Unlock Confidence Lead with Intuition | Ep 5

A powerful, science-backed perspective on how to unlock confidence, intuition, and true leadership from within. After reaching external success, Courtney McDermott realized something was missing, and began a journey of trusting inner intelligence over external expectations. In this episode, she explains why slowing down, relaxing, and even simply lying down can reconnect you to your deepest wisdom and transform your life.

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🎵 Music by Max Lilivois @prd.maxxell

Chapters

03:00 – Success Without Fulfillment
 06:00 – The “Cold Shower” Wake Up Moments
 10:00 – Inner Knowing vs External Expectations
 14:00 – Trusting Intuition as Intelligence
 20:00 – Why We Don’t Trust Ourselves
 27:00 – The Power of Relaxation (Lie Down Practice)
 33:00 – Releasing Stress Through the Body
 39:00 – Leadership, Vulnerability & Inner Trust
 43:00 – Final Takeaway: You Don’t Need More, You Need to Relax

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Wisdom From Within podcast. My name is Jen Ax and I am your host. This is where mindset meets bodyset, where we access both so that we can make the most genuine, authentic, empowered impact on those we love and those we serve. Let's get started. Okay, you guys. I know every time I come on here, I'm like, you gotta hear this podcast. But the thing is, I love my guests. And they all provide such a wealth of knowledge and such stories that are so incredibly inspiring. This woman, Courtney McDermott, is gonna blow your mind. She's gonna give you tips and science and so much research. She is brilliant about how to really tap in to the wisdom, to the intelligence from within. She does it from this scientific perspective that can feel like you're in school, but please be patient because I'm telling you, you're gonna walk away with so much knowledge that's going to empower you and inspire you to take action. I'm gonna share one thing. I asked her about leadership. What is the greatest thing we could do about being great leaders and listening to this divine intelligence from within? What is the thing we can do right now? And she said, lie down. Lie down. Okay, now I know that sounds crazy, but listen to this whole thing. It's towards the end. She will give you the science behind why lying down and how lying down can change your life. Okay. Here we go. Today I am very excited to welcome Courtney McDermott. She is an award-winning author, speaker, celebrity coach, and her work in self-development and business strategy has been featured in Inc., Women's Health, NBC, The Huffington Post, Mind Body Green and Success, and her talks on human potential have been shared on stages like the TEDx Stage, Mind Valley, Oxford said Business School, and Richard Branson's Private Island. I am so excited for you to listen to this woman. She is truly brilliant. She has a master's in science from the London School of Economics, and she blends academic rigor with real-world experience to help individuals and organizations reach their highest potential. And that's what we're doing here on this podcast together, is to help you awaken and unlock your highest potential, that intelligence that is here to serve you. And most of all, and most important, it's innate, it's within you, and it's ready to help you rise into your greatest and highest self. I'm so excited for this podcast. Welcome, welcome, Courtney. Tell us about your journey and specifically if you can connect to a moment or a few moments along the journey that really helped you awaken that wisdom and lead you to where you are now.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah. So Change Starts Within You, it was the first book that I published back in 2017. And the subtitle, Unlock the Confidence to Lead with Intuition, was very much the place that I was at in my life then because I had gotten to where they say you need to be in order to be a success, kind of in every realm. And I didn't feel like I was a success in on my own terms, right? I felt that I had collected all the gold stars and I had done a good job of that. But I was sort of, I was like, whose script is this? And I was writing from the perspective of being leaving, being in a position where I was leaving this really great corporate job. I was an executive at Vanity Fair Corporation, and I was kind of blowing up a lot of what I had built. And what do you mean by that? I mean that I was daring to think that I could do something different than just stay in the rat. I don't want to call it a rat race, but the race. I'll call it a race because a lot of that energy feels so like you're running, running, running, but you don't know where. And I remember I I was gifted this book a while ago, and it was called uh Hope for the Flowers. And it's a children's book, and like all children's book is really written, written books, it's written for adults. And it's this story about these butterflies, and they're they're well, they're caterpillars, and they're climbing all of these caterpillar pillars. And just everywhere you look, there are all these caterpillar pillars, and they're all climbing, and they don't really know why they're climbing. And there's this race to the top, and the top is basically kind of either like falling off or just really not discovering your potential. And there are these two caterpillars, and I won't spoil the whole thing, but ultimately it's about what it takes to become a butterfly, and it takes leaving the caterpillar pillar. Yeah. And so I've had that kind of story come to me in so many different guises in my own life and in stories that I've read, and in um just what whether it's parables or instructions on life that we get from all these really great traditions. And I started to really feel like crap, I have to leave this. I have to kind of blow up the Phoenix in order to rise anew in a sort of a guise of my own choosing. Because even at the yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Well, I'm just so curious about what happened before this because you got to this place, you've you reached such success, and then you were like, wait, and you want to pivot, but like, how did you even get there? And what were those voices telling you that that was the path?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah, there were so many cold shower moments. I distinctly remember a few in particular, like one where I was dropping uh my daughter Gaia off at school and and just weeping in the car. I was like, what is this? Because I was running from that to something else. Right. Um, and I was in a marriage that I was really not thriving in. And we had been married. I mean, we ended up staying married about 18 years, but it was like one of those situations where I knew we had outgrown what we were supposed to do together, but the the calling to actually change and uh and and just and just get out of the perceived safety. It's a perceived safety, like yeah, none of the things we think are really safe are in and of themselves, right? And uh, but we live, we try to create a semblance of safety, and we try to create a semblance of certainty because the reality is everything is so uncertain. And then I had to understand what safety really is for me, but that's another story. So I so to go back to your question, there were cold shower moments. Like one, I remember dropping her off. Another one I remember where I was leaving for this trip to Brussels and I actually start the TED talk this way of you know, like I'm I'm on the I'm on the corporate jet, I'm sipping the espresso. Like I basically, you know, I have the Jimmy Chews, I'm uh a marathon runner, I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm all the things, right? And I'm just like, what the hell is this? And it's funny because right before that trip, my daughter had taken, we had uh blackberries at the time. Oh my gosh. You know, and she had taken my blackberry and like blocked it in two seconds. And I didn't know how I was gonna reach out to all the people that I was supposed to be meeting, and it was a public holiday in Italy. I was living in Italy at the time, and I'm on my way to Brussels, and you know, like it felt like, what is this? Why, what is in this, even then the device itself, and this idea that it was kind of running a lot of what I was doing, and I just was I wasn't, I just wasn't as aware as I wanted to lead live and be in my life, and so there were so many cold shower moments like that. And I love to start at that place that a lot of people think they want to get to because I could start before, right? I could start when I wasn't in those positions, I could start when it was like entry-level position in corporate or when I was, you know, getting my master's or whatever it is, like places where you're still fully in the struggle. But I was I like starting in the story at the place of you know, sometimes rock bottom looks like the top to everybody else, yeah. But it's your rock bottom. And I feel like a lot of people, especially people who are listening here, they're people who have come so far already and are in that spirit of like really exploring their own potential.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

And lots of times we get those guidance, the guidance seems to come from outside, telling us what our potential can be or what the ultimate potential looks like for us, versus precisely to what you were saying at the beginning, really learning how to lean into that inner teacher, which is the definition of intuition, which is why the subtitle for that first book was unlock the intuition to lead with or unlock the confidence, sorry, to lead with intuition, because I wanted to play with those two words. Like confidence is about trust. Yeah, it's about trust in yourself, trust in others, and trust in life. And intuition is about this inner teacher. And the more you learn to be guided by that inner teacher, as you well know and as you share so much of in your brilliant work, the more that confidence, that true trust builds. And it's because it's something that actually can't be taken away and gives you a true safety versus that semblance of safety that I was talking about before.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

There are so many beautiful things. I mean, I really want to lean into all of that because we're in such alignment around that confidence and the intuition, these big words that are like pillars for our success and our happiness. And I know and I hear why you like to start where you like to start in your story. And I'm curious, though, about to get there, to get to that level of success that you had. Was that an inner uh call that you had? Was that were your was your family or community saying this is the direction you need to go? Or did you actually like the journey of the climb? And then once you got to the climb, you were like, This isn't what I want. Or was the whole journey like, I don't want to be doing this, but I'm doing it because everyone tells me I should?

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Oh my God, I love this question. No one has ever asked me this. This is so fantastic. Oh, good. I love this question because it's not this or that. Like it was both. I had an inner drive for sure. Um and I remember distinctly times where I felt the inner drive, which I can share a story of that in a second.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yes, I want to hear, I want to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, and then there were other times where I felt like I was just um running, like somewhere try to, oh, you know what? This is what I felt. This is the most accurate way to put it, and I think it's so profound, and it's what I want to share in my third book is like I was trying to be somebody versus that inner recognition, like you are this thing. So let me explain what I mean by the difference, what the difference is, and in by means of a story. So that inner drive, an example of it that I remember when I started working in corporate, I was working. Uh, my second job was with the North Face, you know, the outdoor company. Yeah, yeah. And I remember going to the the sales meeting. So, first I somehow conjured my way into this sales meeting because I was a I was a an assistant, so I was basically a secretary, and that that position was not invited to sales meetings, like you don't go to sales meetings, right? But because of the fact that I had become so integral to my boss and I had become so basically I was just doing a lot of of his work, and so uh I ended up getting permission to attend the sales meeting. Okay, and I remember when I was at the sales meeting where I wasn't supposed to be theoretically, I'm sitting in the audience and it's opening night, and I see the vice president of sales and the general manager, so like the top guys at the North Face, they give presentations, right? So opening night is reserved just for them. They give these presentations and then everyone gets hyped up, and there are other things that happen in the days that follow. I remember from my seat in the audience knowing I was supposed to be on that stage. And I wanted to be on that stage opening night, and I was supposed to be speaking to these people, and the knowing of that, Jen, was what is that knowing? I want you to talk about that knowing so it's this, it is the inner teacher, or as far as I can tell, it's this it's the way, it's the way the evolutionary imp like you're set up with particular evolutionary impulses, and you really can feel the difference between those and what society tells you you're supposed to like or you're supposed to do. If you're paying attention, you will notice. And for me, they come as like, oh my God, they're so vibrant, they're so bubbly. It's like my whole system lights up, all my cells light up. Like I feel such a kind of uh enthusiasm, really, I think is the perfect word. Enthusiasm, it comes from entheos, which means in God. So I it comes from this very inspired in spirito, same thing in spirit placed. Yeah, and so I was sitting out there. So now, probabilities of me being at this entry-level position, presenting on the next at the next sales meeting, which was literally only half a year later, zero, like zero probability of that occurring in any kind of normal situation. I was able through a series of stories that we may or may not want to talk about, but I I can do a short version of them. But I was able to create a new position for myself within the company. And six months later, I was presenting on a stage that no one other than the general manager or the vice president of sales had ever presented on. But my position got to present there on opening night, just as I had imagined and and basically felt it in my cells. And I have so many stories like this at this point. And actually, the third book is going to be a lot more on these stories and explaining the connection that we're talking about. Because once people start to get that connection, you don't need any other connection. Like literally, your life can run on that connection. Can we talk about that for a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, I would love that. I think our listeners would love to hear that. Like they're listening to you, and you're so lit up and you're so in your body, and you're so passionate about it. And I would imagine, because I'm sitting here going, tell me how you do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

So there were these times where it was like really clear, and I knew that something bigger was coursing through me. But it took me, I had to get really dedicated, devoted, I would say, to this intelligence and the way it wants to express through me. And that took an enormous amount of what I will to borrow from Joseph Campbell's work, what I will call bliscipline. It required a timing out of a lot of the noise. And I still have to practice this. Like I still have to say there are gazillion things swirling, but there's this one thing that's really calling. I've got to get with this intelligence so I can see how it wants to express through me.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

And yeah, I'm sorry, you yeah. I just want to know you're calling it intelligence, and I love that. And I'm curious to how you how you started to believe that it was intelligence, like that it was intelligent to listen to, that it was the guide. How did you even come to that?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yes. So here's the thing. Oh my god, such a good question. Okay, you have so many. I love this. You have so many, you're so tuned in. It's so great. Okay. So I the first chapter of my third book is actually gonna be about this. It's gonna be about how we get in touch with, but also starting with like naming it.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

So the reason I started calling it intelligence, which I also use interchangeably the word God or spirit, the reason I started calling it intelligence was because I realized we are relying on this intelligence, this thing, this consciousness. Okay, it is a consciousness. We are relying on it for virtually everything that's occurring within us and outside of us.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

For example.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

So, for example, there are trillions of biochemical reactions occurring in your body every second. Okay, every single second, there are trillions of biochemical reactions. Each one of them is coordinated with every other one. You can't even begin to imagine the complexity of this with your rational mind. It is so boggling.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Like, what are these reactions?

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Do we like feel them or you don't? You're not really aware of them for the most part. I mean, there may be some, of course, that you're aware of, but but like by and large, you are not aware of this. So, same thing with, for example, your heart beating. Unless you're actually sitting there tuning into your heartbeat in some way or another, you are not even aware that it's happening consciously. Right. You're not consciously, and more importantly, you're not consciously directing it.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Okay. So these are subconscious, this is subconscious activity going on in your body.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

These are basically this is these are the basic functionings of your body, right? So this is just, and you are you can bring your awareness to some of them. You can bring your awareness and you can kind of settle into it, which is a fascinating exercise and also a great thing to do because the more you start learning how to direct your awareness and your own your own individual consciousness, the more you can learn how to start getting with this intelligence that we're talking about. So these things are happening. Okay, for instance, also let's take another one. Your brain is sending electrical impulses throughout the nerves in your body right now that are saying, do what you're doing physically. Literally, this is happening, but you're not thinking about that, you're not commanding anywhere that you are consciously aware of, you're not commanding that to happen. You can now here's a very interesting thing. A lot of what we're talking about can be voluntary, but by and large, it's involuntary. Now, here's where it gets really interesting because we think most people assume erroneously that, for example, thought is voluntary. But for most people, thought is not voluntary, but thought is happening just like your heart beating.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

And so for most people, saying I think would be the equivalent of saying I beat my heart. Now, here's what we know about thoughts from our scientists, right? They tell us that thoughts are electrical impulses. We don't know where they originate in the brain. So there's not, for instance, a part of your brain like the prefrontal cortex that I can point to and say thought originates there. We don't know. Okay. What we know is that we're with these electrical impulses are acting in our system. And most of us are having somewhere between 50 to 70,000 thought impulses, electrical impulses like this a day. So when people think, oh, I just need to think differently, or when people are told, I would say, I just need to think differently, that is the most arduous work you can undergo in your life. It is very worthwhile. It is extremely worthwhile. In fact, I think it's one of the most worthwhile things that a person can learn is how to think, but we're not taught how to think. So again, that's why in the second book, I really start to go into how we can teach how we can learn to think. Because even, for example, books like Think and Grow Rich, there are two words inherent in the title of that book. If you do not know what those words are, that book will serve you very little. And the words are learn to learn to think. What Napoleon Hill was talking about, what Neville was talking about, what all these guys were talking about, it was all about learning to think, which we are not taught. It's an it's crazy. We walk around with the most magnificent operating systems ever created, and we are not taught how to use them, which is what my second book was all about. Give your give yourself permission. That book was all about teach yourself how to use these operating systems because until you know how to use them, you are being used. You are being used. Right. So here's the thing let's go back voluntary versus involuntary. Yep. Okay. So when we talk about this intelligence, there is an involuntary happening on so many levels. And this is also what's happening outside. Right. We are not questioning all day long, nor are we trying to create a five-year plan for the earth to stay on its axis and to continue to spin. Like you just assume most people say, oh, the sun's gonna come up. No, actually, you're gonna spin around.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

And you're gonna see, you're gonna see, depending on where you are, where the sun is, right? And at a specific time in your day, but that's because you are spinning. Now, most people never even consider that we're spinning around on an access in on this ball of dirt in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere. And we are not trying to orchestrate that. Right. And that's the thing we need to tune into. We are not trying to orchestrate that. So this is the route it becomes really interesting is knowing I rely on this intelligence. Call it whatever you want. Call it consciousness, call it intelligence, call it creator, call it God. Now there are people who are gonna say to me, No, it's only this. Fine, awesome. I love that it's only that for you. And there's gateways into understanding this through for people through words. Words are vibrational, right? So some words are gonna provide greater ease and access. That's all it is. And again, we come back to electricity. We are electric and we are magnetic. So the words are literally codes based on where you are electrically, where you are magnetically in your own frequency. Now I digress, I want to go back to this just to close it up. Let's wrap, but all of these pieces are like so fundamental to understanding someone.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So this intelligence, call it what you will, is guiding everything. But we, and this is a very fundamental. We I we as far as I know, we haven't found this in any other species except for humans, as far as animals are concerned. We decide that there's this tiny bit that we cannot trust that intelligence. So whether that's a relationship, a job, um, the way whatever whatever's happening right now, where we say, I can't trust that. I can't trust that. And we're literally it would be like, I can't trust that the earth is going to continue to spin. Right, I feel because it is happening.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

So you're saying you're you're talking about now the inner, like the that it's all one. We're all one, we are connected, our insides are connected to the outside, we're all one. So this whole thing is intelligence. So to doubt ourselves is to really say we're doubting how the world functions.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Right. Well, I love that as a line of reasoning that continues from this. And what we're what we're saying is fundamentally the main piece that I would love for anyone listening to get is that you rely on this intelligence for virtually everything.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

When you start to rely on it for everything, your whole life will change.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Because then you trust yourself.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Then you trust yourself, you trust others, you trust life, you trust everything that's happening. Right. And when you can relax and be like, I trust, it gets really fun, really goofy, and it gets so synchronistic. Like, I can't even tell you the number of synchronicities I live every day. I often will say, I lived a thousand days today. We right now it's 1230 where I am on the Pacific coast of the of the United States of America. I will, you know, be here for another week. And right now, at this time of day, I have already, I feel like I have already had a thousand days in one in the best way. Like I'm not rushed, I'm not busy. That's a word I removed from my lexicon years ago, but I am living fully all the gifts that life is offering, and I'm showing up with the best I can of what I of of where the intelligence is moving, how the intelligence is moving through me at this moment.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Okay, so I love this, I love it so much, and I also hear like the voices of the people that are that are like I do. It's like just ask her, Jen, ask her, because it's so beautiful to arrive where you are. It is so beautiful to have this depth of understanding of how the universe works and how we work in connection with the universe and the relationship between the two. That all makes so much sense to me. And I love it. And I um I I want so badly for the listeners and for humanity to have that trust. And I also know that it can be difficult to get there. It's very difficult when you make a decision and you feel like it was the wrong choice, but it actually was the right choice because there's a lesson inside of it that is just being is waiting to teach you where to go next. But I would love to just sort of break down, you know, what are some of the things or ideas or concepts that people can really grasp easily and say, okay, today this is how I'm gonna create that connection. Because honestly, what you just shared was so freaking profound about how we are all one. And so if we are trusting the environment, the world, the way the world shifts and moves and all the things else, then we must trust ourselves too, because we are all one and connected. I just love it. So, how could we break this down a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah, I love that you're getting tactical because I I think that's the that's the place to go, especially because so many people are running around and being like, who has my answers? You know, does she have my answers? You know, he had my answers. What, you know, what program is gonna solve things for me? And I always tell people if someone professes to have your answers, please run in the opposite direction. Like, I don't have your answers, we don't have your answers. And at the same time, you can be the thing, right? And it when you are the thing, the basically you're you're attracting something to you. So even the fact whoever's listening, you are listening to this right now because you are calling this information to you, not because Jen or I have the answers, but because you're literally calling information to you based on where you are in your own trajectory right now, as far as I can tell. So getting really practical and tactical, and this is gonna sound like the opposite of that, by the way, and it will be the hardest thing to do at the beginning, absolutely the hardest and the easiest, which is really funny. It's the easiest and the hardest thing to do, which is we have to relax completely and totally, yeah. And until we know how to do that and we have a felt sensation of it, we have to practice the non-practice of it. So, what this looks like in everyday life is I gotta time myself out, and as hard as it feels, I have to leave my devices in another room, and I have to go just get in into a bed or a couch and just just lay the body down. Just lay the body down. Now, let me explain to anyone who's listening who's in because when we're in uh different brainwave frequencies, specifically when we're in beta, and very specifically when we're in high range beta, which are just cycles per second in your brain.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Explain that for people that don't know. Yeah. So there's including me a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

They're there, yeah. They're so the different frequencies, we'll talk a little bit about them. They're different cycles, they're they're um they're cycles per second or in your brain. So most people are in high beta, and the best way I ever heard this described was like having a four-gear race car that you are driving around in first gear all day long. Okay. So we'll get back to the brainwave frequencies in a second. But what I want people what I would love for anyone listening to understand is because I want to be very tactical and very clear, also from a scientific perspective. When you go lay your body down, what happens within minutes is that you move from this first gear in the car into second gear. So you will start moving within minutes, you'll start moving out of beta and into alpha. That is if you're not super, super highly stressed. In other words, if you're in super high range beta, it means you're spinning. Literally, your your wheels are spinning and you're stuck in place, okay? Right. So that requires spend more time being horizontal. And every part of your body will resist this when you're not used to it. And the reason your body's resisting it is because we've driven our bodies to do so much that our bodies actually the innate intelligence of our bodies, we have lost contact with it because we have used the mind to push the body through a lot of things. Okay. So what I'm suggesting is actually the opposite in a way, but it's the same, we're basically using our powers of the mind to begin to relax the body. Now, for most people, it won't be as extreme as needing a long time. Because what happens is when we get when we get horizontal, what happens is, like I said, within minutes we start to switch into these other frequencies. And one of the reasons that happens is because we are sending when the minute we lay the body down, we're sending a message to the vagus nerve, right? It's a collection of nerves in our body where it's basically saying, I'm safe. Right. Because we don't lay down, we don't lie down when we're not feeling safe. So there's a safety component. Now, here's the how that translates in terms of your life. The more you're running and trying to figure things out and make things happen, which is an expression that I really am averse to. Uh, and I can talk about that later if you want to get into it.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

I already feel it. You don't even have to say it.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

If you want to talk about like manifestation, I have a whole thing on that. I have every single word I feel like I've dissected and have a totally different take on it. But anyhow, I won't go there right now for sake of time. But the thing is, you are going to be basically sending cues to your body that you're safe. The more you relax like that, the more your brainwave frequencies will change. And these are your literal brainwave frequencies. And what that means is that you start to become more creative, you start to release these kinds of uh neurotransmitters or chemicals into your bloodstream that say, not only am I safe, but I'm safe to be creative, I'm safe to find a solution, I'm safe to meet the person, I'm safe to go here, I'm safe.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

And especially as women, we need to redirect our consciousness to safety. Yes. And we need to take that power back.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah. So yeah. You know, it's really interesting because my practice, you know, we've talked about it a little bit and I took you through it. As I learn more and more, I feel like I'm the student of this work constantly. I am amazed at the relationship between the brain and the hands. And I was looking at a lot of stuff over the last week about the cortical tissue in the brain and how there's more cortical tissue, which by the way, it's on that for people that are listening, that that frontal cortex that you mentioned, and the connection, there is more tissue that is allocated to the hands than any other part of the body. So I'm really curious, having done the power of gesture, because you're talking about safety, you're talking about relaxing the nervous system, because the hands have this incredible relationship and has been given so much power. And then so the hands now, because I'm my question is coming, is collecting on this end with the hands, the emotions that we feel, the environment that we surround ourselves with, the sensations that live inside of us. And we're able to send those messages back up to the brain. So the brain is giving the hands the power, and then the hands are collecting all this data to then send to the brain, I am safe. So the hands can rest over the heart, rest over the belly, and send those messages up as well. So my point is we can use our hands as a tool to help us get into that relaxed state and pro and create that safety. So I'm curious what your take is on all that.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, one, the biggest, one of the biggest ways that we were duped, and I don't know if this was systemic. I don't know how or why this happened, but the one of the biggest ways we were duped is the notion that we have to sit still and not move. Exactly. We were so duped. So whether that's moving your hands, whether that's moving your body, what happens is you free up so much of what has been stuck and stagnant in your body. Because lots of times we think something is psychological when really it's stuck stagnant energy in the body. And we can see this now through brain scans. But the remarkable thing is what we can see now through brain scan scans, the Eastern traditions knew all along. They were talking about chakras and they were talking about buildup in your chakras or these energy centers in your body. And if you look at it, every single organ in your body is a mind. Take your heart, for example, it has its own set of neurocircuitry. The electromagnetic field around your heart is hundreds, if not thousands, of times more powerful than that around your cerebral mind. Okay. Like there is so much brilliance in the body that we were taught to turn off because we were taught sit still, don't move. And I talk about this in the first book, Change Starts Within You, because I was like, we need to unlearn this stuff. We need to unlearn it. So whether it's through hand gestures, whether it's through shaking, that's another favorite practice of mine. When I learned how to do that, I mean, it's funny when we say learn how to do something, these are these are our innate technologies. We come born with these technologies. Yawning is another great example of something we were taught not to do, which is one of the most powerful technologies we have for both energizing and relaxing the body. It is actually referred to sometimes as the greatest secret of neuroscience. And we were taught that it meant we were bored. We were taught that laughing meant that we were being irreverent in some way. Again, one of the most powerful technologies, built-in technologies that we have, we were taught to suppress it. So when you start to free up this energy, you free up force fields that you did not even know you had available. And what happens is you start to send out signals, electric signals that then magnify back to you thousands of times over, whatever it is that you are again, the evolutionary impulses that yours are yours and yours alone. So you we have to free up. When I talk about shaking, I remember years ago, uh when a woman from my team, she sent me this video, and uh it was this koya, it's uh this practice that I think is really brilliant. And the the founder Rochelle, she was talking about this time that a gazelle is being chased through the grasslands by a tiger and the gazelle gets away. However, the gazelle does not go to therapy for the next 10 years about this time that the tiger was chasing her. What the gazelle does is she shakes through every part of her body, releasing the tension, releasing the fear, and goes back to being a gazelle. Now, when I saw this video and I did the shaking, first of all, I couldn't move very well parts of my body. Like there were parts of my body that I could not shake. Okay. Right when I started this, I had so much pent up energy because I had been trying to be something and somebody for so long. And I hadn't allowed these impulses that we're talking about to course through in the ways they were meant to. Uh I was basically calcifying into a persona, which is another thing I talk about in my work, and especially in the second book, is how that happens to us and how to free up the energy, liberate the energy so that doesn't happen. But anyhow, that was one thing. But the other thing is I started crying. Like I had such amazing emotional release just from shaking my body for three minutes to a song. Oh my gosh. What we are talking about is not something you have to, it's not something you have to learn, it's something you have to remember. Yes, here, here we got it, amen. Back together, and as women, we're designed to share this with one another to re-awaken to these inner technologies so we can go and lead in the ways we were meant to.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Okay, so that's where we're coming to.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Okay, yeah, because we gotta like not that much time left.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Let's exactly love it. I can talk to you forever, and you're such a wealth of information, and I love how you're breaking it down, and it's so beautiful. I mean, I'm really taking away so much of this connection to our intelligence inside of us, outside of us, and how it is all one and how we really must, we must start to learn how to trust it and get on that path. Because when we do, as we're talking about, and we're about to get into this piece of the conversation, when we trust ourselves, then we lead from the inside out. And that is what our future needs so desperately is honest, authentic leadership, people that are willing to be vulnerable and stand in their mess and talk about it and create safe spaces for others. But we all know we cannot be those kinds of leaders unless we have that for ourselves first. So we've got to do this work. So I want to talk about A, how do we get started, which you mentioned a little bit, wondering before we wrap up if you've got something that's like, here's how you get on the path. Maybe it's go get your book. That could be one and something else. And then how do you feel having gone through all of this and really explored and come to know and embody and believe and stand by? How does it help you in your own leadership?

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Okay, so let's take the first part because I really do want to go back because I feel like sometimes we can skip over things and we can think, oh, that's nice, but what's next? You know, like what do I need to do? What do I need to do? And um, it was funny. I gave a talk to Mind Valley at Mind Valley University, and I was there and I gave a talk about how to transform without doing anything. And everyone in the audience was like, Oh my God, I totally got it. It was amazing. I mean, people came up and everyone was, you know, just so excited about this information and about how to direct their consciousness differently without doing like, but actually being the thing. But there's this one woman who came up and she said, I totally got it. That was amazing, amazing, amazing. She said, But what do I do? Oh and the whole talk was how to lie down. But here's the thing, exactly, and that's why I don't want to just skip over it. Well, no, that's what we have to do. We have to go lie down. Exactly. And that's the thing I I feel like I would be doing performing such a disservice if it was saying, okay, go do this other thing and do this other thing, because really, right again, the the vulnerability itself. I had a major insight. I mean, doesn't maybe sound like that much, but for me it was huge. Uh, I think it was two weeks, 10, two weeks ago, more or less. And I was struck by the realization that vulnerability has nothing to do with sharing secrets or hard times or like sharing information about your private life or anything like that. Like, fine, that can come. But vulnerability, Jen, vulnerability is about deeply relaxing with one another. Yes, and deeply relaxing in the moment. And that's what allows you to say whatever needs to emerge is I'm so relaxed that I can say anything I need to say. So, without, you know, yes, I think things like movement, absolutely, movement's gonna free up some of that energy. The minute you change your state, you're gonna start to be able to change your story, you're gonna be able to look at the the level of the thought that we were talking about that I cover in the second book.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

But before any of that happens, and even if you don't do any of that, just going to get horizontal, the more you do it and the more you ask this intelligence. I specifically ask it all the time. Yes. People say to me, they're like, they they ask me if I use AI, I AI. I use AI for recipes when I'm cooking. Like I ask AI about that, and I don't have an app, I don't have it on my phone, I don't have it talking to me or anything. But like I'll go into my computer and I'll ask about recipes, or I'll ask it about like maybe something I'm like if I'm going to visit a place like next week, I'm gonna be in uh Antwerp and Amsterdam, and I asked it some questions about that because I think it's got a better search engine capability than other search engines. But the inner intelligence, the II, I get with that every single day, multiple times a day. I literally go lie down, yes, and I ask it, I say, what is this thing? And it tells me, but I have learned to relax enough that I can hear it. Yes, because we've got to relax. So without adding, I mean, there's loads of things that I can say, and maybe, maybe we can spend a minute on it or half a minute on it. But even if we end there, like if you end this, whoever's listening, and just say, okay, maybe I just need to time out rather than adding more noise, maybe I need to actually just relax. And it is scary at the beginning because it's so counter-cultural. Right. So we're literally timing out from a lot of the noise so that we can tune into the way this inner intelligence is wanting to communicate. I'm telling you, I do whole client summaries with this. I do um when I have to respond to like big press queries, I just lie down, I put my phone on um, no data's on my phone, and I dictate my answers because it will literally give me the most perfect answers. And I don't know about you, but I can instantly tell when something comes my way in my inbox or something and it's been generated by AI, I can instantly tell.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

And I feel like we all kind of intuitively know when something feels like that. And there's there's ones that are better than others, but when something comes from your inner intelligence, there is nothing like it. Nothing. Yes. So I just want people to remember if there's one thing that I would invite people to remember, it's like the relaxation. Principle, that is what true vulnerability is. That is what true leadership is. I remember going into a meeting with a CEO, a CFO, and two CMOs for Universal Music Group. And they were my first client when I started my own business. One of my first clients. And I remember going in and one of the CMOs, she said, I want to sit by you. And she was the only other woman. And she said, I want to sit by you because you just exude peace. And I was like, that's leadership. That that and I didn't get it at the time. I didn't get it at the time, but I realized I was working at that level. If you're working at that level, it's not even work. You're relaxing. And that's the other thing I remind people: whoever's listening, you're doing enough, probably way more than you need to. You don't need more work. We need more relaxation, especially as women. That's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

I love I'm right. I'm just writing a couple things down because I just love that so much. Beautiful. Leadership is peace. Leadership is relaxation. Vulnerability is relaxation. And the trust at the core of all of it. So, so good. You have so much to offer. Your perspective is gorgeous. And I'm grateful. Thank you so much for coming. Can you tell us? Because I know if I'm listening to this, I want to know you more. I want to follow you. I want to read your books. So tell us all about where people can connect with you.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Thank you. And I, it's a mutual admiration society. You are doing such phenomenal work, woman. I can't wait to share this episode with everyone that I ha know in my community. Um, so it the important thing to remember is my name, Courtney, is spelled without a you, which I didn't know at the out of the gate of our relationship.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

It's like, um, there's no you.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah. So it's uh, and it's important because if you look up Courtney McDermott with a U, you're gonna find someone else. And uh sometimes I go by Coco and the short URL for for the website is Court C-O-R-T-I-N-C like Incorporated. So Courtinc.com is a really quick, easy way to find me. Also on YouTube, it's Court Inc. And uh, but anywhere else, it's my full name, Courtney McDermott. We I have asked my team, I I want to hear every story about people's change. We have gotten hundreds of people who have written in about the ways that they've changed with the book alone, with podcast episodes like this one, where they've just tuned into a new frequency for themselves and everything started to shift in their life. And so I endeavor to read all of those. I love when people connect and they share those stories with me. So if you want to connect that way, great. The books are available everywhere. Books are sold. Uh, the first one is Change Starts Within You, the second one is give yourself permission, the third one is looks like gonna come out this year. And they're available also on Audible. It's my own voice. I wanted it to be my own transmission. So you can get those most iTunes, Audible, Spotify. If that's I love Spotify, it's on Spotify. So wherever you get your books, you can get those in there. And yeah, I'm really, really honored. I'm really honored to be here with you and be here with everyone who's been listening. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Thank you so much for helping and being a part of this movement, which is what I believe this is. This is not just a conversation or a message, it's a movement about awakening and returning and remembering the intelligence, the innate wisdom from within all of us, because it truly, when we connect to it, it's like anything is possible. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll see everyone next week for the next Wisdom from Within podcast. I cannot wait to see you there. If something in this conversation spoke to you, don't keep it to yourself. Send it to someone who might need that message too. You can also send me a comment because I would love to know what it is that landed for you. But most importantly, take a moment to pause and listen to what it is that resonated because that's where your real guidance system lives. The one you can trust, the one you can rely on. See you next week.