TrueLife - Cortney McDermott - Metamorphosis

Starting point is 00:00:01 Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scar's my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze lights my war cry born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:40 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Live podcast. I hope everybody is having a beautiful day. It's Friday. I hope the sun is shining. are singing, I hope the wind is at your back, and I hope you're ready to think about the question

Starting point is 00:01:21 or the phrase of giving yourself permission. Because this is a deep one. It's going to be a great interview today. We have with us Courtney McDermott. She is not just a name synonymous with personal growth and business innovation. She embodies a rare balance of strength and grace, seamlessly blending ancient wisdom with cutting-edge science. As someone who has dedicated her life to unlocking human potential. Courtney has the unique ability to guide others through their own transformations with both clarity and compassion. Her presence alone inspires, but it's the graceful depth of her insights that truly ignites change in those who engage with her. With a career that spans executive roles at Vanity Fair Corporation and thought leadership at global platforms like TEDx,

Starting point is 00:02:06 Courtney has become a beacon for those seeking to harmonize the intellectual with the intuitive, the philosophical with the practical. Her latest work, Give Yourself Permission, is an invitation to reframe limiting beliefs and step into the power that lies within us, a message that resonates with the grace and courage needed for profound personal transformation. In a world that often reduces personal development

Starting point is 00:02:28 to surface-level fixes, Courtney challenges us to go deeper, to connect with our innate grace and potential, and to explore the cognitive and emotional landscapes that shape our lives. In doing so, she offers not just a path to success, but a way to redefine it, allowing us to navigate life's complexities with poise and resilience. Prepare for a conversation that is as intellectually enriching as it

Starting point is 00:02:52 is personally transformative, where the lines between business strategy, personal growth, and philosophical inquiry blur to create something entirely new. Through her work, Courtney McDermott reminds us that real change begins not just with permission, but with the grace to embrace who we truly are. Courtney, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Wow, thank you. I'm doing very well. I'm super excited to be here with you. Me too. I am thankful that you're here. And I'm also very curious how you got to be here, not physically, but in the mental state that you are. So I'm going to dive right in. I was thinking about, like, wow, what question should I start off with? And I figured we just dive in with both

Starting point is 00:03:32 feet. So are you ready for this? Here we go. I am. Okay. In quiet moments of introspection, What questions about relationships and awareness do you ask yourself? Oh, wow. Well, the question informs the answer, right? And so what we're seeking, what we're seeking, I think we already have the answer, right? So we frame the questions around the answer that we're seeking. And for me, it's what's the answer I'm seeking? the answer I'm seeking continuously is that connection with intelligence, I call it,

Starting point is 00:04:13 but I also call it God. I also call it by a lot of other names. But it's that intelligence that's coursing through us, right? That's conducting the trillions of biochemical reactions in our body every second. That is sending electrical impulses from our brains down into our body saying, oh, pick up this hand and move it like this, right? and I am fascinated by that intelligence. I am constantly seeking it in every way that I can.

Starting point is 00:04:44 And when it's full on in me and it's operating in me, I feel almost like I'm just this current of electricity that has no beginning and no end. So my questions kind of all sort of mostly or most of the time when I'm being conscious about my question. they're pretty much all around that intelligence. I love it. Myself and I think a large part of my audience are aware of tapping into the idea that you're something bigger than yourself. But it's interesting to me. When you talk about having a relationship with that intelligence, it seems to me that that sort of language speaks to you in times of quiet contemplation. And I'm wondering, how do you balance the moments of isolation?

Starting point is 00:05:33 Or does it come to you in isolation? But I guess it's a two-part question. A, does it come to you in moments of isolation? And how do you balance the isolation with connection? Well, now it comes to me all the time. Nice. But, you know, I mean, I'm not always connected to it. I'm not always remembering to stay connected to it.

Starting point is 00:05:55 And the distractions are, oh, wow. I mean, how many distractions do we have, right? and we're exposed to trillions of pieces of data every second. So it's so easy to kind of forget that that wellspring of wealth in every sense is inside of us. But then obviously we're seeing the reflections of that. So these things can, these things start to work in tandem. I personally had, you know, I say lots of cold and lonely hallelujah moments, right? where it was like, oh man, you have to be alone, right?

Starting point is 00:06:34 And now I'm, the name of the philosophers alluding me, but this idea that all men's problems are all, I'll say, I'll paraphrase, all our problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone. And I've spent hours and hours and hours in that alonness space so that I can really be out. there feeling it real time doing what I do in the world right so I just recently had a talk in front of a thousand female entrepreneurs and the entire time I I felt that electrical current

Starting point is 00:07:12 feeling that I described a moment ago and the whole next day I just couldn't stop crying just spontaneously crying for what can pass through us what can what we can this formless that we can express through this form when we are in this kind of union with it, when we're dancing with it, when we're inviting it in, when we're actually inviting it to take over. And the two things are really not separate. And I think that's where we fall into a little bit of an anxious trap with ourselves, is thinking that, well, that thing is separate. So I have to sit in a room to be with that thing versus like when I'm out in the midst of

Starting point is 00:07:51 the messiness, I can't be with it fully or I can't know it fully. And it's it's actually, it's almost precisely the opposite because you start to step out and say, holy smokes, you're everywhere. You're in the birds that are singing right now to us. You're in the light that's shining through the window. You're in this other form that you are expressing through right in front of me. You are in my fingertips. You're in whatever in like you're in the garbage.

Starting point is 00:08:23 You're everywhere. You're everywhere. And so I think it's that bubbly like, oh, my God, you're really everywhere feeling that we are cultivating through practice. And, you know, the only reason we really have to cultivate that true practice is because we fell asleep. Right. I used to tell my daughter this story. I told her to her once, and I kind of wish I had written it down. It was about this girl who was in a field and she could pick any flower she wanted in this field.

Starting point is 00:08:52 and she knew every flower represented a different experience. And she knew what experience that flower represented. And so as she went through this field, she got to choose which experiences she wanted to experience and all the things. And she fell asleep in the field one day. And when she woke up, she didn't remember that she had this power of knowing which each flower represented. And so she just started randomly picking flowers and having experiences that weren't so great and wondering why, why, why?

Starting point is 00:09:17 She just fell asleep. And the story goes on, but I use it here today. It's funny that I haven't talked about that story in a really long time, but I use it here today to illustrate the fact that, you know, wake up. There's a divine invitation in every moment to wake up and see what's in front of you. And even if you just slip into thank you, it'll wake you up. Yeah, that's a beautiful story. I'm going to look it up when we're done because I like to read that story to my daughter. I think it's beautiful.

Starting point is 00:09:47 I haven't published it. It was just in my brain. Write it down. Put that out. People love that. Yeah. I wrote a children's story once, actually, the Purple Elephant Rainforest, and I didn't publish that either.

Starting point is 00:09:58 So I think I'll do some children's stories at some point. But yeah, it's a, yeah, it's definitely one of the things on my many tracks of creativity that I want to express in this realm. So, yeah, yeah. Like, what happened to you? Like, how did you, how did you? I mean that in a good way. Like, for me and so many people that I talk to, moments of tragedy have been the cat,

Starting point is 00:10:22 for them to understand how to live a life worth living, to understand that there's a meaningful world out there inviting you to be part of it if you're willing to have the courage to do it. But usually that comes to a tragedy or being close to death or giant dose of mushrooms or something on some level. Like was there something that was a catalyst for you to be in tune with this? Oh, well, I wrote a whole chapter about this in the second book. The fifth chapter of that book is about play. It's about having fun.

Starting point is 00:10:55 Right. And it's permission to play, permission to have fun. And I wrote that chapter because I was trying to do precisely what you're asking me. I was trying to deconstruct how this happened to me. Because what I do know, as far as I can tell, is I had been in intense inquiry about this intelligence. I had been an intense searching practice. I had been, you know, I had been studying everything from neuroscience to epigenetics to quantum physics. I had been meditating a lot.

Starting point is 00:11:27 I had been doing all the things. And I'll tell you, I think what really allowed those experiences to start coming on was I gave up. I just gave up. And I remember precisely the moment that I was like, screw it. Like, it's just not going to happen. I'm not going to be able to access those brain waves of delta and gamma and all that while I'm wide awake. just not going to be able to do it. And I gave up. And then the most curious and beautiful thing happened was not just did I give up. And it wasn't like a, oh, poor me. I gave it. No, it was like,

Starting point is 00:12:01 screw it. I was like, I was on Richard Branson's Island not that long ago. And I just, like, part of my presentation was like, screw it, let's do it. That's his motto. I was like, screw it. Let's do it. Right. So I just, I was like, screw it. Let's just have some fun. And I, and in that moment, I got really goofy. That was the curious thing. I got really goofy. I got, I just started like, because I was at that screw thing, I was just like, well, this, well, whatever, man. I might as well have some fun.

Starting point is 00:12:28 And I'm telling you, and in that book, I talk about it a little bit, I had a full on two-day experience of Satori. I was, I was in pure bliss. I was an ananda. I was just pure bliss and I had no desires. I had no needs. I had no anything. I was still in the form, but I didn't need to talk. I didn't need to. I could hear everything. I was actually walking around seeing everything in geometrical patterns. I was in full on what would be a trip without, but the chemicals obviously were inside of me and were erupting and exploding within me. And at the, toward the end of those two days, and I mentioned this because a writing came through and you can read that writing in the fifth chapter,

Starting point is 00:13:13 the writing that came through, that's only part of it. But at the end of it, this experience or toward the end of it, the question came, or the statement, rather, if you stay like this, you will never be relatable to anyone ever again.

Starting point is 00:13:28 Yeah. And I had to decide whether I cared about that or not. And there was a point where I was actually staying at a close friend's house in London at the time, and her daughter and her daughter's friend, who normally were very, I would say, you know, kind of like too cool for everybody sort of thing. They came into my room and they laid down on my bed. And I just remember this awareness that humanity giving us billions of reasons to come back.

Starting point is 00:14:02 And I came back slowly, but I had never been there before ever, you know, ever so so much ever in my life. So it was this profound knowing that, hey, that's actually the truth of who you are. And I got to embody it and I got to keep it. And I think a lot of times these experiences, it's a little bit like in the Bible where it says, you know, you could crash into the wedding party, but you can't stay. But you can also stay. Just any moment, just wake up. And like I said, sometimes that portal into waking up is just saying, wow, thank you. just looking around and noticing what there is to notice that's so sublime.

Starting point is 00:14:48 Thanks for sharing that. It's beautiful. It reminds me of like MLK's speech about the mountaintop. Like I've been to the mountain top. That's what you've been to the mountain top, right? I haven't heard that. I know I want to listen. I want to write that down after.

Starting point is 00:15:02 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No, not at all. It's profound. And you're right. You see it not only in biblical or scripture or another great place to look as the medieval mystics like the cloud of unknowing or julian norwich or all of these mystical experiences where people are

Starting point is 00:15:18 trying to explain what it's like to touch the fire of the divine on some level you can't you can't be there but you become a real weirdo if you stay there you know you become that outcast like people like this guy's kind of lost his mind over here I'm happy and laughing it touches upon um this idea of a sense of humor too like you you said look I just gave up I surrendered to it and then all of a sudden everything's kind of funny. It's like a, what's your take on sense of humor in this process? Oh, I think the divine loves a sense of humor. I think, you know, you brought in the Eastern traditions,

Starting point is 00:15:56 the concept of lila, divine play, that it's all divine play. I think that's the spirit of this essence is have fun, you know. Why are you taking this so seriously? I mean, we're here today, we're gone tomorrow. But I say that, not from a pulpit, because I take it very seriously sometimes. I take it way too seriously sometimes. And I have to remember constantly, give it up. And I also have to remember and I have to be willing consistently.

Starting point is 00:16:27 And this is very hard to die. Really, as all of those great spiritual traditions have alluded to in some form or another, die. You have to die to be reborn. It's a constant process. It's like any flower you watch. And it's so hard to do that because we create characters. And we calcify into those characters. And I talk a lot about this in the second book and in interviews I give is just you've got to give up that calcification process, which if you recognize that you're calcifying, you will recognize because there's a tightness to it.

Starting point is 00:17:05 There's a constriction to it. There's a heaviness to it. there's a, oh, God, the word that's coming is there's a, there's a tightness to it. Yeah. There's a tightness to it. And so I just say, be ready to give that up because on the other side of it is a fluidity and a joy. It's, yeah. And but I get it.

Starting point is 00:17:32 I calcifying, I start calcifying into characters that I've created all the time and forget that it's a character for a moment, but it is that play thing to bring back to your question, come back to your question, it is that, it is that. It's like, just play. And I have so many friends where when we see each other, we just bounce up and down and we're like hugging. And we, one of my friends, we do this beautiful thing where we like join our legs and knees together and we kind of like hold each other in this rooted posture. And we're like dancing and we're singing and we're doing all the things when we see each other. And we have, we have, don't care what anyone around thinks about that because we're we're deciding we're choosing joy you know

Starting point is 00:18:19 I think of death and rebirth and characters and roles and the first four letters of culture and it to my mind comes this idea of you are very accomplished like you have worked for some of the biggest brands out there like you have succeeded way beyond what some people's idea of success is like you know and you go I can only imagine that you are sought after to speak at these different places or probably trying to be recruited for some large corporations as an agent of change. Hey, let's bring in court. She can change these. Like, how do you like having that rap put on you? Oh, I love it because that's the character. That's one of my main characters. I love that character. It's only when I forget that I'm not the character

Starting point is 00:19:08 that I can get uncomfortable. It's only when I forget that I'm not the character that I can get uncomfortable. I'll repeat that because I've repeated it because I think that piece is so important. I mean, we talk about person, right? We say I'm this kind of person or she's that kind of person. Person comes from persona. They were the masks they wore in ancient Greek theater. Now, I have elaborate masks and I like all of them. You know, people talk about the ego. They trash the ego. I'm like, I love my ego. It's what puts me up in that room. The ego is the lowercase eye. What's wrong with the ego? The ego, it's only when you forget you're playing it. Now, I don't remember who said this because I'm sorry that I can't attribute it to someone,

Starting point is 00:19:53 but he was talking about a man playing Macbeth in theater. Actually, because I heard it secondhand. I didn't hear it from him, whoever he was. God bless. Playing Macbeth in theater and then forgets that he starts to believe that he is Macbeth. And so he's going around New York city and he's ordering his cafe, you know, his coffee and he's, you know, playing Macbeth and just very elaborate. And people are like, what is going on, right? That's what people should be when you're playing the character so much that you've forgotten that you're not the character. And for me, you know, when you ask about this so-called success, I didn't have success through that. My success did not come through that. That was the subject of my first book, Change Starts

Starting point is 00:20:41 within you was I had gotten to all these places that everyone says that success. You have the titles, you have the accolades, you have the position, you have your jet setting around. You're, you know, you're the one person on the jet flying to wherever you're going. You, you know, you're a wife, you're a mother, you're a marathon runner, you're all the things. And I was, I said at the time, miserably successful. And I love being in this role where I'm called in from some of the, you know, most remarkable humans on the planet right now to resolve this aching itch, this knowing that no matter what you seek outside, if you're seeking it only externally, you can't be happy. And I love coming in from

Starting point is 00:21:41 the perspective of someone who's been there and someone who really fell asleep in that dynamic. And so, yeah, I love that character. I love that one that rises up within this form and goes into, you know, the corporate, not even 550 rooms and feels completely at ease. I love that character. She's amazing. Yeah. I like that.

Starting point is 00:22:10 The expression of the formless through this form, I love that one. She's really, she's really groovy. Yeah. I think for all the masks I've seen have been incredibly groovy. And the one behind the mask seems to be even groovier. So thank you for that. Hmm. Hmm.

Starting point is 00:22:28 If I just stay in that area for a minute, on some level, when we talk about making real change, it seems like it's bottom up change. It seems like the individual has to become the best version of themselves in order for society to change. The corporate world or maybe culture itself seems to be top down. Is that like, are we waking up slowly as individuals and changing culture? Or are we battling against this sort of top down structure?

Starting point is 00:22:57 Or is it both? I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know or what I, I should say, I don't know. I should say as far as I can tell. As far as I can tell, and funny enough, I also wrote about this in the first book, I don't usually bring in the first record or it doesn't usually come into my consciousness so much. But I talked about the single cells of a body. It's one intelligence.

Starting point is 00:23:26 You're a cell of that intelligence. I'm a cell of that intelligence if we want to go down to the kind of atomic level. Or it's even not even, that's even, that's a, you know, I'm not talking about subatomic. Like, whatever anyway. Now I don't want to digress too much. When we go down to that level, I'm a. cell, you're a cell. The body, I think, in order to be in a state of health and well-being, which I believe is what you're asking about, enough of the cells have to be in the state of

Starting point is 00:23:57 health and well-being. At least a critical mass of those cells have to be. And one healthy cell can inform so many other cells in the body because an unhealthy cell is very, or sorry, a healthy cell is very powerful. It's very, it has a, has a magnitude about it. And it has an exponential multiplying quality about it. Whereas an unhealthy cell is much weaker. So it doesn't have the same domino or dominant effect. I think you have to start, I think it was Tolstoy who said,

Starting point is 00:24:39 everyone thinks of changing the world and no one thinks of changing himself. The change really does, it does have to start inside of you. And that is the hardest thing because everywhere you look, almost everywhere. And I think this is the beauty of the work that I offer is I don't have your answers. And everywhere we look, someone is professing to have someone else's answers. and normally if they're professing that, they don't have the answers themselves, at least in my experience. The only way to really be an answer for anyone and to really affect change, whether that's

Starting point is 00:25:23 top down or bottom up or sideways or left, right, like it doesn't matter, is to really, is to really, you know, I mean, Gandhi alluded to it is to be it. You know, I used to really, I used to really show when I bring up, my teachers would always say you're a teacher, you're a teacher, you're a natural born teacher. And I'd be like, no, I'm not a teacher. And even when I was a full-blown professor, because there was a point in my many careers that I've had, that I was a professor. I was teaching for Big 10 U.S. universities. I had a contract with the University of Iowa for a brief period. I was doing some business graduate teaching for them in their MBA programs and abroad. And I, and I still railed against

Starting point is 00:26:05 this teacher thing. But then I got this intuitive insight. I love languages, lived in different countries, and I love studying and learning. There's so much behind a language. Oh, my God, that gets so excited because my brain's going to other possibilities to talk about. But I remember this moment where I realize an educator, right? And educate comes from edure, which means to draw forth to educe, which is an archaic term in our language. We sometimes hear induce, but it's educe. it means it means to draw forth, to bring forth the genius and others. And I thought, ah,

Starting point is 00:26:47 that's what this form does. This form does that. So when whoever's in front of me, it doesn't matter words, no words, you're reminded of the genius in you. And that's what I'm doing, I guess. It's what I'm doing, non-doing. Yeah. Yeah, that was kind of a divergent answer. answer, but that's where my brain wanted to go on that one. It's beautiful. I love language, too. You speak multiple languages. And you've already hinted at being able to sort of listen to the language of nature and what it's telling you on a different scale. Do you think being able to speak and live in different cultures and languages opens you up to seeing the bigger language, whether it's symbolism or whether it's the way a plant grows or a vine grows up a tree and knows how to put

Starting point is 00:27:43 out a flower at a 47 degree angle on August 23rd at 33 p.m. Like that's as language in itself, right? Maybe you can just geek out on language for a little bit. Take that wherever you want to. I love geeking out on language. Yeah, me too. I feel like you and I are like long lost friends. I'm like, how long did it take you to come back into my field, my friend? There you are. Yes, there you are. So I remember distinctly multiple times when I was living in France. So I moved to London 25 plus years ago, and then I moved to France after that to write my dissertation. I was living in the south of France in Toulouse.

Starting point is 00:28:23 I did not speak French well when I went there. I had taken an immersive course at the London School of Economics, but I didn't speak fluently at all. And it was very chopping. And I remember multiple times when I was living there. there where I was so saturated in the non-understanding of the verbal that I was trying to get through. And it's precisely what we were talking about when you were asking me about that connection with this intelligence where you're so saturated in the trying, trying, trying, trying, that you have no other choice just through sheer exhaustion to just give up.

Starting point is 00:29:00 And every time I gave up, there was a rewiring. I believe now, looking back, as best as I can understand it, there was sort of a remapping happening within me on every level. But there's another component of when you don't understand the verbal that you really, really have to rely on what's happening non-verbally. And all of those cues. And I believe that's one of the reasons that I am a very good reader of what's really happening. Like I constantly, or not constantly, sorry, I sometimes, I sometimes will joke that I have this

Starting point is 00:29:38 amazing BS radar. Like the minute someone's not being real or the minute someone's lying, especially, you know, anything, and it can be, and lots of people go around and not even maybe realizing that that's what they're doing, you know? And it's like this part of me just all of a sudden cues in. It feels it. It's a sensation in my body. And I believe that all of those times where I was learning language.

Starting point is 00:30:02 and living in different places and having to rely on so many other cues. It's funny because lots of times even now when I will listen to languages that I don't know or I'll be surrounded by people in the language I don't know, I feel like I understand what they're saying. And I know that it's really I'm understanding what's happening preverbally or nonverbally or on very subtle levels. And you know what? We all have this ability.

Starting point is 00:30:34 I sometimes will say things like, well, you know, if you walk into a room and people have been talking about it, you feel it. Talking about you, you feel it, right? You feel it. Everyone feels it, right? And we're like, oh, why do I feel that? You feel that because you do know, but you're just not in that sort of intense, dedicated, devoted listening to yourself and the world around you. Yeah. I wrote an article a while back.

Starting point is 00:31:01 They said the first thing you should do when you walk into a new room is take like a really deep breath through your nose. Like, because there's so much information, you know, and if you think about the way in which we use our senses to process information, the olfactory sense is something that sort of has gone away. Like we don't really think about it too much, but it's the closest sense tied to memory. So why wouldn't it be full of information? If you walk into a room, you're like, you know, and it's all in the language. Something smells fishy. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

Starting point is 00:31:30 It's in the language right there. I mean, but it brings me to this other question about sense ratios. It sounds to me like a lot of what you're describing with language is more than the written or more than the spoken word. And it sounds to me like on some level, this awakening, this confrontation with the divine spark that seems to be happening, of which your book is an invitation to, Is it possible that we could be in the midst of a radical transformation of sense ratios? You know what I mean by that?

Starting point is 00:32:05 Like we're consuming information in imagery and language, in real time, in a stream of consciousness. Is it possible that maybe that's what we're beginning to see is this next step of evolution, where we really begin to have meaningful conversations beyond words? I'm not versed in sense ratio. This is the first time I'm hearing that terminology. I will say that I do believe that the real communication happens non-verbally. And in my experience, the most powerful moments I've had working with people is when I just shut up. And let it be.

Starting point is 00:32:47 Because what's happening is a transmission. I was on a live yesterday with one of my dearest beautiful friends. And she's Colombian. She was the first woman in that region of the world to do seven-figure product launches online. She's just a really astounding human. And we were doing this live to talk about the release of my two audiobooks that are coming out shortly. And while we were talking and at the beginning, because we weren't doing it in Spanish, we were doing it in English, she said, or actually no, I said, this is a transmission.

Starting point is 00:33:28 You know, it's not about the language that it's in. It's a transmission. We just have to be together. I think it was Ellen Watts or, no, it was Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert. He said something gorgeous in one of his seminal speeches. He said, I'm not going to teach you anything you don't already know, but the perplexing problem is you don't know, you know. And he said, anything you write down a takeaway, forget it.

Starting point is 00:33:59 He said, I am using words. And now from here on I'm paraphrasing, but I'm using words. I'm painting with words. But what you're really getting is behind the painting. It's under the painting. It's not the painting. It's like the finger pointing at the moon. So, yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:20 It's so interesting to me that perhaps the best tool we have is language, but it seems so inefficient on some level. It seems it's such a beautiful gift, but sometimes it's so hard to convey meaning on some level. Like what you mentioned that maybe the best thing to do is to just let the transmission come through and be quiet, but what are some other tips and tricks and tools that you have found to communicate meaningful, meaningfully? I think the words are vitally important until they're no longer important. So just to clarify. And I was listening to this beautiful company of musicians last night. Wow, they were really amazing. I wish I could give you their names right now, but maybe we can include it in the show

Starting point is 00:35:11 not to try to find it. I was listening to this beautiful musician. And one of the things he said, he said, this is, and it was in the song, he said, this is how I pray. his music is how he prays my talks that's how i pray right now this is how i pray words are vitally important and it's so important to mind your word because every word that you utter has a vibratory frequency to it and we are if you want to go back to tesla and those studies and einstein we it's all frequencies and vibrations if you want to understand the nature of the universe i believe this is what tesla said understand frequency and vibration.

Starting point is 00:35:58 Your words have vibratory frequency to them. They are vitally important. They are the way in. They are the portal. In my work, the words are absolutely essential until they're no longer essential. And the moment they're no longer essential, there's an explosion. There's an upla. However you want to refer to it, I don't really like to think of levels of consciousness or upleveling or anything like that.

Starting point is 00:36:23 It's more, it's an awareness, it's an opening, it's a knowing, it's an embodying. It's that every cell is in a, is in, it's singing with it. It's dancing with it. Yeah. Yeah. That is a phenomenal answer. Thank you for that. When I think about awareness, like I, the more that I think about it, the less I think I'm aware,

Starting point is 00:36:55 But there's so much awareness out there. What is your relationship with awareness and how is it changed over like the last 10, 5 or last year even? You are by virtue of your experience. You're always aware. That's the one thing you always are. You're always aware. The question is, what are you aware of? That is the question.

Starting point is 00:37:20 I love it. Right? Where are you choosing to do? erect your awareness. Hmm. Huh. There's so much there. And, you know, this is one of the reasons in my work.

Starting point is 00:37:32 I mean, one of my current speeches that I give on stages around is, is kind of tying in some core concepts in neuroscience and epigenetics and quantum physics and things like the reticular activating system and the wavicle. And I think I'm actually going to drop this speech from now on. But it's been a really beautiful portal and gateway because it's a reminder that what you're experiencing is the product of where your awareness is in any given moment. So when you really drop into, okay, where is my awareness right now? And you allow your awareness to really settle on what it is that you desire to be more aware of. And you learn, you train yourself. I train myself. I'm hyper

Starting point is 00:38:21 trained to redirect my awareness. I have hyper trained myself. My second book is a lot about how I did that I hyper-trained myself to be aware of what I want to be aware of. Not what everyone else wants me to be aware of, not what social media wants me to be aware of. Now, even what my team wants me to be aware of, not what my daughter wants me to be aware of. That's the hardest one. Yeah. What do I want to be aware of? Because I know the power of directed awareness, which most of us don't have,

Starting point is 00:38:56 there's a line for some reason i do like to draw from different spiritual texts but the bible's coming back again there's james one eight when it says a divided mind is unstable in all its ways i'm going to repeat that a divided mind is unstable in all its ways for me when my awareness when my consciousness is flapping all over the place i i'm like a fish out of water. And when it is unified behind a central concept of my choosing, I'm like a dolphin swimming and flipping and in the water and really experiencing that harmonious, groovy, dancing nature with it. And I think that's, yeah, to come back to your question, it's, you're always aware of, but what are you choosing to be aware of or not choosing? And I think that's

Starting point is 00:39:58 also a very important question. You know, we know so little still about the mind. People talk about programming. They talk about rewiring. Your brain is like this vast ecosystem. It's like the ocean. And, you know, yes, we can talk about synopsies and we can talk about neural pathways and we can talk about all of this.

Starting point is 00:40:19 But there's the mysteries. Like, I don't even know that, we don't even know the origin of thought. I can't point to a part of your brain like the prefrontal cortex and say, aha, the electrical impulse is coming from there. We don't know. The question becomes, which electrical impulse are you going to give your energy to or even better? Once you have, I found to be even juicier, once you've done that directing process, how can I relax into this one unifying principle and allow it to do what it needs to do through me and trust in that wholly and wholeheartedly? That goes in a whole other direction. So let's, I'll come back to you.

Starting point is 00:40:58 I'll come back to you. I recently spoke with a good friend of mine, Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester, and we were talking about attraction in power and non-ordinary states of consciousness. And I feel like you have a really unbelievable sense of awareness and have visited some idea, way more ideas than I have ever visited. But I'm curious, what is your thoughts on the idea of our relationship with power and attraction? Well, the thing that just came up for me before maybe we move into power and attraction, big, big ones, the only source you really have to study, if you really want to do like some intense study, and probably really if you want to move into power and attraction, and we can talk about maybe different meanings and possibilities for that, is inside of you again. So it's like we go outside.

Starting point is 00:42:08 We want all these. We're seeking these answers. We're searching. And it's like, does he have my answers? Does she have me answers? Who has my answers? And that's fun for a while. And that's actually very informative.

Starting point is 00:42:19 And depending on where you're going, what I say is, if the source is pointing the way back to you, great. Stay with it. You're the one with the ruby slippers. You know? Yeah. So power and attraction. Well, we have so many misguided ideas about power and attraction, I would say. Our misguided idea about power is force.

Starting point is 00:42:53 Our misguided idea about power is force. Our principal misguided idea about power is force. And the Tao puts this really beautiful. to Ching, Lao Tzu, in the non-doing it is done. You know, we're scrambling, we're searching. And that has its place. It's like I said, it's like the Buddha, you know, falling asleep, you know, giving up finally.

Starting point is 00:43:22 It's the same that happened to me. Although mine was slightly different because I just got really goofy as well. And I've seen that the times where I've done that in other places has been so, wow, amazing. And the reminder, the reminder to stay in that place. But yes, we have this misguided idea that power is forced.

Starting point is 00:43:45 So I have to go out and make it happen. This is one of the things when I hear that phrase we use. I'm like, oh, what do you have to make happen? It's all happening. Right. It's really misguided. So power is, I once was at a writer's conference. This was many years ago.

Starting point is 00:44:05 And a man stood up in the audience. and I wish I knew his name. I'd love to attribute it to him as I think he was reading from his own writings, and he said, does the tumultuous surface of the ocean know of the calm at its depths? That's power. You can have all that going on, and you can have an inner from here. And that's also the force of attraction, because I once heard it describes, Like you could throw something in a tumultuous body of water and you won't see the ripple effect at all.

Starting point is 00:44:45 You can throw it in a calm lake and you will see ripples that extend out as far as you can imagine. And it's the same with this idea of so-called attraction is really, again, it's a frequency. And what frequency are you in? And that comes back to awareness. And then that comes back to power. So that's the best answer. in my current state of, as I heard Dr. Joe Dispense to say once, in my current state of ignorance. From my current state of ignorance, I think he said something like that.

Starting point is 00:45:17 I can't recall, but like from my current state of ignorance, this is the best that I can answer that. And I am probably paraphrasing, but that's, that's where, that's what comes up for me. I love it. It's interesting. That's a great idea about the tumultuous water and the calmness underneath of it. My son is back. Sorry about that. Okay, there we go.

Starting point is 00:45:43 Have you found throughout the course of your life that you ask more why questions or more how questions or any thoughts on that? Well, the question is vitally important, the questions you're asking. And the reason they're so important is because your subconscious or you're unconscious, again, and this is as far as we can tell in the studies right now, is way more open to a question than an affirmation. And the way your rectangular activating system is designed, again, as far as we can tell, and just for anyone listening who may be more or less familiar with that, your reticular activating system is like the most glorious search engine ever created. It literally, it's finding answers all the time. It's finding the corresponding matches to what it is that you're seeking.

Starting point is 00:46:31 It's looking for that. And a great way to just kind of bring this home is a lot of people say, oh, I bought this car, and now I see that car everywhere. Or I remember when many, many moons ago, I was working at the North Face, the outdoor company. And as soon as I started working, shortly after working there, it was like, everyone's wearing North Face jackets.

Starting point is 00:46:50 But it was really just my reticular activating system that was saying, this is important information to you right now. Let's pull it up in your conscious awareness because these things are all there. And there we get into multiple coexisting potentials and all of that so we can go down that rabbit hole maybe in a second. But to bring it back to this, point of the question. I don't think it's so much important about why or how. I think it's,

Starting point is 00:47:14 I think the quality of the question. I think this comes also, it's a stream down, but I know I've heard also Tony Robbins many years ago talking about like the quality of your question is determining the quality of your answer. Then, you know, the people like Zig Ziglar and all those guys, they were saying those things too. And also our greatest spiritual traditions, again, I've said this. Like, like, in one former, another, what are you asking? Ask and you shall find. Ask and knock and you shall enter. It's this idea that your question is informing a lot of what you're experiencing in the physical. And so again, I think more than how or why, it's like, what are my dominant questions and how can

Starting point is 00:47:57 I shift those dominant questions? Again, to be experiencing more of what I want and less of what I don't. And again, this comes back to like where am I putting my awareness. But it's so important because I think lots of times people think, well, if I just keep repeating this thing to myself, but you've been repeating a lot of other things to yourself. And when you think of that in the tumultuous waves of the ocean of your psyche and people having anywhere between 50 to 70, the average person having anywhere between 50 to 70,000 thought impulses a day, right? If you're throwing in an affirmation just a little bit here and there, you're not going

Starting point is 00:48:32 to be reversing those tides very easily. it's calming the tides and the tidal waves of those thoughts and then introducing really beautiful questions. And I do cover this in the second book because I think learning to think, you know, we say I think, which to me is so curious because we don't say I beat my heart. Right. I grow my hair. Right. I grow my hair. I grew my hair. Which in a way there is, you know, obviously there are layers of your, you know, or not the layers, but you are doing that on some level. Right.

Starting point is 00:49:08 But we don't say it in our consciously, we don't say I'm doing that, right? But we do say, I think, which again, to me is extremely curious because as I walk around, most people are not thinking. They are not directing their thought processes. They are not even aware of most of their thoughts and how they're shaping them, right? And so then we get into the calcification of the persona again, fascinating stuff. But I digress. It's this idea, right, that you have this power, but you've got to learn how to wield it, right?

Starting point is 00:49:43 And one of the books that I was shooting into my consciousness right now is thinking grow rich. And I sometimes say, okay, millions and millions of people have bought and read this book around the world, like how come it's not working for them? And I believe the fundamental reason to be that there are two words implicit in that title that if you don't get them, you really, it's very hard to capitalize on some of the truths that Napoleon Hill shared. And those two words are learn to. Learn to think. And this is a very arduous task because you have to sort of unthink your way into a new way of thinking. and questions to come back to your original question, because I want to stay on your tracks,

Starting point is 00:50:36 is part of learning to think is asking really beautiful questions and learning how to make those the dominant thought impulses. Again, they're electrical impulses. Again, we don't know the origin, but we do know that they're like these electrical impulses. And then again, attaching to some can be exciting for a while. And I think that's what Napoleon Hill's work really covers is like the real attachment to a certain thought impulse, learning how to do that. I believe on the other side of doing a lot of that work, even though I still believe in a lot of the validity of it, there's also this beautiful resting place of, okay, I did all that.

Starting point is 00:51:15 And now resting in just really spontaneous evolutionary impulses that come through. and again, without forcing. Yeah. It's a beautiful, thank you. The idea that the questions activate the reticular activating system, which allow you to call in your higher self, it seems to me that it's a pathway to better understand how you think and how to act and how to live on a lot of levels.

Starting point is 00:51:52 something. Another question, if I'm trying to frame beautiful questions that I've written down here, if you could speak to your past self during a time when you felt most isolated or misunderstood, what would you say now about the relationship between grace, awareness, and the desires that shape our paths? I don't know that an earlier version of myself would have wanted anything to construct. Like, oh, grace, awareness, the desires. Like I feel like the earlier version of myself needed to simplify. And still on many levels, I think, you know, Da Vinci said simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And I think what I would offer, if she was ready to listen to it or not, to earlier versions of me,

Starting point is 00:52:48 and even to current versions of me, it's okay. You're safe. Trust. One of the things that I often get called in to talk about is confidence. And confidence comes from the Latin confidere, which means with trust or with reliance. You can trust what's happening, no matter how painful it is. You were talking at the beginning of people going through a lot of painful experiences in that being the sort of hallelujah moment.

Starting point is 00:53:23 I've had a lot of, I've had a lot of traumatic things in my life. And I see those things as these really divine now opportunities to relax and trust because on the other side of them there were always these really great gifts. But in that moment where that tumult is hitting you and you feel the, who you feel the, the intensity of being human or in form. And it's funny now that I'm saying that I'm thinking,

Starting point is 00:53:57 or what's coming to me is really this, like holding this intensity that we are inside this tiny form. Like holding worlds inside this small vessel. You know, it's very hard to reconcile. So for me, yeah, for me, I guess an earlier version and like I said, even current version sometimes, it's just trust, you're safe. It's all okay. Even if you can't see it, I was playing monopoly with my daughter. I think it was probably about a year or two years ago. We were playing monopoly. And we haven't really played it since. We went through a whole, like, I don't know, it was a week. It was a week. week or something or however many days or however many times in this short period that we were into Monopoly. And I remember that every time she would draw a card that was an unfavorable card, she would

Starting point is 00:55:01 get really upset. You know, like, you have to pay $50 or you have to go to jail. And I remember the equanimity with which I was pulling the cards because I knew it was a game. Right. And so I knew it was a game. So I was like, oh, wow, okay, I got this, right? And I remember one day, as I was living in Italy, I lived in Italy for 23 years. I just moved here to California from Italy a couple months ago.

Starting point is 00:55:28 And I remember one day, like, I got some registered mail in the mail. And what registered mail usually means in Italy, and I don't know about here, but it means you got either a ticket or a fine or something. Right. And I remember because my accountant had actually made. a mistake on my tax return. But I remember receiving this and knowing that there was probably something like that in it and waiting to a moment where my energy was really high to open it, which is one of my,

Starting point is 00:56:00 you were asking about tricks. This is a trick, I guess, that I use. I wait until my energy is really high. And then I opened this knowing like whatever's in here is okay. And I opened it. It was like a 900 euro back payment to the money. the government and I sent it to, but I remember opening it in my first thought, the first thought impulse, and again, this was from training was like, thank you, thank you that I have the abundance

Starting point is 00:56:27 to like not worry about this at all, whereas maybe in a previous version of my life, I would have been like, oh, no, you know, how am I going to pay for this thing, right? But also, but the abundance is within you, and this is a whole other conversation, but it's like knowing that you are provided for. And I just felt such immense gratitude that I could just pass this off to the account, and say, hey, what happened? He ended up having to also kind of give me some money back because it was his mistake. But I just remember feeling that equanimity again. And that is what I'm alluding to here. I'm suggesting here is they're all happenings. Everything that's happening is just happening. That's it. Whether someone smiled or frowned, it's just a happening. You have no idea what's behind it.

Starting point is 00:57:13 Are you going to pick it up and hold it? Are you going to let it? it go. And that goes for whatever you're perceiving to be right or wrong, good, bad, left, right, it doesn't matter. So I guess, yeah, that's what I'd offer to, to, to, to her. It's great advice. You alluded to trainings. Like, what kind of trainings are you doing? Oh, my God. What trainings have I not done? It would be a lot easier to answer that. Okay, answer that one. Oh, you know, I'm fascinated by learning, I guess. I just, I love learning.

Starting point is 00:57:53 And I love learning about anything that's related to human potential. I've practiced many different modalities, but I don't think it's the modality. I think it's the intention behind the practicing. It doesn't matter what you practice. you know, different strokes for different folks. I think it's really connecting to what works for me, and you'll feel that, and that'll shift and change, mostly. Like, I know one of the things that almost always works for me is dancing.

Starting point is 00:58:32 Like, when I'm really dancing, like, when I don't give a crap how anybody, you know, whatever, it's just like, I'm really dancing. That's something that is, I get the energy moving. Because, you know, we have a lot of stuck stagnant energy. It's really easy in the physical to get stuck stagnant energy within your physical form and even within your field. And I really strongly believe in letting whatever helps you move that through. You know, lots of times people will say, oh, I was really struggling with something and I got up to take a walk around the block and then it came. Right.

Starting point is 00:59:07 Shaking is a wonderful way. I once heard this woman talking. So I was in the south of France, and she was talking about shaking. And she was introducing us to this practice of Koya, and she said, imagine a gazelle 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 through the grasslands,

Starting point is 00:59:40 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. When this woman, Rochelle told that story, I was like, yeah. And at the time when I heard it, which actually was before I hit the South of France, I watched a video of hers online, and I couldn't shake fully one of my legs. Like it was so, there was so much stuck energy. And at that time, I was already, I had quote unquote, achieved so much. And I was like, now reflecting back, I even mentioned this the other day, I was like, I don't know how I did all that without the free flow of energy. You know, it was just sheer will. And I can be like that.

Starting point is 01:00:22 I'm very dogged. That is something that I think that you see a lot in people who get there is like this determination of come hell or high water and kind of whatever I have to sacrifice. And that's a hard thing to reconcile. My God. because for me, I struggle to find the words, but this relationship with this intelligence that I was talking about at the very beginning, it is my number one thing. And that does mean that it's my number one thing. And that's really hard sometimes for people, even myself, to accept.

Starting point is 01:01:04 Like it comes before. It comes before everything else. And that's, I would say my practice is around that. My practice is around that. I care most about that. And it was hard for me to admit that for so long because I was like, wait, you're supposed to care more about being a mom. You're supposed to care more about this other thing.

Starting point is 01:01:26 You're supposed to care more about. And we're hyper trained that you're supposed to put your focus outside. Even though we get that story about the life fest and, you know, on the plane and all that stuff. We're like, no, no, no, no, I have to put the life fest over here. And meanwhile, we're drowning. My relationship with God is the most important thing to me. And it was really hard to allow that to be what it is and to allow the social stigma of that to ostracize me many times because that was what I was choosing. But it's just for me, that's what it is. So I have to keep on that. Like, that's my, that's my knowing as far as I can tell. Like, that's what's, that's what drives me

Starting point is 01:02:21 and motivates me, what, what allows me to do what I do and not do and be. Yeah. Yeah. That's deep. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's like a lot for a Friday morning. I wouldn't have it any other way, right? Like, it should be, it should be that way. Like, it should be, it should be in depth like that. I think the meaningful conversations about self and identity and how you get to be where you are and why you think the things that you do and struggle and sacrifice. That's a great word too. What comes to your mind when I say sacrifice? I don't believe in sacrifice, but I practice sacrifice sometimes. And we should define it. How do we how would you define sacrifice? Oh, good point.

Starting point is 01:03:21 Okay, because I think lots of times we're taught to sacrifice and, you know, give up our own happiness for the sake of something or someone else. And when I talked about sacrifice just now, that's what came up because I remember this time in that two days that experience that I was telling you kind of right toward the beginning of that experience. I had this amazing revelation come through that I no longer had any feelings of guilt or responsibility toward anyone. Even my daughter. Even my daughter. What? It was like, it was like, whoa.

Starting point is 01:04:04 It was so scary. Yeah, right. But at the moment it wasn't scary at all. At the moment, it was just pure liberation. but talking about it now, I can feel the remnants of fear that can grip me sometimes. When I forget again that I'm playing a character, she's playing a character that's not the truth of who we are. The truth of who we are is, as far as I can tell again, is this liberated, grooving, enjoying energy that courses through us when we let it. and that informs the form in ways that we can't, we just can't know, but we can embrace and we can

Starting point is 01:04:50 joyously dance with. And that idea, because I always thought I have to sacrifice. You know, even moving here was really funny because I never thought I would move back to the U.S. And my daughter really, really, she was two years. Like, I want to move back. I want to move back. Or not move back. I want to move there. She had never lived here. She was born and spent her. youth in Italy. And she really wanted to go. And I was married for 18 years, but we were separated and we got separated and divorced and transitioned out of that relationship into something new a few years back. I guess, I guess that's been about four years maybe. I don't know. I have a very bizarre relationship with time, but it's, and she wanted to come here. And so after a while,

Starting point is 01:05:40 And she wanted to move to Illinois. And I grew up in Illinois. And I realized at a certain point, I was like, my nervous system cannot do Illinois. Yeah. So I, but at first I thought, oh, I'll sacrifice to do that because she wants this. And then I realized, what? Like, I won't be healthy. I won't be well.

Starting point is 01:06:00 Like, why? No. So then I started looking at Costa Rica. And I was looking at American schools in Costa Rica. And then I realized, oh, my God. Well, at a certain point, I realized. that was only about my nervous system. But I had written CR on a sheet of paper.

Starting point is 01:06:14 I thought I had written CR. And I looked down and it was like a lightning bolt passed through. And I, because it was CA. And in that moment, I realized we're going to California. And we moved to California. And I came at the beginning of July or the, sorry, the end of July. And she came at the beginning of August to start school here. And I, yeah, I got here.

Starting point is 01:06:40 I landed. I felt really like, yeah, this is it. She had made some really close friends and a boyfriend about three months before leaving Italy. Okay. Before she even flew over, she was like, I don't want to come anymore. Bear in mind, bear in mind, I had either given away or sold like 98% of my physical belongings. I'm not, I'm fairly simple in my what I have. I feel like we can all like. go of a lot of that anyway. But I had done that. I had left everything. I had left all, you know, everything I had left to come over here. I had really fully stepped into this new pattern of life over in here. And she, meanwhile, doesn't want to get on the plane in Italy to come, doesn't want to get on the plane in London. I'm in the middle of the night coaching her through.

Starting point is 01:07:36 You can do this baby. You wanted it for two years. We've got this. I'm here. It's going to be amazing. you know, this place is amazing, all the things. She gets here. She does get on that flight. I literally thought she might not get on that flight. She gets here and she's miserable. And she's miserable for a couple months. And she's determined to go back to Italy.

Starting point is 01:07:59 She wants to be in Italy. She wants to be with her friends. She wants to be a boyfriend. And it's like, holy crap, I have to surrender here too. I'm not going back to Italy right now because I feel that in me. And then you get this onslaught of other people telling you, oh, my God, no, you know, you have to do this or, you know, family or, you know, like, you have to make her stay until, you know, whenever and make her stick to her commitments and all this things like, these are the things we're trained. These are the things we're taught. And I'm supposed to sacrifice and I'm supposed to grin and bear it, no matter what she's, you know, throwing at me and how hard it's, you know, it is for her to be here and how much she just is railing against it. And every single day, I've got to, you know, just fight that fight. And she said something to me, oh my God.

Starting point is 01:08:47 She didn't know. She was quoting the Tao essentially. But she said to me one day, she said, Mom, if you don't know what to do, don't do anything. And I realized, and I had to realize it in wave after wave after wave after wave. I don't know. And if I'm not having a clear instruction, I don't need to do. and she is back in Italy now and I am here in California and the constant reconciliation

Starting point is 01:09:25 and trusting in that is a real challenge but it's it's again a dying to versions a dying to programming a dying to conditioning a dying to what other people say a dying to quote unquote good intentions a dying to responsibility a dying to sacrifice, a dying to all of that. To be willing to rise again, this is what the resurrection is about, to rise again into a new expression that you don't even know what that expression is going to be. Is that long answer, answer? Your question.

Starting point is 01:10:05 Yeah, it echoes a lot of my family just moved from Hawaii, and we had a similar experience with my daughter going to really cool school. She'd gone to the school for like five years. She had all their friends there. And we're like, okay, we're leaving here. Yeah. Dad, what the hell are you talking about? We're not doing that.

Starting point is 01:10:22 But it's interesting to see the way in which the decision, I felt like the decision was kind of made for us. You know, like, look, everything's pointing to this. This is what we're doing. Yes. And, you know, on a level of relationships with the next generation in our kids, I spoke recently with Dr. Joseph Sassoon from Georgetown, And he wrote this book about his family.

Starting point is 01:10:45 And the letters, there was letters in his book that spoke about like a 14-year-old man going to Norway to spend the family's fortune and invest in business. You know, and like it makes me just realize how far have we come where it used to be at the, and maybe this, maybe we can get into this idea of rights of passage and ceremony. And, you know, I think there's something if you said about rights of passage, whether it's becoming a man or becoming a woman or becoming more comfortable with living. your own life or surrendering to certain things. But yeah, that's a good transition. Have you had the experience of rights of passage in your life? And do you think there's an absence of those in the Western world today? I think I had many rights of passage that weren't called rights of passage.

Starting point is 01:11:36 Okay. Yeah. Like really, really dark. Really, really dark moments that were rites of passage. They were like the part that no one talks about in the metamorphosis of the butterfly, where the butterfly essentially has to eat itself, or the caterpillar, sorry. And the pain of that. I remember times in my life where I used to sleep on the floor, like a hard floor,

Starting point is 01:12:09 because I was so deeply entrenched in pain and believing that that's what I deserved. That was a rite of passage for me, not for everyone, for me. I have been exposed to certain ceremonies and what I will tell you about rights of passage or ceremonial, and by ceremony, I mean, there's so many, like, even just a cacao ceremony or just joining together. And I do this with my friends a lot. We just join together. And I think what's important about it is not about going anywhere from where you are. It's about the intention. It's about the spirit that you join that moment with. And those rites of passage exist every moment. Yeah, I think there are a huge, I think that the cultures that knew and that practiced rights of passage, they were deeply connected to everything.

Starting point is 01:13:30 They were deeply connected to the power of plants. And I mean, not just as medicine, but as living, living, living, living beings that are stretching out and interconnected and knowing their indigenous. interconnectedness. They knew it. It's like not like anybody had to tell them, oh, you're interconnected. These cultures, they knew it and they provided this because they knew it. I think we've grown into a lot in the West, but even, you know, you see it in the East for sure as well, very disjointed, very disconnected beliefs. They're not real, but we perceive them as real. And it's almost like if you, it's almost like you're detached from your limbs. Like, it's almost like as if you said my arms over there.

Starting point is 01:14:26 I believe right to passages like let's join it all together. Let's remember. It's a remembrance. You know, Aristotle said all learning is remembering. And remember is, it comes from remember. It means to put the members back together. And I think, I think as far as I can remember, that comes from, again, Greek mythology where I believe ISIS was, her lover's parts had been strewn throughout the

Starting point is 01:14:58 world and she went to collect them and put them back together into a single unified form. I think that's what we're seeking now. I think that's what we've always known, but we have like really, yeah, fallen asleep. And as a result, a lot of our behaviors and beliefs and mental constructs have reinforce that. Like, I'm separate from you. I do this thing over here. I'm so great. You know, whatever that looks like. And I think that the remembrance is like, oh, no, no, actually, you're me. And this is self-talking to self, trying to understand self. It's all pretty trippy, but it's all, it's all ultimately, like if we go down to the smallest unit of matter and we go down to quantum entanglement, and we go down to a lot of those theories that as far as I can tell again

Starting point is 01:15:45 from what I've read and the scientists that I've studied, who've studied that, is this, this knowing that, you know, we, you can't, you can't, one of my most favorite texts on the, on this concept of like entanglement and everything came from Michael Talbot and he was talking about a fish in a tank bowl and having two cameras on it. So if you look through the lens of both cameras, if you're seeing the reflection of both cameras, you see this fish, you see what appears to be two fish, but one is always affecting the other. So if one goes in this direction, the other one is going in that direction, right? And so we're trapped in this illusion of like we're looking through multiple lenses rather than that single lens of knowing like, oh, actually that's just one fish in that ball.

Starting point is 01:16:32 I loved him. Oh, it's just a shame that his physical got to, you know, he contributed so much he passed or he transitioned into he out of this, out of human form, like really, really young. But he was an amazing physicist. And he wrote a book called The Holographic Universe in which he describes this precisely. And I think that kind of gets to, that kind of gets to it. That kind of gets to the point of it is like, we are always affecting each other. You know, it's like the butterfly effect, right? And the minute we really know it, right?

Starting point is 01:17:08 We really know it. It's a lot easier to become way more conscious about our decisions, our thought patterns, our questions, all the things we've been talking about today. Yeah. What do you think is the most beautiful spiritual part of science? Ooh, I think science at its core is spiritual. I think that's where Einstein was going. Einstein was going there.

Starting point is 01:17:37 Also because in its purest form, science is supposed to be pure. It's not because it's never not because human consciousness is always looking for, it's always looking for, it's very rare that you catch a scientist, like I think Einstein was in his later years, going for what they don't know. Most scientists, as far as I can see from the scientists I've studied and engaged with their work, is they're looking for a specific probability outcome. So they engage with the field with the intention of finding a specific probability outcome, even if they don't really want to admit it, and they say they're not biased and all of that they're looking. And this is why you see scientists, leading scientists, cutting edge scientists with diametrically opposed findings because you are finding what you want to find within the field.

Starting point is 01:18:31 And the potentials as far as we can tell are infinite. So you are lighting up that particular quark or boson. Fabulous. You're seeing that flash into existence the moment you're placing your awareness on it. Fine. Fabulous. nothing to say. Einstein toward the end of his career where he was looking

Starting point is 01:18:50 for this formula on, I think it again translated roughly probably like a unified principle or there's another name that's commonly used for it that I can't recall right now. But Einstein I think he said something gorgeous.

Starting point is 01:19:07 He said he was such a guru. He said, I want to know the thoughts of God. The rest are just details. That's where I would is the intersection, but also the truth of all our seeking, not just our scientific seeking. Science is this way that for most people lets them in. This is why I will typically talk about that intelligence as intelligence, and I will maybe sometimes, sometimes, but not very often

Starting point is 01:19:36 choose that instead of God because we have all of these connotations around this idea of God. God or this intelligence is the animating force behind all that is. That's all it is. I don't know how it's. It's what's governing the path of the planets. You're not sitting there saying, is the sun going to come up in the morning? Is it not going to come up? Is it going to come up?

Starting point is 01:19:59 Is it not going to come up? You are trusting in whatever that intelligence is. And when people tell me they don't have faith, I'm like, man, if you didn't have faith, you'd be dead in the water. You got faith about 99.999. Some odd percent of what's occurring both within you and without you, without it, you would be, you would not be able to exist in this human form. You'd go out of your mind, which a lot of people do because they can't trust, but you have to trust. And the more you

Starting point is 01:20:22 relinquish that infinitesimal amount that's left over that you think you got to control and you got to make it happen some way and it's got to be this way or else everyone's, you know, the sky is going to fall. The more you do that, the more you will open up to like, what Einstein I think was talking about. For example, one of the many Talbot was talking about that as All of the people who have really made an impressionable imprint, a remarkable, have left a remarkable legacy, they were talking about that in some form or another. Yeah. It's beautiful. One of my reoccurring guests that I have on who's a good friend of mine, and I think an incredible academic scholar is Dr. David Solomon.

Starting point is 01:21:03 And he's much like you, he speaks many languages. He speaks Greek, Latin, Hebrew. and he's read all these sacred and sacred text and manuscripts in their original form. And he just has this really unique way of like putting it out there for you and allowing you to digest it and move around the material. And we got into a conversation about the leap of faith. And we were talking about life lessons and moving through stuff. And he's like, you know, George, people come to this term and you can see it in the medieval

Starting point is 01:21:32 mystics and you can see it in today's world if you know where to look. But there's this leap of faith you have to take. And there's no reason it should work. There's no rhyme or anything. it, but it's that leap of faith. It's that space in between the top of the pyramid and where you're at now. And like, that's the leap of faith. And when you started talking about faith, I just thought about that. Like, and I can't help court, like, I can't help but thinking about, like, my audience is big into psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness.

Starting point is 01:22:00 And I'm curious to get your thoughts on that. I don't know if you're available to talk about that, but would you, is that okay to talk about with you? Sure. Sure. You can talk about that with me. And I just want to say, one thing before you move into that. I think it helps people. It just flashed into my awareness when you said it, so I'm going to share it. And we often hear this leap of faith. You don't have to leap anywhere.

Starting point is 01:22:23 You just have to relax. You just have to relax. You don't have to jump across some great divide. Just relax. It's a happening. Like my daughter choosing to move back over to Italy, I can have my panties up in a bundle, or I can just say, I'm going to relax. I can say, I'm going to leap into this new life and I'm going to make everything.

Starting point is 01:22:43 I can just relax and say, oh, wow, so interesting. Now this is what life is proposing to me. Whoa, isn't that curious and interesting? All right. I had to share that. That just came through and it felt like it needed to be shared. Yeah, I love it. It speaks back to the metamorphosis, you know, of how are you going to, how are you going to change?

Starting point is 01:23:04 Are you going to watch it happen? Are you going to think you're the person that's doing it? But that does take us into psychedelic. What's your relationship with psychedelics? So, well, and I also want to say metamorphosis because when you were talking about Greek and stuff, and psychosis is a great way to also transition into, well, metamorphosis is a great way to transition into psychedelics. When you were mentioning Greek and this previous guest, I was thinking about, I had originally wanted, years ago I wanted to study Greek because I wanted to be able to read the metamorphosis.

Starting point is 01:23:35 I didn't do it. It's so hard. And my head is off to your friend and fellow. I introduce you to him. He would love talking to him. I'm sure I would. So here's what I think about psychedelics. I believe that used intentionally, used with intention and used with love, and used in this kind of

Starting point is 01:23:57 ceremonious way that you're talking about, I think they can be incredibly healing for humanity. I am fascinated by the work of, I started years ago with the work of, and I had not not experimented at all with these substances. But I was fascinated by what Ram Dass, again, a.k.a. Richard Alpert was talking about in his work and Timothy Leary and all those guys, I was like, whoa, they were really on to something. Because I knew they were on to something. And I'll tell you how I knew they were on to something and how anyone can kind of know someone's on to something is it lights up centers in you. You listening, it does something inside of you, that you're like, what just happened?

Starting point is 01:24:46 When you listen to some of these, you know, talks and this is what, in my work, this is what I feel that my form is here to do because it's like, it's like people say, oh my God, I just, everything just opened up, right? And that's what it is. It's not that anything you say, again, to write home and take away. It's like, it's a transmission. I believe that these medicines have transmissions. And now also the current work of Michael Pollan, I'm reading, I'm reading his.

Starting point is 01:25:12 his work right now. I think it's fascinating. I think it has such a phenomenal important place. I have since then experimented with psilocybin. I think I've had my experiences without have been actually more profound. And I haven't done anything like the hero journey thing that talked about or anything like that. I'm interested. I'm curious. But just the little bit that I've experimented, I was like, oh yes, this is akin to what I experience. experienced what I'm talking about in the second book. And for whatever reason, I feel like I know that medicine psilocybin. I don't know why I feel like I know it, but I feel like I deeply know it. Maybe because, again, maybe the mycelium, maybe, you know, I think also his work, what is his work? He's

Starting point is 01:26:01 fascinating that guy working with mycelium on fungi. God, he did a 10 time. Thank you. Oh, that man. And I am like, thank you for doing the work that you're doing to open people up. And I have seen it go both ways. I have seen people, I think maybe, I think if you're using it as like, I want to escape versus I want to know. I think psychedelics can take on a whole different expression within you. Or like, you know, if you become that, oh, I have to do this thing is I can't sort of be in this dimension. if I'm not, if I'm not doing that. I think as a help and as an awakening, I do believe,

Starting point is 01:26:45 but I also believe that whoever is administering it, whoever is working with you has to be extremely trained and has to be someone who is coming at it with, through that spirit, through the spirit. I believe it's a huge part of human, I believe in rites of passage and we didn't get. these rights of passage, and I believe they are extremely important rights of passage. And we were taught to demonize these.

Starting point is 01:27:15 No, these are plants. Everything that you have here that was given to you by this intelligence was given to you for a reason. And if you have this access, I think it's so important to explore by whatever means you want, it's important to explore your relationship with that intelligence. It's vitally important. Like I said, for me, it's my number one thing. And I noticed that it does, it allows you to access those parts that have been systematically hidden from you.

Starting point is 01:27:51 So I'm all about it. I think it's great if used in a very conscious. And, you know, maybe I'm saying if you use this way, that's my experience. I don't know. And I believe that anything, like even sometimes people get. being drunk. That's seeking that connection with like, turn off all this crazy noise around me. I just want to relax. I just want to enjoy. That's okay too in that moment because that's what I was needed to remind you like, I can enjoy this. I can go around laughing and stomping my feet

Starting point is 01:28:27 and dancing and I can have a good time and just it's okay. I think we have this tendency to be like this thing's good, that thing's bad, this thing's right, this thing's wrong. I love when Rumi said out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. I think plant medicine and sometimes any kind of medicine really that is used in this way, like it's to remind you there's a field beyond all of these constructs and it's playful and it's and it's you're playing i mean shakespeare when he was talking about all the world's a stage all the world's age wake up enjoy it while you can it's fast man this whole form thing this whole material thing this whole physical thing it's fast yeah yeah it's a bleat it is it mycelium is such a

Starting point is 01:29:29 wonderful metaphor for life. Like when you start thinking about the way it grows under the ground and it forms connections and it moves minerals and information and life around underground. Like you really, my friend Tess Bersenski, who's a mycologist, she does this therapy with psilocybin where she'll not only help and coach people through it, but she'll teach people to grow the mushrooms themselves and in doing so. You got to inoculate the grain and then you can see the mycelium grow in the grain in a glass jar, but sometimes it gets contaminated. Like, what a beautiful metaphor for life when you go, whoa, I'm growing this thing and it's showing me contamination in my life being contaminated. It's being contaminated by this fungus or this being,

Starting point is 01:30:08 like, is there points in my life where I'm making contact with something where it's contaminating me? And like, that's what I began thinking about that language you spoke about earlier, about this divine world constantly trying to flow to us or through us or speak to us on that level. It's like, the information's all right there. If you're just willing to be open to it on something level. And like, that's one of the reasons why I'm so attracted to the psychedelic experience. And I guess a follow-up question I have for you is someone who has found themselves on both sides of the corporate world. Do you think there's ever a chance where we could incorporate some sort of plant medicines into insurance models or mental wellness for corporations?

Starting point is 01:30:51 Oh, I think that's fabulous. Again, if done and presented in the right way, I think that's absolutely fabulous because there's got to be a doorway out of that consciousness for a new consciousness. And that doorway can happen through a talk. I mean, I give talk sometimes and people like, holy crap, everything changed. I mean, I have had people come back to me after six years ago hearing a talk of mine or seven or whatever and saying my whole life changed from the moment I heard that talk. Everything shifted for me. I had a person, and we have hundreds of testimonials and reviews come in all the time. And I had one person for the second book who said he had been living in a trailer with his kids, barely making it. And he said he read the book and he got out of the

Starting point is 01:31:34 trailer. He's had a whole new life transformation since then. He doesn't even recognize himself. His kids don't, you know, I'm like, holy smokes, man. You don't know where the transmission is going to come from. But you also talked about something incredibly important, which is this contamination process. When we see that, we think, oh, no, this is better. Like, throw it out or get rid of it or whatever. Like contamination is, or when we say, oh, this fungus is growing there, whatever, that's for it to die.

Starting point is 01:32:08 That's for that consciousness to die. So when you feel contamination in a part of your life, it's like, oh, that consciousness is ready to transform, to change form. And the contamination is allowing it to do that because the contamination is by virtue of its very nature, eating it like the Chrysalis. So it is vitally important. It's vitally important for you to feel that contamination

Starting point is 01:32:40 because the contamination is saying, ready to die to this consciousness so we can awaken to this other one. And the idea of bringing some of these ancient, rights of passage into places that have gotten really contaminated. Well done. There's a way for that consciousness to more easefully and gracefully flow into a new representation, a representation of what's possible.

Starting point is 01:33:20 Again, potentials in the field. They're all coexisting. They're all there right now simultaneously. This is the whole space-time continuum collapse. This is true. I've experienced that. Again, without the medicine. That was amazing.

Starting point is 01:33:38 Non-locality and everything, really living it and feeling it and knowing it in my body. So, yeah, anything that can awaken us together. But I think, again, for me, context, It's incredibly important. Intention is incredibly important. It's not like, oh, I'm going to have this experience and then I'm going to go back into the rush, rush, rush.

Starting point is 01:33:59 I mean, right now the whole system is based on quarterly driven profit. That's a linear system being run in a non-linear environment. It cannot be sustained. So again, contamination will come in in some form or another. The mycelium will cover it up. It will. It has to. It will ground it down into a,

Starting point is 01:34:21 new life. That's why when people are like, oh my God, we need, I remember years and years ago, I somehow became an expert in the field of sustainability, which I thought was quite, quite amusing. I was sort of known as this expert, and I was, it's crazy. I had a whole other life within that. I love it. Yeah, I was, like, it was crazy. I was heading up corporate sustainability, you know, for my company and corporate communications, and then I was, became vice president for this other outfit and working, it was nuts. It was like a whole other phase in my life. And then I was, was working on all these eco indices and all these things, which were adopted by the world's largest retailers and all that stuff. So it was kind of crazy. And I kept telling everybody, I was like,

Starting point is 01:34:59 I'm not an expert in this. You know, I'm not. You're like, keep trying to put me this thing, but I'm like, I'm like, but you've written these papers and you're done this thing. I'm like, yeah, but I don't know anything about any of this. But what I did know, what I did know was I said, no one's saying the emperor is not wearing any clothes. We're trying to solve the problem at the level of the problem, which is to paraphrase from Einstein. But we're like, oh, just divide your trash and reduce your emissions. And I was like, dude, that's, that's great. I know that it's coming from the spirit, but really it's like the cell, the the microcosm has to be in a state of health and well-being for the macrocosm to be in a state of health and well-being. I was talking

Starting point is 01:35:33 about it. It was the thesis of my first TEDx talk, and it was the thesis of my first book. And sorry, I really get on when I'm talking about that because I love it. I really get on when I'm talking about that because of, again, like no, everyone thinks of saving the world, no one thinks of saving themselves. And where my mind was going with that was everyone saying, you know, like, oh, we need to save the world or we need to save humanity. It's like, no, it's just changing form. It's the first law of thermodynamics. Nothing's neither created nor destroyed. All the potentials are coexisting. You're just going to change form. If you choose to do that consciously, it will take on a quality. If you choose to do that

Starting point is 01:36:19 unconsciously, it will take on another quality. What is your decision? what is your choice? I get on a soapbox about stuff like that because I'm like, dude. Love it. It's the wake up, it's the wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up in me. Yeah. It's everywhere.

Starting point is 01:36:40 It's screaming on some level. And I've never heard it put that way. Like you're changing form. You want to do it consciously or unconsciously. Like that's a great way to put it. You know, when I think about sustainability, like it's such a paradox to me because you hear, hear so many people talking about this grand, greater good idea of sustainability, but most businesses

Starting point is 01:37:02 are run on a platform of excess consumption. Or like how you can't have those two things together. You can't have excess consumption and sustainability. Those are an opposite into the spectrum. And then that kind of that kind of leads people, at least me sometimes, to this idea of like, it's all, it's all kind of bullshit. Like what are they talking about? I don't know. Was it too cynical to think about excess consumption and sustainability? I don't think it's cynical at all. What we have to realize is the policies around consumption were very intentional. They started, I believe, after the Second World War, shortly after the Second World War.

Starting point is 01:37:47 It's written in our socioeconomic policies. You can go and reference the writings I'm talking about. and especially led by the U.S., were specifically designing strategies for access consumption. About 99-some-on percent of what you buy, what the average person buys, goes to landfill within months,

Starting point is 01:38:10 within a few months. We were, we are, again, this was systematically designed. They systematically designed for planned obsolescence, and they systematically designed for, perceived obsolescence. In other words, they specifically design products even now for them to become obsolete, i.e. broken or unusable or not as user-friendly within a few months, sometimes even within weeks. That was intentional. We are systematically designing right now for perceived obsolescence, which means, oh, you're wearing those heels today, they're cool. You're wearing them

Starting point is 01:38:50 tomorrow, they're not cool anymore. You don't have the most recent iPhone. You're kind of like, what's going on? I intentionally, I like Apple. I like the way, I like the way, what I like the way, what I like about what Steve Jobs did was he got things real simple. And I don't want to digress too much, but he brought it down to the simplest that he could. And he almost lost his job. They almost lost the company. Well, he did actually, even he was fired, you know, all these things because he tried to bring it down to this. And at first it was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There was so much resistance.

Starting point is 01:39:23 But he brought it down to it. If we can do that in a way that's also, you can use this forever, when we start shifting mindset, and again, when we start planning for it, when our governments, when our leaders in corporate, when our leaders outside of corporate, start saying, you know what, I tried the whole consumption thing, it didn't feel that good. Let's see if we can design strategies for harmonious interchange and interconnectedness and see what happens. You need some bold leaders. I work with really bold leaders. I work with people who say, you know what, I effing did that, and it effing sucked. And I did it for a long time. And maybe I'm really, you know, I'm internationally

Starting point is 01:40:14 known, but I'm exhausted. Let's find a new way. And again, we only need critical mass because the power of that is so exponential that it blows everything else away. In my limited mind, I struggle to find someone who is who can do that.

Starting point is 01:40:45 Like when I think of a bold leader who maybe has lived a life of massive consumption, and has flown around on private jets. Are there any people that are willing to give all that up in order to live a life that has less? Because that change has to come from leadership. On some level, you have to show that to people. Like, I'm willing to give it all up.

Starting point is 01:41:04 But I don't know. Are there people at the highest levels willing to give up their wealth in order to send a message to people? I think it was Buckminster, Fler, who actually gave all his wealth away at the end of his life or toward the end of his life. He started just giving it all away. And there are many leaders that have done that. But here's what I will also tell you.

Starting point is 01:41:23 They're not mutually exclusive. We think we have to give up this thing called abundance. What you're actually doing is you're opening to the true abundance. And there are leaders who are doing it. We're doing it right now with this conversation. I think so. I actually don't have to give up anything. I can join you in these ways.

Starting point is 01:41:48 And I'm not saying you, you know, the physical George, but I'm saying you as a unit of consciousness as a cell in this body and we can say, ah, it just didn't work. And we don't have to become extreme and live in the Himalaya. We don't have to sit in chant mantras all day and hold mudras. We have to awaken. And this wealth of experience, anyway, even the corporate jets and all of it, I mean, what do we know about physical matter?

Starting point is 01:42:24 We know it's moving. We perceive it as solid because of our current ability of perceptions, of perception, our abilities of perception. It's not solid at all. The particles in that corporate jet are moving about at speeds of express trains even faster. That's what we know. When we look at it, when we go deeper and deeper and deeper, so you can look at some of these experiences of like, constructs being erected just out of consciousness. It's all an idea.

Starting point is 01:42:58 Let it go. Let go of the idea. You don't have to, the physical is going to erupt spontaneously. That's what this experiment is about. Again, as far as I can tell. Yeah, one of my favorite, I love listening to the lectures of Terence McKenna, and he talks about the eruption of the unconscious.

Starting point is 01:43:19 And like, that's what this reminds me of, when you started talking about the physical, matter. It's just this boom, this explosion. Maybe also the metaphor of the butterfly and the chrysalis and changing forms, like that is so pertinent or so raw right now. Like I can see it happening. Like it's what I guess another metaphor would be like a snake shedding its skin on some level. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It blows my mind to think about. Um, Courtney, amazing. This is so fun talking to you.

Starting point is 01:43:54 I'm really thankful for taking two hours of your time and hanging out with me. This is, and we just barely scratched the surface of the book. Do you have a moment to talk a little bit more about the book? Yeah, I've got a few more minutes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So thank you for going down all these roads with me.

Starting point is 01:44:09 But let's talk about giving yourself permission. Like, was there, you had said, I'm never writing another book again. After this first book, that was enough. I'm not doing it anymore. But boom, here it is. Like, what happened? Well, it came as a kind of a doubt. download actually, I just got this message, you know, give yourself permission was like,

Starting point is 01:44:28 it came as something, like a message that was really needed. And it's funny, I was talking to, I was being interviewed the other day and the woman said to whoever was listening, she said, if you, you know, if you think you've heard this before, you haven't. Because it's not like, yeah, give yourself permission to do all the things in the ways. Like even when I talk about being happy or whatever, or free, it's not, it's very much in the, vein of everything we've been discussing here. But those, the chapter, the chapters, the individual chapters came also, the structure of the book came immediately as a message. Like, give yourself permission to do this and this and this and this and this. And I guess it was also a

Starting point is 01:45:05 reflection of everything I had seen. I had seen people at the upper echelons of their game all over who were struggling to really truly give themselves permission. Like, can I take this costume off and be safe? And what I love about that second book is as much as possible, I try to really put the science together with a screw all that non-approach, you know, like, like screw all that because it's also giving ourselves permission to know that we don't know and to be really okay with the not knowing so that we can step into these new potentials. And I feel like it definitely a lot of, the books started out kind of in the more linear fashion and having that structure and then it morphed into this very non-linear exploration of what's possible for us. And again,

Starting point is 01:45:54 as far as I can tell, those potentials are unlimited. It's really like how far can your consciousness into, can it expand at an individual level? How far can it expand into these possibilities, into these other, yeah, coexisting, pre-existing, always existing potentials? Yeah. It seems to me like your relationship with uncertainty is really, connected. I don't know if that's the right word to use, but like your relationship with uncertainty

Starting point is 01:46:30 is a beautiful one and that you've embraced it. Like, and it sounds to me giving yourself permission is sort of a guide in order to be comfortable with uncertain. Uncertainty is a, whoa, it's a banger. Like it can really change your life in some ways. Is that is, is, is that the invitation of the Ariadne thread that runs through the book or what else do you want people to learn from the book? Is it uncertainty? Is it giving yourself permission? What is the things that you really want people to grasp when they read this book? I actually love that you said your relationship with uncertainty. Wow. That really was like, yeah, I really like, I feel that. I love that because that is my training more and more is is being comfortable with this uncertainty.

Starting point is 01:47:25 certainty with this like, holy crap, look what life is doing now. Yes. That's scary. Yeah. Like the story of my daughter. I mean, it's like, holy crap. Okay, well, this is what life is doing right now and really allowing life to do that and to relax.

Starting point is 01:47:43 And I think that is one of the, that is one of the central teachings of the book is really learning how to relax yourself into that, to really relax yourself into that, to really relax yourself into it. Like, because I, you know, lots of times, especially when people are really high strong, they're like, I'm relaxed. I'm relaxed. I'm relaxed. I do all the things. I do the yoga and the needyra and the meditation and the thing. And I'm relaxed and I, you know, I can go to cafes in the middle of the day, you know, like all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you get it. I get it. I get it. Yeah. This is a deep relaxation on the level of your nervous system, but also a deep relaxation and the level of, of the mind. And a deep relaxation with,

Starting point is 01:48:25 this intelligence, like almost the way you would want to surrender to a lover where you're just like, oh, I'm just with you. And it just is so good. And it's definitely been, you know, I've been practicing that art. And I think the book, the main things I wanted to really transmit was definitely the relaxation piece, but this deep relaxation, which goes hand in hand with one of the other main transmissions of this book, which was trust. And everything I was hearkening back to earlier, this confidence, you know, or to harken back to earlier was, you know, confidere with trust, with reliance. Like, oh, I can actually trust this.

Starting point is 01:49:12 I can relax and trust this. And I would say those were the main transmissions, but I also wanted to transmit this possibility of potentials. Like when I'm going around and I'm giving speeches, Normally I don't use slides, but over the last few years, I've been using a couple of slides because I wanted to show the audience a picture of me from 10 years ago when I was in corporate. And well over half the audience can't even recognize me. They do not recognize me as the same human being.

Starting point is 01:49:43 Is that the picture with short hair? I do have short hair in this picture. No, I think I'm wearing like a green vest. But there's so many different, like I feel like any picture you look at me. I'm not the same. Yeah. But like 10 years ago, you see this dramatic sort of, you know, you see this dramatic difference. And like I said, to the point where people don't recognize me.

Starting point is 01:50:07 And then you'll get this just this from the audience when some, when people start to like, holy crap, that is like you're in, you're in that form somewhere, right? Like on some level they recognize there's some comparison that they're still able to make with the form. but I've had spontaneous changes, drastic changes. And my clients have too. So the other transmission from that book, and it's straight off, like right off the bat in the intro, is what's possible. And one of the things I've studied a little bit, because I study these, you know, I go into also different areas of like human, human, also psychoses and things like that to really try to understand the nature. of transformation of change and what's happening and how we can inform the form in different ways. And one of the ones that I've studied a little bit is multiple personality disorder.

Starting point is 01:51:03 And I feel like when unchecked and when unwelcome, it's very, very wicked, right? But what it reveals to us about human potential is our capacity to change instantaneously in ways that have no, that I am aware of, that have no, that have no, scientific explanation whatsoever. So, for instance, someone with terrible eczema, when they change so-called personality, and again, persona, when they change character, the eczema will vanish instantly. Certain things that were before unavailable to them, like speaking different languages, will become available to them.

Starting point is 01:51:50 We also see this in other cases, not just of something like multiple personalities, where we see it, which has a different name now. I can't recall what it is the psychological term or the psychiatric term for it. But we see this also with young children who have access to languages that they were never exposed to. We see this with near life death experiences where people have access to information that they hitherto didn't have, or before that woman didn't have access to. And so, yeah. So what I also wanted to come as a transmission is,

Starting point is 01:52:24 is you think you're this thing, you think you're this character, but you're not. So yeah, I would say those are the main transmissions of that book. Yeah. Sold. I think everybody within the sound of our voice is sold. Like it's such, it's a real pleasure. And I really am, I admire your ability to talk about change in the ways that you do.

Starting point is 01:52:51 I think your command of multiple language probably has a really, incredible way in which you see the world. And I am looking forward to seeing those book becoming a national bestseller if it hasn't already. Is it out yet? Can people go and get it right now? Yeah, both of my books actually are bestsellers and not just in the U.S., but also abroad, and in multiple categories. And they've been out. The second book has been out for a year, but the exciting thing is that the audiobooks are coming out now. So it is my voice. And I had the publishers actually tell me because I had been pushing it, pushing it, pushing it, because I had so much going on. And then as life does, it just was like, no, it's time in the midst of everything

Starting point is 01:53:35 else, right? So I was in the midst of this international move and the publishers came back and said, we need it within the next three months. And it was right in the time that I was moving. So I had to go to the studio every day and record. But I was insisting that it be my voice because, again, it's a frequency. It's a vibration. It's a transmission. And so we had multiple offers for other people to do it, but I said, no, it has to be my voice. So I am so excited. Those are coming out right now. And I think the second book, Give Yourself Permission is going to be out within, it'll be out on all platforms, audio platforms within the next couple of weeks. And the other one, change starts within you will probably be out within about a month or two from now from this recording.

Starting point is 01:54:19 Yeah. Do you feel like reading those books out loud to an audience change your perspective on the stuff that you wrote? I feel like revisiting what. Here's what I think. A book is a snapshot of your consciousness in any given moment, just like anything you create, right? It's a snapshot of your consciousness. So for me, going back in reading, it was fascinating to see like where my consciousness was. And I would say that with the second book, especially my consciousness is still very much aligned to a lot,

Starting point is 01:54:49 even though it's shifting so rapidly and there's so many things taking place in me all the time that is like, whoa, you know, now I have a new and exciting perception about that, our perspective and perception. But it was really fascinating for me to see these pictures of me, basically, these pictures of my consciousness at that moment of writing. And it really, it was revelatory in a lot of ways. And it's funny because there are certain books that I will go back to. I'll revisit and I'll say, you know, I want to read that again because there's so much in there that's touching me on some level. And again, it's as a transmission, not as like the words per se. And it was funny because

Starting point is 01:55:25 reading, especially my second book, I was like, oh, man, like, this is something that I need right now. This is something that I needed to be reminded of. So, yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. What maybe you could, before we land the ship completely, what are some other books that maybe you inspired you or maybe you could give us recommendations for some of the audience to listen to or read the dauda ching absolutely you could literally study just that book and keep that as your only one i think probably um autobiography of a yogi definitely there's some major transmissions in that book i i will often just spontaneously start to to weep reading that book um i'm reading the overshundated story right now, which is a freaking amazing Powell. Oh my God. What's his first name?

Starting point is 01:56:26 Anyway, it's a really amazing transmission in that book. Wow, wow, wow. The overstory. Really, really highly recommend that. I love Anthony DeMello. Love his talks. Love his books. Love Alan Watts. Love his talks. Love his books. I was really into Ram Dass's talks for a while. He was transmitting 100%. Um,

Starting point is 01:56:57 hmm. Neville. Definitely transmitting. Yeah, definitely transmitting. Yeah, look for the transmitters. Yeah. It's really, really well said. But before I, before we, have we covered everything?

Starting point is 01:57:19 Is there anything else? What can people find you? What do you have coming up? What are you excited about, Courtney? Well, it's Courtney without a you. So that's important to remember Courtney McDermott, C-O-R-T. We have a short URL for the website, which is C-O-R-T-I-N-C, so C-R-N-C. So, cord-ink.com.

Starting point is 01:57:39 You can find me there. There's a free meditation that you can download that kind of quickly resets your nervous system. I did years ago, but I feel is still relevant. Because, again, oh, we didn't get into brainwave frequencies and anything like that, but this is kind of a way to instantaneously drop into alpha, for example. And sometimes people report falling into theta, you know, still being wide awake. So that's a good one. I'm on, I'm on Instagram on LinkedIn at Courtney McDermott. So my full name. Also the URLs can also be. Courtney McDermott. So I'm in those places. We have a really, we have a, it's beautiful right now

Starting point is 01:58:20 because we have a, I hardly do any more one-on-one work. I have a waiting list for that. And I love that work, but there's, there's only so much that I can, that I can do individually. But I do give talks and lectures. I work with some universities. I work with some corporations. I've been private. I've been thinking about a public one, but it hasn't yet arisen as as a possibility yet. But I, yeah, I do occasionally do training. So if you're connected with me on Instagram, you can find any public trainings or talks there or LinkedIn as well.

Starting point is 01:58:57 Yeah. And we'll make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. So anybody within the sound of my voice, please go down to the show notes. Do yourself a huge favor. Check out the books. Reach out to Courtney. See what speeches she has coming up or where you can find lots of her content on her social. So ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

Starting point is 01:59:17 And I hope that you realize that a miracle is about to happen in your life if you have the courage to take that chance. So that's all we got. Courtney, please hang on briefly afterwards with everybody else. I hope you have a beautiful day and know that we love you. That's all we got. Aloha. Aloha.

TrueLife - Cortney McDermott - Metamorphosis

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