JEN AKS 0:01
Welcome to the Wisdom From Within podcast. My name is Jen Aks, and I am your host. This is where mindset meets bodyset, where we access both so that we can make the most genuine, authentic, empowered impact on those we love and those we serve. Let's get started.
Okay, you guys. I know every time I come on here I'm like, you gotta hear this podcast. But the thing is, I love my guests. And they all provide such a wealth of knowledge and such stories that are so incredibly inspiring. This woman, Cortney McDermott, is gonna blow your mind. She's gonna give you tips and science and so much research. She is brilliant about how to really tap in to the wisdom, to the intelligence from within. She does it from a scientific perspective that can feel like you're in school — but please be patient, because I'm telling you, you're gonna walk away with so much knowledge that's going to empower you and inspire you to take action.
I'm gonna share one thing. I asked her about leadership. What is the greatest thing we could do about being great leaders and listening to this divine intelligence from within? What is the thing we can do right now? And she said: lie down. Lie down. Okay, now I know that sounds crazy, but listen to this whole thing. It's towards the end. She will give you the science behind why lying down can change your life. Okay. Here we go.
Today I am very excited to welcome Cortney McDermott. She is an award-winning author, speaker, and celebrity coach, and her work in self-development and business strategy has been featured in Inc., Women's Health, NBC, The Huffington Post, Mind Body Green, and Success. Her talks on human potential have been shared on stages like the TEDx Stage, Mind Valley, Oxford Saïd Business School, and Richard Branson's private island. I am so excited for you to listen to this woman. She is truly brilliant.
She has a master's in science from the London School of Economics, and she blends academic rigor with real-world experience to help individuals and organizations reach their highest potential. And that's what we're doing here on this podcast together — to help you awaken and unlock your highest potential. That intelligence is here to serve you. And most of all, most importantly, it's innate. It's within you, and it's ready to help you rise into your greatest and highest self. I'm so excited for this podcast. Welcome, welcome, Cortney. Tell us about your journey — and specifically, if you can connect to a moment or a few moments along the journey that really helped you awaken that wisdom and lead you to where you are now.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 3:21
Yeah. So Change Starts Within You — it was the first book that I published back in 2017. And the subtitle, Unlock the Confidence to Lead with Intuition, was very much the place that I was at in my life then, because I had gotten to where they say you need to be in order to be a success — kind of in every realm. And I didn't feel like I was a success on my own terms. I felt that I had collected all the gold stars and had done a good job of that. But I was sort of — like, whose script is this?
And I was writing from the perspective of leaving a really great corporate job. I was an executive at Vanity Fair Corporation, and I was kind of blowing up a lot of what I had built. And what do I mean by that? I mean that I was daring to think that I could do something different than just stay in the — I don't want to call it a rat race, but the race. I'll call it a race, because a lot of that energy feels like you're running, running, running, but you don't know where.
And I remember I was gifted this book a while ago called Hope for the Flowers. It's a children's book — and like all really well-written children's books, it's really written for adults. It's this story about caterpillars, and they're climbing all of these caterpillar pillars. Everywhere you look, there are all these pillars, and they're all climbing, and they don't really know why. And there's this race to the top, and the top is basically either falling off or really not discovering your potential. And there are these two caterpillars — I won't spoil the whole thing — but ultimately it's about what it takes to become a butterfly, and it takes leaving the caterpillar pillar.
And so I've had that story come to me in so many different guises in my own life — in stories I've read, in parables, in instructions on life from all these really great traditions. And I started to really feel like, crap, I have to leave this. I have to kind of blow up the Phoenix in order to rise anew in a guise of my own choosing. Because even at the — yeah, go ahead.
JEN AKS 5:55
Well, I'm just so curious about what happened before this. You got to this place, you reached such success, and then you were like, wait. You want to pivot. But how did you even get there? And what were those voices telling you that that was the path?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 6:11
Yeah. There were so many cold shower moments. I distinctly remember a few in particular. One where I was dropping my daughter Gaia off at school and just weeping in the car. I was like, what is this? Because I was running from that to something else. And I was in a marriage that I wasn't really thriving in. We ended up staying married about 18 years, but it was one of those situations where I knew we had outgrown what we were supposed to do together — but the calling to actually change and get out of the perceived safety. It's a perceived safety, right? None of the things we think are really safe are in and of themselves safe. But we try to create a semblance of safety, and we try to create a semblance of certainty, because the reality is everything is so uncertain. And then I had to understand what safety really is for me — but that's another story.
So to go back to your question — there were cold shower moments. Another one I remember: I was leaving for this trip to Brussels, and I actually start the TED talk this way — I'm on the corporate jet, sipping the espresso. I basically have the Jimmy Choos, I'm a marathon runner, I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm all the things. And I'm just like, what the hell is this?
And it's funny, because right before that trip, my daughter had taken my BlackBerry — we had BlackBerries at the time — and blocked it in about two seconds. And I didn't know how I was going to reach out to all the people I was supposed to be meeting. It was a public holiday in Italy — I was living in Italy at the time, on my way to Brussels — and it just felt like, what is this? Why? Even the device itself, and this idea that it was running a lot of what I was doing. I just wasn't as aware as I wanted to be of how I was living my life.
So there were so many cold shower moments like that. And I love to start at that place that a lot of people think they want to get to, because I could start before — I could start when I wasn't in those positions, when I was in an entry-level corporate job, when I was getting my master's, places where you're still fully in the struggle. But I like starting the story at the place where, sometimes, rock bottom looks like the top to everybody else. But it's your rock bottom. And I feel like a lot of people — especially people who are listening here — they're people who have come so far already and are in that spirit of really exploring their own potential.
And a lot of times we get guidance that seems to come from outside, telling us what our potential can be or what the ultimate potential looks like for us. Versus — precisely what you were saying at the beginning — really learning how to lean into that inner teacher. Which is the definition of intuition. Which is why the subtitle for that first book was unlock the confidence to lead with intuition, because I wanted to play with those two words. Confidence is about trust — trust in yourself, trust in others, trust in life. And intuition is about this inner teacher. And the more you learn to be guided by that inner teacher, as you well know and share so much of in your brilliant work, the more that true trust builds. And it's because it's something that actually can't be taken away — and gives you a true safety versus that semblance of safety I was talking about before.
JEN AKS 10:11
Yeah, totally. There are so many beautiful things. I really want to lean into all of that, because we're in such alignment around confidence and intuition — these big words that are like pillars for our success and our happiness. And I hear why you like to start where you do in your story. But I'm curious: to get there, to get to that level of success — was that an inner call that you had? Was it your family or community saying this is the direction you need to go? Did you actually like the journey of the climb? And then once you got to the top, you were like, this isn't what I want? Or was the whole journey like, I don't want to be doing this, but I'm doing it because everyone tells me I should?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 10:56
Oh my God, I love this question. No one has ever asked me this. Okay. So it's not this or that — it was both. I had an inner drive for sure. And I remember distinctly times where I felt that inner drive, which I can share a story about in a second.
JEN AKS 11:17
Yes, I want to hear that.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 11:19
Yeah. And then there were other times where I felt like I was just running, like trying — you know what? This is the most accurate way to put it. I think it's so profound, and it's what I want to share in my third book — I was trying to be somebody, versus that inner recognition of like, you are this thing. So let me explain the difference by means of a story.
That inner drive — an example I remember: when I started working in corporate, my second job was with the North Face, the outdoor company. And I remember going to the sales meeting. First, I somehow conjured my way into this sales meeting because I was an assistant — basically a secretary — and that position was not invited to sales meetings. But because I had become so integral to my boss, basically doing a lot of his work, I ended up getting permission to attend.
Okay. And I remember when I was at this sales meeting — where I wasn't theoretically supposed to be — I'm sitting in the audience on opening night, and I see the vice president of sales and the general manager, the top people at the North Face, giving their presentations. Opening night is reserved just for them. I remember from my seat in the audience knowing I was supposed to be on that stage. I was supposed to be speaking to these people. And the knowing of that, Jen — what is that knowing?
It is the inner teacher. As far as I can tell, it's the way you're set up with particular evolutionary impulses — and you really can feel the difference between those and what society tells you you're supposed to like or supposed to do. If you're paying attention, you will notice. And for me, they come as — oh my God — they're so vibrant, so bubbly. It's like my whole system lights up. All my cells light up. I feel such enthusiasm. And enthusiasm comes from entheos, which means in God. In spirito, same thing — in spirit placed.
So I was sitting there. Now — the probability of me, at this entry-level position, presenting at the next sales meeting, which was literally only half a year later: zero. Like, zero probability of that occurring in any normal situation. But through a series of events — I can do a short version if we want to go there — I was able to create a new position for myself within the company. And six months later, I was presenting on that stage that no one other than the general manager or the vice president of sales had ever presented on. On opening night. Just as I had imagined and felt it in my cells.
And I have so many stories like this at this point. Actually, the third book is going to be a lot more on these stories and explaining the connection that we're talking about. Because once people start to get that connection, you don't need any other connection. Literally, your life can run on that connection.
JEN AKS 15:14
I would love that. I think our listeners would love to hear that too. Like, they're listening to you, and you're so lit up and so in your body and so passionate about it. And I would imagine — because I'm sitting here going — tell me how you do that.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 15:28
So there were these times where it was really clear, and I knew that something bigger was coursing through me. But I had to get really dedicated — devoted, I would say — to this intelligence and the way it wants to express through me. And that took an enormous amount of what I'll borrow from Joseph Campbell's work and call bliscipline. It required timing out a lot of the noise. And I still have to practice this. There are a gazillion things swirling at any given time, but there's this one thing that's really calling. I've got to get with this intelligence so I can see how it wants to express through me.
JEN AKS 16:20
Yeah. I'm sorry — you were saying you're calling it intelligence, and I love that. I'm curious how you started to believe that it was intelligence. That it was intelligent to listen to. That it was the guide. How did you even come to that?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 16:40
Yes. Oh my God, such a good question. Okay, the first chapter of my third book is actually going to be about this — about how we get in touch with it, but also starting with naming it.
The reason I started calling it intelligence — which I also use interchangeably with the word God or spirit — is because I realized: we are relying on this intelligence, this consciousness, for virtually everything that's occurring within us and outside of us.
For example: there are trillions of biochemical reactions occurring in your body every single second. Each one is coordinated with every other one. You can't even begin to imagine the complexity of this with your rational mind. It is so boggling.
JEN AKS 17:49
Like, what are these reactions? Do we feel them?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 17:50
You don't, really. Not for the most part. There may be some you're aware of, of course — but by and large, you are not aware of this. Same thing with your heart beating. Unless you're actually sitting there tuning into your heartbeat in some way, you're not even consciously aware that it's happening. And more importantly, you're not consciously directing it.
JEN AKS 18:21
Okay, so these are subconscious activities going on in your body.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 18:27
These are the basic functionings of your body. And you can bring your awareness to some of them — which is actually a fascinating exercise and a great thing to do, because the more you learn how to direct your awareness and your own individual consciousness, the more you can learn how to get with this intelligence we're talking about.
So these things are happening. And let's take another one. Your brain is sending electrical impulses throughout the nerves in your body right now, directing everything you're doing physically. This is happening — but you're not consciously commanding it. Now, a lot of what we're talking about can be voluntary, but by and large, it's involuntary.
Here's where it gets really interesting: most people assume, erroneously, that thought is voluntary. But for most people, thought is not voluntary. Thought is happening just like your heart beating.
So for most people, saying "I think" would be the equivalent of saying "I beat my heart." And here's what we know about thoughts from scientists: thoughts are electrical impulses. We don't know where they originate in the brain. There's not a specific part — like the prefrontal cortex — that I can point to and say thought originates there. We don't know. What we know is that these electrical impulses are acting in our system. And most of us are having somewhere between 50,000 to 70,000 thought impulses a day.
So when people think, "oh, I just need to think differently" — or when people are told that — it is the most arduous work you can undergo in your life. It is very worthwhile, extremely worthwhile. In fact, I think it's one of the most worthwhile things a person can learn: how to think. But we're not taught how to think. And that's why in the second book I really start to go into how we can learn to think. Because even books like Think and Grow Rich — there are two words inherent in the title. If you do not know what those words are, the book will serve you very little. And the words are: learn to think. What Napoleon Hill was talking about, what Neville was talking about, what all these people were talking about — it was all about learning to think, which we are not taught.
We walk around with the most magnificent operating systems ever created, and we are not taught how to use them. That's what my second book is all about: give yourself permission. Teach yourself how to use these operating systems, because until you know how to use them, you are being used. You are being used.
So let's go back to voluntary versus involuntary. When we talk about this intelligence, there is an involuntary happening on so many levels. And this is also what's happening outside of us. We are not questioning all day long — nor are we trying to create a five-year plan — for the earth to stay on its axis and continue to spin. We just assume the sun's going to come up. No, actually, you're going to spin around, and depending on where you are, you'll see where the sun is at a specific time of day. Most people never even consider that we're spinning on an axis on this ball of dirt in the middle of nowhere. And we are not trying to orchestrate that.
So this is where it becomes really interesting — knowing: I rely on this intelligence. Call it whatever you want. Call it consciousness, call it intelligence, call it creator, call it God. There are people who will say to me, no, it's only this. Fine, awesome — I love that it's only that for you. And there are gateways into understanding this through words. Words are vibrational. Some words are going to provide greater ease and access — that's all it is. And again, we come back to electricity. We are electric and we are magnetic. So words are literally codes based on where you are electrically, where you are magnetically, in your own frequency.
Now I digress — I want to close this up, because all of these pieces are so fundamental to understanding someone.
JEN AKS 23:38
Absolutely.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 23:38
So this intelligence — call it what you will — is guiding everything. But we — and this is very fundamental — as far as I know, we haven't found this in any other species except for humans. We decide that there's this tiny bit that we cannot trust about that intelligence. Whether that's a relationship, a job, whatever is happening right now — we say, I can't trust that. And we're literally — it would be like saying I can't trust that the earth is going to continue to spin. Because it is happening.
JEN AKS 24:20
So you're saying that it's all one. We're all one, we are connected, our insides are connected to the outside. So this whole thing is intelligence. And to doubt ourselves is to really say we're doubting how the world functions.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 24:39
Right. Well, I love that as a line of reasoning. And what we're saying — the main piece that I would love for anyone listening to get — is that you rely on this intelligence for virtually everything. When you start to rely on it for everything, your whole life will change.
JEN AKS 25:00
Because then you trust yourself.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 25:02
Then you trust yourself. You trust others. You trust life. You trust everything that's happening. And when you can relax and be like, I trust — it gets really fun, really goofy, and it gets so synchronistic. I can't even tell you the number of synchronicities I live every day. I often say I lived a thousand days today. It's 12:30 where I am on the Pacific coast of the United States. I'll be here for another week. And right now, at this time of day, I feel like I have already had a thousand days in one — in the best way. I'm not rushed, I'm not busy — that's a word I removed from my lexicon years ago — but I am living fully in all the gifts that life is offering, and I'm showing up with the best of what I have, of where the intelligence is moving, how the intelligence is moving through me at this moment.
JEN AKS 25:53
Okay. So I love this, I love it so much. And I also hear the voices of the people that are listening — like, just ask her, Jen. Because it's so beautiful to arrive where you are. It is so beautiful to have this depth of understanding of how the universe works and how we work in connection with it. That all makes so much sense to me. And I love it.
And I want so badly for the listeners and for humanity to have that trust. And I also know that it can be difficult to get there — especially when you make a decision and it feels like the wrong choice, but it actually was the right choice, because there's a lesson inside of it that is just waiting to teach you where to go next. So I'd love to break down: what are some ideas or concepts that people can really grasp easily and say, okay, today this is how I'm going to create that connection? Because what you just shared was so freaking profound — about how we are all one. So if we are trusting the environment, the way the world shifts and moves, then we must trust ourselves too, because we are all one and connected. How could we break this down a little bit?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 27:34
Yeah. I love that you're getting tactical, because I think that's the place to go — especially because so many people are running around like, who has my answers? Does she have my answers? What program is gonna solve things for me? And I always tell people: if someone professes to have your answers, please run in the opposite direction. I don't have your answers, we don't have your answers. And at the same time, you can be the thing.
And whoever's listening, you are listening to this right now because you are calling this information to you — not because Jen or I have the answers, but because you're literally calling information to you based on where you are in your own trajectory right now, as far as I can tell.
So getting really practical and tactical — and this is going to sound like the opposite of that, which is really funny. It's the easiest and the hardest thing to do at the beginning. And what it is: we have to relax, completely and totally. Until we know how to do that and we have a felt sensation of it, we have to practice the non-practice of it. What this looks like in everyday life is: I've got to time myself out. As hard as it feels, I have to leave my devices in another room, go lie the body down, and just let it be.
Now let me explain for anyone who's in different brainwave frequencies — specifically when we're in beta, and very specifically when we're in high-range beta, which are just cycles per second in your brain.
JEN AKS 29:28
Explain that for people that don't know — including me, a little bit.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 29:31
Yeah. So different frequencies are different cycles per second in your brain. Most people are in high beta, and the best way I ever heard this described was like having a four-gear race car that you are driving around in first gear all day long.
So let's get back to the brainwave frequencies in a second. But what I want anyone listening to understand — from a scientific perspective, very clearly — is that when you go lay your body down, what happens within minutes is that you move from first gear into second gear. You'll start moving out of beta and into alpha. That is, if you're not super, super highly stressed. If you're in super high-range beta, it means you're spinning — literally, your wheels are spinning and you're stuck in place. So that requires spending more time being horizontal.
And every part of your body will resist this when you're not used to it. The reason your body resists it is because we've driven our bodies to do so much that we've lost contact with the innate intelligence of our bodies — because we've used the mind to push the body through a lot of things. So what I'm suggesting is actually the opposite of that in a way — but it's the same. We're using our powers of the mind to begin to relax the body.
Now, for most people it won't require a long time, because what happens when we get horizontal is, like I said, within minutes we start to switch into these other frequencies. And one of the reasons that happens is because the minute we lay the body down, we're sending a message to the vagus nerve — basically saying, I'm safe. Because we don't lie down when we're not feeling safe. So there's a safety component.
Here's how that translates in terms of your life: the more you're running and trying to figure things out and make things happen — an expression I'm really averse to — you are going to be sending cues to your body that you're not safe. The more you relax like that, the more your brainwave frequencies will change. And what that means is that you start to become more creative. You start to release neurotransmitters and chemicals into your bloodstream that say: not only am I safe, but I'm safe to be creative, I'm safe to find a solution, I'm safe to meet the person, I'm safe to go here. I'm safe.
JEN AKS 32:46
Yeah. You know, it's really interesting — my practice, as I learn more and more, I feel like I'm constantly a student of this work. I am amazed at the relationship between the brain and the hands. I was looking at a lot of research over the last week about the cortical tissue in the brain — and for people that are listening, there is more cortical tissue allocated to the hands than any other part of the body. So I'm really curious, having done the power of gesture, because you're talking about safety, you're talking about relaxing the nervous system — the hands have this incredible relationship with the brain and have been given so much power.
My question is: the hands are collecting on this end — emotions we feel, the environment we surround ourselves with, the sensations that live inside of us — and we're able to send those messages back up to the brain. So the brain gives the hands power, and the hands collect all this data and send the message back up: I am safe. The hands can rest over the heart, rest over the belly, and send those messages up as well. So my point is we can use our hands as a tool to help us get into that relaxed state and create that safety. What's your take on all that?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 34:18
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the biggest ways we were duped — and I don't know if it was systemic, I don't know how or why this happened — is the notion that we have to sit still and not move. We were so duped. So whether that's moving your hands or moving your body, what happens is you free up so much of what has been stuck and stagnant. Because lots of times we think something is psychological when really it's stuck, stagnant energy in the body. And we can see this now through brain scans. But the remarkable thing is: what we can now see through brain scans, the Eastern traditions knew all along. They were talking about chakras, about buildup in these energy centers in the body. And if you look at it — every single organ in your body is a mind. Take your heart, for example. It has its own set of neurocircuitry. The electromagnetic field around your heart is hundreds, if not thousands, of times more powerful than that around your cerebral mind.
There is so much brilliance in the body that we were taught to turn off, because we were taught: sit still, don't move. And I talk about this in the first book, Change Starts Within You — we need to unlearn this stuff. Whether it's through hand gestures, through shaking — that's another favorite practice of mine.
When I learned how to do that — and it's funny to say "learned how," because these are innate technologies. We're born with these technologies. Yawning is another great example of something we were taught not to do, which is one of the most powerful technologies we have for both energizing and relaxing the body. It is actually sometimes referred to as the greatest secret of neuroscience. And we were taught that it meant we were bored. Laughing — we were taught that meant we were being irreverent in some way. Again, one of the most powerful built-in technologies we have, and we were taught to suppress it.
So when you start to free up this energy, you free up force fields that you didn't even know you had available. And what happens is you start to send out electric signals that then magnify back to you, thousands of times over, whatever evolutionary impulses are uniquely yours. So we have to free up.
When I talk about shaking — years ago, a woman from my team sent me a video. It was about this practice — I think it's called Koya. The founder, Rochelle, was talking about this time when a gazelle is being chased through the grasslands by a tiger. The gazelle gets away. However, the gazelle does not go to therapy for the next 10 years about the time the tiger was chasing her. What the gazelle does is shake — through every part of her body — releasing the tension, releasing the fear, and goes back to being a gazelle.
Now, when I saw this video and I did the shaking — first of all, I couldn't move parts of my body very well. There were parts of my body I could not shake when I started this. I had so much pent-up energy because I had been trying to be something and somebody for so long, and I hadn't allowed these impulses to course through in the ways they were meant to. I was basically calcifying into a persona — which is another thing I talk about in my work, especially in the second book.
But the other thing that happened: I started crying. I had such an amazing emotional release just from shaking my body for three minutes to a song. What we are talking about is not something you have to learn — it's something you have to remember. Yes. Here — here we go. Amen. Back together. And as women, we're designed to share this with one another, to re-awaken to these inner technologies so we can go and lead in the ways we were meant to.
JEN AKS 38:29
Okay, so that's where we're coming to.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 38:32
Okay, yeah — because we don't have that much time left.
JEN AKS 38:34
Exactly. I love it. I can talk to you forever, and you're such a wealth of information. I'm really taking away so much of this connection to our intelligence inside of us, outside of us, and how it is all one — and how we really must start to learn how to trust it and get on that path. Because when we do — as we're talking about, and as we're about to get into — when we trust ourselves, we lead from the inside out. And that is what our future needs so desperately: honest, authentic leadership. People that are willing to be vulnerable, stand in their mess, talk about it, and create safe spaces for others. But we all know we cannot be those kinds of leaders unless we have that for ourselves first. So we've got to do this work.
So I want to talk about: how do we get started? You mentioned a little bit. And then before we wrap up, how does all of this impact your own leadership, having gone through it and embodied it and come to believe it and stand by it?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 39:55
Okay, so let's take the first part, because I really do want to go back to it. Sometimes we can skip over things and think, oh, that's nice, but what's next? What do I need to do?
It's funny — I gave a talk at Mind Valley University about how to transform without doing anything. And everyone in the audience totally got it. It was amazing. People came up so excited about this information and about how to direct their consciousness differently without doing — but actually being the thing. But then this one woman came up and she said, I totally got it, that was amazing, amazing, amazing. And she said, but what do I do?
And the whole talk was about how to lie down. Exactly. And that's the thing — I would be doing such a disservice if I said, okay, go do this other thing and this other thing, when really what we have to do is go lie down. Because even vulnerability itself — I had a major insight about this, I think it was about two weeks ago. I was struck by the realization that vulnerability has nothing to do with sharing secrets or hard times or sharing information about your private life. Fine, that can come. But vulnerability, Jen, is about deeply relaxing with one another. Yes. Deeply relaxing in the moment. And that's what allows you to say whatever needs to emerge — I'm so relaxed that I can say anything I need to say.
So yes, things like movement will absolutely free up some of that energy. The minute you change your state, you can start to change your story. You can start to work at the level of thought that I cover in the second book. But before any of that happens — and even if you don't do any of that — just going horizontal. The more you do it, and the more you ask this intelligence — I specifically ask it all the time.
People say to me, do you use AI? I use AI for recipes when I'm cooking. I'll go into my computer and ask about recipes, or I'll ask about a place I'm visiting — next week I'll be in Antwerp and Amsterdam and I asked it some questions about that. But the inner intelligence — the II — I get with that every single day, multiple times a day. I literally go lie down and ask it. I say, what is this thing? And it tells me. But I have learned to relax enough that I can hear it. Because we've got to relax.
So without adding more — if you end this, whoever's listening, and just say, okay, maybe I just need to time out rather than adding more noise, maybe I need to actually just relax — that is enough. And it is scary at the beginning because it's so counter-cultural. But we're literally timing out from the noise so we can tune into the way this inner intelligence is wanting to communicate.
I do whole client summaries with this. When I have to respond to big press queries, I just lie down, I put my phone on no data, and I dictate my answers — because it will literally give me the most perfect answers. And I don't know about you, but I can instantly tell when something comes into my inbox that's been generated by AI. And I feel like we all kind of intuitively know when something feels like that. But when something comes from your inner intelligence, there is nothing like it. Nothing.
So if there's one thing I would invite people to remember, it's the relaxation principle. That is what true vulnerability is. That is what true leadership is. I remember going into a meeting with a CEO, a CFO, and two CMOs for Universal Music Group — one of my first clients when I started my own business. And one of the CMOs, she said, I want to sit by you. She was the only other woman in the room. And she said, I want to sit by you because you just exude peace. And I was like: that's leadership. I didn't get it at the time, but I realized I was working at that level. And if you're working at that level, it's not even work. You're relaxing.
And that's the other thing I remind people: whoever's listening, you're doing enough — probably way more than you need to. You don't need more work. We need more relaxation. Especially as women. That's what I was saying.
JEN AKS 44:48
I love it. I'm just writing a couple things down because I love that so much. Beautiful. Leadership is peace. Leadership is relaxation. Vulnerability is relaxation. And trust at the core of all of it. So, so good. You have so much to offer. Your perspective is gorgeous, and I'm grateful. Thank you so much for coming. Can you tell us where people can connect with you?
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 45:22
Thank you. And it's a mutual admiration society — you are doing such phenomenal work, woman. I can't wait to share this episode with everyone I know in my community.
So the important thing to remember is my name: Cortney is spelled without a U — which I didn't know at the outset of our relationship.
JEN AKS 45:41
Right — there's no U.
CORTNEY McDERMOTT 45:43
Yes. And it's important because if you look up Cortney McDermott with a U, you're going to find someone else. Sometimes I go by Coco. And the short URL for the website is Court Inc. — like incorporated. So Cortinc.com is a really quick, easy way to find me. Also on YouTube, it's Court Inc. And anywhere else, it's my full name, Cortney McDermott.
We — I have asked my team — I want to hear every story about people's change. We have gotten hundreds of people who have written in about the ways they've changed with the book alone, with podcast episodes like this one, where they've just tuned into a new frequency for themselves and everything started to shift in their life. And I endeavor to read all of those. I love when people connect and share those stories with me. So if you want to connect that way, great.
The books are available everywhere books are sold. The first one is Change Starts Within You, the second one is Give Yourself Permission, the third one looks like it's going to come out this year. They're also available on Audible in my own voice — I wanted it to be my own transmission. So you can get those on iTunes, Audible, Spotify — wherever you get your books.
And yeah, I'm really, really honored to be here with you and with everyone who's been listening. Thank you so much.
JEN AKS 47:12
Thank you so much for helping and being a part of this movement — which is what I believe this is. This is not just a conversation or a message, it's a movement about awakening and returning and remembering the intelligence, the innate wisdom from within all of us. Because truly, when we connect to it, anything is possible. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'll see everyone next week for the next Wisdom From Within podcast. I cannot wait to see you there. If something in this conversation spoke to you, don't keep it to yourself — send it to someone who might need that message too. You can also send me a comment, because I would love to know what landed for you. But most importantly, take a moment to pause and listen to what resonated — because that's where your real guidance system lives. The one you can trust. The one you can rely on. See you next week.