then I started to ask myself, what do I want my legacy to be? And I actually did this exercise, uh, where I went on Facebook.
I said, if you could describe me in three words, what would it be? And people started commenting with all of these words, resilient, uh, gritty, inspiring, motivating. And I said, okay, well, instead of asking ourselves what do we want to do, what if we ask ourselves, who do we want to be? What impact do we wanna make?
What legacy do we wanna leave? And in order to figure that out, I took all of those words that people described, family and friends, and I wrote my own obituary from the perspective of a colleague and a perspective of a family member. And what that did was it helped me understand what my core values are.
It helped me redefine what success is because success to me used to be, I. The titles, the awards, you know, being, especially being in sales where so much of your success is tied to President's Club Awards and Region Manager of the Year and stock options and, and what we're getting paid. And that was a, a lot of where I viewed success and I started to stop looking at that and saying, really, to me success is what impact am I making on people's lives?
Am I being intentional with the time that I have with my kids when it comes time for that obit where when they have their obituary and they're writing it about me, are they gonna talk about all the hours that I worked or are they gonna talk about how we just had spring break and we watched the show with love and Megan and we made all the recipes from the show and they learn how to cook?
My twins are seven, so we're learning how to cook. They're, I wanna be known for that. And it really helped me redefine what success means to me versus what society's success success is.
Courtney Turich: So, Danielle, tell us more about that process of writing your obituary. What did it look like or what does it look like today?
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, it was, it, it sounds a bit morbid when you are writing your own obituary, but I think it's, it's an opportunity to really think about. How are you spending your time? Who are you spending your time with? Again, what the, what's the impact that you wanna make, the legacy that you wanna leave. How do you want people to feel when you are in the room?
How do you want people to feel when you leave the room? How do you want people to talk around a campfire, uh, and talk about all the fun memories that they shared with you? And, and that's really where it goes into. Writing your own obituary will help you get clarity on what success means to you and who you want to be, not necessarily what you want to do.
Courtney Turich: So, Danielle, I've heard of this concept of writing your own obituary. I've never heard it come from someone like yourself who actually was inspired because of tragic loss in your own life and trying to go through the process of writing someone else's. So if we were to look at your obituary today, what would it say about Danielle?
Danielle Cobo: My hope is that when it comes to my kids, that they're gonna say, my mom was at. Our biggest cheerleader. She was at every single baseball game and cheered us on, and she taught us how to cook, and we have fun memories of when they start to cook with their kids, they're gonna think about all the memories that we created of cooking together and how we did it together.
My hope is that when it comes to people that I've interacted with in a professional setting. A lot of times people, I, I just received a post, um, a comment on LinkedIn yesterday and somebody said, you don't know me. You've never met me, but a couple years ago you shared a very personal story on LinkedIn about my mom and my, the story of my mom and I and how it was a very beautiful, but it was also a very broken relationship because my mom suffered from bipolar disorder and so, and she said.
You shared this vulnerable story of being kicked out at 17 and, and how it was a beautiful and broken relationship, and the person commented and said, you, I didn't understand how you could forgive until you commented, until I had commented back and said mental illness. Something that is not my mom's fault.
It is something that she is trying to manage, you know? And sometimes it's on the right meds and sometimes she's not. But I'm not gonna hold that against her. And this woman messaged me on LinkedIn and she says, you don't realize that a couple years ago that that comment had changed her relationship with her mom.
And so sometimes it's, it is just showing up and sharing our stories. Sometimes our mess can be our message, our pain can be our purpose. But always living with the intention of just bringing joy to people's lives is really the, the obituary that I hope that. Will be written about me when my time does come, hopefully a long time.
I lay in bed every night and I pray to God that I get to be a grandparent many years from now because that's how long I wanna live.
Grit as a Life Strategy—Stories, Scars, and a Bestseller
Courtney Turich: Danielle, I have chills from head to toe when you told that story, and to your point, putting ourselves out there to help others, even if it's just one. Can be so impactful and life changing for someone else.
You know, many of us look at our, our life and our moves. I'm gonna say our bold moves and think they're not bold, but until we share them with others and the reasoning behind them, you don't realize that that can make a difference for
Danielle Cobo: it. Absolutely can I, I always appreciate. Vulnerability in others to share and, and there's a difference in vulnerability sharing your story from an open wound versus a scar.
Hmm. And what I mean by that is if you're sharing it from an open wound, there's still a lot of triggering emotions associated with it. So sometimes it comes from it. It can be perceived as drama versus when you're sharing from a place of a scar, you're talking about, Hey, here's a challenging situation that I went through, and this is some of the failures that I had, but these are also some of the learning lessons that I learned from it.
And here's how it. How it set me up for success moving forward. And, and it could be anything from, there's some people that are on LinkedIn that share their story of being laid off and how it was devastating at the time, but it ended up being a blessing because it opened up a door to a greater opportunity with another company.
And you know, those types of stories help those that are just going through layoffs at the time, or somebody who has. Uh, gone through anything in their life, it's our, our mess can be a very powerful message if we're just willing to share it.
Courtney Turich: That analogy of an open wound to a scar, I. That resonated big time with me because so many of us in the moment, we feel so wounded when that big event happens, right?
And we're always told, you know, there's something better on the other side. And it's hard to see that when you're in the thick of it. But when that scar heals or that wound heel, heels into a scar, you're right Danielle. That's when you can see the beauty. Of that adventure that you went through in your life.
Good or bad?
Danielle Cobo: Yeah. So one thing that it would encourage people to do is take a moment to sit in a quiet space and to think about all of the challenges. And this is something that. Uh, somebody had shared on my podcast Unstoppable Grit, and it's, and a great exercise that he had shared with me. I forget the name of the gentleman, but he had said, you know, take a piece of paper and on the piece of paper, write down every situation that has happened to you.
Every challenge you've been laid off, you um, lost a family member, you didn't get the deal, whatever it is, went through bankruptcy, went through a divorce, all these things that happened to you and cross it off 'cause it didn't happen to you. These are all situations and events that you eventually overcame and sometimes we don't.
We get so caught. I in the moment of what's. All the challenges that we're dealing with at that moment. Instead of thinking and saying, look at everything that I've overcome in my life and how it's opened up doors that I never knew would've been there if those situations didn't happen, and look at what I've learned along the way and how it's prepared me for this challenge that I'm facing currently.
Because if there's one thing that we're, we're gonna. Experience in all areas. There's always gonna be uncertainty. There's always gonna be challenges, there's always gonna be obstacles. But the difference between those that get stuck in the situation and those that overcome it really comes down to the mindset that we have when we approach it.
Hmm. What
Courtney Turich: great advice. And I need to do that myself, Danielle. So that is on my agenda, everyone. I'm going to go take a notebook, sit in a corner, and I'm gonna talk, write down my challenges because we've all had them and we've all overcome them. So, Danielle, let's talk about your bestselling book, unstoppable Grits, like where did that come from?
Danielle Cobo: So it was a year and a half writing process. Uh, it was, it was a labor of love. But the book is, is a collection of each chapter is a story, whether it's about myself, whether it's about. A client of mine, uh, names have been changed, uh, or it's about situations happened in corporate and it's a story, and then it's the learning lessons that have taken place from that story, and then practical advice that the reader can apply toward their life.
My hope is that the readers, when they're reading this book. They can relate to the stories. They, in one way, shape, or form have dealt with burnout, with overwhelm, with career changes, with feeling stuck in their career and wanting clarity. Um, if they're. Wanting to redefine success and what their own terms are.
So my hope is that they read these stories, they can relate to them, and then they have practical, tangible steps that they can walk away with from every single chapter that are gonna help them dev break through the roadblocks that are standing between them and achieving their goals, and really build a life of unstoppable grit.
Courtney Turich: Very cool. And you are, you are obviously an example of that too, Danielle, through everything you have gone through. So when we look back, I mean, your life has changed since 2020 from tragedy to CID, losing a job and recreating yourself. So when you look at Danielle today and where Danielle's headed, what does that look like?
From Control to Trust: Redefining the Future
Danielle Cobo: Hmm. When I think about my future, I. I don't always know where it's headed. And I think there's beauty in that because for many years I had my life planned out. You know, my, I, my mom was in, uh, medical sales. I followed suit. I had a career in medical sales. I thought I was gonna retire with the company that I was with for seven years.
And I, you know, I was. A manager, I was on the trajectory to get promoted to a director level and I thought that was going to be my life. And if there's anything that I've learned from moving 27 times before the age of 30, being a military spouse and moving cross country, and also those, those series events that took place within the past six months is.
Is that I don't know what the future holds and what I can focus on today is I can focus on, you know, each year I create a vision board and I think about the goals that I wanna achieve and really who do I want to be and the legacy I wanna leave. But I always leave room for openness and trusting that God has a purpose for me, and I don't always know what it is, but I'm going to just.
Focus on what I can do today and put action in in place to see what doors open up in the future.
Courtney Turich: You know, Danielle, I think so many of us try to focus too much on the future instead of just being in the present and the here and now. And there is so much power in just being in the here and now and seeing where this world's gonna take us.
So, Danielle, when you look back at Little Danielle, what would you tell your 18-year-old self? Oh
Strength Through Adversity
Danielle Cobo: gosh. 18 was such a, it was such a challenging year. 'cause I had met my dad when I was 15 and I had just moved in with my dad when I was 18 and my mom and I weren't talking at the time, so. I would say at that moment, um, I would say you're more capable than you probably think you are and to believe in yourself.
There's gonna be a lot of distractions. There's gonna be a lot of noise, there's gonna be a lot of challenges that you're gonna face in your life, but every challenge that you face is preparing you for the next one. And you get to learn from it, and you get to grow from it. But be present in the moment because there I don't look back, I think of my life and people, I'll say, gosh, you had such a challenging life.
You know, I, I didn't, I. My mom took me away from my dad when I was two and a half. I didn't meet him till I was 15, and there's been a lot of challenges throughout my years, but I also look back and, and I even look at my kids today and I'm like, I don't regret any of those challenges. I have such gratitude for the life that I have now and what I've been able to create for my family.
If anything, I'm kind of going, wow, kids, you don't know what challenges are. So it's, it's, you know, I get to find ways, different ways to teach 'em that, but without going through all of that, uh, but yeah, I just think that it's looking at yourself and, and really believing in yourself It because. If you don't believe in yourself, others won't.
So it starts with you. Yeah.
Courtney Turich: Danielle, your story, I mean, there's so many layers. Layers that you've already shared with us today, and you're thriving again if you have not checked out. Danielle Cobo, she is a force and her website, her marketing, everything is so dialed in that. I mean, you are, I will say I am gonna, I, I look to you, Danielle, as what I wanna achieve from a brand perspective.
Danielle Cobo: You have done a tremendous job. Oh, you're already there. I love following you. You've shared great content on LinkedIn, so I enjoy your content and I'm glad that we got to be connected as well. Me too. Danielle,
Courtney Turich: you've been, Danielle is a master networker, by the way, so take notes there. And Danielle, as we're starting to come towards the end here, what would you like, what are some takeaways everyone can walk away with today?
A Whole-Person Approach to Fulfillment
Danielle Cobo: The one. Aspect that I would like people to walk away from is to I, I work with a lot of individuals that are in sales and in leadership, and the biggest challenge that I hear from individuals who have been in their career for 15 plus years is they feel stuck or they've achieved all of the success that they wanted to achieve, but they still feel unfulfilled.
And how often do we actually take the time? To sit in a quiet room and think about all areas of our life, what brings us joy, what impact do you want to make? What legacy do you want to leave? And this is something that I do from like a professional setting, but a lot of times I'll, and this is an exercise I share in my book.
Which is when a lot of people are feeling stuck or unfulfilled at work. Think about all the different jobs that you've had throughout your career. Write down three aspects about each job that you've enjoyed. Write aspects about the manager that you enjoyed working with, and what are two aspects about each role that you've had that you didn't enjoy about it, and then you get to create your dream job.
I say that because a lot of times individuals will focus on, in order to be successful, I need to climb the corporate ladder. For me, I used to think that until I realized the corporate ladder for the company that I worked for meant that that individual was on the road. 300 days a year, and I had lived that life before.
I spent 250 nights on the road in one year alone, and I didn't want to live that life anymore. So to me, success was not climbing the corporate ladder. Success was. Working with individuals, and at this point, my favorite part about being a leader was helping others achieve their goals. That was so fulfilling to me was to see them earn President's Club, to see them get their job, to see them get better balance in their life.
And so my hope is that people will listen to this episode, they'll sit themselves in a quiet room and start to ask yourself what brings you joy? What do you want to do? What legacy do you wanna leave and start measuring your success off of that, not off of what society to sell tells you. Success is
Courtney Turich: so Danielle, when we do this exercise, and again, another exercise I need to do myself, do you do this personally, one personally, one professionally, or do you blend the two so everything comes together as one?
How would you recommend.
Danielle Cobo: Great question. I blend the two because a lot of times when I'm working with individuals who are feeling stuck, I say, first, what lifestyle do you wanna have? I have some individuals right now who are saying, my kids are out of the house. I like wanna travel and be on the road and I really want to like take my career to the next level.
I wanna be. I have a client who ran out, who wants to be a VP of sales, wants to travel beyond the road, and I said, great. She's got clarity on that. There's others that are going, I'm at a different phase right now and I don't wanna be on the road all the time. And so I believe it's your personal and your professional.
You wanna look at the, you as a person as a whole. They're not two separate people. They're person as a whole.
Courtney Turich: Yeah. Person as a whole, and we need to remember that because you're right, our professional and our personal, they do bleed together, right? And it makes us that whole person that you're talking about.
So Danielle, you've offered so many great tidbits. If somebody wants to work with you, what clients do you work with? Or what does that look like to work with Danielle past this podcast?
Danielle Cobo: So I work with individuals and sales teams. So specifically individuals, if they're looking to get promoted, start a new role, or they're in sales and they wanna achieve President's Club, they wanna get in sales and they're, and they've, uh, had success, but maybe they just haven't achieved President's Club or they're feeling overworked, overwhelmed, and they're going, I wanna continue to be successful in my role, but I'm just overwhelmed.
They, they want some time management strategies. Or I work with sales teams and organizations will bring me in for keynote speaking and workshops. Awesome. And if they want to find you, where do they do that at? Uh, my website, Danielle Cobo, uh, COBO, and then also LinkedIn, Danielle Cobo, COB o.com. So think of the Cobos are going to Cabo.
And I've been saying Cabo the whole time and I wasn't interrupted. I'll never, I'll never correct somebody. I just don't ever interrupt. But I always will share at the end. Yeah. I'm not the first one. Cabo. No, not at all.
Courtney Turich: Oh my gosh. Okay, so Danielle, Cobo, Cobo. Cobo. See, oh my goodness. Everyone does. Um, I just wanna thank you for being here today.
You have shared with us. So many great takeaways. One being, know what success means to you. You provided us a way to look at how we get there. What does a whole person look like for ourselves? What makes us happy? What makes us thrive? What impact do we wanna make on this world? I cannot thank you enough for being here today on bold moves, confident choices, and to all my listeners out there.
Please go. Have a wonderful day. Go be bold, be confident and be you. Thanks.
I cannot believe I did that the whole time.
Danielle Cobo: No, I, for it is I'm gonna put a Post-it note to remind people, because I am the one that gets to remind people. I would never expect anybody to know that. I hope you're not embarrassed by it. 'cause it's really just not bother me whatsoever. I, no,
Courtney Turich: you know, I did a Shark Tank guest not long ago, and I was saying their product, it's a, I was saying Apollo, it's apol.
But they said everybody does it. And it's been kind of one of those branding things that they now look back, see, and this is just, I'm the one I always kind of, um, flip words around and there's steep remaining behind that. But, so. Ca not Cabo. Cobo Cobo. Cobo o Cobo. Think the
Danielle Cobo: Cobos are going to Cabo.
Courtney Turich: Cabo.
Danielle Cobo: That's the best way people remember. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh, everybody does it. Oh, everyone. I'm so used to it, so I'm actually, it's still going. I get to do better.
